State Guidance for Locating Warehouses is Here

June 10th, 2022 by Peter Kasabach

Photo Credit: Canva

The Office of Planning Advocacy, the staff for the State Planning Commission, has issued first-of-its-kind guidance on where and how warehouses should be located in New Jersey. The guidance will be useful for municipalities looking to direct warehouse development to optimum sites and away from sites that are not appropriate for the community; for community members looking to protect their quality of life while still benefiting from development; for developers looking to meet the growing demand to build warehouses; for counties looking to support good municipal planning; and for state agencies and decision makers looking to further the sustainable, equitable, and practical siting of warehouses through new laws, regulations, and investment decisions.

In recent years, New Jersey has seen an increase in warehouse development. This increase is putting pressure on communities that are already overburdened with pollution, communities soon to be negatively affected by new truck traffic that did not exist before, and on our state’s remaining open spaces. It is critical that the state plan for this new demand in its logistics sector. Critical to this planning is the inclusion of community voices from our urban communities that have been fighting for better air quality and less truck traffic for years.

The new state warehouse guidance can be found at the Office of Planning Advocacy’s website (under Reference Materials section). The office will be accepting public comments by email (warehousessos dot nj dot gov) until July 29th. The guidance will then go to the State Planning Commission to be adopted. The Office of Planning Advocacy will review comments before bringing a final copy of the guidance to the August 3rd meeting of the State Planning Commission for the Commission’s approval. The guidance will then go to the State Planning Commission to be adopted. Once adopted, we expect that government agencies and decision makers will put in place the rules, regulations, and investment planning necessary to effectively implement the guidance.