It's been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 72 hours for Chris Christie. Sandwiched between Wednesday's release of emails that bolster Dawn Zimmer's claim that the Christie administration tried to extort her and today's claim by David Wildstein that he knew about the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, WNBC in New York reports that a second city benefited from Sandy relief money even though the storm barely even touched it. We already know that Belleville used Sandy money to build a new senior complex even though it sustained almost no damage. Now you can add New Brunswick to the list.
Gov. Chris Christie's administration is again facing questions about how Sandy aid was distributed in New Jersey after it was revealed $4.8 million in relief funds went to help build an apartment tower in New Brunswick, a town that saw relatively little storm damage.
New Jersey's Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency approved the disbursement as part of the state's Fund for Rebuilding Multifamily Housing. The program is intended to speed the construction of new affordable housing in communities ravaged by the storm.
But New Brunswick lost relatively little of its housing stock when Sandy stormed through the state, and a Rutgers University study ranked New Brunswick 188th on a list of communities that suffered the most hardship due to Sandy.
"They're not spending the money on the people that they're supposed to be spending," said Doris Narkum, a storm victim whose family lost their house on the Jersey Shore.
Watch the full piece
here--sorry, it won't embed. The project,
Somerset Street Mews, is being built by Boraie Development, a Newark-based contractor. It will include almost 8,000 square feet of retail space, a parking deck, a fitness center, and 48 affordable housing units and will be advertised to Sandy victims. And yet, Narkum says that she hasn't been able to get rental assistance due to a funding shortage. She's been flirting with homelessness almost nonstop in the two years since Sandy, and is now afraid she'll be evicted again.
Agency executive director Anthony Marchetta says that the use of Sandy money was justified because Middlesex County, of which New Brunswick is the county seat, was declared a disaster area. But that claim doesn't pass the smell test if one looks at the study referenced in the story, which was commissioned by Rutgers-Newark. Surely this money could have been put to better use in Janesburg (which ranked 22nd) or Cranbury (59th).
The same advocacy group that raised questions about the Belleville center is looking at this New Brunswick complex with a raised eyebrow as well.
Adam Gordon, a lawyer for the nonprofit Fair Share Housing Center, said most of the 36 development projects awarded through the Fund for Rebuilding Multifamily Housing appear to directly benefit communities heavily damaged by Sandy, but the New Brunswick tower appears to be more questionable.
"I just don't think building anywhere in any of the nine counties is equal, especially when you have a project that doesn't seem to have any connection to Sandy," Gordon said.
There's no word yet on whether New Brunswick's mayor, James Cahill, endorsed Christie's reelection bid. But even if there's nothing more to this story, this situation absolutely reeks. I have to wonder how many other Doris Narkums got squeezed because of projects like this.