Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Hopewell Township officials may learn next week whether a proposed affordable housing settlement will pass muster before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobsen.
A fairness hearing on the proposed settlement is scheduled for Monday at 10 a.m. The hearing is open to the public.
Hopewell Township has reached a settlement agreement with three landowners who would like to develop their properties and with the nonprofit Fair Share Housing Center, which has sued many New Jersey towns in an effort to compel them to provide affordable housing for low- and moderate-income households.
The proposed settlement agreement acknowledges that Hopewell Township has met its initial obligation to provide affordable housing units, and that it is now responsible for providing an additional 653 affordable housing units by 2025.
Of those 653 units, a maximum of 164 may be set aside for senior citizens in an age-restricted development. This includes a continuing care and rehabilitation center that may be built next to the Capital Health Medical Center-Hopewell.
The township will be given time to to fulfill its obligation. It will continue to provide a realistic opportunity for building affordable housing by keeping in place any site-specific zoning adopted or relied upon in connection with the settlement agreement through 2025.
The settlement agreement, if it is approved, will protect the township from so-called “builder’s remedy” lawsuits that could result in the construction of significant amounts of new housing in order to generate the affordable housing units. The commonly accepted ratio is four units of “market rate” housing to be built for every affordable housing unit in a development, offsetting the builder’s costs.
Hopewell Township Municipal Attorney Linda Galella is pleased with the proposed settlement agreement.
“Hopewell Township has worked hard to preserve its rural character, and we wanted to ensure that we maintain control of the development process moving forward. This settlement agreement does that, and also helps to avoid the unchecked development associated with builder’s remedy lawsuits,” Galella said.
“Importantly, standard settlement agreements typically provide a provision for reducing a municipality’s obligations and/or give credit toward future (affordable housing) numbers – if either the court or State Legislature ultimately takes action to reduce the required number of affordable housing units,” she said.
The township will benefit from those decisions without incurring additional legal expenses, Galella said.
Hopewell Township currently has a mix of affordable housing arrangements. This includes developments with a mix of affordable and market rate units, group homes and 100-percent affordable developments, such as Project Freedom towards which the township contributes financially.
