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Council on Affordable Housing Declares War on Housing...and Other News
Henry A. Hill
Builders in New Jersey have long been accustomed to a hostile regulatory climate out of Trenton. If it isn't some more wetlands regulations or stormwater regulations out of the DEP, it's the Highlands Act out of the Legislature, or a State Plan with ever-shrinking designated "growth areas," or the like.
These issues, and more, are discussed in this Special Edition Quartery, prepared especially for the ABC Convention. But what's truly new is the subject of another article within the fact that the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) has, despite its name, itself declared war on housing - affordable and otherwise. Indeed, COAH has adopted "third round" regulations that do nothing but exacerbate the problem of exclusionary zoning. Among other things, those regulations tie a municipality's Mt. Laurel obligation to its estimated future growth. As if municipalities needed further incentive to thwart growth, they will now face larger Mt. Laurel obligations if they allow growth to occur. So, they will react just as COAH hopes they react - they will do what they can to stifle growth, something that will minimize all housing, including affordable housing.
Land use regulation in New Jersey has truly become nothing short of Orwellian when the state's Council on Affordable Housing acts to thwart affordable housing. But here at Hill Wallack, we track those issues carefully, and we provide this issue to advise builders and others in the real estate industries of the state of land use law in New Jersey, and the best ways in which that development can occur in the face of such laws. We trust that you will find this issue informative and useful as we approach the year ahead.
Henry A. Hill is a senior partner of Hill Wallack. He is head of the firm's Land Use Division and partner-in-charge of the Division's Land Use Litigation Practice Group. A recognized national expert in the field of land use law, he is a past-Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association's Land Use Section.
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