The Red Tape that Chris Christie Loves

by: Fair Share Housing

Thu May 13, 2010 at 05:16:47 PM EDT

Did you know that New Jersey has the most red tape stopping starter homes of any state in the country? It's harder to build compact, walkable development near job centers and mass transit here than anywhere else, according to a 2006 Brookings Institution study.

One might think that our red-tape cutting Governor would want to take this problem on. Today, he instead announced plans to make it worse.

Christie proposed a legislative overhaul of the state's housing policy that would effectively undo the Supreme Court's Mount Laurel decisions, which require every town to regulate land use in such a way that allows for a fair share of starter homes. He demanded action by the Legislature by June 30, though did not have a bill available or sponsors lined up - the proposal has some common features with Sen. Lesniak and Bateman's flawed S-1 but also some significant differences. Asked about what the Supreme Court might think of his plan, he noted that the Court does not think particularly fondly of him at the moment (We note that we had to hear about this second hand since, unlike organizations supportive of the Governor, we were barred from the press conference).

The plan was disingenuously presented as a requirement that 10 percent of all new housing be affordable to low- and moderate-income households. The fine print came out in a document not available to the press until several hours after the press conference, and still not officially available to the public at all (though you can see it on our website - http://sites.google.com/a/fair...

The real details are that a developer would have to do 10 percent of housing as starter homes, unless they would prefer to pay a 2.5 percent fee instead. That fee would almost always be the much cheaper option, so unless one expects builders to voluntarily give up their profits, that is what would happen.

That fee could then be used anywhere else in the state (see p. 4 of the plan). So Mendham's starter homes could end up in Trenton.

This plan would give free rein to municipalities to create even more restrictive zoning ordinances to build office parks without any homes for people who work there, McMansions and no starter homes. Municipalities could forbid owners of dilapidated shopping centers next to train stations from reusing that land for new townhouses and apartments.

The results? More sprawl, fewer jobs, and a gash in the plans for New Jersey's economic recovery as towns revoke approvals on over 40,000 new starter homes in the pipeline, many near job centers and mass transit.

Red tape? This time, Chris Christie can't get enough.