New Jersey State Plan

For the State of New Jersey, I served as a senior consultant reporting directly to the Commissioner of the State’s Department of Environmental Protection ( DEP) (Dr. Richard Dewling). My work involved formulating and authoring DEP's official technical and policy inputs to the preliminary draft of the State Plan being produced in 1992 by the Office of State Planning. My tasks involved analyzing all major DEP statutory and operating policies and programs as well as formulating, structuring, coordinating and producing technical and policy inputs in coordination with each DEP division. The work also entailed direct policy and technical coordination with other state agencies, especially the State Department of Transportation regarding proposal related to compact urban development and delineation of transportation and urban growth corridors within the state. For DEP I was also directly responsible for technical and policy coordination with the Dr. John Epling, Director of the State Planning Commission.

My work for the DEP Commissioner especially addressed the department's responsibilities in land development regulatory controls, water and waster water planning, coastal zone protection and development (e.g. CAFRA zone) and Federal-State-local inter-jurisdictional infrastructure and transportation planning. Another emphasis of the work also involved reviewing DEP and the State's options for infrastructure financing including use of revolving funds, revenue bonds, user fees, tax increment financing, special assessment districts and privatization.  

State Plan Results: After 15 years....

According to a February 2001 Newark Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll, at that time most residents of New Jersey viewed the decade old state plan as mainly ineffectual. The poll showed residents believed the goals of the plan to be important but only about 6 percent viewed the plan successful in meeting those goals, especially falling short in revitalizing the state's older urban centers, stopping sprawl or decreasing traffic congestion. Some progress was seen in preserving open space and stimulating economic development but not to the extent needed.

JMC - Personal Note

Having been involved in its initial creation, the entire New Jersey state-wide planning process has been largely a great disappointment to me professionally as an urban designer and planner - and also disappointing as a state resident and home owner. Due to my prior experience with state level planning in the western US, however, I was not surprised at the lack of substantial positive results. I was just disappointed that the political and economic mega forces could not be swayed by the arguments and work of the consultants and professional planning community - groups who labored tirelessly to provide decision-makers insights regarding the negative implications of maintaining the state's jurisdictional status quo and continuing uncoordinated patterns of suburban sprawl.

Until the political  issues associated with home-rule are squarely addressed, or some external force or disaster causes local politics to take a back-seat, I don't see the forces of regional coordination, or even state agency coordination, taking effect to materially change the resulting sprawl that continue to envelope the state.. There are positive happenings within the state, such as the potentials for transit villages, more open space and greater coastal protection (i.e., the CAFRA guidelines). And the creative TDR work (transfer of development rights) of the Pinelands Commission has been a positive model and tool for the state and nation.

The main positive results from the state planning effort, however, since creation of the State Planning Commission in 1986, are likely to be the great debates stimulated among the various pubic and private stakeholders, especially the political and commercial power brokers and the environmental communities. The State Plan's cross-acceptance dialogues among the cities, counties and state agencies are viewed by many as positive, and the state's Smart Growth initiative appear promising. During the past 15 years these various activities have resulted in much re-naming and re-interpreting of the initial State Planning work done in 1992. Whether or not any real positive progress is being made in curbing suburban sprawl, regenerating our older cities or in protecting our natural resources - well, that remains to be seen. So far, it doesn't look promising.

© Copyright 2002-2010.  IDC Int'l Development Consultants, LLC.  All rights reserved.