Advocates decry bill on housing

TRENTON - Affordable-housing advocates are objecting to a new proposal to overhaul how the state requires towns to provide low-income housing, saying it lets too many towns off the hook and would do little to ensure that more affordable housing is built.

The bill, proposed by Democratic Sen. Ray Lesniak (D., Union), would change the way the state determines if towns are compliant with court-ordered affordable housing requirements to include a wider variety of housing types.

Widening the pool would bring half the towns in New Jersey in compliance, while the other half would have to make 20 percent of the housing stock affordable to low-income and "workforce" residents.

But Kevin Walsh, associate director of the Cherry Hill-based Fair Share Housing Center, and others object.

"They've expanded the definition of affordable housing so much that it's no longer affordable," Walsh said.

For decades, affordable housing has been a major issue in New Jersey, one of the nation's most expensive places to live.

In decisions in the 1970s and '80s, New Jersey's Supreme Court outlawed zoning aimed at keeping out the poor and required communities to have plans that include housing for low-income residents. The state formed the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) to oversee that requirement and decide how many affordable homes each town must provide.

But the political and bureaucratic implementation of the court's wishes has been tangled up in red tape.

Earlier rules required municipalities to approve a unit of affordable housing for every eight market-rate homes that were built, and an affordable home for every 25 jobs created. That number changed to require one out of every five new housing units.

Meanwhile, many mayors say the council's oversight has slowed and prevented them from building affordable housing in some cases.

COAH also is criticized for its complex rules and regulations, and for the way it determines a town's obligation - by tying it to job growth, economic development, and available vacant land.

Lesniak, a lawyer whose firm has represented towns on affordable housing issues, said basic economic principles of real estate development were not applied when the courts and lawmakers came up with the rules requiring towns to provide affordable housing. He said half the state's towns already provided opportunities for low and moderate income housing.