ERMA – Legislative districts located away from New Jersey coastal areas, along with party affiliation, are two of the barriers to garnering legislative opposition to proposed new regulations that will affect development in the coastal areas, speakers at a town meeting said.
First District Assemblymen Erik Simonsen and Antwan McClellan were members of a panel at the meeting at Lower Cape May Regional High School on Monday, Oct. 7, to build opposition to the regulations, known as the Resilient Environments and Landscapes program, or REAL.
Simonsen said legislators from inland communities might not get the impact of the bill on the coastal communities.
The proposed regulations are based on study data that says sea levels have a 17% chance of rising 5.1 feet by the year 2100. In light of that study, the state Department of Environmental Protection has identified an inundation risk zone that is more expansive than currently established.
New development, redevelopment and major renovations of homes and other structures in the zone would have to comply with rules requiring the first habitable floor to be raised another 5 feet above the current sea level in anticipation of a corresponding rise in sea level. The projection anticipates that the first habitable floor requirement would be 14 to 15 feet above current sea level.
County and municipal officials say this will increase construction costs, housing prices, flood insurance rates and, ultimately, lead to higher taxes.
The proposed regulations are the product of an executive order issued by Gov. Phil Murphy that directed the DEP to make sweeping regulatory reforms to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. As an executive order the move bypassed the Legislature; however, even if it went to a vote, Simonsen said, some Assembly members would simply back Murphy in this endeavor.
“Some legislators just don’t want to get into it with the governor,” he said.
There are 120 representatives in the Legislature; Democrats hold majorities in both the General Assembly and Senate. Twenty-five of the state’s 40 senators and 52 out of 80 members of the General Assembly are Democrats.
Simonsen said representatives of legislative districts that have signed on to an effort to reexamine the need for the DEP’s rules include those from his own 1st District, as well as from the 2nd, 9th, 10th, 13th and 30th Legislative Districts.
Peter Lomax of the Lomax Consulting Group said the DEP says only 1% of the state is going to be impacted by the REAL regulations and the new inundation zone. But at least 67% of Cape May County would be considered part of the inundation zone under the regulations. He said what the DEP is proposing is too much, too soon.
“We don’t really need the state to tell us to prepare for sea level rise – we’re doing it,” Lomax said.
The legislators at the town meeting made appeals at various times for people to contact the DEP and the governor’s office and voice objections to REAL.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
