CENTRAL JERSEY: Housing rules face revision

Local officials wait to predict impact

By Davy James and Geoffrey Wertime, The Packet Group
   Local officials are taking a wait-and-see approach to the recent Appellate Court decision that struck down the Council on Affordable Housing’s third-round regulations.
   It will take some time, they said, to sort out all of the ramifications of the decision to determine what kind of affect it will have on their affordable housing plans.
   ”We do have a plan that’s certified, that we felt could be implemented positively for the community without tremendous impact on or obligations to the township,” said Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu. “I guess the real question is … what does this do to our existing regulations?”
   ”How this is going to modify our existing obligations, I don’t know,” he added.
   Mayor Cantu said he didn’t expect any answers to come quickly.
   ”If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that there is nothing that happens with COAH that happens very quickly, particularly with regard to guidance,” he said.
   ”I think a lot’s going to depend on how the state reacts to this and what they’re inclined to do.”
   Princeton Township Attorney Ed Schmierer said he “(doesn’t) believe there’ll be much of an impact at all” from the ruling, since much of what was struck down were issues that don’t affect the township.
   ”We don’t anticipate a significant change,” he said, nor a significant increase in the number of affordable housing units required to comply with whatever new rules are drafted.
   West Windsor Administrator Robert Hary said he too did not expect any significant changes to his municipality’s COAH obligations.
   ”Every day there’s something different with regard to that coming out,” he said. “We were in compliance with the third-round rules anyway, so to us (the decision) is not relevant.”
   If anything, he said the township is likely to exceed any new requirements, which are likely to be more lax than they were before the ruling.
    [gwe: from here down it’s davy’s story: ]”The bottom line is that the court struck down regulations widely seen as burdensome to local governments,” New Jersey State League of Municipalities Executive Director William G. Dressel, Jr. said in a statement.
   COAH released new round-three requirements in December 2007, after its original round three rules had been invalidated by the state Supreme Court a year earlier. The new rules were part of an effort to create between 52,000 to 115,000 new affordable housing units in the state within the next 10 years.
   The rules were met with instant opposition from officials from municipalities around the state, who argued that the amount of units created would increase the population so much that it would lower quality of life and strain schools.
   ”From the outset, however, it was clear that the new regulations were fundamentally flawed, relying upon an inflated determination of vacant land as well as outdated data,” Mr. Dressel said.
   The COAH rules have been amended several times since their release. A bill authored by Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, D-Camden, set a maximum growth share fee of 2.5 percent of property value for commercial developers for affordable housing creation.
   Hill Wallack, the law firm that represented the New Jersey Builders Association in the case, sent out a release that said court rejected growth share methodology used by COAH to determine municipal affordable housing obligations. The release stated that the growth share regulations would have permitted municipalities to reduce or avoid their affordable housing obligations by engaging in exclusionary zoning.
   ”This opinion means there will be no more growth shares and COAH will have to go back to prior methodologies,” said Hill Wallack partner Thomas F. Carroll. “I think townships will be held more accountable for providing affordable housing either through revised COAH rules that are more lawful or legislation that replaces COAH with a more workable process.”
   Hill Wallack’s release also said the regulations that were struck down by the appellate court allowed municipalities to reduce or avoid their obligations to provide affordable housing.
   ”Towns are going to have to go back to the drawing board because this decision will make regulations more stringent,” Mr. Carroll said. “Towns will basically have to completely redo their plans after COAH amends its rules. One of two good things will happen as a result of this decision. Either COAH will amend their rules to make them more lawful or the Legislature will pass a good bill replacing the COAH process.”
   According to Hill Wallack, the regulations did not create sufficient incentives for the construction of affordable housing.
   The court also struck down regulations that would have permitted towns to receive credit against their housing obligations for non-profit or municipal housing projects for which no site has been selected, no funding has been secured, or no developer has been designated, the release stated. The release also stated that speculative proposals would not create realistic housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income families. This regulation would have permitted municipalities to propose speculative projects instead of rezoning for privately constructed inclusionary projects, according to the release.
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