13:1D-150 Findings, declarations relative to public access.

1. The Legislature finds and declares that:

a. The public has longstanding and inviolable rights under the public trust doctrine to use and enjoy the State's tidal waters and adjacent shorelines for navigation, commerce, and recreational uses, including, but not limited to, bathing, swimming, fishing, and other shore-related activities;

b. The public trust doctrine establishes the rule that ownership of the State's natural resources, including, but not limited to, ground waters, surface waters, and land flowed or formerly flowed by tidal waters is vested in the State to be held in trust for the people, that the public has the right to tidal lands and waters for navigation, fishing, and recreational uses, and, moreover, that even land that is no longer flowed by the tide but that was artificially filled is considered to be public trust land and the property of the State;

c. This historic principle stems from Roman jurisprudence declaring that the air, running water, and shores of the sea are common to mankind. The concept was extended to English law so that public property became classified as one of two types, either property that was necessary for the state's use or property that was common and available to all citizens. The common property consisted of the air, tidally flowed waters, fish, and wild animals, and the King did not own this common property as he owned other state property, but rather held it in trust for the people. After the Revolution, all royal rights in the land that was to become the State of New Jersey became vested in the people of the State of New Jersey. In 1821, the seminal court case of Arnold v. Mundy was decided, outlining the history of the public trust doctrine and applying it to tidally flowed lands in New Jersey, and from the time it was decided, New Jersey courts have held that the State holds in trust for the people of the State those lands flowed by tidal waters to the mean high water mark. The courts have also recognized that the public trust doctrine is not fixed or static; rather, it is to be molded and extended to meet changing conditions and the needs of the public it was created to benefit;

d. Pursuant to the public trust doctrine, the State of New Jersey has a duty to promote, protect, and safeguard the public's rights and ensure reasonable and meaningful public access to tidal waters and adjacent shorelines;

e. The Department of Environmental Protection has the authority and the duty to protect the public's right of access to tidally flowed waters and their adjacent shorelines under the public trust doctrine and statutory law. In so doing, the department has the duty to make all tidal waters and their adjacent shorelines available to the public to the greatest extent practicable, protect existing public access, provide public access in all communities equitably, maximize different experiences provided by the diversity of the State's tidal waters and adjacent shorelines, ensure that the expenditure of public moneys by the department maximizes public use and access where public investment is made, and remove physical and institutional impediments to public access to the maximum extent practicable; and

f. Public access includes visual and physical access to, and use of, tidal waters and adjacent shorelines, sufficient perpendicular access from upland areas to tidal waters and adjacent shorelines, and the necessary support amenities to facilitate public access for all, including, but not limited to, public parking and restrooms.

L.2019, c.81, s.1.