Rible: Let Towns Use Affordable Housing Money To Get The Lead Out Of Water
Assemblyman Dave Rible visiting fourth grade students at Spring Lake Hts Elementary School
Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, the Democrat leaders of the New Jersey Legislature, called for a tax on water for fund the repair and replacement of the state’s aging and lead contaminated water infrastructure.
Assemblyman Dave Rible, the Republican Conference Leader in the lower house, said raising taxes is not the answer. Rible is introducing a bill that would allow municipalities to contribute the monies now earmarked for affordable housing construction to instead by dedicated to a fund to be used to remediate lead contaminated properties.
“While we need to address the serious issue of lead contamination in our communities, raising taxes is not the answer,” said Rible. “This bill would provide vital funding for rehabilitating lead-contaminated properties without forcing taxpayers to dig deeper to pay for these projects.”
Under the measure, towns would see their affordable housing obligations reduced by paying into a fund that would be dedicated to remediating lead contamination, including water systems, in properties deemed affordable under the state’s affordable housing requirements. The bill would require the Department of Community Affairs to develop a formula to reduce a town’s affordable housing requirement based on their financial contribution to the lead abatement fund.
“Instead of requiring towns to construct costly affordable housing developments, we can dedicate this money to combatting the serious lead contamination problems plaguing many communities in our state,” said Rible. “This would be a tremendous benefit both for the health of New Jersey citizens and for the taxpayers who won’t have to pay more to fund these expensive lead abatement projects.”
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Will they are at it, have veterans housing projects count towards a communities affordable/COAH obligations.
Yes, because who needs affordable housing, right? Wrong!!
Michele, you should be careful what you wish for regarding affordable housing problems. Take a look around once rural parts of NJ, places like Colts Neck, Marlboro, Freehold, Manalapan, Howell. These were once, and by once i do mean recently as within the past 20 years, the “affordable” places to live. Why? Large farms, large tracts of undevelopped land, and farmers would sell off parcels of land at a minimum zoning size. you could have had a few acres in these towns for under 200k, cheaper than buying trucks of dirt. Of course with minimum lot sizes being say, 5 acres, only so many divisions were possible.
Then came affordable housing projects. Now large farms, hundres or thousands of acres, had/have no reason to break off a smaller number of 5 acre, affordable, parcels, instead, large land owners just have to wait out their time until the government or one of its developers decides the land can be rezoned to townhomes, 50units per acre, and suddenly land owners who were able to tough it out are rich. Worse, you can not afford the “affordable” housing because so much was paid for the land, and you certainly dont have the funds to buy the whole parcel because that 100 acre farm is a gold mine. now add in the cost due to the demand on public services when 100 acres with a family if 5 becomes 50 townhomes per acre with a family of 5 per home, higher taxes, leas affordable.
the solution to the problem is not more afforable housing and taxpayer funded projects, its exactly the opposite. let families keep their tax money to save and provide fir for their children’s future.
Beyond that, Dave should look into the problem with the school funding formula in his district in Lakewood. families there, many of them illegal and not Mexican, are choosing to have dozens of children and taxpayers statewide foot the bill for education and other services. perhaps those families who are sending so many kids to public schools need to be paying a surcharge to cover their own share of the expense? that would decrease property taxes for the rest of us, making home ownership more affordable as well as help slow the urban sprawl in the area which drives down prices.
how about it, Dave? willing to really do something and take on Lakewood or did the community there buy your voice like they bought the local government, just to get their way at everyone else’s expense?