August 25, 2025, Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 1986, 377,000 acres of formally undeveloped land that became urbanized. Okay. That's a third of a million acres and we're only a five million acre state. That's a tremendous amount of development in only 30 years. And that rate has slowed down with, guess what, the state plan which helped make development be a smaller footprint. The density of housing has increased tremendously since the state plan has gone into effect and Rowan has done an analysis showing that. The impact analysis for the new state plan coming out really documents that. So smart growth does make a difference. But we still have a long way to go where development will change the landscape irreparably. Right. It doesn't go backwards, it doesn't go from natural to urbanized and then back to natural again without it being really diversely landscaped. So the decision we make today really will be important for many years to come. So with the conservation groups that we work with there's something called New Jersey Conservation Blueprint and the blueprint is led by a team of three, and we're just kind of the custodians of this idea, New Jersey Conservation Foundation, Rowan University and major conservancies, but it actually consists of a steering committee of state nonprofit local and private