LONG BRANCH – Some residents voiced concerns last week about adding another title to the two that city official Jacob L. Jones already holds.
Jones, the city’s director of community economic development and the director of the Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ), was named to head the city’s affordable housing program by a unanimous council vote of 5-0 at the Sept. 11 municipal meeting.
The position of municipal housing liaison officer has been mandated under new regulations set by the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).
“Perhaps you get to a point in life where you get so many hats that you become ineffective,” said South Seventh Avenue resident Harold Cooper.
Kevin Brown of Broadway agreed.
“In addition to community and development, he is also the leader of the UEZ,” Brown said. “What you seem to be setting up here is … another department.
“Is this eventually going to become a department?” Brown asked the governing body about Jones’ new title.
City Business Administrator Howard H. Woolley replied that it would not.
“Basically,” Woolley said, “this [ordinance] gives Mr. Jones a title so he can continue doing what he was doing.”
The new position was added after COAH determined that any town that wanted to participate in affordable housing programs needed an administrator, Jones said.
Jones said he has already been fulfilling the responsibilities as the head of the city’s affordable housing program since 1994 and the ordinance is a formality to make the position official.
According to the ordinance, as the municipal housing liaison, Jones will be responsible for overseeing and administering the affordable housing program for Long Branch.
Jones will serve as the city’s primary point of contact for all inquiries from the state, affordable housing providers, administrative agents and interested households, according to the ordinance.
His duties will also include compiling annual reports as required by COAH, coordinating meetings with affordable housing providers and attending education opportunities on affordable housing, according to the ordinance.
Another resident asked the council if the purpose of creating the new position is to increase the number of Regional Contribution Agreements, or RCAs, the city enters into.
“Is this to grow or increase the RCA agreements?” Bill Shatzow of Elberon Avenue asked. “Are we going after more RCA agreements?”
Mayor Adam Schneider explained that the ordinance is mutual.
“We might go after more RCAs in the future,” Schneider said.
An RCA is an agreement between two towns in which one town pays another town a sum of money to assume a portion of its affordable housing obligation.
An RCA allows a sending community to transfer up to half of its share of affordable housing units to a receiving community such as Long Branch, as long as it is within the same housing region.
Each community’s fair share obligation of affordable housing is established by COAH.
City Attorney James Aaron said at the meeting that Jones would not be receiving additional compensation for taking on the new title.
“He does not get compensated now,” Aaron said, referring to the work Jones has already been doing for the city’s affordable housing program.
“There is no compensation and it would have to be in the salary ordinance if there was one,” Aaron said.
Aaron added that down the road, if a new officer gets appointed as liaison, compensation would be fixed at that point.
At that time, Aaron explained, there would be a resolution to appoint the new officer to assume the responsibilities under the ordinance.