Red Bank zones for affordable housing

The Red Bank Borough Council adopted an ordinance Sept. 28, approving a new overlay zone for multiunit residential development and redevelopment in an effort to resolve issues with the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).

The ordinance was passed by a unanimous vote despite protests by some of the crowd that packed council chambers.

Resident Steve Fitzpatrick asked the council to table the ordinance because a map available to the public was not clear, he said.

Mayor Pasquale Menna rejected the request, saying the map has been available for some time.

Menna suggested the matter be taken up at a special meeting yesterday, but both Councilman Michael DuPont and Borough Attorney Thomas Hall argued against that move. Hall said such a delay could incur a penalty from the state Council on Affordable Housing and the Fair Share Housing Center (FSHC).

The Planning Board previously approved the ordinance at its meeting on Sept. 21. The ordinance, which has also been approved by COAH and the Fair Share Housing Center (FSHC), will lift COAH restraints previously imposed on the borough.

"The newly adopted ordinance requires developers who want to build five or more housing units at a density of six units per acre or more to set aside 20 percent of their units for low- to moderate-income buyers," said Mayor Pasquale Menna at the Planning Board meeting.

In 2008, the FSHC petitioned COAH for the imposition of sanctions against the borough for failing to implement a 20 percent set-aside for affordable housing as a condition of its continued eligibility for the vacant land adjustment that had been in existence since COAH's certification of the borough's first-round fair share obligation in 1987, Borough Attorney Thomas Hall explained in a letter to the Planning Board dated Sept. 21.

"The borough opposed the FSHC's petition, arguing that over the course of its prior three certifications of the borough's Fair Share Plan and evaluation of the borough's compliance with those plans in 1987, 1997 and 2004, COAH never imposed upon, or informed the borough of a need to enact a 20 percent set-aside in any part of the municipality," said Hall.

COAH rejected the borough's argument, and last December it imposed a temporary scarce resource restraint on the borough.

Under these conditions, the borough was restrained from approving applications for development. COAH said the scarce resource restraint would be lifted upon passage of an appropriate ordinance.

At the Planning Board meeting, Councilwoman Sharon Lee objected to many of the designated affordable housing zones, which are located on the borough's west side.

"I want to be sure that we don't have a lot of crazy density on the west side," Lee said.

Menna, Borough Administrator and Planning Board member Stanley Sickels, and Planning Board Vice Chairman Daniel Mancuso told Lee that the map reflects areas where vacant or re-developable land exists, and that failing to include it would be contrary to the aims of promoting the creation of affordable homes.

Board members told Lee that the east side has little developable real estate, since the majority of the borough's affordable housing has already been built there in the form of apartment complexes built decades ago.

Menna said it is unlikely that existing single-family homes on the East Side would be demolished to make way for multifamily affordable housing.

The overlay zone "removes the other areas of town because those areas don't have any reasonable likelihood of being developed in this way. There are properties on the west side that are available," Menna said.

Later, Lee said that while she remains concerned that single-family homes on the west side would be lost, she said she understood the rationale for the zone's outlines.

"We really want to encourage affordable housing, but we don't want to encourage it to the point where we don't have new single family housing," Lee said.

Menna said that under the terms of a pending settlement with COAH, the borough won't give developers bonus units in excess of what's permitted in the zone, adding that "this town has nothing to be ashamed of. We have nothing to apologize for."

"They [COAH] didn't go after adjoining municipalities, yet they went after Red Bank," Sickels said.