Judge John Sweeney will determine whether Chesterfield will have to increase number of affordable housing units
By: Scott Morgan
The answer to Chesterfield’s affordable housing question could come as early as next week, when a state Superior Court judge is expected to deliver his decision about the number of affordable units the township will be responsible for building.
On Dec. 7, Judge John Sweeney is expected to determine whether Chesterfield will have to increase the number of affordable housing units it must build, in accordance with a new set of regulations issued by the state Council On Affordable Housing (COAH). In 2003, COAH announced that as of January 2004, all new residential construction in New Jersey would need to provide one affordable housing unit for every eight new houses built after the beginning of last year.
In October, township officials sent a letter to Judge Sweeney, stating that COAH already had detailed the number of affordable units Chesterfield needed to build, based on the township’s 1997 development plan under the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program.
Following the TDR model, township officials in 1997 set aside room in the western end of town (known as the receiving area) for approximately 1,200 houses. Under previous COAH rules, approximately 6 percent of those houses needed to be affordable units. According to a COAH document from September 2005, the council called for Chesterfield to provide 68 affordable units, including 13 rehabilitated houses and 55 newly built units. The document states, and township officials have asserted, that Chesterfield planned to meet the regulations within the receiving area.
But the township’s TDR plan then, as now, was a long-range one. Construction in the receiving area did not begin in earnest until last year, as was expected, and, to date, close to 100 of the final 1,190 houses have been built. According to township officials, construction even under the previous COAH rules was never intended to start until after January 2004.
Next week’s judgment could keep the township from having to build an additional 81 affordable houses in order to meet COAH terms township officials say are simply unfair.
Township officials say they are optimistic about the outcome.
"If we’re not successful with (our appeal) I’d be very surprised," Mayor Larry Durr said.