The township has reached a settlement to build 700 affordable housing units.
OLD BRIDGE -- The Township Council will vote Friday on a measure that would create hundreds of affordable housing units as part of its obligation under the Fair Housing Act.
Old Bridge has agreed to a settlement with the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) to designate nearly 700 units out of 3,000 being built as affordable housing and the remainder as market-rate homes.
Since municipalities are constitutionally bound to provide affordable housing, officials in Old Bridge said they believed it was better to negotiate with COAH.
Without the settlement, Old Bridge Mayor Owen Henry said the township faced having to designate as affordable 2,174 of the 3,000 new housing units being built which could equal nearly 11,000 individual units over the next 10 years.
"And the builders come in, and you bet the Fair Share is going to come in say, we're going to build 2,174 (housing units)," Henry said.
Controversy has surrounded affordable housing mandates since the State Supreme Court ruled in the 1980s that every resident was entitled to access to affordable housing. The ruling became known as the Mount Laurel decision, named after the town in Burlington County that was sued.
Old Bridge Councilman Brian Cahill said the township was left with little choice other than to come to a settlement with COAH and the Fair Share Housing Center, an affordable housing advocacy group.
"If we did nothing, what's going to happen is the judge is going to give the higher of the two numbers," for affordable housing, Cahill said.
The cost of building the housing units -- which include inclusionary housing, multi-family, and single-family affordable apartments -- will be funded by developers, Henry said.
The affordable housing would be located on Old Amboy Avenue off Route 9, Matawan Road near Exit 120 of the Garden State Parkway, and on Ferry Road behind the Central Jersey Physical Therapy facility.
Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find the Find NJ.com on Facebook.