Building in the Highlands: What the Preservation Area Actually Means for Your Home

Our office sits at 61 Green Hill Road in Kinnelon. Here is a number most of our neighbors have never seen: Kinnelon covers roughly 12,310 acres, and about 11,985 of them sit inside the Highlands Preservation Area. Roughly 325 acres fall in the Planning Area.

In other words, if you own a home in Kinnelon, you almost certainly own it in the Preservation Area.

That fact tends to land badly when homeowners first encounter it, usually mid-way through planning an addition, when somebody at a cocktail party tells them the Highlands Act means they can't build. It doesn't mean that. But it does mean the rules on your property are not the same as the rules in a town twenty minutes east, and understanding the difference before you design is worth a great deal of money.

What the Highlands Act is

The Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act was signed on August 10, 2004. It covers an 800,000-acre region across 88 municipalities in seven counties, and it exists because that region supplies drinking water to a very large share of the state.

The region is split in two. The Planning Area, where the rules are largely administered locally. And the Preservation Area — roughly 398,000 acres of land identified as having exceptional natural resource value — where a state-level layer of regulation applies on top of everything else.

Plenty of the towns we build in are in the Highlands region: Kinnelon, Butler, Riverdale, Montville, Boonton, Denville, Jefferson, Randolph, Rockaway, Mountain Lakes, Morris Township, Morristown, Mendham and Chester in Morris County. Bloomingdale, Pompton Lakes, Wanaque, Ringwood and West Milford in Passaic. Mahwah and Oakland in Bergen.

The threshold that matters: "major Highlands development"

Inside the Preservation Area, the state regulates what it calls major Highlands development. For residential work, a project generally lands in that category if it does any of the following:

Requires an environmental land use or water permit. Results in the ultimate disturbance of one acre or more of land. Or produces a cumulative increase in impervious surface of a quarter acre or more.

That last figure is worth translating, because a quarter acre sounds abstract. It is about 10,890 square feet of new roof, driveway, patio, and walkway combined. Most single additions do not come close. A large new home with a long driveway on a wooded lot absolutely can.

The first trigger is the one that surprises people. It is not about size at all. If your project needs a wetlands or flood hazard permit for unrelated reasons, that alone can pull it into major Highlands development territory — which is one more reason the flood-zone questions we covered in our post on the 50% rule and New Jersey's flood elevation standards need to be answered early rather than late.

The exemptions almost nobody knows about

Here is the part that gets lost in the cocktail-party version. The Highlands Act contains seventeen exemptions, and several exist specifically to protect ordinary homeowners.

The one that covers most of our remodeling work is Exemption 5, which covers any improvement to a single-family dwelling that was in existence on August 10, 2004 — and the statute's own list is generous: an addition, garage, shed, driveway, porch, deck, patio, swimming pool, or septic system.

Exemption 1 covers construction of a single-family dwelling for your own use or an immediate family member's use, on a lot you owned on the date the Act was enacted.

Exemption 4 covers reconstruction of a building within 125% of its original impervious footprint, subject to a quarter-acre cap on the increase — which matters if you are weighing a rebuild rather than a renovation.

If your house was standing in 2004 and you want to add onto it, the odds are good that the Highlands Act is not the obstacle you feared.

The catch worth understanding

An exemption from the Highlands Act is an exemption from the Highlands Act. Nothing more.

Freshwater wetlands rules still apply. Flood hazard area rules still apply. Your town's zoning, setbacks, lot coverage limits, height restrictions, and septic ordinances all still apply, and in Kinnelon and its neighbors those local bulk requirements are frequently the tighter constraint anyway.

We have seen homeowners get a clean Highlands answer and assume the path is clear, only to run into a local impervious coverage limit that has nothing to do with the state at all.

How you actually confirm it

Exemption determinations for Preservation Area properties come from NJDEP, through a Highlands Applicability Determination. Many Highlands municipalities are also now authorized to issue exemption determinations locally, which is often the faster path — your local zoning or construction official can tell you whether yours is one of them.

What we tell clients: do not guess, and do not let anyone else guess for you either. A determination is a piece of paper. Get it early, because it costs almost nothing at the sketch stage and it costs a great deal after an architect has produced a full set of drawings against an assumption that turns out to be wrong.

Why we think this is good news

Forty years of building here has given us a somewhat unusual attitude toward the Highlands. The rules are why the region still looks the way it does — why a lot in Kinnelon still has trees on it and a ridge view and a lake down the road, rather than forty houses where the woods were.

That character is the reason people want to build here in the first place. Our Adirondack-style custom home was designed specifically to sit naturally in its wooded surroundings rather than fight them, and the surroundings are not an accident of geography alone.

The work is to build well inside the constraints, not to pretend they aren't there.

If you are considering an addition, a new custom home, or a full renovation anywhere in the Highlands region, we are happy to walk the property with you and tell you honestly what we see before you spend anything on design. See our portfolio for what that has produced across Bergen, Passaic, and Morris County.

Fein Construction | 61 Green Hill Rd, Kinnelon, NJ 07405 | (973) 838-2212Serving Bergen, Passaic, and Morris County for over 40 years.Start a conversation about your project

Frequently asked questions

Is Kinnelon in the Highlands Preservation Area?

Almost entirely. Of roughly 12,310 acres in the borough, about 11,985 sit in the Preservation Area and roughly 325 in the Planning Area.

Can I build an addition on my home in the Highlands Preservation Area?

In most cases yes. The Highlands Act includes an exemption covering improvements to a single-family dwelling that existed on August 10, 2004, including additions, garages, decks, patios, driveways, pools, and septic systems. You still need to confirm the exemption applies to your property and comply with all other state and local requirements.

What counts as major Highlands development?

For residential projects in the Preservation Area, generally: work requiring an environmental land use or water permit, work disturbing one acre or more of land, or work increasing impervious surface by a quarter acre or more.

How much is a quarter acre of impervious surface?

Roughly 10,890 square feet, counting new roof, driveway, patio, and walkway area together.

Does a Highlands exemption mean I don't need other permits?

No. It exempts the project from the Highlands Act only. Wetlands rules, flood hazard rules, local zoning, setbacks, coverage limits, and septic requirements all still apply.

Who issues a Highlands exemption determination?

NJDEP handles determinations for Preservation Area properties through a Highlands Applicability Determination. Many Highlands municipalities are now also able to issue exemption determinations locally — check with your zoning or construction official.