The City of New Brunswick, NJ, is considering an ordinance that places a moratorium on bulk trash pickup between May and June. This, of course, just so happens to be when most Rutgers students living off campus move out of their apartments resulting in large levels of bulk items lining city streets. To be sure, it's a massive undertaking for the city to handle bulk pickup this time of year, but as the host of a University whose students call New Brunswick home, it's striking that this law specifically targets students, leaving them, and their landlords, in the lurch.
Why? Because if tenants don't want to risk losing their security deposits due to city fines levied on their landlords, they're going to have to pay to have their trash removed, or take other measures that aren't necessary other times of the year when there would be regular bulk pickup. This makes this measure unfair because it disproportionately affects a specific portion of the city's resident base.
According to a news release from Amy Braunstein, an elected member of the municipal Democratic Party committee, "first-offense fines of $250-$500, plus $100 per item, will be levied on the property owner, but will likely be passed along to tenants by way of deducting it from their security deposits. Third offenses carry a fine of $2,000, and all violations require a court appearance."
Whether this is a necessary measure taken by the city or an unfair "tax" levied on landlords of student rental housing is up for discussion, but at the heart of the issue is another key point that often gets lost. When it comes to the larger problem of off-campus student housing in New Brunswick, where's Rutgers?
Rutgers University is notorious for its hands-off approach to off-campus student rental housing, choosing to let the local housing market dictate demand, quality, and location. This approach is not only unsustainable, but destructive. Slumlords are given the ability to rent out subpar rentals to students willing to live in squalor, and subsequently, many (not all) students respond by treating city neighborhoods much like their landlords do -- that is, with neglect, disrespect, and disregard.
The University has been directly complicit for the city's inability to retain any University-oriented resident base, as well for the squalid conditions in campus-adjacent neighborhoods. These neighborhoods, many of which are historic, are close to downtown, transit, restaurants, and commerce and should be livable. They are not, and the city's seeming indifference, coupled with the University's dispassion, keep these neighborhoods down. The market keeps them populated, but the government and institutions keep them from thriving.
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The City Formerly Known As New Brunswick
In my previous post, A Crucial Vote for the Hub City, about the death of Richard B. Sellars, the one-time head of the New Brunswick, NJ-based Johnson & Johnson and a pivotal voice in keeping the corporation's world headquarters in the Hub City at a time of serious urban and economic decay, I looked (albeit superficially) at the effects of J&J's presence there.
I hinted that now, at a time when builders, retailers, and institutions are once again trending toward urban environs, and transit oriented development becoming a mainstream phrase, that it might be feasible to think that New Brunswick would have been just fine -- eventually -- without the unbelievable physical and cultural sacrifices the city made to accommodate these economic drivers like J&J, Robert Wood Johnson hospital, and Rutgers University. Acres upon acres of historic commercial districts were destroyed for suburban-style "campuses," a hotel, high-end residences, etc. In the picture above, is the foundation of the so-called "Gateway," a tower that will house very high end residences that will connect with the New Brunswick train station, as well as a Barnes & Noble. The Gateway comes at the expense of one of the last 19th-century-era commercial stretches in New Brunswick.
I get it. I get ratables and attracting business and deveopment to improve the economy. On the one hand, these days it's hard to argue with developing dense mixed-use, transit-oriented development. But it all comes at the cost of city history -- one that is now barely evident.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
A Crucial Vote for the Hub City
Richard B. Sellars, the former head of Johnson & Johnson died this week at 94. His was a crucial voice in keeping the health care conglomerate in the Hub City, and arguably the reason New Brunswick, NJ is, in fact, known as the "Hub City." Just the second person outside the Johnson family to head J&J, Sellars recognized the company's commitment to its original host city, particularly when company's board of trustees was leaning toward moving the company out of New Brunswick during the city's economic nadir in the 80s; and at a time when businesses and housing were trending toward the suburbs.The New York Times, in its obituary, referenced a 1984 interview with Sellars where he recognized the importance of J&J investing in New Brunswick:
“It was apparent even then that we had a commitment to New Brunswick that we couldn’t run away from,” Mr. Sellars said in a 1984 interview. “The survival of our country depends on the survival of its cities, so we’d all better get involved in cleaning them up.”
Of course, anyone familiar with New Brunswick knows the value of Johnson & Johnson's presence, but also the significant sacrifices the city made at a time when there was little political pressure to preserve the city's historical layout and buildings, as indicated in the picture above. There, the signature IM Pei building in the background and the fallowed land in the foreground that is now home to the Hyatt New Brunswick, were once major commercial districts. The sprawl development that resulted was heralded as urban reinvestment, but it would have looked the same in suburbia. The J&J campus and the Hyatt are colossal wastes of urban land.
These days, there are several major economic drivers in New Brunswick that remain committed to the city, but there continues to be little regard to the city's historic character -- character that was, in part, established by the institutions that remain.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Cap 2.5 Is Propaganda, But It Should Get Towns Thinking About Consolidation -- For the Right Reasons
People who live in towns that they absolutely love are lucky. They are lucky for a number of reasons, but from a policy standpoint, they are lucky that they get to be completely sentimental, often to the point of being irrational, when it comes influencing policy. They are lucky because they have a voice and get to drive the town council nuts and have it actually produce results (unlike places like, say, New Brunswick, where driving City Hall nuts more often than not results in being stifled, harassed, shut out, etc.).
This could be wrong, but I would say that most residents of New Jersey's 566 municipalities would agree that there are several instances where it would make cultural, financial, and geographical sense for two adjacent towns to consolidate governments, police departments, fire departments, public works, and so on. I would also say that just slightly more than half of those residents would say that their town should NOT consolidate with the adjacent town. This is just my sense -- also, it's a sense based more on a pre-Great Recession and BC (Before Christie) mindset and less on new economic realities.
As governor, Jon Corzine recognized that certain towns needed to consolidate, but he never really made an aggressive case. He formed the Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization, and Consolidation Commission (yawn) that was charged to:
This Byzantine mission statement is more that most of us can swallow, and resulted in kind of pushing for consolidating "the two Berlins" (not sure if that was more for symbolic purposes) and encouraged shared services between municipalities. LUARCC still exists, but while the state's Department of Community Affairs (the department that oversees LUARCC) remains in transition under the new Christie administration, it's unclear how the consolidation commission will proceed.
In the meantime, Governor Christie's tax caps, budget slashing, and overall disregard for tactful legislating will more likely than not result in towns making those tough decisions, including consolidation, that were once considered a luxury; pragmatic, but luxurious nonetheless. A quick aside: the governor's braggadocio and blind ideals do him no favors and will likely keep him from being at the helm of any real progress.
Brian Donohue from The Star-Ledger validates many of the pro-consolidation ideas documented in the late, great Alan Karcher's Multiple Municipal Madness in this NJ.com video clip. In it, you'll see some clips of Gov. Christie making some pretty good arguments in favor of municipal consolidation, using his native Mendham Township and Borough as an example of two municipalities that suffer from duplication of services, including two libraries and two school boards, not to mention two separate governments, police departments, etc.
When I covered the Princetons as a reporter for the local paper there, I came to understand several important things about consolidation. First, the idea that so-called doughnut towns -- both the hole and doughnut as is the case with Princeton Township (doughnut) and Princeton Borough (hole) -- share a community is kind of bogus. I mean, the Princetons share far more than other doughnut towns like Metuchen Borough and Edison Township, and Highland Park and Edison Township, and any other town swallowed by the mammoth, sprawling, Edison Township (once part of the even mammoth-er Raritan Township). But for the most part, the people living in Princeton Township and Princeton Borough are different. They do, however, share schools and a library, which, culturally speaking, is very important.
Second, as Donohue points out in his video, most arguments against consolidation are sentimental. Some very vocal groups would create specious arguments against consolidation, but those were fundamentally based on a desire to remain as two towns, just because. There are no good arguments against consolidating smaller towns like the Princetons.
Third, I will always remember something the current mayor of Princeton Borough, Mayor Mildred Trotman, said when she came into office: that consolidation would probably not be explicit, but that the towns would eventually "backdoor into consolidation." While the state does need to be more aggressive in getting towns to merge, especially towns that don't have as much in common as the Princetons do, her approach makes sense here.
Sadly, it appears that Gov. Christie's setting a 2.5 percent tax cap, while resonating well with make-believe penny-pinchers, exploits the genuine beliefs of mayors like Trotman. The tax cap is mostly propaganda, because towns have mandated expenses and contractural pay increases that exceed 2.5 percent are not addressed by the 2.5 percent cap and that those increases continue to mount, regardless who crafts the municipal budget.
Anyway, Governor Christie is speaking out against a "top-down" mandate to consolidation, but it's exactly what he's doing. That's not to say consolidation is not a fantastic, cost-cutting idea that increases efficiency and potentially improves public safety and schools, but starving towns of funds to force them to make potentially unsustainable, and life-changing decisions, is beyond reckless.
This could be wrong, but I would say that most residents of New Jersey's 566 municipalities would agree that there are several instances where it would make cultural, financial, and geographical sense for two adjacent towns to consolidate governments, police departments, fire departments, public works, and so on. I would also say that just slightly more than half of those residents would say that their town should NOT consolidate with the adjacent town. This is just my sense -- also, it's a sense based more on a pre-Great Recession and BC (Before Christie) mindset and less on new economic realities.
As governor, Jon Corzine recognized that certain towns needed to consolidate, but he never really made an aggressive case. He formed the Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization, and Consolidation Commission (yawn) that was charged to:
"Study and report on the structure and functions of county and municipal government. This effort includes the study of local taxing districts and their statutory basis. It also includes the fiscal relationship between local governments, and the appropriate allocation of service delivery responsibilities from the standpoint of efficiency"
This Byzantine mission statement is more that most of us can swallow, and resulted in kind of pushing for consolidating "the two Berlins" (not sure if that was more for symbolic purposes) and encouraged shared services between municipalities. LUARCC still exists, but while the state's Department of Community Affairs (the department that oversees LUARCC) remains in transition under the new Christie administration, it's unclear how the consolidation commission will proceed.
In the meantime, Governor Christie's tax caps, budget slashing, and overall disregard for tactful legislating will more likely than not result in towns making those tough decisions, including consolidation, that were once considered a luxury; pragmatic, but luxurious nonetheless. A quick aside: the governor's braggadocio and blind ideals do him no favors and will likely keep him from being at the helm of any real progress.
Brian Donohue from The Star-Ledger validates many of the pro-consolidation ideas documented in the late, great Alan Karcher's Multiple Municipal Madness in this NJ.com video clip. In it, you'll see some clips of Gov. Christie making some pretty good arguments in favor of municipal consolidation, using his native Mendham Township and Borough as an example of two municipalities that suffer from duplication of services, including two libraries and two school boards, not to mention two separate governments, police departments, etc.
| Gov. Christie hopes Cap 2.5 will force town consolidation |
When I covered the Princetons as a reporter for the local paper there, I came to understand several important things about consolidation. First, the idea that so-called doughnut towns -- both the hole and doughnut as is the case with Princeton Township (doughnut) and Princeton Borough (hole) -- share a community is kind of bogus. I mean, the Princetons share far more than other doughnut towns like Metuchen Borough and Edison Township, and Highland Park and Edison Township, and any other town swallowed by the mammoth, sprawling, Edison Township (once part of the even mammoth-er Raritan Township). But for the most part, the people living in Princeton Township and Princeton Borough are different. They do, however, share schools and a library, which, culturally speaking, is very important.
Second, as Donohue points out in his video, most arguments against consolidation are sentimental. Some very vocal groups would create specious arguments against consolidation, but those were fundamentally based on a desire to remain as two towns, just because. There are no good arguments against consolidating smaller towns like the Princetons.
Third, I will always remember something the current mayor of Princeton Borough, Mayor Mildred Trotman, said when she came into office: that consolidation would probably not be explicit, but that the towns would eventually "backdoor into consolidation." While the state does need to be more aggressive in getting towns to merge, especially towns that don't have as much in common as the Princetons do, her approach makes sense here.
Sadly, it appears that Gov. Christie's setting a 2.5 percent tax cap, while resonating well with make-believe penny-pinchers, exploits the genuine beliefs of mayors like Trotman. The tax cap is mostly propaganda, because towns have mandated expenses and contractural pay increases that exceed 2.5 percent are not addressed by the 2.5 percent cap and that those increases continue to mount, regardless who crafts the municipal budget.
Anyway, Governor Christie is speaking out against a "top-down" mandate to consolidation, but it's exactly what he's doing. That's not to say consolidation is not a fantastic, cost-cutting idea that increases efficiency and potentially improves public safety and schools, but starving towns of funds to force them to make potentially unsustainable, and life-changing decisions, is beyond reckless.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Marriage Equality: Close (Yet So Far Away)
The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee voted last night to support a bill that would establish same-sex marriage in New Jersey, providing full equality for married gay couples. It was an important measure of progress, for sure, but in a state where a recent Rutgers-Eagleton Poll showed that same-sex marriage enjoys popular support, the 7-6 vote goes to show just how hard, even in the most progressive of states, it is for our courts and legislatures to act social change.
I'll admit, I take pride in making efforts to understand all sides of an issue, the pros and cons, and always try to understand why people might feel differently than I do. This is one issue where I just don't understand the opposition to same-sex marriage. I would understand it (though I wouldn't agree), if the whole of the opposition were in the name of religion, but when so many marriages, including my own, are conducted secularly, it just makes no sense. Further, while people can choose to make marriage a religious function, the fact that judges and elected officials can preside over a marriage is proof (if we needed any) that marriage is not necessarily a religious event.
So, if it's not for religious reasons, then I'm left to believe that people oppose same-sex marriage because they simply don't think gay people should get married and that marriage is an exclusive institution between a man and woman. This is not an acceptable position, and it's not the role of our courts and lawmakers to enact exclusionary laws -- particularly laws that exclude a certain portion of the population from enjoying all of the legal rights involved in a domestic union.
Also, I should have said this first, but opposition to same-sex marriage is just unabashedly wrong. Believing that only certain people should get married is fundamentally at odds with basic, inalienable rights.
SO, thanks to Hank Kalet, a newspaper editor here in New Jersey, here is a list of legislators we're asking everyone to call who are on the fence. Please take action.
- Sen. Diane B. Allen, Republican
- 11 West Broad St., Burlington, NJ 08016 (609) 239-2800
- Sen. Christopher Bateman, Republican
36 East Main St., Somerville, NJ 08876 (908) 526-3600 - Sen. Jennifer Beck, Republican
32 Monmouth St., 3rd Floor, Red Bank, NJ 07701 (732) 933-1591 - Sen. John A. Girgenti, Democrat
507 Lafayette Avenue, Hawthorne, NJ 07506 (973) 427-1229 - Sen. Paul A. Sarlo, Democrat
207 Hackensack St., 2nd Floor, Wood-Ridge, NJ 07075 (201) 804-8118 - Sen. Jeff Van Drew, Democrat
21 North Main St., Cape May Court House, NJ 08210 (609) 465-0700
1124 North High St., Millville, NJ 08332 (856) 765-0891
1028 East Landis Ave., Vineland, NJ 08360 (856) 696-7109
Additional Phone, Somers Point, NJ (609) 926-3779 - Sen. Jim Whelan, Democrat
- 511 Tilton Rd., Northfield, NJ 08225 (609) 383-1388
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
NJ’s COAH: Finding Common (and Vacant) Ground
A version of this post first ran on Rooflines -- the blog of the National Housing Institute -- BΩS
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Full consensus is going to be hard to reach, but common ground is attainable.
Since everyone appears, at least in public, to share the same philosophy that communities should have socioeconomic diversity, there needs to be some common ground between the builders and affordable housing advocates who argue the new rules will allow suburbs to not live up to their intended housing goals, and those towns—about half of the state’s 566 municipalities—who argue they will be burdened—both financially and spatially—in being required to build far too much affordable housing based on current models.
Most of the remaining municipalities are currently participating in the COAH process, with the Council granting credit for approximately 70,000 affordable units, 36,000 of which have been completed, 14,000 of which were rehabilitated, and 10,000 that were transferred through Regional Contribution Agreements—a since-legislatively revoked method of fulfilling a town’s growth-share requirement where a municipality can transfer funds intended for affordable housing to another town.
It’s been 30 years since the original court decision that put the wheels in motion for the state to establish some sort of affordable housing guidelines, and they’ve been remodeled several times since. The most recent, established in 2004, outlines a growth-share model that encourages 4:1 ratio for market rate and affordable units, as well as one affordable unit for every 16 jobs created.
COAH has said repeatedly that it’s model is a guideline and that it would work with individual towns as they submit their 10-year COAH proposals, but the balking continues, the posturing mounts. Tough economic times only adds superficial logic (often outlined in the breathtakingly uninformed reader comments in various New Jersey newspaper Web sites) to the case that towns can’t afford to build and that the state should not be mandating them to do so.
So the latest, where The New Jersey League of Municipalities, a voluntary organization of towns throughout the state, has accused state officials of withholding materials that include a state-wide vacant land assessment, is just another step in forestalling goals that we should all work for: inclusive communities, workforce housing, not being priced out of your town.
COAH, according to an article in The Star-Ledger, responded in kind with a 130-page response to the challenges, that makes the case for the new rules, arguing that the agency had been reasonable in fielding municipal concerns.
Back in July 2008, when the state refined its latest COAH model, I argued that the Department of Community Affairs, the agency that oversees COAH, and its commissioner, Joe Doria, should go on a state-wide tour, selling the plan at public meetings, much like Gov. Jon Corzine did on his pitch to raise tolls on some key state roadways. Not everyone agreed with him, but there was an element of respect for the outreach tour—an element that he would be happy to re-tap this year as he seeks reelection. But beyond that, I thought that the state should take a real look at rethinking affordable housing:
- We need to move away from the property-tax-based funding for social mandates that benefit everyone (yes, even you there, living on the horse farm in bucolic northwest New Jersey). The implementation of an affordable housing policy that works and is reasonable can be funded by more than just property owners.
- The developer’s fee—the aforementioned 2.5 percent fee—and the municipal mandate system of funding affordable housing is ludicrous. This is important because it could very well thwart all economic growth in New Jersey with ratable-generating enterprise moving over to places like Pennsylvania.
Diane Sterner, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey wrote in a February 2009 op-ed in The Trenton Times that:
[W]e are all responsible in some way for creating the homes we need so our state can grow and prosper. Residential developers pay fees to build. When private individuals build or purchase a home, they pay a real estate transfer fee. A portion of this goes into the state’s housing trust fund to finance housing development.Agreed, but in a time when major institutions, particularly nonprofits like hospitals and universities, are also struggling with dwindling endowments, but looking to simultaneously expand and remain competitive in the country, a developer’s fee is ever-problematic. The housing advocate’s argument for a developer’s fee goes back to the fundamental case that fees are needed to encourage development. Yes, but let’s do it by way of:
- Creating a value-added tax, like a gas tax that would be used strictly for infrastructure. This can be criticized as a regressive tax, but think of the open space tax that New Jersey voters consistently approve.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Drilling For Finances From Tax-Exempt, Non-Profits?
It's tight here in New Jersey.
It's crowded. With 8.7 million people, we are 11th in the country in population, but first in population density in the Union with over 1,100 people per square mile. We're also wealthy -- 2nd in the country -- but you wouldn't necessarily know it by looking at those areas that make us the most densely-populated state in the country.
The Garden State, as it so happens, also as the highest imbalance of any state in the country in terms of what it gives and receives to and from the federal government. According the the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, the Garden State gets back just less than two-thirds of every dollar it sends to Washington.
So there are demands here. There are spatial demands, housing demands, demands for resources, infrastructure, you name it. As such, New Jersey is often at the vanguard in dealing with all kinds of issues facing the nation. The state hits a major stumbling block, however, when it comes to property taxes.
In New Jersey, where we rely on a property-tax-based system to largely fund our public schools and governments, rising municipal costs are taxing people out of towns. The state has mandated a four percent cap on municipal budget increases, and as home values are reassessed and towns are revaluated, property tax rates will adjust -- either up or down. But obviously the worst-case scenario is an increase, so that's what we'll examine.
In 2006, the average tax bill of the wealthy Township of Montclair was $13,547, and that was based on an average home assessment of $252,742. According to NJ.com's "New Jersey by the Numbers," if you equalize that assessment for comparisons with other towns, that $13,547 bill applies to a house worth $624,207. So often is the case that you have a homeowner who can no longer afford the tax-related costs to their homes, even if they were smart and took out a 30-year fixed mortgage.
So what to do? We've increased taxes on the highways, per Gov. Jon Corzine's asset monetization plan to raise tolls on select highways and increase the state sales tax to 7 percent. Both of these can be regarded as regressive as they pose a greater burden on the poor.
So what next? With the New Jersey Legislature in constant "hold on" mode when it comes to the long-anticipated "property tax convention," towns, facing affordable housing development mandates, and approaching complete build-out with little area left to develop tax-ratables, are looking at those who, by law, do not have to pay taxes.
According to the New Jersey Policy Perspective, the assessed value of all property -- buildings and land -- in New Jersey in 2000 was $648.5 billion, and of that, 13.5 percent paid no property tax. Under law, that 13.5 percent was tax exempt. This tax-exempt property is largely composed of public, private and religious schools, state, county, and municipal buildings, churches and charitable institutions, hospitals, and cemeteries. Other partial exemptions include those for water and sewage facilities, urban enterprise zones.
New Jersey's Princeton Borough, a 1.1-square-mile, 12,000-resident municipality lies right smack in the middle of the state, and is a pretty good example of "if it can go wrong, it will." Princeton Borough is a donut-hole municipality -- a town that is physically surrounded by another town, in this case, Princeton Township. Both towns consider "downtown" (Princeton Borough) its downtown, share a school district, a municipal library, and more than a dozen other municipal agencies. In fact, the only agencies the two towns do not share are administration (government), public works, and police.
However, as you might have guessed, Princeton is home to Princeton University, and, alas, most of Princeton University's tax-exempt land lies in tiny Princeton Borough, which is already strapped for cash. About 50 percent of the Borough is tax exempt.
The Borough's annual operating budget is roughly $23 million, and Princeton University, which is the largest employer in the Princetons, and pays the most in what is taxed -- sewers, buildings with full, or partial, tax levies, etc. -- holds an agreement to give about $1 million a year in voluntary municipal funds, used however the Borough sees fit. Princeton University also funds other community projects, adding value to the town-gown relations.
There has long been a tension between the local government and PU regarding these in-lieu finances, but this year, the local Democratic Party has upped the ante, gathering signatures as part of a petition asking if PU pays its fair share.
The petition contends that a resident's property tax levy would drop a whopping 24 percent in the Borough. The average resident there pays in the $13,000 range per year in property taxes. The Democratic Party there is lobbying for local officials to support efforts to negotiate a fairer payment from Princeton University. PU currently pays tax on its commercial property, and maintains voluntary tax roll inclusion for grad and faculty housing where schoolchildren might live, and pay its "fair share" of all taxpayer-supported services.
The petition does not call for the removal of federally authorized tax-exempt status -- granted to all nonprofit educational institutions
According to a report in The Times of Trenton, the university's tax payments in 2006 amounted for about 8.5 percent of the $9.5 million in municipal taxes the borough collected from all taxpayers in 2006. According to the story in the Times, "when school and county taxes are included in the calculation, there was a $27.9 million gap between the $7.1 million in property taxes the university paid in 2006 and what it would have paid if all its property in the Princetons were taxed."
The state legislature has so effectively slept on working with localities in creating a sensible solution to rising property taxes that towns are now taking it upon themselves to drill for oil, er, money in local reserves, rather, $15 billion university endowments, that had been largely untapped, not counting the annual contributions, agreements, and institutional presence. As is the case with so many institution-based towns, the existence of the town is based squarely on the existence of the institution -- is there a formula that quantifies that value?
Other heavily-endowed private institutions like Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. have devised long-term in-lieu-of-tax deals with their municipal hosts. In 2005, Harvard and Cambridge came to terms on a deal that would bring the city more than $60 million over the next 20 years.
But Cambridge, with more than 100,000 people, is the fifth-largest city in Massachusetts, has a far higher annual city operating expense budget, and has far more tax-ratable property than Princeton ever could. So, in effect, it's incomparable.
Just another example of New Jersey being the science laboratory for social progress, but with so much at stake, this issue is far too big for a couple hundred local residents to swallow. The legislature must step in, and step in soon, to find broad-based creative ways to amend what is quickly turning into a statewide property tax crisis.
It's crowded. With 8.7 million people, we are 11th in the country in population, but first in population density in the Union with over 1,100 people per square mile. We're also wealthy -- 2nd in the country -- but you wouldn't necessarily know it by looking at those areas that make us the most densely-populated state in the country.
The Garden State, as it so happens, also as the highest imbalance of any state in the country in terms of what it gives and receives to and from the federal government. According the the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, the Garden State gets back just less than two-thirds of every dollar it sends to Washington.
So there are demands here. There are spatial demands, housing demands, demands for resources, infrastructure, you name it. As such, New Jersey is often at the vanguard in dealing with all kinds of issues facing the nation. The state hits a major stumbling block, however, when it comes to property taxes.
In New Jersey, where we rely on a property-tax-based system to largely fund our public schools and governments, rising municipal costs are taxing people out of towns. The state has mandated a four percent cap on municipal budget increases, and as home values are reassessed and towns are revaluated, property tax rates will adjust -- either up or down. But obviously the worst-case scenario is an increase, so that's what we'll examine.
In 2006, the average tax bill of the wealthy Township of Montclair was $13,547, and that was based on an average home assessment of $252,742. According to NJ.com's "New Jersey by the Numbers," if you equalize that assessment for comparisons with other towns, that $13,547 bill applies to a house worth $624,207. So often is the case that you have a homeowner who can no longer afford the tax-related costs to their homes, even if they were smart and took out a 30-year fixed mortgage.
So what to do? We've increased taxes on the highways, per Gov. Jon Corzine's asset monetization plan to raise tolls on select highways and increase the state sales tax to 7 percent. Both of these can be regarded as regressive as they pose a greater burden on the poor.
So what next? With the New Jersey Legislature in constant "hold on" mode when it comes to the long-anticipated "property tax convention," towns, facing affordable housing development mandates, and approaching complete build-out with little area left to develop tax-ratables, are looking at those who, by law, do not have to pay taxes.
According to the New Jersey Policy Perspective, the assessed value of all property -- buildings and land -- in New Jersey in 2000 was $648.5 billion, and of that, 13.5 percent paid no property tax. Under law, that 13.5 percent was tax exempt. This tax-exempt property is largely composed of public, private and religious schools, state, county, and municipal buildings, churches and charitable institutions, hospitals, and cemeteries. Other partial exemptions include those for water and sewage facilities, urban enterprise zones.
New Jersey's Princeton Borough, a 1.1-square-mile, 12,000-resident municipality lies right smack in the middle of the state, and is a pretty good example of "if it can go wrong, it will." Princeton Borough is a donut-hole municipality -- a town that is physically surrounded by another town, in this case, Princeton Township. Both towns consider "downtown" (Princeton Borough) its downtown, share a school district, a municipal library, and more than a dozen other municipal agencies. In fact, the only agencies the two towns do not share are administration (government), public works, and police.
However, as you might have guessed, Princeton is home to Princeton University, and, alas, most of Princeton University's tax-exempt land lies in tiny Princeton Borough, which is already strapped for cash. About 50 percent of the Borough is tax exempt.
The Borough's annual operating budget is roughly $23 million, and Princeton University, which is the largest employer in the Princetons, and pays the most in what is taxed -- sewers, buildings with full, or partial, tax levies, etc. -- holds an agreement to give about $1 million a year in voluntary municipal funds, used however the Borough sees fit. Princeton University also funds other community projects, adding value to the town-gown relations.
There has long been a tension between the local government and PU regarding these in-lieu finances, but this year, the local Democratic Party has upped the ante, gathering signatures as part of a petition asking if PU pays its fair share.
The petition contends that a resident's property tax levy would drop a whopping 24 percent in the Borough. The average resident there pays in the $13,000 range per year in property taxes. The Democratic Party there is lobbying for local officials to support efforts to negotiate a fairer payment from Princeton University. PU currently pays tax on its commercial property, and maintains voluntary tax roll inclusion for grad and faculty housing where schoolchildren might live, and pay its "fair share" of all taxpayer-supported services.
The petition does not call for the removal of federally authorized tax-exempt status -- granted to all nonprofit educational institutions
According to a report in The Times of Trenton, the university's tax payments in 2006 amounted for about 8.5 percent of the $9.5 million in municipal taxes the borough collected from all taxpayers in 2006. According to the story in the Times, "when school and county taxes are included in the calculation, there was a $27.9 million gap between the $7.1 million in property taxes the university paid in 2006 and what it would have paid if all its property in the Princetons were taxed."
The state legislature has so effectively slept on working with localities in creating a sensible solution to rising property taxes that towns are now taking it upon themselves to drill for oil, er, money in local reserves, rather, $15 billion university endowments, that had been largely untapped, not counting the annual contributions, agreements, and institutional presence. As is the case with so many institution-based towns, the existence of the town is based squarely on the existence of the institution -- is there a formula that quantifies that value?
Other heavily-endowed private institutions like Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. have devised long-term in-lieu-of-tax deals with their municipal hosts. In 2005, Harvard and Cambridge came to terms on a deal that would bring the city more than $60 million over the next 20 years.
But Cambridge, with more than 100,000 people, is the fifth-largest city in Massachusetts, has a far higher annual city operating expense budget, and has far more tax-ratable property than Princeton ever could. So, in effect, it's incomparable.
Just another example of New Jersey being the science laboratory for social progress, but with so much at stake, this issue is far too big for a couple hundred local residents to swallow. The legislature must step in, and step in soon, to find broad-based creative ways to amend what is quickly turning into a statewide property tax crisis.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
In New Jersey’s Hub City, A Push to Change Government Gets Big Government Resistance
Editor's note: This piece was originally posted by the author at the blog site, www.rooflines.org
__
In the 1970s, New Brunswick, NJ was struggling.
Like other New Jersey cities experiencing the hangover of race riots of the 1960s, the schools were in decline, white flight began to set in, and all of a sudden, the Hub City, as it’s called, that was home to the world headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and Rutgers University was in serious trouble.
But there had always been hope. In the summer of 1967, as peace was shattered throughout cities in the Garden State, New Brunswick held fast, no blood was shed, and the peace was preserved. Then-mayor Patricia Sheehan, a 33-year-old widow and mother of three actually went out on patrol with the police, appeared with local clergy, and made it known—in person—that whatever happened in New Brunswick, her incumbency, part of a so-called “New Five” ousting 27 years of a previous administration, would watch over the city.
That resilience and sense of hope was instilled in the residents, and in 1975, New Brunswick Tomorrow, a partnership of public and private sectors, was organized. The following year, The New Brunswick Development Corporation, a private, non-profit organization designed to serve as New Brunswick Tomorrow’s implementation partner for economic development (and is still the city’s ostensible redevelopment arm), was created, and a city was on the move again.
Johnson & Johnson announced it would stay in New Brunswick in 1978, housing its headquarters in an I.M. Pei-designed campus, near the Rutgers University campus in a run down segment of the downtown.
While it can be argued that, once upon a time, concerned residents needed needed bold, do-it-itself government initiative to revive the city, the residents, as is the case in any locality, have always been the lifeblood, though city government did not always reflect that. There had already been a problem with the extreme transience of this community of 50,000 residents, whose tens of thousands of students passed through with few staying to raise their families in the city, and the changing immigrant population—for example, a once Hungarian neighborhood is now a vibrant Hispanic area—is changing the face of the city.
New Brunswick, being in the geographic center of the state, was, for a long time, at the center of New Jersey’s infamous corrupt Democratic Machine. Mayor John Lynch, who served as mayor from 1979 to 1991 and is the immediate predecessor of the current Mayor James Cahill, is currently serving a three-year jail term immediately preceding the current mayor.
To be sure, not all are corrupt, but there are so many tributaries that link New Brunswick government to the larger state Democratic Machine (the municipal attorney, William Hamilton, a junior grade Navy lieutenant before receiving his JD from Georgetown in the early sixties, and an overall decent man, was briefly the Speaker of the State Assembly in the 1970s) that it could take up an entirely separate article.
But back to Mayor Sheehan, who marched with police under the threat of race riots in the 1960s. Her daughter, Elizabeth “Betsy” Sheehan Garlatti, is currently the New Brunswick City Council president. Garlatti, the director of Finance & Research at the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, was appointed—as is often the case in machine politics—to a vacant city council seat in 2004 and has since won reelection by way of the 3,000 or so party insiders and municipal employees who actually vote in New Brunswick.
Because the Democratic Party has effectively shut out the primary process, various residents have run hopeful campaigns on an independent ticket, but have always failed miserably. Forget about Republicans. They hardly exist here.
One way Council has been able to hold power is by way of the at-large Council system that was established in the 1970s. New Brunswick is divided into wards, but none has direct ward representation.
This is nothing new, of course, in so many local governments, but a recent grass-roots push to change that government structure has begun to garner some attention.
A group, Empower Our Neighborhoods, last month filed a petition with the city clerk’s office to advocate for a ballot question that would change the current form of municipal government from an at-large system to a ward-based system, as well as increasing the number of seats on Council from five to eight.
But as is the case in cities where government is threatened, on July 2, the New Brunswick City Council passed a counteracting ordinance to push the citizens’ initiative off the ballot, and replacing it with a Council-crafted initiative that calls for creating a study that would examine the need to change government.
Knowing that they have at least 3,000 votes, and that Rutgers University students rarely vote, Council would entertain this question, it would fail, and Council could claim that it reached out to the community, and the community decided that it did not want to change government.
A legal battle could ensue that would determine whether the community or the City Council had first initiated a legal proceeding on that ballot question, but experts at Rutgers’ Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy appear to think Empower Our Neighborhoods is in the right.
Attending a New Brunswick City Council meeting is interesting. Based on what you’ve just read, you might think this is a contemptuous lot, but it’s not. They are good people who will speak to you after meetings, but seem averse to criticism, particularly when they stock Council chambers with municipal employees to attend the public meetings. At least two are dual office holders (Council Vice President Joseph V. Egan is a long-time state Assemblyman and Blanquita Valenti serves on the county governing body), and one, the aforementioned Garlatti, has bloodlines in city government.
All but one were born and raised in New Brunswick, and the one that wasn’t—Valenti—came to New Brunswick in 1956 from Puerto Rico and in 1971 became the first Hispanic appointed to the New Brunswick Board of Education.
These are community folks, no doubt about it, and their commitment to the city was never in doubt (though there are plenty of people who make strong cases to the contrary). This is not evil empire stuff: it’s simply a case of a city government that has apparently lost its way, forgetting about the fundamentals that make a city tick, like when Garlatti, and incumbents Jimmie Cook and Robert Recine cited scheduling conflicts for not being able to participate in a pre-primary forum co-sponsored by Empower Our Neighborhoods and the local NAACP chapter. New Brunswick has undergone an unbelievable downtown renaissance in the past 10 years, with an arts, culture, and culinary scene that is unparalleled in the state, but the schools still suffer (it’s an Abbott district), the residential neighborhoods near town are largely unsuitable for quiet, secure family living because of the rampant off-campus student housing situation. Absentee landlords let their properties deteriorate, broken glass, drug dealing, and homeless in neighborhood parks is the norm. Again, not surprising for so many cities, as isn’t the government’s resistance to this grass-roots effort, if not frustrating—but that doesn’t make it acceptable. If the folks at Empower win this battle, it would go to show that a once-impenetrable system can be changed, and that, just like Mayor Sheehan displayed during her courageous outreach efforts in the 1960s, residents are indeed the lifeblood of any locality.
__
In the 1970s, New Brunswick, NJ was struggling.
Like other New Jersey cities experiencing the hangover of race riots of the 1960s, the schools were in decline, white flight began to set in, and all of a sudden, the Hub City, as it’s called, that was home to the world headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and Rutgers University was in serious trouble.
But there had always been hope. In the summer of 1967, as peace was shattered throughout cities in the Garden State, New Brunswick held fast, no blood was shed, and the peace was preserved. Then-mayor Patricia Sheehan, a 33-year-old widow and mother of three actually went out on patrol with the police, appeared with local clergy, and made it known—in person—that whatever happened in New Brunswick, her incumbency, part of a so-called “New Five” ousting 27 years of a previous administration, would watch over the city.
That resilience and sense of hope was instilled in the residents, and in 1975, New Brunswick Tomorrow, a partnership of public and private sectors, was organized. The following year, The New Brunswick Development Corporation, a private, non-profit organization designed to serve as New Brunswick Tomorrow’s implementation partner for economic development (and is still the city’s ostensible redevelopment arm), was created, and a city was on the move again.
Johnson & Johnson announced it would stay in New Brunswick in 1978, housing its headquarters in an I.M. Pei-designed campus, near the Rutgers University campus in a run down segment of the downtown.
While it can be argued that, once upon a time, concerned residents needed needed bold, do-it-itself government initiative to revive the city, the residents, as is the case in any locality, have always been the lifeblood, though city government did not always reflect that. There had already been a problem with the extreme transience of this community of 50,000 residents, whose tens of thousands of students passed through with few staying to raise their families in the city, and the changing immigrant population—for example, a once Hungarian neighborhood is now a vibrant Hispanic area—is changing the face of the city.
New Brunswick, being in the geographic center of the state, was, for a long time, at the center of New Jersey’s infamous corrupt Democratic Machine. Mayor John Lynch, who served as mayor from 1979 to 1991 and is the immediate predecessor of the current Mayor James Cahill, is currently serving a three-year jail term immediately preceding the current mayor.
To be sure, not all are corrupt, but there are so many tributaries that link New Brunswick government to the larger state Democratic Machine (the municipal attorney, William Hamilton, a junior grade Navy lieutenant before receiving his JD from Georgetown in the early sixties, and an overall decent man, was briefly the Speaker of the State Assembly in the 1970s) that it could take up an entirely separate article.
But back to Mayor Sheehan, who marched with police under the threat of race riots in the 1960s. Her daughter, Elizabeth “Betsy” Sheehan Garlatti, is currently the New Brunswick City Council president. Garlatti, the director of Finance & Research at the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, was appointed—as is often the case in machine politics—to a vacant city council seat in 2004 and has since won reelection by way of the 3,000 or so party insiders and municipal employees who actually vote in New Brunswick.
Because the Democratic Party has effectively shut out the primary process, various residents have run hopeful campaigns on an independent ticket, but have always failed miserably. Forget about Republicans. They hardly exist here.
One way Council has been able to hold power is by way of the at-large Council system that was established in the 1970s. New Brunswick is divided into wards, but none has direct ward representation.
This is nothing new, of course, in so many local governments, but a recent grass-roots push to change that government structure has begun to garner some attention.
A group, Empower Our Neighborhoods, last month filed a petition with the city clerk’s office to advocate for a ballot question that would change the current form of municipal government from an at-large system to a ward-based system, as well as increasing the number of seats on Council from five to eight.
But as is the case in cities where government is threatened, on July 2, the New Brunswick City Council passed a counteracting ordinance to push the citizens’ initiative off the ballot, and replacing it with a Council-crafted initiative that calls for creating a study that would examine the need to change government.
Knowing that they have at least 3,000 votes, and that Rutgers University students rarely vote, Council would entertain this question, it would fail, and Council could claim that it reached out to the community, and the community decided that it did not want to change government.
A legal battle could ensue that would determine whether the community or the City Council had first initiated a legal proceeding on that ballot question, but experts at Rutgers’ Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy appear to think Empower Our Neighborhoods is in the right.
Attending a New Brunswick City Council meeting is interesting. Based on what you’ve just read, you might think this is a contemptuous lot, but it’s not. They are good people who will speak to you after meetings, but seem averse to criticism, particularly when they stock Council chambers with municipal employees to attend the public meetings. At least two are dual office holders (Council Vice President Joseph V. Egan is a long-time state Assemblyman and Blanquita Valenti serves on the county governing body), and one, the aforementioned Garlatti, has bloodlines in city government.
All but one were born and raised in New Brunswick, and the one that wasn’t—Valenti—came to New Brunswick in 1956 from Puerto Rico and in 1971 became the first Hispanic appointed to the New Brunswick Board of Education.
These are community folks, no doubt about it, and their commitment to the city was never in doubt (though there are plenty of people who make strong cases to the contrary). This is not evil empire stuff: it’s simply a case of a city government that has apparently lost its way, forgetting about the fundamentals that make a city tick, like when Garlatti, and incumbents Jimmie Cook and Robert Recine cited scheduling conflicts for not being able to participate in a pre-primary forum co-sponsored by Empower Our Neighborhoods and the local NAACP chapter. New Brunswick has undergone an unbelievable downtown renaissance in the past 10 years, with an arts, culture, and culinary scene that is unparalleled in the state, but the schools still suffer (it’s an Abbott district), the residential neighborhoods near town are largely unsuitable for quiet, secure family living because of the rampant off-campus student housing situation. Absentee landlords let their properties deteriorate, broken glass, drug dealing, and homeless in neighborhood parks is the norm. Again, not surprising for so many cities, as isn’t the government’s resistance to this grass-roots effort, if not frustrating—but that doesn’t make it acceptable. If the folks at Empower win this battle, it would go to show that a once-impenetrable system can be changed, and that, just like Mayor Sheehan displayed during her courageous outreach efforts in the 1960s, residents are indeed the lifeblood of any locality.
It’s an Affordable Housing Victory, But How Do We Win Over the Towns?
Let's get one thing clear: at least in New Jersey, we're _having_ the affordable-housing-as-mandate discussion. The fact that so many taxpayers, elected officials, and housing advocates in the Garden State are committed to implementing some sort of affordable housing set-aside as development and jobs increase is a good thing.
That said, it's time to realize that a uniform housing rule might not be the way to go.
On Thursday, Gov. Jon Corzine "signed into law":http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/gov_jon_corzine_signed_legisla.html legislation that is being touted by proponents of the bill as a major step forward in ensuring that representation from all income brackets can be part of the same community.
In addition to creating an affordable housing trust fund, the new law also eliminates RCAs, or Regional Contribution Agreements, which are typically used by wealthier localities who send their affordable-housing requirements by way of a financial contribution, to, most often, a nearby poorer community. Naturally, critics of RCAs claim that all towns, not just rich ones, have moral obligations to supply affordable housing within their borders.
The RCA elimination is a hallmark of the incumbency of Democratic Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr., and the bill signing took place in Mount Laurel Township -- the namesake of the original landmark lawsuit that resulted in a State Supreme Court ruling requiring all towns to provide affordable housing. What made the event all the more symbolic was that Corzine & Co. brandished their signing pens at the Ethel Lawrence Homes, named after one of Mount Laurel's original litigants.
In order to finance affordable housing, the bill also mandates a 2.5 percent commercial developer fee that is gauged by the value of new construction. The fee is expected to raise about $80 million per year and has the support of the New Jersey Builders Association, a trade association. The group has also endorsed Corzine's plan to increase affordable housing and apartments by 100,000 units by 2018.
At the bill signing, Roberts touted the amendments:
bq. New Jersey's affordable housing laws have failed to live up to the promise of providing home for low- and moderate-income residents while having the insidious side effect of concentrating poverty in our inner cities. [T]he state's almost barren affordable housing landscape from one of lost opportunities to one of hope and promise for thousands of families.
As Rooflines contributor "John Atlas writes":http://www.rooflines.org/1032/new_jersey_regional_coalition_wins_affordable_housing_victory, RCAs have commonly been charged with concentrating poverty in the inner city and with perpetuating segregation. This is mostly indisputable, but towns are still trying to wrap their brains around the new bill. In New Jersey, where home rule is, sadly, still the rule, some localities are balking.
New Jersey's Council on Affordable Housing, or COAH, an arm of the State Department of Community Affairs in June enacted its latest regulations as part of the ongoing Mount Laurel agreement. In those regulations, developers must provide one affordable unit for every four market-rate units built. Further, for commercial development, one affordable unit must be built for every 16 new jobs created by commercial development.
Towns notwithstanding, academic institutions and hospitals are not very pleased with the latter regulation.
But by way of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, "161 towns have thus far contributed more than $80,000 to help finance a legal challenge":http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-11/121618294437120.xml&coll=1 against COAH's rules.
The challenge is not directly related to the bill Corzine signed last week, but it does point to a fundamental difference in philosophy between the Legislature and more than 20 percent of the state's 566 (or 567 depending on who's counting) municipalities. Opponents of the latest affordable-housing rules worry that costs associated with housing requirements would be levied upon the taxpayer. A League lawyer told _The Star-Ledger_ that COAH's calculations were "fatally flawed," and that they should be "thrown out," citing worries that towns would be forced to pay for affordable housing. Under the regulations, towns would have to make sure developers comply.
Moreover, there is the matter of workforce housing. If these mandates were only for workforce housing, that would be a different story, but the affordable housing law requires towns to market affordable housing affirmatively -- meaning _anyone_ who qualifies is eligible for the housing -- not just people who work or have lived in the town for a generation -- but also people who qualify from elsewhere. We should be meeting our local needs first, and then market housing affirmatively. Have a waiting list, have a local town preference, and then move forward.
Now what about ethnic and racial diversity? It's immensely important, but poorer people -- no matter the ethnicity -- who work within the community should have the preference for local affordable housing. It makes sense environmentally, it makes sound transportation sense, it makes sound smart growth sense.
While the League's complaint will not be heard until the fall, I maintain that the state legislators and other proponents of COAH and the recent Corzine bill should travel the state, recognizing these concerns, while explaining the vast social and long-term economic benefit of housing low-income and working-class residents close to where they work.
Just like Corzine and Roberts held a symbolic bill-signing in Mount Laurel to make clear the importance of the housing bill, they need to, at the very least, make clear why this is important for residents who worry -- like the blue-collar workers who can't afford to live near their places of employment -- that they too will be taxed out of their neighborhoods.
That said, it's time to realize that a uniform housing rule might not be the way to go.
On Thursday, Gov. Jon Corzine "signed into law":http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/gov_jon_corzine_signed_legisla.html legislation that is being touted by proponents of the bill as a major step forward in ensuring that representation from all income brackets can be part of the same community.
In addition to creating an affordable housing trust fund, the new law also eliminates RCAs, or Regional Contribution Agreements, which are typically used by wealthier localities who send their affordable-housing requirements by way of a financial contribution, to, most often, a nearby poorer community. Naturally, critics of RCAs claim that all towns, not just rich ones, have moral obligations to supply affordable housing within their borders.
The RCA elimination is a hallmark of the incumbency of Democratic Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr., and the bill signing took place in Mount Laurel Township -- the namesake of the original landmark lawsuit that resulted in a State Supreme Court ruling requiring all towns to provide affordable housing. What made the event all the more symbolic was that Corzine & Co. brandished their signing pens at the Ethel Lawrence Homes, named after one of Mount Laurel's original litigants.
In order to finance affordable housing, the bill also mandates a 2.5 percent commercial developer fee that is gauged by the value of new construction. The fee is expected to raise about $80 million per year and has the support of the New Jersey Builders Association, a trade association. The group has also endorsed Corzine's plan to increase affordable housing and apartments by 100,000 units by 2018.
At the bill signing, Roberts touted the amendments:
bq. New Jersey's affordable housing laws have failed to live up to the promise of providing home for low- and moderate-income residents while having the insidious side effect of concentrating poverty in our inner cities. [T]he state's almost barren affordable housing landscape from one of lost opportunities to one of hope and promise for thousands of families.
As Rooflines contributor "John Atlas writes":http://www.rooflines.org/1032/new_jersey_regional_coalition_wins_affordable_housing_victory, RCAs have commonly been charged with concentrating poverty in the inner city and with perpetuating segregation. This is mostly indisputable, but towns are still trying to wrap their brains around the new bill. In New Jersey, where home rule is, sadly, still the rule, some localities are balking.
New Jersey's Council on Affordable Housing, or COAH, an arm of the State Department of Community Affairs in June enacted its latest regulations as part of the ongoing Mount Laurel agreement. In those regulations, developers must provide one affordable unit for every four market-rate units built. Further, for commercial development, one affordable unit must be built for every 16 new jobs created by commercial development.
Towns notwithstanding, academic institutions and hospitals are not very pleased with the latter regulation.
But by way of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, "161 towns have thus far contributed more than $80,000 to help finance a legal challenge":http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-11/121618294437120.xml&coll=1 against COAH's rules.
The challenge is not directly related to the bill Corzine signed last week, but it does point to a fundamental difference in philosophy between the Legislature and more than 20 percent of the state's 566 (or 567 depending on who's counting) municipalities. Opponents of the latest affordable-housing rules worry that costs associated with housing requirements would be levied upon the taxpayer. A League lawyer told _The Star-Ledger_ that COAH's calculations were "fatally flawed," and that they should be "thrown out," citing worries that towns would be forced to pay for affordable housing. Under the regulations, towns would have to make sure developers comply.
Moreover, there is the matter of workforce housing. If these mandates were only for workforce housing, that would be a different story, but the affordable housing law requires towns to market affordable housing affirmatively -- meaning _anyone_ who qualifies is eligible for the housing -- not just people who work or have lived in the town for a generation -- but also people who qualify from elsewhere. We should be meeting our local needs first, and then market housing affirmatively. Have a waiting list, have a local town preference, and then move forward.
Now what about ethnic and racial diversity? It's immensely important, but poorer people -- no matter the ethnicity -- who work within the community should have the preference for local affordable housing. It makes sense environmentally, it makes sound transportation sense, it makes sound smart growth sense.
While the League's complaint will not be heard until the fall, I maintain that the state legislators and other proponents of COAH and the recent Corzine bill should travel the state, recognizing these concerns, while explaining the vast social and long-term economic benefit of housing low-income and working-class residents close to where they work.
Just like Corzine and Roberts held a symbolic bill-signing in Mount Laurel to make clear the importance of the housing bill, they need to, at the very least, make clear why this is important for residents who worry -- like the blue-collar workers who can't afford to live near their places of employment -- that they too will be taxed out of their neighborhoods.
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