New Jersey Survival

Last fall, our television sets were bursting with ads touting the work our local legislators do for the environment and our open space. Don’t be fooled. For years, town councils have fought bad developments that would gobble up New Jersey’s open space and pollute our drinking water, as legislators have consistently sat by. Now the Legislature, which promoted its green credentials during election season, is trying to undo the good work carried out in our towns and our state to protect our open space and water. With a strong nudge from developers, legislators are rushing to short-circuit environmental progress over the last two years and extend developer permits. And — the worst part — they’re trying to do it before the public finds out. That’s where you come in. Legislature should represent you, not developers. In order to represent you, legislators need to hear from you in person and be reminded that the public will hold them accountable. New Jersey needs you! Take the day off from work. Bring your family. Invite your friends. Whatever you do, come to Trenton to lobby your legislator in person and attend a mass press conference. Take a stand! Show your legislators what matters to you: http://www.environmentnewjersey.org/action/preservation/rsvp?id4=ES What’s at stake? The Permit Extension Act negates past protections adopted after 2006, like no-development buffer zones around state waterways and new protections against flooding. The effort would give up to seven years to extend projects until the eve of 2013 (and even up to 2015 in some cases), without regard to new environmental protections in the years ahead. The bill is speeding through the Legislature right now and scheduled to pass in the next two weeks. Let’s pull the brakes the developers’ dream bill by taking a stand in Trenton to show the Legislature that the public matters and will hold them accountable. Let Legislators know the public matters! For more details on this breaking news, visit our Web site. Sincerely, Dena Mottola Environment New Jersey Executive Director DenaM@EnvironmentNewJersey.org http://www.environmentnewjersey.org P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your family and friends.

Avidly supported by business and labor, legislation to extend for six years the life of building permits for stalled residential and commercial development projects yesterday began what is expected to be a 17-day express run through the Assembly and Senate.

The bipartisan proposal was unanimously approved by the Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee before a standing-room-only audience of more than 100 business, development and labor leaders and lobbyists, who insist the permit extension is needed to bolster New Jersey’s economy, and environmentalists, who argue it will endanger public health, clean water and open space.

Called the Permit Extension Act, the proposal would extend for six years all permits and approvals given to developers — even those that have expired — by the state and local governments. It would enable projects permitted in past years but stalled for financial reasons to avoid having to comply with subsequent changes in environmental law, public health standards, building codes or local zon ing.

The Assembly version (A2867) moves to the lower house’s Environmental and Solid Waste Committee. The goal of the sponsors of the measure and its twin version in the Senate (S1919), according to legislative aides, is to move the bill into position for approval by both houses by June 23. The Assembly bill has 43 co-sponsors, enough votes to guarantee passage. The Senate version has 15 co-sponsors, including Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex).

Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey, and an outspo ken opponent of the proposal, described the hearing to Housing and Local Government Committee members as a “lovefest” for developers.

Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), a prime sponsor of the bill, said it was introduced at the urging of business and labor leaders and developers who see business leaving the state, jobs lost, and new construction and financing stalled amid the economic downturn.

“Seventy thousand New Jerseyans have relocated to other states and along with them is going business,” he said. “The state of New Jersey will not grow out of its problems and revenues are not going to grow.”

Kathleen Miller-Prunty, director of Cranford Downtown Management, a group attempting to restore life to the town’s business district, appeared on behalf of the Smart Growth Economic Development Coalition, which she described as a statewide alliance of business, industry and urban renewal organizations formed last year to help find solutions to the state’s economic problems. Miller- Prunty said two earlier permit extension efforts, in 1992 and 1996, helped stabilize construction projects and created jobs.

The New Jersey Environmental Lobby, the Audubon Society, and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation joined the Sierra Club in opposing the bill.

Tom Hester may be reached at thester@starledger.com or at 609-292-0557.

The Highlands Act is sweeping legislation that restricted development in a huge swath of northern New Jersey. But state officials have never quantified exactly how much development was off the table — until now.

If the Highlands Act had never passed, some 47,600 new homes and 108 million square feet of commercial development could have been built in the seven-county region that provides water to more than half of the state’s population, according to a “build-out analysis” unveiled at yesterday’s Highlands Council meeting in Chester.

Under the act, however, if all 88 municipalities in the 1,250-square-mile Highlands region went along with the council’s development plan, up to 12,300 homes and 19.1 million square feet of nonresidential space could be built.

But that number of homes and offices will never be built, the council’s analysis concluded because there is not enough water and sewer capacity in the region to support it.

The master plan “is going to have a very large impact on the amount of development that is allowed in the region,” said John Weingart, chairman of the New Jersey Highlands Council. “At the same time, it does show the Highlands Act is not going to stop all development in the region.”

Some council members — who also saw the analysis for the first time yesterday — said the numbers might suggest the council needs to further tighten some policies.

“We shouldn’t be planning for more development than can be supported,” council member Tim Dillingham said.

“I think the build-out analysis has basically confirmed what many people have known for a long time,” said Julia Somers, executive director of the environmental group New Jersey Highlands Coalition. “We are already facing a water shortage … we’ve just not wanted to deal with it.”

Council Executive Director Eileen Swan stressed the analysis is “not a prediction,” but a tool to measure the affect the regional master plan — which the council has been drafting for more than three years — would have on the area.

It is likely, she added, development in the Highlands may never get near the numbers in the build-out analysis because so much of the land is in environmentally sensitive areas and not connected to existing sewers and water lines.

The Highlands are a series of forested ridges, farmlands and water bodies that stretch through Passaic, Bergen, Morris, Sussex, Warren, Somerset and Hunterdon counties. The region supplies drinking water to people living in areas extending from Bergen County through parts of Gloucester County.

For years, environmentalists and scientists argued steady development was threatening the water supply. In 2004, Gov. James E. McGreevey and the state Legislature aimed to safeguard the region once and for all through the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act. The act created the Highlands Council, which would draft the master plan that is due to be adopted next month.

Critics of the Highlands Act — many of whom see it as a thinly disguised land grab — remained skeptical.

Long Valley farmer David Shope, a fixture at most Highlands Council meetings, called the numbers “garbage.” The Highlands Act, he said “is a strangulation by regulation of anything possibly happening up here.”

Doug Fenichel, a spokesman for K. Hovnanian builders, declined to comment directly on the numbers yesterday because he had not seen them. But he did stress the state’s affordable-housing shortage.

“Whatever the plan they come up with, you have to come up with a way to address the need for housing in the state of New Jersey,” he said. “Building those homes is the answer to solving our economic needs.”

Paula Saha may be reached at psaha@starledger.com or (973) 539-7910.