State Is Watching As Mercer County Affordable Housing Trial Gets Underway

A trial that will determine fair housing obligations for Mercer County dating back to 1999 was set to get underway this week.

It was expected to be the first countywide trial that didn’t end in a settlement, the Fair Share Housing Center said on Tuesday. Ewing and Hamilton have already settled.

Towns that will be included in the trial include Princeton, Lawrenceville, East Windsor, West Windsor, Hopewell and Robbinsville, according to Politico.

The case centers around the number of affordable housing units required in municipalities in Mercer County, but it's an issue the entire state has been dealing with. It has been nearly two years since the State Supreme Court handed jurisdiction of this issue over to superior court judges after the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) failed to meet its obligations on the issue.

The judges are tasked with setting the number of affordable housing units a municipality must have, and that number is often disputed by the individual towns.

Settlements have already been reached in Ocean and Middlesex counties.

“These settlements are already leading to the construction of new homes across New Jersey, many of them by non-profit organizations with deep community ties,” the Fair Share Housing Center said. “In addition, they are leading to the revitalization of New Jersey's historic downtowns, as well as the redevelopment of vacant office parks, strip malls and industrial sites into vibrant new communities.”

Many in the state will be watching this case because Judge Mary Jacobson is considered highly influential, according to the Politico report. She’s been involved in rulings on same-sex marriage and state pensions, and is usually at the center of big cases because statewide lawsuits are filed in Mercer County.

"I am very concerned that some suburban municipalities within Mercer County have not lived up to their obligation to supply fair housing options within the borders," Rev. Dr. Darrell LaRue Armstrong, longtime pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church of Trenton, Interim President of the Trenton Ecumenical Area Ministry (T.E.A.M.) and a leading civil rights and family advocate, said in a statement from the Fair Share Housing Center. "Everyone knows that where one lives residentially determines their access to good schools and quality education, which in turn determines future access to jobs and employment. And sadly, where one lives not only determines quality of life, but it also determines the length of one's life. If we allow some of these suburban municipalities to not build their 'fair share' of homes low-income and working families can afford, then we are allowing them to turn their backs on decades of successful integrationist housing policies, which tend to benefit families of color, especially black and brown families and their children."

Fair Share Housing Center Executive Director Kevin Walsh said he hopes the trial will also discredit a methodology that says beachfront homes worth more than half a million dollars should be classified as affordable.

All the towns involved in the trial will split the costs, according to centraljersey.com.

This includes $25,000 for special counsel and another $25,000 for “a contract with Econsult Solutions for representation of the collective interests of the county in the trial on fair share methodological issues,” according to the report. Special counsel for the county is identified as Jeffrey R. Surenian and Associates and The Buzak Law Group, LLC.

The trial is expected to last about two months.