By Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron
NJ Today
About 700 people packed a school gymnasium in Sayreville for Gov. Chris Christie’s 108th town hall meeting. Sayreville is where Christie made a memorable visit after superstorm Sandy. Two hundred seventy homes were severely flooded there in a blue collar town surrounded on three sides by water. Christie recalled that day this afternoon.
“Some of the people I met that day have been in my mind for the last, really, seven months. I saw and felt emotion that day that I saw and felt in very few places across the state. Really tough, gritty people who had been beaten down,” Christie said.
And he brought a welcome announcement. He’s allocating federal aid dollars to start buying up flood-prone homes.
“So what I’m happy to come to Sayreville to announce today is that the federal government has approved giving us $300 million to buy out homes and we’re gonna start right here in Sayreville,” Christie said.
The program targets places that perpetually flood on the Delaware Bay, the Passaic River Basin, and a few shore towns, as well as in Middlesex County — 1,300 homes in all at an average purchase price of $250,000.
“The homes will be razed and the areas will be maintained as open space that can handle future flood waters while keeping people and their property out of harm’s way,” said the governor.
Christie said the Department of Environmental Protection will set up a special buyout unit, to which eligible homeowners may apply.
“The offers to willing, selling homeowners will begin in July,” Christie said.
It’s a voluntary program but Christie said the state will only buy up clusters of homes where all agree to sell, not one here, one there.
“I’m not gonna waste the money either. So I’m not gonna buy one home in a neighborhood and let the rest of the neighborhood stand there. You all need to get together as a neighborhood and say, ‘We’re ready to go.’ Have a party. Invite those two families over. Treat ’em real nice. Make ’em dinner. Perhaps a couple bottles of wine. I think you know what I’m saying,” Christie said. “Use the gentle persuasion that New Jerseyans are known for all across America to get this thing done.”