Council Sticks With Original Walden Woods Resolution
Despite continued objection from two homeowners in the Walden Woods development, the Township Council has agreed to put a resolution drafted by its planning attorney on the agenda for a vote on Monday, August 16.
Last month the homeowners challenged the resolution, drafted by Planning Board Attorney Gerald Muller, which was hailed as a “win-win” solution. The resolution would allow individual homeowners to decide their fate: whether they want to switch to market-rate values for the their properties or maintain the 30-year affordable housing restrictions.
The township’s resolution would allow the administration to work with the 16 homeowners by sending them letters and asking them to decide how they want to proceed. The township would proceed with each homeowner individually, and those homeowners who opt to have their homes be assessed at market rate will have to pay taxes associated with that market rate. Those who wish to continue being considered affordable would continue for the full 30 years, which is 20 more years. That will be binding.
The resolutions come after a nearly two-year process of battling to have affordable housing restrictions removed from their property deeds. The Walden Woods residents received a letter from the state Council on Affordable Housing stating it would give West Windsor Township the full number of credits for the homes, but grant the residents 10-year — as opposed to 30-year – affordable housing restrictions, making them eligible now to receive market value for their homes.
“In West Windsor’s third round housing element and fair share plan, the Walden Woods development is included as part of the prior round obligation,” states the letter from Sean Thompson, the acting executive director of COAH. “COAH does not require the deed controls of units fulfilling the prior round obligation extend through the entire third round. As a result, West Windsor may receive prior round credit for the units in the Walden Woods development.”
It was not the option that created opposition; rather, it is the language in the township’s ordinance that, the homeowners allege, contains misleading information that boils down to a single theme — that the length of the restrictions on the homes is ambiguous, and therefore, the township will give each family a choice of having 10 or 30-year restrictions.
Voytek Trela and his wife, Caryn, argue that the original issue was whether the restrictions are for 10 years or not — never whether the restrictions should be treated as 30 years or 10 years,’” as stated in the township’s resolution. Because the township will receive full credit for the Walden Woods home in the fair share plan regardless of the restrictions, Trela argued, to insinuate the township has any say in determining the length of the restrictions is incorrect.
In his own proposal, Trela includes language that references COAH’s recent letter “confirming the 10-year controls on the Walden Woods development, and simultaneously confirming that West Windsor Township is eligible to receive prior round credit for the Walden Woods units in its third round Housing Element and Share Plan.”
At the August 9 meeting, attorney Karen Cayci, who was filling in for Township Attorney Michael Herbert, said she thought it was within the rights of the homeowners to offer to continue affordability rates on their homes to the township and within the township’s rights to accept the offers. She also responded to a question from Councilwoman Linda Geevers, who asked whether those homeowners would have to be re-certified for affordability if they chose to go that route.
Cayci said it was up to the township to decide. But Business Administrator Robert Hary said “the thing we have to keep in mind here is that the township was not involved in the initial certifications. They were done by the federal government, so it’s not something we want to get into.”
Florence Cohen, the chair of the township’s affordable housing committee, said she supported Muller’s resolution.
“Whether it was a misunderstanding, a miscommunication, or anything else, it’s not worth rehashing,” she said. Cohen said the affordable housing was not aware of any re-certification process, and said that once a person is certified at an affordability rate, the certification stands. Muller’s resolution will allow people to choose to go to market rate, while also not burdening those homeowners who may not be able to afford it, she said.
Trela, however, presented a copy of his mortgage, which is on file with the county, and pointed to language that he says does not permit additional restrictions to be placed on a home without the consent of the federal government. Cayci said she would check the federal statutes before the meeting on August 16.
After the meeting, however, Trela voiced his disappointment. He said under Muller’s resolution, essentially “everyone’s getting the restrictions they started with,” he said, because opting in to affordability locks a homeowner into another 20 years of restrictions.
He criticized officials for not seeking backup information of the statements in Muller’s resolution. “Checks and balances? There are none.”
Walden Woods, on Bear Brook Road, was created in the 1990s through the Operation Bootstrap Program, which was part of the United States Department of Agriculture Mutual Self-Help Housing Program. The program accepted “sweat equity” in lieu of a down payment, eliminating the primary impediment to home ownership for low-income families, up-front cash.
