By the numbers: Affordable housing obligations for the next decade for the Princeton region

The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs has released its calculations for the number of affordable homes each municipality is required to create over the next decade for round four of the state’s affordable housing requirements.

Municipalities have until Jan. 31, 2025 to adopt the state’s guidance or provide their own calculation consistent with New Jersey law, and have until June 30, 2025 to adopt specific plans for how to fulfill their obligations for the next decade.

In March, Governor Phil Murphy signed a law establishing a new framework for determining and enforcing municipal affordable housing obligations under the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mount Laurel doctrine and the State’s Fair Housing Act. The law requires that the Department of Community Affairs calculate regional affordable housing needs and municipal “present” and “prospective” affordable housing obligations based on a formula. Present need means existing housing units that are deemed substandard and need to be rehabilitated. Prospective need means new affordable housing units that need to be either built or converted from market rate to affordable housing.

Many municipalities including Princeton are still implementing plans from the third round obligations. The third round was set up before the new law was adopted. Obligations were decided either through mediation or lawsuits. Municipalities will still have to fulfill all of their round three obligations and then execute plans for their round four obligations.

The estimated number of required units in Princeton is much lower than local officials had projected when talking about future affordable housing obligations and pushing for more new housing developments. For the fourth round, Princeton’s estimated obligation is 276 affordable housing units over a decade. Lawrence is 320, while Hopewell Township is 543 and West Windsor is 661.

Following are the estimates for municipalities in the greater Princeton region. You can view the full state list in a spreadsheet.

MunicipalityCountyPresent NeedProspective Need
Bordentown CityBurlington028
Bordentown TownshipBurlington95159
ChesterfieldBurlington060
Fieldsboro Burlington013
Florence Burlington42107
East Amwell Hunterdon444
Flemington Hunterdon7425
Frenchtown Hunterdon1122
LambertvilleHunterdon039
StocktonHunterdon020
West Amwell Hunterdon039
East Windsor Mercer166368
EwingMercer99319
Hamilton Mercer186546
Hightstown Mercer4735
Hopewell BoroughMercer039
Hopewell TownshipMercer8543
Lawrence Mercer68320
Pennington Mercer458
PrincetonMercer60276
Robbinsville Mercer40336
Trenton Mercer1,0840
West WindsorMercer61661
Cranbury Middlesex0314
Jamesburg Middlesex1938
MonroeMiddlesex76751
North Brunswick Middlesex130239
Plainsboro Middlesex53309
South Brunswick Middlesex132959
Allentown Monmouth028
Englishtown Monmouth2530
Millstone Monmouth798
Bridgewater Somerset130474
Franklin Somerset268714
Hillsborough Somerset111565
Montgomery Somerset73260
North Plainfield Somerset42764
Rocky HillSomerset437
Somerville Somerset10374
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Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.

5 Comments

  1. What about the Round 3 plans that haven’t been built yet. Are those approvals applied to these new numbers or are Round 4 mandates brand new and above and beyond previous approvals?

  2. Thanks. Can you tell us what this means? Do we have enough units in the works or msut more be built?

    1. More must be built. Round three obligations are separate. There are not enough units in the works yeat but the future obligation is not the huge number that was predicted (or the huge number developers hoped for.)

  3. Terrific article. The links were certainly to complex documents. I was glad to have your summary.

  4. There was public comment that there will be affordable housing when Westminster is developed and bought by the township. How much housing will be there and will the amount satisfy the state requirement?

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