TRENTON — The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is scaling back the coastal flood rules proposed last year.
The DEP announced Monday, July 14, that it will adopt the Resilient Environments and Landscapes (REAL) rules “with changes responsive to public comment and stakeholder feedback.”
That comment and feedback from local, county and state representatives from the Jersey shore area was fierce.
The DEP planned to detail its changes in the July 21 edition of the New Jersey Register.
The biggest change is lowering the coastal flood zone elevation for new buildings — and ones that are substantially improved. The DEP had proposed making those buildings constructed or elevated to 5 feet about the FEMA base flood elevation (BFE). The new plan will require new construction at 4 feet above BFE.
According to the DEP, going from a 5-foot to 4-foot BFE requirement will cut the amount of coastal land subject to new building safety standards of the state’s Flood Hazard Area Control Act.
The proposed changes would expand provisions to allow projects to go forward under pre-existing regulations “if they reach certain planning, design or permitting milestones by July 2026, i.e., within six months of DEP’s intended adoption of the REAL rules.”
“The DEP has carefully reviewed and considered comments from a diverse cross-section of residents, community leaders, business interests and stakeholders as we continued to evaluate measures to better protect people and property from increasing coastal hazards,” DEP Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette said in the release Monday. “We take public comment on these reforms as seriously as we do the climate science that underlies them, and we are proposing changes that will better position our coastal communities to withstand existing and future risks from coastal flooding, sea-level rise and storm surge.”
Last fall, a multitude of officials from Cape May and Atlantic counties attacked the proposed REAL regulations because of their impact on residential and commercial properties not just along the coast but in other low-lying areas. Their focus was the fact that under Gov. Phil Murphy’s Executive Order 100, the regulations would make property owners in 2025 prepare now for anticipated sea level rise 75 years into the future, in 2100.
Homeowners in flood zones — those based on projections for 2100 — would have had to raise their homes to 5 feet BFE if they planned repairs or renovations equaling 50 percent of their home’s market value. The same rules would apply to new construction. (Many island communities already have regulations requiring new construction at a few feet above BFE.)
The Cape May County Board of County Commissioners hired Peter Lomax of Lomax Consulting to study the more than 1,000 pages of new rules and regulations and help the county and municipalities fight their implementation.
In late October 2024, county and Ocean City officials hosted a major forum, sponsored by the group Families of Ocean City United in Success (FOCUS), at the Ocean City Tabernacle. The urgency at the time was because the deadline for public comment on the plan was Nov. 7, after which the DEP would take all comments and suggestions into consideration before making a determination on how it would proceed.
The NJDEP asserted it was modernizing land use rules to respond to climate change risks as sea level rises.
At the forum, Lomax said a panel of scientists from Rutgers University prepared projections in 2016 (updated in 2019) used by the NJDEP and set the year 2100 as the planning horizon for the new regulations. The scientists estimated a 17 percent probability that the sea level rise could be as high as 5.1 feet by then.
A chart Lomax presented shows a low-end sea level rise of 1.3 feet (95 percent chance), 2.0 feet (83 percent chance), 3.3 feet (50 percent chance) and as high as 6.9 feet (less than a 5 percent chance.)
The NJDEP decided that any buildings to be constructed now could still be in service at the turn of the next century, hence the new rules and regulations on new construction — and on repairs and renovations.
“They’re looking at 75 years in the future to be regulated in 2025,” Lomax said. “That should get your attention.”
Proposed changes in plans
In the DEP’s announcement Monday, the agency proposed a number of amendments to its original plan. Among them the DEP would:
— Revise the elevation requirement for new or substantially improved buildings and infrastructure from the originally proposed 5 feet to 4 feet above FEMA’s BFE;
— Revise the extent of the proposed inundation risk zone, which incorporates land that lies above sea level today but would be permanently inundated with the projected 4-foot increase in sea levels;
— Revisit the sea-level rise and precipitation data incorporated into the rule every five years and amend the regulations if appropriate. More information on the updated science that supports the Notice of Substantial Change can be found at https://dep.nj.gov/njreal/ (This was a major contention of elected officials, who said they didn’t deny climate change but believed new rules should be put in place on a more gradual basis and determined by ongoing analysis of sea level rise.)
— Expand provisions in the flood hazard, stormwater, coastal zone and freshwater wetland regulations to allow projects for which the applicant submits a complete application to the DEP within 180 days of REAL’s effective date to be reviewed under today’s regulations;
— Provide additional detail and appropriate flexibility for “dry access” design and construction standards for buildings and roads to ensure reliable vehicular access to buildings in flood hazard areas for occupants and emergency responders;
— Clarify that low- and moderate-income housing projects are eligible project types to be reviewed under the Flood Hazard Area Control Act rules’ “hardship exception” process, which allows relaxation of certain standards where public safety is not jeopardized.
There will be a 60-day comment period on the amendments once the proposed changes are published in the New Jersey Register.
The DEP planned to record a webinar and post it on the REAL website July 18 at REAL — Resilient Environments and Landscapes WEBINARS, to outline the changes to the original REAL proposal.
By DAVID NAHAN/Cape May Star and Wave
