On June 17, RPA’s Senior Vice President for State Programs and Advocacy spoke at a virtual workshop, Rebuilding New Jersey after COVID-19: Advancing a Healthy, Resilient, Sustainable and Fair Garden State, co-hosted by the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center, the New Jersey Climate Change Alliance and the Eagleton Institute of Politics. Kate’s introductory remarks, presented in full below, offer an outline of RPA’s agenda in the Garden State.

--

RPA is a non-profit civic organization that works to improve economic opportunity, environmental resiliency, and sustainable transportation in NY, NJ and CT. We focus on the 31-county NYC metropolitan area, so basically Ocean County and north. The values that drive our work are equity, health, sustainability, and prosperity for all.

We have been around since the 1920s, and every generation produce a regional plan that lays out a blueprint for growth and development. Our last one was put out in 2017, and laid out recommendations for how to address climate change, provide housing for all, fix government institutions, and create a customer-oriented public transportation network. For the last few years we’ve been working with a national alliance of organizations from across the country to address racial and health inequality in metropolitan planning.

Invest in Infrastructure to Create Green Jobs

We have been spending much of the past few months thinking about COVID recovery and how it can help address economic and racial disparities so prevalent in our society. Much of this work is not new, but it comes with a renewed sense of urgency given the economic crisis, the social crisis we are facing, and the call for reforms to address the structural racism present in so many urban planning decisions.

We see infrastructure investment as a potential solution to not only provide good jobs and put people back to work, but also as an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while stimulating the economy. The need is vast - whether it’s public transit or port infrastructure needed to usher in the offshore wind industry, billions of dollars of investment are needed. These are green jobs, and with the right policy choices could come in a way that benefits the state’s urban areas, and those communities most affected by COVID and the economic crisis.

I am going to talk specifically about how a public works agenda can help New Jersey recover, and also about some basic changes that might help the state heal from COVID and broader issues of segregation and institutional racism in planning.

Enhance Transit Service & Build Transit Projects that Increase Access to Opportunity

One way to accomplish this is by rethinking our approach to transit so every resident — regardless of their income or zip code — can easily travel across the state and take care of themselves and their families.

Pre-COVID, NJ Transit provided nearly a million daily transit trips in the state, most of them on its bus system. Public transit drives the state’s economy, reduces emissions, and provides an affordable alternative to car ownership. But right now, New Jersey’s transportation infrastructure prioritizes single-occupancy vehicles (read: private cars) even though many families — especially those hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic — cannot afford cars.

NJ Transit released capital and strategic plans earlier this month that could be down payments towards the kind of investment I’m talking about. Both are blueprints to improve and fix the system and make it better for customers and provide better access to opportunity. The capital plan lists the many projects needed for this change: new buses and a new bus garage, track maintenance and repair, new rail cars, station upgrades, and some larger regional transit projects like the new Gateway tunnels that would build new passenger connections between NYC and NJ and benefit the entire northeast corridor.

The issue is funding. The program calls for $17 billion over next five years, but $6 billion of this is unfunded. So more revenue will be necessary, and some sources do exist. A number of groups have asked the state to consider a larger contribution to transit from recently increased Turnpike tolls. Some of this money is currently slated for road widening projects that don’t align with state environmental goals.

Fully funding the NJ Transit capital program will be a strong start to creating more jobs. Estimates indicate the program will create $15 billion in jobs over the long term and $13 billion in ancillary economic benefits in New Jersey alone. That means over 240,000 jobs created. And on the transit operations side, we need to continue to provide reliable service to keep crowding down. Fares cover almost half of NJ Transit’s annual revenue, but ridership has declined so their operating budget looking at deep deficits.

And looking to the longer term, part of an equitable recovery should be improving and expanding transit service to communities that depend on transit and have been harmed most by the pandemic.

Creating a network of bikeways could also be part of a just recovery for the state. Many people have started cycling over the past few months. Even outside of dense urban areas in the state, many NJ towns are very close together – and provide perfect opportunities for cycling if safe infrastructure was present. RPA released a report today proposing an interconnected network of 425 miles of high capacity and protected cycling lanes in NYC. Many areas of NJ have tremendous potential for more cycling access – especially now as people are seeking healthier, uncrowded ways of getting around.

Beyond the NJ Transit capital program, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has a $32 billion program which has important investments for connections to NY, fixing bridges, airports and improving transit. The MTA has a $51 billion dollar program, which benefits the hundreds of thousands of NJ residents that commute into NYC.

And beyond transportation, public housing all across the region is in desperate need of investment, as is the need for a greater supply of affordable housing.

Upgrading and transitioning our energy and water systems has tremendous opportunity and is a vital part of the state’s plan to transition to 100% clean energy by 2050. This pandemic has revealed what we already knew: people of color and those with lower incomes don’t have access to those same basic rights and suffer more because of it. Improving water infrastructure in cities, building offshore wind, and clean energy investments are important steps in addressing this.

Just yesterday, NJ made an exciting announcement on this front. The Governor announced the first purpose built wind port in US, selecting a site at Lower Alloways Creek in Salem County. The components of offshore wind infrastructure are huge – and this facility will have the space to accommodate construction. It should be ready to start in 2023 and create 1,500 permanent jobs, plus construction jobs from a $100 million investment over 15 years. The companion WIND institute created by the NJ Economic Development Authority will also help create the types of job training programs for the offshore wind jobs of the future to support investment in the region and strengthen our economic recovery.

There is also the social infrastructure – schools, libraries, community centers, hospitals. Investing in these means you are not only putting people back to work, but creating healthy spaces that will boost the economy and help the next generation to flourish. And in times of crises, these social institutions are vital. They help support families and neighborhoods for social cohesion, mental health needs or food distribution.

Take all of these investments, and you see potential for an ambitious state and national public works agenda.

Create Affordable Homes with More Equitable Planning & Zoning

And beyond building and rehabilitating our transit, water, energy, and social infrastructure, there is much we can do on the planning side to prepare and recover.

In today’s context, when access to capital might be more difficult, other solutions are also needed. One concept we have been talking a lot about is the concept of unlocking ​“hidden housing,” or using existing homes and structures and simply changing zoning and other restrictions to provide more homes for more people. It’s even more important to talk about this now, because suburban and single family zoning in the United States has a racist history – it has allowed communities to keep out others, and it has contributed to intentional segregation and educational inequality. I’m hoping our profession can now be bolder about the connection of racism and zoning in years to come. In practice, a policy could mean allowing people to convert their homes to two-family dwellings, or rent out their garage. This provides affordable housing and allows property owners to deal with high property taxes.

Not all of these new homes would necessarily mean new people. Some would allow extended families to live in more comfortable situations, by having separate units for grandparents, older children or others currently living together in a one-family house. Others would allow for upgrades to legal dwelling units for people currently living in units which don’t meet code compliance — which would also help ensure these units are safe. All would be valuable additions to housing choice in neighborhoods and the housing supply of the region as a whole.

RPA took a look at the zoning codes in our 31 county region and found that there are about 4,000,000 single-family homes. In any residential area in the region a two-family home is allowed to be converted into a single more expensive one-family house, but only in a select few areas is the reverse allowed. Just by allowing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), or allowing conversions of large single-family houses to two- or three-family houses, we can create more than 500,000 new homes in the region — including more than 250,000 near transit. In northern NJ, where we have about 1,600,000 million single family homes, this means creating about 200,000 new homes.

In order to do this, we are calling on the state to incentivize and encourage municipalities to implement local regulations that enable ADUs and conversions. These policies should specify the minimum rights of owners to create accessory apartments and include recommended guidelines and assistance to municipalities.

I’ll give you an example of a place to watch. Just like Minneapolis is on the front lines of addressing racial injustice right now, they have also been on the front lines of helping to address zoning that prohibits more affordable homes. Last year they passed a plan called Minneapolis 2040 which did just what I’m talking about – their long range plan calls loosens restrictions on single family homes so they can be converted into two- or three-unit homes, and accessory dwelling units, or carriage houses, garages, can house more people. And while Minneapolis is a city, it’s density is very similar to many parts of NJ.

And of course sheltering in place is only possible if you have a safe home to live in. Homelessness has been increasing in much of our region and we remain concerned about the likelihood of that growing moving forward. NJ has taken some good steps to help protect people during this time – not allowing rental or foreclosure evictions and setting up emergency funds for rental assistance.

In the longer term, the state will need to find a way to reduce homelessness and provide more affordable homes for people, through a variety of strategies. And those homes should come to cities, and also to wealthier and to places near transit so good schools and healthy air can become accessible to all.