New Jersey's Affordable Housing Fix

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Affordable housing in New Jersey is undergoing a sweeping set of changes that will hopefully result in hundreds of thousands of new homes in just about every community in the Garden State. This week if you haven't heard, Governor Murphy signed a bill into law, and we talked in the first segment about a new law signed by Governor Hochul. Now it's Governor Murphy's new bill into law moment that will assign numerical affordable housing goals to New Jersey municipalities and hold them accountable for allowing development as reported by our Gothamist Newsroom.

Unsurprisingly, the law is facing backlash from Republican politicians. A lot of Republicans voted against it in the legislature and many residents of mostly wealthier New Jersey townships. Our newsroom has reported as a prime example on Millburn and Essex County, west of Newark near Maplewood, along the Morrison & Essex NJ transit line at the Millburn Short Hills Station, which has already "defied multiple court orders to move forward with development of a 75 unit." Just 75 units. "100% affordable housing complex in the heart of their upscale downtown," as Gothamist reports.

Joining us now to explain the changes coming to New Jersey's affordable housing, and take us into the conflict in Millburn Township, as an example, is our new colleague in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom, Mike Hayes, a reporter covering equity and access to opportunity in New Jersey, and author of the book on the New York side, The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform published last year. Mike, welcome to Brian Lehrer Show. Welcome to WNYC. Welcome to The New Jersey beat.

Mike Hayes: Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the bill that the governor signed this week. What's in it?

Mike Hayes: This bill is the lawmakers in New Jersey's attempt to set clear guidelines for what town's affordable housing obligations are going to be really over the next decade, Brian. There's a new round as they refer to it as affordable housing obligations being handed down that will go into effect in about a year in July 2025. This law is really putting in place the guardrails for how the state is going to do it, and the state is hoping that they're going to close their affordable housing gap.

There's a real crisis in New Jersey right now. They're short about 200,000 units for low-income residents, and the only way they're going to close that gap is if every town in New Jersey does its part and contributes affordable housing.

Brian Lehrer: Who's going to determine what each municipality's part is, numerically speaking?

Mike Hayes: What this bill does is it sets up what's being referred to as the program. The program is-- it's based on a court decision from a couple years back called the Jacobson decision. A judge by the name of Judge Jacobson decided a case a couple New Jersey towns that were fighting their affordable housing obligations, and the judge set down a formula that's now going to be the framework for how New Jersey sets up these numbers.

The group that's going to primarily be tasked with enforcing these numbers is the Department of Community Affairs, which is a bit of a change from how New Jersey's been doing it for about the last eight years. It's been a very court-driven process with this nonprofit organization, Fair Share Housing Center guiding the ship there, negotiating settlements with towns. Now what the state is trying to do is to empower the Department of Community Affairs to come in and really run the show

Brian Lehrer: Department of Community Affairs. Are going to go town by town, municipality by municipality in some way, and say, "We project that your place will need X units of affordable housing over the next 5 years, 10 years." How's that going to work?

Mike Hayes: That basically sums it up. The towns themselves will obviously be heavily involved here in negotiating with the Department of Community Affairs. If they can't reach agreements on that front, this all may end up back in the courts, but that's basically how it's going to work. They're going to use the Jacobson model and come up with some numbers and say each town depending on your location, how you've been doing over the past decades with affordable housing, your access to transit, other resources, and your available land, of course, what your obligation is, and they're going to work from there.

Brian Lehrer: How will it be enforced? Let's say the state determines that Millburn-- We'll take a deeper dive into your Millburn story, but let's say hypothetically Milburn, okay. Trenton decides that you in Millburn are projected to need 100 new units of affordable housing, and the Millburn Board says, "No, we calculate we need zero units of new affordable housing." How does the state enforce it? Is there a mechanism?

Mike Hayes: This is where it's going to get really interesting, Brian, and has been really interesting for a number of decades now. Like I said, they're going to start out the Department of Community Affairs will be working with the towns to determine these obligations. If towns come back and say-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: You mean first in a negotiated way, right?

Mike Hayes: Yes. Absolutely. Part of why they wanted to do this now and passed this bill now, I think I said at the top that the next round of affordable housing assignments, if it will, comes in July 2025. Now, when you're talking about municipal governments and planning and zoning, that's actually not a ton of time even though we're talking about over a year, but what they're hoping they've achieved by passing this bill is they've given towns enough time to work on this.

I talked to a number of town officials who weren't crazy about the bill, but what it really broke down to for them, boiled down to for them, is they said, "Look, we just want to know what we have to do. If getting this bill over the line and getting the process in place for how we can start those negotiations, we're for that." It's going to be a long arduous task. I would wager there will be disagreements amongst the folks in government, the Department of Community Affairs primarily, and the boots on the ground on the municipal level, and that could end up in some interesting housing court fights over the next year.

Brian Lehrer: For the folks after the New Jersey State Department of Community Affairs that's a lot of work in the next year. People now from New Jersey may not realize that there are almost 600 municipalities in that geographically small state. I think the exact number is 564. If you're on the New Jersey beat, a year from July going to be looking at a list of 564 municipalities released by state government. Exactly how many units of affordable housing they're going to be required to produce in how many years?

Mike Hayes: I think we'll get that list. I don't know that it'll be all the towns. For instance, the folks who have been charged with negotiating this over the last decade or so, going back to 2015, really which is the Fair Share Housing Center. They like to tout that they've gotten negotiations done with about 350 of these towns.

Brian Lehrer: That's a lot.

Mike Hayes: It is a lot definitely, but as you just mentioned, Brian, the actual number is well over 500. I think they're going to give it the old college try to get this moving in every town and see where they land.

Brian Lehrer: You know what? We have the mayor of a New Jersey town calling in and it's Bob in Madison. Bob, you're on WNYC. Hi, there. Thank you so much for calling in today.

Bob: Thank you, Brian, for taking my call and it's a honor to be on here. Just a very quick background in Madison, small suburban town. We are an affluent community in Morris County, but we've also had a long history of providing affordable housing. In fact, we've got a housing authority for over 50 years, so before [unintelligible 00:09:43] Mount Laurel was a legal doctrine we were providing it.

Brian Lehrer: Right. That's the previous affordable housing law. Go ahead. Or court decision.

Bob: Correct. Also as additional background, I'm also the incoming president for the New Jersey Conference of Mayors. This has been a hot issue for mayors across the state.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think?

Bob: There is a major shortfall of affordable housing, and a lot of people write it off where we're afraid of those people coming to our towns. These are people that need a place to live. They are frontline workers, our laborers. Those are the people that add diversity to our town so it's very important. One of my concerns and been mentioned already is A, if there is development, there must be affordable housing included. I think we've gone too long without recognizing that.

The issue is can you or should you use affordable housing to force over development or pave over our aquifer recharge areas, put too much development? We're potentially looking at an affordable housing number of 200 units. In the calculation, we're not too sure where we'll end up. In the idea of building four market rate to one affordable, so if we did it that route, our town would grow by 25% in the number of housing units. Obviously, in a fully built-out town. Not realistic.

We're building 100% affordable project right now, which is going to be the pride of New Jersey as it's a passive construction ready and will fit into a neighborhood. That's putting a burden on our taxpayers too. We're proud to do it and we all should be taking our apart. We've got to make sure we are doing it right.

Brian Lehrer: Bob, when we say, or Mr. Mayor, if I should call you that when we say affordable housing, does that mean subsidized by the taxpayers of each municipality?

Bob: In a way, it's going to be in one way or another. If it's developed to deliver it through developers, they're getting higher densities to deliver affordable housing, but the taxpayers are then paying for the infrastructure improvements. That needs to be understood.

To do these 100% projects certainly puts a burden because there are tax credits and we have an excellent developer doing our project that will minimize the impact but there will always be impact. It's should never be an excuse to turn your back on the knee for affordable housing, but we need to do it in an understanding way and a very well-planned way.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say 200 affordable housing units would represent a quarter of the population of Madison? Did I hear that?

Bob: If it was delivered through inclusionary, which is typically 20% affordable and inclusionary, so you would build 800 market rate to get your 200-

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I see.

Bob: -affordable. That would be 100 units and that would be a 20% growth in our housing stock in four square mile town.

Brian Lehrer: What's the population of Madison as it is?

Bob: 17,000

Brian Lehrer: Could you address the sticky question of race and class here that people just don't want people of lower socioeconomic rungs on the ladder or even worse, people who in largely white communities, don't want people who might be more proportionately people of color who need the affordable housing living in their midst.

Bob: That is one of the big challenges we have. I have in my time, even before being mayor, I've seen at least we've moved from, we don't want those people in our town to, we're concerned about it being right next door. New Jersey is one of the most segregated states in union because of redlining and our history. We need to make sure everyone is doing their fair share across the state.

Madison in Morris County, we've got the third largest, on percent basis, of the Columbian population. We're very proud of our diversity. I pushed back on some mayors that said, "We'll do affordable housing, but we'll have a resident restriction." I said, "No. It's an opportunity for people to come out from substandard housing and get a great education that Madison, Summit, or Melbourne can provide. We need to do our share, but you don't want to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water as you're doing it."

Brian Lehrer: Mayor, thank you so much for calling in. We really appreciate you sharing your views.

Bob: Yes. Brian, thank you for taking my call, and looking forward to listening a little bit more. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. All right. Bob in Madison, New Jersey. I don't even know his last name, but he's the mayor of Madison. Mike, anything you were thinking while we were talking to the mayor there?

Mike Hayes: Yes. I know we're going to talk about Millburn and their resistance to a project that's similar to what Mayor Bob was just describing a 100% all-affordable unit. I forget if he mentioned how many units in the Madison project that they're planning to build there. While Millburn, another wealthy town in New Jersey, is resisting doing the same.

It was interesting to hear Mayor Bob mention some of the hangups of the community which have become thinly veiled, frankly racist arguments against doing affordable housing because of who it will potentially bring to those communities. I think he called it a challenge to deal with that sentiment in his town which is interesting juxtaposition with Millburn, which is embracing those same arguments as the reason not to do affordable housing in their community.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, his name is Bob Conley. Thanks to my team for passing along the full name of the mayor of Madison, New Jersey who called in. Bob in Madison is Bob Conley. Liz in Newton, you're on WNYC. Hi, Liz.

Liz: Hey, how are you? Thank you for taking my call. With regard to the affordable housing, how is whatever this new law is going to address? I'm in rural Sussex County. They're doing down zoning where they're increasing the acreage required for a single-family unit where, for example, if I have one acre and I have room for, say, a tiny home that could be allowed as an accessory dwelling unit, now I could rent that out to someone who has housing challenges.

Brian Lehrer: Meaning?

Liz: My question is how is the new law addressing down zoning in more rural areas to create an opportunity for affordable housing?

Brian Lehrer: Do you happen to know Mike?

Mike Hayes: Yes, Liz, I think I know where your question is going here, and you bring up something that I'm glad we're talking about with this bill because it's pretty interesting and creative thing that the lawmakers are doing, which is trying to encourage different creative uses of development in order to encourage affordable housing. For instance, towns can get bonus credits, if they put units near transit, if they build say three-bedroom units designed for families, if they put units near a grocery store, supportive housing, senior housing, all of that.

Really, the spirit of that in the law, as I understand it from talking to the lawmakers, is to encourage towns to do creative things which sounds similar to what Liz's town is doing with this downzoning effort in order to allow people more flexibility with their acreage if I understood all that properly, in ways that perhaps in the past, I'm not at all well versed in the history of Liz's town, but it sounds like perhaps they're changing something there to allow people to create like an ADU on their property, which I don't know if she defined it. That's accessory dwelling unit, garage apartment, apartment in the backyard, something like that. It's interesting to hear that that's going on in Sussex.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, thank you for your call in mentioning that aspect of it. For people who may be having flashbacks hearing this conversation, Mike, they've tried something like this before in New Jersey and for decades under the so-called Mount Laurel Doctrine which came out of a court ruling back in the 1970s.

Mike Hayes: Yes, sure. Talking a little bit about Mount Laurel, fun fact, you're reaching me in the town of Mount Laurel. My family and I moved here from Brooklyn about four years ago. It's down in South Jersey by Cherry Hill, for those who haven't heard of Mount Laurel. What happened in Mount Laurel in the '70s is a group of local Black residents who worked in Mount Laurel were being pushed out because of rising real estate prices. These residents wanted to live here because they worked in town. With the help of the NAACP and some others, they sued and they won.

Their case was appealed all the way up to the highest court in the state, the Supreme Court, which handed down in 1975 a landmark ruling that said every town in the state must contribute its fair share of affordable housing. Now, why we're still talking about Mount Laurel today, was part of that decision. The state adopted a process where towns would be tasked with fulfilling their affordable housing obligation in so-called rounds that last for years, often sometimes over a decade.

As I mentioned earlier, in July 2025 towns are going to start being on the hook for more affordable housing. This is actually the start of round four of Mount Laurel. What the lawmakers have done this week is give towns the guidelines, the guard rails I've been saying, for how those new numbers are going to be calculated.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one call of pushback to the law, which I think is going to echo something that I heard from one of the people who lives in Melbourne who is in your piece. Rita in Somerset, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rita. We're almost out of time. We have about 30 seconds for you.

Rita: Sure. Hi, Brian. I just want to be brief. I live in New Jersey. I voted Democrat, but I'm very dismayed with the governor. He's raised our property taxes, he's increased our sales taxes. We pay a lot. If you're talking about affordability, try and reduce the taxes for New Jersey people. Also, our townships cannot [unintelligible 00:22:02] As it is, our roads are crowded. We have constant traffic jam everywhere. Public transport is at an abysmal level of competency.

Instead of improving all that, it looks nice and grandiose to say, "Hey, I'm going to put in more affordable housing," but you got to improve the infrastructure before you do all that. I'm very disappointed, and I feel like voting for Republicans next time to see if they'll do something better.

Brian Lehrer: Rita, thank you very much. That's just what the Republicans want to hear, Mike. Let's wrap this up. I said I heard something like that in your Melbourne story. She mentioned infrastructure. Somebody said, "We don't have the seats in the public schools for X more kids," whatever the requirement was there. How might Governor Murphy respond to Rita? Then we're out of time.

Mike Hayes: I think we heard Mayor Bob mention some of the similar anxieties about taxpayers covering improvements to infrastructure. I haven't read the governor's full budget proposal yet. I know there's a lot of proposals in there for ways to raise money for infrastructure, but I think he, by signing this bill, literally one day after it was passed, I think he sent a pretty clear message that affordable housing and the development of that is going to remain a big priority for this administration.

Brian Lehrer: Signed into law this week by Governor Phil Murphy, a new law that will require every municipality in the state to construct, or at least allow construction of new affordable housing by next July. As our reporter, Mike Hayes, points out, the state will develop numerical goals for each town in the garden state. Our New Jersey reporter is Mike Hayes. You can hear his deep dive on Melbourne in this affordable housing context at our website, wnyc.org. Mike, congratulations. Thanks for joining the team, and thanks for coming on the show.

Mike Hayes: Thanks so much, Brian.

 

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