A consortium of more than two dozen New Jersey towns trying to halt the state’s renewed affordable-housing mandate — which has ignited a wave of development throughout the state — is taking the battle to federal court.
Citing new legal filings that they claim “reveal backroom deals between state officials and special interests while suburban families were left out,” the towns filed a new lawsuit Thursday in New Jersey’s U.S. District Court.
Naming state Attorney General Matthew Platkin and acting Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts Michael Blee as defendants, the lawsuit seeks injunctive relief from the enforcement of current affordable housing laws, and a declaration that those laws violate the state constitution…