Live Where You Work Press Conference.wmv

thank you good morning everybody good morning thank you for coming uh thank you for coming this morning it's a very exciting day for Lakewood today where we announced our kickoff of the lakewood's participation and the lived where you work program I'm going to have Ed Collins who's standing in for March Del Vecchio of the New Jersey housing markets and finance Association speak about it a little bit later along with the Newman Senator Bob uh Bob singer say a few words and I'm very happy that under the direction of the Lakewood Economic Development Office Steve Ryman was able to help bring this program to to Lakewood it's a very exciting program there's a lot of benefits that are offered in this program this is uh this is a great program that we're the University of mortgage Housing Finance Agency offers incentives for people to live where you work and for Lakewood that's that's very exciting news I mean if you think about it New Jersey is really one big bedroom community you know most people are communities in North Jersey New York they're commuting to Philadelphia and for us as a town to be able to bring in a product that's going to help people stay closer to home and actually work closer to home I think we'll only go to enhance the quality of life of everybody in Lakewood I'd like to first introduce uh Senator to give some opening remarks and some greetings and then we'll have Steve and then we'll have Ed speak to the uh any questions or details of the program good morning everybody it's good to see everybody out here today you know one of the key factors of this program is that it's an environmentally sound situation and that's really very very key you talk about the environment we talk about making things better for the environment when you don't have to commute along this is you're not using rail you're not using bus using either you're taking a bike you can walk or possibly using other forms of Local transportation it's good for the environment secondly it's about a quality of life for the individuals I've had the I had the pleasure of working most of my life locally but the first few years when I moved down here I commute to New York every day what a nightmare uh there's no life you get in the car at those days without the car at quarter to seven to be in New York City to pull the Port Authority by 8 30. um and uh you went at night uh darkened during the winter time so you fell asleep in the car and then you woke up and you walk into your office Camp everybody say are you up you're awake and then when you come home at night in the door you fall asleep you got home and then and then when she did you ate there and you went to bed and weekends you recovered and then you dreaded uh you dreaded the uh on Monday morning and then of course that all changed in the summer time because coming commuting back on a Friday night in the summertime from New York City was a nightmare it took an hour and a half commute made it booty after three hours of meeting never even getting home and in the same situation on Monday Mornings in the Summer where people would stay down who were going so Community is a nightmare and it takes you away from your quality of life it takes away from your family life it is it isn't a positive thing working locally is a blessing it allows you participate in your families and family events that allows you to learn with your your kids school and see what's going on for for a place you know it's like that it's just really wonderful to be able to do that and it means you can do things in town you can volunteer for something you can be an important part of something because you work globally you can volunteer for the first day of school you can volunteer for the fire company because you are a local you're a part of that and that's that's a very very positive thing the quality of life and we're positive to the town and then the last aspect of it is you know as we're attracting them keep in mind that the third largest industrial park in the state of New Jersey as we're trying to attract uh companies to come here the greatest thing is having a local Workforce that's what people look for people that don't have to be more decent people that work locally and that's a positive aspect of it so this Pro this program really is a win-ring it's went for us in the economic development saying to people coming here yes we have already worked force that lives here that's ready to work for you and it's a positive thing for the families that are able to do so because they have a better quality of life so I'm excited about it I want to thank Steve Weiner for the musician excellent job as usual um I certainly want to thank the state thank you um and thank Governor Christie for allowing this program to move forward and certainly our mayor to have that Vision to grow up this program is a positive thing for a community it's something that I I hope every other towns very under 32 dispows the most Academy because it's a very very positive thing for the for the county and the type of things that you're pushing and again the last thing this does and it's something that really talks about our our our our planning of our town we plan to have a town center you know we've submitted that plan to the state of Jersey this fits right in town center concept on providing housing where people work providing shopping where people live these are all bad things about making things easy for people not making people have to give me a call for everything now people have to drive to every place they want to go be able to have that kind of like that that centralized situation where you work you can go you'll be able to look there if you want to or take a flight you'll be able to go shopping and walk those are very very positive things you're trying to create and that that concept is very very important for the Town Center that we've submitted to the states so hopefully that will come about fit right in with this program we have some great concepts for the Seabridge project with this we have some some other Town Center areas that look really good so we're excited about this and by the way what another bear is going to do is going to be writing DDP and say um hopefully this week and saying you know it's a great thing what we're doing with with the housing and this fits right in with that town center concept which we know you're going to approve right mayor thanks again thank you thank you welcome everybody thank you Ed just want to take a few minutes to thank the mayor and the committee and supporting people that helped to bring this about I think it is an exciting day for Lakewood and just touching on a few things that the the senator mentioned you know we've been experiencing phenomenal growth for some time now and I don't think we see any slowdown in that rate of growth together with that kind of growth and population of Lakewood we have a great demand for bringing more and more business here our department along with the new easy here in Lakewood is working very diligently to bring in new business to grow our industrial park to bring Innovative new businesses there to we hope to have some very exciting things happening in the coming year or so and together with that we want to capitalize on a resource that we have here that's really not being capitalized on as well as an ambient that is the the workforce that we have we have a tremendous amount of talent here in town and we want to keep it here in town so many are commuting and are unhappy with it I think Senator definitely think it's much worse today than it was back when when you were doing it an hour and a half to New York so I'm very attractive about that but with it all we see this as a another arrow in our quiver uh something to empower the real estate people in town the mortgage brokers in town and certainly the residents of our town who are looking to enhance their quality of life find local work and for us we think it's going to be a win-winning enforcement board so I'm very happy to have found it to be such a pleasant experience to work with this agency and bring this about and particularly on point without mentioning every person on the team like to say Ed Collins has acted as kind of the point of the spear for njhmfa and um we're very excited to have them here and I'll defer to Ed come up and tell us a little bit more about the details of the project and the program and then to have a q a period thank you okay uh thanks very much as a preamble to what I'm going to talk about the program this morning I was coming down here with my colleague Michelle Lawler and I I was driving and I looked over to her and I said boy Michelle I'll tell you a whole bunch doesn't ask me to speak this morning I had a rough weekend I drove up to see my mother in North Jersey I drove home to show to see a friend so the expression not many cliches actually impact our lives this morning I got the full impact of what's the expression don't don't wish me whatever you know be careful what you wish for so anyway um this morning I do want to talk about the little way of work program and I do want to thank Steve Ryman you know and the animals of all the people we all deal with in life with different projects I want to say that Steve reinman was very professional and a very capable to go back and a friend we have become friends over that period of time um the Liberty work program is a program which was developed in the state of New Jersey by a former commissioner Doria about three years ago I joined the agency about two years ago and he asked me if I would coordinate this program so basically what we do what we try to do with this program and our other program phone call first time home buyer program we try to create a transaction where the transaction is 100 financing how we accomplished that with the Liberty work program in particular is I want to take a sample mortgage amount with someone in the real estate Community or the mortgage Community offered me a loan amount rounded up the round numbers so I can do the math real easy with would it be two hundred thousand three hundred thousand two hundred thousand so on a mortgage of two hundred thousand dollars in the City of Lakewood there's an inherent five percent dischargeable second mortgage in that mortgage so five times two thank you that was a softball number by the way five times two is ten so you wind up with a 200 000 First Mortgage for acquisition and then you would wind up with a ten thousand dollar second mortgage dischargeable after a certain period of time for both closing costs and down payment assistance and or depending upon what the needs of the buyer borrower would be in addition to that to help that transaction along because the goal of our programs in all cases is a hundred percent financing so what we ask is also particularly from the realtor point of view that we get a seller concession in that contract for three percent let's say so three times two is six five times two is ten that's sixteen thousand dollars in the transaction I would think that sixteen thousand dollars would close any transaction that was created in the City of Lakewood or most cities for that matter in the state of New Jersey um when I talk about discharging the mortgages what I mean by that is after a certain period of time depending upon whether you're above 80 percent or below 80 percent and all that those documents that I have in the Press can't spell this out the mortgage would be discharged no later than seven years and no earlier than four so if you're under 80 percent of the median income in Ocean County the discharge period the seven years if you're over 80 percent of median income discharge period is four years so after 40