March 29, 2013 - The Christie Administration submitted today the State's "Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery Action Plan"  to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for review and approval. Highlights from the press release are:

March 15, 2013 - A Smart Growth Economic Development Coalition bill strongly supported by the NJBA was unanimously released by committees in both Houses. A3680 (Coutinho) was released by the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee and was referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. S2583 (Lesniak) was released by the Senate Economic Growth Committee and was referred to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. NJBA CEO Tim Touhey was at both committee hearings to testify on behalf of the NJBA.

On April 10th, Mercer County will hold a public hearing on the proposed amendment to the Mercer County Water Quality Management (WQM) Plan.  The hearing will be held in the Community Center room at the Ewing Senior and Community Center, 999 Lower Ferry Road, Ewing Township, New Jersey 08628 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

The Pinelands Commission has issued a public notice that it has reformatted its “Certificate of Filing” for newly proposed development applications. A certificate of Filing is necessary “to allow local agencies to review and act on a proposed development application in the Pinelands Area.” The announcement and sample letters are available here.
 

The New Jersey Builders Association (NJBA) and the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (Department) have engaged in a series of successful meetings intended to make the DCA implementation of the Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act (PREDFDA) more transparent to the development community.  Toward that end, the NJBA and the Department want to make the development community aware of the resolution of some of the issues that have been discussed...

In a decision issued last week, the state Appellate Division upheld the statutory authority of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in its adoption of problematic provisions of the 2008 WQMP rules.