By Dave Fried
In an open letter to Robbinsville residents posted on June 25, I made everyone aware of a critical New Jersey Supreme Court ruling regarding the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) that required Robbinsville Township attorneys to file a Declaratory Judgment Complaint with the court on July 8.
The complaint seeks to insulate the township from baseless “builder’s remedy” lawsuits, while Robbinsville continues to meet its lawful affordable housing requirements.
The Fair Housing Act and related affordable housing regulations require municipalities in New Jersey to provide affordable homes. However, the recent Supreme Court ruling could be problematic to Robbinsville because the town is almost completely built-out, and our residents already bear a high tax burden.
We proposed and were certified by the state in 2009 to construct 317 new affordable housing units in the township. However, the advocacy group Fair Share Housing Center balked at those numbers and ultimately petitioned the court, which resulted in the most recent decision that will require municipalities to return to the court for a determination of what its future affordable housing requirements will be.
As part of its effort, FSHC is seeking to raise the total number of affordable housing units that the township will be required to build by 2025 to 1,000 units. Affordable housing rules allow for the construction of up to 20 percent of a housing development to be affordable. This is referred to as an “inclusionary development.” Under this scenario, developers could be allowed to construct approximately 4,000 additional market rate units, which would bring the total number of proposed new housing units in Robbinsville to 5,000.
Needless to say, that is an unreasonable and potentially devastating figure which would ultimately result in flooding our school system with approximately 10,000 new students over the next 10 years. That type of student influx would lead to a sharp spike in school taxes in order to build new schools, or expand existing structures and would, ironically enough, make our town unaffordable to many residents.
Robbinsville always has been progressive when it comes to providing affordable housing. Over the years we have been at the forefront, working to meet or exceed these state mandated requirements. Now, the rules have been changed midstream. While I certainly support providing affordable housing in Robbinsville, I vow to fight this method of housing expansion vigorously.
Our goal is to keep the number of new affordable housing units built in Robbinsville to a realistic number based on the existing conditions in the township. We will keep the public updated on any significant developments in the case through our Monday Newsfeed, on Facebook and on the Robbinsville Township website.
* * *
There is some immediate good news.
For the first time in 20 years, the three primary taxing entities that comprise your bill—the municipal rate, the Mercer County rate and the Robbinsville School District rate—each are either flat, or lower than last year. This has resulted in an overall tax rate of 2.861 and a one penny tax decrease for every $100 of assessed value for Robbinsville taxpayers.
Thanks in large part to a five-year average of flat budgets, this year’s rate—the municipal portion that makes up between 18-21 percent of your total annual tax bill—held steady at .531 per $100 of assessed value. The county portion also was unchanged at .581. The school district rate, which comprises the largest percentage of your annual bill, decreased from 1.625 to 1.618.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen.
Dave Fried is the Mayor of Robbinsville Township.
