By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD Two affordable housing ordinances the Township Council approved last week have drawn a number of complaints, but the plan is still not set it stone, according to Mayor Denis McDaniel.
On July 8, the township passed a pair of ordinances to designate two municipal properties as affordable housing zones and otherwise comply with the Round 3 rules from the state Council on Affordable Housing.
Mayor McDaniel said “the big controversy” comes from Springfield’s plan, under Round 3, to put affordable housing on two township-owned lots, one a field next to the Municipal Building on Jacksonville-Jobstown Road and the other an area used for parking by the township’s fire company and across from the Jacksonville Community Center.
He said about 40 Springfield residents attended the meeting, many to object to those sites, and the township had just learned that week that the latter site is also used for emergency helicopter landings.
The two sites were chosen because Round 3 of COAH mandates that proposed sites for affordable housing either be owned by the township or be ones the municipality has the option to buy, which limits Springfield’s current choices, Mayor McDaniel said.
Since the township does not currently have any options on other land and does not own other unrestricted properties, he said, “we had to use the land we own to be compliant with COAH’s rules. COAH and the Township Council made it clear from the outset that we can change the plan if we’re able to find a more suitable location.”
Springfield, he said, is open to the possibility of doing just that if it can find such locales.
Municipalities are not compelled to provide affordable housing, but meeting COAH requirements protects them from lawsuits predicated on the Fair Housing Act.
The new zoning passed last week allows for family unitsfrom single-family residences to quadriplexesas well as a community residence, or group home, for either the developmentally disabled, victims of domestic violence, the terminally ill, or people with head injuries.
”Now you have to have someone who’s willing and able to build a group home, and the plan could be modified to have more than one group home,” Mayor McDaniel said, “but currently the plan calls for one group home, and then residential structures.”
While the exact number of residences is not set it stone, he said about two to three structures would probably go up at each site, plus one group home in the township, probably with four bedrooms. That would be all the township would seek to have built under the current round of COAH rules in this 15-year period; the township plans to use existing single-family houses for the rest of its COAH units.
Who can live in affordable housing is determined by a complicated formula, but he said it is a “misconception” that the housing can be set aside only for seniors, as they can make up only a quarter of the housing, and half of COAH lodgings must go to families.
The mayor expressed frustration with the affordable housing rules, which have changed frequently and often retroactively.
”If you get somewhere close to figuring out how it works, then they change how it works, and that’s been the history of COAH over the last 25 years,” said Mayor McDaniel, a member of the state Mayors’ Housing Committee.
”Everyone’s pretty much on the same pageit’s a disaster. It’s not that people are against the objective, a lot are in favor, but it’s inefficient and ineffective. If you want a terrible way to accomplish anything, just follow that model.”
In late 2003, COAH awarded substantive certification to Springfield Township’s plan for affordable housing, a five-year process that effectively protects Springfield from further builders’ remedy lawsuits until 2010.
Early 2004 saw the end of a five-year legal battle in the township over development and over COAH obligations. It ended when a judge ruled against developers seeking to build in the municipality and also said the township was not taking too long to fulfill its COAH commitments.
In late December 2008, just days before the deadline, the township filed its plan for 35 new COAH units at an estimated cost of $11.3 million. That plan included at least three sites, including the lot next to the Municipal Building, which even then caused some residents to raise concerns over that proposed site.
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