State Senate Candidate Tom Mastrangelo (LD 26) issued the following statement on the alarming increase in overbuilding in the district:

“New Jersey’s affordable housing requirements are taking a horrible toll on suburban communities, such as those in Morris and Passaic counties — and our incumbent Republican legislators – such as Sen. Joe Pennacchio — seem powerless to stop the rapid overcrowding of our neighborhoods and our schools.
The so-called affordable housing laws are based on an outdated, 30-year-old court decision pushed by Democrats and the ultra-liberal group called Fair Share Housing (FSH ). FSH donors are liberal groups, including the Phillip & Tammy Murphy Family Foundation – a tool of our notoriously woke governor, whose palatial riverfront home is nowhere near high-density, affordable housing.

After decades of affordable housing construction mandates, overdevelopment is changing the character of our communities, increasing traffic and pollution and gobbling up open space. And housing in NJ is no more affordable now than it was 20 years ago. The real goal of the liberals behind the housing charade is to create pockets of woke liberal Democratic voters in every suburban town and county in the state. The Democrats then mobilize those voters to swing local elections in their favor and push their woke agenda.

As your state Senator, I will not sit by silently and allow the affordable housing mob to further destroy our communities – as Sen. Pennacchio has done. I will mobilize the fight against overdevelopment and save our communities from the Democrat vision of creating a state that will be wall to-wall development from the Hudson River to the Delaware River.”