DEPARTMENT OF REGIONAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Executive Summary

Due to Atlantic County's location in the State of New Jersey, it is an area of extreme land use planning conflicts. Casino gaming and secondary impacts have fueled an already high demand for residential and commercial growth within the County. In direct conflict with this demand are a wide range of important environmental resources ranging from the oceanfront communities, bayside older suburban communities, Pinelands growth areas, and Pinelands conservation areas. All of these communities are connected by important sensitive wetlands and other undeveloped land. Atlantic County has received a grant from the Department of Community Affairs to evaluate the complex interactions that influence development within the County and to prepare a strategic plan to accommodate growth and preserve environmentally sensitive lands and open space.

While the greatest growth pressures are in the three Pinelands growth townships of Egg Harbor, Galloway and Hamilton, the six neighboring cities of Port Republic, Absecon, Pleasantville, Northfield, Linwood, and Somers Point are showing signs of aging commercial and housing stock, increased traffic demands, and other factors typically faced by older suburban communities. Unless these related growth management issues are resolved in a comprehensive and strategic manner, Atlantic County may lose many essential features that make it a desirable place to live and work. The Strategic Growth Management Plan will address both the need for preservation and define areas that can and should be developed.

The proposed Atlantic County Strategic Growth Management Plan will assist the County's three high growth townships and the six older bayside communities with the tools to implement policies that advance their purposes and address the goals and objectives of the State Development and Redevelopment Plan. Data collection and mapping for the other 13 municipalities in the County will also be used to establish the basis for future planning efforts in those areas. The study process will also give constituents within the County an opportunity to have meaningful involvement in the planning process. It is the intent of this application to develop, with maximum public participation, a Strategic Growth Management Plan in collaboration with the municipalities of Atlantic County and their constituents. It is anticipated that the collaborative process to create a vision for sustainable growth for Atlantic County will lead to a planning and implementation agenda for the County and participating municipalities to accomplish the identified goals.

The process will take approximately one year to complete. First, baseline data needs to be gathered which will be used to determine the County's existing conditions. These conditions will be visually displayed through the production of multiple maps, showing the baseline conditions for the entire County. The baseline data collection and mapping tasks will serve as a resource of readily accessible information to inform the public about local land use conditions and to identify issues, formulate alternative scenarios and address current and anticipated problems. Following this, the Strategic Growth Advisory Committee, with the County, will use the compiled data and mapping as the foundation for a plan of Atlantic County's future, e.g. to assist in prioritizing land preservation and to identify areas for future infrastructure enhancements and developments. The public participation process will begin after the data collection, base map and analysis stages, in order to benefit from the findings. At this stage, population and employment projections endorsed by the Committee and supported by the results of the build-out and capacity analysis will be available. The County will facilitate a minimum of three public workshops at selected locations throughout the county to garner public input. At these workshops, the County will solicit public input using visualization techniques and mapping exercises. The County will then translate the results of the public participation sessions into a written report, highlighting major findings and recommendations and focusing on guidelines to address the relevant development and conservation scenarios. The task will answer the question, "Where do we want to be?" The findings will also be incorporated into the final plan document.

All questions, comments, and input should be addressed to:

John Peterson, Deputy Director,
PO Box 719
Northfield, NJ 08225

Or Send a fax: (609)645-5836