No matter what good might come out of that agency in regard to protection of The Meadowlands, a very important matter to be certain, such a fact of local zoning law is unfair and not acceptable.
Why should any Town or City in Bergen or Hudson County which has no wetland have full zoning law control when Meadowlands towns have the imposition of special regulatory law? What ever happened to the concept of equal representation under law? What ever happened to home rule?
Equal representation by its very nature should translate to equal outcome or it is not equal under statutory law! You cannot have two separate standards for the residents and taxpayers of the same state.
On its face the issue might not seem to be very significant. But when put into proper perspective the serious consequence of the issue reveals its significance.
The Mount Laurel issue presents a potentially severe impact on Secaucus because of a court ruling recently issued to the Meadowlands Commission ordering that agency to comply with Mount Laurel regulations. It might very well change the face of Secaucus forever.
Not only does Secaucus have to provide low income housing, it might very well become the prime site for low income housing for the entire Meadowlands district under Commission directive.
The Xanadu development is located in East Rutherford. It has been reported that this project impacts the number of affordable housing units which Mount Laurel demands be supplied in the region. Secaucus might be hit with the lion's share of that regional burden. The impact will be on demographic population and income factors. It might impact the ability of the town to continue to provide things such as "Volunteer" Fire Service which will, as population grows, demand that Secaucus move to full time paid North Hudson Regional Fire protection.
Police protection will also become an issue of concern. The current patrol staffing levels might not be sufficient. New cops on the job mean new expense. More cops on the job means more command officers and the list grows with the cost.
It might have a severe impact on the Secaucus school system. Secaucus has dedicated years of work to creating a fine public school system. The insertion of potentially hundreds of new students, all at the same time, perhaps arriving from failing urban public school systems might impact the testing score level of Secaucus for the worse.
As recent news reports indicate, much of the New Jersey population is now new immigrants. How many of these new immigrant families might reside in those new affordable housing units? Will language barriers become an issue for the Secaucus school system? Will it create an education crises as well as a tax crisis in Secaucus?
Michael Seyfried
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