Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey voters approved a $400 million bond measure to fund conservation of open spaces in the most densely populated U.S. state.

The ballot question won 52 percent to 48 percent, according to election results from the Associated Press. The state now can sell general obligation bonds and use proceeds to create parks and save farms and historic sites from urban sprawl.

“This demonstrates that even in difficult economic times, voters understand that these are wise investments,” Tom Gilbert, chairman of the New Jersey-Keep It Green Campaign, a coalition of 150 groups supporting the measure, said in a statement.

Voters in New Jersey have approved all 13 open space questions on the ballot since 1961, providing more than $2.5 billion to keep land from development.

Two years ago, voters approved a $200 million bond act for the Garden State Preservation Trust, which finances state conservation efforts. That bond act passed with 54 percent, the lowest rate at the time for such a question in New Jersey.

Governor Jon Corzine, a first-term Democrat who lost his bid for re-election to Republican Christopher Christie yesterday, signed legislation in August appropriating the last of those 2007 funds.

Election Issue

Corzine supported the bond measure. His two major challengers, Christie and independent Christopher Daggett, opposed the issue, saying the state needs longer-term open-space funding. Christie also said he didn’t support more borrowing for that purpose.

The Keep It Green Campaign said the bond measure would continue open-space funding for the next two years, giving the state time to identify a longer-term source,

The campaign estimated that a $400 million bond issue would cost the average household $10 a year, based on a 20-year general obligation bond issued at an interest rate of about 5 percent.

New Jersey has total debt of $31 billion, trailing only California and New York, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The state is paying $2.4 billion in interest and principal this fiscal year, 8.4 percent of its $29 billion budget, according to New Jersey’s Treasury Department.

Clean Water

Every dollar invested in open space will return $10 in economic value, estimated Assemblyman John McKeon, who chairs the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee. Approval will allow the state to take advantage of low real estate prices and to protect its supply of fresh water, he said in an Oct. 23 interview.

New Jersey, nicknamed the Garden State, is 11th-largest in the U.S. by population, with 8.7 million people, but fifth- smallest in land area. It has 1,135 residents per square mile, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, compared with a national rate of 80.

The open-space measures have allowed New Jersey to permanently protect 1.3 million of its 4.8 million acres, an area bigger than the state of Delaware. Even so, the state is losing about 50 acres a day to development, according to the state division of the Sierra Club, the oldest U.S. environmental organization.

A Rutgers-Eagleton Poll of likely voters released Oct. 23 found 43 percent opposed borrowing to preserve land, while 41 percent supported the measure, within the survey’s error margin of 4.1 percentage points.

Borrowing Money

Two earlier polls, by Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey of West Long Branch and Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind of Madison, found 55 percent to 56 percent of voters in favor and 31 percent to 32 percent opposed. Neither poll explained that issuing bonds meant borrowing money, according to David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton poll and a political science professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

“Voters are clearly very sensitive to the idea of borrowing money in a recession,” Redlawsk said in a statement before yesterday’s election. “These differing results show that the outcome will depend on how voters view the question when they enter the voting booth.”

Among the bond measure’s opponents was Steve Lonegan, head of the state chapter of the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity. Two years ago, Lonegan’s group successfully campaigned against a $450 million stem-cell bond measure.

To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net; Stacie Servetah in Trenton, New Jersey, at sbabula@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 4, 2009 10:46 EST