ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J.—A Superior Court judge ordered Englewood Cliffs to provide for 347 units of affordable housing Jan. 17, including 100 units at 800 Sylvan Ave. and a 57-unit 100%-affordable complex to be built on borough property.
Mayor Mario Kranjac said the borough will appeal the decision.
“The Borough will appeal all the Judge’s decisions and prevail. In 2019, after the Democratic Council Majority led by Ed Aversa, Gloria Oh and Deborah Tsabari abandoned my 2018 plan for 100% affordable housing, I am still pushing to implement that plan with enhancements and continue to satisfy our obligations,” emailed Kranjac to Northern Valley Press on Jan. 20.
The borough is only the second municipality to go to trial in New Jersey since state Superior Courts were given authority over affordable housing obligations in 2015 by the New Jersey Supreme Court, said Fair Share Housing Center, a statewide intervenor and advocate for fair share housing.
Since 2015, Englewood Cliffs has faced a lawsuit brought by Normandy Real Estate Partners over its proposal for a 600-unit development on the former Unilever campus on Sylvan Avenue, which includes about 100 affordable units.
In order to fulfill its affordable obligations on its own without the Normandy Real Estate proposal, the borough proposed constructing 57 affordable units in a 100 percent affordable complex on a 2-acre tract occupied by the borough building, parking area and Lions Club.
That proposal should satisfy the borough’s obligation, said the borough, making the Normandy proposal unneeded.
Judge Farrington’s ruling requires the borough to assure the court that the 57 units it proposed will be built, along with 100 units at the former Unilever site.
In addition, the judge said Englewood Cliffs must amend its zoning ordinances to allow for about 174 additional affordable units.
Farrington ordered compliance within 90 days of her Jan. 17 decision and set a mid-April compliance hearing date.
Over the last year, and especially at a raucous July public meeting, vocal residents called for borough officials to oppose any settlement with Normandy Real Estate or the Fair Share Housing Center that would create the opportunity for more affordable units.
Farrington’s ruling noted that the borough “consistently opposed…the resolution of litigation” over four-plus years of negotiations and throughout the trial continued to claim that it did not know what its affordable housing obligation is under New Jersey law.
The judge’s order followed a nearly months-long trial for Englewood Cliffs, which has consistently failed to allow for construction of affordable units in new developments over nearly four decades since New Jersey passed its Fair Housing Act in 1985, housing advocates say.
The Fair Housing Act was based on earlier Mount Laurel fair share housing decisions in 1975 and 1983 and created the Council on Affordable Housing, which was declared defunct by the state Supreme Court in 2015.
Fair Share Housing advocates said the judge’s ruling sends a message to towns who try to exclude affordable units.
‘A clear message’
“Today’s ruling sends a clear message to the few remaining towns in New Jersey that want to continue excluding low-income families and people of color at all costs,” said Kevin Walsh, executive director of Fair Share Housing Center, the state’s leading advocate for affordable housing and an intervenor in affordable litigation statewide.
“Hundreds of towns across our state have chosen to work with advocates to tackle entrenched racial and socioeconomic segregation. The towns that don’t now know that they will be held accountable by the courts,” Walsh said following the decision.
Fair Share pointed out that the judge’s ruling called out Englewood Cliffs for failing to build a single unit of affordable housing ever while continuing to “use the state’s fair housing laws as a shield to continue practices to exclude low-income families.”
Several other large developments recently approved, including a new LG Headquarters, were built without including a single unit of affordable housing.
‘Exclusionary behavior’
The borough is “a recalcitrant municipality with a clear pattern of exclusionary behavior,” wrote Judge Farrington.
“For 40-plus years Englewood Cliffs worked to thwart the promise of the Mount Laurel doctrine by repeatedly undermining New Jersey’s fair housing laws,” Walsh said.
“As a result, there has not been a single home created in Englewood Cliffs that is affordable to working families, persons with disabilities, and many others. Today’s decision will end that by leading to hundreds of new affordable homes that will open the doors of opportunity to New Jersey’s lower-income residents.”
‘Increasingly more exclusive’
At one point in her decision, Farrington highlighted the borough’s lack of affordable units.
“The court has considered the realities of the situation in the Borough of Englewood Cliffs,” she wrote. “The uncontroverted reality is a community becoming increasingly more exclusive and which has failed to build a single unit of affordable housing.”
Mayor Mario Kranjac has remained steadfast in his opposition to what he calls high-density overdevelopment to satisfy affordable obligations, including the Normandy Real Estate Partners’ proposal.
Kranjac told Northern Valley Press that Farrington “has been consistently wrong on the relevant facts and applicable law. She is wrong again. We will appeal and prevail,” he said.
He also called on the state Legislature to provide “affordable housing relief” for New Jersey taxpayers.
Asked his opinion of Farrington’s decision, Kranjac said she was wrong and blamed her for a lack of settlement.
“Not only is the Judge wrong on relevant facts and application of applicable law, but she contributed to much of the problem in 2019 by not permitting me to have access to information and by knowingly permitting the Democratic Council Majority to violate the Open Public Meetings Act by agreeing to have a settlement Memorandum of Understanding signed by an unauthorized subcommittee in the darkness of night rather than by the borough,” emailed the mayor.
Efforts to contact Democratic councilman Ed Aversa—who opposed Kranjac for mayor in November and lost—for comment on Kranjac’s charges were not returned by press time.