10. Housing Pipeline and the Fourth Round

The number that matters is not 427

In October 2024 the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs assigned every municipality a fourth-round affordable housing obligation covering 2025 through 2035. Ridgewood’s figures: a present need (rehabilitation) obligation of 4 units and a prospective need of 427 units.⁹⁶

That 427 is the number that circulated in town. It is not the number the Village has to build.

New Jersey’s Fair Housing Act lets a municipality with no developable land apply a Vacant Land Adjustment, which splits the obligation into two parts: a Realistic Development Potential (RDP), which the town must actually deliver, and an unmet need, which the town must address through zoning that creates the opportunity for affordable units if and when property owners redevelop. Ridgewood has used this mechanism since its first-round plans; a state site visit in 2002 found the Village “fully developed with the exception of park and recreation areas,” and the adopted plan repeats that finding.⁹⁷

The adopted fourth-round plan works out as follows.

The Village committed to the DCA numbers by resolution on January 29, 2025; the plan does not state a resolution number.⁹⁸ No party objected to the Village’s numbers and on May 19, 2025 Judge Gregg A. Padovano, J.S.C., entered an order fixing them, with the rehabilitation figure set at zero rather than DCA’s four.⁹⁹

The Planning Board adopted the 2025 Fourth Round Housing Plan, Housing Element & Fair Share Plan (Kyle + McManus Associates; Elizabeth McManus, PP, AICP) on June 23, 2025, and the plan was filed with the Superior Court under docket BER-L-000777-25 on July 1, 2025.¹⁰⁰ That met the statutory June 30, 2025 deadline. The Council’s endorsing resolution date is not stated in the filed plan.†

Where the 16 credits came from

The four-unit RDP was satisfied entirely by units that already exist. No new construction was needed.

Source: HEFSP pp. 19–25.¹⁰¹ The Enclave and Ridgewood Dayton also supplied credits to the prior rounds; the fourth-round column counts only the units not previously used.

The fourth project from the 2015–2020 litigation, KS Broad Street, LLC (76–80 Chestnut St., 2.01 ac, marketed as The Benjamin at 1 Franklin Ave.), is 60 mixed-use rental units. Its 9 affordable units were provided off-site at The Enclave and, with 9 special-needs bonus credits, counted fully toward the prior rounds (18 credits). It contributes nothing to the fourth round.¹⁰²¹⁰³

For context: the four buildings together added 235 apartments to Ridgewood between roughly 2019 and 2023, of which 30 are deed-restricted affordable (the Enclave’s special-needs bedrooms counted separately). That is the entire multifamily pipeline of the last decade.

What the 423 unmet need actually commits the Village to

An unmet need is not a construction requirement. It is a zoning requirement: the Village must adopt districts and overlays that would produce affordable units if owners redevelop. The prior-round plan carried an unmet need of 838 units and addressed it with downtown density (B-1/B-2 at 18 du/ac), an AH-3 zone on Ridge Road, B-3 zones on North Maple and Goffle Road, a Valley Hospital redevelopment overlay, and a villagewide mandatory set-aside. The 2025 plan states, for each of the first four, that “this strategy has not yielded affordable homes,” and adds that “little substantial redevelopment has occurred or been requested” downtown since the zoning was adopted.¹⁰⁴

The fourth-round plan proposed five new or amended mechanisms, projected in the plan at 354 anticipated affordable units:¹⁰⁵

What happened next: Ordinance 4052, two challenges, and a settlement

The plan’s ordinances had to be adopted for the plan to hold. The first to move was Ordinance 4052, creating the S-1 Senior Overlay for the Kensington site. The Planning Board reviewed it on July 15, 2025, found it “not inconsistent with the 2022 Master Plan” and “consistent with the Housing Element and Fair Share Plan,” and recorded a permitted height of 56 feet and 85% impervious coverage.¹⁰⁶ The Village Council did not adopt it on August 13, 2025.¹⁰⁷ The Village’s August 13, 2025 Council minutes exist on the Agenda Center and record that the Mayor moved the public hearing on Ordinance #4052 ahead of public comments;†

The statute gave interested parties until August 31, 2025 to challenge the plan. Two did. Ordinance 4071, later introduced by the Council, recites a “2025 Settlement Agreement between the Village of Ridgewood and Kensington Senior Living, LLC” resulting from mediation of a challenge filed by Kensington Senior Development, LLC in the Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program.¹⁰⁸ Ordinances 4072 through 4075 each recite a “2025 Mediation Agreement between the Village of Ridgewood and Fair Share Housing Center.”¹⁰⁹ The Fair Share Housing Center mediation agreement raised the 299 Goffle Road density from the 13 du/ac in the plan to 15 du/ac.¹¹⁰

The Council introduced replacement ordinances on December 17, 2025, with hearings January 14, 2026:¹¹¹¹¹²

Each ordinance states its purpose is “to implement the Housing Plan, secure a Compliance Certification, and to ensure immunity from builder’s remedy litigation.”¹¹³ The Council adopted all five at its meeting that began February 11, 2026.¹¹⁴†

As of September 7, 2026, whether the Village filed an amended plan by the March 15, 2026 statutory deadline, and whether a compliance certification has issued, is the open question.†

Planning Board applications and other Village sites

No application under the new overlays has yet been heard by the Planning Board. The Kensington site (currently office use) still requires site plan approval before construction.¹¹⁵†

The C-R-1 district includes the Village Street Department yard on Chestnut Street (the “Town Garage”).¹¹⁶ Whether the Village intends to sell or redevelop that parcel is not stated in the plan. The Valley Hospital campus at 223 N. Van Dien Ave. remains under a redevelopment overlay permitting 13 du/ac with a 40-unit affordable minimum; the plan notes the hospital “has vacated the property” but “there remain some medical related uses.”¹¹⁷ No housing-related site plan for Ridgewood Water facilities or the Schedler property appears in the housing plan; both are outside its scope.

What this means for owners, two to three years out

Ridgewood will not see a court-ordered high-density project on the strength of the fourth-round obligation alone. The RDP of 4 is satisfied by 16 credits from buildings that already stand, with 12 in surplus. The zero rehabilitation obligation means no rehab program. The plan carries protection through July 2035 if compliance certification issues, with a 2030 midpoint review.¹¹⁸

The exposure is the unmet need, and it is now zoned. The 423 units are addressed by overlays that let owners build if they choose, at 20 to 30 du/ac downtown and on Chestnut Street, 15 du/ac on Goffle Road, and a 125-bed assisted-living building at North Maple and Franklin. The plan’s own projection is 354 affordable units from those mechanisms, which at a 20% set-aside implies on the order of 1,700 market-rate units if every eligible parcel redeveloped. The prior-round record says that will not happen quickly: the same downtown strategy at 18 du/ac produced no affordable units in five years. But the zoning is permanent, the density is higher, and the set-aside applies to any project of five or more units that needs a variance, rezoning, or redevelopment designation anywhere in the Village.

Builder’s remedy. Immunity from builder’s remedy suits depends on the compliance certification, which in turn depends on the ordinances being adopted (done) and the amended plan being accepted (unconfirmed above). If certification issued, a developer cannot use the fourth-round obligation to force a project onto an unzoned site before 2035. If it did not, the surplus credits are irrelevant to that question.

Where future units would go. Chestnut Street between the Street Department and the tracks; the west side of South Broad Street; the Kensington corner; 299 Goffle Road; and, at 13 du/ac, the former Valley Hospital campus. Owners on those blocks, and on the residential streets abutting them (Marshall Street, Franklin Avenue, Goffle Road, Van Dien Avenue), hold the properties most affected by the February 2026 ordinances.

What I tell my buyers: the “427 units” headline and the “4 units” headline are both true and both misleading. What changed in February 2026 is the zoning map, not a construction schedule. Look at the map before you buy near Chestnut Street or the North Maple / Franklin corner.

† Figures marked with a dagger are best-effort research, so verify them with the issuing office (the Village of Ridgewood, the school district, the county, the state or the utility) before making judgment calls or decisions on them.