Over the next decade, central New Jersey will have a greater need for affordable housing than any other area of the state, according to new projections released by the state.
Based on employment trends, household income, census records and other data dating back to 2000, the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) projects that Monmouth, Ocean and Mercer counties will need a combined 11,311 new affordable units by 2024.
All other regions in the state face a projected need of fewer than 8,000 units. However, municipal officials and advocates for affordable housing continue to disagree on how and where those housing units should be built.
COAH’s latest round of regulations, released April 30, lay out new affordablehousing quotas for municipalities across the state.
While the regulations will be opened to public comment next month and officially adopted in November, a number of officials and nonprofit groups have already begun to raise concerns.
“I think the whole process is flawed, that planners in Trenton could somehow dictate what one of the 556 towns needs to put forth based on some formula,” said Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik, a longtime opponent of COAH mandates.
“Just making a statement that you need more, more, more is not the answer to the affordable-housing crisis in this state.”
Adam Gordon, staff attorney with the Trenton-based nonprofit Fair Share Housing Center, criticized the new COAH regulations for retroactively reducing many towns’ outstanding obligations to provide affordable housing.
COAH officials have failed to explain how such decisions were made, he added.
“We can’t figure out how they have actually calculated these numbers,” Gordon said.
“It almost seems like they went to Atlantic City and spun the wheel to figure out the numbers for one town versus another. … I think this is a politically motivated, managed effort to undermine affordable housing in New Jersey.”
COAH is tasked with laying out affordable housing requirements for municipalities and ensuring developers are granted a fair opportunity to build affordable units. However, the council has become a lightning rod for criticism as municipal officials and Gov. Chris Christie’s administration have called for an end to affordable-housing quotas, and advocacy groups such as the NAACP have sought to protect them.
Christie unsuccessfully attempted to abolish COAH in 2012, and then placed it under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Community Affairs.
COAH has since been mired in legal challenges and uncertainty. The new regulations and projections were released on the eve of a mandatory deadline issued last fall by the state Supreme Court.
COAH projects that Monmouth, Mercer and Ocean counties will need more than 11,000 new units by 2024. However, due to limited space available for construction, COAH estimates that only 7,710 units can be built in those counties in the next decade.
In Middletown, for example, the township is expected to need 254 new affordable units by 2024, but COAH projects that only 15 can be built by that time due to land constraints.
Factoring in available space and other adjustments, towns statewide face a projected affordable-housing need of 30,633 units by 2024. Six counties in central New Jersey, including Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon, account for more than half that total. The six counties also account for the substantial majority of unmet housing requirements in the state, but many of those requirements have been eliminated due to space constraints.
“In multiple places, land has been exhausted,” COAH regulations state.
In Marlboro, COAH records indicate that the municipality has an “unanswered” housing need of 1,322 units. When adjusted for space constraints, however, the town’s requirement is zero. Colts Neck’s unmet requirement of 248 units also dropped to zero.
In contrast, Jackson Township’s unmet obligation of 1,749 affordable units still stands, as does Monroe’s requirement to build 1,346 units.
The six counties account for nearly 14,000 of the more than 63,000 affordable units that must be rehabilitated under the COAH regulations.
These quotas make up a substantial portion of local affordable-housing requirements for many local towns.
Red Bank and Long Branch, which have no projected affordable-housing need over the next 10 years, are required to rehabilitate 103 units and 501 units, respectively.
Freehold Borough has a rehabilitation quota of 222 units, while Freehold Township must address 102. Old Bridge, which has a 10-year projected need of 492 units, must also rehabilitate 129. A full list of the affordable housing requirements is available at www.nj.gov/dca/.
Municipal officials and affordable-housing advocates say they are still reviewing the voluminous new regulations with an eye toward making fully informed complaints during the 60-day period of public comment.
Michael Cerra, director of government affairs with the New Jersey League of Municipalities (NJLM), said the organization is seeking greater flexibility for towns, and an official funding source for affordable housing.
Currently, developers are primarily responsible for the construction of affordable units, dedicating a certain percentage of a new community to low- or moderate-income buyers or paying into a town’s affordable housing trust fund.
Cerra said the NJLM is also focused on finding a “legislative solution” to affordable housing in New Jersey by updating the 1985 Fair Housing Act to account for contemporary planning challenges.
“A lot has changed since then,” he said. “The concept of smart growth has really taken hold. … We have a different set of planning priorities now, and this needs to be a part of that puzzle.”
Gordon said affordable-housing regulations have thus far created more than 60,000 homes for low- and moderate-income families in New Jersey.
While improvements must be made, eliminating the requirements altogether would result in a racially and economically segregated state, where many towns effectively become gated communities, he said.
“This administration believes if you want to be a wealthy enclave and ban the people who work in your town from living there, you can do that,” he said. “We disagree.”
In New Jersey, 40.6 percent of all households qualify as low or moderate income, while 19.5 percent of the existing housing stock is priced as affordable, according to COAH. With rental rates in New Jersey ranking the fifth highest in the nation, affordable housing has a definite link to homelessness and poverty, Gordon said.
A public hearing on the proposed rules is set for 9:30 a.m. July 2 in the offices of the state Housing & Mortgage Finance Agency in Trenton.