Hopewell Township: Kudos on dealing with COAH

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
   There is almost no open land left in Pennington or Hopewell Borough — not much room for affordable housing or anything else.
   Both boroughs are less than 1 square mile in size. Hopewell Township, though, is about 58 square miles in size, and much of it is open land; room for a lot of houses.
   Township government seems to have done a really admirable and thorough job in its effort to comply with state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) requirements to build affordable housing. COAH requires 419 affordable units from the township by 2018. Maybe that’s an absurdly high number — plenty of people have said so — but it’s the law.
   True, it’s being challenged in court now by the New Jersey League of Municipalities. That challenge has the financial backing of more than 200 towns in the state.
   Whatever the outcome of that challenge may be, COAH most probably is not going away. Longtime land use attorney, Edwin Schmierer, who advises both the township and Pennington on COAH matters, has predicted publicly the most the township’s affordable housing obligation will be reduced as a result of the lawsuit (or other forces) is one-half. Even if the obligation were reduced by half, the township still would be on the hook for 210 units by the end of 2018.
   Like the two boroughs, the township met the Dec. 31 deadline for filing a plan on how it will meet its obligation. The township plan actually calls for 472 units, 53 more than required by the state.
   The plan — it can be viewed online or on hard copy available from the municipal building — looks like a good one. It should satisfy COAH as a viable plan, and that’s important.
   If the plan did not satisfy COAH, the township could be exposed to a “builder’s remedy” lawsuit under which four or five market-priced units could be built for each affordable unit.
   That translates to more than 2,000 homes. There are fewer than 6,000 homes in the township now. Can you imagine increasing that by more than one-third in the space of a few years? The impact on schools, roads and other areas would be huge.
   Probably the main reason the township plan is so persuasive is the township owns, or is in the process of buying, almost all of the land identified in the plan as sites for affordable housing. The township owns the land on Denow Road slated for 70 units, provided by Project Freedom. The township is in the process of buying — due diligence is being done now — Pennytown Shopping Village on Route 31 where 70 more units could go. The plan calls for all that work to be done by 2012.
   Many more units — 180 of them — are to go up on the Weidel tract, another township tract, between Route 31 and Reed Road, south of the Pennington circle. Those units would be built between 2013 and 2018. A road to the tract and water and sewer utilities must be brought in first.
   Other, smaller township-owned tracts are in the township plan as well.
   The importance of the township’s owning land earmarked for affordable housing was addressed by township Planning Board member William Connolly at a recent meeting between that board and the school board on the affordable housing issue.
   Mr. Connolly has been on the township planning and zoning boards for many years and has a well-earned reputation as a very incisive thinker and articulate spokesman on anything pertaining to land use (and doubtless on many other matters as well).
   ”We could have just zoned the township for 2,100 more units of housing, but we don’t think that would have been a very responsible way to go,” Mr. Connolly told the school board.
   This point is well taken. Zoning the township for 2,100 more units would have accomplished the same thing as a “builder’s remedy” lawsuit.
   By acquiring the land needed for affordable housing, Mr. Connolly told the school board, the township can control the situation in a way that will result in much less impact than if someone else owned the land. It’s easier, after all, to control what you own than what someone else owns. Any tenant will tell you that.
   The COAH requirements of the township seem excessive, and they may change. But they’re the law right now.
   Advocating civil disobedience from one’s duly elected municipal government isn’t a good idea. What’s more, the consequences of a builder’s remedy lawsuit could be very adverse indeed.