Public Access Study - Findings and Conclusions

The issue of public access has been given the highest priority by the Coastal Management Program of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), to meet its Section 309 requirements under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act. As of July 2001, when their latest report was written, the situation was one of a “…general lack of information regarding the locations, number, extent and description of existing public access areas…” as well as the lack of long-term monitoring of access conditions.” Our project was intended to address this problem for one large area of the state.

The towns along the shore of Raritan Bay have shown strong commitment to public access. This reflects the history of commercial uses of the waterfront in this region, whether for fishing, tourist enterprises, shipping, or boatbuilding. Public access is also a major and longstanding issue dealt with by the Atlantic coast communities, heavily dependent on beachgoers for tourist revenues. In contrast are towns bordering the tidal rivers, where the river-fronts have were long parts of private farms and estates and public access issues receive little attention.

While some communities do have increased public access as a goal, there does not appear to be a systematic or planned way for normalizing or increasing public access on a regional basis.

Most of the municipalities surveyed do not have specific waterfront elements in their Master Plans or zoning or ordinances that protect or promote public access or traditional waterfront uses. Some municipalities do not have updated Master Plans. This is problematic in that in order to bring about desired changes or outcomes for municipal planning, the master plan provides the basis for this.

In a number of towns that historically were developed as residential/resort and where there is now a large portion of the waterfront in private hands, there is no specific zoning for waterfront/water-dependent uses.