The NJ Senate Committee on Economic Growth sent two bills forward to the Budget Committee today as part of the legislature’s efforts to move programs that will stimulate growth and development in an economy deeply shaken by recession and Wall Street “meltdown.”
Bills that broaden local authority to create revenue allocation districts, a form of tax increment financing, and expand the Urban Transit Hub tax credit program were characterized in testimony at the Committee hearing this morning as critical to efforts by Newark and several other cities to attract large scale new investment in rehabilitation or new construction.
What hasn’t yet been recognized is the potential for still more economic stimulus with enactment of a historic rehabilitation tax credit, as has been advocated by the NJ Heritage Development Coalition.
In written testimony submitted to the Committee by Coalition member Preservation New Jersey, legislators were reminded that neighborhoods and Main Streets in our city and town centers have declined often because rehabilitation costs did not make the existing buildings that give them character attractive to development. But sustainable development must happen in existing communities, where the vast majority of the thousands of historic buildings exist in New Jersey and where many thousands of heritage visitors spend their millions of tourism dollars every year.
The Beacon, formerly the Jersey City Medical Center, a historic adaptive use project, could benefit from equity funding from a state historic rehabilitation tax credit.
Reinvesting in these areas and spurring development will make a significant impact on their future economic health and vitality. And burgeoning landfills argue for reuse rather than demolition of existing buildings and their embodied energy for more stable, livable and greener communities.
The proposed historic preservation economic incentive (the Historic Properties Revitalization Act – S468) would provide homeowners and corporations with a powerful tool to help revitalize older neighborhoods and reuse historic structures by providing a state tax credit for their rehabilitation. Modeled on the extremely successful state historic preservation tax credits existing in 29 states – including every state surrounding New Jersey save one – this proposed tax credit will make capital available to smaller ($4 – 5 million and up) commercial redevelopment projects and make the credits transferable, thereby opening significant sources of new investment to a larger universe of possible revitalization projects. It will afford New Jersey access to the millions in investment dollars that are presently going to neighboring states that offer state historic tax credits.
The Committee was urged to consider the potential for significant additional investment in sustainable, smart development in New Jersey with the inclusion of the Historic Properties Revitalization Act’s historic rehabilitation tax credit in the state’s Economic Growth strategy.
For more information on HPRA, go to the NJ Heritage Development Coalition site, and Preservation New Jersey for detailed bill information.
