Opportunity Newark - Initiative for a Competitive Inner City

several thousand dollars. While Workforce Investment Act
training dollars are available for many unemployed residents,
these resources are more limited for underemployed residents
— residents who currently have a job but whose job
may not provide them with enough resources to save money
for training programs.
The TLD Action Team also recommends working with insurance
companies to alleviate the burden high insurance
premiums place on trucking companies that wish to insure
younger truck drivers who have limited driving experience.
The Newark Alliance and TLD Action Team members have
already begun reaching out to national insurance companies
in order to better understand the restrictions and limitations
insurance companies face. Working with these companies as
well as with the Newark WIB, the New Jersey Department of
Banking and Insurance and the TLD Action Team, the Newark
Alliance is looking to help insurance companies develop a
set of guidelines under which they are comfortable offering
insurance to truck driving companies employing individuals
with less than two years of driving experience.
Together, these recommendations create a powerful program
to help Newark residents capitalize on the employment
opportunities presented by port growth.
• Create an insurance pool to offset trucking companies’
higher insurance costs for new drivers.
As with the above scholarship and insurance recommendations,
this effort will help increase the number of Newark
residents who are eligible for truck driving opportunities
by alleviating the insurance burden placed on truck driving
companies. An insurance pool will help trucking companies
offset the higher insurance costs associated with new, or
less experienced, drivers. The Newark Alliance is leading
this effort, working with the Newark One-Stop, area trucking
companies, insurance companies, and the New Jersey
Department of Banking and Insurance.
Business Development Action Items:
For Newark’s port to remain competitive and efficiently meet
the demands of high growth brought on by the expected
increases in cargo, the TLD Action Team recommends that
leading intermediaries help the port improve its business
development competitiveness with the following actions:
• Execute a MOU with the NJDEP to expedite the
environmental permitting process.
The TLD Action Team raised the issue that lengthy environmental
permitting processes frustrate development
opportunities in the port and lead to lost business deals and
increased development in the suburbs (e.g., exits 7A and 8A,
PA, southern ports, etc.). The NJEDA is already addressing
this issue by executing a memorandum of understanding
(MOU) with the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection (NJDEP) designed to expedite the environmental
permitting process for redevelopment of brownfields and
other underutilized sites which can become locations for
the construction of competitive warehouse, distribution
and other facilities which support port, airport, rail and
related commerce. Several actions called for in the MOU
will help advance NJDEP’s project permitting process for
brownfields redevelopment in and around the port. This will
help developers seeking faster and more efficient development
approval for their port commerce-related projects. The
NJEDA is leading this initiative and working with the NJDEP
on implementation of the MOU.
• Develop a plan to market the port’s assets
The TLD Action Team also identified the need to significantly
increase the awareness of the port’s strategic
importance to parties outside of the region. Two efforts
already in progress are addressing this issue.
First, a $2 million marketing campaign is underway by the
NJEDA to promote Portfields areas to developers and international
companies that conduct port, airport, rail and
related commerce that require warehousing and distribution
facilities. The funding for this effort has been made
available by the PANYNJ through New Jersey Commerce’s
Economic Growth and Tourism Commission.
Secondly, PSE&G has also begun developing marketing
materials to publicize key facts about developers, city
OpportunityNewark: Jobs and Community Development for the 21st Century 32