newjerseynewsroom.com

BY RAYMOND J. LESNIAK

COMMENTARY

The opposing viewpoint on efforts to abolish the failed Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) seems to miss some very big points in favor of a idealized and naive world view on how affordable housing is built in New Jersey.

COAH is beyond reform and repair. It's currently producing far less affordable housing units than it mandates, and as a result, New Jersey's affordable housing needs aren't being met, and development of all kinds — commercial, industrial, residential — is being blocked due to top-down mandates from an out-of-touch State bureaucracy.

Our efforts to remove COAH from the equation and introduce a market-driven affordable housing system would break the jam on development at all levels and across the State, resulting in MORE affordable housing, more economic activity, and more job opportunities to allow State residents to afford housing when it's made available.

What are the right reasons to reform COAH? If it means creating more housing opportunities, ending exclusionary zoning where it exists, and ending development and economic stagnation which hurts our State's residents, we're already in it for the right reasons.

Our legislation to abolish COAH, S-1, will achieve these results.

I understand that S-1 isn't a cure-all for our affordable housing woes. It's a pressure-release valve which will start the flow of jobs, economic activity, and business investment back into our State's ailing municipalities. It provides some provisions for affordable housing development, but we need a larger affordable housing strategy on the State level, which includes development incentives, State support, and rational planning guidelines. That strategy will be unveiled in the next few months.

But in the meantime, ending COAH is far better than living under irrational, top-down mandates which have essentially killed economic growth in the Garden State. We need to move the State in a new direction regarding affordable housing construction, and the first step in doing that is abolishing the failed housing policies of the past which have not lived up to their promise of affordable housing for residents in need.

Raymond J. Lesniak (D), prime sponsor of S-1, a bill to abolish the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) in favor a market-driven approach to affordable housing, represents the 20th Legislative District, covering part of Union County, in the State Senate. He currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Economic Growth Committee.