Pinelands preservation praised as a strategy worth replicating

[rusty charly]

In a new century when buildable land in the Northeast might be used up three or four times faster than the population grows, regional land-use planners met to talk about finding answers to that dilemma — in New Jersey, of all places.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061001/NEWS03/610010397/1007

The 25th anniversary of the state's Pinelands conservation plan was marked with a conference here Thursday and Friday, where experts from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states met to compare strategies. Some predicted a coming revival of efforts like the Pinelands plan, to save forest, farming and coastal landscapes from suburban development.

"We've had a decade of retrenchment," said Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, referring to a political climate that favors a free-market attitude toward land development. "But I think we're entering a new era where there will be a reaction to that."

Advocates of big-picture planning were effusive in praising the Pinelands plan, which covers nearly a million acres and provides for both forest preservation and high-density development at its fringes.

"In America's . . . most paved-over place, look what we've done in 25 years," Yaro said of the Pinelands' survival.

"It's about the landscape writ large," said former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who says the Pinelands showed how a regional plan should provide for small towns, public lands, future development and traditional uses like farming.

[boredofeducation]

1. Pinelands commision is the problem in Jackson

So which is better?

3 acre zoning, where one home per 3 acres will be built, large trees preserved and better water quality well/septic

or

0.33 acre zoning, where three homes per acre will be built, all trees cut down, lower water quality well/septic

Guess which one the Pinelands commision allowed?

That is why these regional zoning commisions suck, they superceed local government and decide for them what is better, so instead of 50 3000sqft. homes being built on a 150 acre parcel, 450 will be! In a "preserved" area!

Pinelands commision is a farce, a sell out to big developer