Planning Board Meetings - Regular Meeting

We're about ready. Are we ready?

Test one, two.

Carrie, just let me know when we're live.

We're live.

Okay.

We are live.

Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting in the Spanish township planning board. Thank you to those joining us here and online for the record. This meeting is being held on September 2nd at 702 PM in the Sparta township municipal building located at 65 main street. Sparta, New Jersey, and the live stream can be viewed on YouTube at www.youtube.com slash at Sparta TWP. Please note that adequate public notice of this meeting was given in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act. No new business to be conducted after 930, and the meeting will end at 10. Let us begin with a salute to our flag.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. with liberty and justice for all.

Carrie, would you please call the roll?

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

Here. Here.

Here.

Vice Chairwoman Burke.

Here. Brian Zimmerman.

Here. Here. Chairwoman Luciano.

Here. So I'd like to begin by noting that tonight's meeting is a joint session with Sparta Town Council in attendance. We welcome Mayor Blumetti and the esteemed council members, and thank you for joining us for this advisory hearing of the Highlands Council and initial assessment. Kerry, would you please call the council roll?

Here. Councilman...

Here. Here.

Here.

Moving along with our normal agenda, we have no meetings, minutes to discuss or resolutions. So we move directly to our public hearings, which is the advisory hearing from the Highlands Council initial assessment. Lindsay Knight and Allison Bittner in joint session, obviously, with Mayor and Council. Lindsay and Allison, if you wouldn't mind introducing your respective counterparts.

Yep. With me tonight is Ben Spinelli, our executive director.

Can you please move the microphone closer? Sorry.

Can we turn the volume up on these by some chance?

Because even Celeste, you're quiet.

I can be very loud. It's fine. Yeah. With me tonight is Ben Spinelli, our executive director of the Highlands Council.

Thank you. I'm Lindsay Knight. I am the board planner from Neglia Group, and tonight with me is Luke Kerr, who is also a professional planner with Neglia Group.

Thank you. Okay, so I will leave it to you. Also in attendance is Dave Simmons for moral support and questions. So I will leave it to you to decide who presents first.

Madam Chairwoman, can I have a few comments to share first?

Sure.

Thank you.

So thanks, everyone. I just wanted to say it's a pleasure for us to be here at this meeting tonight. And I just wanted to thank all the planning board volunteers and professionals, township employees, master plan subcommittee members who I see are here and there and also watching for all your efforts. Subcommittee by the way is a representation of the council the zoning board the planning board and my mental commission and a number of residents It's been working on the master plan for a long time and this is tied into the master plan It's not always easy in today's environment to do what you do and to do we do we all know that not to go into the reasons why For me it helps to remember why we do this And it's not about me and what I want. It's not about what you and you want. What helps me get grounded usually is that I think about we're doing this for what Spartan community wants and what they need. And that's the residents and the community at large. So it's not about any vocal special interest groups. It's not about things you read in the paper or online. It's about what's best for this community. And that's what helps keep me grounded. I just wanted to share that first. Secondly, a little grounding for tonight, how we got here. uh... there is no vote no decisions being made tonight this is advisories and information uh... if and when there is a vote it would be after the governing body meets and deliberates and decides that they need to be a vote and we move forward with the vote at that point also this is everything here tonight is related to the planning area and probably stealing some thunder from there presentations so sparta is about half planning area half preservation area This is about the planning area. So it's about half of the township. Nothing to do with preservation area and all the rules and everything that happens in the preservation area. That is mandated by state. We've been in that for a long time. This assessment that was done was fully funded by the Highlands Council. We offer our thanks to them for that. And it was done in conjunction with the master plan And there is a significant, a major overlap between the assessment work that was done that you're seeing tonight and the typical master plan analysis and data that comes out of that. So we're grateful that those two have aligned. Again, we're here tonight to listen and hear about the assessment to absorb information. That's what I'm here for. I'm not making any decisions on my stance tonight. We all might come into this with a little bit of a predetermination of what we think about this, but this is for me and hopefully for you to absorb, to take that data information and reflect on it and think about what's best long-term. So thank you. Appreciate it, madam.

Thank you. Take it away.

Okay.

Thank you. So as I am Allison Bittner, I am principal planner at the Highlands Council. I am also the liaison to Sparta Township. So as a quick background.

Apologies for one second. I just want to make sure that the presentation is actually being casted on the live stream. Oh, yes. Because she has it up and it's not there.

Oh, there it goes.

There we go.

Perfect. Thank you. Apologies. No worries. right so just as a quick background um again i'll go over a quick overview of the highlands act and council uh kind of highlands plan conformance what that looks like uh what the conformant a brief overview of the conformance assessment i know lindsay has a more in-depth kind of analysis of it and then obviously any questions and answer you know questions you may have um So, again, as a refresher, because one thing we always notice with kind of our work at the Highlands Council is sometimes. things aren't understood well or just kind of assumed. So figure just to kind of talk about it in general may help at least everyone kind of be on the same page with understanding. So the Highlands region is made up of 88 municipalities and part of the seven counties in Northwest part of New Jersey. Again, it is split between the planning and preservation area. The preservation area, as said before, is kind of mandated by the state, whereas the planning area is a voluntary conformance process. Again, preservation area has those strict kind of standards with DEP, whereas the preservation area is a little bit different. But again, this is pretty much kind of the entire region as itself. The reason is that the act was passed in August 2004. What the act did was it looked at the area as a high resource value for drinking water. It established the preservation and planning area boundaries at the time of the act. It established our council, which is made up of 15 members from all seven of our counties. It directed the development of a regional master plan and directs our plan conformance program and grants. ultimately what the highlands council does is we are a regional planning agency so we are responsible for kind of overseeing the the region itself and and its success both in terms of environmental and also our town's success as well um so again why do we exist Um, so what are we protecting? So the first thing and why the act exists is the drinking water supply for 70% of all New Jersey residents. Um, obviously the environmental resources, the impacts as this is, we are in a special resource zone with our forests and streams, but also again, the success of the Highlands and the success of environmental preservation is also in part with the success of our towns. And we want our towns to all be successful. Again, we also want to make sure agricultural lands are protected, our rural landscapes, and also promoting our small towns. There's a lot in the Highlands. Together, it all creates this grouping of what we want to protect and what we want to save. The RMP, as I will talk about the RMP a lot, and the initial assessment report will also reference the RMP a lot. And it comes to a point where sometimes we talk and just quick, like, oh, it's the RMP. Realizing not everybody knows what the regional master plan or RMP is and what it does and why it exists. It is a very thick document. But it was adopted back in 2008. and there's about all these technical reports we do periodic monitoring of it but basically this is the foundation of our blueprint of everything we do everything we look at in terms of a plan conformance from any work we do all has to tie back to the regional master plan everything has to further the goals and objectives of the regional master plan that is why this document we will always refer to it because it is the underpinning of what we do again so again there's a bunch of different sections as you can see above I won't get into all of them because there there is plenty but again it gives us a regional analysis and there is goals policy and objective as each one so basically the regional master plan is it creates kind of a we create it and it's a process for municipalities and counties to conform to that plan obviously we update our technical reports when we need to et cetera but basically the rmp is the underpinning of what we do when we when towns come in for grants they have to further the goals policies and objectives of the regional master plan um so when i refer to the rmp or if lindsay refers to the rmp this is kind of what we're talking about is a regional huge regional planning document that really hones in on kind of what what we're all about and furthers kind of the mission and goals of the highlands Most of the RMP implementation is by our municipalities and counties through the plan conformance process. So through our conformance ordinance and master plan adoption, that's how kind of the RMP gets implemented. Another thing I will talk a lot about, and I'm sure Lindsay will bring up, is our land use capability zones. So while the RMP is kind of that big planning document, the LUCZ is the policy map. So it will map, it maps the entire region. It was last updated fully in 2024. And there's three primary zones. Each of the primary zones, there's some sub zones. So each part of the highlands is mapped into these three zones, subcategories of the zone so the three main zones are the protection zone which is kind of the highest level of say environmental resource protection these would be areas that we would say yeah okay this you know there is highly sensitive environmental resources here the you know it's protection zones kind of i think it's self-explanatory what the name implies uh the conservation zone is more kind of agricultural so again it's not as restrictive as the protection zone but it'll say more kind of a conservation you know you want to support great agricultural lands etc then there's the existing community zone a lot of this is our developed areas right so this is areas that have already been developed these are areas that will say yeah you know what town this is great for growth or this is where you would want to concentrate your growth. That is kind of how we map the highlands and that's kind of how we implement, in terms of what we do with the RMP, kind of those how towns more or less would kind of work to implement it as the land use capability zones get incorporated as well. So it's supposed to guide growth in our region as well. So I know I threw a lot, sorry. But I'll talk a little bit about plan conformance and what that means.

and I have to drink water because talking a lot makes you thirsty.

So what is plan conformance? Plan conformance is when you align your local zoning master plan and other planning documents to the Highlands RMP. So you're not changing your zoning, you're adopting a conformance ordinance. You're basically aligning both your ordinance to implement the standards and you're also looking at your other planning documents to align them to the RMP. um again preservation conformance is required that was mandated as part of the act whereas planning area conformance is completely voluntary at any step in any point you can say i don't want to be in the highlands anymore in the planning area and that is okay it's not like a you know you're you're in it and then you're with us forever um So again, so why do towns choose to conform, right? Because it's, you know, why do towns do this? So we do have grant funding, and I'll get into more about what we do with our grants, but that is a big thing for a decent amount of our towns is that it's non-competitive, there's no match required. And again, a lot of towns like to do this because especially with more like planning studies, et cetera, we do also have technical planning and science expertise. So we have a staff of planners and also our science staff that is always around to answer questions, to provide technical expertise, to help review documents, to really help towns kind of augment what they have already. And we're always a resource and always will always remain available for our towns to say, hey, if you need help, if you have questions, If you're curious about something, just ask us. And we also help our towns coordinate with sister state agencies to address issues. Because we work closely with the DEP, we have a very good working relationship with them. So we're able to also assist as well if we need coordination with them. If a town has a question, we're able to get those answers, which is helpful. And also, we do have a state plan endorsement. So when you do conform, it is also equivalent to the state planning endorsement. And you can also have a center designation through that as well. So a little bit more about the grants. Like I said, it's any type of soft planning cost, so any planning, design, engineering costs. It's reimbursement-based. Towns use it for a wide variety of reasons. They'll do historic preservation plans or trail planning plans, master plans. Stormwater management we had a lot of grants go out with the latest ms4 Stormwater grants with a lot of our towns because they saw the you know They saw the highlands as a resource to help them pay for their ms4 permits and with the last round of affordable housing We also had grants to assist our towns in developing their housing element and fair share plan as well So A lot of the times with planned conformance, a lot of people have kind of preconceived notions of what it is and what it does. It's tricky, right? It's, you know, sometimes things aren't cut and dry. But essentially, a lot of people will say, okay, the Highlands will come over and take over all your local planning. we we don't I mean you adopt a conformance ordinance which the towns actually we changed it so the towns now implement it so instead of us implementing it the towns would implement the standards at the local level and you would have more control over your decision-making you get to dictate kind of how you want to see your town grow etc and another thing is a lot of people will say town has no economic opportunities which not necessarily I mean there's a lot of ways that towns can grow under the Highlands through the existing Community Zone through redevelopment through Center designations it doesn't strip it away completely and finally people will say that residents won't be able to make any changes to their property which is not true at all in the planning area when I'll get to that because so in the planning area which is the only thing we're talking about is there is an applicability standard so you have to reach the standard for the highlands to say okay the highlands act is in effect for any residential development that is three or more new units so you can have a property you can build a house you can build two houses and we'll say that's great go ahead good for you um And for non-residential development, it's any disturbance of one acre or more or an impervious surface increase. If you meet those thresholds, then yes, then the conformance ordinance may come into effect. From there, there's everything with kind of the exemptions and waivers, which may further not implement those conformance ordinance standards. But for the most part, you have to reach that threshold. So, again, it's not going to mass impact someone that wants to build a home, wants to build two homes. The threshold is three or more new units. So, again, it's not as you have to meet the thresholds in order for the act to be implemented. And even then, there may be exemptions or other things that just come into effect and you go, okay, well, we can still build what you want to build or you can find a way to move forward. And that's the one thing is to stress is that it doesn't. it's always a stress. The Highlands Act doesn't necessarily come in and say, nope, can't build anymore, you're done. It's saying, okay, there may be a way, let's figure out how. It's complicated, but it's kind of vaguely how it works. And I say it's complicated because a lot of the times it's very site-specific. So, again, a lot of it will come down to a specific parcel, what wants to be on it, that sort of thing. So... as a brief overview of the plan conformance assessment. So essentially, you kind of started the first step with your initial assessment report. That shows you what conformance looks like in your town. It shows you, are your planning documents aligned with the intent of the RMP? It looks at what parcels you may have that could be impacted. It takes a holistic look at that, a holistic planning analysis, if a town wants to conform the next step would be the governing body would pass a resolution once the governing body passes a resolution my office or may writes a basically a consistency review report goes before the council the council will vote on your petition from there it goes back to the municipality to adopt the conformance ordinance and the the master plan review work um and then once that all happens the town is officially conforming um that's basically the process um and like i said you more or less did step one with the initial assessment um but again it's it's up to the council at whatever point they decide if they want to move forward that's the resolution they would have to adopt to move forward if they so choose so SO I'LL TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR CONFORMANCE ASSESSMENT REPORT OR THE INITIAL ASSESSMENT. WE ARE TRYING TO CHANGE THE NAME FROM INITIAL ASSESSMENT TO CONFORMANCE ASSESSMENT SO THAT IS WHY IT IS WRITTEN AS CONFORMANCE ASSESSMENT. SO AGAIN IT LOOKS AT THE IMPACT OF WHAT HIGHLANDS LOOKS LIKE IN YOUR MUNICIPALITY. And as I said before, it's do your documents align? It's a decision making tool. It's strictly does this make sense for our town? Yes or no. If yes, you move forward with the resolution. If no, that's it. That's the end. So again, looking at Sparta, so your yellow is your planning area, and everything in green is your preservation area. As a reminder, you conform to the preservation area, so that's already conforming, and that's the mandate. But the planning area is about 54% of Sparta and about 13,300 acres of the town. This, as I said before, I mentioned the land use capability zones. This is your LUCZ map. This will show you, so the protection zone is everything in green. Again, that's kind of that higher resource standard value. Anything in yellow is the existing community zone. So these would be maybe closer to your downtown corridors, et cetera. And you do have some of the subzones, for example, so the lake community zone, so anything around Lake Mohawk is blue. But the lake community zone is a subzone of the existing community zone. So inherently, it kind of has more of that. It's not that higher resource protection standard. It's part of the existing community zone. I also have these huge maps. If you would like one, I can pass them out to you. So you have them, and you can keep them. And I also have more at the office, so I can always email them if you would like an actual digital copy of it. It's more than fine. So just as a quick... So these are the percentages that you have in the planning area. So 62% of the town of Sparta is in the protection zone. Obviously, because this is... A lot of this is green. And I should note this darker green is the preservation area. So we are only looking at kind of the bright colors. You do have some acreage in the subzone of the conservation zone. And then the next highest LUCZ you have is your existing community zone. So you have about 10.4% just existing community, 7.4% in the lake community zone, and about 1.79% in the existing community environmentally constrained subzone. So that's kind of your breakdown in terms of what your land what your community looks like in the planning area For the land use capability zone this does not look at the preservation area. It's just planning area so again and i know lindsay will definitely go into more of this as well so findings were that things seem mostly compatible look like there was a few vacant or underutilized properties that could be restricted with conformance again this is something that the town needs to look at is this something that is Is this something that is an issue? And if so, it's hey, we like this site, or hey, we want to know more about this site. It's a conversation we can have. And ultimately, it's a town decision of is the impacts of these vacant or underutilized sites too great for us to move forward? or or not or is it you know what yes we completely agree this makes sense we're okay with it it can it's very much a town decision um mostly your planning documents do support the intent of the Highlands RMP would you have to maybe update them yes but for the most part they they align in that sort of thing um Also for Sparta, you do have town center designations, so they're also an option too in existing downtown or lake corridors or lake communities. If you want to do a town center designation, that can be part of your plan conformance process or it can come down later in the road that you can do as well. But it is an option for you. So basically the major takeaway is that, yeah, there's some development impacts, but it's going to be minimal and site specific. And again, it's one of those things that it could be worth having a conversation if warranted. Because as I said before, sometimes the impacts of the highlands are very site specific. So it's not, it's always a discussion to say, okay, yeah, it's impacted or no, you know what, you could do X, Y, and Z. So it's, it's always hard to talk in general because again we're just sometimes it's just so down to the site and down to to what what's going on um so again your next steps is you did the conformance assessment so that's done the next step would be the formal petition to the highlands council at the resolution if you want to move forward then we would go to the council level itself i would give a presentation on it um the council would vote typically to approve i don't think they've ever denied one

No, they have never denied one, so it's nothing something to worry about.

And then the town, then it would go back to the town to adopt the conformance ordinance, the Highlands master plan element, and the master plan re-exam. So that's kind of what it looks like, and like I said, if you do not want to move forward, THAT YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING WITH THE PETITION, IT JUST KIND OF ENDS HERE. I WILL LEAVE IT TO LINDSEY AND I ASSUME WE WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS AT THE END.

LET ME JUST BREAK THIS DOWN FOR YOU SO THE BRASS TACKS OF WHAT THIS MEANS. TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR EXISTING ZONING, MATCH IT UP AGAINST THE LAND USE CAPABILITY ZONES. YOU'RE GOING TO FIND THAT YOUR EXISTING ZONING PROBABLY ALIGNS VERY CLOSELY WITH OUR LAND USE CAPABILITY ZONES. We didn't make this out of thin air. It follows the scientific facts that are on the ground and where existing development already occurred. So we're not trying to undo what was already there. What it really means in practical terms are, portions of the township that are in the protection zone or the conservation zone and you have very small part that's the agricultural lands. Those places are not usually approved for the extension of source service so any development that takes place within those portions of your town have to be done on septic and well we don't extend we don't extend infrastructure into the protection zone. into the conservation zone likely where your existing source service already does not go there anyway and you had no plans to go there and and so that that really determines whether the those portions of the township will be developed intensely or not intensely and uh so that's that's the real practical effect of conformance and what we do is by by conforming to the highlands regional master plan You're no longer just planning for Sparta. And why is that important? Because if someone comes and challenges what you're doing and you say, what did we do at the local level? We did it because it was good for Sparta. We also did it because it's good for the good of the state. So that when you are challenged, you have that extra layer of protection. What Allie didn't have in her benefits, one of the ones that's a real benefit, is the enhanced presumption of validity for your local land use ordinances when you are conforming. very important ordinarily the standard that has to be overcome is arbitrary capricious or unreasonable and every municipal attorney knows that in the highlands it's an enhanced presumption of validity because you have planned not only to your local desires and and goals but to those higher goals of the regional master plan that have a benefit to the entire state of new jersey and therefore your decisions are given that extra that extra weight and that extra protection That's probably one of the more beneficial things, particularly in the era we're in now where affordable housing is such an issue. Conformance is not a dodge for your affordable housing obligation, but it does mean that your affordable housing obligation is going to be determined in the context of the regional master plan. It means that only realistic properties are going to be considered foreign corporation as affordable housing sites it means that there's a there's a preference for doing your affordable housing not with an inclusionary development where you build 100 to get 20 but to try to get you to do more 100 affordable developments or to do other things or to put into your ordinances that any development going forward that has five or more units every five units requires the developer to put one affordable unit in in every project not build more to get more just build what you were going to build and include affordable housing in it so that the intensity of development in your town remains at the level at which you determine it should be the other the other big difference though is that um and you would see this, that will evaluate whether or not your septic density standards are consistent with the regional master plan. And I think Lindsay will probably speak to that, I'm guessing. And you'll see that, again, it's probably not very different because your septic standards are probably based upon the soil conditions and the ability to have a well and a septic system on the same lot without interfering with either your ability to drink clean water or your neighbors. We look at it the same way that you do. It doesn't matter to us one way or the other if SPARTA chooses to conform for the planning area. If it's right for you, please do it. And by all means, we're there to help you. We pay for things that you're going to do anyway. So if you're going to redo your master plan, if you're going to do a trails plan, go ahead and do it. But guess what? It's on our dime. That's one of the greatest benefits that we have. If you don't want to conform, that's fine too. I mean, you're not doing anything crazy here, but you're going to find that you're better off. I make these talks to municipalities at least once a month. We have 14 more municipalities that are entirely within the planning area that in the past year and a half have decided that going through the conformance process was right for them. YOUR NEIGHBOR, BYRAM TOWNSHIP, HAS BEEN A FULLY CONFORMING MUNICIPALITY SINCE 2011. AND IT'S BEEN A TERRIFIC RELATIONSHIP FOR THEM. AND AGAIN, IF IT TURNS OUT AT ANY POINT IN TIME THAT THIS IS NOT FOR YOU, THAT SUDDENLY THE ONE GIANT DEVELOPMENT THAT YOU'VE BEEN CRAVING FOR ALL THESE YEARS THAT SPARTA NEEDED AND THE REGIONAL MASTER PLAN WOULD NOT PERMIT YOU TO DO IT, YOU CAN PULL OUT OF CONFORMANCE AT ANY TIME AND GO AHEAD AND DO WHAT YOU WANT. You're going to have to deal with DEP and their regulations, but we're not going to stop you from doing that. I think you'll find that the relationship between the Highlands Council and your municipality is going to be very beneficial and also very positive. You know, every municipality that works with us finds that. And I'll give you my endorsement. I like hair clothed for men. I said I was the mayor of a. municipality in the highlands 86 in the preservation area we were one of the first towns that conform as well back in 2008 so we're 100 for uh 100 conforming municipality it's it's been a wonderful relationship since since then i mean it's been a while since i was mayor but but uh but it's worked out very well for my town and i think uh uh you'll find that it'll work out very well for yours but it's got to be your choice um you know allison talked a little bit about the ability of us to stand in and be your your advocate when it comes to dealing with other state agencies. That's also not a minor consideration. If you have a problem with DOT, if you have a problem with DEP, we could bring the right people in the room to talk through your problems and get them done. Allison is your person. She's your concierge when it comes to issues that come up. You pick up the phone. She's going to answer the phone. She's going to answer you right away, and she's going to walk you through everything that you need to know. If one of your elected officials or anybody in the town needs a question, they call for me. I'm going to pick up the phone. We're not a big agency. We're 23 people. And, you know, I take it very personally that our responsibility is to act as advocates for our municipalities. If you're doing your planning in a way that's consistent with the regional master plan, You're doing something that's good for the future of the state. Seven million people rely on the highlands for their drinking water. The state of New Jersey could not exist as an economically viable place without the highlands, and people lose sight of that. The population densities in the urban areas of the state are off the charts. Everybody knows New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country. What you don't realize is that those populated portions of the state, We're out here. We're out here in the highlands, right? We're out here in rural New Jersey where the population densities are very low. That tells you that that average comes from very high population densities in the urban corridor that runs from New York to Philadelphia. In some places in Hudson County, 50,000 people per square mile in Gutenberg, New Jersey, 30,000 people per square mile in Union City, right? You're looking at population densities where the majority of people in this state live. where the majority of the economic activity in the state takes place that simply could not exist without the Highlands, without that drinking water. New York City, for example. New York City couldn't exist without a drinking water supply. That's why they own 1,500 square miles of land in the Catskills that they manage for their water supply. We are the Catskills for the remainder of the state in essence. We're the place where the drinking water comes from. We're the places where people go to recreate. We're places where people go for entertainment when they want to go visit a farm or go hiking, go fishing, and do any of those things. It's an important part of the quality of life in our state. And because our towns are filling that role for the rest of the state, we're going to be advocates for you. We're going to make sure that we're there to fight for you and make sure that You know, nobody messes with our towns, right? And that's what we're here for. And again, the majority of the implementation of the Heinz Act, we are not a regulatory body. We don't have regulatory authority. We do have the ability to comment on projects. When DEP implements their regulations, they have to listen to us on that. but the actual regulation comes from DEP. The actual implementation of the act comes through local zoning through our 88 municipalities. And that's why it's so important for us to get you to do your local zoning in a manner that's consistent with the regional master plan. And taking this back to the beginning of what I said, you're gonna find that managing the planning area portion of your town consistent with the regional master plan is not gonna be wholly different than how you're managing your town now. But what it does do is give you greater control over your local zoning because if someone comes and tries to challenge what you're doing it's not just us it's not just Sparta. It's SPARTA and the Highlands Council and the Highlands Act that are doing this. So now you've got to come through both of us. And ask any town that thought that they kept home rule because they didn't work with us, who suddenly found themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit from a developer, who has control over the future of that town. Not the town, it's the developer. And we help you take that control and not be subject to what the developer wants, but what the people of Sparta and the governing body of Sparta want for the future of your town. And like I said, again, I'm always available to answer questions at any time. And again, I'd say this to the folks on the governing body. Again, I'll give you the secret mayor handshake so you know. I'm coming from a point of view where I sat in your shoes for 10 years. And no, I exaggerated playing games. but uh but but i but i know i i know what it is that you have to deal with and again i i'm telling you being part of the highlands was great for i was mayor of chester township in morris county i it was it was great and still is great for my town i think you'll find it very positive and very and very helpful to you managing your town as well so

All right. Thank you, guys. And I can confirm that any time I've called Allison, she answers or calls back very quickly, which I deal with a lot of state agencies, and that's rare. So they've been incredibly helpful through this process. So I'm going to hand it over to Luke to go through. We have a short presentation. A lot of what we are going to do was already presented, so we removed it to not be redundant.

Yeah, so I'm going to talk a little bit more specifically about conformance and specifically referencing the report that was shared. So just as a reminder, this is for information only. We're just looking at the conformance assessment. We also, within the report itself, we go through the different elements of the master plan and talk about how those objectives also are in furtherance of the RMP. So looking at the direct overlap there. And then understanding, again, a lot of what Allison just said, the statutory requirements, grant opportunities, and what it looks like for growth in SPARTA. So the report itself does not take a stance on whether the township should conform or not. It's just again analyzing based on the existing plan what the zoning in Sparta looks like, what the different regulations look like compared to what conformance would look like. The final determination is with the governing body. And again, this is completely voluntary for planning area conformance. So in terms of the overall vision of Sparta's master plan, this report shows that it does align with the regional master plan goals. Again, environmental resource protection, open space preservation, and maintaining the rural character that is, I think, one of the first goals of Sparta's master plan. SPARTA has 30 local zoning districts, and then if you look in the report, you'll see those zoning districts mapped as well as their relationship to the land use capability zones in the regional master plan for the highlands. We identify some of the discrepancies in the different zones, so certain commercial and higher density districts permit different kinds of development and intensities that the RMP land use capability zones would not. And then we also just look at how the environmental regulations in terms of floodplains, stormwater, almost everything we have outlined in here of what would need to change in order to be conforming with the planning area. So more specifically, looking at some of the different zones. So the residential zones, the less Dense and intense are the rural residential districts. So that's where there are already some steep slopes, groundwater constraints. That's where highlands conformance wouldn't necessarily have a major impact on this because these sites are already restricted by environmental constraints. They're already preserved land. They're those kind of things. That's the same with some of the middle density zones, the R3 and R4. A lot of the development in those zones would be infill or redevelopment or smaller development. And then the R1 and R2, again, those are parcel by parcel looking at steep slopes, habitat, wetlands, those kind of things. Looking at the commercial zones, the town center and the area around Lake Mohawk, those are already pretty solidly supported by infrastructure, and they're also very built out. So the existing community zone that land use capability zone sorry there's so many zones um those would support again infill development and redevelopment there and that existing community zone is also where you know where the highlands views that as development happening as well the corridor commercial those are some of the the larger pieces of land that's around route 15. um those would trigger those would trigger probably some bigger Some of the more strict standards in terms of environmental standards because those are bigger properties. Those would be bigger projects and then the zones most likely to be affected are The economic development zones and then your plan development zones again That's where you're looking at larger development more complex development that would meet the standards or the threshold where the Highlands Act would come into play and Again, within this report, we go through kind of different zone by different zone. We talk about the implications for plan conformance for those zones. One thing this report highlights is that there's a lot of environmental constraints already in Sparta, steep slopes, stream corridors, floodplains. We go through in this report and list out the amount of acreage that is within the planning area that is not environmentally constrained to kind of use that as a baseline. we also include maps of the sewer service area and the water service area again just keeping in mind that there are existing constraints on developable land within the township this was something that allison touched on but again this would not conformance doesn't look the same for every single property and it's not going to look You may not see it at all for certain projects. Again, like those single two-family homes, updates to your house, those would not trigger the Highlands Act. There's also statutory exemptions. I think there's like 17 of them. Those range, I'm not even going to say them because I don't know them off the top of my head, but there is a huge range of different projects that would be exempted from Highlands standards. This was just, I pulled this off of Highlands website, looking at conformance in the participating municipalities that are in the Highlands. Again, I don't know how accurate this is, so you can, okay. Okay. So as Allison mentioned, Byram is fully conforming. Sparta, like a few of the others, Greene, Vernon, yeah they're conforming for the preservation area only. And there's maps of this online showing all the different. It shows you the kind of work that's been put in for conformance and that kind of stuff so the highlands Council website is also a very helpful resource. And then this is about the Highlands Center option. And Allison, feel free to let me know if I'm wrong. So the way this works is Highlands Center, these areas are, this is where your development is already happening the most. This is where your more intense development is happening. For this, we would say around the town center or the Route 15 corridor. This is where the standards, from what I understand, differ for Highlands areas.

of a town-directed standard so really if you designate a certain area center you can kind of look at hey what would the impact be and kind of modify that for putting something in the center will allow you to modify the highlands act regulations or the important regulations a little bit more it gives you more flexibility to say yeah if you do want to down kind of strengthen your work with us

And our centers don't expire state plan centers have to be renewed. Recognize this state plan center only doesn't have to be renewed. It's it's a permanent.

As long as you and some benefits of that for Sparta. But again, it facilities facilitates economic development and some of the you know most densely developed commercial areas it prefer preserves the outside you know more environmentally restricted areas and then it opens up specialized funding streams and what allison just said. So, what this looks like for Sparta is there would be a highlands planning area element to align. To more so align the planning with, um, master plan here with the regional master plan. Again, we already go through in this plan and talk about the different objectives. From the different elements and how they align with this. then we would um adopt i believe the actual term for this is a conformance ordinance yes that would essentially lay out all of the requirements for land development um and we can touch on that a little bit more maybe um there's also also a zoning map yeah and that's that would integrate those land use capability zones and the standards with those into the zoning map So the other thing is, we would look at updating the environmental resource inventory, stormwater plan, the circulation element. Again, what Allison said is kind of augmenting what already exists to make it conform more and really support the regional master plan. And then lastly, a lot of this work. would be fully funded by the highlands Council so updating those ordinance all of it would be fully funded by the highlands Council so that's. Creating ordinances drafting new regulations and new zoning map all of those things would be supported by the highlands Council. And then some of the key takeaways. The whole goal of the highlands you know is resource protection, this provides heightened resource protection for. steep slopes, groundwater, critical habitat, all of the things that people love about rural Sparta. There's a lot of flexibility. Conformance is fully voluntary. You can tailor the center boundaries as Alison was talking about. And then you can also opt out. And then lastly, the funding and the support part I think is a major part of this. The grants will cover the study. implementation costs did cover this study and it relieves residents of administrative burden so you know tax money is not being put towards conformance with this it's being paid for and that's all we have so do questions

we're good on our end i know one question that came up is what is the time table of something like this and how long can full conformance take we in our report estimate around two years because it's from the step of initiating where kind of where we are and then implementing all of the ordinance and all of the additional planning documents to conformance we kind of took two issues conservatively

It really depends on kind of how fast you move. So as soon, if you went through conformance, you go to the council, probably take a couple months because write the report, it has to go out for public comment and we have to respond to the public comments that come in. and then the council will vote. From there, basically it's up to the town. So it's on your timeframe how quickly you want to adopt the conformance ordinance, the re-exam, and the element. Once you adopt those three things, you're fully conforming. If you want to do other planning studies, align your zoning map, conduct the ERI, that can all happen after. If that takes you two-ish years, that's probably a good estimate to do all of those things. But to be considered officially conforming, it's just those three elements. And it's up to the town how long it takes you. If some towns are quick, I think... Harding did theirs in like three months. That's one of my other towns. And then Alamoochee, I think, is taking a little over a year. But again, it's not a one-size-fits-all. Our towns are all very different, and they all proceed with things in a very different manner. So again... ESTIMATE HOWEVER QUICKLY YOU CAN GET THOSE THREE IF YOU WANT TO, HOW QUICKLY YOU CAN GET THEM ADOPTED, YOU'RE CONFORMING, AND THEN, YEAH, YOU CAN WORK TOWARDS YOUR ERI, MASTER PLAN ELEMENTS, CIRCULATION, ET CETERA AFTER.

OKAY. NOW THAT THE PRESENTATION PORTION IS COMPLETE, I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO OPEN UP THE QUESTIONING TO OUR ESTEEMED GUESTS. MAYOR BLUMETTI, DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

No, I'm going to hold off for now. I'm going to listen a little bit.

Okay.

Oh, actually, I do. I do. One question is... Can I have you use the microphone?

I'm sorry.

Could you please just differentiate all this and Green Acres programs and how that works? I know there's a lot of thoughts and misperceptions and perceptions around Green Acres.

So we are not Green Acres. Green Acres is a DEP department that is responsible for kind of protection of land through conservation easements. We do not actively hold land. We don't purchase land. We do have a TDR program, but we do not have funding for that, and that is an optional program we would purchase. go into with a willing landowner. Other than that, we are not green acres. That's more of a DEP program focused more on kind of parks and conservation practices. We don't do that. OK. Close it up. Thank you. What is TDR? TDR. TDR is Transfer of Development Rights Program. I just didn't know the acronym. Yes, no, sorry. It's transfer development rights. So basically, yeah, it's a way to preserve land. I'll just leave it there.

Councilwoman?

Yes, thank you very much. That was a pretty thorough presentation. That was awesome. We are going to get a copy of each of these, correct? And with... I don't know why this stuck in my head. The land that is now designated as farm-preserved, do you have any part of that, or is that a totally different agency, right?

Preserved farmland is either your county, your county ag board preserves it, or the state agricultural development committee, or in combination, the two of them. preserve that land those two bodies will hold an easement on the farmland that's what makes it permanently preserved and it only applies to to to farm owners who have voluntarily sold their development rights to to that program okay so i thought thank you councilman

Just a few questions and they'll be kind of all over the place. First thing, just make sure I understand the process. The first step in order for this to happen is for the town council to authorize a petition to the Highlands Council for planning conformance, to pursue planning conformance. Is that right?

Yes, you would adopt a resolution basically giving us the green light to pursue a petition on your behalf.

Okay, and then that petition goes to the Highlands Council that either accepts that petition or rejects it, more than likely accepts it, I think. And then it's at that point, after that step, then all the other work would get involved, which would be getting the ordinances and all the other things to conform to the Highlands Regional Master Plan.

Is that correct? Yes, that's correct.

Okay. I just want to make sure I understand the process. Second question is, so would... if SPARTA were to adopt, to have its planning area conform to the Highlands Regional Master Plan, would that put more or less restrictions on a developer's ability to build bigger development? I'm not talking smaller. I'm talking the bigger

Type of developments, it all depends on where, where it is, right? If it's in the, if it's in the existing community zone where it's served by sore and you've approved it at the local level, the planning board has approved it. It's going to be, it's probably going to be consistent without the protection or the conservation zone portion of the township. Absolutely, because they're not going to get sore water to that development. So you can't develop intensely in those portions of the township. And that's pretty much what your zone with your existing zoning sets now anyway.

Okay. And I noticed, I think this is, this might be a Lindsay night question that some of our ordinances as currently, uh, drafted. Offer less protection than what an ordinance that would be in conformance. with the Highlands Regional Master Plan. Is that right?

So, yeah, there are areas where we permit kind of higher density than what Highlands would permit.

Okay. And so by if we were to adopt the Highlands Regional Master Plan and have those ordinances conform to that, it would likely provide less density than under our current that is currently allowable.

Yes.

So if the township had an interest in lowering the densities THEY COULD EITHER DO IT THEMSELVES AND JUST FIGURE THAT OUT OR THEY COULD ADOPT AN ORDINANCE THAT ALIGNS WITH THE REGIONAL MASTER PLAN FOR THE HIGHLANDS. IS THAT RIGHT?

YES, THAT'S CORRECT. AND THEN ALSO KIND OF WHAT BEN WAS SAYING, YOU HAVE THAT EXTRA LEVEL OF PROTECTION REGARDING THAT DENSITY AND HOW YOU CAN SAY, WELL, THIS IS THE DENSITY That's there because we're protecting the water resources and we're part of the highlands. And so you have that extra as opposed to the municipality did it itself. It would be this is the density we decided on.

Yes, right. The underlying science of the regional master plan and the goals and policies of the regional master plan, then then become the underpinning for your actions at the local level. So they would not only have to overcome what you did at the local level, but that that regional master plan science that's there and the policies involved. And that's a very that's a very high.

I got it. And some of those, because I think you identified in the actual Highlands Regional Master Plan, which I looked at, it's like 475 pages long with 15 different reports, meaning there's already evidence-based studies that justify the ordinances to begin with, as opposed to what the town has to do when it comes up with an ordinance that changes the densities or something like that, has to get its own scientific basis for it. Exactly correct. Okay.

That's correct. And I do want to add, too, that we also update our technical reports and our mapping because, again, since we are so based on kind of the mapping and the science, we also need to update that as well because that's also going to help guide our towns in terms of the resource standards, et cetera. So we're always providing updates to kind of support what we do.

Got you. And then, again... if we were to adopt the Highlands Regional Master Plan, the technical work that would be involved, say, doing some of the technical professional work, that would be funded by the Highlands? Is that right? Yes, completely. Okay, got you. And then final question is two things during my tenure here that have consumed a lot of the Council's time and time been a lot of difficult work and engage the public are on two type of issues. One are large, you know, storage, what we call, I guess, warehouses, mega warehouses. The second would be affordable housing. Would adopting the Regional Master Plan for the Highlands give the township more ability to restrict those type of things or less ability?

This is a real complicated issue.

If I could, you're out pending litigation, so just... I know you're not an attorney, and so... I am. I actually am. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm not your attorney.

The question was not to a specific development. It was as a general hypothetical, so I think you can answer it.

I'll give you very general answers on this. So... So with both of those, we've addressed both of those issues. So we've come up with regional standards for warehousing that are part of the regional master plan. We adopted a regional master plan update two years ago that addressed warehousing in the region as a whole. We went through a very thorough evaluation of the region. And again, realize that when we look at these things, you're looking at them from a SPARTA standpoint. perspective we look at them from a regional perspective right we're dealing with 1340 square miles of the state that's a land area bigger than the state of Rhode Island right and and just to give you an idea of how we're looking at this so we have standards about where housing should go and where it should not go or really when it when and when you're talking about conforming municipalities, it's where warehousing can go and where warehousing cannot go. And so we looked at what land use capability zone it was in, proximity to highways, proximity to other transportation, alternate transportation facilities, the impact of truck traffic. There's about 11 different factors that went into where we say you should or should not build warehousing. And that would be what you would then use for guidance to help you make your local decisions on whether or not a location is appropriate for warehousing or not. Most of the time we're looking at it on towns that want to build warehousing. Sometimes we're looking at it from a perspective of towns that don't want to build warehousing. The standards apply either way, right? And so you're looking at these very, what I believe are very practical and very reasonable standards about guiding where developments of that type should go. When it comes to affordable housing, it's a little more complicated at this stage of the game because we're so far out. We put our affordable housing standards in place Right as the new legislation came out said that our towns would have the ability to use it when the round four litigation was taking litigation or or the conformance with the affordable housing obligations was taking place. We we came up with a build out tool for municipalities to use so they could evaluate their town and determine which properties were appropriate for development. Then it would determine how intensely those properties could be developed. and then knowing what the full capacity of development potential was in the town, use that full capacity to determine what your affordable housing obligations should be based off of that cap. Because what you have to understand, there is a finite capacity to the highlands. Every day we export 863 million gallons of water a day out to the rest of the state. There are only so many people that can live within the region and still have us export that much water out. So that tells you, any practical evaluation tells you, you can't put too many people into the highlands because it's going to compromise the ability of 7 million people to get their drinking water. So the towns in the region get then to determine what their affordable housing obligation should be based upon that capacity. So then you know which properties are appropriate. how intensely they should be developed, how many units should be built, and I mentioned this before, we require you to put an ordinance in place that says anytime you build more than five units, one of those units has to be affordable because we don't want to see towns building inclusionary developments because that raises the internal population of the region beyond what the appropriate capacity should be. Now, at this point where you've already passed that court deadline that's there, there is an argument to be made that any town, and we have other towns other than Sparta in this position, that they should go back and reevaluate their affordable housing plans. and come up with a plan that's consistent with us. We have standard affordable housing ordinances that we require as part of conformance that we would ask you to adopt. We have your obligation determined that way, right? it doesn't do anyone any good to have properties included in your affordable housing plan that will never be served by sewer water and yet get intensely developed. It doesn't make sense. We want our towns to have control over their, their future. It's not a dodge for your affordable housing obligation, but it is a methodology by which your affordable housing obligation is going to be rationally determined and rationally met over the longterm. And the other side of this too, and this is something that, I'll be retired by the time this comes up, when round five comes up. But there is a finite capacity to the region, meaning build-out is build-out. It don't magically make more water because 10 years passed. Ten years from now, the carrying capacity of the Highlands region is going to be the same that it is today, the same that it was 10 years ago. And so when the next round of affordable housing obligations come out, going to have to be determined in that same context it's a it's a very great there's only a handful of people that really understand the the complex relationship between protecting the state's water supply and the affordable housing obligations that our town has and we've tried to meet that in a way that that that serves both of those of those goals but serves them in a way where protection of the state's water supply is always paramount in how things go thank you and a quick one

Of the 88 municipalities that belong in the Highlands, how many of them have their planning area conformed to the Highlands? I know that's – you may not know off the top of your head.

I don't. What I will tell you, though, is that in the last year and a half, 14 entirely planning area towns have entered into or completed the process. I mentioned Harding. Harding – I had a meeting like this with the Harding Town Council. They looked at me and said, why didn't we do this 10 years ago?

And they conformed in three months.

They adopted everything within three months because they saw that it was beneficial for their town. And right now, we have 10 pending right now. For a long time, there weren't very many planning area towns that were conforming. Now, a lot of them are. A lot of them are. Warehousing and affordable housing are probably two of the reasons why they're conforming. But I also think they came around to see the benefits of having ordinary planning activities paid for by the state, by having that additional legal protection for their actions. I think when you look at all those things in totality, it's obvious that it's really not... If you want your town to stay the way it is, we're your best friend. And... If you want your town to stay the way that it is, we're your best friends. Right. Because we give you the we give you the tools to manage your town the way that you see fit. And if the way you see fit is pretty much the way we see fit. And again, I go back. You've been planning your town like this for a long time. Right. You've got a lot of your town is on sewer and water. You know that sewer and well, you know, you can't overdevelop in those parts of your town because people are going to be drinking their neighbor's septic effluent. And that's been what's guided your zoning for forever, right, for all intents and purposes. We do that. We just do it on a little more intense basis. And we do it with a real scientific background to how we look at it. Has any town ever backed out? We had just had one town enter into it and then backed out because they want to build a data center, and we wouldn't have let them build that data center. I'm not going to embarrass them, but they should not have done it.

But other than that one town, has the town said, you know what, we adopted the plan, there's too many constrictions on it, and we don't think it's in the best interest of the economic development of the town to do it?

It wasn't because of the economic development issue, but we have Phillipsburg entered into conformance and then backed out. Okay. That's a town that's fully that's a fully developed town. It wasn't over environmental reasons.

Okay. The majority that do decide to conform, stay in conformance and don't back out.

Okay.

Thank you. I really appreciate it. Very helpful. Thank you.

Councilman Scott, questions?

That sentence really stuck with me.

So if you want your town... Can you use the microphone, please?

I'm sorry. If you like your town the way it is today, you're going to be my best friend. Thank you. Okay. When I read between the lines here or hear between the lines, are you saying that as we approach round five, being a member of the Highlands is going to limit the ability to put wastewater treatment facilities into the city, into the town?

will to portions of your town that are not in either a center, a designated redevelopment area, or the existing community zone. Those are the three places we permit sewer and water to be extended. I shouldn't say we, because it's DEP's regulations that mirror the regional master plan. DEP will not approve the extension of sewer and water to those portions of the highlands. they have to do it in consultation with the highlands council and when we make a consistency determination that's what we look at they have to they have to listen to our recommendation on those those applications that's the that's the nuts and bolts so really really it is us saying it because the original master plan but the the operation goes through does being a member of the highlands

Does the town being a member of the Highlands help or enhance building your own affordable housing?

It depends on where you do it. You would work with Allison on determining sites that were appropriate and what the intensity of those sites that you choose would be appropriate. In that context, it would be a help. And if you wanted to build affordable housing that needed infrastructure, in the protection zone portion of your town we're going to tell you you shouldn't do it right because we have to we have to have hard and fast boundaries as to where sewer and water can and can't go And that's the major way that intense development is managed in New Jersey. And so we would work with you to identify appropriate buildable sites, what the intensity of those sites should be, and work with you to get them permitted through DEP if that's the help you needed. So if you chose a site, you said this is a good site, we want to build 100% affordable. I personally don't like inclusionary developments that are forced on towns in this context, because I think that it violates other planning principles that have to be respected. But when we look at it, if we work with you to choose an appropriate site, we will help you get that site built and get it built in a way that's appropriate for you.

So you're saying being part of the Highlands really enhances your ability to rely on a durational adjustment?

That'll leave up to your attorney to come up with an answer. That has been the answer, right? But for your town, it may be different. But it's more a reliance on what the appropriate capacity of your town is to accept development. Two more quick questions. How did Harding do this in three months? They were very determined to get this through.

Like, extremely determined.

Also, with all the documents, so your conformance ordinance, the master plan re-exam, and the highlands element of the master plan, we have draft copies to give you. So it's not that you're creating this from scratch. We kind of have everything. We send them to your planning and legal team. They take a look at it. They say, okay, don't like the... and it's not really up it can be modified slightly but basically you would say this isn't apply to Sparta this you know that sort of thing and that's how they adopted it so fast as we give them the templates they said this looks great and then they adopted it in three months very much consistent with the regional management plan it was absolutely consistent with the region yeah they were very consistent the one thing too and that this is something else that towns can ask for is and this was the case of harding is harding had some properties in the protection zone um that are mapped protection zone but were built so basically it had like a um and it was on there i think it was their 202 corridor um but basically it was map protection zone because of forest they asked us in their plan conformance they said well listen these properties are already built out we'd like to see them kind of revitalized that was a map adjustment we made as part of their petition for plant conformance was those few properties to put them in the existing community zone because the mapping made sense um just there was just forest in the back but the rest of it was fully developed so we said yeah harding that makes sense that happens also sometimes as well so When I say everything's a site-specific thing, it's very site-specific. But that is something Harding did ask as part of their petition.

Understand, our land use capability zones are very scientifically based. It's not a political map. It's a scientific map. But it's also mapped at 1340 square mile scale. So that when you zoom into a lot by lot analysis, sometimes there are factual reasons to adjust. When we looked at Harding, for example, when we looked at things that were in the protection zone, we found a handful of lots that had old office buildings on them. that were, were made sense to be able to include them in the existing community zone rather than the protection zone. Those ended up being, those ended up being some of their affordable housing sites at the end of the day. And they were able to get, well, we'll figure out if they can get sewer water to it because they were other complicating issues there. But basically, we can look at things. We look at things from a macro level. If there are problems, we can zoom into the micro level. If the factual basis is there, we can make adjustments to what goes on based upon what we see on the ground and accommodate what you want to do with there. Like I said, we're a very responsive agency. We're a very small agency. And we can bring that kind of detailed focus to your town.

So I like my town the way it is. So you'll be my best friend.

I already have a pet dog. Thank you. You understand what I'm saying. We give you the tools to manage your town. And as long as you've been reasonable, if you want to keep your town this way, we can work with you to make sure that you reach your goals.

Excuse me, are we having audio issues with the PowerPoint, or was it just taken down?

Yeah, the PowerPoint was down.

Can we have it back up, please, until this discussion's over? Because I think we want to reference the process, and there may be questions about the process, though. And that goes for both presentations. Thank you.

Excuse me. Okay. Chairman, this isn't really a question, but I think for a lot of our viewers and for the rest of the public that maybe don't know this, but you had mentioned something really important, how you survey everything or how you map everything macro and micro. Because when we got our DCA numbers, they were using Google Maps. And I guarantee you most people do not know that. And that's how we got the numbers we got that then we had to reform but thank you and it being very scientific you can't base it on google maps

No, we have a very strong GIS department, and they are really great at maps and really getting that data out. And if you ever go on our website and look at our interactive map, it is incredibly detailed. And, you know, our GIS department is amazing, and they deserve those accolades. Yes, thank you.

We created a GIS portal for each of our 88 towns. To go in and evaluate the available land that was there. So they were doing it from a position of not a position of knowledge. And and unfortunately, I said now that that license has expired. So so we'd have to go with any town that goes through conformance now. We'd have to hopefully go back and backtrack so they could do that analysis. But we created a build-out tool specifically for the professionals of each of the 88 municipalities to evaluate the available land on the terms that I had previously explained.

Okay. We're going to bring... Question again with the acronyms. What does DCA stand for? Department of Community Affairs.

Ah, thank you. Which was the affordable housing.

Okay. So we're going to bring the questions up to the dais.

Celeste, one question.

So can you just comment on, I know what a lot of us are thinking is that we want to make sure we don't damage our ability for economic growth to maintain it and to grow it in the proper ways so that the towns that have done this, they've been able to manage and balance that act, right?

Some towns have been better at it than others. Every town has their own issues. But a town like Sparta where you have a defined downtown, you have the ability to develop within that downtown in a rational manner. Uh, you have properties that are probably appropriate for redevelopment if you wanted. Uh, that's something we can, we can accommodate and work with you on. Uh, right. That's where that's where your economic growth is going to be. The other side of this too, is that you're, you're in a place where you can take advantage of the natural resources that are here to attract people to come to your town, right? This is not, you know, some of our towns are big agricultural towns. We work with them on agritourism, right, and how to use that. Some of our, you realize, we have towns, the range of towns from, go from a city like Morristown to a town like Harmony Township or um your hope couch at the warren county very right we go from very urban to very rural and we we don't treat every town as though it's the it's the environmental epicenter of the state right we're very practical in how we look at this and we have methods to accommodate both the both the the world but built up the suburban the mix the agricultural the the the pastoral right and because it's a it 1340 square miles contains an awful lot of different things in it

And we also build into that, layer into that as the Highlands Center or the hubs that are defined where we have existing centers, right?

Where we have development. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but it's highly unlikely that we will allow a town to create a center in the middle of nowhere. Those centers are basically going to be built off of existing patterns of development. And the center can be however intense as you want it to be. Right. It can be if it's a or I shouldn't say as you want, if as is appropriate, you're not going to create Mars town in Sparta. Right. But on the other hand, if you if you're in a rural town and there's these ancient development patterns where at a crossroads, there's a there's a gathering of homes that need sewer and water and you want to create a village center or a hamlet there. It can be on that scale, right? Or it can be on the scale of your downtown, right? Your downtown is somewhere in between those. We can accommodate the development within a center on the scale that Sparta has. Okay.

Thank you.

okay bringing the man may uh... before we go too far down i just wanted to expand on councilman clark's questions only and then he gave you the opportunity is that you're the member of council which is why i'm bringing the questioning back to the dance wasn't sure what side of the deputy mayor you uh... thank you very much for it to you know good presentation by the way the uh... to continue or expand on what councilman cork was talking about regards to the process At what point does the public outreach and public engagement component get involved, number one? And can you define that? Is it one public notice hearing, or is it a series of community outreach and community involvement outreach steps to get there? Before we pass or after, we... decide we want to proceed further?

So the first thing would be your resolution that you would adopt at the council level. I assume that would be at a public meeting, because it probably has to be, for your notice to petition. For us, we do publish that we will post a report. It's called a draft consistency... Oh, man, it's... review and recommendations report that gets posted on our website we post it have any we have an email list. We say this has 30 days for public comment any public comment we receive in 30 days, we will respond to when we present it to Council. Also, our Council meetings are open and available to the public, so anyone who wishes to comment at that meeting when the petition goes before the Council they're able to do so.

so it's a thirty-day notice thirty-year you accept or uh... uh... any comments that come you respond to the comments and then dot checks dot box for public comment and and and and the public meeting also the is open to the public so people can also speak there as well okay and then just to wins if you if you may just to go back as i thought uh... counseling quark was wondering the the impacts and i know your report touched upon There was three or four. I think it's two slides back of the zones most impacted by your assessment here. Keep going. Go the other way. Let me see. Right there. So can you elaborate on the planned development, PCD, PCD, PVC, PDRM? Larger development may more likely be affected. Can you just elaborate on that? What's that mean so the public and myself and others can understand the severity or the Level of impact.

So this is kind of a not complicated question, but some of these lots are located along the Route 15 corridor. So some of them will not necessarily be or along White Lake Road or in those areas that especially around Route 15 where those areas are more developed. So those properties are not going to be developed. affected as much. However, there are areas that overlap portions of these areas, they overlap with conservation protection and environmentally constrained sub zones. So they're going to create a direct interaction between the zoning capacity and Highlands resource constraints. So future development proposals in these zones are more likely to exceed the highlands applicability thresholds and become subject to water availability, wastewater capacity, disturbance limits, and environmental protection standards, which may reduce the achievable development intensity or require modifications of the site.

Okay, so it sounds like it would have a significant or moderate to significant impact for those properties or parcels that would be in those zones.

I don't want to say every property in that zone. I think it would be more of an in-depth look into those particular properties.

And then is there any point of the process where financial feasibility or financial analysis is done? I mean, this is where most of our commercial, industrial, future rateable and development contribution to this township exists. So understanding that a little better so we know if we're opting in, are we reducing the ability to balance? That seems to be a word.

Right. What you're going to do, you're going to find that, and again, Lindsay's going to be able to show you exactly which lots in your municipality are going to be affected. You can break it down to that level. What you'll be able to see, some of those lots can still be developed. Some of those lots can be developed, but not as intensely as they may have been before. You'll be able to make a determination as to what the impact is on your rateable base. The one thing I will say is that Right. The rateable chase has never worked out for any town in New Jersey. Right. That's not the way to to plan your town. We do know that you do need rateables because you have to pay the taxes. But but again, the pursuit of rateables has never has no one has ever rateable their way out of their out of

well let's not use the word rateable would be a revenue stream yeah that's a that's an additional revenue stream at the township other than the taxpayers wallets to fund the township and raise taxes consistently we need to look for other revenue sources and that was the main point we're not well we're not debating rateable those just trying to understand the impact and and the impact on taxes sure it will be that's been is different in different towns right that some towns are able to manage the

that battle where we use the balance, right? They can manage other towns, but you do have to be, you do have to be cognizant that you're not going to be able to get the magic development. That's going to, that's going to bring that revenue stream in to you. Yeah.

And I was just curious to know if, and when you go down your checklist is financial feasibility, because it is in other state programs, economic development and financial feasibility studies.

We don't, we don't consider that in the, in the,

Okay, that's important to note.

But what we would do is that if you wanted to do an evaluation of potential development sites so that you could have a real sense of what your capacity to develop is, we'll fund that for you.

And a financial balance of impact, whether it's significant or not as significant as it may perceive or be real at that point.

Correct. And one of the things that we are very cognizant of is that sometimes there is an impact to our towns. And that we are fighting right now to get an alternate source of revenue from the state to supplement municipalities that have been impacted severely by the inability to develop. Not a lot of towns run into problems over that. A handful have. And we're working to try to figure out how to help them.

Okay, and then just, I know you noted that, you know, the grant programs that are available to support, I've been familiar with them for the most part. Are they oversubscribed still available, or are they...

They're available, right? They're all available, right? They're all available. We're not oversubscribed. If we keep getting towns coming in, we may run into an issue at some point in the future.

But right now we have because I know the infrastructure trust, you know, when we're just to deal with the water quality to FIFA issue, you're getting a big run on the infrastructure trust. And I know the state had a major.

deficit or problem trying to balance and some of the programs didn't receive as much we had a run on our stormwater when the stormwater right came out we had a run on our stormwater everybody everybody wanted one that was the that was the only time that i've been involved with the highlands that we we we came close to exhausting our available grant money but our our grant money is not over is not over subscribed okay so if you it it's and again YOU SIT DOWN WITH ALLISON, YOU COME UP WITH SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO, WE PUT A SCOPE OF WORK TOGETHER WITH YOUR PROFESSIONALS, YOU SUBMIT IT, WE DO THE WORK, WE REIMBURSE YOU FOR IT. IT'S NEVER BEEN AN ISSUE.

OKAY. THANKS FOR ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS AND THE INFORMATION. THANK YOU.

SO REALLY BRIEFLY, I'M GOING TO ASK BOTH OF OUR PROFESSIONALS, KEN AND DAVE, DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

NO QUESTIONS. THANK YOU.

DAVE?

THE ONLY THING I WOULD QUESTION IS ONE THING THAT I BROUGHT UP DURING THE MASTER PLAN INFORMATION. We do have a little bit of a unique situation with the water system that we extend into Byram. And you were just mentioning a question about extending infrastructure, be it sewer or water. And right now, the existing water system extends into Byram Township. So if Byram had some development going on, Would it have to be like a joint resolution to make sure both were conforming? Or how would you treat something like that?

That's a real specific question, right? That's going to be very, very fact dependent, right? Because we don't impact existing infrastructure, right? Those water lines that are in the ground that are serving people, those service areas exist and they're not going to be pulled back, right? Because they're there and the pipes are in the ground. Um, if you know, I don't know what your relationship with Byram is on, uh, on, you know, do you have a joint municipal utilities authority? Do you have representation on their board? Right. It all depends on how the, how that water utility is managed.

It's all set up as far to township.

Okay. So then, then, you know, you're, if you're relying on. are you talking about if Byram wanted to take water from Sparta system and expand, they would have to come through us first. And most of Byram is in the preservation area anyway, so there's not very many places where they could extend the water system to. So that's probably not a realistic occurrence. But in the event that it did, you would have to deal with the Highlands and with DEP to get that approved.

The other question I had, uh god forbid but if there was some situation where there was uh not necessarily a superfund site but a contamination site and one of the solutions to mitigate it was to extend infrastructure into an area because of pollution and if it wasn't permitted under the rules that were set up Would it be possible to get an exemption for something like that?

So the answer, that's an easy one. That's yes. We just did it for Washington Township, Warren County. They had a PFAS plume that ended up going, contaminating wells within their town. We were able to very quickly approve the extension of water to the impacted towns, to the impacted homes. And we would not, right, the health and public welfare programs you know consider supersedes the the that and you know what what we would do in that instance would likely be the water line would have to be sized you know only to be able to meet the uh the the impacted uh homes but yes that's something you absolutely can do right it just it just makes sense those are my questions

Thank you. We will bring it back to the dais. I'll start with Birgit.

So I've been making my way through your policy standards, and I've been learning a lot. So thank you, because the regional master plan document is so well written that someone who's not a planner can understand it. Uh, so thank you for that. Um. About the conformance process. Uh, because, you know, taxpayers want to know. What would be or have you ever estimated what the in kind value is of the templates. That you would be giving Sparta.

That's a really good question. No, we have not. Right. But but there is obviously there is a value that these things don't have to be drafted from scratch, you know, anymore. Right. And so there is a savings there. But, you know, but in the event that they were, I would love to be able to give you that number because it would just bolster the argument why it's such a good it's a good move. But everything they would have been paid for by us anyway. If you had to draft them from scratch, we would be paying that bill for you.

Okay. The towns that have joined the regional master plan, have they assessed whether or not their property values have gone up or down?

That's a really difficult question because it's so complicated to be able to assess what the impact of the Highlands was. So many things have intervened from the 2004 when the act was passed till today. We did have an economic analysis done of the region. And because of the great recession that took place in the interim, it was impossible to separate out what was impacted by the highlands and what was impacted by other economic factors. And again, that's a very, if you own the large parcel of property that FORMERLY COULD HAVE BEEN SUBDIVIDED, CLEARLY THAT PROPERTY HAS BEEN DEVALUED. IF YOU GO INTO PRESERVATION, YOU'RE ENTITLED TO PRE-HIGHLANDS ACT VALUES FOR PRESERVATION, BUT BARING THAT, CLEARLY THOSE PROPERTIES HAVE BEEN DIMINISHED. THE SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES WITHIN THE REGION, RIGHT, THE EXISTING SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES, PARTICULARLY SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES ON LARGE LOTS, have also clearly increased exponentially in value since the act went into place, right? And that's a factor of the market, not so much the highlands. Although I will say that if you look at supply and demand, the fact that there's not a consistent new supply of new homes, that impacts the value of the existing homes because they're more in demand and so the value goes up. So it all depends on the property itself. Some properties have gotten far more valuable. Some properties clearly have not.

okay thank you um about schools how how have towns uh dealt with um building and the schools, the number of seats in their schools, like how would this affect the schools?

So you're asking if the schools could expand if they needed to? Right.

Yeah, there is exemption. So exemption six allows for kind of that reason. So say a public school needs to expand, they're allowed to do so under that exemption. So there's a series of that for public schools.

Okay.

and um finally um besides agritourism what what benefits have towns that have joined the regional master plan seen like what like some some specific examples if you have them again that's very specific to each municipality but on one hand right obviously the obvious one is that we pick up the cost for ordinary planning uh issues

The second is that they get technical assistance from us on things that may be a little more complicated and working through some more complex issues. Like we're dealing with Clinton Township and the Exxon property there, very complex. We're able to sit down, we go in, we sit with their professionals, we sit with the folks from Exxon, figure out what the future of that particular property is going to be. know it's not just agritourism we have in fact ali brought some some things about our economic development uh in our branding and marketing program that are designed to bring tourism in general to the region not every town is going to be able to take advantage of that some towns take great advantage of it you know a town that's a hiking or fishing or a camping destination that has a a lot of cachet the agricultural towns have a lot of have a lot of influx of tourists right that's coming up in the in the next two months right there there are it depends on the town itself but those are the those are the things that the the legal protections that you have right the enhanced protection from from lawsuits that would challenge your your land use decisions that's a big benefit that that gets it's a that's a problem avoided issue right and a lot of times the the benefits that you have are not seen immediately It's because the problem never happened. And so because the problem never happened, nobody came in to solve it. People don't realize that you avoided something that ended up being a benefit because you never saw something bad happen.

i did bring stuff for our from our branding and marketing plans we did make a website um but i do want to add because i don't want to say that all we care about is agritourism for the economy um i think back in 2021 we created an entire economic sustainability plan for the region um all the stuff that we're doing with the branding and marketing comes out of that plan But that plan just doesn't say tourism is the end. I'll be on the highlands. Good night. It does look at kind of the region holistically, what its assets are, that sort of thing. As far as what towns use to leverage, each town leverages the highlands in different ways. So some of us just say, yep, we just want grant money. We're going to do what we want. Some of us say, you know what? We like your enhanced resource protection standards that matches us. We're going to kind of make sure we emulate that because, you know, You know, they want to have this, you know, green, lush land and et cetera. So it's really not a one-size-fits-all in what towns do. Towns leverage the highlands, how they see fit, how it works for their town, their council, what they want their town to look like. So it's very dependent. Like I said, some towns are very built out. like Parsippany is in the Highlands, Morristown all is. Some of them have very small downtowns that they have enhanced, et cetera, like Clinton Township does. Other ones are more rural, and they say, okay, yeah, we want to preserve this rural character, et cetera. So it really depends on who your town is, what you're aspiring to, that sort of thing. But as Ben said, it's leveraging us that we can be of use to you, ultimately.

Thank you.

Diane.

Thank you. I have a question. You did touch on property values. That was a concern of mine. Let's say SPARTA decides to join the council and then fast forward five years, wants to opt out. What does that process look like?

It's literally like a resolution from the governing body saying we're opting out. All right. Thank you.

Okay. First, I just want to say thank you for being here. There's a lot of good information. This is an important step, whether we take it or not, but I think it's important to get all the facts on the table, so this was a good step forward. I don't know if you can hear. I'm always talking loud enough. So when I look at the presentation, I'm trying to understand where we are in the process right now. When I look at the, not the presentation, but the analysis, the initial analysis. So I'm not sure if this is a planning board generated analysis. Is it a town council generated analysis? Who submits it? What's the normal process there? And how did this one happen?

So typically towns will decide if they want to. SPART is a little different. Usually we come talk to you first. We've had conversations with Lindsay and the other professionals before, the town manager at the time, and we said, you know, do you want to do a plan conformance? The town said yes. Ultimately that was authorized by the town manager at the time. That's kind of how the conformance assessment began. Again, it's just an analysis of what conformance would look like. it then falls on the town in terms of next steps and what you want to do. But any, anytime anyone submits any one of our grants, it has to come from the township itself. So, um, the administrator, uh, mayor, et cetera, have to say, yes, Highlands, we approve you doing this work. Our, our professionals to do this work on behalf of the township. Um, we can't accept a scope of work any other way.

Okay. So, so it's, it sounds like, um, There's no real standard process. It just has to come from someone of authority within the township.

Yeah, typically it's the administrator or mayor have to say, yes, Highlands, we authorize this scope.

Yeah. So when I went through the process, again, trying to understand it. You know, from a Highlands Council perspective, what is it that you typically look for? And I'm going to be the first to admit, this is Mr. Google talking here, just trying to understand. I think we got this on Monday, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to work with it. But it seemed like one of the things that the Kindness Council always looks for is public participation, public input. I'm not sure that really happened here. I'm not even sure that the public, when I saw this, I specifically said, can we get at least the analysis to the public before this meeting? I don't think that's happened.

so so the yeah so that's a town decision right so if you want the public to look at this conformance document but by all means you know please do so if you want public input um that that's a that's a town decision but the document itself is just an analysis of hey if sparta were to conform to the highlands what would that look like it's just very this is the impacts this is where your zoning is If from now they can you can look at this analysis, you can analyze it, you can read it and you can say, OK, maybe we'll open this to the public or maybe we will have some public comment consideration just so we can get feedback in terms of guidance on next steps. But the document itself is very it's almost prescriptive to say this is what plan conformance looks like. It's kind of it is black and white like that.

So you use it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Being informed.

Right.

Yeah. It's information. How you how you disseminate that information to your municipality is up to you. OK. Mostly in most towns that the process has been initiated by the governing body. It can be like, as Alex said, it can be initiated by the town. Yeah. But where you run with that from this point forward to the time, that's that's it. Make the petition is up to you. Okay. You can, you can have public hearings all you all you want.

So, so we've, we've, we've done the preliminary, um, initial, I guess the initial assessment minus saying, was this going to be a final assessment? But then, Ms. Bittner, you said something that made me say that's not the case anymore.

So this is your initial assessment plan conformance document. If SPARTA moves forward, I write the consistency review and recommendations report. That is what gets – so I write that. I use your conformance document. I use the feedback from SPARTA. So if SPARTA says we want to move forward with this, but we want town centers – and this is how we want to shape our towns. I take the feedback from the town to write that draft consistency review report. That report gets published for 30-day public comment and is heard at a public meeting. So again, the public can look at my draft consistency review recommendations report, make public comment there, which I have to respond to, and they can also come to our public meeting and then make public comment there before the Highlands Council makes any decision. Does that clear it?

It does. Okay. You know, if I'm a property owner, whether it be a resident or a business owner, you know, I think I want to know what does this mean to me. And without having the information, which they have nothing other than what they've seen on the screens tonight, they can't make that informed decision. I think it's important that we get the information out to the public, let everyone look at their data. I know there's a chart in the back that kind of talks to it. and parameters, but you know, like for instance, lake areas. It seems lake areas are much more sensitive areas than a lot of the other residential areas. So if I'm a lake area homeowner, And I want to expand the footprint of my house. So I want to put a pool or something that's going to add impervious coverage. As a homeowner, I think before that goes forward, I want to know, can I do it or can I not do it?

You could do it. You could. Yeah, you could do it.

OK. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. And if there's other environmental regulations beyond us, I can't speak towards that. But from a Highlands point of view, yes, you can put an addition on your home, build a pool, however you would see fit.

So is it typical that homeowners get some type of a notification on how, if this change occurs, how it will affect your property? Is there any build-out?

Yeah, so I think in my presentation, so for residential properties or residential zone properties, in the planning area, the Act standards, this Highland standards only come into place if you build three or more new units. So say if you have a home and you want to put an ADU. You can do that, right? Or say you want to subdivide and build a second home. You can do that. The Highlands Act is not going to touch that at all. So that's kind of the, it's the, sorry, I'm losing my train of thought. But that's the conformance threshold. Unless you build three or more new units, that threshold is not being met. Local zoning, of course, will apply, but from a Highlands point of view, it's that three or more new units. So homeowners in the planning area will not be affected.

Even in the preservation. Yeah. Yeah. Single family homes that existed on August 10th, 2004 are exempt from the highlands.

So they, they could actually do additions and modifications to their example. Okay. That's what that's helpful.

Thank you. It's not restrictive in the planning here. Okay.

And I should note Sparta also is able to issue their own exemptions in the preservation area, which you do and take full advantage of. I got one this morning.

So let's just talk about the overall region that we're in. So I think that I heard there's 88 municipalities that are within the Highlands. Everyone's got to conform to preservation area, and that's a good thing. I don't... Is it... So then when you start talking to planning area, the question becomes, you know, is there anything bad about not conforming? I mean, when I look at the numbers, I think out of the 88 that are in the planning area, only 26 or 27 I think now may be conforming. So two-thirds aren't. So I think that's an acceptable thing to do. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I'd like to get your thoughts on that.

Again, plan conformance is a town decision, ultimately. That's why we ask towns to do this. It's up to the town whether or not they think it's worth it or not. As Ben said, we have been getting a lot more kind of towns that were not conforming, specifically 100% planning area towns come in for full conformance. Some don't. Some say we're fine the way we are. But there are benefits, specifically when we start talking kind of about, you know, some of the programs we offer. When we did do affordable housing last year, the towns that were 100% affordable were allowed to fully use our build-out and put that in their plan. Sorry, 100% conforming. Sorry. It is late, so my brain's a little tired. Okay. But there was only for the 100% conforming towns. You could not be partially conforming. You had to be fully conforming to take advantage of that. There's benefits that way. Do all towns conform? No. And that's okay. At the end of the day, it's your decision. It's up to you. But there are benefits to it with the grants. And I think that the validity aspect of it, meaning that all your documents of planning have that presumptive validity, is a benefit because you can rely on us and say, well, we can't do this because basically the Highlands backs our decision. And that's something that I think is beneficial, but it's up to you.

Getting back to the deputy mayor's question before when he asked about the availability of grant money When when money does get short, we're gonna have to prioritize Yeah, so so so Again looking at the presentation trying to understand the presentation that is and thinking as a planning board member

So an application comes in front of us. Today we know we go to the township's ordinances, and that's our bar, the ordinances and the MLUL. But now there's this overlay from – from the Highlands that may exceed or may exceed our ordinances. How do we reconcile that as part of an application? I can answer that.

So, okay, say if you're dealing with a development project as a planning board member that is going to be subject to the Highlands Act rules. In the conformance ordinance, the updated one, the towns kind of have the responsibility to determine whether or not it is consistent with the goals, policies, and objectives of the regional master plan. So at the planning board level, you would look at it for consistency, saying, okay, does this meet the standards in your conformance ordinance, which you will adopt and then will have also in your decision-making kit as a planning board member. So... when an application comes before you you will have all this information about highlands consistency about your zoning etc um as a planning board member it would either be consistent with the highlands or it would not be consistent if it's if it's not then that's that's problematic right because you're also not consistent with the highlands um if you are consistent then then great then your local standards etc apply and you can move on the application but this probably would all happen before it would come to you i imagine um it would probably be worked out

by the professionals yeah yeah right there so you're applying your ordinance right yes it's an ordinance that you got from us so okay but it's your order so we're basically taking that ordinance and superseding ours and and that's going to be the supplement supplementing it because it only applies to commercial developments that have a quarter acre more of impervious or to start more than divisions that have three or more

Yeah, so so I think it's important before we do that and the decision may be that's the right thing to do. But that we identify where those gaps are and I don't think based on what I saw tonight, there's a lot of generalities. There's just not enough to really say, I feel comfortable. I don't know how other people feel. I'll just speak for me personally. But I think should we decide to go forward and go into the conforming planning area? I think someone's got to take a hard look at the ordinances and give the public a better view in terms of what it means to you as a property owner. Would you agree or disagree with that?

I mean, we want our towns to, if they do opt in, or, you know, choose to conform. We want them to be confident in that decision. However, at the end of the day, that looks for you is fine. It's just we want you all to say with confidence, yes, we feel comfortable, or no, you don't feel comfortable. Again, I can't stress how much enough that this is an entirely town-driven process.

Okay. You know, again, I'm going to look at Sussex County as part of the region that we're in. When I look at those that are conforming, I think the only other – the only Sussex County town is Byram.

Yes, that is the only other one that is fully conforming.

Look at the difference between us and them. I think they had about 200 acres that were in the planning area. We've got 13,000. Yeah. So it's a whole different animal. And that can apply on both sides. So understanding what's impacted where, what lots, all the property owners, that's going to be important. And relying on the numbers, who has and who hasn't. I don't think that really works because every town's got a different set of circumstances, and that's a great example right there. I was surprised that Vernon wasn't, to be honest. That one really surprised me, that they were not conforming in the planning.

yeah yeah they've had a lot of political change okay yeah so sometimes they're involved sometimes they're not and that honestly that's true of a lot a lot of towns sometimes you're like wow they're super involved and you know political changes happen and then you're like wow i haven't heard from them in in a bit and that's normal um again there's 88 municipalities they're all different um they're in seven different counties um so sussex is probably yeah i think Sussex may be the one that has the least out of the conforming ones. Yeah. Just one.

Yeah. Just one.

And I think.

Now, in fairness, not all Sussex County towns are in the Highlands region.

No. And that's true.

But of the ones that are, there's only one that has taken a step that we're looking at tonight.

Yeah.

That's true.

I apologize, Ron. Just due to the hour, there's a lot of other people who want to ask questions. Can we, like, make this the last one?

Okay, so let me just do this. Thank you. And it's more of a summary that says that if we are to go forward with this, it's very important that the property owners of Sparta understand the impact to them. I don't think we've given them the data to date that does that, but in the sake of transparency to the public, because they're paying taxes, they have a right to know what's happening, that has to happen. So with that statement, and my last question would be, how long of a process would something like that take typically when you look at the other towns that have gone this way?

Again, it depends. Some towns, like I said, Harding went right into it because they had been planning their town basically as though they were Highlandstown for the last 50 years. So there was no real appreciable change in what would happen. Right. You you may look at this analysis that that's been prepared for you. Take a good closer look. What I would suggest is that you overlay our land use capability zones on your on your existing zoning. You're going to be able to determine exactly which which properties within the municipality are impacted. and then you're going to be able to figure exactly out. However long it takes you to do that is up to you.

Yeah, and that was something just, you know, again, when looking at the analysis, which I hope we get out to the public, there was no side-by-side comparison. Here's SPARTA zones. Here's the use zones that the Highlands use. That would have been really helpful. We could provide you with that. All right, thank you.

Just to jump in very quickly, Ron, because I shared a lot of the same concerns you did about the public getting the information. I did go to the agenda center, and the full 44-page report and all the appendices are there, so the public did have access to it.

I'm not going to argue with that. I went through the agenda all day today, and all that was there was the agenda. It was published. There was no attack. Okay.

Thank you. And just regarding the assessment as a whole, there is kind of requirements for the assessment that you have to follow. So some of the information that's being asked for tonight is beyond the scope of what is normally within an assessment. So what we provided is based on the standard requirements that Highlands requires for the assessment.

So I just, again, I know I'm speaking too much, but something was said, I want to make sure we clarify. So I believe Ms. Furman believes the public has been properly notified. I don't.

I'll comment just one clarification this has been part of the master plan work has been going on for a couple years there's been public forums has been surveys so a lot of input has been acquired from the residents and the community already on kind of what the priorities are and this was obviously a step in the master plan work so it's not starting from scratch just to be clear on that there is a lot of awareness and there's a lot of information on what residents and the community want which is being built into the master plan

I agree with what Mayor Blumetti said. I also share the same concerns as Ron on the public being informed. My one question was, you talked about the public comments and that you'd respond to them. Will they also be compiled and passed on to the council so they have that input?

Yes, as part of my compilation. But when the meeting packets for our council come out, it'll have that consistency review. An attachment is public comment and response. So the council will be able to fully see all public comments that were submitted.

Thank you.

Hi there. Thank you again for the presentation. It was very thorough. I have one question that I think would be very helpful as a property owner and in order to buy into this. And that would be, you know, how data centers are impacting our water source here because if 70% of our water is coming from the highlands, that's obviously, even though we don't have or we won't have data centers here, there's still an impact from the rest of the state. So if you could talk about that.

There is. I mentioned before how we had done warehouse guidelines. We're going to come out. We have a process that we have to go through. We're in the middle of it right now where we review the MP, we call it our acronym, MPRR. You don't need to know what it stands for. But it's a periodic review of our master plan that we have to do before we start taking more regional master plan amendment steps. that's that's just at the end of that process right now when it's completed we're going to come out with data center guidance the same way we came out with affordable housing and and warehouse guidance and uh i i don't i can't speak to what exactly it will say but it will talk to no consumptive water use no use of prime agricultural lands no use of the protection zone lands for it um you know that that We don't have the authority to ban them completely from the region, but we can make it so restrictive that they're going to be confined to very, very tiny areas. You look at the entirety of the region, less than 3% of the region was deemed appropriate for warehousing. It's somewhere in the 2.5% of the landmass. It likely will be even less for data centers, and if you find the data center developer And the available land that match is going to be very unlikely that there's going to be any, and if there are, it's going to be a very small number. But we're very cognizant because our mission is to protect the water supply. And so if they are going to be there, they've got to be appropriately located and appropriately designed, right? Keep them away from residential areas. Like I said, no consumptive water, no inappropriate geographic locations.

Thank you.

Questions? Yes.

Just a few. Okay, great presentation. So thank you very much. I just have a bunch of questions. So I'll try to be quick. When you talk about flexibility, a lot of times you talked about flexibility. So it's not really all or nothing. When we're talking about customized templates for the ordinances and whatnot, those templates, can they be customized and we still comply? Or if we customize them at all? Because I just want to make sure we're clear on the word flexibility.

Yes and no. There are standards you're going to have to implement to be conforming, because if you don't implement them, then you're just not conforming or abiding by it. But there are some certain examples where you can modify them to at least tailor to your municipality if you wanted to add something or if you want to expand upon something. Or frankly, if something just does not exist in Sparta, but the conformance ordinance alludes to that, you can say, well, this doesn't apply to us. Um, so there's, there's kind of flexibility that way. And when I mean flexibility, I mean more in terms of how your process looks. If you want to center, if you want to look, do map analysis, redevelopment analysis, that's the flexibility you get is to do kind of that more enhanced, you can have more enhanced scrutiny or, or you, or you don't, it's, it's very much kind of that flexibility of, of a council of a board to say, this is what we want. This is, this is what we don't want.

And also, it's your professionals that are doing this with us, or is this our professionals? And are we paying for our professionals? I mean, the grant is paying for our professionals to work on all this?

So the ordinances and the master plan reexams are already written, so they're templated. If you do go through plan conformance, we'll give you a budgeted amount. or the township will actually say, okay, we're going to budget X amount for Lindsay to update the conformance ordinance.

That's our money, though, not the grant money.

No, it gets fully through our grant process, so it's reimbursed. So we pay for all of it. Yeah.

Okay. And if... But it's a reimbursement.

It's a reimbursement, so you need to make sure you send us your invoices. More than happy to pay anybody, but it is reimbursement-based.

Before, as well, we have to pay the consultants while we go and then get reimbursed unless, Lindsay, you're willing to wait that long for the money.

Yeah, but that's how our grant process... Which you've been doing.

Okay. All right. All right.

But yeah, that's how it works. I write the check in list.

So that's what I wanted to make sure. I wanted to make sure that everybody's time was going to be covered. And I wanted to ask about the flexibility of that. And if all of a sudden this becomes something that a lot of municipalities want to do, one of the real dangers that we have up here in Sussex County is, I'm just going to say it, when state money becomes available, we end up at the end of the line. And a lot of times we don't get it because we're low density. And blah, blah, blah. So I'm not trying to sound like that kind of person, but I have some experience here with the state. And I just want to make sure if we're opting in, we are guaranteed this money. And we're not just going to say, oh, yeah, this is great. And next thing you know, we're facing hundreds of thousands of dollars of having to absorb all this on our own.

As part of the plan conformance process, as part of your petition, there is something called, basically an implementation plan and schedule. It will look at everything SPARTA wants to do to A, conform, and B, any projects you have coming up, say your master plan re-exam, your circulation element, coming up in the next year or two. The IPS is basically an Excel spreadsheet that says, okay, Sparta wants X amount of dollars as part of their plan conformance process. When the council approves you, basically we can send that money to Treasury and say, we want to encumber this amount of funding for Sparta to do their conformance ordinance.

Okay, so as soon as we put it in...

There's a line item for 07871. And trust our grants manager is very hyper-conscious on the grants budget, and I am also always aware in terms of what our towns look like. And two, if there becomes a thing, say you go through plan conformance, but there's a project that stalls. We're not going to say take the money away immediately. It's a conversation saying, hey, are you are you all still working on this? If so, that's fine. But we need to work towards it, et cetera. We're not going to say your money's gone by. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I even have to ask the question. It's just the reality because we're low density. And you know what I mean? This is how the state money works.

I mean, yeah, I mean, we would agree. I mean, we're in the northwest region of the state, so we understand that sometimes we're not a priority, but that's why we try to advocate for all our towns.

So you also mentioned exemptions. Yes. So I think that's something that's really important as well, and it would be really helpful to see a list of them. So I'm assuming there's got to be something for parks or municipal emergency services here. You know, if we wanted to go into a zone where this overlay might be, but we say we need a satellite location over on this side of town, is that exempt? I mean, because usually the municipality, if it's under their umbrella, they have more flexibility, but it doesn't sound like that's the case with this overlay.

It's not really an overlay, number one, but the other side of this is that, yes, it depends on what it is you're proposing, but there are exemptions for public health and safety. There are exemptions for utilities. If you want to do something like that, you sit down with Allison and figure it out.

Okay, and there is something specific to public parks, and I don't I Don't want to repeat it because I don't want to misquote it, but there is there is in the act specifically information about kind of Thresholds for public parks or public facilities in terms of when the highlands threshold comes in so you are given kind of an allowance for for that But I don't right I forget what the exact number is and the exact statement. It is in the act I don't want to say because I don't want to misrepresent what it is, but there is something specific I

So that brings me to another question about parks, our parks and recreational facilities, because it looks like, and again, it's hard from this, but it looks like a lot of our park space is in these zones. So my concern, I know, and I want to make this clear. I want you to clarify this for me. We are not giving you rights to this property. We're not giving you anything. So we are keeping it. Sparta keeps it.

Yeah.

if they decide to move forward with it. But my concern is, are our hands going to be tied when we want to do updates in these parks or to these parks? And I think the answer might be yes.

It depends on what it is. But for the most part, if you have a tennis court and you want to update the surface of that tennis court, we wouldn't restrict that.

But if I want to install pickleball courts or I want to put in a splash pad or I want to put in a dog park...

No. And again, but it depends on kind of what you're right. So if you're using existing impervious service and you're saying, well, we're just going to modify this, you're fine.

Right, but if it's new, then it's going to conform to this.

If it's new, it becomes a conversation, and again, it's one of those things that is very specific. It is written in the act with, I think it's disturbance, but again, it is written in the act, and it's specific to public facilities.

All right, so it would be great to see that, Lindsay, if there's something around that, because I think we need to be very clear about our control over the parks and open space. With regard to this as well. You mentioned the affordable housing. So I understand that we have existing, you guys have some kind of existing litigation going here. So I'm going to ask this just generally. All of those things you were mentioning, if there is an existing, a pre-existing agreement in place for affordable housing that we agreed to, you can't help us with that? no so whatever is pre-existing doesn't matter and that ties into also when are we included as a when are we considered compliant the day that the council says we want to apply or a year and a half later

Okay, so let's back- Chris, not to interrupt you, just real quick about affordable housing. Although the next round is not for another 10 years, there is a midpoint. And as much as we saw in the beginning of the fourth round with developers challenging, based on my general understanding and going to affordable housing conferences and things like that, believe me when I say developers will be doing the same types of challenging at the midpoint as well, challenging your housing element fair share plan.

I'm not debating that.

The mitigation that you're going through now will most definitely occur at the midpoint, and it's not going to wait another 10 years.

We'll say that fair share has left our conforming municipalities alone.

Okay, but the point is, we're not conforming right now, so we're on the hook for whatever is going on right now. And I'm going to assume that that holds true for also any kind of land use lawsuits or any kind of litigation that's ongoing right this second. When you guys come in and say that you'll protect us once we adopt all of this, or if we adopt all of this, and you'll absorb the legal fees and you'll absorb all of that, are you going to come into existing... Lawsuits? No. Okay, so I'm just trying to get the landscape. Also, it would be great, I don't know, is it on a website, to try to see some of these ordinances, to actually see the teeth behind it? I think that would just be helpful. So if you could provide a link to that, that would be great. And with regard to the litigation, the lawsuits and whatnot, what is the impact to our insurance? So in other words, the township has insurance, right, for certain things, usually not land use law. But if we have other people that are representing us in these cases, I'm assuming, you know, like if there are more cases moving forward, does the insurance still stay in any insurance that we have stay in place or does the insurance then default to you guys? Okay, so it's totally separate. Okay, and one more thing here. The RMP, I was trying to do some research, but I'm limited to my phone because I forgot my laptop tonight, so I'm sorry about that. It looks like you have a 15-member board. Are you elected or appointed?

Just so you understand, so there's 15 members. Eight of them are elected officials from the Highlands region.

Okay. Okay.

Five of them are municipal officials. Three of them are county officials. So that's the majority of the board is made up of elected officials from the region. The other seven are appointed at large by the governor. Some of them are elected officials in some instances. Mostly they're citizens at large who either live in the Highlands or have an area of expertise relevant to our work.

So I'm going to bring this back to the original question I had with regard to flexibility. So it looks like you're either kind of all in or all out. There's sort of no middle ground. I mean, I know you have little things here and there you might be able to tweak, but you're either all in or all out. So my question is, I'm guessing there's a term limit. What is it, three years or four years on the RMP? Five, okay. So if we opt in... And God forbid, you know, we're happy with the rules of engagement as we have them right now. But five years comes or three years comes or two years comes and a change is made to the RMP that we just find unacceptable. Do we are we grandfathered in at the rules of engagement when we came in or is it you're in or you're out?

And also, if we do make RMP updates, those have a huge round of public comments. Everyone's allowed to make public comments at that time. If for whatever reason we make an RMP update that the town just does not agree with, then you say, this is too much for us. We opt out. And then you pass that resolution.

The opt out of the whole thing?

just the planning area you will always be conforming to the preservation area because that's that legal mandate from that we would have to undo every single thing that we did to be conforming it would just be a resolution to to no longer be conforming you said we were we were opting for five years right no no no no no their term limit is five years the term limit in that in that scenario we would have the ability if we didn't like

The modification or change to opt out.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. But you don't have an option to be grandfathered in to stay in the Highlands where you are. All right. And last question, and then I'm going to move it along here. I have more, but just I'm going to end it here. Have you noticed when townships have adopted this for the 14 municipalities that have gone this way, Have there been an onslaught of lawsuits from property owners, residential, small business, commercial, anything like that? No. Okay, because the thing that made me nervous, I'll be honest, and the actual report, I know, Joan, I think you said 43 pages or 42. It's actually 73 pages, and the entire end of it is this whole thing. And so I actually ran out of highlighter pen, but I was very concerned with the amount of residential properties on this thing.

So again, yeah, the residential properties, unless it's three or more new units, do not get Highland's applicability standards. So anything that says residential, if someone... It's three or more new units is the threshold. That is when Highland standards occur. Anything under that is we would not touch. Does the Highlands conformance ordinance does not even consider it's your local zoning.

So we have existing applications in for more than three. So they stand.

If the applications and yes, yes, also, Chris, we can update that and just highlight all of the residential properties and put a note in that these are not these are all these are exempt as well, just for better clarification. So nobody goes and sees their house on there and looks like. I'm going to lose all of my, you know, public document. Let's make it as clear as possible.

Yeah. This is why I'm bringing it up. Yeah. Because if I was a homeowner and I saw my property listed on this thing, I would not be happy right now. So I think that maybe that would be a good idea.

Yeah, for sure. We'll update that. We'll put all of the residential properties in like red and say like they're exempt. They're not. They're exempt from this.

Okay, thank you very much moving forward to miss Dunbar.

I wouldn't see those that are affected, which stay in that table.

Yeah, we'll take the ones that are not affected and just we'll put them on a separate separate.

Okay.

Just to separate.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much. This has been amazing. A great learning experience. And I'd like to spend a little bit more time reading about this.

Pull your microphone forward a little bit.

and going into the regional master plan itself and reading that from beginning to end. But I love what you're doing. It is a document that is protecting our environment and our community according to what has been in the master plan and what the public has been telling us that they want us to do. But I still have questions that I'm looking forward to an ordinance with an overlay comparison. That would be very helpful. Your mapping tool is great. I've used it to help with my understanding of the impact on the environment with applications that come by the Environmental Commission. And you've always been great when I've called and helped me out with any snafus I've come across. Yeah, so I just have one little question I wasn't real clear on based on what I started to read. And how many town centers can a town have?

isn't necessarily a restriction. Some towns do the entire town as a center, and it makes sense for them because they're mostly built out. Other towns, it's maybe a small corridor. It really depends. If you want multiple centers in multiple areas, if that makes sense for you, then yes. You can have multiple centers if that makes sense for your town.

looking at Sparta as you have done, what do you see in terms of number of town centers?

I think I mean, obviously, I think your Route 15 area seems a likely candidate. I think maybe some of your lake communities as well. Again, maybe that is a different center because you may wanna impose different standards for kind of a more downtown type or a more kind of like highway type of development versus a lake community, right? You may wanna have less on a lake community, whereas maybe in a more town center, you wanna have more density. So you can have flexibility, There isn't a restriction on how many you can have.

Okay.

You can have none if you want.

Okay. All right. Thank you. And once again, if you could just go over, what are the benefits, additional benefits? I know you mentioned infrastructure and water and sewer connections. For the town center.

Yeah, so you can, so you can, so town centers basically are ways that basically we work with you to say, okay, yes, do you want water and sewer connection here? Are the Highlands restrictions lowered? And if so, what, what standards are lowered for the center? Sometimes with centers we create highlands environmental resource zones, meaning you're gonna focus development here, but this property right here, because it's highly sensitive, we're gonna preserve, or the town's gonna preserve. There's a lot of flexibility that way. Some towns do do the HERS designation. Other towns say, you know what, because you're in the center, there isn't really much in the highlands that's gonna apply to us. We're gonna rely on local zoning. It's hard to say because all the towns do it in very different and unique ways. I keep stressing that everyone's unique and different, but that's kind of how it works. For example, Byram's entire planning area is in the center because it's that whole corridor. Again, it's only like 200 acres. but basically they don't really have a lot of highlands restrictions because all those properties can be built under an exemption so for byram they don't really need any highlands land use ordinance standards because all the properties in their planning area can be developed under one of our exemptions so that's kind of how they have it laid out that's just one example but you do design work you do yeah you do a lot of planning work so planning design work standard design work it's more that a town is invested in kind of this hyper intensive planning and and design work to improve the certain area for growth for economic growth or however you see that okay thank you for getting me started with that

Thank you for your report tonight. It was very informative. You could definitely see some of the benefits that would help Sparta Township, but I think there's a bigger picture here, and that's protecting the natural water resource for the future of New Jersey residents. And, you know, I think it's just something we should take a hard look at being taken part of. Thank you.

Oh, also, thank you. It really has been a tremendous amount of information and I do really appreciate it. I just want to get like a couple questions out of the way, like facts versus fiction. We are not required to be submitting a Rossi, correct? Okay. Just want to get that on the record. There are no lands that are going to be put in public trust. No. Okay. On the record. And it's been said we have the ability to opt out. And paying for the ordinances is, to me, a big deal because serving on the master plan subcommittee, once we finally get the master plan through, we have to write ordinances, and that's going to be a big cost to the town. And it was kind of the question, I guess, Birgit brought up earlier. I believe we estimated to write new ordinances was somewhere around $100,000 to $150,000. Now, not all of it would, of course, be you know, related to this, but it does give you an idea of how much money the taxpayers could be saving, you know, in going through this. And, oh, I had one more question, too. I read the 44-page report. I started on the 400-and-something regional master plan, but I could not get through it. But I did want to ask and just get on the record, too, that our planners or somebody from your office that wrote this had looked at all of those 400 and some odd pages when you did this analysis, so thank you very much.

Yeah, and this isn't the only municipality that we work in that is within the IELTS.

Yeah, you're familiar with it. I figured that. I'm just trying to get some things out.

We've looked through it.

Thank you. I'll get back to it maybe over the weekend. But, you know, I think everybody should take the opportunity to try and read it so we understand it. And I did see some of the proposed ordinance with the blanks, and so that'll be helpful. You know, serving on the Master Plan Subcommittee, you know, with some of my colleagues here, we were able to go over the thousand surveys that came in and meet with community groups, and they all kept saying the same things. They want to preserve open space. They want to protect the rural character. They want to manage traffic, and they want to safeguard our water and natural resources. So to me, this gives us the steps to begin to do this, you know, place some additional tools at our doorstep and relieve some of the burden. So it doesn't mean that we're going to stop growth. I think it's just more about planning how we grow and doing it responsibly. And it boils down to really protecting our resources, planning our growth, and saving a little for our taxes, and trying to keep our community in balance. So I look forward to hearing more about it as we go through it at the next level. Thank you.

Okay, my turn. I promise I'll take it easy on you. So... When I started this process back in 2023, I had a specific vision in mind of what I was hoping for for Sparta, and that was pretty much in alignment with what we got in terms of the survey results, as Joan alluded to, in terms of preserving that rural feel, that rural character. And and also understanding, you know, being part of the process of being part of the the planning board and sitting where I sit right now and having gone to the legal municipalities and understanding how other municipalities work and working very closely with our professionals, I kind of. have also an understanding of what that balance needs to look like in terms of where, you know, where things kind of need to fall. So one question that comes to mind in terms of how we keep things from progressing beyond the scope of where we want them, right? So let's say for argument's sake, we've got a fully developed spot, right? Let's say it's a quarry or, something of that nature that falls into one of those areas and once we get to the point where you know an ordinance is written this is now a pre-existing non-conforming um now we understand that if it's ever intending to change right it obviously can't be a quarry again but in the instance of act of God or a fire or anything like that is what we're going to put in place precluding the current business owner from rebuilding, what would have to happen in those instances?

Not in a – so not for a Highlands scenario. If the date you conform is – so say if your date of conformance is tomorrow, September 3rd, 2026. anything so if this person had his quarry there today and tomorrow you can form and it burned something catastrophic has yes they can go back to the original condition because that's how it was on date of conformance okay operations have a specific and they also have yeah yeah but but i think he would still be able to rebuild just because it's their pre-act

Okay. So if it was, for argument's sake, something that didn't fall under one of the exempted items, what we're saying is they could go back to that pre-existing condition. Okay. And in terms of preservation, open space, things like that, I know that you had mentioned that there was some language in there regarding parks. I know that we also have a trails committee and we're looking to expand trails. Are there any limitations on those types of things? Okay, there is an exemption for trails. Okay, great. Exemption that covers trails. Okay. Now, relative to town centers, we had a while ago been involved in plan endorsement for our town center, which, of course, we started to follow through, never really completed that process. So with regard to town centers, can you be a little bit more specific in terms of what would be required in terms of water and sewer for a town center in terms of that designation?

So it depends on what your existing capacity is now and whether or not you need to expand that capacity. as part of your center, correct? So it's going to be site specific. It's going to be dependent on is there water and sewer capacity now? Does the town want to increase water or extend water and sewer capacity? And if so, where? So that's kind of how it works. The town center designation would involve essentially almost another initial assessment. A little different, but basically it would take another report and you would analyze the town center and say, if Sparta wants to have a town center here, this is what we would need to look at with capacity. This is what we would need to change. This is what we would want to look at. So it would take another kind of planning study to get you on that path.

Would that be similar to what we did for the plan endorsement for town center originally?

Yes.

Okay. Yes. Just for the public certification, that was a report that looked at all of the infrastructure within the confines of the town. And the Highlands then kind of did an overlay on that and said, okay, this is where your water and sewer lays out. These are our recommendations, that sort of thing, in order to determine whether or not what we had designated for a town center was STAYED THERE. NOW, CENTERS IN AND OF THEMSELVES IN TERMS OF GRANT OPPORTUNITIES, LIKE IF WE WANT TO PUT IN ADDITIONAL STREETSCAPES OR IF WE WANT TO PUT IN BIKE LANES OR IF WE WANTED TO, YOU KNOW, INCREASE WALKABILITY, DOES ANY OF THAT APPLY?

SO THE GRANTS WILL COVER ANY DESIGN, ONLY SOFT COSTS. SO YOU CAN GET TO THE DESIGNING AND ENGINEERING PHASE BUT WE CANNOT PAY FOR THE HARD IMPLEMENTATION OF THEM. But if you wanted to create a street skate plan, a bike layout plan, we could absolutely pay for that. It's just you can even have the professionals create that design and cost, but we can't pay for the hard cost.

Right. But we can help you identify where our sources of funding are.

Okay.

Those plans to help you get there.

Yeah.

They usually have to be shovel ready, right? Okay, good to know.

Those are all of my questions. I am going to open it up to the public. I am going to ask you all, since there are a lot of people in the room, to please be mindful. The meeting does end at 10 p.m., so anybody who wants to ask questions, please feel free, but be mindful of time.

Rob Otto, 41 North Shore Trail. Sorry, just lost my microphone and my speech. Give me a second. Thank you for your time. I've looked forward to this presentation for years, actually. I'm not sure why it took so long to happen. As a geologist, I appreciate the focus on using science-based thresholds to align zoning with the actual carrying capacity of our land and water. You guys are speaking my language, thank you. I'm a proponent of common sense zoning, and I think that's not label-based, but scale and intensity to set limits, thresholds. It's unfortunate that we may have missed out on significant protections and funding over the years. Again, I don't know why it took us so long to get here, but I do want to focus on what we can do right now. We know the Highlands supplies water to over 70% of New Jersey. Locally, our shared Germany Flats aquifer is vulnerable to potential high-intensity extraction proposals just across our borders. Because Andover Township, Andover Borough, and Lafayette Township fall outside your jurisdiction, how exactly would SPARTA's conformance to the RMP empower the Highlands Council to intervene with NJDEP or others to help legally defend our town's water supply?

I hope you have a good answer.

You have an aquifer that crosses municipal boundaries. It's pesky. It doesn't follow the... For the impact within the Highlands, the DEP has to respect our opinion or our findings when it comes to that, right? But you've really put forth a very complex issue. So it's the answer. I wish I could give you a hard, fast answer. We would be participating in the evaluation of the water allocation permits in that instance. and if it's not appropriate we would apply right i don't want to pre i don't want to prejudge what we would say if it's not appropriate we would opine that it's not consistent with the highlands regional master plan and dep would be obligated to follow our obligation on our yeah because i hear all the concerns about ratables and you know limitations but ultimately i mean mr wallace pointed out too

water, it's a finite resource. So I think we're all agreed on that. So we just want to be mindful of that for us and future generations. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, Jenny Derricks tapping to Sparta. There's a number of great resources that are very easy to read, including the list of exemptions. There's 17 exemptions and four waivers. So really answers a lot of the questions that have been asked. I have just a couple of questions. Lindsay, this report was created by you? Yes. And when did it get done, and how long did it take you? Sorry.

Oh, you have the date. What was the date? Scope.

The letters.

Okay. So May 12th was the day that we received the letter saying the grant was approved. So we submitted a scope of work to the Highlands saying this is what we were going to prepare. These were each the steps and how much each step would cost. Okay. And that's when they approved that amount of money for us to do the work on the initial assessment. And I believe the initial assessment was then submitted probably July 13th, as it stated on the report.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Just to confirm, when you say it's going to pay for all related costs, including ordinances, but you're also talking about in the 44-page plan, 44-page plus, mapping and training that are required. So just to make sure it's put out there that those are also going to be covered.

Well, so you would have to update your zoning maps and then any additional mapping. A lot of mapping is available through Highlands. Like we said earlier, their GIS team, Jocelyn, right? We'll give her a shout out by name. And actually, we work very close. My company actually works very closely with Jocelyn. So we do a lot of mapping with them already. So some of the mapping... is available some of the mapping we would have to do the biggest mapping endeavor would mostly be your zoning map and then any training i believe would be in terms of internal um anybody who works for the township who would be doing reviews does that take

But my question is, will that be covered? Is that covered by the costs required that we're incurring to go to this?

It should be. I know we are going to. So the Highlands Council is forming kind of a conformance ordinance training. Because we changed our procedures to put them on the town professionals, we're looking to host a training. We have an exemption training that we host pretty regularly. This would be something similar. And, yes, we would pay the town's professionals to attend, et cetera. So it would probably be similar to that.

Great. Thank you. Also noted in the plan is there's a reference to the water conservation management plan that was prepared in 22 but never adopted. Is that something that we have to do? What are the implications of that? What does that look like?

You need to adopt that, yes. Okay.

I mean, it seems like a no-brainer, but I just wanted to make sure because it's just noted in the plan. So that's just part of one of the ordinances that we would have to adopt. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Just to clarify, Joan already asked my question, not a Rossi, but yes, an ERI, and we're already using ERI data for our environmental, is that correct? Okay, thank you. Are there limits that SPARTA, will there be limits to SPARTA's autonomy in its planning and zoning approval processes. So in other words, we adopt, say we're in conformance, which means we've adopted all of the required ordinances, and we have an application that comes in Nobody from the Highlands is going to – or is anyone from the Highlands going to be sitting up on the dais or looking in?

You're just going to assume that we're – So what will happen is if it is part of that, the township will do the conformance assessment, and it will have to be consistent with the Highlands. They will send it to us, and then if we have any issues with it, we'll comment back to the professional saying this is of concern X, Y, and Z. But no, we don't sit up there.

But it would be another report. Like we already get reports from Lindsay, from Dave – From the police and the fire?

Yes, mostly, yes.

So it would be?

It probably would be something similar to that, yes.

Okay, thank you.

I will say that we have a 15-day call-up that if you take it, if the township takes an action that is not legal, we have the ability to call it up and veto it. Okay. But the township would have to not follow its own ordinances to do that.

Okay.

Just real quick on that. Ben, real quick on that. Is the cart before the horse, if an applicant comes, do they go to you first or they come here and we put it as a condition?

It should be the second way. If an applicant is smart, he comes to us and asks, what can I do or how should I design this?

But normally someone comes to us and we put it as a condition. All right. Thank you.

County. Yes.

and we do it for the town if the town wanted wanted us to review an application so look we would like to see this development go forward but we think it's got to be massaged a little bit we'll sit down with you in our in our so if we asked you would do the technical review all right thank you okay thank you

Not to be nitpicky, but I guess I'm going to be a little bit nitpicky. On page 14 and page 18, there are references to the TCC zone that don't note the ability for residential units, and then in the PCED references, they incorrectly characterize the USES ALLOWED IN THAT ZONE, THOSE WERE THE OLD USES. IT'S BEEN SUBSEQUENTLY MODIFIED, SO I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S ANYTHING, ANY IMPLICATIONS TO WHAT'S IN THAT REPORT VERSUS WHAT IS GOING TO BE GOING FORWARD. PAGE 14 AND PAGE 18 REFERENCES TO TCC AND PCED. WE'LL TAKE A LOOK AT THAT. THANKS, JENNY. SURE. SO THE MAPS YOU JUST SAID ARE CREATED IN A JOINT EFFORT. And then once the maps and everything is adopted and say we're fully in and conforming, and then something comes up, can the, instead of just unilaterally jumping out, can there be a conversation with the Highlands to adjust?

We always have a conversation. In fact, I think we pride ourselves on saying, please just talk to us.

Okay, that's good to know. Thank you. So to Chris Quinn's point, 85%, up to 87% of our township is residential. So we're only talking about 13% to 15% of the town that could potentially be impacted by some of these changes. Would you say that's fair? I'm not asking for, yeah.

The answer on that is with certainty, but that's a pretty good answer.

Yes, I mean, you would have to, in terms of, okay, could this, it's a, yeah, could this be impacted? Yes, it would be 13 to 15. If we take out all single-family homes, okay, you're looking at 13 to 15%. That could have impacts. Does that mean they will? Who knows?

Right, okay, thank you. The Lutz, L-U-C-Z.

Yes.

Where can I find more information about that?

There is a technical report on our website. So it's a 2024 LUCZ technical report, and it goes through basically kind of all the metrics they do. If you also go on our interactive website and you just put in Sparta, you can click on the layer for an LUCZ as well, and you can see, and it can go by, you can scroll in by parcel by parcel braces to see specifically what each parcel has an LUCZ designation for.

Thank you. I'm almost done, I think.

Yeah, we're almost at 945.

Sorry. Coordinate with sister agencies. You're talking about DEP, EPA, DOT.

Yeah, SADC and Department of Ag as well. Yeah, we coordinate with a lot of them. DEP is a big one and probably Ag and SADC.

Okay. Yeah. And then so it seems like this will be my last question. It seems like if there's going to be an improvement TO A PROPERTY, ONE OF THE MORE IMPACTFUL ELEMENTS OF THE DECISION MAKING IS THE CHANGE TO THE IMPERVIOUS COVERAGE.

IT DEPENDS ON THE LOT. FOR EXAMPLE, IF YOU HAVE AN EXISTING COMMERCIAL BUILDING AND THEY WANT TO BUILD.

It's 125% above what's existing.

Yes.

It can be modified. Is that correct?

Yes. That's the exemption, yes. But to meet that threshold, it has to be that. You have to basically meet that threshold first.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks, Jenny.

Good evening. Kathy Ebenkhausen, running for town council this November. Sparta. I have just three quick points or questions to ask. One, thank you for being here and giving this great presentation. I think it was super informative for those who haven't studied up on all of this. First question, Ben Allison, can you talk a little bit about the model Highlands element that's available online? This one right here, and how it relates to your presentation today around regional master plan conformance?

Yeah, it's from 2025. We updated it to make it more streamlined, easier to use. So that is provided to the municipality when they do the master plan element to make it consistent. It reduces the amount of work that has to be done. You see the basics of what's required is based

And then you add it as part of your overall master plan as your specific Highlands element So got it as you know, we're in the middle of a master plan Re-examination if or how is this expected to be used you're saying regardless of conformance this can be used for the master plan re-examination, right?

Is available to be used by Right science is science and when you look at the. That is a scientifically derived map and you can use that to inform your local zoning if you wish. And it's and it's been scientifically vetted. So, uh, if you're not required to use it, but it's a good tool that you could use at the local level.

Got it. It is, uh, 21 pages. It appears or 22. And it is available online. It's called the Model Highlands Element for Municipal Master Plans for the Public. And it also contains, like you said, items like prime groundwater recharge areas, wellhead protection areas, open waters and riparian areas, water resource availability, protection of forest resources, and steep slopes. Thank you for that. Number two, I heard during the presentation, this point was touched on, but I wanted to reiterate it. There is a fear-based narrative being promoted on Facebook, as Chris, you mentioned, suggesting that members of the current council are looking to give control of all Sparta parks and rec fields to the Highlands Council or to New Jersey. Is this true? I think we've kind of touched on it, but I just wanted to call it out. or is this an internet fear-mongering to scare the public in a voting against its own self-interest? Thank you. all right and then number three i wanted to press on something ron had said that the public didn't ask for this evaluation as i remember it this was asked for in multiple public surveys conducted for the master plan in open space and hopefully these surveys are being considered in the master plan so i'm sure that you're capturing what i said what i said is you know that there needed to be more it needs to be more transparency so we can ask the right questions

we can go to the videotape but that's what i heard so i wanted to touch upon it yeah and if i may i mean when you look at the total amount of residents in sparta versus the amount of people that responded to your survey i don't necessarily think it is it's a good sample representative sample number it's great people participating got a lot of information in but i think there's a lot of people that did not know this process was being taken place even though we did we i was i remember when the outreach was there as well but participation was not necessarily, you know, fully represented. So, you know, it's time to get, you know, people involved and aware that this is where we are as a township and as a planning board, what we're doing. So when you say the numbers, since we said we're going to do any politicking at the dais, but yet all the questions are coming up here more of in a candidate statement and format. I just wanted to clarify the number. Clarification.

I would disagree.

It's 9.50. Please, any other questions?

Yeah, we'd just like to clarify just a statement. One more question, sorry. One second. Just about the master plan work was legitimate. That survey was well-represented. If you look at statistics, let me finish. No, I'm going to finish. It was. It was really representative. The lady has the days. It's her. And we also had focus groups, Mike.

The public has the days. Go ahead.

Just one additional question. Are you discounting or discrediting those who responded? All right. Thank you.

I think it's fair if the mayor wanted to respond now.

No, that's it.

I don't want to take up any more of your public time.

I just don't want to discount the master plan work.

Thank you. George Bennett, young Sparta resident who really aspires to raise a family here one day, God willing, and give to the kids that maybe I'll be blessed to have the same opportunities I've had in this town, which I've loved. And my family who's lived in here years and years has loved and seen the town change. One question I have, and I believe when the initial Highlands Act came out, I believe you guys said it was 2004, there was, and maybe this is still today, a financial compensation bill section for reimbursement for landowners who maybe own large parcels of land where this would directly affect and impact. Will that take effect in this case if Sparta was to join in for any impacted Sparta property owners? And I'm really curious to know how many landowners, where all you guys have covered, have received payment for maybe their loss of market value.

It's an excellent question. And it's a, what you've come up with is something that's a, it's a bane to me.

Yeah.

That's one of the, that's one of the issues that I'm dealing with right now is, is trying to get appropriate funding available to do that exact thing that you've talked about. Um, the, the, uh, there are programs that have compensated Highlands landowners, but through Green Acres and through the SADC and the preservation programs that are there for both farmland and open space preservation. We need more money for that. There is money that we're fighting to get to be available, but it's not nearly enough for the scope of the impact region-wide.

So, yes or no, Highlands themselves has been able to fund property owners.

We don't have that capacity, the Highlands Council itself. That money has to come from other agencies, from green leaders or from the SAPC.

Pretty concerning. So, thank you. I appreciate it.

Any other questions from the public? Okay, seeing none, I have actually one last question, and then we can let you guys go. So in terms of how all of this lays out, one of the big issues in Sparta is traffic. And so when we talk about the potential of looking at how that flows, of what those impacts are, when we look at those centers, so I know you had said that soft costs, so I guess things like traffic studies, deeper analyses in those areas, those would also be covered? Good to know. Thank you very much. Again, thank you all for all of your hard work, your effort, your time this evening. It has all been very informative and greatly appreciated.

And I'm sure the question, I'm sorry, there was a confusion. Mike, please.

Yeah, we need.

It'll be very quick.

Just so I'm clear, once you conform, the existing property owner, that would only affect the property owner's ability if they want to make an improvement. So I'll give you an example. Let's say that property owner, prior to conformance, has 30% impervious. Under the new regulations, it's now down to 25%. We're not going to require that property owner to go take 5% of its parking lot and turn it into, to get to that threshold, right? It would not have, yeah, okay. I think there was a little confusion that it would only impact if they wanted to build another parking lot, right? It wouldn't impact what they have right now.

There's actually a provision that if you have that, that there's an exemption that you get up to 25% of the existing impervious coverage. They had 30, let's just say they had a 10,000 square feet of of existing impervious coverage. They would be able to add another 2500. Square feet of impervious coverage.

If they were, if they were looking to improve that property, it's not like federal mandates, like the, where it's like, all of a sudden these. All these businesses had to start building ramps and all this other stuff. That's not what is happening there. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you again. Thank you for being in attendance to the council. I'm going to let you guys.

Well, we could, you know, just for the board, I mean, it is 955. The remaining items, there's nothing on here that needs to be resolved tonight. The chair and the board.

I'll give you mine, too. I think we've spoken on the phone.

Anything that we can carry to the next meeting.

I'll give you mine.

We'll swap in with the ordinance. I get it. Okay.

So, I'm just looking for a motion and a second to...

Okay. Motion to adjourn.

I haven't been long. I mean, I don't look at all. Thank you.