Hardyston council and planners meet jointly over COAH

Hardyston - With a state deadline bearing down, the Hardyston Township Council and Planning board have taken the extraordinary step of holding joint sessions to complete a plan to meet mandated obligations to provide low- and moderate-income housing. The N.J. Supreme Court's Mt. Laurel decision (see sidebar on page 6) ruled that every community in the state must provide its share of affordable housing. Towns can meet the requirements of the decision by either paying another town to build the housing or providing for the units in their own borders. They can be built either by developers or by the town itself, using money paid by developers into a trust fund. The law is administered by the Coalition on Affordable Housing, better known by its acronym, COAH. Mandates are being phased in, and towns are now facing Round Three obligations. Those obligations were discussed by the council and planning board on Aug. 11. A second meeting is on the calendar for Sept. 8, and a public hearing will be held in late October or early November. The most recent analysis of Hardyston demographics has the township owing 256 COAH units over the next ten years if development continues at the rate a new study projects. If development is less than projected, Hardyston's COAH obligation will decrease proportionately. The study was conducted by community-planning consultants Hyer, Gruel and Associates of New Brunswick and is a COAH requirement. The planning board and council have a heavy task ahead. A revised master plan that includes COAH-related information is due in two months, and a field report by Dec. 15. Under Round Three rules, residential development fees have been increased from 0.5 percent percent to a maximum of one percent, and fees for nonresidential development have been raised to a maximum of two percent. The builder's fees go into a separate interest-bearing trust fund to be used to build the low- and moderate-income housing mandated by COAH. Township manager Marianne Smith said that normally COAH would be a planning-board function, but because os time constraints and the magnitude of the task, the council and the board will work together to determine the best way for Hardyston to meet its obligations. "COAH is here and we have to do our share," Smith said. "Housing is becoming over-the-top unaffordable, and COAH will be a mechanism that will allow good, hard-working people - maybe our own children - to buy a house for around $150,000." Today, Hardyston has a small population that might qualify for COAH. Of the approximately 6,171 township residents, 280 live in poverty. Of this group, most are between 18 and 65 years old, and only 35 persons are over 65. When COAH houses become available in a community, they generally go by priority to families already living there. "We've done the demographics, and gotten the numbers to do the growth projections," said consultant Colleen Fitzgerald. "Now we need to do a zoning analysis to show COAH where the affordable housing can go. The next step is getting the strategies and figuring out the actual plan." There are a number of strategies to consider. For instance, a municipality may fulfill its COAH obligations through a vehicle called an RCA, or Regional Contribution Agreement. Such an agreement would allow Hardyston to pay $35,000 per unit to transfer up to 50 percent of its fair-share housing requirement to another municipality. But even this method of transferring COAH units has restrictions. For example, no more than 50 percent of the 50 percent transferred, or 25 percent of the total, can be applied to age-restricted housing. Councilmen and planners put this option at the top of their list to consider, agreeing that from a fiscal and economic perspective, it probably would be a good idea to send the money out of town. Other methods include providing "alternative living arrangements," such as facilities for the homeless, residential health care facilities, and group homes for the disabled and mentally ill. Also acceptable are assisted living facilities, apartments, and ECHO (Elder Cottage Housing Opportunities) units. But even housing units of this kind have associated restriction, and communities aren't allowed to exceed the specified number COAH allows. A buy-down program also is an option. In such a program, a municipality may subsidize the cost of a for-sale unit for a low- or moderate-income buyer. Under the new rules, one "affordable" unit must be provided for every eight "market units" for residential units, and one affordable unit for every 25 hypothetical jobs created for commercial development. The number of jobs theoretically created is governed by the square footage and the use of the commercial building. To make sure municipalities are adhering to the rules, COAH audits them every three years, to match the growth-share obligation to the actual number of housing units produced.