Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Exactly. I think [Music] in accordance to the open public meetings act. Please note the following. All Bernardville rural planning board meetings will be held in person in the meeting hall on the second floor of the Burn at 866 Minrook Road. Meetings will be livereamed on YouTube with no opportunity for public comment on YouTube. Members of the public wishing to offer comments or ask questions will actually be required to attend meetings in person. The YouTube live stream access for all meetings is YouTube at burnernville buroughscreens. This link will also be available on the agenda for each meeting which is print posted in the burough website burrow.org and on the burough hall public bulletin board at least 48 hours prior to the meetings. Notice of these changes have also been emailed to the Burnsville News and the Courier News by posting a copy on the burough website and by filing a copy with the municipal clerk all on January 23rd, 2025. It is the intention of the board not to continue any matter past 11 p.m. in any regular or special meeting of the board unless the motion is passed by the members of the present to extend you a letter specified karat time and same shall be announced at the opening of

each meeting. In addition, the board does not intend to begin a new hearing after 10 p.m. nor begin testimony of a new witness after 10:30 p.m. Any hearing conducted by the board is a quasi judicial proceeding and your testimony and comments must be limited to issues that are relevant to what the board may legally consider in reaching a decision. A quorum appropriate to a judicial hearing must be maintained at all times. Roll call. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Here, Miss Gell is absent. Mr. here. Mr. Here, Mr. Morrison here, here. Mima seems to be absent, and Mr.

You have a Mr. Chair. Thank you.

We're going to push the meeting minutes uh approval to uh next meeting. Uh communications. We've got a letter on uh 42 Baker Street and there's an agenda item for that time file. And then there's this letter um for the B by annual certification the service station. Do we need to act on that at all for anything? No legal wearing change gas station. That's what they ask. So where does it um lie? where this particular activity 134. [Music]

Yeah, the water remedial action. It's just a report. So, it's just reporting water. Nothing for us to do with that. Okay. Uh, is anyone here for something that's on the agenda? I see nobody here. All right. Then uh we have the uh resolution for adoption of the AR Greenville LLC settle in. So go ahead, Steve.

Sure, Mr. Chair. This is what's the resolution and accurately settlements for the a burn site plan deviation from Palmer Square revelopment plan and a dimminous exception from the requirement of our science with respective parking. Um it's a 35page hopefully comprehensive and accurate memorialization. We do have the settlement uh proposal and other settlement related documents attached to it. Just the records there in um I will note my apologies that we have an an older version of the names of the board on the roll call vote for the decision matrix.

Thank you. I was going to say I'm sure Denise will correct if he already hasn't um but otherwise got it right and uh and I believe we have representatives of the applicant here um going to surmise just in case and you have who can vote uh who voted in favor of settlement and this yes I hear um So,

25th. I'm sorry. 25th. Okay. We're going to change the date as well. Oh, I change that also. You did that, I guess. Perfect. So eligible members are uh elimin. [Music] These are people who voted yes on the live printing point.

Yes. Mr. Graham, Mr. Mr. Mark and Mr. Sappo, Mr. Walden, and Mr. Zo. It's not correct. Mr. Walden and Miss Geller were both eligible, but they both are absent. Okay. So, we have five. That's more than we got each. So, we need a motion. Motion to approve the resolution of draft. Second. Mr. Graham. Yes. Mr. Malia. Yes. Mr. Morrison. Yes. Mr. Sassa. Yes. Mr. Walden.

I'm sorry. Mr. is absent. And Mr. Zero. Yes. The motion carries. 5 Z resolution adopt. And we made the deadline court ordered. I think by a day or today we may chair. May I address the board? Sure.

I just I uh so Rob Parad I'm development director with advanced realy investors on behalf of the African I just wanted to say thank you to the board with the thoughtful consideration that you've given this application for the collaborative approach we took to get to the project that is that has been approved. I think the project as approved is a demonstrabably better project than the one that was originally submitted. So, I think that the uh I think we've we've set a good tone for continuing to work together with the professionals and with the police department and others within the town to bring this from plan to reality. So, thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you.

Have a good night. Thank you. Any questions? All right. We have the bills build that motion. I'm sorry. I'm finding a number of things. Okay. I move to pay the bills 289,747.

Second roll call. Mr. DeMarco. Yes. Mr. Graham. Yes. Mr. Malia. Yes. Mr. Morrison. Yes. Mr. Taso. Yes. Yes. Motion carries. No publications. uh request is that Matrix Street 42 make a request for extension of time. Any uh commentary? Uh yes, we're nothing but consistent in getting the old board names as opposed to the new board name

and we're going to keep Denise on our toes and and with her fingers on the keyboard. Um but otherwise hopefully we accurately memorialize the intention of the board uh should the board so grant request an additional 190day extension uh of time to perfect the subdivision D. letter July 24 from the applicant uh uh council explains uh the reasons why outside of their control they have been unable thus far to put forward the deed and have request an extension to what we're calculating to February 6th of 2026 26

um so discretion and um and everyone uh for extension everyone can vote. It doesn't matter whether we approve the application written or not. We have six eligible. Okay. Take a motion. Second call. Mr. DeMarco. Yes. Mr. Graham. Yes. Mr. Malia. Yes. Mr. Morrison. Yes. Mr. Yes. And Mr.

Okay. So the next section was um discussion topics. Um largely one of the important reasons to have a discussion is uh this John will be uh the cler and author Bob Brightly as well. He got jealous. He got jealous. Yeah. I thought he was spend some time before the during the executive session I could speak to the board. Okay. All right. Anyway, might have been something I said.

Yeah,

probably. Uh there's quite a bit of work to do. better. We have the recreation plan which is substantial which is we got to get it over the finish line basically but we didn't have the public meetings and we've had um change in the recreation director and stuff has happened you know actually we may have to update some of this like 251 Claremont from, you know, used to be a building and now there's been a lot of change because it was demolished and and um it's so just redefining it. It's not it's just like okay here's the plan for that that parcel and there's probably other stuff too but um that's one one thing we we need to basically schedule it. Um John outline what we need to do.

Basically hearing we're at a point where we've talked about this where the edits have been made that we discussed their medicalation. We thought that they should come back and present the edits and the revised document that didn't work out right then the bureau or the director we start over with them. They crack at it. But at this point the edits have been made. They've been requested. I provide a copy of those edits with the document the document. I double check even though they never change the date on the document. I make sure the document the latest document that I have matches the edits. So it is the document that you edit the document.

It is and it's basically a notice in the paper notice to join municipalities and copy to the state and to the county. Have your hearing adopt modify or being deemed required to do and then becomes an official really the department possible to the open space recreation plan. you modified the title because this is more of a programmatic an infrastructure type of document but in my mind it complements the OSRP they work together but you know I didn't want to be confused as the OSRP because that talks about let's buy that property let's look at you know what's the inventory you know oh that that's not what we're talking we're talking about physical changes and programs so you're ready to adopt you're ready to move this forward uh if anything you know perhaps the Russian director can come that night of speech or I don't know but the new record on the night of I mean they should be doctor this is going to be the next so many years

yeah it is getting it over and I wanted to also be sure that we a meeting that wasn't in the middle of the summer and people are away but you're interested in the recreation you saw worse as good as any chairman people are back do we want to go ahead and try to look at our calendar so Mr. Chairman, if I may, I had a conversation with the um the reparation director. Yeah.

And he I think I mentioned we they were when you and I had the conversation about this u they were meeting that night the U committee. Okay. So the rec chairman um and the committee discussed it that night which was in the last couple of weeks and I think they're going to be reaching out. Currently they want to come to a meeting in November. So, um I'm giving him the meeting. They want to present at a meeting or they want to come and chat with us. That I don't know.

All right. All right. Well, at least the time frame that they're looking at, but obviously we should be able to be able to do it either in November's

Yes. So, it's a scheduling decision made. the I guess the question is do they want to come to one meeting to make comments like

they want discussion or something or the board meeting or anything like that and just go through the gusto have a discussion October, they didn't come home and help us with the adoption. Yeah. I think we just give them a hard day, right? They give us comments and we really wouldn't want to be sure they they mentioned the November. We want to be sure they're there. We want to go October 23rd. A little delay in case our second meeting. Yeah. Second meeting October. October 23rd. But they said November, right? So

they they said they wanted to come in November. So I well the key is that they wanted to cremate. Now this was not formal the you know just the conversation I relay you know I didn't stop well said why don't you say we do want to do the formal adoption to do the well we want to have the presentation to the public in November and that's respectly that in my opinion if the when we made this presentation that should be denied the adoption that should be involved All all in one fell swoop.

Okay. And then contingency is we have one more meeting in December that if anything happens we can recover in that time. Right. Nothing should and then same thing is just let them know if they want to come discuss. We're here in October. We're here date 13. 13. I should look at my calendar that the okay it's a good idea we set our schedule on maybe I didn't get specific and uh

we at least have to focus on noticing and all so we'll yeah yeah we don't want other people to dictate when we may or may not do Okay. Can can I segue into this segway the climate? Okay. Uh the burrow have determined year or two ago to become a participating community in this is like number four. Yeah. only stand on the back.

The decisions been made to pursue what we call whole plan performance and it is a very very involved process. One of the things that I've done is I've sent you a copy of the initial assessment. I'm not sure the board ever saw that. That will give you a pretty good idea by Bank of Engineering of what's entailing. Basically what happens is the islands has what's called a vision master. If you are a preservation community or if you have any property within the preservation area you it's mandatory second by you have to implement the regulations for that.

It's the most rigorous.

Yeah planning area is voluntary. Uh you have most of your entirety of your town is in the planning area. We do have a small portion in the preservation if I recall. I didn't do the assessment. And so what happens is when you determine that you want to possibly become informed, you do what's called an initial assessment and will actually aid in a municipal conduct assessment on a reversible basis of 15,000. The purpose of that initial step is to determine what level of effort is required to mill and to conform the burrow's policies with that of the highlands and the highlands master plan is about you think that rec plan is fat and you got about a dozen or so amendments. So there's a lot of regulation. The primary purpose of the highlands is to preserve land. That is the primary mission. Everybody has to set around environmental control supply and demand and that also gets into all the values and density and separate densities they get involved. So what happens you do an initial assessment the determination is made by the governing body you want to participate or not and you shouldn't go intention the highlands then then does an analysis wrong and issued the report and says these are the things you need to do based on your assessment report and what we know about your community to align yourself with the highlands leisure math plan what's entailed

you'll be required to adopt a highlands master plan that going to involve a planning board will need to do a high ordinance performance ordinance that will be introduced by council referred to you under the miscellaneous law of comment and consistency like any other ordinance correct master plan consistency um there's going to be a re-exam if some kind of a re-examination is important part of this as well now you're kind of infusing your regulation with the highlands And there's no they have a and a lot of these are templated. Yeah.

So it's not like you're looking at thousands of hours of work. They've set up a system where it's formatted. You're free to you know modify it to reflect your community but you can't. It's like the EV ball. You can change certain things but some things you can't touch. Right. They're going to get into land use categories of zones. They're going to get into all kinds of things. So it's EV is even one of the segments. I'm sorry. They even have a segment a section that see kind of vehicles. Yeah. And the highlands tries to piggy back on the states the state. Yeah. Uh you know you're already a designated transit center. All these now what are the advantages?

Why? Well, when you become a conforming community funding, they will be able to provide funding for planning studies. I think there's some monies for purchasing of open space,

farmland preservation, but they do get involved in all of those things. So, you're eligible for a lot of funding. They do regulate development. They're very strict and it could help to, you know, kind of align future development with capacity. Is that what they're looking at? Van use capacity, work, supply, set the capability. you know, let's not put a 100 homes here with a set the capability of that area is only 10. They get involved in all of that. So, the ordinance that's going to be passed at some point if the B chooses, you can always withdraw and programs or you can always say we're not going to get involved in this and you don't have to reimburse the state the islands for what you expanded,

right? So, it's all voluntary. So you're going to go through this this very process. Now what what will happen is there'll be a public hearing in the Highlands. The Highlands Commission will review the council will review the the report that the their staff says these are the things. They'll give you an approval, but then they'll give you deadline. All of these things have to be implemented, right? And here's your money. Okay?

And that impacts pretty much everything that you guys do unless you're exempt. Now, here's the big part. the ordinance the ordinance that eventually gets passed around there will be some exemptions in there. So if you're a single family homeowner, you want to put an addition onto your home, the there'll be criteria in the ordinance that allow the borrowing to grant what's called the exemption. You don't have to go to Highlands and then that gets filed, but it's done in right large scale projects get kicked up to the highlands just like you have to kick up reviews to DP, the county, DOT, they become an extra

uh reviewing agency. They're looking over your shoulder. It's a regional mo most of the time we kick up to the county, the state,

very federal. This is a regional authority and they have a regional master plan. So you think it is another level almost I would say lateral to us but maybe lateral if that makes sense. kind of they're they're up there because they have control with quite a bit of land use, but because it's optional planning areas, it's I'm trying to entice you in with money to do that. So, John, I imagine during that, how long has it been in existence? Yeah, for a while.

When was uh McGregor was the governor? They take 20 years at least. So we have no concerns with this being underfunded in the near future. No, in fact they are very well funded through proper transfer degrees. So one of they are very flush with money in terms of here's your check for this, here's your check for that. I think we're all they're a commodity than they used to be though recently too. So you know there's more demand. Yeah. a lot of people

they have a kid but there more there is more demand and we're not the only municipality uh deciding to opt in right now a lot of muniscotics recently have been decided so process and so so at some committee that I would recommend burrow has retained Jessica Cwell they handled all of that she should probably come and talk to you about that and maybe you should and give you a copy of her assessment of what she thinks has what the process should be. I've been kind of a little bit out of the blue, but I'm involved. I know about it. So, I I if I for now, you're going to have a role to play in this you know, but understand it's somewhat like the code regulation. These are the regulations you accept that it's going to be this, you know, it's going to be second volume. This is going to be this lands. It's going to be there's going to be some control issue. They become a co-artner in litigation as well. There there's a strong presumption of validity to town regulations planted. You become conforming and you get sued they are obligated to if it's a high issue much like police kind of

does it at all impact affordable housing obligations in in certain ways it well it takes land out of calcium. They taste the buildout. They have a buildout that happens. And as you might expect, if if the environmental constraints are focused on more, it could have a particular impact on any development, a percentage of which is affordable. We won't get into specifics particularly nowadays in either the fourth round litigation but the high

theoretically would suppress growth population in theory because they would constrain manage to the environmental constraints. Yeah, exactly. And the infrastruct lack of infrastructure. But they're very interested in stuff outside of the affordable housing zones. And that's they care about sewers. doesn't care about the water. We're in affordable housing constrained locations. These guys are going to look at oversized lots and what the plan is and things like Oh, they're going to look at separate capabilities. They're driving development soon. Yeah,

we saw that during the fourth round mapping. We looked at

extension of sewer. coverage all of that gets evaluated. So maybe they either I issue a report the council staff or in the process of how we invite Jessica to talk about what she sees the goal as where she sees this going. Now that segus into climate because they've uh we did submit we my firm did submit a contract that was never executed. I think at this point I think a lot happened in between mentioned Palmer Island this the issue of climate you're not going to be able to in my opinion ignore it because it's state law anytime you change your land use plan a mandate you are supposed to do a climate resilience analysis yeah uh it's serendipitous that you got highlands they pay that would be part of your re-exam. So it would make sense that you know the next planner Jessica Highlands would then start also to include that as part of the scope of work and that is probably something that the highlands can would be eligible funding. So it works out to to the to the burrows advantage and it's important because you're going to be doing land use changes as a result of your fourth ground plan and the highlands plant. Now is the time to believe this as well because it's sad,

right? And it's highly templated. It is. It's at a point where we're living in a in an incredible age of information and it's readily accessible. Now AI, you just press a button. I have a lot of information. The answer is yes. It's doable. And I would make that respect a goal for 26 that we get we get all this done as part of the islands and that in place because it's it's it's actually a very healthy exercise to understand what the expos

Okay. And then last topic that I wanted I think I asked this is just downtown parking. Yes. And um but did you have anything like this?

I I haven't we we've had some brief conversations about parking and when we had that through your call Mr. shared that town hall meeting when we were getting ideas for downtown and how they shar um interestingly one of the findings that we made to the burrow was people didn't think there was parking supply issue with more of a way finding where is uh that was the impression parking um if you're looking to be biologic downtown parking analysis should be required that that's usually done by an engineering or specializing in traffic and they need a I think the town has to have a strategy for part and you got these major initiatives and so forth but it's important to have it there's disagreement as you said there's like people of different impressions and Mary Jane has the impression that she's never had ever a parking issue you know people that are complaining all the time and then there's the question of enforcement and so forth because we don't enforce be able to They do so that people can come shop, enjoy it and go and use parking

since you're here. You know, there's always been a case of like a restaurant and so for parking you have, but then I think there's some municipalities that are just saying we're just going to leave it open. It's just we're just gonna let the it just be wide open like the more the towns that need to do that are assuming that lots of municipal parking already already. Uh I I don't know any local suburb municipalities as a city with no parking. Uh in general I will tell you for example cities like Elizabeth uh there was a zero parking requirement in the downtown but they had huge principal beds.

Yeah. You know you you you'd have to be able to provide something. Um a lot of the towns what they do the strategy u some communities like Westwood um they have municipal apartments they meter every turn right it's an enforcement thing but yeah well well you know how much time we spend on the parking aspect of applications what's interesting now is you have technology where you have it on your phone know expire you can either extend it or you know we never had that dying mouse Remember

a buffalo head nickel was dying when I was a kid.

All right. So an issue I think that we kind of right now what we have in place is you have you went through the whole downtown corridor. Right. Right. for zone to set all that up through that study that was done by Dr. and we implemented that and it had parking standards in it. Now we're learning that Ruckers just recently did parking studying where they most cases there's a paranoia about parking and I can show you 20 you know many many sites that I travel by that are like twothird we've been planning parking space fleet preco and things have changed

work from home yeah I mean I'm looking at multif family. Now we're looking at studies and we're looking at you know where RSI required 2.1 1.8 you know to you know to put on you know depend where one space per 2300 for commercial we're already learn [Music] so that something to look at is um are we appropriately measuring how much park we're starting to see but I think that's the traffic engineers where there studies out there suggesting we do immediately doing

I think it's a it's a broad topic and and council's picked up some interesting it will need to be addressed at a town we end up being having to from an application standpoint having to enforce whatever the rules are getting boils down to laws still I think council's domain Okay. Okay. And the challenges going ahead of the ground plan that squared away the what the fourth round.

Yeah. all square away. You're all on your way doing um the island stuff and deal with whatever comes up getting ahead of time. [Music] Okay. Any other comments in this section in this discussion area? Nothing. Nothing else. No, we have our executive session reporting on these topics. Board reviews pending have nothing. We do have a visit right now. [Music] I seem to have missed everything.

No. Well, it's just here to listen. So, it seems I haven't At least you have a trail journal. All right. Yeah. Thank you. I guess it's a short meeting. Let's see. [Music]

We we um just we did uh plan to have the recreation the open space of recreation plan um essentially presented on November 13th. Okay. have so that you should take advance. We uh the adoption of the planet party paper notice public hearing on the adoption. Yeah. So that's important to you and uh we are certainly open to in October having a discussion with recreation [Music]

but they they forwarded some information to you for this meeting. They did not forward to meeting the uh the plans on file along with the changes. It's just a matter of scheduling. So if we don't have it we get it. We had some discussion on script that we had side not I wouldn't say probably the side meeting but we had an extra meeting made it available to everybody that I was at Tom was at and Ed was at and we went over we went over the plan and we tried to update it to show what had been done

and whatever things we felt should be removed because they seemed like they weren't um elements that were added by the consultant pick or sort of pat items that didn't really score high on surveys of our particular community. What's the status of that? What are the results? I know I haven't seen it's Yeah, that was just this past it wasn't this past Tuesday and Tuesday. No, because this past Tuesday we had this meeting. Ted Dolan will be getting in touch with you.

I think that's the point is that it that extra step hasn't hasn't occurred yet. So yes,

and that's great. Yeah, we did we did have a discussion about it and we we we partic in particular and then he he was going to get back to the entire committee based on what we had talked about at that meeting. I don't think that has happened yet. So, but it is in process. So the 13th and there probably some statutory things that if we provide an addendum based let's let's say you know they found errors or they found something and we provide an

we would be noticing 10 days in advance. So anything we have by November 3rd perhaps about making promises for anybody on behalf of other people but but but uh you know it wouldn't even be an addendum situation conceivably and you know they can be changed made between now and I would assume sometime before October meeting the last meeting we had two meetings in October October 27th 23rd 23rd Correct. Our second

I just wanted to get right. It seems to me that if they have a set of suggestions, constructive suggest time so that we get formally notice and then the previous the meeting previous October is 14 days.

Great. And then the only other thing I was interested in is the well the impact of becoming a highlands conforming municipality on board. You kind of just missed the riveting discussion. Okay.

No detail. It was that was the piece that the planner was just follow

the the burrow process as I wish they did. I'll communication already posted you find it on their web but it's something that you're seeing and you'll have I think you know we all cons based on your expertise as When people are adopt what's the transition what what uh what was there opposition like it could be land own you know large land owners committed up until now most communities that I was I was the mayor at one I convinced to go over it the town that I know that I interacted with in they didn't want to be they didn't want to their local land use uh patrol. They didn't want another entity over their shoulder. They didn't want the extra regulations and they they were afraid that they would be consumed by the RMP rather than work with it.

I think there's a way of work with it so that it becomes a partner in what you're trying to accomplish. So is apprehension local rule but there wasn't a line of people oversight lot owner commercial developer you know people saying they can't I haven't experienced it happen because people are concerned about property value and if they can do with exactly

and so but the objections from way back when it first started maybe 20 years ago So he's basically own government agency involved. Now, of course, because of other governmental policies, this is now a popular program, right? It's aged well. I'm just reminded of when we had the 10acre zoning when the five was the top and I know you were here um and the 10acre zoning went through and there were some land owners that felt like they and a few did show up.

Yeah. But but that I think has that was on envir for environmental reasons. It had to do with water qual with water supply water quality or wells which is still the case in that area and and now it's an accepted part of our our way of looking. That was the idea. You're right. They got up and said you've taken you stolen my legacy. You know this is what I'm retiring on. You just decreased the value by 40% because by 11, right? Never happened, but it was fairly short,

you know, and it was because of environmental reasons. You you may you may get that. Yeah, that's but but here's the thing. What I talked about earlier was that the island's R&P misal mastery plans um is very heavily science based. There's a lot of science that goes into it. Yeah. Hydrarology and all of that. Very technical. You need you need a PhD to understand some of this stuff. And that's going to be supportive of that kind of zone, right? because the islands will say, "Well, your septic capacity in this area is X, but you're not going to get X,

right?" So, it's just another before that. Okay. Well, I'll just car uh Well, it's quick, you know, Carrie, we're going to executive session now, right? Thank you for carrying a message back to second. Thank you. All right. Uh I'm at a motion right back in my handy dandy resolution.

No, I meant the resolution to go. You gave me that one. Oh, you did. on it.

The the Well, it's this one right here. I'm not because we have it, but it is. Yes. 12. Well, actually, yes. 12B B7. So, I'll we're going to go into under the power. We're going to go this is the resolution where we're going to go into close session uh under section 12 B7, which is we're pending litigation. uh specifically uh Somerset County computer court division case uh Tuck Plant versus Burnville Planning Board of Equinet Properties do SOM-L546-25 and related proceedings and we were also going in for I think it's uh Toby free if I'm not mistaken personnel contract uh the posible RFP board planning planning expert and or uh board engineering that so those are the two reasons we're going into executive session pursuant to the old public meetings act anticipated deliberations conducted in close session may be disclosed to the public determination of the board that the public interest will no longer be served confidentiality and the resolution shall take effect immediately and uh we got the right decision matrix here so I suppose you Second roll call to go executive second by way of adopting that resolution.

I'll move to executive session. One second. Roll call please. Roll call. Mr. DeMarco. Yes. Mr. Graham. Yes. Mr. Malia. Yes. Mr. Marathon. Yes. Mr. Yes. Thank echo. I didn't realize the No, that's okay. I should have told you another conversation. Um,