6 events in Passaic County with a date

Affordable housing mandates stir foes

Mayors cite risks to local budgets

By: William Westhoven
Morristown Daily Record
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... In North Jersey towns already beset by a residential building boom, state officials envision adding tens of thousands more units in the coming decade.
..... That would be good news for ordinary New Jerseyans struggling to find an affordable home, housing advocates insist.
..... But in the suburbs, some are ready for a fight.
..... "High-density housing may seem like a solution, but it raises serious concerns about our infrastructure and budget," Parisippany Mayor James Barberio the Morris County town plan for almost 700 more new or renovated units. "It seems like the state wants us to sacrifice quality for quantity."
..... Nealy a decade after New Jersey's Supreme Court rebooted long-ignored affordable-housing mandate for local towns, the Murphy administration earlier this month [10/2024] issued its recommended obligations for each of the Gardner State's 564 municipalities.
...... The Department of Community Affairs released calculations identifying "prospective" needs - new housing yet to built - that would require the construction of almost 85,000 more units much of it in northern New Jersey.
..... That's in addition to a "present need" for 65,000 more residences, though renovating existing housing the state deems inadequate.
..... The state's so-called "fourth round" of housing obligations are required by the landmark Mount Laurel Doctrine, a series of court rulings dating to 1975 that found that the New Jersey constitution requires municipalities to provide their "fair share" of low and moderate-income housing - and to remove zoning designed to exclude such units.
..... Since the 2015 ruling, developers have constructed thousands of units using a feature of the law designed to punish recalcitrant towns: Courts can approve big projects where most of the housing is offered at market rate, if a builder promises to reserve 15% of rentals, or 20% of sold units, as qualified affordable housing.
..... The DCA's list indicate many North Jersey communities will have to produce hundreds of affordable apartments, town-homes or other dwellings between now and 2035. Of the 85,000 prospective-need units, about 28,000 are in Bergen, Hudson, Passaic and Sussex counties, which the state groups as a region. About 21,000 more would go in Essex, Morris, Warren and Union counties.
..... In
Bergen County, Paramus leads that category, with 1,500 more units needed to meet its affordable-housing obligations, the state says. In Passaic County, Wayne will need another 1,700.
..... Roxbery (929 units) as the highest prospective need in Morris Count, followed by Morris Township (571 units), Sussex County's Hardyston Township - with about 8,100 residents spread across 32 square miles - has a prospective need of 1,600 units.

Municipal push-back headed for courts

..... Parsipoany is among nine North Jersey towns hat joined in a lawsuit against the state last month [09/2024] to push back on those requirements. Bergen county's Montvale was another.
..... "The new mandate places an undue burden on our local budgets, infrastructure, and services," Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali said after the DCA released its numbers. He said Montvale's new target of 348 units is more than double the statewide average and "with the 20% illusionary developments, " it "will in erase our population by almost 50%.
..... "We've already built 365 affordable units," Ghassali said "Ten percent of our town is affordable housing. So for anyone to say we don't want to build affordable housing is flat-out false."
..... The numbers follow the approval of new housing law, signed by Governor Phil Murphy in March, [2024] that codified the formula to help towns determine what they need to do to fulfill their Mount Laurel requirements.

'Non-binding' housing mandates

..... "It means that the affordable housing obligations of towns up and down our state will be determined much ore quickly than in decades past," Murphy said. The final numbers are "non-binding," the DCA says. Towns can represent their own calculation or challenge the agency's determination based on issues including sewer capacity, slope angles in open space or other environmental concerns. Additional credits can be obtained for certain housing categories including group homes for individuals with disabilities.
..... Nonetheless, the DCA says its calculations still :give municipalities and developers more certainly, which enables smarter planning around where housing should be built,: according to its website.
..... Each municipality is required to adopt its obligations through binding resolution by January 31, 2025.
..... The new law defines "present need" as the number of existing but deficient housing units currently occupied by low- and moderate-income households. "Prospective need" refers to the estimated future needs of a given town based on factors including population shifts seen in the 2010 and 2020 census counts.
..... Regional median household incomes are another factor used in the calculations, the state said.

Dire need for affordable housing

..... Supporters of the mandate point to the well-documented need for more affordable housing in New Jersey and across the nation - a concern that has become a major issue in the 2024 presidential election.
..... "We face a somewhat perfect storm of low hosing inventory and escalating pricing, which leaves thousands of working families all across our state with no viable options," said Senator Troy Singleton, D-Burlington, a sponsor of the new housing legislation. "Without securing the most basic human needs - a place to live - the other policies we pas cannot be as effective."
..... In Madison, one of the few towns to approach the afford ability issue by building its own, 44-unit complex, the project is "emblematic of the kind of sustainable affordable housing being developed in communities across New Jersey," Melanie Walter, executive director of the state's Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, said during the 2023 groundbreaking. The $20 million development was funded in part by a $2 million federal grant.
..... The DCA calculations found no present need in Madison, but a future obligation for 206 more units.
..... Critics of the mandate say with the courts supporting developers and their 20% strategy, the resulting projects are changing the character of their towns. They complain of increased traffic, school enrollments and a strain on aging infrastructure.
..... "We keep putting boxes in the ground, the water has to go somewhere," Florham Park Mayor Mark Taylor said in June [2024] at a town hall organized by several Morris County mayors. "We are experiencing major flooding issues."
..... "Parsippany is a proud blue-collar town, dedicated to expanding our affordable housing stock,: Parsippany's Barberio added. "But we need to ensure it's done sensibly."
..... Parsippany, Morris County's largest municipality with about 56,000 residents, already had more than 1,400 units currently under construction. Nealy 700 more are approved or proposed, while two more commercial properties are under consideration as "areas in need of redevelopment."

Have developer's 'commandeered' the system?

..... After ruling that towns had been dragging their feet for years, the Supreme Court in 2015 shifted oversight of affordable-housing compliance to the nonprofit Fair Share Housing Center as well as the courts.
..... That emboldened developers to design large new residential projects, the mayors said.
..... "This doctrine was commandeered by developers and special-interest groups," East Hanover Mayor Joseph Pannullo said at the town hall. "They only care about more development and more profit. And housing advocates are unrealistic, single-minded and care little about the real ramification that come about by overdeveloping area."
..... "Since Mount Laurel in 1975, who's made out in this?" said Mount Arlington Mayor Michael Stanzilis. "engineers, planners, and attorneys. Some builders. But it's mostly a cottage industry perpetuating the litigation of this thing forever."
..... But the Fair Share Housing Center sees the last decade of enforcement as a positive step.
..... "Since the reinvigoration of Mount Laurel enforcement in 2015, the rate of affordable housing production has nearly doubled," the group writes on tis website. "Overall multifamily housing production has significantly increased, and neighborhoods where new homes have been built have become more integrated."

A deeper dive into the numbers

..... Hackensack, with 593, has the highest present need in Bergen County. Palisades Park is second with 333.
..... With its aggressive approach to project approvals - which is helping to climate the township's glut of vacant office space - Parsippany's Present-need number is down to 138. elsewhere in Morris County, Dover, with only about 18,400 residents, has a higher bar to clear with 349 units.
..... Some Passaic towns face the highest present-need hurled in the state, including Paterson (3,966), Passaic (3,179) and Clifton (884).
..... by comparison only 292 present-need units are calculated for the entirety of Sussex County, where Highlands Region regulations place severe restrictions on development.
..... A similar scenario exists in Warren County, with only 320 identified present-need units, 100 of which are in White Township, which has only about 4,600 residents, but covers almost 28 square miles.
..... Prospective-need calculations may be larger or smaller, depending on the town, Carlstadit's present need is zero, but its prospective need is 511 units. Garfield's present need is 322, but its prospective need is zero. In Paramus, the present need is 254 and the prospective need is a county-high 1,523, more than double that of any other Bergen County town.
..... In Passaic County, in stark contrast to their whopping present-need numbers, Paterson, Passaic and Clifton are listed as having zero prospective-need units.
..... Aside from Paterson and Passaic, the highest present-need calculations are seen in the states' most populous cities Newark (4,630), Jersey City (3,733) and Elizabeth (3,132). The suburban township of Wayne has the highest present need - 1,746 - followed by Hardyston, Paramus and Secaucus (1,282).

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