{"id":895,"date":"2016-01-12T01:24:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T06:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=895"},"modified":"2016-01-12T01:24:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T06:24:52","slug":"beach-access-bill-heads-to-christies-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2016\/01\/beach-access-bill-heads-to-christies-desk\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach Access Bill Heads to Christie’s Desk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ortley

Ortley Beach\u2019s oceanfront. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

A bill approved by both houses of the New Jersey legislature on Monday restores rules governing public beach access that were struck by a state appellate court last month.<\/p>\n

The bill, which is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Chris Christie, specifically grants the state Department of Environmental Protection the power to regulate beach access and require public access as a contingency for development permits. The bill\u2019s passage was supported by members of both sides of the political aisle since the court\u2019s decision left no rules in place to govern access, placing a planned beach and dune replenishment project in jeopardy.\u00a0The bill passed unanimously in both the state Senate and General Assembly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill will allow DEP to come up with rules to require the towns to have beach access plans,\u201d said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, which supported the bill. \u201cThis is an important step forward to ensure that the people of New Jersey can have access to beaches and waterfronts that belong to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the bill permits the DEP to promulgate rules \u2013 which it technically lacked, according to the opinion of the court \u2013 over beach access, it does not explicitly spell out\u00a0the rules, which have been a bone of contention in recent years. Christie\u2019s administration has favored tasking municipal governments with developing public access plans within their towns that comply with a more generalized set of state standards. Environmentalists and public access advocates have said the state should develop public access plans since, historically, some Shore area towns have made it difficult for nonresidents to access beaches by limiting parking and access points.<\/p>\n

Under the administration of former Gov. Jon Corzine, however, many members of the marine industry felt the state\u2019s plans went too far, specifically requiring public access on private property such as marinas. Marina owners fought the previous rules, citing liability concerns and arguing that placing public access contingencies on building permits would likely lead to many marinas being sold to homebuilders.<\/p>\n

Tittel\u2019s group is hoping for a return to the Corzine-era rules, primarily due to access requirements at beaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2007 rules\u00a0<\/b>required towns to have beach access every quarter mile now, but currently it is only every half mile,\u201d Tittel said. \u201cThe 2007 rules\u00a0<\/b>required towns to have beach access every quarter mile now, but currently it is only every half mile. These weak rules could even be worse because towns could get waivers to eliminate further access to our waterways.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill approved by both houses of the New Jersey legislature on Monday restores rules governing public beach access that were struck by a state appellate court last month. The bill, which is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Chris Christie, specifically grants the state Department of Environmental Protection the power to regulate beach access […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[29,20,32],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-shore-environment","tag-lavallette-nj-news","tag-seaside-heights-nj-news","tag-seaside-park-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/DSC_0077.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-er","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}