West Orange Township_Fourth Round HEFSP_Final Draft

Township of West Orange August 2025 Essex County, New Jersey Draft Housing Element and Fair Share Plan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- no less than 50% of the region’s median household income. Each is adjusted for household size and is in relation to the median gross income of the housing region in which the municipality is located. First and Second Rounds The First and Second Rounds under COAH are collectively referred to as the “Prior Round.” The Prior Round obligation is the cumulative 1987-1999 fair share obligation. The First Round consists of the six-year period between 1987 and 1993 for which COAH first established a formula for determining municipal affordable housing obligations (N.J.A.C. 5:92-1 et seq.). Then in 1994, COAH established amended regulations (N.J.A.C. 5:93-1.1 et seq.) and produced additional municipal affordable housing obligations for the years 1993 to 1999. This second round of obligations is known as the Second Round. When COAH adopted regulations for Round 2, it made the Round 1 and 2 obligations cumulative for both periods. Third Round Housing rounds were originally established by the Fair Housing Act as six-year periods, but in 2001 the Legislature extended the rounds to 10-year periods. This should have meant that the Third Round ran from 1999 to 2009. However, COAH didn’t establish new rules for the Third Round until the end of 2004 (N.J.A.C. 5:94-1 and 95-1 et seq.). The Third Round time period was therefore extended to 2014. The Third Round rules established a new method for calculating a municipality’s affordable housing obligation, known as “growth share.” This method required municipalities to project future residential and non-residential development and then derive their obligation from that growth. After the New Jersey Appellate Court invalidated several components of the Third Round rules, COAH released revised rules in 2008. The Third Round was once again extended to 2018 to provide municipalities with the time to apply the amended rules and establish mechanisms to meet their obligations. The revised third round rules, like the initial third round rules, established the obligations based on a growth share approach. On October 8, 2010, in response to numerous legal challenges to the second

revised third round rules, like the initial third round rules, established the obligations based on a growth share approach. On October 8, 2010, in response to numerous legal challenges to the second iteration of COAH’s Third Round regulations, the Appellate Division ruled that COAH could not allocate obligations through a “growth share” formula and directed COAH to use similar methods to those used in the First and Second Rounds. COAH proposed Third Round regulations a third time in 2014 using a formula similar to the ones it had used in the First and Second Rounds. However, when COAH held a meeting to consider adopting these rules on October 20, 2014, the COAH Board deadlocked its vote and then failed to make any efforts to break the deadlock. On March 10, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided In re Adoption of N.J.A.C. 5:96 & 5:97 by the N.J. Council on Affordable Housing, 221 N.J. 1 (2015) (Mount Laurel IV), wherein it responded to COAH’s 9