Towns seek to ease growth's impact on schools

Monday, September 27, 2004

By ALYSSA YOUNG
and LINDA LISANTI
The Express-Times

A hopeful builder comes before a town with plans for a new housing development.

He or she touts the benefits -- the tax revenue it would generate, the need it would fill.

Then come the questions.

Often, one of the first asked by town officials is how many children the development would add to the school system.

Alpha Mayor Harry Zikas, who sits on the planning board and was a former school board member, said that is absolutely a major concern for municipalities.

"School taxes are the majority of your tax bills," he said, adding that when residents look at the graphs on the bills that break down where their money is going, the school one almost goes off the page.

Because of the reliance on property taxes to educate children, there's unwillingness on the part of communities to allow school-aged children to reside in their borders, said Patrick O'Keefe, executive vice president of the New Jersey Builders Association.

Even before a builder proposes a project in any given community, to some extent officials there have already decided the types of developments they will welcome and whether they will allow more children, O'Keefe said.

It begins with the zoning.

Lopatcong Township has on its books a controversial zoning law that limits the number of bedrooms in all new housing developments to no more than two.

Other zoning options available to towns that bring in no children are nonresidential and age-restricted developments.

In recent years, the popularity of age-restricted has grown, in part, because of the child factor.

"Age-restricted communities act as a convenient way to raise the drawbridge to families with children," O'Keefe said.

Generally, at least one person living in each household must be 55 or older, and no permanent resident may be younger than 19. The residents pay real estate taxes to the school districts, but they cost the districts nothing.

Since 2002, Northampton County has seen plans to build 941 units on 220 acres in age-restricted communities. They include a mix of townhouses, twins, single-family detached homes, condominiums and apartments.

In Warren County, age-restricted homes either exist or are currently proposed for Mansfield, Washington and White townships, Phillipsburg, Belvidere and Hackettstown.

In Hunterdon County, 10 age-restricted developments are conditionally approved and four approved in six municipalities.

Aside from the zero impact on school districts, age-restricted communities are also popping up because the baby boom generation -- those born between 1946 and 1964 -- are now in search of a new type of housing.

"I think the developers are seeing that a lot of baby boomers are getting up in age and they don't want the big house anymore," said Dave Berryman, a community planner for the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

Benefits unclear of restricted housing

It is too soon to measure just how age-restricted housing is affecting property taxes, because it is an emerging trend and represents only a small portion of the area's booming development, Berryman said.

J.B. Reilly, whose firm, Traditions of America, specializes in "active adult housing," touts the tax benefits of communities like those he is building along Corriere Road in Palmer Township.

"If we weren't developing this, somebody would have put single-family homes on that land," Reilly pointed out.

School superintendents say they welcome new residential developments without kids, but commercial and industrial projects are equally beneficial.

"We could use a Bass Pro Shop," said Joseph Kish, assistant superintendent in the Easton Area School District.

To cushion the burden of developments with children, Pennsylvania legislators have proposed educational impact fees.

House Bill 1179 would levy a one-time fee on each new home in a subdivision to help school districts cover the costs associated with growing student enrollment.

"I don't think it's an end-all answer," said Victor Lesky, superintendent of the Nazareth Area School District. "It's a one-time fee, and then it's gone."

That means administrators could not use impact-fee revenues to pay annual expenses such as teachers' salaries or to support ongoing programs, but they could use them to buy a school bus or new computers.

"I would say it's a Band-Aid," said Dennis Riker, Easton Area's superintendent.

Bushkill Township resident Susan Kirk says the fee makes sense because the tax revenue that school districts collect from a student's new home covers less than half the cost to educate that new student.

"If they're creating the increase, somebody ought to do something to offset it," she said.

Developers already pay fees to support increased recreation, road maintenance and other expenses in the municipalities where they build, so they should support the schools, too, Kirk said.

"Are we to assume that recreation and transportation are more important than education, or that the rest of us will become overtaxed to meet the costs of all this development?" she said. "I would hope that they would think that education is at least as important as recreation."

State Rep. Rich Grucela, D-Northampton, said the impact-fee bill, which he has sponsored, has slim chances of becoming law. The Pennsylvania Builders Association is lobbying strongly against it, he said.

The House of Representatives has passed another bill to the Senate that would require developers to send subdivision plans to school districts so they know how many students to expect, Grucela said.

He also is working on developing a point system that would encourage developers to protect open space and lessen the impact on schools by giving them a positive rating.

"Too often I think we approach trying to stop urban sprawl by blocking the developers," Grucela said. "I want to work with the builders and not against them."

Zikas, Alpha's mayor, said New Jersey also needs impact fees.

"It's become the sprawl state," he said of the Garden State.

Currently, New Jersey does not have the authority to charge developers impact fees, according to E.J. Miranda, of the Department of Community Affairs.

In some cases, the Department of Transportation can require a developer to provide road improvements to accommodate new development, but that is not considered an impact fee, he said.

Under New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law, municipalities can charge developers for off-tract water, sewer, drainage and street improvements, Miranda said.

New legislation that would allow municipalities to charge so-called developer impact fees aimed at defraying school costs is before the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee. Under the proposed bill, local governments would impose the fees by passing an ordinance setting the amount and listing what projects the money will be used for. The fees could not exceed the amount needed for the improvements. Low and moderate-income housing would be exempt.

Zikas said that if New Jersey implemented heftier impact fees, builders might think twice before proposing so many developments. That would help reduce sprawl.

"It's not a small progression," Zikas said. "These houses are going up overnight. It's hitting municipalities hard. It's not fair to them and to the other homeowners.


Reporter Linda Lisanti can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by e-mail at llisanti@express-times.com. Reporter Alyssa Young can be reached at 610-863-3841 or by e-mail at ayoung@express-times.com.


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