5 Questions With A Jersey City Official: Mayor Steven Fulop

JERSEY CITY, NJ — With a population of over 200,000 people Jersey City has a large and bustling municipal government to match. In the executive branch is the mayor, coordinating with city departments as well as municipal boards, councils and committees.

Patch chatted with Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop about all things Jersey City, from affordable housing to COVID-19 safety. Fulop has held office as mayor since 2013 and is the city's 49th mayor.

Here are five questions and responses with Mayor Fulop:

1. Jersey City was recently named the second most diverse city in America, what are you doing to make the city an equitable place to live for all residents?

“We’ve made a concerted effort to do outreach to the immigrant community, we’ve been recognized on the federal level. We are a designee at the federal level, the only municipality. We’ve tried to give resources to our immigrant community via nonprofit partners, both documented and undocumented, recognizing that they’re all residents here in Jersey City and that we need to create an infrastructure for people to be able to survive and live here in a safe and prosperous way. On the other front to make sure that we continue to be a diverse and welcoming community is investing in affordable housing and making sure that Jersey City has policies in place and social services to allow those new and growing communities in Jersey City to continue to prosper.”

"We implemented the inclusionary zoning and modeled it after Newark, I know that it doesn’t please everybody all the time, but I think that as we look back at the policy decision two, three years from now we’ll see that it was one of the more meaningful and more successful inclusionary policies in the state of New Jersey. We wanted to implement a policy that ultimately will yield and grow affordable housing, not just something that feels good from a policy standpoint but ultimately doesn’t achieve any results — because that’s what we’re about, achieving results. So I think that the inclusionary zoning policy is going to be meaningful, and we’re continuing to work on communities like Bayfront, which will be 35 percent affordable housing and that will have all different income thresholds included in it. We’re trying to learn lessons from all the development that happened downtown, both good and bad, and implement that in an improved way when we look at the other waterfront on the west side."

2. COVID-19 cases in Jersey City are lower than last month but still not as low as the summer — what can be done to ensure residents stay safe and allow businesses to reopen?

"We’re continuing to push the vaccinations, the J&J issue that happened a week and a half ago obviously wasn’t helpful, we saw a significant drop in people looking to be vaccinated in the days after that. We’ve got to continue to build trust and partners and get the majority of the community vaccinated. One of the things about Jersey City being such a diverse city, it also means that we have a lot of harder to reach communities. So we’re doing our best to outreach, the mobile site is set up and going into those communities to try and make sure that we’re getting the most number of people vaccinated. If you’re gonna get the city back to normal, that’s the starting point ultimately."

"We are just getting back up and city services at 100 percent, May 1 is our timeline to bring everyone back. Over the last year, really we’ve been trying to keep it together with rubber bands and tape in many ways, with a limited number of personnel working in the office and doing our best like everybody else to get through it. Once we’re going to be able to get our feet underneath us with a full staff we’re going to be able to work a little bit more closely on some of those policies. My hope is that the outdoor dining that you see is more of a permanent situation that becomes easy for restaurants to obtain. The balancing act is also recognizing that there is usually a cost associated with those parklets. You take away parking, it obviously impacts quality of life, but equally as important as quality of life if there’s a meter there also, it also impacts revenue to the city which impacts ultimately, a person’s property taxes. We need to figure out a way that people can get approved for the long term, use those spaces but at the same time, it doesn’t hurt the broader community. That’s a balancing act and I know that everybody would say ‘Just keep them in place,' but there are other things to consider in order to make that work."

3. What is your biggest focus for Jersey City in 2021?

"I want to be supportive of those schools, getting the schools back reopened. I want to manage our budget the best we can, so I can try my best to stabilize taxes this year. I know people are going through a hard time, we don’t want to add to that burden. We want to keep momentum going with the city growing and moving forward despite the tough circumstances of the environment that we’re in. We’re just trying to get our feet back underneath us and continue the progress. I mean, that in and of itself is a full boat."

4. How can the city strike a balance between rapid growth and real estate development while maintaining affordability for longtime residents?

"If they’ve been here for their whole lives, and they're a property owner I think stable taxes and balancing a budget is really, really important for them. You want to put policies in place for new property owners and make sure that there’s inclusionary zoning for renters — that there’s an affordability component. You want to make sure that affordability is racketed not just to work-force housing, but to low-income housing and moderate income, and you want to take that into effect. As I said earlier, I do think that the inclusionary zoning ordinance, when we look back in two years, is going to have a meaningful impact. We have a couple redevelopment plans that will be up on the council agenda in the next month. All of them are subject to that inclusionary zoning ordinance and all of them will be built that way.

5. Where do you see Jersey City in five years?

"I see Jersey City continuing to grow, I think we’re still in the early stages of this renaissance. I think that you’re going to have more cultural institutions that are anchor-institutions, whether it be what we’re doing at NJCU, the theater there, or the renovation of the Lowes, or the museum project in Journal Square, you’re going to see a revival there. You’re going to see a completion of the municipal complex on MLK and more of a transformation that that has already helped with and will continue to undergo. The hope is that we’re going to continue to drive crime down which is a priority for us and the hope is that we’re going to continue to attract some investment in Greenville. We want that community to be safe, and we want that community to be what it once was, with regards to attracting private dollars."

"I think for the most part, the Jersey City Police Department has a positive relationship with the community. They’re engaged in programs whether is be ‘Coffee with a Cop’ or regular monthly community meetings, both that they host or attend, I think that they have a positive dialogue. The community has helped us with the camera initiative that we put out there, they helped us with some of the policing reforms that we’ve done. I would hope that the dialogue continues, I would hope that we would have a CCRB in place so that the community knows that there is more engagement from the community and more accountability. But I think by and large, the relationship is positive."

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