A state appeals court is requiring the Corzine Administration to propose its revisions to New Jersey’s affordable housing regulations by December 31, 2007, or two months earlier than requested by the Governor, according to the Star Ledger.   The new regulations must provide a constitutionally-acceptable formula for addressing the affordable housing obligations of suburban and rural communities. 

The deadline is expected to spark a scramble to develop complex new rules for estimating how many houses and apartments are needed for low- and moderate-income families, and for deciding the obligations of as many as 190 towns to provide them.

The previous attempt by the Council on Affordable Housing to set a new formula was thrown out in January by a panel of three appellate judges, who found it was based on bogus calculations, arbitrary rules and unconstitutional changes in the state’s fair-housing law.

That ruling set a July 25 deadline for COAH to come up with a revised version of the so-called third-round housing obligation formula. The administration asked for an extension until Feb. 28. Judge Mary Catherine Cuff, a member of the appeals panel, instead gave it until the end of the year. She also denied an administration request to appoint a special master to oversee the issue.

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Affordable housing advocates said yesterday they hope Cuff’s latest ruling, issued last week, will bring an end to what they see as an intentional eight-year delay by three administrations to avoid setting new affordable housing numbers.”It is both a time scramble (meeting the Dec. 31 deadline) and a prolonging of a now-eight-year moratorium on third-round rules,” said David Kinsey, a Princeton- based planner who serves as a court-appointed special master in affordable housing litigation. “The third round was to begin in 1999 and there is not in effect today a constitutionally valid fair-share (housing) methodology. … Meanwhile, residential and non-residential development takes place all around us.”- Star Ledger, June 27, 2007