In March, Senator Anthony Bucco introduced legislation, S3739, which would delay the state’s fourth round of Fair Share Housing obligations by three years. Last week, that bill added several co-sponsors in Senators Jon Bramnick, Edward Durr, Holly Schepisi and Kristin Corrado, indicating some level of support for it.The next ten-year round of affordable housing requirements is currently slated to begin in 2025, while the bill requests a delay to July 1, 2028. The COVID pandemic and related shutdowns, which have stymied municipalities from satisfying their third round obligations, was cited as the reason for the delay.This certainly reflects the situation in Livingston, where the town is still dealing with legal battles related to its third round obligations.Nearly two-and-a-half years ago, in January of 2021, a settlement was nearly reached with Fair Share Housing to satisfy the town’s requirements. Fair Share Housing Center is a group focused on finding affordable housing in municipalities by enforcing the Mount Laurel Doctrine. The agreement was to save the township from future unwanted development as a result of “builder’s remedy” lawsuits, where a developer cites the ability to create affordable housing as a way to force construction of a much larger project, and the township’s Council, Planning, and Zoning Boards lose control over what is built.To give one example of what happens when a builder’s remedy lawsuit is filed, in 2019, township officials begged developers to include elevators for the multi-story affordable units that were being built in a larger housing complex. The developers refused, because it was not required by law; the affordable housing was only being built so that more profitable units could be built alongside it, and the developers apparently had no interest in spending any more money than necessary on those units.In another example, in 2020, the Council heard from residents concerning a potential housing project to be located off South Livingston Avenue, near ShopRite, that was only being discussed because of the threat of a builder’s remedy lawsuit. Concerns of residents of the area included increased traffic and more densely populated schools. The Council members made it clear that they were being forced to consider the proposed development due to the amount of affordable housing that is required to be built in town. This particular ordinance ultimately expired at the end of the year (as ordinances cannot carry from one year into the next) and was reintroduced and approved with ...
