Another major decision for New Jersey is playing out in the courts affordable housing and whether towns should be required to develop a total of 146,000 new affordable units in the next ten years.

Several towns have sued the state for creating a, quote, unfair burden.

And as senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports.

Arguments in that case were heard today.

She has more on what happened.

The best thing we could do is put this on hold.

Attorneys clashed over affordable housing in an online court hearing today as Montvale and 25 other suburban towns asked a superior court judge to hit pause on implementing Jersey's new law.

It would require municipalities across the state to build a renovate a 146,000 affordable units over the next decade to meet the state's current and growing housing needs.

So there's irreparable harm to the municipalities.

Your Honor, if we don't put this law on hold so we can get into court and discuss it.

Attorney Michael Collins argued if the towns miss the new laws, January 31st deadline to adopt a plan of housing obligations, it opens them to lawsuits by developers.

He also said the law excuses so-called urban age cities like Newark from having to build any more units.

And he challenged state calculations he claims are imprecise and unfair.

The non-urban aid municipalities are being subjected to an overcrowding of need that's imposed upon them.

And meanwhile, the constitutional basis is, quote unquote, fair share.

And they're not getting their fair share.

They're being overburdened.

Plaintiffs are not injured, let alone irreparably harmed by the existence of a program that they are not required to participate in.

Deputy Attorney General Levi Klinger Christianson said towns can opt out of the program, but they would lose.

It's included immunity from developers lawsuits.

They could also try to negotiate lower affordable housing goals.

But pausing the new law so towns could wage a protracted court battle over its merits is a scenario for a housing lawyer Adam Gordon wants to avoid.

You can't save the Constitution.

And I think in practice, it would be chaos at this point to stay.

The statute.

He explained to the judge resulting lawsuits would be expensive, intricate and likely.

To be a lot of litigation.

And I think that that so frankly, undercuts the policy decisions of the legislature and the executive who really want to avoid that kind of town by town.

Litigation over everything under the sun.

The public would undoubtedly be harmed by plaintiffs requested injunction as it would necessarily delay the goal of providing a cost efficient and cost effective means of bringing the state's municipalities into constitutional compliance with the fourth round.

But Collins again argued the law was fatally flawed and raises serious questions over who should set housing goals.

The only way we're going to get clarity for New Jersey is if the was placed on hold and we get these questions answered and everything proceeds at once.

And the alternative of not granting the stay is going to mean that you're going to have chaos in the form of municipalities submitting to the jurisdiction of an unconstitutional program.

New Jersey's attorney general will move to dismiss this lawsuit as Jersey undertakes its fourth round of efforts to meet constitutional, affordable housing standards set by the state's highest court.

The judge promised a decision by January 1st.

I'm Brenda Flanagan and Andrew Spotlight News.