After having recently filed a motion with the state Council on Affordable Housing seeking to resubmit their objection to the township’s housing element and fair share plan, Walden Woods residents urged township officials to meet with them to try to resolve the issue.
Township officials, however, say are continuing to work with COAH to try to “moderate” the restrictions to give some relief to the residents and suggested that if the residents had ideas for a solution that would allow the township to keep its credits, that they should submit the information to the township. But no date was set for a meeting between the two parties.
The residents, who addressed the Township Council during its August 31 meeting, have been engaged in a dispute with the township over affordable housing restrictions on their properties. Because the township’s fair share plan is the subject of two objections — Walden Woods is part of the plan because it accounts for part of the township’s affordable housing obligations — and because the residents contacted COAH, officials have said they could not meet with them because the matter was under litigation.
Walden Woods, on Bear Brook Road, was created in the 1990s by a non-profit called Bootstraps. 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. Once the homes were built and occupied, they would fall subject to a 10-year affordable housing restriction. The project was financed by donations, grants, and subsidies from sources as diverse as the United States Department of Agriculture, the Borden Foundation, and Home Depot.
Now, 10 years later, according to homeowners’ deeds, the affordable housing restrictions should be lifted, along with all of the other restrictions that came with the program. The township and the state Council on Affordable Housing, on the other hand, are saying that the properties are subject to the 30-year affordable restrictions until 2028.
The deeds they signed contain a 10-year restriction. However, the deeds also state that homeowners have to comply with local and state law, which means they have to comply with township ordinance, which has 30-year restrictions on their homes, and COAH regulations, West Windsor officials argue. They also say that COAH has ruled, in the meantime, that the 30-year restrictions apply. If the 16 homes in the development were to be designated as market-rate units, the township would have to account for 16 credits elsewhere.
Hehru Brath, the Walden Woods association president, says all the residents are looking for is to get their deeds honored. “We did the work to get to this point,” and the recent impasse in communication toward resolving the issue is “unsettling” to “a lot of the people in this development.” That township officials will not meet with the residents has “added undo pressure to their psyche.”
Evelyn Morales, another Walden Woods resident, said “I just want to ask you for a date so we can meet.” Echoing her concerns was Laurie Miller, who told the council that the community came together to build a community, and now, “we just want our deeds to be recognized and what was written and signed to be recognized.”
Voytek Trela, who along with his wife, Caryn, have been working on the issue and are responsible for filing the motion to COAH, told the council he felt there was an easy solution and that the deeds, with the 10-year restrictions are inviolable. “Letters from politicians and e-mails from state organizations cannot change” what the deeds say, he said. Residents are upset because “communication between the township and us has been cut.”
“Please meet with us so we can resolve this, put it past us, and move on,” he said.
Township Attorney Michael Herbert said during the meeting that the reason township officials have stopped meeting with the Walden Woods residents is because they got COAH involved. He said now COAH and the township have been in talks about the development, and that the township is working to try to moderate the restrictions, which he said COAH has ruled are for 30 years.
“It’s an honest attempt to try to have some moderation,” he told the residents.
The Trelas insisted during the meeting that COAH cannot place restrictions on a deed. Rather, the only jurisdiction it has is over a municipality’s fair share plan, and whether or not the township will get credit for certain units.
“COAH can’t determine how long you get credit; not how long the restrictions are,” said Caryn Trela. “The fact that you need our units does not give you the right to take it. It doesn’t make it legal, it doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t make it defendable.”
