Municipal leaders in one of New Jersey’s richest towns are personally risking severe sanctions for pulling out of a plan to build dozens of affordable-housing rental units — just as the state tries to ramp up development.
Millburn Township officials have defied multiple court orders to move forward with development of a 75-unit, 100% affordable housing complex in the heart of their upscale downtown — and last month, the Millburn Township Committee unanimously voted to pull out of the project completely. Advocates involved in the case want the judge to not only strip Millburn officials of their power to control development, but also fine officials personally.
Fining municipal officials individually for resisting affordable housing would be unusual, but the Essex County suburb is an extreme case, according to housing advocates. New Jersey’s landmark Mount Laurel legal doctrine says every town in New Jersey has to make it possible to build lower-cost dwellings. But the nonprofit Fair Share Housing Center said Millburn only has 38 affordable homes on the books, out of a target of 1,300.
“They are very much behind the eight ball, in that they really had not done very much historically,” said Josh Bauers, attorney for Fair Share Housing Center. In 2015, courts made the nonprofit responsible for negotiating affordable housing agreements with communities, setting off a wave of new development statewide. “In 2020 or 2021, [Millburn officials] brought their very first deed-restricted affordable housing unit online. And that’s 45 years after the Supreme Court decided Mount Laurel.”
Township officials reluctantly agreed to the 75-unit downtown project on Main Street three years ago, after their own settlement with Fair Share Housing. But that set off a political backlash that swept new officials into power. Members said the Main Street plan calls for too many affordable units clustered in one place, and that the project doesn’t make sense for their community.
The decision drew applause from residents in attendance.
“There’s some questions as to what comes next. There’s going to be a lot of unknowns,” Millburn Deputy Mayor Frank Saccomandi said at the committee meeting where the project was voted down. “But it’s going to be a fight. And that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to fight. We’re here to fight for what’s right.”
They are very much behind the eight ball, n that they really had not done very much historically.
Millburn isn’t the only town to resist building affordable housing or risk sanctions for doing so. Officials in Englewood Cliffs fought to block an affordable housing settlement in 2022 and failed. The city was on the hook for millions just in attorney fees. Courts have stripped several other towns of the ability to fully control their development amid other fights over affordable housing.
These battles only stand to intensify. New Jersey has made major progress toward building affordable housing since Fair Share took point on the settlement negotiations, according to elected officials and advocates. But housing officials estimate New Jersey still needs another 200,000 rental units statewide for lower-income residents. And the state’s preparing to hand down another round of affordable housing obligations in 2025 – even as some communities have said they’re running out of space and are contending with severe local opposition.
A political career-ender
Bauers, the Fair Share Housing attorney, said that some of Millburn’s neighbors are making much more progress toward their affordable housing obligations. Livingston, another upscale community one town to the north, has built more than 500 units of affordable housing over the last few decades.
As mayor, Maggee Miggins presided over the Millburn Township Committee in 2021, when officials reached their deal with Fair Share Housing. She said that reluctantly agreeing to four developments, including the 75-unit downtown complex, ended her political career and led to a failed recall effort. She didn’t run again.
She acknowledged that the committee members made missteps on her watch. Specifically, they heeded what she said was erroneous advice from attorneys to keep their negotiations with Fair Share Housing and builder RPM Development Group confidential, and should have engaged the community more.
“This just caused more tumult within the town. They felt like there wasn’t transparency. They felt like people weren’t being honest,” she said.
Rene Paparian, a Millburn resident who said she got involved at the meetings after she learned one of the affordable housing developments was being planned near her home, said the negotiations seemed like “an undercover mission.”
In 2023, political newcomers Saccomandi and Ben Stoller won seats on the township committee on a platform of stopping the Main Street project.
The way I look at it, it’s modern day redlining. It comes with a stigma as well.
It calls for rental apartments to serve a range of incomes. Some units would be set aside for people making less than 30% of the area’s median income — potentially under $25,000 — as well as individuals and families earning up to 80%, or around $90,000. That’s in a township where the average home price is well over $1 million, and where the median family income is more than $250,000, according to the census.
The complex would sit just around the corner from Millburn’s vibrant downtown full of shops, restaurants and fashionable boutiques. It would also be a short walk from the town’s NJ Transit station.
Stoller and Saccomandi said Millburn will ask the judge for 90 days to come up with another plan for the 75 units slated to go on Main Street. They said they’re not against affordable housing, but called lumping dozens of affordable housing units into one complex a bad idea. Stoller said residents would have to deal with “noise pollution” downtown.
“The way I look at it, it’s modern day redlining. It comes with a stigma as well,” he said.
Yet housing advocates said a downtown development like this, with good access to food resources and transit, is exactly where they want to see towns incorporating affordable units. In fact, that kind of placement is encouraged in legislation that Gov. Phil Murphy signed on Wednesday to streamline the process of assigning towns housing obligations.
Saccomandi and Stoller said they also don’t trust an environmental review that claims the site can be safely developed, and argue that test samples weren’t taken in areas that might show the worst contamination from the land’s current use as a Department of Public Works property.
But for some residents who support the new township committee members, it’s not just about this one housing development.
Jean Pasternak, who has lived in Millburn for 26 years and campaigned for Saccomandi and Stoller, said she’s worried about an influx of new people.
The site proposed for an affordable housing complex in Millburn is currently used by the township’s Department of Public Works.
Mike Hayes/Gothamist
“There’s just nowhere to put more schoolchildren. We don’t have any vacant land to build a new school. So what do you do? Where are the kids going to go? In trailers?” she said.
Some residents told Gothamist lower-income kids won’t keep up in Millburn’s competitive schools. But Jenny Schuetz, a housing policy expert with the Brookings Institute think tank, said she finds those arguments hollow – and racist.
“Often this gets used as sort of a little bit of a fig leaf for parents not wanting families of different socioeconomic background to move in with their kids,” she said.
Risking sanctions
The day after they voted the Main Street project down, Judge Cynthia Santomauro told Millburn’s representatives she was ready to sanction them right away. But she let the parties instead submit briefs on whether the township should be penalized. A hearing to consider those arguments was set for this Thursday, but has been postponed.
The judge could decide Millburn is vulnerable to what’s called a “builder’s remedy” lawsuit — essentially letting any developer move ahead with any project that includes affordable housing, even if it violates local zoning. Fair Share also wants her to suspend Millburn’s land use ordinances, as well its planning and zoning boards — only letting local officials approve development needed to implement affordable housing.
Attorneys for Millburn have asked the judge to recuse herself, arguing she’s biased against them.
Fair Share Housing and developer RPM also want the judge to award them attorney fees, and personally fine township committee members on a daily basis, though they haven’t asked for a dollar amount for the fines.
“Frank and I could probably make those payments. But you go to a small town somewhere else. It’s a chilling effect on all the state of New Jersey,” Stoller said.
RPM’s owner declined to comment about the project or litigation.
Saccomandi noted that three other projects included in the 2021 plan are going forward. Currently, a former Wells Fargo bank branch is slated to become more than 60 apartments, with 12 slated to be affordable units. A developer is also putting 62-units above a medical office space, with 12 designated as affordable. And a former Annie Sez shoe store will be converted into 30 apartments, including eight affordable units.
So far, only one of the developments is currently under construction.
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