If You Own Undeveloped Land or Engage in Agriculture Elsewhere in the State
- You could see increased development pressure and rising land prices from spillover growth, especially if you are close to the Highlands preservation area.
- The land use and environmental regulations you face will not change as a result of this bill. They could conceivably change, however, as a result of other regulatory initiatives by the NJ DEP that are not part of this bill, but are motivated by the enhanced scrutiny being given to issues of water quality and development in general. These regulatory activities are ongoing, and you should try to keep abreast of them through the NJ DEP, your County Board of Agriculture, the State Agricultural Development Committee, Soil Conservation District personnel, the New Jersey Farm Bureau, state legislators (especially relevant committee members), and Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) Cooperative Extension.
- The bill tries to ensure that funds for the existing Green Acres and Farmland Preservation programs are not shifted over to the Highlands region as a result of the increased priority given to preservation in that part of the state. More specifically: from 2005 to 2009, the amount of money from these two preservation programs spent in each county cannot be less than the average annual amount spent from 2002 to 2004, unless there are no more lands or easements for the state to buy in a given county.