From the Record:
Senate passes bill to overhaul how NJ towns will meet affordable housing mandate
How much affordable housing will New Jersey towns be required to zone for, build, convert or renovate over the next decade?
Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to sign a bill the Legislature passed Monday that aims to streamline the process that determines how municipalities fulfill a constitutional mandate to provide their “fair share” of homes that low- and moderate-income families can afford.
The bill would codify a formula to help towns come up with the number of units they must allow to meet their constitutional mandate.
The bill passed the Senate 22-14 along party lines, to the sound of applause in the chamber. The Assembly approved amendments that had been added since it passed the bill 51-28 in February.
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Under what advocates hail as landmark legislation, A4/S50 shifts court negotiations over town affordable housing quotas to the Department of Community Affairs, which will rely on a formula based on a 2018 state Supreme Court decision to give towns initial numbers of units they are required to zone as affordable.
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It maintains a ban on regional contribution agreements, a practice that let towns pay cities or other towns to rehabilitate affordable housing instead of building their own units, and abolishes the Council on Affordable Housing, a defunct agency that ceased operations in 2015, after failing for 16 years to adopt rules for towns to follow.
A series of significant state Supreme Court cases beginning in 1975 created the Mount Laurel Doctrine, which said municipalities must zone for and provide a “fair share” of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families, which typically means that a household would spend no more than a third of its monthly paycheck on housing expenses. The fourth “round” of negotiations is scheduled to start in July 2025.
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“Under the current system, towns have to hire their own experts to calculate the numbers,” Singleton said. “Now the Department of Community Affairs will calculate the numbers using the same framework and methodology that has been used for the last eight years.
“Towns can either choose to accept it or come up with their own, consistent with the standards in this bill, based on that methodology,” he said.