By VASHTI HARRIS
Staff Writer
EAST BRUNSWICK — The Township of East Brunswick has prepared a proposed Housing Element and Fair Share Plan in order to address its Third Round Housing Obligation.
“[The Housing Element and Fair Share Plan] is a plan that outlines the methods and mechanisms that we must follow in order to provide the opportunity for affordable housing to take place in East Brunswick,” Planner and Landscape Architect Steven Gottlieb said during the Township Council meeting on Nov. 14.
Due to two landmark New Jersey Supreme Court cases, Mount Laurel I and Mount Laurel II, all municipalities in New Jersey must provide the option of affordable housing, according to the Fair Share Housing Center website. Both benchmark cases helped create the Mount Laurel Doctrine, which “[prohibits] economic discrimination against the poor by the state and municipalities in the exercise of their land use powers.”
In 1985, the New Jersey Legislature, in direct response to the Mount Laurel decisions, enacted the Fair Housing Act, which created the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) to assess the statewide need for affordable housing, allocate that need on a municipal fair share basis and review and approve municipal housing plans aimed at implementing the local fair share obligation, according to the Housing Center website.
Like all municipalities in New Jersey, East Brunswick is currently in its third round in order to show compliance with the state. Officials have assured that the township is currently on schedule in terms of meeting its affordable housing obligation with the state.
“There have been a number of mechanisms that go into deciding where and how many units there will be. Totally, we have to provide the reasonable opportunity for approximately 300 units, meaning we have to provide zoning, and overall in every new development 20 percent of the development must be affordable housing. So, for example, if there are 50 units, then 20 percent of those units have to be affordable,” Gottlieb said.
There is no set date in regards to when all the new units will be complete and livable.
For more information about the affordable housing in East Brunswick, visit www.eastbrunswick.org, click the Planning and Engineering tab and then the Housing tab.
Contact Vashti Harris at vharris@gmnews.com.
