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Call for action from our friends at Fair Share Housing Center. - promoted by Rosi
Help Us Tell the Assembly that A-3447 as drafted does not actually produce homes!
With a comforter, blanket and sheet on my bed at night, its official, summer is over and fall has arrived with soft burnt-orange leaves and a slight chill in the air at night. But that's not all. The housing debate from the spring, in which Senator Raymond Lesniak tried to get rid of the state's prohibitions on exclusionary zoning through his S-1 bill, is back. Asm. Jerry Green has introduced A-3447, and has set a hearing - and likely vote - on that bill and S-1 on Monday.
Unfortunately, several large, obvious loopholes remain in the legislation, and would be happily jumped through by towns without the slightest interest in building a home affordable to low- and moderate-income families, seniors, and people with special needs.
We are not the only ones to cry foul on this legislation. Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman wrote this great Op-Ed in The Times of Trenton, and a Star-Ledger editorial calls the bill a failure in need of repair.
We have been talking with Asm. Green and other legislators, and are hopeful that they will fix this leaky bill. However, there are strong pressures for a bill that allows towns to keep out low-income people. Monday is a key decision point for whether we will move forward to help spur the economy with new homes affordable to New Jerseyans of all incomes, or backward to a time before the NAACP brought the landmark Mount Laurel cases, and towns were free to say "if you people can't afford to live in our town, you'll just have to leave."
Blue Jersey readers we need your help again. Please CALL and/or ATTEND!!
CALL the Chairman of the committee, Assemblyman Jerry Green, your local Assembly members and the Assembly leadership and let them know that A-3447 will not build the homes New Jersey needs! (more info and sample script below)
ATTEND the hearing. I hope you like bagged lunches because I'm asking you to carry one on Monday, November 8, 2010 at NOON at the Statehouse when A-3447 is scheduled for a vote before the Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee. This is a key opportunity to state clearly to the committee that, "A-3447 needs repair!" through your call, testimony or attendance. A major overhaul is needed to the proposed legislation so homes actually get built and spur economic growth.
This legislation as currently drafted, simply will not produce homes for families, seniors, and people of special needs of all incomes, and does not fulfill the constitutional requirements and promise of the NAACP's Mount Laurel decisions. It is flawed in 3 major ways:
1. The bill does not actually require a single development in the entire state of New Jersey to include homes affordable to low-and moderate-income people.
2. The bill forces construction of unneeded homes for people earning up to $150,000, while excluding working families. In the face of such great need for housing that lower-income households can afford, the need for this provision is especially hard to understand.
3. The bill shuts out non-profits and people with special needs. Every town in New Jersey is granted the power to arbitrarily turn down even small scale proposals for supportive housing or nonprofits building starter homes.
We need your voice and your presence on Monday. Be heard. Let the Assembly know that there is a need for homes for all in New Jersey. Please email me at damikawebb@fairsharehousing.org to let us know if you plan to attend. |
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