Video: An explanation of the affordable housing lottery in Morristown
By Kevin Coughlin
Want to enter the lottery for an affordable apartment in Morristown?
Watch this video. (*After you have completed your degree in rocket science at Princeton.)
Frank Piazza of Frank Piazza & Associates is the affordable housing agent who has run the lottery process for the Modera and Gateway apartment projects in Morristown.
At Tuesday’s council meeting, he attempted to explain the convoluted process by which someone applies for a coveted affordable unit. (A thousand people applied for 26 affordable apartments at Modera 44.)
If you satisfy a stack of qualification requirements, Piazza’s company then uses a website to generate a random number that ranks you in the queue.
By law, it’s a minimum of four months before anyone can move into an affordable unit, from the time it’s first marketed.
If your financial status changes in the interim, you may be moved into a different “silo” of applicants, where your rank in the pecking order could go up or down, based on the others’ randomly generated numbers.
“We are the gatekeepers,” Piazza said.
Yet even if you pass his screening… and get a high lottery number…you still could be rejected. The developer’s leasing office can turn you away, after checking your credit history and criminal background.
While some towns designate an affordable housing administrator to oversee all applications, Morristown lets developers choose their own affordable housing agents.
That means that if several developers are building housing projects with an affordable component–as is the case in Morristown–you must submit separate applications, potentially to several administrators, to be considered by them all.
You cannot submit a blanket application, in other words.
And guess what: Living in Morristown does not give you first crack at affordable housing here.
State guidelines enable anyone from Morris, Warren, Essex and Union counties to apply, Piazza said. Affordable housing opportunities can be found at HousingQuest.com and NJHC.gov, he said.
Helen: The issue is that for a town (any town) to get “credit” for the affordable housing that is being built, it has to meet all the criteria established by the state. For all but the smallest projects (or for a project serving special needs occupants, such as homeless or disabled), one such requirement is a lottery. Even the 100% affordable developments have to do the lottery. The good news is that anyone in Morristown has the same chance as residents in Morris Plains, Morris Twp., Florham Park, etc. to get selected in lotteries in those towns. The bigger issue is that when you have 1,000 people apply for 26 apartments, there is clearly a HUGE crisis in housing affordability–not just in Morristown, and not just in NJ. It’s a national problem.
This lottery system does not work forMorristown residents needing affordable housing. When will the town step up for a better way to house it’s own. Developers have often stated to Morristown Administration and boards they can not financially afford to build more affordable units for a particular project. I have seen many towns build ONLY affordable units and the developer makes money. Why not Morristown? We educate our children and grandchildren, they graduate and can not afford to live here.
This is so wrong. Coucil Members, let’s find a better way to house our own.