On cusp of Mount Laurel “Round Four” obligations, Legislature takes action to clarify affordable housing obligation process

New Jersey Future issues the following statements in response to the State Assembly and Senate announcement regarding the legislative approach to addressing the Mount Laurel affordable housing process.

TRENTON, December 18, 2023—“New Jersey Future applauds the Legislature for seeking to provide predictability and reducing conflict around the generation and assignment of municipal affordable housing obligations. This important bill will lay the foundation for how municipal affordable housing obligations will be determined and, equally important, how they will be met.

New Jersey Future supports codifying the Mercer County-Jacobson methodology as the standard for determining municipal obligations and concurs that this job is appropriate for a special court master to oversee.

Now, on the cusp of the next ten-year ‘round’ of planning for affordable housing, the State has a significant opportunity to not only help towns streamline the process and reduce costs, but also ensure better-planned housing that will foster stronger, healthier, fairer, and more resilient and affordable communities. To this end, we strongly encourage the Legislature to elevate land use and housing planning in this bill to ensure municipalities are given the guidance, resources, and time they need to plan where and how they will meet their obligations while redeveloping and improving their communities.” said Peter Kasabach, Executive Director.

“Tackling this issue should be done with great thoughtfulness and an eye toward improving the system overall. We are concerned that this bill may take one tentative step forward in formalizing how the obligations are determined while taking a step backward in how affordable housing will be planned and integrated into our communities. Poor planning will cause more sprawl, traffic, climate risk, and loss of open space, as opposed to helping New Jersey create great and healthy places to live for the residents of affordable housing and their neighbors. We look forward to working with the Legislature on this bill and hope that they have allocated sufficient time to get this right,” adds Chris Sturm, Policy Director, Land Use.