Governor Christie Enacts Cluster Development Legislation: Law amends MLUL to clarify authorization for cluster developments
August 8, 2013
By: William F. Harrison, Esq. and Erin K. Phalon, Esq.
Governor Christie yesterday signed into law legislation that amends the Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) to expand authorization for the use of cluster developments. The legislation, S2608 (Senators Van Drew and Oroho)/A3761 (Assemblymen Green and Clifton), provides municipalities and landowners additional options for subdividing and developing land through clustering and authorizes municipalities to use lot-size averaging.Clustering allows municipalities to concentrate development of one or more areas while restricting development in the remaining areas. Existing law authorized the use of both contiguous and non-contiguous clustering. In both types of clustering, the overall development potential from the parcel or parcels is concentrated on a portion of the property, and the remaining land is permanently protected.
The legislation makes several important changes to expand the authorized use of clustering:• Existing law authorized clustering of residential development to preserve open space. The new allows municipalities to cluster residential, nonresidential, and mixed-use development to preserve farmland, historic sites, open space, or a combination thereof.
• Existing law authorized cluster development solely for planned developments, which are larger developments. The newly enacted law authorizes municipalities to use clustering for developments which are not planned developments, which will allow its use for smaller-scale projects.