Howell continues to work on affordable housing plan
BY LARRY HLAVENKA JR.
Staff Writer

Joe DiBella

HOWELL - The township's 487-unit state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) Housing Plan Element and Fair Share Plan will undergo changes in the coming weeks.

After three hours of deliberation on Nov. 9 the members of the Planning Board agreed to amend the plan under consideration. That means an additional public hearing on the affordable housing plan will be held at the board's Nov. 30 meeting.

Howell officials said the affordable housing plan must be filed with the state by Dec. 13.

The board's key decision on Nov. 9 was to remove the names of three developers from the plan. A majority of the board believed that including the developers' names would bind Howell to the various projects.

Also, as part of the amendments to the plan, municipal officials will discuss the idea of permitting a nonprofit entity to build affordable housing in town.

The board members voted 8-1 in favor of those amendments. Board member Mark Corzine voted against the amendments and said the plan only notes the developments that could happen, not definite approvals.

Following the Nov. 30 public hearing at the Planning Board, the Township Council will need to act on the affordable housing plan at its Dec. 5 meeting in order to get it to the state by the Dec. 13 deadline.

As part of the amendments the following projects were removed from the affordable housing plan:

+ the Volkmann tract in the R-4 zone on Strickland Road, which was slated for a townhouse/condominium project.

+ two age-restricted projects (Boulder Ridge at Howell and South Knolls at Howell). Developers proposed to provide family units in conjunction with those two projects to help Howell satisfy its affordable housing obligation.

The amendments approved by the board pleased resident Sharon Carpen-ter-Migliaccio, who is the former chairwoman of Howell's affordable housing committee.

"Say in five years we don't need the Volkmann property. How do we tell them we don't need your nine units an acre?" she asked.

She said developer's agreements could put the board in the position of having to approve a project at a later date.

Board member Curtis Vislocky agreed with her assessment.

"If you plan for it, if it's put in your plan, [developers] are going to build it and then we're stuck funding the schools, the roads and everything else," he said.

Instead, as Mayor Joseph DiBella, who sits on the board, said, officials will need to find alternative agreements and nonprofit organizations that would be interested in building affordable housing in Howell.

Affordable housing is defined by COAH as housing that is sold or rented at below market prices to people whose income meets regional guidelines established by the state.

DiBella cautioned the board that there is no perfect solution to the issue of affordable housing.

"We have to come to understand that someone is going to come here and say, 'why did you pick where I live?' " he said, asking that the board support the council and Township Manager Thomas Czerniecki when and if any problems do arise.

DiBella said permitting high-density housing projects to be built may have an impact of officials' efforts to retain Howell's rural character.

To those displeased with COAH requirements in general, like board member Warren Curry who said, "It occurs to me that COAH should get out of town," the board's special COAH attorney, Santina M. Bombaci, said there is still an alternative.

"You don't have to be COAH certified and you can let the big builders come in and put in 10 to 15 units an acre," Bombaci said, noting that officials would not want that scenario to occur.

Resident Don Smith expressed a disliked for the entire process.

"I have never been a fan of COAH and I think the only persons that benefit are the developers," Smith said. "Our governing body is negotiating with a gun to its head."

Aside from the amendments, township planner Charles Newcomb also discussed other components of the plan, such as the regional contribution agreements (RCA).

An RCA allows a municipality to transfer up to 50 percent of its affordable housing requirement to another municipality in the region. Newcomb said Howell has been in contact with Keyport and Lakewood about establishing an RCA.

The maximum number of affordable housing units Howell may transfer out of the township is 238. Newcomb said the cost to transfer affordable housing out of town could be $45,000 per unit.

Another aspect of the affordable housing plan, two developers who have objected to it - AST, Sunnyside Road, LLC, and Elon Associates, LLC - were also discussed.

Bombaci said, "the AST and Elon figures [in the plan] are incorrect ... this is not the final number of units."

Furthermore, Planning Board Chair-man Paul Schneider said that since AST has not executed its agreement with Howell, any discussion regarding the project was not to be entertained in front of the board.

AST sought municipal permission to build 245 age-restricted units on the site of the Cutler-Rubenstein egg farm on Route 9 north. In September 2005, the Planning Board recommended that the Township Council not rezone the 31-acre parcel. The rezoning would have allowed AST to build the apartments on the site. That decision resulted in litigation filed by the developer.

As for Elon Associates, the township has entered into a verbal settlement resolution with that developer which offered 240 age-restricted units during past mediation.

Elon Associates had previously filed complaints regarding the zoning of its property on the northeast corner of Route 524 and Yellowbrook Road.

Carpenter-Migliaccio also suggested revamping the township's affordable housing ordinance to force developers to build affordable housing units within their projects.

Newcomb said the Planning Board has tried to do that.

Recently, a 58-home Toll Brothers project at Route 524 and Fairfield Road was approved by the board with a provision for six affordable housing units to be built within the development.

COAH has been in existence since the 1980s and has previously had two rounds of affordable housing obligations for developing municipalities. Newcomb explained why Howell must enter COAH's third round of affordable housing requirements.

As noted in the plan, "third round rules adopt a new 'growth share' methodology ... [of] one new affordable housing unit for every eight market-rate homes that are built or for every 25 new jobs" created in the municipality.

Howell's growth share obligation for 2004-14 is calculated at 438 units, with an additional 49 units from previous round two obligations or housing rehabilitation commitments, for a total of 487 units.

Howell officials estimate the town will receive a credit of 119 units from age-restricted housing projects which, along with RCAs, will satisfy the majority of the affordable housing requirements.