Legislative Leaders Call for Overhaul Of State's Affordable Housing Rules

Matthew Hersh

New Jersey's Fair Housing Act, which aims to promote housing for families of low and moderate income, was lambasted by State Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Roberts, (D, Camden) on Friday at a symposium on affordable housing at Princeton University.

Setting the outline for an initiative that would overhaul the current state housing mandate, Mr. Roberts attacked the common municipal practice of regional contribution agreements, or RCAs, that allow developers to give compensatory funds to municipalities instead of setting aside housing units that can be counted as "affordable."

RCAs, according to Mr. Roberts, cause segregation by giving municipalities the freedom to put their affordable housing in concentrated parts of towns instead of integrating them with higher-priced housing.

At the symposium, which was held in Dodds Auditorium and sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Princeton University's Office of Community and State Affairs, Mr. Roberts questioned the "fairness" of the current state statutory and regulatory scheme.

"Please explain to me where the fairness is in allowing wealthy suburbs to avoid half of their fair share obligation by entering into RCAs with economically deprived cites?" Mr. Roberts asked.

"We must not pay to leave people behind," he added.

Doug Massey, a professor of sociology and public and international affairs at Woodrow Wilson, bolstered Mr. Roberts' comments, placing an emphasis on the dichotomy that is widening between rich and poor communities.

Deeming the current system as a "de facto system of apartheid," Prof. Massey said the "deterioration of neighborhoods" can largely be attributed to municipalities not living up to their affordable housing standards and that more state action needs to be taken to reintegrate communities.

However, Edwin Schmierer, the Princeton Township Attorney and assistant counsel to the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, said RCAs could be beneficial, as long as they are appropriated responsibly.

"Municipalities need all the tools possible to address their affordable housing obligations," he said.

"From a municipal standpoint, I have to disagree with [Assemblyman Roberts'] recommendation that there be a wholesale rescinding of the regional contribution concept," Mr. Schmierer said. "I agree that if the contribution is to be abused by suburban municipalities to satisfy its fair share obligation and not build 'sticks and bricks' in its own town, that is wrong."

"I think if they are done in a balanced fashion, [RCAs] do have a role to play," Mr. Schmierer said. The attorney cited Princeton Township's obligation to build 275 units of affordable housing when Mt. Laurel II, the state's second round of housing mandates, was implemented. He said the Township entered an RCA with Trenton for 19 units of housing that were constructed on Pennington Avenue in an area that was once a haven for drugs and prostitutes near the old Kearns Bottling factory. Those units were built to satisfy 19 of the Township's 275 obligation.

Princeton's $20,000 per unit that was sent down to Trenton through a regional contribution agreement, plus $67,000 in various state grants helped gentrify the area, Mr. Schmierer said.

"I actually think people might want to live and work in the City of Trenton and feel safe and secure," he said.

In further defending the RCA program, Mr. Schmierer said that many of the resulting units built through Princeton Township's obligation were satisfied through the 140 affordable units at Griggs Farm.

"There were 'sticks and bricks' built in this community and there are now 200 affordable housing units within five miles of this auditorium," he said.

However, Assemblyman Roberts cited the figure that 75 percent of all RCA funds have been spent on rehabilitating existing, occupied homes, meaning that "thousands of affordable units in towns where jobs are growing have been sacrificed to rehabilitate housing in cities where, by and large, jobs have been disappearing."

The regional contribution concept, Mr. Roberts added, has also prevented poor residents from living in or near quality school systems. He acknowledged Mr. Schmierer's use of "responsible" RCA management, but said towns, like Princeton, who are RCA "senders," have an average poverty rate of six percent, whereas the "receivers" rank in at 71 percent.

"That's neither cost-effective to taxpayers nor fair to urban school children," he said.

Borough Mayor Joe O'Neill, who was not part of the panel, but made a statement at the symposium, said widening the divide between people of different economic strata has resulted in a trend of exclusivity in Princeton.

"We are taxing the African-American community out of town," he said, supporting the need to push municipalities to act on affordable housing requirements. Citing Borough and Township tax increases due to open space preservation and the new library, he said many people cannot afford to pay for these luxuries.

"What we see is people are driven out of [town] because they can't afford the kind of amenities that the more affluent community is willing to tax itself for."