New rules call for more S.B. affordable housing
BY CHRIS MURINO Staff Writer

SOUTH BRUNSWICK- The New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) has released its new rules regarding affordable housing, and the town's politicians are not happy about it.

"The rules establish a need of 115,000 units of affordable housing through 2018," ChrisDonnelly, a spokesman forCOAH, said of the number of units required in New Jersey.

This number has been increased from 52,000 in the previous rules. South Brunswick's number has increased from needing 601 units to needing 1,214, according to Councilman Joe Camarota. Members of the TownshipCouncil expressed their concerns at their workshopmeeting on Jan. 8.

"We need to come up with a real strong comment on why this township is opposed," said Mayor Frank Gambatese. "We need to get on this right away. For a township like us, this is really dramatic. All of our plans are out the window."

"This calls for us to grow the physical aspect of our town by 15 to 20 percent," said Councilman Charles Carley.

The increase in requested affordable housing is based on growth sharemethodology, which uses projections of town growth.

"In COAH's Third-Round Rules, municipalities incur affordable housing obligations when local housing units and jobs increase," reads the appendix of the newrules. "We use the most recent and best data available and estimate that future needwill growas it has in the past."

Camarota has a problemwith this.

"These are projections based on projected growth," he said. "Even ifwe don't growthat much, we're still responsible for this order."

According to a report by the National Center for Neighborhood & Brownfields Redevelopment for COAH, New Jersey has 21 percent, or 1.03million acres, of vacant land that can be used for residential and nonresidential development.

"There is clearly sufficient vacant land, future development capacity and redevelopment potential to support the state's projected growth in population, households and employmentwell beyond 2018," according to the report.

"COAH's new rules allow towns to increase development fees," Donnelly said.

According to the rules, the towns can collect affordable housing trust funds,which include increasing development fees aswell as "contributions from developers…, proceeds from the sale of affordable units … and enforcement fines and application fees."

However, Camarota said COAH is not doing a very good job of enforcing that all towns submit to their rules. He said that many towns simply ignore the rules outright, hoping they will just go away.

"They should be enforced," Camarota said. "I don't think this is fair."

Many council members also expressed disappointment that they should be punished for following the rules.

"We always play by the rules and you get punished for playing by the rules," said Councilman ChrisKillmurray. "This iswhat this says tome."

Yet Donnelly believes there are benefits to participating in COAH.

"Participation in the COAH process can protect towns from builder's remedy lawsuits," he said. "All municipalities in the state are subject to growth share obligations, and COAH is always willing to work with any municipality on this process to ensure that they meet their affordable housing requirements."

The councilwas also confused aboutwhat the state wants fromthem.

"With all the anti-sprawl rules, it's a real dilemma,"Camarota said. "Howdo you handle both? You can't. It's impossible."

"Sooner or later, all the townships may enter a lawsuit against the state ofNewJersey, because that's the only way we can get out of this," Gambatese said.

Camarota said the council will meet this week to discuss the issue.

"We need … to let the state know what they're saying here won't work," Camarota said. "Everyone is up in arms about this."

Lastweek, a state appeals court gave the state six extramonths to come up with their final rules for affordable housing.