by Dianne Brake
At Monday's Assembly Transportation Committee hearing, NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein confirmed that the multi-billion dollar project currently under construction that will double transit capacity for up to 75% of the population of New Jersey is necessary for just about any new transit service improvement to be added to New Jersey's transit system.
The project, variously known as the Access to Region's Core (ARC) project, or the Trans Hudson Express (THE) Tunnel, has been halted this month by the Christie Administration for a 30-day review of the project's finances. Committee Chairman Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-19) asked Weinstein questions to determine whether this review is likely to result in a withdrawal of the Administration's support for the project. The Director replied that the 30-day review would have to be completed before such a question could be answered.
One Committee member implied criticism of the project by asking why New Jersey should care about a project that seemed to support New York jobs. The answer lies in the fact that THE Tunnel will double transit capacity for up to 75% of New Jersey's population.
Although THE Tunnel will separate New Jersey trains from the AMTRAK entrance to New York, thereby benefiting AMTRAK riders on the Northeast Corridor, the benefit of THE Tunnel to New Jersey is so huge as to be almost impossible to estimate.
An investment in a system at one location can benefit the entire region, as has been demonstrated in Boston and Washington. Boston's central artery and Washington's new Metro line to Arlington have spurred new economic investments in station areas all along the lines. It was not just the city centers that benefited from the investment, but all the communities touched by the system.
In New Jersey, improvements made possible by THE Tunnel can make the system far more Jersey-centric than it is today. NJ TRANSIT will be able to improve service between New Jersey stations, among New Jersey transit lines and improve connectivity among different modes of travel.
It will allow NJ TRANSIT to reconnect New Jersey's cities to suburban employment centers as well as bolster new economic investments in the existing transit hubs of Newark, Jersey City and other historic employment centers.
We applaud Governor Christie's responsible action to make sure that the funding is in place to complete this project, one of the most strategic investments in New Jersey's future that is underway today. We know that the Administration recognizes the importance of this investment to the prosperity of New Jersey's near-term and long-term future.
After all, what could be of greater immediate benefit to New Jersey's struggling economy? The construction of the project adds about 6000 construction jobs for New Jersey's workers and, when it is complete, will provide the capacity to spur more lasting economic growth in the future.
What could be more strategic? This project adds growth capacity that will achieve multiple goals: reduce traffic on highway arteries, improve environmental conditions and mobility, and encourage efficient land use patterns.
This project also enhances New Jersey's competitive edge in the region. PlanSmart NJ has supported THE Tunnel since we expanded our focus from central Jersey to statewide in 1999. We recognized that the post-recession economy and the next generation of the workforce will have a new appetite for greater transit use and development near transit hubs.
We trust that Governor Christie will use the power of his office to make sure that this 30-day review will be completed as soon as possible and will result in expediting the completion of the project, rather than slowing it down.
We ask Governor Christie today: As you lead our State to a recovery from the current recession, please reinforce the message that your Administration will stand by this project. It is a gift from our generation to those yet to come.
______________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmart NJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
For more information about PlanSmart NJ and our latest report, How Much Growth? Where? To do what? Finding and Planning Receiving Areas for the Highlands TDR Program can be found on the PlanSmart NJ website, www.plansmartnj.org.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
How Much Growth? Where? To Do What? How to stop fighting about housing policy and do what needs to be done for all!
S1, the so-called affordable housing bill that passed in the Senate last week, rashly throws out the Mt. Laurel Doctrine that made New Jersey’s affordable housing program a model for the rest of the country. It will lead to lawsuits, not housing.
First, it ignores the Court’s 1975 Mt. Laurel decision, which was about zoning. It said that because zoning is a police power, local officials can only apply it to support the general welfare. Like eminent domain, zoning is something the public has an interest in . We don’t want local officials doing anything they want with it. S1 takes local officials off the hook for equitable zoning.
Second, it ignores the Court’s 1983 Mt. Laurel II decision, which said that sound state planning was required to make sure that local planners will protect natural resources as well as provide equitable zoning. It was this decision that led the Legislature to set up both COAH and the State Planning Commission; the first to determine the regional need, the second to determine where new growth should go.
S1 ignores the fact that COAH and the State Planning Commission were not allowed to function effectively for the last eight years. S1 ignores how well they had worked prior to the last two administrations and dismantles COAH and removes any role for state or regional planning.
There is no time to continue fighting over housing and planning programs. We need housing now and a great deal more. New Jersey faces severe economic, fiscal and social challenges, with trends in a downward spiral. To complicate things, New Jersey faces build-out in the near future – all its land will be either developed or preserved. We need a plan of action and we need it now.
We need to re-concentrate jobs and add market rate units to cities and transit areas. We need to retrofit suburban employment centers to become vibrant, mixed-use, mixed-income destinations. We need greater opportunities for racial and economic integration. And we can all use a better environment and more government efficiency. Integrated planning and housing programs can do it all.
Cookie cutter solutions, using paltry set-asides in sprawl development, have no place on a landscape as complex as New Jersey’s. We need the whole system working to fix our problems. Then we can add state incentives and developer impact fees, when the economy supports them again, to get even better results.
We must decide what we want: How much growth? Where? To do what?
Sound answers to these questions can only be produced by strategic and integrated land use planning at the state and regional levels, integrated with transformative targets for jobs, housing, transit use, reversing patterns of segregation and concentrated poverty and mitigating climate change.
Clear answers can be used to hold decision-makers accountable for reversing the downward trajectory of trends and putting New Jersey on track to attain a better future for all. Here is how it can be done:
Step 1: Decide how much growth is needed
There is plenty of data to show us areas with challenges and opportunities. Because of New Jersey’s complex landscape, different types and amounts of growth will be suitable in different places. The “how much” will be related to “what” New Jersey needs to achieve to solve its problems and produce a better quality of life in the future for all.
Step two: Decide where growth should go
The “where” will be related to existing conditions, as well as the “what” we need to do: optimize transit use, protect water and critical habitats and increase racial and economic integration.
Step three: Decide specifically what growth should do
In order to drive change and accountability for results, we need clear targets for “how many” jobs and houses, of what kind, are needed “where” to reduce auto travel by how much, to improve water resources by how much, to improve racial and economic integration by how much. Without transformative targets, we will continue fiddling with the same programs and regulations that have caused the problems we have.
Step four: Decide who will do what to implement the plan
In order to get the job done, we need assignments. Counties should be empowered to convene a Regional Action Plan (RAP) Process (see PlanSmart NJ technical services page on our web site for a description of RAPs) with state and local officials to result in a compact agreement on the actions all parties will take (state, regional, county, local) to meet the agreed targets. The compact becomes the basis for implementation, monitoring and accountability.
The results? A single vision of the future of New Jersey that reflects different conditions in different places and will serve to coordinate the implementation actions of many separate agencies and decision-makers in their policies, regulations, and incentive and investment programs. This, in turn, will lead to actions applied locally that are appropriate to the place and within the context of state and regional policy.
It should be done. It can be done. It must be done.
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
First, it ignores the Court’s 1975 Mt. Laurel decision, which was about zoning. It said that because zoning is a police power, local officials can only apply it to support the general welfare. Like eminent domain, zoning is something the public has an interest in . We don’t want local officials doing anything they want with it. S1 takes local officials off the hook for equitable zoning.
Second, it ignores the Court’s 1983 Mt. Laurel II decision, which said that sound state planning was required to make sure that local planners will protect natural resources as well as provide equitable zoning. It was this decision that led the Legislature to set up both COAH and the State Planning Commission; the first to determine the regional need, the second to determine where new growth should go.
S1 ignores the fact that COAH and the State Planning Commission were not allowed to function effectively for the last eight years. S1 ignores how well they had worked prior to the last two administrations and dismantles COAH and removes any role for state or regional planning.
There is no time to continue fighting over housing and planning programs. We need housing now and a great deal more. New Jersey faces severe economic, fiscal and social challenges, with trends in a downward spiral. To complicate things, New Jersey faces build-out in the near future – all its land will be either developed or preserved. We need a plan of action and we need it now.
We need to re-concentrate jobs and add market rate units to cities and transit areas. We need to retrofit suburban employment centers to become vibrant, mixed-use, mixed-income destinations. We need greater opportunities for racial and economic integration. And we can all use a better environment and more government efficiency. Integrated planning and housing programs can do it all.
Cookie cutter solutions, using paltry set-asides in sprawl development, have no place on a landscape as complex as New Jersey’s. We need the whole system working to fix our problems. Then we can add state incentives and developer impact fees, when the economy supports them again, to get even better results.
We must decide what we want: How much growth? Where? To do what?
Sound answers to these questions can only be produced by strategic and integrated land use planning at the state and regional levels, integrated with transformative targets for jobs, housing, transit use, reversing patterns of segregation and concentrated poverty and mitigating climate change.
Clear answers can be used to hold decision-makers accountable for reversing the downward trajectory of trends and putting New Jersey on track to attain a better future for all. Here is how it can be done:
Step 1: Decide how much growth is needed
There is plenty of data to show us areas with challenges and opportunities. Because of New Jersey’s complex landscape, different types and amounts of growth will be suitable in different places. The “how much” will be related to “what” New Jersey needs to achieve to solve its problems and produce a better quality of life in the future for all.
Step two: Decide where growth should go
The “where” will be related to existing conditions, as well as the “what” we need to do: optimize transit use, protect water and critical habitats and increase racial and economic integration.
Step three: Decide specifically what growth should do
In order to drive change and accountability for results, we need clear targets for “how many” jobs and houses, of what kind, are needed “where” to reduce auto travel by how much, to improve water resources by how much, to improve racial and economic integration by how much. Without transformative targets, we will continue fiddling with the same programs and regulations that have caused the problems we have.
Step four: Decide who will do what to implement the plan
In order to get the job done, we need assignments. Counties should be empowered to convene a Regional Action Plan (RAP) Process (see PlanSmart NJ technical services page on our web site for a description of RAPs) with state and local officials to result in a compact agreement on the actions all parties will take (state, regional, county, local) to meet the agreed targets. The compact becomes the basis for implementation, monitoring and accountability.
The results? A single vision of the future of New Jersey that reflects different conditions in different places and will serve to coordinate the implementation actions of many separate agencies and decision-makers in their policies, regulations, and incentive and investment programs. This, in turn, will lead to actions applied locally that are appropriate to the place and within the context of state and regional policy.
It should be done. It can be done. It must be done.
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
Friday, April 23, 2010
Minding Our R's and E's: Earth Day 2010
by Dianne Brake
There is a useful conservation mantra: Reduce, Recycle, Re-use! There is also a nifty definition of sustainability: the nexus of Economy, Environment, and Equity. In honor of the Earth Day's 40th Anniversary, PlanSmartNJ proposes to add one more "R" and one more "E" to these mnemonic messages. Each addition is intended to provide a unifying and forward-thinking focus.
The original "R's" of conservation: Of course, we can all easily agree that we must reduce pollution (air, water, soil) and reduce waste(solid, water, energy, land). We can also agree that we must reduce the cost of living so that we have more money to restore damaged resources.
But there are other aspects of "reduce" that are more difficult: We must reduce auto-dependency so that we can reduce energy and land consumption and clean up the air. And, hardest of all, we must reduce disparities among people and communities that limit the access of people of color and low income to better opportunities and a cleaner environment.
As for re-use: our country was founded on the idea that the continent would provide an inexhaustible supply of land, water and resources. This legacy makes re-use a difficult concept for many. Our "slash and burn" culture, however, has hit the proverbial brick wall in New Jersey, since it is the state closest to build-out: all of its land is either developed or preserved. If we want to rebuild our former economic prosperity here, we must figure out how to re-use land, buildings and other resources. And we must do it now.
Although recycling products is important and something most of us are comfortable with, we must also learn to recycle land and other resources. Unlike re-use, recycling means finding new uses for these resources. Examples include recycling a factory by changing it into housing, or recycling an office park or shopping center by adding housing and making each place a compact, mixed-use center.
Of course, recycling also applies to recycling water, putting dirty water to new uses as flushing toilets and fertilizing lawns (promote the use of "grey water", "black water" and "purple pipes").
Recycling can also be applied in industry: eco-industrial parks are places where clusters of companies use each others' waste. This is an important, but often overlooked part of "greening" the economy.
Adding the fourth "R" for "Restore": Although it is clear we must conserve and protect natural resources through Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, we must also strive to restore conditions in many areas to achieve the best environmental outcomes that we can.
Restoring stream banks to natural conditions, for example, means providing multiple benefits - it can improve filtering of pollutants and provide better habitat conditions and flood control. Restoring the stream itself through "daylighting", which means uncovering a stream that has been buried under a road or city block, also has multiple benefits to the health of the water's eco-system as well as to the prosperity of the neighborhood through which it passes.
In spite of the benefits of restoration, our land use decision-making system - our plans, policies, regulations and investments - are designed to protect us from bad things rather than to make them better. Highways, for example, are designed to avoid congestion, not provide an efficient base for public transportation. A rule that requires a 300' buffer uniformly is designed to protect water from development, not improve conditions in the watershed. Instead, we should focus on optimizing results, a better way to pursue conservation as well as a better quality of life for all who share the planet.
The original sustainability "E's": Trying to optimize results is a good segue into "sustainability", a watchword on Earth Day since the world Earth Summit in 1992. Sustainability is often visually described as a Venn Diagram of three overlapping circles representing the Economy, the Environment, and Equity(conditions of social justice). The center where the three "E" circles overlap is where sustainability lies. Sustainability considers each of the "E's" as equally important: optimizing results is what sustainability seeks.
Adding the fourth "E" for "Efficiency": The concept of Efficiency brings to the concept of sustainability what Restore brings to conservation - it provides a focus on optimization of a number of goals, rather than maximization of any one. In this case, efficiency means getting from each "E" as much benefit as possible without waste and without interfering with the advancement of the others.
Seeing sustainability in this way advances another definition that some use for sustainability: having each generation pursue its goals in ways that will allow future generations to pursue theirs. It focuses on seeking multiple benefits and respecting the interconnectedness of all things, including the present to the future.
On this 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, let's review our R's and E's and consider how we can change our thinking, our behavior and our attitudes to honor the world around us. And let's apply it in our system of land use decision-making as well as in our daily lives.
_____________________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
There is a useful conservation mantra: Reduce, Recycle, Re-use! There is also a nifty definition of sustainability: the nexus of Economy, Environment, and Equity. In honor of the Earth Day's 40th Anniversary, PlanSmartNJ proposes to add one more "R" and one more "E" to these mnemonic messages. Each addition is intended to provide a unifying and forward-thinking focus.
The original "R's" of conservation: Of course, we can all easily agree that we must reduce pollution (air, water, soil) and reduce waste(solid, water, energy, land). We can also agree that we must reduce the cost of living so that we have more money to restore damaged resources.
But there are other aspects of "reduce" that are more difficult: We must reduce auto-dependency so that we can reduce energy and land consumption and clean up the air. And, hardest of all, we must reduce disparities among people and communities that limit the access of people of color and low income to better opportunities and a cleaner environment.
As for re-use: our country was founded on the idea that the continent would provide an inexhaustible supply of land, water and resources. This legacy makes re-use a difficult concept for many. Our "slash and burn" culture, however, has hit the proverbial brick wall in New Jersey, since it is the state closest to build-out: all of its land is either developed or preserved. If we want to rebuild our former economic prosperity here, we must figure out how to re-use land, buildings and other resources. And we must do it now.
Although recycling products is important and something most of us are comfortable with, we must also learn to recycle land and other resources. Unlike re-use, recycling means finding new uses for these resources. Examples include recycling a factory by changing it into housing, or recycling an office park or shopping center by adding housing and making each place a compact, mixed-use center.
Of course, recycling also applies to recycling water, putting dirty water to new uses as flushing toilets and fertilizing lawns (promote the use of "grey water", "black water" and "purple pipes").
Recycling can also be applied in industry: eco-industrial parks are places where clusters of companies use each others' waste. This is an important, but often overlooked part of "greening" the economy.
Adding the fourth "R" for "Restore": Although it is clear we must conserve and protect natural resources through Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, we must also strive to restore conditions in many areas to achieve the best environmental outcomes that we can.
Restoring stream banks to natural conditions, for example, means providing multiple benefits - it can improve filtering of pollutants and provide better habitat conditions and flood control. Restoring the stream itself through "daylighting", which means uncovering a stream that has been buried under a road or city block, also has multiple benefits to the health of the water's eco-system as well as to the prosperity of the neighborhood through which it passes.
In spite of the benefits of restoration, our land use decision-making system - our plans, policies, regulations and investments - are designed to protect us from bad things rather than to make them better. Highways, for example, are designed to avoid congestion, not provide an efficient base for public transportation. A rule that requires a 300' buffer uniformly is designed to protect water from development, not improve conditions in the watershed. Instead, we should focus on optimizing results, a better way to pursue conservation as well as a better quality of life for all who share the planet.
The original sustainability "E's": Trying to optimize results is a good segue into "sustainability", a watchword on Earth Day since the world Earth Summit in 1992. Sustainability is often visually described as a Venn Diagram of three overlapping circles representing the Economy, the Environment, and Equity(conditions of social justice). The center where the three "E" circles overlap is where sustainability lies. Sustainability considers each of the "E's" as equally important: optimizing results is what sustainability seeks.
Adding the fourth "E" for "Efficiency": The concept of Efficiency brings to the concept of sustainability what Restore brings to conservation - it provides a focus on optimization of a number of goals, rather than maximization of any one. In this case, efficiency means getting from each "E" as much benefit as possible without waste and without interfering with the advancement of the others.
Seeing sustainability in this way advances another definition that some use for sustainability: having each generation pursue its goals in ways that will allow future generations to pursue theirs. It focuses on seeking multiple benefits and respecting the interconnectedness of all things, including the present to the future.
On this 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, let's review our R's and E's and consider how we can change our thinking, our behavior and our attitudes to honor the world around us. And let's apply it in our system of land use decision-making as well as in our daily lives.
_____________________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Solving the Real Housing Crisis
by Dianne Brake
New Jersey has not one but three affordable housing crises.
New Jersey has not one but three affordable housing crises.
- There is the real crisis: there is a huge backlog of need for workforce and special needs housing in the right locations and no plan for the future.
- There is the temporary crisis: the NJ Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) was led into a regulatory disaster that has forced a temporary crisis over what should be done to fix it.
- And then there is the manufactured crisis: ignoring both the real and the temporary crisis, some leaders are acting as if municipalities had to be saved from the responsibility to zone in a Constitutional manner.
Admittedly, focusing on the real crisis is difficult: it means having to change many long-held views, end many long-established regulatory programs, restructure property taxes, and give the state a role in land use decisions - in other words, having to demonstrate extraordinary leadership.
But government has the power to do what is needed. And given the state of our economy and the real possibility of losing our high standard of living over the next few years, the time for extraordinary leadership is today.
First, change zoning almost everywhere. The paradigm driving zoning is an out-of-date suburban model that sets separate uses and low densities, even in some important growth areas such as downtowns and train station areas. These places should be identified for housing development - they are of equal importance to the state as the environmental resources already protected by the state in the Highlands and the Pinelands.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This does not mean ending Home Rule. It just means ending fragmented decision-making over issues that are of statewide and regional significance.
Here is how zoning affects housing prices and availability:
- Zoning affects the supply: Studies show that there is too little land zoned residential at the right densities in the right places, and the pent-up demand pushes the price of housing up. At build-out, zoning in the Route 1 Corridor, for example, will triple the jobs-to-housing ratio.
- Zoning affects the type of homes: Large lots and large homes cost more and are a product of zoning requirements. We have enough of a supply of these. Inclusionary zoning (smaller, denser units to reduce costs) should be put into place in strategic growth areas. Inclusionary development (internal subsidies from density bonuses) is a weaker substitute to the Constitutional mandate to zone responsibly to provide a fair share of the region's need for affordable housing.
There are other reasons to change suburban-style zoning: it will build growth capacity, keep our skilled labor force, protect the remaining open land and retrofit suburban employment centers and revitalize downtowns to create the vibrant mixed-use destinations that the new workforce demands.
Second, restructure regulations: The era of having the private sector foot the bill for public necessities and amenities has been ended by the collapse of the economy. The public sector, of course, is in no position to pick up the slack. Coffers are empty and the pressure is on to cut services and taxes.
The answer is for government to act like drivers negotiating a dangerous curve and keep their eyes on the distant point beyond the curve.
While cutting programs, government must find more efficient and frugal ways to improve conditions, moving from a command-and-control system to one based on performance standards and collaborations. Government must cut any waste of time and waste of effort and make sure that new programs are strategic and mutually-supporting, getting more bang for the buck.
For example, plans for housing should be integrated with plans for economic expansion, while focusing on reducing the concentration of poverty. This can cut costs and improve outcomes.
Another example is to regulate by watersheds rather than separate wastewater, stormwater, water supply, and water quality regulatory programs. Another is to focus transportation programs on building a transit-centric system rather than on individual projects scattered across the state.
Third, reduce the cost of density: For urban areas, transit hubs, and downtowns, construction over three stories high requires steel construction and structured parking (spaces in parking garages are 10 times more costly than spaces in a surface parking lot). In some areas, the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites must be added, and these are not only in urban areas: agricultural and other activities in rural and suburban areas sometimes pollute sites.
Meanwhile we are asking the private sector to buy Transfer of Development Rights credits and to subsidize affordable housing. How do all these costs get reduced?
Government must invest in density, perhaps establishing more efficient brownfields clean-up programs; a statewide parking authority, land assembly and housing land trust programs in strategic growth areas. The benefits of investing in density are numerous and worth every public penny.
Density in the right locations -- to revitalize urban areas, retrofit suburban areas and save rural lands -- must be identified in a strong and independent State Plan that promotes transparency in government and accountability for results.
Fourth, the cost of living in high-opportunity communities must be recognized: In any state that is close to build-out, which has good schools, access to many jobs, and has many features of a good quality of life, the cost of land, the cost of labor, and the cost of living will be high.
We do not want to reduce the cost of living by making New Jersey less attractive.
New Jersey's government must invest more strategically in infrastructure and subsidy programs that will attract high value economic development. And it must absolutely reduce any extraneous costs -- the costs of waste, over-regulation, and unnecessary constraints on supply.
These can all reduce the costs to housing developers while getting more benefits from government investments and improving the quality of life and the competitiveness of New Jersey's markets.
The power to act is in hand. The time to act is now. ______________________________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Fixing the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH): Saving the baby while throwing out the bathwater
What is the most effective way to stop the damage to our economy and our communities caused by a dysfunctional COAH? This question sparked a passionate debate in a Senate hearing on S-1, a bill that proposes to eliminate COAH and approach the "problem" of affordable housing in a completely different way.
How could a program that was given the goal of implementing something as positive as the American Dream - the dream that equal access to opportunity will be protected by our government - come to be seen as such a problem that lawmakers are discussing how to get rid of it?
The answer lies somewhere in the morass that public officials create when they get caught up in tactics and lose sight of the goal. Over the last 10 years, COAH has changed its tactics so dramatically, that they are no longer aligned with the goal. But how will the Legislature know which is the "baby" and which is the "bathwater" when they are trying to start over?
One problem they will have is that all those caught in COAH's morass -- urban, suburban, and rural municipalities, employers, developers and people in need of affordable housing - all have different problems with the system. Some of the solutions suggested so far might relieve one group's problems, while causing other groups to have more.
PlanSmart NJ agrees wholeheartedly that the system needs fixing. We hope to help by suggesting that solutions can be found by embracing the original goal - that government can and will ensure equal access to opportunity for all citizens.
Of course, this immediately raises questions about what is meant by equal (the idea of fairness is there, but so is the idea of sameness); what is meant by access (housing or transportation); and what kind of opportunity (jobs, housing, education, transportation).
Most of these questions have been answered by New Jersey's Supreme Court in a number of decisions made since 1975. Those decisions came to be known as the Mt. Laurel Doctrine, which interprets New Jersey's Constitution to mean that zoning is a police power, like eminent domain.
Since zoning is like eminent domain, municipalities can't apply it any way they want. They can only apply it to promote the general welfare. Surely every citizen wants this protection from government power abuse.
Going further, the Courts determined that the "general welfare" means a municipality must consider the welfare of those who do not yet live in their town, but who may wish to do so. The Courts found that many municipalities had failed to apply their zoning this way. They called it "exclusionary zoning", and they acknowledged that it had been going on for so long that an unhealthy - and unconstitutional - pattern of racial and economic segregation had emerged.
This is where controversy arose over Mt.Laurel and has never settled.
Problem # 1: Understanding the "general welfare" this way sets up a tension between the municipality and the region - something that has not yet been resolved to anyone's satisfaction. What are the regions? How much accommodation to the region's need is enough? Now is the time to settle this issue, but not just for affordable housing.
Solution: Integrate COAH and State Planning: Many of New Jersey's economic and environmental problems will be served by introducing stronger state and regional planning to provide the context within which local actions can be evaluated. The Mt.Laurel Doctrine strongly supports this: it is the reason that New Jersey passed one of the nation's first State Planning Act in 1985. Fix the State Plan as you fix COAH.
Problem #2; The need to answer the questions about "how much is enough" leads to the need for a target. Targets have always been controversial, but COAH, and the Courts before it, have always felt that targets were necessary.
When COAH adopted its Third Round rules in 2004, however, the targets had been so transparently manipulated to reduce them to half the size they had ever been, the Court threw them out in 2007. The redraft adopted in 2008 has sparked 24 law suits that have yet to be settled. The COAH-created policy vacuum has led to the call to abolish it.
Solution: In COAH's First and Second Rounds of target-setting, municipalities grumbled, but they knew what they had to do and how they would be judged. They went on to create 45,000 affordable housing units - more than any other state in the country during that time period! Until the Third Round rules, COAH functioned. We must not forget that.
Problem # 3: COAH's Round Three rules may have forever tarnished the notion that targets will ever be seen to be legitimate again. But if targets are taken off the table, what alternatives can be used to determine which towns have an unmet obligation?
Solution: PlanSmart NJ supports targets as one of the most useful tools in policy-making, particularly in planning. To paraphrase New Jersey's own Yogi Berra, if we don't know where we are going, we might not get there! What needs to be thrown out is the methodology for determining the targets.
To correct the methodology, we propose going back to the first solution - fix the State Plan, fix COAH. The target for affordable housing should not be separated from the other goals and objectives that the State has - a stronger economic base; less auto-dependency and air pollution; protected water resources, critical habitats and farmland; and elimination of concentrated poverty and segregation.
Clearly, the varying conditions in each municipality on all these policy fronts demand a planned approach to the targets - not a cookie cutter "growth share" that treats all municipalities the same.
Government programs can connect housing targets to jobs - those here and those sought. Locations for these new jobs and housing would be selected to meet the needs of the economy (economic clusters, special infrastructure needs, etc,) and the need to create vibrant living and working environments out of distressed communities and suburban sprawl.
We can make sure that policy targets, regulations and investments work together to optimize results. It is what government is supposed to do for all of us.
Although this means changing so many things about the way we do things today, it is doable - especially when compared to the costly, misguided, broken system that is currently obstructing economic growth, failing to restore and protect the environment and failing to create the quality of life we want.
These solutions are not only doable, they are essential to our future.
___________________________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
How could a program that was given the goal of implementing something as positive as the American Dream - the dream that equal access to opportunity will be protected by our government - come to be seen as such a problem that lawmakers are discussing how to get rid of it?
The answer lies somewhere in the morass that public officials create when they get caught up in tactics and lose sight of the goal. Over the last 10 years, COAH has changed its tactics so dramatically, that they are no longer aligned with the goal. But how will the Legislature know which is the "baby" and which is the "bathwater" when they are trying to start over?
One problem they will have is that all those caught in COAH's morass -- urban, suburban, and rural municipalities, employers, developers and people in need of affordable housing - all have different problems with the system. Some of the solutions suggested so far might relieve one group's problems, while causing other groups to have more.
PlanSmart NJ agrees wholeheartedly that the system needs fixing. We hope to help by suggesting that solutions can be found by embracing the original goal - that government can and will ensure equal access to opportunity for all citizens.
Of course, this immediately raises questions about what is meant by equal (the idea of fairness is there, but so is the idea of sameness); what is meant by access (housing or transportation); and what kind of opportunity (jobs, housing, education, transportation).
Most of these questions have been answered by New Jersey's Supreme Court in a number of decisions made since 1975. Those decisions came to be known as the Mt. Laurel Doctrine, which interprets New Jersey's Constitution to mean that zoning is a police power, like eminent domain.
Since zoning is like eminent domain, municipalities can't apply it any way they want. They can only apply it to promote the general welfare. Surely every citizen wants this protection from government power abuse.
Going further, the Courts determined that the "general welfare" means a municipality must consider the welfare of those who do not yet live in their town, but who may wish to do so. The Courts found that many municipalities had failed to apply their zoning this way. They called it "exclusionary zoning", and they acknowledged that it had been going on for so long that an unhealthy - and unconstitutional - pattern of racial and economic segregation had emerged.
This is where controversy arose over Mt.Laurel and has never settled.
Problem # 1: Understanding the "general welfare" this way sets up a tension between the municipality and the region - something that has not yet been resolved to anyone's satisfaction. What are the regions? How much accommodation to the region's need is enough? Now is the time to settle this issue, but not just for affordable housing.
Solution: Integrate COAH and State Planning: Many of New Jersey's economic and environmental problems will be served by introducing stronger state and regional planning to provide the context within which local actions can be evaluated. The Mt.Laurel Doctrine strongly supports this: it is the reason that New Jersey passed one of the nation's first State Planning Act in 1985. Fix the State Plan as you fix COAH.
Problem #2; The need to answer the questions about "how much is enough" leads to the need for a target. Targets have always been controversial, but COAH, and the Courts before it, have always felt that targets were necessary.
When COAH adopted its Third Round rules in 2004, however, the targets had been so transparently manipulated to reduce them to half the size they had ever been, the Court threw them out in 2007. The redraft adopted in 2008 has sparked 24 law suits that have yet to be settled. The COAH-created policy vacuum has led to the call to abolish it.
Solution: In COAH's First and Second Rounds of target-setting, municipalities grumbled, but they knew what they had to do and how they would be judged. They went on to create 45,000 affordable housing units - more than any other state in the country during that time period! Until the Third Round rules, COAH functioned. We must not forget that.
Problem # 3: COAH's Round Three rules may have forever tarnished the notion that targets will ever be seen to be legitimate again. But if targets are taken off the table, what alternatives can be used to determine which towns have an unmet obligation?
Solution: PlanSmart NJ supports targets as one of the most useful tools in policy-making, particularly in planning. To paraphrase New Jersey's own Yogi Berra, if we don't know where we are going, we might not get there! What needs to be thrown out is the methodology for determining the targets.
To correct the methodology, we propose going back to the first solution - fix the State Plan, fix COAH. The target for affordable housing should not be separated from the other goals and objectives that the State has - a stronger economic base; less auto-dependency and air pollution; protected water resources, critical habitats and farmland; and elimination of concentrated poverty and segregation.
Clearly, the varying conditions in each municipality on all these policy fronts demand a planned approach to the targets - not a cookie cutter "growth share" that treats all municipalities the same.
Government programs can connect housing targets to jobs - those here and those sought. Locations for these new jobs and housing would be selected to meet the needs of the economy (economic clusters, special infrastructure needs, etc,) and the need to create vibrant living and working environments out of distressed communities and suburban sprawl.
We can make sure that policy targets, regulations and investments work together to optimize results. It is what government is supposed to do for all of us.
Although this means changing so many things about the way we do things today, it is doable - especially when compared to the costly, misguided, broken system that is currently obstructing economic growth, failing to restore and protect the environment and failing to create the quality of life we want.
These solutions are not only doable, they are essential to our future.
___________________________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
Monday, January 25, 2010
Dare to Change
More than forty years ago Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked us to keep our "eyes on the prize" - a new social order in which oppression and segregation did not exist. These conditions however still exist. For this reason, on this holiday, PlanSmartNJ challenges everyone to join forces to change them.
PlanSmartNJ's contribution to change is its work to reform the current land use decision-making system. Dry as changing the land use decision-making system may sound, PlanSmartNJ sees it as a glittering prize indeed. The current system - the plans, policies, regulations, tax structure and infrastructure investments - promotes deep disparities among communities.
Fixing this system, built up over the last hundred years, with PlanSmart NJ's new tools and strategies, could mean transforming the future prospects for hundreds of communities, thousands of people in New Jersey. For it is New Jersey's broken land use system that has pushed jobs away from public transit and made housing unaffordable to most people. It has eroded our economic base and concentrated poverty in a way that promotes despair.
In New Jersey, if you are white and poor, you are likely to live in mixed-income communities, with access to good schools, safe neighborhoods and good jobs. If you are black and poor, on the other hand, you are likely to live entirely surrounded by poverty, in places where many schools are failing and jobs continue to be lost in the cities and are difficult to access in the suburbs.
To meet our own challenge, PlanSmartNJ commits to educating people on the shocking disparities among communities across regions. We will strive to make visible the connections between us that are palpable, but invisible within our Home Rule structure.
We will challenge anyone who wants to frame public issues as "us" versus "them." And we will ignore anyone who dismisses us with "that will never happen!" or that is "too difficult to do."
As a founding member of the NJ Regional Coalition, we will promote regional equity, the concept that a region can act together to reduce the disparities among its communities and improve everyone's access to opportunities within it. In addition, we commit to making the concept of regional equity a pillar of land use planning.
We challenge everyone to question, think through, find out, plan actions, and celebrate success. And As the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead is often quoted as saying:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
___________________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
PlanSmartNJ's contribution to change is its work to reform the current land use decision-making system. Dry as changing the land use decision-making system may sound, PlanSmartNJ sees it as a glittering prize indeed. The current system - the plans, policies, regulations, tax structure and infrastructure investments - promotes deep disparities among communities.
Fixing this system, built up over the last hundred years, with PlanSmart NJ's new tools and strategies, could mean transforming the future prospects for hundreds of communities, thousands of people in New Jersey. For it is New Jersey's broken land use system that has pushed jobs away from public transit and made housing unaffordable to most people. It has eroded our economic base and concentrated poverty in a way that promotes despair.
In New Jersey, if you are white and poor, you are likely to live in mixed-income communities, with access to good schools, safe neighborhoods and good jobs. If you are black and poor, on the other hand, you are likely to live entirely surrounded by poverty, in places where many schools are failing and jobs continue to be lost in the cities and are difficult to access in the suburbs.
To meet our own challenge, PlanSmartNJ commits to educating people on the shocking disparities among communities across regions. We will strive to make visible the connections between us that are palpable, but invisible within our Home Rule structure.
We will challenge anyone who wants to frame public issues as "us" versus "them." And we will ignore anyone who dismisses us with "that will never happen!" or that is "too difficult to do."
As a founding member of the NJ Regional Coalition, we will promote regional equity, the concept that a region can act together to reduce the disparities among its communities and improve everyone's access to opportunities within it. In addition, we commit to making the concept of regional equity a pillar of land use planning.
We challenge everyone to question, think through, find out, plan actions, and celebrate success. And As the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead is often quoted as saying:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
___________________________________________
Dianne Brake is currently President of PlanSmart NJ, Founded in 1968, PlanSmartNJ is a Trenton-based statewide not-for-profit research and advocacy organization that advances the quality of community life through sound land use planning and regional cooperation. PlanSmart NJ aims to renew the landscape so that communities in the future will have a sustainable economy and environment, based on strategic approaches for resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org
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