Impact on schools overstated?

From the Asbury Park Press:

Effect of new housing on schools, population overstated, study finds

A new look at housing, population and job market data suggests while the housing boom of the past two decades spread homes all over the landscape, fewer people — and fewer school children — live in those homes than were projected in earlier studies.

The study also suggested that the impact on schools of the development of affordable housing may have been overstated in previous studies.

The new report was issued this month by the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

David Listokin, co-director of the Center for Urban Policy Research and lead author of the new report, said reliance on the 1980 data “produced an overstatement of the population and public school children generated by new development in the state, especially projects with a strong transit orientation and infrastructure in place.”

The report, an update of 20- to 30-year-old demographic data, used the 2000 Census and data on housing built from 1990 to 2000 and showed a “noticeable decline in the average household size and the average number of pupils per housing unit” compared to the 1980 data used in many planning documents statewide. “For instance, the number of public school children in the average newly built New Jersey two-bedroom townhouse dropped from 0.20 in 1980 to 0.13 in 2000, a decline of more than one-third,” the report said.

In the case of affordable housing, the report said, of 19 public school children generated by a 100-unit inclusionary housing development in New Jersey — 88 market-priced homes and 12 affordable homes — approximately three public school children come from the affordable homes.

The study incorporates data from such emerging types of housing as transit-oriented development and “Mount Laurel” housing — affordable housing defined by the state’s Council on Affordable Housing.

The study said that data suggest that transit-oriented development would generate only two children in 100 units. Mount Laurel housing would generate about one public school student for every two units, the study suggested.

In general, detached housing currently produces the highest number of residents and pupils compared to attached homes. Detached homes with more (four to five) bedrooms have the relatively largest household size and pupil generation.

Common types and configurations of attached housing, such as two- to three-bedroom townhouses and one- to two-bedroom multifamily units, have a relatively low demographic impact.

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