Alex Roman
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Question 1: Verona, like most other New Jersey towns, now faces the prospect of more development for affordable housing. What steps would you take to mitigate the potential impact of development in Verona?
The Town Council has worked to comply with our obligations to allow for the construction of affordable housing in Verona while minimizing its impact on the livability and character of the community. This is both a current issue as we attempt to settle with intervenors in Round Three of the process and an ongoing need as we have to assume that there will be a Round Four after 2025 and need to plan ahead for that.
The first step in minimizing the impact on Verona is to negotiate our overall obligation down. The Fair Share Housing Center and intervenors have an interest in arguing for a high obligation and there is no legislated standard in place to turn to. We have been successful so far in reducing our obligation to 238 units, down from FSHC’s proposed 327 unit obligation. After doing so, the next step is to attempt to comply with as much of that obligation as possible through existing units. The Hillwood complex provides for 59 of those units. We conducted an inventory of group homes in the community and found 9 units. The remaining 170-unit obligation will need to be achieved through new development and other credits.
We have settled with Poekel Properties to redevelop their property near the Community Center and will receive credit for 10 units, while also providing a more attractive and modern development to serve as a gateway to Verona. Our most significant achievement in this process was the acquisition of the Cameco property. We were able to move quickly and purchase the property and establish an Area in Need of Redevelopment. The Township is currently negotiating with developers for this parcel to create 100 units of affordable housing which would also provide 60 credits for a “rental bonus” thus satisfying our obligation in Round Three.
The Township’s strategy in Round Three will result in compliance with our obligations while minimally impacting the community and reducing loss of open space. All of the properties proposed for compliance with our obligation are redevelopment sites with existing buildings that are underutilized, closed down, or otherwise obsolete, yet are close to Bloomfield Avenue and public transit and community services at the Community Center. We hope to build attractive developments and welcome new residents to Verona on these properties.
Going forward, we need to ensure that any new redevelopment will provide for affordable units as a matter of course. The Council passed Ordinance 2018-25 creating a mandatory set-aside for properties that receive zoning changes or variances allowing for multi-family development on nonresidential lots or higher density units on residential lots. This obligation will accumulate affordable housing units as other redevelopment projects occur and will give us a head start on future rounds of litigation after 2025.
I am deeply concerned about the potential for overdevelopment and its impact on the community, and committed to preservation of open space and the character of Verona as a residential community. Early in my term I worked to establish our Steep Slope Ordinance to prevent developers from cutting into hillsides and otherwise changing the topography of our community to overdevelop. This has an impact on affordable housing development as steeply sloped sites are precluded from consideration for development in a Vacant Land Analysis for the purposes of determining a community’s Realistic Development Potential – but only if those slopes are protected by local ordinance, which they are now. I have served on the Planning Board for all four years of my term to help manage development throughout the community, and look forward to our upcoming reexamination of our Master Plan. Much of my work on the Council has centered on land use and development, and I will continue to concentrate on this in a second term.
Well said.