Need for Housing Greater than Ever, But Under Assembly Housing Bill, Municipal Obligations Go Down

Posted by Adam Gordon on December 13th 2010

On Friday evening, the Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee approved A-3447, legislation that would radically alter New Jersey’s housing laws. While the bill does remove some of the worst features of the prior draft of A-3447, it does so at a cost of making municipal obligations much lower than any prior numbers issued by COAH, and as such FSHC testified in opposition to the bill. The bill is scheduled for a vote by the full Assembly today.

Prior to the committee vote, Assembly staff provided a summary analysis town-by-town of how the legislation would reduce, by 71%, municipal obligations to create homes affordable to low- and moderate-income families, seniors, and people with special needs. Over the weekend, FSHC constructed its own analysis based entirely on public data, to test whether these numbers accurately reflect the reductions in municipal obligations in the bill. Today, we are releasing the first independent public analysis of the impact of the new draft of the legislation.

We find that, unfortunately, the Assembly analysis is basically accurate and if anything overstates the number of homes that A-3447 would require from municipalities. Our data shows almost exactly the same results as the Assembly data statewide – 56,135 homes as compared with the Assembly’s 55,936. However, in constructing the analysis, we noticed several reasons why these numbers overstate municipal obligations.

First, the best source for the number of qualified housing units in a municipality, the DCA Affordable Housing Guide, is incomplete. In several towns that we know well, we noticed developments missing from the Guide that would further reduce municipal obligations under the legislation.

Second, the data do not reflect sites that are already zoned for inclusionary development, but have not been built yet. Many of these sites have sat unbuilt for over a decade, and yet municipalities continue to take credit for them and would likely continue to do so under the legislation. Based on data we have from the Council on Affordable Housing, municipalities will likely these sites will likely reduce the numbers by approximately 20,000 homes statewide. We are working on further analysis to determine the potential impact of this omission.

As a result, it appears likely that the real requirement under the legislation is likely closer to 30,000-35,000 homes over the next decade.

To put these data in historical perspective, in 2007 the Appellate Division invalidated regulations from COAH requiring 52,747 homes over the next decade — plus requiring municipalities to meet additional requirements left unmet from prior rounds — as unjustifiably low. It is unlikely that a requirement just a few thousand more would suffice.

The replacement regulations from COAH, recently invalidated by the Appellate Division, required 115,666 homes. While those regulations were flawed in many ways, they do more honestly reflect the real statewide need. That suggests paths for the Legislature to amend the bill to make it actually meet the needs of New Jersey’s families, seniors, and people with special needs over the next decade – especially by removing arbitrary caps in the bill that keep the numbers low.

We call on the Legislature to strengthen the requirements in this legislation over the coming days. Otherwise municipalities will be “deemed compliant,” in the term of the bill, without actually meeting the needs of lower-income New Jerseyans.