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Creating Sustainable Communities:
A Guide for Developers and Communities
Creating a high quality of life in New Jersey’s communities is a shared goal of government, residents and businesses. Though there are numerous factors that contribute to livable and desirable communities, the essential elements are: a healthy environment, a vibrant economy and a community that is inclusive, safe and effectively governed. A leading and growing strategy to help create such municipalities is the concept of sustainability or sustainable development. This approach came into general use after the 1987 UN World Commission on Environment and Development coined what was to become the most well-known definition: sustainable development is development that "meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." More simply, sustainability focuses on providing the best outcomes for both the human and natural environments now, and into the indefinite future.
Recognizing the value of sustainability as an important new strategy to protecting New Jersey’s environment and improving our communities, Commissioner Lisa Jackson’s 2007 NJDEP Priorities and Action Plan (pdf) makes the following policy statements:
- “As national leaders in the stewardship of natural resources, we preserve the ecological integrity of the Garden State and maintain and transform places into healthy, sustainable communities….” (DEP Vision Statement, p. 3)
- “Sustainable Growth - Maximize use of DEP resources to encourage sustainable growth and livable communities by incorporating consistent criteria for the protection of natural resources and development of smart growth and green design principles into DEP rulemaking, priority-setting and planning efforts, other state smart and economic growth priorities, and in regional and local planning efforts.” (DEP Policy Category D, p.4)
- Incorporate sustainable growth and environmental protection criteria into state, regional and local planning. (p. 16)
- Ensuring consistency with state and local development and redevelopment objectives, apply DEP’s consistent set of natural-resource and environmental criteria as the basis for targeting development and redevelopment projects for department-wide prioritization and coordinated review and aggressively advance integration of smart-growth and environmental-justice principles, green building design technologies, and energy efficiency and renewable energy into those projects. (p. 17)
- Expand DEP efforts to promote incorporation of sustainable or green project design into local planning, individual projects, state investments and state policy. For those projects and communities that have been identified as DEP priorities. (p. 18)
To implement these new policies, DEP has been moving in several complementary directions:
- Close collaboration with the NJ Office of Smart Growth to incorporate sustainability principles and practices into the newly revised State Plan Endorsement process;
- Creation of the Permit Readiness Checklist, a DEP business practice improvement that will help ensure that proposed projects are ready for DEP evaluation, in terms of both completeness and acceptable proposed design, thus saving applicants’ and state officials’ time and facilitating effective reviews.
The Readiness Checklist also provides the opportunity to encourage and facilitate environmentally sustainable projects. Projects are asked to voluntarily identify and propose innovative and beyond-compliance environmental enhancements such as high performance and/or green building design, open space preservation and/or restoration of natural resources.
- Establishment of the Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities within the Commissioner’s Office. The roles of this office are to coordinate the sustainable development (link back to section on opsc page) and environmental capacity-based planning (link back to section on opsc page) policies of the Department and proactively work with other state agencies, regional entities, local governments and other groups to incorporate these policies into all levels of land use and environmental planning.
- Development of this guidance document – Creating Sustainable Communities: A Guide for Developers and Communities – to provide community leaders and project developers with concise and straightforward descriptions of a wide range of sustainable practices and technologies.
Creating Sustainable Communities:
A Guide for Developers and Communities
This guide provides a series of fact sheets on a wide array of sustainable practices and technologies. Each fact sheet includes: the benefits from implementing the practice, how it relates to and helps us address a state goal or policy, a description of the practice or technology, sources of State government assistance, and sources of additional information.
The Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities intends to update and refine these fact sheets as experience and knowledge grows. We encourage feedback from users and other readers as we strive to continually improve the value and practicality of this guidance. Please direct any comments to Athena Sarafides.
Outline (not all sections are available for download)
I. Local Land Use Planning / Sustainable Location and Capacity
This section addresses large-scale land use planning concerns that should determine the most environmentally appropriate areas ready for growth and redevelopment. Before implementing many of the techniques discussed in later sections, it is imperative to address the macro-level locational and planning issues described in this section. The series of fact sheets will demonstrate clear linkages with regulatory programs and existing state policies (Water Quality Management Plan (WQMP) rules, Readiness Checklist, Smart Growth, etc.) Topics include:
- General Planning
- Capacity-Based Planning
- Waste Management
II. Healthy and Sustainable Communities
This section focuses on some of the actions that municipalities and developers can take to protect human health, resolve long-standing environmental problems and improve quality of life in the context of sustainable development. Many of the areas that are now being targeted for development are located in urban communities, where low-income and minority residents have historically coexisted with industry and as a result find themselves affected by a broad range of environmental and health burdens. As we all learn from the mistakes of the past, we now have an opportunity and a responsibility to remedy much of this damage and prevent future harm. Topics include:
- Reduction of Toxics
- Access to Green Space
- Remediation and Redevelopment of Contaminated Sites
III. Sustainable Project Design and Technology
This section addresses issues as they relate to green design and technology. It focuses on practices, design techniques and technologies that minimize the environmental impact of the project at the neighborhood, site and structural levels. Furthermore, this section provides information to enable environmentally-sustainable development and redevelopment projects. Topics include:
- Low Impact Site Design
- Water
- Environmentally-Friendly Building Materials
- Building Reuse and Adaptive Reuse
- Energy Sustainability & Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction
Acknowledgements
This fact sheet series was made possible by the valuable contributions and time of the following individuals:
NJ Department of Environmental Protection
- Steve Anderson, Office of Policy, Planning and Science
- Nick Angarone, Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities
- Katie Barnett, Division of Water Supply
- Sandra Blick, Division of Watershed Management
- Sue Boyle, Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities
- Steve Doughty, Division of Water Supply
- Jennifer Feltis, Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities
- Maria Franco-Spera, Environmental Justice Program
- Jorge Reyes, Division of Science, Research and Technology
- Steven Rinaldi, Solid & Hazardous Waste Program, Bureau of Recycling and Planning
- Martin Rosen, Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities
- Athena Sarafides, Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities
- Liz Semple, Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities
- Jay Springer, Division of Watershed Management
- Veda Truesdale, Office of Planning and Sustainable Communities
Department of Community Affairs
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