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Five years ago, dozens of Cramer Hill residents marched to City Hall, outraged by a $1.2 billion redevelopment plan that would have forced the relocation of more than a thousand families to make way for new homes, retail space, a golf course and a marina.
The 2003 plan became defunct three years later when a judge ruled that the city had made procedural errors during the approval process. But distrust and resentment lingered over what had almost happened.
Now, community leaders have come back with a new plan to revitalize the Cramer Hill neighborhood — without eminent domain.
State officials, city leaders and residents gathered Monday in Von Neida Park to celebrate the unveiling of the nearly 200-page document. The “Cramer Hill Now!” plan calls for a cleaner and safer community, street improvements, more than 375,000 square feet of commercial development, 3,053 residential units and a multifaceted waterfront park over the next two decades. All this is expected to create thousands of jobs and generate more than $9 million in annual tax revenues.
So far, nobody has staged a protest. Nobody has plastered stickers warning developers to stay away, like they did after the Cherokee Investment Partners plan. Nobody had anything but good things to say on Monday.
Community leaders said that’s because residents were involved in the planning process. Since last September, more than 500 residents gave the nonprofit Cramer Hill Community Development Corp. input about the changes they wanted to see in their neighborhood.
“This is something that came up in every meeting, that we need to address the concerns of residents in the neighborhood now,” said executive director Manny Delgado.
A committee of residents, city officials, the Camden Redevelopment Agency and business owners sorted through feedback from the various community meetings. Professional planning consultants, hired with an $85,000 Wachovia Regional Foundation planning grant and $50,000 state grant, analyzed demographics, past development plans and resident surveys.
The ambitious plan they drafted includes improvements to existing businesses, demolition of 57 abandoned homes, mixed-income development, better street lighting, a public library and more home improvement grants.
It also recommends initiatives to improve quality of life such as installing public trash cans, painting murals, taking charge of vacant lots and organizing street clean-up brigades.
An accompanying waterfront study led by the Cooper’s Ferry Development Association calls for parks, sports fields, picnic areas, greenway trails and conservation space along the 2.5 miles of waterfront that outline the neighborhood from the Cooper River to the Delaware River Back Channel. As with the Cherokee plan, there would be a marina and golf, only mini-golf instead of an 18-hole course.
Officials said they’ll use the plan as a tool to get the funding they need to turn their dreams into reality.
“It’s a huge competitive edge for development opportunities,” said Sandy Johnston, director of the Camden Redevelopment Agency.
A few components of the plan are already in the works. The N.J. Department of Environmental Protection is cleaning up a former landfill site on Harrison Avenue that will eventually become a 120,000 square-foot Salvation Army community center. Work to ease flooding issues at Von Neida Park will begin next spring with $1.4 million in grants, Delgado said. His organization also continues to seek grants to build infill homes.
City Council President Angel Fuentes, also a Cramer Hill resident, said he expects council to adopt the “Cramer Hill Now!” plan this summer in conjunction with the city’s official redevelopment plan for the neighborhood, which was started in 2006 but stalled until last year.
“We’ve learned a good lesson: We have to consider people are first,” said Mayor Gwendolyn Faison. “Be encouraged, Cramer Hill. We might have messed up, but you know what, we don’t go away mad. I believe this is going to be the most envious section of the town because there’s so many possibilities.”
Reach Deborah Hirsch at (856) 486-2476 or dhirsch@camden.gannett.com
Construction project will save and create 275 jobsFurthering his commitment to build infrastructure and improve educational facilities across the state, Governor Jon S. Corzine today joined New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA) and Camden School District officials to break ground for the new Morgan Village Middle School. The 520-student school, which will serve children in grades 6-8, is the fifth new project to get under way in Camden under New Jersey’s school construction program.
“We have an obligation to transform every school into a positive learning environment for our children,” Governor Corzine said. “Camden’s students deserve to be educated in safe, modern schools and I am proud that the new Morgan Village Middle School project will deliver those surroundings to them while promoting the city’s revitalization and creating jobs during tough economic times.”
The 92,390-square-foot, two-story middle school will be built on a parcel adjacent to the existing building and marks another step in the redevelopment of Camden and stimulating its economy. The school is scheduled to open in September 2010.
“The Morgan Village Middle School project represents New Jersey’s commitment to provide a quality education for all students, no matter where they live,” said Senator Dana Redd, (D-Camden and Gloucester). “The students of South Camden deserve to learn in a modern, state-of-the-art educational setting which inspires them to achieve their maximum potential. I’d like to thank Governor Corzine and Schools Development Authority Chief Kolluri for their dedication to improving education in Camden and giving students a chance to succeed.”
The SDA has completed two projects in Camden: the Early Childhood Development Center and the Octavious V. Catto Community School. Two other projects, H.B. Wilson and Thomas H. Dudley elementary schools, are scheduled to open this fall.
Camden has three additional projects included in the SDA’s Capital Plan – Camden High School, Lanning Square Elementary School and Pyne Poynt Family School. All told, the SDA has spent or allocated $460 million to date for projects in Camden.
“This school is an anchor in one of the city’s most stable areas and will continue to ensure the vitality of the Morgan Village neighborhood,” said Camden Mayor Gwendolyn Faison.
An effect of the economic downturn has been the savings to taxpayers resulting from greater competition for construction jobs. The contract award of $20,997,000 was $6.1 million, or nearly one-fourth, below the SDA’s construction cost estimate. Another school awarded earlier this year, Egg Harbor City Middle School, came in $2.8 million below estimate.
“This school construction program is important to improving the quality of our children’s lives and will have a profound impact on the economy,” SDA CEO Kris Kolluri said. “In fact, this project will save and create approximately 275 jobs.”
The school construction program received new funding in July 2008 when Governor Corzine signed legislation authorizing $3.9 billion in new funding – $2.9 billion for SDA Districts and $1 billion for Regular Operating Districts.
The SDA will commit $1.3 billion toward school construction this year, which is estimated to save and create 11,000 jobs. The SDA plans to advance 27 projects into preliminary or full construction in 2009. The agency will soon begin to post monthly job creation reports for these projects on their website.
Today’s ceremony marks the SDA’s first groundbreaking of 2009. Sara T. Davis, president of the Camden Board of Education, remarked, “The Morgan Village Middle School will become a beacon for 21st century learning in the South Camden community. It brings innovative instruction and new technology to a local community that has done without for far too long. Morgan Village Middle School will bring new promise and fulfilled dreams for the Board and our children of that area.”
Morgan Village’s construction will be accomplished in two phases. Phase one involves construction of the replacement school. Phase two, which will require procurement of a separate contract, will entail the demolition of the old school to provide for play areas and a parking lot. The second phase will begin after students occupy the new building. Chanree Construction Co. is the general contractor, Fletcher-Thompson Architecture Engineering is the design firm and URS Corporation is the construction management firm.
The school will include general-use classrooms, special-education classrooms, science labs, school-to-career classrooms with labs, small-group instruction
rooms, a media center, a cafeteria with a kitchen, an auditorium and a gymnasium.
Overall the SDA has completed 592 projects: 46 new schools; 41 extensive additions, renovations and/or rehabilitations; three demonstration projects and nearly 400 other projects.
The Department of Children and Families “has made significant progress” in every area required, the report said.
But it found that in order to meet performance benchmarks for the next period, the state “will need to simultaneously maintain the infrastructure improvements and accelerate the pace of improvements in direct practice with children, families, and the wider community.”
A 1999 lawsuit filed by Children’s Rights, a child-advocacy group based in New York, on behalf of the state’s foster children led a federal judge to appoint an independent monitor to review New Jersey’s progress in reforming its troubled child-welfare agency.
New Jersey’s child-welfare services came under intense scrutiny after a string of high-profile cases, including the discovery of four severely malnourished foster children in Collingswood and the death of a 7-year-old boy in Newark in 2003.
Since then, the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars and made numerous changes to try to reform child-welfare services. In 2006, Gov. Corzine made the Department of Children and Families a cabinet-level department to improve accountability and focus attention on the agency.
In its fifth report on New Jersey, the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington found “beginning evidence of improved outcomes for children and families.”
Among the accomplishments noted by the monitor:
From January 2006 to February 2009, the number of children legally free for adoption dropped from 2,260 to 1,352.
The number of children placed in out-of-state facilities dropped from 322 in July 2006 to 98 in January 2009.
The DCF’s Institutional Abuse Investigations Unit, which had suffered from backlogs, met its goals for timeliness of investigations.
The settlement agreement with Children’s Rights lays out two phases for the reform process. The current monitoring report is the last on the first phase, which was intended to build the structure within DCF to support its mission. The second phase will examine whether the department is better serving and protecting children and families.
Gov. Corzine said the latest report “highlights the overwhelming progress being made by the staff at DCF.”
DCF Commissioner Kimberly Ricketts said the state had sustained its progress.
“I have the fullest confidence that we can and will meet the challenges that face us,” Ricketts said. “The children and families of New Jersey deserve nothing less than success from this department.”
Children’s Rights Associate Director Susan Lambiase also praised the state’s efforts.
“New Jersey’s child-welfare system is being transformed by this court-ordered reform effort in ways that are producing increasingly clear and significant improvements in the lives of the state’s abused and neglected children and their families. Now DCF must not only maintain the reforms it has made, but also translate them into still better results for the kids and families who depend on it, and Children’s Rights will continue to monitor its progress closely.”
Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of the Association for Children of New Jersey, was less enthusiastic. She said that while there have been some improvements, she had not yet seen evidence of the most important outcomes.
“To me, the fundamental question is, ‘Are kids safer?’” Zalkind said.
She said she was concerned, for example, about the death last month of 9-year-old Jamarr Cruz of Camden, who was beaten to death, allegedly by Vincent Williams, Cruz’s mother’s boyfriend. The state’s Division of Youth and Family Services met with Cruz’s mother and Williams for close to a year after Williams hit Jamarr with a belt in December 2007, authorities said. DYFS closed the family’s case last November.
“The reform was designed to prevent deaths like that – not that every death can be prevented, but presumably you have better-trained workers, smaller caseloads, more resources – how could you be supervising a family and somehow miss that this kid was being beaten regularly?” Zalkind said. “I’m disappointed. I thought this monitoring report would get to more fundamental outcomes.”
DCF’s internal review of the case is ongoing, said department spokeswoman Kate Bernyck. She said the state’s child fatality review board had asked to conduct an expedited review of the case.
Judith Meltzer, deputy director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, said her agency’s next report would also review the case with an eye toward systemic issues.
Meltzer said the next report, which will cover January through June, likely will be published in mid-November.
Contact staff writer Adrienne Lu at 609-989-8990 or alu@phillynews.com
