Mount Laurel

I usually confine my posting to commenting on the foibles of various Monmouth County Politicians but today I am going to branch out a little into a state wide public issue. I have been thinking about low and moderate income housing (what we in NJ call Mount laurel housing) a lot lately because of various articles in the Newspaper. Mobile Home parks closing, new regs being discussed on determing a municipalities fair share, Fort Monmouth redevelopment and the impact it would have on the housing obligations of the towns involved have all been in the news lately.

The Mount Laurel court decision that mandated communities build low and moderate income housing has done more then anything to contribute to the overdevelopment of this state.
While I think the court decision was bad and beyond the scope of the courts authority the bad impact of overdevelopment that resulted is really the fault of local politicians.

They took the easy way out. Giving builders greatly enchanced density of market price housing so that they would build a few mount laurel units became the favored way of dealing with the issue. They thought this was the cheapest way to deal with the issue. They were wrong. The additional density cost the towns money. On average residential development cost one dollar and fifty cents in services for every dollar in additional tax revenue generated. The higher densities resulted in more congestion, enviormental degradation, reduced quality of life and higher taxes.

Now you are saying Ok Teddy if all thats true what were the alternatives.

Well to use an overused phrase politicians failed to think outside the box. There were better ways to address this court imposed mandate.

One thing a few towns have done bot not to a large enough extent is form housing authorities and non profit corporations that could have built 100 Mount Laurel units without having to give an extra 2ooo market units. They could have got low interest loans from the State to construct the units. Yes they would have had to expend tax dollars but in the end I doubt it would have been more expensive then the way it was done and it may have been cheaper.

I will give you another Idea. I mentioned Mobile Home parks closing before. This is a loss to a town of low income housing that they will have to make up somewhere else. The stereotypes about trailor parks aside they have very little impact on municipal services and put few children in the school system. If towns were smart they would have made sure that some vacant land was zoned for mobile home parks. Believe me they would have been built. Heck that would have been an inexpensive way for a non profit or housing authorty to provide the housing.
I will let you in on a little secret. A lot of mobile home park owners are millionaires.
I have seen some especially in Florida that are like country clubs. How do I know all this. I had a relative who lived in one for a while and had a chance to speak to the park owner.

The whole point of this is to get the politicians thinking before the next round of obligations come out. The current model is not working so develop a new one. I do not want to come back and see the little of this state that is still green paved over.