Legislators Introduce Bill to Abolish COAH
By Henry T. Chou, Esq.
Last week, State Senators Ray Lesniak (D-Union) and Kip Bateman (R-Somerset) introduced a bipartisan bill that proposes to abolish the New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), and place all State authority over affordable housing issues within the jurisdiction of the State Planning Commission.
While the bill appears to be a work in progress, Lesniak has stated that the bill should be ready for a vote by the Senate Economic Growth Committee by March 8, 2010, after it concludes hearings and deliberations on the matter.
The proposed bill would allow municipalities to determine their own affordable housing obligations and goals, which on its face, would appear to be unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's 1983 ruling in Southern Burlington County NAACP v. Township of Mount Laurel, where the Court determined that municipalities are not permitted to determine their own housing obligations, given their long history of exclusionary zoning.
Under the proposed bill, if a municipality determines that it has an affordable houisng obligation, it must adopt an ordinance to provide for the development of affordable housing. Municipalities that do not adopt such ordinances would be subject to use variance applications by developers seeking to build affordable housing.
The proposed bill has the support of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, but does not appear to have the support of any other stakeholder organizations at this point.