The Democrats vs. Morris Township

Growing up on Symor Drive, one of my family’s first recollections of Township life, after moving here in 1960, was awakening to an invasion of cows straying from the Moore Farm on Woodland Avenue.

The Moore Estate now bears little resemblance to the sprawling farm and stately, hilltop mansion I remember from my childhood.

While land development is both inevitable and desirable, one can lament the fact that the State seized the right to determine a vision for the Township from Township residents. Instead of more environmentally friendly, less intense residential development, State government insisted upon high-density housing, with all of the costs – environmental and economic – such construction brings. Today, we suffer the consequences of ill-considered State decisions, including infrastructure costs, traffic, and the other banes of inappropriately dense development. Only Republican Township government kept our taxes modest in the face of these illogical State mandates.

Last session, though, the Democratic Majority and the Corzine Administration presented the Township (and the State) will a new set of construction mandates which threaten to severely undercut our quality of life and hugely increase taxes. This represents the Democrats’ gift to Morris Township.

Morris Township now faces a state mandate to construct an additional 224 units of low and moderate income housing. Under prevailing practices, that will require 1000 units of market-rate housing. Unless Township residents somehow find a location for more than 1,200 units of high density housing, that state may step in and dictate a location, throwing local wishes, zoning, and quality of life to the wind.

Each so-called "affordable" unit carries a price tag of more than $250,000; most of that cost will now be borne by the unfortunate property tax payers in the Township. Assuming that each one of these units produces just one new school-age child, at a cost of more than $16,000 per student, that adds almost $20 million each year to property taxes. Factor in millions more for additional infrastructure, police and local services, and the inevitable consequence will be massive property tax increases on present residents.

Meanwhile, the state imposed an additional tax on non-residential construction, depriving the Township of a possible source of revenue to offset the state-mandated costs. And it continues to provide all Morris County districts combined will less school aid than it provides to just one, Democratic town: Union City. (Never mind Newark, Jersey City, etc.)

My family moved here – as, perhaps, did yours – to enjoy a suburban style of living, free from the congestion, traffic, pollution, and other problems that urban-life inevitably produces, while foregoing the myriad benefits of urban living. Morris Township erects no barriers; anyone wishing to move here is welcome. Now, the Democrats tell us, in effect, that it’s morally wrong to escape poverty, congestion, traffic, crime, etc.; that we labor under a moral imperative to bring these urban problems with us into the suburbs. The Democrats assert that every single town must create a few pockets of urbanization within its borders.

Treating existing suburban residents as criminals, as if they owe urban residents a massive subsidy to relocate here, is simply nonsense. Turning Morris Township into an extension of Irvington – or, even, an extension of Morristown – totally undermines the reason the Township exists in the first place. Instead of improving cities (which, given the huge amount of public dollars spent there, should have happened long ago), the Democrats continue to attempt to destroy the suburbs.

Statewide, the Democrats’ recent foray into "fairness" will cost local property taxpayers at least $25 billion in direct construction costs, plus tens of billions more in infrastructure and services. All based upon the patently silly proposition that it’s somehow unfair that housing prices in Newark tend to be lower than those in Morris County.

Morris Township voters should consider these massive costs and ridiculous social policies at the polls. Not a single Republican legislator supported this monstrous, expensive mandate; every Democrat voting – except for one (cowardly or cautious) congressional candidate – supported it.

Our local officeholders should do all they can to fight this Democratic monstrosity. Every year of delay is another year of grace to the Township taxpayers, another year of preserving the quality of life against this Democratic assault.