NYC NOW - Midday News: Weekend Subway Violence Raises Safety Concerns, F-Train Murder Suspect’s Immigration Status Sparks Debate, and Revisiting New Jersey’s Affordable Housing Fight

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Several violent incidents on the subway, including two murders this past weekend, have heightened safety concerns. But experts say the system remains statistically safer than the streets. Meanwhile, federal immigration authorities say the man accused of setting a woman on fire on an F-train entered the U.S. illegally, reigniting debates over mental health services and sanctuary city policies. Finally, WNYC’s Janae Pierre and reporter Michael Hayes revisit his reporting on Millburn, New Jersey, and its resistance to building affordable housing.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news and and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Hope you're getting into the holiday spirit. This is our one and only episode today. Here's your news headlines from Michael Hill. Nearly four million people ride the New York City subway each day. Almost all of them safely, but several violent incidents this past weekend, including two murders, are making some riders feel a heightened sense of anxiety. Paul, reaping studies public safety for the civic non-profit vital city.

He says, statistically, the subway system is probably safer than walking on the street, but he understands why people are afraid. I don't know if it's anything that can be blamed specifically on the subway system itself or an overall impact of sort of disorder from the pandemic or just coincidence. 11 people have been killed riding public transit across the city so far this year. year, which is double last year in the highest number in decades. Federal immigration authorities say the man charged was setting a woman on fire on an F train and killing her and entered the country illegally. Longtime community activist Curtis Slewa has been critical of the city's sanctuary

protections for migrants. He says the issue is mental health services, not immigration. Whether he should have been here or shouldn't have been here, when you light somebody on fire and you watch like a pyromaniac as they burn, and you seem to get a vicarious thrill. You're an emotionally disturbed person. The subways are filled with emotionally disturbed persons. The suspect Sebastian Sepeda now faces charges of murder in the first and second degree as well as arson. Slewa is a Republican candidate for mayor. 33 and partly sunny now in the city, turning sunny today in upper 30s,

a low around 27 to 9 and then Christmas days sunny and 35 but the real feel at times the mid-20s. 33 and partly sunny again. Up next, this week we're revisiting a few of the top stories of 2024. This next one dives into the ongoing battle for affordable housing in the wealthy town of Milburn, New Jersey. More on that after the break. This week, we're revisiting a few of the most notable. stories we covered in 2024. Today, we look at the intense battle in Milburn, New Jersey, one of the wealthiest towns in the state over the issue of affordable housing. At the center is a 75-unit

project planned for downtown. Despite a legal agreement to move forward, the town council blocked it in February, sparking a tense legal fight. My colleague Mike Hayes has been closely following the story all year long, and he's reported Milburn's resistance to affordable housing goes back decades. tied to a state law requiring towns to provide their fair share. Now the fight has grown into a broader challenge to New Jersey's housing laws. Mike joins me now to lay it all out. Mike, let's start with the basics here. What was Milburn as to do and why has this project sparked so much pushback?

So just to set the scene a little more, Milburn is a really nice town in Essex County, New Jersey. It's a half-hour train ride from Midtown Manhattan. A lot of commuters live there. As you alluded to at the top there, it happens to be one of the richest zip codes in the state. The average home in Milburn is worth more than a million dollars. But in 2021, they agreed to build this 75 unit 100% affordable building in the heart of their downtown. All 75 apartments would be priced for low and middle income people.

But ever since then, going back three years now, a vocal group of, people in town have resisted this project specifically. They raise issues like our downtown will get more crowded, traffic will get worse, our taxes will have to go up to pay for this project. So Milburn, since the day they agreed to do this, has been delaying it, including violating multiple court orders by a judge who's overseeing an affordable housing settlement in this court case for this project to get started. Driving this case is something called the Mount Laurel Doctrine.

Can you explain what that is and why it's so important to New Jersey's housing policy? Sure. So Mount Laurel is a 50-year-old Supreme Court decision in New Jersey. It says that every city in town the state must contribute its fair share of affordable housing. So what the state has done is every 10 years or so, they start a new round of affordable housing development where state officials issue mandates for a number of affordable housing. of affordably priced homes for each town to create. And then it's up to the towns to come up with a plan

for how to create this housing. In fact, just this fall, state officials issued a new round of requirements, and they're aiming to create 150,000 new affordable homes by 2035. However, this would be a good time to mention that through my reporting, I learned that over the past 50 years that Mount Laurel has been in place, Milburn has not success built any affordable housing, zero.

Now, Mike, I know you talked to local officials who are trying to block this project. I'm wondering who are they and what reasons have they given for their opposition? Yeah, I spent some time early on when I first started reporting this story with two local officials, Frank Sackamandie, who is now deputy mayor in Melbourne, and another gentleman named Ben Stoller, who was on the town committee as well. And they ran for their spots in local government in 2023 on a platform to literally, stop this project we're talking about today. And one of the major reasons that they give for not being on board is they view a 100% affordable housing development as segregated housing. They told me

that they feel like the residents here would be discriminated against by other people in town. They would just be this attitude of that's where the poor people live. And it's really important to note, you know, that there's studies around affordable housing, including in New Jersey, that have found quite the opposite. In fact, one of the first, one of the first of the same, one of the poor people live. And it's really Princeton study that looked at affordable housing in the town of Mount Laurel found that other people in the community that were living adjacent to affordable housing developments had nothing but favorable things to say about their neighbors. In fact, a lot of them didn't even realize that these folks were living in lower priced housing until the researchers from Princeton approached them. And then the residents who lived there were thriving. Yeah, Milburn has now lost multiple times in court, including an appeal to stop the project. Why does his township keep fighting this, even when the courts have been so clear? That's a really, really good question.

It's starting to get expensive, the money that the town is shelling out taxpayer dollars to pay for the attorneys to fight this thing. I've watched a lot of their monthly town council meetings, and this project always comes up. And many of the members of the public who have been outspoken about the downtown project keep showing up to the meetings, and they keep asking the committee members to keep fighting. And the committee members seem to still be up for it. That said, Milburn's opponents here in this case, which would be the developer who's under the contract for the project, as well as housing advocates that want to see it happen, they remain very committed as well. And then going back to the judge, back in the beginning of October, the judge, she ordered Milburn to go back and just readopt the original agreement for the project in 2021, essentially said, you know, enough of the nonsense. You agreed to do this. In fact, you have a contract, a development plan for how to do this and a developer attached to it.

I'm ordering you to just, she gave them until Halloween to do that. And, you know, we're sitting here in the midst of the holiday season, and they still haven't moved forward in the way that the judge wants. So I think, yeah, we're going to see this battle continue into next year. So looking ahead, what could Milburn's resistance mean for other wealthy towns in New Jersey that might also want to push back against affordable housing? So as a matter of fact, we are starting to see more increased pushback around the state. You mentioned at the top of this other lawsuit that Milburn is a part of what that is exactly, is over two dozen towns, many of which, like Milburn, are very wealthy, that went together to ask a judge to overturn the new affordable housing law that was signed by Governor Murphy in 2024. And this law lays out the guidelines for how many affordable homes each town has been assigned for the next Mount Laurel round.

And the town's main argument here is that New Jersey officials, when they're coming up with these numbers, I mentioned the 150s. 50,000 new homes that they're aiming to develop by 2035. The towns say, look, we've been meeting our obligations for 50 years now, and you keep asking us to build more and more and we can't handle it. We don't have the land, the pressure on our town's infrastructure like roads and sewers is just too much. So we need to put the kibosh on this and come up with a different approach. However, with Milburn, what's interesting with them being a part of this lawsuit,

that's not necessarily the case, right? Because, you know, with the downtown all affordable project that we've been discussing, you know, unlike some of the other towns in this lawsuit, they are also fighting against doing what they previously agreed to do. That's WMYC's Mike Hayes. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Have a nice day. We'll be back with one episode on Christmas Day.