TINTON FALLS — Although the Borough Council unanimously passed the fair housing element of the master plan at last week’s meeting, each member expressed reservations and some residents voiced concern about a parcel of property included in the plan.
Much of the discussion between the council members and the public revolved around a 13-acre tract located on Wayside Road known as the Carney property, owned by Henry J. Carney.
Since at least the second round of affordable housing obligations set forth by the state’s Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), Carney has made it clear to the borough that he wished for his as-yet undeveloped property to remain as a part of the borough’s COAH plan.
According to the minutes of a May 2007 borough Planning Board meeting, the borough had wanted to eliminate certain parcels of land from its round-two COAH plan, including the Carney property.
Carney objected, saying that he had an agreement with the borough dating back to 2000. The agreement was in the form of a letter signed by Carney, his wife, and the borough’s then-law director, Edward J. McKenna.
James Berube, current law director for the borough, said at the council meeting that the Carney property was included in the COAH round-three plan because he believes the letter of agreement signed in 2000 is legally binding, despite the fact that no specific resolution was ever passed by the sitting council in 2000.
Berube explained that the council members at the time passed a resolution for McKenna to come to a settlement with the Carneys over their objection to not having their parcel of land included in the round-two plan for COAH.
The letter of agreement was the result of that settlement and was included in the final round-two plan for COAH, which was approved in its entirety by the council.
Berube said that by law, McKenna had to either get a letter of agreement signed by both himself and the objecting party or have the council pass a resolution accepting the final settlement.
The 2000 Borough Council decided to work out a settlement with the Carneys to avoid COAH mediation, which, Berube said, would take a long time and be costly.
The Carney property is included in the final fair housing element passed at last week’s council meeting, calling for about 12 housing units per acre, but with one change from the original 2000 agreement.
According to the minutes from the May 2007 Planning Board meeting, the Carneys and McKenna had reached an agreement that would reserve the Carneys’ right to build agerestricted housing on their property to help fulfill that area of the borough’s COAH obligation.
The housing element calls for the Carney property to be used, if the owners so choose, for family-rental housing.
The Carneys, according to Berube, have never filed an application for development of their property.
“The Carneys have the right to make any application at any time,” said Borough Planner Paul Gleitz, who was on hand at the council meeting to answer questions about the housing element. “We need to come up with at least 60 units somewhere in town.”
The housing element states that the borough has more than enough senior housing units, both rentals and owner-occupied, to meet its obligation in that area, but that it continues to fall short in family-rental housing units.
The Planning Board and its professionals, after reviewing several plans by developers for different parcels of land throughout the borough, settled on three possible sites for building family-rental units, including the Carney property.
“At least one or two of these sites must move forward to produce those units,” said Gleitz.
At most, the Carney site would provide 32 affordable units to the borough, according to the housing element. The other two sites looked at by the Planning Board are the Heather Glen site on Sycamore Avenue and the Essex Road site. Those two sites, according to the housing element, would provide 60 affordable family-rental units each.
According to Gleitz, only 25 percent of the borough’s obligation can be met with age-restricted housing, and only 50 percent of all rental housing can be age-restricted. At least 25 percent of all affordable housing in the borough must be rental units.
Gleitz said the borough has been able to fulfill 80 percent of its COAH obligation using existing credits, but that some new development will have to take place to meet the remainder.
He said that COAH based much of its projection of future development, which is one of the factors for calculating housing obligations, on development that took place in 2004 and 2005.
“From then,” said Gleitz, “we’ve dropped from double digits to single digits [in the number of development applications applied for].”
Resident Paul Olivera, Blueberry Lane, said the inclusion of the Carney property in the housing element is contrary to the borough master plan and asserted that the letter of agreement was not a legal document because it had not been specifically approved by council.
“This is a no-win situation for the borough,” said Olivera. “It is an ugly matter. There are illegalities here.”
Board of Education President Peter Karavites was also in attendance at the council meeting and asked that the Borough Council and Planning Board take into account to a greater degree the impact that certain types of development have on the local school district.
“The Carney property is along one of our bus routes,” he said. “For our buses to get up that road in the morning now takes 40 minutes. If that land is developed, it will mean more bus routes, more expenses, more kids per classroom and fewer programs. Ladies and gentlemen, the sky is falling. The sky is falling on our schools.”
As it stands, COAH round-three obligations require the borough to create 450 units, including numbers based on both residential and commercial development. For every four market-rate units, one additional affordable unit must be built, and one affordable unit must be built for every 16 jobs created in the borough.
Before the council voted to accept the fair housing element, which must be completed and submitted to COAH by Dec. 31, several members reiterated the fact that changes may be made to it in the future and that they did not agree with all the requirements.
“I think COAH stinks,” said Councilman Paul Ford. “COAH is the most invasive and most socialistic program. I was all set to vote no, but I don’t see that we have many choices tonight.”