Many communities on the front lines of sprawl saw their property taxes jump by over 40% to cover the costs of providing new roads, sewers, schools and services.
Development and Redevelopment
Sprawl Gets NJ Coming – and Going – via Property Tax
Friday, March 30th, 2001Development Style Can Reduce Road Costs
Tuesday, February 13th, 2001Road Costs and New Development
Laying a local, two-lane road typically costs $1 million a mile.
The cost per resident can be reduced dramatically if plans for new roads are coordinated with plans for more compact development – even when that development is no more “compact” than found in a small town.
Roads built to serve sprawling […]
If You Zone For It, They Will Come
Thursday, January 25th, 2001The Sarnoff Corporation in West Windsor this month announced plans to transform its rolling 335-acre campus into a 12-building office park.
Property Taxes Drive Urban Distress and Sprawl
Wednesday, January 10th, 2001New Jerseyans shoulder the nation’s highest residential property taxes, claiming about 10 percent of annual median household income.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Friday, December 22nd, 200050 Years Ago in New Jersey
In 1950, we munched Sugar Pops and Ball-O-Fire gumballs for the first time. Most of us (58 percent) lived in places with urban or small town densities where you could walk to stores, movies or even work – Newark, Camden, Maplewood, Princeton, Red Bank, Collingswood. Today, only a third of […]
NJ’s Dirty Secret – Not Enough Housing Affordable To NJ’s Workers
Friday, December 8th, 2000Spillover Sprawl
The newest frontier of New Jersey suburbanization is actually in northeastern Pennsylvania.
The population of Monroe County, Pa. grew by 34 percent in the past decade; Pike County, Pa. grew by a whopping 48 percent. New Jersey’s fastest growing county, Somerset, grew by a comparatively “meager” 20 percent.
Both Pennsylvania counties are served by […]
New Housing
Monday, November 27th, 2000Only a third of all New Jersey households are families with children under 18, making only one in three households a primary market for new single-family homes (per 1990 census).
Yet from 1990 to 1999, 83 percent of all building permits issued in New Jersey were for single-family homes.
This imbalance severely limits the choice of new […]
The Maryland Approach
Wednesday, November 8th, 2000Since 1975, Montgomery County Maryland has required that at least 15 percent of all new homes in any new development of 50 or more homes be affordable to moderate- and low-income families.
Creating mixed-income neighborhoods in such modest proportions has had no adverse impact whatever on the resale value of market-rate homes in this wealthy D.C. […]
The Minnesota Approach
Monday, October 23rd, 2000The drawbacks of new business development — from heavier traffic to lost open space — are often shared by surrounding communities. Minnesota requires its communities to also share the tax benefits.
When a business moves to a new community in Minnesota, law requires that the other communities in the region share 40 percent of the […]
Suburbs Slipping into Hole of Urban Decline
Friday, September 22nd, 2000Suburban Distress
Urban distress is beginning to seep into the suburbs and small towns that border New Jersey’s major cities. Many of these communities have fallen behind the state pace in three important measures: change in per capita income, change in residential value and change in their share of regional employment.
In north Jersey, they include Newark […]
