A panel of Appellate Division judges heard arguments Monday on whether New Jersey’s municipalities must zone for the many thousands of affordable housing units that were not approved between 1999 and 2015. David O’Reilly, Inquirer Read more
Council women Susan Knudsen explains the Route 17 housing issue and process:
“All, Just my brief explanation of the issue being discussed. First, please understand I was absent from the 4/19 PB meeting due to an emergency medical matter; however, I can offer background info, process moving forward and meeting details as confirmed by our PB secretary to ensure the accuracy of my comments specific to the 4/19 meeting.
As required by law the planning board must prepare and submit a Housing Element Plan. Included in the preliminary discussions were several acres along the route 17 corridor and West Saddle River Road. Those details include low density townhouses, or some type of housing, along with the required small % set aside for affordable housing. Tremendous efforts are being made to protect and enhance the surrounding residential neighborhood by including very specific requirements to be applied to any future development.
There has been no public hearing and the approval on 4/19 was simply for our Village planner to continue his work on the Housing Element. Any public Hearing will require proper public notice as required by law. That has not occurred and there has been no formal (legal) adoption of the Housing Element. The Public Hearing will be scheduled for mid-May, or possibly later, mindful of the timing pursuant to a judge’s order requiring PB Housing Element and Fair Share Housing Plan be submitted by the 6/30/16 deadline.. Any zoning change is subject to Village Council approval and adoption via ordinance requiring additional public hearing(s). The Housing Element will include several other locations in different areas throughout the Village – the entire process is ongoing.
The reporter’s reference to “developer” presumably suggests any future development would be required to follow the zoning regulations including height, setback, buffers, density, etc. Presently, to my knowledge, there’s no developer involved in any of the subject properties in the Housing Element.
To be included in future PB/VC updates please email [email protected]. Also, I encourage residents to check the Village website for meeting and agenda info. Again, there has been no public hearing on this and no changes have been adopted for this acreage or the other locations. Because I was absent for the 4/19 meeting my VC report on this was delayed and will be part of my next VC report.”
Ridgewood Nj, Ridgewood is not the only town have both concerns and difficulties with the both the placement and quantity of court mandated affordable housing in the Village. The ongoing battle over how much court-ordered housing should be built in each municipality has grown particularly contentious in Bergen County, where the main issue is: Where does it go ?
While housing advocates, developers and even some local officials like our council majority in Ridgewood have what they think is an answer ; sites of all those aged, often vacant storefronts and corporate buildings that didn’t make it. Developers often call these “stranded assets”.
The answer in Ridgewood is derelict sites in the Central Business District that can hold multi purpose development . This site the old “Town Garage” , Brogan and Ken smith as well as 599 South Maple offer developers and opportunity to meet affordable housing requirements along with other development needs .
While hundreds of municipalities are in court fighting proposed housing quotas which officials claim ignore the realities of the housing market and the pressing lack of vacant land as well as the quality of life and character of the town effected.
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
RIDGEWOOD – The village’s planning board met Wednesday night in the hopes of coming to decisions in regards to pressing matters currently before the board such as Valley Hospital and the village’s affordable housing obligations.
BY MARINA VILLENEUVE
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A state judge has challenged a core argument by more than 200 municipalities opposing advocates’ call for construction of more than 200,000 low- and moderate-income housing units statewide over the next 10 years.
Judge Marc Troncone’s Feb. 18 ruling in Superior Court, Ocean County, marks the second time a judge has ruled that local governments can’t ignore the housing demand that’s built up since 1999 amid stagnant action on the issue.
Troncone is one of 15 judges reviewing the affordable housing plans of hundreds of municipalities statewide — and what should be their baseline numbers.
Both municipalities and housing rights groups cite experts with sharply different ways of calculating so-called affordable housing needs until 2025. Each side says it is the one being realistic.
Troncone’s opinion specifically questions a Dec. 30 report, commissioned by a group of 283 municipalities, putting the need at just under 37,000 units. The Philadelphia-based Econsult Solutions report doesn’t include the “gap period” of 1999-2015, when a state agency failed to set affordable-housing quotas for communities..
NOVEMBER 16, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2015, 2:23 PM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
With the deadline to submit a housing element to the courts, village officials must act diligently to avoid possible lawsuits and meet its affordable housing obligations.
Housing was a major topic of last Monday’s meeting as affordable housing and how to proceed in regard to the issue of multifamily housing in Ridgewood’s Central Business District (CBD) came to the forefront.
The village successfully applied for a declaratory judgment seeking immunity from possible builder’s remedy lawsuits in July and was given five months to come up with a housing plan to be submitted to the court.
Village Attorney Matthew Rogers noted the court had found Ridgewood had been acting in good faith, which can be at least partially attributed to the inclusion of the Planning Board’s June 2 decision to amend the master plan and create new zones that allow residential and mixed-use development in previous commercial areas.
Rogers said he advised the court the council was carrying the ordinances in order to conduct additional studies as to the impact new housing would have on the village.
The housing element must first be determined by the village’s Planning Board, as it is the sole arbiter of the master plan document. The plan must then be submitted to the Village Council for consideration and adoption before the Dec. 7 deadline.
However, Rogers said there were a couple of “major impediments” to accomplishing that task.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/deadline-dictates-housing-dialogue-in-ridgewood-1.1456572
Thomas Sowell | Sep 29, 2015
Nowhere has there been so much hand-wringing over a lack of “affordable housing,” as among politicians and others in coastal California. And nobody has done more to make housing unaffordable than those same politicians and their supporters.
A recent survey showed that the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was just over $3,500. Some people are paying $1,800 a month just to rent a bunk bed in a San Francisco apartment.
It is not just in San Francisco that putting a roof over your head can take a big chunk out of your pay check. The whole Bay Area is like that. Thirty miles away, Palo Alto home prices are similarly unbelievable.
One house in Palo Alto, built more than 70 years ago, and just over one thousand square feet in size, was offered for sale at $1.5 million. And most asking prices are bid up further in such places.
Another city in the Bay Area with astronomical housing prices, San Mateo, recently held a public meeting and appointed a task force to look into the issue of “affordable housing.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2015/09/29/the-affordable-housing-fraud-n2058059
We need serious discussion of the combination of these affordable housing developments and the planning board’s decision to allow hundreds of new families to move into a few acres of land in downtown Ridgewood. I think one of the consequences of the housing projects approved by the planning board will be to set ourselves up for these very builder suits as well as claims of “spot zoning.”
Affordable housing is a great goal. But what we completely don’t understand is how the courts will enforce the means to that goal. So, we are on the verge of approving 400 to 500 new family units in the middle of town at selected sites. Some of that will be designated for low income. What if it is not enough in the eyes of some judge? What if the judge measures the need for low income housing against the entire town as a whole. Is it possible the judge could say we need to designate 50% of all new housing to low income?
Frankly, that might bring a nice diversity to the town and I think we all love to hear about hard working families that are given a chance. But, what will the effect be on the speculators / builders who think they just hit the jackpot with the planning board. Low income means less profit. Will that profit come out of the facades of the buildings we have to look at? Will it come out of the taxes the developers said would be generated when the developers go in and demand tax reductions? Will it come out of the structures themselves so that we are the cusp of creating tenements in our downtown. Remember, the planning board did not approve “quality housing.” It approved increased housing density, period. If the developers are forced to give up profit by the courts, they will have no incentive to build quality units and we will have no ability to stop them from building sub-standard units.
And then there is the issue of surrounding properties. Once one property owner sees that they can tear down a store and put up 50 to 100 family units, why won’t they? The planning board randomly picked spots in town and said they were suitable for high density living. There is no rhyme or reason to what they did, other than that is what the developers asked for first. The planning board did not “plan”, it “reacted” to what the developers demanded. These same developers or the next set will come in and ask for the same treatment. And when they don’t get it, they will make the same arguments that hoodwinked the current planning board – – we need to do this to satisfy affordable housing rules. And regardless of what the planning board says, they only need to convince one judge that they are right.
The Village council needs to seriously consider these issues in detail before it approves the massive over-development of downtown Ridgewood.
MAY 6, 2015, 7:06 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015, 7:06 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — The executive director of an affordable housing agency has endorsed a proposed master plan amendment that, if approved, would clear the way for high-density, multifamily housing developments downtown.
A letter dated April 29 from lawyer Kevin Walsh from the Fair Share Housing Center, urges Ridgewood’s Planning Board to adopt the amendment, which has been under consideration for years.
The letter was read at the Planning Board’s meeting Tuesday night.
Adopting the master plan change “will assist the municipality in meeting its very substantial unmet affordable housing obligations,” which Walsh put at more than 1,000 units.
Four developers with plans for four different housing complexes initially requested the master plan amendment five years ago. Since then, one of the developers has backed out.
The three remaining developers have plans to construct a combined 208 apartments downtown.
The developments proposed are The Dayton, a 106-unit luxury garden apartment complex at the site of the former Brogan Cadillac dealership; the 50-unit Chestnut Village, which would be on Chestnut Street, and the 52-unit Enclave, proposed for East Ridgewood and North Maple avenues.
Citing the Supreme Court’s March 10 decision, Walsh’s letter contends there is a “renewed focus on ensuring that municipalities meet their obligations in an expeditious fashion.”
New Jersey’s Supremes direct trial courts to manage affordable housing
Posted by Matt Rooney On March 10, 2015
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Assemblyman Greg McGuckin voiced frustration on Tuesday afternoon, Save Jerseyans, after our state Supreme Court gave trial courts jurisdiction over affordable housing in the Garden State.
Click here to read the Opinion of Justice LaVecchia.
“Once again, our Supreme Court has decided that the elected branch of government will not set housing policy in our state, but instead it will be done by the courts,” said McGuckin, R-Ocean. “I urge my Assembly colleagues to immediately pass A-4124, introduced last month by Assemblyman (Dave) Rible and myself. The measure protects municipalities, which have not historically discriminated against low and moderate income residents, from the oncoming barrage of builder’s remedy lawsuits. Towns that have not committed a constitutional violation should not be forced to provide a constitutional remedy.”
New Jersey’s affordable housing guidelines expired in 1999. Litigation commenced last year when COAHfailed to issue new rules by November 2014 as mandated by the Supreme Court. Gov. Christie continues to run into court-imposed roadblocks on this issue and others, too, notably on the pension front (and most recently on the eve of his FY 2016 budget address).
file photo of a golden toilet
Village Council commits funds for affordable housing ah sort off
July 13.2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
On Wednesday evening the Village Council committed $195,000 from its affordable housing trust fund to subsidize future projects by Habitat for Humanity of Bergen County. Village officials are hopeful that the resolution, passed at a special meeting will prevent the state from seizing that money and absorbing it into the New Jersey Housing Trust Fund.
Village Manager Ken Gabbert told the Ridgewood News that .”committing the funds, the village establishes a maximum amount of money to put toward an affordable housing proposal by Habitat for Humanity. The organization will be responsible for raising money and gathering donations in the event its project exceeds the $195,000.
With in such a depressed real estate market we fail to see the wisdom of much of the COAH funding . Politicians would be better off streamlining housing regulations and cutting spending to lower property taxes making housing more affordable in New Jersey . Prime real estate is always going to go for a premium and subsiding home ownership as we all have learned since 2008 has proven a well intentioned folly.
However some people for what ever reason have simply dropped through the cracks making it very hard to reenter society as productive individuals .Housing responsibilities are sensible part of the rehabilitative process. This means a case by case evaluation avoiding all the big government housing project one size fits all of the early 1970’s or the Soviet Union. Local organisations have proven to be far better and more able to identify the issues facing local displaced people.
With that said , Ridgewood is a town that spent over $400,000 on toilets aka “the golden toilet” for Vets field so it does look like Habitat for Humanity has its work cut out for it given $195,000 may barely cover a shower head in Ridgewood.
