OC Outlines Affordable Housing Plan

OCEAN CITY – Bayview Manor changed Brenda Green’s life.
A resident of the public housing building on West Avenue, Green was the last member of the public to speak at a town hall meeting at the Ocean City Tabernacle Jan. 12 to outline the city’s affordable housing plan. That plan calls for amending zoning ordinances and spending millions on new units in the coming years, much of that in collaboration with the Ocean City Housing Authority.
Speakers, including City Attorney Dorothy McCrosson, Carol Beske of ACT Engineers, Jaqueline Jones, director of Ocean City’s Housing Authority, housing consultant Rick Ginnetti and Shirley Bishop, a consultant who helped Ocean City negotiate its affordable housing agreement, outlined what brought the City to this point and what they say must happen next.
Last year, the city negotiated an agreement with the Fair Share Housing Center on the city’s constitutional affordable housing obligation. According to city officials, that negotiation brought the city’s obligation from an estimated 1,687 units of affordable housing down to 93.
To meet that obligation, the city expects to spend between $15 million and $20 million, including assisting the Housing Authority on projects and creating other affordable housing units on city-owned lots.
The central message of the gathered professionals seemed to be that the city has little choice in the matter.
Bishop opened the meeting with a history of affordable housing requirements in New Jersey, starting with the state Supreme Court’s Mount Laurel decision, which found that municipalities have a constitutional obligation to provide affordable housing.
“This all began in 1975, and some of you here weren’t even born then,” she said. In a brief rundown of more than 40 complicated years of court decisions and state and municipal responses, she said it falls to the courts to decide if towns have met their obligations, with input from the independent advocacy group the Fair Share Housing Center, the entity with which the city reached a settlement on the issue.
A judge has accepted that settlement.
If towns fail to meet their obligations, they could face builder’s remedy lawsuits, in which a developer offers to provide affordable housing in exchange for relief from local zoning laws.
Ocean City has until March 31 to present a plan to the court for implementing the affordable housing settlement. If the plan is accepted, the city has immunity from builder’s remedy suits and protects an affordable housing trust fund the city has built up from fees charged to developers. That fund totals about $5 million, according to McCrosson.
The city has already introduced zoning ordinances aimed at making it easier to develop affordable housing in the shore resort and signed an agreement with the Ocean City Housing Authority to help cover the cost of extensive work planned on its property.
The authority has public housing developments at Bayview Manor on West Avenue and at Peck’s Beach Village on either side of Fourth Street. Plans call for the city to help cover the cost of a new building at 610 West Ave., the parking lot of Bayview Manor.
Residents of Pecks Beach Village on the north side of Fourth Street will move into the new building when it’s completed. Then those units will be demolished and a new project built in its place, with the residents on the south side of Fourth Street moved into those new units. Finally, 20 new units will be built on the south side of Peck’s Beach Village.
According to McCrosson, the Housing Authority has the land and the interest in new units, while the city has an obligation to provide them. What’s more, she and others argued, the city will be able to keep these community members in the area while replacing housing that is substandard.
Pecks Beach Village is prone to flooding. It encountered seeing devastating damage in Hurricane Sandy. She said at the end of the project Ocean City will have a better-looking neighborhood.
“Right now, if you drive through, you see buildings that, when they were built in the 1960s were probably cutting-edge architectural designs, but are no longer,” McCrosson said. “They’re functionally obsolete and they don’t blend in with the neighborhood as well as they could, so you know that you are in a housing development area when you drive down Fourth Street.”
In all, that portion of the plan will mean 80 more units. The city plans to construct 13 more units, including three to be built on city land, including at 224 Simpson Ave., 240-44 Haven Ave. and at 36th Street and Bay Avenue, although there are some issues with a pumping station at the last property.
The city expects to use up its $5 million affordable housing trust fund on this project. Three more units will be bought on the open market and marketed as affordable housing, under the city plan.
There were some skeptics in the audience, including some representatives of the Fairness in Taxes (FIT) organization.
“We recognize that affordable housing is a legal mandate and we fully support it. However, we also know that the Housing Authority was mismanaged for years,” said FIT President David Hayes at the meeting. “Therefore, we oppose the use of taxpayer funding to bail out the Housing Authority.”
In the spring of 2017, the former Housing Authority director pleaded guilty to embezzling thousands of dollars from the authority, and the authority itself was reported to be on shaky financial ground.
David Breedan, also a FIT member, said the authority owes more than $300,000 to the city under its PILOT agreement or Payment In Lieu of Taxation.
“We’re making a large investment of taxpayer dollars into an entity that if it was a private concern or a private business would essentially be out of business,” he said. “The only reason why the Housing Authority still exists is because of the City of Ocean City.”
Officials say the authority has seen a remarkable turnaround over the past year. Director Jones said the authority has begun to pay back what it owes, and later in the meeting, Mayor Jay Gillian said it was on his OK that the payments lapsed, so the authority could fund its work.
What’s more, the consultants at the dais said, Ocean City’s obligation to provide those housing units would remain, with or without the Housing Authority.
Breedan said the city does not have to spend those millions.
“There’s no law in the State of New Jersey that requires or mandates a local government to pay for affordable housing,” said Breedan.
Ginnetti, the consultant, said it’s true there is no law saying so, but it is the norm, and if towns want these projects built they have to help fund them.
Some neighbors wanted to preserve the open space of the city property now slated for development. John McCall, who lives near one of the lots, said after the meeting that the city should be congratulated for negotiating down the number of required units, but does not want to see more buildings go up on scant open land in the city.
He is also critical of the zoning amendments, which would reward developers who create affordable housing units with greater allowable density for projects.
“Anything that increases density is not good,” McCall said.
The meeting lasted through the morning. Green, the Bayview Manor resident, said her family has lived in Ocean City for generations, but she had a tough time staying on the island. It was difficult to find year-round leases. Each summer, her rent would triple and she had to move often.
“It was a hardship and it took every ounce of savings,” she said.
She moved to Bayview Manor about 16 months ago and feels at home.
“Without Bayview Manor, I do not know where I could go,” Green said. “In Ocean City, I know the streets. I’m legally blind. I use this walker to get around. But I know the streets. I know where I’m going and I know that I’m safe.”
Green said that the staff at Bayview Manor treats her with respect, as do the city employees. The other people in her building are a part of the community, she said.
“The thing that disturbs me is the ‘not in my backyard’ mentality. This is a community that was raised on the backs of the working people. And it needs to stay that way.”
“We’re being responsible and getting things done. It’s not always going to be perfect,” said Gillian.
In an emotional appeal that closed the meeting, Gillian said the issue is not only about legal mandates. There is a moral element.
“We’re doing the right thing. Yeah, it’s a lot of money,” he said. “You might not like me. But to come up here and say, ‘we’re not for this’ means that you’re closed minded and you have not looked at all the facts or you think there’s a better way to do it.”
In his third term, Gillian said the issue of affordable housing has been discussed since he began as mayor, and cited city action taken to get public housing residents back in town quickly in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
“It’s unacceptable the way we treat some of our people in this town,” Gillian said.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.