Thursday, May 16, 2013
Christie administration wants $164 million in affordable-housing funds to help balance state budget.
Municipalities have won yet another reprieve from having to give more than $164 million in affordable-housing funds to New Jersey. A state appeals court panel late Monday issued a temporary injunction to stop the state from taking the money to help balance its budget. The Appellate Division of Superior Court issued a stay of the state Council on Affordable Housing’s attempt to seize municipal affordable housing trust fund money that has gone unspent for more than four years. Judge Jose L. Fuentes, who signed the order, set oral arguments for June 5 in Newark. Fair Share Housing Center sought the injunction last Friday, after COAH met on May 1 for the first time in more than two years and authorized its staff to begin the process of taking …
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Money to go to balancing the general state budget rather than building houses for low- and middle-income residents.
Defying several attempts at killing it off, the New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing met for the first time in more than two years on Wednesday to begin the process of taking at least $142 million in funds dedicated to low- and moderate-income housing to help balance the state budget. COAH, which has few friends in the Legislature, was reorganized out of existence in 2011 by Gov. Chris Christie. The council voted 4-1 to ask municipalities to send proof of their plans to spend any money that had been dormant in their affordable housing trust funds for four years as of July 17, 2012 and transfer the remaining, unspent money to the council by May 22, according to the resolution. The resolution also gave its acting director approval to …
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Advocates argue that real losers in political turf war are low- and middle-income families who need someplace to live.
Municipalities say they are frozen in place when it comes to affordable housing. With the Council on Affordable Housing in limbo because of litigation before the state Supreme Court, including a challenge to the governor’s attempt to eliminate the agency, towns say they are left without direction. They're afraid to act on plans to spend money designed to help fix the problem. They fear that if they act, they could be penalized later; but they also fear that, if they fail to act, they will lose the money. And the loser in all of this, housing advocates say, are the thousands of low- and moderate-income New Jerseyans who are left without access to affordable places to live. “There are fears from towns that, if they go ahead and spend the …
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Proponents ponder next move in bid to solve housing shortage, foreclosure crisis.
Gov. Chris Christie’s latest rejection of legislation to make vacant foreclosed homes available as affordable housing has left a broad coalition of proponents scratching their heads about what to try next to deal with New Jersey’s foreclosure crisis. In twin vetoes, the governor suggested he would try to divert some federal foreclosure relief funding into Hurricane Sandy aid and would continue to fight to use municipal affordable- housing money to patch holes in the state budget. Michael Cerra, legislative analyst for the New Jersey League of Municipalities, acknowledged that while the news was not good, he and other advocates are still trying to decipher what the governor’s words mean for future legislation and the state housing market. “…
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Court hearing on Christie’s right to unilaterally abolish Council on Affordable Housing has constitutional and budgetary implications.
With a partisan Senate fight looming over Gov. Chris Christie’s two latest Supreme Court nominees, the administration yesterday argued that it has the right to unilaterally abolish the Council on Affordable Housing -- and thus has the power to seize more than $140 million originally earmarked for low-cost housing to balance the state budget. While oral arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday focused on narrow constitutional and legal issues pertaining to gubernatorial powers under the 40-year-old Reorganization Act, the case underscored the importance of the ongoing struggle between Christie and Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) over the partisan makeup of the state’s highest court. “If the administration wins this case…
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Appellate judges rule only the Council on Affordable Housing can force municipalities to give their local funds to the state.
New Jersey municipalities' affordable housing funds are safe. For now. Last Friday, the Appellate Division of Superior Court issued an order preventing the state from taking $142 million in local trust fund dollars. The move seemed a bit contradictory, given the court—different judges—had refused to put out a similar injunction last month. But Friday's ruling came as part of a different, yet connected, case. Warning: This gets really complicated and convoluted. A majority of the judges agreed Friday with an argument made by the Fair Share Housing Center that only the Council on Affordable Housing can order towns to give the state the money they have been collecting in development fees, some for decades. This is because in a March 8 order, …
Friday, August 10, 2012
In a hearing marked by testy exchanges, the state argues that municipalities must return $142 million in unspent funds.
Municipalities should not be forced to surrender their affordable housing funds to the state until the Council on Affordable Housing meets and makes decisions on how to move forward, said members of the Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee yesterday. The hearing was to discuss the Christie administration's demand that the money previously set aside to build local housing should be returned to the state's coffers. Sean Thompson, acting executive director of COAH, last month demanded that towns give the state back the $142 million that is supposed to pay for low-cost housing within their borders. Yesterday, Chuck Richmond, a deputy commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs who has acted on behalf of COAH testified …
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Council letter offers simple choice: counter the state's claim or submit a check.
Municipalities have until August 13 to dispute New Jersey’s claim to $161 million in local affordable housing trust fund money or send the state a check, according to letters sent Tuesday by the acting executive director of the state Council on Affordable Housing. The no-nonsense letters dated July 24 were mailed to municipalities with unspent money in their funds, according to officials with the New Jersey state League of Municipalities and Fair Share Housing Center. Both groups failed to win a court injunction to prevent the state from taking the local money. The Christie administration’s 2013 budget is counting on as much as $200 million coming from local housing funds, and has warned municipalities that unspent money will be …
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Can last-minute legal appeal stop the state from raiding the affordable housing trust fund?
One municipality has $400,000 in contracts to rebuild deteriorated housing and convert an abandoned school. Another has plans for 151 units, including some for very low-income special-needs adults. A third is collaborating with other state agencies on a supportive housing project. None of these municipalities, nor any other in New Jersey, knows if its plans are sufficient to stop the state from taking $161 million in affordable housing trust fund money held for the communities to build low- and moderate-income units. In fact, Gov. Chris Christie's 2013 budget was counting on as much as $200 million coming from local housing funds -- and the deadline for the first funds transfer is July 17. That explains why the Fair Share Housing Center …
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Housing advocate and municipalities try to prevent the state from taking their funds.
The battle between the Christie administration and the Fair Share Housing Center continues. This time, the two sides are going to court Friday over as much as $200 million in local affordable housing trust funds. So far, the Appellate Division of Superior Court has been kind to the Cherry Hill-based housing advocates, but this case could be a different story. To help balance the budget, Gov. Chris Christie recommended the state use the trust fund money. The administration appears to be within its legal right to do so, as the law creating the funds—and the developer fees that municipalities levy to subsidize them—specified municipalities had to “commit to spend” the money within four years. The clock strikes midnight on July 17. But as …
Joel Silver
7:51 am on Saturday, July 14, 2012
This is what I do for a living in the State of NJ. The funds should revert back to the NJ Department of Community Affairs Balanced Housing Program. As one who was a program manager in that program for many years and is currently an affordable housing developer hamstrung by the lack of funding in NJ, DCA is well equippied to leverage these funds to insure the production of affordable housing. more ›