[Music] adequate notice of the April 10th 2025 regular meeting of the township committee has been provided in accordance with the open public meetings act by posting written notice and agenda of the meeting on the bulletin board in municipal building 1000 route 10
township of Hannover and by hand delivering mailing or faxing such notice to the following newspapers mars County Daily Record the store ledger Hannib Eagle and by following the scene with the township clerk okay roll call committeeman Cahill here
committeeman Baramasa here committeeman Barioli here committee Mahalo here mayor Gallagher here five members in attendance okay if you would please join us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge of allegiance to the
flag of the United States of America one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you sorry i'm sorry a million times you should know my heart
[Music] good evening everyone tonight on the agenda we have the approval of the township committee meeting minutes of March 13th and March 27th may I please have a motion to approve the meeting minutes second
all in favor i so approved next order of business is the public hearing and adoption of ordinance number 7-2025 and 8-2025 i will conduct the public hearings separately ordinance
7-2025 proof of publication that ordinance 7 and the notice of introduction appeared in full in the March 19th issue of the daily record at this time may I have a motion to convene the public hearing on ordinance number 7-2025
so moved second is there anyone in chambers wishing to be heard concerning ordinance 7 2025 if so please state your name and address for the record hearing none seeing none may I have a motion to close the public hearing on
ordinance 7 move second now an adoption may I have a motion to adopt ordinance 7-2025 so moved second on roll call commandment Cahill hi committas hi committ Franci hi
committeeman Mahalo yes and Mayor Gallagher i so adopted next is the public hearing of ordinance 8-2025 i'd like to state for the record that ordinance 8-2025 is a land use ordinance
and this ordinance was sent to the Mars County Planning and Preservation Office as required by the municipal land use law in addition the law also required the municipal municipality to submit the ordinance to the five contiguous municipalities and also to the residents
within 200 ft of the proposed regulations i'd also like to state for the record that this ordinance was sent to the planning board for referral and review and at the planning board meeting of March 25th 2025 the planning board
reviewed and discussed ordinance 8-2025 which proposes to change two township owned lots on Mountain Avenue from the existing public use zone to the R10 resident zone and in the letter dated March 25th 2025 from Peter
Deneagris the chairman of the planning board it was stated that the planning board determined that ordinance 8-2025 is not consistent with the master plan since the master plan recommends the existing PU zone for these two
properties despite these inconsistencies the planning board recommended the adoption of ordinance 8-2025 giving the following reasons one group homes are not permitted principal use in the PU zone district but are permitted uses in the
residential zone district two one of the lots is already developed with a group home and the township has entered into a lease agreement for another group home on the second lot three this change would make the existing home and the pro
proposed home consistent with the zoning of the property and four the adjacent properties on Mountain Avenue are currently in the R10 zone so a change to the R10 zone for these two lots would be consistent with the existing zone on the
street mayor would you like to make any comments yes I would i would like to take a few minutes and just discuss some conditions we put forth if we move ahead with this zone change to residential and
these comments are based on conversations with residents and these were put forth to direct I mean to uh the ORC of Morris as conditions for this approval to even be considered and um I'll just go through them
quickly to refrain uh in the project refrain in perpetuity from utilizing Spruce Street for any ingress or egress purposes period spruce Street will not be in access to this
dwelling the realigned walking path must be fully completed prior to construction of this project hover Township spent a lot of time on Safe Routes to schools i was asked if they're going to dismantle this walking path which is
used every day the walking path will be changed but the new path will be completed prior to any construction and that is one of our conditions there was also concerns about
the trees to the fullest extent possible the project if it is adopted will avoid the failing felling of any existing mature healthy trees situated on the subject property the determination as to
what constitutes a mature healthy tree shall be made by the township arborist full inspection of the subject property with the township bars Ron Fancioli and myself which inspection shall take place
this coming Tuesday the 25th uh April 15th that's one day right there uh 2025 in the event that any mature healthy tree must be felled they should be replaced by a tree of 6in caliber or
bigger of a native species of New Jersey we also have the option after at full inspection to move the dwelling to preserve the live trees and the live mature healthy trees the township's amendment of the township
zoning map in order to allow for the development of a group home at the subject property will be approved only on the basis that a group home will be operated by Ark of Mars andor the agents of the Ark Mars pursuant to the township's
lease agreement with Ark Mars and this will not this will not be approved and this if this group home shall be attempting to transfer this at any time to any other operator so we've
had concerns about approving this group home for one thing and changing it to another that is not going to happen that was put forth as a demand and that was agreed to upon Ark Mars so I would like to also make it very very clear that is
not going to happen this project will also include a very nice decorative picket fence around it to blend into the neighborhood keep people safely away
from the property and also keep people from leaving the property but with this type of dwelling people aren't going to be leaving the property whether we'd be decorative and we also had concerns about having this protected a little bit and the last concern before we I'm going
to ask John to take the floor with um a planning perspective is I was asked about the proximity to the school and the fact that it goes right up to the playground it's actually further away from the school than the current ark home there
was a rendering that went out on Friday that was inaccurate and we all were shown that rendering i found out today where that rendering came from that is not an accurate rendering and I apologize for the confusion but it was a very hard couple days for us to try to
defend an inaccurate rendering we have the accurate rendering here tonight we're also going to show you where the current walking path is and where the new walking path is going to be and again that will be completed prior to any construction begins on the home
john's going to get in john Thermas is also going to get in to and this hasn't been as much of a focus but there is one more benefit too as it relates to the fair share housing program in New Jersey but I'm going to have John take that
john if you could just take a minute and uh address from a planning perspective where we are with this with this home sure uh I'm going to speak to uh affordable housing how affordable housing works how group homes fit within affordable housing and then I'll
complete with how and why did the township recommend the site that we're all here talking about tonight so that that's the goal uh number one Handover similar to every other municipality in the state of New Jersey has an obligation for affordable housing uh
we're now in our fourth round of affordable housing in the state and simply put for every one affordable unit that is built there's typically four market rate units that come along with
it so one winds up being five units okay uh handover must comply it is not optional or we face uh penalties from the state risking local planning which is a a significant issue
handover reviews every single unit that is part of our quota and we do it in a manner that's consistent with how are we going to serve our community how are we going to serve this community from a police how are we going to serve from a fire how are we going to serve from an
EMS from an infrastructure as well as we keep the board of education well apprised one of the strategies that we've had in our toolkit is to evaluate the use of what we would call intellectually challenged special
needs um group homes since 2023 think of this fact over almost 10 million people in the state of New Jersey that's the population and of that almost 10% are known and classified
under a special needs assignment the state list of those seeking a group home now is well over 4,000 and the wait can be as long as 10 years for an opening isn special needs housing
intellectually special needs housing is a win-win initiative why is it a win-win well it's a win-win for probably the most deserving group if we think about this whole concept of affordable housing who is in the greatest need for
affordable housing it's those who are intellectually special needs we have 11 group homes within Hanover Township and they're located each one of those groups homes are located in a residential district de's homes have had a positive
history with this town uh there's been little or no reported impact to this community from the group homes and the the gift that's being provided by this community is providing a quality life
for individuals that are going to be living in a an affordable setting that is well managed for them so the care component is huge think about these two options if handover were to take one or the other
option think about the impact of density here's option A you build a group home that has six bedrooms for what we would call acute care what's the impact to the town if that happens the impact to the town is
that the town would get six units plus an additional six units of credit which they would call in affordable housing language bonus credits so those six would provide us with credits for 12 that's one option we'll call it A
option B is another way to deliver against those individual units so if we wanted to get 12 housing unit credits and developer B builds 12 affordable units using their preferred methodology
called builder's remedy the township gets 60 units so on one hand we're looking at six bedrooms 12 credits on the other hand we're looking at 12
units a total of 60 so there's a significant impact to the municipality to build out another 60 units how why did you know Mountain Avenue come into even the
the thought process for this township went through a rigorous process with this as we do which each and every round every specific property that's considered for affordable housing is deliberated
upon evaluated checked into by the township committee and we work with our legal adviserss to determine what is the best scenario as a result of our experience with groups homes which has been very
positive this fourth round that we're looking at now the township committee decided that what we wanted to do was we wanted to evaluate properties within our municipality for locating potentially a group
home we looked at four different properties we looked at potential acquisition of additional property to accommodate the group home no avail no opportunity to do it we
looked at PU zone lands that means public own property not park land not board of end land public owned property controlled by the municipality more more land dedicated to what they
would call the the Rosi land that cannot be touched of the four locations that we analyzed Mountain Avenue was determined the only one that was suitable for a group home why is
that number one the town owns the land number two it's developable land because many of the lands that we were looking at couldn't support because they were wetlands we look at access to
infrastructure we looked at the location the location is desirable in that it's an end of a block it's not in the middle of a block we also in our analysis looked at the fact that there's an existing group
home we checked into the experience of records about that group home there were no issues there have been zero issues associated with that group home we also communicated with the board of ed we asked the board of ed their perspective on this there was no
objection from the board of ed on this the additional considerations that from a planning standpoint that normally we'd have to go into what's called a site plan discussion where we have additional meetings and they give their
presentations the mayor shared with you already that Ark of Mars has agreed to these things no access to spruce sheet spr sheets uh Spruce Street say that three times fast the placement location
of the building the town will have great influence as to where it's going to go on that property because we want to preserve trees as much as possible and and if we need to do replacement we're going to replace with mature
trees we will have influence as to the location of the driveway fencing will be provided we will improve the school walkway path with a fence the development costs are to be borne by the management company of the group home
which is Ark Morris there will be a contribution from the town's affordable housing fund not the township's municipality operating fund not your tax money but money that that is raised against
affordable housing so from a taxpayer stamp taxpayer standpoint there will be no out-ofpocket costs associated with this and last element and importantly is control the mayor spoke about a long-term lease ark Mars the
operator if they sign the lease with us will be signing for a lease that would be three 35-year leases so the risk of this turning over into something else is
not possible with three back-to back leases each one of 35 years john thank you very much so before we open up to the floor I appreciate all the time that everybody took discussing
this with us i hope some of these these answers answered some of your questions i know it's pretty interesting and kind of funny in 2025 to ask you to trust your elected officials but what's good about this too is that we own this
property we're leasing this property to an incredible agency that we have a very very long history with and I just want to be very very clear these were put forth as conditions for us to even consider the
approval these aren't optional we know these areas brian Cahill and I created school and park traffic safety 11 and a half years ago we know these areas we respect the walking path we respect Spruce we are going to be on this it's
our property and we also talked about the option of putting a fence along the school property for even more protection of even a ball going into the woods or a ball going into the existing property so my line before anybody takes the floor
is we're Hannover Township residents representing Hannover Township this isn't our neighborhood against your neighborhood this is what we believe is a very good option for what it could be one day and that being said can I have a
motion open to open the second second all in favor i if anyone would like to address the governing body please step up to the podium state your name address and you have four minutes thank you good evening my name is Mary Pool i live
at 56 Mountain Avenue that's my street uh we already have a group home and the people there are really nice they walk by my house at night they're nice people we have zero issue with a group home and we have one on our street how many of you have a group home on your street can
we show a show of hands how many committeemen have a group home on your street yeah I thought so you did your work you think and you're okay with it we're not we live on Mount A we love our
street we like our group home at the end and we were here just a little while ago complaining about all the traffic on our road so thanks for the speed bumps but now you're adding more traffic i don't know what you think you're doing mountain A we're done we like our little
woods at the end we like our group home we like our park we like the school we like our street we like our neighbors please stop give us a break on Mountain A maybe your stream would be nice save a tree
this criminal hi my name is Laura Cotch i've been a resident of Hanover Township for 46 [Music] years um I'm a speech language pathologist who has worked for several decades with children and adults with
intellectual and developmental disabilities and I currently work with people with disabilities each day and I'm proud to say that I do so i'm requesting that this land on Mountain A remain classified as public use and that
it not be transferred to a residential zone i'm requesting that this project be moved to another location and that we can get our housing credits for handover but somewhere else handover currently has five group homes through the Ark of
Mars County the mark of the ark of Mars County has 23 group homes total that means that in Mars County which has 39 m municipalities handover alone has 22% of the group homes of the Ark of Mars
County and that is just one part of our inclusionary housing in handover lot 95 or 905 as this is called is much more than a lot it is a beautiful wooded area at the top of Mount A and the bottom of
Spruce Street it is a highly visible gorgeous gateway to Mount View Road School the community playgrounds sports field and it's a special place to recreate and unwind in fact it is precisely because of this land's location and its high importance to the
people of Hanover that it was originally classified as public use to begin with this area of town has been protected as public use for many generations now it was where I was inspired as a child walking to school it is where my
children walked to school and is where it is where I still walk and find inspiration and solace as I see today's children each day walking to school and enjoying the same privilege that I had two paths run through the lot at 9:05
one on the north side and one on the east side these paths have served Sedan Nolles for over 50 years now and they are always beautifully cared for by our town they serve to link three separate neighborhoods and as you noted they
receive daily use these paths are more than just paths they are part of our Hanover Township trail system this area is also a corridor a green corridor for wildlife this short-sighted proposed action is in congruent with the town's
open space and recreation plan which was updated in 2023 and reaffirmed commitments to the following connecting land for wildlife and people protecting and adding green corridors expanding bicycle and trail systems supporting
history and culture of the town's landscape at a time when green spaces are ever more threatened and the knowledge of the benefits of green spaces have never been greater we should be proud in Hanover of the green spaces that the town has thoughtfully
established for parks and for public public use land we have a beautiful forested public use land in the mountain Mount View Woods the work is done for us now all we need to do is to keep it thank you
anyone else look at that beautiful sight that's nature hello my name is Margaret Carrison i live at 89 Summit Avenue in Cedar Nolles uh and I h am a resident of
Handover Township since 1977 that's 48 years ago the town has been very good to me i have I really don't have any complaints your public works department is second to none we've
called and complimented them so thank you for that i mean and and all your other departments uh tax department etc etc uh but I have uh so so
uh I've never stood at this podium before until now when we moved here we moved to a new development on Grismill Road and they left all the trees those trees if they were just cleared away the way things
are cleared away now the oldest tree would be 50 years old but we have trees that are 100 200 250 300 years old and so does this Grismill Road and Trailwood was the same
way why is it so beautiful because of the trees they're gorgeous so to take trees away is not a good idea oh all right uh we have a tulip tree i there's not many i've never seen
any around but the straightest 60 foot tall in our backyard so I'm here to talk about taking down the trees uh and where do I find great information google i
just Googled what it means to I just asked them why are trees important to kids because they're at Mount View Road and I think that's very relevant okay trees are crucial for kids because they
provide essential oxygen clean the air offer shade and create habitats for wildlife contributing to a healthy environment and a better quality of life here are some details clean oxygen
clean air and oxygen trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen which is essential for breathing shade and cooling trees provide shade which helps kids cool and
comfortable keep cool and comfortable during the hot weather and can reduce air conditioning habitat for wildlife trees provide homes and food for various animals insects birds allowing kids to
observe and learn about nature quality of air trees help filter pollutants from air improving air quality and reducing respiratory problems physical activity and mental
well-being being in nature especially around trees can encourage physical activity and reduce reduce stress and activity and anxiety learning opportunities trees offer opportunity for kids to learn
about nature ecosystem and importance of environmental conversation food source many trees produce produce fruits and nuts and can be healthy and delicious source of for kids climate change
mitigation trees help combat climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide a major greenhouse gas erosion control trees help prevent soil
erosion which can protect water sources and [Music] agriculture okay studies have found that spending time in forest can reduce stress lower blood pressure and improve mental
health local res uh local regulations what are handover townships regulations regarding tree removal thank you for allowing me to speak
tonight on this very important issue thank you very much good evening to the citizens and the council i am Margaret Margaret Carrison's husband and I'm damn proud of it
i'm just wondering I am just wondering are there any alternate sites for this proposed construction in our town john went over the four finalists
and John went over why this was the one that was selected and John if you just want to take a paragraph or two and walk that up again please we uh we needed to evaluate what would be a good location
for a group home we evaluated four different properties and of those four properties and I'll share with you some of the properties we looked at we looked at um the township owns property on on state highway 10 where it was called the the
Hardy property we tried to acquire a joining property from a restaurant that we might remember for those of us who have been here for a while it's been closed for a long time called Bogeies didn't work we tried to do that but we couldn't get there we needed to get both
of those properties together to build this group home second property we looked at uh was controlled by the town um it's PU uh Prospect and Boulevard that property unfortunately is wet we
couldn't build on that the next property we looked at if you could look across the roadway behind the quick check that property is known as the Markout property that property was
some 11 acres of property majority of that is wet as well that was privately owned we couldn't reach a negotiation price with that property the last
property we looked at was on Route 10 a little bit further west near the police department property that property couldn't support it either so we needed to come up with something that the town owned it so the town controls
it we needed a property that was developable meaning it's not not wet there's does the property have access to infrastructure additional positives were it's an end of a block location
so when we did our assessment and looked at all the available properties there was only one property that remained that this group home could be built upon so that's how we came to that determination we did look at many
different properties gentlemen and lady you did look at properties um were any of these properties right in the backyard of a school we we looked at the property where we
had either control or property for sale we once looked at property uh near the middle school where was it may I ask i'm sorry where was the property by the school the middle the middle school adjacent to the
middle school there is property we looked at that that was controlled by the board of ed so we've looked at numerous properties okay we we got to stay to this structure but you could if you could go next that'd be
great did you consider the proximity to a school to be a primary concern okay we shared with the board of
education information as to what we were evaluating and there was no objection by the board of education to this proposed plan not the board of education sir i'm asking what did you consider to be a primary
objective what would be I I'm trying to understand are you saying what what would the board of ed think about this property i'm trying to answer your question i really am i agree i am really trying to answer
your question and I'm interpreting it as if you're asking a question saying what would happen to to a school if we had a home such as this proposed was that a primary concern or a
secondary concern it it's it's a concern we talked about all the different concerns we evaluated and the board of ed's response to it was that the board of ed said that they did not have any objection to this proposed plan when was
this proposed plan disseminated to the citizens of Hanover Township or was it We introduced an ordinance on Joe's what was the date of the introduction i'm looking
going to answer your question they're looking at the date as to when it was introduced it was last March sorry when did we did a lot of this work march 13th but we did a lot of this work over here was it introduction yeah this
was formally introduced on March 13th [Music] it's less than a month ago right yeah it's that's the required notice period yes but John the meeting with the board
of ed took place over a year ago yes you're correct mayor the meeting with the board of ed took place over a year ago the board of ed had an opportunity to walk the property and I believe members did participate in walking the property
is it ever possible to reopen your own internal investigation to consider the movement of these two properties to somewhere else we did an evaluation and if we had other
if we had other properties that we could evaluate I can assure you this township committee and you could ask each and every one of them we would look at additional properties but we don't we don't that's why we we we've gotten to a point based upon the fact of there's no
property that is going to support this plan that works and that's why we're here today if we had other properties to look at I can assure you each and every member of this township committee would be saying that we need
to evaluate more properties but we don't have them did you ever look at any property located behind the brickyard behind the brickyard we have you know I mean I'm I'm pretty familiar with that because we
do a lot of work at B Meadow and it's either not accessible or it's wet um most of the the viable properties back there are not owned by the town um I don't want to start throwing out names but mo most of those properties are not
viable um motion that area is not viable for this may I ask are you voting unanimous in your decision well we didn't officially Yeah we didn't officially vote yet but
thank you thank you sir hi hey I wanted to go next because I want to continue this line of questioning my name is Lynn Cohen and I live on 61 Hendricks Drive and I have a view currently through the woods of the current group home as people have said before we don't have a problem with a
group home i have raised my children going out into the woods cutting through the woods to Mount View Road School and there's many families that have and that are and will continue to do this what you're saying i
didn't make a speech and write it in advance because I wanted to hear what your rationale was what I'm hearing is maybe you're not going to knock down the big part of the woods but you're going to affect the woods the habitat within it and okay you don't want to knock down
big trees if you determine they're big then you know what you have to plant another one with a a 6 in radius that is not preserving our habitat and our woods so you could knock down 20 trees but then you have to plant 20 more that's not keeping the beauty of the
neighborhood and the reason why we move there this is used by joggers dog walkers children our children you know what they do every time they have a moment they gather their friends they say "Let's get on our bikes and do the loop." You know what the loop is you go
down the big Mount View Road Hill you go through the school and then you come out on Mountain A and you go to Malipartis Park do you guys know how many kids do that how many little kids how many big kids how many adults how many dog
walkers do that on a regular basis and love it this is what we do in that neighborhood this is why we moved here and I don't know how many sites you've looked at you've looked at four sites buy a site there's a house i mean I'm
I'm full of suggestions i think we need to look you know and maybe some of them that's not my job to find another site okay we're here as a community to ask you to find another site we are not discriminating against a group home we're happy with the group home that's
there if you want to buy the house next to me you can build a group home there okay it was my neighbors but don't destroy our lovely beautiful community that we love and we cherish like a
parkland it's public use it's not a park but it is a park to us okay i would like to know and talk about other alternative sites i would like to know what's going on with H2 Ocean on that site that's remained unbuilt upon
and also what is happening with the land on Eden Lane by Whippony River that from my understanding is was supposed to be affordable house housing mixed use and the only thing that's built there is expensive housing and no affordable
housing if that developer is not going to move on that make that developer move whatever you need to do i'm not versed on this but we do have alternates besides destroying other wetlands or looking at other wetland sites do something with these developments that
are just languishing build those units that you need to build on an area that could take it don't destroy a community also the woods that go through back there they go all the way behind Hendrick's Drive and animals migrate
back and forth we have baby deer that give birth adult deer that give birth to babies every season i have little babies in our backyards that we see we have foxes that have a den back there do you think that these construction vehicles
are not going to destroy those foxes and the migratory patterns of birds and animals in there i mean okay you're saying this is a little lot it means a lot to this little community if it's a little lot find another little spot and
don't ruin our community actually I would like somebody to answer about those other two spots i'm going to do that right now perfect first of all when it comes to the trees there's there's two terms in in lot clearing and development i'm a New Jersey licensed tree company
personally you clearcut or you can build on a wooded lot the reason why clear cutting is is so bad and it's not being practiced and we're fighting to not allow clear cutting in handover however
we always disagree with what's a mature tree and what is not a mature tree because years and years ago it was much cheaper to come out clearcut a property and build a home a wooded lot is much more expensive and complicated to build a structure on so we are insisting that
this lot be considered a wooded lot not a clearcut to respect the forest the point about the other properties is that we don't own those properties like referring to Ed Lane that was a negotiation from round three of the affordable
housing it hit a few snags because of everything that stopped a lot of other things supply chain interest rates D approvals that's back in motion and becoming much better for Hannover Township than it was 2 years ago through
the approval of round three for the fair share housing negotiations but that's not our property the H2 Ocean is not our property either so we what we do with ARC and what we've done with ARC long before my tenure is
enter into agreements to meet a specific need for people that need it the most by leasing parcels of Hover Township property to the Ark to create a partnership to better serve the people
that need it most so our arsenal of property or our inventory of property I should say is limited to what Hanner owns that could accommodate this like there's another piece of property that's beautiful but there's no access to it
and it's a lot of money and we don't own it so there's a lot of things that John didn't discuss with other parcels that we don't own we don't have the money to purchase them and again if we own this which we do and we're going to lease it and not sell it we can control it and
that's in my opinion as a resident that's better than selling it and let's just say we sold it private market because we needed the money we're only holding a few more properties you come in you clearcut it you build a huge house it was all legitimate there's nothing we can do but this way it's a
it's a smaller dwelling than some of the bigger houses being built today we can control it insist that it be a wooded lot and also we're one of the only municipalities that's specifying now a 6-in caliber tree which is a real tree in our industry we call some of these
trees people try to pass off for as trees jokingly we call them deer food they're very skinny they look like Charlie Brown's Christmas trees and they checked all the boxes and they they were just fine we're not going to allow this to happen do you know that you can't even buy a 6-in tree because we had to
replace some trees and you can't even buy it at a landscaper that's how hard it is to actually conform to that regulation well it Well actually I work on a lot of golf courses and they're available they just cost a lot of money and you have to transport them absolutely you can't buy them anywhere
that's going to be the responsibility of the ark because these were conditions that they entered into let me ask you let me ask you why do you need to do this do we need the money as a town why do you need to lease the property at all why why are we deciding between five
lots why do we have to make that decision at all like why can't we you like you said okay we don't own the property on Eden Lane but the plan was to put affordable housing there and conform to what we need so why are we not pressuring whatever's going on with
the development of both of those places we don't own why do we have to sell off the limited land that we have why it's a It's a practice to provide for a specific need well how many put it on
Eden Lane put it where H2 Ocean is let me let me jump in for a second i don't understand what's What's getting missed and what we really should have started out with we are forced by the state to provide this low and moderate housing we
are forced we don't have a choice we are now going into our fourth round we haven't even completed our third round and the state is forcing us to put more housing in our new obligation
440 440 460 460 pardon me um so we are getting forced to do this when you ask why and you know Mr parents are going to yell at me later if I vote for this but the reasoning behind this us putting this in these six bedrooms which is very
low impact it exactly very very low impact you say you have one there already they're I've heard nothing but good things about it i haven't heard anything bad about this this uh the house that's already there um but I by us putting this house in it will negate
us from putting in 60 to 70 additional units which means three how many buildings if I say 10 units a building that's seven buildings if they got to put in 70 units so we'd have to 70 seven more buildings would have to be built somewhere else so if you still
have to do 400 what this is a drop in the bucket but that's what we have to keep chipping away at if you but chip away at it and put these in a bigger spot they're already there there's already obligations for those two properties that you had brought up there's already obligations put six more
buildings six more bedrooms there and put the ark house there do something else and don't ruin our little community i don't understand why there can't be we are looking at this from so many different angles we are Well we are you know our water we're here for Yeah but
you know what we only found out about it what March 20s something okay and we didn't discuss any we weren't any a part of the discussion with the board of ed we are the people that have children and we grew up in this community and we have children that hopefully would stay in
the community it's one of the reasons why we bought our houses it's beautiful and if you take every lot that you have and you knock it down for I'm not against affordable housing but put it other places put it where put it in those two lots so builds build six more
units there where we're afraid the state is going to come in and take your 2acre lot and say what it's uh it's uh what do we have 13 units per acre is our average outside they could theoretically come in and say you have to put 26 units there we have nothing to do about it we have
nothing we can say you know I want to your head but this is the gun that's to our head I just want to conclude I just want to I just want to conclude the affordable I want to conclude the affordable argument the affordable housing argument for just a moment by capping it off here
and let every resident speak for their four minutes cuz we're here to listen i'll give you an example of how unfair the fair share housing obligation is in East Hanover are you all familiar with the power plant on Richellale Avenue east Hannover received a
memo talking about the obligation number that they had for the front lawn of the power plant the power plant is owned by the power plant for when the town expands and has to expand their power plant we are constantly
defending against the not fair share housing obligation and again it's a 20% set aside when it comes to even South Campus which we just negotiated at one point if we left it to
the state to dictate our zoning they wanted us to put in 1350 units at a 20% set aside they look at every parcel of land we have and then we have to defend it so when it comes to control and guiding and having the opportunity to
meet a specific need for those that need it the most with as Mike said with very very low impact it's a it's a situation where an arc house is a beautiful beautiful use for people that need it the most versus even if somebody came in
for a single family home and put a big five sixbedroom home in there that would be twice is high and clearcut the property so if it was up to me I would leave everything exactly the way it was
when I moved here but we can't and New Jersey nine times out of 10 is not our friend and we have to defend every parcel of land we have and at the same time try to meet as many needs as we can for the people that need it the most mayor can I say one thing please i I I
would just say that um I think because this issue concerns the Mount A neighborhood there are probably a lot of people in the room who haven't been coming out to the meetings here for the last few years affordable housing has been on the agenda constantly in this township i we we represent uh many
municipalities a number of them in Morris County i just want to say to defend the township committee and and we're doing this like with them i I don't think that there's a township that is pushing back harder on the affordable housing mandate than Hanover Township i would also just actually supplement what committeeman Faram Mosca said and say
that um it's actually a developer can actually come in and and technically force their development anywhere in the community with only a 15% affordable housing set aside so that that technically could be an 80 unit development in the township and I
realized these are people in the room tonight from Mount Nav so this this might not address your concerns directly but but this this could be the equivalent this could be getting rid of the equivalent of an 80 unit uh development in the township and the only other thing I would say is um uh the
mayor insisted that as part of the proposal to arc the uh that uh basically no old growth trees be felled and and I realize that it's probably going to be impossible to put a structure on this property without getting rid of a single
old growth tree that's probably impossible but what I will say is what if the if the committee did end up approving this ordinance tonight there's nothing actually set yet there's no plan necessarily set what it would do is it would permit the committee to move
forward and the draft agreement that we have with ARC right now says that any plan that they come forward with to uh construct a group home it has to be approved still by the committee so the process wouldn't end with the passage of the ordinance tonight if that happened
there would be input from everyone and there would have to be approval from the township on how exactly it's going to sit on the lot and including how that affects the trees that are currently there and everything like that i just want to put that out there it's there's it's not like you're voting on a on a a project that's already there's blueprint
and it's going to go up exactly this way it's it's basically giving the committee approval to move forward with the project idea if they vote yes in the ordinance tonight thank you Robert yep hey the last thing I want to say and I said at the last meeting this is also very important the law is pretty tricky
in that it sounds as if people are saying it's the fair share it's the affordable housing law housing is not affordable we want housing to be affordable well I have children i don't know how they're going to buy a house one day um but what we complain about is the builder's remedy portion of it in
order to have what they call affordable and low and moderate housing they're allowed to build times five that's why you're getting buildings now in the old days we used to fight about condos we're not fighting about condos anymore we're fighting about buildings so when the
state comes in and says round three they said you owe us 1,000 units well 1,000 units means 5,000 and at the time Had Township had 5,100 dwellings that doubles the size of our town so we're constantly defending ourselves here but I just want you to
know that we would love housing to be affordable and again if somebody needs a helping hand we I all of us would give anybody the shirt off our backs but it really benefits the developer more than it develops the people that truly need
it and the people that truly need it if you want to call any town hall and find out how long the list is it's awful people wait for years and years and years for quote affordable but guess what the builder came in and built three big buildings and they're laughing their way to the bank and they forced us to do
it through the state so we we are on on we're head of retach residence fighting every single day and again tonight is about this specific arc home and the purpose of it and this is your time not mine if anybody else would
like to address the governing body please take the floor hi I'm Edaloo 18 Street my property but the property that we're considering that you're considering for today i have a couple issues that I
wanted to discuss to be aware of either if you've already made decisions on it with the plans for the lease arrangements or not usually a lease includes information about what can be done and cannot be done with specific
property you talked a little bit about what some of the restrictions that are agreed to by ARK at this point are there restrictions about any further development for the other 2 acres of property where the house will not be
located so that we know that there's no use or no destruction of any trees beyond what is currently being used to put up that single house that's a question okay
number two is that you're comparing a house that is for acute uh as as was mentioned by John is for acute use which means that they have the ability to expand the standard house of four people
to six people that's the acute rule acute means that there are people that may need additional types of services um feeding tubes other types of of situations that may cause additional
emergency vehicles to come up to the top and go back and forth for that type of a house if that's what you're comparing to the one across the street which is for regular residents who do not have acute
problems it's not a comparison equal one to one the reason I know a little bit about this is I'm the chairman of the board for the Rose House who develops properties for development of disabled adults we have seven homes in Mars
County are slipping in Bud Lake and even one in Hannah we buy houses that are for sale as well as look for properties that are empty that we can go in to buy and we have purchased
over the years several homes that we have rebuilt for the use for our our clients and it's not unusual the towns don't give us additional money besides
what they're saving on their uh co credits which is very nice and that usually is around 250ish,000 [Music] the rest we have to raise from fundraising borrowing HUD and some of
the other uh grants that are given by various organizations we've managed to do that arc I'm sure has done that in the past as well purchased houses redeveloped them here we're giving 2 acres of property and in my opinion not
restricted property about what they can do with it beyond the borders of where they're planning to put it there's a walkway that goes from Spoof Street obviously by mountain over into the school that's been there for over 54
years that's how long I've been in this township i would assume that over 50 years that has become an easement if it's a legal easement can you just go in and move it question for the attorney there is another easement
on the property that's part of the water company that's about a 20ft piece of property where they connected the water lines from Spruce Street to Mountain Avenue that easement can't be moved the path is on the opposite side of that
easement so why is there a need to change the path and if it can be p can be done is illegal to do it considering that it's an easement in my opin I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if 50 years of
public use establishes an easement there are a lot of factors I forgot the exact this is a law school question I forgot the exact statute of limitations is in New Jersey for you know easement by use but uh it would have to be demonstrated by manner of use everything like that and it's been a good question it's been
a pathway to the school for over 54 years since I've been there um and I think that that is more than enough for a legal easement and I don't know what would be involved in needing to change that uh or to destroy or to move that
easement someplace else i think that that's a legal question and when I was looking into it five years after I bought my house not that passed but another portion of the easement um that was on my property uh I was told that
that it's a 5-year minimum public use obvious not obstructed not not signed as do not come through and all that kind of stuff then after 5 years it would be a public use but you can look into it i think that's an issue that needs to be looked into if you're planning on moving
the path that's on Spruce Street and I'm just going to answer the question about the trees yes and this is very important the only reason why companies clearcut versus build on a wooded lot is because
there's much more profit in in it for them they can operate the equipment easier they haul everything out of there in a truck and boom they have a blank canvas there is no reason at all why they should go onto any additional property when we're insisting this
become a remain a wooded lot that they're going to build within and around and we are going to go over there Tuesday morning at 8:30 and tag the trees in green that we're going to insist keeping now a tree does not last forever but they take almost forever to
grow if we plant a 6-in caliber today it's going to be huge but we're going to be long gone so we have to be very careful to preserve everything we could they're not going to have the flexibility and the freedom to go outside that perimeter and remove and damage trees period because that's
laziness and that's bad tradesmanship is that in the lease is it written in the lease that they cannot remove trees beyond the easement the water easement or the path easement that they cannot over the years as a
licensed tree company and somebody that got his start in in clearing for development that's never even considered to go outside the area where you're working but we will make that very very clear and that's an easy lift for us i think it should be written into the lease if we're leasing them the property
we should be able to put in that lease what they can do and what they cannot do there have to be restrictions on their development of property beyond the easement where the house is going to go so we know that in 10 or 15 years if they want to put up a warehouse to store
trucks or something that they don't have the ability to do it because they don't have the ability to do any construction or any kind of development beyond the area where that house is being given to them okay i appreciate your comment but
again the township owns this the agreement is between ARC and Hadover Township anything they want to do has to be approved by us because we own it we're simply talking about this specific unit this specific lot and having it
built within a wooded lot and uh we are going to be there Tuesday and uh we are we are open for any comment and constructive criticism to make this as good as we could if we improve it and there will be no elimination of a walking path to school
or a walking path that people enjoy to simply ride bicycles and recreate because I live by Salem Drive school and I could probably ride around all of those paths with my eyes closed and I understand and appreciate the importance of those paths so Ed I I got to I got to
ask you that was four minutes and there's other people want to speak and Ed by the way is a very good saxophone player and he played in the man with me for a little while anyone else hi uh Ben Grippy 68 Summit Avenue uh resident of Annover for 5 years um I
wanted to speak to the committee tonight about plans and address some of what was discussed um I think a couple interesting things one I moved here because it was less dense and there was more open space um I moved here because the school system was so good and I was um enamored with this walking path in
this um forest i'm actually here kind of on behalf of my 11-year-old who's uh fifth grader MTV she was rallying the um safety patrol today to try to come to this meeting actually to to oppose this plan um I I think one of the things
that's interesting about this is there's not a lot of open space in the town when you really think about it when you think about the walking paths that we have the park system it's really all kind of connected and this piece of land is integral to that um nobody here is against uh having a new home established
for low-inccome or or disabled people i think that should be kind of pushed off the table as why anybody showed up um obviously we would all support that i think the other important point that came up tonight was around the affordable housing minimum i work in commercial real estate actually my job
is to monetize real estate um and to do adaptive reuse so I deal with uh Mount Laurel and I deal with um all the effects of affordable housing all the time i think one of the things that we should also continue to consider is it was actually brought up by the gentleman before me um a strategic partnership
with somebody like ARK where you guys are uh allocating credit towards the development of what is essentially affordable units in um a way that doesn't require you to uh fork over township land um so it's sort of a partnership in in sourcing and and
allocating new deals is a perfectly reasonable way to do this the other thing I would say is the 40 uh well going back the 400 units I believe was thrown around as far as the total affordable housing requirement our next assessment is 460 460 um and in this
case you you'd be credited with with 12 um and certainly every little bit counts i can understand that i understand that perspective um but I think the earlier um woman here um really did a good job explaining when you're doing master redevelopment there's a lot of areas in
for redevelopment all along um all along the uh the main drag um Oh my god it's escape night thank you um so I think there's opportunities there and I I realize that's not easy to do cuz I I do that stuff so I get that i'd also say it should be explored more because you
could probably uh create more density in those developments to offset the need for the 460 that you're going to have this piece of it could easily be just kind of shuffled into some other development that's in a place that's more suitable for more density um and then this development that would happen
at the end of this road the other thing that was brought up I think it's kind of wild that we're all here talking about another structure another use and it's kind of I realize it's residential but it's semi-commercial at the end of this block where we just put in all these speed bumps I'm on Summit we've got speed bumps all over the place the people that come in and out of the
neighborhood that don't live there speed all the time and you add in this the concern that this is right where all the kids are every morning coming in and out of the school and trying to get back to their parents to be picked up it's going to create like a lot of logistical problems and safety issues at the end of
the block and again I color that all with I'm all for affordable housing i I hope that there's ways you guys can be uh even more creative than maybe you've been and I would offer my time i mean we do this stuff on the commercial side a lot and I'd be happy to talk with you about ways maybe we could uh be you know
kind of go off the menu kind of closing would be my daughter said to me tell them that that we don't want to lose the trees and I walk my kid through that like well you see me every morning i walk my kid through there i'll get like misty about it it's her last year and we walk through every day and I've had privilege doing that for for
all the time she's been at Mue and to lose that privilege i know it's not really losing it but it's a pathway with some fences and stuff it's really not the same you know what i'm going to put an offer out there for you ask your daughter if she'd like to meet with us Tuesday morning at 8:30 and I'll call Mr
tumi if I have to and twist his arm and we'll give your daughter some type of credit for school or Ron and I will sign a letter saying that we needed her for half an hour and if anything's going to be cut down I will explain to her as a licensed tree expert why and what we're going to replant and tell her she can
walk with us Tuesday morning at 8:30 that's a personal invitation and I'll clear it with Mr tony i appreciate that i'll I'll talk to you about that and I'll also um you know remain open to if you if we need to you need my help in any way in trying to resolve this in a different on a different path I'm available to do that i appreciate you
saying that too thank you sir anyone else dean Atinson um I just wanted to say that I 100% agree with him about it's a really bad location and you put the speed bumps
to make kids safer and now you're just going to jam more stuff into already crowded and that culde-sac is always a mess whenever the kids are coming to and from and I just think putting more there
is is not going to help the situation um so my question for you all is how many of you think that they should keep searching for an alternative location for the group home
um and of the 11 group homes how many of them are located in Sedals how many we have what six we have six of the 11 and we have a much smaller
area do we not some of those known as restit homes which means it gives families an opportunity if they want to go for a vacation or something with your child in the home for a week or two or three it's supervised
by resident four group home but there are okay so it's not a group home but it's still the same type of home on horseville
but has a much larger land so I find it hard to believe that mountain a is the only uh location where this could be built I just really find it hard to believe that there's nothing at all in the township
besides Mountain A that's all thank you thank you anyone else jeremy Cohen 61 Hendricks Drive um did I hear that the uh committee was going to show us exactly where the
actual location yes Blaze do you have that ready yes yes okay because showing um this group the exact location could resolve certain questions and it could also open
up i appreciate you saying that because I I was personally offended by an inaccurate rendering that came from our municipal building at the end of last week and I was I I was perplexed and then had to rectify it myself so I can understand how the neighborhood could
have been confused and and I appreciate that cuz when we got the letters just a few weeks ago as reading it we could not understand exactly where this new construction is going to be so I I appreciate the question so there it is
right there sir and Blaze if you could point to the existing home and the path to the existing home is adjacent to the Mount View School at the culdeac the proposed group home
would be across the culdeac from the existing group home you can see the path there's actually two paths one from the culde-sac going around the group home that exists to the school and there's another path from Spruce which you
probably know that connects with that path that's the one that would be relocated the I'm sorry the other it's not it's in the east it's already in the
Yeah because it'd be too close to the house so if you put the house where that star is and that's where it's proposed to go the path goes from the end of spruce and connects with you can't see
it because of the text in yellow there the proposed group home text but if we took that out you would see it going from the sidewalk on Spruce Street going over and then it bends a little to the right to get connect with that existing path that goes from the culde-sac to the
school and that be Yeah I mean that's the intent is to move it to Uh there is no easily to my knowledge
on tons of property for a ton of owned path i mean well I'll tell you I'll tell you how it's going to be there's not intent to move it it it's going to be relocated
where it needs to be it's not going to be eliminated you have the words from all five of us on the governing body and that's been made very clear to ARC so I I want to assure the residents on behalf of the entire governing body that it's going to if where it needs to
be relocated it's going to be and prior to any construction at all we are going to eliminate any walking path let me ask also just for my own clarification blaze see where the yellow P is in proposed
yes there's no construction proposed up there correct no nothing no trees will be coming down there nothing nothing is proposed west of the line uh or should I say where the P is in group actually if you look at the M and home the M and
home okay the the existing water easement goes from the right side of Spruce Street uh-huh straight through that M in home okay and then it goes to Mountain Avenue and then it bends 90° and goes towards
goes up Mountain Avenue okay so and within that easement structures are prohibited so the the dwelling can't go in that easement okay now where it says the the white writing where it says existing group home obviously nothing's being touched there correct and really
the only trees that may come down would be where the star is where that star correct okay does that help hold on yeah we're throwing everything out sorry folks I
have talk into the microphone please i can have been uh concerned with uh traffic um has there been any traffic studies uh for this new home is my first question uh second question because this
area is on the bottom of I would say the hill of Hendrick's Drive where I live um Spruce and a few other areas it does get uh very damp when there's some storms
and runoffs are there any tests involved for drainage so the water especially when you take uh trees um a lot of the water in its pavement it's got nowhere to go except for down and that creates
more uh drainage issues for the school and for some of the neighbor uh from the homes around so I'm less familiar with the area so you're saying the water is running from let's say where uh where was that 18 is it going down towards the star
yeah and if you look this way towards the pee where I live on Hendrick's Drive okay hendrick's Drive is kind of like a hill and it just keeps coming down so that area um where Ed actually lives just towards between Ed's house and the
P it is very swampy there okay so but we're not so obviously we're not building there there is water coming in and out after the rain yep but they're they're obviously staying away from that area at the bottom of Spruce Street right and if you're building a house further down you
could very well be moving into that area as well yeah so So my concern is when you're ripping off um all those trees and redoing the property um it's already pretty bad but it's
coming down towards that house though um the star it's around it so kind of going towards it so if there was a water issue it's going to be that house's issue to deal with it collect it and get it out to the street
or whatever needs to be done so it's not going the other way is my point it's it's if they were at the top of the hill or in the middle cut the trees down then the water's going to run into the neighbor's property but that's not going to happen here it'll be affecting the drop off circle at Mount View in the area where the drop off circle at Mount
View yeah where like in front of the school oh right there right in front oh oh right there but again that would be collected by the street yeah mitigated in the building you know you're truthfully you're not allowed to build and adversely affect a
neighboring property with water flow so if there's a water problem now our job would be to make sure that not only would this make it not worse but we would try to make it better and Township is in the lead when it comes to
flood remediation because we created the whippity flood remediation task force we have colers engineering 24 hours a day so the fact that you're bringing this up the law is we cannot no one can do any construction or affect their grade or it'll adversely affect the neighboring
property so this will go front and center with our due diligence yeah I think they would almost and as far as the traffic is concerned we did a lot of study on that traffic because of the speed bumps and what we found with the Ark the existing
Arkh home is there were complaints that the people don't go there to visit as much as the traffic is from people that work there and we actually had reports of employees speeding and we actually
spoke to the Ark and supposedly that got much much better but again if that's the case keep in touch with us because those are our kids we put a lot of time into that we're not finished we want to make sure everybody can be safe as safe as
possible in that neighborhood and nobody's speeding for any reason is acceptable i don't know keep him away from that microphone i just have one more question how much when you go with the star how
much does the town actually own compared to what the board of education what is the true the board of education owns as well as can you speak the town owns the lot where the existing group home is it also
owns the lot you can see the lot line on the map basically all of the land containing the existing group home and all of the land containing the proposed group home and the land in between the town owns all of that the board of eds
property is behind the existing group home where the ball field is it's also to the left of the existing group home up there that's the board of eds property so none of that's being the left of that proposed that is education
uh no the town owns that triangular piece to the left of that as well that's township property that's all township no the the the development is not going
to extend beyond the the line of of Spruce Street and I when I say the line of Spruce Street I mean the bottom right line not the top left line i guess the reason where I'm going with my question is that here we are talking
about is it possible in 10 years from now we're going to be talking about developing or developer coming in trying to expand into those I think that drainage ditch that was alluded to and you can actually see it on the map where
the where the P and propose is you can see that ditch in the air photo okay and it goes through the E an existing group home that's all that ditch i think that's going to prevent more than anything else development of that area you cannot say clearly that developer
could not when we're gone no there's no guarantees of anything you know but I think it's unlikely but we're obviously writing that into the the the lease I think would just be for one home if I understood correctly
so but again by us not selling it and leasing it the town still controls it we control it and like you say we talk about cutting trees down up where the white G is up there somebody says "We're going to cut a tree down." No you can't there won't be any need there won't be necessity to cut further and I'm glad we
did bring this up i'm glad you asked us to put that up there we probably should have put that up first um because a majority of this is not going to be touched it's not part of it and one more device that's in place that's very important with us owning it and leasing it is that how many times do things get
approved in not only this building but all town halls and then before you know it the chippers are out front the log trucks are out front and it's clearcut this is our property we control this and we are we are not going to just we're not going to walk away from this and and
we own this if if if we vote to move forward on this this we're putting our heart and soul that this is going to be exactly what we told you it was or we're no better than anybody else that's in elected office that this just tells you whatever you want to hear which is which
is not acceptable to us cuz we are residents of Hannib Township better than Frank up there okay sorry about that Frank you only give me 4 minutes you get 3 minutes and seconds we used up most We used up most of your time i haven't been here in a couple of
years frank Simone 21 Mountain Avenue i'm listening to everybody talk and I appreciate everything that they're saying i uh group homes are great it's beautiful we have like six in in Cos a few more in Whipony i've been
at the fire on the fire department for total volunteer pay for like 30 some years went for a lot of calls beautiful people and I appreciate the folks and I appreciate the people that want to have a little piece of paradise which there it's it's being developed so much one
thing did the group did the ark approach the town for that piece of property john and Ron do you have that answer regarding the the order of the property yeah or did you have reached out to the
ark we had many uh opportunities with other JCC approached us arc approached us many of most recently we're getting another organization but yes uh in discussions for expansion of ARC yes we've been with
ARC 50 years okay i mean I I understand okay so why keep everybody happy have your group home why don't you let the Arc contact the people that own that property that house right next to the the restaurant H2 they could probably put a nice group home there
and to get your affordable housing your units well you know what get a hold of these builders they're building $800,000 homes uh apartments get get your uh numbers in there let let the builder give you already
a They already are okay but to the tune of hundreds hit them again but keep everybody happy i mean let let the the ark approach these people with by other people's homes that don't leave our greens green space or whatever you call it alone and keep everybody happy but
again I'm a stupid fireman i'm not a politician i'm not a lawyer i'm not an architect but I just heard people talk and I want to put my two cents in see and I did take four minutes thank you very much thank you for your service anyone else hi my name is Lori Hill i live on HR
bring the microphone to you my name is Hill i live on HR lived there a long time i'd like to know if drug addicts come under the umbrella of this you know of I know exactly where you're going because on
Park Avenue there were two brand new houses the family brought bought into one we know it's empty now cuz I go on I'm on Park Avenue all the time to the tennis [Music]
courts they had drug addicts living next door and this family had little kids i don't want that in our neighborhood i'm all for you know low-inccome housing but there are a lot of other areas does Hanover Township own
the land that's on Park Avenue and Columbia Turnpike if you cross over Columbia Turnpike isn't that part of Handover Township there's I believe a hotel or something there but on the
back of it there's empty land that's already approved for development over a while already and it's mass it's privately owned and I think there's Isn't there L&M on that too yes is that 60 units of L&M I think are on that one yes yes so there's
already 60 units of L&M going on low and moderate going on up there so you can definitely assure us that drug addicts don't come under that umbrella of special needs i have such a great answer for you and yeah ask
John Phamosa has and and we love John but John has driven us crazy for months over the specific definition and John I'm going to give you a snare drum roll and please ask you to take the floor yeah
yeah specifically answer your question the inhabitants of this home if it were to be approved would be intellectually challenged special needs as certified by the state of New Jersey that's what this
lease would be the provider is ARC arc runs these homes manages the homes under state requirements these are not soiety homes so this would be intellectually special needs
homes and because we own the property we control that because it's a lease that gets controlled but the two but the two on have to add more clarity don't John said uh most of our ARCH homes right now we have one arhome that's strictly
devoted to autism we have another archcom that is strictly devoted to down syndrome we have other archcoms that are uh devoted to other types of of challenges uh physical challenges and emotional challenges etc uh to further
go back to a question that uh Ed had asked earlier uh on the future of the of the home itself um and by the way uh Ed has a great deal of knowledge of group homes and also involved with one we built some years ago called the rose
house rose House by the way very very successful uh house of some 12 units where we have independent living for those with special needs what does that mean they have their own apartment they have their own comingings and goings they don't drive they're not capable to in that
area but they're supervised um and uh the state under the Americans with Disability Act uh controls a lot of this as well as the Division of Family Services okay so there's oversight on this we cannot expand a group home
beyond a certain amount of bedrooms the answer is why you expand the group home over a certain amount of bedrooms as required by or allowed by the state that's called institutionalization and this is what the state always wants to get away from
we don't want the Willow Brooks we don't want the Greystones we want uh individuals like this who are our our families for the most part uh to live in an environment that gives them uh the most opportunity uh to interface with
the community that's that's what Google Homes are about uh but uh but uh having said that uh that I hope I answer your question on the expansion side of it uh once again uh it falls under the control of not
only Hanover Township because we own we own the land at least for a buck okay but uh the fact that the state also has oversight on the land and regulates everything that's going on in there so thanks i I hope you're comfortable with
that answer anyone else yes my name is Ann Kajupa i live on 26 Summit Avenue i just want to mention my first introduction to the group home was when I was walking a dog and that
particular group home had a big window and as I was walking there was a person standing in that window with no clothes on so I don't know what the supervision is but that's being around kids i believe that should also be in
perspective thank you thank you anyone else mayor if I could just add one comment the only thing I would add because uh I I just feel like it wasn't made clear enough early on the ordinance that would be up for vote tonight is a
zoning ordinance it would just change the zone it really would be step one in this process i think the committee has been very forthcoming in talking about what their intention is for the site in their plan but this is it is just a zoning ordinance it's the first step in moving this direction i think the mayor
is going to be out at the site on Tuesday to investigate and figure out like where the structure actually could be placed but this would just change the uh the zoning for the area to make it possible that's the last thing I wanted to add and as far as the trees are concerned and and Ron and I will be
there um I'm going to be holding the green tape and Ron's going to be holding the red tape and the red means they're coming no but uh only green tape look if if nobody has anything else I want to say thank you very much for all your time i
I hope Yes yes sir hi Matthew i live on Countrywood Drive uh 45 years ago I lived in Yonos New York they had the whole uh zoning but when I initially was there it was trees everywhere loved it now it's a completely different place so we moved
here because we love the trees we I took my kids to Mountain View all the time walking through that path optics the minute I heard about this I'm like "Here we go neighborhood's gone they're cutting down trees everywhere I looked I don't know if it's hand over what i just see apartment buildings coming up left
and right i want to put a lot of money into my house including making the landscape more beautiful my wife says to me "Well what are you going to do that for they're changing the neighborhood they're doing everything why do you want to stay here why do you want to put money into your property?" So I come from the I I used to work in the
government i want to say thank you cuz I know you got your jobs aren't easy but you're also here to come up with creative solutions one of the questions you know that I have for you all is there anything that the community could do to help you all to look for other uh alternatives
absolutely contact the state government okay contact the state is this a petition is it just a letter call your congressman call your representatives vote when you go to vote in the next gubanatorial coming up this this November ask them talk to them go
out and see i don't care whether it's Republican or Democrat ask them "What is your stance with this low and moderate housing?" Uh they they are jamming it down our throats they are forcing it down our throats and I'm sure uh you know just look around we we live here we
see the hundreds no thousands of units going up and I don't know of many towns that want it um but we can change it with our vote um and you know there's there's a lot of things that are going on politically these days but for when it comes to New Jersey this is one thing
that we we do need to address uh it's decimating if I wanted to live in an urban area I would have moved there like you I'm suffering from this too and and these guys know how much I I say no to this stuff um and you know we we are
part of lawsuits we are fighting this uh every legally that we can um I think it's going to get worse before it gets better but we you need to vote ask those ask again I don't care if it's Republican or Democrat ask them what they what is their stance on this how do
you feel about builder's revenue how do you feel about that and is that your solution to affordable housing if it is I'd suggest you don't vote for that person yeah and the D has also come out with a statement saying no more housing should be built well that's one arm of the of the state but the other arm is saying "Yeah you're
going to build what is it 83,000 more low and moderates need to be built times five." That's what they're trying to force us to build and there's no infrastructure for it either i I sorry I don't mean to drag this off there's no infrastructure no I think you know understand there's not an apartment
in this town that would have gone up if it wasn't for what's going on in the state not one and that goes back to the 80s condo developments same exact reason so it's a matter it's it's not in the local government's hands to be able to dictate this any longer it's in the state's hands and we're we're just
picking our poison here and this one we feel it i feel is a very low impact and we get the most bang for our buck john yeah one minute this is the appeal there's a Senate bill being proposed call 1401 senate Bill 1401 senator
Singleton senator Singleton is one of the leaders of affordable housing which is a good thing okay in concept however Singleton is also a president of a carpenters union he also happens to be
the leader of of an initiative called 1401 and what 1401 would allow them to do is take a low occupied office building or a low occupied commercial real estate center and get it flipped to
residential going through Trenton you don't come see the township committee in handover township our planning board can't look at a site plan it automatically gets signed off in Trenton so if you can do one thing to help preserve the garden state from becoming
the apartment state we got to stop 1401 here the only thing I would say to conclude that is this what was that oh I would refer to it as high density housing because when you say affordable housing who everybody
wants housing to be affordable and there's beautiful beautiful people that just really need a helping hand and they're not capable of getting it with the system we currently have however the builder's remedy and the high density are building these monstrosities people
are making unbelievable money the list of the people that need help is getting longer and longer and longer and they don't even have a shot so I would say that if you do want to talk to somebody us or people much much higher level than us talk about the density talk about the
set aside talk about the the builder's remedy and and like like Mike said the the infrastructure lack of infrastructure lacks lack of transportation we know our roads we you drove to get here you got stuck in traffic getting here so it goes it goes on and on and on but anything you could do to help us to have people understand
that their job is to represent us we would greatly appreciate it and it would make our lift a little bit better okay we'll do that thank Thank you sir thank you hi Mary D simone 21 Mountain Avenue married to that guy oh Mayor Gallagher I
just want to address this to you you heard a lot of comments from people here especially for the Mountain Avenue residents they mention a lot of properties in town too and they are eyes and you have no plans i know you say you don't own them but nothing's being done
so you have the H2 Ocean property you have an abandoned house on Malipartis Road it's for sale that's deteriorating you have issues at the red carpet in nothing's being done you mentioned that you are voted official that we voted for all of you to be in your seats so you
need to do what's right and if you are with the people you're going to listen to what we have to say okay because again we voted for you to be there to sit there because you're our voice so we'll do what we can we have to do but we're depending on you to make the right
decision janice Allen 53 Forest Way i just had a question about um the lowincome housing um units and what determines the requirements for how many units we have to put in and is every town the same like East Hanover Floren Park Madison
are they all the same and is the same but the obligation is different where's Robert why is many many different factors uh population uh uh vacant land in the township uh there
are many factors that go into it and over got a massive obligation uh that we thought that we've already gotten reduced that we think was far it it honestly uh it kind of goes with what the committee has been saying about how the state has been handled hand handling
this uh their formulas that they used to come up with the with the uh the obligations for for different towns were sloppy and and and involved uh math that didn't even check out when we first looked at it about 6 months ago uh we got reduced already we're we're
continuing to fight it this is as the mayor said the fourth round we've been fighting it round after round after round uh but there are many factors that go into determining what it's Can you tell me what some of they are like for example Madison we have Madison we have Flo Park we have Chadam you all these
other towns around us are they you do they have the same burden because it seems like we have a really high burden every time i love this town i've been here 40 years but it has changed it's not the town I moved into and every time I turn around there's a new apartment
complex there's another condo going up there's It's just terrible and I just feel like we are sharing more of the burden than a lot of our commu the other communities you you are correct handover got an exceptionally high burden i will say that there are a handful of Morris
County communities it's all obviously suburban type communities that are are feeling this pain not the urban communities uh to the east of us uh handover got an exceptionally high burden we got it reduced somewhat we're still fighting it but your your your feeling is is justified handover's
burden is excessive but why do we have a higher burden than the other communities go ahead please turn your mic on please yeah i try to keep it as simple as I can and affordable housing is never simple but can't wait till you hear this
the state took the growth in households between 2010 and 2020 in the census mhm and they took what did they take they took uh a percentage of that based upon the idea
of that affordable housing means housing that's 80% of median median is the middle so 80% of the middle is 40% of the total they took that census growth from 2010 to 2020
multiply that times 40% they said that's the statewide obligation then they allocate that obligation to individual municipalities based upon three criteria
one is how much vacant land and uh based upon you'd be surprised what they called vacant land um one was average income in the municipality in other words the
higher income municipalities are supposed to get a higher obligation why okay i think the bait to put in in brief words they're trying to balance what they view as uh segregation of low-income housing in
the cities and not as not enough balance in the suburbs so for example like Newark is affordable obligation zero all right most large urban areas have no obligation whatsoever the so one of the criteria is
vacant land the second criteria is community affluence if you want to put it that way and the third criteria is commercial ratables and you might ask why that too i think the theory on that is again a balancing of that with the
growth in commercial ratables and commercial development are jobs and they want the the low to moderate income people who live in these units to be able to live near their jobs so those are the three criteria and those same
criteria apply to every municipality except again for the urban ones which have zero obligation so while the the obligation is high I know Hardston was given Hardies imagine was given an obligation of over
600 units uh it's either Randolph or um I think Randolph was given over 900 units of obligation all of the suburban municipalities are saying we don't aren't fighting affordable housing what we're fighting is the
state's methodology in assigning unreasonable obligations do you realize our third round obligation was 975 units of affordable that's the affordable obligation not the total cuz again most towns address the majority of their
affordable housing needs through what's called inclusionary zoning which it's sometimes referred to as the builder's remedy that's where the builder agrees to build affordable housing in return the town
has to subsidize that by letting them build four times as many market rate housing with it so you end up with for every one affordable unit you end up with five total units so if you get an obligation of 460 units multiply that
times 5 you get 2,300 additional units total in a town of 5,000 units in our third round which we just resolved about three years ago we fell short of our 975 unit
obligation by over 400 units the state almost done the courts he's still on track the the courts agreed that we didn't have enough land to be able to build that many units so what happened in the fourth round which just was released late last year or in middle of
last year they added another 544 units to the allegation that we couldn't meet in the third round we were able by arguing on the vacant land side of things that we didn't have as much vacant land as they said we did we were able to lower that to 460 but that's
still a huge number um that's kind of where we are right now with the affordable housing and it's and it's it is basically a lot of suburban municipalities are in the same boat there's just not enough land for all those units the state needs to come up with a better way of doing it so you feel that East Hanover Floren Park
Madison Chadam they're all pretty much where we are we're not getting close they're getting hit also okay i have another question um what about um housing for seniors i hear all these other things but I never hear I hear I can answer that and then Brian Kaho is about to speak brian did a fine job at
Thank you okay thank you Brian had Township has two different groups of 60 units specifically for affordable for seniors you're talking I don't want to interrupt you but are you talking about one that's built i'm talking about building
something currently yeah oh yeah in in round three which Blaze just described part of that was to have 60 units specifically affordable rentals for senior citizens and at the time we were talking about it we used my mother's
house as an example in East Town she had a Cape Cod house and at the time if she was going to sell it for $500,000 she couldn't buy a condo for 940 i'm thinking how does this work it doesn't line up it's not affordable but a low rental senior unit is what we
champion as this governing body we have 120 total coming online the only downside is Hover Township residents don't get priority to those but we are looking very very hard at our seniors cuz fortunately our families are living longer the money is getting much much
thinner i've been in people's houses where they actually staple gun plastic because nobody goes upstairs and they don't want the heat and the air conditioning going upstairs how great would it be for them to be in their town with their families to have an affordable rent sell that house put the
money in the bank get their social security and maybe a little pension and boom they live comfortably we're focusing very very hard on the seniors and a lot of times people talk about 55 and over that's challenged a lot well it's been challenged a lot and defeated
because it's age discriminatory so there's so many different loopholes that we have to constantly deal with but we're very very concerned about our seniors and you know my mom teases me to this day every time I have a birthday she says "Oh my god you're getting old." And I go "No I'm getting older but we're
all getting to get we're all getting older at the exact same pace." But I mean at the rate we're going I I don't think all of us are going to be able to live in this area when we're older be but there has to be some kind of mechanism in place that can be helpful okay so they are looking into that
that's on the we try to support the seniors as much as we can i believe and correct me if I'm wrong Blaze but I mean there is also a limit like when it comes to our affordable obligation it can't be all senior right so we do as much as we possibly can cuz it's helpful to the town least impact right right for the
schools there's no doubt but there are limits to how much senior per state statute that we can put in so I just wanted to ask that they consider that again if they haven't been and one last question i don't want to take up any more time is the red carpet in i really have to ask about that why is there
anything that the town can do about that i'm going to answer that because I'm sorry i don't care if people get mad at me and think it's inappropriate to ask or what i I'm sick of that complex being there every time I read the um police water one person said the police department should just move over there
yeah they really should because the resources they're taking away from the community it's terrible okay you know you're going to hear this is the most careful answer you're ever going to hear out of me in my life we know about it we're so worried about it we're so upset
about it we tried so many things it's almost like we we make each other smile with some of the brainstorms we come up with there are plays in place right now many of them are falling short but we're aware
we we and you know what at the end of the day the people again that need the most we believe should have a very safe place to live that's clean humane and and and part of our community it's it's
us against them but we're working we have three different subcommittees working on it with all different levels of elected officials the state says it's the county and Terry's back there and Terry's an expert on this state says it's a county the county says it's a state then they say it's under it's just
so complicated but not too complicated for us to work on it almost every day all right and it's need to the residents need to be safe and the kids in the schools need to be safe because you all know there's a lot of stuff going on in our schools so high level legal anything we can say can probably hurt us all
right but I won't even let you say anything else thank you thank you for your time anyone else andy do you have your saxophone you want to close us out with a number no thank you all right so I have here 40th
anniversary symphony it's on my notes and it's on my notes you haven't heard it's on my notes if you haven't heard the wind symphony you are truly missing something okay so if anybody has any questions
anytime Deputy Mayor Mahco is always available night or day thank you everybody and uh seeing none hearing none motion to close the public session second second all in favor i Okay now we're going to take a vote on
ordinance number 8-2025 from the township committee i have a motion to adopt ordinance 8-2025 motion second on roll call committeeman Cahill i committeeman Faramosa hi committeeman
Francioli i committeeman Malco yes mayor Gallagher hi ordinance 8-2025 is so adopted thank you very much everybody moving on we have the public
hearing and consideration of adopting the 20 2025 municipal current fund budget in the amount of 32,893,9286 proof of publication that the current fund budget appeared in full in the daily record in accordance with law at
this time may I have a motion to convene the public hearing on the 2025 current fund budget second all in favor i is there anyone in chambers wishing to be heard concerning the 2025 municipal current fund budget
if so state your name to the podium no hearing none seeing none may I have a motion to close the public hearing second now an adoption of the 2025 current fund municipal budget may I have a a motion to adopt so move second on
roll call committeeman Cahill hi committeeman Feramosa committeeman Francioli hi committeeman Malco yes and Mayor Gallagher hi the 2025 current fund municipal budget is so adopted kathy do you want to say anything it's nice to
see you wonderful thank you for being here tonight did you want to take the podium miss do you want to say anything we always like hearing from you yes I might as well thank you but as an auditor a lot of
questions always arise as far as far as affordable housing and I really don't know that much about it because it's more of a legal issue so I love passing the CPA buck to the attorneys so anyway um you know as always I'm on the outside and I brought
with me tonight one of my colleagues Brian Co and he worked beside me and he'll be working with me over the next year um just to say that the consideration that's given to the budget the concern for the tax rate um I know
that uh Sylvio looks at how you're putting your budget together and making sure that you're going to land on both feet at the end of the year and I think that um you're using very conservative and very careful budget measures and
procedures and um I just wanted to say that you're able to do that with um minimal tax increases but we do know and I know it was said in the room tonight that uh inflation has been horrendous hard to keep up with and so each year
you're challenged to see how you're going to work with all those costs and another point I would like to make too is that the state has come down and made some concessions very small concessions in terms of being inside your appropriation cap and you don't have
that issue here in handover you're well below it but a lot of towns that were well below the appropriation cap are finding that certain costs that are inside and one of those biggest costs is the increases in the pension contribution are making it very very
difficult so towns that didn't have such a um such a bank um are getting closer and closer and wondering how they're going to you manage to stay within that so you're in a very good position but you're also just one of the
municipalities in New Jersey and with the way the economy is going it could just become increasingly difficult and it's not just today it's not just the recent events you know we just came out of the pandemic um in a 3 to 5 year period so always
being conscientious about that but that's all I'll say thank you thank you very much appreciate it and Silio I just want to say again that you do an incredible job and we really appreciate you and when things are good we take credit for your work too which makes us look good thank you Silio and thank
you Christine thank you uh next I'd like to introduce ordinance number 10-2025 uh this evening I'll read the title into the record is ordinance 10-2025 an ordinance of the township committee of the township handover amending and supplementing ordinance
number 8 2024 and chapter 61 of the code of the township entitled salaries and compensation personnel policies which chapter establishes regulations and rates of compensation for the officers and full-time and part-time civilian and non-union employees of the township i'd
like to state for the record that this ordinance and its respective notice of introduction will be published in full in the daily record in accordance with law and the public hearing is scheduled for April 24th 2025 at 8:00 p.m if any member of the public would like to be
heard regarding this ordinance they will be given the opportunity to do so that evening may I please have a motion to introduce ordinance 10-2025 so move may I have a second second on roll call committeeman Cahill yes committeeman Phamosca Committeeman
Francioli Committeeman Mahalo and Mayor Gallagher so introduced our next order of business is the resolutions i do have one extra that is not on the agenda that I will read into the record and then will we vote on it as a consent agenda
it is resolution 92-2025 resolution of the township committee of the township of Hanover appointing Daniel Cacero to serve as the alternate one member of the Hanover Township Hanover Township Economic
Development Advisory Committee for a 2-year term of office expiring on December 31 2026 all in accordance with section 21-2D and 21-2E of chapter 21 of the code of the township entitled Economic Development
Advisory Committee does any member of the township committee have any questions regarding any of these resolutions no may I have a motion then to pass the resolutions as a consent agenda so moved may I have a second second all in favor i
they are passed next we have to pay our bills in the amount of 7,311,32 john will you pay our bills please for Sylvia to pay the bills may have a second second all in favor i and lastly we have three raffle applications
rl 3477 Knights of Columbus it's for an armchair race and RL 3478 layups for life 50/50 and RL 3479 layups for life tricky tray may I have a motion to approve the raffle application so moved
and second all in favor i approved mayor and the members of the committee that clears that portion of the agenda and I thank you thank you very much Christa thank you okay can I have a motion to open to the public so move second second
all in favor i if anyone from the public would like to speak to the governing body please step up to the podium state your name and address and you have four minutes hi my name is Lindsay Hollerin i live at the red carpet and I just want to say
kudos to you guys for you know with the home for the ark with the ark um on that because personally me I was locked outside or I would have gotten up but I really think that that is just the
wonderful and safest and a way better option than overdevelopment of this town because these people do nobody realizes is affordable housing is really honestly a joke it's really honestly a joke it
does not work because if it worked 34% of New Jerseyians are homeless this year we're up by 11% from last year so a third of the state now and these are people that work too so it's not just
hitting you know a certain social or financial group of people and good job and putting the most purest of purest of people i have a son with Down syndrome and I think that that is wonderful and
the comments made earlier were just so sad it's so sad and my daughter goes to Mount View Road School so I know she would love to see somebody in that area that is like her brother and hopefully Jackson he's at PG Chambers right now
he'll be able to go to either B Meadow or Maui Road School and see other people that are like him and I think that's wonderful and kudos to you guys thank you i appreciate you saying that we appreciate you saying that thank you anyone
else seeing none hearing none motion to close motion to move second second all in favor i like I don't think we have any other business than I do with you guys let me tell you what's going on
with up and down okay I will yield my time to we got a lot of stuff going on um check out the website we have the H Wind Symphony on the 27th um we have opening day for Little League is on April 26th
vetal pool registration is open check that out um we also have uh uh art and poetry on the 6th also coming up check out the website this is the springtime everything is rocking and rolling now so
that's it no way mike alumni anyone else you forgot to mention one important event you were mentioning that oh you want uh for all the seniors in our community speaking to all the seniors not just the
seniors who are in the seniors club uh on May the 10th uh laser vision from Hanover Township is providing us with one of their physicians who is going to do an eye clinic free of charge uh no uh
uh no insurance necessary uh that'll take place May the 10th at the uh community center uh you must register ahead of time for it you can do so uh through the recreation department through Denise Brennan and uh very brief
uh reg registration involved it's u not cumbersome at all but uh any of our seniors who want to take advantage of it I highly recommend it uh May the 10th again here at town hall yeah thanks Mike yeah great great program that Ron put
together be good great program right no not too much only I just remind everybody the 2025 you drive you text you pay program is in place the rest of the month so uh don't do it in handover because uh we did get some grant money and our police department is uh
utilizing that to uh help correct that issue now John you know you have to say something right you know John said enough tonight yeah John environmental cleanup birthday April 23rd Central Park
come out 10:00 in the morning help clean up handover township that concludes my remot motion to journ so move second all in favor i thank you everybody it should been on May the 4th cuz it's
laser like Star Wars behood of you