Monday, May 14, 2012
People who qualify for the housing cannot qualify for the mortgages, officials say.
The state Council on Affordable Housing may be a thing of the past, but its mission to provide a fair share of affordable housing on the market to people of median and lower income brackets still exists. It will always exist in the form of the state’s Fair Housing Act. The trouble, Middletown officials have been finding, is that while the housing that Middletown is mandated by the state to provide at an affordable selling price may exist, people are not qualifying for the loans. With banks’ loan requirements tightening more and more after the record-breaking solicitation of bad loans and housing market crash, people, many of whom were victims of the bad loan rash, are not making the lenders' cut. The slightest blemish on credit and/or an …
Friday, March 9, 2012
Court rules that the governor lacks authority to reorganize an independent agency, saying future of Council on Affordable Housing is up to state Legislature.
A state appeals panel has overturned Gov. Chris Christie's reorganization of New Jersey's affordable housing bureaucracy, saying the governor lacked authority to abolish an independent agency. Christie issued an executive order in June 2011 that eliminated the state Council on Affordable Housing and transferred its responsibilities to the state Department of Community Affairs. Christie says he will appeal the decision. "We are obviously disappointed with the court decision, which only perpetuates the nightmare New Jersey has endured for decades with the COAH bureaucracy," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak. In its ruling, written by Judge Philip S. Charchman, the appellate panel said that the state Reorganization Act "does not grant …
Friday, March 2, 2012
The developer, after settling a lawsuit with the Middletown, is back at the Planning Board.
When it comes to the contentious residential development of the Middletown Bamm Hollow swath, while the developer has gotten the go-ahead with preliminary site approval, there will be no groundbreaking anytime soon. The approval from the Planning Board this week, at a special hearing on Feb. 29, signaled the official start of what amounts to a lawsuit settlement between the township and developer, Bamm Hollow Investors, LLC. The reality: It could take years to see some of the 190 single family homes planned for the 280-acre site to start sprouting up, officials said, but the development is inevitable. “The general development plan the developer was able to secure from the Planning Board in 2011 gave them protection from any changes in …
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Officials, Lincroft residents still not pleased with development prospects
What is on its way to being settled in court has still left Middletown officials and residents with an unsettling feeling. After toiling over a court fight that has lasted a couple of years and cost the township hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in legal fees, the governing body has struck an agreement with the ownership of Bamm Hollow Country Club. It will allow for the construction of up to 190 single-family homes on the 280-acre site where they initially wanted to build it out to roughly 1,200 housing units, with a few hundred affordable. The Township Committee Monday night passed a resolution outlining the settlement plan, which will now go before the Planning Board and back to the Township Committee for final approval. Once …
Friday, May 13, 2011
Punitive, priggish posturing ... Are we there yet, or again?
Anyone following this column — and I think there are one or two of you — may remember that I wrote about Middletown receiving money for the sale of a poor farm in 1913. "The poor farm was sold a short time ago," the story from the Red Bank Register archives said. "It was owned and supported by a number of municipalities in the county, and the $12,500 which Middletown township has received represented that municipality's share of the poor farm." Ever since then, I’ve been coming across the words poorfarm or poorhouse in other issues of the Red Bank Register. I recently came across this editorial about how the poor were treated before Social Security was enacted. One hundred years ago, on May 17, 1911, the Town Talk column noted: "When our …
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Mayor, opponents sound off on the COAH fight
It’s only the beginning. And it's not the beginning of the end, either. While a couple hundred residents mobilized and poised themselves for a fight at the Middletown Planning Board meeting last night — to stave off 324 new units of housing on the 62-acre site of the former Avaya offices in the Lincroft section of the township — officials have made it clear that one meeting does not mark the end of the issue. In fact, they say, it could drag on for years. At the very least, Middletown Mayor Tony Fiore said, any potential development laden with as much controversy as this one is more likely to linger in approval limbo, even though the plan conforms with current zoning parameters and no variances are being sought. It’s all about a familiar …
James Ariac
7:23 am on Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Renting and rent to own are both good ideas. Middletown also has a requirement to use some of its housing trust fund money to provide "affordability assistance" and the township has done that be setting up a down-payment assistance program. By increasing the amount of down payment, lenders feel more secure and placing mortgages becomes a little easier. Mr. Mercantante might have used this article… more ›