in our Spotlight on Business Report a possible fix to New Jersey's affordable housing dilemma a new report from the regional plan Association finds Transit oriented development these are places where housing and Retail are built near Commuter Rail stations have been a huge success for the towns that embrace it as Ted Goldberg reports restrictive zoning rules though are standing in the way of getting more communities to join maten has long prided itself as the brainy burough leaders say one of their smart policies is using Transit oriented development or including mixed use zoning near its train station we have great neighborhoods in matachin but we now have a more vibrant um and engaging inviting downtown where 25 years ago it was a pretty much of a dead downtown Jay mun is the Burrow's former director of Economic Development he says rezoning played a huge role in revitalizing downtown M touch it when this was a surface parking lot it functioned more as a park and ride um uh kind of facility which was ridiculous for a real downtown this is what that parking lot looked like 11 years ago it was replaced by Woodmont Metro in 2016 a massive development that includes Apartments businesses and a parking garage to accommodate the commuters who used to park here 272 Apartments um about I think about 14,000 square ft of retail I was a former business owner in town before all of this happened and we were the only store in town so now we have many different retailers in town in addition to our vibrant restaurant business Linda kosi is the bureau's current director of Economic Development and says more development will happen in the future if there's opposition matan's leaders have heard it before malun said plenty of people told him Woodmont Metro would be a mistake and he heard concerns about traffic and more Apartments he says maten needed more more housing downtown when I hear that I say to them so how do you like downtown oh I love downtown it's so great there stores I mean there restaurants and I I said yeah you have to realize none of that is possible without the downtown residential development that enabled all this to happen can other municipalities replicate what matachin has done the regional plan Association thinks so the nonprofit recently put out a report identifying 144 New Jersey stations that could rezone and redevelop but there are plenty of obstacles to mixed use development property taxes are always going to be an issue in New Jersey and those issues um often incorrectly are tied to almost the fear of children that there's going to be more housing and more stress put on the existing local infrastructure it's the perception of overcrowding and overbuilding that is inherent in coming to the conversation part of it is we've become really in love with our cars and we've built a infrastructure and communities around the cars and it's difficult to start to move back to the way that we've been doing things for hundreds of years Peter cabac leads New Jersey future and he says the transit part of Transit oriented development might be the most important part of it it's really important to rebuild a community that's walkable that's bikable that people have access to the transit the transit is an important focal point but what makes matachin work isn't just that there's a train station there's a big mix of uses there and there's a lot of people living there Advocates say building mixed use around Transit could also cut down on traffic we'll see if other communities Embrace Transit oriented development and embrace the approach used in matachin in mouin I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news support for the business report provided by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce announcing its re New Jersey business Summit and EXP March 26th and 27th at Harris in Atlantic City event details online at NJ chamber.com [Music]