All municipalities are required to provide for their fair share of the state’s affordable housing needs. In abiding by this requirement, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, the Medford Township Council authorized a settlement of the litigation with Fair Share Housing Center.
“I think this is certainly going to allow for additional affordable housing to be constructed,” Mayor Jeffrey Beenstock said. “We’ve settled our affordable housing application that came from litigation, and settling litigation alone is certainly a benefit to the community.”
Under this settlement, which took more than a year of negotiation to reach after the township filed a Declaratory Judgement Action, it was stated that 298 affordable homes must be developed to satisfy the township’s obligation. However, the settlement states these developments will come at a 40 percent decrease from the 805 units of affordable housing, or 483 affordable homes, otherwise required by the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).
According to COAH, builders and developers are required to include a percentage of affordable housing in every market rate project, and the 805 units stems from the customary set aside that 15 percent of the units in a housing development be allocated for affordable housing. This would mean that for every 15 units of affordable housing developed, 100 “market” price homes have to be approved.
Under these calculations, put forth by a Fair Share Housing expert witness, the township would have needed to permit builders to develop 5,366 market units to subsidize the cost of the 805 affordable housing units for a total of 6,171 units.
Yet, by further negotiating higher than customary set asides and using a 100 percent affordable project in the settlement, the township will ultimately be able to satisfy its affordable housing obligation with 744 market homes and 298 affordable housing units. The total number of units in this scenario is almost 50 percent less than the number of units that would have been required with the 15 percent set aside.
Without the township having reached a resolution of the litigation, builders would also have been entitled to a “Builder’s Remedy” to develop affordable housing at these densities anywhere in Medford. Unlike in other municipalities, where cases of litigation have resulted in the courts taking control of the local Planning Boards and permitting Builder’s Remedy developments approved by a court master and not local officials, Medford’s settlement will avoid prolonged litigation and the uncertainty of unfavorable town development decisions.
“We were pleased as a township to have solved this in a way that will limit the impact of the new development that will be coming on the community,” Beenstock said.
A statement from the Medford Affordable Housing Settlement read, “The township is pleased that it was able resolve the litigation with the least possible impact on township services, utilities and quality of life for the residents of Medford Township recognizing that it had to satisfy its constitutional obligation or be subject to the risk of large housing developments on sites completely out of the control of the township.”
For more information on the Affordable Housing Settlement, visit http://www.medfordtownship.com/filestorage/233/534/Affordable_Housing_settlement_summary_11-16-16_DMEAST_27547999(3).pdf.
