The Paradox of Progress: Three Decades of the Mount Laurel Doctrine

Abstract

Judicial implementation of New Jersey’s “fair share” housing doctrine in the Mount Laurel cases has been controversial because of the perception that the courts were intruding on policy and planning matters better left to the political branches. A paradox resulted. Strong judicial remedies were needed to break the political stalemate on issues of affordable housing, but voluntary compliance that could have avoided these stringent remedies became politically impossible for many municipalities because of the controversy over the courts’ role. A new approach to fair-share compliance, called “growth share,” has now been proposed, which seeks to break out of the paradox by giving deference to local governments on land use development issues so long as affordable housing opportunities are created simultaneously and in fair proportion to the actual growth experienced by each municipality. Potential strengths and weaknesses of this new approach are explored.