A Mercer County judge has rejected a second attempt to pause the law. Towns have until Friday to vote on their individual "fair share" obligations.

Twenty-seven towns have now failed twice to get a judge to grant a stay of the law ahead of a Jan. 31 deadline. By Friday, towns must either accept the state’s affordable housing quotas for each municipality to build over the next decade or counterpropose a different number of homes.

Towns are about to hit a deadline for accepting housing obligation numbers assigned to them or proposing alternate calculations.