1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

Dear Senator Mukherji, Assemblyman Bhalla, and Assemblywoman Brennan, I’m a constituent in Jersey City Heights, writing to ask you to co-sponsor S3889/A1473 — the land-based property tax bill — and SCR114, the constitutional amendment it needs to actually take effect. Both are sitting in committee right now, and I’d like to see real movement on them this session. New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the country, and our current system punishes exactly the wrong behavior. Right now, if a homeowner fixes a roof or a developer builds housing, their tax bill goes up. Meanwhile, a vacant lot or boarded-up building a few blocks away sits there generating almost nothing, because land alone is taxed so lightly. S3889 lets municipalities flip that: tax land value more, tax improvements less, so holding empty property gets expensive and building or maintaining it gets cheap. This isn’t hypothetical. The bill’s own findings cite Pennsylvania’s experience: Harrisburg drew over $1.2 billion in investment and brought nearly 4,000 vacant buildings back into use over 20 years under this system. Pittsburgh saw building permits jump more than 70% in the decade after adopting it, while comparable Rust Belt cities saw a 14% decline. Allentown cut taxes for 70% of properties — 90% in its most distressed neighborhoods — while permits rose 32%. Here in Jersey City, we’re sitting on vacant, speculator-held land in the middle of a housing shortage a, while longtime homeowners absorb double-digit tax hikes. S3889 doesn’t force any city’s hand — it just gives municipalities the option, with safeguards that keep farmland and open space off the table. That’s a low-risk, high-upside tool, and it deserves a hearing and an up-or-down vote this time, not another slow death in committee.