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the state Supreme Court's Mount Laurel

decision on affordable housing has

confounded municipalities and

complicated urban planning since it was

handed down and there's so widespread

dispute over the number of homes each

municipality is required to provide

meantime towns are finding creative

solutions for those still chasing the

dream in the final part of our series

Brianna vanos II went to Mount Laurel

where it all began

fair share housing centers Eric Dobson

is taking us down a newly constructed

road our destination the latest housing

development inside the original ethel

lawrence neighborhood of mount laurel

these are affordable units single-family

and townhomes and they'll be ready

within a year the community in mount

laurel many of them not even where that

this affordable housing facility exists

so as seamlessly integrated into the

town in fact there's a six to seven year

waiting list for ethel Lawrence it's

been the shining beacon in New Jersey's

Tainted affordable housing history and

that's a key word foldable housing when

is done well when it's crafted well when

it's built well when it's seamlessly

integrated into the town it works we

know integration works in this country

we just haven't fully tried it there are

a number of towns getting creative with

meeting their affordable housing

obligation Woodbridge Township is one

the government is using federal state

and private funding to build Jacobs

Landing we're building new housing while

still housing the original 150 tenants

so what it does it breaks generation

cycles of poverty what it does it

changes generations it changes the whole

history of a family who at one time had

very little opportunity to get a quality

education to live in a safe neighborhood

to get a decent job and it changes that

to move into an area where they all

those opportunities are afforded to them

in Metuchen or Peter Cammarano with the

mayor they've had a 15% set-aside

ordinance for years more than 10 years

and so every developer whether they're

big or small have to find a way to

incorporate

into their project a 15% set aside and

you know that is not without some cost

to the development community but there's

certainty there but there are also

places like Newark and Princeton where

despite construction on units for

seniors or low-income neighbors there

are waiting lists thousands of families

long we had over 38,000 new units of

housing in Jersey City built over the

past couple of years like only a couple

of hundred of those or affordable

housing it makes absolutely no sense you

have all of these luxury high-rise

buildings that were done with pilot

agreements where the developers are

paying no property taxes for the next 30

years with no affordable units

Assemblywoman Holly Shipp easy has

proposed ideas like restructuring

property taxes to make homes more

affordable without building new and

taking a harder look at which

communities need more housing than

others in areas where you have transit

where you have jobs where you have

vibrant communities that you know people

don't need a car and can walk to work

and do that sort of stuff

instead of having affordable units put

there we did the total opposite it's not

that we don't want a fordable housing

it's that we don't want developers

coming in and putting up thousands of

units to only give us 10% affordable

housing that's not helping anybody we

want to be able to develop properties

for 100% affordable housing but our

numbers need to be realistic at Carey

Cooper's house in Park Ridge Bergen

County she's got four big priorities in

the debate her growing kids all under

the age of 10 when I heard that the

sonne property in town was potentially

going to go to seven hundred units my

first concern was the school and how is

that going to impact our school system

because we don't have the space for more

kids we stopped by the elementary school

to see for ourselves

trailers attached to the back of the

building house many of the students

classes but Cooper and others in town

searching for alternatives to the

Supreme Court's decision have concerns

about changing the fabric of the

community

citing housing obligations in the

thousands for small suburban areas

municipalities that don't want to do

their fair share claim that they'll have

to do five units for every affordable

unit so if their fair share were two

hundred they'd have to do a thousand

units if it were five hundred they'd

have to do twenty five hundred units

that is totally false municipalities

have a laundry list of about ten

different categories that they can

choose from in order to implement their

fair share Peter O'Connor is with fair

share housing center he says towns can

choose Strictly senior or group homes by

downs which take existing housing and to

make it affordable New Jersey's built

just 90 mm affordable units over the

last thirty years a far cry from the

fair share centers estimate build more

affordable housing where people can go

to schools and go to college and get

better jobs and live in better

communities and now they become a full

participant into the middle class now

how's that for a good outcome when folks

believe that we shouldn't do this

regardless of partisan stripe large or

small town all agree action is needed

statistics show for every New Jersey

family receiving housing assistance

twice as many more are still in need for

NJTV news I'm Brianna the nosy

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