State law continues to mandate that cities and suburbs allow the development of low-income housing. But Monday’s ruling by the appeals court means that municipalities may be able to build roughly 100,000 fewer units over the next decade than what some housing groups were advocating.
At issue was a February decision by a state judge in Ocean County, Mark Troncone, who had ordered a group of municipalities to follow a special formula when calculating their affordable housing obligations. Municipalities were told to consider not only present and future conditions, but also the “unmet need” that accumulated from 1999 to 2015, a period during which New Jersey’s housing program was inactive.
Rampant dysfunction and neglect by policymakers have plagued the state’s housing program since 1999, effectively shutting it down for more than a decade.
