Faced with an increasing need for affordable housing, vanishing open lands, sprawling development and global warming, over 500 people attended a forum Friday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Brunswick to discuss the most efficient ways to achieve sustainable growth.
"This means that we're going to have to be more creative about where we grow and how we grow," said Peter Kasabach, the executive director of New Jersey Future, at the redevelopment forum.
The forum had 22 workshops that focused on urban policy, planning and design as well as legal, technical and financial aspects of redevelopment and sustainability.
There is a lot of tension between growth and preservation, but they are not "either/or" propositions, said Kasabach, whose group organized the forum.
New Jersey's population grew by nearly 3 percent from 2000 to 2007, according to state population estimates. But the number of acres developed between 1995 and 2002 exceeded the rate of population growth by 30 percent, Kasabach said.
"The simple answer is smart growth: preserving our environmentally sensitive lands while directing growth to our already developed areas that have the fabric and infrastructure to efficiently accommodate this growth," Kasabach said.
Jonathan F.P. Rose, founder and president of Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, said there are not sufficient national or state plans to deal with that growth.
"As we think about the places that we are rebuilding, we need to think about our core values and the values we want to pass on to future generations," said Rose.
The forum promoted increasing the density of urban centers around transit to reduce the need to develop more land and reduce traveling the distances people must drive to get to work.
A suburban single family house uses 115 million British Thermal Units of energy a year, but 125 million BTUs of energy to get to and from work, according to a chart prepared by Jon Vogel, the senior development director of Avalon Bay Communities, Inc.
If that same house is moved to an urban area, the combined energy use of transportation and household usage would be reduced to 143 million BTUs per year because people would be able to walk instead, Rose said. This would reduce energy to 89 million BTUs per year.
If people make it green, urban and multifamily home energy use is reduced to a quarter of the suburban sprawl, Rose said.
"The consumer is with us," Rose said. "Nationally for the first time in 26 years, vehicle miles traveled last year went down."
Rose said this is a result of more than just fuel costs, citing a cultural shift about housing in which young and old more people want to live in cities.
"Sustainability extends to ideas as important as global warming and climate," said Lisa P. Jackson, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. "We will have a very different New Jersey if we don't begin to address and adapt to climate change and its impacts that are almost certainly going here to our state."
Global warming is the number one macro-trend affecting redevelopment, and its effects are already being felt, Rose said in reference to recent drought in Atlanta, Georgia.
Globally he said the majority of smaller wars are being fought over a scarcity of resources that have come as a result of climate change.
Rose said in the future, there are going to be carbon emission penalties imposed. This, combined with dramatically increasing fuel costs, will change how society will progress.
Rose said homes could be made more affordable to live in and jobs could be created through greening. Home energy costs would be reduced by 30 percent if people properly insulated them, Rose said.
Speakers called for better planning and reducing regulation as a way to move redevelopment forward. Reducing bureaucratic regulations requiring six people to sign off on the same permit is something that needs to change, Jackson said.
"At the end of the day, plans are wonderful. But at the end of the day, if regulations don't enable the things you want to happen, the best plans cannot be implemented," Jackson said.
The DEP will be looking at its regulations over the next year to help make the process more efficient, Jackson said.
"We need a state housing policy - not just an affordable housing policy, but a policy for all the state," said Joseph V. Doria Jr., commissioner of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.
Christopher J. Paladino, the president of New Brunswick Development Corporation, said Rockoff Hall is an example of the good that redevelopment can do. Paladino helped plan and implement the project.
The contraction of Rockoff Hall provided a boon to local businesses that were relocated through eminent domain during the construction, Paladino said.
Paladino said there is a need for a more coherent state planning policy.
"We have a [Department of Community Affairs] who's now telling us that we have to do thousands and thousands and thousands of more units of affordable housing all against the backdrop of a public policy that talks about smart growth and transit villages and pedestrian-friendly model neighborhoods and renaissance zones," Paladino said. "You often wonder if it's public policy or an advertisement for Disney World."
As a result of several recent court cases challenging the lack of clarity and timeliness in notifying property owners that their property will be taken by eminent domain, New Jersey established guidelines last week for the eminent domain notification process.
A panel looking at redevelopment law and recent court decisions said increased planning should be done upfront to meet the constitutional requirements that land be blighted to be taken as eminent domain.
When thorough planning is not done at the beginning of the process, it often leads to problems and complications in the final stages, the panel said.
"With a lot of work, New Jersey can change from being the most developed state to being the most sustainable state in the nation," Kasabach said.
