DCA Miscalculated Land For East Brunswick Affordable Housing: Mayor

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ – Last year, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) released its highly anticipated list of affordable housing quotas for towns and cities.

The number allotted to East Brunswick was 315. And now the township will be challenging the DCA’s methodology, arguing that it miscalculated the land available for building the units.

During Monday’s council meeting, Mayor Brad Cohen informed the community about the steps the township is taking.

"We are in the process of trying to speak to the DCA and get them to look at the methodology that they used,” Cohen told Patch.

“We saw that they were including areas that are just not buildable, areas that were wetlands, areas that were in open space, preserved areas.”

According to the calculation done by the DCA, the number of units given was based on an estimate that the Township has 175 acres of developable land at their disposal.

According to the East Brunswick town planner, the real number is 44 acres. As a result, the original number of units has also decreased.

“Our number is 256. It's not like we're asking them to drop it to zero. But we don't think that the 315 is fair,” Cohen said.

“We're still going to have to find a place for those units, but we'd like an answer on that before we start looking around and dealing with owners of properties and asking them to comply with the state's mandate.”

The Mayor has repeatedly emphasized that East Brunswick has been ahead of the curve when it comes to providing affordable housing in the state. The township's Housing Corporation predates the Mount Laurel Doctrine.

Over the years, East Brunswick’s Housing Corporation has been periodically going out and finding housing that they could purchase and rent out at below-market rates to people who qualify based on their income levels.

The last time the Township was allotted affordable housing numbers, the state had sent planners who spoke with local officials and then allotted the numbers.

Planners also took into consideration the work already done by the town to help low- and middle-income households.

This time around, the human touch was missing, Cohen said.

“They rushed it through. It was all done by computer. You had to turn in your information by a due date to a website, and there was no human interaction,” the Mayor said. “The DCA sat there with their maps and their drone views and whatever, and came up with numbers.”

According to Cohen, the take-home message is that every town has been willing to do its part to provide a fair share of housing – they just want to make sure it's fair.

“We don't want to do more than anybody else. We don't want to do less, and I think that there's a lot of people right now that just get very angry about,” Cohen said.

To accommodate the current affordable housing number, East Brunswick would have to build on “every last built possible area of open space in a state that's already densely populated.”

Cohen said he understood the residents’ frustration with the affordable housing number as it would affect local schools and infrastructure.

Cohen said he is “cautiously optimistic” about the township’s communication with the DCA. Officials are currently waiting to hear back from state officials.

The current housing projects in East Brunswick would satisfy the third-round housing obligation set by the state. Local officials have until June 30, 2025, to adopt specific plans for how they will meet that need.

All towns are constitutionally mandated to provide their "fair share" of affordable housing for the region under the Mount Laurel Doctrine.

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