COAH Approves Franklin Lakes Plan, as Court Ruling Keeps the Agency Alive

The state Supreme Court on Wednesday overruled an attempt by Governor Chris Christie to abolish the Council on Affordable Housing, days after the independent state agency approved a long-stalled Franklin Lakes affordable housing proposal.

The decision came a year, almost to the day, after the borough announced its purchase of 14 acres from Temple Emanuel at the intersection of McCoy and Colonial Avenues to construct roughly 40 special needs affordable units.

The proposed project had been caught in red tape while the battle over COAH played out at the state level, but last week the borough received notice that the council had approved the borough’s $2 million spending plan, Mayor Frank Bivona said in an interview Wednesday.

“We’re obviously pleased with the state’s approval of our spending plan. It allows us to take the steps we need to get affordable housing on that site,” he said, adding that the local money would now go toward its intended purpose.

The Christie administration had eyed the over $160 million in affordable housing trust funds around the state, seeking to reclaim the money to plug holes in the state budget.

Christie announced a plan to abolish the council in 2011, after a task force commissioned by the governor reported that COAH was “irrevocably damaged.” The governor said that absorbing the independent state agency’s functions into his cabinet would streamline the state’s affordable housing policy.

In a five-to-two opinion handed down by the court, which upheld a 2012 appeals court ruling blocking the administration’s move, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote that COAH had been intended to be an independent agency, much like the Civil Service Commission, Office of the Public Defender, and Turnpike Authority, that lays outside the governor’s power to unilaterally reorganize.

New Jersey laws, he said, “do not empower the Chief Executive to replace independent boards with a department head over whom he or she has full control.”

Prior to issuing the plan to ax the council, Christie vetoed a proposed 2011 law that would have dismantled COAH over concerns about other provisions in the bill. The court’s two dissenters said that bill, as well as the legislature’s inaction on blocking the move to kill COAH, indicated that the governor was acting in line with the legislative branch.

Republican Assembly Whip Scott Rumana, who represents Franklin Lakes and Wyckoff, said he was disappointed by the ruling and would work in the legislature to abolish the agency, which he said produces regulations that drive up property taxes and hurt efforts to preserve open space.

“COAH has far out-lived its usefulness and needs to be overhauled and replaced,” he said.

Despite the stalls that its dealings with COAH have presented in implementing the borough’s plan, Bivona said that he had no reaction to the court ruling that will keep the agency alive, at least for now.

He does, however, disagree with the law behind COAH’s formation, which he said too often takes the power away from local officials to form their own affordable housing strategies, as Franklin Lakes has done with its current project.

“I have a lot of respect for what [COAH is] trying to do, which is what we’re trying to do,” he said. “I have issues with the law that puts land in the hands of developers in the name of squeezing in affordable housing here and there.”

The wait for COAH approval almost put the project in jeopardy, as the purchase contract with Temple Emanuel had a one-year expiration date if the deal wasn’t closed. But the borough has 30 days from the end of the contract to complete the purchase and Bivona said they are “scheduling that closing now.”

Franklin Lakes will now look for a developer to take on the project for the borough, which he said will consist entirely of adult special needs housing and have a “very low impact” on the neighborhood.