By Susan C. Moeller / Senior Reporter

TRENTON (Feb. 4, 2010) — Local municipalities have wrestled with the state Council on Affordable Housing for years, with varying degrees of success and failure.

Now, legislation pending in the state Senate could abolish the controversial agency in favor of a different regulatory mechanism.

The Council, known as COAH, was established by the state Legislature in 1985 as a vehicle for municipalities to ensure that they were compliant with Supreme Court mandated affordable housing quotas.

Since then, COAH has established several rounds of rules with which municipalities must prove compliance in order to be protected from lawsuits and loss of zoning power.

Locally, East Rutherford and Carlstadt have been assigned a court-appointed monitor of their planning and zoning activity because the boroughs refused to allow a developer to build residential towers east of Route 17.

Next door, in an effort to comply with COAH rules, Rutherford offered up the controversial Highland Cross area as a potential location for housing, despite significant objection from residents.

Lyndhurst has entered into an agreement with the county and the Archdiocese of Newark to provide a second senior housing building in the township. Construction has not begun, but the township purchased a key piece of property using affordable-housing funds.

Now, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-20), noting the difficult landscape COAH has created for municipalities, developers and residents, has proposed that the agency be abolished, and that the state Planning Commission take over the supervision of affordable-housing mandates.

“The purpose of this bill is to repeal COAH’s top down, micro-managed, and complex bureaucracy,” Lesniak stated. “For decades, COAH has burdened property taxpayers with millions of dollars in unnecessary cost of compliance by municipalities with its maze of ever-changing rules and regulations. ... And, COAH has discouraged job creation by adding housing requirements and fees based on the number of jobs created and private dollars invested.”

Paul Sarlo, Wood-Ridge mayor and state senator, supports Lesniak’s effort to eliminate the Council.

The existing regulations are not working, said Sarlo’s spokesman Chris Eilert on behalf of the senator.

“They constitute a massive unfunded mandate on local governments,” Eilert continued, and the regulations are not accomplishing affordable-housing goals.

“The system as it exists now is a complete failure,” Eilert concluded. “It ought to be abolished.”

East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella agrees.

“I am a firm believer that COAH should be disbanded,” Cassella said. “Anything has to be better than the way it is now.”

But, in Rutherford, Mayor John Hipp is not so sure. “I think it provides developers opportunities that don’t already exist,” and the Lesniak bill may be unconstitutional, he added.

“The Council on Affordable Housing does protect towns against more draconian measures if they submit a plan,” he added with the caveat that he is not a big fan of the Council either.

A spokesperson for the Department of Community Affairs, the umbrella agency under which COAH falls, said that officials would not comment on pending legislation.

The Senate’s Economic Growth Committee was set to discuss Lesniak’s legislation.

— Contact Susan at 201-438-8700 or by e-mailing Susan@LeaderNewspapers.net

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