BORDENTOWN — Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Wednesday said state agencies have sharply reduced backlogs of pending permit applications since she took office. She also opened a public view of a state dashboard, at Permits.NJ.gov, that tracks projects as they move through review.

According to the governor's office, the Department of Environmental Protection has cut its backlog of freshwater wetlands letters of interpretation by 74% since Jan. 20. Applications pending six months or more fell from 927 to 240. The letters confirm whether wetlands are on a property and where their boundaries fall, a step a project must complete before engineering design can begin.

The Department of Transportation cut pending minor access permits from 653 to 108, an 83% drop, the office said. Those permits let smaller housing projects and businesses build or change driveways onto state highways.

More recent efforts have reduced DEP's backlog of remedial action permits, which are needed to redevelop contaminated sites, from 656 to 493, according to the release. DOT's backlog of major access permits, for large projects, fell from 262 to 211.

"Slow permits mean higher costs for everyone, from families waiting on new homes to businesses ready to hire," Sherrill said.

The governor's office said DEP has hired 49 new staff members with money in the fiscal 2027 budget. The department also created Operation FAST, a program to speed reviews of clean energy projects that includes more than 25 solar and battery storage projects. DOT moved all of its permitting work into a new Division of Transportation Permitting and fully digitized its major access permit process.

The dashboard, launched as a pilot in June, lets anyone follow 10 projects through review at DEP, DOT and the Department of Community Affairs. For each project it lists every permit applied for, the agency responsible and the date each review step was completed. State officials said they are automating the dashboard so more projects can be added.

Each agency is also drawing up review deadlines required under Executive Order 5, the governor's office said, and those timelines will eventually appear on the dashboard.

This brief was drafted by AI from a public agency’s press release and published by The New Jersey Tide. Why we use AI for stories like this one.