Okay. Uh, welcome everyone. Today is Monday, June 30th, 20125. It's color and this is a special meeting of the city of Asbury Park Planning Board. Chairwoman Kerzac, can you please call this meeting to order? This meeting is being held in
compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act, chapter 231, Public Law 1975. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided to the Coaster and the Aspbury Park Press by publication of the annual meeting notice and posted on the municipal bulletin board and municipal
website. All notices are on file with the board secretary. Official action may be taken on the following matters before the board. This meeting is being recorded by APV. Please join me in salute the flag to the flag of the stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I will now take roll call. James Vano here. Councilwoman Clayton here. Jim Henry here. Uh Jeremy Hoffman is absent.
Mayor Moore is absent. Jen Solder here. Daniel Shaneo is absent. Bob Zuckerman absent. Kathy Mclacklin here. Vice Chair Gunnan here. And chairwoman Barbara Kurszac here. All right. The uh our fir our first and
only application is the Asbury Park housing element and fair share plan. Fourth round. Secretary, you have the exhibits. Absolutely. Um first exhibit will be the proofs which I reviewed. They're in good
form. We'll make that C1 or C1. Okay. Uh second is the plan itself. We'll make that C2 evidence C2. Okay. And if uh Beth wants us to put the synopsis or the shorter form, we'll
put it as I I have no objection to that. So make it C3. Yeah, I think it should be in there. Let's get you sworn in. raise your right hand. I do. State your name for the record. It's Elizabeth or Beth McManus. And your affiliation?
I'm the uh redevelopment and affordable housing consultant to the city of Asbury Park. Thank you very much. So folks, thank you very much for uh for coming on this special uh council or planning board meeting. I really appreciate that. Um
the purpose of tonight's meeting is to review the housing element and fair share plan and uh at the end of my presentation I'll ask the board to consider it for adoption and uh adoption of course would incorporate the document the housing elements portion of it into
your master plan making it part of your uh master plan elements like the land use element circulation element etc. Uh the other thing that it will do uh adoption will do is enable the housing plan to be submitted to the affordable
housing dispute resolution program or the program as it's being referred to which is the new uh body of the judiciary that's been tasked with reviewing and approving housing elements uh as opposed to COA which has been uh
officially disbanded and as opposed to Superior Court that handled our third round. uh judgment or propose. Um the other thing that I'll ask for this evening is not just adoption of the housing plan, but if the board does find in in uh in favor of the housing plan
and adopts it, I'll ask also ask that you adopt the resolution because that also needs to be submitted to the program. And the reason why the the resolution is on the agenda for this evening is because the as you'll see in the slides, but we have a deadline to
submit documents by today. um a deadline to adopt the documents by today and then to submit them within 48 hours. So, we don't we can't do the typical resolution a month later or so. So, with that, I thought I would give uh an overview of a
little information about affordable housing here in New Jersey, why we're here, why why we engage in this process, and then of course what's contained in the housing plan. Can we um just take just one moment uh and to kind of
clarify um why we're here on the 30th looking for a resolution and move trying to move it this at this pace as opposed to what we would normally do. So, it might normally be on perhaps your regularly
scheduled planning board meetings. And folks, the the reality is that um my schedule just couldn't permit it. I just want to be honest about that. I don't I don't typically do your planning board meetings and so what what that means is
I have regular conflicts those nights. But more importantly, the month has been uh it has been very much a challenge for planners and attorneys and and other folks that do this work. Um and so I think this was literally the
only night in June that worked for my schedule and that uh the board was able to get a quorum. Although I think admittedly it was mostly my schedule and also that um we also had to make sure that you were able to present in front of the council as well. Yeah. As well as
that u making sure that we had time to to get this for before council um since uh governing bodies are largely leading these efforts um although it's the planning board that's tasked with adopting the housing plan. So, yeah, we needed to get before council first, give uh public and council members an
opportunity to weigh in on on what was uh anticipated to be included. All right. So, what what date was it? Was it in front of council? Wasn't it like uh just like very early I think it was uh early June 11th. June about the 11th or something like that. Two meetings. Okay.
So, two meetings ago. And at that point, uh from what I understand, the public was also Yeah. able to question. Correct. So it was presented in front of the council and the public at that time. Yeah. Okay. In fact, the presentation that the members of the public and the
council saw is virtually the same as what's going to be presented this evening. It's just been updated for uh for the date and the change in audience. Mhm. And one other thing that I'd just like to mention just for the record is that we also included uh in the note in
the information that we provided to the planning board members, we also included the APV recorded version of that presentation so that our members could both see this earlier, which is sometimes a lot earlier than they would
normally see things, and they also were given that link to be able to to see that ahead of time if they chose to do so. So that we try to understanding what the situation is, we try to give our members as much information as early as
we possibly could to help mitigate some of this. That's great. Okay, for those of you that watch the recording, I'm sorry because you're going to hear a lot of repeated uh language, but uh hopefully that means it'll just be a little easier for folks to uh to get through and understand what we're doing. So, are there any more comments or
questions before I get going? No. Okay. Okay. So, uh just generally why we're engaged in this process in New Jersey, there really I I would say two primary reasons. The first one is is legal. The other one is just simply good planning.
So from a legal perspective for about 50 years now we've known that well we've been directed pursuant to a New Jersey Supreme Court decision the Mount Laurel one decision that municipalities have a constitutional obligation to plan for low and moderate income households and
that court decision was was quite long and there there was the Mount Laurel 2 three four several other cases that are relevant to what we're doing today plus uh multiple versions of affordable housing rules schools. But at its very
core, in 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court said, "Towns you, you must plan for households of all incomes." And essentially, as a result of that, really a variety of housing types. And in addition to simply directing that type
of thought and planning into municipal planning and zoning practices, the one of the follow-ups from later case law was this builder's remedy litigation. And that's a form of exclusionary zoning litigation. And it's something that just about every single municipality in the
state seeks to avoid. It is a type of litigation that arises from typically, but not always, from a developer stating that the municipality hasn't met its affordable housing obligation, meaning it hasn't submitted an adopted housing plan or it hasn't done what that housing
plan indicated that the town would do. And as a result, the town is non-compliant. the the remedy, the builder's remedy that they propose to the court, assuming they are successful in that assertion of the town status, is that they will assist in providing affordable housing. And that comes in
the form of inclusionary development. And it is always something that is larger, more dense, andor taller than what the municipality would have otherwise permitted. If you think about the effort a developer would have to go through to to receive a builder's
remedy, it makes sense, I think, in my mind that they're only going to go through that effort if the zoning doesn't permit what they're proposing. So, it could be a commercial district. It could be a single family residential district. It could be simply a district that doesn't allow the heightened density that they're seeking. And when
they are successful, it is hugely disruptive to municipalities. It means that your zoning and your master planning for that particular property is essentially irrelevant. Um since the developer has in that example rightly
identified that the municipality is not meeting its constitutional obligation and they are there to help and assist. And so what I recommend for Asbury Park, like every other town in the state, that we do everything we can to avoid builder's treadmill because we simply
want to control our own zoning and our own planning. The other reason why municipalities should go through this process in addition to the very good legal reasons is quite frankly doing so promotes housing quality. It promotes housing
affordability and it promotes housing or rather just general quality of life for those folks that are perhaps struggling to find housing that's affordable to them. So it's it's really critical in maintaining our planning and zoning framework but also uh critical from the
perspective of uh advancing quality of life here in the city and New Jersey as a whole. A little bit more about affordable housing in general. Uh, one of the questions I often get asked is who qualifies for affordable housing? What are the appropriate incomes for uh for
obtaining low or moderate income housing? And this table that is replicated from your housing plan. But just as an example, if we look at a three-person family, uh it could be two parents and a child or two children and one parent, the maximum income is about
$97,000 a year. So the incomes for low and moderate income households are are higher than what I think a lot of folks expect, especially as we look at the moderate income range. And so this table identifies the very low, low, and moderate income ranges, uh, all of which
are varying types of affordable housing. And you won't see your housing plan give a lot of information about these three different income levels, but they are all incorporated into your affordable housing regulating ordinance. And anytime a developer uh is proposing to
do affordable housing, just about any time, they're going to include a mix of very low, low, and moderate income households at the prescribed uh minimum percentages set forth in in your ordinance as well as uh in other state
regulations. And so just to to follow up with that, some example rents, uh for that for let's say a two-bedroom home, it's going to range between uh $600 to about $1600 for an affordable unit, depending on
whether we're talking about very low, low, or moderate income. Now, we have a variety of affordable housing minimums and limitations, and some of these are more relevant to the city than others, but I wanted to share it because I think it gives good
information as to how the state thinks about affordable housing and what type of affordable housing is deemed most important. So, on the left, we have citywide regulations or citywide requirements. And as I'll explain in a moment, this city doesn't have what's
referred to as a new construction obligation. So, I'm really not I don't have a lot of concern about how the city might be promoting senior housing, etc., but I think this is still relevant to see because you can get a sense as to the priority, which is family housing,
which is simply just housing that is not reserved for, let's say, seniors or those with special needs for any particular population. that has a 50% requirement and that's actually applicable to not just your total obligation but also the rental obligation. Uh and you can get a sense
that as to the the limitation on the maximum number of senior units that have been dep prioritized in the throughout our affordable housing regulations down uh such that it's only 30% that can be used to fulfill the obligation. And then a newish priority for very low-income
housing has become uh important over the last decade or so. Those requirements that are applicable to your affordable housing developments are listed on the right. And these are the development requirements where it includes the mix of one, two, threebedroom units and also
the minimum requirement of 50% lowincome as well as uh 13% very low income which is a subset of low-income housing units. So in order to participate in this process to be protected from builder's remedy litigation there are principally
two things that need to be done and one of them has already been completed. The first one was to participate in the process and to do that through the governing body resolution adopted before the end of January that one uh committed participation in the process and two identified our affordable housing
obligation that was adopted by city council in January submitted to the program and so that first step is completed. The second step is to do exactly what we're here uh addressing this evening, which is to adopt a housing plan and submit that to the
program. And as I said at the outset, the deadline for doing so is essentially is actually today. So, let's uh let's get into our housing obligation. So, we have uh most towns in New Jersey have two types of affordable
housing obligation. Uh the city also has two types of obligations but one of them is rather unusual. So the first one that's shared by all municipalities that's the rehabilitation obligation and that obligation has been uh originally calculated by DCA and assigned to the
city by superior court via an order earlier in the year. That obligation is 214 units and it's an estimate of the number of uh substandard units that exist in the city that are occupied by low and moderate income households and
it's simply based on census and American community survey data uh that's been extrapolated to provide that calculation. The second component of the obligation that most municipalities in Jersey have is called a new construction obligation. sometimes called the rounds obligation
like the fourth round, third round etc. But Esbury Park is a qualified urban aid municipality. So that means we don't have that obligation. Never have and uh don't through this fourth round. The other component that the city does have that this housing plan addresses is
unusual and very specific to the city. Um it's not a it's not an obligation like you would find in the Fair Housing Act, but it's something that we need to respond to in our housing plan. and that is the number of outstanding RCA units. Uh the city had ongoing RCA programs. We
had taken money from a variety of municipalities in years past and a portion of those RCA units have not been completed or were not uh properly regulated. And so as a result, we have an outstanding obligation of 206.
And for those of you that have uh been listening to me talk about affordable housing for the last several years, this should sound familiar. Uh and as what you're going to see, our proposal to address your RCA obligation and your rehabilitation obligation is exactly the
same as it was in your third round housing plan. It's just simply been continued and brought forward to this new fourth round. So starting with the rehabilitation, can I ask a question about that? Just trying to get it right in my head. We just completed the third round process like two years ago, right? Because there was
a delay and so now this fourth round we're like right on top of it doing it. Yes. That's why they're so close together. Yeah. So that yes, there was a delay in getting going in the third round um simply because the city was an urban a municipality but we decided to participate and then once we started
participating in the third round it takes a couple years to get through the process and that's why our housing plans are only a couple years apart. Thank you. Yeah. So, our rehabilitation obligation, like I said, it's 214 units. The city is going to uh simply continue
its existing rehabilitation program. And this is a program that will be available to low uh low and moderate income as well as landlords with low and moderate income tenants. And so what's required is that the unit be occupied by
low and moderate income households and that the unit need uh a major system improvement. Uh so this is not for cosmetic changes. It's not for perhaps paint on the on the home, but it's for major systems such as roofing, could be
lead paint removal, also could be HVAC, for example. Uh the program will continue to be operated by our affordable housing administrative agent which is um CGPNH, community grants housing and planning. They're a great organization that runs
these types of programs all over the state. And what this more specifically means is them operating it. It means that folks that want to participate in the program will actually apply through CGPNH. We'll work with that organization
to identify the work that will be completed to construct the work go through the uh the entire program to confirm that the uh that the improvements were done properly etc. Although I will say the city will be
authorizing uh payment to uh to the individual um for the individual rehabilitations but otherwise it is operated by the administrative agent. Each of these rehabilitations comes with 10-year affordability control. So for the next 10 years, if it's a rental
unit, for example, if those tenants leave, the next set of tenants or tenants will have to be income qualified. And as a uh for sale unit, the owner would have to resell the home to another income qualified household.
So it will not only uh improve housing conditions in the city, but it will also uh create some affordable housing stock for for a decade each. Do you know about how many of these we've been doing a year? Uh
I think it is less than significant less than 20 units a year. Well, that's not terrible. If we have 200, then 20 a year would get us there in 10 years. I will and actually on that note uh there's no penalty as long as the city creates the program as long as we make
it available and advertise it. There's no penalty if we don't have 214 households that participate. So that's okay. Our obligation is to make the program available to this number of households but not to require that we
have 214 folks that apply to the program successfully. So for our second component of uh what we're obligated to do and that is to address the 206 RCA units. And so this project, the the home plate site is
exactly as was set forth in your 2023 housing plan, which was exactly as set forth in the city's memorandum of memorandum of understanding with the city housing authority and our settlement agreement with Fairshair
Housing Center. This project and the negotiation for regarding the rehabilitation program took place in the early very early 2020s as part of our settlement agreement. And as part of that, we agreed to work with the housing authority to
essentially create enough affordable housing units such that it was deemed to have addressed the outstanding RCA problem, RCA units. The housing authority has been working with the city working on concept plans and so this
project is moving forward. It just simply wasn't possible to get it done in the first two years after our housing plan. And so our third round housing plan and so we're going to continue to move this project forward throughout the fourth round. But what it ultimately means is that we're going to be creating
not less than 132 affordable housing units on it's referred to as the home plate site, but in reality it is the home plate site plus the existing Lincoln Village development that you can see highlighted on the screen as well as in the housing plan. And so the home
plate site is the undeveloped lawn area shown there. Uh that is shaped like a home plate. Uh Lincoln Village is obviously the buildings immediately to the north. The project is located at the corner of uh Memorial Drive and Springwood Avenue as well as Prospect
Avenue and it also has uh some frontage along uh Laner Street as well as Cookman. So essentially it is most of a city block. Uh, as I said, 132 units will be de developed between the two properties of Home Plate and Lincoln
Village with not less than 69 on the Home Plate site. And the purpose of those units will be to provide housing for the existing residents of Lincoln Village such that they have an opportunity to stay within the city. uh
because the second phase is uh to demolish Lincoln Village and to construct additional housing on that property to construct essentially the rest of the project, the rest of the 132 units on that site. And so our
memorandum of understanding and our settlement agreement sets forth the terms for for this process with I think some of the more important terms about guaranteeing uh the right to remain in Asbury Park for the existing residents
and also for alerting and advertising this housing to folks that may have been harmed by the uh poorly managed or incomplete RCA program such that we're trying to uh essentially rectify some of
the problems that came to be throughout the the life of that program. The affordable units on both properties will have affordability controls in not less than 30 years. I also anticipate that the developer of the project who will seems unlikely to be the housing
authority. They will partner with the developer of the affordable units, but those folks will go out for outside sources of funding potentially including the low-inccome housing tax credit program. And additionally, the city will convey funding for the project as well. This is essentially funding that was
unused uh or otherwise uh intended to be allocated towards the RCA program. that RCA program has been closed and as a result the money money will be uh allocated towards the construction of these affordable units.
And so with that that is an overview of the housing plan. It is essentially conductive uh continue the existing rehabilitation program to fulfill the rehabilitation obligation and continue our work with the housing authority to uh redevelop the home plate and Lincoln
Village properties. And so the next steps are for the board to consider adopting the housing plan. If yes, I would also ask you to uh execute the resolution. Uh we'll submit those documents to court. I'll work with your affordable housing attorneys to do so.
Those documents will be submitted potentially tonight, if not uh probably before I wake up tomorrow morning. Uh and then we will submit there supplemental documents that also need to be submitted to the court as well. uh in most of them I think all of them are in
draft form and I'll work with uh council and your affordable housing attorney to submit those to the program as well and after that we simply wait for the compliance certification now the compliance certification is the new term for uh for the stamp of approval
essentially previously it was referred to as the judgment of propose or substance certification when we had COA but the compliance certifications, the new name set forth in the Fair Housing Act that will be issued by essentially by the program. Now, I will say we have a two-month objection period coming up.
So, we may get objections from from folks. Uh, but we have through the end of the year to rectify those objections. If we need to amend the housing plan, we'll certainly do so. Um, but if we don't get any objections, I would I would like to think we'll have a compliance certification before the end
of the year. And so with that, folks, I'm happy to answer any questions. Any planning board members have any questions? I have a few. Um, so, so some of these are just because I don't understand some things. Um, so there in in the actual
draft that you sent us of the housing plan, there were a couple references to like complying with COA rules and COA regulations. Um, but then I remember reading somewhere else that COA was abolished. So, can you just explain to us how that works? Yeah, it's a little bizarre. Um, so color is abolished.
Basically, it is um officially removed from from the state via the 2024 fair housing act. But notwithstanding that, uh the Fair Housing Act also says that municipalities shall craft their housing plan, calculate their affordable housing
obligation consistent with the Fair Housing Act. However, municipalities have the right to rely on the adopted state rules for crediting and adjustments and adjustments are not really relevant to Asbury Park, but to crediting. So, it's this admittedly
somewhat unusual circumstance where the state agency has been abolished, but we're still directed to use uh their first, second, third, and different versions of their third round rules. Got it. Um, one other question I had. So you had tal talked about the
rehabilitation obligation. There's really no time requirement. The RCA obligation, is there a time requirement on that one? Yeah, we're so the way that the requirements it's an unusual circumstance here
because we're it's not a typical municipally sponsored construction project where we are doing 100% affordable housing into in order to meet our new construction obligation. This is a little bit different as we partner with the housing authority. The conventional type of project which would
be a typical 100% affordable housing project would be two years to break ground from when your housing plan is adopted. Now we're beyond two years from our third round plan. Um, so my expectation is that we're going to get an updated
um, construction schedule from the housing authority and as part of our fourth round compliance, we'll be tasked with working with the housing authority to do what we can to facilitate their construction of the project. So,
um I suppose I could say it's a two year two-year window to break ground, but we're in such an unusual circumstance where we're partnering with the housing authority as opposed to simply constructing our affordable housing
obligation such that I would expect that there's going to be that there may be uh justific justification for flexibility. If the housing authority is unable to move forward, what we can do is make sure that the city is doing what is necessary to facilitate the housing authority to
assign a developer, apply for construction funding, relocate residents to Lincoln Village. But I would I'm wary to say that that deadline applies to us in the same way it would apply to other municipalities because this is such an
unusual project that I don't know that there's any comparison in the state. So I I'm sorry. I know that that's not a very uh specific answer, but that's what I can offer you. The reason I ask is I mean obviously we want the project to move forward but um I was also just thinking like from a builder's revenue
standpoint would could we ever get to a point in like 2028 where a builder says well you haven't done this I would say that would be the case only if I would like to think it would be the case only if it can be demonstrated that
the city's not doing what we're supposed to to facilitate the housing authority or the housing authority is not doing what it has committed to in order to do the Great. Oh, and I have one last question. Uh, sorry. So, on page 20, it's talking about the low and moderate split for
units. And, um, one thing I didn't understand, it says at least 13% of the units must be reserved for very low-income households. Makes sense. But then it says, additionally, at least 25% of the affordable units in each bedroom distribution should be reserved for very low-income households. So, it's like in
one place it says 13 of all of all 13% of all units, but then it says at least 20% in each bedroom distribution. It just seems to be a uh and it might be a subset thing that I'm that I'm missing, but or it might be just a typo. So, I was just hoping we could take a look at
that before we I'm sorry, I just wanted to uh stop sharing so I can pull this up was on page 20 of the draft. Yeah. Yeah. where it says low and moderate and kind of split. Just want to make sure we're saying what
we want to say. Yeah. Let's see. Let's see. This is part of a new standard. Let me let me uh just confirm it. Sorry, folks. One second. One of the issues that we're all struggling with in the state is we have
new um uniform housing affordability control rules that have been uh released by the state that are not yet adopted, but are nonetheless required to be implemented into our housing plans. And it's it just
causes a little bit of a confusion. There's some conflicts in there. Let's say I think I'm going to find that that should actually be 20 uh should be 13% uh as opposed to 25%.
Yeah, I was thinking it might be 25% of the 50% um of low low count, but it said that there's a the text just doesn't make sense. So, I just want to make sure we get it get it right. What I would recommend is that if the board's comfortable with it, that you give me
the flexibility to adjust that in the final version if necessary. Yeah. Sorry, that was everything for me. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other planning board members have any questions? Okay. Um,
since there are no members of the public, uh, we have no questions from the public. Um, are and, uh, can I get a motion to open public comment? So, move. Second. Can I get a since there's no
public uh, can I motion to close public comment? Second. Okay. Any do any of the, uh, planning board members have any comments that they would like to um, discuss? or present. Um, I just want to say I
appreciate Barbara's questions and your answers, Beth, about the timing because I I did have concerns as to um I understand that all the things that you said and it makes sense. I was just worried about um being able to have everybody share any comments and get any
changes made if necessary. Yeah, it's a fair comment. Yeah, but it makes I know the whole state has been hectic about it. Okay. Um, can I get a uh Tell me if I'm saying it right, Jack. Motion to adopt. Motion. I'll just say that. Motion to
adopt. Okay. Get a motion to adopt this to the housing plan. Housing plan as as presented. As presented. And can we just say that if Beth needs to adjust that one number, it's okay. Yeah. Right.
Okay. Motion. Um, I'll motion. Second. I'll second. I did not catch a second. Sorry. To the general. Okay. Um, James Banano, yes. Councilwoman Clayton, yes. Jim Henry, yes. Jen
Solder, yes. Kathy McLaclin, yes. Vice Chair Gunnan, yes. And Chairwoman Carzac, yes. Now, has a chance to look at the resolution? Yes. No. Okay.
Should I print some extra copies? Do you have a copy? I have a copy. Yes. I can print anybody [Music] actually prepared by council for housing
council. I looked it over comments basically just an adoption resolution. Sorry, I don't know why. We have been having very bad
key. Oh, okay. Great. You can read all the weares. You don't have Do I have the rest? Yeah. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry.
It's problem. Does anybody else want to take a quick look at it before? Can I take a quick look? Thank you. Sorry. I know. I think it all right. Uh, any any questions or
concerns about the resolution? All right. Can I get a motion to adopt the resolution? Motion to adopt the resolution. Second. Okay. James Banano. Yes. Councilwoman Clayton.
Yes. Jim Henry, I'm going to Excuse me. I'm abstaining. Jim Henry is abstaining. Okay. Jen Solder. Yes. Kath McLaclin, yes. Vice Chair Gunnan, yes. Chairwoman Carzac, yes.
Okay. So, that's resolution adopted and uh I just need to sign. We need to sign. Okay. All right. Thank you, folks. All right. Thank you. Thank you for uh for the hard work. I know it's it's it's been rough. Maybe you get a few days to to to relax
a little. Tomorrow's my first night off that I don't have something scheduled in like two months. I'm so pleased. All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn? So move. Second. Second by Ivon Clayton. All in favor? None opposed? I I
um Thank you very much. All right. Thank you.