Middletown gives update on new COAH rules BY JAMIE ROMM Staff Writer MIDDLETOWN - On March 6, the Township Committee and the Planning Board held a joint meeting at the Middletown Arts Center to discuss the township's affordable housing issues. Township Planner Anthony Mercantante and special Mount Laurel counsel Jeffrey Surenian spoke about the revised affordable housing rules issued by the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). "We are going to look at the state's housing regulations. Everyone, I'm sure, is in agreement with and has read in the papers about the turmoil generally referred to as third-round COAH regulations," saud Mercantante. Affordable housing obligations are the result of a 1983 New Jersey Supreme Court decision that mandated municipalities take steps to provide their fair share of low- and moderate-income housing. Affordable housing is defined by the state as housing that can be bought or rentedwith 30 percent or less of a person's income. Round one of COAH's fair housing plan focused on creating reasonable opportunities for affordable housing through zoning ordinances. The second round focused on the rehabilitation of existing housing stock. The round-three rules released in 2003 require that for every eight new residential units built and sold at market value, one must be marketed as affordable housing. Under the new rules, one in every five must be affordable. The goal of the third-round regulations was 53,000 affordable housing units in the state by 2018. COAH is now proposing that the state have 115,000 affordable units by 2018. Mercantante said that the new regulations would take effect on June 2 and that Middletown is expecting the regulations to be challenged. The purpose of the meeting was to bring members of the committee and board up to date on COAH regulations "It's very, very complicated stuff," Mercantante said. " There are things that even we don't get and we pretty much know the stuff and [it] involves a lot of questions." Surenian was very cricital of the current regulations. "A disaster is not an overstatement," he said. "Basically what happened is that COAH went back to the drawing board and they came up with a set of regulations that by and large are just unworkable." Surenian said that COAH has radically increased the affordable housing obligation of most towns. Under current state regulations, for every eight houses sold at market value in a municipality, one must be affordable housing. Under the new rules, one in five must be affordable. Surenian said that the rules also double the value of a Regional Contribution Agreement (RCA) from $35,000 to $70,000. According toMercantante,Middletown uses RCAs to avoid over development in the township. An RCA is an agreement between two municipalities in which one town pays another town a per-unit fee to assume a portion of its affordable housing obligation mandated by COAH. Under an RCA, a sending community may transfer up to half of its share of affordable housing units to a receiving community within the same housing region. Middletown currently has RCAs with Long Branch, Red Bank andAsbury Park. Middletown has sent$12.1 million in RCAs to other municipalities to handle 649 of its affordable housing credits that would otherwise have been built in the township. Surenian said that the Legislature is currently working to stop the use of RCAs so that municipalities will have to build more units within their borders. "What COAH is currently doing by raising the price of RCAs is trying to get municipalities to stop using {RCAs} because they cost so much," he said. "By doing so they are trying to completely abolish the use of RCAs." Mercantante pointed out that some critics of RCAs feel they are used to circumvent the obligation to provide affordable housing. "RCAs are not a loophole but they are part of law,"Mercantante said. "Aloophole is a way around a law, we are following what we are given." He said that less than half of the municipalities in the state in the past met or exceeded the rounds one and two of regulations set by COAH while Middletown has met them. Currently, Middletown has 1,278 households on the waiting list for affordable housing. On the list, 1,056 applicants live in Monmouth County, 70 in Mercer County, 48 in Middlesex County, with the rest residing in counties throughout the state as well as in other states including New York, Florida and North Carolina. Of the 1,278 waiting for affordable housing, 182 live in Middletown. One affordable housing applicant is listed as homeless. Demographic data distributed at the meeting shows what applicants living in Middletown do for a living and their total household income. Applicants range from people working at Dunkin' Donuts who have a three-person household and total income of $13,000, to a two-person household with a total income of $39,568 with a wage earner working at Riverview Medical Center, Red Bank. Mercantante said that he is proud of the affordable housing options in the municipality that include homes in Beacon Place, Regency Park and Park Avenue. "Our affordable housing options are very nice places to live," Mercantante said. "In some communities, people look down and may be embarrassed by seeing these homes, but here in Middletown these are really nice developments." Mercantante said that what might happen when the new rules go into effect on June 3 is that there will probably be lawsuits filed challenging the rules. "None of us know what is going to happen," Mercantante said. "My position is that if you are going to take a legal standpoint it would be [that] we should ask for a stay," Mercantante said. "I think most municipalities since they are asked to go through this process for the second time … and for them to go through all this for a set of regulations that are already being challenged and will very likely once again be changed." Deputy Mayor Pamela Brightbill said township officials are not against affordable housing but against the third-round rules. "There is a very distinct difference between the two," Brightbill said. "People call me and come up to me on a regular basis about this and I think I speak for most of us at the table that this is a crazy, ridiculous plan and we all agree that we are proud of what we have done before." Scharfenberger said eliminating RCAs would be devastating to Middletown as there is little room for more housing. "Every time I drive by Harmony Road it's like a kick in the gut," Scharfenberger said. "Middletown has such an enormous obligation that we would be cutting into so much open space." Mercantante said that he was proud of what Middletown has done in meeting its obligations in the past. "There is nothing more thrilling to me than giving a family affordable housing," Mercantante said. "We are proud of what of what we do."