Garden State Patriot

I haven’t posted much about COHA lately, so in an effort to keep this vital issue on the radar I wanted to share this.

Assemblymen Michael Doherty and Michael Patrick Carroll have introduced a concurrent resolution (ACR-216) that would lead to amending the state Constitution to remove the affordable-housing obligations placed upon local municipalities as a result of the Mount Laurel court decision.

If both houses of the Legislature approve it, the declaration would be submitted for voter approval at the next general election. The resolution will also prohibit state government from imposing laws that would overturn or interfere with a municipality’s zoning ordinances.

The amendment says that no law shall require any municipality to “create, fund or implement any program to provide housing for all income levels by means of land use regulation, or by fee assessment.”

“Nowhere in New Jersey’s Constitution is there a mandate for the state or local towns to provide affordable housing,” said Mr. Doherty, a Republican representing 24 of Hunterdon’s 26 municipalities. “There is not even an acceptable definition of what constitutes ‘affordable.’
“Our intent is to take such nebulous terms out of the hands of the court system and ultimately let the voters decide whether they should subsidize new housing in their towns. The infrastructure costs associated with this directive are enormous, and are ultimately borne by the taxpayer. This resolution will correct a misguided public policy.”
Mr. Carroll said the amendment “restates — for a judiciary that wrote its own policy preferences into the Constitution — that property tax payers owe no obligation to subsidize development of any kind.

We commend the efforts of Assemblymen Doherty and Carroll for taking this first step towards ending COHA mandates. Of course, Steve Lonegan has been very much at the forefront of this issue as well, with one of his priorities being to put this issue before the voters via referenda should he win the governorship.

Ultimately, this is exactly what needs to happen in order to re-establish the right of the people to govern themselves and thwart a renegade NJ Supreme Court.

Read more COAH news here:

• Impact on Randolph, NJ/Highlands Area: We’re being pressured to sign on
• Marlboro team trounces COAH in resolution

Cross-posted at Red County.

Help put an end to this socialist policy that is crippling New jersey. Make your voice heard.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE.

Also, please check out this excellent write-up on COAH by Thomas Roughneen which appeared in mycentraljersey.com.

Over at Alice’s Restaurant blog, Alice provides a firsthand account of a COAH meeting she attended regarding New Jersey’s Highlands region. The Highlands region is considered by state law a ‘Special Resource Area,’ limiting the area to development. This, of course, creates a dilemma for the region – trying to preserve the area while also trying to comply with mandated ’affordable housing’ units under COHA.

Alice does a great job in narrating for us the events at the meeting but also provides an excellent historical perspective of how we have reached this point.

In addition to the numerous problems I have outlined in previous posts on this subject, Alice points out another heretofore unmentioned problem — the inherent unfairness of the entire plan for some homeowners:

I questioned the ‘panel’ on the fairness of the many residents living in homes valued at less than the ‘affordable units’.  Many have incomes less than the qualifying incomes for an ‘affordable unit’, but will pay for others.  Many homes are in need of repair yet these owners are also paying a share toward affordable housing for others who are getting living quarters that are new or refurbished.

I highly recommend reading Alice’s entire post here.

While on this subject, I would also say ‘kudos’ to Assemblyman Merkt who actually introduced legislation yesterday to abolish COHA.

As I’ve been reporting on this blog, COAH regulations are eating at the quality of life in New Jersey. Fiscally, the program is already costing taxpayers greatly with the burden only forecast to increase to some $2 Billion a year per town. And in numerous cases, the housing is not going those it was intended for, but to former criminals and sex offenders.

But it’s even more than this. COAH is a regulatory nightmare that is undermining the authority of municipalities across the state and hampering their ability to run themselves and meet their obligations.

Perhaps nowhere else in the state is this more of an issue than in Hunterdon County (via NJ.com):

Hunterdon municipal officials whose towns lie in part or entirely within the environmentally sensitive Highlands region learned a few weeks ago they could get a one-year extension to the Dec. 31 deadline to develop their affordable housing plans if they agreed to follow the more stringent rules governing preservation areas in their town’s planning areas.

Now Highlands towns have been told they cannot approve any new residential development application unless it sets aside at least one-fifth of the homes for middle- and low-income families.

The “scarce resource restraint order” issued Nov. 12 by the state Council on Affordable Housing affects 15 Hunterdon municipalities and takes effect immediately.

For that reason, Ms. Karrow called the order “unconscionable.”

“It condemns Highlands municipalities to tax hell,” she said. “How are my municipalities expected to pay for new growth or annual increases in utilities, insurance and pension obligations without the ability to grow ratables?”

It does not prevent municipalities from granting permits for single-family or duplex units on existing lots. It also does not explicitly exclude commercial developments from the 20% rule.

The order prevents municipalities from granting development approvals, water and wastewater allocations until and unless they can demonstrate to COAH that those resources “have been dedicated on a priority basis for the production of affordable housing,” Ms. Vandenberg wrote, but gave no details.

According to Ms. Karrow, it means, “You can’t even build a Wawa or a gas station until you prove you meet your COAH requirement.”

Clinton Township Mayor Nick Corcodilos said by requiring towns in the Highlands to allocate the use of scarce resources for COAH housing before anything else, “It locks down and takes over all your land-use rules.” He said attorney John Drill advised the township Planning Board to explain to applicants that their approvals are subject to COAH’s rules, even if they change.

In truth, the order will have little impact on municipalities like Clinton Township, where developable land, sewer capacity and water availability are already in short supply, Mayor Corcodilos said Monday. “We’re already imposing a restriction on ourselves,” allocating what is left of these resources to COAH housing, “because we have to.”

Two pending township plans would yield 100 units, he said, practically tapping out township sewer and water opportunities. “Anyone who comes to Clinton Township and wants to build something must go to a private entity to get sewer capacity.”

This is what you get when you put in place socialistic policies in the name of the public good. In essence, we have tyranny of the state government over local branches of government. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And until we repeal COAH, New Jersey will be feeling hotter and hotter.

Also, check out this related COAH story from the pressofatlanticcity.com. In particular, we agree with this quote from Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson:

“Is it a good idea to have affordable housing?… Of course. But I’m going to give you a better deal. How about an affordable state to live in? If you have an affordable state, you have affordable housing.”

If this isn’t enough to tell you what a terible idea COAH is, nothing will. According to State Senator “Kip” Bateman, COAH will likely cost $2 BILLION for each community. That’s 2 BILLION DOLLARS to pay for housing for sex offenders and other ex-prisoners.

Read Senator Bateman’s entire release here.

While we certainly appreciate the Senator’s efforts, amending COAH isn’t the solution. The solution is getting rid of it altogether before this program really sends this state under for good.

COAH means ex-prisoners and sex offenders in your community. Nice.

From Americans for Prosperity:

Who’s This Housing Really For?

Proponents of the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) mandates claim this housing proposal will provide for police officers and teachers who want to live in their communities.   They claim it is for our young people who want to stay in the New Jersey.  This sounds nice–if you want your child graduating college and moving into a government housing unit, alongside those described on page 15 of the 2006 Housing Report.   A careful examination of this Report  reveals that police and teachers are never mentioned except in a paragraph that references below market mortgages available through the Police and Firefighters Retirement System (PFRS), mainly because police and teachers earn well above the median average for their communities. .  No where does this report call for the provision of such housing.  

The report does, however, outline who is eligible…

Ex-offenders leaving Northern State Prison will be “mainstreamed” into your neighborhood.  Youth aging out of juvenile detention are another targeted market.  But the most unsettling group eligible to live here are persons called “hard to house.”  What does this mean? The state places sex offenders and pedophiles in housing units.  Visit the State police Web site at http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/info/reg_sexoffend.html and find out how many of these individuals are in your community.  

Under this mandate, there are lots more to come. Toms River, for example, currently is home to 102 known sex offenders. Hoboken, the home of Governor Jon Corzine and one of New Jersey’s largest cities, is home to five.  Toms River is mandated to build 4,386 low income units.  The number of convicted sex offenders moving into Toms River and other suburban communities can be expected to rise significantly. The Trenton planners will be experimenting with our neighborhoods to find out if their social engineering schemes work. You and I will suffer the consequences, but they don’t care. We are just guinea pigs.

In 1911, when “Trenton Makes-the World Takes” was adopted as Trenton’s official slogan and the famous sign built on the approach to Trenton, 10% of America’s population lived within 75 miles of Trenton. The free market met the demands of a growing and diverse population with innovations like Sears’s homes, row housing, mansions, Cape Cod homes and more.  Now, with New Jersey experiencing increased outward migration, the Trenton planners want to step in and second guess our needs and wants, replacing the success that made New Jersey an economic powerhouse with massive entitlement housing projects.

Please call your legislator, and tell him to stop threatening our neighborhoods with Trenton’s radical experiments.

To see where COAH units are going up in your neighborhood click here.

And we couldn’t agree more. Check out their post here and also continue on to The Cranbury Conservative to learn just how this experiment in social engineering is helping damage New Jersey.