TANELLI BLASTS NEW STATE COAH RULES

Council President Steve Tanelli said he will offer a resolution for the borough council at its July meeting condemning the state’s new Affordable Housing rules as being, “far beyond reasonable and an economic threat to the community and other surrounding communities.”

Tanelli said he will forward to resolution to other communities in the Meadowlands area and other towns in Bergen County, asking them to demand the legislature change the state’s Fair Housing Act and the affordable housing mandates.
 
Tanelli said the new rules promulgated by the Council on Affordable Housing -- known as COAH Round 3 -- represent radical social engineering that will come at the expense of hard working homeowners who were able to afford a home without government assistance or mandates.
 
The new COAH regulations will impose a 20 percent low income housing requirement - for every group of five new residences, one must be an affordable unit. A similar calculation is made for non residential development as well.  It is estimated that the cost of Round 3 would add billions to the cost of  commercial development in New Jersey.
 
DETER INVESTMENT

Tanelli said COAH-3 will make it difficult to attract commercial tax ratables to the community at critical time when the borough is trying to map a new future for the Meadowlands portion of the community.
 
“Any developer who wants to invest in a commercial enterprise in our town, whether it be a warehouse or a retail store, will have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in added fees to construct affordable housing,” said Tanelli.
 
“I can’t think of a bigger disincentive the state could mandate to chase investment out of the region,” added the council president. “I think the legislators in Trenton have become dupes of the housing radicals, who simply don’t understand basic economics,”
 
OVERCROWDING & TAXES
 
Tanelli said not only will the new rules inhibit commercial development, but they will inundate already developed towns like North Arlington with additional housing, causing more overcrowding and more traffic congestion. The additional over-development, he said will force taxes to go up to pay for additional services, such as police, fire and schools.

Finally, said Tanelli, the legislature has failed to calculate the impact of the housing requirements on existing homeowners.
 
He noted that the state housing sales for the first quarter of the year dropped by 30 percent and that home prices are falling throughout the region. “In the face of one of the worst housing recessions in almost a century, the State of New Jersey – in one of the poorest decision it could possibly make -- is going to mandate the construction of hundreds of thousands of units of additional housing. All that will do is drive down the value of homes for existing homeowners, whose life savings are tied up in their property values.”
 
“Hasn’t anyone in Trenton thought about the senior citizens who are looking to retire and sell their home? It doesn’t appear so,” said Tanelli.
   
The Council President added that COAH-3 -- which raises income eligibility for subsidized housing to more than $86,000 for a family of four, -- “is a slap in the face to every hard working family that scrimped and saved and worked two jobs to afford a home. The State has created a yet another new entitlement for people earning almost $90,000. The legislature may as well promise to build everyone a house and let’s rename New Jersey the Soviet Union.”
 
Tanelli said his resolution is calling on the state legislature to completely overhaul the Fair Housing Act and to develop a new way to provide a one time subsidy to moderate income home buyers that does not entail building additional housing.
 
“The legislature needs to be creative. A revolving loan program for moderate income buyers would do more good than the mess the state has created with COAH,” said Tanelli