Is NJ Really The "Garden State?"
A new report released by Rowan University with help from Rutgers University shows New Jersey continues to sprawl out at an alarming rate. According to the report, between 1986 and 2007, New Jersey saw a 26% increase in the amount of developed land. In the last five years, our population has gone up 1.2% and the amount of land loss has increased by 7%.
The study concludes that for the first time ever, New Jersey has more urban than forested land and more than half of the growth is occurring in rural and environmentally sensitive areas. The report may serve as a wakeup call that New Jersey is on a path to be paved over within a generation, resulting in severe impacts to our environment, economy, and quality of life.
"It certainly is a problem and frankly it's no surprise," says Assembly Environment Committee chairman, John McKeon. "This is the reason that I advocated for the taxpayers in the most difficult of economic times to support the $400 million bond referendum for open space preservation." Voters rejected that ballot question.
"This report is an alarm bell showing New Jersey is not properly managing growth," says New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel. "We're paving over farm fields and environmentally sensitive areas at a higher rate now than at any time in the past."
Statistics suggest that New Jersey is losing farmland as a percentage of the state faster than any state in the nation. In 1950, the state had 2 million acres of farmland. That has dropped to a little over a half million acres. The fastest growing counties for urbanization include southern parts of the state like Cumberland and Atlantic counties, where once rural and environmentally sensitive lands are now being paved over.
"There's only a million acres left and time is running out so, we have to do all we can to go forward with the preservation of land with the funds we have and think about future funding and perhaps a permanent source," says McKeon. "We have to identify something in a bi-partisan way. Any kind of fee (or) tax, whatever you want to call it and package it is so volatile in this particular economic climate that it's something that needs to happen together."
The report says only half the development is occurring in areas designed as environmentally sensitive and rural by the State Plan. However, the report doesn't explain that there are many important areas designed for growth in the State Plan. Tittel calls the State Plan is "a longstanding policy fraud" that is used as an excuse for sprawl while failing to encourage revitalization.
"In New Jersey we're paying the price for bad land use decisions like sprawl, overdevelopment, traffic, and air and water pollution, all while paying the highest property taxes in the nation," says Tittel. "This is the result of failed land use policies,"
Copyright 2010 by Millennium Radio New Jersey. All Rights Reserved.
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