New Jersey § 40a:12a-75

§ 40a:12a-75.

The Legislature finds and declares that: a. Difficult economic conditions coupled with the continued high rate of foreclosures

have significantly increased the number of vacant, abandoned, and other problem properties

in the State's municipalities, particularly its older cities; b. The continued presence and proliferation of these vacant, abandoned, and other

problem properties in the communities of this State has a negative effect on the public

health and welfare, reduces property values and municipal revenues, and impedes the

economic development and revitalization of the State's municipalities, particularly

its older cities; c. At present, many vacant, abandoned and other problem properties, rather than being

productively reused, remain vacant despite frequent changes in ownership, and continue

to have a blighting effect on their surroundings; d. The State's municipalities can benefit from more effective tools to control the

inventory of vacant, abandoned, and other problem properties, in order to both minimize

the harm that they do in their present condition and to facilitate their restoration

to productive use; e. In order to most effectively engage the local community in identifying problem

properties, the State's municipalities can also benefit from the publication of interactive

online mapping databases of vacant and abandoned properties; f. To ensure that land banking activities are conducted in an honest and open manner,

the public can also benefit from the inclusion of properties subject to land banking

agreements within the interactive online mapping databases regardless of whether or

not such properties are vacant and abandoned; g. It is in the best interest of this State to allow municipalities to designate single

entities to act on their behalf to acquire, maintain, and convey, lease and otherwise

dispose of vacant, abandoned and problem properties, in order to carry out strategies

to ensure that the reuse of these properties provides the greatest long-term benefit

to the physical, social and economic condition of the municipality; and h. It is, therefore, appropriate to identify land banking, and associated land banking

activities, including those involving site improvements and the preparation of property

for productive reuse, as a public purpose, and to permit a municipality to provide

tax-exempt status to properties for so long as they are held as land bank properties.