13. Housing Pipeline and the Fourth Round

In October 2024 the State assigned every New Jersey town an affordable housing obligation for 2025 through 2035, called the Fourth Round. Paramus's figure was 1,523 homes, cut to 1,000 by a State cap on any one town.¹³⁸ That 1,000 is the number that circulated in town. It is not the number the Borough has to build. The binding number is 87, and most of it was approved before the plan was written. The larger story is the market-rate building on the highways and at the malls: about 2,100 homes approved or under construction, almost none of them inside a single-family neighborhood.

What the Fourth Round requires

State law lets a town that has run out of buildable land ask for an adjustment. The adjustment splits the obligation in two. One part is what the town must actually deliver. The other part, called unmet need, is answered with zoning that allows affordable homes if and when owners choose to redevelop. Paramus has used this adjustment since the first round.¹³⁹

Table 13.1. The Fourth Round numbers for Paramus. As of October 3, 2026.

Source: NJ Department of Community Affairs; Borough of Paramus Fourth Round housing plan.^{138, 140, 141}

The Planning Board adopted the plan in June 2025 and filed it with the court before the State deadline.¹⁴² The plan was challenged. The challenge from Fair Share Housing Center was settled, and a second one, from an owner who wanted to develop a 19-acre vacant lot, was deemed not feasible.¹⁴³ The Borough then adopted an amended plan and the ordinances that carry it out in March 2026, ahead of the State deadline.^143, 144

One step is still open: whether the court has issued its compliance certification. That certification is what protects the Borough from builder's remedy lawsuits through July 2035. The Borough's affordable housing page posts no order, so confirm with the Borough Clerk.¹⁴⁵

The 87 is covered by three projects plus credits carried over from earlier rounds: 30 credits from the apartments at 615 Winters Avenue, 12 from the townhomes at Paramus Road and West Ridgewood Avenue, at least 22 from the Oster site at 10 Route 17, and 23 surplus credits.¹⁴⁶

The repair figure works differently. The State's 254 is a formula estimate. The Borough answered it with a house-by-house survey that found 22 qualifying homes, and the plan commits to fund 19 of them at an average of $25,000 each, with referrals to Bergen County's Home Improvement Program.¹⁴¹ If you own an older home and your household is income-eligible, that program can pay for a roof, a furnace or wiring.

What this means for you
The "1,000 units" headline is not a building program. The number Paramus must deliver is 87, and it is met by projects already approved on Winters Avenue, on Paramus Road and at 10 Route 17.

Where the density goes

Unmet need is a zoning requirement, not a construction requirement. Paramus answers it with two tools that already existed.¹⁴⁷

• The highway zone. On 559 acres along most of Route 17 and Route 4, an owner may build mixed-use housing at up to 24 homes per acre. The plan says this zone could yield "as many as 2,683 affordable housing units over the long term if every property was redeveloped." That will not happen, but the zone is why apartments are replacing parking lots at the malls.
• The nursery plan. Six nursery and farm tracts are zoned for housing that includes affordable homes. The plan expects about 15 more affordable units from the tracts not yet approved.

Paramus did not need to draw new zones for the Fourth Round. The zoning that lets apartments replace parking lots and retail boxes on the highways was already on the books, and the three mall projects below all came through it. Under it, 1,361 apartments at three malls were approved in about two years.

One rule does reach every neighborhood. Since March 2026, any new multifamily development of five or more homes, at six or more homes per acre, must set aside 20% as affordable, whether rental or for sale.¹⁴⁸ Before the change the share for rentals was 15%.¹⁴³

Developers also pay into the Borough's Affordable Housing Trust Fund. It held about $4.4 million in March 2026 and was projected to collect about $12 million over ten years.¹⁴³ The fund is paid by developers, not by the tax levy.

The real pipeline: about 2,100 homes

The affordable housing arithmetic is small. The construction that rides on the same zoning is not.

Table 13.2. Housing projects approved or under construction. As of October 3, 2026.

Source: Paramus Planning Board minutes, Borough of Paramus 2026 tax list and press reports, as footnoted.

For scale, the tax list carries 8,087 residential parcels in Paramus.¹⁵⁶ If every project in the table is built, the Borough adds about one home for every four that exist today, before the 1,039 homes in the Garden State Plaza's later phases. Roughly 1,500 of the 2,096 are rental apartments at the three malls and on Winters Avenue. Another 332 are senior or assisted living, 185 are in buildings that are 100% affordable, and 82 are for-sale townhomes.

Two notes on the table. The Oster site kept changing: it was approved in November 2020 as 104 apartments with 45 affordable, and by June 2026 it was 65 apartments, all affordable.^143, 157 And the Planning Board also approved a separate building of 159 apartments at Paramus Park.¹⁶⁵ It is left out of the total because it may overlap with the 360 homes marketed as Vermella Paramus. If it is additional, the total is 2,255.

Where the new homes concentrate:

• The south end, around the Route 4 and Route 17 interchange: Garden State Plaza (575 now), Bergen Town Center (426), the Oster site (65) and Columbus Way (120).
• From Road and Winters Avenue, by the hospital: 496.
• Pascack Road, at the north end: 332 senior units.
• Paramus Road: 82 townhomes in two communities.

The interior single-family neighborhoods, including Ridge Ranch, receive none of it. What changes there is house size, lot by lot (Section 2).

What this means for you
If your house backs onto Route 17 or Route 4, or sits near From Road, Winters Avenue, Pascack Road or Paramus Road, look up the approved plan nearest you. If you live on an interior street, the Fourth Round plan does not put a project on your block.

The new townhomes

You have seen these going up on empty lots. All three communities are by one builder, Rock Solid Builders of Fair Lawn.^162, 166

Table 13.3. New townhome communities. Sales through October 2, 2026.

Source: Borough of Paramus 2026 tax list; NJMLS closed sales.^156, 167

Three things the listing sites will not show you.

• Victoria's Estates is less than half sold. Of 42 units, 14 had closed, 4 were under contract and 5 were listed at $1,695,000 to $1,875,000.¹⁶⁷
• Gabriel Estates is not new construction. It was built in 2018 as a rental community, and the owner began selling the units one by one in late 2025.¹⁶⁶
• These townhomes moved the borough-wide number. The NJMLS median for condos and townhouses was $770,000 in 2021 and $1,460,000 in 2026 to date. Most of that move is a change in what is being sold, not a rise in the value of the same homes. The 2000-era townhomes off Paramus Road closed at medians of $875,000 to $940,000 over the same period.¹⁶⁷

What this means for you
If you are comparing a $1.8 million new townhome with a $1.8 million new house on a teardown lot, you are choosing between a homeowners' association and a yard. If you are selling an older townhome, the headline "median townhouse price" is not your comp.

The hospital quadrant

The Valley Hospital opened on April 14, 2024 on a campus of about 40 acres off Winters Avenue, between Route 17 and the Garden State Parkway, with 370 beds.¹⁶⁸ The hospital paid for road work as part of its approval, including the widening of Ridgewood Avenue and signal changes.¹⁶⁹

It is not finished growing. In July 2026 the hospital brought the Planning Board a concept plan that would add approximately 100 licensed beds and a new parking structure, with construction expected to start in 2027.^170, 171 The same quadrant now holds the 136 apartments approved on Winters Avenue, the 360 at Vermella on From Road, a hotel expansion and a pending plan from a second health system.¹⁷²

What this means for you
If you live between Midland Avenue and Ridgewood Avenue east of Route 17, the hospital quadrant, not the malls, is the change you will feel in traffic.

Traffic, schools and taxes, two to three years out

Traffic. Route 17, Route 4, From Road, Winters Avenue and Pascack Road carry the new trips. The first 575 Garden State Plaza apartments are scheduled to fill between mid-2028 and early 2029.¹⁵⁰ Plan your commute around that date, not today's.

Schools. The new supply is weighted toward one- and two-bedroom rentals and age-restricted homes. The Winters Avenue building was recorded with 4 three-bedroom apartments out of 136. The Bergen Town Center mix, as reported, has 14 three-bedrooms out of 426. The Planning Board made the Garden State Plaza developer remove closets from dens so they could not become bedrooms.^{155, 149, 151} That limits the enrollment effect but does not remove it. The district's State-approved facilities plan projects enrollment rising from 3,433 in 2025-26 to 3,744 in 2029-30 (Section 10). The 82 for-sale townhomes and the 65 affordable apartments at 10 Route 17 are the ones most likely to add students.

Taxes. Rental buildings on former parking fields are assessed as commercial property. They add value to the tax base without adding single-family lots. The all-affordable Genesis building is different: it is to pay a percentage of its revenue under an agreement with the Borough instead of conventional taxes.^173, 174 How new construction moves your bill is covered in Section 9.

What I tell my buyers: the "1,000 units" headline and the "87 units" headline are both true and both miss the point. The apartments you will actually see are the 2,000 or so already approved at the malls, by the hospital and on Pascack Road, and almost none of them sit inside a single-family neighborhood. Before you buy within a few blocks of Route 4, Route 17, From Road or Paramus Road, ask me to pull the approved site plan nearest the house.