Development Coalition Seeks Overhaul of Land Use and Environmental Procedures
By: Henry T. Chou, Esq.
For the past two years, a coalition of developers and business groups called the Smart Growth Economic Development Coalition has sought to effect significant changes in land use use and environmental regulatory laws aimed at keeping businesses in New Jersey and attacting new business. It now hopes to push through some of its legislation in the lame duck Legislative session after the gubernatorial election in November.
The Coalition is actively seeking legistators to sponsor its proposals, which would create a cabinet-level state planning coordinator and a statewide planning board that has ultimate authority on all development proposals within New Jersey. The bill would also create a statewide master plan for development.
Additionally, the Coalition intends to craft legislation that would require the state planning coordinator to streamline the process for obtaining state permits and developing brownfields, create a fund to match relocation funds offered by other states, allow funds from the Hazardous Discharge Remediation Fund to be used in designated "smart growth" areas in addition to urban brownfields projects and to permit towns to sell liquor licenses to neighboring towns that plan to develop large mixed-use developments.
The environmental lobby, including the Sierra Club, oppose the Coalition's efforts on grounds that the changes would undercut long-established principles of local and regional planning and harm the environment.