Northvale adopts fair-share housing element; housing consultant says borough needs three new affordable units over 10 years

The Borough of Northvale Mayor and Council voted to approve Resolution 103, endorsing a fair-share housing element and fair share plan intended to comply with the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs’ fourth-round affordable-housing rules.

Lindsay, the planning consultant who presented the plan, told the council the state released new fourth-round guidance with accelerated timelines and a three-factor calculation for prospective need based on nonresidential valuation, median income and mapped land capacity. “The present need is gonna be what is also called your rehabilitation need,” Lindsay said, describing the state’s distinction between rehabilitation of existing units and construction of new units.

Lindsay reported the borough’s process: an initial DCA mapping produced a larger prospective-need obligation that the planning team reviewed parcel by parcel and removed properties that were not developable (rear yards, environmentally constrained parcels, floodplains, steep slopes). The borough’s vacant-land adjustment and an ensuing settlement with the New Jersey Builders Association produced a negotiated obligation of 105 units; applying the state yield (six units per acre) and the 20% affordable set-aside led the planners to calculate a realistic development potential (RDP) that results in three additional affordable units required over the next 10 years.

Lindsay said two recently approved projects already account for seven affordable units toward the borough’s obligation: the project at 160 Paris (five affordable units) and a project at 192 Livingston (two affordable units). “So those are the 7 units,” Lindsay said. Combined with the RDP calculation the borough’s fourth-round obligation, as presented to council, results in three more affordable units that the borough would need to provide mechanisms to accommodate over the next decade.

The consultant emphasized that the borough is not being ordered to build units directly; rather, zoning and development mechanisms must allow developers to produce affordable units. A council member asked for clarification and summarized the local effect: the state “is saying you have to allow someone to come in and build these units,” the council member said, adding that the borough is not required to build the units itself. Lindsay confirmed that the borough’s existing zoning and set-aside approach had been producing affordable units and that no zoning changes were proposed.

The plan also addressed the borough’s present-need obligation to rehabilitate eight units in the next 10 years; Lindsay said those rehabilitations would likely be accomplished with the Bergen County Home Improvement Program and with the borough’s affordable housing trust fund. “The affordable housing trust fund has to be used for affordable housing purposes, so you have that money available,” Lindsay said, noting unused trust-fund balances would revert to the state after the round if not used locally.

Lindsay noted administrative requirements the borough must meet if it wants long-term certification and immunity from exclusionary zoning litigation: annual monitoring in the state’s Affordable Housing Management System (ALMS) — including year-end statements and trust-fund activity — and the planning board’s June 30 deadline for adoption and mayor-and-council endorsement. The New Jersey Builders Association had filed a challenge to the borough’s earlier calculations; the meeting record shows the borough entered a settlement conference that produced the 105 figure while preserving the borough’s ability to perform a vacant-land analysis.

The council voted on Resolution 103 after public comment. A resident raised parking concerns about mixed-use development on Bradley Avenue; the council and presenter discussed parking and commercial district capacity during public comment. The roll-call vote on the resolution recorded affirmative votes by the attending council members and the presiding official; the resolution passed.