Trenton - New Jersey builders are spreading false information regarding the proposed Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act currently before the Legislature, Garden State environmental activists said at a news conference Tuesday.

"(The proposal) will determine whether we will have a clean adequate water supply for future generations," said Dave Pringle, campaign director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "The builders and their allies want to kill this legislation. They are in the middle of an intensive campaign to distort, undermine and mislead the public and elected officials on this critical issue."

The Highlands region includes 90 municipalities in Hunterdon, Somerset, Sussex, Warren, Morris, Passaic and Bergen counties and supplies drinking water to more than 4 million state residents. The bill - which is based on the Highlands Task Force recommendations submitted during public hearings last month - includes protecting the environmentally sensitive lands within the region by defining a 350,000- to 390,000-acre "preservation area" that will have stringent water and natural resource protection, along with development planning and regulation.

Activists said the bi-partisan bill is the most significant environmental legislation in the state's history.

Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said the builders are telling many myths, especially that the measures will cause a decrease in property values.

"This (bill) actually helps raise property values because property will be secure,"

Tittel said. Tittel said farmers will be protected as well, dispelling another "myth" being spread by opponents.

"This doesn't hurt farmers because it doesn't undermine the Right to Farm Act, or their right to borrow," Tittel said.

Tom Gilbert, executive director of the Highlands Coalition and a member of the Task Force, said the bill doesn't threaten home rule - another "myth."

"This bill is not going to touch individual home owners," Gilbert said. "It limits regulations to major development."

State builders, however, said the bill is not well balanced.

"K. Hovanian 100 percent supports the concept of preserving the Highlands," said Doug Fenichel, a spokesman for the company, one of the largest home builders in the state. "But (the region) won't be preserved unless we know where the growth is going to go, or we'll wind up with more sprawl and nobody wants that."

Gilbert said he was saddened by the lack of understanding at Monday night's public hearing in Morris County - the third of five public hearings throughout the state to discuss the task force's recommendations - which was attended by several hundred people and was, reportedly, rowdy because some people opposed growth regulation and let their opinion be known by waving signs and wearing T-shirts advertising their opposition. Legislators asked the crowd to quiet down several times and once threatened to end the hearing early.

John Barba, president of the New Jersey Builders Association, said the association is seeking a balanced approach for future planning in Highlands that incorporates land preservation with designated development areas.

"Until the preservation area is delineated, we cannot meaningfully comment on the proposal's provisions for that area, or its implications for places outside of it," Barba said the hearing. "We would expect that any regional approach to planning would define the areas that are off limits to economic development and would define areas where housing and workplaces will be built."

Gilbert said the builders' deliberate misinformation is meant to scare the public.

"But we have a choice to put the public's interest first or special interests first," Gilbert said. "The choice is clear."

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David Will can be reached at (973) 428-6683. Copyright 2004 Daily Record.