More than 150 local mayors are banding together to take the state's affordable housing plans to court.

The state's League of Municipalities has filed suit, saying towns are being forced to build more homes than they have room for. They say the state is counting inappropriate sites among land ready for homes.

Questionable sites designated as buildable space include the Army's Picatinny Arsenal, the Morristown airport runway and the median of Route 287.

Bridgewater Mayor Patricia Flannery says her town needs to take undesirable steps to meets its required 891 new affordable housing units.

"We'd have to put in high rises, low-income high-rises," she says.

The Department of Community Affairs says the hullabaloo is all for naught.

"Under the rules, you only have to build affordable housing if you build other kinds of housing," says Commissioner Joe Doria. "If there's no space in your community to grow, you don't have to build anything."

Still, the league says it is standing up against forced urban sprawl.