This was the year the new state affordable housing law started to impact municipalities and with 2025 almost over it’s still unclear how many new houses will be built as a result.
In 2024, Gov. Phil Murphy signed the law returning the oversight of municipal affordable housing obligations to the state. That fall, the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) fulfilled its mandate by calculating the estimated number of units for people with low or moderate incomes each municipality needs to allow.
That set the stage for towns to begin the process of accepting the estimates or certifying the number of units they thought was accurate. There were some legal challenges to those numbers from the NJ Builders Association and the Fair Share Housing Center, which has been involved in the so-called Mount Laurel litigation that resulted in state Supreme Court rulings.
Challenges to the plans are ongoing and are to be resolved by the end of the year in most cases. That should set the stage for potential new housing construction to begin as early as next year.
But the actual impact of the law is still unknown. Officials with Fair Share were buoyed by the overall response to the process, but did challenge a number of municipal plans for not doing enough to provide housing opportunities within their borders.
And there is still no accounting of how many housing units municipalities have agreed to allow, only 460 individual plans. Housing advocates say the state needs more than 200,000 new units to house all those who need a place they can afford. DCA calculated a requirement of about 85,000 new affordable units and 65,000 needing rehabilitation over the next decade. In their initial certifications with the courts, municipal officials acknowledged a need of about 62,000 new units. But the actual number of homes towns commit to allow is likely to be much smaller. An NJ Spotlight News review of housing plans filed by dozens of municipalities found that many municipalities further reduced the number of homes they said they could accommodate – some all the way to zero – often citing a lack of vacant land or water or sewer capacity.
In the meantime, Murphy is pushing for the passage in the lame duck session of several bills to ease regulations and allow for more affordable housing to be built across the state.
And while state courts turned away a challenge to the law from some municipal officials, they have filed a new challenge in the federal courts. It’s unclear when that matter may be heard.
Here’s a review of key affordable housing stories from NJ Spotlight News this year:
