Regional Plan Association - Group


			The New York region’s older suburbs have grown so large and fragmented that the qualities people originally sought in them are increasingly difficult to find: the convenience, affordability, and green space that once attracted residents and businesses have been displaced by traffic, isolation, and seas of asphalt. Rising prices and declining quality of life have driven growth increasingly far from the urban center, to greenfields beyond the existing suburban edge. Using the Regional Center in Somerset County, NJ as a case study, RPA is exploring ways of reversing this outward migration and redirecting growth back into existing centers in ways that meet economic, environmental, and social equity goals. The Regional Center of Somerset County is a 25-square mile stretch of sprawling suburban landscape, consisting of the Boroughs of Raritan and Somerville and portions of the Township of Bridgewater. RPA, with funding from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, has been working with the Regional Center since 1999, when RPA helped direct the Somerset County Regional Center Vision Initiative, an ambitious planning effort that resulted in a regional vision plan that is now guiding the Regional Center communities toward a more sustainable future. RPA is now working with Somerset County Regional Center to make this vision a reality. RPA is focusing on both statewide policy reform as well as more targeted physical transformations. Click here for full report


	Statewide Policy Reform Implementing the regional vision will require fundamental change in regulatory, fiscal, and institutional systems. RPA has been working with researchers from Rutgers University to research various tools and reforms which should be considered, such as New Jersey redevelopment area bond and revenue allocation district financing, special business/county improvement districts, tax increment financing, regional tax base sharing, or property tax reform. These policy initiatives are being considered in concert with two other major initiatives now underway in New Jersey: state legislation to establish a regional commission to regulate development in the Highlands and a proposal backed by Governor James McGreevey to convene a constitutional convention in 2006 to address the state?s over-reliance on local property taxes to fund public education. Together, these three initiatives offer an unprecedented opportunity to re-shape the state?s regulatory, and fiscal landscape.

			Green Infrastructure RPA is working with local officials to map properties and landforms along the rivers and tributaries that crisscross the Regional Center, identifying sections that can be acquired and landscaped in the short-to-medium term, and addressing both short and long-term implementation issues, including financing for land acquisition, planning, development and operations, overcoming state permission for projects to proceed, and state regulations that limit redevelopment options. Specifically, RPA is producing a Green Urban Design Plan for the center, and is working to realize greenways along the Raritan and Peter?s Brook river corridors.
			Route 22 RPA is scoping a conceptual redevelopment plan for the corridor, considering both the long-range vision of this commercial corridor as a more compact, functional mixed-use corridor, as well as short-term actions to realize this vision, including financing options and relocation of specific businesses. Part of the project includes creating a physical model for the corridor and meeting with land owners, businesses, and officials to test redevelopment options.
			Transit Villages There are a number of areas whose redevelopment would strengthen station areas throughout the regional center. RPA is developing a concept plan for one such redevelopment area -- a vacant brownfield site near Somerville's NJ Transit train station – that can be used as a model for other redevelopment areas.