##VIDEO ID:sbI5-FQIOZs## wait what about our bur attorney time we have a portable housing attorney what what I'm sorry I didn't hear you the affordable housing attorney we're okay we're good okay um let's call this meeting to order at 5:35 PM we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance please rise wherever you may be find the flag Allegiance I pledge algi to United States to the na indivisible liy and Justice please join me in a moment of Silent reflection thank you uh Alison may I oh Sunshine Law notice this is the January 22nd 2025 special meeting of the mayor and Council of the burough Fair Haven this meeting is via Zoom only broadcast from burough Hall 748 River Road fairen New Jersey and was called pursuing to the provisions of the open public meetings act it's a great act the open public meetings Act noce of this meeting was provided to the public the Asbury Park Press the Two River times and the Rumson faan patch on January 8 2025 it has been posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building and through the Burrow's social media platforms and has remained continuously posted as required under the statute in addition copies of the above notices are and have been available to the public and are on file in the office of the municipal clerk with adequate notice having been given the burough clerk is directed to include the statement in the minutes of this meeting Allison may I please have a roll call Council member's call yes see you Michael yes you're bety I'm here sorry I couldn't unmute it present olon here we have administrator yourk Bill olon our Co counil Kendra and Jo is our Municipal housing Leon thank you uh we are here to discuss resolution 20254 approve and commit to round four affordable housing uh present or prospective need obligations Chris who who are we turning this over to right now so we're going to turn it over to uh our portable housing attorney Bill good evening mayor and councel um so so to start you know the first question I I always ask is you know is is everybody familiar with the Mount Laurel Doctrine or do you got want me to kind of give you as quick a history as I can on the doctrine itself matter record I think it's probably good to give a quick overview just so everybody online is aware perfect so yes so basically the Mount Laurel Doctrine is the uh court court founded Doctrine which mandates that a municipal I I have an affirmative obligation through their zoning to generate their fair share of affordable housing it all it all started from a Supreme Court case uh that was decided in 1975 involving uh you know Township of Mount Laurel uh wherein that the Court held that the uh municipality was a unable to use their zoning powers to um basically not allow low and moderate income households uh to reside within the municipality uh for an 8e stretch following the 1975 decision uh there was basically three camps of municipalities there were municipalities who basically actively avoided the decision so they didn't agree with it there were municipalities who didn't do anything because they were unsure um who you know how kind of how to comply or what the decision meant uh and then there were municipalities that that you know basically sought to construct uh low and moderate income housing uh as a result of the uh you know kind of the indecision and kind of misunderstanding or or not understanding the decision in 1983 the Supreme Court decided Mount Laurel 2 in which case they they gave teeth to the doctrine uh and and allowing what's called a builder's remedy lawsuit so a builder's remedy is basically a developer can sue a municipality that is not compliant with its Mount Laural obligations uh and you know it has to show a few things it has to show you know the municipality is one not compliant two does not have creditworthy units um and three is not seeking to voluntarily comply with it obligations uh in that scenario basically the the developer uh so long as they they produce a number of affordable housing with the units that they are seeking to construct can get approval from the court and circumvent the Planning and Zoning process of a municipality to get their housing project following the Supreme Court's decision in Mount Laurel 2 uh it resulted in over 100 Builders remedy lawsuits being filed with the court AC against various municipalities uh and that prompted the legislature to adopt What's called the fair housing act in 1985 in 1985 the Fair Housing Act created What's called the Council on what created what was the Council on affordable housing uh in essence they were the administrative agency that was tasked with overseeing a municipalities compliance it allowed municipalities to comply voluntarily and receive what's called you know immunity from Builders remedy lawsuits for a period of time uh the Council on affordable housing adopted their first regulations in 1987 and and then adopted a second round regulations in 1993 from 1985 until about 1999 COA you know was an effective agency uh in adopting the regulations and in overseeing a municipality's um ability to uh you know to to voluntarily comply with its affordable housing obligations beginning in 1999 uh COA attempted to adopt round three rules uh they adopted rules in 2004 the court struck down those rules they adopted a second of third round the second round of third round rules in 2007 the court struck down those rules as well following that there was uh a fairly lengthy period of time about five or six years between uh their attempts to adopt regulations uh finally the fare housing center filed a motion with the Supreme Court saying that COA is basically not functioning uh COA was unable to adopt another set of third round rules and the Supreme Court in 2015 adopted what is cloy known as uh Mount Laurel 4 which basically said that COA was no longer a functioning agency and transferred all of their operations uh for voluntar voluntary compliance uh with the court for round three so round one was from 1987 to 1993 round two was from 1993 to 1999 round three was from 1999 until 2025 and is due to expire on July 1 of this year uh as we move towards round four I apologize as we move towards round four uh the the there was questions as to how round four was going to be uh you know kind of proceeded proceeding uh the legislature introduced a bill Cally known as A4 uh which radically revamped the Fair Housing Act uh I can tell you is that our office you know participated vigorously um in seeking to either oppose or changed the bill uh and some of its uh you know its terms uh you know eventually the legislature adopted a modified version of the bill which was signed by Governor Murphy on March 20th of 2024 uh and that completely and totally revamped how municipalities can comply voluntarily with their affordable housing processes uh so they eliminated the Council on affordable housing they transferred their um they transferred their uh duties from to the Department of Community Affairs uh to the housing Mortgage and Finance Agency and finally what was called the program which is uh under the administrative office of the courts the processes that start for round four uh were actually were also pushed up and so starting on Jan by January 31st of 2025 a municipality has to adopt what is called a binding resolution uh a binding resolution in essence uh you know is what a municipality thinks it's round for uh affordable housing obligation is going to be um and so uh in adopting that deadline they also adopted the uh the formula for determining what a round four obligation would be by adopting the judge Jacobson opinion uh which was an opinion in round three uh which basically analyzed and calculated a way for municipalities to have their obligations calculated for round three uh they push it into round four and so there's three different ways that the municipalities uh obligation is calculated first is the land capacity factor which is in essence what the what the you know developable area in terms of acreages in a municipality there's the non-residential uh valuation factor or what we call ratables basically what the you know the entirety of the non-residential property tax values are in the region are then you know kind of calculated against a specific municipalities that's done using property tax data and then finally there is the uh income capacity factor which uses the Census Data to determine uh what the uh you know income is for each municipality and so generally in looking at those three uh you know particular sets of data the fir the second two uh the non-residential valuation factor and the um income Factor are are kind of a you know a set number um objective numbers and data so it's it's pretty hard to challenge those two or or kind of to look at those two uh to see if they were you know incorrect uh and then the third one is the land capacity factor and so the land capacity Factor you know could vary from person to person uh or you know an expert to expert and the reason why I bring that up is because the Department of Community Affairs released a report on October 18th of 2024 which calculated what it determined each municipality's obligation to be that number is not binding so municipality could either accept or reject it uh and then looking at the burough of fair Havens um data sets and the land capacity Factor the DCA determined that the burrow had 0.847 acres of developable land and gave it a a land capacity factor that was fairly low from from our perspective it was Z like 0.15% um so if you know if the burrow even were interested in challenging it it would have a minimal effect as to what the dca's number for the burough would have been uh which is 92 units and so I think real quick buddy I don't mean to interrupt you but that's a lot of information is fantastic can can can can you just reate what you just said right because because I heard binding and nonbinding yeah then I heard you know the October letter where we really don't have any land left to develop and then I heard 92 units isn't binding so can you just yeah can you just can you just rewind sure so so there's the the binding resolution which is what a municipality basically has to commit as their number for round four um so basically the the municipality determines you know I think our round four obligation is you know a municipal 92 units in this case from the I think and that's resolution and that's resolution 20254 that is that commitment that we're making the way you making a commitment is through a formal adopted resolution exactly and so um the municipality can select you know what that number is or what that number isn't uh the DCA pursuant to the new Fair Housing Act was txed with calculating what it thought each municipality's obligations to be uh but the municipality did not have to accept that number it could have chosen a different number uh if it looked at the data the DCA used and determined that you know it the number was either you know off by you know a certain percentage or a certain number of units um but in in the case at least in in our from our review it already determined that the burrow has a fairly low amount of developable land and so it would be difficult to challenge and if it would challenge it would be a you know a very small amount difference between 92 units and whatever that that number would be but maybe this is a good time to ask about the because there's some conditional language in the resolution that talks about these processes for uh adjustment yes can take that exactly yeah this is with the way COA in their regulations Envision compliance uh a municipality could either address its entire obligation or uh there are situations where a municipality is unable to address their entire obligations and so the the two main ones are a vacant land analysis in essence the municipality doesn't have enough vacant land to be able to address its obligation its entirety uh and then there's the um the AAL adjustment which is that the the municipality lacks sufficient water or sore or both uh to be able to address their entire obligation when the buau uh voluntarily complied in round three it obtained a vacant land adjustment um and it received what a realistic development potential or basically the number it could address uh to be four units and so it obtained a judgment of compliance and Repose uh with four units uh as the you know the number that it could address at the time uh and the remainder of the units you know move into What's called the unmet need uh there are certain factors and and issues that come up as especially as we move closer to June as to how the buau is going to have to address the unmet need um but is is not you know an obligation that they have to address immediately in terms of finding you know the number of units that that number is and and William just before we shift to Kendra so I'm looking at the last page number two and it says the mayor and Council hereby commit to the DCA round four present need obligation of zero and the round four perspective need obligation of 92 can you just so the reason my question is like I'm confusing that right so we we have four but there's a present need obligation of zero but a perspective need of 92 like it sounds like a spectrum yeah there's two different obligations a municipality has to address the first one is is called the present need or the rehabilitation obligation in essence that's already existing units within the municipality that are in need of repair or some type of work uh and in you know in this case for the burrow it's zero the DCA determined that the the number of housing units that are in you know need of Rehabilitation or zero units um and then there's prospective need and that's the need that the buau would have to address you know within round four what its round four number would be to to address that that's a prospec of need in Ence it's looking forward as to the amount of units it would need okay copy that and last question the the current four units that exist as a byproduct of round three how much detail needs to be included in here to demonstrate those four so we in round three I believe the buau uh addressed all four of them I can tell you right now I have my I have your judgment up so yeah yeah no no no doubt my question is is is how much um how much of that do we cite in this resolution I don't you you don't have to cite I think that at all that that's more of the planning process so this is just kind of the first step it's it's what your number is um and then after this the next deadline is going to be February 28th where a mean uh you know an interested party or or the fairshare housing center which is kind of the the main housing advocate in New Jersey uh can file an objection to your number um since you're choosing the DCA number I don't anticipate anybody coming in and seeking the number I don't know if if Kendra would disagree with me um generally but I don't think anybody would would seek to challenge the DCA number um however you know it is possible that fairshare housing center could just try and file an objection to everybody's number at one point but um I don't see anybody objecting to that number Kendra I don't know if you disagree my understanding is there's a presumption of validity when you accept the DCA number so I I would I would be hard pressed to think that anybody would object to it at this point and excuse I was just going to ask you could you go through those those um briefly the processes for adjusting down whe sure so the the adjustment down the realistic development potential which we've started that process we looked we did a vacant land analysis a couple months ago uh we had some um committee meetings affordable housing committee meetings um what I believe your uh RDP is going to be for the fourth round is zero uh we've gone through all of the potential vacant Parcels uh they're really there as as we see in the DCA number the land capacity Factor there there isn't any developable land so we're going to be dealing with a downward adjustment from 92 to zero RDP 92 doesn't go away if you guys are familiar with the third round um it's it still goes into unmet need and then we have to deal with unmet need which we can talk about as we start to plan after you um we they establish you establish a number and you get a blessing from the program on that number and then once that happens what I'm telling most of my clients is that mid-February end February we start to then gear up to put the housing element fair share a plan together and and kind of release that for public uh review sometime in March April great thank you sure uh um mayor you want to entertain a resolution or I mean a motion yeah if someone has a motion to make absolutely on resolution 2025 D40 motion to approve second Alison may I please have a roll call Council memb call yesi yes yes yes yes yes thank you uh now moving along to the public comment portion of our meeting uh if you have a public comment please uh use the raised hand call Button uh speak your name and address for the record please limit your comments to three minutes Allison is there anyone with a public comment only have two attendees nobody's hand is up okay thank you uh do we have a motion to adjourn at 5:55 PM motion to adjourn all in favor anyone opposed all right thank you good night Fair Haven thanks William thanks Kendra have a good night night night