Last week, Livingston’s Planning Board discussed a redevelopment plan for a portion of South Livingston Avenue near Mt. Pleasant Avenue. The Township Council had referred the plan to the Planning Board, who was tasked – as the Board always is in these instances – with determining if it was consistent with the master plan. It was.
On Monday, the redevelopment plan was sent back to the Township Council for a final vote. If passed, the runway would be cleared for developers to construct a 276-unit rental property on the South Livingston Avenue site which formerly occupied Bottle King. Of those 276 units, 15 percent would be for low and moderate income tenants, the state minimum requirement on rental properties.
Prior to sending the redevelopment plan back to the Township Council, Planning Board member Richard Dinar expressed several concerns about the proposed property, including height issues and parking density. He also requested that the number of proposed affordable units be increased. All of these, we believe, would be beneficial changes to the project. When these types of plans have been presented to the Planning Board in the past, multiple members have stated that the Board’s role is simply to see if the project is consistent with the master plan, which, in this case, it was, as we already stated.
But, the law, N.J.S.A. 40A:12A-7(e), certainly leaves it open to interpretation. It reads, in part: “Prior to the adoption of a redevelopment plan, or revision or amendment thereto, the Planning Board shall transmit to the governing body, within 45 days after referral, a report containing its recommendation concerning the redevelopment plan. This report shall include an identification of any provisions in the proposed redevelopment plan which are inconsistent with the master plan and recommendations concerning these inconsistencies and any other matters as the Board deems appropriate.” Certainly, it could be interpreted that Dinar’s concerns fit within these guidelines.
Perhaps the town should look into altering the master plan, which was last updated in 2018. It is certainly due for an overhaul considering all of the changes in town since it was last amended. Alterations focused on these types of redevelopment plans – which have been passed with more frequency in recent years – should certainly factor into what is written. As of now, the majority of Planning Board members feel they must essentially rubber stamp these plans when they are presented to them, as long as they are consistent with the master plan. A stricter (or, perhaps, broader) master plan would give the Board more freedom to operate.
This would be a large change, and one that certainly would not happen for some time. In the meantime, we hope that Dinar’s recommendations, which were sent back to the Council as a minority position via sentence within a memo, were taken seriously. While in no way required to act upon the recommendations, as the approval of master plan consistency was all that was needed, it is not a good look for the Council to simply gloss over the concerns of the governing body to which they had sent the redevelopment plan for review. We hope the same thought is given to the comments of the nearly 40 residents who expressed their concerns about the redevelopment plan at Monday’s Council meeting.
At the end of the day, the majority of Livingston’s elected officials and residents agree that they are not pleased with the influx of housing that has been approved in recent years in town. For background, in 1975, the Mount Laurel decision set a national precedent for municipal land-use policies, stating that they cannot discriminate based on income. The amount of affordable housing required in a town is determined by the acres of developable land. If towns do not follow the model, they run the risk of being sued by developers seeking to build affordable housing. These are known as “builder’s remedy” lawsuits and they make it harder for the township’s Council, Planning, and Zoning Boards to control what is built. This issue has raised a number of concerns throughout town, including a rise in enrollment in the district’s schools, increased traffic, and additional strains on the municipality’s infrastructure.
In a span of less than three years, roughly a dozen major housing developments have been approved in Livingston, almost exclusively in order to satisfy the requirements of an agreement reached in January of 2021 with Fair Share Housing Center. That deal took half a decade to negotiate (and, behind closed doors, is still being negotiated – it was amended in a resolution just this week). It brought the amount of required new units down from 3,000 to about 1,000, with about 20 percent of those units set aside for affordable housing. The Council members who have approved the overlay ordinances that would pave the way for these housing complexes have uniformly expressed their displeasure with being forced to do so due to Fair Share Housing requirements. Council member Ed Meinhardt, mayor of Livingston in 2022 when some of these were approved, put it succinctly at the time, stating that Fair Share Housing “in no better terms, put a gun to our head,” in forcing these units into town.
And while the town is still working on settling this current agreement with Fair Share Housing, the next round of affordable housing obligations will be up for approval in 2025, unless an extension is granted. There is a bill currently on the floor in Trenton to push back the start date of the next ten-year affordable housing round by three years. The COVID pandemic and related shutdowns, which have stymied municipalities from satisfying their third round obligations, was cited as the reason for the delay. Hopefully, that bill gains traction and passes within the next year. It is worth noting, as well, that the Council, at its meeting Monday, amended its agreement with Fair Share Housing. That amendment, which added development at the Livingston Mall and Westminster Hotel, should ultimately satisfy the third round obligations of Livingston, while also covering most or all of the fourth round, depending on those final numbers.
The redevelopment plan ordinance did not end up passing on Monday; it was tabled, as Council members pledged to look into the concerns of nearby residents who spoke for two hours during the public hearing on the matter. If and when it returns to the Council for a vote, there will likely be changes made to it, based on residents’ feedback. But the influx of housing remains an issue that will affect the makeup of this town in the coming decades. The greater density will result in significant changes to Livingston, likely not all of them positive. Residents have every right to be upset about this and want something done. They should let their elected officials in town know how they feel, as they did Monday evening. In turn, we hope our local elected officials lobby our representatives at the state and national levels to push – hard and publicly, so residents can see what they are doing on their behalf – for a change to this flawed process very soon. Because if changes are going to be made, particularly before the next round of housing obligations, they need to be done on the state level. That is who truly bears responsibility for this housing and the way it is being implemented.
