Bill Targets Growth in Sensitive Region

Labeled the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, the legislation was simultaneously introduced in the Senate by Sen. Robert Smith (D-Middlesex County) and Sen. Robert Martin (R-Morris County), and in the Assembly by Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex County). For the most part, the legislation mirrors recommendations offered up by the Highlands Task Force, a panel appointed last year by Gov. James McGreevey as part of his administration's anti-sprawl agenda.

If passed, the bill would set up a regional council, much like the one already in place to regulate growth in South Jersey's pinelands region, to keep a tight rein on future development in the Highlands. Indeed, the new council would have veto power over all major projects in the region, which provides drinking water for more than half of the state's 8.6 million people.

The bill would also give the New Jersey DEP a stronger hand in regulating development in the region. One of its provisions would give the DEP the right to veto any property sale within the core region of 400,000 or so acres. Special permits would also be required for certain other projects, and all development would be barred within 100 yards of streams and upland forests, and on steeply sloping areas.

In a related matter, McGreevey yesterday signed into law the Transfer of Development Rights Bill that was passed last week by the state Senate (see earlier story), and previously by the Assembly. Under the terms of the new legislation, a developer would pay the owner of a greenfield site for the development rights to that site. But that site would remain undeveloped, with those development rights effectively transferred to community-designated sites closer to existing infrastructure and development. In effect, a developer would pay the owner of the greenfield site not to develop it.

"New Jersey is the most densely populated state, and we are losing 50 acres of farmland each day," McGreevey said as he signed the bill into law. "TDR is the planning tool we need to accommodate our growing population without using up all of our open space.