Highlands council approves planning grants

Sussex County - The Highlands Council awarded $256,000 in contracts to planning and engineering firms in anticipation of the finalization of its regional master plan in June 2006. At a regular meeting of the council on Thursday, Dec. 1, members approved $191,000 for private “think tank” firms to examine regional planning issues, with another $65,000 going to Rutgers University for a regional build-out analysis. The Highlands Act, signed into law by former Gov. James McGreevey in August of 2004, affects the eastern half of Sussex County, where development of some areas will be tightly controlled. Under the most severe restrictions for the region, applying to forested land, only one home can be built on 88 acres. Not all of the 88 towns in the region have enthusiastically embraced the plan, which takes control of development out of local hands, much as previous commissions did in the Pinelands, Meadowlands and Palisades regions of the state. But all except Sparta have complied with the commission’s planning directives, according to the council’s Director of Science and Planning Steve Balzano, who did not say what action would be taken to bring Sparta into line. During the public portion of the Dec. 1 meeting, several citizens questioned the constitutionality of the Highlands Act, which has been challenged in N.J. Superior Court. Thomas A. Borden, chief counsel for the Highlands Council, said that seven lawsuits defying the Highlands Act have been filed. Two have been dismissed and the others are still working their way through the courts. Counties and municipalities in the Highlands region must come up with local master plans and development regulations that conform to the act. The plans must be submitted to the Highlands Council before June 2006. The diverging needs of local land owners, whose farms could be severely devalued by stricter preservation and development rules, have beset the Highlands Council from the start. The controversies in some cases mirror the experiences of the other regional commissions previously established by the state - the Meadowlands Commission, Pinelands Commission, and the Palisades Interstate Parkway Commission. A presentation at the Highlands Council meeting on Thursday, Oct. 20, by Robert Ceberio, executive director of the Meadowlands Commission, reinforced the council’s hopes that it will be able to finalize a master plan by next June. John Stokes, executive director of the Pinelands Commission and a professional planner, told the council on Nov. 3 that an all-inclusive regional master plan for the preserved and protected Highlands area is not possible. A total of 88 municipalities in the Highlands region will have to comply with the environmental act’s restrictive laws. The council awarded grant money to the towns to help them compile the information needed for the Highlands Council Regional Master Plan. The act subdivides the region into planning and preservation areas, both governed by varying regulations. Roughly 145,000 acres of the Highlands region is undeveloped and another 398,000 acres is considered preserved.  The third-smallest state in the nation, New Jersey covers 8,722 square miles, roughly 1,300 square miles of which are covered by water. The Pinelands, Highlands and Meadowlands together comprise approximately 2,650 square miles, nearly a third of the state. The Highlands Council will meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 15 at 100 North Road in Chester, N.J.