More affordable housing fights are on the horizon in New Jersey. Here's why.

Ongoing legal battles over affordable housing requirements are taking place in municipalities around New Jersey, but new expectations for development that state officials will hand out in a few months could trigger additional backlash -- and reshape neighborhoods for years to come.

A unique, decades-old mandate known as the Mount Laurel Doctrine requires most New Jersey towns to contribute their “fair share” of affordable housing development.

The push to build more low- and middle-income housing comes as New Jersey – like many states – is facing an affordable housing crisis. Experts estimate that New Jersey needs more than 200,000 affordable apartments for low-income people who are the most severely cost-burdened, oftentimes spending more than 50% of their income on rent.

Meanwhile, residents living near major cities like New York City and Philadelphia are experiencing rising rents as people are priced out of their communities.

New Jersey's next wave of affordable housing mandates will be a test of the state’s overhaul of its Mount Laurel rules.

Earlier this year, the state Legislature passed a bill updating the state’s Fair Housing Act for the first time in 40 years, giving the courts and state agencies the authority to ensure municipalities are abiding by their affordable housing obligations. The legislation's proponents argue that the changes will streamline a process that’s been historically mired in bitter litigation between towns and the state courts. However, some are not so sure that will be the case.

Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming requirements throughout the state and why we could see more fights over affordable housing.

How will this affect residents around New Jersey?

Towns in the Garden State will find out in October just how much affordable housing their municipality needs to develop in the coming years. Some towns in the could be asked by the state to develop hundreds or up to 1,000 affordable units starting next year. That means if you live in New Jersey, new developments and construction could be coming to your neighborhood soon, along with more housing available for residents – but that could take years.

After the state unveils the affordable housing obligations to municipalities in late October, it will be kicking off the latest round in a historically tumultuous process to spur housing.

What is the Mount Laurel Doctrine?

The requirement is named after Mount Laurel, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia.

In 1975, New Jersey's top court ruled that under the state constitution, all municipalities have an obligation to provide their "fair share" of low- and moderate-income housing following a lawsuit brought on by a Mount Laurel resident, Ethel R. Lawrence.

Lawrence's enslaved ancestors had resided in Mount Laurel since the mid-19th century, when the town was a stop on the Underground Railroad, according to the book “Climbing Mount Laurel” by Princeton University professor Douglas S. Massey.

Lawrence was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit accusing town officials of using zoning regulations to tear down housing in communities of color that were home to low- and moderate-income families, displacing families who lived there for generations.

In his three-year study of the affordable housing built in Mount Laurel after the lawsuit, Massey said he found “none of the negative consequences” that politicians and affordable housing opponents feared materialized.

“There was no decline in property values, no increase in crime rates, schools seemed to function pretty fine,” Massey said. “And it enabled a lot of poor Black and Latino families to have a huge step upward in mobility.”

Still, Massey said that evidence “hasn’t quelled the criticism” from the opposition.

“A lot of politicians want to ignore the evidence,” he said.

How does the Mount Laurel Doctrine work?

Since its the doctrine fully took effect in 1987, the state has allocated affordable housing through “rounds.” At the start of each round, the state tells municipalities how many affordable housing units they need to make land available for and gives them a timeline for development. The lengths of each round have varied from six to 25 years due to politics, lawsuits and local opposition.

New Jersey is currently concluding round three, which began in 1998. On Oct. 20, municipalities will begin finding out what requirements they must fulfill for the fourth round, which begins in July 2025.

The third round of affordable housing requirements became severely protracted after former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gutted the funding for the Council of Affordable Housing, the agency in charge of enforcing the Mount Laurel obligations.

As a result, many towns and municipalities skirted their fair share obligations in the early 2000s, according to Adam Gordon, director of Fair Share Housing Center, a nonprofit organization tasked by the state with negotiating housing plans with towns. It wasn’t until 2015, when the state Supreme Court tasked the trial courts with enforcing the mandates, that the rate of New Jersey’s affordable housing development began to rise.

The state has put “more than 50,000” affordable housing units in the development pipeline since 2015, with about 21,000 fully built, Gordon said.

Is the Mount Laurel Doctrine any different now?

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a landmark bill overhauling the affordable housing system in March 2024. The legislation aimed to streamline the system by formally dissolving the defunct Council of Affordable Housing, the agency previously tasked with enforcing the rules.

That's now the responsibility of the Department of Community Affairs, which uses 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 over their affordable housing obligations. To come up with the methodology for how much housing a town could develop, the judge looked at estimates for job and population growth, the number of households, wealth, and the amount of available land for development.

How do disputes and enforcement work?

Municipalities challenging the requirements handed down by the state will still be handled in court.

Under the 2024 landmark overhaul, state judges are assigned to work within the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts to handle disputes from towns over their assigned numbers.

But not everyone is so hopeful this system will run smoothly.

Jeffrey Surenian, who represents towns in affordable housing matters, said the number of affordable units the state seeks to build – which he calculated at more than 84,000 over the next decade – is “untethered to reality.”

“It's just a formula for more litigation,” he said.

Gordon of the Fair Share Housing Center says Surenian’s argument is “total snake oil.”

The calculations, Gordon said, don’t account for the fact that some towns' obligation numbers could be lowered because they lack sufficient open space to develop. Furthermore, towns will have the opportunity to lower their requirements by taking advantage of “bonuses” to incentivize building affordable housing near key resources and amenities, Gordon said. For example, if a town put an affordable unit near a transit center , it would get credit for two units toward its obligation.

Mia Sacks, the Princeton town council president, noted that Judge Jacobson landed “very much in the middle” in terms of how much affordable housing can be reasonably built under Mount Laurel Doctrine.

Princeton was one of the towns that was part of the lawsuit that led to the Jacobson formula.

Sacks, who joined the council after the 2018 decision, noted that Jacobson wrote in her ruling that continued fighting over the formula is capable of “monopolizing” both town officials and the trial courts’ time to a “superhuman” degree.

“The point being that we just need to get on with it,” Sacks said.

What happens next?

A series of deadlines will play out to test the efficiency of the new process.

After the Department of Community Affairs hands out requirements at the end of October, towns will have until the end of January to either accept these numbers or get different numbers they’ve calculated themselves approved by the state agency..

If they can’t reach an agreement with the state, municipalities looking to fight the numbers must file a challenge in court by the end of February. Then the state and municipality will need to work together to reconcile their grievances by April 1.

If all goes according to plan, municipalities will be asked to adopt their affordable housing plan to meet their fourth round Mount Laurel obligation by June 30, 2025.

But not everyone is confident the aggressive timeline will hold.

Chatham Township Mayor Stacey Ewald said she’s “frustrated” with the tight turnaround.

She said between the time the new requirements are handed down and the January 2025 deadline to approve the numbers, officials are navigating elections and swearing in new committee members.

It’s “really ridiculous,” Ewald said “to throw new people into a decision making process without any time in that seat.”

Sacks said her town is already planning for what it will have to build in the future.

“You will be building affordable housing and best to get started,” she said.