and Rob Pirani, Director of Environmental Programs, RPA
On July 17, after eight grueling hours of testimony and deliberations - and more than a year behind schedule - the New Jersey Highlands Council voted to adopt a Master Plan for the Highlands Region. Encompassing 860,000 acres in 88 municipalities - almost a fifth of New Jersey's land mass - the Highlands is the source of drinking water for half of the state's population. The purpose of this Master Plan is to protect this drinking water supply and the forested watersheds that feed it, while also maintaining landowner equity.
While the plan's adoption is an important milestone in the decades-long efforts to establish a greenbelt for the core cities and suburbs in the New York metropolitan area, its ultimate success will depend on both its ability to enable the right kind of (re)development in the right places, and on preventing further sprawl in inappropriate locations.
Like most complex public policies, the plan has been controversial and contested from many sides. Some environmental organizations opposed it because the plan does not preclude some amount of future growth in the Highlands; landowners and builders also opposed it, concerned with loss of equity as a result of new restrictions on development. Both sides are now urging Governor Corzine to either veto the minutes of the Council meeting - which would effectively kill the plan - or to direct the Council to change the plan.
RPA was, in fact, one of the few voices to testify in support of the plan. It is our position that although the plan is far from perfect and will need to be revisited periodically, having a plan in place now is the best way to secure a more balanced and sustainable future for the Highlands. An adopted plan will mark the beginning - not the end - of a conversation, which promises to be lively, about implementation. Only an adopted plan can provide a predictable process by which preservation and economic growth efforts can continue, recognizing that planning itself is an on-going process that requires adjustments and modifications over time in response to new information and to meet unforeseen challenges. Perhaps it is the fact that RPA has been promoting the preservation of the Highlands for decades that gives us a longer view and more balanced perspective on the issue.
The Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, passed by the legislature in 2004, is in part to blame for the limitations of the Master Plan. Instead of designating a clear "green line" within which no development can take place and land owners are compensated through the sale of their development rights - the model adopted in the New Jersey Pinelands and in New York State's Adirondacks - the Highlands Act failed to statutorily preclude development in the most environmentally sensitive areas of the Highlands. Instead, the legislature punted by establishing a stringent statutory framework but leaving it up to the Council and NJ DEP to decide the specifics of what to protect and where to build. This framework, by its nature subject to interpretation of the scientific basis and of subsequent enforcement actions, both twisted the original promise of the Highlands Act and, to a certain extent, compromised the planning process.
In light of this shortcoming, the Council is to be commended for persevering in the face of a shrill campaign by detractors. Sadly, lost in the rhetoric and sound bites, was any meaningful discussion of the real particulars of how the region should evolve over time. RPA believes that a balanced plan should ensure that the NJ Highlands continues to be a thriving and dynamic part of the state - not an enclave divorced from the rest of the region - and that this is compatible with guaranteeing that the region's precious resources - watersheds producing plentiful drinking water; scenic and historic landscapes; and farmland and wildlife habitat - are preserved and widely accessible.
Implementing the Master Plan over the next decades will require more from the Council than to act as the referee between development and conservation advocates. The region faces the Herculean task of retrofitting its infrastructure and building stock in ways that drastically reduce water and energy use, mitigate existing environmental degradation, address the severe jobs-to-housing imbalances, create affordable housing, reduce auto dependency and so forth. Resolving these deficiencies will likely require redevelopment and additional growth - the "smart growth" mandate of the Highlands Act.
The premise of the Highlands Act was that the Highlands should be fundamentally different from the cities and suburbs to the east, a quasi-rural landscape that can sustainably - that is, forever - provide drinking water and open space to the rest of New Jersey. But long term regional sustainability must also address the future of the 860,000 people that live in the Highlands today as well as the role the region can play in terms of a statewide climate change mitigation strategy. RPA would like to see the Highlands region become a pioneer in the "green economy," a laboratory for the next great transformation that the state and the nation will need to undergo to wean ourselves away from our carbon dependency. A planning framework that supports new thinking and does not stifle innovation in the Highlands is what we need to make it happen.
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