Can we take the situation under control?

Hopefully our Township will go after the money.... take some of the properties and improve them so they can be utilized to meet, what the Mayor says, is a need for housing in our community.

$51.4M approved to help stabilize real estate market

By DEBORAH HIRSCH • Courier-Post Staff • February 4, 2009

The federal government Tuesday approved $51.4 million for stabilizing New Jersey neighborhoods hard hit by foreclosures, the state Department of Community Affairs announced.

Forty municipalities across the state, including 11 in the tri-county area, considered statistically at risk of continued market deterioration are eligible to apply for the grant until Friday. The money can be used for acquiring, demolishing or rehabilitating property, as well as land banks.

Even though the funding was just officially approved, the program was announced last winter as part of a state Housing and Economic Recovery Act. Along with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding, the state allocated $12 million in grants for certified counseling agencies to help homeowners restructure their mortgages in order to stay in their homes and $500,000 for the state Administrative Office of the Courts to provide foreclosure mediation services.

According to the N.J. Administrative Office of the Courts, nearly 48,000 residential properties filed for foreclosure in 2008. Of those, 2,552 were in Burlington County, 3,302 in Camden County and 1,693 in Gloucester County.

At least five local municipalities are already finalizing applications for a cut of the stabilization funding.

Lindenwold Mayor Frank Delucca said the program seemed custom-designed for some of the apartment complexes on Gibbsboro Road. Two of the five complexes are very close to foreclosure, he said. The town has been trying to find money to fix up those properties for at least five years, he said.

"This just didn't come overnight," he said.

Through this program, he said, the city could theoretically join with a designated developer to take over the property and "get it back on its feet."

Bill Jenkins, director of housing and community development for Burlington City, said he's hoping to take over seven vacant homes and an abandoned eight-unit apartment complex in the historic Yorkshire neighborhood. With the federal grant money, he said, the city could rehab those homes and sell them at market rate. The apartment building could be converted into four, two-bedroom condos.

"In a good market, a property like that, an investor comes along and buys it," Jenkins said. "Then with the rising cost of real estate, he enjoys a rental or a flip. In the last year and a half, there's no juice for that type of industry."

Willingboro Township Administrator Joanne Diggs said officials there were also planning to apply for money to renovate single family homes that had been abandoned.

Olivette Simpson, director of housing for the Camden Redevelopment Agency, said the city was requesting about $1 million to acquire up to 50 properties in the Cramer Hill neighborhood. They selected that neighborhood because there's a lot of other redevelopment efforts going on there, she said. Simpson said she'd also heard of two other nonprofits and a private developer in Camden that were thinking about applying for the grant.

Elwood Martz, the housing administrator for Pennsauken, said the city could potentially rehab as many as 20 homes and raze four or five with the grant money.

Other eligible towns in the area are: Clementon, Lawnside, Paulsboro, Pemberton, Pine Hill and Winslow.

Local governments, developers and nonprofit organizations may apply for the grant. The state plans to award the funds before the end of March.

Reach Deborah Hirsch at (856) 486-2476 or dhirsch@camden.gannett.com