Monday’s Daily Journal contained an article on the growing momentum for suspension of the affordable housing developer’s fee as to non-residential development (as well as the concerns of affordable housing advocates about the slippery-slope effect).

According to the Daily Journal:

Michael McGuinness, CEO of the state’s chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, called suspending the fee merely a good start.

“New Jersey needs an affordable housing funding solution that works in any economy,” said McGuinness. “The way it was being done isn’t really the best way to do it.”

Some local officials say a bigger problem than the fee is that another new rule that towns are required to have more affordable housing whenever offices, stores or industrial developments are built. As long as that’s the case, towns may be reluctant to allow new commercial development.

“There will be no building of affordable housing, there will be no building of commercial properties,” said Randy Brown, the Democratic mayor of Evesham Township who said he killed a proposed shopping center last year because of the affordable housing burden it would have caused.

The plan to suspend the development fee for a year, he said, is “like putting a Band Aid on a whole 20-inch gash.”

For the full article, click here.