Hillsborough's Fourth Round Housing Plan, Explained: 565, 270, 223 and 300

Hillsborough’s affordable-housing case has four numbers in it, and each means something different. Most confusion about the case comes from mixing them up.

The short version

565 is the state’s estimate of how many new affordable homes Hillsborough should plan for between 2025 and 2035.
270 is the number the Township Committee committed to in January 2025.
223 is what the township’s June 2025 plan says can realistically be planned for now, given the land available. The plan calls the remaining 342 an “unmet need”.
300 is the number of credits the plan claims against the 223.

The plan has not been certified. Twelve parties challenged it. After a December 2025 hearing, a member of the court’s mediation program recommended that the court find it “not presently in compliance”. The township is now settling with challengers under the supervision of the Somerset County housing judge, Judge William G. Mennen. The case is docket SOM-L-000148-25.

Where the obligation comes from

New Jersey requires every town to provide a realistic opportunity for its share of the region’s affordable housing. A 2024 amendment to the Fair Housing Act set a fixed calendar for the 2025–2035 period, the Fourth Round:

the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) publishes non-binding estimates;
each town commits to its own numbers;
each town adopts a Housing Element and Fair Share Plan by June 30, 2025;
each town adopts the ordinances to carry out the plan by March 16, 2026.

Disputes go to a court-run Affordable Housing Dispute Resolution Program, created by the 2024 law and run under NJ Courts Directive #14-24. A member of the Program holds settlement conferences, hears objections and makes a recommendation to the county’s housing judge, who decides.

Hillsborough has been through this before. Its Third Round case (SOM-L-000900-15) ended in a 2020 settlement with Fair Share Housing Center and a court finding of compliance in 2022, according to the township’s housing page. That settlement used a vacant land adjustment to set a “realistic development potential” of 1,109 against a Third Round obligation of 1,378.

565, 270, 223: three numbers, three meanings

565: the state’s estimate. On October 18, 2024 the DCA estimated Hillsborough’s Fourth Round obligations at a present need of 111 (rehabilitating substandard homes already occupied by lower-income households) and a prospective need of 565 (new affordable homes for 2025–2035). The law calls these estimates non-binding.

270: the township’s commitment. On January 28, 2025 the Township Committee adopted Resolution R-51-2025. It accepted the present need of 111, while reserving the right to lower it through a “windshield survey” of housing conditions, and committed to a prospective need of 270. The township’s planner had reviewed the parcels the DCA counted as developable and found the DCA’s data “overinclusive”. Patch reported that the resolution passed unanimously. The township filed its court case the next day.

Whether the court accepted 270 is not clear from the public record. A March 2026 township resolution says the plan was “designed to meet the fair share obligations established by the aforesaid April 23, 2025 Order”, but that order is not posted, and LocalWhy has not seen it. The plan the township adopted in June 2025 lists the prospective need as 565.

223: the realistic development potential. The June 2025 plan starts from 565 and applies two adjustments that the state’s rules allow when a town lacks vacant land:

a vacant land adjustment for land in the sewer service area, mostly in the east of the township;
a durational adjustment for land served by septic systems, mostly in the west.

Together these produce what the plan calls the township’s realistic development potential (RDP): the number of affordable homes the available land can realistically support now. The plan puts it at 223. The rest of the 565, 342 units, is the unmet need. It does not disappear. The plan says zoning adopted in the prior round for land in the sewer service area “is remaining in place” to address it. (One passage of the plan says “three hundred forty-three (342)”; the numeral is correct, since 565 minus 223 is 342, and the plan’s Unmet Need section says “three hundred forty-two (342)”.)

Press reports that Hillsborough “lowered” its obligation from 565 to 223 compress this. In the plan, 565 is still the obligation; 223 is the part the township says it can plan for now.

The present need also changed. After the windshield survey in the plan’s Appendix C, the plan lists a present need of 33, not 111.

How the plan reaches 300 credits

The obligation is measured in credits, not buildings. An affordable home earns one credit. Some kinds earn bonus credits: here, group homes and housing built on land that was previously non-residential. The state caps bonus credits at 25 percent of the obligation, which the plan calculates as 56; the plan uses exactly 56. This is the plan’s Table 29:

Mechanism	Affordable units	Bonus	Credits
Existing developments and group homes (nine sites)	40	17	57
Extending expiring controls at Hillsborough Point	15	0	15
Homestead Road, LLC: 398 townhouses and stacked flats	96	0	96
Milelli Hillsborough, Route 206: 156 units	37	18.5	55.5
Falcon Road Partners: 207 rental apartments	50	20.5	70.5
Habitat for Humanity: three duplexes	6	0	6
Total	244	56	300

Against an RDP of 223, that is a surplus of 77 credits.

The three inclusionary sites carry most of the weight, and they are large:

Homestead Road, LLC: about 90 acres at 189 and 200 Homestead Road (Block 200.10, Lots 32 and 33), 398 homes, 96 of them affordable. This is the site of the 543,299 sq ft warehouse plan that the Planning Board denied in September 2025, which the developer is challenging in court. Residents and the Stop Warehouses and Trucks group give the address as 189 and 203 Homestead Road. See Warehouses.
Milelli Hillsborough: 8.98 acres at 405, 409 and 411 Route 206 in the Town Center, 156 units, 37 of them affordable rentals.
Falcon Road Partners: 15.5 acres at 140 Falcon Road, 207 rental apartments, 50 of them affordable.

Together the three would add 761 homes, 183 of them affordable.

The challenges

Under the 2024 law, other parties could challenge a town’s plan after it was filed. Hillsborough filed its plan with the court and the Program on June 25, 2025, the day after the Committee approved a resolution accepting it (Patch reported no vote tally). Twelve parties challenged it, according to Resolution R-117-2026:

Fair Share Housing Center, the affordable-housing advocacy group;
00 Hamilton LLC;
Adoni Property Group LLC (withdrew February 10, 2026);
AvalonBay Communities Inc.;
Fairhaven Development LLC;
Hillsborough RB LLC;
M&M Realty Partners LLC;
Murray Contracting and Homestead Corner LLC (settled March 24, 2026);
Robertson Douglas Group Inc. (settled March 24, 2026);
Valley Industrial Partners LLC;
West Essex Industrial Park LLC;
Weston Road LLC.

At least three of the challengers had sought warehouses in Hillsborough: Hillsborough RB, Valley Industrial Partners and Weston Road. The minutes of March 10, 2026 record the township attorney, answering a resident’s question, as saying that “Weston Road is interested in putting in inclusionary housing if they can’t get a warehouse approved.”

The mediation finding

The Program held settlement conferences on October 21, November 24 and December 9, 2025. They produced settlements with Murray and Robertson Douglas, “by including projects on their respective properties” in the plan, but not with the others. On December 22, 2025 the Program member heard oral argument from the remaining challengers.

The Program member then recommended that Judge Mennen find the township’s plan “not presently in compliance” with the Fair Housing Act and the Mount Laurel doctrine. The Program member also found that the township had “demonstrated [a] willingness to engage in negotiations … and to make significant revisions to its Plan”, and on that basis recommended that “immunity from exclusionary housing litigation should be extended to the Township for a few more months” while the judge oversees continued settlement talks. These quotations come from the township’s own Resolution R-117-2026. The Program member’s written recommendation is not posted.

What builder’s-remedy protection means

Towns that comply with the Fourth Round process are protected from builder’s-remedy lawsuits. In such a suit, a developer argues that the town’s zoning does not provide a realistic opportunity for affordable housing and asks a court to approve its project over the town’s zoning. The Program member’s recommendation was to extend that protection “for a few more months”. Whether a court order has since extended it, or for how long, is not in the public record.

The fallback: a binding resolution

The law required implementing ordinances by March 16, 2026, but it offers an alternative to a town still in a dispute: a binding resolution committing to adopt the ordinances once the dispute is resolved, adjusted to reflect the outcome. On January 27, 2026 Judge Mennen ordered Hillsborough to do one or the other by March 16.

On March 10, 2026 the Committee took the alternative. Resolution R-117-2026, passed on a consent agenda that the minutes record as unanimously approved, commits the township to adopting the ordinances “following the resolution of the disputes”. It was filed with the court the next day. No Fourth Round rezoning ordinance has been introduced since.

Settlements so far

On March 24, 2026 the Committee approved three settlement resolutions on a unanimous consent agenda:

R-131-2026, Murray Contracting and Homestead Corner, LLC. The property is 279 Homestead Road, near Route 206 (Block 200.02, part of Lot 12, and Lots 12.01 and 16). Murray withdraws its challenge with prejudice. This is a different property from the Homestead Road, LLC site.
Robertson Douglas Group, Inc. Property on Mountainview Road (Block 175, Lots 25 and 41).
A first amendment to the Valley Road Realty settlement. This is a Third Round site, 44.53 acres on Valley Road (Block 151.09, Lot 227), settled in 2020. The amendment reduces the number of market-rate units and changes their type “while maintaining the affordable housing obligation on the Property as previously agreed upon”.

The agreements were “annexed” to the resolutions, but they are not in the court’s posted filings or the minutes. The minutes say the township attorney explained the agreements and their unit numbers at the meeting, but they do not record the numbers.

“Affordable Housing” has been on the Committee’s closed-session list at most of its meetings since March 2026, including the October 13 and October 27 agendas. On September 22, 2026 the township attorney said that “any settlement agreement will be approved at a public meeting.”

Other housing moving through the boards

Valley Road Realty has applied to the Planning Board for 199 homes: townhouses in 25 buildings and a 59-unit apartment building, in the MFID-1 multifamily inclusionary zone. The hearing is on the December 10, 2026 Planning Board agenda, and the decision deadline has been extended to January 15, 2027. At the March 24 Committee meeting a resident objected that the site sits beside the railroad tracks and across from an industrial plant that handles hazardous gases.
Sherman Tract Phase II: 88 affordable family rentals on Camplain Road, approved by the Planning Board in 2024. On July 28, 2026 the Committee consented to the project’s sewer (treatment works) application to the state.
In January 2026 the Committee appointed Rehabco, Inc. as the township’s affordable-housing administrative agent.

What is not known

What the April 23, 2025 court order set as Hillsborough’s obligation.
The terms of the settlements with Murray, Robertson Douglas and Valley Road Realty: unit counts, affordable counts and any other conditions.
Whether any of the other nine challengers have settled. The public record shows none.
Whether the township’s protection from builder’s-remedy suits has been extended, and to when.
When the township will adopt the rezoning for the plan’s sites, and how the plan will change to reflect the settlements.
What the November 10, 2026 special meeting will take up beyond the flood ordinance hearing already scheduled.

What residents can do

Watch for settlement resolutions at the Committee’s meetings on November 10, November 24 and December 15. The attorney has said any settlement will be approved in public.
Speak on the rezoning. Every implementing ordinance must be introduced, sent to the Planning Board for a master plan consistency review and given a public hearing at second reading. Introduced ordinances are posted for comment at Engage Hillsborough.
Follow the court case on the NJ Courts Somerset page, under Hillsborough Township. Docket SOM-L-000148-25.
Attend the Valley Road Realty hearing at the Planning Board on December 10, 2026.
Weigh in on the master plan. The township expects a new Housing Element and Fair Share Plan as part of its master plan update: see Master plan update.