OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

     Joseph M. DiBella

www.MayorDiBella.com

 (732) 938-4500, Ext. 2102

The Affordable Housing Scam

January 28, 2007 – I don’t know about you but I am more frustrated than ever with the lack of progress coming out of Trenton on the issue of government and property tax reform. Six months ago the new Governor spoke about the “crisis” the State was in and how we needed meaningful changes to save the State of NJ from fiscal doom. There was talk about shared services, pension reform, health benefit cut backs, consolidation and a host of other reforms designed to cut property taxes by 20%. Six months later, we have nothing but empty promises and the same tax crisis. I find this whole process to be a fraud and insulting. And as if this was not bad enough, NJ is still saddled with the outdated and punitive Mount Laurel Affordable Housing debacle.

If you’re not familiar with the Mount Laurel issue, you should be because like many other more high profile issues, the Mount Laurel mess costs tax payers millions and deprives us our ability to slow down residential growth. The issue is named after a 1975 NJ Supreme Court case in which the courts ruled it was illegal to design zoning laws that made it economically impossible to provide low and moderate income housing in a community. The basis of the ruling certainly sounds reasonable and perhaps back then it was well intended. However, 32 years later affordable housing is still an issue and the solutions put in place have failed miserably.

It’s gotten to the point where dealing with the process under the present rules simply does not work. It has cost too much, taken too long and caused too much damage to our community and others. This is why I plan to ask the Council to re-direct our efforts at the Courts where I believe we need to seek relief to get out from under the current process. We’re spending tens of thousands now. I think we should re-direct our efforts using the same tactics the developers use to beat us over and over – the Courts. Let me tell you why.

Since the Court’s initial ruling in 1975 there have been other related decisions, all in the name of creating affordable housing. In addition, the State created an entire bureaucracy, namely the Council on Affordable Housing that is charged with implementing rules to ensure that affordable homes get built. Hundreds of law suit later, millions in salaries to expensive bureaucrats and lawyers, what we have is a failed social experiment bent on creating “more” houses being built. In fact, portions of the plan are actually called “growth share. That is we have to have a plan for how we will “grow” the number of additional houses to be built all across NJ. Frankly, what we need is less and not more houses being built.

To be clear, I believe we need protections to ensure that there is affordable housing for people of our State and in our community. Times are tough and more than ever people need affordable housing. However, the answer is not an arbitrary system that mandates that houses have to be built. It is so bad now that in the proposed new rules, additional homes are mandated to be built based in part on the number of new jobs that area added to a community; talk about a disincentive for business development!

The most recent rules issued by the Council on Affordable Housing have been struck down by an appellate court that found them to be faulty. The State now has six months to do it over and come up with new rules. For some reason, I think giving the issue back to the same people that created the mess in the first place makes absolutely no sense at all. The fact that the State has mandated that the issue of Affordable Housing be fixed by building more houses is simply insane.

More houses simply creates more traffic, more congestion, more noise, more pollution, more wear and tear on our roads and places a greater strain on our infrastructure and our schools. Building more houses does nothing to address the issue of creating an affordable housing market.

To start with, we need to demand the State require developers to pay for some of the cost to build new roads, infrastructure and schools that become necessary because of their new development. Termed “impact fees”, if builders had to help pay for the costs needed to pick up the additional burdens created by more houses, perhaps they would build fewer. The fact is that the politicians in Trenton are unwilling to tackle this issue for fear of angering the Builder’s lobby and certain trade groups. Mandating impact fees should be a part of any tax reform package.

The State also needs to strike down the Mount Laurel debacle, and fast. If they want to deal with the issue of creating affordable housing, they should start with making NJ more affordable first. Even if they could create more affordable home prices, people would still leave in droves because they can’t afford to pay their taxes. To deal with creating affordable housing, perhaps they should consider first time home buyer tax credits or other creative ways to stimulate the free market to help resolve this problem. Government involvement on the issue of affordable housing is like government involvement on many other issues – a mess.

Howell Township is now grappling with the madness of the Affordable Housing rules. While the latest court ruling buys us time, I think our best course of action is to do what the developers do – take the matter to the courts. Rather than pay another nickel of taxpayer money on this unfair and unreasonable set of rules, I think our town and others should go straight to the Courts and seek relief. Provided our zoning laws do not regulate out affordable housing (and they do not) I think we should demand that we be freed up of this bureaucratic mound of red tape. We have tried everything else, including paying the mandated tens of thousands in legal fees already. The old way of doing things simply does not work. This is why I’ll suggest that the Council support a move to fight the rules and protect our town while we still can. Enough is enough.

You can help as well. Please call or write the Governor (Office of the Governor, PO Box, 001, Trenton NJ, 08625, telephone 609-292-6000) and demand that he and the legislature address the affordable housing issue in a meaningful way and not by demanding more houses be built. While you’re at it, demand that they deal with the tax crisis facing New Jersey and tell them stop ducking the tough issues in order to stave off political heat. Howell deserves nothing less.

Please email your ideas to me at MayorDiBella@twp.howell.nj.us. Thank you in advance for your support and let me know of I can be of any assistance to you.

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