By Frank Mustac, Special Writer
HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP — School board members and administrators did their best to predict the future when a resident asked whether anticipated affordable housing-related development could mean school redistricting may also be in store.
Girish Purohit, who lives on Heath Court in Hopewell Township, inquired at Monday’s board meeting specifically about possible redistricting at Stony Brook Elementary School, where his children are enrolled.
Hopewell Township, like many other municipalities in the state, is enmeshed in an ongoing affordable- housing court case, in part to determine the number of dwelling units for low- and medium-income home buyers and renters that are required under constitutional obligation to be built in the township.
The courts now have the responsibility of deciding that number since new procedures were set in place after a state Supreme Court ruling in March was handed down affecting COAH and how local affordable housing plans are certified by the state. COAH is an acronym for the Council on Affordable Housing, a state agency.
Lisa Wolff, president of the Hopewell Valley Regional School District school board, said any plans for school redistricting have been put on hold.
She also said that the school district “has nothing to do with” the planning for affordable housing taking place in Hopewell Township. She did ask board member Bruce Gunther, who also serves on the Hopewell Township Planning Board, to help address Mr. Purohit’s concerns.
The Planning Board, according to Mr. Gunther, is in the process of preparing three different proposals that all concentrate affordable housing in relatively high-density developments in the “southeast quadrant” of the township near or around Pennington Circle. Grammar school-age children living in that area typically attend Stony Brook Elementary School.
The first proposal, Mr. Gunther said, takes into account that 500 affordable housing units would be built in the township over the next decade or more. A second proposal is for 750 affordable units and a third is for 1,000 units.
A proposal Hopewell Township submitted about seven years ago making provisions for roughly 500 affordable units was rejected by COAH. Figures released earlier this year by the Fair Share Housing Center nonprofit organization indicate Hopewell Township should provide 1,000 new affordable housing units.
“So, if you are talking 1,000 affordable units, and you’re talking a 10-percent set-aside (one COAH unit for each 10 market-rate ones), you’re talking 10,000 (new) homes. It’s a ridiculous number,” Mr. Gunther said. Hopewell Township currently has only about 7,000 homes, he said.
Despite his own assessment that hardly anyone can tell the difference between existing affordable housing units in the Brandon Farms section of the township and market-priced units there, Mr. Gunther said he does not agree with the proposals the Planning Board is crafting.
“Our homes, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m very upset about it, will be encircled by the affordable housing developments,” Mr. Gunther said. “That would create a tremendous strain on Stony Brook Elementary School and a tremendous strain, I believe, on the communities we live in.”
The reason why proposals being considered do not call for affordable housing to be “spread” throughout Hopewell Township, he said, is the NIMBY effect, or “Not In My Back Yard.”
Ronald Morgan, attorney for the Hopewell Township Planning Board, said by phone on Monday that Frank Banisch, the township’s professional planner, is preparing summaries of the Planning Board’s three affordable-housing proposals, which will be sent to Mercer County Judge Mary C. Jacobson, who will decide how many affordable housing units have to be built in Hopewell Township.
Superintendent Thomas Smith explained how the school district would handle an influx of new students from potentially large housing developments. He first said recent student enrollment has been dropping and continues to decrease, in the short term.
“However, we know that in the long term there is this COAH obligation the district has,” Dr. Smith said. “The areas to be developed are not new. How they’re going to be developed, obviously Bruce (Gunther) knows this better than I do.”
“Having been through these before, I also know, and as we historically look at the build-out of the Hovnanian development, which is Brandon Farms, the school district did not see the real impact of those families for about five years after construction started. So there is time once that starts.
“If they’re looking at a significant amount of homes, that’s a game-changer for all of us,” the superintendent said, adding that any sizable new housing construction “is not going to happen tomorrow. That’s the good thing.”
“We’re ready for it. It’s just a matter of when we get those final numbers,” Dr. Smith said. A new large-scale housing development, he said, “does not just affect our elementary schools. It will impact our middle school, and our high school and our facilities. All of this is long-term planning.”
