Governor Murphy has signed legislation to overhaul NJ’s Affordable Housing system to relieve legal disputes in hundreds of municipalities over their housing obligations.  Highlights of the various changes in the law are: 

• COAH is abolished
• Housing Obligations will be determined by the Department of Community Affairs (DCA)
• The new law will codify the “Jacobson” methodology (often viewed as a compromise between housing advocates and the towns), and transfers the responsibility of housing obligations to the DCA. 
• An Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program is being created to relieve pressure on the courts to resolve legal challenges.

During the legislative process, AIA-NJ advocated to legislators that we support the creation of well-planned and designed affordable housing scaled to fit the wide range of cities and towns across the state’s 564 municipalities.  Further, our AIA New Jersey member architects look forward to continuing to work with public and private housing stakeholders to plan, design, and deliver affordable housing projects.

A copy of the new law can be found here: Affordable Housing Bill