TRENTON — It’s a 35-page bill that tries to fix one of the most vexing and controversial issues in New Jersey in the past 35 years: affordable housing. So despite pressure from Gov. Chris Christie’s office to quickly pass the measure to overhaul affordable housing policies — ending state quotas and giving more power to local governments — the...
Lori Grifa, Department of Community Affairs Commissioner TRENTON — It’s a 35-page bill that tries to fix one of the most vexing and controversial issues in New Jersey in the past 35 years: affordable housing.
So despite pressure from Gov. Chris Christie’s office to quickly pass the measure to overhaul affordable housing policies — ending state quotas and giving more power to local governments — the state Assembly is going to take its time.
“If I can do it by June 30 and do it right, then I’m going to do it by June 30, but I’m not going to rush,” said Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Union), chairman of Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee, which held a hearing on the bill Thursday.
The Christie administration wants to see the legislation passed by June 30 — the deadline for both the state budget and the date a year-long moratorium on a 2.5 percent fee on commercial builders to pay for affordable housing ends, said Lori Grifa, commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs. Green said the Democrat-controlled legislature will extend the moratorium on the development fees, but Grifa said that does not go far enough.
“The idea that they’re actually talking about extending the moratorium is a good insurance policy, but I’d really like it not to be there,” Grifa said. “I’d really like to have this resolved.”
The bill would abolish the Council on Affordable Housing, a 25-year-old state panel that monitors town zoning and sets the number of affordable units towns must build or encourage to be built. The panel was a byproduct of state Supreme Court decisions that said towns were not living up to their constitutional obligation to provide access to affordable housing.
The major aim of this bill, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), is to give municipalities clear guidelines so they can comply with the law.
But affordable housing advocates and others say there are major flaws in the bill and that courts had already ruled against several of its proposals. Business representatives said the bill should be passed as quickly as possible.