{"id":1816,"date":"2023-12-20T14:31:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T14:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/?p=1816"},"modified":"2024-08-06T23:04:47","modified_gmt":"2024-08-06T23:04:47","slug":"assembly-housing-committee-approves-major-affordable-housing-legislation","status":"publish","type":"press-release","link":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/press-release\/assembly-housing-committee-approves-major-affordable-housing-legislation\/","title":{"rendered":"Assembly Housing Committee Approves Major Affordable Housing Legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/strong>
December 20, 2023<\/p>

Contact: Jag Davies, 786-393-8100,\u00a0comms@fairsharehousing.org<\/a><\/p>

Assembly Housing Committee Approves Major Affordable Housing Legislation<\/strong><\/h3>
Bill Would Update Enforcement of the Mt. Laurel Doctrine, NJ\u2019s Groundbreaking Affordable Housing Model<\/b><\/h5>

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TRENTON \u2013 Today, the NJ Assembly Housing Committee approved legislation to set a course for future enforcement of the\u00a0Mount Laurel Doctrine<\/a>, the state\u2019s constitutional requirement for every town to provide its fair share of affordable housing.\u00a0\u00a0The vote came on the heels of a\u00a0press conference<\/a>\u00a0held Monday by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, Senate President Nicholas Scutari, Senator Troy Singleton, and Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez\u00a0to announce the introduction of this legislation\u00a0(A4\/S4251).\u00a0<\/p>

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The legislation would streamline the affordable housing development process for municipalities and everyone involved. It codifies the methodology used to determine each\u00a0municipality’s affordable housing obligations \u2014 which avoids\u00a0prolonged judicial involvement and reduces municipalities\u2019 legal costs.<\/p>

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The Mt. Laurel Doctrine was established through a series of watershed New Jersey Supreme Court decisions beginning in 1975. Affordable housing obligations are based on population changes and growth in a region each decade. The current round of affordable housing obligations go through 2025, at which point the Fourth Round of obligations will begin.<\/p>

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Thanks to current enforcement of the Mt. Laurel Doctrine by the New Jersey judiciary, the state is developing more affordable housing than ever before. Since 2015, when the New Jersey Supreme Court reinvigorated the Doctrine after decades of political obstruction, New Jersey\u2019s annual affordable housing production has\u00a0nearly doubled\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 providing housing to more than 50,000 people over the last eight years.\u00a0<\/p>

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At today\u2019s hearing, advocates emphasized that the success of the Mt. Laurel framework is predicated on strong enforcement by the courts and state government \u2014 which hasn\u2019t always been the case. From the mid-\u201990s until 2015, the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), a state agency created in 1985, refused to do its job and enforce the Mt. Laurel Doctrine. This period of non-enforcement is largely responsible for the significant gap in affordable housing units in New Jersey today \u2014 an\u00a0estimated shortage<\/a>\u00a0of more than 230,000 homes.<\/p>

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\u201cBy streamlining the process for developing affordable housing, this legislation would avoid prolonged legal battles and reduce municipal spending,\u201d said Adam Gordon, Executive Director of the Fair Share Housing Center, who testified at today\u2019s hearing along with over a dozen other stakeholders who spoke in support of the bill. \u201cHousing shortages hurt everyone in our state \u2014 shrinking our labor supply and handicapping our economic growth. Since 2015, New Jersey has taken bigger steps than ever before to create affordable homes \u2014 but there’s still much more work to do.\u201d<\/p>

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Priority concepts in the legislation include:<\/u><\/i><\/p>

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Streamlined Process<\/b>\u00a0\u2013 Appointment of\u00a0up to three regional Special Masters will be appointed by the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court,\u00a0who will address initial guidance numbers for affordable housing obligations. Appointment of Special Masters for each region would provide mediation opportunities to municipalities to address concerns with the obligations and process. This includes clear timelines for each phase of the\u00a0Mount Laurel\u00a0certification process, including identification of the affordable housing obligation, adoption of a fair share plan, and adoption of final municipal zoning ordinances and related actions.\u00a0<\/p>

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Codification of Affordable Housing Obligation Methodology\u00a0<\/b>\u2013 Inclusion of a statewide method for each municipality to calculate their respective affordable housing obligation for the fourth round and beyond, based on the \u201cJacobson Methodology\u201d adopted in 2018 that represented a middle ground between advocates and municipal positions.\u00a0Codifying the methodology would allow municipalities to more effectively and efficiently determine their obligation without prolonged judicial involvement, while reducing legal costs associated with the affordable housing process.<\/p>

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Increased Transparency<\/b> \u2013\u00a0Requires more transparent information to be shared with the public at each stage of the process, from adoption of initial plans to what is built and what trust funds are available to non-profit developers to create and rehabilitate affordable housing. Includes regulatory updates on how affordable homes are built and occupied and how trust funds are expended that have not been updated in nearly 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>

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Repeal of the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH)<\/b>\u00a0\u2013 Removes COAH from statute. COAH became a defunct agency that failed to meet its mandate. As such, its removal will allow affordable housing to progress in New Jersey.<\/p>

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No Regional Contribution Agreements<\/b> \u2013\u00a0Maintains the ban on wealthy towns paying out of their obligations and requires every town to do its fair share.<\/p>

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\u201cAccess to affordable housing in vibrant communities, with strong schools and employment opportunities, addresses so many other problems at their root,\u201d said Fair Share Housing Center\u2019s Director of Racial Justice Policy, James C. Williams, who also testified at today’s hearing. \u201cOver the course of New Jersey\u2019s history, fair housing policies have been integral in making our state more inclusive.\u00a0The Mt. Laurel framework must be safeguarded and strengthened to meet the current housing challenges facing our state\u2019s families.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Fair Share Housing Center<\/a>\u00a0is a nonprofit advocacy organization that uses legal, policy, and community-building strategies to dismantle decades of racial and economic discrimination in New Jersey and nationally that excludes people from the opportunity to live in safe, healthy, and affordable housing.<\/p>\n


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEDecember 18, 2023 Contact:Jag Davies, (786) 393-8100,\u00a0jag.davies@gmail.com Press Statement: Legislation Introduced to Update Enforcement of the Mt. Laurel Doctrine, NJ\u2019s Groundbreaking Affordable Housing Model TRENTON \u2013\u00a0Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, Senate President Nicholas Scutari, Senator Troy Singleton, and Assemblywoman Yvonne Lopez\u00a0held a\u00a0press conference\u00a0this morning to announce legislation that will set a course for future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1816","press-release","type-press-release","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-release\/1816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-release\/1816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fairsharehousing.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}