More On The Lakewood’s Participation In Home Buyer Program, LWYW

Live where you work press conference pic(PHOTOS & VIDEO) As first reported here on TLS, Lakewood Township Mayor Steven Langert and Senator Robert Singer recently joined representatives of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA) in the Lakewood Municipal Building to announce that Lakewood Township is the newest member of the Live Where You Work (LWYW) program and the 30th municipality to partner with the HMFA on this workforce housing initiative. This special program offers first-time home buyers who live and work in a participating, approved municipality special incentives, such as a low-interest fixed-rate mortgage.  Since Lakewood is now an approved municipality, homebuyers will also realize reduced down payment and/or closing costs.

Mayor Langert says, “I’m very happy that under the direction of the Lakewood Economic Development Office, Steve Reinman was able to help bring this exciting program to Lakewood, a growing town with enormous economic opportunities and a wonderful environment in which to live. When you think about it, most people are commuting either to North Jersey, New York, or Philadelphia.  For us, as a town, to be able to bring in a program that’s going to help people stay closer to home and work closer to home, will only enhance the quality of life of everybody in Lakewood.”                

Senator Singer says, “This program is a positive one for a myriad of reasons. One of the key factors of this program is that it’s an environmentally sound situation.  When you don’t have to commute long distances, you’re not using rail, you’re not using bus.  When you are either biking or walking or using other forms of local transportation, that’s good for the environment.  
 

“Secondly, this program enhances the quality of life of individuals. The first three years when I moved down here, I commuted to New York every day.  What a nightmare!  It’s no life.  Commuting takes time away from the family life. Working locally is a blessing because it allows you to enjoy more time with your family and participate in family events.  Working locally allows you time to run over to your kids’ school and see what’s going on, see their plays and programs. It affords you the time to do things in town, such as volunteer or be on a Board. That’s not only a positive for you, it’s also a positive for the town.

“Another benefit of this program is having a local workforce, which is an attraction in getting companies to locate here.  This program is a win-win.  It’s great for us and our economic development. Lastly, and this is something that reflects on the planning of our town, this program fits  right in with the Town Center concept—housing where people work, shopping where people live. This concept makes it easier for people, who do not have to get in their car and drive every place they want to go.”

Steven Reinman, the director of economic development for Lakewood says, “This is an exciting day for Lakewood.  Just to touch on some things the Senator mentioned, we’ve been experiencing phenomenal growth for some time now and I don’t think we’ll see any slowdown in that rate of growth.  Together with that kind of growth and the population of Lakewood, we have great demand to bring more and more businesses here.  Our department, along with the UEZ, is working very diligently to bring in new business and to grow our Industrial Park.

“We also want to capitalize on a resource we have here—the workforce we have.  We have a tremendous amount of talent here and we want to keep it here in town.  So many people are commuting and are unhappy with it.  This program is 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 and find local work.”

The “Live Where You Work” program was developed in the State of New Jersey about three years ago.  For further information, visit www.twp.lakewood.nj.us/lwyw or call Edward Collins, LWYW program coordinator, at 609-278-7478.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Steve Reinman and anyone else that participated in the efforts to bring this program to Lakewood.
    Good things are happening in Lakewood that will help everyone. 1- the EMS victory 2- the BOE victory 3- and now this 4- perhaps Hershel will win

  2. Enough with these costly programs that help a very small minority. Cut all of these programs and start cutting taxes for EVERYBODY.

  3. Its a waste of money full of hot air ppl will live here because they want to weather or not u get some assistance . So were basicly giving something away to ppl who would anyway be buying here
    SO STOP WASTING TAX $$$

  4. To # 5 – it is tax money. It’s yours and mine. We pay state and federal taxes. They go up every year also. This trend of people saying it’s not their money is crazy. Taxes are taxes, whether municipal, state or federal. NJ pays one of the highest per dollar federal taxes for the return we get back to this state. It’s just like the school funding, more efficently run school districts paying for poorly run districts. No one stands on their own merits anymore, we are becoming a socialist country, everyone should have everything without having to putforth any effort. SAD, SAD, SAD.

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