July 27, 2008
 | Rumana: Can we afford affordable housing? NoBy Assemblyman Scott t. rumana |
THE NEWLY RELEASED Council on Affordable Housing regulations, as they are proposed, and the recent passage of Assembly bill A-500 are mandates that will destroy our environment, crush our existing home values and accelerate the growth of property taxes.
I was born and grew up in Wayne, a town that has suffered flooding problems for many years. I have personally observed the flooding conditions greatly worsen over the years and, without question, those worsening flooding conditions are a direct result of the insane overdevelopment that our state has permitted.
Working to solve our flooding problems has brought me face-to-face with our state's flood victims and the trauma these citizens suffer each rainfall.
The new regulations from the Council on Affordable Housing will undoubtedly hurt some of the very same people who need our help.
COAH's new rules state that we need to build 115,000 affordable housing units over the next 10 years. If you follow the failed policy that our state previously employed in order to give developers an incentive to build affordable housing, the developer would get to build four or five market-rate units for every one affordable unit.
That means that there could conceivably be 575,000 to 690,000 units of housing over the next decade, or to put it into perspective, between 460,000 and 575,000 units of housing that we don't need.
Promoting sprawl
The elimination of the regional contribution agreements, or RCAs, will force unnecessary housing into our state's green areas, promoting suburban sprawl and, in fact, contradicting our smart-growth policy.
By not looking for a better way to address our affordable-housing needs, we will ensure that global warming will be exacerbated, flooding conditions will worsen and more congestion will be added to our streets.
More specifically, global warming, which is one of the most critical environmental concerns in mankind's history, will be amplified by the construction of an additional half-million unnecessary homes. The decimation of thousands of acres of plant life, which absorbs carbon dioxide, is one of the suspected root causes of global warming.
The addition of furnaces and air conditioners in these homes will also spew a massive amount of carbon emissions into our atmosphere. More cars will be on the roadways, again spewing carbon emissions into our environment and causing even more congestion in our already overburdened transportation system.
Allowing developers to build these market-rate homes will glut an already depressed housing market. The construction of these homes will continue to suppress the real estate market and further erode the value of homeowners' most important investments.
Money will be taken away from our senior citizens and cause their home values to drop at the exact time that they are looking to cash in on their nest eggs.
Also, any new housing is a negative ratable. Building these homes will increase property taxes and rents for everyone.
Higher taxes
Property taxes are the No. 1 concern of most of our citizens. We cannot afford to encourage the construction of additional units. There is also the possibility that billions of dollars may be needed for more school construction.
There is a better way of providing affordable housing opportunities in our state. Sound state investment and tax incentives, along with proper income-eligible units, can create affordable housing for many lower- and middle-income citizens.
We also must protect communities that do not have any more space to build these units.
That is why I have introduced legislation that will exempt communities from the COAH regulations if they are less than 10 percent developable.
We must work to develop an affordable-housing policy that will help those in need without destroying our environment and financially strapping our citizens.
Scott T. Rumana is a Republican state assemblyman representing the 40th District.
