MIDDLETOWN – The Township Committee is urging the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) to continue regulations that allow the transfer of affordable housing obligations between municipalities.
COAH will meet Dec. 17 to discuss the state’s affordable housing regulations, including the issue of Regional Contribution Agreements and their possible discontinuance.
Therefore, at the Dec. 3 meeting the committee passed a resolution unanimously stating its opinion on the benefits that RCAs offer.
In the resolution, the committee lists four recommendations that will be sent
to COAH.
The first urges the state Legislature “to preserve regional contribution agreements as a technique available to address the need for affordable housing.”
Mayor Gerard Scharfenberger explained the township’s position. “Everyone needs to understand that ending RCAs from a municipal standpoint would be devastating,” Scharfenberger said. “If we put all of our affordable housing commitments here, you would not see a blade of grass left in Middletown.”
An RCA is an agreement between two towns in which one town pays another town to assume a portion of its affordablehousing obligation, which is mandated by COAH.
Under an RCA, a sending community may transfer up to half of its share of affordable housing units to a receiving community as long as it is within the same housing region.
Middletown currently has RCAs with Long Branch, Red Bank and Asbury Park.
Middletown has used RCAs more than any municipality, sending $12.1 million to other municipalities to handle 649 of its affordable housing credits that would otherwise have been built in the township.
Currently there is a proposed 10-point plan led by state Assembly speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) that would eliminate RCAs.
According to the plan, by “allowing a municipality to cut its affordable-housing obligation in half, RCAs make it challenging and sometimes impossible for working New Jerseyans with modest incomes to live in the suburban communities where they work.”
The plan states that RCAs lead to concentrated poverty and that they are bad public policy and should be eliminated.
“But they should not be abolished in a vacuum,” the plan states. “Municipalities currently relying on RCA funds from sending communities will need to make up for the lost revenue. The state has an obligation to provide this substitute funding and to work with mayors and affordable housing advocates to make this a reality.”
The New Jersey Regional Coalition, an affordable housing advocacy group, was scheduled to address the state Assembly Monday to voice their agreement with Roberts’ plan.
Scharfenberger has a different perspective.
“RCAs are an effective tool to provide affordable housing in nearby areas,” Scharfenberger said. “A lot of them have infrastructures that are very suitable for affordable housing.”
RCAs are under scrutiny as a result of a legal challenge filed in the Appellate Division of state Superior Court. The court decided on Aug. 15 that RCAs which would allow Colts Neck Township to transfer its affordable housing obligation to the city of Long Branch did not comply with state affordable housing policy, according to an attorney with the nonprofit law firm that challenged the agreement.
The second part of the resolution to be submitted by the Township Committee states that Middletown is “urging COAH not to raise the cost of RCAs.”
“The cost of RCAs is, I believe to be $35,000,” Scharfenberger said. “They want to raise the price to $55,000 or even $100,000 dollars. This is coming straight out of the taxpayers’ pockets.”
The final two points listed in the resolution urge COAH “to adopt reasonable policies on inclusionary zoning” and “to conduct a study to evaluate the extent to which handicapped housing should be handicapped-accessible.”
Inclusionary zoning refers to planning ordinances that require that a given share of new construction be affordable to people with low to moderate incomes.
Middletown wants COAH to not radically change the regulations.
Handicapped housing regulations are also something that Middletown wants COAH to look into more thoroughly to make sure that the housing units are accessible.
But it was the first two points that Scharfenberger spoke about the most.
“This is another move by Trenton that is going to have a detrimental effect on local municipalities,” Scharfenberger said. “We have to deal with their unfunded mandates every year; they’ve raised library spending by almost half a million dollars, and now they want to take away RCAs and raise the price; it’s just ridiculous.”
Scharfenberger said that RCAs are a viable tool for a municipality like Middletown and that the statements in the resolution are not made to get out of the affordable housings obligations.
He said that it makes sense from a fiscal and environmental aspect to use RCAs, and that officials of other municipalities he has spoken to agree.
“I know the League of Municipalities is speaking to other towns and they feel the same way,” Scharfenberger said. “It’s forced urbanization. It forces us to build like there is no tomorrow. The arbitrary obligations that they give us are something that everybody should be really upset about.”