Council approves housing plan
By:Melissa Edmond
The Borough Council has unanimously endorsed a resolution to settle a lawsuit and bring the borough into compliance with state affordable housing rules.
The plan detailing how the borough will provide required affordable housing by rehabilitating substandard houses was adopted by the Planning Board on April 5 and endorsed by the Borough Council on April 11.
The borough’s current Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) obligation is to repair or improve 26 homes for low- and moderate-income families only 12 of which have been completed.
By law, builders can use the state’s affordable housing requirements to file "builders remedy" lawsuits against communities that don’t have their fair share of housing for low- and moderate-income residents.
The borough has reached agreements on two builders remedy suits brought against it by Brooks Townhouses LLC and RJN Developers, with Brooks Townhouses set to build 10 units on a 1-acre parcel on North 13th Avenue.
Last week’s action includes how Manville would provide the other 18 affordable units, however, the discussion soon turned into debate over Brooks Townhouse’s development plan.
The townhouses, down from an original request of 17, will be adjacent to Ketusky Funeral Home, and attorney Jeffrey Cantowitz, representing funeral homeowner Joe Ketusky tried to get borough officials to drop the agreement with Brooks Townhouses.
Jeffrey Lehrer, the borough’s Affordable Housing counsel, was also present for the meeting.
Mr. Cantowitz said that they don’t think the development proposal will satisfy what it needs to satisfy.
"The developers should be coughing up more," he said. "I don’t know that the 10 (townhouses) can even be built. There seem to be several issues lurking here. We would urge the council to look more closely."
Landowner Dean Shepherd said, "We could be put back at square one. You need to make sure the public’s opinion is included. We should have done some things before we agreed to anything."
"We are not going back to square one," Mayor Angelo Corradino said. "If doesn’t work, we will just renegotiate. Nobody thinks it’s a good deal. We had to abide by making the best of a bad situation."
The resolution will now go before Superior Court Judge Victor Ashrafi at the fairness hearing on June 3. If the terms of the agreement and resolution are accepted, Manville would be granted a period of time during which builder’sbuilders can’t sue under the COAH regulations.

