Republican Senator Steven Oroho, District 24, a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations committee issued the following statement criticizing the Highlands Plan for failing to compensate hard-working home and land owners for the drop in property values:
“When government forces the owners to accept land-use rules that diminish the value of their property, justice demands they be compensated. New Jersey’s farmers are especially hard hit by the loss of value in their land. The diminished value of farmland in the Highlands is making it increasingly difficult to secure necessary credit, especially in this economy.
“The Highlands Act aims to protect resources that benefit the entire state, so it is grossly unfair to ask local property owners and farmers to bear any more of the burden of its implementation than other citizens.
“Private property rights are the bedrock of a free nation. A democratic society can not exist without them. Taxpayers endure years of hard work and sacrifice to buy their homes and businesses. Their land is a resource they use to create jobs, safely raise their families and create the wealth that government taxes to finance its operations.
“It is unfathomable to me why the government would approve rules that drastically reduce the worth of so many hard-working people’s homes and farms without compensation.
“A cleaner environment is a worthy goal that everyone in the state supports, but it is simply unfair to force a small group of landowners to bear the lion’s share of the costs for a program designed to benefit the entire state’s ecology.
“I will look for opportunities to sponsor legislation that fairly compensates Highlands land owners. Until then, I will continue to express my opposition to the gross injustices that this law and these rules perpetrate in the name of environmental protection.”
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