13:20-2 Findings, declarations relative to the "Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act."

2. The Legislature finds and declares that the national Highlands Region is an area that extends from northwestern Connecticut across the lower Hudson River Valley and northern New Jersey into east central Pennsylvania; that the national Highlands Region has been recognized as a landscape of special significance by the United States Forest Service; that the New Jersey portion of the national Highlands Region is nearly 800,000 acres, or about 1,250 miles, covering portions of 88 municipalities in seven counties; and that the New Jersey Highlands Region is designated as a Special Resource Area in the State Development and Redevelopment Plan.

The Legislature further finds and declares that the New Jersey Highlands is an essential source of drinking water, providing clean and plentiful drinking water for one-half of the State's population, including communities beyond the New Jersey Highlands, from only 13 percent of the State's land area; that the New Jersey Highlands contains other exceptional natural resources such as clean air, contiguous forest lands, wetlands, pristine watersheds, and habitat for fauna and flora, includes many sites of historic significance, and provides abundant recreational opportunities for the citizens of the State.

The Legislature further finds and declares that the New Jersey Highlands provides a desirable quality of life and place where people live and work; that it is important to ensure the economic viability of communities throughout the New Jersey Highlands; and that residential, commercial, and industrial development, redevelopment, and economic growth in certain appropriate areas of the New Jersey Highlands are also in the best interests of all the citizens of the State, providing innumerable social, cultural, and economic benefits and opportunities.

The Legislature further finds and declares that there are approximately 110,000 acres of agricultural lands in active production in the New Jersey Highlands; that these lands are important resources of the State that should be preserved; that the agricultural industry in the region is a vital component of the economy, welfare, and cultural landscape of the Garden State; and, that in order to preserve the agricultural industry in the region, it is necessary and important to recognize and reaffirm the goals, purposes, policies, and provisions of the "Right to Farm Act," P.L.1983, c.31 (C.4:1C-1 et seq.) and the protections afforded to farmers thereby.

The Legislature further finds and declares that, since 1984, 65,000 acres, or over 100 square miles, of the New Jersey Highlands have been lost to development; that sprawl and the pace of development in the region has dramatically increased, with the rate of loss of forested lands and wetlands more than doubling since 1995; that the New Jersey Highlands, because of its proximity to rapidly expanding suburban areas, is at serious risk of being fragmented and consumed by unplanned development; and that the existing land use and environmental regulation system cannot protect the water and natural resources of the New Jersey Highlands against the environmental impacts of sprawl development.

The Legislature further finds and declares that the protection of the New Jersey Highlands, because of its vital link to the future of the State's drinking water supplies and other key natural resources, is an issue of State level importance that cannot be left to the uncoordinated land use decisions of 88 municipalities, seven counties, and a myriad of private landowners; that the State should take action to delineate within the New Jersey Highlands a preservation area of exceptional natural resource value that includes watershed protection and other environmentally sensitive lands where stringent protection policies should be implemented; that a regional approach to land use planning in the preservation area should be established to replace the existing uncoordinated system; that such a new regional approach to land use planning should be complemented by increased standards more protective of the environment established by the Department of Environmental Protection for development in the preservation area of the New Jersey Highlands; that the new regional planning approach and the more stringent environmental regulatory standards should be accompanied, as a matter of wise public policy and fairness to property owners, by a strong and significant commitment by the State to fund the acquisition of exceptional natural resource value lands; and that in the light of the various pressures now arrayed against the New Jersey Highlands, these new approaches should be implemented as soon as possible.

The Legislature further finds and declares that in the New Jersey Highlands there is a mountain ridge running southwest from Hamburg Mountain in Sussex County that separates the eastern and the western New Jersey Highlands; that much of the State's drinking water supplies originate in the eastern New Jersey Highlands; and that planning for the region and the environmental standards and regulations to protect those water supplies should be developed with regard to the differences in the topography of the Highlands Region and how the topography affects the quality of the water supplies.

The Legislature therefore determines, in the light of these findings set forth hereinabove, and with the intention of transforming them into action, that it is in the public interest of all the citizens of the State of New Jersey to enact legislation setting forth a comprehensive approach to the protection of the water and other natural resources of the New Jersey Highlands; that this comprehensive approach should consist of the identification of a preservation area of the New Jersey Highlands that would be subjected to stringent water and natural resource protection standards, policies, planning, and regulation; that this comprehensive approach should also consist of the establishment of a Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council charged with the preparation of a regional master plan for the preservation area in the New Jersey Highlands as well as for the region in general; that this comprehensive approach should also include the adoption by the Department of Environmental Protection of stringent standards governing major development in the Highlands preservation area; that, because of the imminent peril that the ongoing rush of development poses for the New Jersey Highlands, immediate, interim standards should be imposed on the date of enactment of this act on major development in the preservation area of the New Jersey Highlands, followed subsequently by adoption by the department of appropriate rules and regulations; that it is appropriate to encourage in certain areas of the New Jersey Highlands, consistent with the State Development and Redevelopment Plan and smart growth strategies and principles, appropriate patterns of compatible residential, commercial, and industrial development, redevelopment, and economic growth, in or adjacent to areas already utilized for such purposes, and to discourage piecemeal, scattered, and inappropriate development, in order to accommodate local and regional growth and economic development in an orderly way while protecting the Highlands environment from the individual and cumulative adverse impacts thereof; that the maintenance of agricultural production and a positive agricultural business climate should be encouraged to the maximum extent possible wherever appropriate in the New Jersey Highlands; and that all such aforementioned measures should be guided, in heart, mind, and spirit, by an abiding and generously given commitment to protecting the incomparable water resources and natural beauty of the New Jersey Highlands so as to preserve them intact, in trust, forever for the pleasure, enjoyment, and use of future generations while also providing every conceivable opportunity for appropriate economic growth and development to advance the quality of life of the residents of the region and the entire State.

L.2004,c.120,s.2.