In testimony later tonight, NJBIA Deputy Chief Government Affairs Officer Ray Cantor will tell the state Department of Environmental Protection that the updated Land Use rules it currently proposes are based on outdated science and will create no-build zones along the Jersey Shore and in river communities.
Cantor will also state that the DEP should focus on making coastal communities more resilient, rather than “drive people off the coast” as part of a “managed retreat.”
Cantor will make the comments tonight during a public hearing held at Ocean County College, as part of the DEP’s 90-day public comment period comment for a series of Resilient Environments and Landscapes (REAL) reforms.
The proposed rules establish “inundation risk zones” for any new, expanded, redeveloped or substantially improved development.
The criteria to build or rebuild in an IRZ includes building 5 feet higher than existing flood elevation standards that “may not be feasible for many houses or lots,” Cantor says, as well as other stringent conditions.
“Most importantly, the IRZ will be considered a critical environmental site and subject the whole property to a 3% impervious cover standard,” Cantor explains. “Three percent, is, by definition, a ‘no build’ standard.’
The DEP is relying on a low-confidence data point from a 2019 non-peer reviewed Rutgers report that calls for 5.1 feet of sea level rise by 2100.
Specifically, the Rutgers’ STAP report models a 75-year projection that only has a 17% confidence level.
“In the climate science world, ‘low confidence’ is as low as it gets,” Cantor says.
“Since the 2019 STAP report, there have been two major studies that each reject the assumptions that support the 5-foot projection. The IPCC, the ‘gold standard’ in the climate science world, has also rejected the DEP’s projection.”
Cantor also says the DEP had the authors of the STAP report analyze these latest studies and compare them to the 5-foot projection of the 2019 report. But they are not referenced in the 1,000-page-plus rule proposal.
“Use of low –confidence assumptions is not how the Department has ever used science to support a regulatory standard,” Cantor says. “Given the tremendous economic and societal impacts of this proposed standard, the Department should use a likely sea level rise standard of 2 feet, which is in line with generally accepted national and international projections and would make New Jersey the most protective state in the nation.
“If sea level rise is shown to be trending higher, we have 75 years to adjust.”
To see Cantor’s full testimony, click here.
