T.F. affordable housing quota would triple
BY JENNA O'DONNELL Staff Writer

TINTON FALLS- With its affordable housing obligation tripled, borough officials have submitted comments to the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) regarding revised rules which have increased obligations.

Paul Gleitz and Andy Bayer, the consultants hired by the borough to prepare the comments, addressed borough officials during the workshop portion of the March 18 Borough Council meeting.

"The proposed rules will have a drastic effect on most municipalities, including Tinton Falls, and the overall affordable housing obligation has increased dramatically," Bayer told council.

Gleitz explained the comments that he would submit on behalf of the borough to object to the rules which he characterized as "municipality unfriendly."

"The overall point is that your affordable housing obligation under the old third-round rules was 178 [units] and your obligation in the proposed rule is 610, so it's tripled," Gleitz said. "It's dramatic and you're not alone, this is statewide. The statewide numbers went from 52,000 affordable housing units to 115,000 units and COAH has pushed most of those units in areas where they see growth opportunity."

Gleitz added that there are many areas in the county that are fully developed, which caused boroughs such as Tinton Falls to take a bigger hit as far as the revised obligations.

"Hopefully they'll make some adjustments to the rules," Gleitz said. "I think the League of Municipalities is taking a pretty strong position against the rules- I know they're contemplating a lawsuit."

The comments were due to COAH on March 22, according to Gleitz. Additionally, COAH has already gotten two extensions to the deadline to adopt the rules and is now under a court order to do so by June 22.

Gleitz added that Mayor Peter Maclearie and Borough Administrator Bryan Dempsey had asked that he and Bayer present their comments to council because of the drastic impact that the new rules would have on the borough.

"I think to the extent that you get your objections on the record, hopefully COAH will take this along with all the other municipal comments … to somehow adjust some of this to make it less burdensome to municipalities," Gleitz said.

After applying the borough's existing credits to the obligation, Bayer said that he and Gleitz had figured that the borough would need 346 units of affordable housing to meet the new obligation.

"We're objecting to the rules on a number of lines throughout," Bayer said.

One objection raised by the consultants was the method that COAH used to create the new numbers, which rely on U. S. Department of Labor statistics rather than tax records and zoning rules.

Bayer called the affordable housing obligation "completely out of line."

"We're attacking the validity of the amount of growth that they are trying to project both locally and statewide," he said.

Councilman Gary Baldwin raised the question of what would happen if no planner or developer wanted to build the affordable housing units mandated by COAH.

"That's our point," Gleitz responded.

"As soon as these rules are adopted in their current state, regardless of your objection, the fundamental decision you're going to have to make is do you want to plan [to build the units]?" said Bayer.

Bayer speculated that if the borough decided not to plan, it could potentially be subject to a builder's remedy lawsuit.

Having submitted the comments, the borough will have to wait to see if COAH makes any alterations to the third-round obligations.

"We think ultimately it may be modified," Gleitz said. "But COAH will adopt these rules."

Under New Jersey law, municipalities must provide their fair share of low- and moderate-income housing.

New council on Affordable Housing round-three rules state that for every five new residential units built by a developer, one must be designated affordable housing. Additionally one unit of housing is required for every 15 jobs created in a municipality.