It used to be that Newark developers could avoid building affordable housing units in their otherwise market-rate apartment towers by paying just $25,000 per unit into a city fund to help build them somewhere else.
“A loophole,” said City Councilman Carlos Gonzalez, who later helped close it. “Before the ordinance was modified, people were able to pay $25,000 and build outside of the complex. So we increased that to $180,000, and that was my suggestion.”
That 2023 amendment to the city’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, originally approved six years earlier, was among Gonzalez’s more recent accomplishments in a 20-year stint on the council that will end July 1…