The West Windsor Township Council approved a contract during its meeting on October 27 to use about 10 percent of the money in the township’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund to help the Eden Institute acquire a single-family home on Wood Hollow Drive to house five adults with autism.##M:[more]##
Eden’s current home for the five adults, located in East Windsor, is being acquired by the state Department of Transportation as part of a road widening project. The DOT will be giving Eden money for the acquisition of the house, but a shortfall of about $285,”000 remained, and West Windsor officials are being asked to provide half of that funding.
“They are looking for a replacement facility to serve the five individuals and two staff members to live, and they have identified a house which is now in foreclosure on Wood Hollow Drive,” said Planning Board Attorney Gerald Muller during the council’s meeting on October 14.
The Eden Institute — a Princeton-based nonprofit organization founded to improve the lives of children and adults with autism and their families — is “asking whether the township might be willing to provide some money to be able to support the acquisition and conversion of the house,” Muller added. “When I say conversion, it’s just that one of the residents is in a wheelchair and there will have to be some minor modifications, like, for example the bathrooms. It will remain a single-family house.”
Originally, Eden officials told West Windsor staff that the house would provide five credits toward meeting its fair share obligation with the state Council on Affordable Housing. However, Eden officials believed that the COAH credits were determined on the basis on the number of individuals that would be living in the home, and not on the fact that only three of the five bedrooms in the home would be occupied by autistic adults, with the remaining two for the staff.
However, Muller said, credits are given per bedroom to be used by each person with a disability. Eden officials have indicated to township officials they would at least convert one of the larger bedrooms, adding a fourth bedroom for one of the autistic adults, and will be trying to create another bedroom on top of that. “So, we would have four credits and possibly a fifth one,” Muller explained.
As for the $285,”000 shortfall in the expenses associated with acquiring the home, Muller says Eden officials are confident they will be getting an additional $50,”000 in relocation assistance, which would reduce the shortfall to $235,”000. Under an agreement with Eden, this would bring the township’s half of the costs to $117,”500.
Council President Charles Morgan asked Muller whether he felt using $117,”500 — or 10 percent of the $1.3 million the township has in its Affordable Housing Trust Fund — was a proper way to use the money.
Said Muller: “I think it’s going to be as efficient as you can get. What we would get out of this is we will be getting four or five credits, just on a bedroom basis, rather than four or five homes, and what we won’t have, as is the case with inclusionary developments, is the addition of 20 or 25 market units that it would usually take. This is about as big of a bang for your buck as you can get.”
David Holmes, a consultant for the Eden Institute, told the council that Eden has been looking for an adequate replacement home for a long time, and that Eden’s positive experience in the past brought them to look in West Windsor again. “For us, it was very easy to look at West Windsor because you have been so good at offering support and opportunities to individuals that, for years, would have ended up in institutions,” he told the council. “This is a very complicated matter, and the clock is ticking.”
Councilwomen Linda Geevers and Heidi Kleinman urged that the residents near the Wood Hollow Drive home be notified that as a courtesy that a group home would be moving into the neighborhood, despite no notice requirement, since the zoning and use of the property will not change. Morgan agreed, and asked Holmes to see that Eden officials also speak to nearby residents directly.
