Economic Development Agency

Continue and increase funding for the State’s Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation Fund for brownfield cleanup, including its use for brownfield to greenfield park development projects and preparatory work for solar fields

Release report, based on ongoing listening sessions (including in environmental justice communities), provide guidance and implement relevant administrative actions to identify appropriate locations for warehouses and other goods movement facilities.
1. Building up, rather than out (“high cube” warehouses)
2. Require warehouses to be solar- and green-roof ready
3. Enabling more goods to be shipped by rail
4. Prioritize heavy- and medium-duty trucks and port equipment for vehicle electrification and establish “zero-emission zones” in port areas
5. Prohibiting the siting of warehousings on prime agricultural land

Utilize the “Sea Level Rise Guidance for New Jersey” document to incorporate sea level rise and flood elevation standards into all state-funded infrastructure projects and other investment decisions.

Fund partnership of community colleges and water utilities to create a pilot program to replenish the water workforce and create pathways to job and career opportunities for local residents through training and apprenticeship programs, modeled after the NJ Offshore Wind Institute.

Pilot a Community Design Advocates program that pays community leaders in overburdened communities to coordinate input from community members and ensure inclusion into the design and development of redevelopment projects.

Provide economic development and land use planning financial assistance to municipalities that want to improve an existing downtown.

Provide guidance to incentivize shared parking and reduce or eliminate minimum parking requirements in appropriate locations.

Direct all state departments and agencies to give priority funding and treatment to redevelopment projects compared to development of undisturbed greenfields. Increase DCA, EDA and HMFA subsidy funding and provide additional support for redevelopment. Create new and enhance existing programs, including at DEP and DOT, to reduce barriers and incentivize redevelopment.

Direct the NJ Redevelopment Authority to coordinate and manage a public/private working group to create a redevelopment inclusion toolkit for municipalities that can be used in both gentrifying communities and already wealthy exclusionary communities. Elements of the toolkit should include:

1. Removing a percentage of housing units from the market and making them permanently affordable to lower income residents
2. Instituting an inclusionary housing ordinance that results in a percentage of all new residential units being permanently affordable to lower income residents
3. Reducing the cost structure of a percentage of commercial and retail spaces to ensure that small “mom-and-pop” and start-up businesses can exist
4. Developing public space guidelines to ensure all people have access to appropriate public spaces and facilities

Centralize governance around green and resilient building practices, incentives and technical support through interdepartmental collaboration, with a clear lead agency that serves as the point of contact.

Support the implementation of form-based codes which regulate the height and bulk of buildings, but not their use to allow residential and non-polluting commercial uses to locate in the same neighborhood (e.g., the corner store). Ensure that mixed-use residential and commercial redevelopment is incentivized at agency level.

Provide leadership at the state agency level on the concept of “boulevarding” (reconstructing roadways to provide access while slowing down traffic) by creating templates and pursuing pilot projects for boulevarding redevelopment plans. This should emphasize centering local community businesses, minority- and women-owned enterprises, and community amenities in future plans.

Issue a governor’s executive order articulating specific strategies for reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled with clear and measurable objectives and with estimated GHG reduction outcomes. Assign ownership of these objectives to specific state departments to develop actions and timelines.

Prioritize clean transportation investments in projects that benefit communities most harmed by pollution, with at least 50 - 75 percent of funding from any air pollution settlements, regional emissions reduction agreements, federal funding or similar sources targeted in New Jersey’s more than 300 overburdened communities. Include additional investments in electrifying public transportation like buses and last-mile options.

Incentivize local, high paying jobs in electrification industries such as advanced manufacturing that target residents of overburdened communities.

Establish a Just Transition Fund and provide workforce development, job retraining and other compensation to workers in fossil fuel-dependent industries as the transportation sector continues to electrify, including those working in manufacturing, maintenance and fueling operations.

Educate industry on donation liability laws and create better food donation networks.

Launch Green Fund, proposed to support investments in clean energy technology, including targeting building emissions reductions and lowering the embodied carbon of products and materials used in the buildings sector.