New Jersey is making the right move with a plan that will promote smart growth and help protect the Pinelands.
Under an amendment approved by the Pinelands Commission, new housing in the region's 250,000-acre Forest Area - a quarter of the Pinelands' territory - will be clustered in developments of one-acre plots.
Until now, the average permitted density has been one home per 28 acres. The result has been estate lots that were often turned into gentlemen's farms that fragment the forest, considered the Pinelands second-most environmentally sensitive area, next to its protected core.
A 200-acre property now could be divided among eight homes, but the new amendment would permit 11 homes on contiguous one-acre plots while permanently preserving the remainder of the forest.
Environmentalists led by the Pinelands Preservation Alliance have supported clustering in principle, but they have objected to the bonus density. The commission, though, makes a reasonable argument that developers need some sort of incentive to assemble such parcels.
That's not easy, considering the forest area is made up of 61,000 parcels, most 3.2 acres or less.
Overall, the clusters, which must be built near existing roads and other development, will have less impact on the environment and help keep the forest intact.
They also should benefit municipalities by reducing the amount of area they will have to cover to pick up schoolchildren, collect garbage, plow streets, and respond to emergencies.
Environmentalists also are disappointed that the amendment appears to favor agricultural interests. Not only does it allow active agricultural lands to exist within a protected area, but it permits expansion of that use by up to 50 percent.
On this score, the preservationists are right, even though the commission says such parcels would be subject to more stringent wastewater treatment measures.
It would be better - and would reduce the human footprint - if farms were excluded altogether, unless the agricultural land is to be used for residential development.
Municipalities have some leeway in the process, and it would be up to them to try to block the inclusion - and possible expansion - of farmland. They ought to take on that challenge.