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Highlands Herald
Spring 2008

Welcome to ANJEC's Highlands Herald, e-mail newsletter, is designed to help environmental commissions, municipal officials, and the public understand and participate in the Highlands planning process.

Please free to share this information with other environmental commission members, members of your planning board, municipal experts, your elected officials and members of the public. If you would like to add a recipient, please send the e-mail address to info@anjec.org.

Final Draft of Regional Master Plan
Highlands Council Conformance Guidance
$1.5m in Interim Municipal Assessment Grants
Clinton Town TDR Feasibility Grant
Proposed State Budget Cuts May Hit the Highlands
Support Us
Contact Us

FINAL DRAFT OF REGIONAL MASTER PLAN
Highlands Council Re-Writing for Final Adoption in July 2008
The public comment period for the Final Draft Regional Master Plan (RMP) closed on February 28, after receiving numerous highly critical comments. ANJEC submitted extensive comments and assisted the New Jersey Highlands Coalition in comment preparation. All comments are posted in a searchable database at the Highlands Council website (www.highlands.state.nj.us).

Final Re-write of Regional Master Plan Underway, Input Still Possible
The Highlands Council has identified an extensive list of Issues for Council Consideration that it will explore as the Final Draft is revised (available at www.anjec.org/html/positions.htm#highlands).

The Council has scheduled additional meetings to meet this ambitious task by the projected plan adoption date of July 17, 2008. Despite the fact that the official comment period has closed, ANJEC urges municipalities to continue communicating with the Council, writing or e-mailing on issues of interest. In addition, municipalities and individuals can continue to provide input into the process during the public comment period at every Council and Committee meeting. For a schedule and agenda see the Highlands Council website.

ANJEC continues to urge the Council to release supporting technical papers, resolutions and other relevant information prior to meetings to facilitate meaningful comment. We encourage municipalities to ask the Council to make more timely releases of this critical information. We also urge municipalities to invite Council representatives to discuss the RMP in your community and to form a Highlands Working Group to guide the process locally.

Conformance Period Begins After Plan Adoption, Now Scheduled for July 17, 2008
The Conformance Period will begin immediately after the formal adoption of the RMP. Successful conformance will confer a number of important benefits on your municipality. Further discussion of these benefits available at www.highlands.stat.nj.us/njhighlands/master/conform/#1.

The Highlands Act requires "....within nine to fifteen months after adoption of the Regional Master Plan or any revision, according to a schedule to be established by the Council, each municipality located wholly or partially in the preservation area (emphasis added) shall submit to the Council such revisions of the municipal master plan and development regulations, as applicable to the development and use of land in the preservation area, as may be necessary in order to conform them with the goals, requirements and provisions of the regional master plan."

Conformance is MANDATORY for

Conformance (sometimes called "opting-in") is VOLUNTARY for municipalities or portions of municipalities located in the Planning Area.

OPTING-IN

Municipalities should remember that the requirements of the RMP are minimum requirements. Thus, if a municipality can demonstrate that more stringent protection is necessary, these changes can be made during the conformance process. Five municipalities wholly within the Preservation Area have mandatory conformance:

Hunterdon County
Ringwood Borough
Califon Borough
Glen Gardner Borough
Passaic County
Bloomsbury Borough
West Milford Township

Mandatory conformance for portions of the following municipalities:

Bergen County
Mahwah Township
Oakland Borough

Hunterdon County
Alexandria Township
Bethlehem Township
Clinton Town
Clinton Township
Hampton Borough
Holland Township
Lebanon Township
Tewksbury Township
Union Township

Morris County
Boonton Township
Chester Township
Denville Township
Jefferson Township
Kinnelon Borough
Montville Township
Mt. Arlington Borough
Mt. Olive Township
Pequannock Township
Randolph Township
Rockaway Township
Washington Township

Passaic County
Bloomingdale Borough
Wanaque Borough

Somerset County
Bedminster Township

Sussex County
Byram Township
Green Township
Hardyston Township
Hopatcong Borough
Ogdensburg Borough
Sparta Township
Vernon Township

Warren County
Allamuchy Township
Franklin Township
Greenwich Township
Hackettstown Town
Harmony Township
Independence Township
Liberty Township
Lopatcong Township
Mansfield Township
Oxford Township
Pohatcong Township
Washington Township
White Township

HIGHLANDS COUNCIL CONFORMANCE GUIDANCE
Municipalities should be familiar with the Draft Plan Conformance Technical Report (January 9, 2007) that outlines the conformance process and guidance found in Second Round of the Highlands Partnership, October 18, 2005, (available at www.highlands.state.nj.us/). More importantly, the Council has recently funded released a grant package regarding Interim Municipal Assessment Grants (see below).

The Council has prepared documents to assist municipalities in their initial efforts to understand the RMP and Plan Conformance.

Nine Frequently Asked Questions are discussed.

Basic Plan Conformance for Municipalities outlines the basic aspects of conformance and identifies required municipal tasks that are not based on models or templates provided by the Highlands Council. These include

GETTING STARTED: $1.5M IN INTERIM MUNICIPAL ASSESSMENT GRANTS AVAILABLE FOR MUNICIPALITIES TO EXPLORE CONFORMANCE

On February 28, the Highlands Council allocated $1.5M to fund grants to municipalities to explore conformance with the Regional Master Plan (RMP). Funding from the Highlands Council is one of the few remaining sources for planning grants in the region. If your town is dealing with mandatory conformance or considering voluntary conformance in its Planning Area, funding is now available to help.

Grants up to $15,000 will be available to all municipalities and counties with lands in the Highlands Region. Municipalities can use the funds to examine the implications of conformance, to initiate the conformance process and assess its benefits. Typically, the grants can be used to do an initial review of local master plans, ordinances, and environmental resource inventories (ERIs) with the objective of bringing them into compliance with the RMP. Funds may also be used to determine the benefits of plan conformance and to recommend RMP updates and map adjustments to insure that the most accurate information is being used.

As of April 25, 2008 the Highlands Council was processing applications from the following municipalities.

Bergen County
Oakland

Morris County
Morris Township
Mount Olive
Washington Township

Hunterdon County
Bethlehem Township
Bloomsbury
Clinton Town
Hampton Borough
Holland Township
Tewksbury Sparta
Washington Borough

Somerset County
Bedminster

Sussex County
Sparta

Warren County
Greenwich

Funding will be available after the RMP is formally adopted, now expected to be July 17, 2008. For further information on these and other grants available contact Lindsey Interlante, Manager of Grants Administration at (908) 879-6737.

HIGHLANDS COUNCIL AWARDS TDR FEASIBILITY GRANT TO CLINTON TOWN

On April 14, the Highlands Council announced that it has made a grant in the amount of $23,000 to Clinton Town (Hunterdon) to do a feasibility study for implementation of a voluntary Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program.

TDR programs, if properly implemented, allow development to be moved from areas identified for preservation (sending zones) to areas more appropriate for development (receiving zones). Landowners in the sending zone receive financial compensation for the sale of their development rights. After the development rights are sold, the sending zone land remains permanently preserved at no const to taxpayers. The development rights are purchased by developers who are then allowed to develop at greater than normal densities in the receiving zone. Often specific design controls are provided in the receiving zone.

Clinton is the third municipality to receive such a grant. Previously, Lopatcong Township (Warren) was awarded $25,000 and the city of Clifton (Passaic) was awarded $40,000. The Council has awarded Clinton Town two other grants: a 2005 grant of $12,500 for developing a compliance plan to meet COAH requirements and a $35,000 MP3 grant to develop a water management plan in 2007.

The most recent award provides funding for a planning design analysis and an economic analysis to evaluate the potential for implementing a TDR program. Clinton plans to study an area with vacant or undeveloped land and underutilized land and buildings in its commercial zone as a receiving area. The sending zones consist of areas with environmental constraints including steep slopes, carbonate rock and floodplains.

The Highlands Act calls for the establishment of a TDR program, with participation on a purely voluntary basis. To encourage municipalities to participate, the Act provides a number of benefits to municipalities that conform to the RMP and that institute a voluntary TDR program. These advantages include

Any municipality in the Highlands region is eligible to consider designating a voluntary TDR receiving zone. Additionally municipalities outside the Highlands region but located in one or the seven counties (Bergen, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex or Warren) that have land in the region may also apply. However, participating municipalities outside the region must receive plan endorsement from the State Planning Commission and do not receive the legal representation benefit. Funding for the TDR Feasibility Grant Program is provided by a $1M program established in the spring of 2007. For further information on these and other grants available contact Lindsey Interlante, Manager of Grants Administration at (908) 879-6737.

PROPOSED STATE BUDGET CUTS MAY HIT THE HIGHLANDS

If implemented as proposed, recent budget proposals from Governor Corzine's Fiscal Year 2009 budget may negatively impact the Highlands and the planning efforts currently underway. Reductions in the Highlands Council's operating budget, eliminating the Department of Agriculture and closing or reducing operations at state parks all have the potential to impact the region. The public and the press have focused on the parks closures and elimination of the Department of Agriculture. On Thursday, April 17, an article in the Star Ledger indicated that the governor had relented on these two critical issues. However, deeper problems remain with the current budget and the legacy of under-funding critical environmental budgets in previous administrations.

Proposed Highlands Council Budget Cuts
The current budget proposal calls for a 20% reduction ($600,000) in the Council's operating budget, specifically at the time that conformance will require additional staff time and energy. The daunting task of aligning the planning, zoning, and master plans to the requirements of the RMP in 88 towns and 7 counties will need to be accomplished in some fashion. The cuts are said not to impact grant funding.

Just how the Council will respond to this potentially devastating cut remains to be seen. Adequate funding must be provided to the Council to carry out its statutory tasks. Funding the Council must be viewed as a strategic investment in planning that will not only result in the preservation of critical ecosystems that support economic activity but will generate new sources of wealth and avoid the fiscal "train wreck" resulting from uncontrolled and unmanaged growth.

Parks Funding Cuts: Looking Deeper
The $34M Parks Management General Fund is anticipated to be reduced by $8.8 M. At a time when the RMP is recommending that the emerging Highlands economy rely on Eco-tourism, Agro-tourism and Heritage Tourism, cuts in this important public infrastructure element are ill advised. The RMP, at numerous points, recognizes the importance of preserved lands not only to protecting drinking water supplies but also as economic drivers of both the agricultural and eco-tourism industries vital to the economic future of the Highlands.

Significantly, but largely unmentioned, is the fact that these proposed cuts come on top of years of under-funded parks programs statewide. As far back as the Whitman Administration funding deficiencies were identified in our state parks system. Both capital and operational budgets have historically been inadequate.

In 1998, after two years of study, the Governor's Council on the New Jersey Outdoors, Final Report, stated with regard to capital needs,

In addition, the public and the legislature continue to support additional farmland and park acquisitions, authorizing an additional $200M last year alone as "stopgap" funding while the Garden State Preservation Trust, the State's primary open space funding mechanism, was nearly out of money and remains so. Overall, in the last decade, nearly $2B in public funds have been expended to acquire open space, while operation and maintenance budgets have remained static or declined. Finally, inflation continues to slowly eat away the purchasing power of what money is allocated.

Merely "restoring" the cut proposed is not a victory for parks. The net result of years of denial about the stewardship responsibilities has resulted in a downward spiral of "disinvestment" in our publicly owned natural and cultural resources. Simply restoring the proposed cuts will not begin to address the years of under-funding our parks system has endured. Parks visitation continues to increase. Pressures on drinking water supplies rise. Farmland continues to be converted to development. Urban areas remain underserved by parks and open spaces. On top of this all, the changing global climate places added importance on maintaining, restoring and improving the ecological functions of our open spaces.

It is time to call upon Governor Corzine with the participation of Highlands Council and municipalities to

CONTACT US

Dave Peifer, ANJEC’s Highlands Project Director is available to help answer your questions at (973)539-7547 or dpeifer@anjec.org.

SUPPORT US

A click on www.anjec.org/html/memberindivform.htm takes you to our website where you can make a secure contribution using Mastercard or VISA (or print a form to mail in).
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ANJEC
P.O. Box 157
Mendham, NJ 07945