
By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 18, 2017 at 1:50 PM, updated January 18, 2017 at 7:16 PM
TRENTON — New Jersey has to build thousands more units for its low-income residents to make up for the 16 years that the state didn’t address those needs, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
In a decision addressing New Jersey’s long-stalled regulations governing affordable housing, the state’s highest court said towns must take into consideration the need for housing that existed within their borders between 1999 and 2015. That’s the so-called gap period when the Council on Affordable Housing failed to adopt new rules.
The 6-0 decision, the latest in decades of Mount Laurel rulings governing affordable housing in New Jersey, rejects the assertion that only 37,000 units are needed and that the gap period calculations are not necessary because that need no longer exists.
“The decision says that the promise of the Mount Laurel decision is real for tens of thousands of families and people with disabilities and the New Jersey Supreme Court said our commitment to fight discrimination remains good law,” said Kevin Walsh, executive director of Fair Share Housing Center, the advocacy group that has taken the lead in enforcing Mount Laurel obligations.
https://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2017/01/nj_on_the_hook_for_200k_affordable_housing_units_s.html