to call this special meeting of the Lake Planning Board to order. It's June 16th at uh 6:15. Uh V would call the roll, please. Did you guys just hear me? I did. I did
hear you. Okay. I can hear you as well. It looks like Viv is muted maybe. How about now? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay. It's been a while since I did
a virtual. Sorry. Chairman Cavalooi here. Mayor Higgins is excused. Council Leah Woody here. Mr. Kavanagh here. Mr. Petraino here.
Miss Krill is excused. Mr. Nef here is on his way. Mr. Boyce here. Oh, fantastic. Thank you. Tom is present. Mr. Boyce here.
Miss Schmidler here. Mr. Riners here. Mr. Seagull okay excused. Attorney Adam Schneider here.
Engineer Alan P. Hiller Jr. I believe he's going to tune in. I think that's correct. Okay. Thank you. Ba Graham, administrator Andrew Heisman.
Should we call the for well it's a planning board meeting so it's not necessary but it's good for everybody to identify those present all that. All right very good that completes the role.
Okay Drew you going to get us started or I can. So, thank you for coming to this meeting. We had some time restraints that we weren't aware of that would not have made last Monday's meeting. Uh, we had to put notice in paper 10 days before the meeting. Um, this is the affordable housing plan. I know Jennifer
is going to explain it a little bit. I know Adam's aware of it. Um, this is something that we have to pass as in the burrow um by the 30th of this month, otherwise we can open ourselves up to a bill builder
uh lawsuit. So, we're, you know, Christine and Jennifer have worked diligently on this to make sure that we're in compliance and doing everything we have to do. Um, and this is part of the protocol to bring it to the board's attention before we move forward to the mayor and council. Uh, that being said,
I I think um I think Jennifer will be able to explain the the details, excuse me, Christina will be able to explain the details a little bit further. Uh, I'm sure um everybody had an opportunity to go over the the plan that was sent
out and any questions um that we have um Christine could uh could answer. Great. So, um I'm here tonight. This is the public hearing for the housing element and fair share plan um for the
fourth round of the um New Jersey housing obligation. Um the housing element is a mandatory element of the master plan that's required under the municipal land use law and through the fair housing act provide um the
municipality's obligation to meet its affordable um housing requirements. Um, and the housing element itself is kind of the first half of the plan you have. And that includes
population trends, an inventory and projection of housing stock in the burrow, an analysis of demographics, um, including employment, housing, income, um, and
population trends. um and a review of infrastructure, environmental and historic constraints and existing land use um to determine where might be appropriate for affordable housing. Then the fair share plan portion of the plan
is the back half and that's really the meat of the plan. Um and that discusses the bureau's uh obligations and compliance for this current fourth round um and any prior um obligations or
compliance um that was passed. Um so for the fourth round which goes from July 1st 2025 through um 2035 uh the bureau of Lake Ko's uh
perspective needs. So that's the number of units uh the state felt that you were obligated to provide is 19. Um, however, we did what's known as the vacant land adjustment, which basically means that
because Lake Ko is pretty much entirely built out. Um, we did we looked at uh you have to look at any property that's uh property class one, which is vacant, 3B, which is a
farm, which there are none of in Lake Como. Um and then the 15 uh AC uh public properties and also tax exempt properties and you go through
them um you look at any environmental constraints uh what's actually on the property and if the size of the property and um if there's any realistic development potential based on those properties. We found that the realistic
development potential in Lake Ko is zero. So because Lake Ko is fully built out, there's no ability to provide um any housing without redevelopment
opportunities in the future. Um so that kind of knocks that 19 number down to zero. you do need to provide some zoning to allow for the creation of affordable units if um the opportunity arises. And
we do that by we're proposing a draft mand we have draft ordinances a mandatory set aside ordinance which is kind of boilerplate AC across the board um pretty much any municipality that does a vacant land adjustment and that just um that mandatory set aside
ordinance is if any developer any persons to come in and build five units or more of housing 20% so one of that five um needs needs to be uh designated as affordable and that uh doesn't
require you to allow you know any proposed development. But if you do permit a development of five or more residential units through the planning board through a redevelopment plan by by
permit um one out of every five would need to be affordable. We do also have to um create overlay zoning to allow uh the creation of affordable units if
possible. So, um right now your general business district permits a mixeduse overlay which allows for um mixed use buildings, you know, apartments over um res apartments over
commercial on the first floor and town homes off of Main Street. And we're recommending just tweaking that um ordinance section a little bit to require a mandatory set aside uh for affordable units if you're going to use
that um mixeduse overlay to create uh residential units. So that's really the meat of the plan. Um the bureau does also have a present need which is known as the rehabilitation obligation. Uh so
that just means the state calculations determined that there were 11 units that uh Lake Como uh would uh have to rehab for affordable housing that are affordable units within the next um 10
years. And that can be done through participating in Mammoth County's um housing improvement program. So that's really um those units are there. It's just if someone, you know, who qualifies as an affordable unit um wants to make
improvements to something with their home, they would be able to do so through that program. And that's really um the plan. If anybody has any questions, comments, concerns, I can certainly answer them for you.
I have a number of questions and comments. I don't want to be a time pig. If there's anyone else, chairman or anyone else who has questions, I'd be happy to defer to anyone else who wants to go first. Go ahead, Tom. I have a few questions, too. But yeah. Um, so first
off, a little bit of background. You know, I I was manager of a town that had to go through this process in the last round in Morstown, New Jersey, and we had to build 600 units. So, it's a very painful process um politically,
substantively as a policy matter. Um and I fully appreciate the hard work that um the planner has done for this and and that um the mayor and council. I'm I'm very appreciative of the difficulty of what they're going to have to deal with.
But I have to say um you know, I got a number of questions and concerns about this that I want to get out on the record. And so let me just start with a couple questions about the part of the report that's factual in nature and that just lays out some existing conditions.
Um I noticed that on page 11 there's a statement that 27% of our housing stock is vacant which seems strange to me and I don't understand that data. I know that on my street every house is occupied and when I walk around town it
hardly looks like 27% of the housing is unoccupied. So maybe there's some weird definitional issue. Yeah. So what that but if you could explain that what that um so this is you know um US Census Bureau American Community
Survey data but um in a town like Lake Ko um that vacancy number is probably seasonal residence. So um a home is considered vacant if it's not lived in year round. Um, and there are a number
of um, homes, a number of housing units in Lake Ko that people use as their summer home. So that's why that 27% number seems so high. Okay. Still seems still seems really high to me. I I can't
believe that more than a quarter of our town is seasonal, but maybe. Um, be that as it it may. Second, uh there's a vacant land inventory table. Um and on that table, I you know, obviously I'm
not familiar with every vacant piece of property in town, but I know the one that's right next door to me, it was the former first aid building is vacant, but it's not being used for a first a building anymore for first aid purposes, but it's lifted on that vacant land
inventory as being um for that purpose. And I don't it would seem to me that either that's a point in time when it used to be um a first aid building. So
maybe it's appropriate to have that in the plan or maybe that needs to be changed to reflect that that's not the intended use anymore. That property um I'm not quite I I know it's a little bit in flux what the intended use of that property is. public land. But um
and maybe I'm speaking against my own interest because I don't want it to be considered developable for affordable housing purposes, but be that as it may, it looks like it's a factually accurate statement in the plan. And I just wonder, you know, what what sort of due diligence was done? Did our parent staff
review that list to make sure that all of those vacant properties are that are listed are being appropriately referenced for what they are used for? So, um, we did send over a few drafts to, um, some burrow staff. Um, I think
that's kind of just a point in time, right? It was used for that. And I think, as you said, it's burrow land, but the the use is in flux, so we're just qualifying it as that. I don't know if the administrator wants to elaborate on that property any further.
So, as of right now, there there nothing has changed with that property. The burrow stand is right now. We're still not sure what we're going to do with that property. Um, you know, it's listed. It was last use as a first day building. Um, if what the
future holds for that property is still up in the air. I don't even want to speculate on what what it could be. What what's the what's the effective date of what the inventory is supposed to represent? Is that as of a particular
date in the past or is that supposed to be as of the date that we're endorsing this plan? Because I I would hope that all the characterized uses of these vacant properties are accurate because if they're not, then somebody wants to pick apart the plan, they're going to be
able to do it eventually and then it'll put the plan in some question. So I guess that's a question for the planner. What Mr. Question the the the underlying question is what's when this plan is submitted what
is the effective date that we're saying is the representation of how these properties are being used. So we reviewed the most recent tax data for on all of the properties you know in
this spring um these plans uh as you might be aware the uh turnaround for the fourth round was uh rather quick. So this has all been done within the last few months um due to the June 30th
deadline. So we use the most recent uh property tax data to look at the uses of the properties. So let me just and this is more of a substantive question. If that property in actuality is owned by
Lake Ko and it's not being used as a first aid building and it doesn't have a particular use associated with it at this point. does not allow it to qualify as um an exempt property that can't be
developed for public use purposes. So typically um you know it depends on the municipality and the size of properties but typically anything under8 acres is exempt because it would be too small to
um develop with you know the density requiring affordable housing units. So I believe that property is under8 acres. So it would still be exempt. It's actually I think it's 0.25 acres. It says 29. So
yeah. So it's not under 008, right? It's under8. Yes. 8.8. Okay. But it would still be exempt as a public property. So the exemption should really read that because it's under8 acres, it's
qualifies for the exempt status. Yeah, we can certainly update that, you know, to say undersized instead of I got you. I just want to make sure it's I want to make sure it's accurate and not not
otherwise. Um, a third, um, and I think it's page 19, it says the study that's represented here is based on quote planned zoning changes. Is that referring only to the plan zoning changes that are in the
appendices? In other words, the the zoning ordinances you already mentioned. What um I'm sorry, what on page 19 are you referring to? There's a I I don't have uh the exact verbiage in front of
me, but there's something that refers to um that the plan is based on proposed zoning changes or planned zoning changes. And I just want to make sure that that language if if we could tighten it to just say the plan zoning changes that are referenced in the
appendix as opposed to something that I don't know what other plan zoning changes there could be. Just not quite sure what um what you're referencing. If you give me a second I'll find it. If you did a if you did a quick search
within your document or planned um resulting changes, something like that, it should popped up. But I think it's around page 19. Oh, I see exactly where you're at page 19.
It's said so in reviewing the lands most appropriate for affordable housing. It says it's just reviewing the existing zoning and plan zoning changes. There really are no plan zoning changes but for the ordinances we're recommending
but other than that there really is no any plan zoning changes. So it's just talking about the existing zoning. But um that's you know the statutory review we need to undertake is to review any
plan zoning changes. Okay. I just wanted to get on the record that there were no other planned zoning changes or zoning changes under consideration that were writing anything in this report. That's that's good to hear and that's good to have on the record.
Um and just a another quick question. So, it's going to be a heavy lift to accommodate 19 units through a set aside ordinance. Mathematically, that would mean we would
have to do something like 120 units. And correct. So, you don't need to accommodate 19 units. So, the vacant land adjustment showed that your um the realistic development potential is zero.
So um the new law requires you to show you can provide 25% of your perspective needs. So 25% of 19 needs to be able to be created through the ordinances. So
that's through the mixture of the mandatory set aside ordinance and the overlay zoning changes. Okay. So that would be five of the 19. Correct. And then presumably the other 14 will still need to be created. No, they
won't. Okay. Correct. Okay. So, we're really only providing a plan here that's going to create five units of affordable housing. Okay. Um, that's good to know. That wasn't clear from reading what I had. Um,
and then if I could just jump in for a second on the the other ordinance which is part of this which is the fee ordinance which establishes a redevelopment fee for anybody who wants to knock their house down and rebuild it. Um, unless it was due to a fire or
flood or natural disaster, they're going to have to pay a 1 and a.5% of the assessed value of the house as a fee. And that's it's not just for developers, which I don't have a concern with, for multiple housing, but if a the way this
is written, if a homeowner in town wants to knock their house down and rebuild it, even if it's within existing zoning or even if it's within the same footprint and doesn't even expand it at all, even though it could, they're going to have to pay 1.5% half
um of 1 and a half% P of the based on against the assessed value. So, for a house that's set at $800,000, that would be, by my math, a $6,000 fee for the privilege of making your house nicer or maybe knocking down a
dilapidated old house and making it new and and making it better. And to me, that seems like it's going to impose a rather steep financial hit for anyone who's just trying to make their house nicer and not even seeking a a variance
or anything special approval to make it bigger than the zoning otherwise allows. And to me, that seems like a bit of a bad policy call. It discourages people from making their homes nicer and improving them when they need to. Um,
and it's just makes housing more expensive, not less in the town because if someone owns their house, they want to make it nicer, it just cost them another 6,000 bucks. Or if a developer even buys a single lot and tear down a a really dilapidated, awful property, um,
and wants to rebuild it in exactly the same footprint, whoever then buys that house is going to have to pay another for them $12,000. Um, so I don't I don't know why we would do that. Seems very aggressive as relates to a single family
property that's going to be owner occupied. So that's um you know like a across the board um that is how that is the uh the development fee ordinance that um is
like the state required ordinance that every municipality adopts. It's a it's Can I hear from our attorney? Is is that developer fee required? Because I I wasn't I'm going to I don't know. You know, this is all rather new to me. You
know, I I've got I've read through the plan and I'm certainly not an expert. It would be better um directed at the attorney representing the burrow in this case. Um right. And is that is that attorney present to answer that
question? I not as far as I know, but I I don't think it's a bad question, but I'm not I'm not going to guess at the answer. You know, as as an attorney who's dealt with this before, I know in the past it was not, and maybe something maybe the
law that changed a year ago requires it. I'm not so sure that's the case, but if we're not required to adopt the fee as as as high as it is, I'd like to see a little bit more relief for people who are single family
homeowners who are just remodeling their house. And if they're doing it within zoning, if we're allowed to do that, I would prefer that we uh support that and not something that's a whole lot more expensive for people who just trying to make their house better.
So, every meeting I've been with in with this, the 1.5 was standardized. And Christine, you're saying this is the state regulations on this, correct? Uh, our burough attorney is not present. Um, there's there was uh she was not be able
to attend this. So I don't other than uh Christine and uh her staff her Jennifer um you know I don't have a law that says that that's what what it has to be Tom. So that's something research
will have to get into. I mean I as as it's currently written um where we would be adopting or supporting and making part of the affordable housing plan um this particular ordinance I would suggest you know I I would support it if
it said that um the fee shall not be more than that and shall be set by ordinance and then we can have a debate at the local level about what the appropriate zoning or fee should be but I'm uncomfortable voting for a plan that's going to tell people who just want to rebuild their home they have to
pay 6,000 bucks or more if that's fair or reasonable. Well, a silly question. Where would the fee go? If if the state's requiring it, is the state taking the money or is the No. So, um, as part of your
participation in the affordable housing process, you will set up a, um, affordable housing trust fund, which, um, the money generated from the development fees goes into that account and can only be used for affordable
housing purposes. Um so whether that's you know money towards the rehabilitation of a unit um money towards making um properties more affordable building an affordable project if um you're required
to in the future um those types of things. So if there is no fee let's say collected the burden is on the taxpayer of the residents right? Correct. So this will offset that's not necessarily true but
okay. Well in in L if there's an account set up and some of the money is being generated from new construction it lightens the burden on the resident that's not doing new construction cuz either way the state's going to want the money right. Well the state doesn't
state doesn't get the money but well not get the money but they're going to want the money in the account. It's basically a buy down right. It's a buy down in lie of providing the lots. They're going to want us to give the state asurances that we have the ability and wherewithal to build the houses and otherwise
accommodate what we're promising in this plan. I'm not so sure that the amount of money that's being raised by this fee, which I think was estimated at $90,000 a year for the next 10 years, is what is really needed to meet all of our
obligations. Maybe it is. I haven't seen the math on that, but it would seem to me that you could lower that fee and still have enough money in the account to otherwise rehabilitate some homes and otherwise comply with the plan. And there's other sources to comply with the
plan as well. There's frequently state grants. There's state tax credits that are available to meet an affordable housing obligation. So, it's not like it's not like if we don't pay this fee, we're left completely high and dry and and the municipal taxpayers will be on the hook. They won't ne that won't
necessarily be true. If I misdated anything, please feel free to to say that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Either Adam or Jen. No, I'm just I'm I'm listening. You know, I don't hold myself out as having great expertise on this subject. Um,
maybe uh, Drew, when um, I I assume the council's going to hold public hearings on this, it goes in front of the council on Tuesday night. Um, this in particular, I'm looking at some of the the notes I
had here. Um the 1.5% was what I have down is something that was required. Um but I have developers. It's Is that Christine? Is that something different if it's just developers on the on the
1.5% or No. Is it specific to developments that are coming into town if if there is any in the future? Um the way the ordinance is written, it's for all improvements right now. Um it
can be tweaked a little bit and this is just you know the draft to have in the plan. um to uh exclude some type of residential um improvements on existing homes. I'm sorry. Did you say we could
exclude some type some types can be excluded? Correct. Okay. Some types of improvements, not complete new construction, but right now and what it is required to be is 1.5 for
residential and 2.5 for uh non-residential for commercial. All right. I mean that the fundamental core question I would have is is there room for additional either exemption or
lowering of the fee for somebody who's a homeowner that's just been proving their house or a single family unit that's otherwise not going to exceed the zoning as specified in ordinance because that's
actually an incentive too to encourage people if they are going to rebuild rebuilt within zoning and don't come looking for variances and height, you know, exemptions and things of that sort. I think it would be a good policy um to advance something like that. It would be it would be good to know
whether that's an authority that we have and if we did it, what would it mean by way of you know, how much less revenue would we receive each year and would it still be enough to meet our obligations um to the state? is I don't I really would hate to see us
put a tax fee that's unnecessarily high especially for single family homeowners. I don't think it's appropriate. I'll stop beating the dead horse on that. And I don't I don't believe and Doug can probably jump in on this. I don't believe the council's intentions were to or certainly are not the intentions to
impose any more restrictions on the um you know the residents that you're referring to, Tom. Uh if that's the case, then I'm sure um that's something that we can we can certainly look into to to modify or or change if we can.
Okay. Um is there a way maybe to um give a uh a tax credit for that fee on your on your property taxes? No, you wouldn't be able to I can answer that one. You wouldn't be able to do it
because a uniform property tax clause. you wouldn't be wouldn't be able to do it. Okay. Maybe the town attorney can give us uh um an answer on Tom's questions at the hearing on Tuesday night. Yeah, we'll have to
I'll have to look into this tomorrow and speak to the town with Bernie. Um and then uh I'll reach out to Christine and Jen tomorrow and see if we can figure this out. Okay, that would be great. Um, and then just last procedural question.
Has a copy of this um, plan that we're voting on tonight been made available to anybody in the public or developers other than the planning board members who are here tonight? Like, has anybody have a chance to review this and say to us whatever their concerns might be? So,
the plan have been on file um, at the burrow for 10 days. um this meeting you're having the special meeting to ensure it could have been noticed properly. So it was noticed notice is sent out to um the surrounding
municipalities. It's put in the newspaper um and it's sent to the state and the county as well. Right. And ultimately these three and this may be a question um for Adam, but these three ordinances
that the town is adopting to be compliant with consistent with what this plan is that we're adopting or are all three of those required to go through um the notice process for people with in
or near those zones like will the whole town be notified as to what's Well, I don't they're not going to be required to get 200 foot letters. or something like that. But there will be a public hearing. The board will need to do a consistency evaluation and make a recommendation. So there and then it'll
have to be voted on again. So you have three separate moments where the public can review and comment. Yeah. I thought zoning changes have to be noticed individually to certain property owners. Maybe not. I'm only talking about it from the from
the the board's point of view. That's the only been involved in. Yeah. Okay. You know, that's another question we certainly can get answered. Yeah. And I just I just want to I know I'm being a bit long-winded and a pain in the ass, but this is important stuff.
And I don't This is very important. Yeah. This is not the kind of stuff that is the subject of a 15minute meeting where people get a 10day notice. And I and look, I say those things of Drew with total appreciation for the really crappy
position that you're in. The state passed a horrible law a year ago and put everybody's head to the gun to get this stuff done and it's incredibly hard to do it. Um, and frankly for a small town like ours, it's especially bad state
policy because we don't have the resources to go hire um a lawyer who does nothing but specialize in affordable housing. But that's really what we should have because this stuff has longterm impacts for the town that are pretty substantial. And you know, one of my biggest concerns is that we're
going to adopt a plan tonight that doesn't really accommodate what it is that our obligations are. Um, you know, it's some developer will come in and say you're the plan you adopted that supposedly gives you protection that doesn't really give you protections because it's not a realistic plan. And I
don't I don't know, you know, without having talked to an affordable housing attorney who specializes in it that whether we're really protecting ourselves with the plan that we're voting for tonight. And for those for the reasons I expressed and the reasons
that I this state law is awful. The process through no fault of anyone here or the mayor or council or or Andrew, it's no one's fault here. this is purely a a state crappy legislation that put us in an awful position. Um, and
everybody's going through the same problem. But I'm I intend to abstain on this thing unless I have better assurances that, you know, individual property owners aren't going to be hit with a really steep figure for making their homes nicer.
But I say that with all due respect to you guys. I I know how hard this is and it's part of the reason why I swore when I left Morristown that I would never be a manager again cuz I think I spent half my waking hours on nothing but affordable housing issues. It's awful.
It's just awful. Okay. Um any other board members want to uh want to make a comment here? Well, go ahead. I was just going to say I to be honest and then to Tom's point I
mean I read the plan I still need a recap because it's it's it is confusing. The state says we need 19 units. We're really at zero units realistically but we have to provide five units. Where are we supposed to get them from?
So that's where I'm kind of I'm kind of losing I'm losing the message here. I'm losing the connection of what are we voting on you know you have to so the plan is your obligation what was 19 units but with doing the vacant land
adjustment your realistic development potential is zero units right you have to zone for the ability to provide at least 15 uh 25% of that um 19 unit number which
is about five units and you are doing that through the mandatory set aside ordinance and the overlay um amending the mixeduse overlay zone. As part of that, we had to prepare a buildout
analysis that shows that that zoning has the potential to generate at least five affordable units if um you know it was if every property in that zone was to be built out in a way that would provide
affordable housing. So then can I ask like just a description what is affordable housing? What makes a unit afford? Is it just a reduction of the sale price? Is it income based? Are we talking section 8?
Like what's what's the image that we have to see what affordable is? So um to be eligible for affordable housing that it is incomebased um in region 4 which is Mammoth Ocean and Mercer counties
because the state of New Jersey splits um the house the housing obligation the housing you know regions in to different areas based on My T.