New Jersey § 52:27d-321

§ 52:27d-321.

The Legislature finds and declares that: a. In recent years, housing costs in New Jersey have increased dramatically at rates

that have outpaced rises in income, making the State the sixth most expensive in the

United States and growing the number of renters and homeowners that are housing cost-burdened,

spending a disproportionate percentage of their income on high rent or mortgage payments; b. To address the Statewide shortage in affordable housing, tens of thousands of affordable

housing units have been and will be made available to very low-, low-, and moderate-income

families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities in New Jersey through a wide

variety of federal and State programs, including those implemented under the “Fair

Housing Act,” P.L.1985, c. 222 ( C.52:27D-301 et al.); c. Current rules designed to implement the “Fair Housing Act” require that the developer

or administrative agent of the affordable units affirmatively market their units through

newspaper and radio or television, but digital marketing is not explicitly required; d. Due to the fragmentation of information consumption and the advent of housing search

websites, an increasing number of residents are conducting their housing searches

online; e. The manner in which residents are searching for affordable housing and the existing

rules for affirmatively marketing affordable units are no longer compatible due to

changes in technology and, therefore, necessitate an update to facilitate more effective,

streamlined, and fair searches of affordable housing for very low-, low-, and moderate-income

residents of New Jersey in the furtherance of the “Fair Housing Act”; f. An infrastructure for hosting the increased postings already exists as the New

Jersey Housing Resource Center, an affordable housing listing portal overseen by the

New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency; and g. It is, therefore, in the interest of the residents of the State, and necessary

for ensuring that the State's municipalities are compliant with their constitutional

responsibility to affirmatively afford a reasonable opportunity for low- and moderate-income

families to reside in their boundaries, that the agency, developers, and municipalities

comply with P.L.2020, c. 51 ( C.52:27D-321.3 et seq. ).