Most of you know that I'm a Republican. I'm also a Constitutionalist and hate the idea of a strong federal and state government, so you can imagine how it bothers me to have a Superior Court judge order the town I live in to build a specific number of low income units. The entire idea of the low income units is to ensure that all people have the right to good schools.
A
snippet:
Evesham must provide 193 new units of affordable housing within the next eight years, while Medford must create an additional 85 units, a judge ruled. Superior Court Judge John Sweeney gave each municipality 90 days to submit a compliance plan showing how they will satisfy their obligations, which must be met by Jan. 1, 2014.Read that again--we have been ordered by a judge to comply with an inane, feel-good law.
More:
The number of required units -- far less than what has been built since 1987 -- is retroactive to 2004. The figures are based on slower projected housing and commercial growth. For every eight market-rate housing units built, municipalities have to plan for one affordable unit. New job creation locally increases the obligation.Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but it appears that if you create new jobs--thus bettering the economy--you have increased your obligation to build low income units. A major disincentive if you ask me.
A municipality may transfer part of its affordable-housing requirements to another municipality if it pays the other community for assuming the obligation. Medford is paying Glassboro more than $2 million to take 117 of affordable units from its pre-2004 obligation. However, the municipality has more than 300 other affordable units that private developers have built since 1987. Evesham has agreements with towns in Burlington and Gloucester counties to take some of its housing under prior obligations set by the state Council on Affordable Housing.Legal blackmail, plain and simple. You either build the units or pay someone else to do it.
Here's the
mission statement for the Council on Affordable Housing:
To facilitate the production of sound, affordable housing for low and moderate income households by providing the most effective process to municipalities, housing providers, nonprofit and for profit developers to address a constitutional obligation within the framework of sound, comprehensive planning.Man, bureaucratic doublespeak at its finest.
The
intent of the bill is un-American from the outset as it sets one group of people above another for the purposes of legislatively increasing living conditions. This has never worked and only forces the haves to support the have nots as a law.
This is poor policy.
