Reporting by Sunayana Prabhu and Stephen Appezzato
Affordable housing is a hot topic across the Two River area. With soaring housing costs, continuing development and numerous real estate booms over the past few decades, some towns have not yet fulfilled their entire “fair share” of affordable dwellings.
Responding to the advancement of the new state affordable housing legislation, officials from several municipalities have expressed concerns.
Last month, the state Assembly voted 51-28 in favor of bill A4/S50 which would reform municipal responsibilities on affordable housing and abolish the state’s Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), replacing it with a set of new policies to settle housing development disputes.
All municipalities are mandated to comply with the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mount Laurel Doctrine, established in 1975, which creates a constitutional obligation for towns to provide a “fair share” of their region’s need for affordable housing.
Affordable housing obligations are based on population changes and growth over time in a region. The Mount Laurel Doctrine creates strong enforcement mechanisms if towns fail to comply with their fair share obligations, including builder’s remedy lawsuits and other compliance challenges in court. Several municipalities have complied with new developments in their towns, fearing builder’s remedy lawsuits that risk the township’s zoning powers.
The new bill, supported by state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Senate President Nick Scutari, was referred to the state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. Although advocates of the Mount Laurel Doctrine believe the Fair Share Housing Act is a critical part of the solution to the state’s current housing crisis, it has drawn fierce opposition from several elected officials who find the bill burdensome.
Middletown
Middletown Mayor Tony Perry created an online petition on change.org titled “Oppose New Jersey’s Unfair Housing Quotas Bill! Stop A4/S50.” The petition was launched Monday, Feb. 12, the same day the state Assembly voted in favor of the bill.
The bill imposes “unrealistic and heavy housing quotas on municipalities statewide,” Perry said in the petition, adding that it “aggressively” increases housing quotas, “endangers the core of our communities, worsens traffic congestion, and stretches vital municipal services, including law enforcement, to their limits. It also threatens environmentally sensitive areas.”
The petition had 483 supporters as of press time March 6.
“In Middletown, we’re already seeing our infrastructure under severe strain, jeopardizing the well-being of our residents,” Perry argues in the petition. “This bill’s additional demands could exacerbate the situation, pushing local resources beyond their breaking point.”
The township adopted redevelopment plans recently, including the Circus Liquors Redevelopment Plan along Route 35; River Center South Redevelopment Plan near Garden State Exit 109 on Newman Springs Road; the Port Belford Redevelopment Plan; North Middletown Redevelopment Plan with residences along Port Monmouth Road; and redevelopment along Half Mile Road and Schultz Drive where the recently constructed luxury fitness club Life Time is located.
On several occasions Perry has reiterated that the township is making efforts to preserve open spaces while under pressure from potential builder’s remedy lawsuits by redeveloping sites that are already partially developed, not properties that have “zero development on them,” Perry said during a Nov. 20, 2023, township committee meeting. “I’m not opposed to redevelopment. I’m opposed to development – the difference is critical,” he said.
Critics have accused Perry of hypocrisy on his Facebook post highlighting the petition. “This is political spinning,” read one comment. “Affordable Housing is not the cause of the overdevelopment,” it said, noting that Middletown Walk, the residential development by Toll Brothers in the Circus Liquors Redevelopment Plan, “is 400 units – 80 of them are affordable housing. You remove the affordable one and the community will still have issues with 320 condos units at that location. The issue is that the township is behind in terms of affordable housing and as a result developers are able to appeal to courts to build what they want.”
“You are completely incorrect,” Perry wrote in response. “Builders don’t build only affordable units. That’s why they finance organizations like fair share housing to promote massive building. Easy math – 80 x 4 = 320. A builder needs to construct 4 market rate units for every affordable. It’s not political spin, it’s a simple math equation.”
Little Silver
Perry isn’t the only local official expressing his displeasure. A similar sentiment was expressed at the Feb. 26 Little Silver Borough Council meeting, when officials passed a resolution objecting to the state bill.
The resolution, which was sent to Legislative District 13 representatives Sen. Declan O’Scanlon and Assembly members Gerry Scharfenberger and Vicky Flynn, as well as legislature leaders, claimed A4/S50 contains “myriad” flaws.
According to Little Silver officials, the bill “proposes to overhaul the Fair Housing Act in a way that imposes unrealistic obligations and unrealistic deadlines based upon onerous standards,” and creates “patently unreasonable responsibility on municipalities by imposing an obligation on them to create a realistic opportunity for satisfaction of a fair share that is itself unrealistic.”
The resolution also states the bill “fails to account for the enormous burdens on municipalities to comply with their Round 3 obligations before imposing very substantial additional burdens.”
Borough council president and planning board council representative Donald Galante said many other towns are against A4/S50.
They’re “not against affordable housing,” Galante said, but “against the way this specific structure was put into place.”
Galante, Little Silver Mayor Robert Neff and borough administrator Kevin Burke met with O’Scanlon to discuss A4/S50, which was “pushed through the Assembly and the Senate,” Galante said. He said O’Scanlon was “well aware of what’s going on. He’s against it (A4/S50).”
Tinton Falls
While many municipalities struggle to meet their Fair Share Housing obligations, the Borough of Tinton Falls is a model for making the Mount Laurel Doctrine work – it has a surplus of affordable housing units. In its third round of affordable housing obligations, the borough had 181 credits or affordable units; around 100 of those are age-restricted or senior housing.
The reason Tinton Falls has been able meet its COAH mandates is “because we have been fulfilling the affordable housing needs required by the state since the ’80s,” said Lori Paone, assistant to the Tinton Falls affordable housing administrator.
“Our powers – our mayors and councils – started this program way back in the ’80s and required developers to build the required number of affordable units,” she said.
To meet the challenge head-on, Tinton Falls set up an affordable housing committee in the 1980s, requiring approved developments to be COAH-compliant. “Each time the development was approved during the state standard, we would require them to interlock the affordable housing into that development,” Paone said. “So, we just stayed with the standards of what the state gave us.”
Although the borough has kept up with these obligations in the past, Paone is concerned about meeting future obligations with changes in the legislation that could enforce new requirements. “Back then we had a lot of area for us to build. Right now, I don’t see that being the same,” Paone said. “We are pretty much built out.”
The current round of the state’s affordable housing obligations goes through 2025, at which point another round of obligations will begin.
The article originally appeared in the March 7 –March 13, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
