Princeton files plan for 446 units of affordable housing

Princeton filed a plan this week for affordable housing, after a New Jersey State Supreme Court ruling in March dictated that municipalities provide housing opportunities for people earning moderate to low incomes, according to the New Jersey State League of Municipalities.

The ruling instructed that Princeton and other towns in New Jersey present their plans for approval by judges. A judge will present a ruling on the plan sometime within the next year, Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert said.

The plan allots 446 units of affordable housing, according to an affordable housing litigation update presented at a town council meeting on Nov. 24.

Lempert said that one new opportunity for housing is the Merwick/Stanworth apartment complex, which will contain 56 units of affordable housing for graduate students. The AvalonBay apartments being constructed on Witherspoon Street will contain another 56 affordable housing units, she added.

The original plan for municipal affordable housing in New Jersey was the Mount Laurel Doctrine in 1975, according to the New Jersey Housing and Community Development’s Municipal Housing Plans. The plan for affordable housing has undergone two revisions since then. However, Lempert said that as the legislature of Princeton’s municipality was not able to come to a decision consistent with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration on the most recent version of the plan, the State Supreme Court had to take over and mandate that each municipality present their plan to a judge for approval.

The affordable housing process, having been taken over by the court, is now under a litigation process as opposed to an open planning process, according to Lempert.

Princeton Councilmember Jo Butler noted that the court’s litigation made it difficult for municipalities in New Jersey to develop plans for affordable housing.

“When we’re planning as a community, we like to have a lot of community input,” Butler said.“What’s difficult about this is that because it is litigation, we haven’t been able to have the kind of community input and public process that certainly we in Princeton like to have when we’re talking about planning for our future.”

However, both Butler and Lempert noted that a positive consequence of the litigation was that the court would protect Princeton against builder’s remedy lawsuits, which could allow contractors to build their own affordable housing units while bypassing zoning ordinances.

“Zoning ordinances are the rules that keep the town developing in a sensible way, keep our neighborhood character and help direct growth to where it makes sense,” Lempert said.

Butler explained that in developing its affordable housing plan the town expects to go along with growth in the University, not only with prospective increases in the student body but also increases in the numbers of faculty and staff members. She added that the University has been receptive to the developments regarding the litigation.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

In addition to these proposals, the Fair Share Housing Center, a private developer company, also released suggested numbers for affordable housing requirements for New Jersey municipalities, increasing the number of affordable units in Princeton from 600 to 1,000, according to Planet Princeton.

“It’s been the nonprofit housing advocate since its founding in 1975, most active in promoting, defending, advancing the Mount Laurel doctrine,” David Kinsey, Princeton resident and visiting lecturer at the Wilson School, said of Fair Share Housing.

Kinsey said he has been working with Fair Share Housing since the summer of 2013 to calculate fair share obligations for affordable housing using the methodology which the Supreme Court ultimately dismissed.

The Mount Laurel decision created a process by which municipalities could submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the trial courts by filing a declaratory judgment action under the notice of Fair Share Housing, Kinsey added. A declaratory judgment action is the legal determination of a court to resolve legal uncertainties for people involved in lawsuits.

“The March [Supreme Court] decision was a long time in coming, so it’s very good news that the court at least spelled out a process to revive implementation of the Mount Laurel doctrine,” Kinsey said.

Both Lempert and Butler noted that despite complications regarding the plans and litigation, Princeton has been continuing to make progress on building affordable housing.

“We have a long history of commitment to affordable housing, we’ve started early, and we’ve complied, and this process is frustrating because it hasn’t been as public as we would have liked,” she added.

Lempert explained that Princeton’s good-faith effort to provide affordable housing includes helping the community stay economically diverse, which she said Princeton has had a long tradition of doing and which is the right thing to do.