Fully Staffed Commission Will Release the Secret Rutgers Housing Study
Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman, a member of the Senate Environment Committee, today called on Governor Jon Corzine to fulfill his obligations and fill the five longstanding vacancies on the State Planning Commission. The Commission is supposed to consist of seventeen members. Currently, twelve members serve on the board and three of the members are holdovers whose terms have expired.
“The governor’s inaction is completely unacceptable,” Bateman stated. “Some of the seats on the State Planning Commission have been empty for over a year.”
On September 21, 2009, the understaffed State Planning Commission denied an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request to release the trend scenario portion of the Impact Assessment of the State Plan. This assessment contains demographic and infrastructure data that will be used to compose a new state plan. The agency in charge of planning for the Corzine Administration is projecting significantly lower job and housing numbers for New Jersey than the COAH bureaucracy.
“The State Planning Commission and the State Plan are absolutely critical to the future of New Jersey,” Bateman continued. “Without guidance for the Commission and an updated version of the State Plan, New Jersey will be overrun by unchecked sprawl and congestion. Governor Corzine must end his unproductive inattention to the Commission and immediately fill the eight empty or overdue seats.”
The State Planning Commission was presented with a Power Point presentation at its March 25th meeting by Professor Dr. Robert Burchell of Rutgers University. According to attendees the presentation indicated that job growth for the period encompassing the years 2008 to 2028 will only amount to 6,550 annually, compared with COAH’s projection of 54, 000 over the same period. The most recent version of the State Plan is five years overdue.
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