Effective immediately, and for the next 90 days with limited exceptions, the Order requires the Council on Affordable Housing to refrain from processing applications "for substantive certification or to implement COAH's long-delayed Third Round regulations."
The affordable housing debate has been raging in New Jersey ever since the 1975 court case, Southern Burlington County N.A.A.C.P. v. Township of Mt. Laurel--dubbed Mt. Laurel I--and the subsequent 1983 Mt. Laurel II case. As a result of these trials, the Supreme Court of New Jersey identified a constitutional obligation on the part of municipalities to provide--by their land use regulations--an appropriate choice of housing, including affordable housing to those of low and moderate income.
In the decades since the Supreme Court of New Jersey's rulings, there have been extensive legislative and regulatory efforts undertaken to ensure compliance with the decisions and near-constant litigation concerning their scope and implementation.
Among the legislative efforts undertaken in response to the Mt. Laurel decisions was the enactment of the State Planning Act, which essentially created a State Planning Commission to track everything from future employment and population to housing and land needs for development and redevelopment.
In addition to the State Planning Act, the Legislature also enacted the Fair Housing Act, leading to the creation of the Council on Affordable Housing--which was initially intended to regulate and monitor municipal affordable housing obligations throughout the state.
But according to Gov. Christie's Order, "the burdensome procedures governing the provision of affordable housing in New Jersey for those with low and moderate income, developed by COAH, are excessively complex and unworkable, resulting in delays, inefficiencies, litigation and unreasonable costs to municipalities and the private sector without any appreciable progress for the state's citizens."
Gov. Christie noted that new thinking on statewide planning is necessary "due to the failure of COAH to ensure that all constitutional obligations with respect to the provision of affordable housing are satisfied in a manner that is both fair and reasonable to the already burdened municipalities of our State." He went on to add, "The statutory and regulatory mechanisms currently in place have proven to be an unduly burdensome and wholly ineffective means of meeting these goals."
The Legislature is presently considering amendments to the FHA and related statutes, which include the abolition of COAH, the elimination of "growth share" as a way to determine prospective need and the elimination of a municipality's prior housing obligations.
COAH has long been a source of contention among the state's development community, with most agreeing that it needs a major overhaul. The regulations were discussed at length during our RealShare New Jersey conference last September, with Conor Fennessy, VP of government affairs of the New Jersey Apartment Association suggesting that COAH has now "grown into a bureaucracy far from its original mission." And State Sen. Raymond J. Lesniak (D-Union) has said in past interviews with GlobeSt.com that COAH's "Dr. Strangelove philosophy: if you create more jobs, it costs you more," is a disincentive for job growth.
Some small steps toward reform were made under former Gov. Jon Corzine. The New Jersey Economic Stimulus Act, which was passed last July, for instance, included an exemption for certain non-residential development from COAH fee obligations.
But Gov. Christie appears to be taking more of a hard line approach. The governor's task force is charged with providing recommendations on everything from determining if a municipality should have any further affordable housing obligation, whether the regions that COAH has used for more than 20 years are still appropriate and ways to encourage rehabilitation and new development to meet affordable housing needs, to the diverse and "significantly divergent state projections" for housing and employment growth.
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