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STUCK IN THE STATE WE ARE IN
By Bob Hennelly, Senior Reporter, WNYC
HOW LANDUSE, HOME RULE AND OVER DEVELOPMENT ARE LINKED TO EVER ESCALATING PROPERTY TAXES


I first started covering New Jersey landuse 30 years ago for the Ramsey Mahwah Reporter. I went on to cover the ins and outs of Jersey landuse and corruption for the Ridgewood News and the Village Voice. My work on the state's battle with itself over sprawl and water contamination appeared in the New York Times. My understanding of these issues was deepened by my work in construction, agriculture and even from a brief stint on a local board of adjustment that tried to balance property rights with the public interest. Less than a decade into the 21st century we are stuck, and stuck good as a result of what the late Assembly Speaker Allan Karcher called our 'municipal madness.'

from dsearls on flickr'][/caption]


New Jersey has more governmental entities than just about any place of the planet. And we must like it because in the 30 years I have been on this we have only zeroed out ONE TOWN. What follows below is a primer on how we got here and a deeper look at some of the unintended consequences of homerule.


* In New Jersey landuse decisions are made at the level of the state's more than 500 municipalities WITHOUT regard for their regional impact. (For towns in the Pinelands and Meadowlands there is a mechanism for another layer of regional oversight. The Highlands effort is still in the process of being defined.)

*Funding for every town's survival and the much pricier cost of their local public education is generated by local property taxes off of the local development approved by the towns themselves.

*Because development of real estate was perceived as the only way municipalities could sustain their local services and schools many local officials signed off on using up all prime land for so called ratables. When that was gone they moved onto ill-advised filling of wetlands, leveling of mountains and the wholesale sub-divsion of farms.

*Developers are a major source of campaign cash for local, county, state elected officials as well as party organizations. (And that does NOT include the illegal bribes documented in prosecution after prosecution.)

*For decades the conventional wisdom was THE MORE DEVELOPMENT every town attracted; the wealthier it would become, the more the quality of life would improve, AND THE LOWER THE PROPERTY TAX burden would be for homeowners. Over time this further served to undermine the state's urban core and it was also done with subsidies and financing from the state's own Economic Development Authority. Over time in places where develoment hit critical mass first the quality of life declined and property taxes actually went up.

[caption id='attachment_2751' align='alignleft' width='500' caption='from kramchang on flickr'][/caption]

Three other things happened that worked to raise questions about the conventional wisdom:

*In the 1970s and 80s the state discovered that thousands of water wells had become contaminated and surface waters like streams and lakes showed signs of increased contamination due to NON-POINT source pollution that was from the run-off from DEVELOPMENT like lawn chemicals from residential and commercial developments. Unlike NYC New Jersey did not have a well thought out reservoir system and what resulted was a patchwork of private and public utilities and private wells----all of which was being increasingly threatened by development. (In some cases the water companies successfully sold off buffer lands in their natural vegetative state around their reservoirs saying that it was no longer necessary to retain thanks to advances in water treatment.)

*The cost of K-12 education for each child in the state's more than 600 public school districts went up much faster than the rate of inflation for decades. That forced towns to step up their cut throat competition to bag more and more commercial ratables (development projects) that did NOT generate students but property tax revenue. In some instances they actually gave up getting property tax revenue for some projects out of a belief they would be magnets for paying ratables. These developments brought whole new challenges to an all ready over-whelmed- transportation infrastructure.

*By the late 1980's the environmentalists started to win the policy debate that the best way to preserve water quality was by restricting development around water sources and not relying on only water treatment. They argued the state should be directing new economic development to the state's beleagured urban core that was now a drag on the state treasury not an engine for economic expansion as it once had been.
This anti-sprawl sustainability strategy served to also bolster the farm preservation movement. The argument was that by keeping the farms in cultivation planners would avoid the costly sprawl that comes with subdivision. Voters bought in as well by passing one Green Acre bond issue after another. The hope was the state could set aide a million acres, or 20 percent of its land mass.

By the 90's, thanks in large measure to grass roots growth of Watershed groups, concepts like preservation of the Highands took root. The Highlands is located in the northern part of the state and includes several countries and dozens of towns. It is the major source of most of the state's drinking water. The passage of legislation to create the Highlands Council in the McGreevey era was an attempt at REGIONAL planning that would take a broader, more holistic look at landuse. In the Highlands development is supposed to to be restricted if it impacts on water quality but the jury is still out on how it will work. Right now HOWEVER FARMERS IN THE HIGHLANDS, WHO BORROWED MONEY TO FARM BY GETTING MORTGAGES FOR THEIR LAND BASED ON IT'S DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL, ARE IN A TOUGH SPOT WITHOUT SOME COMPENSATION for the commercial loss of value to their farm.
[caption id='attachment_2749' align='alignleft' width='1024' caption='Xanadu (from beedubz on flickr)'][/caption]

There are two other exceptions where regional oversight is supposedly in place for shaping landuse, the Meadowlands and the Pinelands. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. In the Meadowlands the state gave a thumbs up for Xanadu, a retail and entertainment mega-plex built not in an existing urban scape but out in the swamp away from existing population centers.

In the post World War II era while NJ suburbia was being built up New Jersey urban centers saw the exodus of manufacturing jobs. The cities, once the source of the state's economic vitality, became wards of the state. The 1960s civil unrest in Englewood, the Plainfields and Newark further re-enforced the state's stratified racial segregation. Currently home rule can re-enforce long standing patterns of racial discrimination.

*The reliance on local property taxes to fund local schools also re-enforces the long standing public education funding inequities between the wealthy white suburbs and the urban communities made up if people of color.

*In Abbott vs. Burke the state Supreme Court mandated the state make a multi-billion dollar multi-year commitment to the so-called Abbott districts like Newark.

*Meanwhile a Trenton funded state wide school construction program designed to close the facility gap between suburban and urban districts was plagued by cost over runs and corruption and achieved a fraction of what it was supposed to accomplish.

[caption id='attachment_2757' align='alignleft' width='660' caption='Newark (from payton chung on flickr)

Newark, Jersey City and some other existing urban centers have experienced a revival of sorts. Proximity to New York City as well as to rail lines prompted developers to take a second look at these cities and even places farther out like Morristown. The completion of the mid-town direct rail line connection through Morris and Essex Counties greatly increased property values.

Now however foreclosures are at an all time high statewide. And in some communities we are at what Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine says is the tipping point where the monthly property tax bill IS POISED TO BECOME MORE THAN THE MORTGAGE.

The next Governor will have to close an 8 billion dollar budget gap even as the state's 566 municipal governments, 21 counties, and 600 plus school districts experience their own budget woes. Escalating public employee and retiree pension obligations as well as health care costs are a ticking fiscal time bomb.

The prospects for a second Federal stimulus package to bail Trenton out is murky. Whatever gets traction will most likely be directed to help the close to 10 percent of the workforce now unemployed to retrain.

The state expects to see 60,000 foreclosures by the end of the year. In some places like Paterson more than 10 percent of the homes are already in foreclosure. Local officials have to cope with the blight that settles in with when homes go vacant like fixtures and pipes being stolen for their scrap value. The open question is in the face of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression has 'home-rule' become so expensive both ecologically and economically that voters are ready to sign off on trying something else?

Robert Hennelly
Senior Reporter
WNYC