Five years after the adoption of the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, New Jersey is at the forefront of an increasingly critical issue – protecting the quantity and quality of fresh water while planning  the future of a region based on sustainable development

Adopted on August 10, 2004, the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act identified the New Jersey Highlands Region, a roughly 860,000-acre area spread across 88 municipalities in seven counties in the northwest part of the state. The region is just 17 percent of the state’s land base, but supplies 64 percent of the State’s drinking water. The state’s six largest municipalities (Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Edison, and Woodbridge) draw at least some of their water from the Highlands; all told, 5.4 million residents, most of them living outside the Highlands, depend on the region for their public water supply.

The Highlands Act created the Highlands Council and mandated the preparation of a Highlands Regional Master Plan to protect the region. The Highlands Act also divided the region into the Preservation Area, where conformance to the Highlands Regional Master Plan is mandatory, and the Planning Area, where conformance is voluntary. Of the 88 municipalities in the Highlands Region, five are entirely in the Preservation Area and 36 are entirely in the Planning Area; the remaining 47 have lands in each area.

Since the adoption of the Highlands Act, a tremendous amount of work has been done to protect this vital area. The Highlands Council undertook a detailed resource analysis across the entire region and then created a scientifically based plan to ensure the protection of those resources. The information gathered is shared with the public through a website designed to enable the public to view the Highlands through the “lens” of the Highlands Council.

Last year, on July 17, the Highlands Council completed the Highlands Regional Master Plan; it was signed by Governor Jon Corzine on September 5 and took effect on September 8. The Governor also demonstrated his support for the Plan by issuing Executive Order 114, which made it clear to state agencies that they should work together and with the Highlands Council to protect the valuable resources of the region. Executive Order 114 also set aside $10 million in seed money for the Transfer of Development Rights Program.  The Highlands Development Credit Bank, which was created by the Highlands Council, oversees the Highlands’ Transfer of Development Rights program. Under this program, property owners will be compensated in return for not developing their properties. (The landowner still retains the land.) The development rights can then be applied to increase the density of projects in areas where development or redevelopment is more appropriate. The Highlands Development Credit Bank held its first meeting this year and expects to begin accepting applications for hardship cases later this year.

Since the adoption of the Plan, 75 of the 88 Highlands municipalities have resolved to work with the Highlands Council to consider conforming to the Highlands Regional Master Plan. The Council has designed a program for Conformance with template documents to facilitate the process. The Highlands Council, through a $7.5 million Plan Conformance Grant Program, provided state funds to municipalities so they could hire their own planning professionals to advise the governing bodies on conformance and work with Council staff on the templates.

Part of the process is to determine the amount of development that can occur while protecting the resources of the area. The Highlands Council is working with 74 municipalities in the Highlands Region on a Municipal Build Out to determine, at a block and lot level, each municipality’s maximum build-out potential given the limitations of that resource protection, as well as the constraints of land and water availability, utility capacity, and other factors. To date, more than half of the municipalities have completed the process. The resulting Highlands Municipal Build-Out Reports can be viewed online at http://www.highlands.state.nj.us/njhighlands/planconformance/buildoutreports.html. This planning tool can be used to encourage smart growth, redevelopment, and understanding of utility capacity and water availability conditions.

It is the first time in the state – and possibly the nation – that a state agency has partnered with so many municipalities to create such a detailed analysis to understand the real capacity of a municipality to manage its growth appropriately.

The Council is committed to partnering with municipalities and to ensuring an open, public process.  Since the adoption of the Highlands Regional Master Plan, the Highlands Council staff has delivered presentations in more than 40 municipalities to inform elected and appointed municipal representatives and residents about the implications of the Highlands Act and the Highlands Regional Master Plan. These presentations are generally given at the municipality’s regularly scheduled public meetings to reach a wide audience. Highlands Council staff members also have delivered presentations to planning professionals, at schools and universities, and to various advocacy groups. Additional information is available on the Highlands Council website, http://www.highlands.state.nj.us/.

Also within the last year, the Highlands Council website has been updated with two new interactive tools to further share information with the public about the Highlands Act and the Highlands Regional Master Plan. The Highlands Interactive Map (http://maps.njhighlands.us/hgis/) allows a user to enter a specific address or block-and-lot to see all the various layers of information compiled by the Council on the resources and capacity issues related to that land – essentially, the viewer may see how the Highlands views that parcel. Even more information is available with the Consistency Review Application (http://maps.njhighlands.us/hgis/cons/). With it, a user can look at a specific parcel (either by street address or by block and lot) and generate a customized report showing the resources on that property, such as steep slopes, wetlands, critical and endangered habitat, forests, and if there is supporting infrastructure.  Further, the tool then shows the goals, policies and objectives from the plan associated with the resources on the subject property.  Both tools were built on existing open source software applications Google Maps and Windows Live, minimizing cost and presenting a familiar interface to the user.

In the next four months, the Highlands Region will take another significant step forward. On December 8, 2009, lands in the Preservation Area must submit conforming petitions to the Highlands Council. Lands in the Planning Area may come into conformance at any time, but the elected officials representing the majority of Planning Area Lands are already working with the Council to consider conformance.

Much has been accomplished, and there is much more to do. But future generations will reap the benefits of the hard work that has been done by the Governor, the Legislature and the Highlands Council, as they too will be able to enjoy the beauty and resources of the Highlands Region while the residents and businesses of the State will be able to continue to rely on the quality and quantity of Highlands waters.