By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — Montgomery Township, like Princeton Borough, is trying to decide if continued participation in the state Council of Affordable Housing program makes sense.
”COAH is a voluntary program and, given my understanding of that condition, it is still an option for Montgomery to withdraw from COAH,” Mayor Cecilia Birge said Wednesday. “However, I do not anticipate we will be at that point until we consider all options.”
Despite COAH’s protection from builder’s lawsuits, she said that the proposed revisions to COAH’s third-round regulations are so “absurd” that it may not make sense for the township to follow them.
Under the revised COAH rules, which were published in the New Jersey register on Jan. 22, municipalities would be required to build one affordable housing unit for every five residential units constructed, an increase from the previous ratio of 1-to-9. The ratio of affordable housing units to jobs generated in the municipality would also increase, with a ratio of 1-to-16 being proposed, versus the previous 1-to-25 ratio.
The regulations also declare a new state affordable housing need of 115,000 units, up from 52,000 units, and assigns specific numbers of households to be built and jobs to be created in each municipality between 2004 and 2018. COAH’s growth projections of housing units for Montgomery are 1,931, which does not include the additional affordable housing obligation that will be created by new development on redevelopment properties in the township like Skillman Village.
”The absurdity of the numbers and the lack of transparency of how they arrived at these number is just mind-blowing,” Mayor Birge said.
The mayor also faulted COAH’s interactions with the public regarding the regulations, claiming that the period of time allowed for written public comment, which ends Saturday, was too short and that communication and coordination were lacking.
Montgomery’s official written comments to COAH will point out conflicts between the proposed regulations and the State Plan, the state smart growth policy and state Department of Environmental Protection regulations, but are unlikely to include language expressing interest in withdrawing from the program, Mayor Birge said. They will also address Montgomery’s history of compliance with the regulations.
”At the end of the day the proposed changes will ask Montgomery to completely ignore the environment and sense of character which we have for years tried to maintain in this town,” Mayor Birge said. “Instead, it’s putting us in the position to build high rises and the exact kind of housing that Montgomery and surrounding municipalities have been fighting to prevent for years and years. It will destroy our community, our schools and infrastructure before it reaches its goal to provide affordable housing.”
The Somerset County Planning Board and the Rocky Hill Borough Council are also using COAH’s written public comment period to express their discontentment with the proposed regulations.
The county Planning Board’s comments assert that COAH’s projections appear less accurate for some municipalities than others and that the most notable inaccuracies are evident in projections for municipalities that have recently approached build-out and for those that are undergoing major revitalization and redevelopment.
Rutgers University researchers’ failure to consider actual delineation of lots in their vacant land analysis for COAH created some of these inaccuracies, Somerset County Director of Planning Robert P. Bzik said. The vacant land analysis is one of the main forms of data COAH used to assign housing and job projections for each municipality.
”We had the opportunity to take a look at 25 separate spatial data layers that went into Rutgers’ data analysis and feel there are a significant number of errors that need to be addressed,” Mr. Bzik said “When they developed the vacant land analysis they were basically using general polygons and they’d start grabbing the backs of lots and public rights-of- way and calling them developable land, when in fact they are not.”
Rocky Hill Mayor Ed Zimmerman said the Borough Council endorsed the county Planning Board’s recommendations in its letter to COAH.
