Author: hankkalet

Even as the state Legislature moves forward with civil union legislation, the state Bar Association is lining up on the side of marriage equality (I saw this first on BlueJersey). It’s president, Wayne Positan, said the Assembly bill “needlessly creates ‘a multitude of questions’ simply to avoid calling the union of two people of the same sex a ‘marriage.'”

“Why not just call it what it is?” Positan asked. He said a rival bill by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer) that would recognize same-sex marriages is “the best way of complying” with the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Oct. 25 decision. That ruling said same-sex couples must be allowed to form relationships that carry all the rights and responsibilities of marriage but left it up to lawmakers whether to call them something else, such as civil unions.

Positan said creating a new legal structure called civil unions will “create a lot of work for lawyers” resolving arguments over what the new terminology means. He said allowing same-sex couples to marry is “a nice, simple, concise way of dealing with it as opposed to a lot of contrivances to get to the same place.”

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Honey is back to being Honey. She ate today and begged for food, a sure sign that she is acting like her own self.

She is on steroids, which probably rules her out as a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer but likely jump-started her appetite, and will be on steroids for about two weeks. During this time we’ll monitor her and talk with the vet and make a determination on how to proceed.

For now, we will take her smiling, begging and general exuberance and enjoy it without reservation.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Here is the third ad from Blue Jersey’s Think Equal campaign. Watch it and explain why we’re creating this cumbersome and unnecessary distinction.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The judges got it right.

While there has been a movement afoot to quash the government’s ability to seize property for public use, the fact remains that it is sometimes necessary. The decision yesterday to uphold a lower court decision allowing a Mount Laurel seizure of a 16-acre parcel slated for 23 single-family houses.

The 6-1 decision allowing Mount Laurel to take over an old farm and stop a planned housing development opens a new legal avenue for preserving open space. It also expands the use of eminent domain, a hot topic across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court last year allowed towns to seize land and turn it over to private developers.

“The citizens of New Jersey have expressed a strong and sustained public interest in the acquisition and preservation of open space,” the court wrote in an unsigned four-page decision.

The court said the Burlington County township’s desire to limit development, overcrowded schools, traffic congestion and pollution was consistent with the “motive driving the public interest in open-space acquisition.”

The court decision means that open space preservation can be considered as a legitimate public use (the issue in the New Canaan case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court focused on a commercial redevelopment plan). And in New Jersey, that has to be viewed as a positive — umm — development.

Cranbury snared ($) a significant parcel in 2005, the 53-acre Fischer property on South Main Street (often called the “gateway to the southern end of town”) after threatening condemnation. And other communities have done the same.

The issue, of course, has been framed in a way to benefit the large property owners and developers — pitting a huge faceless bureaucracy against some small, powerless homeowner (i.e., Long Branch). These takings do occur, often for nefarious reasons (which is why we need tighter campaign-finance rules and pay-to-play restrictions). But we should not allow situations like the Long Branch taking to color our view of eminent domain ($).

With the proper controls ($), it can function as a way to enhance the public good.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Regional Contribution Agreements — the method that allows wealthier towns like Monroe and Cranbury to pay urban centers to take on the suburban communities’ state-mandated housing obligations — could become an endangered species.

Gov. Jon Corzine told the Anti-Poverty Network that he wants to build 10,000 new affordable housing units and that he wants to place limits on the so-called RCAs.

in addition to creating new units, Corzine said the location of them is just as important. He said that the state must promote affordable housing in areas close to viable jobs. He also endorsed limits on Regional Contribution Agreements, which allow towns to opt out of their affordable housing commitments by paying other communities to take them.

George Hawkins, executive director of New Jersey Future, a group that champions a coordinated approach to development, endorsed Corzine’s remarks, stressing that affordable housing is “very significant” for the state’s economy and for residents.

“If you don’t have any jobs near where the poor folks are, how are they going to stop being poor,” Hawkins said.

The Record offers this take, with which I wholehearatedly agree:

But it’s particularly gratifying that the governor raised the possibility of requiring more communities in the state to provide their fair share of moderately priced housing.

The New Jersey Supreme Court’s landmark Mount Laurel decisions 30 years ago aimed for all communities to provide some share of low- and moderately priced housing. But wealthier towns have taken advantage of a provision that lets them pay other communities to take on their share of affordable housing.

The communities most eager to receive money to build new housing are the poorer cities. That’s why New Jersey still has the problem of having its low-income population concentrated in urban areas, often far from their jobs.

Corzine told an anti-poverty conference he would consider setting limits on towns buying their way out of their housing obligations. He should pursue this. Increasingly, company headquarters and large retail stores are locating outside of urban areas: Jobs are moving away from affordable housing.

Cranbury is a prime example, building — or preparing to build — 18 million square feet of warehouse space, which creates lower-income jobs, but the small town has been sending its housing obligation north — to Carteret and Perth Amboy. Nothing wrong with that, technically — the rules are the rules — but it does seem to violate the spirit of the original Mount Laurel decision, which was to ensure that there was a place in every community for every income level.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick