Middletown Withdraws from Unfair Affordable Housing Proceedings

MIDDLETOWN, NJ – Last week the Middletown Township Committee directed its attorneys to withdraw from court proceedings that commenced in July 2015 to address unrealistic affordable housing obligations imposed upon municipalities throughout New Jersey by the Supreme Court.  On Wednesday, July 17, 2019, the Township Attorney applied for an Order of Dismissal, which was entered by the Hon. Jamie S. Perri on July 19, 2019.

As a result of the demise of the New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing (“COAH”), municipalities have been subjected to proceedings in Superior Court to address ongoing and ever-increasing demands by the Fair Share Housing Center (“FSHC”) to develop more high density affordable housing. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hazlet Mayor Takes Affordable Housing Plan Off The Agenda

Hazlet Mayor Scott Aagre and former Senator Joe Kyillos

Hazlet Mayor Scott Aagre posted the following message on the Township’s website this afternoon:

The Hazlet Township Committee has rigorously been fighting a builder’s remedy lawsuit filed by a developer and the State regarding an acceptable compliance plan to meet the township’s housing requirements. Read the rest of this entry »

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TAXPAYER NIGHTMARE: N.J. High Court Paves Way for Construction of 100k+ Affordable Housing Units

The New Jersey Supreme Court has once again usurped the legislature and stepped into the realm of public policy today, Save Jerseyans, creating a mandate that will mean big tax increases for many N.J. towns. At issue was whether New Jersey municipalities have an obligation to construct houses not built during the so-called “gap period,” a… Read the rest of this entry »

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O’SCANLON INTRODUCES SANDY HOUSING LEGISLATION

New bill reauthorizes regional contribution agreements for Sandy affected counties

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon will introduce new legislation tomorrow that reauthorizes regional contribution agreements (RCAs) between towns in the nine most Superstorm Sandy-impacted counties. These agreements will permit the transfer of housing units to count towards a recipient municipality’s fair share obligation. These types of agreements were originally permitted under the Coalition On Affordable Housing where one town could transfer a portion of its affordable housing obligation to another. RCAs were banned in 2008.

“I’ve always said that the law banning RCAs was shortsighted,” explained O’Scanlon.  “I want to go on record saying I disagree with this far reaching court-mandated housing scheme.  But if we have to have it, there should be a mix of options for municipalities to deal with it.  “Mayor John Hornik of Marlboro recently revived the discussion of RCAs in relation to those areas affected by Sandy. We have seized on that common ground and developed legislation reauthorizing RCAs to help facilitate the construction, reconstruction or rehabilitation of housing in areas hardest hit by Sandy.  We can finally put these funds to work creating affordable housing and helping towns recover from the storm at the same time.  I look forward to working with Mayor Hornik on this as we work to persuade the legislative leadership to join the effort.”

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Middletown Calls On Christie, Legislature To Allow Affordable Housing Funds To Assist Sandy Impacted Homeowners

Citing the shortage of federal and state funds available to assist Superstorm Sandy impacted homeowners in rebuilding their homes, the Middletown Township Committtee this week joined Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik and Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon in calling on the state legislature and Governor Chris Christie to put the more than $100 million in Affordable Housing Funds that are sitting dormant to work.

With a unanimous 5-0 vote, the committee passed a resolution on Monday, April 21, calling for legislation that would reinstate Regional Contribution Agreements (RCAs) “for the limited purpose of getting victims of Superstorm Sandy back in their homes during this time of need.”

RCAs were created in the original 1985 Fair Housing Act whereby towns with funds raised from developer fees or through bonding could transfer up to half of those funds to another community for the purpose of building affordable housing as required by the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mt. Laurel decision.

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O’Scanlon: Reinstate Regional Contribution Agreements To Help Sandy Victims

Assemblyman urges Bayshore residents to ask Senate President Sweeney join the bi-partisan effort

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, issued a statement today welcoming Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik’s support of Regional Contribution Agreements (RCA) for use in getting Sandy victims back into their homes, and called upon residents of his Bayshore district to question Senate President Sweeney the use of Affordable Housing Funds when Sweeney visits the district for his Town Hall meeting in Keansburg on Thursday afternoon.

“Recently, Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornik suggested that RCAs could be used by towns to help their neighbors continue to rebuild in the devastating wake of Sandy,” O’Scanlon said, “My Republican colleagues and I have been calling for the use of RCAs for years and I am excited to hear that Mayor Hornik is on board. When the Democrat leadership in Trenton killed the RCA program it was bad, short sighted policy that many of us knew would come back to bite us. Its flaws are now magnified by the plight of Sandy victims as many towns struggle with the economic burdening of rebuilding.

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Hornik: COAH funds should be used to help Sandy Victims

By Mayor Jonathan Hornik, Marlboro Township

Forgotten among the latest round of finger-pointing and investigations regarding the use of Superstorm Sandy funds are displaced low and moderate-income homeowners and renters who need help. This immediate and pressing need, combined with resources available from communities like Marlboro Township, in the form of affordable housing trust funds, present a unique opportunity for regional cooperation. Now all we need is some action in Trenton.

The funds, collected from developer fees, now totaling at least $180 million state-wide (and which the State has been trying to take for its own budget problems), are to be used to meet the need for affordable housing under the Supreme Court’s Mt. Laurel rulings. Those cases decreed that every town has an obligation to provide for its region’s need for affordable housing. We have long argued that the doctrine should be meaningfully applied – let’s build the housing where the need is the greatest.

Yet to this day the planners in Trenton wrangle over rules to determine how towns must address their affordable housing, going on 15 years now, when it should be painfully obvious that the need for our community (and our region) is staring us in the face. Current state laws prohibit Marlboro from helping those communities who are in desperate need for housing assistance after Sandy.  There is no mechanism for Marlboro to spend its trust funds for the benefit of, for example, Union Beach or the Highlands, because there are no rules that allow us to do so. We can’t fulfill a fundamental tenet of Mt. Laurel, and help our neighbors because the authority to do so isn’t there. And why not?

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Joe Irace’s December Comments On COAH

Transcript from statement read at the Dec. 5, 2012 Oceanport Borough Council meeting by Councilman Joseph Irace:

Oceanport Councilman Joe Irace

Tonight we are being “asked” under court order, to approve an affordable housing plan for the Borough of Oceanport for COAH Round 2.  The entire debate on Affordable Housing is one that I have trouble understanding intellectually, socially and fiscally.  While we all embrace the idea of lower priced homes, where newly married couples and our aging population can remain in our town for now and years to come, I have a hard time accepting the fact that the Courts, and not our legislature, have the ability to mandate how many homes and the type of homes that a municipality must provide.  This is especially troublesome to me because the rest of the town bears the tax burden of this unfunded judicial mandate.

This COAH legislation and the resulting judicial decisions have been a social planning experiment gone awry from the very beginning.  The confusing and often contradictory laws and court rulings arising from Rounds 1 and 2 of COAH have led to the Borough being sued for lack of compliance and have cost our residents hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.  The entire system is broken and needs to be fixed.

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NJ Supreme Court Overturns Affordable Housing Rules, Puts COAH on Tight Deadline

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N.J. Supreme Court to issue major affordable housing decision

N.J. Supreme Court to issue major affordable housing decision (via NJ.com)

Keith A. Muccilli/For The Star-Ledger TRENTON — The state Supreme Court will hand down a long-awaited decision today on how many affordable-housing units New Jersey’s towns must provide for their lowest-income residents. At issue, again, is the…

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