Boro to file a complaint against state's COAH
Mayor: Eatontown unable to meet COAH's new housing quota
BY DANIEL HOWLEY Staff Writer
The Eatontown Borough Council is expected to file a formal complaint against the state's Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) after the borough's affordable housing obligation more than quadrupled.

The council is charging in the complaint that COAH skewed the amount of vacant land available in the borough, which inflated the borough's affordable housing obligation, according to Mayor Gerald Tarantolo.

Tarantolo explained that COAH officials labeled several borough parks and open space preserves as buildable land when calculating Eatontown's affordable housing obligation.

COAH calculates a municipality's affordable housing obligation by taking into account the town's fiscal capacity, employment, wealth and vacant land availability.

According to a series of proposed amendments to COAH's current round-three regulations, Eatontown's affordable housing obligation jumped from 92 units to 447 units, Tarantolo said.

"Where are we going to build [the 447 units]?" Tarantolo asked, adding, "I have no idea."

According to Tarantolo, COAH officials used a geographic information system (GIS) to map out the available land in the borough where affordable units can be constructed.

A GIS is a system that collects various forms of statistical data and maps it according to its geographic location.

"When they worked out the new numbers, they did it using the GIS to determine the number of acres that were still green in particular municipalities," Tarantolo said.

"As it turns out, COAH just arbitrarily took green space and said this should be developed and some of it should be for affordable housing.

"The GIS labeled some of our parks and open space as buildable land. We suspect they made a mistake.

"The parks and open space are already registered with the state as not being able to be built," Tarantolo said.

If COAH removes the acreage from the borough's parks and open space from the vacant-land calculations, Eatontown will see a significant reduction in its affordable housing obligation, Tarantolo said.

In addition to filing its own formal complaint against COAH, the Borough Council will also join theNew Jersey League ofMunicipalities (NJLM) in its effort to challenge COAH's proposed amendments to the round-three regulations.

The Borough Council voted 5-0 at its May 14 meeting in favor of a resolution pledging $500 from its legal account to assist the NJLM's challenge.

"We are joining with hundreds of other municipalities throughout the state who feel that themodified round-three numbers are not realistic, and we are essentially grouping together and challenging the ruling legally," Tarantolo said.

The NJLM is a voluntary association consisting of members from each of the state's 566 municipalities. The NJLM attempts to better facilitate communication between towns by pooling information resources and brainpower from each of the state's municipalities.

The proposed amendments to COAH's round-three regulations call for an increase to the agency's previously approved growth share element, according to Tarantolo.

COAH's growth share element requires that as amunicipality grows, its affordable housing obligation must grow with it.

Under COAH's current round-three regulations, Eatontown is required to provide one unit of affordable housing for every eight units of market-value housing developed within the borough, Tarantolo explained.

The proposed amendments to the round-three regulations call for one unit of affordable housing to be developed for every four units of market value housing, Tarantolo said.

COAH's proposed regulations also call for one unit of affordable housing to be developed for every 16 jobs created in the borough. Under previous round-three regulations, one unit of affordable housing was required to be built for every 25 jobs created in the borough.

"So if we have a developer coming in to create amall that is going to require 48 employees, "then [the developer] will be required to provide three affordable units as part of its site plan," Tarantolo said.

He added that it would be difficult for Eatontown tomeet the newly proposed regulations because the borough is 97 percent developed.

"This is a serious situation and this issue of affordable housing has been so fluid for the last 20 years that we really have got to get our act together in the state, and truly understand what we are doing," Tarantolo said.

"No one denies that there is a need for affordable housing," Tarantolo said, adding, "But we need to do it in amore rational and logical way."

COAH is a state agency that determines the number of affordable housing units that each municipality in the state must provide.

Its affordable housing obligations are the result of a 1983 state Supreme Court decision that called for municipalities to take action to meet their fair share of lowand moderate-income housing needs.

COAH's current round-three regulations were originally accepted by theNJLM in August 2003 and emphasized the concept of growth share.

COAH's round-one regulations focused on creating reasonable opportunities for affordable housing through the municipal zoning ordinances.

The agency's second-round regulations focused primarily on the rehabilitation of existing housing stock.

Affordable housing is defined by the state as housing that can be bought or rented with 30 percent or less of a person's income.