Working for Smart Growth:
More Livable Places and Open Spaces
Census figures show New Jerseyans continue to leave the Garden State in significantly higher numbers than new residents are arriving from other states.
Those moving out between 1990 and 1999 exceeded those moving in from other states by 378,495 – more than the entire population of Mercer County (350,761), or Newark, the state’s largest city (273,546).
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New Jersey’s most pressing financial problem is transportation funding
Without new ways of managing growth and without fixing the systems that drive development, including the property tax system, New Jersey will never reach genuine prosperity.
New Jersey Future believes that while not the first choice, a tax convention is the best choice for finding solutions to the state’s property tax problems.
Today’s property tax system drives communities to zone out families and to chase and compete for non-residential development, even when that development changes community character, erases open lands and adds to traffic.
Historic preservation is a potentially powerful contributor to the economic engine of New Jersey.
A proposal to raise the gas tax by 12.5 cents per gallon would have a minimal impact on the drivers of fuel-efficient vehicles, and a large payoff for all drivers if the funds are used as proposed for the repair of today’s aging infrastructure and projects to alleviate heavy traffic.
Tax sharing means communities share the tax benefits of new development with their neighbors just as they already share the negative spillover effects of development, including increased traffic, pollution and loss of open land.
This over-dependence on property taxes forces New Jersey municipalities to chase new development or “ratables,” and make their land use choices on unbalanced fiscal reasoning, spurring sprawl.
New Jersey leads the class when it comes to spending per pupil, and in over-reliance on local property taxes to get the job done.
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