Spring 2000
Volume 9, No. 1
Port Redevelopment: An Historic Opportunity
by Joseph J. Maraziti, Jr., Esq.
New Jersey’s continued economic boom, coupled with the surge of the national economy and the intensive drive toward globalization of trade, places renewed importance on one of the state’s prime natural advantages: its ports and harbors. New Jersey is the gateway to many of America’s major markets. The development of the thriving container port at the Port of Newark - Elizabeth, contrasted with the decline of the Brooklyn port area in the last twenty years, is one illustration of the power of New Jersey’s strategic physical location at the eastern edge of this affluent continent.
As the most densely populated state, New Jersey is challenged to strike the right balance as it moves to meet the demands for new housing, industrial and commercial uses. Just as our focus turns to redevelopment of existing urban centers in order to save the Garden State’s fields, farms and forests, so too will the expansion of New Jersey’s place in the shipping industry focus us upon the revitalization, reconstruction and redevelopment of the state’s existing ports and harbors.
The state has assembled a framework of laws and regulations which are designed expressly to achieve this goal. The Rules on Coastal Zone Management (the "Ports Rule") identify ports as Special Water Areas and articulate a policy, "...aimed at encouraging the use and expansion of existing ports, while discouraging the sprawl of port uses into undeveloped areas..." Twelve port locations are identified in the Rules, which include, for example, Newark, Bayonne, Perth Amboy, Camden and Salem. So emphatic is the policy to encourage the continued use of the existing port areas that the Rules explicitly prohibit uses which would "preempt or interfere" with developed ports.
To assure the redevelopment of existing ports and harbors, the state’s Ports Rule requires potential new port developers to demonstrate that no suitable location exists in an existing port area before a new port may be located elsewhere. This policy withstood an Appellate Division challenge in a case that dealt with an application to build a new container port on the Delaware River in Delanco. The Court upheld the decision of the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to deny the permit to develop the new port because the applicant failed to establish, not only that other areas in or adjacent to existing ports were unavailable, but also that the new port would be compatible with the surrounding uses in Delanco. The Court observed that: "By promoting the clustering of port facilities in defined areas, the Ports Rule encourages the maximum usage of available resources and infrastructure in those areas, and discourages the dispersion of the many problems of port operations to other non-port areas. As a result, the Ports Rule promotes commerce in the defined port areas and facilitates marine navigation by directing ship traffic to those selected areas." Distributec, Inc. v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and Energy, 274 N.J. Super 1, 10 (App. Div. 1994).
Locations with existing port and harbor facilities are well positioned to take advantage of the current confluence of economic dynamics and regulatory policy to move forward aggressively with redevelopment and expansion projects.
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