Township Committee Meeting Change for Monday, October 13, 2008

[Guest]

From the township:

Township Committee Meeting Change for Monday, October 13, 2008

The Township Committee Meeting scheduled for Monday, October 13, 2008 will begin at 7:00 p.m. in the Cranbury School Large Group Room, 23 North Main Street, Cranbury, New Jersey.

The COAH Consultant will be presenting an overview of the draft amended Third Round Affordable Housing Plan to the public.

Action may be taken.

[Guest]

What action will be taken? A little vague - Anyone know?

[Guest]

[Guest]

Well, one way to find out is to attend the meeting.

[Guest]

[my guess]

My guess is that this is a FYI kind of meeting for residents. The place of the meeting is in the school Large Group Room, so the town may be expecting a larger number of attendees.

It's not clear from the memo that there will be a vote...

[Jersey Dad]

I think "action may be taken" is essentially a legal disclaimer.

That said, once the plan had been announced, there is only a limited opportunity to make changes due to time constraints.

[Guest]

[Jersey Dad]

Some people felt my comments from the 9/8 TC Meeting were premature.
I believe the size of the obligation and the limited time allotted for public discussion will make it difficult to arrive at the most reasonable solution...

"Mr. Dave Mauger, 26 Griggs Road, stated when he was researching previous COAH obligations for Cranbury and how the various plans had come about, he came across minutes from 2005. In the minutes Mayor Beauregard apologized for the perception that the 2005 COAH Sub-Certification Plan was “dropped on the community”. Ms. Beauregard cited late-breaking COAH rule changes, the need for secret meetings and a looming end-of-year deadline as the reasons for limited public input and debate. Mr. Mauger stated he wanted to make sure that does not happen this time and offered his general recommendations in advance of the unveiling of the 2008 COAH plan, which is scheduled for mid-October and encouraged other Cranbury residents to do the same.

Mr. Mauger suggested the Township, while preparing its 2008 COAH Plan:

1). Be consistent (so far CHA has done an excellent job with their small scale, high quality and owner/renter balance (recently changed to 100% rental).

2). Consider the Balance (consider the scale of affordable housing relative to the adjacent market-rate housing and as it would for a new development as 1/3 of the CHA development is North of the lake, 2/3 is South, which is commensurate with the number of homes in each area, however, 100% of the affordable housing in the North is rental, compared to 50% rental in the South). In addition, all CHA Developments are located within the Village area. Mr. Mauger suggested, due to the recent increased obligation, it may be time to consider alternative locations, such as East of Rt. 130 to prevent the density of affordable housing from overtaking the Village area.

3) Monitor Costs (even though difficult to manage and compare costs with so many issues moving so quickly, however, the Route 130 D site was 55% more expensive than originally expected and the site development costs are 40% higher per unit (not including the land acquisition costs) than the Old Cranbury Road Development). Mr. Mauger recommended the Township should acquire sites with low acquisition and preparation costs and stated rental management fees and expenses combine to equal 20% of rental revenues. Ownership units may have lower fees and generate immediate and significant revenue,

4). Security: Mr. Mauger urged the Township to be mindful of security issues when renting the affordable housing units.

5). Alternatives: Mr. Mauger reported he had recently attended the COAH Information Meeting in East Brunswick and COAH officials told the township planners in attendance to “be creative” in satisfying affordable housing obligations. Mr. Mauger offered the following suggestions: East of Route 130, in particular for seniors near Monroe Twp.; Cranbury Station for working families (given the projected completion of the MOM train line, as Governor Corzine has suggested, the Township may qualify for extra credit for proximity to public transit); West, near Plainsboro, for medical special needs housing near the new hospital and embrace our obligation as an opportunity to welcome physically disabled residents to our pedestrian Village, especially disabled veterans and their families and work with the military to address special housing needs of families that have lost loved ones serving their Country.

Mr. Mauger concluded by saying, he brought all of the information forward to bring up discussions and hopes that some of the ideas that are brought forward by the Community can help the Township to be as creative as possible in satisfying its affordable housing obligations."

[wcody]

My understanding of the meeting is the Township Committee will present their initial plan to the public for the Third Round obligations. The plan is not due to be submitted until December. This public can review and comment on the plan before the final version is submitted.

October 13 would be an important meeting to attend.

Win Cody

[Guest]