Affordable Housing: Meeting a Town's Affordable Housing Obligation While Protecting Natural Resources

In New Jersey, municipalities have a constitutional obligation to provide for "suitable and affordable" housing for citizens of low and moderate income. Two NJ Supreme Court decisions, known as Mount Laurel I and II (1975 and 1983), confirmed this obligation. The Supreme Court and the Legislature (in the NJ Fair Housing Act of 1985) made it clear that municipalities must facilitate a range of housing within their borders to create balanced communities in which a continuum of residents from young to old, affluent to blue collar, independent to disabled, have a reasonable opportunity to live and work. This report discusses meeting these obligations using environmentally sound practices and planning.This element of ANJEC's Smart Growth Survival Kit uses the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) 1994 regulations, which include the 'second round' of fair share numbers. After COAH releases the "third round" affordable housing obligations, as well as revised regulations and standards (expected in 2003), we will revise and reprint this section.Smart Growth Survival Kit: Practical Approaches to Managing Growth. This publication was made possible by grants from The Fund for New Jersey, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the William Penn Foundation and the Victoria Foundation