Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration is rolling out a sprawling package of coastal building rules meant to cope with floods and rising sea levels.
The rule package, a draft of which was posted Friday afternoon, will be formally introduced in July and, if all goes according to plan, would be adopted in summer 2025.
The regulations assume, using scientists’ projections, that sea levels will rise by 5 feet by the end of the century — a major threat to development and tourism along the state’s 130 miles or so of coastline.
The rule package could make New Jersey the first to do a “comprehensive update” of land rules along the coast to address climate change, according to the Department of Environmental Protection, which crafted the rules after years of discussions. It’s known as Resilient Environments and Landscapes, or REAL, a nod to the state’s acknowledgment of climate change as real.
