A-500 passed the State Assembly Today...

[Guest]

[Jersey Dad]

You may be right, but I am holding out hope for Greenstein. We'll see soon enough.

Regarding COAH, my understanding is it is typical for COAH to start with an unreasonable obligation and then work back toward reasonable, with the help of political insiders. We need a miracle this time, and by miracle I mean a glorious event caused by an unseen force.

[Cranbury Conservative]

During Speaker Roberts Presentation in front of the Assembly yesterday...

Speaker Roberts: "The center piece of this legislation is the elimination of RCAs"

Ok that was bad for us in Cranbury....

Now for the good is good for Cranbury....

However he went on to speak about land which should be removed from the coah obligation, which would be land that does not have sewer or water available.

We need to use that to our advantage

[Guest]

Very true. In the past COAH did exactly that in order to get the laws passed and support from the legislature. Unfortunately in this case, they haven't needed to back down and won't if the senate passes.

I would love to see Wayne march in Cranbury's parade next year, I heard people were upset Bill Baroni and Dick Zimmer marched with our TC. Perhaps we could have signs opposing Wayne the whole way around town. Then again, I don't think he can find his way to Cranbury.

[edk]

[Jersey Dad]

Maybe Wayne will volunteer for the dunk tank on Cranbury Day.

In all seriousness, we need all the advocates we can get right now and it won't pay to antagonize anyone, even those who have let us down. Most of the towns that may have been sympathetic were granted continued use of RCAs as part of the new environmentally sensitive "zones". Plus, some people in neighboring communities seem more interested in crushing Cranbury than building quality affordable housing.And so our fate is in the hands of COAH officials, citizen activists, local and regional politicians. God bless Cranbury!

[Guest]

[Cranbury Conservative]

As I mentioned in an earlier post Speaker Roberts specifically cited areas without sewer and water hookups as areas which should be excluded from COAH. I feel this helps Cranbury and we need to use it to our advantage since Roberts said the words.

Further the article below shows that Marlboro just entered into an RCA agreement because they are still legal until the new legislation is passed.

Does anyone know if the TC is working on such an agreement with anyone?

I believe our goal is to work with the original 3rd round numbers.

Additionally I believe we should be attempting to push through an RCA based on what we feel the numbers should be. At the very least they will still count if we get the RCA in before the passage of the legislation.

That’s my 2 cents.



Marlboro will pay Trenton to take affordable housing



MARLBORO - To help satisfy the township's state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) obligation without building additional homes in Marlboro, the Township Council last week approved a resolution authorizing an addendum to a regional contribution agreement (RCA) between Marlboro and Trenton.

The council took the action during a special meeting held June 12.

The RCA will allow officials to transfer the responsibility for building a certain number of affordable homes in Marlboro to Trenton.

Township Attorney Ronald Gordon explained that the resolution would finalize the terms of the agreement which was originally entered into in July 2004.

Gordon said the original agreement provided the cost of transferring 332 affordable housing units to Trenton, but was then negotiated down to 252 units. He said Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik and Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer negotiated back to a transfer of 332 units.

The council unanimously approved a resolution to transfer the money for the 332 units. The funds are in Marlboro's affordable housing trust fund and have been earmarked for the deal with Trenton.

The affordable housing trust fund includes money that has been paid by developers who built projects in Marlboro, but did not provide affordable housing in their projects. They pay into the trust fund in lieu of building the affordable units.

Gordon said COAH administrators reviewed the agreement between Marlboro and Trenton and had some comments about the amount of money to be paid per unit, which had been increased by the state agency to $25,000 per unit.

Council President Jeff Cantor said the amount to be paid to Trenton by Marlboro will now be $8.3 million ($25,000 x 332 units) instead of the initial $6.6 million ($20,000 x 332 units).

The agreement was approved by Trenton's governing body on June 11, Gordon said.

Trenton officials may used the money to rehabilitate substandard housing in the city or to construct new affordable housing. Affordable housing is defined by COAH as housing that is sold or rented at below market rates to people who have an income that meets regional guidelines established by COAH.

The RCA is the most cost-effective and least intrusive method for Marlboro to satisfy its affordable housing obligation, Hornik said. This RCA was included in Marlboro's third round COAH plan. Hornik said the current estimate on the number of affordable housing units Marlboro is obligated to fill is about 1,600, although he noted that the 332 units that have now been transferred to Trenton will be deducted from that number.


Cantor credited Hornik for working diligently on the agreement with Palmer as legislation that will eliminate RCAs is pending in the state Legislature.

State Assemblyman Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) has sponsored a bill (A-500) that would eliminate RCAs. The bill was released from committee on June 12 and is expected to come up for a vote before the full Assembly in the near future.

Regarding the pending legislation, Hornik said, "For a town like Marlboro which has a large obligation of affordable housing units, I believe the pending bills that eliminate RCAs are difficult legislation for us to support, however, we are doing what we need to do now."

Hornik said Marlboro's agreement with Trenton is legal because the pending legislation which would eliminate RCAs has not been signed into law.

"It's a good step toward satisfying our obligation, but it is just a step," Hornik said.

[Guest]

Honestly, I would be willing to pay a higher property tax short term if it meant that we were moving the COAH obligations from the future to another town today. It's cheaper in the long run.

[Jersey Dad]

[James]

Jerseydad is right. I view Wayne DeAngelo the same way I view a bad manager. A bad manager ignores the employees, makes poor decisions and ultimately will be forced to move on.

However, until that person is removed from their position one has to figure a way to work with them and to get them to either realize their errors or we have to find the key to working with that person. If we can get Wayne on our side and figure a way to work with him and get him to support us then we need to do it. Like a bad manager he's here and there is nothing we can do about it for the time being. So let's see what we can do to convince him that his vote was a mistake and that he should support us.

[Cranbury Conservative]

I like the bad manager analogy. Personally I have always lived by, I need to manage my manager. To your point we need to manage/ use Assemblyman DeAngelo to our advantage if possible.

[Guest]

Sorry, I just don't agree. DeAngelo has made it pretty clear, not just with this latest vote but with all his actions since election that he doesn't care at all about Cranbury. He has declined or ignored every invitation to appear at Cranbury events or meetings and he has ignored every letter sent to him by members of the Cranbury community. What politician can't even be bothered to have his staff send form letters back to constituents who write him? I have never seen any other politician do that, ever. Our tax dollars are expressly paying for a member of the staff to do just that, but he's obviously spending the money some other way. I think it is only a matter of time before he'll end up implicated in one of the many New Jersey corruption scandals, that aren't even scandals in NJ because they are so common.

Let's face it, he doesn't represent us in anything but name. He was picked by the political machine and run under their banner specifically so he would be a good soldier and do what he's told. He's doing what he was hired to do. We're the problem, for justifying that and continuing to accord him the dignity of an office that has no dignity. He is no different than a member of organized crime but instead of being called the Mob it is the Roberts machine. Neither group is interested in anything more than the personal prosperity of its own leaders. All the followers, like DeAngelo, go along because they get a little bit of the action.

You are wasting your time to "try and work with him" because he'll probably ignore you and if he doesn't it is only because you are convenient to him for some reason and he'll stab you in the back the first time it serves his interest or that of his party.

[Guest]

You can't recall him so you have no choice, but to try and work with him and convince him. If we call his office and not send emails it will be harder for him to ignore us. Then when he runs again let's vote him out. Why not try and convince someone from Cranbury to run for office? It's always Hamilton that puts people in. Hamilton's own politics were corrupt and full of problems. Do we expect that the people running for Assembly from Hamilton will be any different?

[Guest]

[Guest]

Yes there are more residents and they have an advatange, but we can still put people in and there is no loyalty for the hometown in voting. Otherwise, all politicians would come from major cities.