Change In Land Use Law, Environmental Protection Regulations Leaves Homeowner With Devalued Property & Facing Foreclosure

In Northern New Jersey, The Star Ledger reports:

• Cathy Dietz was standing in her driveway telling me how the bank was foreclosing on her Hunterdon County home and the 42 acres that surround it. That sort of thing is happening to a lot of people, but in her case the cause had less to do with what's happening on Wall Street these days than with what happened in Trenton four years ago.

• In 2004, the Legislature adopted the Highlands Act in an effort to preserve open space. But the open space it was preserving belonged to private homeowners like the Dietz family. Her land was turned from an asset into a liability. When her husband died in January, she found she couldn't meet the mortgage and she couldn't refinance either.

For more, see This foreclosure was forged in Trenton.