Client Alert Newsletter

NJDEP Finalizes Flood Hazard Area Control Act Rules

On November 5, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ("NJDEP") finalized comprehensive new rules imposing significantly more stringent standards on development in flood hazard areas, aiming to mitigate development's adverse impacts. The new rules include measures to preserve existing flood storage along inland waterways by prohibiting the net addition of fill material to flood plains (the so-called "no net fill" rule); protect natural stream corridors by implementing larger buffers; allow the use of federal flood mapping where state mapping is incomplete; require floor elevations and roadway surfaces to be set at least one foot above the flood hazard area design floor elevation; and create permits-by-rule and general permits to encourage projects that have no adverse impact on flooding.