March 5, 2007
To: Assemblyman Jerry Green, Chairman, Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee, Co-sponsor A-3883 Assemblyman Van Drew, Co-sponsor A-3883
From: Dianne Brake, President, The Regional Planning Partnership
RE: A-3883
The Regional Planning Partnership is a statewide non-profit that has promoted state planning, sound land use and regional cooperation since 1968. I can see from the Statement section of A-3883 that RPP has many of the same interests as you and your co-sponsor. RPP have decades of experience analyzing - and these are words from the Statement section of the bill - the "dynamic and complex nature of this multi-tiered regime of land use and environmental protections." Furthermore, RPP has long recognized the "statewide need for adequate educational facilities and equitable housing opportunities for households across the income spectrum." We agree with this analysis, but we cannot support this bill.
When development can take place anywhere or everywhere, residents in built up areas can pay a utility rate that is higher than it should be, and residents in newly developing places can pay a rate that is lower than it should be.
An efficient infrastructure system makes the costs to customers more equitable. A-3883 takes away the right of BPU to use its regulatory power to encourage efficient development patterns - which in turn means an efficient infrastructure system.
RPP acknowledges that sometimes the incentives placed in rules do not work the way they are intended. RPP has experience with DOT's Highway Access Management Code rules that, when first put into place in 1991, created a disincentive for development in the right places, contrary to DOT's intent. This was inadvertent - simply not thought through. DOT listened to those impacted by its rules, and has since amended them.
If this Committee feels that BPU's rules are not providing the appropriate incentives to build in locations that are suitable for growth and a disincentive in places that are unsuitable for growth, than they should be amended, not overruled.
RPP supports the BPU's right to use its regulatory power to support economic growth in environmentally appropriate areas, which will create an efficient system at an equitable cost. I would hope that the Legislature would want this, too.