MILLSTONE – The Township Committee has endorsed Millstone Township’s amended housing element and fair share plan for 2020. Doing so will help the municipality meet its court mandated obligation to provide opportunities for the development of affordable housing in the community.
Committee members took the action on Feb. 19. The housing element and fair share plan sets forth how the township will meet its obligation of 231 affordable housing units.
Members of the Millstone Township Planning Board previously endorsed the document.
Affordable housing is defined as housing that is sold or rented at below market rates to individuals and families whose income meets certain guidelines.
The Township Committee’s endorsement of the fair share plan follows a settlement agreement between Millstone Township, the Fair Share Housing Center and Showplace Farms, LLC, that was approved in New Jersey Superior Court in late 2019.
The Fair Share Housing Center, Cherry Hill, advocates for the construction of affordable housing throughout New Jersey. Showplace Farms, Route 33, Millstone Township, is an intervenor in the municipality’s affordable housing litigation.
As part of the settlement agreement, Millstone officials were required to adopt the amended housing element and fair share plan.
Township officials have said Millstone will meet its obligation to provide 231 affordable housing units and said the approved projects would consist solely of affordable housing, with the exception of a proposed development from Baldachino Properties that will be a mix of market rate and affordable housing.
The plan from Baldachino Properties may include about 240 units, with about 48 units to be designated as affordable housing. The development site is 711 Perrineville Road (Route 1), near Etra-Perrineville Road (Route 571) and the border of East Windsor and Roosevelt.
Committee members also passed a resolution adopting an affirmative marketing plan for Millstone that is intended to ensure all of the affordable housing units that are built are affirmatively marketed to low- and moderate-income individuals.
Preference will be provided to homeless veterans, disabled veterans and family members who are the primary residential caregivers to disabled veterans residing with them, according to the resolution.
The committee also passed a resolution to fund the rehabilitation program of the 2020 amended housing element and fair share plan. And, committee members passed a resolution expressing their intent to fund the municipality’s affordable housing obligation.
To fund the affordable housing obligation, the resolution states that officials resolve to bond any necessary funding deficiency for the municipally sponsored projects of Allen House II, CKV and Shu Lee in the event that funding requests are not approved or in the event that approved funding is insufficient to complete the projects.
