12 more New Jersey towns join lawsuit to overturn state’s affordable housing law

Twelve more New Jersey municipalities have joined a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a new affordable housing law just days before the state is due to release new requirements on the number of low-priced homes each town has to develop over the next decade.

The 12 towns coming on board in the case brings the total number of municipalities suing the state to 21, according to an amended complaint in Mercer County Superior Court. Under state law, more than 500 New Jersey towns face affordable housing development mandates.

Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali, who is leading the group, said he expects more towns to join the coalition as soon as next week.

“We all want to protect our communities and plan responsibly for future growth but the current mandates prevent that,” Ghassali said.

The lawsuit claims that the state’s Mount Laurel doctrine, a 40 year old state Supreme Court decision requiring most towns across NJ to contribute their fair share of affordable housing, unfairly imposes development requirements on towns “in perpetuity.”

The case could upend New Jersey’s ambitious plans for low priced housing development in the near future. The deadline for state officials to provide requirements to towns for the next round of affordable housing development is October 20. Many towns will be told to build or redevelop hundreds of new homes priced for low and medium income people. No town will be required to provide more than 1,000 units.

Attorney General Matt Platkin said in a statement to Gothamist that he was “disappointed” in the small group of towns suing the state over the new law.

“We are confident that the courts will see these baseless claims for what they are,” he said.

The requirements are almost impossible to meet.

James Barsa, mayor of Norwood, NJ

In March, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a landmark bill that empowered the state’s Department of Community Affairs to set the numbers for each town’s affordable housing requirement. The agency is using a formula called the "Jacobson methodology" — to determine how many housing units each municipality must build.

The formula comes from a 2018 court decision by Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson following a lawsuit brought by two Mercer County towns opposing what town officials argued were overly cumbersome affordable housing obligations. To calculate how much housing a town should develop, the judge looked at estimates for job and population growth, the number of households, wealth and the amount of available land for development.

Housing experts estimate that New Jersey needs more than 200,000 affordable apartments for low-income people who often spend more than 50% of their income on rent.

Gothamist spoke to officials from several of the towns that recently joined the lawsuit.

Mayor Christine Serrano Glasser, of the Borough of Mendham, said the new law was passed “under the cover of night” and “very rapidly” by the Legislature without giving municipalities a full opportunity to review the bill.

“We're banding together because we can't just continue to allow this unchecked dense development to go on,” she said

Serrano Glasser said her town has about 5,000 residents and is only 3 square miles and doesn’t have the infrastructure, such as ample roadways and sewer capacity, to support the hundreds of new homes she believes they’ll be asked to build.

It's clearly a smokescreen.

Adam Gordon, director of Fair Share Housing Center

Norwood Mayor James Barsa said he hopes the lawsuit can delay implementation of the new law, which he said is coming at a “very hectic” time of the year.

“I'd like to see it slowed down a little bit because the requirements are almost impossible to meet,” he said.

Norwood is also only a few square miles and has about 6,000 residents. Barsa said he and other town officials have done initial calculations and believe they’ll be asked to contribute 140 to 160 new affordable homes during the next round. The town’s infrastructure “can’t handle it,” he said.

“The numbers are devastating to a community like Norwood,” he said.

Adam Gordon, director of Fair Share Housing Center, a nonprofit that negotiates affordable housing plans with towns, called the lawsuit “a last ditch effort” to delay implementation of the new requirements.

“It's clearly a smokescreen,” Gordon said, echoing Attorney General Platkin’s remarks that he doesn’t feel the litigation will be successful.

Parsippany-Troy Hills Councilman Justin Musella, whose town also recently joined the lawsuit, said housing advocates and the attorney general’s office are failing to understand their coalition’s position.

“Nobody is against affordable housing. What we're against is the scale and speed, and unknown impacts that are going to inevitably affect towns like ours,” he said.

Matthew Hersh, director of policy and advocacy for the Housing Community and Development Network of New Jersey, said the lawsuit was “preemptive” given that towns don’t know their official numbers yet.

“When we see towns try to contest obligations that they have not been presented with yet, we wonder what those towns are doing to help their low income and moderate income populations,” he said.

Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali and other officials suing the state insisted that, despite the lawsuit, when they receive their affordable housing requirements later this month they’ll begin planning.

“We will comply with all the deadlines when we get our numbers,” he said.