TRENTON, NJ - A draft report prepared for the Department of Community Affairs says New Jersey should ease up on environmental regulations to clear the way for builders to put up affordable housing in suburban and rural areas. The report says current environmental rules are skewed against builders and "there is a desperate need to level the playing field" to fulfill Gov. Jon Corzine's promise to create 100,000 units of affordable housing within a decade.
Environmentalists, however, say the advisory panel's proposals would eliminate safeguards that have kept housing sprawl in check for years.
The report by the 12-member Land Use and Planning Subcommittee of the Department of Community Affairs' Housing Policy Task Force could pit the leaders of two state departments against each other: DCA Commissioner Joseph Doria has called for relaxing environmental rules to build more affordable housing, but Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson strongly objects to that.
"Affordable housing must be done in an environmentally sensitive manner," Jackson said. "I have heard a lot of people complain they can't build on flood plains. They tell me it is the only land left. Building affordable housing there would be morally wrong."
The report comes from one of six subcommittees that report to DCA's Housing Policy Task Force. Doria is expected to present Corzine a final affordable housing plan during the spring. He said the subcommittee report is not final, "It is for discussion only."
Source: nj.com