The Plainsboro Township Committee unanimously endorsed its affordable housing fair share plan that the township plans to follow to meet the new third round Council on Affordable Housing regulations, plans for which have to be submitted by the December 31 state deadline.##M:[more]##
While many municipalities have labored to come up with new fair share plans to address the growth share obligation determined by COAH for them, Plainsboro’s affordable housing practices over the years may have made it much easier to deal with its originally projected growth share of 445 units.
Under the new rules, the ratio of affordable to market units doubled from one affordable for every eight market units to one for every four, and the ratio of affordable units for new jobs increased from one unit for every 25 jobs to one for every 16. The ratio of affordable units to office space, retail, restaurants, hotel, and parking space also dramatically increased, and COAH eliminated regional contribution agreements, in which municipalities can pay money to other municipalities to take care of some of their affordable housing obligations there.
COAH adopted the third-round regulations in October. All municipalities around the state must endorse fair share plans to be submitted to COAH by December 31 for COAH’s review, or risk being sued by developers, as well as falling out from under COAH’s jurisdiction and having their affordable housing trust fund money taken away.
Shirley Bishop, Plainsboro’s special housing consultant, presented the plan to Committee on December 10. Because of the affordable housing options selected by Plainsboro in the plans, no zoning changes are needed, she said.
The fair share plan has three parts, the first of which is the township’s rehabilitation share. COAH calculated that Plainsboro had a 44-unit rehabilitation obligation, which means that COAH believes that there are 44 housing units in the township occupied by low or moderate-income households that are deficient.
In order to address this 44-unit obligation, Plainsboro will work with the Middlesex County Home Improvement Program, as well as doing outreach to the owners of existing units who may be able to make use of the rehabilitation program, Bishop said.
The next part of the plan deals with prior-round obligations. In total for the first two rounds, COAH had calculated that Plainsboro had a 205-unit prior-round obligation.
Plainsboro has already addressed this, with 44 for-sale affordable units at Princeton Meadows, 36 for-sale units at Princeton Crossing, a regional contribution agreement with New Brunswick for 25 units, and 52 rental units at Millstone apartments, for which the township also received bonus credits, Bishop said.
Now, Plainsboro’s growth share through 2018 is projected to be 445 units, Bishop said. However, there is a part of the COAH regulations that details exclusions, a part of which applies directly to Plainsboro. “If you had a nonresidential development that had an agreement in place to address this obligation, you can exclude the market-rate units times four of the affordable units,” Bishop explains. “And Princeton Forrestal Center had an agreement with Plainsboro Township that they had to provide 60 affordable units, and they did through the Millstone apartments. Because of that, that number of 445 for the growth share obligation has been reduced to 385 units.”
In addition, “Plainsboro has been very proactive, and you have surpluses from the prior round obligation that are able to address your growth share obligation,” Bishop added.
Those include 126 family rental units at Wyndhurst that count toward the 385, in addition to eight out of the 60 units at the Millstone apartments that carry over from the prior round. At Princeton Crossing, there are four for-sale units that will also be able to count towards the township’s growth share, Bishop said.
Under the new part of the township’s plan, Plainsboro will be extending controls on 14 family for-sale units approved in Princeton Crossing, which expire between 2014 and 2015, Bishop said. “There is an affordable housing agreement in place with each one of these 14 houses which gives the right to the municipality to extend the control by resolution,” Bishop said. “It’s built right into the agreement. Plainsboro will be exercising that right.”
Also helping Plainsboro to satisfy its affordable housing obligations is the University Medical Center hospital redevelopment area on Route 1 at Plainsboro Road. Officials at the hospital are expecting to have nine assisted living Medicaid bedrooms and possibly 82 independent senior living rental apartments, Bishop said.
Finally, the township will also be able to utilize what is known as the market-to-affordable program, in which a municipality looks at existing houses, whether they are for rent or for sale. If it is a rental complex, officials look into what the market-rate rent would be and what it would cost for controlled rent under COAH regulations. “That difference, you would project out for 30 years and discount it to present value,” Bishop explained.
Plainsboro is looking at possibly 60 of these market-to-affordable rental units. “Plainsboro has over 5,”000 apartment units in town, so there’s a sufficient number of apartments that could possibly be brought down,” Bishop said. An agency could also handle the negotiations with the owners of the rental complexes to do the calculations to see what the difference would be, Bishop added. In this case, Bishop said the township has the potential to earn up to 60 rental bonus credits.
Rounding out the rest of the obligations, there is a special needs home known as SERVE that currently exists in town for which the township could receive four credits for shared living bedrooms. On top of that, Plainsboro is also proposing two four-bedroom group homes in town.
In terms of the township’s spending plan, Plainsboro has a balance of redevelopment fees of approximately $3.2 million, and is projecting another $6.2 million for a total of $9.5 million to cover the township’s affordable housing costs from 2004 to 2018. Of that money, $660,”000 has been allocated to help the township pay for its rehabilitation responsibilities, while $400,”000 is being used for the two four-bedroom group homes. Approximately $3 million is going to be used to cover the market-to-affordable program. COAH requires 30 percent of the funding to go towards affordability and assistance to residents. And 20 percent of the fees collected for the fund can go toward the administration of the affordable housing program, including the preparation of the plan, Bishop said.
After this, Plainsboro will see an excess in funds of about $1.5 million, Bishop said. “Plainsboro has been in very good standing with this,” Bishop commented. “There are many municipalities that have $1 million to $10 million shortfalls” in the plans and programs they are proposing.
