Thursday November 5, 2020
Following the recent disclosing of the Fair Housing plan for Upper Saddle River it is on the agenda for tonights Mayor and Council meeting. Interested residents might want to pay attention. Agenda here.
The entire document is available – scroll down.
The borough website has information from the mayor on this:
Round Three of NJ Mandated Affordable Housing: The Governing Body has been working diligently to reach a final resolution of NJ’s mandated affordable housing obligation. The demands being placed on towns by the courts and Fair Share Housingare completely unrealistic. Unfortunately, they are also unavoidable. Without a settlement, towns are unprotected from ‘builder’s remedy’ lawsuits – opening them to unlimited development. Some towns have settled for huge housing obligations numbering inhundreds of units, including neighboring towns such as Montvale, Old Tappan and Mahwah, to obtain immunity.
The Borough has agreed to affordable units behind Porcelanosa and on East Crescent, along with 22 units on the One Lake Street site. During negotiations, these units have proven extremely helpful in working towards a final settlement.
Each municipality has been given a choice of settling or going to trial. The two towns that have chosen to litigate as of date have received very unfavorable outcomes. Park Ridge and Englewood Cliffs are currently in court. The judge recently revoked Englewood Cliffs’ temporary immunity from builder’s lawsuits. Upper Saddle River has been assigned the same judge as Englewood Cliffs and has been covered by temporary immunity extended by the judge while we work out a settlement agreement with Fair ShareHousing.
Only thirty towns in the state, with ten towns being in Bergen County, do not have their Round Three obligation settled at this time. Upper Saddle River is one of the last municipalities to settle. We have been engaged in extensive and prolonged negotiationswith the court-appointed Special Master and Fair Share Housing with the goal being to achieve a rational and reasonable outcome. Doing so earns the Borough immunity from builder’s remedy lawsuits for a ten – year period called Round Three, years 2015 through 2025. Every ten years, there is an entirely new round with a new obligation.
It is essential that we protect our town from unlimited development. It is evident that going to trial will lead to a higher number of units with locations, numbers and designs that would be out of our control. It is in the best interests of the communitythat we have oversight. After four years of working on this, with mandates to comply with legal requirements, a settlement is close to being reached. The sole purpose of settling is to protect our quality of life and our town’s unique character.
On December 13, 2019, the Court directed the Borough to advise by January 6, 2020 as to whether the case will be settled. Without a settlement, the case will likely move to trial. The settlement, if achieved, will be available on our website, www.usrtoday.org. A special council meeting is scheduled on Monday, January 27th at 8 pm. A public hearing, if there were to be a settlement, would take place at a future Planning Board meeting, which would be well publicized. The settlement will beheard by a judge as well and the public is able to attend the hearing.
Meeting tonight 8pm via zoom. Note – this is the public portion, the Executive portion is at 6:30 – who knows what is happening then? No agenda.
