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In my line of work, I've always been told that if a County wants to complete a project on County land, then they can simply perform the work and are not required to get permits from the planning boards of the local governments.

For example, if a Asbury County wants to rehabilitate an historic house located in Beach Township, the County does not have to get approvals for their work from the local Planning Board. They would need to be reviewed by the County Board and possibly an entity on the State level, but they wouldn't be subject to the local review.

Similarly, if the State DOT wanted to complete a road project that required some widening along with the required eminent domain, they would not be subject to being reviewed by the local level.

I'm inquiring about my experience in NJ and am curious if there's some sort of State statute that supports this or if there's some general concept in law that I'm not aware of. In discussion with some of my colleagues, they've all indicated that it's true that the local boards don't have review authority on projects by entities of greater authority (i.e. County, State, Federal), but no one could tell me why.

Also, if there is a specific rule, is there a limit on it? For example, if the State owned a property in the middle of a suburban house development, could they elect to put a 20-story apartment building perhaps in conformance with a governor's order to provide more affordable housing?

Pyrotechnical
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2 Answers2

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Yes, but …

Planning in NSW is governed by the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

Australia has three tiers of government - Federal, State and Local, but Local governments are a creation of state law. The approval of development is assigned to consent authorities which all local governments are but there are also consent authorities that are administrative arms of the state (e.g. the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority), or local planning authorities that are subsets or supersets of local government. However, for any given development, there is one, and only one, responsible planning authority.

Not all developments require planning authority permission, but if a state development (i.e. a development by the state) does, then it must be sought.

However, a planning authority may only refuse a state development with the permission of the Minister and may only impose those conditions that the Minister allows.

So, a “higher authority” has to seek permission but it can only be refused if the higher authority agrees.

Federal development must comply with both state and Federal law, so the Federal government seeks approval the same way as anyone else. However, if push came to shove, Federal law trumps state law so if they really, really want to, they can pass a law allowing them to do whatever they want.

Dale M
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Yes, localities can enforce local rules and regulations.

Many times the state level construction projects are done on state owned land, and therefore do not require a permit.

Mimedfp
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