Permit Extensions: Looming Deadline and Best Practices
The period within which to register development approvals for tolling or extension under the Permit Extension Act of 2020 (“Act”) concludes on October 8, 2020. Permits and approvals which are not timely registered by that date may expire without receiving the benefit of tolling afforded by the Act. We have detailed both the Permit Extension Act of 2020 and the recently published notices from various state agencies on our website. While the language of the Act as adopted, and the accompanying notices from the various state agencies, are not fully consistent with respect to what approvals are required to be registered, we wanted to pass along two key suggestions regarding how to best take advantage of the Act: Register All Approvals. We suggest to err on the side of registering all approvals – this means not only State agency permits, but also municipal land use approvals, agreements for sewerage capacity, water permits, construction permits, plan endorsements under the State Planning Act, and any approval for permits related to any development application. While the statutory language seemed to suggest that it was only state level permitting that would be subject to registration, it appears that NJDEP will be serving as a database and repository for all approvals – not just those of state agencies – and...