Proposed state land regulations based on unrealistic sea level rise projections are a threat to the New Jersey shore’s tourism economy and will drive up costs for both homeowners and businesses, NJBIA said in a recently published op-ed in The Press of Atlantic City.
NJBIA Deputy Chief Government Affairs Officer Ray Cantor wrote that the state Department of Environmental Protection is preparing to adopt land-use standards this year based on an “ultra-extreme” projection of 5 feet of sea level rise by 2100. The DEP projection is based on one data point of an outdated Rutgers University study that DEP now admits is unlikely to occur.
“No legitimate scientist in the world – including those on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – is making such extreme predictions of sea level rise in this century,” Cantor said in the op-ed published June 3.
“DEP’s proposed sea-level-rise standards are so extreme and wide-reaching it will take an area that has never flooded and regulate it as if it might flood someday based on a categorically improbable scenario,” Cantor said.
“That will result in higher flood insurance costs for more residents and businesses and prevent or add major costs to development due to denial of permits or increased elevations,” he said.
Cantor argued that based on the latest science, a 2-foot sea level rise over the next 80 years is a much more reasonable projection.
“The good news is New Jersey can readily adapt to that,” Cantor wrote. “But with the egregious standards the DEP is trying to regulate, any building or redevelopment along our coast will range from much more difficult to literally impossible.”
NJBIA encourages residents and businesses to “flood the email boxes of the DEP and our policymakers to strategize adaptable and attainable solutions rather than dramatize the questions,” Cantor wrote.
Go here to read the entire op-ed.
