“Moorestown Area Residents Interested in Fair Housing Ordinance” are currently raising funds to hire a lawyer and a professional planner to examine Moorestown’s ongoing affordable housing litigation.
At the Monday, Nov. 27, Moorestown Township council meeting, resident Roberto Paglione stood up as he has at almost every council meeting since September and asked council for an update on the township’s pending affordable housing litigation, and since September, he has received few answers.
For that reason, Paglione said he and a group of concerned individuals, Moorestown Area Residents Interested in Fair Housing Ordinance or “MARIFHO Group, LLC,” are seeking to intervene into the pending lawsuit to determine Moorestown’s affordable housing requirement.
“We’re not satisfied with their responses or lack of responses,” Paglione said. “We decided as a group to explore other options of making sure that someone — whether it’s the court or any other ultimate decision maker — is aware of our concerns and can give us some measure of due response.”
Following the Council On Affordable Housing’s disbanding, towns have to petition the court for approval of their affordable housing plans. Developers and other interested parties can intervene on these proceedings through declaratory judgment actions.
In 2005, Moorestown filed a declaratory judgment action with the superior court of Burlington County. Since then, Fair Share Housing Center became an intervenor, or a defendant in that case. The number of units Moorestown will be required to provide is in dispute.
“We are not suing the township,” Paglione, who is an attorney himself, said. “Rather, we are seeking to intervene into the lawsuit.”
Paglione said some members of MARIFO were concerned that council is not exercising “due diligence” in making decisions on “critical issues” that will impact the township for decades to come.
“We are not being critical of the council,” Paglione said. “We are just concerned that by taking the strategy they have adopted of keeping confidential the information about the affordable housing plan from the residents, they may not be getting sufficient input from the residents that will most directly be impacted by their decisions.”
Paglione said MARIFHO is a group of around 70 or 80 residents who regularly email each other and who are fundraising to hire an attorney and a professional planner. He said the planner will examine the township’s plan and provide a second opinion as to the most appropriate number of units. He said he and a friend whose name he preferred not to disclose decided to incorporate and make “MARIFHO Group, LLC” approximately two weeks ago.
The group came together following the a Request for Qualifications issued by the township on Sept. 7 seeking developers to make proposals for a 150-unit, very low, low and moderate income rental housing project at 200 Hartford Road, Paglione said.
He said the group has three main concerns. The first is the potential impact on Moorestown residents and taxpayers if the township donates the land to the developer if the developer is a nonprofit entity. He said if this is the case, he predicts the development will not have to pay property or school taxes.
“While the township would receive some payment from the state, in what is called payment in lieu of taxes or PILOT, for the low-income housing development, my understanding is that payment would be a fraction of property taxes for a market rate rental development such as 10 [to] 25 percent,” Paglione said.
The group’s second concern is the impact on Moorestown schools. He said they wonder how many students would enter Moorestown schools and would the schools have adequate space to accommodate these new students.
The group’s third concern is the “suitability of the location chosen,” according to Paglione. He said the Nagle Tract at 200 Hartford Road does not have sidewalks, is not within walking distance of shopping centers and does not have nearby bus stops.
Paglione said the group’s goal is to hire an attorney and file a motion within the next month.
Township attorney Kelly Grant said the township understands Paglione’s concerns about affordable housing, but since the issue is in litigation, the township has to handle the issue “like other litigation matters.” She said this means that if other parties wish to become involved in the litigation, they must follow the same rules that apply to all prospective litigants.
“In this matter, the Supreme Court established a procedure for potential parties, like affordable housing developers, to become involved in the litigation, but there is no procedure for Mr. Paglione, and others like him, as concerned citizens, to become a party to the litigation,” Grant said. “If Mr. Paglione decides to try to become involved in the litigation as a party, that will be his decision about whether to try, and how to proceed in doing it.”
Grant said there will be several opportunities for input from all concerned citizens about any settlement of the pending litigation and that the process will not exclude public input.
“There are nevertheless some established rules on how the court will allow anyone to become a party to this litigation, and from the township’s standpoint, we don’t believe that Mr. Paglione’s litigation efforts will achieve his goal,” Grant said.
