News
Mayors Discuss Future Of COAH Plan
By John Burton
LITTLE SILVER - "I'm sure they'll be a lot of changes with the new administration," said Eatontown Mayor and Two River of Council of Mayors Chairman Gerald J. Tarantolo to his fellow mayors, as they gathered for their monthly meeting last Saturday.
A few days after the election, marking the change in governors for the state, six mayors and a representative from Fort Monmouth, of the 13 members of the council, met to discuss issues for the area given the change in Trenton, as well as to hear from a former member who - for now - chairs the state's planning commission.
For the mayors representing the two river area, like mayors all through the state, some of their major concerns are ways to meet their obligations under the state's Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) and the burden of property taxes.
In addition to addressing those concerns, the council heard from Edward J. McKenna Jr., former Red Bank mayor, one of the council's original founders.
McKenna now serves as chairman for the state's planning commission, and he told of the commission's work and the benefits municipalities could see from that work.
The commission, overseen by the Department of Community Affairs, has 17 members, representing state and local government and the public, who are named by the Governor and approved by the Legislature, for three-year terms. The commission addresses planning issues affecting the state, according to the Department of Community Affairs Web site.
The commission is expected to present a new state plan, one that not only addresses planning matters, but related issues, such as environmental concerns, McKenna explained. "It's a bold state plan and I'm happy with it," McKenna told the mayors.
There is a process by which local municipalities may apply and obtain the commission's certification. There would be a cost associated with it, McKenna said. "It sounds overwhelming, but it's not," he said, advising the mayors to have their planners contact the state's Office of Smart Growth, which will help towns with the process.
You'll get picked over by everybody," meaning various state agencies, such as Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Transportation, McKenna said. But the end result is, with state approval there is protection and towns become eligible for state funds for a variety of needs. Asbury Park has already been approved and has been receiving that funding, McKenna said.
On the COAH front, "It's a mess," McKenna concluded.
"I think the current projections are totally unrealistic," he said. "They're never going to be built."
Those projections involve the third round obligations, which have come under considerable criticisms from local officials, as well as from some state legislators, who have said COAH overstepped in hopes of avoiding any
additional lawsuits, which derailed the initial third-round numbers for towns' obligation to provide affordable housing. Mayors said they are now obligated to provide numbers of units that cannot be built because of faulty methodology, which incorrectly tabulated such things as parks and environmentally protected lands as available for development.
"You can see how ridiculous the whole thing is," Tarantolo said.
Tarantolo said Gov. Jon S. Corzine in recent months had come to appreciate the municipalities' plight. "Quite frankly, he [Corzine] wasn't happy how it was being handled," by his subordinates, said Tarantolo, who, as part of New Jersey League of Municipalities committee, met with Corzine.
The feeling is that COAH, "is broken," Tarantolo said.
Governor-elect Chris Christie, a Republican, had expressed during the campaign, and in the days after, his opposition to COAH.
"I agree with him," said Tarantolo, a Democrat. "It needs gutting."
But, "Right now everything is in flux," he said.
McKenna, a Democrat, noted, "I personally think there's going to be a revolution of sorts," as it relates to COAH and the municipal obligations. McKenna, who said he is an advocate for affordable housing, offered to work with COAH, but doubts he'll be asked.
In the future, McKenna expects legislation that would have a state department head be charged with chairing the planning commission. "If the Governor wants me to serve," he will, McKenna said. "If not, that's Okay."
The mayors council had previously endorsed a plan first floated some years ago by the New Jersey League of Municipalities to address property taxes, which the league eventually dropped. That plan would have the state shift the burden away from property taxes to support public education and on to other revenue sources, such as income, sales and business taxes: and to have the state administer the funding instead of leaving it to the local school districts. "At least it becomes a more progressive way to deal with education," Tarantolo said. This could amount to a cut of about 50 percent or more of property taxes in the state, he added.
"It's the way it's being done in many states," added Susan Howard, Monmouth Beach's mayor.
"I tried this on Corzine and he rejected it immediately," Tarantolo said. "I'll try it on Christie."
Tarantolo heads up a League of Municipalities' steering committee, that, now armed with the support of the Two River Council of Mayors, is seeking support from all of the state's mayors, as well as support from the teachers' union and from the state's School Board Association.
Gaining that support would amount to a substantial lobby, he said. However, "We don't have all the answers," and somehow education would have to be paid for, meaning, "Somebody's got to pay the piper."
