Local affordable housing plans on uncertain footing
BY MARK ROSMAN AND TALI ISRAELI
Staff Writers

An Appellate Court ruling on Jan. 25 that invalidated the state Council on Affordable Housing's (COAH) third-round methodology has left local officials up in the air as they must now wait for the council to recalculate the number of affordable housing units that will have to be provided through 2014.

Area municipalities were in different states of seeking third-round certification from COAH for their individual affordable housing plans.

Richard Cramer, who is Manalapan's municipal planner, said Manalapan officials adopted a third-round affordable housing plan based on the now invalid COAH third-round rules. Manalapan's plan was before COAH seeking certification. Objections had been filed to the plan and mediation was ongoing, Cramer said.

He explained that the court has stayed the certification process and COAH has been given six months to rewrite its third-round rules. There will have to be a new determination made of the number of affordable housing units each town will need. The court also stayed the filing of lawsuits against a town during the time that COAH is writing new third-round rules, he said.

"The ball is back in COAH's court to redo the rules based upon the issues that the court identified as problems," Cramer said.

According to Township Administrator Tom Antus, Freehold Township officials were in the process of developing a plan to meet COAH's third-round affordable housing obligation and were ready to submit the plan for substantive certification. He said the township will put that plan on hold and wait for new criteria to be developed by COAH. At that point, he said, officials will determine how to proceed with meeting the third-round obligation.

Colts Neck Township Administrator Robert Bowden said the municipality has been operating under a judgment of repose, which will be in effect until June. He said the judgment protects the municipality from being sued by developers on affordable housing issues until that time.

A panel that includes members of the Planning Board and the Township Committee, as well as township professionals, has been meeting to determine how to proceed with Colts Neck's third-round COAH obligation after the judgment of repose is no longer in effect, but the Jan. 25 ruling has now put that process in limbo and officials will wait to see the new rules COAH puts in place for the third round before proceeding, Bowden said.

In December 2005 the Marlboro Planning Board and Township Council approved a housing plan that would satisfy the township's second and third round affordable housing obligation. Township officials recently received a report from COAH requesting more information for several of the affordable housing projects named in the plan.

Township professionals have been in the process of addressing those issues and planned to have a response to COAH by the council's Feb. 28 deadline.

Township Planner Jennifer Beahm said the court's decision last week will put Marlboro's second and third round plan on hold until COAH comes up with new regulations for the state's third round affordable housing obligation.

"Now you have all these towns sitting in limbo and you don't even know how to advise them because you don't know what COAH is going to do," Beahm said.

In addition to the court's decision on third-round methodology, the court also declared that the second-round reductions "defy comprehension," said Adam Gordon, a staff attorney with the Fair Share Housing Center, one of the parties to the litigation that was just decided.

As part of COAH's third-round rules, the council reduced the number of second-round affordable housing units needed in some towns for no apparent reason, Gordon said.

Gordon said Marlboro's original second round obligation was 1,056 affordable housing units. The township currently has to meet a second-round obligation of 1,019 units, which Gordon said was one of the smaller reductions COAH made to those municipalities that have not received second round certification. He noted that some towns had arbitrary reductions of about 300 affordable housing units.