Committee Kills Affordable Housing Measures

The nixed three ordinances scheduled for a vote at Wednesday’s meeting having to do with the construction of 36 units of affordable housing on Atlantic Avenue.

The ordinances, which would have allowed the construction of a new apartment building at Atlantic Manor apartment complex on Atlantic Avenue near Route 35.

Committeeman Todd Luttman moved that the local laws – which would have changed the town’s zoning map to allow for an affordable housing designation on the property, among other changes – be set aside while the township continues to negotiate with the owners of Atlantic Manor to come up with a possibly better plan to meet the town’s state-mandated affordable housing quotas.

The committee voted unanimously to set aside each of the ordinances. The move effectively kills the measures, since ordinances cannot be carried from year to year. New ordinances, should the committee move to have new measures, would have to be drafted to replace those killed Wednesday.

“The owners of the complex would like to continue to negotiate with us and we would like to continue to negotiate with them in order to wind up with a favorable deal for both of us,’’ Luttman said.

The measures had been moving toward signing an agreement with the apartment complex owners to purchase 1.998 acres for $684,500. The land purchase would cost Wall taxpayers $19,000 for each of the 36 units – a total of $684,500, officials have said.

If the township bonded that price for 15 years, it would cost taxpayers $55,000 per year.  A developer, using funds secured elsewhere, would build the actual housing units, Committeeman Clinton Hoffman has said.

The ordinances were by both the township’s Citizen’s Committee on Affordable Housing and the Planning Board .

Some members of Wednesday’s occasionally raucous audience were not keen on the prospect of affordable housing on the Atlantic Manor property at all, however.

“With low-income housing, comes crime – the possibility of crime,’’ said Tom Lasko, of New Brunswick Ave., addressing the committee. “With the low-income housing that we currently have in town, there’s going to be the possibility of drug activity. We’re going to have gang members. We’re going to have sex offenders. We’re going to have parolees. Do you want this on your legacy?’’

Rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in the Atlantic Manor apartments is $970, according to the complex’s website. Monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1395. Hoffman has said that 32 of the affordable housing units under the deal that was set aside Wednesday would fetch higher than the current rents at Atlantic Manor;  only four would be below.

Each of the members of the committee weighed in on the Atlantic Manor deal. Only Committeeman Jeff Foster said he was against the deal altogether. Foster said the deal set aside Wednesday was too oblique and did not expressly delineate where funding for construction of the apartment building would come from.

“There’s too many “ifs,’’’ he said, adding that he was not convinced that the township needed to worry about the next round of affordable housing obligations before being told to do so by a judge.