More than 400 towns have so far signed up to provide their share of affordable housing, as required by state law. It’s the latest round of housing obligations for each town, designed to keep New Jersey housing costs within reach over the next decade.
Housing advocates are impressed that 431 towns have signed up.
“That is a level of participation we have never seen in the fifty years since the Mount Laurel doctrine went into effect and it really shows the law is working,” said Adam Gordon of the Fair Share Housing Center. “I think a lot of these smaller towns are saying, ‘Wow, here’s actually a way to comply that doesn’t require spending a lot of money on lawyers, that doesn’t require an endless process. Why don’t we do it?’”
Mayor Brad Cohen of East Brunswick agrees it’s necessary to keep young families from fleeing New Jersey. “We need to try to help our starting teachers and the people working in medical offices and the starting police officers … and not force them to have to leave New Jersey because it’s so unaffordable,” he said.
The state calculates that 65,000 housing units are required to be built or rehabilitated for current needs, and another 81,000 over the next decade. It’s the fourth and latest round of state-imposed fair-share housing requirements since the program began.
Most participating towns accepted the housing requirements that were calculated by the state Department of Community Affairs, Gordon said. But about a quarter of them — like East Brunswick — have also filed declaratory judgment complaints, disputing some of the numbers. For example, East Brunswick says that only 44 acres there are even buildable, not 175.
“There were some areas that they had given us in the map that they provided that were just not buildable,” Cohen said. “So we came back to them saying that we’re not against affordable housing, we’re not telling you we don’t want to do it at all, but what we are doing is looking at where we think they could be…”
East Brunswick pointed to deed-restricted farmland, wetlands and rights-of-way as unbuildable areas, and filed to reduce its future obligation by about 50 units.
Toms River filed to slash its 10-year share by 556 units, down to 114. Brick Township filed to chop its future affordable housing obligation by 431 units, down to 29, citing wetlands restrictions and other building obstacles. Gordon expects that could lead to a challenge.
“I think it is highly unlikely that you can comply with the law’s calculations and be off by that much. We’re obviously going to have to take a closer look at that and decide whether we file an objection,” he said.
The DCA used “aerial imagery to identify potentially vacant land areas [and] …analyzed construction permit data” to make housing calculations, according to a spokeswoman.
Towns have launched legal battles against fair-share housing obligations ever since the first Mount Laurel decision. Some 27 municipalities sued to block this fourth round, claiming the law is unconstitutional and unfair to suburbs, and have so far lost.
