Lawmakers say affordable housing rules are a high price to pay in New Jersey’s 24th Legislative District
NEW JERSEY – The fourth-round affordable housing figures released earlier last week will prove catastrophic for rural communities in northwest New Jersey, lawmakers say.
Sen. Parker Space and Assembly members Dawn Fantasia and Michael Inganamort said the impacts to their 32 municipalities in Sussex, Morris and Warren counties will drive up living costs for everyone. The three state lawmakers, who have served in their respective municipal governments, said the law is an assault on their district’s farmland and open space.
“It’s the snake swallowing its tail,” Space (R-Sussex) said. “Government-imposed affordable housing for some creates unaffordable housing for all, except for the poorest and wealthiest, who benefit from these government mandates in their own ways.”
The rules dictating the latest round of affordable housing obligations – sparked in 1975 by a series of court decisions known collectively as the Mount Laurel doctrine – were signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy back in March 2024. According to the non-binding figures provided Oct. 18 by the Department of Community Affairs, towns in the 24th Legislative District will have to provide more than 6,400 low- and moderate-income housing units by 2035, 7.6% of the state’s total projected obligation.
Builders will need to construct an additional 26,000 market-value units over the 10-year span to turn a profit on these projects. The lawmakers raised concerns about overdevelopment, including the loss of farmland, strain on infrastructure, heavier traffic and overcrowded classrooms.
“Look at the example of Roxbury Township. They are being told they must build another 989 affordable units, which will reasonably require 5,000 total units to turn a profit. On the conservative end, if there are 2.5 people per unit, that’s 12,500 new residents in a town whose current population is 23,000,” Inganamort (R-Morris) said. “Forcing a municipality to increase its population by 50 percent is totally unsustainable.”
If left unchallenged, the district of 210,000 people may see a population increase of at least 80,000 by 2035.
The lawmakers praised the work of Montvale Mayor Mike Ghassali in assembling a coalition of mayors to challenge New Jersey’s affordable housing mandates in court.
“Policies from Trenton Democrats have caused property taxes to skyrocket, making housing less affordable by slashing school aid and imposing unfunded mandates on local governments,” Fantasia (R-Sussex) said. “The problem is, the Trenton bureaucrats who want to tell us how to fix our bear problem up here are the same bureaucrats who want to tell us how to fix our affordable housing problem. They are clueless about both and think they have the solution when, in fact, they are the problem.”
