6 events in Passaic County with a date

More North Jersey towns join suit over housing mandate

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

..... A growing coalition of New Jersey towns - 25 and counting - have joined forces for a lawsuit against the state that could bring the current court-enforced wave of affordable housing construction to a halt.
..... The towns are scheduled to be in a Mercer County courtroom on December 20 [2024] seeking a block a state mousing mandate that could require the construction of 85,000 more units over the next decade, many of them in North Jersey, along with the renovation of 65, 000 existing residents.
..... A series of landmark New Jersey court decisions known as the Mount Laurel doctrine requires municipalities to provide their "fair share" of housing for low- and moderate-income families. Governor Phil Murphy and state legislators enshrined the goal in a law passed earlier this year [2024] that seeks to smooth enforcement of those obligations.
..... In their suit, the towns say the mandate threatens to overwhelm communities with development and the traffic and other burdens that come with it.
..... "The law imposes new affirmative obligations upon municipality that exceed any remedy ever imposed under the Mount Laurel doctrine," reads their amended complaint, filed last week [11/26/2024] in state Superior Court in Mercy County.
..... It "exceeds the requirements" of the New Jersey Constitution, says the suit, which borrows a line form a "Mount Laurel II" decision in 1983: "Development merely for development;s sake is not the constitutional goal."
..... The coalition wants a judge to invalidate the state's current strategy and bar its enforcement. The state's fourth round of mandates building is schedule to state in July. [2025]
..... "Since Mount Laurel in 1975, who's made out on this?" Mount Arlington Mayor Michael Stanzilis asked during a town hall on the topic in June. [2024] His answer: "engineers, planners and attorneys. Some builders. But it;s mostly a cottage industry perpetuation the litigation of this thing forever."
..... The Fair Share Housing Center, a nonprofit tasked by courts with overseeing the Mount Laurel mandate, has different view.
..... "Not surprisingly, the small handful of wealthy municipalities that have signed on th this lawsuit are deeply unrepresentative of New Jersey's diverse population," said Adam Gordon, the center's executive director. "On the other hand, many municipal leaders are utilizing our state's law to help working families address the dire housing crisis - instead of wasting taxpayer dollars with lawsuit after lawsuit."
..... New Jersey currently faces a shortage of more than 214,000 housing units affordable for extremely low-income renters, says the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Which towns are suing?

.... Co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit field in September [2024] include Montvale, Hilldale and Old Tappan in Bergen County; Denville, Florham Park and Montville in Morris County; Totowa in Passaic County; Millburn in Essex County; and Mannington in Salem County.
..... Since then, 16 more municipalities have joined:
* In bergen County: Allendale, Closter, Franklin Lakes, Norwood, Oradell, Washington Township, Westwood and Wyckoff.
* In Morris: East Hanover, Hanover, Mendham and Wharton.
* Cedar Grove in Essex County.
* West Amwell in Hunterdon County.
* Wall and Holmdel in Monmouth County.
..... "We know we have a problem with affordability," Stanzilis acknowledged, but "the solution isn't adding up to the problem."
..... His town would have to zone for the creation or renovation of 98 affordable units under the state's latest calumniations.
..... But because courts usually let builders construct affordable housing as a part of larger, market-rate projects, local officials say the amount of development they would have to allow would be much higher.

How much affordable housing does each town need?

..... The original Mount Laurel decision was uphold in 1983 in a New Jersey Supreme Court decision known as Mount Laurel II.
..... In 1985, the sate Legislature passed the Fair Housing Act, which moved enforcement away from the courts and to a state agency called the Council on Affordable Housing.
..... COAH, however, failed to successfully enforce the mandate, which continued to meet resistance in many towns. That led to another Supreme Court decision in 2015 that shifted oversight back to the court system and the Fair Share Housing Center.
..... The ruling opened a legal door for developers to design big residential projects, knowing they could again gain favor as long as they included a negotiated percentage of affordable housing - typically 15% to 20% of the total units.
..... Last month, [11/2024] the state Department of Community Affairs released each town's estimated affordable housing requirements for 2025 to 2035. It called for 65,000 "resent need" units - renovations - and 85,000 "prospective need" residences to be built in the future.
..... Using a complicated formula that weights existing housing, household incomes and other factors, the state determined that most of the development need to be built in already densely populated North Jersey.

Passaic County town may join lawsuit

..... Under pressure from local residents worried about development, additional towns are expected to join the suit. they include Little Falls in Passaic County, where Mayor James Daminao and members of the Township council expressed strong support for legal action.
..... The state says Little Falls needs to add 285 affordable units over the next 10 years. In Daminano's view, that's 'simply unattainable" for an already densely populated municipality covering just 2.8 miles.
..... He noted that most affordable housing in New Jersey is presently built as part of multi-story, multi-unit complexes for qualified applicants.
..... By Daminano's math, that means Little Falls would have to approve 1,900 units to complete the 285 quota. Then he noted the complaints about the town's Singac Redevelopment Project, where 287 units are already approved for a new complex.
..... "this council and I are well aware of some of the comments and concerns that residents have about how tall it is, how dense it is," the mayor said druid a recent council meeting. "We would have to do that seven more times to reach the [additional] 285 units."
..... Council members expressed broad agreement at their meeting last week, [11/26/2024] but they did not introduce the discussed resolution to join the municipal coalition.

Does housing formula favor urban areas?

..... The crux of the plaintiffs' argument in the suit, prepared by Red Bank attorney Michael Collins, is that the state's calculations are based on the 1983 Mount Laurel II decision, which they call outdated.
..... "Assumptions used in devising a remedy in 1983 do not necessarily have the same validity today," [11/26/2024] the lawsuit says.
..... Those formulas reflected the circumstances at the time, when urban municipalities were experiencing population declines and only suburban communities were growing. The state formula, thus exempted urban municipalities that were deemed economically unable to product the needed housing, the suit says.
..... State population growth is now evenly split between urban and non-urban areas, yet the onus of the Mount Laurel mandate remains focused on suburban towns, the plaintiffs argue.
..... "While some of the underlying conditions that affected many of these exempt municipalities persist, several exempt municipality are growing, overall, and exempt municipalities now comprise half of the state's growth in households," the towns said.

Court hearing scheduled

..... While suburban areas would be responsible for most new housing construction under the state's plans, urban areas face their own requirements. The Community Affairs Department calculations call for Newark, Paterson, Jersey City and Trenton to provide for the renovation of more than 13,000 current units.
..... Nonetheless, the Fair Sabre Housing Center noted the lack of urban towns joining the lawsuit.
..... "This lawsuit is nothing new - it's a thinly veiled smokescreen supported by many of the same wealthy towns who have fought affordable housing for decades, every step of the way," said Gordon, the executive director. "New Jersey's law gives towns a wide variety of tools to create affordable housing in the way they prefer. Most towns do, indeed, cooperate with the process - and get to be in the driver's seat in deciding on the housing plan that works best for their communities."
..... Judge Robert Lougy has granted the fair Sabre Housing Center intervenor status to participate in a case review conference scheduled for December 20 [2024] in Superior Court.

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