Working for Smart Growth:
More Livable Places and Open Spaces

 

Local Planning

Downtown Millville during their monthly Third Friday event. Source: NJSLOM

In New Jersey, the power to plan and zone for development is largely in the hands of the state’s 565 municipalities.

The Municipal Land Use Law (NJSA 40:55D-1) grants towns the power to enact a master plan to set land-use priorities and direction, as well as adopt a zoning ordinance to dictate where and in what form development should happen, all with the purpose of protecting the health, safety and welfare of citizens. The local zoning administrator, as well as the volunteer planning and zoning board members, have the responsibility to interpret and enforce the community’s master plan and zoning ordinance. Because development impacts do not stop at municipal borders, it is important to provide communities with the necessary guidance, tools, laws and regulations to make sound land-use decisions that reflect the broader planning context.

New Jersey Future Blog
Promoting Integration at the Local Level

While New Jersey is one of the most diverse states in the nation at the macro level, at the local level it is also one of the most segregated. The state has grown more demographically diverse over the last two decades, but most of its individual towns and neighborhoods are either predominantly white or predominantly non-white, with few places occupying the “diverse” range in between.

New NJF Report Explores How to Promote Racial Integration in NJ Municipalities

New Jersey is paradoxically one of the most diverse and most segregated states in the nation. The state has grown more diverse over the last two decades, with its non-Hispanic white percentage shrinking from two-thirds of the state population in 2000 to a little more than half as of the 2020 Census, with notable proportional growth among Hispanic and Asian-American communities. But New Jersey’s macro-level diversity often does not translate into integration at the local level, and places that are integrated at the local level don’t always stay that way.

Single-Family Zoning: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed?

New Jersey should follow Oregon’s and California’s lead and take advantage of the growing national momentum toward zoning reform, to at least begin a discussion about how such reforms might work in New Jersey.

Visualizing an Aging-Friendly Built Environment for Implementation in Ridgewood Village

New Jersey Future partnered with the Village of Ridgewood to develop an aging-friendly land use implementation plan, and now a graduate design studio class at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University is helping to move it along.

Land use land cover percentage chart
Where does impervious cover have the biggest impact?

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently released a 2015 update of its land use / land cover data set. The LU/LC dataset offers a periodic snapshot of how and where New Jersey both uses and preserves its land.

Articles and Stories
Redeveloping the Norm: Identifying and Overcoming Developer Obstacles to Redevelopment in New Jersey

This report identifies strategies to lower both cost and risk in redevelopment projects, as redevelopment increasingly becomes the norm for accommodating growth in New Jersey. January 2016.

Creating Places To Age: Housing Affordability and Aging-Friendly Communities

In this report, New Jersey Future analyzed housing affordability in each New Jersey municipality, to see where households headed by someone 65 or older have high housing costs. The places where housing cost burden is greatest fall into two groups: towns that are expensive for everyone, and towns that are dominated by larger, single-family housing stock. December 2015.

welcome to new jersey traffic sign
Fiscal Implications of Development Patterns: Roads in New Jersey

In this report, New Jersey Future and Smart Growth America analyzed per-capita road usage. The results show that places with the highest activity density have the lowest per-capita usage, suggesting per-capita road-maintenance costs can be reduced by even marginal increases in density. November 2015.

Webinar: Understanding Coastal Vulnerability

A one-hour webinar explaining a new, parcel-based tool that assesses financial vulnerability to coastal flooding and sea-level rise. Friday, May 15, 2015, noon – 1:00 pm.

In Deep: Helping Sandy-Affected Communities Address Vulnerability and Confront Risk

An interim report, three years after Hurricane Sandy, on New Jersey Future’s groundbreaking local recovery planning manager program, including lessons learned and recommendations. October 2015.

See all New Jersey Future Blog posts and articles in this category »
 

Reports, Presentations and Testimony

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