By DONALD WITTKOWSKI and MADDY VITALE
This time last year, Sea Isle City hired a consultant for $19,500 to obtain a crucial state environmental permit to allow the town to continue maintaining its beaches, dunes and oceanfront Promenade for important projects.
A year later, the city is still waiting to get its new Coastal Area Facility Review Act, or CAFRA, permit.
However, Sea Isle can still maintain its beaches, dunes and Promenade without interruption under an existing permit, explained Junetta Dix, director of environmental services for ACT Engineers, an engineering and environmental consultant based in Robbinsville, N.J.
“It’s not like we don’t have a valid permit, so there’s no rush,” Dix said.
For now, Sea Isle continues to maintain its beaches, dunes and Promenade using an old CAFRA permit that has been extended until the end of the year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
ACT Engineers was hired as a consultant last year to help Sea Isle obtain its environmental approvals, including a new CAFRA permit. The city needs the help of an engineering consultant to prepare all of the technical documents.
CAFRA permits are valid for five years for New Jersey municipalities. Their regulations are a critical piece of New Jersey’s protection for beaches and dunes.
Administered by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the Coastal Area Facility Review Act includes basic rules for protecting the shore’s fragile ecosystem by regulating the types of development and activities that are allowed there.
The CAFRA permit works hand-in-hand with Sea Isle’s Municipal Public Access Plan, or MPAP.
The MPAP is a planning document required of New Jersey’s coastal communities. It describes public access points along the shoreline for residents and visitors.
But the process for obtaining the CAFRA permit has been complicated because of a NJDEP backlog in approving the MPAPs, Dix said.
Like Sea Isle, other shore towns in New Jersey have been delayed in getting the needed CAFRA permits as well.
“It’s taking a while for all of the plans to be approved,” Dix said of the statewide delay. “It’s a big deal. In the DEP’s defense, it takes a while.”
Sea Isle has a choice of applying for one of two types of CAFRA permits, Dix said.
One is called a “general permit,” which requires a $500 fee. The other is an “individual permit” and requires a $30,000 fee. Sea Isle is going after the general permit to save taxpayers money.
“It’s more cost effective for the taxpayers to have a general permit,” Dix noted.
In the meantime, Sea Isle and other communities continue to wait for the CAFRA permits, while the DEP clears the backlog for the MPAP permitting approvals.
“I’ve been doing this for 32 years and the DEP permitting process is so complicated,” Dix said.
