Speaks Out

We've Moved!

2011-11-16T15:23:00.001-05:00

We've moved our Blog to our website- www.plansmartnj.org. Please look for updates under News>Speaks Out Blog.

Thank you,

PlanSmart NJ

Regional Planning Is the Key to Job Creation in New Jersey

2011-07-14T11:27:00.010-04:00

Last Friday, the U.S. Labor Department issued an unexpectedly gloomy jobs report. Contrary to most economists’ projections, the unemployment rate inched up to 9.2%, up from 9.1% in May. In June 2009, when the recession technically ended, the unemployment rate was just slightly higher, at 9.5%.

The news probably wasn’t particularly surprising to the New Jersey business leaders who participated in PlanSmart NJ’s Economic Development and Land Use conference last month in New Brunswick, NJ. Nor was it a surprise to those who participated in an earlier PlanSmart NJ focus group held in April with business leaders from key sectors of New Jersey’s economy.

The findings of this business focus group are captured in our recent report, What’s Land Use Got to Do with It? Examining the Connections Between New Jersey’s Economic Prosperity and its Land Use Patterns. Business leaders are well aware of the facts contained in the report:

In April 2011, New Jersey’s private sector employment levels were at the same level as they had been in September 1998. In 2008 and 2009, New Jersey lost 226,000 jobs.
From 2003 to 2007, prior to the “Great Recession”, New Jersey only captured 1.3% of the national market share of job growth. According to Dean Hughes of the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, New Jersey’s “fair share” of employment growth should be around 3%.
A net 53,744 households left the state in 2009, as part of a net out migration.
In 2010, only 23 new corporations started or expanded facilities in New Jersey, compared with 168 in New York, 337 in Pennsylvania, and 424 in Texas.

So, what do business leaders have to say about what New Jersey should do to help them support job growth in the Garden State?

As you might expect, there is a chorus of voices from all industry sectors urging government at every level to lower taxes and other costs for business, to simplify New Jersey’s complex regulatory environment, and to create a more predictable development approval process.

What might surprise you is New Jersey’s business leaders’ intuitive understanding of the linkages between regional land use planning and their ability to grow their business. When asked about the greatest challenges facing their companies, these leaders raised some unexpected themes:

1. High housing costs and skyrocketing property taxes are a barrier to worker attraction and retention. There is wide recognition that New Jersey’s fragmented, locally-driven system of planning and zoning regulations have led to high property taxes and a shortage of varied housing options near employment centers and to high housing costs. Business leaders in PlanSmart NJ’s focus group emphasized the dearth of multi-family moderately priced housing for entry level workers and young educated families seeking to move to New Jersey’s suburbs.
In the words of one business leader:

“We can’t afford any kids, so we can’t build any houses. What we need is apartments…and nobody wants them because it’s going to bring the kids in and…nobody wants that. So you chase the ratables…I think the funding of public education, K through 12, is what is impacting the housing market.”

This theme was echoed last week with the release of a Rowan University study that found that from 1986 – 2007, municipalities in the study area of Somerset and Monmouth Counties approved far more commercial than residential development; the residential development that was approved was overwhelmingly single-family large lot zoning on an acre or more of land.

2. Long commutes and few transportation options make it difficult for workers to get to jobs. Business leaders are keenly aware that long commutes and overreliance on the car as the sole transportation option is expensive for workers and reduces workers’ quality of life, as they spend ever more time stuck in traffic. New Jersey’s sprawling development patterns and separation of residential and business uses have created a commuting nightmare for workers. Businesses understand that the solutions to this dilemna include investment in our transportation infrastracture, including investment in public transit options, AND building compact, livable communities that create options for employees to live closer to their work.

3. New Jersey businesses are trying to attract today’s younger generation of workers, who want to live in vibrant, 24/7 communities. New Jersey’s business leaders face challenges in recruiting younger business professionals to New Jersey’s communities. These workers are attracted to “denser places, more urban places, where there’s more walkability, more amenities, more of everything,” according to one prominent business leader. Business leaders at PlanSmart NJ’s conference concurred that New Jersey has not done a good job of creating these types of 24/7 livable communities.

So, what can we do to help businesses grow in New Jersey?

The answer lies in sound land use planning and adherence to a state strategic planning process that considers all components of the equation: economic growth, transportation infrastructure, environmental protection, community quality of life, and the location of housing near jobs.

It is not enough to offer incentives to businesses to locate in New Jersey. We as a state must create a favorable land use climate for businesses and the quality labor force upon which they depend. What does this mean?

Foster Industry Growth Clusters in Strategic Growth Areas
We need a state strategic planning process that sets goals for economic expansion in key growth sectors of New Jersey’s economy. But the state strategic planning process needs to look not just at what jobs we need in New Jersey, but where and how we want to foster geographic industry growth clusters.

We will need to redevelop our cities AND identify centers of suburban growth where we want these industry growth clusters to take hold. And then we will need to ensure that regulatory and land use barriers to growth are removed in these locations. These locations should be strategically selected and be compatible with environmental protection goals. In other words, they should be urban and suburban places where we have general consensus that growth should be encouraged. State agencies should then direct meaningful resources to these areas.

Invest in our Transportation Infrastructure
We desperately need to invest in our transportation infrastructure by upgrading our highway corridors and investing in new light rail lines and expanded rail service. It’s also time to look at economical yet desirable public transportation options such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which has been successfully implemented in cities such as Pittsburgh and Cleveland as an upscale bus equivalent to light rail. We also need to bring our freight capacity and shipping capacity up to par through such measures as expanding our rail capacity for freight and expanding our container shipping capacity, as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is doing through its decision to lift the Bayonne Bridge.

Zone for Mixed Use Development and Housing Near Jobs
New Jersey will not be able to attract and retain a competitive workforce unless we provide more housing choices near jobs. Our current system of property taxation puts municipalities in a no-win position where the only strategies they have to contain property taxes are the commercial ratables chase and low-density residential zoning and zoning for age-restricted housing.

This is not the way to build the 24/7 communities that businesses need to attract and retain a vibrant workforce.

Only through structural changes to our system of property taxation and substantial modifications to our system of local zoning will we begin to address these challenges and get our economy back on track.

These are just some of the ideas that will help New Jersey’s economy recover and our businesses and residents to thrive. They are all rooted in the concept that through regional land use planning, we can create communities and regions that are economically competitive and meet the needs of businesses seeking to attract a quality workforce.

Stay tuned for future editions of Speaks Out where we will delve deeper into the land use solutions that can help New Jersey regain its competitive edge.

Greetings from PlanSmart NJ's New Executive Director, Lucy Vandenberg, PP/AICP

2011-05-02T09:22:00.000-04:00

I am honored to have been selected by the PlanSmart NJ Board of Directors as its new Executive Director. I am humbled to succeed Dianne Brake, who served the organization faithfully over the past 25 years. Dianne Brake is recognized around the State as a visionary leader, someone whose writings and ideas we will turn to again and again for years to come.

I look forward to taking PlanSmart NJ to the next level, working to further the principles of sound land use planning and regional cooperation through on-the-ground implementation, public policy advocacy and in-depth analysis of the complex planning challenges that confront us as a State. Through our research, technical assistance, and public policy work, we expect to provide new insights that will help inform decision-makers and improve quality of life in our communities. PlanSmart NJ has earned a reputation for its balanced approach to land use planning. It is this principle that is woven throughout PlanSmart NJ's work.

In keeping with our commitment to informed decision-making, we are pleased to announce PlanSmart NJ's upcoming June 3rd Conference, co-sponsored by NAIOP, NJBIA, and the NJ Chamber of Commerce. The topic is: Impacting Economic Expansion and Retention in New Jersey: A Land Use Perspective. It will be held at the Rutgers' Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. We invite you to register and to become an Event Sponsor today.

I encourage you to join the work of PlanSmart NJ. If you care about our State's economic future, environment, and quality of life, please consider becoming a member at www.plansmartnj.org. I welcome hearing from you at lvandenberg@plansmartnj.org or (609) 393-9434.

Very truly yours,
Lucy Vandenberg, PP/AICP
Executive Director

THE Tunnel: An Investment in NJ's Economic Future and More!

2010-09-27T19:44:00.003-04:00

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.

How Much Growth? Where? To Do What? How to stop fighting about housing policy and do what needs to be done for all!

2010-06-23T20:39:00.008-04:00

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

Minding Our R's and E's: Earth Day 2010

2010-04-23T20:17:00.018-04:00

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

Solving the Real Housing Crisis

2010-04-08T23:20:00.012-04:00

by Dianne Brake

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

Fixing the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH): Saving the baby while throwing out the bathwater

2010-02-04T20:24:00.008-05:00

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

Dare to Change

2010-01-25T20:13:00.002-05:00

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

The trouble with Small Thinking

2009-12-22T21:32:00.001-05:00

PlanSmart NJ wishes all our members, supporters and readers a very happy holiday season! In response to popular demand, we are sending you a link to last year’s
“12 Days of Planning”

And in the hopes of provoking thoughts about the big picture and the long-term in the New Year, and linking them to solutions to the immediate crises we face,
here are my thoughts on the trouble with narrow thinking!

A provoking series of articles by Canada’s National Post titled “Rethinking Green” has been posted on a popular U.S. planning website, Planetizen. Two recent articles claim that riding public transit and recycling may be counterproductive to environmental goals.

The premise for this critique, it turns out, is “All things being as they are today.” The reporters point out that running empty buses, as we do today in some places, is bad for the environment. As is stockpiling recyclables that have no current market value.

The reporters quote no one who explains why buses may be running under capacity, why there is no market for recycling plastic or glass, or what can be done to change these conditions. Nor do the reporters explore possible solutions: running different kinds of buses on different routes, for example, or creating programs that shape the market for recyclables.

Furthermore, the reporters do not examine the seriousness of the problems that these policies were designed to address, e.g. If not by providing public transit, how can growth capacity be increased without the congestion of auto-dependency? If not by recycling, how can the huge waste stream into landfills and incinerators be reduced? The authors’ implication is to go back to the old ways or give up trying to change anything. And that is simply unacceptable.

Make no mistake, like these reporters, PlanSmart NJ makes a point of always holding policy-makers accountable for the actual results of their policies, rather than their stated intended results. However, these reporters do so in an irresponsible manner.

The thinking (it doesn’t rise to the level of an analysis) is simply too narrow. It does not inform or challenge the reader -- or our policy-makers -- to solve problems in the real world. And the reporters’ narrow selection of sources is designed to bolster their shaky argument.

The same kind of narrow thinking is often applied to criticize Smart Growth goals. Driving automobiles is so pervasive, the argument goes, and it will take so long to change land use patterns to capture more trips in public transit, there is no point in pursuing policies that attack auto-dependence.

But there are plenty of reasons that this argument ignores: changing land use patterns will help address climate change, energy consumption, housing prices, growth capacity, regional equity, environmental quality, and many other desirable outcomes.

Just because a solution will take a long time, or can only be successful if implemented within a package of reforms, is no reason not to tackle it.

It is true that we have made little progress in shaping new land use patterns to reach our goal of sustainability. There are many obstacles embedded in many parts of the land use system that support sprawl: the tax structure, zoning, state agency regulations, and many people’s expectations. Reform in all these areas will not be easy. Or quick. But the good news is that government can remove these obstacles – it can even change people’s expectations. Government simply has to have the will to do so.

So let’s challenge our policy makers, but let’s not assume that slogans or rhetoric will produce results. And let’s never give up trying to solve our society’s most vexing problems.

Below are Dianne Brake’s remarks delivered at the PlanSmart NJ Annual Dinner, October 29, 2009,at the Hyatt, New Brunswick.

2009-11-03T23:29:00.001-05:00

Welcome and thank you for coming tonight. And a special welcome to the many new faces we see in the crowd this year – the next generation of New Jersey’s leaders. Thank you for coming. In this recession, you deserve a special thank you for making tonight so successful! It is energizing – and we see it as a demonstration of hope for the future. Hope that we think is well founded.

Yes, even in this so-called “Great” Recession, even when the future is so uncertain. Why should we hope?

Look around! Together we have power. The power to shape the future of New Jersey is here in this very room. Every year, the people who receive our awards stand at this podium and tell you that you can do what they do.

I know, we all have to vent about how broken New Jersey’s government is – it sometimes seems beyond repair. But if we allow venting to be all we do, than we waste the power we have.

Like a muscle, power atrophies if it is not used. And when we allow our power to atrophy, we allow those who have been given power by the Constitution and by the Electorate to waste it. Waste their power. Waste our time. And lay waste to our future.

In just a few days, New Jerseyans will know who our Governor will be for the next four years. Whoever he is, let’s flex our muscles. Let’s call on him to immediately put away the banners and badges on Wednesday, and begin governing.

On paper, New Jersey’s Constitution gives the Governor more power than any other Governor in the country. But it does nothing to ensure that the Governor will actually use his power to do what needs to be done. That’s where we come in.

Let’s make him forget the “Us versus Them,” the “We win/you lose” way of thinking. Beginning on November 4, New Jerseyans are once again all in the same boat. And we want it on the right course. With your support, PlanSmart NJ can help navigate.

First: Let’s demand that the Governor stop tinkering around the edges. New Jersey can’t afford to work on only one problem at a time. The economy, traffic, climate change, and regulation – they are all connected.

Instead let’s start with New Jersey’s assets: its location, its infrastructure, and its skilled labor force. Build on these assets, fix the system, link them in a strategic plan, and get all agencies of government to work together to rebuild our future.

OK, wait. Don’t worry! I know that when I begin to talk about PlanSmart NJ’s planning frameworks, strategies, and tools for how to make things right, your eyes may begin to glaze over (even though we know this is what you appreciate about us!). So I will simply tell you why the Governor must pay attention:

It’s about our quality of life. We all need jobs and housing, right? We ride on trains, drive on roads, drink the water, flush the toilet; we breathe the air, and enjoy the fall color. Well, all of these are things are connected as regional systems.

The bad news is that right now all these systems in New Jersey are broken – fragmented and directionless. The good news is that they are all strongly influenced by government plans, regulations and investments – things the Governor can influence! So he can get New Jersey back on track by integrating its plans, regulations and investments. That’s it.

But, instead of focusing on what is real, some of our elected officials behave like the drunk who lost his keys in the dark and is looking for them under the lamp post because that is where the light is. We need to show them a better place to look and light their way. It may not be easy, but it is guaranteed to get results.

I must warn you that too many other Smart Growth and sustainability advocates will be no help here. They are too focused on the local and not at all on regional systems. Let me give you a transportation example of why that’s a problem.

Many of you here this evening are working hard to get permits for Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and other types of redevelopment projects. These are vital – we have supported such development for years. But your TOD will only succeed if there is an efficient transit system to serve it. That’s why planning for regional systems is so important.

Make transit work for New Jersey and get it built. We can build a Jersey-centric system, rebuilding hundreds of communities, adding growth capacity and the promise of a better economy, environment, and regional equity. It is what is real, important – and, yes –difficult. But it is where we need the Governor to focus.

This is no time to say, “It’s too broken” or “It’s too big.” There are young people coming up behind us! And yes, you can do it in a recession.

PlanSmart NJ’s Smart Growth Economy Project saw how the economic engines in New Jersey were stalling even before the “Great Recession.” And so did others. Some of the major sectors have already come up with what they need to thrive in the Garden State.

The transportation industry – the biggest of our economic engines, capitalizing on our location, ports, highways and rail systems – it created the Liberty Corridor Plan. The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) – a major asset to New Jersey – unveiled their strategic transportation and housing plan for South Jersey last year. It is designed to meet a job target and find places for workers to live and provide the means to get to work. PlanSmart NJ gave an award last year to Tom Carver for his leadership on this plan.

And the bio and high tech industry – another huge driver of our economy – have mapped their major assets. The next step for them could be to follow CRDA, beef up their Einstein’s Alley and the Innovation State campaigns, and plan for where their workers can live and how they will get to work.

The Governor not only has these plans to work with, he has major investments in public transit already underway.

Most powerful among them is the billions of dollars we are investing in the new ARC Tunnel – which PlanSmart NJ is recognizing tonight in an award to New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of NY and NJ. There are also plans to expand transit in South Jersey.

But these plans and investments will be wasted, unless the Governor uses his leadership – his power – to connect the dots, build a shared vision of the future of New Jersey, a shared vision that will not pit the economy against the environment, the suburbs against the cities, or the rich against the poor. And then get your Administration to work together.

I call all of you in this room tonight to embrace your hope and exercise your power. Vote on November 3. And then join us on November 4 in a call to action.

We can succeed. The future depends on it.

Redeveloping Communities Can Result from ARC Tunnel Investment

2009-06-12T22:21:00.004-04:00

by Dianne Brake

The proposed $8.3 billion ARC Tunnel will double the capacity of New Jersey's transit system, accessible to three quarters of the State's population. This new transit capacity could set us on the path toward sustainability, including meeting New Jersey's ambitious 2050 Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction targets by reducing auto trips.

It could add economic growth capacity, which is currently limited by auto-dependency and congested highways. It could encourage housing investment in "smart" locations, turning the tide of sprawl which had carried much of New Jersey's labor force to Pennsylvania and other cheaper locations.

Furthermore, the doubling of New Jersey's transit capacity could stimulate the regeneration of countless communities that have been abandoned or neglected in favor of suburban sprawl for decades. The increased capacity could provide growth opportunities in places stymied by gridlock and new vitality in places plagued by poverty. It could improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of people throughout the State.

If the construction of the ARC Tunnel achieves these results, it will truly be worth this huge public investment.

BUT, who is in charge of making sure that these results are achieved? We know that these questions have not even been raised in connection to the ARC Project or any of the other major investments made under the current economic stimulus package. None of these benefits will be achieved unless they are demanded by residents and consciously agreed and implemented by the coordinated actions of all levels of government.

Without the State taking action to reform its land use decision-making system, any new economic development planned for these new transit-friendly locations will be mired in New Jersey's regulatory morass and obstructed by out-dated ideas about growth, housing and transportation.

As the most transit-friendly state in the nation, New Jersey could be the first to demonstrate how proximity, extensive new service (commuter trains and BRT to local shuttles and jitneys), carbon-trading and other strategies can make New Jersey more sustainable. This in turn can create a market for jobs and housing in places that had suffered from a weak market for decades.

PlanSmartNJ believes that the ARC Tunnel is one of the most strategic projects that could be advanced right now. The Tunnel will have the power to transform hundreds of communities and change how thousands of people travel throughout the State. The construction of the ARC Tunnel will create thousands of jobs for its planning and construction, and could - if leveraged as PlanSmartNJ advocates - put New Jersey on the path to a more sustainable future.

PlanSmartNJ's June 11, 2009conference will explore how to leverage the investment in the ARC Tunnel and other new transit projects to spark successful redevelopment and regional equity. ~~It is not too late to sign up and earn 5 CM Credits.~~ Please visit our website www.plansmartnj.org to register today.

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 resource efficiency and social equity. Email her at dbrake@plansmartnj.org

Securing New Jersey's Natural Capital:Nature's Top Dollar Value

2009-05-18T22:22:00.012-04:00

by Noelle Reeve, AICP,PP
04/22/09

It still goes slightly against the grain of this environmental planner, originally from "Super Natural British Columbia," to think about putting a price tag on nature. I'm not talking about the price we place on commodities nature provides, such as timber or fish, but about the services we receive that may appear invisible when we first look at a landscape. These services arise from the relationship among the various plants and animals and geographic systems that make up ecosystems. We don't readily see wetland plants filtering pollutants or storing water to prevent flooding; we don't readily see trees removing greenhouse gases from the air. We have traditionally taken these benefits for granted as free services and without a dollar value, society has so undervalued these services they have been treated as worthless.

The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment publishedby the United Nations in 2003, determined that worldwide, fifteen of the twenty four ecosystems services examined had been degraded, including water supply, natural hazard protection, improvement of air quality, waste treatment and detoxification, cultural benefits, etc. In the past, New Jersey, as every other state, filled in its wetlands, cut down its forests, paved over its agricultural land and polluted its waterways because there was, until recently, no reckoning of the financial and environmental cost of losing the ecosystem benefits these lands provide.

In 2007, New Jersey became the first state to estimate the dollar value of its natural capital. At a staggering $20 billion/year, or three-quarters of the 2009 state budget, replacing the natural capital of the state would be impossible, even if scientists fully understood and could replicate nature's services.

In this time of evaporating financial returns, natural capital represents an asset whose value is increasing as more and more economists assign dollar values to the economic benefits that healthy ecosystems provide over an extended period of time and more and more markets develop for these services.

So how can New Jersey's natural capital be secured? Parks and protected areas are the basis of conservation, but by themselves are not enough. Land use planning changes are needed to get away from site by site decisions that erode New Jersey's natural capital assets. Because land use is largely controlled by municipalities, the NJ Department of Environmental Protection funded Protecting New Jersey's Natural Capital Through Land Use Planning: Opportunities and Challenges, PlanSmartNJ's latest report.

On this year's Earth Day, PlanSmart NJ would like to encourage municipal officials, environmental commissions, planners and interested citizens to read the report and contact us if you are interested in:

learning how to account for natural capital in the Capital Improvement Plan to reduce the need for engineered solutions to stormwater management and other infrastructure expenditures;
receiving compensation for the capacity to sequester carbon within your community;
understanding your municipal and regional natural capital values to protect them in the Land Use Element of your Master Plan; or
exploring other ways to protect natural capital.

Recognizing and protecting New Jersey's natural capital is the basis for wise land use planning; the unfolding Green Economy; and for resilience to climate change. To learn more about PlanSmartNJ's proposals for land use reforms for a better New Jersey see Improving Conditions on the Ground.

Noelle Reeve is currently Vice President of Planning for PlanSmart NJ, a Trenton-based statewide research and advocacy group focused on sound land use planning and regional cooperation. Email her at nreeve@plansmartnj.org
Go to www.plansmartnj.org for more information.

Move the State Planning Commission, Change the Plan

2009-04-30T23:16:00.002-04:00

April 16, 2009

Given the State’s current economic crisis and the longstanding challenges that threaten our future, New Jersey desperately needs a new Plan – a Plan that will provide a robust framework for directing all actions of government toward strategic results in multiple areas.

The fact that the long-overdue new State Plan was not released in March as scheduled, and now the April State Planning Commission meeting has been canceled, does not bode well.

The first two State Plans, it must be acknowledged, did not provide this framework. Instead, they were packed with hundreds of platitudes that blurred into a confusing, even conflicting backdrop to where the real attention was focused – the State Plan Policy Map.

The Map divided the State into five general Planning Areas where growth was encouraged and where it was not. It seemed for a while that these areas were going to mean something, but not anymore: the Plan and the Map have both been eclipsed.

Several years ago the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) produced its own maps showing more limited areas for growth, and backed them up with their own regulations – some of the most powerful in state government. The result has been the loss of a comprehensive State Plan that would optimize results on multiple goals in a coherent fashion.

It has been replaced by a process driven at the state level by environmental regulation, in direct conflict with a process driven at the local level by zoning. Zoning steadfastly encourages the suburbanization of the landscape, driving an ever more urgent need to protect environmental resources. In this vicious circle, other vital goals – such as creating jobs and housing, optimizing transit and reducing the concentration of poverty – are lost.

In spite of this track record, PlanSmart NJ stands firm in our belief that effective statewide planning is the last and best hope for the future of New Jersey. What is needed is a State Plan that is significantly different from the Plans that came before.

In other words, an effective State Plan would identify how much and what type of growth should go where to produce what results. Given the current constraints on statewide planning, however, it seems unlikely that the next Plan will rise to this standard.

The Plan has been handicapped for years by the lack of interest of successive Administrations, the chronic lack of resources devoted to the process, the recent power struggles between State agencies and the loss of the environment community as one of the Plan’s strongest supporters. Furthermore, the State Planning Commission and its staff have been bureaucratically demoted, with a significant loss in independence, stature and relevance.

The 1986 State Planning Act put the Commission and its staff in the Department of Treasury. This location reflected commitment to several important principles:

1. Integration: It embraced statewide planning as an application of “good government” practice. If land use patterns are to change to produce better results in the future, government requires a comprehensive statewide framework – sustained over time – to reconcile the sometimes competing actions of all the State‘s agencies and its 566 municipalities.

2. Independence: It acknowledged the need to protect statewide planning from fads, partisan politics and power struggles between “line” agencies. Changing the trajectory of trends statewide requires steady guidance toward targeted, strategic outcomes over the long term.

3. Implementation: It placed statewide planning in the important role of husbanding the State’s resources, making sure that public investments are used more efficiently and effectively toward intended results – a clear directive from the enabling legislation.

Executive and Administrative Orders over the last seven years, however, have overridden the statute and cast aside these principles. The State Planning Commission and its staff are now a section of the Department of Community Affairs. In DCA, the State Planning Commission has not only been given a diminished status with other State agencies, but it now has an uncomfortable and unreconciled relationship with another section of DCA, the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).

A statewide Plan that has no strategic problem-solving function, no clear policy direction, no map of conditions or policy targets and no commitment from the Administration, has no relevance to any agent of government.

But a Plan that is relevant to today’s problems (one that provides a clear direction, useful performance standards and has the commitment of leadership) -- could pull coherent policy out of New Jersey’s fragmented and convoluted land use system. It would articulate a geography of existing conditions and desired improvements in regional economies, watersheds, natural resources, transportation, housing, concentrated poverty and infrastructure.

Such a Plan would be created only with leadership at all levels of government. It will take leadership to select strategic, statewide priorities to build growth capacity and environmental quality into a gridlocked system. It will take leadership to change the tactics – not the mission – embedded in State agency regulations. It will take leadership to transform zoning and other entrenched land use regulations at the local level.

And it will take time. Meanwhile, as the first step, PlanSmart NJ asks the Governor to undo previous Executive and Administrative Orders and put the State Planning Commission back into Treasury and fund the Office of State Planning to do its job – produce the Plan that the State needs today.

Such a move will signal all sectors of New Jersey that the State is committed to shaping a better future and is willing to direct all agents of government to make their contribution count.

PlanSmart NJ has a long track record of contributions to statewide planning, going back to the 1970s. Our 2008 white paper, Improving Conditions on the Ground, outlines a metrics framework for transforming the land use decision-making process from state to local government and across multiple issues, serving as a blueprint for a new and improved State Plan. Go to www.plansmartnj.org for more information.

Change Zoning, Change the Future

2009-04-30T23:08:00.004-04:00

March 3, 2009

Although always awkward, acronyms sometimes become widely known. The acronym for the NJ Council for Affordable Housing (COAH) is a case in point. Declarations of “I want to put a stake through the heart of COAH!” and “I come here not to praise COAH, but to bury it!” have become rallying cries all around the state. COAH, a quiet state agency that carries a big stick over municipal zoning, has triggered an all-out revolt against what is seen as the unfairness of its latest rules.

More than 250 towns met COAH’s December deadline to submit affordable housing plans. But they did so under protest. And their bitterness is spreading: the Legislature is considering a number of new COAH “remedies” and some early gubernatorial candidates are staking out their credentials as the best man to slay COAH.

Having advocated for affordable housing for the last 40 years, PlanSmart NJ agrees that COAH’s regulations need to be thrown out -- but only to start over and make them more effective.

Having affordable, workforce housing would be such a boost to the State’s economy, that the Governor should consider ways to use Economic Stimulus Package to support its construction. But first, he should appoint informed and dedicated people to the Housing Commission, established by legislation adopted last summer with PlanSmart NJ support, to develop a comprehensive and effective housing plan for New Jersey.

Meanwhile, COAH should throw out the regulatory mess it created and get back to the basic principles established almost 35 years ago by the NJ Supreme Court and almost 25 years ago by the Legislature. The mandate is:

Develop an agreement among state agencies and local government – an agreement among themselves and with each other – to work with the same set of goals about where growth should go and where it shouldn’t.

Develop a strong State Plan to reflect the agreement and then changing zoning accordingly. The result for housing will be more of it in the right places, for more income groups.

It’s all about planning and zoning. In 1975, citing the “general welfare” clause in the State’s constitution, the NJ Supreme Court told municipal officials that if they were going to use zoning, which is a police power just like eminent domain, they could not use it to “exclude” low and moderate income households. Instead, their zoning should provide a “reasonable opportunity” for developers to construct enough housing to meet “a fair share” of the “regional need” for affordable housing.

Sounds fair enough. But many towns ignored that ruling and the lawsuits continued. In 1983, the Court upheld its original position, but added that a “fair share” may not necessarily be the same in each municipality. The Court acknowledged that responsible planning principles, including environmental concerns, could be used to identify regions where growth should be encouraged and where it should not. (Along with the NJ Chapter of the American Planning Association, PlanSmart NJ had filed a “friend of the Court” petition asking for the Court to take this position.)

Following the Court’s second decision, the Legislature passed the Fair Housing Act in 1985, which set up COAH to define the need, and to insure that towns were satisfying this need. The State Planning Act in 1986, which established the State Planning Commission, required that areas be designated for growth and conservation and encouraged towns and state agencies to work together on applicable planning principles including affordable housing.

After showing initial promise, it is widely held that both agencies are now seriously off-track.

COAH has manipulated the housing targets so much that they have lost legitimacy. No one expects much housing to be built as a result of the 250 plans that were just submitted, because twenty four more lawsuits have been filed against COAH challenging its regulations -- again. Instead of changing their zoning to produce more affordable housing opportunities, towns are just waiting for the dust to settle.

The State Plan, last re-adopted in 2001, has been set aside and a new one has not replaced it. This is due in large measure to the NJ DEP replacing the adopted State Plan Policy Map in 2003 with a map of its own, and steadfastly working since then with that mapping as the basis for their rules. This action has put the State Planning Commission at loggerheads with DEP and has encouraged every other State agency to go their own way – the opposite of “state agency cooperation” and the integration of policies called for by the State Planning Act.

Instead of changing their zoning to implement the vision for a better New Jersey in the State Plan, towns are just waiting it out.

Meanwhile, the zoning that is currently in place in many parts of New Jersey, is not that different from what it was in 1975. It was zoning originally designed to address 19th century public health concerns with overcrowded tenements and noxious industries. It continued to serve throughout the 20th century during the rise and dominance of the automobile. It didn’t bother most public officials – or most planning practitioners, for that matter – that this land use pattern was inaccessible to people without the means to own a home or keep an automobile.

The fact that those left behind in poverty were primarily people of color was rarely mentioned in relation to zoning – until the Court said it was wrong.

Changing zoning to suit the needs of the 21st century, supported by state agency cooperation, which includes the need for far more affordable housing in the right places, is one of the most difficult challenges we face. PlanSmart NJ has developed tools and strategies that will help.

Keeping the current zoning in place will speed the loss of jobs, increase the disparities among communities, traffic congestion and environmental degradation. In spite of this clear and present danger, it will not be easy.

Change will take leadership from the Governor and the cooperation of every State agency, some of which have rules in place that encourage the outmoded zoning. But taking on this problem directly will show our neighbors and the country at large that New Jersey is taking the lead into a prosperous 21st century.

Dianne Brake is the President of PlanSmart NJ. She was on COAH from 1990 to 1995, serving as Vice Chair, and she was on the State Planning Commission from 1996 to 2001, serving as the Chair of the Plan Implementation Committee.

Dare to Dream

2009-04-30T22:54:00.004-04:00

January 23, 2009

It was fitting that the first African-American President was sworn into office during the week in which we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. Both men dared to dream of a better future, and worked hard to bring about the changes that would make that dream come true.

The Martin Luther King Day holiday, however, has lost Dr. King’s focus on change. Instead, people are encouraged to use it as a day of service, to help clean up an abandoned lot, for example, or serve in a soup kitchen. Important as these actions are to the individuals involved, it does nothing to help them “keep their eyes on the prize” of changing the structures that created these conditions in the first place.

PlanSmart NJ’s mission is structural change. Our work is focused on reforming New Jersey’s broken land use decision-making system: it is fragmented, costly and completely incapable of producing the future that we want and need.

We have our eye on the prize: Land Use Reform in New Jersey: Improving Conditions on the Ground describes new planning tools and strategies. If applied, these tools could integrate government actions across the boundaries of separate agencies and across the distance between regional goals and local actions. They bridge these distances with and unify public purpose with a set of planning metrics, with performance targets that makes every agency of government accountable to meet.

Dry as changing the land use decision-making system may sound, PlanSmart NJ sees it as a glittering prize indeed. Fixing this system, built up over the last hundred years, could mean transforming the future prospects for hundreds of communities.

For it is New Jersey’s broken land use system that has pushed jobs away from public transit; made housing unaffordable to most people. It has eroded our economic base and created rigid patterns of racial and economic segregation.

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.

According to a study commissioned in 2003 by PlanSmart NJ and others in the New Jersey Regional Coalition, New Jersey is the 5th most segregated state in the country. Surely this does not measure up to Dr. King’s dream.

The changes necessary to see our dream fulfilled go far beyond changing a few policies. They will require a paradigm shift away from the thinking that created today’s conditions over the course of a century. For this reason, President Obama’s words this week resonate with us, “[Our challenges] will not be met easily or in a short span of time.”

For Martin Luther King Day, then, we challenge all to dare to dream, for it is the power of your dream that will fuel your commitment and sustain you over the long haul.

To meet our own challenge, PlanSmart NJ 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. In addition, we commit to making the concept of regional equity a pillar of land use planning. Regional equity is the concept that a region can act together to reduce the disparities among its communities and improve everyone’s access to opportunities within it.

We will challenge anyone who wants to frame public issues as “us” versus “them.” And we will ignore anyone who dismisses our dreams with “that will never happen!” or that is “too difficult to do.”

We challenge all to question, think through, find out, plan actions, and celebrate success. And dare to dream, using Martin Luther King Day to remember it each year. 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.”

New Year’s Resolution for New Jersey: A New Strategic Action Plan in 2009

2009-04-30T22:23:00.006-04:00

January 8, 2009

January is the time for resolutions based on hope and determination as to what can be accomplished in the course of one year. In the face of today's economic meltdown, however, hope and determination are in short supply.

As John P. Holdren, President-elect Obama's recently named science advisor, explained the extent of the problem in a December speech,

"Without energy there is no economy. Without climate there is no environment. Without economy and environment there's no material well-being, there's no civil society, there's no personal or national or international security."

PlanSmart NJ proposes that State leaders use initiatives that are already underway in New Jersey that can link energy, economy and environment as the source of their hope and the focus of their determination to make significant progress in 2009 toward a better future for New Jersey.

We are confident that with immediate action and strong leadership, these projects can be leveraged to turn New Jersey around. PlanSmart NJ offers the tools and strategies that we have developed to make this plan work.

The projects are: 1) the construction of the Access to the Region's Core (ARC) Tunnel; 2) the integration of state agencies' actions with local land use decisions in a number of other transportation investments, such as the Route 1 Growth Strategy, the Liberty Corridor Plan, the PATCO extension and other infrastructure projects; and 3) editing the Global Warming Response Act Recommendations to include stronger actions to integrate land use and transportation planning.

We ask the State to resolve to use these projects to drive a comprehensive, yet strategic short-term action plan for 2009. And use that plan as the model for transforming the State Development and Redevelopment Plan by the end of 2009 into the plan that it was always meant to be - relevant and effective in meeting New Jersey's many challenges.

With a new short-term action plan focused on these projects, the State would have the basis for an effective economic stimulus package, the groundwork to eliminate obstacles to sustainable development that are currently in the system, and a demonstration of how to integrate the independent actions of hundreds of agents of government.

Here, then, is PlanSmart NJ's reasoning as to how and why these initiatives should be built into a new strategic action plan as quickly as possible:

1. Use the construction of the ARC Tunnel to unify and direct government action: The construction of this project will double the capacity of New Jersey's transit system and provide new intra-regional transit options to three quarters of New Jersey's population!

The construction of the ARC Tunnel will create thousands of jobs for its planning and construction, and could - if leveraged as we advocate - put New Jersey on the path to a more sustainable future.

For 2009, there are two vital financial goals to be met: secure early this year the commitment for the $3 billion federal share of the total cost of the project; and find the money to replenish the State's Transportation Trust Fund by the end of the year.

Another important goal, which must be begun in 2009, is to prepare the many existing and potential station areas for making the best use of the new capacity that will be added to the system. The State must coordinate the land use plans, government regulations and investments of all agencies of government - as recommended by PlanSmart NJ's Smart Growth Economy Project - to meet:

• job targets for station areas (how many, what kind, where) to build up the economic base of the many places that will have new transit.

• housing targets (how many, what kind, where) to meet the pent-up demand, rehabilitate the existing stock, and provide new homes affordable to those taking new jobs.

• a target to reduce the concentration of poverty by using new development in station areas to:

• open up exclusionary communities with new affordable housing

• create jobs and wealth-building opportunities within distressed communities

• prevent displacement by rehabilitating the existing housing stock and maintaining affordability levels.

• targets for the restoration, enhancement and protection of natural resources and provide the basis for the protection of large tracts of land from development.

2. Use the Route 1 Growth Strategy, the Liberty Corridor Plan, the PATCO Line Extension, new Bus Rapid Transit proposals and other transportation projects as demonstrations as to how regional plans can link economic growth, local land use plans and state infrastructure investments. These projects are smaller applications of the approach proposed to be taken in the development of the ARC Tunnel (see above).

3. Edit the Global Warming Response Act Recommendations to reinforce the proposed new strategic approach to making investments around the state:

The integration of land use and transportation policy clearly has a significant role to play in meeting 2050 emissions targets. If New Jersey fails to work aggressively to achieve this integration, the only hope we will have of achieving these targets will be to let job loss, white flight and other socially negative trends do their worst.

Instead, New Jersey must reform its agencies' regulations and incentive programs to create economic and regional equity opportunities in transit-friendly centers and promote large tracts of rural landscape to be protected and watershed conditions improved.

As the most transit-friendly state in the nation, New Jersey could be the first to demonstrate how proximity, extensive new service (commuter trains and BRT to local shuttles and jitneys), carbon-trading and other strategies can make New Jersey open to economic growth while reducing waste and becoming one of the greenest and most socially and economically integrated states in the nation.

This New Year's Resolution flows directly from PlanSmart NJ's 40 years of research and practice. Our experience tells us that these resolutions should be, can be and must be accomplished if New Jersey is to succeed in recasting its future.