COAH Chaos
With a December 31st deadline looming for municipalities across the state to submit their plans to the state, many simply can’t figure out how to abide by strict COAH mandates and are scrambling to figure out their plans. Many towns are requesting a postponement, while 30 towns are actually challenging the new COAH mandates in court.
According to a New York Times article (Towns Racing To Meet Affordable Housing Deadline):
The current furor over affordable housing began in June, with new rules requiring towns to provide one unit of affordable housing for every five homes built, plus one affordable unit for every 16 new jobs. (A typical “affordable” two-bedroom town house would sell for $81,000, and a two-bedroom apartment would rent for $700, according to the State Department of Community Affairs, the council’s parent agency.)
The ratios are double those proposed in 2004. Moreover, every municipality has lost an important tool for meeting its housing obligations. In the past, many suburbs were able to use a loophole that allowed them to transfer part of their share, along with some money, to willing cities. In July, the State Legislature abolished that mechanism.
Moreover, many towns simply don’t have the land available to meet COHA requirements.
“They said we needed 891 units. Where would we put them? We no longer have the land available to do it,” Patricia Flannery, a coalition member and the mayor of Bridgewater, in Somerset County, said in a recent interview.
Bridgewater will meet the deadline, but will dispute the council’s analysis of how much vacant land it has, she said.
Many towns will do the same, and some will probably succeed in having their numbers reduced. The council has admitted that it relied on imperfect data for the blueprint it devised to predict growth. “There were sites shown as vacant that weren’t necessarily so,” said Lucy Vandenberg, the council’s executive director.
In Old Tappan, the council listed as vacant portions of backyards, school property, utility rights of way and land adjoining the Hackensack River, said Sean Moronski, the borough’s planner.
“We did a real review,” Mr. Moronski said. “They projected 91 units. We think a realistic projection would be 19.”
As I’ve previously posted, costs associated with COHA are now anticipated to skyrocket to $2 billion a year. Many towns feel they will simply be decimated by these outrageous expenditures, despite claims that the COHA housing will also be funded by non-public sources and trust funds.
Let’s face it. COHA is wreaking having on New Jersey. This is socialism and central planning on display. COHA represents everything that conservatives have been warning against when it comes to the liberal vision of government. Just imagine our health care industry being subject to similar such heavy-handed bureaucracy, mandates and central planning.
COHA needs to be overturned. It doesn’t need amending or tweaking. It’s a horrible idea that runs afoul of evrything our Founders intended, undermining our liberty and our ability to govern ourselves.
