Fair housing plan faces scrutiny
Thursday, September 7th, 2006By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER
WANAQUE — State housing watchdogs want to know if the borough is doing enough to encourage more housing for those of modest means.
The state Council on Affordable Housing, acting on a complaint by a developer, is investigating Wanaque’s plan for providing low- and moderate-income housing units as mandated statewide under court rulings.
A COAH task force is meeting in Trenton on Tuesday to review Wanaque’s response to a list of agency questions. The task force may recommend possible action at the council’s Sept. 13 regular meeting, a COAH spokesman said Thursday.
At issue is whether Wanaque changed its fair-housing plan without state approval and whether the borough is doing enough to encourage development that includes fair-housing units. Those are units priced to fit an index of low- and moderate incomes in the area and are sold by lottery to those meeting income levels.
At stake is potential loss of state certification of Wanaque’s housing plan, which could leave the borough vulnerable to lawsuits by developers demanding local approval to build a number of market-rate housing units for each fair-housing unit.
Ironically, COAH rejected an initial complaint by RSK Development, which wanted the agency to order Wanaque to fight a state environmental ruling. That ruling by the state Department of Environmental Protection said RSK’s proposed building site on Mountain Avenue is not exempt from strict Highlands Act regulations applying to parts of Wanaque near water supply streams.
As a result of the DEP decision, RSK cannot get state permits to build 19 housing units for which it has borough approvals. It is appealing the DEP decision before the state Office of Administrative Law.
COAH staff said that in reviewing the RSK complaint, they saw reason to question other actions by Wanaque.
As a result, the staff accused Wanaque of substituting its own plans for rehabilitating some older houses in town for a previously approved plan for additional fair-housing units to be built as part of new developments. Wanaque is required to encourage construction of 275 more fair-housing units. RSK’s development would provide four of those units.
COAH staff also questioned whether Wanaque was working “proactively” and “collaboratively” with developers, including RSK.
In the borough’s defense, special attorney Jeffrey Kantowitz sent a letter to COAH and appeared before the agency at its Aug. 9 meeting. Kantowitz argued that Wanaque has worked with developers to create a mix of new fair-housing units and a fund to pay for such development in urban communities such as Hoboken and provide grants for residents with low to moderate incomes to upgrade their homes.
He noted, for instance, that Wanaque worked with Pulte Homes, which is building a 755-unit, age-restricted condominium community in a former sand and gravel pit, to provide 10 new fair-housing units, fund another 30 units in another town and fund 20 rehabilitation projects in Wanaque.
Kantowitz said borough officials have offered to allow developers to increase the currently zoned density for housing on a wooded tract on Federal Hill, in return for a 20 percent set-aside for fair-housing units. That parcel is currently zoned for multifamily housing development for 96 units.
Meanwhile, an environmental group, Wanaque REACH, is questioning why COAH would approve such a development on steep slopes near water supply streams. The tract is just across Union Avenue from the restrictive Highlands preservation area.
“The issue of providing a realistic affordable-housing opportunity must be addressed within already-approved developments and through rehabilitation, rather than forcing even more over-development on steeply sloped inappropriate parcels of land,” Sandy Lawson of Wanaque REACH said in a letter to COAH in August.
All such questions and issues are to be reviewed by the COAH task force.