UPDATE: Yeshivaworld has been informed by “NJ Hand” that the project is moving ahead full force, and they are accepting applicants. Below is the article written by the Asbury Park Press, which states the contrary.

APP Article: The NJ State Council on Affordable Housing is currently reworking its rules for a third round of affordable housing obligations for municipalities to meet, following a court challenge, brought by the New Jersey Builders Association among others. That challenge had put a statewide hold on the COAH program, including some $36 million worth of proposed Regional Contribution Agreements intended to benefit Lakewood.

The township, which has not used RCAs previously, has only been able to help a fraction of the low-income residents for whom it had intended to rehabilitate or build new affordable- housing. Work is usually done using funds under a Community Development Block Grant.

Under the Fair Housing Act of 1985, which created RCAs, towns can transfer up to 50 percent of their state-determined affordable-housing obligations to one or more towns within a housing region. The towns negotiate a payment per unit transferred, and the funds are used by the accepting municipality toward new construction or to rehabilitate existing units for low- or moderate-income households. The income limits vary by county and size of household.

A diverse low- to moderate-income town with plenty of land, Lakewood is in the unique position of having both the need and room for a gush of affordable housing.

It is by far the largest potential receiver of RCAs in Ocean County, banking heavily on the anticipated funds it had contracted from nine towns in Monmouth County and one in Ocean County to fund the construction or rehabilitation of more than 900 units.

Of the 391 new Lakewood units initially planned for completion by March (as reported HERE on YW), only 72 are being built. But those homes, near Oak Street, aren’t the beneficiary of RCA funds. The developer, Lakewood-based NJ Hand, cut off from an anticipated $3.2 million in RCA funds, has been forced to take out bank loans for those units, which broke ground in April. If and when the RCA money does come, it can reimburse those loans.

NJ Hand President Shmuel Lefowitz said the delay has forced a lot of cost-cutting and put the second phase of the project – another 166 units – at risk of not getting done.

“It’s only going to hurt this project,” he said. “In their (the state’s) desire to do good, they’re basically doing a lot of damage.”

Meanwhile, the nonprofit developers of the township’s two other projects remain at a standstill.

(Complete article on: APP)