The New Jersey Senate yesterday gave final legislative approval to legislation that amends the Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) to expand authorization for the use of cluster developments. The legislation, S2608 (Senators Van Drew and Oroho)/A3761 (Assemblymen Green and Clifton), must now be approved by Governor Christie. If signed into law, it would provide municipalities and landowners additional options for subdividing and developing land through clustering and authorize municipalities to use lot-size averaging.

Clustering allows municipalities to concentrate development of one or more areas while restricting development in the remaining areas. Current law authorizes the use of both contiguous and non-contiguous clustering. In both types of clustering, the overall development potential from the parcel or parcels is concentrated on a portion of the property, and the remaining land is permanently protected.