New Brunswick Trash Ordinance Could Disproportionately Affect Students. Where's Rutgers?

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.

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.

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
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• Sen. Jim Whelan, Democrat
• 511 Tilton Rd., Northfield, NJ 08225 (609) 383-1388