SENATE COMMUNITY AND URBAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

[Second Reprint]

ASSEMBLY, No. 333

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  OCTOBER 13, 2016

      The Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 333 (2R).

      As previously amended in the General Assembly, this bill ensures the fairness of project deadlines, enhances transparency, and creates foreclosure protections for Superstorm Sandy victims. 

      The bill requires the Department of Community Affairs (“DCA”) to extend the deadline for project completion following a Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation (“RREM”) or Low-to-Moderate Income (“LMI”) program grant award date for any applicant who demonstrates that the delay has resulted from certain faults of the builder, or delays by DCA in approving the builder associated with the project.

      Upon any decision to deny an application for aid under either the Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (“TBRA”), LMI, or RREM program, this bill requires DCA to provide the applicant with an explanation for the denial and an explanation for ways to remedy the application.  The bill gives DCA the responsibility to publicly report the reason for each application denial, wait-list placement, and withdrawal from the RREM, TBRA, and LMI programs since the beginning of the recovery effort, and to report the reasons for new denials, wait-list placements, and withdrawals on a quarterly basis through 2018. Concerning withdrawn applications, the public reporting requirements shall apply only after DCA has conducted a reasonable effort to contact the withdrawn applicant.

      The bill also requires DCA to publicly report on where all funding associated with application denials, wait-list placements, and withdrawals has instead been allocated.  The bill applies this requirement to all application denials, wait-list placements, and withdrawals since the beginning of the recovery effort, and requires ongoing reporting on a quarterly basis through the end of 2018. 

      The bill requires DCA to maintain a RREM appeals process for at least six months following the bill’s effective date.  The appeals process shall be open to any applicant to the RREM program who submitted an initial application by the deadline of August 1, 2013, regardless of the reason the applicant had been denied or removed from the application process.

      Finally, in order to address the economic crisis that many families continue to experience as a result of Superstorm Sandy, this bill offers temporary protections against foreclosure to certain Sandy victims. 

      Any homeowner who is awarded a forbearance or a stay of foreclosure proceedings will continue to be responsible for property taxes, insurance, and general property maintenance.  So long as the homeowner is first offered sufficient notice, a forbearance may be terminated upon a court determination that the homeowner has abandoned the property.