TRENTON – A bill that would permit development trust fund money to help veterans buy houses has moved closer to being a law.
The bill, S-957, would permit a portion of municipal development trust funds to be spent on housing affordability assistance to veterans.
The trust fund collects money from fees for any developer doing projects in town. It would not come from tax dollars.
The bill is sponsored by Senator Christopher J. Connors, Assemblyman Brian E. Rumpf and Assemblywoman DiAnne C. Gove (all R-9th). They issued a statement supporting it: “Simply, the intent of our bipartisan legislation is to help first-time home-buying veterans realize the dream of owning their own homes, which as we all know can be financially challenging in this state.”
The way the law works now is that a town collects affordable housing fees from developers. The town sets aside amounts to provide affordability assistance programs. The bill would make it so that up to 30 percent of these funds could be dedicated to first-time home-buying veterans, specifically as a down-payment assistance grant of up to $15,000 per individual recipient, the legislators said.
“Veterans receiving the proposed assistance grants would be shielded from taxation of the grant funds, and from potentially losing their eligibility to other State programs. Additionally, our bill is permissive in that municipalities would have the option of establishing a program, meaning that no State mandates would be imposed,” they said.
The bill was released by the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee. The legislators noted that this proposal passed the Senate in a previous session but stalled in the Assembly.
