CEDAR GROVE, NJ -- The Cedar Grove Township Council is taking direct issue with a bill recently passed in Trenton.
The Township Council approved a resolution at its meeting on Monday, March 4 to condemn the bill recently passed by the New Jersey Legislature as it relates to the most recent round of Affordable Housing obligations coming due in 2025.
On Feb. 12, the New Jersey General Assembly passed Assembly Bill No. 4Aca by a vote of 51 in favor and 28 opposed -- with Cedar Grove’s legislative representatives in the General Assembly, Assemblymen Al Barlas (R) and Chris DePhillips (R), voting "no" in opposition to the bill.
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Cedar Grove's resolution contends that the new bill "imposes unmanageable and impractical requirements for townships to meet the arbitrary, capricious, and unjustifiable affordable housing obligations set forth to achieve compliance."
The new state bill maintains the following:
The Council on Affordable Housing is abolished;
The Department of Community Affairs will calculate municipal obligations on 40% of population growth for qualifying for affordable housing based off of the following provision:
Projected household change for a 10-year-round in a region shall be estimated by establishing the household change experienced in the region between the most recent federal decennial census, and the second most recent federal decennial census. This household change, if positive, shall be divided by 2.5 to estimate the number of low- and moderate-income homes needed to address low- and moderate-income household change in the region, and to determine the regional prospective need for a 10-year-round of low- and moderate-income housing obligations. If household change is zero or negative, the number of low- and moderate-income homes needed to address low- and moderate-income household change in the region and the regional prospective need shall be zero
Provides municipalities with immunity to builder’s remedy lawsuits but revokes immunity if deadlines are not met or if it is determined a municipality is not committed to complying with the obligation, including not updating its public website;
Residents and third parties can challenge plans in a newly created Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program which will certify administrative agents and municipal housing liaisons to monitor compliance and bring a challenge before a county-level housing judge to determine compliance;
Towns out of compliance would pay a fine of an unspecified amount
Challenged plans must be revised and adopted by December 31, 2025 and March 16, 2026, respectively; failure to do so would allow builder’s remedy lawsuits be filed unless the municipality can prove it missed the deadline due to factors out of its control;
The establishment of two boundaries for the entire northern part of the State where three special masters will oversee all municipalities within the designated areas.
Using three factors to determine need: Equalized Nonresidential Valuation Factor; Income Capacity Factor; and the municipality Land Capacity Factor. Each factor to be weight equally;
Provides a cap on bonus credits for age-restricted housing.
According to the Cedar Grove Township Council, "(The) New Jersey Legislature abdicated their responsibility to take affordable housing administration out of the courts and restore the obligation of ensuring compliance to the elected representatives of the towns that must meet this unjustifiable mandate; and ... the New Jersey Legislature acted with wanton disregard for the impact on services that such unmanageable mandates will impose on infrastructure, schools, and emergency services."
The Cedar Grove Township Council "stands united in opposition to the unmanageable and impractical requirements set forth by A4Aca."
Cedar Grove Township Manager Joe Zichelli said at the March 4 meeting, "The builder's remedy lawsuits will destroy a municipality. Losing your builder's remedy immunity takes all control away from a municipality."
The builder's remedy is a legal mechanism that is used to facilitate the construction of low-income housing when a town doesn't comply with housing development laws. The builder's remedy enables developers to circumvent local zoning laws and begin construction faster.
"Can a town (that) is trying but not succeeding lose their immunity? It's possible," Cedar Grove Township Attorney Matthew Giaccobe said on Monday.
"There are townships that are willfully trying to delay," Cedar Grove Councilman Joseph Maceri said, "but the townships that in good faith in the past have tried to follow the law, now it's irrelevant, because they've created a (situation in which) you have a deadline, (and if) you don't meet that deadline you lose your immunity, and it's over. There's no flexibility, it appears, for towns like ours that have always worked in good faith to try to fully comply."