NJHOMES Atlas
Statewide map of roughly 42,000 municipally owned vacant parcels, built from State property records so every New Jersey municipality can publish the vacant land inventory federal law now requires, at no cost.
The Problem
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act added a new federal requirement in 2026: every Community Development Block Grant grantee has to keep a searchable list of all the undeveloped land it owns on a public website. New Jersey has 564 municipalities and most of them are CDBG recipients. Left to each town, that meant 564 separate inventories, 564 interpretations of “vacant”, and, for many, a vendor contract to produce a list from records the State already held.
The Approach
The DHCR Data Center team built Atlas into the NJHOMES Choice Tool, the planning platform municipalities already use for their affordable-housing obligations. Atlas starts from statewide property tax assessment records and official parcel geometry and applies one set of criteria everywhere, which produced a provisional inventory of about 42,000 parcels and roughly 110,000 acres.
The State’s list is deliberately a starting point, not the answer. Town staff go through their own parcels and flag anything that should change or come off the list, with a reason logged against each edit. The corrected inventory can be published on DCA’s site and embedded on the town’s own. Atlas can also group adjacent parcels into larger developable sites and compare results across municipalities and legislative districts.
Launch
The team demonstrated Atlas live for mayors and legislators in DCA’s Mayors and Legislators Resource Series on September 24, 2026. DCA announced it publicly on October 2, 2026, inviting municipalities into a pilot. Any New Jersey municipality can use it, and DCA does not charge for it.
Role
Gavin Rozzi leads the DHCR Data Center, the in-house team that designed and built Atlas. Lucas Doell, the team’s software engineering lead, co-presented the launch webinar. The facts on this page come from DCA’s public press release and the recorded webinar; the project is described here in a personal capacity.
Related
- NJHOMES Choice Tool, the platform Atlas is built into
- NJHOMES Atlas webinar recording
- DCA press release
Frequently asked questions
What is NJHOMES Atlas?
NJHOMES Atlas is a free statewide map of municipally owned vacant land in New Jersey, published by the NJ Department of Community Affairs inside the NJHOMES Choice Tool. It gives every municipality a starting inventory drawn from State property tax records, which the town then reviews, corrects and publishes.
Why does New Jersey need a vacant land inventory?
The federal 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act requires Community Development Block Grant recipients to keep a searchable public list of every undeveloped parcel they own. Atlas builds that list once, with the same criteria for all 564 municipalities, so no town has to pay a vendor to meet the rule using records the State already holds.
Who built NJHOMES Atlas?
The DHCR Data Center, the in-house civic technology team at NJ DCA that Gavin Rozzi leads, built Atlas and demonstrated it to mayors and legislators in September 2026. DCA announced it publicly on October 2, 2026.
This project is part of Gavin Rozzi's extensive work serving the Garden State.
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