Developer Applies to Drop Age Restriction on Planned Senior Community

A developer is requesting the Barnegat Township planning board approve major changes to a planned West Bay Avenue community that could result in 61 clustered affordable housing units, and thanks to a relatively recent change in state law, the board will likely have little choice but to give the go-ahead.

K. Hovnanian Homes was initially granted approval to build a senior community called Fifth Avenue Track on West Bay Avenue. The development would have included 347 homes and substantial recreation amenities, said former planning board member Jerry Harper.

But because of a law enacted in 2009, Hovnanian can now request the conversion of the development to 305 “family-targeted” housing units and make other changes, including clustering the required affordable housing, said Harper.

The Conversion Statute, as yet unapplied in Barnegat, was an attempt by the Legislature to counter “an abundance of approved age-restricted projects and an overall lack of demand for senior housing,” said planning board attorney Michael J. McKenna in an explanatory letter to board members last week.

The new rule says a company with a plan for a senior community approved before the creation of the statute can switch the planned development to general housing if it meets certain criteria, including setting aside 20 percent of the units as affordable housing. The normal state requirement is 10 percent. 

Harper, who was on the planning board when the initial development was approved, said his concern is that the Conversion Statute grants the developer the right to cluster the affordable housing units instead of dispersing them throughout the community as per local law.

“Why don’t we stick a fence around it and put a big sign on it that says here’s our affordable housing area?” Harper said. “It’s going to stick out like a sore thumb." What's more, he said, the amenities will be scaled down and Hovnanian will push street maintenance onto the township.

Harper said the allowances are indicative of the real reason the statute exists: the builders’ lobby pushed hard for it.

“It’s cheaper for them,” he said. “They don’t care about the town.”

According to McKenna’s summary, the statute doesn’t give the board a lot of leeway. If the developer meets a number of requirements – adequate water supply, for instance, and enough parking – and the conversion “can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good and without impairing the intent and purpose of the zone plan and zoning ordinance… the application shall be approved.”

That’s another concern for Harper, who feels the township’s carefully crafted development rules are being trampled.

“I just think it’s being rammed down our throats,” he said. “It’s very frustrating when something like this comes along and the public isn’t aware.”

The planning board will hear testimony on the on the conversion application at its regular meeting Tuesday, set for 7:30 p.m. in the municipal courtroom.