LAND USE ISSUES
COAH/Mt. Laurel Housing

The Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) was established in 1985 by the New Jersey State Legislature in response to a series of New Jersey Supreme Court decisions stemming from developer-initiated litigation against the municipality of Mount Laurel. COAH sets the criteria that a municipality must use in determining its “fair share” number of low and moderate income housing units (its so-called “COAH obligation” or “Mount Laurel quota”), and to review and approve the Master Plan’s Housing Element and the Fair Share Plan of each municipality.

Holmdel has met its affordable housing obligation under COAH’s First and Second Round regulations, which span the period from 1987 to 1999. Since successive rounds of COAH regulations are becoming increasingly burdensome, CILU analyzes current COAH regulations to estimate their impacts on prospective developments in Holmdel.

COAH’s Third Round regulations span the period from 1999 through 2018 and introduce a new “growth share” obligation/quota which COAH indicates “is generated by statewide residential and non-residential growth during the period from 1999 to 2018 and delivered from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2018.” COAH’s Third Round regulations include requirements that each municipality provide:

• One new COAH unit in every five new housing units (“one among five”); and
• One new COAH unit for every 16 newly created jobs. COAH-specified formulas estimate the number of each municipality’s newly created jobs by job-type and square footage of new (or expanded) non-residential construction.

CILU feels it is extremely important that the TC and the township residents remain vigilant about the potential impact of COAH responsibilities that occur along with development. To complicate things further, third round COAH obligations are still changing and there are many ambiguities that need clarification.