Housing Task Force

The Star-Ledger has reported on a Housing Task Force draft report that has been poorly received by both the NJ DEP and local environmental groups. I haven't been able to read it yet, but when I see the Commissioner of Environmental Protection saying things like this, it leaves me worried:

"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 task force was put together by the Department of Community Affairs and seems to be trying to rewrite DEP regulations. The Star-Ledger reporter describes like this:

It calls for rewriting DEP rules to make them "flexible" and giving the state Planning Commission the power to override DEP rules and local laws. It would also prevent DEP from stopping construction within 300 feet of a waterway if the area was developed in the past, and allow sewer line construction in environmentally sensitive areas.

Now, everytime any of the newspapers in our area mentions the word environment they also quote the Sierra Club's Jeff Tittel. But even his language seems more dramatic in his effort to describe this to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"You basically have builders and people who work for builders . . . writing the environmental rules for the state of New Jersey," said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the state Sierra Club. "This proposal has really been the wish list for the builders over the past 20 years in New Jersey, many of the things that could not get passed or have been stopped because of public opinion and outrage."

All of the articles have noted that Corzine stresses that this isn't final, meaning that they'll be removing some of the more sever recommendations. I would guess that the sections that Tittel described as "unconstitutional" will be removed pretty early.