Last modified on November 27th, 2024 at 2:21 pm

January 5, 2024

Blue Acres will soon again be accepting HUD Buyout Eligibility Applications from homeowners, in consultation with the NJ Department of Community Affairs (DCA) Division of Disaster Recovery and Mitigation (DDRM) and the NJ Governor’s Disaster Recovery Office. Blue Acres administers HUD Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds for buyouts in accordance with the Hurricane Ida Action Plan.

Eligible homeowners who have submitted a Blue Acres Application for Acquisition will be invited to submit a secondary application specifically to determine eligibility for a HUD-funded buyout. Blue Acres will analyze all completed applications and develop a buyout plan, in partnership with DCA, to ensure full use of the HUD CDBG-DR funding. Blue Acres most recently conducted application intake rounds for HUD-funded buyouts in Spring 2023 and Fall 2023, and has proposed eligible applicants for buyout funding.

The HUD Buyout Eligibility Application is designed to determine whether willing seller homeowners meet HUD’s income eligibility criteria established for a HUD-funded buyout. Not all homeowners who complete the HUD Buyout Eligibility Application are expected to be deemed eligible for a HUD CDBG-DR buyout. Homeowners who are deemed eligible based on their completed HUD application will be notified and proposed for a Blue Acres buyout funded by HUD at a later date. All other homeowners interested in a Blue Acres buyout will be carried forward for future buyout planning and grant making opportunities. Here is a fact sheet on Blue Acres buyouts funded by HUD.

More Details:

Homeowners will be invited to complete the HUD Buyout Eligibility Application if they meet the criteria below, which are guided by HUD’s spending requirements and national objectives:

• The homeowner expresses interest in a buyout by submitting a Blue Acres Application for Acquisition and provides an e-mail address in connection with the application.
• The buyout property is in a county declared “Most Impacted and Distressed” after Ida in September 2021: Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Passaic, Somerset, Union, Gloucester, Hunterdon, Mercer, Morris, Warren.
• The buyout property is in a Low-to-Moderate Income census block group, according to HUD data.

Blue Acres staff are available to directly assist homeowners with application questions and concerns. For technical issues with the HUD Buyout Eligibility Application online applications, please contact blueacres@njdepwptest.net and include screenshots of any error messages if applicable.

To prepare for the intake of HUD Buyout Eligibility Applications, Blue Acres conducted outreach for Ida-impacted communities (focused on promoting awareness of disaster recovery assistance available through programs funded by HUD CDBG-DR), including hosting two virtual events for residents of Manville, who were particularly hard-hit. The virtual sessions hosted partners at DCA, Navicore, and a nonprofit disaster recovery organization. Learn more about additional Ida recovery programs that DCA is administering. Blue Acres also continues to conduct outreach to communities impacted by flooding events more recent than Ida.

All state led buyouts via Blue Acres must be from willing sellers, and homeowners can express their voluntary interest to sell by completing and submitting a Blue Acres Application for Acquisition online or via post mail. More details about the Blue Acres program are available on the website.

Blue Acres prepares and submits buyout funding requests on an ongoing basis to various federal sources with differing homeowner eligibility requirements. Blue Acres buyouts are completely voluntary, meaning interested homeowners may submit a buyout application or opt out at any time without incurring penalties.

Last modified on November 16th, 2023 at 11:26 am

December 22, 2022

In consultation with its state and local partners, Blue Acres has submitted a funding request to FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) under NJ-DR-4488 to purchase and demolish 96 homes across 20 municipalities and 8 counties.

Blue Acres identified the 96 residential properties which have a strong history of flooding and damage because they were severely impacted by Ida in September 2021. The properties also meet the eligibility requirements of the federal funding source and the goals of the state hazard mitigation plan. Specifically:

• 43 homes were “substantially damaged” because of Ida (this means the local floodplain manager certified that the home’s damage was greater than 50% of the building’s value);
• 42 homes are located within the floodway (this means the home sits in the channel of a river or watercourse, within the area of direct hydrological flow or in the adjacent buffer area reserved to reduce flood volume during a significant storm event);
• 53 homes are located in the flood fringe, which is beyond the floodway but within the 100-year floodplain (this means the home has a 1% chance of seeing a base flood every year, as mapped by FEMA and publicly available);
• 75 homes have “repetitive losses” or “severe repetitive losses” (this is determined by calculating damage claims over time, against policy coverage from the National Flood Insurance Program); and
• 59 homes are located within areas identified as overburdened or socially vulnerable, per New Jersey’s environmental justice law and/or the CDC’s social vulnerability index.

The application covers properties in the following 20 communities across 8 counties:

• Bergen County: Borough of Hillsdale and Borough of New Milford
• Hunterdon County: Township of Delaware and City of Lambertville
• Mercer County: Township of Hopewell
• Middlesex County: Borough of Dunellen, Borough of Highland Park, Borough of Middlesex, Borough of South Plainfield, and Township of Woodbridge
• Morris County: Borough of Lincoln Park
• Passaic County: City of Clifton
• Somerset County: Township of Bernards, Township of Branchburg, Township of Hillsborough, Borough of Manville, Borough of Millstone, Township of Montgomery, and Borough of Raritan
• Union County: City of Rahway

The property owners have been notified about the funding request and they will be updated with information regarding the award as soon as FEMA completes its review and announces a funding decision. All Blue Acres acquisitions must be from willing sellers. Most property owners in the FEMA HMGP funding request have submitted Blue Acres buyout applications, but new homeowners can express their voluntary interest to sell by completing and submitting an Application for Acquisition online or via post mail. 

The funding request from Blue Acres seeks the full $40M that Governor Murphy committed for buyouts out of the nearly $150M federal funds allocated to New Jersey for disaster recovery in response to presidentially-declared disaster DR-4488-NJ. Blue Acres prepares and submits buyout funding applications, on an ongoing basis. Blue Acres anticipates that its next funding request will be for buyouts under HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program.

If funded, this project will advance implementation of the 2021 New Jersey Climate Change Resilience Strategy which specifically recommends incentivizing movement to safer areas by buying out repeatedly flooding properties and deploying natural or nature-based solutions for resilience. It will also advance state and federal environmental justice goals, in that thirteen of the properties are located within areas identified as overburdened or socially vulnerable, per New Jersey’s environmental justice law and/or the CDC’s social vulnerability index.

Buyouts are the most permanent and cost-effective mitigation project for protecting human lives and private property against inevitable future flood events. When homes are removed from the floodplain, there are fewer people who will need assistance evacuating in times of disaster. There are also fewer residential structures contributing to and exposed to hazard conditions, including debris, contaminants, and gas and power lines. After a buyout, the land is preserved as open space, providing community benefits such as floodwater absorption, wetland transition areas and reducing the need for future disaster response by police, fire, emergency crews and other first responders.