Background
Affordable Housing obligations have been forced upon all the municipalities in New Jersey through a series of controversial state superior court decisions known as the Mount Laurel doctrine. In essence, the decision mandates that we use our local zoning powers in an “affirmative manner” to provide “realistic opportunities” for the production of low and moderate income housing. Essentially the State has assigned to West Amwell an “Obligation” which we must meet. Setting aside the philosophical argument for or against forced altruism, the settled law requires our participation. Click here to access the document Affordable Housing at a Glance from the the Township’s website.
Just Write a Check
Assuming that we felt particularly altruistic (and flush with cash) we could theoretically build modest houses and either rent or sell them to the qualified. To put this into perspective, let us work through a quick and dirty calculation. Our “obligation” is 117 units. Vacant land suitable for building a single family home would be about $200,000 (5 acres). A modest home of 1,600 square feet (at $250 per square foot) would be $400,000. Well, septic, and sitework might be $75,000 bringing the total cost per home of $675,000. Now multiply that by 117 for a grand total of $78,975,000 outlay. The total value of all the real estate in West Amwell is on the order of $650,000,000 which is comprised of approximately 1200 homes validating the thought experiment. This is obviously not a path we would entertain.
The Builder’s Remedy
The approach taken by many municipalities is to let a builder construct market rate housing along with affordable housing at a rate of around 20 percent affordable to market rate. In our case, 117 units would require 585 market rate homes (since 117 is 20 percent of 585). This would mean a 33 percent increase in our housing stock. Fast forward to the next “Round” of affordable housing where we now have 1785 residences. The de-facto “obligation” sought by the court and their advocates has tended to be 10 percent of the total housing stock – which would mean our new “obligation” would be 18 and result in another 90 houses and on it goes.
The Negotiations
How could the courts force us to accommodate 117 units in West Amwell all things considered?
During the last round of negotiations the Affordable Housing Committee along with legal council, planner, and engineer presented irrefutable evidence demonstrating the irrationality of the “obligation.”
Following are some of the arguments presented:
- No public transportation infrastructure
- Limited local employment since West Amwell is largely a bedroom community
- Limited developable tracts available
- No public sewerage
- No public water – save for Music Mountain
- Severely restrictive and expensive septic requirements
- Deep wells are required
- 50 percent of the Township is already preserved land
- Stream corridor and wetlands limitations
The Solution
In spite of these self-evident arguments, West Amwell entered into an agreement with the Fair Share Housing Center (a non-profit that sued most municipalities). This agreement, while non ideal, satisfied the plaintiff. It can be accessed here.
Part and parcel to this settlement we needed to establish some form of plan to accommodate as many of the affordable units as possible. To this end, we engaged a consultant with expertise in this area. This resulted in the establishment of a Redevelopment Zone along route 179 which can be seen here.
Redevelopment zones provide a more flexible framework than normally dictated by the Municipal Land Use Law and local zoning. This provided us the tools and flexibility we needed to address at least a portion of the irrational affordable housing “obligation.”
The Future
There is really no telling what the wizards of smart in Trenton might be cooking up for us. What we must do is to push back as much as possible to ensure that we are not subjected to a “builders remedy” with the concomitant over-development. This effort is largely unseen due to the confidential legal nature and again is one of the reasons why we maintain the ability to go into closed session at Township Committee meetings. We are beset on all sides by developers working in conjunction with the state and non-governmental organizations to build out the suburban and rural areas – and at the same time ignoring the urban areas where there is existing housing stock ripe for rehabilitation and abundant infrastructure.