According to state records, 14 of Cape May County’s 16 municipalities filed fourth-round plans in the state’s affordable housing program by the required deadline.

Lower Township, which opted to participate in the state’s fourth round in January, failed to meet the June 30 deadline for its Housing Element and Fair Share Plan, but Township Manager Mike Laffey said the township is working hard on its document.

The other municipality missing from the fourth-round process is Dennis Township. In January the Township Committee chose to take no action on whether to accept the state-calculated number for the township’s fourth-round affordable housing obligation. That obligation, according to the numbers released by the Department of Community Affairs, is 33 living units.

According to Dennis Chief Financial Officer Jessica Bishop, the township neither accepted the state obligation nor proposed its own. Under the new affordable housing legislation signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy last year, the township now loses its immunity against builder’s remedy litigation until it is in conformance with the statute.

Under builder’s remedy litigation, a developer can sue to have properties rezoned for high-density, multifamily housing that contains an affordable housing element.

A state release July 10 said that 424 of the state’s 564 municipalities adopted Fair Share plans by the deadline; 452 towns had adopted resolutions to participate in the fourth-round process in January.

The flurry of activity around affordable housing originated with a remaking of the affordable housing process in legislation signed into law in March 2024.

The new legislation changed the process that municipalities must use to plan for meeting their constitutionally mandated affordable housing obligations. New Jersey is one of the few states to recognize access to affordable housing as a state constitutional right and not just a matter of statute.

The state Supreme Court established this right in a series of decisions beginning in 1975 that have become known as the Mount Laurel Doctrine.

A major obstacle to meeting their obligations for a number of Cape May communities is the limited amount of land available for developing housing. This is especially an issue in municipalities on the islands, which are almost completely built out and where land values have soared.

In Stone Harbor, a discussion of the plan at a June council meeting showed that the borough has a vacant land analysis that does not allow for developing housing to meet its 26-unit fourth-round obligation. Any sudden appearance of available land would trigger the obligation, as it did when the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary sold a portion of their borough retreat property for a subdivision development.

Laffey said this is an issue on the mainland as well. Starting out, he said, Lower Township did not know how attainable its housing obligation was. DCA calculates that Lower has a present need of 75 units and a prospective need of 56, for a total obligation of 131 units. The obligations are recalculated every 10 years, with the fourth round that has just begun running until 2034.

The threat for nonparticipating towns is vulnerability to developer lawsuits that seek court rulings that negate zoning regulations and allow for increased density in housing developments that have an affordable housing element to them.

Middle Township Mayor Christopher Leusner said the township is in “a good place” with regard to the process. He added: “We’ve met our first three rounds’ obligations, reached a settlement with Fair Share Housing, and we are working on future obligations.”

The next phase of the housing process dictated by the 2024 legislation is that the Fair Share Housing Center, a court-appointed advocate for affordable housing, and other interested parties have the opportunity to review the municipal plans to ensure they are in compliance with the state’s new law.

There is an Aug. 31 deadline for challenges to any of the plans. Should there be challenges, a new Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program is invoked to deal with them.

Municipal affordable housing plans can be viewed here.

Staff writer Christopher South contributed to this report.

Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.