N.J. Senate approves senior housing bill

Here’s the article from Thursday’s Courier.

So here’s the thing… Crystal Ridge almost attempted this a few years ago.  A portion of their development is in North Plainfield and without our asking, they OFFERED to make it age-restricted housing as a means of getting us to agree to letting them build on the North Plainfield portion of the lot.  They later kind of “felt out” members of the Planning Board to see if they were open to the idea of removing the age restriction.

I (Heather) was on the Planning Board when they were doing the “feeling out”, but not when the application was in front of the Board.  So I asked them if we required it of them.  Our attorney said that we did not: they offered.  My answer was that I would assume they had done their market analysis and research when they made that offer and/or could move the rental price (which is, by the way, outrageous) to fill the requirement although it may cut into their profits.  After all–that’s their business, right?  It’s not my place to tell them their business.  They offered.  We didn’t require.

People don’t see that real estate is pretty much no different than the stock market: you make an educated decision to take a level of risk and you deal with the consequences the market brings to bear.  If the stock market tanks, nobody’s restoring the life savings you dumped into it back to 75% of it’s purchase price… I’m not sure why anyone would make the same concessions for real estate.  It’s no different: you ride out the market.  Eventually, it comes back–it’s just a matter of how many years that will take.  I’m sure you can talk to countless 50-somethings who can fully explain this agony to you in terms of their retirement portfolio.  When it comes to real estate–it’s not different.  Markets are markets.  You have to live in a house you wanted to move from longer.  When it’s business, you have to cut into the profit margin, file bankruptcy or suffer whatever other loss comes with the risks you took.  And frankly, with so many of our homes in foreclosure, I fail to see where a business should be spared the same fate for similar “hard times”.  I mean, they have way more education and experience backing their decisions.  If they don’t, then they’re subject to the same “learning pains”–are they not?  Because if not, let me incorporate myself and buy my home as a business.

Personally, if the Villa Maria property isn’t going to be open space (and I’m not even close to satisfied with the fact that they couldn’t simply make formal application for the space and instead are expecting the public to believe the “he said, she said” crap when putting it to bed costs us NOTHING), then I’m glad we decided on ARC zoning.  Of course, there’s some bias in that statement because I introduced it in May or June of 2003 before the developers even came into all of this; and I’m not thrilled about the density although it is lower than all the prior plans (by at least half of the originals).

But the bigger question has yet to be answered.  You see, many residents believe that the Council and Mayor are “in bed” with the developer.  They profess that they are doing what is within their power to spare the town the worst of development impact on that property.  In light of the fact that it’s not going to be open space, yes–I believe this WOULD spare us to some extent (if only in impact to the schools and some of the traffic).  Let’s see how willing they are to fight for that “protection”.  Are they going to cave under the premise of “they’ll take it to Trenton and win anyway” veiled as money-savings for our town (just like not undertaking open space for that property)?

Time will tell…