New Jersey government is so overstuffed with state jobs, it seems, that every time you turn around, a new requirement in the form of an unfunded burden is being placed on local municipalities. Often, when that happens, it’s promoted under the guise of a good cause. Take for example, affordable housing.
Just when many communities, like Bridgewater Township, are meeting their obligations under the law, poof! Down comes another directive from the state bureaucracy. Joe Doria, Commissioner of the State Department of Community Affairs has OK’d the proposal of his Council on Affordable Housing to arbitrarily increase the number of homes currently scheduled to be built by 2018.
He says that developers will pick up the bill for this. Even if they did, it doesn’t come close to paying the full tab for such housing. Every time that a new housing unit is forced down the throat of a municipality by state mandate, it increases all of the public service, social and educational costs of the municipality and of the school district on a permanently recurring basis. And none of these costs – none – are covered by the rules proposed by Mr. Doria’s Trenton bureaucracy.
Communities in Somerset County have been planning in good faith and meeting requirements for previously established regulations for fair housing established by the state of New Jersey. Out of the blue, with no apparent regard for the already ballooning real estate tax problems of Bridgewater and other similar communities, Commissioner Doria comes up with further prohibitive requirements.
Clinton Township Mayor Nick Corcodilos, who represents a coalition of towns, has said that the DCA will be sued if it continues on this path. Good! In a recent newspaper article, both Bridgewater Township Planner Scarlett Doyle and Mayor Patricia Flannery have clearly made known the unfairness and imbalance of the State’s proposal.
Bridgewater Township should join other like-minded municipalities and execute a full-court press to stop this insane proposal.
Note: See the article on this topic by Bev McCarron at http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/somerset/index.ssf?/base/news-3/120236320211890.xml&coll=1
5 comments:
Mayor Corcodilos,
Thanks for your comments on the proposed new housing regulations.
Your remarks clear and comprehensive, explaning in detail why Commissioner Doria is so wrong in his attempt to try to impose these new housing regulations on the communities represented by the "7 Town Group."
You are doing an invaluable public service in exposing the blatant injustice being foisted upon us by Trenton.
At the personal request of Mayor Nick Corcodilos of Clinton Township, I have deleted the comments which he made to this post earlier today.
In a phone call to me early this evening, Mayor Corcodilos indicated that he would like to change his comments and post those revisions to this site in lieu of his original remarks.
I have honored his wishes and await his updated comments.
Several things are becoming clear. First, the 115,000-unit affordable housing "objective" needs to be revised. It is a political objective only, and inaccurate.
Second, COAH's methodology for allocating the obligation needs a lot of work. The obligation being put on each town should reflect historic Certificate of Occupancy (C.O.) data. However, simple calculations reveal that COAH has under-projected obligations for many big towns/cities -- like Atlantic City, Harrison, Jersey City. COAH is making up the difference by enormously over-projecting obligations for towns whose extrapolated C.O. data suggests far lower growth and far smaller prospective obligations.
What is painfully clear is that COAH is putting towns that have tight land-use constraints at risk. These constraints are documented through the work of the Highlands Council, and by the towns themselves in the NJ State Plan cross-acceptance process. COAH has access to this data, and must incorporate it into its calculations. It is important to note that the DCA oversees both the State Plan process and the development of COAH rules. DCA has an obligation to mesh the two so they are congruent. However, the DCA has delayed cross-acceptance, leading us to wonder, is that in order to make it easier to meet the 115,000 number by ignoring recent data about constraints? (Constraints include water quality rules, Category 1 stream designations, and wastewater management regulations, among others.)
Cross-acceptance data and policy-making by towns and counties clearly reveal that towns being being hit with over-projected growth estimates will never grow to the extent COAH projects. For example, Hunterdon County has entirely eliminated the high-growth "Planning Area 2" designation within its boundaries, with the full support of the Office of Smart Growth (another DCA operation). Commissioner Doria must demonstrate that the projections COAH is assigning take into account the new data that define what land is truly available.
The only parties that can benefit from inappropriate allocation of affordable housing obligations are developers and those who fund them. Private entities -- the "entrepreneurial developers" that the Commissioner has suggested towns "go find" to help us build all that affordable housing. Once towns submit their plans to comply with over-the-top projections by COAH, developers and those with interests in expanding infrastructure will use those plans to justify attacking these towns with massive projects. It doesn't matter what the actual obligations turn out to be for these towns. What matters is what is on file at COAH in the meantime -- coerced representations that towns will grow beyond their zoning and land-use capacities. Developers will use those representations in court to pummel towns with suits. How Commissioner Doria can say that taxpayers will not have to pay for any of this is mind-boggling.
Developer's attorney Henry Hill once said that ligitation against towns based on affordable housing rules "is about as sporting as clubbing baby harp seals."
The proposed new rules will hand the likes of Hill a new club: "Projected obligation." The resulting litigation by itself will impose a massive cost on taxpayers. Is this what the Commissioner wants?
The new rules violate the Fair Housing Act because they put the cost squarely on the backs of taxpayers. The rules will not withstand the bright light of public scrutiny, and municipalities will not cower before the DCA or developers.
Nick Corcodilos
Mayor, Clinton Township
Member, 7 Town Group
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