By Josh Bauers Families in New Jersey are currently facing two interconnected challenges: historic levels of income inequality and an unprecedented housing affordability crisis. Soaring housing costs have made it extremely difficult for many hard-working people and vulnerable communities — including seniors, people with disabilities, and caregivers — to keep a roof over their heads. Fortunately, this year New Jersey took a major step toward addressing this issue by enacting a major new law that will significantly increase the supply of affordable housing.
Under the landmark Mount Laurel Doctrine — based on a series of New Jersey Supreme Court decisions rooted in economic justice — every municipality in the state is required to provide its “fair share” of affordable housing. The new state law that passed earlier this year strengthens the Mount Laurel framework by streamlining the affordable housing development process. The updated framework increases transparency and efficiency, while also safeguarding towns’ discretion in deciding how they want to fulfill their fair share obligation.
Since the inception of the Mount Laurel Doctrine, municipalities have claimed that it takes away their ability to choose what is right for their town — but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The system is actually designed to do the opposite. Municipalities have a wide variety of options and significant latitude in deciding how they meet their affordable housing obligations.
Towns only lose their ability to be in control of the process when they refuse to allow any affordable housing and instead obfuscate the entire process. Enforcement is thus essential. Most towns do cooperate with the process — they build their fair share and get to decide how to do that in a way that works best for them.
Other towns, however, opt for the more difficult path, attempting to undermine affordable housing and the Mount Laurel Doctrine every step of the way. Wealthy towns like Millburn, which have resisted affordable housing for decades, demonstrate why enforcement is crucial to safeguard affordable housing for New Jersey’s low-income residents. Millburn officials have defied multiple court orders to move forward with the development of a 75-unit, 100% affordable housing complex a short walk away from the town’s downtown area and NJ Transit station.
In April, the Millburn Township Committee even voted unanimously to pull out of the project completely, a clear violation of their fair share obligation. But at a hearing on July 10, Superior Court Judge Cynthia Santomauro ordered the town to adopt the redevelopment agreement within one month. If town officials fail to do so, the judge will adopt it for them — or start fining the town until they adopt it.
As a proud son of South Orange & Essex County, 👏🏾 👏🏾 👏🏾 to @FairShareNJ for keeping up the effort - and the judge for deciding - to ensure Millburn ultimately fulfills its constitutional obligation and responsibility to build affordable housing. https://t.co/4Jfv9hyve4 In Colts Neck, a similar situation is unfolding, with town officials wasting an inordinate amount of taxpayer dollars on litigation attempting to dodge their affordable housing obligations.
This money could have been spent on sewer infrastructure upgrades and other priorities. Ironically, town officials — who never seem to oppose luxury housing developments — are now using the strain on infrastructure as an excuse to not build affordable housing. But they brought this on themselves by refusing to plan for it in advance.
Thankfully, Millburn and Colts Neck are outliers. Their neighbors have built a lot of affordable housing — towns like Livingston, West Orange, South Orange, Aberdeen and Tinton Falls are running laps while they refuse to budge from the starting line. We have seen firsthand the benefits of integrated communities in our state.
The families that live in affordable developments have seen increases in wages, better physical and mental health outcomes, and increased college attendance. Meanwhile, the surrounding residents continue to experience stable taxes, low crime rates, and high property values. That’s the thing about affordable housing: it doesn’t just improve the lives of its residents — it improves everyone’s lives.
On the other hand, housing shortages are damaging to the fabric of our society, leading to reduced labor mobility and significant declines in overall economic growth . Since 2015, when the New Jersey Supreme Court reinvigorated the Mount Laurel Doctrine, New Jersey is producing more new multifamily housing than ever before — creating nearly 70,000 new homes over the last eight years. Much of this new housing is close to public transportation and redevelops older office parks or shopping centers that are no longer viable — thus cutting down on pollution by making towns more walkable.
With climate change already baked into New Jersey’s future, municipalities should be prioritizing sensible and equitable growth, redevelopment, and infrastructure investments to foster healthy, resilient communities. Instead of flushing taxpayer dollars down the drain fighting affordable housing, local policymakers should invest in infrastructure that will benefit their towns for generations to come. Josh Bauers is director of exclusionary zoning litigation at Fair Share Housing Center .
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