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[quote="Cranbury Conservative"]The Save Jersey Blog published a new entry entitled "Did State Officials Suppress Negative COAH Report?" on 2/8/2009 2:49:35 PM, written by Matt Rooney. 
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Did State Officials Suppress Negative COAH Report?

By Matt Rooney | February 8, 2009

Gannett's Michal Symons penned a very interesting investigative piece in today's Asbury Park Press. Did state officials intentionally hide a consultant report revealing flaws in the COAH methodology?

Whether COAH's implementation is "flawed" matters little for those of us who think the whole program should be gutted or dismantled. Nevertheless, I do want to know if state officials actually ignored and/or hid negative COAH evidence:

The Asbury Park Press

A July 2008 report, in which Rutgers University researchers examined Somerset County land-use information and compared the results to earlier conclusions based off 2002 statewide photos, suggested the initial results overestimated the supply of vacant, developable land in that county by 15 percent and overestimated its residential build-out capacity by 17 percent.

Stuart Koenig, an attorney representing 20 municipalities in court appealing the COAH obligations, said the state had the report in hand three months before it approved amended rules for the affordable-housing program and could have changed course.

"Because the vacant land was used to project growth and was used to determine statewide affordable housing need, the vacant-land analysis is critical to the equation," Koenig said. He later added: "They just went ahead and adopted their numbers, knowing they were wrong."

The New Jersey State League of Municipalities, which is also fighting the COAH rules, requested copies of such reports or analyses last October under the Open Public Records Act but wasn't given a copy of that report. It intends to cite the study in its appeal.

"As long ago as July, apparently, the agency had data that indicated that the underpinnings of their entire methodology were unsound," said Michael Cerra, a senior legislative analyst for the League of Municipalities. "Hundreds of plans were prepared using their methodology; that means the plans have errors in them? July allowed an opportunity to correct at least some of the error."

Permalink: blog.savejersey.com/2009/02/08/did-state-officials-suppress-negative-coah-report.aspx[/quote]

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