Response to COAH on Round 3 Proposed Regulations

I sent the following letter to COAH in response to the Round 3 proposed changes. It would be great if many citizens from Cranbury could send in comments to COAH as well . Responses can be sent to coahmail@dca.state.nj.us

Dear Ms.Voorhoeve,

I want to express my concern over the round three proposed regulations for COAH and the impact on the town of Cranbury. While affordable housing is a worthy goal, the new regulations will have a devastating effect on Cranbury which has diligently worked to fulfill its housing obligations.

Cranbury has been working well with COAH to meet and stay ahead of its affordable housing obligations. However, the new regulations are extremely punitive and it seems that Cranbury is being especially punished. The new regulations could require a one to one ratio of affordable homes for each existing home in Cranbury. The burden on the township would be tremendous in terms of new taxes necessary to support the housing and supporting services. I am sure you are getting flooded with messages from Cranbury. We had a township meeting which overflowed the room with almost 300 people (about 25% of the adult population). I want to point out a few issues:

• Making the rules retroactively effective back to 2004 is completely unfair. There are major new obligations based on commercial property already built or in progress. Making changes based on previously built property does not give the town the opportunity to assess appropriate fees to developers for affordable housing.
• The revised warehouse calculations for number of employees are completely inaccurate. There are far fewer employees in the warehouses than assumed in your new square footage calculation. In fact, the original ratios are also high.
• I don’t understand why there is a need to double the affordable housing inventory in the state. This is especially confusing in this economy.
• New Jersey is already very crowded and we don’t need to double the housing stock in our town. Growth needs to be managed carefully and these rules make development out of control. Small towns are a benefit to the state and we don’t need to turn the entire state into one overcrowded suburb.
• There will be a negative impact with these changes. The new regulations would require a massive tax increase and change in schools. This will chase a lot of people out of the town (and state) and depress property values. The depressed property values will require higher tax rates and make the affordable housing tax burden even more expensive.

I appreciate your attention to these concerns and sincerely hope you review the proposed regulations and change the obligations so that they will be closer to the previous regulations.

COAH Issues - other towns

Cranbury is not the only town with issues with the new COAH obligations, following are links to recent articles about reactions to the new rules.

Princeton council members gripe about COAH

HILLSBORO: Officials call state's COAH calculations unfair

Dept. of Community Affairs Comminssioner Joseph Doria discusses new COAH Rules

Municipalities worried by changes to affordable-housing rules (Middlesex County)

Clinton leads the 7 town group on COAH 3rd round

Affordable Housing Obligation

Cranbury is facing some urgent affordable housing issues. There is a special township committee meeting on Monday night, March 17 at 7:00 pm in the cafeteria of Cranbury school on the topic. This will help put together a response for the 3/22 deadline.

The new round 3 COAH (Council on Affordable Housing) rules could have a devastating effect on Cranbury. I am not sure of the exact figures, a lot of numbers have been thrown around, but the increase in new housing obligations is between 5x or 10x the original round 3 rules. It would be a serious hardship if Cranbury assumed that much new housing, which is 50-100% of the existing housing stock.

What seems particularly unfair is changing the original round 3 rules making it retroactive to previous construction. This takes away our ability to ask builders to shoulder the burden on affordable housing when they are planning their construction.

More will be determined at Monday's meeting and I will keep this updated as things progress on this issue.

Cranbury Press Article - Cranbury hit hard by new COAH rules

Link to the NJ State COAH website giving the rules

Vote for McCain on February 5

I am proud to support John McCain for President. I feel he has the best experience and leadership qualities for our country. His independent thinking and ability to appeal to all people is critical for the next four years. He has on many occasions worked with colleagues in the other party to come up with bipartisan solutions on many important issues such as campaign finance reform. Please join me in supporting John McCain at this Tuesday’s Republican Presidential primary election.

An important note to all registered voters, if you have never declared your party affiliation, you can declare it at the polls and vote on primary day.

PNC Bank Cranbury Branch Closing

I received a notice from PNC Bank that they are closing the branch on Main St. in Cranbury. This was done because of their acquisition of Yardville Bank. They are eliminating redundant branches and felt that the Yardville Bank branch on Rt. 130 would better serve their customers. What does this say about the vitality of downtown Cranbury?

Jenna Cody at the Junior Olympics

I thought I would take this opportunity to congratulate Cranbury's own Jenna Cody for her outstanding performance at USATF Junior Olympic Cross Country National Championship.

Jenna ran in the USATF Junior Olympic cross country championships for New Jersey on November 4 at Richard Stockton State College. She place fourth in a 4K race with a time of 17:09 in the Youth division (13 and 14 year olds).

She ran on 11/18 at e Region 2 USATF Junior Olympic Cross Country Championship at the Daniel Boone Homestead in Birdsboro, PA. Jenna was 3rd place in the Youth Girls Division with a time of 17:45. It was a tough day to run, it was a cold day with an on and off wintry mix, but Jenna ran strong, even finishing ahead of some of the girls that she was behind in the New Jersey race. Region 2 is comprised of the New Jersey, Mid-Atlantic, Niagara and Three Rivers USATF associations.

Jenna finished 111 out of a group of 265 girls in the National Championship. Her time was 16:46, almost 1 minute faster than her race in Pennsylvania. She was the second finisher from the MidAtlantic region. She finished in a large group of girls, 50 girls that finished ahead of her had times within 30 seconds of her time. The weather was bitterly cold, 19 degrees. Much of the course was covered in snow and ice. There were several hills that were quite slippery.

The event was held in Lawrence Kansas at the famous Rim Rock Farm cross country venue. Considered one of the premier cross country courses in the country, athletes will be offered the opportunity to compete on the same trails transversed by collegiate athletes during the Big Eight Cross Country Championships in 1983, 1991 and 1995 and also the 1998 NCAA Cross Country Championships. Rim Rock also is used for the Kansas high school state championships each year. Any runner will say that the course is quite unusual and challenging. In addition to having a covered bridge as part of the course, Rim Rock Farm also features specific hills, turns and other landmarks that are named after former Jayhawk runners, such as Jim Ryun, Wes Santee, and Billy Mills. The opening ceremony featured an inspiring welcoming speech from Billy Mills, the winner of the 10,000 Meter run at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, the only American ever to win the event. Billy Mills was featured in t he 1983 movie Running Brave.

Jenna is 13 years old and an 8th grader at Cranbury School. Under the guidance of Mr. Gilligan and Ms. Rogriguez, she had a great season for the Cross Country team. She helped the team have a successful season. Jenna broke the cross country record on the Cranbury course for girls this year.

Jenna's sister, Helene, took up cross country this year. She is a freshman at Princeton High and is on that team. Helene came in 4th place overall at the Mercer County cross country championships on October 26 in the female freshman race.

Babe Ruth Baseball Field

The Cranbury township committee recently approved spending almost $300,000 for the new Babe Ruth field. This expense was not for the entire job. We still do not know the total price tag. There were other components still necessary that will be purchased separately. At the committee meeting, the engineer did not have that estimate. There will also likely be expenses from the township engineer's firm. It would be nice if we knew the entire expense before going ahead with one component for a project which is very controversial in town.