Morristown planning board adopts affordable housing plan

The Morristown planning board voted unanimously on Monday to adopt a housing element for inclusion in the town’s zoning master plan.

Town officials said it’s an important move for several reasons:

• Without the housing plan, the town is vulnerable to lawsuits by developers.
• If the state Department of Community Affairs certifies the plan, Morristown can start tapping an $810,000 trust fund to subsidize more affordable housing projects.
• Without the plan, Morristown risks losing the trust fund entirely.
• The plan affirms Mayor Tim Dougherty’s desire to partner with nonprofits such as Homeless Solutions Inc. to provide new affordable units, using fees that the town will assess to developers.
• It speaks about partnering with Morris County to renovate existing low-income housing.

According to calculations in the document, Morristown has satisfied its affordable housing obligation as set forth by the now-defunct state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH).  The town still must fix up nine dwellings to fulfill a separate rehab requirement from COAH.

Before it was dismantled this year by Gov. Chris Christie, COAH had been pushing to require towns to set aside 20 percent of future developments for affordable housing. That issue now is before the state Supreme Court, leaving municipal planners across the state unsure how to proceed.

“In many respects we’re all working in the dark,” said Morristown planning board Attorney John Wyciskala.

Mayor Tim Dougherty, who also serves on the planning board, said he will insist that all future housing developments in Morristown include affordable units, which the town can “bank” just in case the state revives mandatory set-asides.

The town council still must okay the housing plan before it can be sent t0 the state DCA for certification.

Affordable housing has been a hot issue on the council; some members have argued unsuccessfully that a Speedwell Avenue redeveloper should be compelled to include more affordable units in a proposed 268-unit apartment complex.

The trust fund, meanwhile, contains fees paid by the developers of the 40 Park/Metropolitan and Vail Mansion luxury developments. Going forward, the town aims to replenish this fund with fees from builders of projects exceeding eight units.

A separate planning document estimates the fund will grow to $1.3 million by 2018.  Portions of the money must be spent for rental subsidies and an administrator, in addition to funding new affordable units, said  John Wyciskala, the board attorney.

If Morristown does not submit a housing plan in compliance with former COAH rules, the state can take the trust money, he said.

The planning board voted 9-0 in favor of the housing plan, with members praising Phil Abramson of Jonathan Rose Companies, the town planner, for crafting the document at the behest of the Mayor.

Under prior administrations, the Mayor said, the absence of a housing element gave developers too much sway.

“This gives the municipality more strength, more teeth,” to demand affordable housing from builders, said the Mayor.

The housing plan contains a wealth of demographic data, compiled from government statistics between 2005 and 2009. (Data from the 2010 census are not yet available, Phil said.)

When compared with data from past decades, these stats reveal a town that has controlled growth better than Morris County as a whole, Phil said.

Morristown has added just 3,000 residents over 80 years; the county has experienced a four-fold population increase.

Slightly more than one-third of Morristown’s 8,172 housing units were built before 1939; 70 percent of the town’s housing predates 1970.

Other factoids from Phil’s presentation to the board:

• Morristown remains a tenants’ town: 56 percent of  dwellings are rentals.
• Nine percent of residences are vacant.
• Forty-eight percent of Morristown’s 7,417 households spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

READ THE HOUSING PLAN