Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Uh, we have our attorney missing. No. Oh, there we go. There we go. Hiding. We're alive. Hiding.

Uh, like to call this meeting of Palton Lakes Planning Board to order. Following is the agenda for the regular meeting of the Palton Lakes Planning Board. The meeting is to be held in the municipal building, 25 Lexus Avenue on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, beginning 7:30 p.m. Formal advanced notice is required by NJSA 10:4-1 has been provided of this meeting at least 48 hours in advance of today given the time, date, and location, and to the extent known to time, the agenda of this meeting. Such notice stated that formal action may or may not be taken. A notice was posted on a bulletin board outside of the offices of the municipal clerk reserve for this and other similar announcements provided to the suburban trends the newspaper designated by the burough council receive such notices and filed with burough clerk. Please stand for our pledge of allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. [clears throat] One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. here. Roll poll, please. Uh, Mr. Simone here. Mr. Otto here. Mr. Tro, here. M. Dr. Pendster here. Mr. Bulby here. Mr. Keading is out. Mr. BMA here. The mayor's here. Councilman Santers here. And Mr. Foster here. Thank you.

Okay. Um, first thing on the agenda is minutes from the reorganization and regular meeting minutes on January 20, 2026. Taking them one at a time. And anybody have any problems or questions? We're going to um ask for a vote to approve reorganization regular meeting minutes. Okay. Have a motion, please. Motion. Second. Second. Motion and second. Got it. Got it. Okay. Um, any comments or questions on that? If not, all in favor? Only people that were here can vote. So, usually that gets you to vote on the minutes, you have to have been there,

but anybody who's not I thought we had a fully anybody was not there last then you can do all of it, right? Everybody was there. Yeah. Uh, and the second one is the regular meeting minutes of January 20. Uh, motion and a second, please. Okay, we have Bill and Tim also. Okay. Yeah. Um, any questions or comments about the minutes? Seeing none, all in favor by saying I. I. Any opposed?

Okay. Approval of bills. Collier's engineering design. You got two bills there. Total of $2,38041. Ramiti Falcon LLP. You got three bills there totaling 142450. Uh motion to recommend approval to the council. Motion. Second. Second. Any questions? All in favor?

I you correspondence. [clears throat] Liz Brand has sent the required DMS4 training. That's something we're required to do. Um, you have to log in and do that. You you uh reviewed them. It's uh when did that start? You remember a couple years ago, right? The required reading. I did something. It's fairly recent, right? Yeah. Yeah. I followed the link. It's only a YouTube video. Yeah. But that you're required to review it, listen to it, and provide, you know, the fact that just send an email saying we did it. That's it.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just so they have a record of it, and then that gets put down to the state. Um so they know that the members are well educated in that particular matter. And that's available right now, right? Yes. Okay. Um memo from Liz Bransiness resolutions approved by the mayor and council awarded contract for for professionals and directing the planning board to amend the redevelopment plan which we will discuss and let's let's do that now first. Andy Andy's going to discuss this because we have that special meeting y next week for a uh vote to recommend to the council. So

a few things here if I could. This is all around the affordable housing settlement. You know, for real brief made back in the 1970s uh Mount Laurel decisions, NAACP vers Laurel Supreme Court said that the every town in New Jersey has an obligation to have a reasonable um possibility to have um affordable housing for a wide variety of incomes. And we've been fighting about that as a state for the last 50 years. It had been Koa Council on affordable housing that was established in 1985. They kind of set the numbers for various um for round one, round two. Round three, nobody got appointed to FOA and so that it was disbanded. It was done through the court system. Round four is was the fair housing act that was passed back in I think October of 2024 that set the time frame in place that you it's a different method to do it but that's off the likes and almost every other municipality in the state of New Jersey agreed to go through that process where you there there's a number that's set based on a debatable formula but is essentially looking down from a bird's eye view, seeing how much green space there is in a town that would be arguably buildable, saying how much could we build there, then looking at the regional, coming up with numbers. And so we've gone through that process, come through a settlement, but everything almost everything has to be done by March 15th. And so we're working off of that. So the settlement was achieved and and son Shioban, who is your planner, will discuss that next Tuesday at the special meeting at 6:45. She'll talk about the specifics, but in order for that to be effectuated and for Pumpkin Lakes to comply with the settlement and not be sued by a builder that wants to build a 20s story apartment complex with a building remedy

suit, we have to comply. What does that mean? We have so we have to pass um an ordinance or two and an amendment to the master plan. Why do you have to do that? Because in order to have the affordable housing that has been agreed to, the numbers have been agreed to, we're going to have to change the zoning in certain areas to allow for that. In order for that ordinance uh that's going to change the zoning to be in conformance with your master plan, you have to change your master plan first. Just an amendment to the housing element, the fair share plan, which is one of your jobs. So that has to be amended. Essentially all it's the only amendment that you're going to be asked to do next week is the housing element and fair share plan basically saying what was the settlement the master plan it's a good idea to be in conformance with state law and your settlement. So the master plan amendment is the housing element fair share plan. So that's the first part. So that will amend the master plan that gets done first. Then the ordinances have to be put in place in order for that to be done. One of them is the Midle site redevelopment area going to allow for that's ones that's going to be a partial way that this affordable housing may be um may be constructed at some point, but you have to put the zoning in place. Normally, the process for a zoning ordinance goes the governing body passes it on first reading, goes to you for consistency review, and then back. So, it's it's like a three-step process. when something's in a redevelopment area that that gets shortened, the governing body can direct the planning board to prepare the ordinance. So that's what we're doing with the redevelop to prepare a redevelopment plan, which is essentially a zoning ordinance in a redevelopment area. So the governing body did ask you in the resolution to prepare uh an amendment to the um the redevelopment plan for which I was in to allow for that additional uh the I think about 28

units of affordable housing to be able to go. Um so that ordinance will is being prepared by son and you will be asked to do really two things. uh maybe another ordinance gets referred to you but to adopt the master plan and she'll explain the housing element and fair share plan that's the change in the master plan and then adopt the amended redevelopment plan to allow that additional housing if a redeveloper wants to do it that may or may not come to pass but the zoning just has to be in place so amending that redevelopment plan to allow for that should um should you find somebody that is willing to do it and in order for us to keep our immunity So can't get sued and be conformed with the settlement. Everyone's going to have to vote yes. We have to have a yes votes on both of those things on Tuesday. So uh and I'm not I'm not being you know they have to be adopted. Uh and ask all the questions. Make sure it's done right. Make sure you're satisfied. But that's what's before you at the special meeting. I just wanted to give you a heads up.

I mean it's that perfect. Uh the only thing that came up when we were doing this we were short in our numbers. So we had to come up when we say we're going to build in an area that doesn't mean we're building we're just identifying a space that maybe in the future lid was not in that first initial talk to we then went to Lidle and said look we're short space we know you'll never build there but we need to show this as space that possibly could so that's why you're adding that piece to it because we need come up we don't come up with another then it's it goes downhill so this these just pie in the sky. This is not like we have a plan in place to do anything right now and all of that mean that the obligation is to have a reasonable expect or a reasonable chance of being built which means the zoning has to be approved. So if it is enticed enough that the redeveloper wants to do it financially feasible then it's a possibility. You don't have to guarantee that it gets built. That's what the mayor said. It's just that the zoning is in place.

So that's the importance. When are they going to come up with the next plan? Probably 10 years. That I think it's going to be 10. So, you know, this was um the the last settlement was just a few years ago was because that litigation took so long. It was a 10-year, you know, it was you phase three um or round three, but it took so long. It was only a few years ago. And this is supposed to cover from 2025 to 2035. um that probably it'll start about seven or eight years from now. Okay, that's [laughter] great. That's it. So,

if this gets passed, would you say that there's then no incentive for any redeveloper who wants to build in any other portion of Compton Lakes to have affordable housing within those complexes? Um um no they they can or they mean that that's a that would be a a negotiation um and if the if somebody comes up with an idea I mean several of the redevelopment projects have somebody come up with an idea and said no way somebody want to keep 15 stories said no that's too much they came back they revised it they revised it if somebody showed up with a a project and said we're willing to do 15% affordable on this which wasn't part of the here that would satisfy the the the number obligation and you might not have to do it elsewhere and that rival site could be then used for 10 years from now or 8 years from now. sort of disincentive if they, you know, same thing for all the other projects. If it works, it might be the burrow might say, "Yeah, put them there. That's not a bad idea. If someone wants to invest the money, putting them there at a height that we're happy with and a density that we're happy with, it might it might work."

And I can add to that too that our old plan that you were just talking about had a 10% set aside, which was a pretty good set aside at that time. Yeah. We've now doubled that to obligations that Windows there's never going to be a 20%. So, anything that's being built new would have to fit into that 2000 and that just increases the cost of the developer because he's basically getting less market. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Um,

that's it. I just wanted to give you a heads up because you're starting at 6:45. Port adjustment meeting starts at 8. you know, you ask every question, make sure you're satisfied, you understand it, but there has to be a vote and um public place wants it to be yes. So, ask your questions tonight, make sure we all understand it, and then next week will be basically the presentation and a vote for the most part. And in March, then we will be voting f on the final product. It had, like you said, has to be voted up as a yes. at that point because they know we're trying and he just you know for example with Wayne Wayne had some issues with L's revenue lawsuits that's why you see a lot of units get built

yeah that Bernan a extension is going to be uh a new city how many units are going in there 500 600 I drove by I didn't even recognize unbelievable lost yeah talk about you know trying to keep uh green green acres Well, that's what they're doing. They're urbanizing the suburbs. Yeah. That took forcing basically to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And Wayne got Wayne took it to court and lost and so they became a real liability for things. And just on as an aside to what you just said, about 15 towns did sue to challenge this

and they lost and went federal court. They lost in federal district court. of Austin, the circuit court, third circuit. They've took out Supreme Court Santo uh Supreme Court justice who handles emergent matters listened to it and said New Jersey filed previous opposition. I want to see why I shouldn't put a halt to this. Those I think were submitted to submitted this week today or tomorrow. So I think the Supreme Court is going to may put a pause to it for a short period of time for some of the stuff. But that's exactly the argument that you that the cities aren't being obligated to do it but the suburbs are that's the argument that was made that lost every place although there's a pause and maybe the Supreme Court's the United States too and for us a small town three mile square town they keep coming up with these numbers you know we're out of space we know we are most around here

you know so for us this becomes difficult I mean it becomes and that's why we're looking at the because we got no other place to go. And that's why people turn around and say, "Why are you building so many units?" Well, there's no place to put them groundwise. So, you got to build up and you got to take out something that may be fine now. So, it's unfortunate, but it is what it is. And there's no point in which the town could say we are built out 100%. You got to prove.

Yeah. There. Yeah. You have to prove it. And that goes into the um the there's adjustments made if you don't have the land. So that initial step which is looking from 30,000 ft seeing green space. Well, if it turns out that they say yeah nine acres that look green that aren't built on you could turns out that they're if they're a swamp or if they're green acres protected then you have this open space adjustment where you say no we actually don't have that space. Not looked like it. Those are the numbers that got assigned. You know, and in all fairness, in a perfect world, we should have 420 units, but we can only build 116 because we don't have then that that comes into play in that negotiation process.

And this is a case where the D comes to our advantage actually because it's telling everybody you cannot build on this. So, as much as it hurts us if all of a sudden the D said you can build anywhere you want, all of a sudden there's a whole lot of acreage everywhere where you could build. So,

and if you drive around Jersey now, it might not even work locally. We just go a route 80. They're building, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of units. That's because they have space to do that. So, people are identifying that space and saying, "Well, we want to build there because of this whole obligation that fits the numbers, they got to build is it just space or how do they then?" Yeah, that's I mean that that's part of it. So that they fair share comes up with their ideal number and there's a bit of a negotiate. You know, the response is how in the world did you come [clears throat] up with that number? There's no way. And they say no because these things these properties you identify there's no way they could be built because it's a a steep slope or it's a swamp or it's you know there's a sewer line running. We can't something. And so that's a there's a little bit of give and take. There was a lot there's a little bit of give and take. Um but a lot of towns would have okay their number is 420 but with the with the adjustment it's down to 116 just because in reality that plan doesn't exist. So that's where the planner planners been going back and forth arguing there are small numbers we're still arguing. So um we argued some often like Amy said we use that number a little bit by adjustments.

What do we end up with? I would imagine Dupont property. I mean, it's privately owned. So, it's privately ownable. But D says most of it's not. You should. I'm just D said most of it's not buildable. Yeah. There's only a few acres. There's only 12 acres. Yeah. So, what do we come down to for an actual number that we need? You remember Andy? I think it's 116 maybe something like that. I I knew it was in the low hundreds. I just didn't know where it ended up. But we started like 124 125 down and that's 116 from this point going forward

10 years 10 year you know for 10 years basically they're putting put in place for 10 years the zoning that would potentially allow that to happen and if it doesn't but the market doesn't support then you [clears throat] you you still have your protection for 10 years because you put in the zoning that would allow it on a place that fair share said And you should and we all agree that's a reasonable probability. That's that's good enough. Say 45 of them get built. Yep. Somewhere and in 10 years do we get added on or is the balance

it has changed each each round the the the adjustments that the mayor that were the adjustments of how you get credit and you used to get like double credits for rentals. you get get partial credits for rentals to seniors. They took those away. They used to have regional contributions where you could pay another 10. You'd say, "Okay, it's 90,000 units. We're going to pay Patterson, you know, $900,000. They got to build like 10 units." That got taken away. So, the rules on how you satisfy it changed each round. So, I I can't say how they're going to deal with it. They'll it'll be an issue, but you're not getting punished for 10 years. you've done if you everything get passes and March 15th we do everything we're supposed to as a town we're not getting punished you know no one's getting sued for 10 years

but I can tell you this I mean it was the second round just what you mentioned Patterson was buying out everybody's call out so everybody's giving them tons of money to build all these things they built nothing [laughter] you know they took everybody's money and built nothing and the state didn't deal with that I don't know what they did it's funny okay no other questions for Andy. Okay. Thank you for your explanations. Um let's see. Um we'll continue this next Tuesday.

Um the only other thing I want to talk about tonight is um the master plan which is missing one guy. Uh heating toast and um we're going to be working on that a lot more now this year. So, one of the things that's in your packets was a uh a sheet that I copied off of the internet from Bloomingdale. And uh the the chief of Bloomingdale basically said that they were going to have a a meeting with the council uh I'm sorry with the residents so that they could uh discuss the residents concerns and issues as well as the board zone and that that meeting would help drive some of the work that the board was going to do. Uh my recommendation is going to be that the committee consider something like that where we would have a a open session to the public to say, you know, here's the master plan that exists. What parts do you like? Do you not like? Do you see certain things you'd like to see changed? It's a planning document. It's not an obligation, but it's a planning document. So, I thought it would be good and that's why there's the reference here. There's also um you know, you can see where their master plan's going to be. Plus, I think it was December maybe. I I also uh signal the uh Wayne master plan update. Uh I think there's is an update. This one is actually a new master plan in Bloomingdale. So, there's a lot going to be going on. Ultimately the entire board gets involved but initially the uh planning committee is going to be the one to do the heavy lifting. So just to keep you all in the u in the loop on that because it is going to take a lot of effort to get to that uh plan. Uh the last thing is mayor asked for an appointment for the uh what

did you call the committee? It was a joint committee of some kind. Committee for um developing a plan moving forward and standards. So just to get a a feel of how we'd like to move forward as we develop doesn't mean it has to go that way but it's input from a bunch of different boards including your board uh on what what your vision might be as we move forward the future and and that's appropriate with the master plan we're doing now. So it all kind of ties in. Um, uh, Bill, Bill Pendo Dexter is going to be the, um, Pendexer. Sorry. [laughter] Bill is going to be the, uh, other appointee besides myself.

Yeah. It's made up of some redevelopment people, some council people, and some Yeah. So, we're just, what does that anticipated to start? Our planner has been putting it together already. She's coming up with ideas of what she's seen in other areas. She's been bringing that to people and then we're going to discuss it. We'd like to see it. But if you guys have any thoughts on it, you know, reach out to your two people and say, you know, I'd love to see this or I'd love to see that. I'm going to make it happen. And we'll we'll be reporting on that as as meetings happen first meeting. Yeah. So, it'll be like one one meeting a month or do you know?

Yeah, maybe not even maybe, you know, she's going to put things together, then bring it out, do some research on it, come back to us with ideas, then we're going to say yes or no to those ideas, then move on to the next. you know, we're not going down to like what color windows we're using, but maybe setbacks and heights and colors and awnings and things like that that, you know, maybe there's an idea, you know, and you see it in some downtowns where everything's the same. Maybe that's how the board wants to go. Maybe they want to go the opposite side and make it all different, every building different. But I think the idea, and it was my idea to put this together with the help of the planner a couple years ago, was to at least get a a thought pattern forward on how we'd like to make it look. doesn't mean it was going to go that way. Just

the redevelopment plan as it exists was that many years ago that was done what 15 years ago. There's no real guts into that. That's the problem.

So we and we will we also had experience now with seeing some of the results of what was done. Some of it was really good. Some of it could probably be improved. So this will hopefully be a way for where the the two major boards which for our town now is redevelopment and planning. zoning doesn't get involved in this that much, but those two boards really should be on a similar page. Um, I've asked even that we have a a representative from here appointed to that board um as a way to bring the ideas back and forth because it's that important.

It was done somewhat informally in an example to cities like Lakeside Commons. There was a big discussion the redevelopment agency which had the power to mandate what could go out and built to have like brick facade that that mixed well with the post office and the high school. So that so that's the type of thing like mayor was saying color scheme or things like that. That's the idea is that something that you know the the burrow itself can impose that can have those design standards in the redevelopment plan itself. And and the other thing I got to throw in because some people forget this. You guys make you do what you got to do. The redevelopment's got to do, but the council has a voice on this too, right? They got a vote at the end of the day on the project. Well, everything we do goes to you guys,

right? So I mean they're getting the guidance from your leg work here and in redevelopment and that's why we put the redevelopment together because councils change every year and it's you want a set group of people running the development who have a plan uh to make it go but the end of the day don't forget to ask us. Any questions on that? One other thing I just wanted to know, do people want copies of the things you're considering electronically or do you want a 70page document you want to read? Let me go buy some stock in the paper company first. You can email it to everybody and then you have it.

Email is going to present it next week anyway. It's going to be Yeah, email's fine. Just so you can review a little bit here and there. Well, I I I will talk to Tom, but we got to remind her that there is another meeting after I heard she's a good talker. She can talk. Yeah, she's good. She's very good and very thorough. She is. I've just got to change name tags and, you know, switch screens, but other than that, you guys are close to 8:00. So, so you need a 10-minute break in between the two. Yeah, just about. You need rotating signs here, Mike. You know, just press [laughter] a button and all electronic, right? There.

Yeah. Okay. Um, public discussion, uh, there seemingly no seeing no public here, I'll open and close the public session. Mayor, anything else you want to bring up on any other projects that are going on or anything updates? Yeah, I think you're going to see the uh Washington building come back to the uh boards again, including yours. Um, uh, they have an up plan, a change plan uh that doesn't involve um, a parking structure for garage. until they're going to keep all their retail in place, but I think this board asked for it. Any development asked for that. So, and it's less units. Um, so that'll be coming to you guys probably soon.

And any updates on any of the other projects? We have the 735 infamous Hamburg turnpike.

Going along now and a day, but um the uh the other village are moving along. They're both shooting for September open. They do one downtown. They are still shooting for those dates. um uh senior housing. I just had a meeting with them last week to open up their application in March 17th. Um the way that's going to work, you know, this is something that we took a long time to get two points. Lakes resident, you get two points. If you're the same county, you get one point. And most points cannot get into the list. Of course, there's income verifications on that also under the low, medium, and the high to those income verifications. And within that, we're hoping that we get a lot of possibilities. That's for seniors that wanted to stay in that building. We already have a waiting list of people, I don't know if we needed or not, like the point system that have asked. So, if you know anybody who is a paper application, you have to fill it out in paper. We will have the applications here on the 17th and you can get them from the county on their website uh the 17th also but they have to be filled out and handed in.

Okay. They take care of all the picking we the town has done. They're making good progress and it's a good use of the site. So [clears throat] you know and that helps with our first project done actually the ones that are being built. That's the one that's going to be finished. Yeah, makes sense. They're shooting again for September also. They're trying to get by. Okay. Any other questions or anything for the board? If not, might Mary may Mary may give good way. Everything else good. Okay. Motion to adjurnn. Wait, who was that? Tim and Brian. Thank you. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you, gentlemen. 45, right? What?