COAH eases rules with amendments

by: Jason Springer

Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 12:57:52 PM EDT

Trying to find a happy medium for everyone from environmentalists, to builders and municipalities, the Council on Affordable Housing adopted some new rules and amendments yesterday in an attempt to ease the burden:

Under the rules, one-fifth of new development would be set aside as affordable housing.
The amendments approved by COAH yesterday would relax the one-in-five requirement under certain circumstances, taking into account the amount of environmentally sensitive land and vacant land within municipalities.
Still, COAH and the Highlands Council have yet to reach a formal agreement about how to reconcile their mandates, with the council dedicated to restraining development and COAH devoted to ensuring that every municipality build its share of affordable housing.

The Council also took aim at another regulation that has come under scrutiny:

The Council on Affordable Housing proposed an exemption for homeowners rebuilding their homes due to fires, floods or natural disasters. The change is a response to outrage over regulations approved June 2 that consider a burned-down home a demolition that, if rebuilt, would trigger a fee paid to the agency.

These are just the latest steps in what is a very long process. We still have to see what happens when it goes through the courts. Stay tuned.

Jason Springer :: COAH eases rules with amendments

Tags: COAH, HIghlands, Mount Laurel Decision, affordable housing, (All Tags)

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COAH eases rules with amendments | 3 comments

It shouldn't be difficult to reconcile (4.00 / 1)

COAH isn't a developer, and it shouldn't be devoted to forcing municipalities to build, build, build. It should merely ensure that when housing is built, there be a fair share of affordable units.

The Highlands Council's separate mandate to ensure that all development be sensible and environmentally responsible is not incompatible with COAH"s.

by: Jeff Gardner @ Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 21:07:10 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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The problem for many (0.00 / 0)

NJ towns was that the replacement of a house was treated as if a unit of housing was ADDED to a town. That artificially raised the requirements for towns already built-out.

One Vote. Yours. It really does matter.

by: carolh @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 04:07:46 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

From the beginning, (0.00 / 0)

it would have been better to have simply required a ratio for everything that was being built. If it is one to five, then so be it. That would have eliminated the scam of builder's remedy where someone says they have to build 200 units in order to put in 10 "affordable" ones and the ten never wind up getting built.

The other problem is everything we do is a disincentive to live in the already urbanized areas. If we reformed the property tax, then we aren't asking people to pay more to live in areas that aren't handling basic services as well as they should.

by: Creed Pogue @ Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 12:20:28 PM UTC

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