Letters
Affordable housing good for community

We’ve all seen large housing developments with a small number of affordable homes. And we’ve probably been told that the development was necessary to meet the town’s Mount Laurel obligation. But it wasn’t.

Creative towns all over New Jersey are meeting their affordable housing obligations without large-scale development. Former schools and fire stations have been converted into affordable apartments. Infill development has helped towns meet their obligations without building beyond existing neighborhoods. One hundred percent affordable developments have provided affordable housing without any market-rate housing at all.

Citizens should encourage local elected officials to support environmentally appropriate affordable housing. Why? Affordable housing is good for the economy. Businesses need employees at every income level, and affordable housing helps build an inviting business climate.

Affordable housing is good for the community. New Jersey neighborhoods are stronger when they include our teachers, police officers, municipal workers and young adults who grew up there.

Today, these New Jerseyans are priced out of many towns. Well-planned affordable housing is good for the environment. By helping workers live closer to their jobs, affordable housing can reduce the air pollution created by long commutes.

To create affordable housing without large-scale market-rate development, some towns have partnered with nonprofit developers who can access state and federal funding. Others have worked with for-profit companies that have different financing options available. And some towns have created their own nonprofits to develop and manage affordable housing, financed with development fees.

Municipalities also ensure local control when they proactively meet their housing obligations. Planning lets a town create the affordable housing that best meets its unique circumstances. Failing to plan allows other stakeholders — including developers using builder’s remedy litigation — to create an outcome that the town does not like.

Submitting an affordable housing plan to the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) is therefore critical for every New Jersey municipality.

And as your town develops its plan, get involved. Ask your municipal officials if they’ve considered alternatives to inclusionary development. Ask if they’ve looked into partnering with an experienced nonprofit. If they already have a plan but it could be better, they are allowed to change it; ask them to do so. If they haven’t started, urge them to start now.

For more ideas, see the Coalition for Affordable Housing and the Environment Web site, www.cahenj.org. There, you can find ways that towns can provide affordable housing and protect the environment, including questions to ask to ensure well-considered COAH compliance, examples of creative, environmentally sensitive projects, and financial and technical resources.

New Jersey towns can provide affordable housing, protect the environment and determine how they will grow. It takes a little effort and some ingenuity, but it is worth the effort.

Marie A. Curtis

Oakhurst

board member

Council on Affordable Housing and the Environment

‘New Jersey: Enter and see at your own risk’

Now that “New Jersey: Come see for yourself” and not “New Jersey: Enter and see at your own risk” was chosen as the state’s new slogan, I think it’s our responsibility to warn unsuspecting visitors:

• Our state has the highest property tax in the nation.

• New Jersey is highest when it comes to all kinds of insurance.

• Crime is running rampant, and to prove it we feature the nation’s No. 1 city in that unwanted category.

• Clean beaches and fresh air are just about nonexistent because everything’s polluted.

• Our highways are as congested, if not more so than anywhere else.

• Average price of a house is probably the highest in the country.

• People are not as humble or friendly as where they came from.

• Our politicians say one thing, but do the opposite as soon as they take office. That’s a national problem, not only here

• Concrete state, not Garden State should be our official name.

Yes, travelers, do come and see for yourself. Ask around, then run or ride as fast as you can to the nearest exit — preferably south — for if you go north there’s another monster, our big sister state, New York.

Minos Rigopoulis

Lincroft section of Middletown

Impeach Bush

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ... and ... describing the place to be searched, and the persons and things to be seized.”

President Bush’s wide-ranging, catch-all electronic surveillance of the communications of huge numbers of U.S. citizens clearly and unambiguously violates this provision of the Bill of Rights.

He also is in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which requires warrants to be issued by the FISA court for electronic searches. He claims that legislation passed by Congress permits him to do this, but even if that were so, any legislation permitting such a thing would be unconstitutional on the face of it and therefore null and void.

As a people, we have to face up to the fact that President Bush has committed a criminal act, and that his continued presence in the Oval Office severely threatens the survival of our most basic and precious freedoms.

He has usurped the Constitution, and has taken on the mantle of a tyrant.

We are at a most critical point in our nation’s history. It is essential that the people of the United States demand the prompt impeachment of George W. Bush, and then a trial by the Senate be held to determine if he shall be expelled from his office.

Robert E. Moir

Fair Haven