(November 28, 2007) - Four expert reports detailing the economic harm, unintended effects and inequities of the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act have been submitted to the Court as part of Warren County’s legal challenge to the law.
The reports were filed in response to a motion by the State of New Jersey to dismiss the suit filed by the County and nine individual property owners who are seeking to have the Act declared unconstitutional. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday, Dec. 7, before Superior Court Judge Paul Innes at the Mercer County Courthouse, 175 South Broad Street, Trenton, NJ.
Copies of these reports, the curriculum vitae of their respective authors, related maps and other documents pertaining to the suit are available for review on the official Warren County website at highlands page.
According to the expert reports, aggregate value of lost equity in the Highlands Preservation Area is $15 billion. With respect to individual properties, 70 to 80 percent of the land value has been lost. Lost economic growth in the Preservation Area is $160 billion.
Contrary to its stated legislative purpose, the Act will destroy agricultural production and a positive agricultural business environment. This loss of land value destroys the equity farmers have built in their property and reduces their ability to borrow capital for farm operations, since farmers no longer have their equity to use as collateral when purchasing seeds, fertilizer, equipment and other needed supplies.
The public purpose to justify this unprecedented devaluation of private property by the State of New Jersey has nothing to do with water protection or sound planning. Instead, it is the self-described “winning approach” adopted by former Governor James E. McGreevey to freeze development in the Highlands Region without paying for it. |
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There is no scientific water resource justification for the Highlands Region delineation, the Preservation Area boundaries or the Act’s key preservation development standards. The Highlands Council’s 2006 Draft Master Plan left only 1.1 percent of undeveloped property in the Highlands Planning Region in Warren County available for future development.
The legislative history indicates that the Legislature anticipated that a Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program would be a significant funding source to address the loss of property owner equity. Instead, it has proven to be a voluntary program whose scope and scale prevent it from becoming a viable funding source during the lifetimes of many of the affected property owners, if ever. Seven of the individual plaintiffs are senior citizens.
The statutory exemptions violate the equal protection rights of the owners of undeveloped property that has development potential. For example, pursuant to the single family exemption under the Act, the owner of a two-acre parcel in a two-acre zone will see no loss – or more likely an increase – in value, while the owner of a 100-acre property zoned for two-acre development will lose 70 to 80 percent of the property value. The boundaries of the Preservation Area violate the principles of equal protection and due process since the central core is a legal fiction used to apply the legal precedents established by the Pinelands Act. In the Pinelands, water resource characteristics justify State regulation through a central preservation core area with an area permitting development. Such water resource conditions are not present in the Highlands Region.
Lacking a legitimate public policy justification of water resource protection, and in light of the magnitude of the Act’s consequences, as shown in the expert reports, the Act does not pass the litmus test for constitutionality.
The docket number for the case is MER-L-1021-07. For more information, contact Special Warren County Counsel Stephen Shaw, Esq., of Hueston McNulty, at (973) 377-0200. |