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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we continue our election year series, 30 issues in 30 days. Issue number four, who's best to create more affordable housing in New Jersey? For decades, Jersey has been under a court mandate to make sure every town does its fair share to build affordable housing. It's called the Mount Laurel Doctrine. It was largely meant to stop wealthier towns from keeping out lower-income families, as well as developing enough supply to meet demand. Here, more than 40 years later, the state is still wrestling with the same questions, how much affordable housing is enough? Where should it go? Who should make those decisions? The courts, the legislature, or local governments?

Now, with housing costs among the highest in the country, the next governor will have to decide how to enforce those rules and maybe make new ones. Municipalities are filing plans, advocacy groups are filing lawsuits, and both major candidates for governor, Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli, are offering very different answers. In a minute, we'll play some of what each of them said about the issue at Sunday night's debate at Rider University as we talk about all of this with Mike Hayes, WNYC and Gothamist reporter covering equity and access in New Jersey.

Some of you know Mike is also author of the book, not focused on New Jersey, called The Secret Files: Bill de Blasio, the NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform. Hey, Michael, always good to have you on the show.

Michael Hayes: Hey, Brian, thanks for having me on to talk about two of my favorite things, New Jersey housing and the New Jersey governor's race.

Brian Lehrer: Ha. Listeners, the phones and the text threads are open for you, especially if you live in Jersey. What's your lived experience of the housing affordability crisis? Have you struggled to find a place that you can afford, especially recently? Have you been part of a town debate over new housing, one way or another? What policies would you like to see the next governor pursue at the state level from any point of view? 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692. Mike, take us back to the mid-'70s for listeners who may not know the backstory. What is the Mount Laurel decision?

Michael Hayes: Sure, Brian, yes. The Mount Laurel decision. Mount Laurel turned 50 this year. It's a series of state supreme court cases that determined that every town and city in New Jersey has to contribute its fair share of affordable housing. These homes are priced, so whether you're making $20,000 a year or $80,000 a year, you're not paying more than 30% of your income in rent or mortgage. For the past 50 years, it's gone super smooth. No problems at all. Oh, wait, that's not what's happened at all. There's been fights--

Brian Lehrer: Thanks for joining us, Mike. This has been a great segment. Now, go ahead.

Michael Hayes: There's been fights on top of fights, and yes, now it's a hot-button issue in this year's governor's race.

Brian Lehrer: What have been the real-world effects of Mount Laurel? Have these court mandates meaningfully changed who can live where in New Jersey or how much affordable housing there is, or how much housing? Period.

Michael Hayes: Yes, for sure. Housing advocates will be quick to tout that since this became the law of the land in the '70s, there's been about 50,000 Mount Laurel-mandated affordable housing units built across the Garden State. At the same time, you'll hear people on the other side of the debate here say that this has contributed to New Jersey being just an overdeveloped mess. New Jersey is the most populated state in the country. Yes, overdevelopment is a hot topic.

Brian Lehrer: The most densely populated, right?

Michael Hayes: Densely populated.

Brian Lehrer: People per square mile.

Michael Hayes: Densely populated. Correct. Thanks for correcting me there.

Brian Lehrer: I see that the state's Department of Community Affairs, I guess, on this density says towns collectively need to plan for more than 80,000 new affordable units through 2035, or what?

Michael Hayes: What indeed. Yes, that's the goal. That's what they're striving for. We did the math. It's about 150 homes up to about a thousand per municipality across the state. Yet, towns, right now, they're putting together plans based on those numbers handed down by the DCA to try to get that done.

Brian Lehrer: Without 80,000 or so new affordable units by 2035, what? Housing would just become more and more expensive because of supply and demand?

Michael Hayes: Yes. The grim reality here, Brian, is so national groups have looked at this and they've said that-- National Low Income Housing Coalition, for example, says that there's a shortage of about 200,000 units for New Jersey's most rent-burdened, lowest income population. You can do the math. 84,000 is not going to fix that number, but got to start somewhere, got to set some goals. A lot of the numbers that towns have been mandated here, the 84,000, it has to do with available land for development, available structures for redevelopment. As we've been discussing, New Jersey is not at a premium there.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to get to these Sherrill and Ciattarelli clips from Sunday night's debate on this in a minute. Let me take one caller who has a story of a town-level housing battle that she was involved in. Susan in Morristown, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi. Part of the issue was we live by a national park, and the property is historic. A builder came in and bought the property for pretty cheap, and it was attached to Jockey Hollow National Park, part of it. He said, "I'll put in 22 condos, and I'll give you a path to go up to Jockey Hollow and some parking." Who cares? Nobody. We got plenty of paths to go up there. The town fought it. We fought it really hard because it was on slopes. It was on historical property. There were all sorts of environmental reasons. There were traffic reasons. We fought it, we won.

The guy comes back, and he goes, "Okay, I'll put in less." We fought it, we won. The guy says, "Okay, I'm suing the town." The town bent over and said, "Okay, put them in. You can put them in." Not 22 or 11 or however many it was. It was like four. He probably is just holding onto the property until this decision gets made. He's going to put in all sorts of a much more sprawling spread. He'll be able to do that because he's going to put a certain number of low-income properties on the land. Our question, why do we even have a board? Why do we even have a board? Because the board agreed with the town folk and said, "Okay, totally, we don't want this in." This is crazy.

Brian Lehrer: Explain to our listeners why did you oppose the housing?

Susan: We opposed the housing because it was on a very steep slope on a very historic part of this stretch of land. It's a road called 202. It backs up to Jockey Hollow. We just felt that, "Why are you destroying--" It's also by the Great Swamp. There's all sorts of water issues that go on. We felt that you wouldn't believe the slope that it was being built on. Now, one of the town engineers said to me, "There's no more flat land. We got to build on hills." We get it.

The other thing that we oppose is the builders coming in and they put in just an ungodly amount of housing that they're going to sell for a nice chunk of change, and they put in low-income housing. The more low-income housing, the more houses they can put on a piece of property that would normally not be zoned. We don't even understand why they're zoning anymore because nobody pays any attention to it.

Brian Lehrer: Some progressives might say, "Okay, take the addition of affordable housing because that's what the state needs for supply and for equity, rather than oppose the whole idea." What would you say to that?

Susan: I would say go for a-- Look, my brother could qualify for affordable housing. He's a teacher. He can't live up here. Okay, so here's the thing. Put in some nice affordable housing on the hill. Not 22 or however many the guy was going to put it. The guy just wanted to make money on some nice housing. Now, here's the other thing, then just down the street is Spring Brook Golf Course. They're putting in 13-- 3 million. Nobody's-- Don't get me going. I'll be all over the map in about two seconds.

Brian Lehrer: Susan, thank you very much for your call. Listeners, some of you may have heard, as I did on Morning Edition today, Mike's very informative story on Morris County as a major swing area in the gubernatorial race. Mike, I wonder if Susan from Morristown's call is an example of that, or if you know at all about how housing issues are playing in this very important swing county.

Michael Hayes: Yes, yes. Glad you pointed that out, Brian. Yes, and I was in Morris County the day before the debate, actually on Saturday, a different town, Roxbury, New Jersey. It was a Ciattarelli event. It was in the senior center there. I showed up early, and it was pretty packed. It was, I'd say, close 200 people there. I started walking around the room and asking people like, "What's your big issue? What are you going to ask the candidate if you get to ask a question?" More than a few people brought up specifically the Mount Laurel doctrine, the affordable housing obligations. People had very articulate opinions on this.

Housing has often been called the third rail of New Jersey politics. Yes, I was impressed. When Jack Ciattarelli came out, the line that got the biggest applause was bringing back the plastic grocery bags. A close second, Brian, was when he said, "I'm going to do everything I can to get rid of these 'draconian affordable housing mandates'. Yes, not, not surprising that we're fielding calls from Morris County on housing this Morning.

Brian Lehrer: For those of you who don't know, Morris County, about 30 miles west of the George Washington Bridge, for those of you who think 10th Avenue is part of the western United States, that's where Morris County is. Let's hear a clip from each of the candidates at Sunday night's debate at Rider University. 40 seconds of Mikie Sherrill first.

Mikie Sherrill: This is the number one thing I hear from people across the state. When we're talking about affordability, people are saying that they're having too much trouble paying their mortgages, too much trouble paying their rent prices. We know there are people colluding now in this state to raise rental prices. We know Jack's not going to do anything about it because one of his biggest donors is actually being taken to court and sued on this very issue. As governor, I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to make sure we're driving down rental prices, ending the collusion that goes on to drive them up, and continuing to bring more to the market so that people will have better rental prices here across the state.

Brian Lehrer: There's Mikie Sherrill. Here's Jack Ciattarelli answering the same question.

Jack Ciattarelli: The reason why rents are going up is because property taxes are going up. The reason why rents are going up is because insurances are going up across the board. The reason why rents are going up is because, in many cases, if the tenant doesn't pay electricity, the landlord does, and that's going up. These are all the reasons. I know oftentimes we talk about homeowners, but we forget that tenants feel the pain, too. Every time any one of those expenses goes up, it gets passed on to the tenant.

I have a very specific plan on how to lower property taxes. We need a new school funding formula. A more equitable distribution of state aid to our schools will help lower the property tax. From an insurance standpoint, we're such a bad state in which to do business. Businesses have left. We need more competition. We need more insurance companies to come back here. Under my plan, by pulling out of the regional Greenhouse gas initiative, we could save a half a billion dollars in electricity on day one, whether you pay that or the landlord pays that.

Brian Lehrer: There's a little bit of each candidate. Mike, each of those answers was fairly dense. If you could reduce them to what each candidate is really proposing centrally to deal with the affordable housing crisis in New Jersey, what might it be?

Michael Hayes: Yes, Brian, I would agree with you. Fairly dense, if not incredibly, incredibly dense. Let's talk about Jack Ciattarelli first. What I heard when I was watching the debate Sunday night, in that response in particular, a lot of things in there for landlords, a lot of things in there for property owners. This speaks to his platform as well, Brian. He's very focused on helping out the homeowner. He wants to lower property taxes. He feels that that's going to trickle down to everyone else. He did mention renters in there a bit, and renters feeling pain. You may have noticed, he pivoted very quickly back to property taxes and who's paying--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, and that was one difference between that answer and Sherrill's answer. She more centered renters, "I'm going to make sure we're driving down rental prices, ending the collusion that goes on to drive them up, and to bring more units to the market so people have better rental prices here across the state." Whether or not we think that's a good idea, she was more focusing the renters.

Michael Hayes: Yes, I would agree there, Brian. You can see this again in her platform. She lays out in the housing section that she wants to go after those landlords that are driving up costs, as well as negligent landlords as well.

Brian Lehrer: Ciattarelli did have specifics in his answer. Lower property taxes, a new school funding formula, a more equitable one that, as he describes it, that will help lower the property tax. That gets the education funding formula by the state into it with respect to lowering housing costs. It's clear in a certain respect, but it's also a complexity because you have to deal with education and housing at the same time. He says from an insurance standpoint, it's a bad state in which to do business. We need more competition, we need more insurance companies to come back here.

Pulling out of the regional greenhouse gas initiative could save a half billion dollars in electricity costs on day one. Even climate change is coming into that housing affordability answer. Not to support or criticize Ciattarelli, I guess it shows the complexity of the issue.

Michael Hayes: Yes, not surprised. It seems to be Jack Ciattarelli's style is to just rapid-fire bullet point and have this conviction in his delivery that he is throwing out a lot of ideas, to put it crudely, but yes. Not surprising to see him bring particularly energy into that answer as well, because along with housing, I would argue that rising energy costs, rising electric bills in New Jersey, is the number one kitchen table discussion on affordability going on in this election.

Mikie Sherrill's put forth some ideas on that as well. Yes, I think that's where he's going by bringing all those topics in, is trying to get into people's minds there, everything that they're thinking about and talking about when it comes to the affordability crisis here.

Brian Lehrer: Here's one more Ciattarelli clip from the debate. 20 seconds. Democrats will say this is about race and class. Republicans will deny it. Here's the statement.

Jack Ciattarelli: My opponent believes that we should have high-density housing in all 564 towns. I don't believe that. We should only have affordable housing, high-density housing in a town that has infrastructure, mass transit, and opportunities for jobs. If a town doesn't have infrastructure, mass transit, opportunity for jobs, why are we putting more idling cars on the road?

Brian Lehrer: Another way to hear that is don't build high-density housing in the suburbs, right?

Michael Hayes: Yes, I think so. I've talked to a lot of housing experts, Brian, about this philosophy, transit-oriented development, focusing development on opportunities near transit. More than one person has told me something to keep in mind here is the subtext there, when you're talking about New Jersey, is folks commuting to New York or Philadelphia. When he talks about they're not being-- or alludes to there not being enough transit and resources and job opportunities like that in the suburbs. It's like, every suburb I know of in New Jersey has teachers, firefighters, police officers, and these are folks who would benefit from affordable housing. It's just something to keep in mind when you hear this argument about not building affordable housing in certain parts of the state.

Brian Lehrer: We hear it in Manhattan, too, to be fair. Meaning even in dense parts of New York City, where people say, "There's just not enough infrastructure to build a lot more tall apartment buildings. Our subway station in the neighborhood is already crowded during rush hour. We're going to add a few thousand people to that." It's a resident issue everywhere, right?

Michael Hayes: Oh, for sure. Beyond the-- I'm glad you used the term infrastructure there, Brian, because another topic that a lot of-- I hear this probably more from municipal leaders, town mayors, for instance, they like to talk about, "Oh, our town sewers are just crippled right now. If we add more housing, I don't know what I'm going to do." That's definitely a big argument from folks who are concerned about overdevelopment in the suburbs that's percolating across the river as well.

Brian Lehrer: Mike in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Yes, whoops. Maybe get loudspeaker. Hi, Brian. I have an interesting approach to this. Shortly before Hurricane Sandy, I helped set in motion the various lawsuits that swept through Hoboken in Jersey City to reinstate the affordable-- set aside requirements that when developers get a variance for density, they have to make at least 10% of the units affordable. I'm also a affordable housing landlord. Just a quick correction to your correspondent, you are confusing affordable housing with workforce housing when you reference people like firefighters and stuff. That's a different category of housing and not what the Mount Laurel doctrine covers. Okay?

The simple answer is this. The real challenge that I certainly found well over a decade now is at the municipal level, the enforcement of these laws. That was a big problem. That's probably cost the city of Hoboken over 1000 units during the period from 1988 to the early aughts, when they didn't bother to enforce an existing affordable housing ordinance. The other side of it is that many of these municipalities, largely just demagoguing the affordable housing issue, aren't paying attention to the fact that this is a business. If you can't make it profitable for people to own or maintain affordable housing units, they won't.

The city of Jersey City is passing increasingly draconian laws. They used to have good laws and now they're being less. The town of Irvington, which still looks like it was bombed out, has passed laws that make it absolutely unattractive to maintain or operate affordable housing. It's that combination. The third item, and I think you're-- again, not to take your report at a task you're wrong about, is the types of things that Ciattarelli was talking about in terms of costs, real estate taxes, insurance, those things, those are very important issues when you're running rental housing.

The insurance and most of the local property taxes are often-- they're the biggest operating expenses you have other than your mortgage, if you have a mortgage on your buildings. To sum it up, to really address this problem, it is more useful to approach it from a market viewpoint, which would include making more land available to build more units. A good model for this can be found in the city of Austin in Texas, deep red Texas. That just made it easier for people to build apartment buildings. Now rents are going down. Thank you for letting me on.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you one follow-up. That was interesting, especially at the end when you said land could be the solution. Is there the land in dense New Jersey? A lot of skeptics would say the market is never going to provide for enough "affordable housing" because the developers only really have the incentive for the higher-end stuff.

Mike: That's where the government part comes in. None of the developers that set aside units-- In Hoboken, where this started, over 700 units have either been built or on schedule to be built, which is not the biggest town. That's a lot of affordable housing. You have to set-- That's where the regulatory comes in. I'm not suggesting just laissez-faire. If governments make good laws, such as the set-aside requirement, then that provides the financial incentive for people to build affordable units.

In other words, the way those set-asides work is a developer comes in and has to ask for a density variance, which means they want to build more units than are permitted on that plot of land. That's, by the way, the reason it's not considered an unfunded mandate. The developer basically is told, if you want to make more money by building more luxury units, for example, then you have to give it back in the form of affordable units, which is beneficial because it puts the guys who are in the business of building things in charge of actually building them. Because if you leave it up to the municipality, it's just not going to happen anytime soon.

Brian Lehrer: Mike, we appreciate your call. Mike Hayes, any thoughts on anything that Mike in Jersey City brought up? I know there was a lot there. Then we'll end by asking you to just tell us, can the next governor, whichever candidate it is, actually make a difference here? Does the governor even have a lot of power to do that?

Michael Hayes: Yes, sure. If I could just push back on Mike for a second. He mentioned insurance. I don't think we were skirting around the issue, Brian, that what Jack Ciattarelli is proposing for landlords and property owners has their interests in mind. As well as what he mentioned about workforce housing versus affordable housing. I think if you look at the math here and the income requirements, a lot of teachers and municipal workers in different municipalities would qualify for affordable housing.

To your question about what the next governor's going to do. Yes, we have a very powerful governorship here in New Jersey. It's true that a lot of this has been handled in the courts of late, a lot of court fights going on. There was, as you said at the top, Brian, a new law passed last year, signed by Governor Murphy. When the new governor comes in, there will be a role for that chief executive of the state to play in the housing debate here.

Ciattarelli has proposed things like he's going to appoint Supreme Court justices that could maybe overturn Mount Laurel. Interesting idea. Mikie Sherrill has thrown out ideas like expanding first-time home buyer assistance. She wants to reinstate the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which was gutted in this past year's budget. The governor is the one with the pen at the end of the day. Yes, to answer your question very specifically, yes, the governor certainly has a role to play here in how housing policy moves forward.

Brian Lehrer: That, listeners, is issue number four, affordable housing in New Jersey, in our election series, 30 issues in 30 days. Tomorrow, we move to issue number five, housing on the New York side. We'll have a debate with two guests with opposing points of view on Zohran Mamdani's rent freeze proposal for people in rent-stabilized units. They'll also debate the place of rent stabilization overall in the affordable housing supply in the city. For today, we thank Mike Hayes, WNYC and Gothamist reporter covering equity and access in New Jersey. See his most recent piece on Morristown on Gothamist. He's also author of The Secret Files: Bill de Blasio, the NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform. Mike, thanks for today.

Michael Hayes: Sure. Thanks for having me.

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