Gloucester Township Moving On Affordable Housing Obligation

GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP, NJ — Gloucester Township Council moved toward satisfying its affordable housing obligation Monday night. Council approved three pieces of legislation on introduction during their meeting at the municipal building.

The township is required to add 1,014 affordable housing units by 2025 under its third round obligations, according to Business Administrator Tom Cardis. It has already met its prior round obligation of 359 units, and is in the process of rehabilitating 135 units by 2025, Cardis said.

To meet its third round obligation, the township is implementing zoning changes that will allow it to build affordable housing in the township, Cardis said. The township's next compliance hearing is slated for May.

The obligation is set forth by the Superior Court. Affordable housing was formerly overseen by the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) after the state Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for any town to zone in a way that made it impossible to build affordable housing in that town in 1975.

COAH set quotas for each town under the Fair Housing Act in the 1980s, and towns fulfilled their obligations over multiple rounds. However, COAH stopped acting on its oversight obligations in the late 1990s.

The number of required affordable housing units in municipalities statewide has been in dispute, and often in litigation, since 1999. In 2015, authority concerning setting affordable housing requirements for municipalities throughout the state fell on the courts.

Municipalities have multiple ways they are permitted to introduce affordable housing units into the community, including restoring and rehabilitating existing homes in the community and by way of "inclusionary development," which calls for the development of both market rate and affordable homes.

With this strategy, typically 20 percent of the homes are low and moderate income, and the remaining market rate units subsidize the affordable homes.

For every five market rate homes, one would be an affordable home, for example. Municipalities can also work with non-profits to develop 100 percent affordable homes and that municipalities often employ various methods for introducing new affordable units to the community.

The first piece of proposed legislation passed Monday night amends the township’s existing ordinance concerning land development to incorporate its affordable housing obligation. The provisions include the township’s schedule for reporting its progress to the state, a schedule for phasing in inclusionary zoning, and details on new construction, occupancy standards, price restrictions, income eligibility and 100 percent affordable developments. Details on the amendments can be seen on the township’s website under Ordinance 20-03.

The second proposal amends the existing legislation concerning the Lakeland Complex Phase 1 Redevelopment Project to allow for multi-family housing, with a 20 percent set aside for low- and moderate-income families.

The final proposal adopts the overlay of existing zoning of a portion of the Lakeland Complex Phase 2. Overlay zoning allows for provisions of a special zoning district to be added to the existing zoning requirements.

All three proposals will have a public hearing and final vote at the March 9 council meeting, 7:30 p.m. at the municipal building, 1261 Chews Landing Road.