Affordable Housing Bill Battle Ahead

Well, the sides are being chosen and the rhetoric has begun in the fight to end Regional Contribution Agreements (RCA) here in New Jersey. Though the Supreme Court said that all New Jersey town must ensure that low and moderate income residents have affordable housing, the more affluent suburban towns have used RCA’s to shift their responsibility to others -- mainly cities.
Now on the one side you have the cities that have been benefiting from the practice and who want the funds to keep coming. On the other side you have the suburbs that fear an influx of low to moderate income residents would tax their services and encourage sprawl. There is some validity to the sprawl claim but New Jersey is one of the most densely populated states in the nation, a certain amount of sprawl goes with the territory. It seems a bit unfair that low to moderate income residents are forced to live in cities because suburban towns have dumped off their responsibility to provide affordable housing. It will be interesting to watch how this plays out.

The bill, A3857 is here for review.
Read the article here

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Technorati: NJ Real Estate News, Real Estate, NJ Real Estate Blogs, NJ Housing, New Jersey, Current Events, Politics

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Affordable Housing Across NJ --Maybe

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts’ D-Bell Mawr proposed reform bill of New Jersey’s affordable housing rules has number. It is A-3857. The proposed bill will eliminate regional contribution agreements (RCAs) which allowed municipalities to reassign a portion of their affordable housing responsibility – as much as fifty percent – to cities. The proposed bill also creates housing rehabilitation and assistance program for grants to municipalities. The lack of affordable housing across the state means minimum wage workers would need to 119 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment at $1,103 a month. We will watch what happens with proposed bill A3857.
Read Robert Stern's article.

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Technorati: NJ Real Estate News, Real Estate, NJ Real Estate Blogs, NJ Housing, New Jersey, Politics, Affordable Housing

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For more information on Real Estate in New Jersey visit here.