Howell casts eye on buffers
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

HOWELL — A proposed ordinance that would have completely reworked Howell’s present riparian buffer law has been temporarily tabled.

Following remarks from Donald Smith and Bobbie Sue Bowers, both of whom serve on the township’s environmental commission, and Smith’s wife, Pauline, who serves on the Planning Board, the Township Council decided to table any action for the time being or at least until the environmental commission can re-view the proposal and weigh in with its opinion of the proposed changes.

Riparian buffer restrictions prohibit the placement or construction of any structure within a designated distance from streams and other waterways.

The riparian ordinance was previously amended in September 2004 to include extended stream corridor buffers which were explained at that time as being necessary to protect Howell’s watersheds.

The new ordinance proposal would all but eliminate the buffer restrictions now in place.

Smith said the ordinance — which had been scheduled for a Dec. 6 introduction and a Dec. 20 public hearing and adoption — had been drafted with no notice to or input from the environmental commission.

Smith said changing the ordinance as was being proposed would nullify all of the local protections for the many Howell streams that feed the three watersheds found in the municipality.

According to Smith, a watershed is defined as a collection of the stream corridors that make up the feeders to a body of water. Smith said the Manasquan River, the Swimming River Reservoir area and the Metedeconk River are the three potable water watersheds in Howell.

Before the amendment to the ordinance, a riparian buffer distance of 100 feet had been required along all streams in Howell.

The 300-foot-wide buffer zone was adopted by the council last year in order for Howell’s parameters to be in concert with New Jersey’s stricter protection of watershed areas that had been adopted at about the same time.

Much of Howell is included in these state protected watershed areas.

Mayor Joseph M. DiBella explained that township planner Charles Newcomb drafted the changes to the riparian law in order to give Howell officials more leeway in granting relief to residents whose backyards are rendered useless due to the 300-foot stream buffer requirement the township has imposed on stream corridors not designated Category 1 (highest level of protection) and covered by the state ordinance.

Township Manager Bruce Davis was directed to make a map delineating the areas of proposed change available to the environmental commission, as well as pertinent study recommendations that were used to draft the proposed changes.

It was agreed that the matter will not be revisited until the environmental commission members have had a chance to review the data.