STOCKTON: Affordable housing hearings due in March

Stockton plans to meet its state-calculated projected growth share with accessory apartments and rehabilitated units

By Linda Seida, Staff Writer
   STOCKTON — The Borough Council will hold public hearings at its meeting March 9 to discuss two proposed affordable housing ordinances.
   The hearings will be held at Borough Hall, 2 S. Main St. The council meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m.
   One ordinance outlines the parameters for the creation of accessory apartments. The other ordinance establishes development fees.
   Both ordinances are “standard,” and have been proposed to allow the borough to meet the obligations imposed by COAH, the state Council on Affordable Housing.
   Stockton plans to meet its state-calculated projected growth share with accessory apartments and rehabilitated units. The projected growth share is the number of new affordable housing units that must be in place by 2018. Stockton’s projected growth share is 12 new units and four rehabilitated units.
   The borough plans to meet its obligation with up to 10 accessory apartments and a four-bedroom “supportive needs and special needs housing” unit.
   The location of the 12 units would be determined at a future date.
   As defined by the proposed ordinance, an accessory apartment is a self-contained residential dwelling unit with a kitchen, “sanitary facilities,” sleeping quarters and a private entrance.
   Accessory apartments would be created to rent to low- or moderate-income households.
   The ordinance to establish development fees calls for a 1.5 percent fee on the equalized assessed valuation for new residential construction.
   The ordinance also calls for a 2.5 percent nonresidential development fee on the equalized assessed valuation, and would bring the borough into compliance with the state’s mandatory development fee that went into effect in July 2000, Borough Clerk Michele Hovan said.
   Collected fees would be used for the sole purpose of providing low- and moderate-income housing.
   There are exceptions to the proposed residential development fee.
   The replacement of a residential structure that was demolished in a fire or natural disaster would be exempt from paying the fee if the equalized assessed valuation did not exceed 150 percent of the equalized assessed valuation of the structure before the demolition.
   Developers of “green” buildings would receive a fee reduction of 50 percent.