New Council on Affordable Housing Regulations proposed in December are so “way out of line with reality,” especially when it comes to West Windsor’s growth share obligation, town officials are saying it’s a possibility that even the most liberal view of redevelopment would generate fewer units than what COAH is proposing.
Officials in municipalities across the state have voiced initial concern over the new regulations, and the state League of Municipalities is in the process of drafting a position paper in response, one that West Windsor may join in signing to create a “united front” against the new rules. Township officials are also contemplating drafting their own comments in addition to joining the LOM document, and will meet on Tuesday, January 22, to hear more information from the township’s attorneys.
According to Planning Board Attorney Gerald Muller, residential growth share obligations COAH estimated for each individual municipality — which were uploaded to COAH’s website January 4 — set West Windsor’s higher than he thinks would be generated because there simply isn’t enough space left in the township to build market rate housing of the magnitude needed to generate as many COAH units as projected.
The draft regulations by COAH aren’t set in stone, as the regulations have to go through the 60-day public review and comment period. However, the proposals do call for one affordable unit to be provided per 16 jobs created, and one to be provided out of every five market-rate housing units. That’s up from the previous regulations of one out of every new 25 jobs and one out of every eight residential units. In addition to the new ratios, COAH’s regulations projected development through the year 2014. Now that has been extended to 2018.
“We don’t know what the final product will be, but it’s clear the regulations pose a much more substantial burden on municipalities than they had before,” Muller said.
Also sharing his concerns were Township Attorney Michael Herbert and Council President Will Anklowitz, both of whom spoke out about the new rules at the January 7 council meeting.
Anklowtiz pointed out certain details in the proposed regulations, including that municipalities used to be able to contribute money to another municipality toward building COAH units — known as regional contribution agreements — at a price of about $35,”000 per unit. “Now, for West Windsor, it’s more along the lines of $67,”000,” he said. “The jump is enormous.”
In addition, “nowhere in the regulations did I find any place that says if you don’t grow, you won’t have to provide it,” Anklowitz added. “It seems to say that you’re going to provide it, and if you’re not providing it, you’ll be subject to review of your plan and sanctions. And if you don’t do what COAH asks you to do, you’re then subject to a builder’s remedy.”
To put it into perspective, Anklowitz said that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, New Jersey had 2.8 million households in 1990. In 2000, it had 3.3 million. In 1999, it had 3.25 million. COAH, he said, projects that by 2018, the state will have 3.6 million households, an increase of only about 434,”000. “They also said at that same time, we need 115,”646 affordable housing, which means 26 percent of all new housing, going back to 1999, needs to be COAH housing. The original number was 53,”000.”
Anklowitz said that the rules also suggest municipalities look at giving waivers and variances and expediting approvals. “What’s the point of having their protection if they’re giving you a poison pill?” Anklowtiz said. “I’m all for our social obligation, our constitutional obligation to provide affordable housing as part of our community, but it has to be something realistic.”
Herbert called the rules “unworkable” and “counterproductive” and even said some municipalities are contemplating taking a chance at not complying with the new rules and facing builder’s remedies because the rules are so extreme “that you can’t do worse with builder’s remedy.”
“One of the problems with this regulation is it doesn’t recognize the absence of vacant developable land,” he added. “If you don’t have developable land to generate affordable housing, it seems that’s got to be considered.”
Muller said that in 2005, West Windsor officials submitted a plan to COAH to comply with the regulations that were in effect at the time, which included “quite a bit of overage. It was something we were all comfortable with,” he said. At that time, West Windsor calculated its growth share to be 242 units. In the previous rounds of COAH regulations, the amount of growth share was calculated, he said, using “upper level jurisdiction,” which in West Windsor’s case was the State Planning Commission, which didn’t have those numbers for the township to use. So, West Windsor was able to, instead, use the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. Using those projections, it was 271, and that’s the number of affordable housing units West Windsor actually included.
Muller determined, though, that under the newly proposed rules, COAH is projecting that West Windsor will have to provide 833 affordable housing units, in addition to 23 for rehabilitation, for a total of 856. COAH did reduce the first and second round regulations by 52 units, leaving a net of 804 units the township would need to provide through 2018, he said.
“It just seems like it’s very, very high,” especially given that the market has been very soft, he said. “There’s no reason to believe that will improve.” In addition, township officials have been working for the past decade to preserve a lot of the remaining land in township for open space. “There’s not much left in terms of developable lands for residential units.”
“The irony is if this holds — what COAH is doing and the idea you have to use COAH projections — even if your actual experience shows much less growth, the affordable housing implications for redevelopment become kind of irrelevant,” he said. Because the COAH projections are so high, “even if we did our own calculations, as we did, and included even the most liberal view of redevelopment, I have no doubt it’s going to generate far fewer units than what COAH is imposing on us.”
Muller echoed this during the January 7 meeting, saying, that “the level of development for redevelopment doesn’t matter because our obligations could be so high anyway, whatever you do in redevelopment, it will never get up to that obligation.”
Previously, if actual growth turned out to be higher or lower than projections based on sources like the Delaware Valley projections, municipalities were required to modify their plans. “The idea of adjusting the plan up or down, depending on what the actual experience was, was in my mind, a no-brainer,” Muller said.
Muller did emphasize, though, that “whatever the obligation is, we’re certainly going to meet it.”
