Moorestown criticized on affordable-housing plan
Moorestown's draft plan for meeting its affordable-housing obligations contains "flaws" and is unsatisfactory, a special master has told Burlington County Superior Court, and she recommended that the township zone for 1,313 affordable units by 2025 - more than triple what the township had proposed.
Moorestown's draft plan for meeting its affordable-housing obligations contains "flaws" and is unsatisfactory, a special master has told Burlington County Superior Court, and she recommended that the township zone for 1,313 affordable units by 2025 - more than triple what the township had proposed.
Using stern language, Elizabeth C. McKenzie, a Flemington, N.J.-based community planner, accused the township of failing to make a good-faith effort to honor its obligations under the Mount Laurel Doctrine.
"The responsibility of the township in undertaking a vacant land analysis is to identify how it can, not how it cannot, accommodate its fair share housing obligations," she told Judge Ronald E. Bookbinder in her Jan. 3 letter.
McKenzie, whom Bookbinder appointed to review the plan, recommended that he direct the township to issue a revised plan by Feb. 15.
Bookbinder said Thursday he would hold a hearing Wednesday at the county courthouse to review the report.
Anthony Drollas, attorney for Moorestown, said Thursday that Brian Slough, the Trenton-based planner who prepared the township's plan, would submit a response to McKenzie's report at the hearing.
Drollas said he expected Bookbinder would also hear arguments Wednesday on an advocacy group's contention that Moorestown's zoning regulations violate the civil rights of low- and middle-income families, who are effectively barred from living there.
The Mount Laurel Doctrine, developed since 1975 out of state Supreme Court decisions and legislation, requires that all the state's 565 municipalities have zoning that allows for significant affordable housing.
In March, the Supreme Court ruled that efforts to implement that doctrine had grown "moribund" under Gov. Christie. It decreed that the state's 15 Superior Court vicinages would oversee the "Third Round" of implementation, which expires in 2025.
Most municipalities were required to submit their Third Round plans by year's end.
Moorestown, which submitted its plan to Bookbinder in early November, contended that its obligation was to provide 386 units in the Third Round.
The Fair Share Housing Center, an advocacy group for affordable housing, based in Cherry Hill, that has special statewide status as an intervenor, swiftly challenged Moorestown's plan and data analysis. It said the town "has not proceeded in good faith" with regard to its housing obligation.
Kevin Walsh, Fair Share's executive director, said at the time that the wealthy township was "one of the worst offenders" in that regard.
Anthony Campisi, a spokesman for Fair Share, said Thursday that McKenzie's report "vindicated our position."
"Towns should be trying harder to meet their moral obligations rather than running away from them," he said.
In its November response to Moorestown's plan, Fair Share argued the town's obligation was to build 1,521 affordable-housing units by 2025.
At that time, Fair Share also petitioned Bookbinder to rule that Moorestown's zoning in effect barred many low- and middle-income families from its borders, thus denying them a civil right under the state constitution.
If the judge finds in favor of Fair Share's civil rights argument, Moorestown could be obliged to pay the court costs the group incurs in challenging its plan.
If Bookbinder finds that the civil rights argument has merit in this case, he will likely set a trial date Wednesday.
In recent weeks, judges in Atlantic, Gloucester, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Morris Counties have ordered trials to decide the civil rights argument. Drollas said Moorestown's case was different from those.
In the draft plan it submitted in November, Moorestown contended that several undeveloped properties in town were unsuitable because they were not served by sewers.
McKenzie rejected that argument, saying that "the exclusion of sites . . . not in a sewer service area . . . is not authorized" and such sites "cannot be eliminated from the calculation" of available land.
She also noted that Moorestown had failed to identify industrial parks and nonresidential buildings that could be used for housing, and disputed its proposition that its affordable-housing sites be zoned no denser than six units per acre.
Sixteen units per acre is "not uncommon" in some municipalities, she wrote.
Additionally, she questioned the township's proposal to rely on state or federal grants to help fund construction of affordable-housing obligations, noting that competition for those grants was fierce and that Moorestown was unlikely to receive any.
"I hope that these comments prove helpful to the township and to any interested parties," she concluded, "and, above all, to the court."
856-779-3841