i open Bernard Township Committee meeting for April 15 2025 please stand for the flag salute to the flag of America for it stands one nation under
God indivisible with liberty and justice for all adequ adequate notice of this meeting was posted on the Bolton board in the municipal building one collar lane Basking Ridge on the township website and emailed to the Burnersville News Whippony the Courier News Bridgewater
tap into.net patch.com and file with the township clerk on December 18th 2024 any motion to go into close session will be included at that matter discussed at such closed session will be dis disclosed to the public when such matters are finally determined and there
is no further reason to prohibit the public from disclosure of information related to such matters no new business will be introduced after 10:30 p.m public comment will be accepted at all meetings speakers will be limited to 5 minutes each all meetings will adjourn
no later than 11:30 p.m roll call christie Miss Acy here Miss Darte McCarthy here Mr mcn here Mr tani here Mayor Fields here exeive executive session Christie none
this evening mayor next is presentations resolution 2025-0197 proclaiming Arbor Day in Bernard Township i've asked my colleague Anna uh McCarthy to uh present the resolution she's on the shade street sure um thank you Mayor i am the
liazison to the shade tree commission and in that role I am making the introduction of our resolution which to summarize reflects that in 1872 J sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for the planting of trees
and that this holiday be called Arbor Day and was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska and through this resolution the township committee of the township of burners does hereby proclaim April 25th 2025 is Arbor Day this resolution is
aligned to our history we have a long-standing shade tree commission that has been in existence for more than 90 years established by ordinance on August 24th 1933 and it was established to maintain and promote a healthy safe and sustainable shade tree resource that
will physically and aesthetically benefit the community and its residents in the most effective manner possible this is a very hardworking commission the members are also involved in the shade tree protection committee along with a member from the environmental commission and the engineering
department and they review and make recommendations on the health removal and replacement of trees they were involved in the development of last year's that we passed the shade tree ordinance each year members of the shade tree commission conduct a windshield survey where they literally drive around
town and look through the windshield and determine which trees are not healthy in our township and among the work of the Shade Tree Commission they annually put forward an application that had resulted this year in being named Bernard's Township for the 20th year has been
named a tree city USA uh specific to Arbor Day we will again be giving out trees at on Arbor Day at the environmental center there will be Arbor Day celebrations at our local schools and presentations as well focusing on the importance of trees to our
environment and community the commission itself is a wonderful group of volunteers the chair is Randy Santoro and tonight to receive the resolution is Judy Okonnell who is the supervisor of treasury services from our finance team and is also a member of the commission
so mayor if you want to do the vote sure can I have a motion so moved i'll second it all those in favor i motion carries picture judy if you come forward please
we didn't think you were here oh I'm hiding back there okay you can both do this yes and Randy is our chair thanks Randy we didn't see you here you can hold hand thank you thank you Anna thank you for saying
everything we'll see you tomorrow night we can I'll let you bring that back yes public session none this evening mayor correspondence none this evening public comment comments are welcome 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 comments for that particular public hearing the public comment portion of the agenda is not structured as a question and answer session but offers
an opportunity to share each thought with the township committee the committee may or may not address these comments during the meeting however all comments are considered to address this body the speaker must come forward to the microphone and state his or her name and address for the record each speaker
is limited to five minutes the clerk will keep time please promptly uh please promptly yield the floor when your time is called and return to your seat your car your cooperation and adherence to these rules of order will ensure an orderly and respectful meeting before I
open public comment I just want to say there's a couple ordinances on here so that's when you'll want to come up and make your public comment this is kind of general you know if you have a general comment this would be the time to do that and then just wait and hold for your public comic during those actual ordinances so just want to and we'll let
you know when those ordinances come up and then you'll know it's that time for you to come up for that specific ordinance for a public uh for you to public speak about that so I'm going to um open public comment Kirstston Light 13 Victoria Drive to my understanding Miss Fields has been
unilaterally working on the Westgate project while not involving the entirety of the township committee into these discussions what is additional serious concern are the following issues the total number of units that Westgate is proposing to build significantly exceeds the total that would need to be built
affordable and other units to fulfill i have other You want to hold off on that part till the ordinance i've just instructed everyone to wait till then to speak about that sure then here's my general concern okay that's fine what causes me
concern there appears to be a potential conflict of interest between Miss Fields and the Westgate developer Edgewood Properties in mid December Miss Fields actively campaigned against the consideration of the movie studio to fulfill our round four affordable housing obligations she actively posted
on social media engaged local residents to her cause appeared with those residents and disrupted a planning board meeting threatened a sitting planning board member with retribution demoted a separate long-standing planning board member who opposed her non- voting
positions and then appointed one of those local residents who rallied around her cause to that non- voting position once the member resigned at the same time Miss Field was advertising the sponsorship by Edward Properties of a local religious event on her campaign
Facebook page what raises additional concern is the fact that Miss Fields was actively running for a position as the New Jersey representative for the Republican National Committee in 2024 for those that don't understand financing such a campaign the reporting requirements are typically very limited
with very little transparency into who is funding these type of campaigns with no limitation of how much a person or organization can donate typically referred to as dark money did Edgewater Properties or any of its affiliates or owners donate to this campaign
these thoughts are not necessarily far-fetched especially after during her last term as mayor I believe she was instrumental in appointing the D francisco Baitment Law Firm a known ally of the New Jersey GOP as the backup attorney for the township giving them a
contract of $100,000 a year and again during this year this is the same law firm that represented the 150 Allen Road project prior to it being voted down and now a different attorney is suing the township on that developer's behalf as such I feel that she has not shown good
judgment in our current position and there is at least the appearance of a conflict of interest with Redwood Properties i am therefore requesting the following number one Miss Fields must recuse hers recuse herself from this evening's vote on the affordable housing plans number two Miss Fields should
resign from the township committee for failure to uphold her campaign promises three as a member of the Republican Municipal Committee I also request that she resigns her position as the District 16 representative and four resign her position as the New Jersey representative to the Republican
National Committee for complete failure to uphold Republican principles specifically related to the New Jersey affordable housing plan obligations thank you thank you Miss Light appreciate your [Applause]
comments any other public comments good evening Nancy Dandrea 3 Vandervir Drive um so I live on Vandervir and then red road next to me is Douglas and Douglas as we know connects Allen to uh
Liberty Corner so I know that there's a shared service agreement between with us and Far Hills with paving that road i know in years past we've had literally half the road paved at times and things like that it's a very silly road right
now though between Leighton and Allen half the road is a disaster and the other half is fine so what's been happening is now people are driving on the left side of the road going towards Liberty Corner um so I would asking uh
since it's a very used road and I don't know why after uh 28 years living here that this road has not I think it's been expanded a little bit that we haven't even just drawn a line down the middle of it but this is a road that is used
heavily and it is one of the most poorly kept roads for the amount of traffic it receives so my ask is please um uh Mr uh Tim goes down here so please reach out to those people to have them look
especially between Leighton and Allen Douglas Road and can it be paved completely and not just half of it thank you thank you Pat we'll look into that thank you anyone else for public comment seeing
none I'm going to close public comment next is staff comments township committee comments and board leaison reports pat uh nothing this evening mayor thank you christie none this evening thank you
Mayor mr bolardo no thank you Mayor jen sure mr andrea to your point on um issues that you found um over the weekend I found that there was a street sign in our one of the roads and I used the
report a concern uh functionality on the website and by 8:00 a.m on Monday morning that street sign was being repaired so I urge if you see things for anyone especially we have a nice audience if you find something that is out of order on the website report a
concern for our DPW go straight to them and they they act quite quickly um so I I highly advocate that awesome tool so I have some overarching comments and I'm going to make them now um versus later in the the session so I want to give a
quick history about how this body worked to address the fourth round obligations of affordable housing it first started in December of 2023 with Andrew McN leading an overlay zone ordinance introduction and adoption on December the 12th and 28th the township committee committed to allowing a mixeduse
development that allowed 374 age restricted housing units and 150 bed um hotel and retail space in 2024 we proactively hired our external Mount Laurel planning expert created our subcommittee and communicated updates throughout the year including hosting a
presentation in June 2024 we also attempted to consider a mixeduse project in December that would create housing for fif excuse me 16 special needs adults providing for 32 credits you also remember it brought to the a business which would have been the second highest ratable township business
plus 5,000 foot community center and a 2,000 foot workforce development center for special needs youth and adults at no cost to the township as we all know that project was killed before a public hearing was held on March 11th two ordinances the ones we're voting on tonight were introduced they were
reviewed by the planning board on March 18th and deemed inconsistent with the master plan let's talk about what happened and what should have happened there should have been at least one but likely many meetings of the township committee where the over 10 proposals
were reviewed and discussed allowing pros and cons to be considered to enable the full township committee to determine what should be the prioritized list of projects to pursue to meet our need to my knowledge these meetings never happened rather the township committee
was informed which two projects were the options put forth repeated requests by myself and Anaorte McCarthy for presentations to the public to be informed on these topics were ignored and that brings us to tonight the public
hearing and final vote on a plan that is void of what the community actually needs and clamored for in December 2024 substantive special needs housing and one that far exceeds the number of family units required which will burden taxpayers and schools with with
increased costs we're faced with a historic decision a decision that will forever change our community our schools our roads our infrastructure what should that strategy be in 2024 as it was presented in Kendra's June presentation
the strategy at that time was to maximize bonus credits maximize special needs housing and to maximize senior housing while the plan the plan as proposed tonight will maximize bonus credits it fails miserably in the equally important components of the
ideal strategy now faced with the obligation of 198 i believe the proposed strategy should be maximize bonus credits minimize the number of family units affordable and market rate built to minimize the impact on our over
already overt taxed school system maximize special needs housing and to maximize senior housing the option louded by Janice Fields and Andrew McN includes the installation of the largest complex apartment complex in Burners Township history including record
heights of 70 ft coupled with 80% impervious coverage this 574 unit apartment complex will be the fifth largest of all the 21 municipalities in Somerset County the 574 family units at Westgate
will result in massive overdevelopment of family units a unit of housing for a family requires many more resources than a senior unit thinking about the education costs alone the board of ed spends approximately an average of
$27,000 per child per year every child costs the taxpayer instead of allowing the lowest number of families and therefore children in the school system Westgate allows an excessive number of families because the law actually
requires 50% families we only need to build for 99 affordable housing families if one negotiated a 20% set aside Westgate would actually be 495 not 574 if we were able to negotiate a higher
set aside we'd lower the number of units required in the third round of um affordable housing the township received a 22% set aside for Mountain View one project in the third round offered 33% set aside it was ultimately not selected
but it happens to be a current project option why are we unable to negotiate better than 20% this round especially for a mixeduse project and with many more options than existed for the third round we need to start over i'm confident we can reduce the families by
a substantial percentage easing our community burden to all the residents I've spoken with met with read your emails I listened to your brave statements I hear you i agree with you we need to do better and I'm willing to
do so my plea to my colleagues vote against these two major proposals and start over we can do better for the community there is absolutely time my colleagues know that the housing plan element and fair share plan must be accepted by June 30th the ordinances for
the projects do not need to be final until March 15 2026 so why is there this rush who are we serving the township or the developers and to each of my colleagues each of us ran with campaigns that said
we opposed overdevelopment excessive family units is the absolute worst kind of overdevelopment your vote tonight needs to uphold campaign promises thank you dave thank you
mayor good evening and thank you for attending tonight's chief meeting um affordable housing is an important subject it affects all of us um the comments and emails that we receive from you are greatly appreciated and significant in our decision-making process as you are aware I am the newest
member of the township committee i was appointed on January 28th 2025 to fill a vacant seat during my first meeting in an action to reduce development my colleagues and I voted to oppose the DCA number of 218 i worked tirelessly since that time to
get up to speed on affordable housing initiatives which the previously existing township committee members have long been working on i have had not had the benefit of the time other township committee members had to explore all possible alternatives and options to meet our affordable housing obligations
since my appointment our township professionals have been very knowledgeable transparent and accommodating in my education on the affordable housing mandate on March 11th the township committee voted to submit the ordinances authorizing Westgate and Ridge Oak projects to the planning board
for consistency review i was out of the country and therefore unable to vote when the Westgate ordinance was presented to the planning board on March 18th I together with other members of the planning board deemed the ordinance to be inconsistent with the township's
master plan my recusal of the Ridge Oak consistency review on the advice of the planning board attorney was out of an abundance of caution to take a pause and perform our due diligence as to any conflicts I may have with Ridge Oak after an extensive review by our
township attorney and pertinent information provided to us by Ridge Oak and Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church it was conclusively deemed that I have no conflict of interest i fully understand that we must fulfill a legal obligation regarding affordable housing as a newest member of the township
committee I was not involved in the early decisions let alone the negotiations with either Westgate or Ridgel these projects at the time they were presented to me were represented as final offers from the developers in addition I have personally spoken to the executive director of the Highlands to
gain a better understanding of the benefits and detriments of the Highlands confidence conformance upon my first affordable housing briefing by our township officials the New Jersey Highlands Council and its compliance requirements were explained to me in full detail i was advised that
the time frame for Highlands compliance for this round of affordable housing had expired it was further revealed at a later date that the deadline for the Highlands Council to submit the names of all compliant municipalities to the New Jersey DCA was March 25th 2024
any excuse me any Highlands compliance after that gate would be challenged by fair share housing regret regrettably time did not allow for further investigations of the Highlands option perhaps at a future date we can revisit this option examine its conflicts with
other zoning requirements and take the time to fully engage with our property owners that would be affected March 25th I voted to accept the number of units recommended as part of a mediation process was done to cap the potent potential liability and was
in no way by me a vote in favor of any project at that time the rejection of this offer would have most likely resulted in the enforcement of the original DCA number of 218 reserve the rest of my comments for Thank you Anna
thank you mayor so I am going to make a couple of announcements and then also reflect upon the process of affordable housing and I do so because a lot of these commissions counted us to make those announcements so first and foremost the Environmental Commission is going to be having a native plant sale
April 1st through the 18th there is a live link through the Great Swamp Watershed and then distribution will be at Ross Farm so those of you who are interested in native plants please look for this opportunity the Municipal Alliance will be holding its 35th Twilight Challenge race on June Sunday
June 1st this is the 3 35th year and it's held to help support our processes on and programs on education and awareness of the impact upon our youth of drugs alcohol and tobacco we are also going to be having a clean out your
medicine cabinet on Saturday April 26 you can drop off any medications from 10:00 a.m to 2 p.m at our police department and then lastly the golf committee has would like to announce a ladies event for anyone in the township it's a swing into spring at the
Inspiration Golf Course on April 26 and this is a clinic for people to tune up their skills with a golf pro so moving on to a few reflections on the affordable housing process in advance of the ordinances we will be voting on as a municipality as my colleagues have
shared we do need to meet our affordable housing obligations which at the March 25th meeting was set at 198 perspective need and 24 present need this is the law it's also a hard decision that we need to make that will impact among other
aspects our neighborhoods and our schools as a township committee we have an opportunity and an obligation to make sure the decision process is inclusive in 2024 an affordable housing subcommittee comprised of then mayor AC
and committeeman vomin staff and professionals were formed to begin planning our affordable housing strategy i was given small snapshots of what was occurring and from time to time would call our attorney John Bolardo to better understand what was being considered as
we were not being briefed as a full township committee or reviewing an executive session this became to me more urgent in October when the Department of Consumer Affairs issued our obligation as 218 again there were no executive sessions to review a plan and the focus
at the end of the year moved toward the introduction of the film studio in the last quarter of 2024 I was introduced to the Highlands Council as a concept and met with representatives at the League of Municipalities as Committeeman Tanky shared it is now known that the Burners
Township would have had to conform to the Highlands Council in March of 2024 to have that considered in this round of affordable housing i will personally say that we did a disservice to you in trying to promote that we could achieve
conformity with the Highlands and later becoming aware that this was not viable and for that I take accountability and apologize going into 2025 when Mayor Fields began her tenure there was a meeting held at the beginning of the year with individual township committee members my own included the mayor
attorney Bolardo and expert planner Kendra Ley we had a meeting to review the affordable housing plan and our goal of how to get to what we anticipated would be our number of 218 at that time two options were provided as the recommendations from the 2024 affordable
housing subcommittee including Ridge Oak and Westgate again we did not sit in executive session to review all the various options that have recently been shared with you the public during Township uh Bolardo's remarks and as also within the Burnersville News
therefore I've used these past few weeks to hear from you the public and to conduct research on affordable housing the requirements to better inform my decisions we have heard from many of you and understand your frustration with construction and development happening within proximity to your neighborhoods
along with the potential impact on our schools traffic and moreover the ecosystem of our community we have two ordinances before us and we need to I will speak more in detail when we vote upon those we are on a tight deadline if we wish to avoid builder's remedy
lawsuits the municipality needs to amend our master plan and our housing element fair share plan before June 30th that addresses how we will meet this round and how we will detail how those housing needs will be satisfied if we do not
pass these ordinances tonight or pass one and not the other the potential is it might go to the planning board and I will not want that to be the case we are the elected officials we have a responsibility to be accountable to ourselves and to you and it reminds me
of someone whom I used to work for a wonderful woman named Marge Magner who said that there were three things that she would look upon to see what we were contributing to the company one was did we meet our numbers secondly how did we play in the sandbox and third what was
the accountability that we held the first we have to meet this number this is our this is a law we have to figure out how to get to 198 secondly how do we play in the sandbox well we need to work better together we try to collaborate and partner but this is not a time for
us to throw stones at each other we have to collaborate to work together to get it a solution and then thirdly we are all accountable it's not my fault or David's fault or Janice's or Jen's or Andrew's we have to figure this out and we are all accountable on the decisions
we will make tonight it's our responsibility to make that and in the spirit of what we believe is best for the community and in meeting the state night state mandate so I look forward to your comments and I'll be sharing more later thank you Andrew
thank you Anna thank you Mayor um I agree with much of what Anna just had to say um I will reserve most of my comments for when we have the public hearings on the individual ordinances but suffice it to say I want to
highlight the fact that um consistent with what Anna said about back in January each of us were provided with an email uh that contained work product from the affordable housing subcommittee which recommended the very ordinances
that we're voting on tonight i agree with the recommendations that were made by the affordable housing subcommittee which was led by then Mayor Ac i understand that Mayor AC no longer agrees with the recommendations of the
subcommittee that she led um I I I that's not my concern um and I'll get into a little bit more of this later um needless to say and the mayor does not need me to weigh in on this but I vigorously disagree with the comments
that were made by uh Miss Light uh the mayor is a dedicated public servant who does not have conflicts of interest and uh puts uh Bernard's Township and its residents first in everything that she does and then finally I'd like to
highlight a distinction uh that Bernard Township has once again earned from the website safewise.com which analyzes FBI and crime data to determine which are the safest towns in individual states including New Jersey and I'm pleased to
report that again out of the 564 towns in New Jersey Bernard's has been uh voted the second safest town in the entire state uh which means that we can still get to number one um but this is a testament to the brave men and women in
our police department uh I have the distinction and honor of being able to be work with them uh on a daily basis along with Anna Dwarte McCarthy as the uh township committee's uh uh police liaance that concludes my remarks mayor
thank you thank you so before I make my announcement since everyone spoke about the affordable housing I'd like to touch on that um so what I want to start by saying is that uh piggyback off what my colleague said i mean what Anna said is absolutely 100% correct uh we can't
rewrite history some people would like to rewrite history but we can't it's a mandate we have to meet the obligation we have to meet the number it's very hard for all of us uh to figure this out what location is the best location how do we get the most bonus credits to
lessen how many developments are done so Anna had stated and Andrew had stated last year uh there was a subcommittee formed to get a head start on this on what it was going to look like for affordable housing we knew this was coming and uh like he said uh Gary
Bowman and Jen Ac were heading that up and they were getting all the proposals and they were getting all the the blueprints and uh the numbers and working with the planner and giving uh getting all that information and collecting it for us so
that we could be well educated and know what we were going to be presented with and what was the best option in December of last year I asked her attorney if I could meet with him so that I can know and have a better handle as an incoming mayor on what we're looking at at
affordable housing and what I was presented with before my colleagues was presented with was what the actual affordable housing had proposed and what they proposed was Westgate and Ridge Oak those were the two options that they presented to me and then to all of us so
that was their plan they felt out of everything that they had looked at all the other plants and all the other developments that this had the least impact on the community which I do agree if you look at the numbers and I'll explain that more when we get into that part so that's what we were present I
was presented with went over with then I sat down with my col we all sat down in January 6 like I said received the sheet and this is what the affordable housing um committee had decided on this was the best route and like I said that's what we're presented with they had a whole year to work on this to come up with
what they thought was the best plan and they gave us the best plan and that's the plan that we're going with tonight so I just want everyone to understand this has been very hard on all of us we have spent months on this um trying to make the best decision and I know not everyone is going to be happy with our
decision but I want you to all know all of us all of us together has we have worked as a team we have put a lot of time and energy and we want to make the best decision we care about the community we care about the future we care about overdevelopment what's the least impact and this is the decision
that was made by the affordable housing committee from last year presented to us and then we went forward and looked at all the other proposals and I agree that this is the best plan going forward so just want you to know the history a little bit more in depth so I just want to mention um the announcements are uh
we had our townwide green initiative yard sale which was a huge success thank you to everyone who participate it's a uh a great event and like I said it's green and I believe um want to thank the environmental commission who um took the initiative on this and introduced it to
us uh a couple years ago um it was a great idea and continues to be a great idea and our environmental commission does do some wonderful um environmental and green initiatives so thank you to environmental commission for coming up with that um charter day is coming up on
May 17th everyone's looking forward to that so we hope we see you um at the downtown to celebrate our our wonderful wonderful community and the history and the beauty of it all and also uh we will be uh Anna will be talking about it more but we'll talk about it at Charter Day
we're going to have our 265th anniversary celebration and Anna is has a committee and um she's running it and um I just want to say thank you so much so many people have stepped forward uh to be part of that committee and to celebrate our 265th and to us that's
really important so it's going to be a fabulous event uh the planning has been going spectacular but most importantly just want to thank the volunteers so many of you uh step up and volunteer and we really appreciate it the um Liberty Corner Fire Company will be hosting their spring comedy night again on
February 26 so please go to their website i usually go every year and enjoy um some comedy and also some charity so uh look into that april 26th the library will be having a Mother's Day market and photo shoot on Saturday May 3rd from 10 to 4 there'll be vendors
a market um an array of h handcrafted uh items for sale also there'll be a photo session that will be taking place from 10 to 1 by advanced registration and the cost is $25 which I think is just lovely you can get a a nice Mother's Day uh photograph so sign up for that just go
to the uh the library website um and uh register and I want to say happy Passover and happy Easter to all our residents to those celebrating Easter may this time bring peace hope and promise of a new beginning and to those celebrating Passover may your seder
table be filled with meaning tradition and the joy of gathering with loved ones thank you christy fire and rescue appointments none this evening mayor unfinished business resolution 2025-0211 christy authorizing after the
township's amended housing element and fair share plan is adopted on or before June 30th 2025 the execution of affordable housing trust fund agreement and deed restriction for an affordable housing project with our house incorporated at 399 Mount Airy Road can
I have a motion so moved i'll second that mayor discussion i'm pleased that we're doing this resolution and it's being incorporated into our uh affordable housing plan look forward to doing more for the special needs community in the future anyone
else this was the bare minimum from last year's plan and at least we got that there needs to be more and that's what needs to happen so I look forward the mayor has mentioned that they're working on other things i requested for those
updates and I look forward to her sharing the specific location and number of units but the community made it loud and clear in December this is very much needed and everyone was on board we need to bring it we need this for these special needs residents
anyone else yeah I just comment i don't know if everyone here is familiar with our house which is a nonprofit foundation that has focused on the development of housing needs for adults with intellectual and developmental special needs and we now have six in the community and it affords an opportunity
for the individuals to live in residence and to have the support that's needed and to integrate the adults into the community so this will help to fund the six home on 399 Man Road and we are continuing conversations with the CEO of our house to look for opportunities in
the townships i just want to echo what my colleague said we are looking for more opportunities to expand this opportunity for adults with disabilities it's extremely important so we're committed to that so also want to say that uh we're fortunate to be able to include this in
our affordable housing plan and I we did hear you and we are working on it so as soon as I became mayor and it started working on affordable housing and I was looking at some of the projects um I had mentioned to one of the uh one of the uh
someone who had proposed um uh land owner who's very charitable and I had mentioned if there was any interest in him donating some of the property that he owns in town for another special needs housing and he is interested and he has been speaking with our house so I
don't have anything concrete but I just want to let you know that as soon as I took over I hit the ground running and was reaching out and trying to find some property for our house after meeting with our h uh working for special needs when I did we did meet with I did meet with um our house and there's special
requirements for our house like it has to be a ranch and it can't be on a hill so it can't just go anywhere it has to be specifically designed for special needs and so like I want to say to everyone I reached out to a developer who has property and has asked him if he
would donate the property so that this a special needs housing and he is working with our house so I keep mentioning that we are looking at other we are but I don't have details because the decision has to be made between the two of them that they want to work together that he wants to donate the property and then we
can go from there and work with them with the affordable housing funds that we have for that so I just want to let you all know there's more to come hopefully this will come to fruition and uh that's my my prayer that it will roll call christie Miss Acy yes miss
Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried chrissy 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 Bernard's chapter 21 land development to create the SH-4 senior housing zone this is a public hearing uh Christie do we have a planning board report for ordinance 2573 yes it was received on March 18th 2025
all right let me let me address that now um the planning board recommendations have been incorporated in a proposed amended ordinance um I would also indicate there was a valid protest petition received on this ordinance and it's valid under section 63 of the
municipal land use law therefore in order to pass this ordinance four of five votes will be required i furthermore note that I consider the planning board recommendations as to amendments technical in nature most of them relate to U-Hack regulations uh
they are not substantive and the ordinance may be voted upon tonight by the committee uh the first order of business would be if the committee wishes to have a public hearing on the amended ordinance with the planning board recommendations there should be a
motion and a second and a vote to have the public hearing on the amended ordinance i would stress this is not a vote on the ordinance itself it is only a vote on this time as to whether to take up and consider the amended ordinance that incorporates the nons
substantive planning board recommendations so roll call Christie that's what's next for the amendment oh I'm sorry i need a motion i'll make that motion mayor second roll call for city miss AC no miss
Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried mayor you may now open up the public hearing on the ordinance as amended with the planning board recommendations so this is just a public hearing on the
amendment not on the actual ordinance for it to go through so if you have a comment on the actual amendments that the planning board has made then this would be your time to come forward correct no it is actually on the entire ordinance with the planning board amendments oh okay not not just on the
amendments okay on the whole thing and for purposes of transparency the clerk posted on Friday both the original ordinance and the ordinance with the amendments so the public is on the ordinance with the planning board recommendations yeah it's a little confusing it's a
little confusing but it's it's on the entire ordinance with those minor recommendations okay so well this is on um this is the public hearing on Rich Oak correct correct okay i'm going to open for public comment so this is the
time sorry I got a little confused there good evening my name is Vince Baker i live at 92 Spencer Road and I very much appreciate the time and allowing me to speak on this one the reason why I want to speak tonight is because I see on social media many times the comment
listed not in our neighborhood typically all in caps and with that also is the comment because of the impact ridge Oak will have on the neighborhood and it got me thinking what is the impact that Ridge is going to have or does have on the neighborhood well as I was looking
around Oak the one thing it does not have is there's not an impact on housing values ridge Oak has been there for 50 years now we're celebrating our 50th year and housing values in the neighborhood are already oak is already baked into that we talked about traffic before and is there going to be an impact on the traffic and it's was
brought out a couple meetings ago that uh a lot of the folks at Rididge Oak don't even have a car and typically they drive between 10:00 a.m and 2 p.m so they don't want to be out driving around when school's in and things of that nature the other thing that it could be is uh the other impact you could have on
this one would be on the schools no impact on the schools so that is not part of it and the last thing I thought of would be it would have to be the aesthetics of Ridge Oak what Ridge Oak looks like i have been volunteering at Rididge Oak now for about 10 years and I'm currently the board president and I
go to Ridge Oak all the time but one thing I have not done in many many years is looked at Ridge Oak because I go there all the time so I stopped and I thought to myself what do the neighbors that we have around there in our neighborhood see at Ridge Oak i went over to Oak Street i went over to East
Lewis i went over to Lindberg Lane at the end of Lindberg Lane you can see one of our buildings it's a beautiful building down there it's Ridge Oak too i went over to Prospect and again all you see are houses and trees you don't really see Ridge Oak i drove up on Manchester i went over to Juniper i went over to Brandeise Court and again you
can't see Ridge Oak from any of those locations as I was coming back down Manchester and I was thinking well the only way you're going to get out of here is to get back on South Maple so I drove over onto Prospect realizing oh I missed Ridge Oak again so I backed up i stopped on Manchester and as I'm looking down
Manchester I finally saw Ridge Oak and what you see down there are a couple of buildings they look like big houses so I thought to myself I bet you a lot of people here tonight and in our town have never seen Ridge Oak so what I'd like to do is invite everybody here to come take
a look at Ridge Oak it is a beautiful place what you're going to see are buildings actually the buildings look brand new freshly painted new roofs the gutters are clean the landscaping is immaculate everything is nice out there we have curbs and sidewalks and no
broken concrete or anything like that in fact the sidewalks don't even have that you know tripping hazard that most of the ones in town do we take care of the road there are no potholes so it's very beautiful place come down take a look and what you're going to see is a beautiful neighborhood and I think most
people are going to realize that when you see this you're going to wish your neighborhood looked as good as Ridge Oak does so if it's not the way Ridge Oak looks it must be the people of Ridge Oak so if not if it's not the physical
structure of Ridge Oak that's going to impact the town the other one it have would have to be the people so who are the people that live at Ridge Oak i have a bunch of statistics here we have 362 residents 308 apartments the average age is 79 years old the average income is
$23,000 a year yes $23,000 a year to live here in Basking Ridge and about a third of the folks over a third of the folks that we have grew up in our town they live here they come from here they are the fabric of our town here that's who is at Ridge Oak but that doesn't tell you who's actually there so I
thought to myself who's actually there well it's the person who sits next to me on the pew at church on Sunday morning it's the folks that say hi in the Narthx uh on Sunday it's the daughter and her mother that are at Shopright shopping
it's the lady over at the Little League complex who is watching her grandson play baseball those are the folks that live at Rididge Oak there are mothers and fathers there are brothers and sisters there actually there are moms and dads and actually moms that reminds me of something not a week goes by in
which somebody doesn't ask me can my how do I get my mom or dad typically my mom into Ridge Oak and because I know I've been there for so long actually that reminds me a couple of weeks ago very good friends of mine asked how do I get my sister into Ridge Oak so please come down and take a look at the facility
take a look at how beautiful the place is and as you're driving around you're not going to see affordable housing you're going to see housing that we keep affordable you're going to see a very beautiful place flowers are up the trees are in bloom you're going to see people out there walking around on a nice day a vibrant community you're not going to
see a senior center you're going to see a beautiful neighborhood it is a gorgeous place come down when you drive around you're going to think to yourself "My mother would love to be here." And when you do you too will be asking me "How do I get my mom into a joke?"
Thank you thank you for the time [Music] hi everyone good evening i'm Bonnie Kelly i'm the director of housing development at Ridge Oak Senior Housing on April 1st I gave up my day-to-day executive director job and became the
director of housing development at Ridge Oak and my good colleague Corey Habanic has taken on the job of after 11 years of hard work he got the job though so thank you for the opportunity to address the committee as
a followup to my board president's comments I'd like to share some additional information about Ridge Oak and why ordinance 2573 should be passed by this governing body as some here this evening may not
be aware the township stands to gain 58 affordable housing credits for the future development of Ridge Oak 4 this represents an absolute win-win for Bernards as the town will get 29 credits
for 29 units plus one bonus credit for each unit for a total of 58 by getting the bonus credits development density will be reduced by 29 units there is no impact on schools or municipal services
ridge Oak has a long history of helping the town with their affordable housing requirements both in rounds two and three ridge Oak two and three gave the township 60 credits toward their round two and round three obligation and thus
we built Ridge Oak two on Lindberg Lane and Ridge Oak 3 on Manchester Drive as of April 6th we have 520 people unduplicated waiting for housing of
those waiting 28% have lived in the Bernard's area or have families that reside in the Bernard's area we turn over about 35 apartments a year some of those applicants will never make it to
Ridge Oak the need is great and the supply is low the property at 95 Manchester Drive which you are considering in this ordinance was purchased by Ridge Oak in 2010 for those living around the house
before we purchased it you were able to see what the previous owner had on the property which was a dilapidated barn with debris outside a pool that was unused and a pool house all of that was removed by Ridge Oak and we planted some
additional trees on both sides of the house the original house was part of the Shainan farm when we were applying for federal funding in 2023 we had to do a dig to look for
artifacts there were none the state of New Jersey provided us with the statement that the house and the property had no historic significance we're already planning for heavy tree screening on the back and the side of Ridge Oak our plan is to position the
building and the driveway as far away from the neighbors as we can we have been communicating with Somerset County and just today I had an email from the county saying that they would be willing to work with us to plant trees on their
property which is at the front of 95 Manchester Drive so that would provide additional buffering for the neighbors that are concerned about the view as far as the facility creating more traffic in the neighborhood there is no um basis in fact for that we had a
study done by Dean and Dolan back in 2023 45% of our residents have cars if we add another 29 units approximately 13 people will have cars that would generate another four trips a day on the
road no offense to any of our residents but have you ever driven behind one of my residents on their way to shop these are not people who speed unfortunately back in 2020 there was one mishap on Prospect Avenue which was
regrettable one time in my 25 years a parked car was hit by a distracted family member thank God nobody was hurt my residents just don't speed they're just not built that
way regarding property values 21 properties in our neighborhood sold or were listed since 2020 six of those sold slightly under asking and four of those closed during the early months of COVID so it's no
surprise that the price dra dropped all the others sold at above or at asking in Bernard's the price of homes as per Rocket Mortgage easy to look up the prices have risen 9.2% since April
of 2023 i'm almost done okay as far as partnerships go we have been longstanding partners of many agencies here in town we have special needs students from Ridge High School that work at Ridge Oak Senior Housing we have
had a student work on our bus to help people with packages we donate regularly to the Basking Ridge Fire and Rescue Squad last year we gave them $10,000 that included money that the residents raised themselves from quilt
raffles and jewelry sales at Christmas I took two boxes of baby items to the Center for Great Expectations that our residents donated the Happy Hookers make blankets and hats it's no kidding that's what they're
called the Happy Hookers i know thank you our plans for Ridge Oak are in the early stages we will need to get funding to build our housing facilities are funded and built because of our proximity to churches parks stores and transportation we provide the highest
quality of housing to seniors we welcome all of our neighbors to come and visit us come into our community bring your dog ride a bike we we are all the fabric of Bernards thank
you for the opportunity hello hi Barnabas Sprinkle 483 Lion's Road um I'm a pastor at Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church one of the churches that helped us start the Ridge Oak thing and I just want to say how proud I am of this town for having Ridge Oak um I have
lived a lot of places i've gone to a lot of city council meetings and I got to say everywhere people don't like affordable housing or they say they like affordable housing somewhere else um this community said you know we actually want that 50 years ago we care we care about our elders uh we want them here we
care about our elders on a fixed income um and I know all the considerations you guys have it's it's it's amazing how the tough work you guys have to do but I'm just proud that we're a community that says we do care we want these people and the people I have met from Ridge Oak
have been just just some of the sweetest grandparently type people and if we could support another couple dozen of those I'd be in for it so thank you so much for being a community that cares thank you and and since I have a few more minutes on my time could I also say my phone has
a mute button if anybody else's phone has a mute button saying [Applause] I don't have a prepared speech i'm only going to say from my heart what Rich Hulk has done for me i was living in Tom's River and I became a widow and my
children were up in Hamburg and Dover so that was sort of really rough on them so I decided I should be the one that moves so we went around to all the senior housing and when I saw Ridge Oak I had my daughter see it and she who has
became my mother instructed me to wait for Ridge Oak i waited for two and a half years and I am probably the happiest person ever and I want to say I can't believe
at 85 that I'm living in a community and I have such activities my brain is magnificent because of it and I have been blessed so I'm going to ask you i The thought that 29 more people will
enjoy it like I do that's just something that would break my heart if we don't get it [Laughter] that's it could you just state your name and address i'm sorry barbara No 202C Manchester Drive in Basking Ridge thank
you you're welcome stephanie Dardy 76 Manchester Drive um I have come to every one of these meetings since this ordinance was introduced i came to the meeting two years ago when Rid Oak's funding request was on the docket to be approved i have spoken out
every opportunity that I can and I have to tell you as somebody who lives in that neighborhood it is very frustrating to me to hear other people tell me what the impacts are on me and my neighbors these are people who do not own property in our neighborhood they are not raising
families in our neighborhood the residents of Rididge are lovely people they are lovely i encounter them on walks in my neighborhood they are lovely rididge did not start out at 308 apartments there are now four times as many apartments in our neighborhood as
there are homes this was always a residential neighborhood with single family homes it started out small and it started rid started out as a smaller community for people in Basking Ridge in the Somerset Hills area to go when they
couldn't afford to stay in town during their retirement and I have a friend who um lives in my neighborhood she grew up there and she said "We thought it was great we thought it was adorable because our grandparents were going to go live there and our my friends grandparents were going to live next to my
grandparents and we thought it was this great amazing thing." And that became discriminatory in the 1980s so everything changed it became a place where anybody could go live and that's okay there's nothing wrong with that that's a great thing we need lowincome housing for seniors absolutely not a
question but the it becomes a location question how many apartments are you going to pile into the back of a residential neighborhood and I dispute that you cannot see it from the neighborhood because I can see it from my house and it has changed over the years it was small then it grew by 20
then it grew by 20 more then 20 more and quite frankly the credits that you got for your round three obligation came when Ridgeoke was denied an assisted living facility and then sued the town and as a result of that lawsuit they got
the building on Lindberg Lane and they got 60 more units on Manchester all of a sudden double yellow lines are in the neighborhood on the streets we didn't have those before and the one-story buildings became two-story buildings and it might be a lovely ground for
everybody and I'm glad that it's a nice place for people to live but there's a whole other half of this neighborhood that needs to be considered here and and for the record they're nice but they're apartments they look like apartments from my house I can see them and they're apartments that's what they
look like because that's what they are they're not disguised they're apartments and you're about to take a house which by the way may have no historical significance but was built in 1864 and considering we're a township that loss its history and celebrates its charter
day every year why are we knocking down a farmhouse from 1864 the Shehan family by the way was the third owners of that farm not the first um there were two other owners prior to that 1864 when the Civil War was still being fought that's when that house was put up so I don't know with all the other options that we have why we're even talking about
knocking that house down for apartments there are six houses i'm not even one of them but there's six houses that will have to stare at that in either the backyard sideyard whatever that's going to be their landscape that was not there when they bought their house and I think
it's unfair to do that to them with regard to the traffic I'm on Manchester i see all the cars i see the cars that come down Prospect i see the cars that come down Manchester it's not I'm not Nobody's saying that the drivers at Ridge Oak are bad drivers or that they speed but a lot of visitors come with
them a lot of delivery delivery trucks come with them a lot of people who are zipping in and out of the neighborhood there are speeding cars it does happen it We don't need more of it we don't need more of it our neighborhood is at capacity with apartments and I'm urging
you to please please think about our neighborhood in this scenario no one's not no one's disputing that Ridge Oak is great for the people that live there but you know what your your overlay at Westgate was for 57 apartments that's twice as many so if we really want to
help as many seniors find affordable housing let's go back to that proposal because that seemed to be a lot more effective thank you thank you good evening my name is Marth Terry m- A R T H E is an Edward French Canadian godmom for whom I'm named i live at 208A
Manchester Drive i'm a lifelong resident of Bernard's Township Basking Ridge lived on South Alward Avenue across town i'm very active in my church my community i've sing in three singing groups and I've lived in Ridge Oak it
took me 15 months to get in and I couldn't be happier god has blessed me richly as a lifelong resident resident and um I just want to say our staff is
wonderful very helpful i don't have to worry about owning a home anymore after my parents died um the upkeep the property taxes you know God is good and that's
really all I care to say we're in I do not drive visually impaired so I'm with walking distance of town and the library and what have you and we are blessed to have our own Ridge Oak uh shopping bus and also I I'm very blessed as a St
james parishioner that I'm able to have a holy hour every week on a Thursday take the bus takes a few of us over there that's a big blessing for me well also uh we have wonderful activities i'm
grateful to Bonnie Kelly now to Corey Havana all of our Ridge Oak staff i think we are very blessed and we're friendly we all participate in the community and I'm sorry for those who feel they can see us from their house
and yada yada yada and God bless you i'm sorry you feel that way you're going to be old too one of these days so before I blow my five minutes um I find living in a natural community my own neighborhood where I used to live
was like a park setting gorgeous i had a butterfly bar garden the likes of which you could imagine but at any rate in summation I thank you in advance for voting yes on ordinance
2573 thank you and God bless you thank you kevin Carpenter i live at 93 East Lewis Street so the back of my property line is right next to the back of the property line at 95 Manchester
sorry do I have to repeat anything so I live at 93 East Lewis Street my name is Kevin Carpenter the back of my property line is next to the back of the property line at Manchester Drive um I I hate to break to some of the people that said I wouldn't be able to
see the new apartment building but I can see the current house that's there i find it hard to believe I will not be able to see the apartment building um my wife and I have two small children two years old and two months old um the
construction is probably going to be very disruptive to us very noisy um we've got concerns about privacy in our backyard uh where our young children are going to be playing we've got concerns about lighting i'm I'm sure the building and the parking lot are going to require
some amount of illumination that I'm assuming is going to be coming into my children's bedrooms at night while they're sleeping um you know and also just the noise of people coming and going uh all throughout the day and as I believe Stephanie said it's not just the
29 units and the people living there it's the people the support staff the delivery trucks everybody coming and going at all times of the day um I just asked the people on the committee to put themselves in my shoes in my family shoes um when my wife and I bought this
house we bought it because it was in a residential neighborhood a nice house in a nice residential neighborhood and this is going to upend that and it's just very upsetting to me so again just please put yourself in my shoes thank
you thank you [Applause] hi Barbara Giri 66 Dryen Road i don't live in the Manchester Drive area or Ridge Oak but I did drive through recently because I was curious about what was back there and um I know we've
heard that there not all residents own cars but there was not one parking spot to be had and the entire strip of where you would drive there was all cars double parked so I'm not quite sure where all these extra cars are coming from if extra people just live with everyone i don't know but it does seem
unfair to put in 20 more nine more units when we could have had more senior housing at Westgate but you've changed that ordinance now so fix it
[Applause] thank you good evening your honorables madame mayor and the uh committee members thank you for your serving your
community and in many ways could you just say your name and address my name is Jen Yang i live on 114D Manchester Drive thank you basic i know you're holding a very
thankless positions but you have to deal with it uh I myself I have been living in the uh Oakidge regs i'm very new resident like I have a
stated last time when I was here that I I'm going to be 84 in May and my co-resident who is 85 so we have a good many of our 80s in that community and we
try to be a good citizen we're trying to live with respectively and also we care about the people we don't just care about ourselves we are concerning about the
country that's the reason why good many of our residences pray for the country we pray for the Baskin rich we pray for every single Americans in this country amen and we are part of this community
and let's face it I understand it's been 60 years since I've been in this country from Korea i'm living in the heaven and good Lord has blessed me this
is really I could understand i have a grandkids i have a three granddaughters and they're living in summit and also that's the reason why I moved from California to out here and it took me three and a half years before I was able
to move into the uh the region different senior housings and I feel like I was looking around the condominiums somewhere it was so immaculate and also
people I come across they are so friendly it was a beautiful community of itself and you know I know at the time I say this is where I
want to end my life i say what a blessing this is for me and particularly I have the uh uh ill wife who's suffering from Parkinson's
but the way that the places are managing we are living a very comfortable life and what I'm trying to say is I'm not undermining the folks that who doesn't like the
u we don't have any the choice we are growing and we seniors need the affordable housing we can't stop those to getting old we cannot if seniors do need some that
don't we didn't make a lot of money in the past like young people today we need this help we need the support support and also particularly this issue we are taking up like our um the
director has mentioned about the 29 um unit affordable unit will be creditedly to help along with the mandated 109 of the
198 mandated affordable housing on this town and so we have to look at the you know you are good in the math we have to look at it from point of
view what is it good for the town town is come become a issue not the neighborhood we have to look at the big pictures what is it good for the town the mandate is a mandate by the the
big ones we can resist that so we have to basis on that and I know you you you're going to be able to make the good judgment with your heart thank you thank you
steve Sonowski ADA Manchester Drive bonnie and I have been through a lot i love the Ridge Oak people this is not us against the Ridge Oak people we like the Ridge Oak people everybody needs senior housing it's your job to figure out
where to put it okay not tearing down a historic building i don't think it's a great idea i don't want it next to my home my family room's looking out next to it okay you're putting a bunch of units 35 feet high in a space it's not big
enough that's it we love Ridge Oak these people are coming up here like we don't like old people we don't think Red Oak is nice ridge Oak is great they walk by my house every day i've had people come by my house when their generator went out i'm the one who cleans across the
street with the mess with all the extra trucks and garbage and da da da so it's not like us against them i don't know what's going on here like we're against Ridge Oak we all like Ridge Oak my mom's 97 years old luckily she has a nice place to live it's figuring out where to
put these people in a 2acre lot next to the home it's not big enough it's a pizza pie-shaped piece of lot and it's not fit for a 30 unless you're going to put 35 foot high buildings in which is over my house
that's that's what's not right about this all things now if we want affordable housing of course we do and we want senior housing and they all deserve it has nothing to do with this the piece of land is not big enough for what they're proposed to put up that's
all thank you for your time hi I'm Can you hear me yes hi I'm Ray Stites i live on 34 Prospect Avenue i've lived in this town for 34 years i know it's hard to believe I look young right um listen
um like Steve said we're for Ridge Oak we want senior housing here it's a great community i see a lot of you people and I wave when I walk all the time however um just to give you some perspective six weeks ago we got a letter that we're going to something's
going to change in our community we we were invited to come to various meetings to hear about it how I feel and a lot of other people feel and they can speak for themselves is like it's like a runaway train all of a sudden our life is going to change that we're going to have a new building there and it's not just another
building like it's there today it's close to 30,000 square feet to give you context our house is around 2500 square feet all right that's almost better than 10 times the size of our house so all we're looking for is some type of
compromise and I wrote letters to you guys and I got a form letter back and I know somebody gave you counsel but you told me to talk to the governor the head of the assembly and the head of the senate i I I could write the letter to them but it would probably go in a
circular file i was trying to engage you guys that we could talk to the Ridge Oak people directly to find a win-win maybe there's some land on the other side that they can build or they can take their community center and build a bigger building or not build a
30,000 square feet building next to residential homes and Bonnie I know you work really hard you said only one building was affected by it or house i counted 15 that will be affected by the illumination and the site and it's not that the people there aren't worthy they
are worthy we're looking for help to make this a win-win that's why I reached out to you guys and I spoke to some of you guys between this meeting we need your help to make this work instead of telling us it's it's a bad decision you guys have
to make it you guys are very capable of working with us now granted you know everything's been rushed upon you as well can you find a way to delay this to make this a win-win that we can work with the Ridge Oak community and find a different place you know maybe it's over at
Westgate i don't know maybe it's in their area they have a community center maybe they can pop that up three stories high but we're worried about the illumination because I counted 15 houses that will see that in the winter months through April and that's going to check their change our quality of life no
one's quality of life in Ridge Oak is changing they're all there it's the people that aren't there which we want them to come if we can find the right place that's all I have thanks for the time i know you got a difficult decision but you got to engage people thank you
hi there my name is Tracy Malio i am on the board of Redoke i live in Gladstone New Jersey um I just I'm sorry microphone microphone is that better i just as as the one like healthc care
provider on the board I I just want to pull the string all the way back when we're talking about numbers of units and numbers of houses and apartments that these are people that we're talking
about that are going into these units they're not just units it's not just construction it's not just about lights when you pull it all back these are human beings that need our help that are going into these units and unit A at
Ridge Oak is not the same as unit A anywhere else i would want to know if you're going to put affordable housing units at Westgate what do they do for their residents there do they have medical services that come in do they
take care of their residents in that manner because if it were my mother I it's not just about the location it's about the services that they these um residents get at Ridge Oak and the difference between this place and that
place so I understand that some people feel like take these apartments and throw them over there but if it's not Ridge Oak I would really want to know before I made that decision what's the quality of care going to be for our
seniors in that housing complex i don't know a thing about it it could be fabulous but I can tell you that at Ridge Oak we do the very best for our residents as if they were our own family members so when you're saying take it
and put it somewhere else just understand that Ridge Oak is not just a bunch of apartments it's actually their home it's people that we love and care about it's people that our board and and
the members take care of as if they were our own family members so I hope that if you guys are going to put housing somewhere else so that nobody has to look at a light in their backyard that those people are getting excellent care like they are at Ridge Oak because these
are people we're talking about not just units and that's that's all I have thank you hi my name is Marica Schaefer i live at five Magnolia Path and no I don't live in the neighborhood for Ridge Oak um but
I wanted to say that I completely sympathize with both sides of this argument i totally I have lived in a neighborhood where development came and shook up my happy little family and I totally get that and that's not what you
bargain for and then I totally understand these people who need a home and I'm so grateful that there is a place that they can call home where they feel nurtured and loved and supported and um and I feel for all of you because you have the impossible decisionmaking
and it's a horrible thankless job and you devote hours and hours and hours of your personal time um that you know you're not getting reimbursed for and you have to hear from all of us who don't have all the pertinent or relevant
information that you all have and that you have to make these hard choices so I feel for like everybody in this room I think it's an awful thing so why am I up here talking when I live way across town because I don't know according to legal
uh if this is an appropriate time to talk about it or not the comment about special needs housing kind of blew by but this is the same exact thing that we heard about in December when special needs housing was proposed and it was
all the neighbors from that area Madisonville Road who didn't want any part of this big massive development that was going to support special needs housing to come in and I totally understood that they bought these old historic homes and their charm was going to disappear and illumination and all
that and then it was all the special needs parents and were like "Hey wait you know we need something substantial." So that got shut down and I understood it and take it with a grain of salt so where are we now for special needs housing so where are we now is a 4unit
group home by our house and that I hear mayor field saying that you are working with our house and that you have all these restrictions on what type of property you can get for an hourhouse development but there's nothing that
says you have to be limited to working with our house i mean there's lots of organizations that would be interested and you just have to put in the time and the effort and the work and of finding them as far as Ridge Oak goes speaking
as a special needs parents I am jealous i wish there was a Ridge Oak for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities that's what I want to see and and we can have years of meetings
about whose neighborhood is going to be impacted by having maybe 20 adults in a center with support staff that have access to shopping and jobs and churches and the things that any any person with
limited income and um transportation would have but that's the vision that I'm seeing i think that's the vision that um Mrs ac is seeing i don't want or care about what happened six months ago
or two months ago or what the timeline was or who reported to who that's not my problem not my interest i feel badly that you guys who are all trying to be public servants aren't in agreement but
enough move on there's a couple months left let's see what else we can do for these people that you all acknowledge need our help so please roll up your sleeves and think about that community and as far as the NIMI issue not in my
backyard this is New Jersey it's development nobody wants it in that backyard it's a risk we all take and we have to serve our communities but I get it nobody wants their backyard impacted so anyway um lastly is thank you thank
you for listening to all the criticism all the difficult discussions um and this is a selfish personal request but if any of you especially you Republicans have any relations with our congressman Tom Kaine who doesn't want
to meet with his constituents in person and have a in-person town hall please reach out to him and invite him to have one in our town because we've got a lot of really concerned parents especially those with disabled members in their family who would love to meet with him
face to case and talk about our concerns for this administration i know that's not your deal but maybe you're personally have connections with him and you could convince him um so that's it thank you so much for your time good evening my name is Jane Mitchell i
live at nine Prospect Avenue so I'm at the very top of everything that is happening at Ridge Oak i will say to you I'm a registered nurse i manage the spinal cord injury program at Kesler Institute i am also a board member of
Cheshure Home in Floren Park New Jersey many of you know that about a 35 bed unit that helps individuals that have physical challenges intellectual challenges so as a registered nurse longstanding public health nurse I
totally understand the need for housing i referred many of my patients actually aging paralysis patients to Rich Oak i'm on Prospect Avenue 35 years um when I moved in I had
two children under the age of four and when I saw the double yellow lines on Prospect Avenue my realtor said "Jane don't worry about that the double yellow lines were put in so you know the Ridge Oak residents know how to go back and
forth on which side of the road." I will confess to you I thought that was the silliest thing I ever heard because I watch you all ride past my house all the time i have gardens so I'm always outside gardening and I chat with you
all and what have you i don't think it's a instance of my neighborhood versus the Ridge Oak neighborhood i don't see it as that what I do see and I can make comments about some of my neighbors that
did speak tonight is the element of size and the element of how over the 35 years I've been on Prospect I've watched that community grow and grow and grow and grow and probably grow beyond the scope
of what it may have been intended for um I'm a member of St james Church i supported Bethl Ridge i have been involved in that as well and again I understand the need for affordable housing as a registered nurse as somebody that's been in public health
for a very long time and also managing a huge spinal cord program at Kesler Institute I have many patients whose life had changed on a drop of a dime so believe me I'm sympathetic and I understand but I believe in some of the
comments that have been made tonight that the scope of Ridge Oak and the size of Ridge Oak has just blossomed over the 35 years and yes I have to confess I watch people speeding by my house frequently i have a dog i walk my dog um
I see speeding cars in the morning i see speeding cars you know at night so there is support staff that have nothing to do with Ridge Oak drivers because many of you don't drive but it's the support
staff or other service type situations that cause this traffic to accelerate um or the multiplicity of the traffic has grown to support the great community
that this is but I have to agree with one of my neighbors both of my neighbors that talked about the scope and the size of Ridge Oak and how it's growing past what was intended so I ask that you think about that and all the neighbors
that are affected by that increase in size i'm not necessarily standing here saying "Well not in my backyard i don't want it." Has nothing to do with that it's just the scope of what was intended back in the day when Ridge Oak became
Ridge Oak and how it's just growing outside what it probably was originally intended you know to be but there is traffic there are a multitude of things that happen there are young children that live in my neighborhood you know
that are affected by speeding cars and it's not just that it's not the illumination it's not It's It's just the size of what is being thrown into a residential area mr snowki Snowski that
was speaking about his home be affected because he lives right there where that house is going to be torn down so I just ask that you think about the neighborhood and think about the scope and the size of what's intended and maybe work with the neighbors work with
Ridge Oak and see if a solution can be arrived at thank you for your time hi thank you um Bryaldi 80 East Lewis Street um so thanks for hearing us hearing us out um want to acknowledge
the Ridge Oak uh residents that spoke tonight clear that the community means a lot to many people here um that said I believe the plan as written clearly will cause significant disruption to our
neighborhood um 29 unit multif family building directly next to single family homes permits two-story structure on a relatively small parcel calls for a buffer of only 25 ft which is basically nothing obviously not sufficient uh and
the plan as written opens the door to traffic access um from local residents residential streets with no clear limitations um these are not minor details this is going to be a significant shift in our neighborhood um
traffic patterns density um and you know I think needs to be very carefully looked at every detail that's that's in the plan um clearly understand you know our communities need to meet affordable housing goals but also believe you know
we and and the community have the right to expect um these details in the planning to be considered um especially when you know our own planning board said that uh the ordinance isn't consistent with the master plan so um
appreciate the time and hearing us out thank you thank you libby West 35 Prospect Avenue um I'm not going to repeat all of my neighbors comments because they are all our story um I live right next to Mr shinowski
across the street so clearly yes I will see the building yes the light will come into my housing that's not really the issue that that struck me and the last few speakers have really honed in on it um 29 units is big in a neighborhood but
let's think about that the other side is really has told a tale that there's 500 something people on the waiting list 29 units has Ridgeel given any thought to a second location i saw there were options
that were listed in the paper as you mentioned Mr rod um perhaps that's the better answer where perhaps they could build a hundred of the similar units that are now wouldn't that be better that way that folks that need it would
be able to obtain I'm saying 500 people on a wait list and you're putting 29 units i think that's a failure of the board's effort there should be a larger plan there should be a plan for greater
it cannot be in a neighborhood there's just no room to go there's a twoacre lot that you want to wedge 29 in why aren't we looking for a bigger location where you can put in a second location of rejo then you'd have the
care that you were looking at you'd have your numbers i guess my biggest issue with that is the numbers why why are we focused on let's make sure that we get our 29 because that'll get us double credits and then we can get to our 198
why aren't we looking to solve a problem the problem is clearly we need senior affordable housing and we need special needs housing that's what should be the focus not wedging an apartment building into a neighborhood looking to solve a problem for the numbers that we need and
if there's a 500 person waiting list we better be looking at at least 20% of that for a 100red not 29 units thank you [Applause]
cynthia Stites um 34 prospect um a lot of what I have written here has already been said so I'm going to try and pick and choose and keep it short and sweet um but first I would like to make sure that everybody at Ridge Oak understands I have no issue with you being there
it's wonderful that you're there some of my most favorite people in the world were also seniors so where I live um I'm not going to skip this part because we talked about lighting um but I do want to mention that when we moved here 35 years ago Ridge Oak was there in some
form um along with a residence at 95 now that house sold to Ridge Oak because they couldn't get another buyer because it was so close to the Ridge Oak line if we allow this zoning change from residential to apartment complex what is to stop any neighboring properties from
selling to Ridge Oak as we go on we're going to get a domino effect steve's gonna want to sell then we're gonna want to sell and on and on it goes um so so where do where does this all stop how do you stop the creep um and I'd also like to point out since that house couldn't
sell um it's a reasonable assumption that we will all have that issue too um with that in our backyard I assume you know our property values will dip a little bit which of course you know property taxes then go down for us and go up for everybody
um sorry um uh I I we did talk about all the the traffic that we see and it's not like there's a steady flow of cars but there are a lot of cars and we talked about how the seniors only drive a few hours and it's only a couple of them and we've
also mentioned all the delivery people um but what about there's what 300 plus people there now they have visitors and families that comes to see them like that's who we're seeing you know going up and down all of our streets 247 it's
not just this little time period um so in summary uh I would just strongly urge you to vote against it there are other options um this is just 29 people as um Libby just said there's got to be a bigger place where you could put more people in that would be much more
effective that wouldn't be new development new building but could repurpose something that already exists thank you Jeff West 35 Prospect Avenue uh you know I want to echo uh about the uh density issue because I think that's
real within the neighborhood and as far as getting to um some alternatives you know Ridge Oak uh year end 2022 so that's two years ago had uh $20 million of I'll say cash and securities uh on
their books uh with uh free cash flow of about $4 million a year so if you figure it's two years since that uh happened um you know you had another $8 million four and four plus uh whatever the market
returns were for their securities portfolio which was about $18 million so you know they're probably uh sitting in a 501c3 that I think is designated to uh support affordable housing uh with uh
probably in the neighborhood of $30 million right now just guessing and so I would think the option of a second location would be very palatable because you know if you've got $30 million and the best you can do is 29 apartments I
think uh you know that's not going to put a dent in the balance sheet that they have sitting there or uh in the need for the affordable housing so I would hope that we could find a better solution that would uh address the needs
on a more broader basis and preserve the uh density of our neighborhood thank you [Applause] seeing no other public comment I'm going
to close public comment oh okay gota get up there sorry coming coming coming go ahead hi Moren Dazzo 15 Brandeise Court uh thank you again for letting us have the opportunity to speak um I am one of the Willough Farms that's
actually what our neighborhood is called from the old days our sign is kind of been misplaced for a long time i don't live right by the proposed building site um but I do have a lot of neighbors contacting me because I am on what we
call our board uh about what's happening to our neighborhood so I immediately got concerned when I saw the proposals coming up for talking about and introducing the ordinances one of them 2573 which would affect our neighborhood
so I did a little research talked to some people on the committee uh talked to town um neighbors just to find out you know how do I understand how this affects our neighborhood and how do I let our residents know um what's happening and um whether you're for or
against just get information out um again it's not anything about Ridge Oak it's a lovely community i had an adopted grandmother there for years that I volunteered for walk in the neighborhood all the time with my dog who no longer
exists but um I after the meeting that we had last month about the comments of the proposed building not being able to be seen I did a little drive around Ridge Oak with my camera my phone um
from the neighboring community or houses uh that would be affected by the remodeling or the tear down of the current neighborhood lot uh where you want to build the 29 units um and yes you can clearly see the house that already exists and you
will clearly see the two-story large 29 unit and the lit parking lot um so it does affect the neighborhood so I think that's the concern that everybody has here is we moved into a neighborhood and now the town is considering reszoning a
neighborhood lot to be an apartment building whether it's senior or whatever it's an apartment building in someone's backyard it's an apartment building in someone's sideyard it's an apartment building being seen from further away from those four or five or six or seven
homes that kind of surround that lot um so I think that's the main concern is that we are hoping that you as township committee members understand that you're dealing with a neighborhood lot that you want to change into an apartment building so it affects the people that
live right next to us it's not something like Westgate that is an office complex that doesn't have people in a neighborhood living next to proposed building sites or whatever you're deciding to do at that point so we are hoping that you would vote no on
ordinance 2573 and do your due diligence to look at all the other options to maximize our credits put those 29 units in another area that's not on top of neighborhood houses um and I know you're in a time
crunch but I'm I'm hoping that you will work together to look at all the options considering what you're hearing from the last two meetings or wherever to make where we are able to make public con uh comments and try to figure out what's
best for all of us um but keep in mind you are changing a residential lot into an apartment building and it affects people that live right near it um so we're hoping that you can find a way to look at some other opportunities uh to
put that senior housing and another uh one of those 10 other options so thank you very much thank you [Applause] i'll wait for your speech
please do uh Ed Girtz 60 Manchester Drive uh and I'm here to communicate my opposition to ordinance 2573 um and it reiterates what most of the other folks have said you are
putting a large if you approve this and you accept it you're putting a large twostory uh apartment complex on a property zone for one family house um and I just sort
of take you know again just to reiterate what every everyone says you know I see you guys you walk through my neighborhood I say hi all the time I I love seeing you um but it's just not the right place it's it's too big of a
facility and a small property um we you know traffic is an issue uh we we do have cars speeding through the neighborhood i'm not accusing any of the Ridge Oak although my mother is 92 and she drives fast but I'm not accusing any
of you with from with that but the reality is that we do have cars driving fast through the neighborhood we do have um you know visitors coming back and forth all day um and it affects our
quality of life it affects our safety the road the ridge the Manchester uh Manchester Drive has a little ridge before it goes down to Ridge Oak and so when you come off of that people are flying and and when I had small children
you know I actually put a fence in front of my uh in front of our property so our kids wouldn't accidentally go onto the road uh and there's some photos of that you know of that ridge uh my wife at the time we've been here 20some years and my
wife at the time she my my my current wife at that time at that time she she uh she petitioned the town to put in a crosswalk to make it safe
for the kids to cross and signage which you have pictures of because of that and now it's only going to get worse for us um and it will impact negatively impact the character of ne of our neighborhood yes it will impact negatively my
property value and our neighbors property value i just want to point out one more thing the the photo that I handed out is when you come out of Ridge Oak it kind of goes uphill and you get to this crest at the top of the hill where you can't see over it and our house is right over the crest so when we
first moved in I was literally a nervous wreck because my kids were playing in front of the house and I was so afraid they were going to get hit by a car with all the cars coming and going to to Ridge Oak and they do speed um so I had a a fence installed at the in front of
my property and I would keep it closed all the time i also called someone in the engineering department and for years I was trying to get them to put speed bumps in or something like that finally they did put a crosswalk and some signs saying pedestrian crossing which was very helpful i was very grateful for
that in the meantime I also want to point out that there also is a bus stop right at the crest of that hill where you cannot see over where you're coming and going and the children are not only waiting there sometimes in the dark in the morning but they're also crossing
back and forth to the bus stop in the dark in the morning and this is right when you leave Ridge come over that crest and you can't see on the other side and there's school children walking back and forth to the bus stop it's a very very dangerous intersection it's
the corner of Manchester and Juniper and I think it's extremely dangerous so I just I just wanted to point that out can you state your name and address oh I'm Barbara Girtz at 60 Manchester okay just so we have it all for the record thank you Barbara yeah so So you know we I
think we we spoke about the safety issues and the character of the neighborhood i mean when we had our we we've lived here for 20some years we our kids grew up here um we had a block party one time we used to have block parties on Manchester we'd close it down
and we'd have the neighborhood come out and we'd celebrate um you know in the fall and I remember one of the mayors came to our block party was a you know opportunity for them to meet people and my wife said you know we really could have should have a light here because
it's dark and the response was well we don't we're in Basking Ridge we don't want additional lights you know we want to maintain our community the way it is well this is not maintaining the community the way it is you're putting a large uh commercial operation
essentially with 50 parking spots on a on a an acre on a on a property zone for for one family so because of that and because it's going to affect a lot of people in our neighborhood um I hope you vote in opposition to the ordinance
thank you thank you okay I'm going to close public comment christie U uh mayor we would just need um a motion and a second and a roll call on this ordinance to have a motion i would note it's the amended ordinance
the amended ordinance i have a motion so moved can I have a second second discussion can have discussion before the before the vote jen would you like to go first sure first and foremost I need to set the
record straight about what is the 2024 plan and what is not what is being discussed today was not the 2024 plan despite what is said on the day the 2024 plan what we did is we collected
information and we did scenario planning we never had a meeting as a board of five people in executive session to discuss all of the options that should have taken place in January and there are
emails that substantiate that so January the 8th I sent an email to the township committee asking for us to have a discussion so we could share the learnings from the 2024 process so just to make this crystal clear this was not
the subcommittee's work of 2024 okay so going forward um on this particular ordinance Ridge Oak is an amazing facility
bonnie you run an you ran an amazing ship and the facility no one would know it's affordable it is a stunning property that is wellmaintained i share all of this because we also felt
in 2024 that senior housing was a priority for us and now comes the butt in 2023 there was an overlay zone that was put for age restricted housing at Westgate at
374 there could be 56 units if they were rental and 75 units if for sale so as much as I respect Bridge Oak and I know how valuable that each member
is we do need more senior housing for this process not only this ordinance and the ordinance following related to Westgate procedurally I have to vote no to reject because we need to
start over we need to negotiate better set aides to limit the number of families in our community that affects each and every resident not just those that live near any of these properties every person that pays property taxes
will be impacted so that's where I just want to respectfully share that um my the way I'm going to vote is not reflective negatively of your excellent establishment it is for procedural reasons why we need to do something else
thank you David affordable housing decisions are difficult there are a lot of moving parts to satisfy this mandate every action we take has a benefit and a
consequence it is not always seen or understood by the public i truly sympathize with all our residents especially those most impacted there's a development across the street from my house that changed my neighborhood
forever i get it it's not easy to accept but I have but you have my word I'll fight to ensure the impacts are minimized as possible i am confident that our planning board will do their best to address all concerns presented to them we have an
obligation to provide housing for aging seniors ridge Oak is one of the finest senior communities in the country it not only provides shelter for its residents but it also provides safety security dignity and community to its residents
thank you Anna sure um so a couple of things on this one is that I think one of you said and I really appreciated it that we have to stop figuring out who said what and what's the timeline and all of that the I've spoken to other
municipalities and the process with which we approached affordable housing here is different perhaps than other communities did in some communities the affordable housing subcommittee met frequently in executive session the full township committee and included members
of the planning board we didn't do that we moved into 2025 but this was the recommendation so I see it differently than my committee woman AC differently though we have to make a decision and we want to move forward in a timeline and that is the timeline that's mandated so
a couple of thoughts on this first of all thank you all for coming tonight um I agree with what the last gentleman and others said this isn't a issue that this side doesn't like Ridge Oak and this I didn't hear that at all what I heard are people concerned about the community and
the neighborhood and visibility and lighting and traffic and I heard the and heart and compassion of the people who are living at Rididge Oak that came across loud and clear um a couple of reasons I am going to vote in favor of this ordinance and I will tell you why first is the mission of Ridge Oak very
different from a Westgate overlay this is a mission-based nonprofit and includes among its objectives being committed to meeting the needs of the residents by providing quality affordable housing supplemented by an array of support services and programs that promote safety and
self-sufficiency ridge Oak provides an affordable housing within a caring environment and within close proximity to towns and parks as we heard during the public comment 28 to 30% of the residents are from Basking Ridge or have families here and another 30% who are on
the waiting list are also from this community as an example one resident sent us a correspondence today who she's lived in Bernard's Township for many years she raised her daughter and now her granddaughters are here and after surviving cancer she came to live at Ridge Oak different from an age
restricted housing unit in Mrs miller's experience um Sher who sent it to us early there's always been a helping hand available for her at ridge oak and this is poignant to me as I also have a mom living in town in independent living she's never lonely there are many
wonderful events on a daily basis and that matters and that is different than an overlay in the community there is a community at Rididge that's affordable and it's providing a haven for individuals who've lived here raised their families and now seek affordable housing in sunset years secondly is the
longtime place in this community like many of you who spoke tonight I've also lived here nearly 30 years and my husband moved here in 1969 so we have a long time in this community ridge Oak is approaching its 50th anniversary the first resident moved in 1977 and you
heard from Ridgeoke of the roots in the community from its founding in 1968 with the coming together of six places of worship to where we are today you heard from Bonnie Kelly of the many ways Rid Oak's evolved in the community and in the words of one another resident who
wrote to us Ridgeoke is a quiet low impact community and Bonnie Kelly is on site and responsive to issues that might come up and then lastly as shared is the alignment to meeting our affordable housing obligations bernards will receive 29 credits for housing along
with 29 bonus bonus credits which is significant toward our overall prospective need of 198 units in addition some residents have asked and we've confirmed with the county that the land across from Manchester that is county-owned there is a plan to connect
pathways from Lord Sterling Park to Ross Farm the area is not intended to build facilities such as the soccer field that was there many years ago in light of the significant opposition to this project I've recommended to Bonnie that um Kelly
that Rigjo continue to engage with the residents in the community invite them to view concept plans to address their concerns including things like traffic speed bumps lighting and visibility and that's something that Bonnie has said she is committed to do thank you
andrew thank you mayor um I want to thank everyone who spoke on this ordinance um people are very passionate about this whether for or against and there's a human dimension to this um which is important no matter which side
of the issue you're on you know we take those things in we understand them along with another whole host of concerns when we have to make decisions like this and I certainly don't discount whether it's on this project or any other projects um
the impacts that the neighborhood um will will will be facing uh once these new developments are constructed um we do have a mandate however and the
mandate doesn't go away if this body refuses to fill it if we were to refuse to exercise our judgment to fill the mandate we leave it to a judge to sort it all out in response to builder's remedy lawsuits the outcomes of which
are impossible to predict i believe that the responsible thing for this body to do is decide on an approach that develops as little as possible both in terms of overall units and numbers of sites
and a lot of affordable housing is fundamentally a numbers game and if our goal is to prevent overdevelopment my definition of that is to limit the aggregate number of units that will be built and limit the number
of sites that will be developed ridge Oak helps us achieve this because it affords us one for one affordable housing plus bonus credits approving alternative sites would result in 4:1
market rate versus affordable in the best case scenario while I'm mindful of the objections lodged by residents who live near Ridge Oak to authorize other projects in lie of Ridge Oak would lead to orders of magnitude more development
in aggregate somewhere in town with attendant impacts on schools roads and other infrastructure under any definition of overdevelopment given our mandate we would be embracing overdevelopment by rejecting
Ridge Oak therefore I intend to vote yes on this ordinance so I too want to thank everyone for coming out we we heard both sides and like I said before it's just it's a very hard decision for us we understand both sides but like Andrew
said and most of my colleagues this is a mandate and it is at the end of the day a numbers game less development means less development so this fulfills our obligation and in some way and I do believe that we we can work to buffer
this to make the make it not so difficult and that you can work with um with Bridge Oak so I just want you to know that's important that um you know it it's we've truly been invested in this and what is in the best interest so when we make these decisions it's what's
in the best interest as a whole for the community the whole community so uh rich I want to say Rich Oak represents exactly why affordable housing exists in the first place it was originally developed for the efforts of local churches that came together to create a
place where residents could afford to stay in our community versus move that spirit of community and care at the heart of what we're trying to uphold affordable housing we also have a responsibility to rem to meet our
affordable housing obligations rich Oak like everyone said before helps us do that in a meaningful way because it's 100% affordable housing each unit counts double towards our state requirement that means 25 new units is 55 units
making a significant impact on reducing our affordable housing obligations the numbers and homes to be built somewhere else ridge Oak eliminates the school children which reduces the impact of schools versus non senior development
but most importantly this development aligns with both the original mission of Ridge Oak and our town's border goal for affordable housing and I will be voting yes christy roll call miss AC no
miss Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried thank you so what we'll do now is so the motion carried for Ridge Oak the portion of the ordinance for the Ridge Oak is
has been finalized by the last vote so if you'd all like to go we're going to take a break and then come back to the the rest of the agenda [Applause] thank you for coming in thank you for coming in and speaking
thank you for coming [Music] it was just from a procedural perspective i wanted to put everything back on the table and renegotiate options so that was the reason why I'm a member of so I very much
appreciate and we need that little by little I mean it's very Like I said the other one really Hi good thanks for coming tell me your
name john was [Music] on the farmer has her You did a great job [Music] yeah I had to get away no no no i'm
still there no I won't be there i'll be there for you i'm going to do the big I walk for the [Music] grandmother i had to get it done
thank you i want you to just remember It's going toffect us if you need anything from us he'll do fine just keep them in line so what did they say
[Music] [Music] oh yeah i know right now we're facing that you know with my mom not that she's going to stay we want her to come home like god forbid yeah lie
down wait yes you did i was going to say to that one guy i love it [Music] 29 new friends [Laughter] thank you
[Music] where behind me get out really it's going to be effective May first 29 versus having a win [Music] restart [Music]
you all right [Music] in the hot [Music] Never thought a lot of credit welcome But I Yes i don't mind
that's what they're saying [Music] it's hard to do All [Music] right thank you all
right byebye see you in the future i'm ready you know what i'd like the party and then we're going to [Music] When we get to [Music] There are a lot of
We go to the great Yeah okay i'm going to get back to uh the meeting so Christie 2525-0213 authorizing pursuant to NJSA 40 col55D-62 the township committee reasons
for adopting ordinance 2573 an ordinance of the township of Bernard's county of Somerset Save New Jersey amending revising and supplementing the code of the township of Bernard's chapter 21 land development to create the SH-4 senior housing zone despite not
consistent with the township's 2023 master plan and I'm going to explain this from a procedural standpoint um when you adopt an ordinance that is inconsistent with the master plan under
section 62 you need to list in a resolution this is not an ordinance it's not a public hearing you need to list in a resolution the reasons for adopting the ordinance despite inconsistency with the master plan that resolution then has
to be recorded in the minutes by the clerk and so that's why we're we're doing this you have before you a a resolution uh listing reasons that you might consider having adopted the ordinance despite inconsistencies with
the master plan so this is the resolution and this requires three votes okay have a motion some move second discussion roll call miss AC no miss
Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tanry yes mayor Fields yes motion carried ordinance 2574 an ordinance of the township of Bernard's County of Somerset State of New Jersey authorizing vacation of Great
of Great Swamp Road and this is a public hearing and let me let me explain this one there is a what's known as a paper road that that crosses property it means it's a road that's that's never been built there was a request to vacate this road so that uh if the planning board
considers a site plan application by Ridge Oak the building could be uh positioned in a way that's further away from the the existing neighborhood uh this is not a a zoning ordinance this is an ordinance under title 40 not the municipal land use law so there's no
planning board report on this so this is simply um an ordinance that requires a public hearing and then a vote of three of five of you okay i open public comment and welcome comments anybody have comment on the road
just the road okay i close public comment comment can I have a motion so move second i think we're supposed to say some magic words here uh committee woman okay so
let's start that a move all right i move that ordinance 2574 be adopted yeah and it's advertised as required by law okay second second
roll call christie miss Acy yes miss Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried ordinance 2575
university an ordinance of the Township of Bernard's County of Somerset State of New Jersey amending revising and supplementing the code of the Township of Bernard's chapter 21 land development to replace the Westgate Village mixeduse senior overlay zone within the E-3 zone
with the Westgate Village mixeduse zone and this is a public hearing christie do we have a planning board report for ordinance 2575 yes it was received on March 18th 2025 all right so I'm going to provide legal
guidance on this ordinance as well the the planning board recommendations are are in the amended ordinance again both the original ordinance and the amended ordinance were posted on the agenda for the public last Friday i I consider
similar to Ridge Oak the amendments in this case which relate primarily to the uniform housing administrative code regulation language not to be substantive in nature and therefore if the board so desires it could consider and vote upon this ordinance tonight um
we're going to do the same thing i'm going to uh ask for one of you to make a motion that we consider the amended ordinance for the public hearing to consider the amended ordinance with the planning board recommendations for the public hearing again this is not a vote
on the ordinance itself only to consider the amended ordinance for a public hearing mayor I'll make that motion to uh for the TC to consider uh the amended ordinance second and then I have to open it up to
public hearing on that amendment or no just go to roll call okay roll call miss AC no miss Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr janet yes mayor Fields yes
motion carried okay so now you have the amended ordinance for consideration by the public and the public hearing should be open mayor say that again i'm sorry you need to open the the public hearing on the amended ordinance for comments from the public okay i'm going to open public
comment on the on the ordinance suzanne Glasman i live on Emerald Valley Lane in Basking Ridge i have seen multiple newspaper ads received multiple texts and seen banners all around town saying Bernard's Township Committee candidates are
against overdevelopment i am so tired of hearing candidates say they're against overdevelopment when these same candidates propose plans for sprawling complexes with five-story buildings and hotels if you vote for this Westgate
complex with three five-story buildings 70 foot high another twostory building and 150 room hotel have your party find something else for you to run on you don't understand what overdevelopment is bernard's Township residents really have
had enough i am also sick and tired of township committee people blaming Trenton for the overdevelopment the township committee has years to figure out affordable housing plans traffic patterns school impact infrastructure impact years to get input from residents
on possible sites the Bernardsville News listed multiple properties that could host some of the affordable housing obligations so it's not all concentrated in one spot where there could be less impact on one area but it always ends up with let's just shove it here and impact
be damned we elect you to look out for us as residents but the needs of the builder always seems to come first the Westgate builder is going to stuff his pockets on this plan while we as taxpaying residents get stuck with the
infrastructure bills how much will an expanded sewer system cost will residents have to subsidize or build new schools because of this do we need to expand roads to accommodate the extra 1,200 cars on our roads with houses
lining Liberty Corner Road can it even be expanded when I got notice of a proposed change in usage for Westgate which came in December with my Christmas cards it didn't include a site map showing the new buildings and hotel why not it was available maybe because
actually seeing the plan would lead to outrage and protest maybe the hope was that rather than getting residents involved in the process it would fly under the wire during the holiday season i thought the passage of Mountain View complex of the Mountain View complex was overdevelopment at its worst a
five-story building with 280 units but you managed to top that with the Westgate plan with three five-story buildings that have 574 units and a hotel less than a half a mile away 854 units on one side of town the residents
of Basking Ridge do not want the honor of having Somerset County's fifth largest building development with buildings that stand over 70 ft high and no buffers there's no buffers planned for this this needs to be voted down
rethought and mitigated this is the the residents should have been invited into the process earlier on vote for this and you forever lost the right to say you're against overdevelopment thank
[Applause] you anyone else um Ludas Geneo Cone 25 Emerald Valley Lane i actually thought it was kind of funny to sit here for the last hour because we saw people protest 29
units and you guys were sympathetic and they said "Well the twotory building is going to be in my backyard and it's going to ruin the character of my backyard." And one person even said "Well that Westgate doesn't matter because nobody lives over there people live over there we're your residents too there's lots of us over there." there
and it's very frustrating that we got 275 units at Mountain View and now 500 unit 575 units at Westgate and it's frustrating because it's like just shove it over there shove it over there when nobody sees it and the problem with that sort of thinking is like cram it all
into one spot is that people are going to live there your future residents are going to live there so it's like yeah I'm not going to anger people today but imagine 275 families tomorrow and around the corner another 27 I'm sorry 275 plus
575 over a thousand families impacted by your decision tonight so when you say let's put them all in one place that's not you said I'm sorry but I think I heard the less developments the better because that's your definition of overdevelopment is reducing the number
of sites i would say just the opposite think about the density they were talking about uh I think it was 1 to 14 units uh one acre for 14 units in the last at Oakidge here we're talking about 1 acre 19 units this is the greatest
density in Bernard's Township one to 19 that's overdevelopment there's no other definition of it suzanne did a great job breaking it down for you guys the number of floors the number of buildings all in 30 acres so I was you know I don't do this
for a living i'm a Spanish professor actually and I thought it was interesting when I went to the planning board and I heard this was not consistent with our plan and I made note of the fact why the person who is an expert in this thought it was not consistent with our land use most
notably the increased and permitted residential units that's your own expert said this is way too many units and then I know we do this thing we say oh if it's affordable housing it's okay we give it a pass so the pass the amendment
you guys just talked about said it's okay that it doesn't it's not consistent with our land use but it doesn't say that it's it's not it's okay because it's consistent with our master plan goals our master plan goals is more
affordable housing I 100% agree but it's not consistent with our land use i mean we heard people talk about the residential area well you know what we moved into an area we thought was going to be a farm area i'm from a farming community my husband is we like the
Ripley farm we like getting our apples at uh Anderson Farm we chose that neighborhood we knew we didn't have septic systems and we were told "Ah they can't develop this out because the water isn't there the septic's not there." So that is the character that you are
changing that land use was intended for big lots because the water and the the septic is the way I understood it when I moved there so I would argue it's not consistent with the land use and with your master plan it doesn't all have to
be in one place i know we're under a time frame because you always do this and there's I I call it the boogeyman the you know builder's remedy oh no you know I can't think of anything worse than over 500 units in 30 acres that's like I don't know put your three 30 of
your neighbors and then cram in 500 families right in there so I say to you vote no i like the idea let's wait let's talk i don't know what happened in January i don't care about what happened in January i just know we can come again
and do this right thank you thank you [Applause] john Coello 22 Benedict two township committee members and many members of the public here have actively promoted the concept of joining the Highlands online for the last several
weeks in fact this was not even a possibility i've heard the apology from a township member and I appreciate that and I hope others will also who have done this who are not here anymore will do their homework before actively promoting something that's not possible
as a former resident of Harding Township I can confirm the Highlands Council is highly restrictive with designation of its own township resource which is extremely expensive to interact with Trenton we all know how difficult and bureaucratic Trenton can be i think we
can all agree on that some other points Harding Township's unique because it has no high school and they pay other towns to take on their high school students they also pay some towns to take on their affordable housing obligations sometimes
and their experience with the Highlands is highly restrictive and constrained to make even the most minor changes on their farms back to Bernard Township how does this apply to us well I've heard some people here in prior meetings say it's going to impact the schools with
the project we're talking about at Westgate let's take a look back back in 2015 the school population was about 5,700 5,700 as of this year 2025 it is approximately
4500 4,500 so the count has actually declined by almost over a,000 students my understanding of the project sitting on the environmental commission today thank you and with experience on the planning
board that there is a max of not more than 100 students perhaps even less so understanding what you're trying to do I think you're concentrating the development in one area which I think is wise and let the planning board work
through the details of how to make it uh more palatable if you talk to Montlair if you talk to Burnersville it's the same old story everywhere everyone's facing the same builder's remedy and perhaps the best way to tackle this
statewide threat of builder's remedy for affordable housing is to vote out the state majority that enforces it everywhere thank you thank you Bob Glassman Emerald Valley Lane first of all I'd like to thank uh Jen Acy for
her comments earlier and for taking the time to meet with residents to explore some of the alternatives and to express her concerns with the Westgate project and as I usually do at home I agree with everything Suzanne Glassman had to say earlier basically the Westgate proposal
is a classic example of rampant overdevelopment i truly hope that you can reject and amend this plan so uh to save the quality of life in town and avoid the millions of dollars in costs for the infrastructure that will be
needed and as has been said before please do not use the builder's remedy for affordable housing which multiplies our needed amount of units by five uh to get us up to the number of 575 with these five-story buildings so instead of
letting the developers dictate the solution please let the residents of Basking Ridge decide what is in our best interest thank you thank you anyone else going to close public comment
roll call christie right oh can I have a motion right John yes you need a motion motion i move that the amended ordinance 2575 having been reviewed by the planning
board on March 18th 2025 be adopted and advertised as required by law second discussion Jen sure so um Mr qua I want to me I wanted to address the point that you brought up um since you brought up Highlands you're
absolutely correct i think we were all very disappointed to learn that um while we thought we were working in good faith on an option that was at our availability um when we actually looked into the emails and and such back in
March of 2024 um you know those requests were made so um none of us are experts on any of this and so we rely on our professionals and so I would have hoped that our planning experts and our attorneys would have properly informed
us that Highland's conformance was not an option unfortunately that's not what was conveyed to us at the subcommittee it was absolutely conveyed that it was an option and that's why we proceeded in June to go forth and put in a request
for a grant to an initial assessment so please understand I also want to apologize that if I misled anyone I was doing what our professionals said was possible it wasn't until after the fact after the vote actually we learned from
our attorney that it was not an option so for that I apologize um this whole process if I can just be completely transparent with each and every one of you has been nothing more than what I consider an independent study project so any of us that have been in college and
have had to do work on themselves um that's what this has been um but because I care about the town and I plan on living here with my children I will do the work and I will do the investigation and that's why I am voting as I am so about Westgate
Westgate under no circumstance could I ever imagine that we would ever consider putting in 574 units i've already expressed the damage that this will do to our community in terms of our school system our school
system which is why probably over 90% of people even move to our community is for that right and just for fun numbers um because of such a poor negotiation you are allowing too many families into so again this is a numbers
game and I don't want to cause people to gloss over but the law requires 50% of your obligation to be families 50% of 198 that's 99 99 families are all that is required affordable housing families
to be in our community that is the law that we must achieve and we can there are options that none of us reviewed as a group and discussed that like just for illustration through two other projects
perhaps we could put in families let's just say 400 okay 400 families versus 574 that delta of 174 that extra 107 it's not the affordable housing families that we're worried about it's because of
the 20% set aside that you have to allow all the other people in right the 80% that that you have to take all of that that $174 times the $27,000 per student it's about $5 million roughly is our board of ed ready to take
on that expense because guess what guys 66% of our property taxes goes to the board of ed 66% of our property taxes go to the board of ed and just for numeric right I have two children in the school system
my property taxes are a certain amount right but that property tax that I I pay to the town only 66% of it goes to to the to the board of ed right um you would need essentially a $3 million house to be able to sustain
without the town going under for you know keeping up the the payment of uh educating those students so I'm just saying that financially and that's what is driving me right financially this is a bad idea and this will forever forever
damage our community we haven't even absorbed round three mountain View which is two ten of a mile entrance from what this Westgate is 280 families are going to go in there okay
for any of you that ever try to drive over to Mountain Park right now at any time you can't even get over there now what's going to happen when you have 280 families at Mountain View which is coming and those students are going
where they're going to Liberty Corner liberty Corner is already over capacity and it's going to go even farther over okay so now we're going to add 574 these are families how many cars you're never going to get around there
so has the developer has anything been negotiated from the developer to redesign our intersections and that that part of that county road how about the sewer unfortunately I'm on septic so I don't I'm not going to pay into that but for those of you all with sewer you
might have an issue right they may have to expand because you got another I don't know over a thousand people is it reasonable to think that there might be an extra thousand people our residents right now our total is 28,000 residents right so we're going to add an extra
thousand that is overdevelopment and just because you think that you're placing them in local areas you're not looking at financially what it's going to devastate to our bottom line uh for all of our residents so that's why I unequivocally beg to reject this
ordinance we have to do better we can do better there are options in third round for God's sake they negotiated a better percentage and they had way less options we have over 10 why did why are we not using any of that leverage but just jamming this one down we can do better
we have to do better and anybody that votes for this they should rename this complex to reflect those that vote for it so therefore everyone can forever be acknowledged as to who supported this terrible decision thank you mayor i need
to clarify a legal issue so the public is not misled if I may please enlighten us after the last meeting on March 11th there were issues one as to whether we
had time by the end of June to conform with Highlands i was asked to investigate that um there was also an issue that I raised with Joshua Bowers who's the attorney for fair share
housing center and who has the right on behalf of that organization to review our housing element and fair share plan and I also discussed with Mr bowers whether at this late date a Highlands adjustment was possible if we were even
to get into the Highlands and what I informed this committee in writing was that Fairshare Housing Center was taking the position under the law enacted in March of 2024 under section 304 that if you were
not on the list that Highlands provided to DCA they would challenge any town that attempted to take that adjustment and that is their position i in no event indicated wholeheartedly that I agreed
with Mr bower's legal position only that it was a consideration for this body to take into account should under such a short period of time they attempt to take a Highlands adjustment so my
advice was not necessarily that I agreed with Mr hours or that I should have given legal advice last year that it was not possible to take a Highlands adjustment because that's not crystal clear i advocated and indicated the position of Fairshare Housing Center and
advised this committee of the risk so in no shape or form was either I or Kendra Lely as the professional planner negligent in giving advice about the Highlands last year i want to clarify that for the members of the public and I think everyone that received my attorney
client privilege memorandum can vouch that that's what I said yes thank you David yes um during my many years of service on the zoning board of adjustment um I have been opponent of
overdevelopment i voted against the Allen Road light manufacturing project and other proposals that were not consistent with the character of our community as a longtime resident husband father and local business owner it pains me deeply that we find ourselves in this
situation unfortunately I do not see any alternative that will result in less development to the Westgate project this regrettable situation will find ourselves as a direct result of the state's affordable housing process to which we were held hostage townships are
forced under court mandates Governor Murphy's administration and the legislation is threatened to guess under time pressure at the number they will be required to build while facing litigation from Fair Share Housing and the New Jersey Builders Association i believe every township should have an
affordable housing element in their master plan to provide housing for low-income families the elderly adults with disabilities single parents and young people starting their careers however this number should not be est should be established by local officials
not Trenton bureaucrats thank you Anna thank you Mayor so this is a very different ordinance than the RIO ordinance which to my felt was a mission based ordinance talking about how we need 100% affordable housing this one
feels that we are swallowing the bitter pill and where the perspective of overdevelopment is very relevant and I know that earlier say in public comment well it doesn't matter it's tucked away it does matter and as these residents have said it is their residence it's their community so a couple of things
that reflect my vote and I am going to vote in favor of this ordinance in December 2023 ordinance 2023 2541 was approved unanimously by the township committee creating an overlay of 374 units of
senior housing the ordinance included a maximum number of multif family dwelling units 374 and a maximum number of hotel or extended state hotel guests of 150 if we adopt Westgate the new overlay changes from senior housing age
restricted to multif family units the office building would be redeveloped into family units as would the existing parking garage and as Mr said "If we adopt Westgate along with the adoption of Bridge Oak and our house we will meet our affordable housing
obligations if we don't adopt Westgate we would consider different scenarios our township attorney John Bolardo described these projects at our March 11th meeting and you may have also read about them in the Burnsville News i wanted to better understand the impact of these projects and met with our
township planner with a member of planning board with members of the board of education in one scenario we would select two other projects and that would change the total units that we would have to create from 604 to 855 units one
project the current Mitsubishi corporate site on Manary Road and this is within a corporate center it would potentially go the current building of 88,000 square ft to about 276,000 square feet would be one story
higher four stories versus the existing threetory building there another potential location which would help us get toward our obligation is 131 Morristown Road this is less commercial more residential there are about 34 acres there and potentially we could see
the development of 24 of those 34 acres and most likely town halls here there is no current traffic light it would more likely lead to traffic congestions i reviewed a few of the concerns that have been brought up and in particular want to address the issue of children and
schools u to that extent using analytics that were provided from a current demographic report if you use the statistics there the current Westgate with 574 family units would potentially add about 213 children to
the school system the other two projects not including a Westgate that I mentioned would be about 167 additional children this is an increase of 46 students with the Westgate project over the other two projects and a difference
of 251 units if we along with the other projects versus 64 it's also my understanding that the demographers had predicted a continued reduction in school age children as we heard in the earlier co in the earlier
comment and then co occurred that has changed when how and where we work suddenly families could consider a Bernard's township as a place to live whereas before in light of commuting requirements they couldn't to that end Bernard's Township has the fifth most
attractive real estate market and no doubt part of that is because of our schools affordable housing has created an inflection point on how new students and school overcrowding may impact us as does the changes in work life strategies
so we have to continue to do what we can to determine what will make work best for our community i voted yes for Westgate and Rich it gives us the strongest toward meeting affordable housing obligations again creating fewer
building and units going forward I would like to do my part to make our township committee proactive on how to look at our future whether being open and willing to have a thoughtful consideration of the Highlands Council look at our affordable housing trust fund and see if there are opportunities
for special needs housing and exploring ways be it sidewalks or pathways or bike lanes that continue to connect our to existing resources and facilities and to continue to be transparent with you our residents thank you Mayor thank you
Andrew thank you Mayor um I want to echo some of the things that you know David and Anna had said um certainly the Westgate development uh is more troublesome uh both in its size and
scope uh its impacts on uh um our infrastructure our schools our roads etc all of which concern me a great deal um the essence of the affordable housing
mandate is to bust through things like our master plan our zoning laws things that I wish we could preserve and adhere to but the point unfortunately of this
mandate is to remove local control from the hands of your local elected officials and require us to figure out a way to meet a number that's delivered to us by Trenton i don't like it i don't
believe that it works uh as I've said before we have had an affordable housing mandate in one form or another for 50 years in this state and today afford housing is less affordable than it's ever been so I submit to you that it's
not having its intended impact yet here we are in 2025 50 years after the first Mount Laurel decision still having to grapple with these issues and grapple we must because people can say um you know oh
there's some other way and stuff like that and and and certainly there are and let me explain to you assuming and and echoing what uh my colleague committeewoman uh Dwarte McCarthy had said assuming you don't you do ridge oak
um and you don't do westgate the next best option after that results in about 251 more units than what is on offer
right now so I am interested in reducing the impacts on our roads our schools our overall population our infrastructure having few sites uh but importantly as few units as we possibly can and this
project that we're we're approving in Westgate helps us to accomplish this and while I don't wish to dwell on the procedural aspects of this Westgate and Ridge Oak were presented to the rest of this body in
January of 2025 by the affordable housing subcommittee that was led by committee woman AC when she was mayor here's a document i'll show it to everyone that is not my document that was a document given to you by someone
else so do not lie Andrew i will absolutely call you out you can call me out all you want there is no email where I am saying that that is a definite plan you and you alone have blessed this plan i have nothing to do with it then I
don't know what you were doing leading the affordable housing subcommittee throughout 2024 the point is is that this was not this this approach was presented to the rest of us and you can ask anyone up here dave wasn't here at the time but you can
ask the rest of us this is the right approach this is the only approach that makes sense which is why it was presented to us beginning back in January so mayor I intend to vote yes uh on the Westgate ordinances notwithstanding my serious misgivings
thank you so I'm going to make this short so the proposal we do have I'm going to second what he said this proposal that we have here for the affordable housing was given to us from the committee that worked on this for a whole year and this is what they
presented to us westgate to change over to family and ridge Oak so with that saying we did do better because we've got we got the proposal after they worked on it for a whole year and this is what they recommended was the best
option so Westgate uh project so which most people don't understand so I wrote something out but I'll kind of just I'll just explain it to you so I think some people are under the pressure if we don't do Westgate tonight we're not doing it at all so Westgate project is
moving forward regardless with 374 residential units senior units 230,000 square ft of office building and a hotel so that's definitely getting done no matter what even with the ordinance change the
overall footprint remains the same so if we change this to family units everything is exactly the same the actual footprints the thing that changes is the office building changes it's structures the same changes over to apartments and the garage deck which is
already there same height same everything same look gets changed to more units but once you get rid of the office building you re reduce the uh parking spaces and you also change the
traffic pattern so if you look on our master plan and surveys that we've taken when you lessen the parking spaces and you change from commercial to res residential that changes the traffic it goes down so we're moving it down 400 so
if you say okay well if what if we keep everything the same right so we keep the senior unit as senior units and we don't change it to family units we still are building 374 units at Westgate and in
addition to that we have to build two more developments two more complexes in the town one will be 250 and one will be 200 and that's going to be in somebody else's neighborhood and that's over a development so if you can develop in one area that's going to be developed anyway
you might as well have it at one place instead of now three developments Westgate and two more developments to me that's overdevelopment when you're building throughout the whole town and we don't have to do that with that changeover today so I just want everyone
to understand what the difference is with that and I believe that Westgate offers us the least impact in our community like I said it's one development versus three developments in town three developments with fewer units
and less traffic and making it a most reasonable option for all of us so that's why I'm voting yes can I have a motion i mean can I have a roll call Christie miss AC no
miss Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried resolution 2025-0214 authorizing adoption of ordinance 2575 an ordinance of the
township of Bernards County of Somerset State of New Jersey amending revising and supplementing the code of the Township of Bernard's chapter 21 land development to replace the Westgate Village mixeduse senior overlay zone within the E3 zone with the Westgate
Village mixeduse zone pursuant to NJSA 405D-62 despite the planning board finding it not consistent with the 2023 master plan uh again this is what we did on Ridge Oak there was a report from the planning board that indicated this ordinance was not inconsistent with the
master plan so under section 62 of the municipal land use law uh we need a resolution explaining why this ordinance was adopted despite the inconsistencies this is a resolution not a public hearing it requires three votes
may I have a motion so move second discussion roll call christie Miss Acy no miss Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion
carried ordinance 2576 an ordinance to amend the revised general ordinances of the township of Bernard's chapter 12 building and housing section 1-3 constru construction fee schedule and this is a public hearing i open the public hearing and welcome comments
seeing none I'm going to close public hearing may I have a motion mayor I move that ordinance number 2576 be adopted and advertised as required by law second roll call any discussion roll call missy
yes miss Tarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried ordinance 2577 accepting a repairarian zone conservation easement including the termination of an existing stream buffer conservation easement on
property located at 28 Castle Way block 3302 lot 12 from Jeffrey L adler and Adrienne Adler to the Township Bernards and this is the public hearing i open the public hearing and welcome comments seeing none I close may I have
a motion i move that ordinance 2577 be adopted and advertised as required by law second roll call university miss Acy yes miss Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion
carried ordinance 2578 an ordinance of the township of Bernard's appropriating $1,345,000 for various capital improvements and this is a public hearing i open public comments and
welcome seeing no public comments I close it may I have a motion okay go ahead i don't have to i move that order how about you Dave adopted and advertised as required by
law i'll second it though discussion roll call christie Miss Acy yes miss Dwarte McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried new business 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 and will be enacted by one motion of the township committee with no separate discussion if separate discussion is required the item may be removed from the agenda by the
township committee action and placed on the regular agenda under new business would anybody like anything pulled seeing none can I have a motion so move second discussion roll call christie Miss Acy yes miss Dwarte
McCarthy yes mr mcn yes mr tani yes mayor Fields yes motion carried resolution 2025-0210 or am I on the wrong thing no uh next will be township committee appointment oh I'm sorry i did that one we Oh okay
it was continued sorry about that um Amanda Hughes regular member filling the vacant unexpired three-year term on the pool commission expiring December 31st 2027 is this one that it's being moved up yes okay just so everyone knows this isn't a new appointment she's just
moving up from an alternate to a regular member correct correct and Dave's aware of that okay may I have a motion so move second all in favor i i thank you caitlyn Anise alternate one filling the unexpired one-year term of Amanda Hughes
on the pool commission expiring December 31st 2025 can I have a motion second all in favor i approval of minutes March 25th 2025 open session minutes and March 25th 2025 close
session minutes i'll move the minutes second roll call all in favor i'm sorry i can do all favor right yes you can okay all in favor i I thank you executive session none this evening mayor