If you see a guy who works for the municipality standing on the sidewalk outside your house, gazing at your home intently, casting his eyes down momentarily at a clipboard while he checks off a box, then looking back up again, he might be parttime Building Inspector Lenny Mendola.
For the next five weeks, on his days off, Mendola will scouting out houses with corroding roofs, cracked foundations, deteriorating chimneys, siding that needs to be replaced or other exterior physical problems.
Mendola will be compiling a survey of properties that need renovating, with the hopes of lowering the following requirement recently handed down by the state Council On Affordable Housing (COAH): that Montclair must contain nearly 300 more rehabilitated, affordable housing units in 10 years.
COAH made the stipulation this past summer, as it announced a number of revisions to its rules that will likewise impact Montclair.
During a special Planning Board meeting last week, some board members wondered whether the township would even have that many housing units to renovate over the next decade. COAH, which arrived at the figure through an analysis of U.S. Census data, has for the first time given towns an opportunity to lower the number if they find, following a survey, that reality conflicts with the state’s goal.
That’s where Mendola comes in.
He began conducting surveys this past Tuesday, Planning Director Karen Kadus said. Mendola’s information-gathering mission will focus on areas south of Watchung Avenue, where he will search for residential buildings that might need work.
Officials hope he will be able to complete the task, which entails inspections of the front and two sides of homes’ exteriors, by the end of November. Before the beginning of 2009, Montclair needs to submit to the state its Housing Element and Fair Share Plan, and if the revised plan is not adopted in time, then Montclair will lose its COAH certification.
Certification ensures the municipality can continue collecting developers’ fees, which are then placed in an affordable-housing trust fund.
Recognition from COAH also shields municipalities from certain lawsuits that can be filed by developers. If a town is not COAH-certified, it is assumed that the municipality has no plan for providing affordable housing. That opens the door to litigation from developers who, by including affordable housing as a component of their plans, could seek to push through high-density projects that local ordinances would otherwise forbid.
Beyond those pragmatic reasons, Montclair also has an ideological motive for seeking COAH certification.
"We’re a town that believes in affordable housing and diversity, and we want to set an example in the state," Kadus said.
If any municipality should be following COAH’s regulations, then Montclair should be, she said.
Under COAH’s revised rules, 369 renovated housing units are to be made available on an affordable basis within Montclair Township through the next decade. Since the municipality received credits for fixed-up affordable units already provided in the township, the number dropped to 296.
If property owners accept public dollars, in the form of grants or money directly from the municipality, for the work, then they would be required to rent for a number of years or sell the spaces to low- and moderate-income households — as defined by government calculations — at restricted rates.
Kadus said officials are considering that, instead of offering grants to cover the rehab tab, the money could come in the form of a low-interest loan.
Under another new stipulation, COAH has told municipalities they cannot blame a lack of development-fee proceeds, grants or other funds for a failure to make headway toward their 10-year benchmark. COAH has planned to check in on towns’ progress toward their goals within five years, and if they are not moving forward due to some type of financial shortfall, they will be compelled to float bonds, or borrow money.
Montclair presently has an affordable housing trust fund, made up of money collected from developers, which contains $293,977.
Meeting COAH’s requirements might not fall entirely on the municipality’s shoulders. The local nonprofit HOMECorp, an affordable housing developer located on Woodland Avenue, and an Essex County housing program could also be relied upon to produce some of the necessary units, helping Montclair move closer to its 2018 goal.
Rehab composes only one part of Montclair’s affordable-housing obligation imposed by COAH. The other component is the "growth share," or the amount of new affordable housing the municipality is expected to provide over the next 10 years. COAH has pegged that number at 162 units, a benchmark that has already been reached, thanks to credits for past projects.
But the figure is subject to change, and could go up if the township sees more development than projected.
The growth-share requirement is based upon how much a town develops both in terms of residential and non-residential square footage. COAH said it would annually monitor towns’ certificates of occupancy to keep track of their growth.
That means commercial developers are contributing to Montclair’s obligation, yet, unlike residential developers, they aren’t covered by the township’s Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance (IZO). That law requires builders to provide one new unit of affordable housing for every seven new residential units they construct.
Kadus said officials would soon be considering a revision of the IZO that might involve mandating that commercial developers also pitch in, beyond paying development fees.
Township officials could also revise the IZO in another critical way. Under new rules announced over the course of this past year, COAH is now recommending that towns require one new affordable unit be offered for every five market-rate housing units built.
While that asks more of property owners, the state is also advising towns to provide an incentive: awarding a bonus market-rate unit for every affordable unit provided.
