Government officials announce an EPA brownfield grant in North Camden. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

A housing redevelopment project in North Camden got a big boost from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which delivered a million-dollar brownfield cleanup grant to the city for the remediation of a former manufacturing site.

On Thursday morning, representatives from local, county, and federal government offices gathered before a vacant lot at the corner of North Front and Elm Streets in Camden City to announce the award and discuss the future of the parcel.

Camden City Mayor Victor Carstarphen spoke about new housing construction as “a labor of love improving the quality of life” in the neighborhood.

“We’ll all be gone one day, but what happens here will help families, kids, for generations,” Carstarphen said.

Groundwork for the project has been laid already through efforts to revitalize public parks and infrastructure, the mayor said; next up is connecting those spaces.

“North Camden really has this capacity for continued housing projects,” Carstarphen said. “The steps have been taken, now the time is right.”

U.S. Representative Donald Norcross (D, NJ) addressed the remediation work that’s already taken place in North Camden, pointing to nearby Cooper’s Poynt Park, which emerged from the demolition of Riverfront State Prison at Delaware Avenue and Elm Street.

“You used to have a prison down there,” Norcross said, “Not the best thing to have in your backyard.”

Environmental justice efforts in the neighborhood represent efforts to move the needle on social determinants of health, the congressman said.

“Zip code should not determine quality of life,” Norcross said, offering that the additional housing, once built, will contribute to “the promise of a great place to live in New Jersey.”

EPA Chief of Staff Olivia Glenn announces a $1M federal grant for a North Camden site remediation project. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

Olivia Glenn, EPA Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor for Equity, invoked the names and work of community organizers who “took a stand [and]  continued to have a vision of what North Camden could be” in the formation of the project.

“I see today as a fulfillment of what the grassroots have done,” Glenn said.

From 1850 to 1967, the site at North Front and Elm was home to West Jersey Paper Manufacturing, and from 1967 to 1974, it housed Latex Fiber Industries.

Those manufacturing uses left the soil contaminated with a range of chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, and arsenic, Glenn said.

Of the $3 million in federal brownfield funds that came to New Jersey, half ended up in Camden City, with $1 million going to Camden Lutheran Housing, Inc. (CHLI) for the North Front and Elm Street project, and $500,000 to the Camden Redevelopment Authority for similar work.

Glenn noted that those grant awards align with the White House Justice40 initiative, which aims to direct “40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments… to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.”

“Investing in North Camden is investing in America,” she said.

CHLI Executive Director Brandi Johnson said that the project helps community redevelopers to capitalize on other investment in the area.

“In the last decade, progress [on the North Camden Neighborhood Plan]  has accelerated,” Johnson said. “Cleanup and investigation began in the 1990s.

North Front and Elm St redevelopment plan in Camden City. Credit: Camden Lutheran Housing Inc.

“CLHI has had a vision of what this could be,” she said. “It’s a matter of funding to take the next steps.”

Once the site is remediated, the redevelopment organization intends to construct 15 or 16 for-purchase, single-family affordable homes with dedicated yards and green space.

The North Camden Neighborhood Plan also includes a project called Casas Del Rio, which would construct 26 townhomes at 530 Borton Street. Another would redevelop the State Street United Methodist Church into 17 housing units, with another three to five supportive services units in the rectory.

“We’re working on the residential core; our partners are working on the waterfront to make North Camden better,” Johnson said.

“You get people into homes and a lot of other things fall into place.”