Highlands Act would control growth and taxes

Friday, February 09, 2007

Growth in New Jersey primarily benefits county governments by bringing in more in tax revenues than there are expenditures. It is how in these years of steady growth, the county freeholders can spend a lot more money and still manage not to raise taxes and so claim to be frugal financial managers. From this perspective, I suppose, we can understand the freeholders' objection to the Highlands Act because it will limit growth and, therefore, the amount they have to spend.

Some freeholders also are farmers in their private lives and of a club that is very interested in land value and, as such, their viewpoint is hard to distinguish from the viewpoint of land speculators. That is because, often, there is no difference. And from this perspective, too, I suppose we can understand the freeholders objection to the Highlands Act because the speculative increase in the value of much of the land was stopped in 2004 when the law passed.

But by using the county Planning Office to argue to the towns against the Highlands Act, the freeholders have forgotten what is good for the freeholders' budget and for land speculators is not good for the towns or the taxpaying citizen. The freeholders, in their conflicted motives about the Highlands Act, have not understood that the act, in most cases, will help control taxes at the municipal level, as well as at the county, and will prevent Warren County from closely resembling the crowded counties further to the east, two things county residents value very much.

Mike King

Phillipsburg Coordinator REALsmart Chairman Phillipsburg Riverview Organization