New Jersey Zoning Watch

The New Jersey Highlands Council is set to propose a revised draft master plan that is more restrictive than the current proposal.  According to a story in the Daily Record, the Council’s executive director informed council members that in the revised draft, the total acreage on which development would be curtailed was 643,000 acres, or 86,000 more than the earlier maps and plan had proposed.  As a result, approximately 75 percent of the land in the Highlands area will be in areas with significant limits on development.

While the November 1 meeting agenda did not indicate that such significant changes to the plan would be presented at the meeting, the Council addressed a number of items at the meeting, including the creation of three sub-zones to address environmentally-sensitive and lake communities.

The Daily Record reports that the Council is expected to meet again on November 8 to further review the draft and iron out additional “contentious” issues and is expected to authorize the revised draft plan’s release for a 60-day public comment period on or about November 19, 2007, which would end in late January.