I open the Bernard's Township committee meeting for March 11 2025 please stand for the flag salute to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible withy
and justice for all next is the mayor's opening statement adequate notice of this meeting was posted on the bulon board in the municipal building one CER Lane Basking Ridge on the township website and emailed to the Burnsville news whiy the carer news bridgew tap into. net
patch.com and filed with the Township Clerk on December 18th 2024 any motion to go into closed session will include that matter discussed at such closed session will be disclosed to the public when such matters are finally determined and there's no further reason to prohibit
the public from dis closure of information related to such matters no new business will be introduced after 10:30 p.m. public comments will be accepted at all meetings speaker is limited to 5 minutes each all meetings will adjourn no later than 11:30 p.m.
roll call Christie Miss Acy here miss DTE McCarthy here Mr MCN here mayor Fields here and Mr ttin C's excuse this evening executive session Christie none this evening
mayor next is our resolution 20257 recognizing March as the developmental disability month this development disability awareness month which is a time to raise awareness promote inclusivity and
celebrate the ability and achievements of individuals with de developmental disabilities this month serves as an opportunity to support those in our community with disabilties by helping them reach their full potential our first step should be to take this opportunity to challenge misconceptions
educate and encourage integration of individuals with de developmental disabilities into all aspects of life and especially our community let us continue to work together to create a more inclusive world where people of all abilities are valued respected and
empowered to thrive during this month I would like to acknowledge Eric Lee his mom uh Lily and Lily are you with us yes hi Lily Lily sent us a u an email um letting us know that um her son Eric leay who recently
won an achievement award always willing to lend a helping hand to peers and staff for our house the service provider that runs his day program volunteer Action Program Eric has been selected to participate in the New Jersey Transit
autism acceptance month event will he be recording public service announcements to be played during April autism accepted month at the New Jersey Transit on the New Jersey Transit trains he has also became become an accomplished home
suits uh K uh Chef since the pandemic and he has also helped his mother make many beautiful and delicious International dishes his artwork has been published in tickled green the therapies for abuse and special needs children congratulations Eric so as we
uh support and acknowledge development disability awareness month um I would like to say um thank you so much um to those that are here tonight to help us um recognize it and um would my colleagues like to say something before
we uh pass the resolution and presented sure yes um so first and foremost thank you all for being here tonight these recognition months have always been to Foster awareness around both the opportunities and also the challenges
that persist in society for various and distinct communities I think it's wonderful that we are recognizing uh March as development and intellectual disabilities month there is good work that's been going on in the community uh not only from organizations such as our
house that mayor mentioned uh locally within our schools and certainly within organizations like parents for exceptional children and most importantly from individuals themselves with disabilities and their parents and friends who are Advocates we're also living in a challenging time where as
example um Congress is reviewing right now the potential dismantling of the Department of Education which potentially could impact the distribution of funding at the state level as well as protection on the civil rights of students with disabilities So to that extent we hope that this type of
awareness and education around the community will help to continue to Foster advocacy and that we celebrate the progress that's made while continuing to have inclusion in our community so thank you um I too would like to join my
colleagues in in being pleased to pass this resolution raising awareness for people with developmental disabilities and send a message that uh you make up a key part of of of our community and we celebrate your achievements and I'm happy we're doing this resolution thank
you mayor Jen sure we're very lucky with in our within our community that we have wonderful organizations that serve this community um and it's really important that they have a voice and that we recognize that they are an inclusive
part of our community and that we are able to enable them to live um as they can so that is ensuring that they have the opportunities that everyone able-bodied is as well and that includes opportunities for um Community
involvement um and even all the way to perhaps housing so I think it's really important that uh we recognize not only developmental disabilities but um intellectual uh disabilities as well and I'm grateful that I believe also the
Governor um marked March as uh this month as well so I'm glad that we are all aligned and um and grateful thank you thank you can I have a motion I'll move the resolution second second
all in favor I I we have a resolution to present so we invited a couple parents I know Lily you're here would you like to come up any other parents would like to come up and receive the resolution thank you
[Applause] next is resolution 2025-the we are honored to recognized Girl Scout week it is the time to celebrate the rich history history empowering values remarkable achievements of the Girl
Scout organization each year this week is a reminder of how Girl Scouts Inspire young girls to dream big lead lead encourage and make a positive impact in their communities as we reflect on the transformative experiences Girl Scouts provide we honor the leadership The
Sisterhood and the resilience that have shaped generations of girls and women Girl Scout week is not only a celebration of past accomplishment but also an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to fostering the next generation of confident passionate and
empowered leaders I'd also like to say there's a few of us up here that are proud Girl Scouts uh worker girl Scouts and uh definitely shaped and molded who we are today and to be leaders in our community and we wish that for all of you so proud
to um celebrate Girl Scout week and um any of my colleagues would like to say something guest January sure um so I am one of those proud Girl Scouts and my oldest daughter was a Gold Award winner and I currently have a Cadet so I'm going to use this moment just to put in a plug
that many of these awesome Girl Scouts are also hustling cookies so uh cookies are in and we did some boo sales last weekend and we're going to do them again this weekend so please come out and and support all these wonderful young women um and the skills that they're getting
through that so thank you so I'll follow with that I also was a scout I achieved up to Cadet and then my mother kicked us out of the troop I was in well Mom's not here but that's true um I love earning Badges and
the camping trips and hiking and setting up a tent and cooking over a fire those are phenomenal memories and you know when I reflect back on the founding of the Girl Scouts it's everything around unlocking our potential and raising our confidence so I look very proudly at all
of you it was one of the wonderful formative experiences in my life and I think it's very apropo here in women's History Month where we're celebrating women to celebrate all of you and our Girl Scouts so thank you so I wasn't a Girl Scout but I was a
boy scout uh and you you know i' just like to thank uh all the scouts including those uh who were celebra with the next resolution you know uh uh achieving their silver and gold Awards um and just commend you know the Scout
Masters um the the parents and and the scouts themselves for their dedication uh uh to scouting you know the skills that you learn uh over the course of your scouting uh career will remain with you for the rest of your life and make
you uh better citizen better leaders As you move forward and that there there's there's no substitute to scout so congratulations all can I have a motion I make a motion so
moved second all in favor I congratulations ladies should I just go to the next okay because they're here next resolution is 202-02 accommodation on attaining silver and gold awards for the awards for the
Girl Scouts USA we want to extend our special congratulations to the Girl Scouts who have earned the prestigious gold and silver Awards these Awards represent the highest achievement in girl scouting and require tremendous commitment to leadership service and making a lasting
difference in the community the Gold Award is the highest honor a Girl Scout can achieve requiring a significant service project that addresses a local or Global issue with Sustainable Solutions those who earn this distinction join a remarkable group of young women who are making a difference
in the world the silver award is another remarkable accomplishment demonstrating a strong commitment to community service and Leadership these projects showcase the creativity and dedication of our girl as they work to improve the lives of others to all the recipients your
hard work determination and commitment to service are inspiring you have set a wonderful example for others to follow and we are incredibly proud of your achievement I want to thank the leaders their mentors their families who have supported these young women on their Journey your guidance and encouragement
has helped shape the next generation of leaders the Gold Award Sophia Mina I'm no I'm not going to say everybody's name wrong sorry Emma pck Gold Award silver award Carolyn
zugal mateline Dem Zaki Vivian Cash Gracie giri Sophia McDonald Lucy perks and jeie neck and Kathleen steel and my apology if I said wrong but I want to say ladies congratulations on
your gold and silver award what an accomplishment can I have a motion so moved second all those in favor I congratulations we're going to have it uh presented with the um resolution down below with all the Girl
Scouts so congratulations [Applause] you look so it more [Applause]
Marissa I know Marissa want to come up and say a few words you thank you good evening my name is Marissa steel and along with Barbara giri we are the Service Unit managers for the Girl Scouts of Basking Ridge like the Scout
Masters and boy scouts uh we just wanted to thank you sincerely um for recognizing all of our Scouts and volunteers tonight it really means a lot to us to have the support of the township committee for our program um we are tremendously proud of how the
Basking Ridge Girl Scouts have demonstrated kindness and respect and Leadership within our community we would also like to extend our congratulations to those Scouts who have earned the silver and gold Awards this year I just wanted to point out a
couple things um about those Awards the silver award um which can be earned by Scouts in grades six through eight requires a commitment of at least 50 hours on the project and ultimately only 10% of all Girl Scouts in this country
earn the silver award so it really is a tremendous accomplishment for these young ladies the Gold Award requires High School age Scouts to commit at least 80 hours to their projects and gold ofwar projects often represent years of extensive planning problem
solving and per perseverance fewer than 6% of Girl Scouts in the US earn the Gold Award um so it really is a tremendous accomplishment and we are very proud of these girls we also all know that our students are incredibly
busy um these Girl Scouts are no exception they have all reached these high achievements of silver and gold Awards while going to school participating in competitive sports music programs other extracurriculars
just like their peers earning the Silver and Gold Award is a testament to a Girl Scout's ability to lead take initiative and make a lasting difference in our community and we thank you for recognizing their very hard work so
[Applause] congratulations resolution 2025 d156 recognizing Ridge Youth Sports Inc senior recck competition cheerleader team's first place win at the 2025 World
CH cheerleading competition in the 12u division first place for the highest score of the season the team's remarkable first place victory in the 12 U division where they not only cleaned the top spot but also earned the highest score of the entire
season their hard work dedication and team spirit LED them to achieve a remarkable first place finish High liting their skills precision and passion this Victory not only highlights their talent but also sa support encouragement from their coaches
families and our community we are incredibly proud of their achievement and excited to see them continue their success and growth since they are such talented young ladies in cheerleading and Beyond this is the shining example
of what can be accomplished through teamwork which most important is teamwork perseverance and commitment to ex Excellency we extend our heartfelt congratulations to each team member their coaches and their families for this remarkable achievement
congratulations and we are so looking forward to uh having the banner and letting all the town know letting the town know downtown your incredible accomplishment and I just want to say congratulations I know cheerleading is a big deal and to win this competition is
just extraordinary and we're so proud that you're bringing it home to our town and uh again congratulations and thank you and thank you especially to the parents who dedicate so much time and so much energy and traveling and being devoted and really you know the thing is
as a parent you you want to see your child succeed and make them happy and so you're doing that and I just want to commend you for that and let you know that as they get older they'll look back and say boy my mom or dad or both uh you know went to each competition and was
there for me and that's makes it difference in their life in the future so thank you and congratulations um would any of my colleagues like to say something sure first of all congratulations this is an extraordinary accomplishment and I was thinking about
everything that Jan said at one point three of my neighbors were their kids were competition cheerleaders and just going through some of them had injuries all of the Janice said the challenges for the families to get you there to support you your coaches and then to be
able to have such a huge accomplishment has to be incredibly satisfying but it takes a lot to get there it takes a lot of grit it takes a lot of Tears um and it takes real I want to say it's a Sisterhood because you're supporting each other and you're as happy for yourself you're happy for your team and
you're going to carry that with you always so it's with deep congratulations to all of you to everyone involved and uh just uh I hope that you take this forward for congratulations again Andrew yeah so there's not much
more than I can add uh that my colleagues have said except to to say I it never ceases to amaze me you know what tremendous Talent you know our community produces and the cheerleading team is by no means an exception and you
know uh it's remarkable that you know when they say this is like the world championship here it's not like the World Series where it's just basically American playing they were literally competing against you know uh foreign nations in this um uh so
this is an extraordinary achievement I wanted to thank the entire coaching staff and parents and of course uh the cheerleaders themselves from this tremendous achievement you have a lot to be proud of thank you so I just want to say um congratulations and I was able to watch
because I'm connected I I know some of you girls and some of your parents were very generous in sharing some of the post of all of the accomplishments as you were as you were progressing in so um wonderful job congratulations um you know I just continue to look forward to seeing what
you do next year keep up the great work ladies so I'd like to also thank Jody for letting us know about the uh about the uh the win and I don't know if she's here is jod here would you like to come up and say a few words or would somebody like to come up
and you're more than welcome or Kim with they like to come up and say something I was not prepared it could be short and sweet he short and sweet yeah we are just so proud of these girls because it it was you know Blood Sweat
tears as you mentioned to get there and uh just to show them that hard work does really pay off and it was really cool to compete against Canada China Japan Mexico Costa Rica who else I don't remember it was just pretty it was just
really it was an experience and we're so proud of the girls so thank you very much for recognizing them and uh you know we appreciate the banner is just going to be the icing on the cake we're so excited so thank you for making that happen of course and congratulations again we're going to come up the cheerleaders and take a picture with
everybody [Applause] might want to go each I think
the and KN like that yeah some space right here there you go perfect I'm gonna come down we have oops got I think so thanks again thank you so one last thing we have to pass
the resolution can I have a motion so moved second all those in favor I I congratulations now this concludes the fun part of the meeting which is the resolutions now it's on to business so you you're welcome to to go um thank
you thank you very much thank you so thank you thank you next we've been saying that for years oh no it's okay I got it right here okay thank you okay next public work session Christie
none this evening mayor correspondence none this evening next is public comments comments are welcomed during the public comment period during this meeting on any agenda item or other matters over which the township committee has jurisdiction however if an ordinance is listed for its own public
hearing on the agenda please hold your comment for that particular public hearing the the public comment portion of the agenda is not structured as a question and answer session but offers an opportunity to share your thoughts with the township committee the committee may or may not address these
comments during the meeting however all comments are considered to address the body the speaker must come forward to the microphone sayate his or her name and address for the record each speaker is limited to five minutes their clo will keep time please promptly Le lead the yield the floor when the time is
Cold and return to your seat sorry I have a question if I want to come in an EG do I wait or do I come up now now I just have to finish your your cooperation and adherence to these Rules of Order will ensure an orderly and
respectfully respectful meeting I open public comment sorry about that the page 140 Spencer Road uh at the end of January I stood before you with concern we have until the end of June to make decisions that will
affect our town for the next 10 years and Beyond in my opinion careful planning for this should be a top if not the top priority for the TC in the first half of 2025 per the round 4 ah methodology Challengers had until the end of February to voice their objections I
understand that the New Jersey Builders Association has initiated lawsuits against 59 towns for proposing revised lower numbers and I know that that includes us I also understand that fair sh housing has filed their own challenge against 68 of those 159 towns and I'm
wondering if that number is being challenged by fair share housing center and I'm wondering what our response has been I'm also wondering what any of you have done if anything to support s465 which is the bill being sponsored by Senators Buco curado and Henry to adjust
the method of determining need for affordable housing as you know I did send my support for that and I hope that you will as well if you haven't already so that brings me to the ordinances on the agenda for tonight items e and G 50% of Our obligation has
to be dedicated to families up to 30% of Our obligation can be dedicated to age restricted or senior housing and 20% can be dedicated to special needs housing the senior housing and special needs housing is particularly important because a it is desperately needed B we
get bonus credits for them and C it doesn't add children to our already taxed school district and budget which is surely to drive up our taxes are we planning for 171 units of affordable housing or what is the number that we're planning toward what I see in
ordinance e is 29 un units at Ridge Oak of which we can only count 25 units equating to 50 bonus units uh towards our ah so we have an additional four units there that can't count what I see in ordinance G is 115
units of ah at Westgate when only 86 is necessary for the 50% family set aside that difference of 29 units is bringing with it an additional 120 market rate units how is this good for burnard's Township 574 units of housing at
Westgate with 280 units of already committed housing next door is what I would call overdevelopment and where is the special needs housing that everyone acknowledged was needed last December when the Verizon proposal was shot down items e and G together don't make up 171 units
or 218 units if if we don't know what else is coming in conclusion what is our goal here I would assume it's to build the least number of high density housing is necessary while complying with the law is our number 218 or 171 can we drive it
lower six weeks ago I strongly encouraged you to investigate participating in the highlands act I believe it might protect us from over development now and in the future we even received a $115,000 grant from the New Jersey Highlands water protection and planning Council in September of last year for the purpose of completion
of the 2024 plan conformance initial assessment what has been done to date on that don't you want to see if we can further reduce Our obligation and the overdevelopment that comes with it we need thoughtful and careful planning this just does doesn't feel like that
thank you thank you [Applause] good evening members of the Town committee my name is Matt majusi and I'm a 10-year resident of Bernard's Township living at 195 Mountain Road my children currently attend LCS and whams I come
before you today to express my grave concerns regarding your proposed change in ordinance number 2575 the proposal to amend the Land Development overlay for Westgate Village while I strongly support the need for affordable housing in our community I believe the size of the proposed development at this location is not in
the best interest of our neighborhood or the town as a whole I ask that you consider the following seven points before moving forward with this plan number one strain on existing infrastructure our neighborhood is in the midst of a massive expansion already with the development of the residences at Mountain View for those who are
unaware this is a 280 unit complex set on 70 Acres of Mountain View Road which intersects with Martinsville Road 62 of those those units are affordable housing the addition of further housing in the same area could place an undue stress will place an undue stress on our already overburdened infrastructure to
add to this Warren Township continues to develop in that same area with a new Housing Development Across the street from Westgate and a new Federal Reserve Bank Cash Processing facility set to also be developed on Mountain View Road traffic congestion in that area is an issue today with traffic backing up at
rush hour on Martinsville Road from Mountain Road all the way to 78 and this is before the completion of the residences or the projects within Warren Township LCS school is already over capacity and this massive development combined with the residences will push it well beyond the capacity that uh its
capacity limits have appropriate studies been conducted to ensure our roads and schools can handle this capacity have those studies appropriately considered the not yet realized impact of the residen is number two saturation of new development we must ask whether this neighborhood has already contributed to
its fair share of continued development in the name of affordable housing to the township it is crucial that affordable housing is distributed throughout Bernard's Township in a balanced manner ensuring that all areas of the Town contribute to this important goal continuing to concentrate affordable housing in one specific area can lead to
an overload of residences in a single neighborhood which may unintentionally create social and economic challenges for both new and existing residents a more even distribution of these affordable housing is necessary to Foster an inclusive and thriving Community dense number three density of
this new proposal the new proposed project is a mix of commercial uses and inclusionary family rental apartments comprised of 574 Apartments a hotel or extended stay hotel which may include conference facilities event spaces and corporate Suites and 20,000 Square F of
retail and other permitted non-hotel non-residential uses set on 30 Acres with up to 80% impervious coverage only 115 of the apartments are considered affordable housing constituting the 20% set aside per the fair share housing center within a within a lot that is
half the size of the residences further the ratio of affordable units to market rate units for Westgate is worse than that of the residents of Mountain View while my sense is that a development of this size would be highly detrimental to our neighborhood I must also wonder if the town has done any negotiating with the
developers on behalf of the town to maximize the benefit to the town what is the benefit to our town for this development in this area number four Community character it is a concern of ours that highdensity Dev velopments in a concentrated area could change the character of our neighborhood we should
be mindful of preserving the unique charm and livability that makes burner Township a desirable place to live the addition of significant housing in one specific area can alter a neighborhood's balance and aesthetic appeal which is important to many of the residents that live in that area number five environmental impacts this brings me to
the scar uh on our wood wooded landscape that this 150 room hotel and 20,000 ft of retail space will cause my understanding is that this development could rise to 70 ft tall which would be the tallest building in our Township how many trees will be removed without an opportunity replacement what Wildlife
will be displaced and with 80% impervious coverage how will the town be dealing with the storm weather runoff and inevitable flooding during the next 100-year storm which seems to be happening every other year it is the cause for alarm and pause why are we making so many exceptions to
our building philosophy with this one development number six proposed Alternatives I understand that affordable housing is a critical and legal need and I only have a Layman's understanding of the rules but I do understand that different types of housing can offer more credits to us has the town appropriately considered these
multipliers especially as you all stand up here uh for your photo opportunity of a developmental Awareness Month uh have we considered uh particularly after the December meeting when we all stood in alignment that more needed to be be done for these Special Needs residents that
we're not doing anything with this development further my understanding is that many neighboring towns are joining Highlands preservation area while this would potentially limit some residents options for subdividing their land it would also alleviate a significant portion of our affordable housing burden has this been adequately considered by
our town Point s long-term vision for burnard's Township finally I encourage the committee to think about the long-term impact of The Proposal we need to balance growth and development with the preservation of what makes Bernard's Township a great place to live thank you
[Applause] hi I'm Lily Yip and I reside at 39 sensal Drive in Basking Ridge New Jersey I am here to remind the township committee that in the December 2024 and
January 2025 meetings that there was a lot of support for including the special needs Community when dealing with the state mandate on
affordable housing it is my understanding that 20% out of the affordable housing can be used for special needs housing as well as getting the additional tax credits so we were disappointed when we learned
that there were zero plans for speci special needs housing in this proposed plan how was this decision made and how does the committee weigh on weigh in on public comments in their
decision thank you for your attention to this matter and for your continued commitment to the well-being of all residents thank you [Applause] good evening my name is Judy Whitaker
and I live at 11 Castle way Basking Ridge I'd like to thank the Bernards Township community for the resolution recognizing March as developmental disabilities month I'm happy to say that Our Town Council had a head Head Start
prior to this National Proclamation councilwoman Jennifer aay initially brought Focus to the special needs Community identified opportunities for support and said we can do something thank you also to Mayor Fields
councilwoman McCarthy and Township administrator Pat Monaco for meeting with us regarding recreational activities on the subject of affordable housing uh correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't see any special needs numbers included in the
plan the presentation to the Town Council by Kendra lelay last June stated our goals and strategies were to maximize special needs housing for bonus credits and special needs housing do not have any children that will overcrowd
our school systems at our December meetings both residents and council members were very vocal in support of this effort I look forward to hearing from the council how special needs housing will be included in the overall plan thank you thank you
[Applause] hi good evening my name is Megan leech um I reside at 122 Emerald Valley Lane um where I've lived for uh about 12 years and um I just came to speak about my concerns about the ordinance um
2575 um I think it was already spoke Spen about very eloquently by the previous people that spoke but um just in case you're not familiar you know with that part of town um we already deal with quite a bit of traffic you know that is a cut through for many
people commuters that are going from 78 into Bridgewater um they drive through Mountain um on Mount Ary Down Mountain Road into long road and then into Martinsville or down into Bridgewater um the traffic um with pingry school and
just um the activities at Mountain Park uh commonly you know backs up on to 78 both um in the morning hours and in the evening hours and this is without the Mountain View development you know um being anywhere near completion yet um as
a parent with um a child at LCS and at whams um you know we moved to this town for the schools and I imagine that um with additional housing many other families will you know look um to provide their children with some of the
best education in the state and I do um you know worry how the town will um accommodate uh what could be a large influx of families it's hard to know um I know that the area from Westgate because of our proximity to where we live on Emerald Valley Lane we received a notification last year that it was
going to be zoned uh for senior housing um but this seems uh like a very different proposal from um what had been proposed before um so I know I know that uh we need to you make enough housing both affordable housing as well as you
know just other homes for people to live um but I just hope that uh we can do it in a way that preserves the character of our town and doesn't uh overburden our school system or uh one neighborhood in the area thank [Applause]
you anyone else good evening I'm Marica schaer I live at five Magnolia path I came up and spoke about I don't know a month or so ago with my 20-year-old son Christopher who has um autism and we spoke a little
bit about our desire to see affordable housing happen for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and um my friends and I have been so encouraged to hear the support from the Town Council
and from residents um about their desire to help our community um I don't know how much people have been aware previously but there is a great need to support all these special needs children who come here for the district as they age out of
school you know to be able to find affordable housing is so critical so we were so encouraged to hear that people really wanted to Rally behind that and we're going to be looking forward to that so I'm very surprised confused and disappointed that there does not now
seem to be something um designated for special needs um if not now when I mean the need is here desperately now so if we're kicking it down the road to the next time we have a mandate to fill then
that's already too late so my son um my son has um applied for um benefits from the division of development mental disability called DDD and so we have him on a priority housing list based on the
age of myself and my husband so he is on the list and they send me an annual letter on where he gets to be on the list meaning they're not going to provide any additional funding for his housing until he gets to
the top of this list so a few months back I got the updated letter and it said that out of 257 73 people on the list my Christopher was 2,476 so there are
2,476 people ahead of Christopher before the state will even consider helping to spend funds to find housing for him now this is significant because you all can help provide more housing so that people
like my son will have an opportunity to live in independent housing while his parents are still young enough and healthy enough to help him establish into a new home so that's why it's critical I just want you guys to Envision what this
means so thank you for your consideration and please consider this as you do the very challenging job of working with developers to find fair housing thank you thank you titlein Riverside
Drive uh let's start with something easy over at Henry and maple today twice two cars try to make the turn only up Henry Street against the oneway street I was able since I have a loud
voice and probably much louder than anybody in this room I yell loud enough that the people in the apartment upstairs heard me to have them stop it happened once in the morning once in the um the
afternoon can't stop people from being stupid we can only try to but maybe if we put a sign there's a school crossing sign just before um Henry Street when you're coming from 287 side basically um going
um East I guess you could say if you put a sign there says no right turn maybe they'll see that before they decide to make the right turn into the oneway street but I embarrassed Them Enough by saying were you trying to kill somebody
and they kind of turned around and left but it's serious and you we hear it all the time one way you know people head on collisions people being killed it's happened a couple times this weekend in fact so um I think it's
something that can't expect the police to be there all the time guarding it maybe one more sign even though there's already signs there says one way but maybe they'll not look at their um phones and Drive by their
phones now I understand about the affordable housing nobody wants development built next to them nobody in this whole town on the South Side the north side east or west side there's only so many vacant
areas that we built Westgate is already partially is not is not open field there's already buildings there there's no reason why it can't be you know redone to make it better for us
in our numbers you I'm sorry if people are upset about that but you know they don't want to build in the Quarry and um when Mountain View was going there
there was a proposal build on Valley Road across from the VA and it went to Mountain View instead so it's there's just so many open spots and it's hard nobody wants it and I know the township doesn't want it and really
the blame goes to the governor Murphy and the legislature who approve this that forces people in fact there's people running as for government now who want to even make it more Force more um building in
town and there's nothing that this town could do except follow the law what you're trying to do and maybe there's some ways you could shave points and have you know but it's the hard thing and I understand that Town's trying as hard as
possible regards to the highlands I know the town's been not really into joining the highlands because they do restrict you know um building and it will affect a lot of
people's property um value who may not be able to do what they want to do once they join the um Highlands it was just as like when you um change the Zoning for manufacturing and you hurt the people who cannot sell that
those properties for manufacturing even though up in Rockway they've building a doughnut Factory right off of 280 and now in Somerset um
God the diesel um engine um company is moving down there and unfortunately the Name Escapes it but these are good manufacturing jobs and companies and by saying we don't want manufacturing those zones I think we
hurt the people I we certainly hurt the guy who owns that manufacturing cross from fellowship Village because he'll never be able to sell his for manufacturing and that's what I have to say thank you very much thanks Todd
hi I'm Nancy Dandrea three Vander Drive um I'm going to start with uh the assessments of our homes that all we all received and then I'll move into housing and the General State of Affairs of our town so first of all I want to start
with um uh in 2024 ranking for Bernard's Township uh the medium household income in Bernard's Township was $174,000 in 2025 Rich high school is in
the top 20 that was from Niche uh top 25 in athletics and top 300 nationally Somerset County for the 2020 census we are the 15th uh highest income County in the
country if due to from Smart asset we are ranked 36th in the county uh we are the number one County to uh live in per Niche our education roads police fire
Parks it we're good we are very good um when it comes to uh ranking in Somerset County we are number 13 for the best County for families in the United States against that's niche the state we have
the number one University in the nation tcj is number 94 and seven more in the top 400 in the nation uh US News ranks Us number four in education and number 14 overall in a great place to live that's the state
okay so uh we have overall between and someone even said it they moved here for the schools Okay so someone has to pay for all of
these amazing ranks okay and it's us so I got the assessment too mine went up but we are worth a lot our land because of our schools mostly and you know our
land too is worth a lot so we have to pay these taxes I get that okay so now let's move on to because people are like you know screaming on Facebook how do you lower
taxes ratables and people you bring in businesses you bring in people you will get on average lower taxes now um the moving to housing the math that
is used for these numbers is ridiculously confusing and I have a degree in chemical engineer it is ridiculously confusing and yes some people are running to add more Mr Edelstein there Edelstein um but there
are also people saying that they want to take that entire uh uh equation and throw it out okay some people are running on well there are some towns that want people let's give them the extra numbers so it's a it is a very
difficult situation to to to uh examine um housing complexes are coming we cannot avoid it right now we cannot in this year uh but with more people should come more spending like the people at Dewey Meadow you know they're
using those restaurants and things right there in doy Meadow they are getting more income because of the people living there but we must have people for special needs we must have the housing for special needs that is really power
Paramount in our town the thing is though and I don't know this answer can this housing that is being built I don't think it can be used only for Bernard's Township special needs and that's that's the issue here
we we really don't know what to do with the amount of special need adults that we have and that is definitely a multi-year planning situation I don't have that answer I'm sorry but I'm just bringing it to you now I do think we
need to have a serious study on Liberty cner Road to Martinsville road going down into Martinsville past Mountain Park because the traffic there as we know is already bad and being a member of parks and wreck locally uh I know that the traffic
is bad and we put up signs and everything so we either widen the road or we do something but if you're going to build this thing we have to do something with the road and I believe you will do a study on the road I'm hoping you will um the other thing is
uh I hope people will know that they can go to finance budget there you go ding it's there and then I said and then it usually you know there's discussions in April and stuff people I really wish that when they move into our town they are automatically signed up like we
every almost everybody has an email now sign them up um I want them to come to our website I want them to go to parks and wreck website and I want them to stop complaining about it on Facebook I mean thank you to the people here though
you guys at least showed up that's good you expressed yourself that's good nimi is real not in my backyard I get it but you cannot have a town like this schools like this a county like this without fulfilling the rules that we need to
fulfill and we have to pay our taxes this is my personal uh my personal feelings on the situation I don't like paying higher taxes either but I do know that we have
an excellent school system and a lot of excellent activities and amenities for a town thank you so much thank you anyone else yeah hello uh my name is Ed gerz I live at 60 Manchester Drive and I bet
you can guess what I'm here about um okay uh the what I consider the you know sort of over overdevelopment of Rich ool housing so that's related to I guess ordinance
2573 uh when I moved in 20 years ago you know for the schools and all these other you know beautiful things about this town you know my neighborhood had a certain character and we liked it was close to town we could walk there it was
quiet um and now the proposal is to turn a one family house into an apartment complex and my and you know literally down the street I'll be able to see it from my house with a 50 car parking lot
right in front of it I just don't think that's fair to site it there because it's a one family zoned area and you're going to put an apartment complex right there a large comp apartment complex
which obviously will include greater traffic greater safety issues um it's an uneven distribution because roke already has our fair share of affordable
housing and Senior Housing and you know converting a one family house into an apartment complex in a residential neighborhood that was a house down the street from me and from the the the neighborhood is just I think
unfair um you know it's it's a highly dense you know twostory apartment complex that's being proposed and right now we have a one family house um so I think it's self-evident
that the problems that will occur to the neighborhood and the impacts the negative impacts um particularly to the character and the reason why we moved here and obviously there's you know benefits and
we have to find affordable housing and we need to meet these goals and I understand that but my concern is that it's being all positioned in my neighborhood and unfairly so so that's my what I want to say thank you thank
you anyone else I'm going to close public comment so before I get in uh on to the next one just want to let you know we will address some of your concerns when you came up um about affordable housing and about the Westgate project when we
get to the introduction on that um our attorney will be speaking on that behalf and a few of us will be adding and answering some of your questions but most importantly I do want to say which is really important is we are doing Special Needs housing even though you don't see it we are doing it and we're
continuing to work on it and have some other opportunities so I just want you all know before you know we go on to the next step that we are doing Special Needs housing um next is uh staff comments Township committee comments board Lea on reports Pat uh thank you
mayor uh just wanted to uh welcome uh our new library assistant Megan stellari and earlier this evening we had swearing in for our police uh officer or rather our police chief and deputy chief Chief King and deputy chief sweee congrats that's all I have there thank you
Christie yes thank you mayor uh we have the townwide green yard sale on April 5th from 9:00 to 3 you can get more information on bernard.com mudas have mobile office hours on Tuesday March 25th from 5:30 to 7:30 here in town hall in the owen
meeting room um they will be providing assistance with state benefits including unemployment and claims and more you can also learn more information about the senior freeze thank you Mayor John Mayor I believe you want
corre great thank you Jen sure I've got some updates to share I want to thank um the municipal Alliance and the um Department of Health for the February 27th fentel program
including Naran training one of the big takeaways that I took from that is that every one of us in New Jersey can access Naran at local pharmacies and get that training so um if in a situation that we are around someone who needs to have a
um opioid reversal having that is something free and an option that I think that each of us should have within our Community February the 28th um big thank you to Dr shre um for the ISB Crescent lighting was a wonderful event
on March the 1st was wonderful to celebrate the with the burners Chinese American Association the Lunar New Year event um was well attended and just a tremendous amount of fun a big thank you to um also the uh Health Department for
the screenager documentary that was held at the ridge pack on March the 6th that's very important topic related to screens and our youth and related to mental health and uh there are a lot of initiatives that are happening here within Bernard's Township on that topic so grateful that they put that forward
um from a Board of Health perspective want to encourage everyone to please subscribe to the health matters um which is the Bernards Township Health Department newsletter in this particular month of March for instance there is the budget friendly bites that's taking place on March the 18th the suicide prevention training which is a great
opportunity to learn more about as as well as blood pressure screening so please take a chance to subscribe and Nancy I wanted to U point out um on the topics of the taxes um in particular if you're going to drive people and encourage them to go to the website um
on the understanding Bernards the CFO the last presentation that he did that's on the website um he and his staff did a really awesome job explaining the assessment process so assessment the assessments that everybody got has really nothing to do with what the exact taxes are going to be um and that
presentation was the best example I have ever heard explained so I will defer to there and I encourage people to watch at least that portion of that video so I'm going to take my time right this moment and I'm going to speak about uh remarks I'm not going to wait for later in the
agenda so here we go all of my remarks that I'm going to make about the two affordable housing ordinance are not directed to our staff or the professionals who prepared these materials they are merely completing the work directed by the majority of the township committee tonight we have a historic introduction
of the burnard's township affordable housing plan for the fourth round via the introduction of two ordinances historic is the word to describe the impact to our community headlined by the thinking that it's a good idea to install the largest apartment complex in burnard's Township history including
record Heights of 70 ft coupled with 80% impervious coverage this 574 unit apartment complex would be the largest fifth largest excuse me of the 21 municipalities in Somerset County it appears that the negotiation with one
developer netted only the standard set aside of 20% contrary to what the fairshare housing center reports that many municipalities have succeeded in getting developments built with higher set asdes I don't plan to speak about my concerns about either of these two ordinances at tonight's meeting after
receiving these ordinances mid last week without preview and without any additional information I feel like I should sit on the audience side of this meeting as I have no Insight on the nor have contributed anything towards them either all I have are lots of questions and concerns one major
question what happened to the foundational need of special needs housing for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities when I led the effort last year it was a centerpiece not an afterthought hopefully someone informs us all about this I am going to comment on the
process chosen to share with our residents as a reminder I repeatedly asked for the timing and detail s regarding the process for informing residents about the final strategy at both the January 28th and February 11th meetings neighboring towns have chosen
transparency with Bernardsville having a planner complete a presentation at a public meeting Warren Township is having a informational uh informal meeting tomorrow inviting resident input on their affordable housing plan seems like the Bernards Township mayor could have
done anything better than just posting two ordinances on the agenda with no Contex text or communication alerting residents to the subject to encourage them to provide input the good news is this doesn't have to be the plan when I led the affordable housing effort last
year this particular proposal was never suggested or even considered instead we focused on maximizing bonus credits by maximizing special needs and senior housing two important needs of our community while my colleagues may say
the state is forcing us to put in this affordable housing it isn't mandating this plan they may say we don't have time that's untrue why would you Russ a critical decision that would negatively impact
the community forever there is time to do what's right if you are unable or unwilling to do the work necessary to truly evaluate our strategic options perhaps you should step down so those who willing can one failure of this body
regarding this affordable housing plan was a serious consideration of options at our disposal two options were never considered one obtaining funding through the DCA to to complete affordable housing opt only options and second Highland's Regional master plan
conformance the easiest thing to do and dare say the laziest is to meet with a developer and accept his proposal for a massive complex with a meanly set aside of 20% no work has been completed on the former option but let me speak about the latter where I've done extensive
research the Highlands Regional master plan conformance is one solution that would have a significant positive impact on our community including to bring down the affordable housing obligation it was included in the January 28th resolution whereas the township also reserves the
right to its position should to participate under the highlands water and protection planning act 2004 only Anna and I have contacted the highlands Coalition multiple times to investigate this option While others on the committee have chosen not to make any Outreach I've also spent considerable
hours speaking to other Mayors in neighboring communities regarding how they were addressing the affordable housing obligation I've not spent my time with developers what is the highlands M Regional master plan why should it be considered and who else is doing it and
again I've confirmed for the governing organization the highlands Council there is time for Bernard's Township to pursue this option Bernard's Township happens to be located in the New Jersey Highlands the New Jersey Highlands is a vital Scenic region spanning 88
municipalities across 7even counties providing drinking water to 70% of New Jersey residents rich in forests Rivers wildlife and farmland it supports local Agriculture and offers recreational cultural sites protected by the 2004 Highlands water protection and planning
act the region is carefully managed by the highlands Council to balance sustainable development and preserving natural resources for future Generations if we can form our zoning laws to be in line with the regional master plan of the Highlands we receive multiple benefits one Environmental Protection
safeguards for our Water Resources forests and wildlife habitats two access to funding and support it unlocks eligibility for state grants technical assistance and infrastructure funding from the highlands Council three it provides sustainable development it encourages smart growth strategies the
balance development with resource conservation four regulatory streamlining aligning with the highlands can simplify state level environmental approvals reducing red tape for compliant projects it also can help us with the D five preserved uh Community
character it helps maintain the rural or small town field curved by overdevelopment and preserving open space and lastly regarding affordable housing the calculated obligation is much lower and by Chance the conformed
towns um none of the conformed towns received Builder remedy lawsuits that Bernard's Township received from the fair share housing or the New Jersey Builders Association so New Jersey conform or Highlands conformance gives us Extra Protection this round and for
the future to transform the level of community protection what's the downside colleagues will claim loss of home rule what does this mean Highland Regional master plan zoning kicks in only when a lot can be subdividable into three lots
Township Personnel created an inventory at Bernard's Township properties that would be affected by this owning at my request and it was it was determined to be very low double digits neighboring towns undertook a similar exercise and subsequently engaged impact impacted
Property Owners taking direction from the sense of this body my request to do the same was blocked again this committee refused to undertake the simple work necessary to develop an affordable housing plan in the best interest of Berner Township conformance to Highlands is not a loss of home rule
as we can still work with them and avoid all future threats made by the governor via any new proposed bills to further limit our zoning laws who else is conforming to the highlands not everybody can you have to be geographically located to our North
Harding Township can formed in July of 2024 to our West Bernardsville can formed in December 2024 the other Somerset municipalities uh Somerset County municipalities eligible have either conformed in the protection zone or are considering to conform in the
planning zone so any Somerset County Town eligible has conformed or is seriously considering to do so so many towns across New Jersey are envious of burner's Township's eligibility to pursue Highland conformance to drastically reduce the affordable housing obligations yet our mayor and
Deputy Mayor have blocked any effort to seriously consider this option that is simply a travesty that must be rectified my strong recommendation but I am only one vote is to vote no to these two affordable housing proposals which have had zero resident input and immediately
evaluate the impact of Highlands conformance on the few properties impacted and move in parallel to use the templates and documents as part of conformance while we complete the affordable housing process with a much lower housing obligation we can push back on developers who want to stuff in
housing that we do not need and don't buy the argument that we can carry forward or Bank extra credits why would we build housing today that will destroy our quality of life and damage our schools just so we can have a lower number in 10 years we have the ability
to control our destiny the plan before us this evening is nothing short of an epic failure of leadership and a breach of fiduciary duty we should be acting in the best interest of our community to protect our Town's character wonderful schools infrastructure and also first
responder capacity we should determine what we want our community to look like not to allow a developer to tell us what what it should be thank
[Applause] you no so U just a couple of things first and foremost um respectfully I do
think it's important for everyone to know that you're here you're being heard and I know that sometimes people come to these meetings and think you're speaking and no one is hearing you but of all the residents in this community you came and you're here I've heard from people all weekend I've received texts and emails
so please understand that your sentiments your concerns are being heard differently I do want to defer to John Bardo our Council who will speak during the introduction I think it's important for you to understand the legal framework that we are working within to understand where we are currently ly
with some of the lawsuits that have been placed against the township and also to understand the thinking around the ordinances I just wanted to quickly respond to my colleague we don't see at the agenda until two or three days before it gets published so on Thursday
we see an ordinance we see the agenda and at that time we can comment back so by no means do I see anything differently than my colleagues and I don't want to have perspective that there isn't transparency around that perspective um secondly I think that uh you know
it's important for us to consider things like the highlands Council which Jen spoke to and I'll speak to that later differently there are more residences and organizations and land owners who would be impacted by something like that so as someone earlier said when we think
about affordable housing generally no one is going to be happy and when we consider a pathway forward we have to look at it it's complex the highlands council is one opportunity but please understand that as we looked at those initial assessments that were prepared for us it's not a tiny percentage of
people there are residents like you who would be impacted and so we take that into consideration as well so just a couple of things uh quickly as the police liaison I also want to congratulate the appointment of the chief of Bernard's Township Police Tim
King he's going to be our new chief he was sworn in this evening as well as Mike Sweeney who is going to be our new deputy chief both of of them were very long serving in our community and they're going to bring their leadership to continue the good work of our Police
Department um the same we have a couple of successes within our Police Department you'll remember last year we invested in our license plate readers U the burners Township police officers were alerted to a stolen vehicle on maner road and were able to coordinate and arrest two suspects last week and
this vehicle was stolen out of Dallas Texas so it's good to see that investment paying back to the community last week our detectives were also part of a joint investigation with the FBI and other agencies and were able to lead to the arrest of suspects that were
charged in Somerset County with the theft by deception from a victim on child's Road uh this suspect attempted to flee the country out of Boston and they were detained in customs and our own detective dinina coordinated the extradition of the suspect back to New
Jersey and brought him back to face charges and our new Chief command commended the detectives including detective Vina on their work on the case and moving on um those of you who are interested in getting to better understand and noart police department
we are going to have a coffee with a cop on Saturday March 22nd from 9: to 11: a.m. at the just riding along bike and coffee shop at 15 Church Street I think most of you know what that is it's a great way to understand and know your police department and if you have kids
or yourself are concerned about bike safety there's there's going to be a helmet and bike safety check and then moving on to our Municipal Alliance um my colleague has already mentioned our fenal program last week which included training on Naran the municipal Alliance
has an important program coming up on question persuade and refer suicide prevention training um that training helps to understand and reduce suicidal behavior and it's free to anyone over the age of 18 interested in learning Suicide Prevention techniques and that
will be when Wednesday March 19th from 10: to 12:00 p.m. in person at the burners Township library and Wednesday April 2nd from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and that will be via zoom and you can register through our our
www. Berard health.org website and then lastly uh we're going to begin to start to look for sponsorship for our Twilight challenge which is the biggest fundraiser for our Municipal Alliance to help support education on Alcohol Tobacco and substance abuse
there is registration available now through March 31st and we hope all of you can join us on March on June 1st at Pleasant Valley Park for that event thank you mayor thank you Deputy Mayor thank you mayor um just a couple of
things uh I would like to uh congratulate uh uh our new chief of police Tim King uh and our deputy chief Mike Sweeney who were sworn in earlier tonight uh they are leading a fabulous Department that is you know almost the
entire reason why we are among the safest towns not just in New Jersey but in the entire country and I thank both the leadership past and present as well as all of the members of the department uh I Echo uh the remarks of uh my co-
police liaison Laing the great work recently uh by a number of our officers and detectives uh and I would just like to add uh some Kudos that we had received received from a resident uh for sergeant Kevin little um Ling him for
the great work that he did in in with regards to a particular incident and you know it really spoke to me in part because um when uh my mother uh who was experiencing medical emergency needed to be rushed to the hospital it was uh
Sergeant L who responded to my home and uh was just so great in that moment um and you know not everybody has the sort of bedside manner that you need to deal with people who are in that sort of situation and and Sant little is one of
them and it says you know extraordinary amounts about his talents and skills as a police officer I just want to thank him and other than that uh Happy St Patrick's Day I will reserve my remarks about the affordable housing issues until when those items come up on the
agenda thank you mayor thank you Jeffy mayor wanted to announce that the uh Liberty Corner Fire Company will be hosting their spring comedy night on April 26 doors open at 6 o'clock it will take place at the fire um fire station on
Church Street so please visit Liberty Corner fire.org we like to um get the uh get get the residents out early and purchasing tickets and it's really a fun night and I usually go to everyone that they have because they get some really amazing um uh comedians like to also men
we're going to be kicking off um our campaign for the hosting of the First Responders Appreciation Night which will be on October will which will be in October uh galora SI and Jim fod will be organizing and planning so the
communications will be coming out soon about how you can help uh participate in our First Responders Appreciation Night also would like to thank Anna um and her committee on working on our to 265th anniversary in town um I know that
they've been meeting and planning and have some really great things that are going to be going on in town so want to thank you and your committee I know they've really been dedicated and working really hard um also on the consent agenda I'm not going to pull it but I'm just going to mention um Jim
Mahoney turned 100 um years old last uh last week he is a World War II veteran um I attended his birthday party and I presented him with a resolution um from our uh Town um behalf of our Township and um he is at sunrise in Basking Ridge
his family was there from Iowa and um it was great to celebrate with him and his residents uh there's just one thing I was really disappointed about I thought that they would have 100 candles on the cake but I heard it was a fire hazard so he didn't have his hund uh candles on his cake but nonetheless um happy
birthday Jim um it was just so exciting to be there and and celebrate with him also want a congratulation congratulate Tim King on becoming our chief and our deputy chief um Mike Sweeney uh I know that they're going to serve us well and I'm really looking forward to working
with them and one last thing is um we'll address the affordable housing in the Westgate like I said um when we get there because I think it's really important that you hear our uh our attorney talk about it talk about the issues um they're factual um it's what
he's learned and what we can and can't do but most importantly what he has to say is factual and legal so I think it's really important that we get his perspective and then we can all address how we feel about that um so moving on from there any unfinished
business none this evening May any fire and rescue appointments none this evening consent agenda the items listed within the consent agenda portion of the meeting have been referred to the township committee for reading and study are posted on the agenda on the website
and are considered routine it will be enacted by by one motion of the township committee with no separate discussion if separate discussion is required the item may be removed from the agenda for the township to take action and place on the regular agenda under new business would
anyone like anything pulled from the agenda I personally would like to remove resolution 2025-the no one minute can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move
second discussion roll call Miss Acy yes Miss DTE McCarthy yes Mr MCN yes mayor Fields yes motion carried
so I wanted to discuss um women's History Month which is um resolution 2025-the honor and celebrate the remarkable achievements contributions and resilience of women throughout history this month highlights the
trailblazing women who have shaped our world in every field from science to politics to Arts to social justice it's a reminder of to recognize the ongoing efforts to advance gender equality and ensure that the voices of women are heard and valued as we reflect on the
progress made we also commit to continuing the work needed to create a world where all women have the opportunity to thrive and leave let us celebrate the power strength and inspired Legacy of the women everywhere today and every day I would like to take this
opportunity to recognize a few remarkable women we who have made a lasting impact in our community Through through their dedication of service on our board's committees over the years their contribution has been significant transformative and deeply appreciated
Carol scaranelo has been an invaluable member of the Parks and Recreation born since 1996 Kippy Pichi has served on various boards in town since 1999 constantly offering her expertise
and commitment Carol English has made a last in difference on the agriculture board since 2004 Laura manduk has contributed her talents to both the zoning and planning board since
2012 Katherine Master Angelo has been an integral part of the planning board since 2025 we are truly grateful for their time effort and p and p passion these women have dedicated their time energy
to our community and we celebrate them on their tremendous impact and appreciate them continue to make a difference year after year and many years to come thank you so much ladies for serving and making a difference in our
community sure um so I just a couple of remarks 1987 was the first time that women's history month was made a recognition through a presidential Pro proclamation to recognize the achievements of women while reflecting on challenges that persist and it was
interesting there are a lot of Statistics uh developed around women in New Jersey while we make up 51% of the state's population a report from the Ruckers University Center for American women in politics reports that women make up only 30% of elected officials
across Municipal County State and Congressional offices now it's interesting reflecting on that statistic we are actually three of five on our Township committee so I want to take a moment to recognize that with my colleagues Jennifer AC Janice Fields um
and myself compromising the majority of our Township committee so we're a little bit different than the the uh elected officials statistic um and hopefully we'll encourage other people to consider running for office uh you know we want people to run men and women and this is
just I think a wonderful statistic about our community I also want to thank the women in our Township Administration we have Christ Keef for here our municipal clerk the members of our Police Department fire and rescue our staff and to all of you the women in our community and the men who support you um doing
things in our community to make a difference so thank you well said Anna thank you Jen when I worked um at a pharmaceutical company I led the women's ERG so um
trying to empower and ensure that especially women had the opportunity to fulfill their full potential has just always been one of my core motivations so um women's history month means something really important to me especially International women's day which is always held on March the 8th is
um a wonderful day to recognize and celebrate um I also I try within for instance my house to encourage especially my daughters um and you know and and those within our community to uh look to other women uh role models and
and to celebrate those um I do want to say though that um as we do this um and as I've celebrated women especially with the ERG we often we never left our men out because often times um especially our men leaders would ensure that they
wanted the same thing for their daughters so um many times that um us as women were able to achieve what we can because we have great Partners um and and great um folks that will Mentor us regardless of their gender so um it's something that I very much enjoy the
month and um am grateful that uh we are doing a resolution so thank you thank you Deputy Mayor there's not much more I can add other than to say I'm happy we're doing this uh resolution and I want to thank
all the women uh both volunteers and and those in elected office uh who and of course our staff who helped to make burn it's the wonderful place that it is thank you Christy ordinance 250
2570 I apologize mayor will you need um a motion I thought I did that already I'm sorry so can I have a motion to move the consent agenda oh no I'm sorry no can I have a motion to move resolution
252 2025 d169 so moved I'll second it all in favor I I okay next 2570 chrisy please read the ordinance an ordinance to amend the rised General
ordinances of the township of Bernards chapter 7 traffic schedule 20 handicapped parking areas on public and private properties and this is Introduction Pat you want to speak on it uh sure mayor um the next three ordinances are periodic updat to are
ordinances relative to handicap paring in town uh they're done by engineering department regular housekeeping that's done on a periodic basis mayor I move that ordinance 2570 be introduced on first reading advertis as required by law and scheduled for a public hearing on
32525 second discussion roll call chrisy Miss AC yes Miss DTE McCarthy yes Mr MCN yes mayor Fields yes motion carried ordinance
2571 chrisy an ordinance to amend the revised General ordinances of the township of Bernards chapter 7 traffic schedule 19 handicap parking areas on Municipal and Board of Education properties and this is Introduction a motion yeah that's a script
motion mayor I move that ordinance 2571 be introduced on first reading advertised as required by law and scheduled for a public hearing on March 25th 2025 second discussion roll call please
miss AC yes Miss DTE McCarthy yes Mr MCN yes mayor Fields yes motion carried ordinance 2572 Christie and ordinance to amend their revised General ordinances of the township of Bernards chapter 7 traffic and this is introduction
mayor move that ordinance 2572 be introduced on first reading advertis required by law and scheduled for public hearing on March 25th 2025 second discussion roll call Christie Miss Acy
yes Miss DTE McCarthy yes Mr MCN yes mayor Fields yes motion carried ordinance 2573 an ordinance of the township of Bernards County of Somerset state of New Jersey amending revising and supplementing the code of the township
of burnard chapter 21 Land Development to create the sh-4 senior housing Zone and this is Introduction John would you like to speak on this I'm you have to
atient we're now in our 50th year of what's back the newy Supreme H that municipalities had aital obligation to provide share AFF
hous since then we've had mural Decisions by the newy sueme cour eventually there were Builders remedy lawsuits what are Builders remedy lawsuits as a result of that back in the 70s and 8s Builders began to sue towns
PL towns had not provided their berard's Township was involved in a Supreme Court case along with other municipalities called Hills development that's how you have hilled because of that case um
eventually what happened was the legislature said we can't have a system where these Builders are coming to court suing towns and there's no methodology 80s they passed the fair housing act that prescribed the creation of the
Council on affordable housing C was created and there was a process where Co would provide a town with a number and the town could petition Co for substan certification and if Co granted certification you had prot from build
law for a period of 10 years eventually in the early 2000s was challenged and the regulations were challenged including by fair share housing Cent Governor Christie did not appoint members to Ka eventually Ka
became a war agency there was a 10year series of lawsuits going from the Appel division up to the New Jersey Supreme Court finally in 2015 the New Jersey Supreme Court said the legisl has failed to
act COA is a more AG go back to a system of build remed meaning essentially it became the wild Builders were able to sue fair share housing center was an Arbiter for
the uh creation of settlement agreements what happened in July of 2015 Bernards like many municipalities followed the Supreme Court ruling and filed a declaratory judgement action uh that began a series
of negotiations with fair share housing center concerning what our number was as a result of that we eventually entered into a settlement with fair share housing settlement it was approved by Judge Thomas Miller and it included
Dewey Meadow and and Mountain View we then obtained immunity from Builders remedy lawsuits for a period of 10 years until July of 2025 so what are municipal attorneys thinking back in late 2023 and
early 2024 as July 2025 is approaching well we're going to have another wild west round of Builders remedy lawsuits much to our surprise though the legislature enacted and the governor
signed an amendment to the fair housing act this is it it was signed in March of 20124 and what it said was the Department of Community Affairs would assign various affordable housing numbers to towns and they were to do
that by the end of October of 2024 so what did we start to do here uh there were numbers that were put out by an attorney that's a guru on affordable housing that estimated based upon judge Jacobson's methodology in a case down in
Mercer County that was accepted by Mount Lael judges during the last round what our number would be all of these folks here sprung into AC in terms of what are we going to do to plan for this we thought our number at that time was
444 eventually we hired last year Kendra leely who had been the Bernard's Township special master in our last round in other words she was the woman that was appointed by judge Miller to make sure our affordable housing obligations met the criteria of the
Supreme Court so what did we do in 2024 we said she oversaw us last time let's hire her since she's an expert and used to work at Cola and is one of the best planners in the state to work for us so what did
we do last year prior to these numbers coming out we had her estimate what you thought our number was going to be and she thought our number was going to be lower than the 444 she thought we were going to be around 230 232 well when these
numbers came out they were 218 so what did we do we immediately started looking at the 218 number Kendra Le David schy those are our planners David's inhouse Kendra's
outside uh we looked at the database that the state used for developable land that was promulgated uh by a so-called expert at Rowan University and we dug in deep to try to decide if what they were claiming was developable land was in
fact developable land um and so what we discovered was of the 46 properties they claimed were developable that in fact only three of them are so how does that play into where we are today
well all of a sudden a week before Christmas the office of administrative courts comes out with an entire new procedure under the law and what it says is instead of filing a resolution CER your number by
the end of January with the Department of Community Affairs because that's what the law said we should do they said you have to file a declaratory judgment action with the courts that's what we were trying to avoid by enacting this new legislation
going back into the court system so we also had to certify a number by the end of January so what happened on I believe it was January 28 8 we certified a number we filed a declaratory judgment
action the next day we attached Kendra Le's report and the resolution and we said our number was 171 now we had to sit back and and wait because this administrative order said that any
interested party could challenge that number by the end of February by filing an answer objecting to our number lawsuit but an answer objecting to our number and so we waited with the hope that no one would
file an answer objecting to our number well what happened on February 28th on Friday this thick document with all this data came in from fair share housing center challenging our number saying our number should not be 171 it
should be 225 meanwhile the New Jersey Builders Association filed a a blanket objection to any towned sort of reduction they didn't challenge our number they just said if
all of these 158 towns have reduced numbers that'll Reduce by 14,000 the number of affordable units in the state and that's not fair and so all of a sudden on February 28th we had to spring into action so last
Friday the New Jersey League of municipalities sponsored a zoom call for attorneys and interested officials and that was hosted by John drill John drill's our planning board Attorney John knows a lot of affordable housing as do I and what did we decide last Friday
afternoon we decided since that we were going to file an objection each Town had to file an objection to the New Jersey Builders Association um answer and so I sprung into action and worked all weekend and
on Monday morning and Christine has a copy for anyone that wishes to look at it we filed with judge Miller an objection saying their methodology was incorrect and improper under the law and shouldn't be countenanced and furthermore their motion to consolidate
all 159 or 160 towns into one particular proceeding should be denied what else is going on a lot because on less than a week's notice the program said hey you're having mediation next
Monday and you're going to have mediation with judge Miller your special Master who's a planner named Jennifer green and you're going to have it with fair share housing center and the New Jersey Builders Association so we start gearing up for Monday and then on Thursday they say no it's going to be on
on Tuesday so what do what do we do to get ready for this mediation well our team has to look at the properties that they claimed are developable now of the 43 that we said were not
developable they said 11 are and so we had David shly dig into and guess what some of the properties fair share housing center claims are developable Bonnie Brad Somerset Hills Baptist Church
township open space so David SCH who's done a tremendous job started working and developing methodology and looking at all 11 of these particular parcels and and indicating why they should not be
considered and so we've been having negotiations with fair share housing center and I won't I won't tell you what they are because they're they're privileged but we had mediation today and their main attorney could not attend so judge Miller who is very familiar
with with our town because he was the Laural judge for Somerset 100 in Warren the last round he's now retired but he's one of the seven Mount Laural judges on recall and he has the entire program so he's directed the attorneys to have further conversations on whether these
11 properties should be in or they should be out because by March 30th this particular program says you've got to have a number and so we're not talking about a plan right now when we're dealing with the builders Association and we're
dealing with fair share housing center we're arguing over what our number is we're saying our number is 171 they're saying it's 225 the Builders Association is saying the number should be 218 so what happened today was mediation if we
can't reach an agreement and the only way we reach an agreement is I go to close session with these folks and talk and say this is what we think the number is and they pass a resolution and so we have one more meeting before the the end of March then it goes to judge Miller for a formal hearing and then judge
Miller makes a recommendation to the current Mount Laurel Judge Kevin Shan and so then by the end of March presumably under this program everybody in the state that participated has a number but all of
these mediations for these 158 or 59 towns are coming out like like a shotgun they're just boom boom boom boom boom over the next couple weeks so you know about as much as we know about because we're finding out these things
on a last minute basis and I can tell you that your team doesn't go to bed on Friday because I've got an email here from Josh Bowers of fair share housing center on Saturday morning at 6:01 that I replied to at 6:03 and so I'm working with our team all weekend on Friday
nights on Saturday on Sunday on early Monday mornings so where does where does that get us and where are we tonight many of you would said I don't see this in the affordable housing plan and I don't see this these
ordinances do not constitute the affordable housing plan the planning board under the law by June 30th of this year has to adopt an amended housing
element and fair share plan the planning board and they're going to specify in detail how we're going to meet our affordable housing obligation and whatever number that is and when they do that then has to come back to us and we have to pass a resolution endorsing that
and then after June 30th anyone again that's an interested party has the ability and opportunity under the law by August 30th forget the number the number's been decided to challenge the affordable
housing element fair share plan say we don't agree with it we don't think it it works so how did how did we get to where we are tonight well it's public knowledge but I can tell you we've had proposals all over town Mr Edelstein
mentioned two of them get a massive proposal in the Quarry well we weren't going to do that across from the VA next to Cedars they're back again your folks Allen Road they want to do something at 110 Allen
Road ofan they want to do 247 units so these folks have the the difficult choice of deciding what to put into or recommending the plan these ordinances if they're introduced tonight are going to go over to the planning
board and the planning board is going to look at them in terms of consistency or inconsistency with the master plan and under Section 26 make recommendations as to what they think should be in the ordinances to make them better and my understanding is the planning board is
supposed to meet on March 18th and if they can't do their work by then to meet on April 1 the public hearings on these ordinances aren't until April 15th because this committee wanted to give a sizable amount of time between introduction and the public hearing for
the public to look at these to digest these and also to if you wish to attend the planning board hearing meetings at which they're going to be adopted if you look at these ordinances they have a provision in them that says
no developer can submit an application before the planning board until such time as three things happen the planning board's got to put them in its housing element and fair share plan two there has to be no disputes over the calculated number and three there have
to be no unresolved challenges with either fair share housing center the New Jersey build ild Association or any other interested party that files by August 30th so if these things are adopted nobody gets to come in and submit an
application until such time as there's no challenges because we're not going to let anyone file an application until we know these things have been approved and they're not challenged okay so where are where are we with with some of these numbers 218 is a DCA number 125 is fair
share housing center 171 is modified by the township we're hoping to get 171 but there's no guarantee we're going to get 171 ultimately we're going to fight for that number we're going to we're going to mediate hopefully we'll get a a a judge or someone to take our side and
say yeah those 11 particular Parcels those those shouldn't be included or I could convince their share housing center they shouldn't be included because they've reached settlements with some towns they've reached settlements with Bridgewater and Franklin Township in East Brunswick and I said to Mr
Bowers you accepted their modified number where we why not our modified number Ridge Oak um that would be 29 affordable housing units bonus credits
would be 29 that would provide us 58 toward our number rid o has extensions of controls that are expiring in 32 they have offered to extend those 242 controls at no cost to the township uh
we can't use all of those we could only use perhaps 38 of the 247 units but if we use 38 of those we would get up to 96 units and and that would mean that 29 units gets us up to
96 units now I'm not saying that fair share anyone's necessarily Going to Lock Stock accept those extensions that's something that we're gonna we're going to have to have a a talk with them and that's something we're going to have to argue if again if the planning board
puts it in its amended housing element and fair share plan um so so that's that's what we're looking at there um Westgate uh total total affordable housing units is5 bonus we're limited to 27
that's 142 that would get us 238 units um we are looking at group homes we've had meetings and the mayor's had meetings with our house they own a group
home at 399 Mount Ary Road uh they're looking for us to contribute 50,000 a bed that would be 200,000 we've we've done developments with our house in the past including on Lafayette Lane veale Terrace and and and Kenyon those
documents are being circulated amongst the attorneys their attorney has those documents um that's something I believe the majority of this Township committee is going to approve that would be four units that would be included in the
planning board's amended housing element and fair share plan uh we've had discussions with our house and indicated if they find other houses and it's difficult for them because they've got to find a ranch because of the developmental disabilities and and it's
costly in in burnard's Township to find these but I know this particular body has indicated we have funds available in our affordable housing trust fund so it's entirely possible that if our house or some other group home or someone that
wanted to do something for special disability folks came in that there's there's money to subsidize that so the the special disabilities has not been completely forgotten it's just that we need opport to do that uh westkey uh that was that
was a senior project however if we max out our senior credits at Ridge Oak those senior credits that we adopted back in that overlay Zone in December 2023 don't don't help us so we went back to them and asked if they would do
single family rentals and they agreed that they would do that and there was a lot of negotiation and a lot of horse trading and the standard for rental unit in this state that's often required and approved by judges is 15% set aside four
sale units are 20% set aside so we did a lot of horse trading with them and we got them to go from 15% to 20% so in my opinion that is a significant rental set aside not an insignificant rental aside
because most are only offering 15% um so that's where we are with these particular ordinances uh that particular developer purchased a liquor license for 400,000 a few years ago uh he's looking to take
the existing office warehouse building and reconvert that into rental units there' be 150 in there and a set aside building there'd be another 50 the fact that he's converting an existing office rental building uh gives us bonus
credits because that's what the new law allows you would then create other existing senior rental units in a a new building uh there would be amenities the um units under the new uck regs and this
is also we're dealing with these new uck regs came out in the middle of December these uniform housing RS by New Jersey housing mortgage Finance Agency we had to digest 200 pages of of regulations that are on an interim BAS
from December 19th of this year to December 19th of of next year and we have new ones that are permanent that are coming out shortly that are going to be in the New Jersey register and we have to read through all of these and so one of the things that they require which is an upgrade is that the
affordable units have to be the same as the the market units you can't have other side of the track units anymore so if if you get an affordable unit it's going to look like the market un the other thing they said is you can't you can't segregate you can't put all of the
affordable in one building and and the mark in another they have to be interpers so if you go in you're not going to be able to tell what's a rental and what's an affordable what's an affordable unit so there was a lot of moving pieces a lot of negotiation a lot of
going back and forth on the ordinance Dave SCH was involved Kendra was involved I was involved John drill was involved so a lot of what we did these folks are just finding out they've been involved in the process throughout but we've got to on short order get these ordinances together and get moving
because the states essentially put a gun to head they say hey you got to do this by June 30th and then we got to deal with these two challenges so that's where we're at it's it's been a busy few months since the middle of December and it's been a lot of lot of time effort
and tears and uh luckily um we've had staff involved and we've had people on the affordable housing subcommittee um this year and many members of this particular body have attended individual meetings with developers to inquire
about their project to gather information about their project um Mr Tan creedy was not here tonight got up to speed very quickly um so people have been meeting so there's been a lot going on behind the scenes
and that's about it I spoke so much I made you you you want to take a break until you get back yeah I'll tell you what take let everyone motion to get all new chairs here because audience chairs s
these chairs they s need new chairs exactly what I okay okay abolutely AG candy eting season year for me so we just get this online St I'm glad they so they
[Music] have churches did I speak right John was I some that correct we're not on camera oh no no you almost almost made it up here
let I going to make a note next mark sorry okay let's start okay we're back in session okay so we were on ordinance 2573 which we're speaking about the uh
senior housing Zone um which is May I move that ordinance 2573 be introduced on first reading referred to the planning board for referred to the planning board and advertised as required by law and schedule for a public hearing on
41525 second discussion Andrew would you like to yes I I I really would and I'd like to begin by thanking John Bardo for that brilliant recitation of the entire world of afford of Housing and I hope that it gave you some insight into the
amount of work and effort that's been put in by especially uh you know our professionals and staff for a long time as far as this is concerned and so you know I do have to say it takes a lot of
hpah by committee woman AC to suggest that we are taking this scattershot approach picking projects out of a hat you know really nothing could be further from the truth and I find it off-putting when someone you know seeks to wrap
themselves in the flag of opposing overdevelopment when a couple of months ago it was others on this committee including myself who were pushing back on a wuby studio project that was championed by
committee woman AC for which there was no mandate from the state in order to do that is highly distinguishable from what we're talking about here when it comes to Affordable mandate uh affordable housing which is a mandate that's been
in place for in one form or another for over 50 years I am not a fan of this mandate I've said that plenty of times in the past and I can tell you that this mandate isn't working and having its intended effect because today affordable
uh housing is less affordable than it's ever been and yet we've been under this policy for the last 50 years so it is not working however it is the law of the land and any one of us could get up here
and say hey we're not going to follow this or we're going to tell the state to go scratch or whatever and then we would get sued and then we would lose and then um the state either through DCA uh a judge whatever the case may be would be
able to dictate you know where this affordable housing is going to go so this is not a position we like to be in we wouldn't be talking about this if it were not for this state mandate but I accept the world as it is not how I would prefer it to be and therefore we
all try very hard to make the best situation we can out of a situation we prefer not to be in and so part of that due diligence involves studying these proposals talking with our staff and professionals who are very learned when
it comes to this and I'll speak only for myself but my style when it comes to doing this job here is to really lean on our professionals and our staff in a very meaningful way I invite criticism I try not to come in with preconceived
notions especially when it comes to something this complicated so I will routinely say hey if I have an idea like tell me if I'm crazy or something like that and I can assure you the staff and professionals that we have consulted
with believe that moving this uh these ordinances forward to fulfill this mandate which we prefer not to have to do uh is the best way forward for Bernard's Township and so you know why do I say that
well first of all let me say that the township is not a property developer we don't build any of these things we have to look at what developers provide to us and choose from among those in order to
clear the number that the state has imposed upon us and we push back very hard in those developers we're pushing back on the state to try to get that number reduced as low as we possibly can uh we are currently the subject of a
legal challenge that Mr blo referred to I was sitting in the mediation with the judge earlier today trying to hold the line to build as little as possible while still fulfilling the Mandate and being in control of our own destiny and
one of the ways that you can lose control of uh your own destiny is this proposal uh uh about joining the highlands Coalition this is a bad idea um the highlands Coalition was established maybe about 20 years ago and
covers a lot of towns in the Northwest part of the state who don't have a choice uh when I worked for the state I had to work with a number of those different towns who wanted to do this that or the other thing and they were restricted from what they wanted wanted to do and they couldn't believe that
they were subject to all of these sorts of restrictions we in Bernard's Township have the luxury of not being a part of that system unless we sign up for it and the highlands uh uh uh council is comprised of a number of political
appointees uh you don't know who they're going to be on a go forward basis but what I can tell you is they don't live in this town nor are they accountable to the people at the end of the day they don't run for office so what we're
talking about when we're talking about joining the highlands council is surrendering local control over land use to an unelected body comprised of people who don't live here and that can be like somewhat of an easy way for folks like
us to get off the hook and just Kick the Can over to them and say we'll make it their problem but any one of you would be quite right when they make a decision to say um you're responsible for that why am I responsible for that because I handed the steering wheel over to them
instead of holding on to it in a manner that an elected official is supposed to to be accountable to the people and face the fire and not Kick the Can now kicking the can over to the highlands Council not only compromises the
development rights of a great many Property Owners within the town it's also Al not a silver bullet uh it may work to reduce the number of units that we might have to build if we were to take this extraordinary step which nobody has wanted to do for the entire
existence of the Highlands Council in this town um but it doesn't eliminate it in entirely in its entirety and therefore we would still have to build uh at least two projects Ridge Oak and
another one um uh in order to get over even A reduced number and quite frankly the juice is not worth to squeeze when it comes to signing up for uh the highlands Council so um why are we doing these two
uh particular projects uh I'll cut to the chase again uh prefer not to be in this position at all uh Ridge Oak is attractive because it is a senior living facility that was founded by area churches uh many many years years ago
and provides housing to Indigent elderly people within our community um strictly from a numbers game uh every unit that's being built at Ridge Oak is an affordable unit that is unusual within the affordable housing context more
often than not you have to build a lot of units uh and have a 15 or 20% set aside in order under that sort of scenario here we effectively have 100% set aside
at Bridge Oak and so that makes that a very attractive proposition for purposes of you know fulfilling our number um Westgate uh Westgate is a parcel of land that is currently the subject of a development approval
already for a 55 plus community that was done at a point uh before we had an affordable housing number before this new scheme that the that the legislature came up with last year was even a thought in anybody's
mind so um there's two things we could do um we could look elsewhere to two three maybe four um uh uh uh Parcels elsewhere in town and try and assemble
enough units in order to meet this number and still have developed at Westgate in the form of the 55 plus approval they already have so if you reject Westgate you're automatically
signing yourself for a minimum of three likely more developments than you would other have otherwise have option b is to put points on the board when it comes to affordable housing by making the move that we're kicking off tonight which is
to convert that existing approval into an affordable housing approval and that way that approach reduces the overall development to the maximum that we possibly can under this mandate that we would prefer not to be under in the
first place and you know I I'll say this in conclusion um you know is is is is the number of affordable units that ultimately get built going to be more than
171 the answer is yes under our plan couple of reasons for that first as Mr Bardo mentioned uh we are actively pursuing building special needs housing uh within the town is it within the two ordinances you see tonight no it's not
within the two ordinances you see tonight that is something that we're approaching carefully um it's something that we are not necessarily tying to these legislative deadlines that we have to
fill fulfill pursuant to the affordable housing mandate um but rest assured we wouldn't be speaking in such ways that we were going to do this um if uh we weren't prepared to do it so um
attorneys are exchanging different paperwork and stuff like that in order to effectuate this and so that moves forward a pace on a separate track but moving forward quickly from what we're talking uh about here um and you know I
for one believe that the special needs Community has indeed special needs so we have to be particularly careful uh to ensure that what gets built is suitable for those needs and we don't try and shoehorn it into places uh uh where say
the developer I is is not prepared to uh do that sort of thing so um I think that we are taking a very reasonable a very rational approach and you know I I I I can't say that folks you know uh uh are going to find
the moves that we have to make here you know popular uh this tends not to be popular um but this is among the problems that we have with with this mandate it forces the local officials to have to face the people as if we're the
hatchet men you know moving this whole thing forward now we just unfortunately have to make the decisions in order to meet the number that the state has said for us one last thing I mentioned how we're going to be building more affordable units over the
1 171 one reason for that is the special needs housing that we're moving towards another reason for that is that we don't know what the final number is going to be as uh Mr Bardo had mentioned before so um a couple of things we could do uh
we could drop the 20% set aside that Mr Bardo mentioned down down to 15 arbitrarily set a terrible precedent go back on the hard Fort negotiations in order to get them to 20% and try and come in right on the nose for 171 not a
good idea uh secondly let's say we came in right on the nose and then mediator judge makes determination now it's actually going to be higher than that then we have to go out and scramble and beg borrow and plead to hopefully get
over whatever new number they impose upon on us right now we feel confident in our legal position of 171 the same time though we're insulated uh if the worst happens and you have to be prepared for the worst so that's the
approach we're taking and all the reasons why we're doing it trying to be as transparent as we possibly can even though we're subject to a legal challenge that concludes my remarks thank you mayor thank you I also want to say that um uh deputy mayor has been the
Lea's unfordable housing this year so I want to thank you so much uh for that very informative um report uh Jen so I need to clarify um when when we talk about the highlands Council there are only two people who
have had any conversations within the last four weeks with the highlands Council so perhaps committee man mcnali is dealing with outdated and incorrect information there are reasons why our
neighboring communities have conformed it's not as bad as what he says it is why are we so unique and so perfect that we don't think it's a good option why are we unwilling to consider
why are we unwilling to consider and the number of properties that are impacted 13 why are we afraid to interact with with 13 burnard Township residents to find out how this would harm what's the
problem why are we afraid instead we want to jam 574 units the juice is not worth the squeeze maybe we should ask anybody with any with a child in the Bernards Township school system like
myself who is already looking at overcrowding in Cedar Hill in Liberty Corner not not even considering no one in our community is going to be able to drive anywhere to Mountain Park whether or not you live there or not a lot of our kids are involved in school programs
at Mountain Park no one is ever going to get there so and you brought up the film studio that's great the film studio and I'm going to say again I was locked upep all of my colleagues agreed every step
of the way it wasn't until that meeting that December the 10th that there was an opposition okay so and that film studio if we want to bring it up three things were negotiated that that developer gave
us 16 units for adults with ID a Workforce living opportunity in the workforce center and a 5,000 foot Community Center three things the developer gave us what does the
developer at Westgate give the community so at the end of the day I am asking my colleagues to reconsider we don't have to worry about is it 218 225 any whatever number if you actually
considered conformance with Highlands using accurate current information that number could be significantly less we should consider it that is what you elect us to do is to consider
information so that is what I'm asking my colleagues to do not to sit and and make decisions based on the past or based on opinions we need to research we need to have the meetings and investigate and make an informed
decision for our community for now and the future not only 10 years it matters it is worth the squeeze thank you Anna yes now I wanted to comment too thank you first I wanted to
thank uh John Bardo for his summary and for an update I think it's really critical for people to understand this process I'm the newest member of the township committee so for me it was a journey to understand affordable housing to attend seminars to the league of
municipalities to have constant conversations with staff I also want to Echo the work that our staff does on this um from David schide to Pat Monaco and others in Engineering in public works and in particular John to help us
understand both the law the impact the potential impact and so I really appreciate that and I also think it would be helpful if we could create some Forum perhaps a presentation or other way we can noodle on that that you the public can then ask questions because
you're getting information but it's hard to to get you know like what does that mean or so so hopefully we can consider something like that for you I think it would be helpful U so a couple of things so I'm probably somewhere in the middle on the Highland Council I too have spent
time speaking with them at length um to understand what that would be we also did as committee woman AC said an initial assessment actually I think you commented on it the assessment that was done thank you uh to gain an understanding of the what voluntary compliance would mean for burner's
Township so we did have an opportunity to consider what that would be um somewhat I see it a little bit differently there is actually bigger impact than potentially is being suggested but there's an opportunity too uh my consideration would be that we do
keep this absolutely on our on our proposals for the next couple of years and that we work with residents and other properties that might be impacted to understand its impact and to see if we can create a pathway toward it um I did worry about making it linked
specifically to an affordable housing Drive the number I believe that came back was uh I can say it counts like somewhere around 89 or 90 versus 171 it's not a huge Delta So to that extent I felt like let's pursue what we can
this round but absolutely we need to focus on it because this we could have a fifth round and what will that look like and what will the numbers look like so that's where I am I do think it's an opportunity I didn't think we could get there in four months in particular because of residents that would be
impacted as well as others who own property there are steps to take forward to to conform uh the the highlands will then look at their master plan compare it to your own um and so to that extent we can provide more information on this
I think it's helpful for you to know but that's where I stand on that uh differently I think we don't know what the number is people have asked that uh we've heard a couple of numbers 225 218 171 so we have to work to get there what we're introducing tonight are two
opportunities for us to get there some of you I know the gentleman who spoke from Manchester probably remembers that in 20123 there was a uh resolution or rather an ordinance passed that provided an opportunity for Ridge Oak to actually
uh go forward and seek funding uh to buy to receive funding to support the purchase and development of that zone so that was passed by the township committee and that created that way to create this zoning in Bridge Oak and then differently as committee woman
committee men um Deputy Mayor MCN spoke to in 2023 the township committee also passed an overlay on Westgate so that overlay was approved for senior housing for 374 units so the extent to which we pursue
that as an opportunity for affordable housing is a pathway it's an existing area there's already been approval to build there and so um differently though as we said there is time so we want to hear from the public we want to hear and
understand what the planning board comes back to to see if it is consistent with our master plan so like all of us I live here too I've been here 30 years these are challenging conversations um I feel that we have to do what we can best for our community I
don't want to see us having taxpayer dollars to fight for litigation which can happen U I want to say to some extent I feel like the developers are around us like a shark tank waiting to see what happens and we don't want to use your tax dollars to fight legal challenges so we'll do what we can I do
want to hear from the public though I encourage that and I also do hope we can continue to have more forum for you to get information back because your questions matter so thank you thank you so I'm not going to repeat everything that my uh colleague said
because I I do agree with what they said um you know most of us are over uh against over devel M and I was I I am over against overdevelopment so one of the reasons why I did run is I did feel like the last time we did do affordable housing we didn't fight as hard as we
could have and maybe could have challenged the number and so I felt this was an opportunity for the next time that it came about that I I could be part of that and um like everyone has said it we really don't have that much control over it it's a mandate it's not
a development that we just decided to build um and you know that's overdevelopment you know when you decide to pick a project have somebody purchase property and build on it you know this we haven't done that you know this is an actual uh mandate that we need to fulfill uh for
affordable housing now it's been very very challenging for all of us and this started last year with all of us working together on this so we've gotten proposals we've met with other developers um and try to do the best that we could to pick which would best
fit one of my things is I think that's really important so if you drive around other communities and some of them were really quaint beautiful historical communities and were affected by affordable housing and there's developments all over all over just punked all over and these beautiful
neighborhoods they had to build affordable housing so one of the things that I wanted us to do which I think was really important is to minimize the impact how many developments were going to go in our town were they going to be scattered all over like Andrew had mentioned where you have to do three and
four and that they were just plunked on different lands of property and they would stand out because the one thing about our town is when you drive through it's just beautiful aesthe aesthetically um and so where were we going to put this was the challenge not to be able to
impact the historical which we've had that problem before when we were going to develop it was going to go in an area that was historical and it was going to be an overdevelopment where here we wanted to really make sure that um we met the challenge is of having less
impact and Westgate was that um area for us it's one area it's fulfilling most of the obligations it's set aside um it was already developed so it's not like a re it's a Redevelopment but it's already developed and it was a good opportunity
for us to be able to put it there and then with the uh Ridge Oak facility So speaking on Westgate which is important I think is that you're saying everyone keeps saying the number is high the number's high but we don't know what the number is we can't come in just under
the wire because we're in litigation if it comes back and the number is higher then we're going to have to find another development and another place to build it so we need to have somewhat of a buffer at that facility to be able to meet the obligation depending on where
the number is going to go so that's the problem that we're having and as far as the rich Oak is concerned like you said said it's one onone so it's already affordable housing we all believe in affordable housing and the best part about that is it's affecting our most
vulnerable people in our community which are our seniors so it's a senior housing for affordable housing it's two things that mean a lot to all of us in in in our community and we are working really H really hard um um for to for the
special needs housing so right now like our attorney had said we are you know speaking with with the four units to do for the um for the special needs housing so we are doing something for special needs but above and beyond that and Anna was there we are working with them and
they we have the ability to do more with them it's just like they said it's hard to fund the properties it's hard you know for them to you know do that so they've got the capability we have the capability and we're working hard and we're trying to work with some other
people that have land that maybe Poss possibly would want to donate and they want to build it so it's ongoing we are doing something but I can tell you we've been working really hard to do more than just the four units um and that's really important to
us so like he said if you don't see it doesn't mean we're not doing it we are doing it but we are working really hard to do more and we're hoping that we're going to be able to to do that going forward and just understand that we've been in put in a very difficult position
and we've all talked about the highlands and like I said it's home rules it's not wanting to give up the authority uh to someone else on what we can and can't do but most importantly it's going to affect all of you like we're sitting here and what is our job our job is to
take care of you take care of your take care of your property it's your retirement it's what opportunities you're going to have and we I don't want that to be minimized by the highing so we have discussed that what is unfortunate is there's five of us
sitting here right and then we all make decisions in the end the majority of us rule so if one person doesn't agree with what we want you kind of have to understand that you're not always going to get your way not everybody is going to agree with you or maybe they're not
going to agree with you at that particular moment and like Anna said right now my position is I don't want to do the highlands right now maybe down the road it may be beneficial but we did look into it we did discuss it we did get the material and for someone to say
that we don't know enough or we're not educated enough well if you make a decision you are educated on the decision you made because that's important so that's where I stand with the highlands I'm not for it I think if we can get to the 171 it'll be perfect
not to the 89 right now maybe opt into the highlands later but um like I said we're doing all we can and which is also very important is the set aside for the 20 % not every town is getting that the 20% that is on the high end and I have
to compliment uh the deputy mayor uh for the 20% set aside for what we're doing it's really important so just understand we're doing all that we can we're working really hard to get to a good place with this and we will have a meeting and we will have questions and
answers like Anna said we needed to get the introduction done then it goes to the planning board then we have the public meeting so this is constantly constant work in progress I think that's it did we get the second though on the first one we did yes okay roll
call Miss Acy no Miss Duarte McCarthy yes Mr MCN yes mayor Fields yes motion carried RF correct
ordinance 2574 chrisy please an ordinance of the township of Bernards County of Somerset state of New Jersey authorizing the occation of Great Swamp Road and this is Introduction exp sure there's a there's a paper Road
what's a paper Road it's on the tax map um it's never been built this goes through the ridge Oak Property where the first ordinance is compos so this is an udience to vacate that one of the things we did with with Ridge Oak is we kind of
took the B by the horns um we wanted to make sure that whatever was built there if this coordinance is is adopted the first rgeo coordinates um is going to protect the neighbors uh so we had our planning professionals
particularly David SCH uh come up with an and setbacks and Landscaping and a concept plan attached so that if they do come in and build this it will have the least impact on neighbors and in order
to have the least impact on neighbors uh vacating this paper road which nobody is ever going to use and goes through this lot will give us a little bit more play in terms of buffering heads and so that's that's what this is thank thank
you motion that uh ordinance 2573 be introduced on first reading referred to the planning board and adverti as required by law and scheduled for a public hearing on 4:15 2025 that was ordinance 2574 did you say three I think you said
I did say okay that again I'll do it uh I move that ordinance 2574 be introduced on first reading advertises required by law and scheduled for public hearing on 41525 second roll call
please miss Acy yes Miss DTE McCarthy yes Mr MCN yes mayor Fields yes motion carried ordinance 2575 Christie an ordinance of the township Bernards County of Somerset state of New Jersey amending revising
and supplementing the code of the township of Bernards chapter 21 Land Development to replace the Westgate Village mixed use senior overlay Zone within the E3 Zone with Westgate Village mixed use Zone and this is Introduction mayor I move that ordinance
2575 be introduced on first reading referred to the planning board and advertis as required by law and scheduled for a public hearing on 41525 second discussion I think we've discussed this enough roll call please
miss Acy no Miss DTE McCarthy yes Mr MCN yes mayor Fields yes motion carried approval of minutes February 25th 2025 Open Session minutes I move the
minute second I'm going to abstain I wasn't here okay all in favor I I executive session none this evening mayor may I have a motion to adjourn so
moved second all in favor I I good night everyone