“Permitting is one of the biggest issues” in attracting businesses to the Garden State, McCormac said. “We need a one-stop shop. Right now, businesses need to go to eight different places to get permits.”

McCormac, a member of the governor’s transition team, discussed efforts to consolidate incentive and funding programs under the Economic Development Authority.

“The weakness in economic development is that there are too many places to go for money, too many places to go for access and too many places to go for permits.”

One place businesses are growing familiar with when it comes to access and money is the Office of Economic Growth. Its chief, Jerry Zaro, talked about Invest NJ, a program that offered $3,000 to companies that hired new employees. Christie judged it a failure and made it one of his earliest cuts.

That shows “there are no sacred cows,” Zaro said. “We can’t ask people to bear some of the brunt without businesses also bearing the brunt.”

The idea of shared sacrifice also came up in a keynote address by Lori Grifa, acting commissioner for the state Department of Community Affairs, who discussed

Keynote address given by Lori Grifa at the Real Estate Symposium. (Christina Mazza/NJBIZ photo)

“It’s time for a wake-up call for government to pay attention to the fiscal realities of 2010,” she said.

Christie “has empowered me to withhold a portion of state aid to those who decline to engage in hard choices,” Grifa said, meaning towns that simply pass cutbacks along to taxpayers, without changing how they award funding or manage payroll, will be penalized.

Zaro said the state must continue to develop creative programs to attract jobs from neighboring states, hailing the Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit program — which provides incentives for developing near any of nine urban train stations in the Garden State — as one of the most aggressive.

“We choose only to invest in programs that have proven to be successful,” he said.

“One of our problems is a failure to get out and sell New Jersey,” Zaro added, though the Christie administration plans to visit other states and attend trade shows with an aggressive promotional strategy. “We need to get on equal footing with our sister states, in terms of marketing.”

In a session focusing on the state’s economic outlook, Jeffrey Otteau, president of Otteau Valuation Group, in East Brunswick, pointed to a stabilizing housing market in central and northeastern New Jersey, where there is less than eight months of available inventory.

“When housing inventory is less than eight months, home prices will stop declining,” he said, putting the average inventory across the state at about 8.5 months. He said the expiration of a federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers next month will lead to a slump, though high demand for rentals should create brisk activity for multifamily units. One of the weakest areas in residential remains 55-and-older housing, sometimes called the active adult market; currently, there is a 16-year inventory backlog as seniors remain in their homes or leave the state.

But Otteau expects continued troubled from the commercial sector, particularly retail and warehousing, which may not hit bottom until next year.

He called retail “the greatest risk,” adding that “the new conservatism that will take place in the post-recession” will mean slumping sales. That, coupled with aggressive retail building in New Jersey, will pass through to the warehouses that store goods for retailers.

Jim Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, pointed to the lingering effects of what he termed “the first white-collar recession” for the nation and state.

Nationwide, “we [are] staring at a potential economic recovery, rather than an economic meltdown,” as was the case last year, he said. But New Jersey hasn’t followed the positive trend, dating back to September, that the U.S. economy has, with job losses accelerating. In New Jersey, 9,100 jobs were lost in the first quarter, he said.

E-mail Evelyn Lee at elee@njbiz.com

(Christina Mazza/NJBIZ photos)