Meadowlands of New Jersey

Hackensack Meadowlands Scene

Hackensack Meadowlands Scene. Photo by Pinelands Preservation Alliance

The New Jersey Meadowlands represents a model of planning we call regional simply because it extends across municipal lines in a state with a very powerful tradition of municipal control over land use. The Meadowlands are marshlands along the Hackensack River within sight of Manhattan. Once considered wasted land, these tidal marshes suffered hundreds of years of insult and injury at human hands, much of it as dumping grounds for all forms of waste.

Enormously successful in restoring natural resources and promoting sustainable development in New Jersey’s industrial heartland, the Meadowlands program is important for two reasons. It represents a creative effort to restore badly degraded natural resources in an intensively developed context, and, of greatest national interest, it incorporates one of only two functioning tax base sharing programs in the United States (the other being the well-known Twin Cities program).

Vital Statistics:

Chapter of the Book: 8

State: NJ

Year Established: 1969

Geographic  Scale: 25,000 acres

Mandatory or Voluntary over Local Government: Mandatory

Authorizing Laws: State

Agencies and Organizations:

Meadowlands Commission

Hackensack Riverkeeper

NY/NJ Baykeeper

Resources:

Hackensack Meadowlands Reclamation and Development Act, N.J.S.A. 13:17-1 et seq.

Strategic Review of the Meadowlands Master Plan

NJ Meadowlands Comprehensive Action Plan

NJ Meadowlands Tax Sharing Program