Garden State Patriot

One Response to “ Steve Lonegan Address At AFP Summit ”

1. # 1    Susan P Says:
   October 5th, 2009 at 10:38 pm

   Misguided. If he did more research he’d realize that open space advances his fiscally conservative principles! Open space preservation keeps taxes below where they would be without it. OUR TAXES ARE SO HIGH BECAUSE TOWNS GIVE AWAY TOO MUCH TO ATTRACT DEVELOPMENT (including COAH obligations), whereas open space is the true friend of the taxpayers. Farmers require so little in municipal services, that even though they pay less in taxes, they actually subsidize the suburban taxpayers in NJ. We are so highly taxes because we’re so over-developed. Drive from Union County to more rural Morris County, and the taxes drop by 30%.

   Also, it’s about 1/3 the cost to preserve clean water at the source than to build high-tech water treatment facilities. It’s also much cheaper to buy floodplain than to pay the losses in floods. Parks also raise the surrounding property values. And every dollar of open space investment is listed fully on the Green Acres website, the Farmland Preservation website and the NJ Historic Trust.