The New Jersey economic growth programs targeted in A-4048 (Roberts) are in great need of reform to produce the jobs and economic development they were intended to generate, NJBIA President Philip Kirschner said today.  He urged the Assembly Budget Committee and Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee to release the bill, which would reform these economic-growth programs to create more jobs and stimulate private-sector economic activity. 

"With unemployment rising and our economy mired in recession, now is the time to approve this much-needed stimulus legislation," Kirschner said.

"New Jersey's current tax increment financing program (RAD) and Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit (UTHTC) program are simply not working," Kirschner said.  "Forty-eight states currently have functioning tax increment financing programs, but in New Jersey our RAD program has attracted only one developer in ten years.  Similarly, the Urban Transit Hub program has not generated one applicant because the program’s requirements are too onerous." 

Kirschner said the programs are structured poorly.  The programs are too complex and do not provide investors with enough flexibility.

The bill would also suspend the 2.5 percent COAH fee on nonresidential development. 

"The COAH fee is onerous and excessive," Kirschner said.

The bill reforms several existing economic development programs by:

• creating a new tax increment financing program (the Economic Redevelopment and Growth Grant program);
• reforming and expanding the Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer and Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit (UTHTC) programs to make it easier to qualify;
• allowing for public-private investment partnerships at the State's colleges and universities; and 
• establishing a moratorium on the collection of the 2.5 percent nonresidential development fee by the NJ Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).