Montclair Planning Board Tackles Affordable Housing Issues

MONTCLAIR, NJ - The Montclair Planning Board’s August 19 meeting seemed at time to give viewers at home (there was practically no one attending in person) a sense of déjà vu, the sense that they had lived through this very meeting before.  The primary topic of the meeting was affordable housing, and as it turned out once the meeting got started in earnest, Planning Director Janice Talley simply repeated her presentation from a Township Council meeting held three weeks earlier.  So even though it was an old hat for Mayor Renée Baskerville and Councilor-at-Large Carmel Loughman, the council’s two liaisons on the Planning Board, it was new to Chair Keith Brodock and the other board members – including Anthony Ianaule, who had rejoined the board starting with this meeting.

Director Talley reiterated the history of New Jersey’s efforts to honor affordable-housing priorities necessitated by the New Jersey Supreme Court’s 1975 Mount Laurel decision that forbade exclusionary zoning to prevent low-cost units.  She went over the four rounds of obligations to affordable housing that the state’s municipalities were expected to conform to, the first obligation running from 1986 to 1992, the second from 1996 to 1999, and the third from 2000 to 2025, with the fourth beginning next year and running until 2035.  The third obligation was a growth-share approach meant for municipalities to calculate growth share and come up with a plan associated a with growth-share perspective.  As always, affordable housing continues to be defined as housing that costs 80 percent or less of the gross median household income – less than 30 percent for low-income households, 30 to 50 percent for low-to-moderate-income households, and 50 to 80 percent for moderate-income households.

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Director Talley said that Montclair had gotten an affordable-housing plan ratified by the Coalition on Affordable Housing before it disbanded, the only New Jersey municipality to do so.  The 2009 Housing Element and Fair Share Plan called for an obligation of 320 affordable units, 148 of which were to be rehabilitations of existing housing stock, and a set-aide of 20 percent of units to be affordable in the housing projects of private developers going forward.  Other programs set into motion included a plan to convert market-rate units into affordable units and to partially pay for the rehabilitation of units slated for affordable controls thought the Housing Trust Fund.  The Trust Fund has collected $4 million in fees since 2002, with 76 percent of its spending going to housing programs and rental assistance, the rest paying for administration.

Director Talley told the board that she also expects faith-based organizations that own structures in town to work with Montclair to convert them into affordable housing, but she said she believes that, once the Lackawanna Plaza property is redeveloped, that will be the end of major redevelopment projects.  “Unless the Council tells me otherwise,” she said.

Councilor Loughman, in response to Director Talley’s call for new proposals and ideas, looked at Washington Field, which his owned but the township but is located in Glen Ridge.   She proposed that new affordable housing be built on Washinton Field, but board member Jeffrey Jacobson noted that, as it is in Glen Ridge, it may not count toward Montclair’s housing obligations.  Councilor Loughman also said that the 20 percent inclusionary zoning law must be applied consistently to factor in the price of the land to be developed, while Ianaule lamented that lowering the number of affordable units allows a greater return on investment based on the sale price of the land.

Mayor Baskerville had a question about accessory dwelling units (ADUs). She rhetorically asked if residents were “sitting around” waiting to build ADUs pending any major changes in the zoning rules. With that as a basis, the mayor, noting that the Montclair Housing Commission has expressed concern about changing the zoning in R-0 and R-1 zones in the First and Second Wards for more affordable units, asked why the Planning Board spends time on zoning for ADUs versus trying to address the dearth of affordable housing in R-0 and R-1 zones.  Director Talley said the ADU zoning should be changed and expected applications for ADUs to come in at higher levels than at the present time once interest rates come down.  She added that it was worth looking at large houses in R-0 and R-1 to convert into multi-family units as a possibility.

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Board member Jacob Neiman supported the idea of predetermined models for ADUs to streamline the process for ADU approval.  He also said that streamlining rules setting standards on building heights would be helpful. Neiman added that the township should look more closely at zoning in the neighborhoods to find opportunities for infill with affordable units while maintaining the character of the neighborhoods in the process.

Chairman Brodock thanked everyone at the end for a lively discussion and also welcomed new member Pierre Falaise to the board.

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