Montgomery mayor challenges affordable housing report

By Greg Forester / Staff Writer
   MONTGOMERY — Township Mayor Cecilia Birge is taking issue with a report that casts Montgomery and 33 other towns resisting the state’s new affordable housing rules as being among the state’s richest and least diverse.
   Charging that the report, put out by the Fair Share Housing Center “completely misses the target,” Mayor Birge said, “For us, the third-round regulations are not an issue between rich and poor.” Her comments were made Thursday, as she prepared for a joint Planning Board-Township Committee meeting on affordable housing requirements.
   The group of 34 towns cited by Fair Share is 43 percent wealthier and 21 percent less racially diverse than New Jersey as a whole, according to the author of the report. Each town is listed as a plaintiff in at least one lawsuit filed over new Council on Affordable Housing rules that effectively doubled state affordable housing requirements after going into effect earlier this summer.
   ”It’s the wealthiest towns that are fighting the hardest,” said Kevin D. Walsh, an attorney and associate director of the Fair Share Housing Center.
   Report author and attorney Adam Gordon claims that new third-round COAH regulations actually require the 34-town contingent to build 20 percent less affordable homes per year compared with previous affordable housing rules. Montgomery faces a roughly equal obligation in the new rules, according to the report.
   ”They have been assigned reduced obligations, but they are complaining the loudest,” said Mr. Gordon, in a statement.
   Montgomery Township has always complied with previous affordable housing regulations, according to Mayor Birge, who noted that the township had affordable housing credits from previous regulations. Credits are given to municipalities that go beyond the requirements in providing units of housing.
   ”We realize our social responsibilities,” Mayor Birge said.
   Montgomery Township is involved in not one, but two lawsuits filed against the new COAH regulations. One was filed by the state League of Municipalities, on behalf of over 200 municipalities. Those towns were not targeted by the Fair Share Housing Center report, because they are not spending as much money on the legal challenges as the 34 named in the report, according to its author.
   The other lawsuit Montgomery took part in included other municipalities named in the Fair Share Housing Center report. It was filed on behalf of 20 towns that made up a group of municipalities that complied with previous regulations and tried to provide affordable housing opportunities within their borders, according to Mayor Birge.
   ”We have gone way beyond our obligation,” she said.
   Under the new COAH rules, Montgomery faces an obligation of around 500 additional affordable housing units, a figure that Mayor Birge believes would require an additional 2,500 units in order to be economically feasible for development.
   Despite the pending conclusion of the lawsuits, Montgomery Township staff is working towards developing a plan to fulfill the new obligations.
   Township officials said Montgomery would face potential lawsuits from developers seeking “builder’s remedy” suits, if the township does not file a housing plan with the state government by the end of 2008.