The future affordable housing obligations for all New Jersey municipalities — including Plainsboro and West Windsor — are ambiguous at best, thanks to a recent court decision.
The Appellate Division of the state Superior Court on October 8 struck down the method used by the state Council on Affordable Housing to calculate towns’ current and future obligations to provide low and moderate income housing.
But the impacts of the ruling to West Windsor and Plainsboro — both of which have been in good standing with COAH for their affordable housing plans — is still unknown.
In the decision, the court rejected regulations regulations that allowed towns to receive credit against toward their obligations by using nonprofit or municipal housing projects for which no site has been selected, no funding has been secured, or no developer has been designated, according to a press release from the Carnegie Center-based law firm Hill Wallack, which represented one of the parties involved in the suit.
The court also rejected the “growth share” methodology used by COAH to determine municipal affordable housing obligations, ruling that those regulations would permit towns to reduce or avoid their affordable housing obligations by engaging in exclusionary zoning.
In the 72-page ruling, the court told COAH to concoct new affordable housing obligations using methods similar to those in prior rounds. The current batch of obligations are called the “third round,” and will be added to numbers required in two other rounds.
The court gave COAH five months to implement new rules, and left the impact of its decision on individual towns to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
The decision was briefly discussed by Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu during the Township Committee’s meeting on October 13. Cantu said he wanted to sit down with planning officials to discuss the decision’s effect on Plainsboro.
He did say there was a little concern about how the “tinkering” with the rules would affect the township. But at this point, “I’m not sure what it means,” adding that Plainsboro has a certified plan and was one of the first townships in the state to get its plan approved.
West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh also said that the township already met COAH requirements but said he felt the ruling was less restrictive. At this point, he said he believes that “we don’t have to change anything.”
“We might have the option or opportunity in the future to make some modifications,” he said, but until the township has more information from Trenton, it was hard to say.
Michael Herbert, who serves as township attorney in both West Windsor and Plainsboro, said that there is no need for worry at this point. “From our perspective, we don’t believe it’s going to have an adverse impact on agreements that have been made both in Plainsboro and West Windsor.”
“We’re proceeding as best we can with our redevelopment plan in West Windsor,” he added. “The court also talked about the fact that there are certain bonus elements in the third round COAH rules, such as giving a bonus if there is affordable housing provided in a transit village or smart growth areas. That was agreed to, and that was a positive.”
“Will it have an immediate impact on West Windsor and Plainsboro? The answer is probably not,” added Herbert. “It’s not going to disturb the plans that have already been put forth.”
However, the long-term impact has yet to be determined. “There is legislation that has now been introduced to eliminate COAH,” said Herbert. How that will affect municipalities is unknown. “It’s a constant struggle; the entities that are always put in the middle are the municipalities.”
— Cara Latham
