51% of NJ Residents Have Never Heard of the Mount Laurel Decisions

[Cranbury Conservative]

It was recently reported that a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that 51% of New Jersey voters have never heard about the Mount Laurel decisions which require suburban communities in New Jersey to promote Affordable Housing.

The Fairleigh Dickinson poll also found that 23% of New Jersey voters said they knew “Just a little” about the Mount Laurel decisions.

Additionally in the poll 41% of New Jersey voters said they have never heard of COAH and another 32% of voters said they have heard just a little about COAH.

While these numbers are startling they also explain why the Party which is currently in charge of Trenton is getting away with what they do here in New Jersey.

[Michael]

And they voted too!

[joe the plumber]

Same people who believe in UFOs????????????

[Guest]

there is a way to change this, and it's called educating the taxpayers of NJ.

These results tell me that Starledger and other papers are doing a terrible job reporting on it and internalizing it to the taxpayer

COAH is hard to understand by the average taxpayer - how this affects his/her taxes, and their job has not been well represented.

Ever changing rules doesn't help with this either but it shouldnt stop good articles about how COAH3 will affect NJ from a macro-economic level (i.e. Job Losses, Businesses moving out or not expanding in NJ, etc.) and the micro-effects (sprawl, more infrastructure and subsidizing more subprime scenarios,etc.)

This is an opportunity for fiscally responsible Dems and the Republican candidates to seize the initiative and create a more fiscally responsible government in NJ.

NJ foreclosure rate is sky high in most areas (Cranbury is in far better shape then other parts of jersey thank god) But the outcry from both groups in NJ, the group that has seen housing prices plummet and are underwater will be looking for blood from any NJ politician that has voted on policies that are driving down Housing Prices and COAH3 is a very visible one right?

And the other group of hard working NJ taxpayers that is fed up with the federal bailout packages already - will be highly motivated to CHANGE voting habits once they understand how COAH3 will be funded and its effect on NJ Jobs. This is the largest voting block and is looking for scapegoats about the current bad state of the economy. It will not take much media coverage for this group that already has anxieties about Layoffs and higher living costs to see evidence of a bad trends economically. Many articles are already out there in local newspapers about how commercial building and job creation has been hampered by the COAH job growth taxes. Also much evidence about many industry sectors in NJ asking to be exempt from the very same rules. And finally there is a lot of hard evidence about how Roberts will be using NJ taxpayer funds to address funding gaps between what was raised by the COAH taxes and the actual cost of building. But no one in media has asked the questions or have investigated the Total Cost to the taxpayer (for all of it included increased infrastructure) Didnt Corzin sign a bond to raise $4bil to build more schools in NJ recently? And that's only one of the pieces affected.

Has anyone in the news also reported on why we need to build 115K more houses in this housing glut?

And what about the industries that seem to be benefiting most from COAH3 in a bad economy, the big developers and their lawyers seem to be sitting pretty financially in all of it.

There's a lot of good articles and stories that still need to be exposed to the NJ citizen voter. I hope NJ newspapers still have reporters and investigators who can take a complex situation like COAH and help the regular joe understand how its hurting him.

[Guest]

I'm always amazed when our own town residents can't even name one TC member or have no idea what is going on. Sadly, this is good news in comparison.

[Guest]