We at Fair Share Housing are not exactly sure what part of letting veterans live in a two-family home qualifies as "social engineering." It seems a bit more accurate to say that trying to stop veterans from living in your town is "social engineering."
Fortunately, Cesaro was outvoted by members of his own party to allow veterans to live in Parsippany, showing that there are people of both parties that believe that people who served our country deserve a place in our communities.
We at Fair Share Housing Center are not sure what the moral or political calculation is that makes politicians like Christie and Cesaro think that keeping veterans out of communities is acceptable. It's wrong - and frankly offensive. And it's good to see that people like Tom Wyka and Cesaro's council mates are not going along with it.
A valuable reminder of who Chris Christie serves. - promoted by Rosi
In a powerful, stirring speech at the Housing and Community Development Network's semi-annual membership meeting last week, Asm. Jerry Green, Speaker Pro Tempore and Chair of the Housing and Local Government Committee, described his fight with Gov. Christie on housing reform. Green's speech came as he accepted one of two 2011 Legislators of the Year awards from the Network, along with Speaker Sheila Oliver (who was not able to attend at the last minute and had her Chief of Staff Thurman Barnes receive the award in her place).
Green gave a great overview of the standoff between him and Christie - and the issues at stake - in his speech:
Green noted the widening impacts of New Jersey's housing crisis:
The last 30-40 years I've been in the trenches it's always been about poor black people. . . But now it's middle income white America that's in the same boat. They're hurting. They don't see an opportunity for decent housing for their own kids.
I have legislators coming up to me saying Jerry, you know something, you're right. My kids can't even afford to live in the neighborhood. You have teachers who can't afford to live in their neighborhoods. This is not fair.
And he said he would continue to take on Christie to fight for those decent homes:
My plan for the next two years is to meet with the Administration and meet with the Governor. He's made it very clear: my way or no way. Well, Chris: it's MY way or no way.
A brief reminder of how we got here, and more, below the fold...
It's perhaps a little surprising, then, that Gov. Christie thought that this was a good time to shut down a proposed development for disabled veterans in Salem County - which, absent his interference, could have broken ground and provided both homes and jobs by Pearl Harbor Day next year.
Today, DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa announced she is headed back to her law firm job after two years as the frontperson for the Christie Administration's anti-family, pro-exclusion agenda. While New Jersey's economy continued to tank, wealthy towns placed excluding the riff-raff above creating jobs and homes, with Grifa and the Administration's enthusiastic cheerleading. Despite the rather unusual coalition of business leaders, housing advocates, special needs groups, and environmentalists pushing against them, Grifa - and the boss in the front office - refused to budge.
Grifa's successor, Richard Constable, doesn't seem to have much background in housing, community development, or municipal governance, most recently having served as Deputy Commissioner in the Department of Labor. Like many other Christie Administration leaders, he worked for Gov. Christie in the U.S. Attorney's office for many years, which Gov. Christie joked about in his press conference today. He's personally close to the Governor, according to an article in his graduate school alumni magazine.
We hope that we're pleasantly surprised by Commissioner-designee Constable as he takes on this new job. But more likely we'll see more of the same direction - more miserable failures in dealing with exclusionary communities that put blocking new homes near transit and jobs above the economy and more inaction in response to New Jersey's growing foreclosure crisis.
Because it isn't DCA that's the problem. It's the Governor's pandering to the wealthy few who are making out like bandits in this economy - and who don't feel the sting of the jobs they kill when they say no to working families, lower-income seniors, and people with special needs who want to be their neighbors.
On this Labor Day weekend, we at Fair Share Housing recognize South Brunswick as an example of a town that appreciates the contribution of everyone's labor - whether they are teachers in the township's schools, parents caring for their kids or for adult children with special needs, or janitors who clean the office parks near Exit 8A.
And more broadly, we stand with our allies in New Jersey's labor movement and recognize that our work is two sides of the same coin. If people don't have decent jobs with good wages and benefits, then it's harder for them to afford a decent home; if towns are allowed to keep out modestly priced homes, as Gov. Christie wants to give them carte blanche to do, then people who work in a town even with decent wages won't be able to live there.
A new Rowan University analysis of exclusionary zoning in New Jersey shows that, in the fastest growing areas of the state, municipalities have largely outlawed even middle-class housing in their zoning - while continuing to allow dense development of offices and shops.
This was part of a series of five "executive reorganization" orders that would transfer more power to Christie without independent oversight - also transferring power for business attraction and retention from the independent Economic Development Authority to Lt. Gov. Guadagno and abolishing the state's Higher Education Commission and instead simply making its decisions carried out by the Department of Education. These transfers all represent a stretched legal interpretation of the Governor's authority under a statute allowing limited reorganization within the Executive Branch.
The Rowan report shows the New Jersey Gov. Christie envisions.
A New Jersey in which, in Somerset County, there are 16 times as many jobs allowed as homes - and 87 percent of residentially zoned land only allows mansions on one acre or more of land.
According to the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress, released by HUD, homelessness rose 4.3% in New Jersey from 2009 to 2010. This is particularly disturbing because many New Jersey municipalities continue to zone only large low-density lots preventing the opportunity for construction of much needed starter homes, group homes and special needs housing.
In a "friend of the court" brief by Supportive Housing Association of New Jersey and the Corporation for Supportive Housing to aid the New Jersey Supreme Court pending analysis of growth share calculations of the Council on Affordable Housing Third Round Rules, special needs providers urge the court to ensure homes are available.
The special needs community is the most discriminated population when looking for housing. The average person with special needs pays 112.1% of their monthly income to rent a modest one-bedroom unit. Nationally most tenants with psychiatric disabilities are too poor to afford housing at market rates and many operators or public housing and subsidized housing are unwilling to rent to them. Persons with a disability are at higher risk of homelessness because a disability, particularly one relating to substance abuse or mental health, can make it difficult to work and earn enough to afford housing.
Nearly four in ten sheltered adults (36.8 percent) have a disability, compared to 24.6 percent of the poverty population and 15.3 percent of the total U.S. population. Thus, a homeless adult is nearly 2.5 times more likely to have a disability than an adult in the U.S. population as a whole.
With rumors of legislative changes to New Jersey affordable housing, and pending analysis of growth share calculations by the New Jersey Supreme Court, one thing remains quite obvious, a system must remain in place that creates affordable homes for everyone, but especially the special needs communities.
The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court today invalidated a state agency decision that allowed municipalities to pass zoning ordinances excluding up to one-third of all families in the state. As a result of the decision, families of New Jersey's hard working waitresses, school bus drivers, and nursing home aides will have greater opportunities to live in municipalities that previously adopted policies that barred them from living in towns where they work.
The decision reverses a policy instituted by the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) under the Corzine Administration and continued and defended in court by the Christie Administration. COAH approved the Blairstown Township's housing plan in 2009 despite the fact that Blairtown had no included opportunities for families working at entry-level jobs. The agency had previously required muncipalites to adopt zoning policies that included low-income families, but backed down from enforcing that requirement in response to pressure from wealthy municipalities.
We're all familiar with religious right whack-job Pat Robertson's tendency to blame natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake on things like US abortion policy and 1791-1804 Haitian Revolution (which he characterized as "a pact with the devil").
Assemblyman Scott Rumana (R-Wayne Township) channeled Pat Robertson in an asinine and offensive April Fool's Day press release that, sadly, did not appear to be a joke. In his press release, Rumana blamed affordable housing advocates for at least some of the damage caused be recent flooding in his district.
Claims by so-called affordable housing advocates that wealthy municipalities want to build walls that exclude working New Jerseyans, seniors, and people with special needs are completely unfounded.
The only walls the communities in the district I represent want built are flood walls thanks to the flooding that has been made worse due to mandated 'affordable housing' overdevelopment and flawed policies like bonus density. I urge these self-proclaimed advocates to come see how devastating their misguided policies have been in communities in the Passaic River Basin.
Rumana's remarks are not only disgraceful, they're also misleading. Anyone who blames COAH for overdevelopment in New Jersey is either lying or misinformed.
According to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (running from 2005 to 2009), only 4% of the owner-occupied units in Wayne Township were valued at less than $200,000. More than half were worth more than $500,000. More than 3/4 of renters in the Township paid more $1,000 per month. Granted, housing prices are lower now than they were then, but that isn't "affordable housing" in any economy.
Wayne Township is overdeveloped not because of anything affordable housing advocates have done, but because local government officials allowed developers to blanket their town with large single family homes and McMansions.
As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer today, the creation of jobs and construction of homes are jeopardized in New Jersey by Gov. Christie's inaction on removing regulatory barriers to development of starter homes. The article points out that in the Governor's State of the State speech last week he spoke of "finding the path to growth" in New Jersey, but yet has failed to make progress on a number of policies important on economic stimulus, including housing reform.
As the Inquirer article reports, NAIOP New Jersey Chapter, New Jersey Business & Industry Association, International Council of Shopping Centers, New Jersey Builders Association and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce have all signed a public letter to Governor Christie. While the letter praises the Governor for his efforts to make New Jersey "more business friendly and a place that will incentivize investment"; it also implores him to sign S1/A3447 as a "workable affordable housing policy" needed to "accelerate economic growth". The letter mentions support for the bill's elimination of the Council on Affordable Housing, elimination of the 2.5 percent commercial development fee, and clear municipal obligations.
The letter describes a workable affordable housing policy as one that will " a) provide those who desperately need affordable housing with the opportunity to find such housing; b) create a system that allow municipalities to more appropriately manage growth, including both market rate and affordable housing; c) create realistic and attainable affordable housing goals that allow development community to work hand in hand with local governments. . ."
We share the business community's desire for a workable housing policy that will help the economy rebound. While we believe that the municipal obligations in S1/A3447 are too low, we agree that the bill does provide a workable and predictable framework to get homes built. If Gov. Christie does not move forward with the legislation, he has an alternative route to get the economy moving and homes built: complying with the Appellate Division's order to expeditiously develop new COAH rules.
The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court has ordered the Christie Administration to stop delaying new COAH rules for municipal obligations for low- and moderate-income homes. These new rules would return to the predictable, well-known system in place in the 1980s and 1990s in New Jersey which created nearly 60,000 homes affordable to low- and moderate-income people. The Court is requiring a sworn certification from DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa every two weeks on progress towards new rules, with the first certification due on January 28, 2011. The Court also said that it would consider appointing a special master to oversee the agency depending on the content of the first report.
The order, which is available here, comes after the Christie Administration openly admitted to the Court that it would not meet a court-imposed deadline of March 8, 2011 for implementation of new rules for the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). The Court in an October 8, 2010 decision invalidated COAH's prior rules as unconstitutionally giving too much discretion to municipal regulation. The Christie Administration, in a January 10 filing with the Court, said that it was not working on the rules and would not meet the deadline, even though the Court had already explicitly denied COAH permission to delay adopting the rules, a decision that COAH has now appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court.
The foot- dragging by the Administration has a detrimental domino effect. Municipalities are reluctant to build needed starter homes because they are waiting for potential changes in obligation with the third round COAH rules or new housing legislation. Builders are stuck not knowing if their projects will move forward, and working families, low-income seniors and those with special needs are missing out on housing opportunities.
The "path to growth" Gov. Christie seeks for New Jersey cannot occur without a workable and constitutional resolution of the state's housing policy that will provide predictability for the business community and municipalities and meet the market demand for starter homes throughout the state.
This was posted just before Christmas. I have to say, this year Fair Share Housing Center has told its story very well at Blue Jersey, and we thank them for that. - promoted by Rosi
It has been quite a year for housing policy in New Jersey. After at least six different versions of housing legislation, one Executive Order that only stood for 10 days before a court injunction, and two other key court decisions, the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) remains in place, and housing policy in New Jersey has an uncertain future. Here's a look at where we've been, where we are going, and the excellent grass roots organizing by so many groups - including the BlueJersey community - that have impacted the past year and will be critical in 2011.
Gov. Christie, of course, promised to "gut COAH" during the 2009 Republican primary to his conservative base. It didn't come up so much in the general election, perhaps because polls shows that most New Jerseyans support having a range of housing choices in every community. Still, replacing COAH was a goal that most people could agree on as the agency, despite a competent and intelligent staff, had been manipulated due to various politically motivated changes in policy over the past decade.
"Keep the N in NJN" - There has been a compromise which cedes authority to the State Treasurer to negotiate a sale with the legislature retaining the right to approve any deal. As a result Christie granted NJN a reprieve with additional funding to operate through next June. The only thing clear about NJN's future is that Christie wants its staff off the State payroll. With so much uncertainty some have been obliging him by seeking employment elsewhere. Let's get a good deal done and soon!
Let me be up-front on this one: I don't care for Marcia Karrow. The most recent reason is that she was the campaign manager for my opponent for Mayor of Flemington, and printed outright lies about my record. She's also working hard right now to use her influence to regulate-away her next-door neighbor's kids chicken coop. But that's not what I'm writing about today...
The simple fact is that she has no experience directing an agency of this size, and a clear agenda to dismantle signfiicant state environmental regulations. She was, folks should also recall, Christie's campaign coordinator in Hunterdon County. She was tapped to chair his transition committee about the DEP, and was later tapped by Christie to lead the effort to dismantle COAH. She has long been an opponent of the Highlands Protection Act, dating to her time as a member of the NJ Assembly.
A packed house of civil rights leaders, environmentalists, municipal officials, special needs groups, developers, and religious groups showed up in State House Committee Room 11 at noon today for a November surprise: a hearing on a housing bill that had been substantially rewritten, with a thick packet of amendments handed out after the meeting already started.
"Even some lawyers might have a problem understanding the language in this particular bill," Chairman Jerry Green said near the start - and indeed, audience members and even committee members were puzzling over what, exactly, the many new changes sprung at the last minute mean. Apparently, according to Chairman Green, there were a series of meetings earlier this morning with various groups (though we confirmed that no housing groups, environmentalists, civil rights groups, or special needs groups were invited) that led to these changes. Even DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa said she had not seen these changes in her extensive remarks opposing the bill.
The bill changes don't fix the critical flaws with the bill: that in all instances developers can pay a fee that will then sit in a fund for years instead of actually building homes; and that towns can comply based on homes that cost as much as $600,000.
And the changes didn't really seem to please anyone (which was kind of a surprise to many groups that were excluded from the morning meeting and thought some kind of deal had been cut). The key takeaway message: NOBODY testified in support of the bill. All opposed - for many overlapping reasons and some differing reasons - include the Christie Administration, the NAACP, League of Municipalities, New Jersey Builders Association, NAIOP, the Housing and Community Development Network, the New Jersey Regional Coalition, the Sierra Club, the Highlands Coalition, the Coalition on Affordable Housing and the Environment, the (usually fairly nonpartisan) New Jersey chapter of the American Planning Association, New Jersey Future, and the Chamber of Commerce.
To name a few.
It's usually kind of hard to pass legislation that nobody supports. Yet the committee voted to pass the bill anyway, 4 in favor, one abstaining (Vandervalk), one opposed (Carroll), and one absent (Greenstein, whose district would be hit particularly hard by the bill's strange "expensive homes" requirement, the subject of a report we released today.
So what's happening here? It seems like there is a lot of pressure to do something based on a fear that they will get attacked by the Governor and a feeling among many, including Chair Green, that they have sat on the issue long enough. And everyone agrees - they should do something - we need a more effective state housing policy.
But the details seem to have gotten kind of mixed up, with a hodge podge of ideas from Green and other Assembly leaders (many of which are quite good) and Ray Lesniak seeking to preserve aspects of his now-infamous S-1 legislation (many of which are quite bad). The result is a stew that nobody really seems to like, and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense when put together. Some exurban towns like Jackson and Woolwich have to build thousands of homes costing as much as $600,000; others have to do nothing; and still others are just going to collect more "payment in lieu" fees when they are already sitting on millions of dollars in unspent past fees, a problem that caused committee members, especially Asm. Scalera, considerable consternation during the debate.
They moved the bill out of committee; but it's hard to see this ending up being what happens. Because, well, legislation doesn't usually pass that nobody supports.
We will keep you posted when we know more on the next step of this continually unusual process...
Not sure everyone saw this, from Friday. - promoted by Rosi
Today, the New Jersey Appellate Division invalidated the Council on Affordable Housing's (COAH) Third Round regulations. The court required a return to basic constitutional principles to remove exclusionary zoning barriers to new homes for families, seniors, and people with special needs of all incomes.
Basically, the court said three things, agreeing with Fair Share Housing Center and several homebuilders who had appealed the rules and rejecting a challenge by the New Jersey League of Municipalities:
(1) The need for homes must be met in a fair and predictable way;
(2) The plans to build homes must be backed by sufficient economic incentives for for-profit builders and/or realistic plans with non-profits, not just paper promises; and
(3) Municipalities may not implement exclusionary policies contrary to sound planning.
These three principles are the backbone of the Supreme Court's Mount Laurel I and II decisions, and produced the nation's most successful policy ever for homes affordable to both low- and moderate-income families and the middle class. A Lincoln Institute of Land Policy study found that the policies in place in the 1980s and 1990s under both Democratic and Republican governors successfully produced enough homes to keep housing prices affordable at all income levels, while comparable states saw skyrocketing housing prices.
Then for the past ten years a series of delays and maneuvers came up with multiple sets of unworkable rules. Now, the court has ordered a return to a simpler system based on what worked in the past, and given the Christie Administration five months to implement it.
Now, Sen. Lesniak has reacted to the decision by stating that S1 will be back with "some improvements, some refinements and some clarifications." Of course he also "declined to elaborate" on what those might be, continuing a bizarrely secretive process that has so far involved passing bills without the text being publicly available and denying the NAACP the right to testify. The process, according to Lesniak, will move fast, with a bill passed in the next 30 days (the latest in a series of urgent deadlines).
While we certainly support housing reform that works and that meets the constitutional principles that the court reiterated, the court decision today only reinforces why S-1 was unconstitutional and unworkable - nearly all of the key flaws in COAH's rules that the court invalidated are shared by S-1. Perhaps the "improvements, refinements, and clarifications" might change that - but if they aren't public, it's hard for anyone to know.
In any event, we will keep you posted as this issue progresses, and applaud the court's decision for recognizing that, especially in economically difficult times, New Jersey simply can't afford job-killing exclusionary zoning.
Never mind that you have to REALLY mess up to get tossed in this way - it's the first time that it's happened to any town in a few years. But when you voluntarily sign a legal agreement and then don't follow through on your end, and then ignore an agency's rules for more than a year despite repeated requests, there kinda have to be some consequences.
In a decision issued this morning, Marlboro Township (Monmouth County), was removed from the protections of the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) because the Council found that the municipality "consistently failed to demonstrate good faith" in meeting its housing obligations.
At the same meeting, the Council approved the housing plans of Union Township (Union County), along with Cresskill Borough (Bergen County).
The comparison between Marlboro Township and Union Township gives a good perspective on what a sound housing policy looks like, and the deep flaws with S-1, which failed to pass the Legislature this spring. Marlboro Township was a prime proponent of S-1; Union Township - ironically the location of the office of S-1 sponsor Sen. Ray Lesniak, along with Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan - was deemed "exclusionary" by S-1 despite the town's diversity and history of compliance with its legal obligations.
Marlboro Township has a history of flagrantly violating the state's housing laws that would be comical if it weren't true. Find out why below the fold....
New Jersey's progressive community - and some not so usual allies - slowed the S-1 juggernaut today. With about 40 speakers in opposition, and many more in the audience clapping in support, the bills many flaws became manifestly apparent. As one Blue Jersey commenter pointed out, anyone there could understand why Sen. Lesniak didn't want to take testimony - S-1, quite simply, got torn apart from every angle.
It's bad for South Jersey (as Asw. Riley pointed out to DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa, who avoided the question with a long discussion of the entire history of COAH); it's bad for cities and first suburbs in North Jersey (as we pointed out in a spirited exchange with Asm. Green, who recognized that the bill would overly concentrate poverty in communities like Plainfield). And it's bad for middle-class people like firemen and police - a point that Asm. Scalera's questions focused heavily on.
It's bad for builders and the economy - as many of the state's big time builders (that's the part about nontraditional allies) and the New Jersey Builders Association hammered home - not to mention Habitat for Humanity and the Housing and Community Development Network. It's bad for the environment - as Dianne Brake of PlanSmart, Judy Remington of Coalition on Affordable Housing and the Environment, and Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club pointed out in extended testimony.
It would turn back the clock decades on civil rights, as the NAACP's Kelly Francis and Mike McNeil pointed out in forceful testimony on the "Jim Crow" nature of the bill. And it would halt NJ's progress in deinstitutionalizing people with special needs, as several groups working on supportive housing pointed out.
Oh, yeah, Steve Lonegan et al don't like S-1 either which helps explain this morning's rare sight of a Republican Assembly member, Michael Patrick Carroll, conducting a lengthy cross-examination of a member of Gov. Christie's cabinet.
The only supporters of the bill were, well, not quite supporters - they all wanted amendments, in ways that seemed to contradict with each other. The non-residential developers, NAIOP, want changes. The Governor's office wants changes. The League of Municipalities and New Jersey Conference of Mayors want changes. These changes do not, at least from what was discussed, sound like they overlap very much.
The Christie-Lesniak team still wants a bill passed by June 30 and are exerting tremendous pressure to do so. The rationales for the deadline are flimsy - a Lesniak quote in the Ledger mentioned the "fiscal year" (despite the lack of connection of this bill to the budget) and DCA Commissioner Grifa felt that things were close. But, as Asm. Green repeatedly said during the hearing, rushing the bill has many risks - of a court challenge or totally ineffective system.
Thanks so much to the Blue Jersey community - you have been great in your support on pushing the Legislature to reflect the will of its constituents. And thanks to Speaker Oliver, Majority Leader Cryan, Chairman Green, and Vice-Chair Jasey for slowing the process down.
But we're not done yet - the Governor and Sen. Lesniak are still trying to bully the Assembly into passing S-1. We need to keep the pressure up against the serious push we are seeing. Let me know at adamgordon@fairsharehousing.org if there are any members of the Assembly you can reach out to.
Our testimony, per several people's request, is after the jump.
Promoted by Jason Springer: Fair Share Housing found some Red Tape the Governor likes in his proposal to do away with COAH.
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.
