Cramer Hill Community Planning Meetings

The Cramer Hill Community Benefits Committee has elected to secure technical assistance to enhance the ability of residents and other stakeholders of the Cramer Hill neighborhood of Camden, NJ to provide meaningful input into and be actively engaged in the preparation of redevelopment plans for the area. These services will be provided by Lamar Wilson Associates. The purpose of his services is to assist residents and stakeholders in creating a document to present to the Camden Redevelopment Agency that codifies input for the eventual redevelopment plan for Cramer Hill. CHCDC and the Cramer Hill community will use this document to help define the range of community benefits that the redevelopment plan will present to existing residents, merchants and institutions of the Cramer Hill. This work will be completed in three phases.


Phase One Tasks:

• Data Collection/Information Gathering

• Meet and coordinate with The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) to review existing data and information describing specific demographic, economic and market conditions and trends impacting Cramer Hill.

Phase Two Tasks

• Meet and coordinate with Interface Studio to use and map the above-referenced data to identify specific redevelopment /reinvestment challenges, themes, or opportunities that should be addressed by the redevelopment plans for Cramer Hill as authorized through the CRA.


• Facilitate four separate meetings involving residents and other community stakeholders of Cramer Hill to:

o present findings/ideas generated from Phase One
o review finings/ideas generate from Interface Studio’s analysis of land use information
o discuss redevelopment needs, community priorities, and reinvestment opportunities



• Use the results of these meetings to identify and give priority ranking to direct and indirect benefits that redevelopment of Cramer Hill should (based on results from all of the above steps) provide to residents, merchants and institutions of the community.

• Prepare memoranda highlighting comments, concerns, questions, and ideas discussed at each meeting, and one memorandum highlighting common views and recommendations and their implications for principles and practices of community input that CHCDC will eventually convey to CRA.

• Facilitate one community-wide, town hall type meeting of residents and other community stakeholders of Cramer Hill to:

o present findings/ideas generated from four smaller neighborhood meetings
o review land use information and redevelopment needs, priorities, and opportunities
o generate consensus on community benefit goals to be presented to CRA

Phase Three Tasks: Community Input/Benefits Codified

• Prepare a report codifying community input for the Cramer Hill Redevelopment plan, that includes a framework outlining the basis for and range of community benefits by category – direct and indirect – the actual redevelopment of the community should generate for existing residents, merchants and institutions.

Nueva Vida Groundbreaking

The Cramer Hill Community Development Corporation held a groundbreaking ceremony in Camden. The Nueva Vida Homes, 14 in total, are the first homes to be built in Cramer Hill since the introduction of the redevelopment of the mostly Latino area of Camden. This housing initiative is the first 14 homes of 250 homes the Cramer Hill CDC will build over the next 5 years in Cramer Hill.

The amenities of the fourteen homes include: three bedrooms, one to two and a half baths, a full basement and an attic with storage capacity, front rear porches, parking pad on site, and twill be Energy Star. The homes were designed by Wallace Roberts and Todd, and will be built by a local minority General Contractor, Arline Construction Service LLC.

The 14 for sale homes range in price from $98,000 for twins and $125,000 for corner single lots. Eight of the homes have been pre-sold prior to construction. This indicates to me very clearly the need for affordable options in homeownership in Cramer Hill. The homes will be completed in June 2007.

Our fundamental goal is to insure that everyone has an opportunity to live in Cramer Hill. Affordable homeownership is the cornerstone of our strategy, and this represent the CDC first efforts toward acheiving the goal of construting 250 homes over the next five years.

If you are interested in purchasing one of the Nueva Vida Homes please contact Mariza at 856-964-2465.