PRESIDENT’ S CORNER

Zoning Reform: The Solution to New Jersey’s Housing Crisis?
Carlos Rodrigues AICP / PP, NJAPA Chapter President

We should all think twice before complaining about New Jersey’s affordable housing rules, either the old ones or the new ones. While it’s obvious to everybody that both the previous rules and the current ones have plenty of problems, we also need to recognize an important fact: the State housing rules seek to address a very real issue that is seriously undermining the New Jersey’s competitiveness and continued prosperity: our housing markets are remarkably distorted and price inflated, and it is increasingly difficult to house our own children, not to mention recruit young workers from out of state.

Public leadership requires that public officials make hard, informed decisions. And using the full range of municipal powers to achieve a balanced housing market – which includes creating realistic conditions for the provision of affordable housing -- is not an optional activity, to be considered after every other aspect of municipal government has been dealt with. It is, in my view, one of the fundamental objectives of the planning authority we have delegated to local governments. If local officials don’t feel up to the job, they should stand aside and let a younger generation tackle the issues.

Leadership on the housing front has recently materialized in the Homes for New Jersey Campaign, a broad coalition of organizations that seeks to profoundly change how we provide affordable housing in the state. While NJAPA joined the campaign early on, and while a few NJAPA members are playing pivotal roles in this effort, it is not apparent that the planning profession as a whole has really signed on.

So I am also increasingly distressed with planners that shirk their commitment to our profession and treat the state’s affordable housing rules as a numbers game, using every trick in the book to help communities, whether affluent or not, shirk their affordable housing responsibilities. Of course we know the state’s rules are riddled with loopholes and trap doors, just like the federal tax laws offer a wide variety of tax shelters for the wealthy. But planners are not accountants. Our mission is to “create better communities”, to borrow the APA slogan. And better, more sustainable communities implies housing markets offering a wide variety of housing opportunities.

It is high time we recognize that the provision of affordable housing is an integral, mandatory part of sound planning. If a development plan does not result in a more balanced housing market – which by definition includes an adequate supply of affordable housing -- it is not a plan worth considering. And it is high time we stop treating affordable housing as a state mandate and start treating it as a fundamental component of sound planning.

As planners we all know, deep down, that zoning reform is the solution to the (affordable) housing crisis. With smarter zoning, every community, even the “built-out” ones, could achieve more balanced housing markets. Zoning is very much an early 20th century construct, designed to exclude nefarious uses; but over the decades, it has been applied over and over in a formulaic fashion, and extended to exclude more and more uses. Affordable housing, even family housing, have become nefarious uses. As a result, the term “exclusionary zoning” is a redundancy. There isn’t a community in New Jersey that would not benefit from a thorough, thoughtful reform of its zoning, for all sorts of reasons, not just for housing. Yet, zoning reform is the last thing on anybody’s agenda. Shouldn’t planners start to focus on zoning reform?

As always, I welcome your thoughts. Please contact me at pres@njapa.org

The President’s Corner reflects the opinion of the President and not necessarily that of the Executive Committee or the membership.