Open Space and Land Use

All New Jersey residents should have easy access to parks and open space, as they are essential to quality of life.

Primary Concerns:

Continued loss of natural lands that sustain a rich diversity of flora and fauna and a clean water supply, which are essential to residents’ quality of life and the tourism industry.
Damage from illegal off-road vehicle traffic on public lands, which is increasing, to the detriment of important habitats and recreational use.
Lack of implementation of practices that improve soil health on New Jersey’s agricultural land. Loss of wetlands, resulting in the release of stored carbon into the atmosphere.
Rapid loss of natural areas in recent decades has left many communities - especially communities of color and low-income communities - with too few parks and recreational areas, exacerbating climate change impacts.
Many residents lack adequate access to well-designed, well-funded, well-maintained, well-programmed park, playground or green space within a 10-minute walk from their home or place of work.
Loss of prime farmland and other open space to warehouse development.
Sustainable forest stewardship and restoration, including deer and invasive species management.
Increased interest in trails leading to lack of adequate funding for maintenance of existing trails and development of new trails.
No coordinated state-wide program to encourage and coordinate outdoor recreation.

Not Started

In Progress

Completed

First 100 Days

Increase enforcement against illegal off-road vehicles on public lands by issuing an Executive Order directing DEP to utilize State Park Police and Division of Fish & Wildlife Conservation Officers to enforce all applicable motorized vehicle laws on State lands to address significant impacts to natural resources from this activity. The Order shall also instruct the Attorney General’s Office to assist DEP, as needed to implement existing laws and to prevent off-road vehicles from illegal access to public lands.

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First 100 Days

Support urban and community forests and shade trees and parks, playgrounds or green spaces in environmental justice communities by prioritizing Green Acres, Natural Resource Damages, environmental settlements, and other state and federal funding for these projects in a transparent manner. Set a timeline towards the goal of ensuring that every person living in an environmental justice area has access to well-designed, well-funded, well-maintained, well-programmed parks, playgrounds, or green spaces within a 10-minute walk from home or workplace.

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First 100 Days

Set aside sufficient “migration zones” inland from the marsh edge to protect the opportunity to sustain tidal wetlands. Look at adapting Green/Blue Acres and RGGI funding to accomplish this.

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First 100 Days

Finalize funding agreement and transfer of property for the proposed Essex Hudson Greenway.

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First 100 Days

Ensure adequate capacity and resources for Blue Acres program to rapidly spend allocated funding to purchase flood-prone properties.

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First 100 Days

Revise Fish & Wildlife strategy to address deer overbrowsing and its impacts on forests. Explore expanding and supporting organizations that create an incentive program that culls the deer herd while providing sources of protein to underserved populations.

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First 100 Days

Proposed NJ PACT rules that Department of Environmental Protection enforce and enhance protection of coastal wetlands.

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First Year

Ensure that forest stewardship plans address all components of forest ecology, including soils, native species, carbon sequestration, wetland communities, water resource protection and compatible recreational values, through a mandate.

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First 100 Days

Create an Outdoor Recreation Council, with the following goals:
1. Launch a recreation hub marketing campaign to raise public awareness and organizes New Jersey’s outdoor products, services, and places to increase visitation
2. Investigates innovative financing for the outdoor recreation economy
3. Establishes a statewide platform for outdoor workforce development

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First 100 Days

Publish pending rules that address the amount of soil that can be disturbed on preserved farms.

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First Year

Propose amendments to Green Acres rules that:
1. Increases preservation and stewardship of natural lands through the Green Acres program, focusing on restoring and enhancing connectivity between larger preserved parcels
2. Integrate the NJ Conservation Blueprint and Connecting Habitat Across NJ (CHANJ) in the rules, to assist in increasing connectivity between parcels and identifying priority lands for protection, including those critical to endangered and threatened wildlife and shorebirds
3. Institutes landscape-planning for State lands and protects a range of natural resource values across any State agencies that hold land
4. Make it harder to divert all publicly preserved land for private commercial uses

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First Year

Revitalize and expand the Natural Lands Trust Board of Trustees.

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First Year

Release a carbon sequestration strategy that includes defending and enhancing carbon stored in forests and wetlands.
1. Capitalize on the carbon benefits of allowing intact forests that weren’t cleared for agriculture during the 1930s or before, including those in the Highlands, to continue to mature.
2. Carbon gains should be verified and not used to facilitate continued pollution in environmental justice communities.
3. Implement reforestation projects with proper deer management.
4. Research and develop techniques to transform drowned coastal forests lost to sea level rise into carbon-sequestering habitats.

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First Year

Ensure that forest stewardship plans address all components of forest ecology including soils, native species, carbon sequestration, wetland communities, water resource protection and compatible recreational values.

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First Year

Prevent conversion of forested lands to development in all areas of the state using open space acquisition, local ordinances and other tools.

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First Year

Promote climate-friendly practices by creating additional incentives and technical assistance to help farmers implement practices that improve soil health, sequester carbon and increase organic matter, such as:
1. Adding funding to the State Agriculture Development Commission stewardship program (stewardship practices include adding compost, implementing meaningful soil protection standards for preserved farmland, promoting the use of untreated and organic seed, transition to less chemically-dependent farmland, adoption of no-till and reduced-tillage practices, incorporating regenerative agriculture practices and implementing manure management practices to decrease emissions)
2. Developing a program where farmers can get free technical support from the Rodale Institute to implement positive agricultural practices

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First Year

Implement salt marsh restoration and preservation techniques in coastal areas by increasing marsh platform elevations and protecting marsh fringes to prevent the loss of thousands of acres of tidal marsh.

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First Year

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

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First Year

Establish State support for open schoolyards and assist school districts to find ways to address concerns about public safety and maintenance in order to support this effective way to increase close-to-home access to park and recreational resources for many residents of New Jerseys’ urban neighborhoods.

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First Year

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

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First Year

Institute long-term landscape planning for stewardship at all publicly owned parks, wildlife management areas, natural areas, and forests that include aggressive deer management.

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First Year

Establish and fully fund implementation of the State Forest Action Plan and State Wildlife Action Plan, and meet federal matching requirements for State Wildlife Grants to steward wildlife.

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First Year

Develop new trails and maintain existing trails through:
1. Enhance staffing and capacity to accelerate trails projects to ensure coordination and capacity across state agencies for recreational and circuit trails
2. Support of DEP’s Statewide Mapping Initiative and using the data to create a statewide network of trails
3. Increasing use of federal transportation funds for multi-use trails
4. Provide planning, design, and construction support to environmental justice communities to ensure the success of trail projects
5. Condition use of state funding for trails to ensure design and accessibility for people of all ages and abilities
6. Partner with and fund nonprofit organizations and community-based organizations to assist with maintenance, repair and construction of trails around the State
7. Update and implement the New Jersey Trails Plan in cooperation with the New Jersey Trails Council, including priority trail gaps and how to close them
8. Increase award size under the Recreational Trail Program grants in order to facilitate completion of major projects
9. Showcase Governor remarks during the 2022 Trails Summit that speak to the tremendous mental and physical health benefits, as well as tourism and economic benefits of trails
10. Convene stakeholder process to review permitting process for trail construction to identify obstacles that result in environmental degradation and threats to visitor safety

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First Year

Develop and finalize a diversity and inclusion plan that ensures that people of all ages, ethnicities, abilities and income levels enjoy our State parks, wildlife management areas and other open spaces.

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First Year

Ensure “Jersey Fresh” programs assists with marketing new farm products, including organic grains.

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First Year

Support sustainable shellfish aquaculture through the coordinated activities of the Delaware Bay Aquaculture Development Zone and ongoing stakeholder groups that bring industry and conservation organizations together to resolve issues of concern.

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First Term

Revitalize and significantly expand lands in New Jersey’s Natural Areas System.

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First Term

Report out on restoration of Atlantic White Cedar swamp forests, including monitoring results and carbon sequestration.

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First Term

Replant and restore degraded post-agricultural forests suffering vast mortality due to emerald ash borer and other pathogens and alien species invasion.

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First Term

Establish a Safe Routes to Parks program, similar to Safe Routes to Schools, where neighborhoods are reviewed as a whole and parks are accessible and welcoming.

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First Term

Create and fund a new urban state park comprising Petty’s Island and nearby Camden waterfront open space and restoration parcels.

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First Term

Permanently protect additional lands in the Highlands and Pinelands regions, which provide clean drinking water to more than 75 percent of the state.

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First Term

Preserve approximately 315,000 acres of additional farmland and promote sustainable agricultural business practices to ensure a sustainable agricultural industry, including utilizing federal funding from the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and other Natural Resources Conservation Service.

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First Term

Protect New Jersey’s cultural heritage by ensuring that full Corporate Business Tax (CBT) funding continues to be spent on this program.

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First Term

Inventory, map, record, monitor and enforce conservation easements to ensure natural resources are permanently protected.

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First Term

Uphold policies that limit non-agricultural commercial development on preserved farms and limit buildings and other impervious surfaces to ensure minimal impact on farming activities and soil health.

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First Term

Continue to robustly and consistently fund farmland preservation through federal, state and local programs, with a focus on access and ownership of land for minority, young and beginning farmers, and indigenous tribes. Grow and promote LandLink program to include minority farmers, as well as new farmers, interested in selling or leasing land for agriculture.

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