The New Jersey Business Coalition, which includes NJBIA and over 100 different business groups, urged the state Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday to withdraw its PACT REAL land use rule proposal and restart the process with a more workable plan.
In a letter to DEP’s legal department submitted as part of the public comment process, the coalition pointed out the 1,057-page rule that would upend state land use regulations is problematic and should have been proposed as four or five separate rules.
“The process of developing this rule was fundamentally flawed, its provisions are too numerous and complicated to be merged into one regulatory framework, and its provisions are extreme, unworkable, and harmful to affordable housing, our commercial development sector, and urban development and redevelopment,” the coalition said.
“We strongly encourage the DEP to withdraw this rule and start the stakeholder process over again,” the coalition said.
The coalition’s most pressing concerns with the rule include its extreme projections of sea-level rise; the creation of new Inundation Risk Zones (IRZ) that would prevent commercial development and urban redevelopment; and the negative impact on communities’ efforts to meet their new state-mandated affordable housing obligations.
Sea Level Rise. The coalition took issue with the proposed rule’s assumption, based on unreliable modeling, that in 75 years there will be an extreme 5-foot rise in sea levels.
“The consequence of applying this flawed prediction of sea level rise and applying it to development today, is that it will have a negative impact on our economy and standard of living,” the coalition said. “It will put more land into regulatory flood zones, despite the fact that these areas have never and likely will never flood in our lifetimes.
“It will drive up the cost of housing and all development at a time when affordability is already a major concern. It will harm our urban cities and our tourism industry. This rule will not make us more resilient, and it will not solve the very real problem of sea level rise.”
Commercial Redevelopment. The proposed creation of IRZs and subjecting these areas to a 3% impervious cover standard would create vast no-build zones, even in urban and suburban areas needing redevelopment, the coalition said. The “substantial improvement” trigger in the rule will prevent many commercial buildings from being redeveloped or retrofitted. “It will have the effect of freezing development in time and ultimately lead to urban and suburban decline,” the coalition wrote.
Urban Redevelopment. The IRZ no-build zones will apply to many of the state’s largest urban areas, such as Hoboken, Jersey City, Sayreville, Asbury Park, Atlantic City, and Camden. This will prevent any new development in these areas, prevent the expansion of existing developments, and will make redevelopment difficult if not impossible.
“Exacerbating the impediments to urban redevelopment are the changes to the stormwater rules contained in the proposal,” the coalition wrote. The proposed rule “ignores the impacts on redevelopment and changes the stormwater requirements so that a redevelopment project in an urban area would need to meet the same stormwater requirements as if it were being built in a greenfield in a rural area.”
Affordable Housing. The DEP rule is at odds with the New Jersey’s affordable housing mandates issued by the state Department of Community Affairs, the coalition said.
“By creating large IRZ no-build areas, extending flood mapping into areas that have never and will never flood, making the development process more complicated, time consuming, and less predictable, and subjecting development in many areas to increased regulatory requirements, the DEP is acting in direct contravention of the state’s affordable housing policies,” the coalition wrote. “We cannot have a prosperous society and a robust economy if the residents of the state cannot afford to live here.”
Retreat from the Shore and Urban River Communities. Underlying much of the rule’s extreme provisions is the DEP’s policy preference that people move to “safer areas” in a “managed retreat,” the coalition pointed out.
“The issue of retreating from all or part of the Jersey Shore or our urban waterfront municipalities is a major policy decision that should be made by the Legislature, the elected officials who represent the public interest,” the coalition said. “It is not a decision that should be made by a regulatory bureaucracy, with limited public input, and a narrow ability to address the issue.
“We favor a comprehensive approach to the problem and one that incorporates public input and weighs various options,” the coalition said. “While there may be areas of the state that should be abandoned, and our Blue Acres program is there for that reason, the general policy of the state should be one of resiliency, not retreat.”
The complete New Jersey Business Coalition letter and its 112 signatories can be found here.
