After a nonprofit sued seeking to halt all Morristown development, town officials have supplied an overdue report they say proves the town is meeting its affordable housing obligation.
In a civil lawsuit, the Fair Share Housing Center of Cherry Hill last month asked a Superior Court judge to bar pending and future Morristown projects until a progress report, due last July, is filed and demonstrates the town has satisfied commitments made in a 2017 settlement.
Morristown provided that update this week, according to center attorney Bassam F. Gergi, who now is asking the court to push back a hearing this month so he can scrutinize the document.
“I think we’re hopeful this will be resolved amicably and quickly,” Gergi said on Friday.
Town Administrator Jillian Barrick said Morristown is in compliance and on track to exceed its obligation via a variety of projects, including a potential development that could yield 21 affordable units on 2.3 remaining acres of the M Station office/retail complex rising at Morris and Spring streets.
The vacant parcel fronts Spring Street, near Bishop Nazery Way, the administrator said. To date, no application has been filed, she said.
Barrick also defended Mayor Tim Dougherty, who cited his affordable housing record during his successful primary campaign last month. He seeks a fourth term.
“Morristown is proud to have been one of Morris County’s first municipalities to settle with Fair Share Housing Center,” Barrick said. “Tim Dougherty is the first Mayor in Morristown’s history to propose and implement an affordable housing plan to meet Morristown’s constitutional obligation.
“Since the settlement, Morristown has approved additional sites not even contemplated by the settlement agreement to provide even more affordable units,” said Barrick.
She did not explain why the four-page report, now posted on the town’s website, was a year late. The center says it sued because the town ignored its requests for the update.
The nonprofit Fair Share Housing Center has advocated for housing for New Jersey’s poor since 1975.
MONKEY WRENCH?
If the court sides with the center, the lawsuit potentially could prevent M Station from proceeding.
It also could throw a monkey wrench into a pending apartment proposal on South Street, town plans to condemn a former lumberyard for use as a park, and a massive redevelopment contemplated for vacant storefronts along North Park Place near the Morristown Green, among other projects.
Morristown pledged in 2017 to provide for affordable housing in several redevelopment projects by October 2019.
“When towns deviate or welsh on those commitments, they must be prepared for the consequences and swift, resolute judicial intervention. What is at stake is nothing
less than the constitutional rights of lower-income New Jerseyans to have a safe, decent, affordable place to live — and the dignity that comes with it,” Gergi said in the lawsuit.
Part of that welshing, the suit contends, involves the town’s approval of M Station to replace a strip mall at Spring and Morris streets. A 2008 redevelopment plan had called for apartments, which were expected to yield 40 affordable units.
The town never presented any plans to make up for those lost units, the lawsuit asserts.
M Station developers have pledged to pay $2.5 million to the town’s affordable housing trust fund. Town officials have hailed the project as a shot in the arm for the town. It’s expected to bring a Blue Chip tenant (Big Four accounting firm Deloitte), hundreds of employees, millions in tax revenue, and roadway improvements.
Additionally, the suit questions why the town only is requiring a 12.5 percent affordable set-aside for apartments proposed for the train station, instead of a 15 percent minimum, as mandated in 2017.
Until Morristown lives up to that court-approved settlement, the lawsuit says, the court should impose “scarce resource restraints”– curbing new development to prevent more affordable housing opportunities from slipping away.
The suit could grind Morristown development to a halt by seeking to…
- “stay the vesting of rights” in all land use and site plan approvals
- prohibit the town from developing any land, and from acquiring, conveying and disposing of land and interests in land
- restrain town officials and boards from approving subdivisions, site plans, variances, waivers and substantial amendments involving private or public land.
- bar the town from rezoning any public or private land, and from adopting or amending any redevelopment or rehabilitation plans.
The Fair Share Housing Center also seeks town reimbursement of its legal fees and court costs.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING: BY THE NUMBERS
Courts assumed oversight of municipal compliance with Mount Laurel housing obligations after the state Supreme Court declared the state Council on Affordable Housing “moribund” in 2015.
Morristown and many other towns then requested rulings on their compliance, sparking negotiations with the Fair Share Housing Center.
The center’s 2017 agreement with Morristown, the AHS Investment Corp. and Homeless Solutions Inc. determined the town’s outstanding “fair share” obligation was 369 affordable units or credits.
Morristown claimed it only had enough vacant land to accommodate 141 such units. To start addressing the remaining obligation, the town pointed to redevelopment projects proposed for Spring Street, Morris Street, the train station lot and Speedwell Avenue.
Combined, these plans were anticipated to yield at least 90 units, via a “builder’s remedy” stipulating affordable set-asides of 15 percent of rental projects and 20 percent of for-sale housing developments, the lawsuit says.
One phase of the Speedwell redevelopment is tied up in litigation. But Morristown’s report indicates 142 promised affordable units either are built or are under construction, and another 80 are envisioned.
These include 16 units from four developments that were not contemplated by the 2017 settlement. The applications are for 190 South St./31-33 Market St., 45 Morris St., 28 Schuyler Place and 5 South Park Place/ 2 and 10 South St.
The Court Street lot only became vacant after the development had been approved and the offices/residences on it had been demolished. It is reasonable to argue that this is a better use of the property than the previous six buildings/wooded area.
However, the 30 Court Street development has obtained six parking spaces on Court Street for its exclusive use, removing these spaces from the metered parking general use that they had previously had. I see no reason why developers should not be required to provide sufficient parking for their own uses at their own expense without reducing the parking available to the general public.
“Why is this not headline news???”
Maybe because it’s not really true? Near as I could tell when I walked by today, the hill on the Senior Center side of 30 Court has healthy grass and young trees. It’s not exactly what I’d call bucolic, but it’s not a blighted eyesore.
“Their tenants and the public can’t see it but the dead trees and overgrowth of weeds is in full view of the seniors.”
In FULL VIEW? The horror! Why is this not headline news???
Guess I just got nostalgic after attending my 1953 MHS reunion. Some of my classmates lived in that neighborhood, Arlene Rubin and the late Jim Hennesey were two. My brother-in-law Dave had recently visited and bumped into Father Lash, also from the neighborhood and they reminisced about all the families on his paper route in that entire Chestnut St. area.
The front of 30 Court St. may be lovely but none of those old families could have afforded to live there and the landscaping of steep bank facing the Ann Street Senior center has never been completed. Their tenants and the public can’t see it but the dead trees and overgrowth of weeds is in full view of the seniors.
D, you are very welcome.
All the best!
@Margret – 30 Court is NOT an example of gentrification. If you recall the homes/offices on that street were given Town approval to do a variety of use changes and construction adaptations. The block was hardly kept as a historic zone although many of the original construction was over 200 years old.
The land owners were smart to seek a developer Pulte Homes, would bought most of the block of double lots. The step slope that existed posed construction challenges as well as a downturn in the economy. Pulte eventually sold to the present developers of the 30 Court project.
They completed a beautiful complex on a very challenging plot of land. New rateables for the Town. No residents were displaced. I’d call that a win for everyone.
@Margaret 30 Court had been a vacant lot for about 12 years before it was built. It is a gorgeous building, and it is better than the lot being vacant
Morristown’s diversity of all kinds, including income is one of its greatest assets. Redevelopment has led to a gentrification that has made many of our long time residents unable to remain here as many of our neighborhoods have been changed to permit high density high rent apartments. 30 Court Street is a perfect example of this, located in what had been a historic old fashioned neighborhood, where so many long time residents grew up.
Affordable is pitching a tent on the green. Like the continental soldiers.
I’d been WONDERING why there was no such thing as homeless people. Thanks for explaining it, Jeff!
All housing is affordable. If that were not the case, this is what would happen:
– Housing would become empty as people moved away.
– Prices would drop, or they would stay empty.
“Affordable” is a relative term. Saying that a Rolls-Royce is unaffordable would sound silly. Obviously there are those who can afford them. It might be unaffordable for YOU.
“Unaffordable” is now a euphemism for “expensive,” and “affordable” is a euphemism for “taxpayer-subsidized.”
It’s all about money and politics. What about the people who wand up homeless each year cause there isn’t any affordable housing available, but want to build high rise condos which with my salary I could not affordable. Where is the empathy to resolve this matter instead of dragging it out on court ,cause Morristown is selective about who lives in there town.They just to drag it out in court the pencil pusher.
Affordable Housing makes housing in NJ unaffordable. We need leadership in the state to ammend the NJ Constitution and remove the Mt. Laurel Doctrine.
Nothing says “good, transparent government” like requiring people to sue you to see a mandated report.
This town’s government seems to think they’re just a private real estate business venture and not an actual entity that answers to the public.