The Scotch Plains Affordable Housing Advisory Committee launched a petition today to gather signatures of New Jersey residents who want to bring common-sense reforms to the current costly, inefficient and inconsistent New Jersey court mandated affordable housing process presently being imposed on New Jersey municipalities.

The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee supports providing affordable housing in New Jersey for low income families, seniors, millennials, veterans, those with special needs as well as other groups. However, the current manner in which affordable housing is determined fails to consider how local communities may be affected by the construction of thousands of new units.

Back in May 2019, the non-partisan Affordable Housing Advisory Committee endorsed four (4) bills, S-2997/A4471, A-1649, S-2386/A-1648, S-2572/A-1644 to reform the current broken, court driven affordable housing overdevelopment process.

The petition asks residents to sign in support of these bills, which will among other things, institute a State legislative committee to evaluate and determine the need for affordable housing at the State and Regional levels and require among other factors an analysis of a municipality's population, infrastructure, school class sizes and school services, before assigning affordable housing numbers.

“The only way to get our State Legislators to listen and institute reforms is for residents to directly demand it,” said Mayor Al Smith, Chairman of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. “After obtaining thousands of signatures, I, along with Deputy Mayor Josh Losardo, plan on personally delivering this petition to Governor Murphy’s office as well as the Democrat and Republican State Legislative Leaders to engage them in conversation on reform.”

Deputy Mayor Josh Losardo added: “It’s time for action, and if the reforms outlined in this petition are implemented, we will bring plain common sense and consideration of a town’s infrastructure before requiring the construction of thousands of units. I urge everyone to sign this petition.”

To sign the petition, visit the link below: https://www.thepetitionsite.com/264/002/417/petition-for-affordable-housing-reform/

See link below to video of Mayor Smith and Deputy Mayor Losardo discussing the petition. https://youtu.be/yZgvSLf753k

For information on how to contact your state legislators visit the link below. Let your state legislators know you signed the petition and ask them to cosponsor the four bills discussed above. https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/SelectMun.asp

MAY 21, 2019 -- The Scotch Plains Affordable Housing Advisory Committee endorsed four state legislative bills intended to reform the affordable housing process at their monthly May meeting.

The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee supports providing affordable housing in New Jersey for low income families, seniors, millennials, veterans, those with special needs as well as other groups. However, the current manner in which affordable housing is determined fails to consider how local communities may be affected by the construction of thousands of new units.

The bills endorsed by the Committee will end the costly, inefficient and inconsistent court mandated process currently being imposed on municipalities by instituting a State legislative committee to evaluate and determine the need for affordable housing at the State and Regional levels and require an analysis of a municipality’s population, infrastructure, school class sizes and school services, before assigning affordable housing numbers. 

Click here to read the entire press release. 

The Mayor and Township Council are committed to finding ways to reform the affordable housing process to make it fairer and more realistic for municipalities. State Legislation is required to reform the affordable housing process.

One example is Assembly Bill A-1648, which will reform the affordable housing process to establish additional factors for municipal adjustment used in calculating fair share affordable housing obligations and provide for a population-based cap for these obligations. Please contact Tom Strowe at (908) 322-6700 ext 317 or tstrowe@scotchplainsnj.com for any questions.