Sea-level rise regs, which could be in place in August, affect home elevations
OCEAN CITY — Ocean City is anticipating that Gov. Phil Murphy’s controversial executive order to have new building regulations in place to prepare for sea-level rise at the end of the century are going forward this year.
That may force many homeowners on the barrier island to install sprinkler systems or elevators, including commercial elevators, depending on the height and type of their homes.
City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson updated City Council at the Jan. 23 meeting that the NJPACT-REAL regulations proposed by the state Department of Environmental Protection are probably going to go into effect in August.
“We don’t know if there will be litigation to forestall implantation of the regulations, so we are preparing as if it will go into effect,” she told council. “It’s a lengthy document. It’s going to impact the shore and communities adjacent to the shore in a profound way by creating a climate-adjusted flood elevation to reflect the likely increase to 5 feet above the current sea level by the end of the century.”
Cape May County government and county communities registered their opposition to the governor’s executive order, which bypassed the Legislature and was in the review process by the NJDEP. It involves regulations through New Jersey Resilient Environments and Landscapes (NJREAL) and Protecting Against Climate Threats (PACT). The NJDEP has asserted it is modernizing land use rules to respond to climate change risks as sea level rises.
The comment period for the proposed new regulations ended Nov. 7, after which the NJDEP was to review and respond to the comments. Implementation of the plans was set for August 2025.
The NJDEP’s plans include more than a 1,000 pages of new rules and regulations, all based on scientific projections from a 2016 study at Rutgers University, updated in 2019, that there is a 17 percent probability sea level rise could be as high as 5.1 feet by the year 2100.
The NJDEP decided that any buildings to be constructed now could still be in service at the turn of the next century, hence the new rules and regulations on new construction — and on significant repairs and renovations.
In low-lying Cape May County, a shoreline based on 5.1 feet of sea level rise would travel far inland from where it is now, as would potential flood zones, as the NJDEP sees it, according to Peter Lomax of Lomax Consulting, who was hired by the Cape May County Board of Commissioners to review Murphy’s Executive Order 100 and its effects.
These new rules would have a disproportionate effect in Cape May County: It would put 43 percent of the county in the inundation risk zone. (More than 80 percent of Ocean City.) He compared that to Atlantic County, where the IRZ would cover 17 percent.
The order would require homeowners in flood zones — zones to be enacted in 2025 based on expectations in the year 2100 — to raise their homes by 5 feet if they do repairs or renovations that equal or exceed 50 percent of their home’s market value. The order also affects new construction.
“The immediate impacts on Ocean City will be an increase in the height of our buildings,” McCrosson told council. “Ocean City is ahead of a lot of communities that have not taken action to elevate their buildings. Ocean City is at the BFE+3. This will essentially be BFE+5. (BFE: Basic flood elevation.)”
She said they are working through language in the laws to see if the impact will mean a 2-foot or 3-foot increase in BFE over what Ocean City requires now.
“In either event, the immediate impacts will be how do we get people in and out of these buildings that are higher? We went through this after (Superstorm) Sandy,” she said.
McCrosson explained after that storm there were neighborhoods with higher buildings and others that were not replaced or elevated that were lower. Eventually, she said, things caught up to a degree as the new height became the norm.
“We’re going to go through a period like that,” she said. “In this case, because we’re getting that much higher. Once the average roof height is above 35 feet — this will push the homes to that elevation — it means even a single-family home may require a sprinkler system. That’s an expense to the homeowner you can expect to see.
“We’re going to have to deal with longer staircases to get into these buildings,” she added. That may also lead to elevators in most of the new buildings and because elevators can serve only one unit, multi-family dwellings may require commercial elevators, creating even more significant expense.
These are all factors the city is going to work through, she said. McCrosson plans to update council with reports along the way.
County and municipal officials argued for an incremental approach in the NJPACT-REAL rules to lessen the burden on home and business owners. Rather than requiring building now for what is anticipated to happen 75 years from now, they petitioned the NJDEP to make plans to nearer term and then adjust accordingly as more data is known about sea level rise.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
