Kinnelon Gets Highlands Approval

The and Washington Township received conditional approval to conform to the Highlands Regional Master Plan Thursday.

During its monthly meeting, the New Jersey Highlands Council unanimously endorsed the plans for both municipalities to make their zoning rules agree with those in the plan for the 860,000-acre region that stretches from the Bergen County border with New York state to the Delaware River in Hunterdon.

Both communities sought to make all their land follow the regional rules, even though compliance with the plan is required only for the land in the preservation area – the half of the region where the 2004 Highlands law imposed strict controls on development. Officials in each municipality said complete conformance will benefit them.

In the case of Kinnelon, all 12,309 acres would come into conformance with the regional plan. Only 3 percent of borough land, or 325 acres, are in the planning area. All of that is in the southeast corner, near Route 287.

“Because we are 97 percent in the preservation area, it almost seemed natural to opt in completely,” said Mayor Bob Collins. “Our major development has already taken place.”

He added that the borough may be able to create a greenway along Route 287 that would include some of the planning area land.

Another benefit to conformance is that it makes municipalities eligible for planning grant money from the Highlands Council, Collins said.

Less than 30 percent of Kinnelon is already developed, and more than 8 of every 10 acres are in a protection zone, where the regional plan wants to limit growth. Unlike Washington Township, where much land is in agriculture, most of Kinnelon’s undeveloped land is forested, said Eileen Swan, the Highlands Council’s executive director.

Kinnelon has not proposed a center. Its COAH obligation is only 10 units, which it plans to fulfill with 11 accessory apartments. The locations of those have not been determined yet.

Washington Township Mayor Ken Short said most of the planning area already is built out and opting that area into the plan will give the township the ability to bring in sewers that could serve a proposed community center and other properties.

The township’s application includes the creation of the Historic Long Valley Highlands Center, 148 acres that would include the center of Long Valley, the middle school and nearby municipal land that could house the community center.

That historic center, in the planning area, would be eligible for sewering under the proposed wastewater management plan. That plan would also extend sewers to the Valley View Chapel on Route 24, an expansion of Heath Village and parcels of land like those on Bartley Road with failing septic systems.

“Washington Township has been environmentally conscious for years,” said Short. “We basically bought into the Highlands Act before it became the Highlands Act.”

Still, Short said the law has hurt the township. New construction used to add about $2 million to the ratables base each year, but the law's development restrictions reduced that to $90,000 in new ratables last year, he said.

“There has to be more economic stimulus for some of these municipalities,” he said.

Short also said that farmers have been hurt by a loss in the value of their properties due to the inability to develop them. He implored the council to help get the legislature to create a funding mechanism to help those farmers because “they are our neighbors.”

Short also pointed out an irony of the law: Development is restricted in the preservation area to preserve the water supply for more urban parts of the state, yet the township is under water restrictions again this year because of a cap on the amount of water it is allowed to pump out of the acquifer for its own use.

“It’s very frustrating,” he said.

In Washington Township, 28,726 acres are affected, with 88 percent of those in the preservation area. Three out of every 10 acres already are preserved and almost one fifth of the township is used for agriculture.

Its plan also includes 117 units of affordable housing, one of only three plans approved by the state Council on Affordable Housing in its most recent round of planning. Some of that would be built on 120 acres between Schooley’s Mountain Road, Newburgh Road and the Musconetcong River. The 117 planned units are less than the 92 the Highlands rules require.

Wilma Frey of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation called the COAH location inappropriate for a 360-unit condominium development that would include market-priced units because it is the home of “numerous Highlands resource constraints.”

David Banisch, the township’s planner, said the site was planned carefully so that “Highlands resources would be protected to the extent achievable as they were known as the time.”

He added, though, that changes in the housing market will likely mean fewer units may be built.

David Shope, who owns land in the township, said he was disappointed that Washington Township brought all its land into conformance.

“It places an unnecessary burden by opting in for the planning area,” he said.

Short said the township committee plans to further discuss Highlands conformance during its June work session meeting.

The conformance approval becomes effective after 30 days if Gov. Chris Christie does not veto it. The municipalities still must update their master plan ordinances and certain other planning documents.

Including four municipal conformance plans approved at this meeting, 23 of 88 Highlands municipalities are in compliance with the master plan for their preservation area lands or all their acreage. So far, 63 communities have filed documents seeking to conform.

Washington Township's conformance documents are here. Kinnelon's are here.