HOWELL – The Township Council has passed a resolution that will permit the Akabe Village apartments to enter into a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program.
The council voted unanimously on the resolution at its April 23 meeting.
The action will permit the owner of the Akabe Village apartments to pay Howell $18,547 per year under a PILOT program, rather than paying the regular property taxes the land and improvements would incur as a result of their assessed value.
The PILOT program will expire in 30 years, whereupon regular property taxes will take effect.
Officials said New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA) law provides the PILOT program as long as the provisions set forth by the HMFA for the Akabe Village apartment complex are obeyed.
The taxation agreement will remain in effect if ownership of the complex is transferred or the organizational structure is changed, as long as the rules set forth by the HMFA are still obeyed.
Akabe Village is a rental housing development to be built on a 7.4-acre lot at 53 Wyckoff Mills Road, between Route 524 and Route 9.
The apartment complex will be constructed between The Villages adult community and the Adelphia post office, according to Councilman Robert Walsh.
The development will include 42 apartments, a 1,200-square-foot club/leasing area, a tot lot, stormwater management facilities, 84 parking spaces and a 50-foot perimeter buffer.
There will not be any age restrictions on the apartments, and all 42 units are expected to be rented in accordance with state affordable housing guidelines.
“The company doing the construction on the land for the Akabe Village apartments has the clearance to begin and should begin within the next six months,” Walsh said.
Akabe Village received approval from the Howell Zoning Board of Adjustment in late 2011. At that time, the applicant said construction would begin in 2013.
An initial proposal for 60 apartments was amended to the 42 apartments that were approved. Two buildings will each have 16 apartments and a third building will have 10 apartments, according to a previous article. The apartments will have two or three bedrooms.