We must stop the affordable housing crisis

New Jersey has the highest property taxes, foreclosure rate and is the most expensive state in the nation to own a home.  Common sense and basic economics tell us that there is too much supply and too little demand, with high taxes and a dense population distorting total housing costs upward.

Now we are facing the equivalent of housing Armageddon.  A non-profit entity with ties to developers is attempting to force towns across the state to build 280,000 affordable housing units in the next nine years.

Unfortunately, just a few months ago the New Jersey Supreme Court sided with the non-profit Fair Share Housing Center to force towns to build approximately 201,000 affordable housing units.  Emboldened by the court’s opinion, the FSHC decided to double down and increased its extortion demand to 280,000 new units of affordable housing. This would financially ruin our state, towns and taxpayers.

While the 280,000 number is insane, the problem is actually far worse.  Builders don’t only build affordable housing because they can’t make a profit from those units. So they build four times as many unaffordable units to make up the difference.  In total, New Jersey is on the hook for approximately 1.4 million homes – which equals a minimum 2,500 per community. To make things worse, the state Supreme Court is supporting this assault on our communities.

Towns across the state, Democrat and Republican, feel as if they have a proverbial gun to their head.  They are being forced to enter into settlements that could be disastrous to their communities as a result of lawsuits brought by a non-profit.  They are spending money they don’t have to fight unreasonable court-mandated obligations. This is an unwavering threat to taxpayers who can’t afford already nation-high property taxes.

If the Fair Share Housing Center gets its way, the state will be unrecognizable and the change will be irreversible.

Building an additional 1.4 million homes will cause irreversible problems for our schools, environment and water sources, as well as our roads and power grids.  Where are the clean drinking-water advocates who lament that 90 percent of New Jersey water fails at least one water-quality standard?  Or the environmentalists that want to restrict sprawl and protect New Jersey’s ecosystem?  Where is the teacher’s union fighting for smaller class sizes and increased resources for students?  Where are the legislators who represent our communities?

And Fair Share’s logic doesn’t make any sense: The most densely populated state in the country, with the highest property taxes in the country and the highest foreclosure rate in the nation needs affordable housing, and its solution is for that state to build massive quantities of housing funded with higher property taxes, making the state denser and more expensive.

It is mind boggling that the state Supreme Court sided with this faulty logic and is enforcing lawsuits that obligate towns to build housing they don’t need.  Why aren’t we considering the obvious issue, that there isn’t a lack of housing supply but that housing is just too expensive because of our obscenely high property taxes and cost-of-living?

Isn’t there a fundamental disconnect that families earning $70,000 per year, an amount $14,000 more than the average US family, are eligible for affordable housing.  Plainly, people struggle to own a home in New Jersey because it costs too much.  The solution isn’t to make the rest of homes cost more by building 280,000 new affordable units.

We cannot let the courts get away with allowing a non-profit that has no constitutional power to force towns into building what they don’t need. It is also unfathomable that the court would legislate what is best for individual communities.

I have introduced two bills, A-4666 and A-4667, giving the Legislature until the end of the year to properly study and fix the problem: one that suspends all affordable housing lawsuits and another establishing a bi-partisan commission to study the issue.  If we wait any longer to stop this insanity, the impact on our communities will be irreversible and our already unaffordable property taxes will skyrocket.

I am calling for an immediate stop to these obligations, and to provide relief for towns across the state that can no longer take the burden.  We must take action now before it is too late. We must stop this madness or it will hit us like an avalanche.

Holly Schepisi, Republican, represents parts of Bergen and Passaic counties in the 39th Legislative District in the Assembly.