As Governor Phil Murphy prepares to leave office next week, it’s worth pausing to reflect on how far New Jersey has come in fulfilling the promise of the Mount Laurel Doctrine — and how his leadership helped turn a 50-year legal principle into tangible results for communities across the state.

Fifty-one years ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a groundbreaking ruling in Southern Burlington County NAACP v. Mount Laurel Township, declaring that municipalities cannot use zoning to exclude low-income families — while affirming that every municipality has a constitutional obligation to allow its “fair share” of affordable housing. But for decades, translating that constitutional promise into actual homes was an uphill battle, marked by resistance, delay, and protracted litigation.

As Gov. Murphy concludes his tenure, New Jersey can say something rare about housing policy: the state did not merely reaffirm its values — it built systems to carry them out. From strengthening the Mount Laurel Doctrine to expanding renter protections, investing unprecedented public dollars, and opening the door to homeownership for families long excluded from it, Gov. Murphy’s administration treated housing as both a constitutional obligation and a cornerstone of economic and racial equity. The result is a housing framework that is stronger, fairer, and more durable than at any point in the half-century since Mount Laurel was first decided.

An Affordable Housing Framework with “Real Teeth”

Historically, the Mount Laurel Doctrine was upheld primarily through judicial intervention. New Jersey’s landmark 2024 affordable housing law (A4/S50), driven by Gov. Murphy and legislative leadership, signaled a significant shift in the political landscape of affordable housing.

The new law codified a transparent methodology for calculating municipal obligations and created structured tools like the Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program to encourage agreements without years of courtroom battles.

It added real teeth to the Mount Laurel framework by setting clear enforcement mechanisms for towns’ affordable housing obligations over the next decade, thus making it harder for affluent towns to block new developments. By standardizing the methodology used to determine how much new affordable housing each municipality is required to allow, it streamlines the development process for everyone involved.

The results have been nothing short of historic. As of Dec. 31, approximately 380 municipalities have developed compliant housing plans — a level of participation unprecedented in New Jersey’s history. This demonstrates that when the rules are clear and the process works, municipalities step up.

This shift represents exactly what advocates hoped for: a system where affordable housing planning is faster, more transparent, and far more productive than the old litigation-driven process. It has enabled communities to plan mixed-income housing near transit, repurpose underutilized sites like outdated malls and office parks, and expand opportunities for seniors, people with disabilities, and first-time homebuyers.

None of this would have been possible without the broad legislative leadership behind A4/S50. Its sponsors — Senate President Nicholas Scutari, Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, State Senator Troy Singleton, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, and Assemblymembers Yvonne Lopez, Benjie Wimberly, and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson — were instrumental in shepherding the law through the Statehouse and making meaningful reform a reality.

The tireless work of Speaker Coughlin and Assemblywoman Lopez, Senator Singleton, Governor Murphy and his leadership team, and a broad coalition of advocates in working through thorny questions and navigating numerous committee hearings and amendments to produce a bill with strong support including from members of both parties in the Legislature was a truly towering achievement.

This work helped ensure that the Mount Laurel framework would finally have a practical, statewide structure — giving towns a range of tools and incentives to create affordable housing in ways that reflect local contexts and priorities.

Broadening Housing Opportunity

Gov. Murphy’s housing legacy also extends beyond Mount Laurel to concrete investments and protections that expanded access to stable housing and homeownership — particularly for households historically excluded from opportunity.

Under his administration, New Jersey significantly expanded its Down Payment Assistance program and launched the nation-leading First-Generation Homebuyer program, helping thousands of first-time buyers overcome barriers rooted in historic discrimination. By targeting households whose families have been locked out of homeownership for generations, these programs have made meaningful progress toward narrowing the racial wealth gap and ensuring that homeownership — the primary source of intergenerational wealth in this country — is accessible to more New Jerseyans.

Gov. Murphy also acted decisively during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent a wave of displacement. He signed strong executive orders protecting tenants from eviction and homeowners from foreclosure at a time of great economic uncertainty. In 2021, he signed the “People’s Bill,” legislation creating the most comprehensive COVID-era eviction prevention framework in the nation — protecting renters who suffered pandemic-related financial hardship and stabilizing families at a moment of extraordinary crisis. Those protections kept tens of thousands of New Jersey residents safely housed and prevented long-term damage to communities already facing disproportionate economic harm. As with A4/S50, this hard-fought legislative win represented collaborative leadership by then-Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake, Senators Brian Stack and Troy Singleton, the Governor and his team, and a broad and tenacious coalition of advocates.

Perhaps most significantly, Gov. Murphy backed these policies with unprecedented resources. His administration invested far more in affordable housing than any of his predecessors, recognizing that constitutional obligations and statutory frameworks must be matched with real funding. In 2022, for the first time, the state budget included a $305 million line item dedicated specifically to the development of already-approved affordable housing projects in Mount Laurel settlement agreements — ensuring that long-planned homes could finally be built. He also ended his predecessor’s diversions of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the biggest consistent state-level source for housing production. While unfortunately in his final year in office the budget did not fully fund the Trust Fund, the many years of such funding and broad public support for it helped lay the groundwork for the pledge by Governor-Elect Sherrill to fully fund the Trust Fund.

Gov. Murphy’s housing legacy also includes breaking new ground in fair housing protections. With the enactment of the Fair Chance in Housing Act, New Jersey became the first state in the nation to meaningfully restrict the use of criminal records in tenant screening. This law recognizes a simple truth: stable housing is essential to successful reentry, family stability, and community safety — and blanket exclusion based on past convictions undermines all three.

We are deeply grateful to Senator Troy Singleton and Assemblymembers Benjie Wimberly, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, and Angela McKnight for sponsoring this nation-leading legislation and for their continued commitment to dismantling barriers that disproportionately harm Black and brown communities.

Together, these initiatives reflect a governing philosophy that treated housing as both an equity issue and an infrastructure priority — pairing strong legal frameworks with the funding and programs necessary to make them real. These reforms reflect a vision of housing as a civil right — not a privilege reserved for those who can afford exclusionary communities.

Building a Team to Translate Laws into Homes

As with all housing legislation, implementation has also been critical, and Governor Murphy appointed an exceptional range of leaders across many roles that took housing policy seriously and made sure that laws and funding actually led to homes and enforcement.

That started with Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver, long one of the state’s most impactful leaders on housing and an outstanding Department of Community Affairs Commissioner before her tragic passing. Jacquelyn Suárez has continued the Lieutenant Governor’s legacy and fortunately will remain as DCA Commissioner in the Sherrill-Caldwell administration.

The Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency was ably led by Chuck Richman and Melanie Walter, implementing major new programs including the Affordable Housing Production Fund and the First Generation Homeownership program.

Attorneys General Gurbir Grewal, Andrew Bruck and Matt Platkin and Division on Civil Rights Directors Justice Rachel Wainer Apter, Sundeep Iyer and Yolanda Melville made housing issues a focus of their enforcement and outreach activities. Chief Counsels Matt Platkin, Parimal Garg, and Kate McDonnell all ably advised the Governor on housing issues and engaged on major legislation and policy decisions. Jayne Johnson — as the inaugural Director of the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging — convened the Wealth Disparity Task Force, which helped spur the first-generation homeowner program. And many, many others made housing a serious area of commitment for the administration, producing momentous and carefully thought out policy.

What It All Means

Under Gov. Murphy’s leadership, New Jersey has become a national model for how states can confront residential segregation, expand opportunity, and ensure that growth benefits everyone. While much work remains to be done to tackle the impact of the national housing crisis on our state, the breadth of Governor Murphy’s accomplishments have changed housing access for the better for hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans.

For other U.S. states looking to tackle the housing crisis, the Mount Laurel Doctrine offers a compelling model — not only for what courts can require, but for what long-term political engagement can achieve.

More than 50 years after the first Mount Laurel ruling, New Jersey’s housing policy has finally evolved from a legal doctrine to a functional statutory blueprint for inclusion and accountability. Far more municipalities than ever are participating in the affordable housing process, and the vast majority are moving forward with plans that — for the first time — reflect clearly-defined obligations.

Thanks to sustained advocacy, strategic legislative leadership, and Gov. Murphy’s commitment to housing justice, the structural barriers that once allowed towns to evade their responsibilities are giving way to a system that produces affordable homes and expands opportunity for families across the state.

Gov. Murphy’s legacy lies in recognizing that housing must be the backbone of any pragmatic economic policy agenda — reflected in his efforts to strengthen the Mount Laurel framework, back it with unprecedented levels of funding, protect renters in moments of crisis, and expand pathways to homeownership for those long denied access. As New Jersey transitions to a new administration, the state does so with an affordable housing framework that is not only intact, but stronger than ever — and with a responsibility to preserve and build upon a legacy that makes housing justice real.

As we thank Gov. Murphy for his partnership, we look forward with resolve to continued progress under the next administration — building on this foundation to ensure that the Mount Laurel Doctrine’s promise becomes reality for all New Jerseyans.