How does that old cliche go? “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
What is lacking in Central Jersey, especially among its suburban communities, is the will, which in turn has blocked the way for sensible affordable housing rules to be implemented.
Everyone is at fault in this mess — from the state Council on Affordable Housing, which ceded its responsibilities to the state’s towns; to the towns, which have fought tooth and nail against every change in rules, using the latest revisions to build a case against affordable housing itself; to the state’s legislators, who have willingly made use of municipal discontent for political gain.
About the only people who remain blameless are the people in need of the housing.
As I said, this is about will. To understand what I mean, however, it helps to understand that the Mount Laurel decisions that ultimately created COAH and the Fair Housing Act were not just about housing, but about racial and class segregation. The Mount Laurel decision did not say that affordable housing had to be built, but that it had to be built in suburban communities, that suburban communities like Cranbury, Hopewell and Millstone in Monmouth County had to provide their fair share of low- and moderate-income housing and that they could not leave it to be built only in the state’s overcrowded cities.
The Legislature dragged its feet after the first decision and then opted to create a series of outs for suburban communities as part of a questionable compromise that the court had allowed to stand. That out — known as the Regional Contribution Agreement — allowed suburban communities to pay cities to build up to half of the suburban obligation, thereby allowing towns like Cranbury and Monroe to skirt the intent of the original Mount Laurel ruling.
Suburban communities have grumbled ever since, but have played by the rules. Then came Route 3 — the current round — which was crafted on a complicated series of calculations that appear to be inaccurate, inflating housing need in each community at a time when the state Legislature (finally) has ended RCAs.
So the grumbling has turned into an all-out revolt that has given municipalities that have been looking for reasons to attack the Fair Housing Act the ammunition they’ve long sought.
There are really two separate issues here — the numbers, which are based on housing and employment figures, and the RCAs. I think that towns have a legitimate reason to gripe about the numbers, though I do think they are crying much more loudly than they have reason to. At the same time, it is long past the time that RCAs should have been eliminated.
This brings me to the infamous cliche and a couple of stories from the region that prove that, if towns truly had the will, they could find a way to provide housing for folks who truly need it. In Hopewell Township and Hillsborough — two Central Jersey suburban towns that have experienced extreme growth — officials are moving ahead with development of abandoned properties as affordable housing complexes, which will keep both properties in active use and prevent the kind of blight that can strike old shopping centers and commercial properties when they no longer serve a need.
There are hundreds of properties like this scattered all across Central Jersey, properties that could be turned into functional housing sites near major transportation corridors. Where there is a will, right?
Hank Kalet 