Download Housing Element and Fair Share Plan 2008 (347 KB PDF)

Once again, the Township is preparing a Housing Element and Fair Share Plan for substantive certification by the NJ Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). A draft of the Plan may be downloaded here. The Plan is due to COAH by December 31 2008. Our 2005 Plan was submitted but never acted upon due to litigation brought against COAH by various groups in the State. At the conclusion of that litigation, COAH’s redrafted third-round regulations became effective in June. They were followed by several amendments which are still in the comment period. Communities wishing to participate in the COAH process must prepare their Plans pursuant to the adopted third-round rules as well as the pending amendments.

By way of background, the Township received substantive certification of its first and second round Housing Plans. Our second-round certification has been extended until COAH acts on our third-round Plan. Although voluntary, participation in the COAH process, and particularly the receipt of substantive certification, protects municipalities from builders’ lawsuits because it means that we have an approved plan to supply our fair share of affordable housing. Certification also allows us to collect development fees from builders which are used to create affordable housing in the community.

A municipality’s fair share obligation is composed of three parts: a rehabilitation share (existing substandard housing occupied by low/moderate income households), a prior round share (any unmet obligation left over from first and second rounds), and a growth share (the obligation generated by future residential and nonresidential growth measured at 1 affordable unit out of 5 and 1 affordable unit for every 16 jobs). We have a large rehabilitation share of 369. We have no prior round share. We have a moderate growth share of 162. COAH allows each municipality to reduce their shares by taking “credit” for any affordable housing it has produced since 2000. By taking these credits, we have reduced our rehabilitation share to 295 and our growth share to 25, and our Plan must demonstrate how we will meet our share between now and 2018.

Our Plan includes two housing units which will be rehabilitated for affordable occupancy to further reduce the rehabilitation share to 293. Through the work of Essex County’s Home Improvement Program and HOMECorp, a local affordable housing developer, as well as a rehabilitation program that the Township will operate beginning in 2009, we will address our remaining rehabilitation share over the next 10 years. This will not be easy because of the costs involved, but we have identified several funding sources in the Plan.

Our Plan also includes several new affordable housing developments in process that will address the remaining growth share of 25. The Township also adopted an Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance in 2006 which passes the obligation to build affordable housing to any developer building 7 housing units or more, and requires a payment in lieu for 6 housing units or less.

Because the Plan is an element of the Township’s Master Plan, it must be adopted by the Planning Board after a public hearing. That hearing is scheduled for Monday, October 20, at 7:30 p.m. The adopted Plan is then forwarded to the Township Council for endorsement before it is sent to COAH.

COAH’s third-round regulations are too long and complicated to explain in detail here. Anyone wishing to review the third round regulations may log onto COAH’s web site at www.state.nj.us/dca/coah. If you have questions about Montclair’s draft Housing Plan, please call or e-mail the Township Planning Director.