Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
BY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
An effort to abolish the state Council on Affordable housing will begin Feb. 1 when the state Senate Economic Growth Committee will begin hearing testimony on bipartisan legislation that would eliminate the agency.
Under the bill, affordable housing issues would be handled by the State Planning Commission.
Sen. Raymond J. Lesniak (D-Union), the committee chairman and co-sponsor of the bill (S-1) with Sen. Christopher "Kip'' Bateman (R-Somerset), announced the hearing Wednesday.
Lesniak said he expects the bill to be ready for a committee vote at its meeting on March 8 . Both hearings are scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. in the Statehouse Annex in Trenton.
The senator said the proposal would establish what is described as a streamlined and simple process to comply with state Supreme Court mandates that require every city and town to provide their fair share of low- and moderate-income housing."The purpose of this bill is to repeal COAH's top down, micro-managed, and complex bureaucracy,'' Lesniak said. "For decades, COAH has burdened property taxpayers with millions of dollars in unnecessary cost of compliance by municipalities with its maze of ever-changing rules and regulations. And, COAH has discouraged job creation by adding housing requirements and fees based on the number of jobs created and private dollars invested.
"COAH will be replaced by the State Planning Commission and by a system that establishes a standard of fair share low- and moderate-income housing for which a municipality can decide among three different compliance mechanisms,'' Lesniak said.
With governors and state legislators mostly reluctant to fully support efforts at affordable housing because of opposition from local officials, COAH and the housing effort have never met their full potential.
The Lesniak-Bateman proposal would allow municipalities to decide if they if they have already met their affordable housing goals and could adopt a simple ordinance to declare their compliance.
If a municipality finds that it does not meet housing requirements, it must adopt an ordinance to that effect and work to meet the standards prescribed by law. Municipalities that fail to adopt an ordinance would be subject to a use variance wherein a housing development would be deemed to have met affordable housing requirements to obtain a use variance by a low- and moderate-income housing component of the development application.
"This market driven approach – free from complex, confusing and costly state requirements – will produce more affordable housing and reduce costs to both municipalities and the state," Lesniak said.
William G. Dressel, director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, the Trenton-based lobbying arm for local government, said he and local officials would attend the hearing.
"We applaud the senator for making this a priority in new legislative session and look forward to working with him and other stakeholders to reform housing policy in this state,'' Dressel said.
