Jersey City Mayor James Solomon is calling for 100% affordable senior housing to be built at the Maureen Collier Senior Center on the city's West Side, a proposal that would mark the city's first all-affordable senior housing project in roughly a decade. The plan, still in its early stages, would add homes to a site that currently permits no housing at all under decades-old zoning rules.
According to Hudson County View, the senior housing proposal is folded into a broader renovation plan for the center at 335 Bergen Avenue, which has anchored the West Side for nearly 30 years. Solomon said he is committed to addressing the city's affordability crisis and that the senior center has served as a second home for neighborhood seniors for decades. He argued that Jersey City should use city-owned land for the people who need it most.
The center is named for former Councilwoman Maureen Collier, who was elected at-large in 1989 on then-Mayor Gerald McCann's slate and died in June 1990, less than a year into her term, according to the City of Jersey City. The building has since become a fixture of municipal service delivery, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it suspended recreational programming to serve as a hub for senior wellness outreach, virus testing, and walk-in vaccinations.
A Decades-Old Zoning Hurdle
The site's zoning traces back to the Green Villa Redevelopment Plan, adopted by the Municipal Council in January 1984 to encourage low-density residential development between Bergen Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive. That framework has governed the parcel since 1984, and it currently allows no kind of housing on the site, per the same report. The Jersey City City Council is set to vote on October 7 to reopen the Green Villa plan, a mandatory step that would open a formal planning process before any construction could move forward.
Once that process begins, the city says it will work with seniors who use the center, surrounding residents, and the Division of City Planning to hammer out details still very much undecided — including renovations to the senior center itself and the design of the new senior affordable homes. The total number of units, a project timeline, and funding mechanisms all remain pending, the outlet reports.
Council Members Weigh In
Ward F Councilman Frank Gilmore said the project would provide 100% affordable units for residents who felt pushed out, and he expressed gratitude to the Solomon administration for its commitment to the project. Ward B Councilman Joel Brooks said Jersey City needs new affordable senior housing units and that he looks forward to the project coming before the council.
The center is operated by Jersey City's Division of Senior Affairs and serves residents aged 60 and older, providing daily lunch, fitness and wellness classes, and educational and cultural programming. City officials have said the center will remain open and its programs will continue as normal while the planning process moves forward.
Why Seniors Are Under Pressure
The urgency behind the proposal is rooted in numbers that have alarmed housing advocates for years. A December 2024 report by the Regional Plan Association found that 60% of Jersey City households earning below the city's median income of $94,000 — about 36,000 households — are housing-cost burdened, with market rents in the city climbing faster than in Hudson County overall. Those rising costs can be a steep barrier for elderly residents living on Social Security or fixed pensions.
Federal benchmarks make the squeeze even clearer: the Department of Housing and Urban Development's fiscal year 2026 Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Hudson County is $2,763 per month, according to VoucherMatch. Meanwhile, VoucherMatch lists 5,341 Jersey City Housing Authority Section 8 units. Councilman Joel Brooks has said seniors face years-long wait lists for housing.
Part of a Broader Housing Push
The Bergen Avenue proposal follows Solomon's election in a runoff to succeed Steven Fulop. In June, his administration launched its Building for Working Families housing agenda, noting that average Jersey City rents surged 50% over the previous decade while only 4% of 74,000 newly approved residential units were designated affordable. That same month, the administration unveiled the Canal Crossing project in Bergen-Lafayette, aiming for 20% affordable units with rents capped at or below $1,000 a month.
The senior housing push also follows other recent moves detailed in Hoodline's rent control audit coverage, part of Solomon's wider effort on housing preservation and tenant rights.
