Affordable Housing in New Jersey

American philosopher John Locke believed in fundamental rights naturally possessed by humans. In other words, no outside factor could remove these assurances. So, why are so many individuals denied access to affordable housing in today's society? Specifically, New Jersey’s struggle to provide affordable housing is one of the most enduring and defining legal challenges in the state’s modern history. As the most densely populated state in the nation, New Jersey faces a combination of spatial limitations and economic imbalance, leading to an unfair distribution of land. Over the past half-century, courts, legislators, and regulators have attempted to address this problem, guided primarily by the landmark Mount Laurel decisions, which established a constitutional obligation for every municipality to provide a “realistic opportunity” for its fair share of affordable housing. However, the promise of Mount Laurel has repeatedly collided with politics, legislature, and other issues.

The foundation of New Jersey’s affordable housing law is Southern Burlington County NAACP v. Mount Laurel Township, a pair of decisions issued in 1975 and 1983 that reshaped the relationship between municipalities and the state constitution. In Mount Laurel I, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that zoning ordinances designed to exclude low- and moderate-income residents violated the general welfare clause within the constitution. Then, Mount Laurel II strengthened and operationalized these principles by creating remedies to enforce compliance, most notably the “builder’s remedy,” which allows developers to sue municipalities and obtain court permission to construct higher-density projects involving affordable units. These decisions propelled New Jersey into national prominence to advocate for housing affordability.

In the years following the Mount Laurel decisions, the state sought to translate judicial mandates into an administrable framework through the Fair Housing Act of 1985. This statute created the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), with the intention to shift responsibilities towards a cooperative administrative system that could hear excluded groups out and aid them on a personal basis. For a while, COAH worked as planned, producing regulations that allocated responsibilities to municipalities and regions according to demographic trends, available land, and economic forecasts. Although COAH saw a halt in operations during significant political tensions, the overall mission stayed, allowing for more accessible housing in dearth areas. 

Politics was not the only issue obscuring the path to housing, however; land scarcity is among the most significant. New Jersey’s limited supply of developable land intensifies competition and drives up prices, making affordable housing projects expensive and difficult to maintain. Local governments often cite concerns about density, traffic, school crowding, and environmental impacts to resist multifamily developments, though such justifications frequently mask longstanding exclusionary preferences for single-family zoning. Yes, these gripes are legitimate and must be dealt with before any remodeling and building, but they mustn’t be used solely as excuses against affordable housing; local governments who cite these issues as reasons against accessible housing, but then choose to ignore these issues later on, are ineffective in the long run and are only further reducing the quality of life of their citizens.

These forms of local resistance persist partly because New Jersey maintains a deeply entrenched tradition of home rule. Municipal governments wield broad discretion over land-use decisions, with courts generally deferring to local planning judgments unless a plaintiff can demonstrate that an ordinance is plainly arbitrary or capricious. This is a stark binding against Mount Laurel enforcement, as courts must find a balance between mandates and local authority. 

Despite these challenges, New Jersey’s framework has achieved notable successes. Thousands of affordable units have been constructed as a direct result of judicial enforcement, particularly since courts resumed oversight after COAH’s collapse. Inclusionary zoning, in which private developers produce affordable units to provide relief, has become a standard tool in many urban and suburban areas. Some towns have even adopted more progressive approaches voluntarily, drafting plans that exceed their minimum obligations and recognizing the economic and social benefits of a more inclusive housing stock.

It is clear that in New Jersey, there is an explicit rivalry between groups who wish to promote affordable housing and local governments who feel it’s too much of a risk with little benefit. But, nationwide, is this still the case? After WWII, there was a significant increase in exclusionary zones because of racism and mass hysteria stemming from the outbreak of the Cold War. A key national parallel to New Jersey’s experience can be seen in the federal case Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. (1977), in which the United States Supreme Court confronted whether a local government’s refusal to rezone land for affordable housing violated the Equal Protection Clause. Although the Court acknowledged that zoning decisions can have profound discriminatory impacts, it ultimately held that plaintiffs must prove discriminatory intent to establish a constitutional violation, not just discriminatory results. Of course, it was a grave burden to try and get that sort of evidence, making it far more difficult to challenge exclusionary zoning on federal constitutional grounds. Compared to New Jersey’s Mount Laurel Doctrine, which requires municipalities to affirmatively create opportunities for affordable housing, the federal approach is far narrower, making New Jersey one of the few states where courts have substantively intervened to correct zoning-based inequities.

Compared to the rest of the country, New Jersey has developed some of the most progressive constitutional frameworks for addressing affordable housing, yet it still faces powerful resistance rooted in local autonomy and politics. If a liberal state with a codified mandate and decades of judicial enforcement still struggles to meet demand, the challenge across states with conservative legislatures becomes even more daunting. This comparison reveals a fundamental truth: despite housing being essential to human dignity and opportunity, American law has never fully recognized it as a guaranteed right. Instead, it has treated housing as a commodity shaped by local preferences, market forces, and political will.

Affordable housing is still not an untouchable future. The process to reach affordable housing may be grim and hard-fought, but it will come to pass. The Mount Laurel decisions, COAH, and other legislation in New Jersey did not pass instantaneously. The future of housing justice depends on whether courts, legislators, and communities choose to recognize affordable housing not simply as a policy goal, but as an essential right gifted to all humans at birth.