A joint legislative hearing on Wednesday heard impassioned testimony from both supporters and opponents of controversial land use rules that take effect on July 19 after being adopted by the Department of Environmental Protection on former Gov. Phil Murphy's last day in office.
Opponents of the DEP’s Resilient Environment and Landscapes (REAL) rules, including NJBIA, the New Jersey Builders Association, local mayors and even some lawmakers argued that the rules will saddle towns, residents and developers with added costs and unnecessary regulatory burdens, as well as exacerbate the state’s current housing shortage.
“For a rule of this magnitude, the breadth of opposition signals that the stakeholder process fell short,” said Jeff Kolakowski, president and CEO of the New Jersey Builders Association. “The rule goes beyond climate change. It fundamentally changes DEP permitting programs.”
Instead of planning for rising sea level conditions anticipated in the next three decades and updating rules if the science warranted it, DEP decided to “shoot for the moon and go 75 years out and cover 83% of likely scenarios,” Kolakowski said.
Kolakowski said the rules were “tone deaf” and that DEP had provided no meaningful cost-benefit analysis, no quantification of the impact on housing production and pending projects, and no analysis on the impact on property values and property tax revenues that municipalities depend on.
The rules may create compliance-related jobs for engineers and consultants, but they “fail to account for the broader economic reality” that they will result in fewer approved projects, fewer homes being built, and fewer construction jobs.
“Increasing regulatory burdens does not create economic growth,” Kolakowski said. He added that the NJ Builders Association and NJBIA felt they had “no other choice” but to file a notice of appeal that challenges the rules in the Appellate Division of Superior Court.
NJBIA Deputy Chief Government Affairs Officer Ray Cantor, while physically presenting a printed 1,200-page version of the rule, contended that the DEP created extreme standards with the rule with, at best, uncertain science.
“What this debate is all about is the question of what regulatory standard should the department adopt on future sea level rise given the enormous uncertainty, even deep uncertainty, in making such projections?” Cantor said.
“Regulatory standards need to be reasonable, based on what is likely to happen, not on what can’t be ruled out.”
Cantor added that New Jersey should not “set up a system of retreat, we should focus on systems of resilience.”
“Until this body determines we need to abandon the barrier islands, our coastal cities like Atlantic City, Long Branch and Asbury Park, our river communities like Camden, Hoboken, or Jersey City, the emphasis should be on making these areas resilient,” Cantor said.
“If some areas can’t or shouldn’t be protected, we need to publicly have that conversation, and it should come from the Legislature, not DEP alone.”
Cantor was asked by Senator Carmen Amato (R-9) if the DEP’s Land Use rules, established and adopted by the Murphy administration, could work with the current Sherrilladministration’s prioritization of streamlining permitting and less costly regulations.
“Absolutely not,” Cantor responded. “This is going to add to an already overburdened department.”
Jersey City Mayor James Solomon said the rules needed to be changed to reflect the realities of urban centers. He said the city’s planners have advised him that rules will cause considerable regulatory burdens and significantly impact construction of planned affordable housing.
The discussion-only hearing of the Senate Environment & Energy Committee and the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee was held to take testimony on a bipartisan resolution sponsored by Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-22) that seeks to rescind the REAL rules as inconsistent with legislative intent.
Senator Bob Smith (D-17), chair of the Senate committee, opened the hearing with remarks about climate change and statistics regarding storm damage in New Jersey before callingformer DEP Commissioner, Mark Mauriello, who led the agency from 2008-2010, to testify about the need for the new rules. DEP proposed these rules in 2024, revised them in 2025,and adopted them on Jan. 20, 2026.
After Mauriello said the rules were needed because DEP had a “de-facto no-retreat policy” from the Jersey Shore, Assemblyman Paul Kanitra (R-10), whose district includes coastal Monmouth and Ocean communities, took issue with Mauriello’s “no-retreat” characterization.
Kanitra began quoting from DEP’s 120-page State of New Jersey Climate Change Resiliency Strategy issued in 2021 which discusses “managed retreat as a resilience strategy” against sea level rise.
“Coastal stakeholders may disagree about the implementation of managed retreat, but sea level rise will ultimately make it a necessary consideration,” Kanitra read from the DEP report.
