Strategies for Meeting Lambertville's Affordable Housing Goals: Three Promising Options
By admin on Jul 8th 2024 01:01PMPresenting three options that many residents believe have the best chances for success in fulfilling our Affordable Housing obligation.
There are three options that many residents believe have the best chances for success in fulfilling our Affordable Housing obligation:
Publicize Affordable Housing Incentives for Property Owners
This is "shovel ready" as we have money in the Affordable Housing funds that must be spent within four years of the date collected, according to "Robert's Bill" signed into law by Corzine in 2008. We also have an ordinance that facilitates this*, and we are already out of compliance with this ordinance since administrative fees of the Fund currently exceed the maximum of 20% allowed by the ordinance. However, the passing of the ordinance is not enough for this grant program to be successful. We need your cooperation to create and support a user-friendly guide for residents to follow that outlines the process, the requirements, and the criteria used to determine funding amounts for converting existing rental units and ADUs to registered Affordable units. This is an easy win, comparatively speaking, and it would result in affordable units that are much more in line with Lambertville's historic and creative architectural aesthetic than the renderings depicted in the LHS Plan.
* Funds deposited in the housing trust fund may be used for any activity approved by the Court to address the City's fair share obligation and may be set up as a grant or revolving loan program. Such activities include, but are not limited to, preservation or purchase of housing for the purpose of maintaining or implementing affordability controls, rehabilitation, new construction of affordable housing units and related costs, accessory apartment, market to affordable, or regional housing partnership programs, conversion of existing nonresidential buildings to create new affordable units, green building strategies designed to be cost saving and in accordance with accepted national or state standards, purchase of land for affordable housing, improvement of land to be used for affordable housing, extensions or improvements of roads and infrastructure to affordable housing sites, financial assistance designed to increase affordability, administration necessary for implementation of the Housing Element and Fair Share Plan, or any other activity as permitted pursuant to N.J.A.C. 5:93-8.16 and specified in the approved spending plan.
Consider Affordable Units at Holcombe Park (aka, The Closson Property)
According to the City attorney, the City has much less control over properties that it does not own when it comes to affordable housing. One resident's story on Thursday night about his struggles with homelessness while he waited to obtain affordable housing was heartbreaking. I could not help thinking that he was sleeping on park benches in our parks, yet the cabin at Holcombe Park has been sitting vacant for nearly four years while residents pay taxes to maintain an empty home. We could meet our entire 3rd round obligation if we were to seek out a reputable affordable housing developer to build and manage affordable units on that property while also maintaining open space for a significant portion of the property. Alternatively, this location would be appropriate for an Affordable Housing Land Trust and complementary to the mayor's stated desire for open space and conservation there. We could literally start down this path today.
Seek to acquire The Village Apartments under the Abandoned Properties ordinance
Again, since the City has more control over property it owns, the City could move to condemn and obtain this abandoned property for affordable housing redevelopment. This property was identified in the 2019 Master Plan as a location to consider for redevelopment as living conditions were determined to be "substandard, unsafe, and unsanitary" by the NJ Department of Consumer Affairs even before Ida rendered them uninhabitable. The Mayor said that someone has been mowing the grass, but the testimony from an adjacent business owner on Thursday confirms that improvements have not been made, the buildings remain vacant after nearly four years, and the rats inhabiting the dwellings are creating a public nuisance for neighbors. The City has an ordinance on abandoned properties that requires the owners to submit a redevelopment plan within 6 months of it being on the Abandoned Properties list or face seizure by the City. Has this property been added to that list?
The owners of both the Village Apartments and the LHS properties are delinquent on paying their property taxes. The Village Apartments owner owes the City over $30,000 in back taxes and Merrick Wilson has not paid taxes on some of the LHS properties since 2015, making him nearly 10 years delinquent. The City usually does not entertain applications for development from owners who are delinquent, so I'm not sure how the LHS proposal even got this far.