Eric Allen Conner
11.2K posts
@eaconner
Pro-housing, pro-transit, and pro-public parks & streets @betterblocksnj | Father to one eggshell plaintiff and one tortfeasor | Resident of Jersey City | LL&P
NYT asks Mayor Mamdani what he thinks constitutes working class. gothamist.com/news/a-doctor-…
I’ve been writing about the rich for years and ho boy, this one
SHOCKING: The French team originally tasked with building High-Speed Rail left to go to North Africa, because it was “less politically dysfunctional” than California. We’re not France. We’re not Spain. We're a car culture. Time to scrap this ideological "bullet train" fantasy!
Are PILOT agreements the cause of Jersey City's budget crisis? We dug into the data and ran the numbers. The answer is, well, not really. City Hall will have to find more revenue as PILOT agreements expire but taxpayers might get some relief as school taxes should stabilize.
I just finished reading this paper and the conclusions should not surprise anyone: 1) Inclusionary Zoning materially reduces the supply of housing, and 2) reduces affordability for market rate housing units. This appears to be a robust empirical analysis based on California’s IZ experience. I am not an expert on California IZ and do not claim to be so I will leave this to the many great folks on here I follow who are experts. As with all IZ discussion, I feel the need to point out (again) that New Jersey is an exception as IZ is directly responsible for about 80-85% of the housing supply we have generated in the last 10-15 years. Without the Fair Housing Act and its predecessors, we would have a housing crisis of epic proportions (we have one now but it would be much, much worse). Further, many of these new housing developments have been done with Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreements that, in effect, subsidize the IZ requirements to make the developments pencil. For those looking for a sort of contrary point— I would direct you to the yeoman’s work being done by @BetterBlocksNJ and @eaconner in Jersey City— where an unfounded 15% IZ tied to zoning variances has produced a whopping ZERO IZ homes. Bottom line: I think the research is pretty much settled at this juncture on IZ, but it is not a one size fits all box. And… we need to increase Section 8 and fund housing authorities to build more social housing.
@3_under_scores_ Another ugly lie. Newport proposed adding NO units. They proposed shifting the height and bulk both pre- and post-IZO. They refused to add a single affordable unit. Here's the screenshot from their application...
Mayor Solomon sent an open letter to city employees saying he wouldn't use them for politics and would end the "corruption tax." Seven months later and the mayor's team is telling public employees to attack the council and support Solomon's budget and a higher property tax.
Downtown Jersey City has a 15% IZO that is triggered any time there is a zoning variance. Under that IZO requirement, the city has built exactly zero affordable housing units without a taxpayer subsidy. We should probably follow San Francisco and scrap the mandatory IZO.
This is terrible news for the City of Newark. It also makes it even more bizarre and irresponsible for the Attorney General and the Sherrill administration to be suing to halt the Paramount-WB merger considering Paramount is adding a ton of jobs in Northern New Jersey.
Solomon’s own post alleges — without evidence— “corrupt insiders” are behind these critiques of his administration. This is dangerous rhetoric; reminiscent of Trump. His most vocal critics are ordinary citizens who are deeply concerned about his leadership.
The SF Board of Supervisors dropped the inclusionary housing rate to 5 percent in a 9-2 vote on Tuesday, and narrowly passed an amendment to make the rate 8 percent solely for the Mission. missionlocal.org/2026/07/sf-inc…
