New affordable-housing rules are portrayed as ‘opportunity’

Experts sound off on third-round regulations at Princeton forum.

By: Rachel Silverman
   The Princeton Public Library drew a packed house Wednesday evening as a group of panelists discussed the future of affordable housing in Princeton and how the latest round of New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing regulations could be applied to the region.
   COAH’s new rules, which are known as the third-round regulations, base a municipality’s affordable-housing obligation on a development-based, growth-share approach.
   This approach stands in stark contrast to the prior formula, which assigned a municipality a specific quota based on a complex formula of population, employment and economic growth projections.
   "The COAH counsel believes this approach is much more consistent with the market-rate growth and sound land-use plans," panelist and COAH lawyer Melissa Orsen said.
   The new COAH rules consist of three components: the prior-round obligation, which is a municipality’s outstanding obligation from previous rounds of affordable-housing determinations; the rehabilitation share, which stipulates how many units must be restored; and growth-share, which is determined by the percentage of growth over a 10-year period.
   This growth-share requirement divides housing into residential and non-residential categories, and it spells out exactly how many affordable-housing units must be provided in each.
   "Going forward, for every eight market-rate units, there’s got to be one affordable-housing unit built," Ms. Orsen explained, referring to the residential housing rules. "On the non-residential side, for every 25 jobs created, there’s got to be one affordable-housing unit," she continued, pointing out that job growth is measured in terms of building square footage space.
   How the Princeton community should meet these new requirements was a point of much discussion throughout the forum.
   "The community should capture affordable-housing opportunities as they arise," speaker David Kinsey, a Princeton University professor and planner who specializes in affordable housing, suggested. "In a built-up community, it’s redevelopment opportunities that are most likely to arise," he said.
   Specifically, Mr. Kinsey said Princeton should maximize the potential of one particular site in town — the University Medical Center at Princeton. Princeton HealthCare System is planning to move from its current Witherspoon Street site and build a new campus outside Princeton.
   "The hospital and its future is an incredible, once-in-several-generations opportunity that the entire community should look at very seriously," Mr. Kinsey said. "It’s a great opportunity for a broad range of housing."
   The hospital is not the only plot of land on which municipalities should train their eyes, panelists suggested.
   "The hospital is obviously the big one that’s on everybody’s mind, but what about the shopping center?" said Alan Mallach, research director of the National Housing Institute and former Trenton housing and development director. "Princeton Shopping Center is probably the largest underutilized site in the township. It could certainly be redeveloped," he said.
   Throughout the presentation, panelists also urged consideration for mixed-use housing, combining residential and non-residential units into one integrated development project.
   "We have got very much caught up in the idea that zoning should drive what gets built, and that zoning means that basically every piece of land has a use — one use and no more," Mr. Mallach said.
   "I wish some of the stuff that went up in the township over the past couple of decades had done this," he said. "Instead of having land that became office parks, it would have been very nice if those were mixed office and residential developments. Mixed-use zoning, mixed-use development, is very much worthwhile."
   The panelists agreed that affordable housing will continue to present a challenge to New Jersey communities.
   "The pressure in New Jersey is so powerfully against affordable housing, not just for low- and moderate-income people, but even for the middle class," Mr. Mallach said. "You look at what is being developed currently in most of suburban and rural New Jersey, and I would say probably about 90 percent of what’s being developed falls into two categories: McMansions and age-restricted developments."
   He continued, "The effect of the COAH rules, while it’s better than nothing, is really not going to be significant enough to significantly reverse or even moderately change the course of what is going on."
   Princeton University Sociology and Public Affairs Professor Douglas Massey agreed. "It’s a step in the right direction," he said, "but not a big enough step."