Tax Breaks, Stockton Housing – Thursday’s Roundup

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Tax Breaks
A report by Pew Charitable Trusts has faulted the tax incentives doled out to New Jersey projects, such as the over $1 billion that has gone to Camden development projects and the millions of dollars used to fund Stockton’s Atlantic City campus, the Courier Post reports. New Jersey’s tax incentive program is classified as ‘trailing’ the leading programs in other states in part because it has not program to regularly evaluate the tax incentives. The state’s Economic Development Authority said the report incorrectly characterizes its programs, which are evaluated. You can read the Pew report here. You might also be interested in the State Auditor’s report from earlier this year into selected incentive programs, which also found some flaws with the Camden projects.

Stockton Housing
Speaking of tax incentives, The Press of Atlantic City reports that Stockton University’s board on Wednesday agreed to raise the cost of its student housing to between $3,000 and $5,422 per semester for the 2017/18 academic year. The Atlantic City campus will open in 2018 and feature beachfront accommodation for some students, funded by debt, tax credits, $2 million from ACDevCo and $18 million from the university. Stripping out the costs of the teaching building, parking garage and South Jersey Industries’

Egg Harbor City lake and campground, via @darleenstamps on Instagram.

headquarters, the new residence facility (which includes ground-floor retail, teaching space, faculty apartments, a police sub-station, a mail room and a fitness center) is worth an estimated $100.8 million, the university told us. Subtracting land costs of $6 million gives you a cost-per-bed price of $177,842 or $436.78 per square foot, which is well above the median for student housing. The university says that excluding the non-residence area in the building, the actual cost of the housing comes to $111,697 per bed, or $316.80 per square foot. That’s still more than the cost of a condo in Atlantic City’s Bella, or the Ocean Club, but it’s less than the median for student housing in the Northeast, the university said. Meanwhile, Stockton’s faculty and staff are completing their second year without a contract.

In the rest of the day’s news, an open-records request revealed that ACUA paid $97,500 to settle a discrimination lawsuit last year, BreakingAC reports that Atlantic City police seized 6,000 bags of heroin from one home search on Wednesday, Ventnor says its beach isn’t available for dune work this summer, and The Onion has a take on Greyhound’s Lucky Streak bus service. All that and more below:

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