The town of Princeton faces a tight deadline to identify potential sites for hundreds of new affordable housing units, after the New Jersey State government approved legislation to streamline the state’s “Fair Share” housing rules. Signing the bill today, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called it “a monumental piece of legislation that will make housing more affordable and more accessible for working families all across New Jersey.” The requirement for towns in New Jersey to provide affordable housing dates to legal rulings in the 1970s. Towns that ignore the requirement become open to “builder’s remedy” lawsuits, which allow developers to ignore local zoning and land use regulations.

In the coming year, a new cycle of New Jersey’s affordable housing process is due to start, and will now proceed on the following schedule:

• October, 2024 – NJ Department of Community Affairs publishes numbers for the next round of affordable housing construction for every town in the state.
• January 31, 2025 – Deadline for towns to formally agreeing to their fair share housing obligation.
• February 28, 2025 – Deadline for towns to challenge their designated affordable housing obligation.
• March 31, 2025 – Final date for resolution of challenges to affordable housing obligations
• June 30, 2025 – Towns must publish a fair share plan, providing full details about how they will meet their affordable housing obligation.
• March 15, 2026 – Municipal ordinances must be amended to enable fair share plans to be enacted.

That means that the town of Princeton, and every other town in New Jersey, has until June of next year to figure out where and how new affordable housing will be built. We won’t know until late October how many units of affordable housing Princeton will be required to build, but in the previous round, Princeton was required to provide 753 units.

Any kind of similar target for affordable homes would require a number of significant new developments, which would need to be built between 2025 and 2035. Figuring out where and how to build the new homes is likely to be a headache for elected officials, who are already being widely criticized for construction that is being done to meet the previous round of state-mandated affordable housing. Objectors unsuccessfully sued over one affordable housing development on Mt Lucas Road, and other protestors want to eliminate or downsize a mixed-income development on East Nassau St. Both of these developments were part of the town’s 2019 fair share settlement, which was adopted very late because of legal wrangling over how many units the town had to build.

The town’s recently-rewritten Master Plan does not identify new sites for state-mandated affordable housing, apart from a previously-proposed redevelopment of the old Princeton Seminary lands on Mercer Street, which would include 48 affordable homes. That proposal is now the subject of legal action from “Princeton Citizens For Responsible Development”, an objector group made up of individuals including former Princeton Councilwoman Jo Butler. Several of these neighbors also opposed a previous plan for housing for Princeton Seminary students at the site. If the PCRD objectors are successful in reducing the number of affordable homes on Mercer Street, then other neighborhoods will have to accept more development for the town to meet its state “fair share” requirements.

The example of the Princeton Seminary lands is also likely to have a chilling effect on what should be a town-wide conversation about where and how affordable housing will be provided. Officials will not be able to talk openly about how to provide state-mandated affordable housing if it results in lengthy and expensive court battles with objectors. The town and Planning Board are already incurring significant costs to defend themselves against the legal action from PCRD.

Although construction of affordable housing creates challenges for any town, the end result is likely to be positive. As Governor Murphy said in his remarks today, “nobody in our great state should ever have to worry about finding a safe, comfortable place to call home”. New Jersey’s “fair share” rules attempt to ensure that all towns contribute to housing, and the newly-revised process aims to cut down on lengthy and costly legal procedures. The new formula also gives extra credit for developments close to transit, something which the town of Princeton has tried to prioritize in recent years, and which has the potential to reduce car dependency.