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March 28, 2011
Critics fault tax abatement agreements
Municipal officials, who get most of the payments in lieu of taxes, defend the practice
MyCentralJersey.com
by Sergio Bichao
Guess who's riding the tax-break gravy train in New Jersey.
Critics of tax abatement deals have questioned whether abatements are necessary at all to attract development, or even if the development itself is necessary or desirable. The comptroller's report calls it "inappropriate or nonremedial development.'' The South Jersey township of Gloucester, for example, awarded abatements to three separate Wawa convenience stores, within two to four miles of each other, even though the area within a five-mile radius already was served by 20 such Wawa stores.
Woodbridge does not seem like a town that would have to try hard to woo developers. The New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, Interstate 287, Routes 1, 9 and 440, and major rail lines, with three commuter stations, all criss-cross the township, connecting it to all points of the state.
Yet officials believed it was necessary to offer a 30-year abatement worth $26 million to Forest City Ratner, a multibillion-dollar developer, to build a strip mall next Woodbridge Center mall, which is paying $7 million a year in property taxes. A Wegmans supermarket and strip mall on the other side of Woodbridge Center also has no PILOT, paying $1.6 million a year in regular property taxes.
Posted by eric at March 28, 2011 10:03 AM