Executive Summary

For over 25 years, residents have had a stalwart partner in these efforts in New Jersey Community Development Corporation (NJCDC), a local non-profit organization focused on the neighborhood that serves 4,000 children and families each day through a variety of programs and services. Throughout its history, NJCDC has worked with community residents and stakeholders to develop housing, community facilities, parks, schools, workforce programs, and – most importantly –community leaders.

In 2008, NJCDC convened a resident-driven neighborhood planning process to develop the neighborhood’s first neighborhood plan. Over the past fifteen years, NJCDC and residents have made significant progress implementing this neighborhood plan, building over 200 units of housing; hosting numerous block parties and community events; beautifying the neighborhood with murals and gardens; improving parks and building playgrounds; launching a “Neighborhood Help Center” for educational and know-your-rights training; and enhancing leadership-development efforts.

In 2020, NJCDC launched a new communitydriven neighborhood planning process to develop a renewed set of strategies and activities and build on the foundation that had already been set. Key to this foundation were the community leaders who NJCDC had developed and who formed the backbone of this planning effort.

Over the course of 18 months in 2020 and 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, community leaders met together to discuss priorities and key issues, and to develop proposed strategies and activities to advance the neighborhood. They also incorporated other stakeholders into the process –local business owners, public officials, non-profits serving the community – to obtain their unique insight. Supported by NJCDC, residents also surveyed a representative sample of neighborhood households and the property conditions of every single parcel in the neighborhood. All told, over six hundred neighborhood residents participated in this planning process, which included seventeen community meetings and stakeholder focus groups.

This neighborhood plan arrives at a particularly opportune time for the Great Falls Neighborhood. The neighborhood is riding a wave of hundreds of millions of dollars in private and public investment. This investment is further enhancing an already asset-rich environment. There is political will across levels of government to support the neighborhood’s improvement, and strong community leadership, honed through over a decade of neighborhood revitalization work and an intensive, community-driven planning process. With its track record of getting things done, NJCDC has shown its capacity and effectiveness as a lead organization in these revitalization efforts, and has formed a budding partnership with St. Joseph’s Health that promises to improve the health of the community in more ways than one.