CAPE MAY POINT — “What I’m looking for is reaffirmation on where we stand on bamboo, and I bring this up because this will not be popular,” Deputy Mayor Elise Geiger said May 26 regarding potential changes to the bamboo ordinance.
Geiger said the borough enacted an ordinance in 2020 that prohibits planting bamboo and requires existing chutes to be contained if possible and removed if not.
“The issue, though, is the statement in the ordinance, [which] says the duty to confine shall not apply if the owner can establish that the bamboo on his property originated from another property,” Geiger said.
Determining the original source of the bamboo may be difficult, and Geiger noted that the borough has received a complaint about what she calls a “bamboo forest.”
The patch runs through the backyards of eight properties, making enforcement difficult, she said.
“The no planting point seems reasonable,” Geiger said, adding that the duty to contain is meant to prevent bamboo from spreading to neighboring properties.
She added that the borough relies on neighbor complaints because they do not inspect backyards.
“We have other forests and we’re going to run into the same enforcement problem,” she said. “Bear in mind that containment and removal is not very simple. It’s both an expensive and a multi-year project.”
Permanent bamboo containment requires destroying its rhizomes, which are a dense underground root system.
“Even after you think you’ve killed it, sometimes you didn’t get that one piece and it shoots back up again,” Commissioner Suzanne Yunghans said. “So, it might sometimes be even a multi-year process if it keeps up.”
Invasive species
In January 2026, the state adopted the Invasive Species Management Act (ISMA), which formally classifies running bamboo (Phyllostachys) as a prohibited invasive species at the state level. Geiger said that bamboo is one of 33 invasive species included in the ISMA.
“Other items of interest are wisteria, English ivy [and European] privet,” Geiger said. “And I bring these up because it’s really a similar encroachment problem as these things move to other people’s properties.”
Geiger asked the commission whether they wanted to reaffirm the bamboo ordinance, whether it should apply to a specific bamboo species and whether it was the borough’s goal to eradicate invasive plants and have people remove them from their property.
“If we decide to enforce, I think there’s a better way to enforce and require containment and removal,” Geiger said.
She added that she reviewed ordinances from the Borough of Ho-Ho-Kus and Aberdeen Township that define the owner of the bamboo.
“Both these municipalities have buffer zones, so if people do contain it on their property, they have to create a buffer zone,” she said. “I think if we go the other route, Aberdeen and Ho-Ho-Kus list several [invasive] species.”
Yunghans said bamboo cannot be sold or planted anymore because of the state’s law against invasives.
“We’re talking about legacy bamboo that’s already here,” Yunghans said, adding that Public Works Superintendent Bill Gibson told her Public Works cannot pick it up because it has to go to the landfill, so homeowners must have somebody dispose of it properly.
Mayor Anita Van Heeswyk said she was fine with what the commissioners wanted to do moving forward.
“I don’t see how we’re going to find the source of those in the forest ones, so I do think the ordinance needs to be changed about the source,” Van Heeswyk said.
She asked solicitor John Amenhauser about additional wording for the ordinance regarding the eradication period.
“I would say a year might not be too long,” she said.
Amenhauser said the code enforcement officer has discretion to determine the timing of remediation.
“If you leave it to his discretion, then there’s no reason to codify anything other than the fact that if you don’t remove it, there’s a violation attached to it,” he added. “If there is no specific delineated time period in the ordinance, he has the discretion to do so.”
Geiger said she wanted to look further at the Ho-Ho-Kus and Aberdeen ordinances for useful language.
“We really wouldn’t have to change all that much,” Geiger said.
Yunghans asked if there was concern for the deep rhizomes threatening infrastructure in the borough.
“It sounds like they’re in backyards, so maybe that’s not an issue,” Yunghans said. “It might be a threat to private owners’ infrastructure, their sewer line or whatever.”
She also asked if there was any bamboo on borough property. Geiger said no and that there might be a bamboo forest near the right of way.
Van Heeswyk said they should speak with an expert knowledgeable about bamboo structure.
Geiger said another aspect the commission should consider is adding other invasives to the ordinance.
“I think addressing the bamboo, now that we [have] something on the books, to tighten that up is really where we should move to now,” Van Heeswyk said.
By RACHEL SHUBIN/Special to the Star and Wave