Lawrence Aaron of The Record offers a good column — with a huge flaw — on the end of RCAs. (The flaw is that the RCA provision has nothing to do with the budget.) He explains the basic stakes involved, calling the “Long overdue” elimination of RCAs” a milestone that will “end years of dodging by municipalities and developers who have successfully made the building of affordable housing an exercise in hope unfulfilled.”
A few municipalities might occasionally be able to justify the necessity for relocating affordable housing developments. But the regional contribution agreements have been abused to the point of killing the chances of many working poor and middle-class families to live in decent housing near better schools and shopping opportunities in wealthier New Jersey towns.
The potential to change the lives of tens of thousands of families for the better lies in ending such regional contribution agreements.
And that what this is supposed to be about. There are other issues to address (such as the growing conflict between open space and farmland preservation and providing affordable housing, and flaws in the currently proposed COAH rules that could force towns to make drastic changes in their long-term plans), but eliminating RCAs had to come first to make it clear that every town has a responsibility to provide housing to low- and moderate-income people and that the poor and working class should not be warehoused in Newark, Trenton and Paterson.
Hank Kalet 