“This N.J. town erected barriers to hold back the sea. A public fight erupted,”

 “This N.J. town erected barriers to hold back the sea. A public fight erupted,” 

by The Washington Post’s Brady Dennis: “From atop the local lifeguard headquarters, Mayor Patrick Rosenello looks out over the shrinking shoreline of his hometown. To the north, past the kaleidoscope of umbrellas that dot the beach, he can see the massive bulkheads the city has installed to hold back the encroaching sea — the same ones at the heart of an ongoing fight with the state, which has sued North Wildwood and fined it more than $8.5 million for that and other work it says was unauthorized, misguided and destructive. Rosenello can also glimpse the signs he posted along beach entrances this summer, bearing photos of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and the state’s top environmental officer, calling them ‘directly responsible’ for failing to fix the erosion problems here. …

 The peculiar, acrimonious fight playing out along the Jersey Shore is, in one sense, an outlier — a rare case in which state and municipal officials have launched legal battles and remained at loggerheads over how best to safeguard a threatened stretch of shoreline. At the same time, the standoff between North Wildwood and New Jersey — a state experts say has been proactive on long-term planning and coastal adaptation — hints at the sort of conflicts likely to unfold more often in the age of climate change.”

WILDES’WOOD — “Englewood mayor vetoes affordable housing plan, saying it has ‘alienated our citizenry’,” by The Record’s Megan Burrow: “The City Council will reconsider a plan it approved last week to provide affordable housing through overlay zones after Mayor Michael Wildes vetoed the plan. The council will hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday to discuss the issue and vote on whether to override the mayor’s veto. The plan, which was developed by an outside consultant, uses overlay zones to encourage construction of affordable housing in Englewood. … The plan, which could add as many as 4,000 units of housing across the city’s four wards, with 20% of the units set aside for low- and moderate-income housing, was developed through negotiations with the Fair Share Housing Center.”