I’ll admit it: The prospect of writing about technical, complex environmental policy can be daunting and frustrating. Especially when it’s not your everyday beat.
But there’s no getting around the importance of one policy in particular, at least when it comes to the future of New Jersey commercial real estate. If you polled a group of developers and service providers, many would tell you that the state’s Licensed Site Remediation Professional program has been critical, helping to unlock new opportunities at formerly contaminated sites and adding to the momentum of red-hot product types like industrial and multifamily.
Some might find it hard to believe that next May will mark a decade since the program was born under the landmark Site Remediation Reform Act. But with that milestone fast approaching, the LSRP system is getting a fresh look from policymakers and stakeholders.
As you’ll read in this month’s cover story, advocates are pushing for ways to further streamline the program and expedite remediation projects. That could include tweaks to help speed the back-end reviews by the state Department of Environmental Protection, which has final say over remediation projects that are managed by private-sector LSRPs.
But those same consultants and the state’s development community are also guarding against other potential changes. For instance, one proposal calls for prospective buyers and their consultants to notify a seller of any contaminants that they discover on a site during due diligence, which the seller would then have to report to the DEP. But some stakeholders fear it would have a chilling effect on transactions and projects that are tied to polluted sites.
Our December issue also features a look at how Langan, the engineering and environmental consulting firm, is capitalizing on a niche in newer forms of remediation technology. Chief among them is so-called in-situ or in-place remediation, which the firm is packaging with its engineering expertise as an attractive service for redevelopers.
In our Personalities section, we highlight some notable trends in investment sales as part of an interview with Jeff Dunne and Jeremy Neuer, who lead CBRE’s capital markets team in the state. We also bring you an interview with Dave Gibbons, the outgoing president of NAIOP New Jersey, who reflected on the chapter’s successes of the past two years.
You can find those stories and more in our final issue of 2018. It’s hard to believe that we are wrapping up our second full year of Real Estate NJ. We are fortunate to be covering such an active, dynamic market that provides us with a constant flow of content and story ideas. More importantly, we’re grateful to all of you who support the publication as readers and advertisers. We could not do this without you, so thank you for being an audience that shows up every day and every month — and for leading us to another successful year.
As always, we look forward to your questions, feedback and story ideas. Happy holidays and enjoy the issue!
Joshua Burd
Editor
josh@re-nj.com
