FORECLOSURE OF A DREAM: THE IMPACT OF THE COUNCIL ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING’S NEW REGULATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO PROVIDE AFORDABLE HOUSING IN NEW JERSEY

Zoning laws can be used to unjustly restrict the poor from moving into adequate housing surrounded by adequate space. This note considers the tension between the constitutional duty in New Jersey requiring municipalities to provide low income housing and the means actually used by those municipalities to provide such housing. The New Jersey Supreme Court has construed the state constitution as placing a duty on municipalities to provide low income housing. Most recently, the Council on Affordable Housing, an agency created by the legislature to ensure that the duty to provide low income housing is fulfilled, has created new standards to ensure that the poor receive adequate housing. Unfortunately, these new standards fall short of the constitutional mark, leaving many of the poor out in the cold. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s great work The Social Contract has a quote that symbolizes the struggle of the poor in New Jersey View More