[Music] good evening everybody welcome we were previously in close session and we're now at open party allegiance so we are going to just begin the meeting um and uh as we do uh each meeting we start
with public comment ask if you would wish to make public comment if you're able to step to the podium we appreciate that state your name and address we have three minutes of uninterrupted time for questions for urgency we'll keep an eye on the timer
we'll give you a 30 second warning so good evening and if anyone would like to make public comment please feel free hi Sean Ellis 21 Belvadier Avenue um I just have a bunch of questions um and I don't know if I should just read them
off or is go one by one okay um number one is the fair share uh court date still tomorrow um will the D be holding another public meeting as was requested at the last
meeting um I saw in Lambertville matters that uh D is going to do another round of testing at Ka and Cottage Hill um most of Kona Hill has already been tested and they they should I don't know if that's what they meant but they should be like around Kona Hill to get
the extent because they reached the limits of that um order there um uh the audio was a little bit garbled um on the recording of the uh affordable housing committee video that was just
posted and it wasn't clear if the village apartments was deemed not viable as a site because the of the flooding restrictions um or if it is something that can be worked around um and it's still a viable site
um also uh I just wanted to ask about the brief the that the response to Khanian uh that Lambertville sent um I was surprised to see that the really the contamination and environmental issues
weren't really mentioned very much i think it was just once in the whole thing and that has a it's a big change circumstance and has a big impact on the viability of that site you know it's there's also state restrictions about groundwater recharge and everything that
could impact that so I don't know um you know why why that wasn't included because it changes things um and uh the final thing is during the um affordable housing
committee meeting some sites were very quickly dismissed um because they run against local ordinances i think one example was the Wells Fargo building because apartments can't be on the first floor in the central business district and that's something we could easily
work around if that site was otherwise viable we we can have variances for affordable housing or make concessions you know there as the city we have control over that so I don't think we should be dismissing them that quickly without investigating it a little further
so that's all questions thank you thank you um so the court uh hearing was today um I'll ask Councilman L to comment on that he was actually in the room so we represented by our attorney Kelly Grant um uh the judge did grant the motion to
intervene for K intervene i'll let Councilman live flesh this out in just a minute um as regards to uh the legal strategy and whether or not u any mention of POS was in the you know was a
part of uh the the attorney's um strategy i'm not going to comment on that um because it's part of a legal strategy and there are other reasons why that may have been included or excluded beyond kind of what may be obvious to uh
to you or or anyone um the D I did request a meeting um I've not heard back from them um on that so I will follow up um I have had a couple of uh exchanges with the DP on various things we did invite them to the green fair they're
not actually we're not actually able to send representative they will be sending some literature that will be passing out um the as I noted in member matters this week they are planning on doing additional testing on Kat Hill and uh testing on Cod Hill they sent me the
addresses but I'm not going to share those because they have not notified individual property owners yet and I can't account what I don't know what they're you know what their strategy is in terms of you know how it lays out what they're what they're trying to I assume that they've got some method well they did say at the first public meeting
that they're doing first an extent and scope investigation which would you know mean that they should be testing beyond Connor Hill you know and and the perimeter of what they've already tested um and then they would do the source investigation once they've gotten the scope so um yeah I just want to make
sure that they are aware that a lot of these are already tested and we have tests every single test result that's been forwarded to the city so um Cindy do you remember how many we've sent oh geez no but there every one sent to them so so
they have a complete uh spreadsheet from even if if their the puzz was below the state limit we sent it okay and and that's true of cottage as well so we've had some people send voluntarily send their results uh with low you know kind
of amounts that were within within the range uh and a couple that have sent them that were exceedences and we sent those as well so every single thing that anyone has sent us we forwarded both to the county and to the state so they've got a pretty good database of what is where and that's I assume how they uh
kind of worked on these additional testing sites and you have the ones that were on the other side of 179 as well on Cottage Hill no the other side of 179 to the south to the north of of Cottage Hill i'm not of
if it was sent to us it was sent along to even those that were west light which is what I assume you're you're asking i'm not quite sure where that that border stops there but we sent we sent everything that was received no matter where i just would identify versus
um so those apartments uh I believe it's still viable um we need to do a little bit more research um so yeah I believe that's still a viable site but we need to do a little bit more research and and I'll just note that I
have had some contact with the owners of those apartments um and uh you know when there's an update to share I will share with the with the with the community i don't have an update to share right now um the Wells Fargo site was among yeah we have been talking about these sites in order of what we think is the most um
kind of the biggest bang for our buck in terms of our fourth round at least our initial compliance mechanisms so the the Welsh Fargo site was discussed um and I don't know that it was we're not crossing anything off the list um but it was if I remember correctly and Cindy
just did the minutes today so she may remember I believe it was only capable of producing one unit so it was just farther down the list than other sites that were capable of you know creating five or or more units in terms of getting our you know we're we're nearing
the end of the deadline so what we're trying to do is to get whatever sites are going to get us to the fourth round number first yeah and that was just an example i I wasn't particularly saying that that would be the ideal or anything but you know just that all of the sites you know
we're not restricting ourselves with our own ordinance not not at all and uh you know we will continue to talk and meet as a committee i would like the committee to continue working well beyond and and to memorialize their you know to structure it with an ordinance
so that uh you know any opportunity that comes up we can examine so whether it's adding one site whether it's somebody you know on a committee working for a long time we'll see if that's a viable site having conversations i'd like this to be a permanent function of of the city um because I think that uh there
will be opportunities to come up and there are uh already opportunities that we have not been able to kind of uh I think realize or spend time um developing or researching just because we've never had the the resources to do
it but I think our devoted committee we're well on our way there so uh and I'll turn this over to Councilman L who can speak to uh um Uh so we uh there was the hearing uh before judge men today at the courthouse
in Flemington uh so the city attorney or the uh Kelly Grant our house of attorney uh she was there she argued our position to court kavian's attorney was there sher was there uh Merrick Wilson he sat and
watched extraordinary where I was um and you know my first impression uh you know Judge Menon is a relatively new judge uh superior court judge he was uh court judge in the past he's only been on the bench about two years he really blew me away with his preparation and his uh
level of understanding of these issues uh really impressive uh he read everything he knew uh you know really well versed in everything um he at the very beginning he brought up that he was the Lambertville Municipal Court Judge
and so there really two parts of this motion there's the procedural part and then there's the subsidy part and he felt comfortable um argue or deciding the uh procedural uh issues which is did Kahal have the standing do they need to
test to intervene but he was uncomfortable uh making the decision on the substantive issues and the reason why is he said look this is a very important decision it's probably going to be appealed by one party and he just wanted to make sure that the judge whatever
decision was made it was a sound decision and so I really respect him saying that um he had talked to Judge Ballard who's the presiding judge in Hunter of the civil division uh and I believe Judge Ballard is going to take the case over and so the second part is
the more meat and potatoes to it which is um you know is our immunity going to be stripped and is this site really developable which is really what a lot of the issues that you were talking about about the environmental stuff and so that stuff is going to be addressed
um and so the court initially had said uh and the judge is also very practical too you know um I know a couple of the lawyers here but whenever you go you argue motion like the judge if the parties can agree on something the judge doesn't necessarily want to make a decision you know wants to try to get people to um to resolve and so one of
the practical things that he talked about was well we've got this fourth round the deadline's coming up you know I'm just going to hold this in advance this substantive part until we get to that fourth round deadline um you know encouraging you know more discussion and everything like that so Kavanian's
attorney was not happy about that um and you know was really wanting the judge to decide the substantive issues as soon as possible uh so the judge ended up saying he's going to hold everything in advance but he was going to ask civil case management to reach out to all the parties to have a case management
conference uh the second half of April beginning of May so um uh kind of what as I expected I thought our attorney Kelly Grant did a very nice job arguing um you know the the issues the procedural part but the reality is it is a low standard they just have to have a
claimed interest in it and you know uh Kavanian's attorney really railed on the city for the past 10 years of us not doing anything and so the big thing that really hurt us was fair share supported Kanadian's position and so you know obviously we've got to work on getting
fair shares um you know uh their belief that we're really meeting that we want to provide affordable housing in everyone and I'm confident we can do that um you know we just need to have more dialogue with them and that's going to be our goal okay thank you sounds
good i have two other things just while uh uh so so the uh the judge's order uh we just received that this evening we'll post it to the city's website tomorrow with all of the other uh uh information so you can take a look at the judge's order tomorrow we'll get it in before
the close of business and um I did in fact receive I was just checking while you the council was talking a response from the D about a meeting um and it basically says um I can bring it up to the team to see if we can accommodate that admitt admittedly another public
meeting might not be necessary as there's not a tremendous amount of new information we can present um anyone with questions about this bill fund can be referred uh we might decide instead decide to write up an update which you and Mayor Cali publish on your respective websites um so uh I did not
get a response kind of following that um I did follow one other time so uh just as a resource I made sure that we did put the link to the re to the web the website again uh with all of the information that the city has in terms
of resources testing spill spill fund so that is on the city website and if I hear back about this I'll I'll let you know maybe they'll be maybe they'll consider another meeting after the extra testing okay just on on the spill fund issue I just want to bring it up i know
it's not anything anybody here can necessarily do about it but four people have had their applications lost um one person twice they were certified mail um there were return addresses nobody knows
where they are and um it's uh either incredible incompetence or um and one one person had receipts from all the bottled water that they were putting they asked for the originals and she wrote down all the amounts but didn't make copies of every receipt because you
know it's like stack of this so she's going to be out um you know uh her reimbursement uh so I don't know it's just unfortunate but I thought I'd just mention it so be aware is there an email address people can email that in or it's got to be regular mail no it has to be
certified mail could you send it certified mail but then also scan it and email it in uh no that's not they will not it's very very um strict yeah i mean it sounds like the the department is going to have a number of
applications to the school fund so they you know might really be mindful of maybe trying to have a contact i know there regulations but that could be something that we could just ask them since you know
yeah u Jeff Tuttle 33 Wilson Street i just want to start off and and say that you know we've been looking to intervene in this case and I've taken our the briefs and everything so far to certain lawyers I respect and know and
work with and explain what's going on in town and the history and and everything else and what has come back to me from different attorneys so far is basically this the town isn't willing to go after the hill because it's toxic because of
the PAS issue it's the one major change from 2020 and 2018 is that you have 71 contaminated wells in the area around the site you have a another thing that the town never talks about or never really brings up in the right way
because our planner sort of downplayed it you have an unrediated landfill so we have no idea what's in it or how big it is and unless the town is serious and and mayor since you had a lot to do with the briefs and that unless you guys are
really serious on bringing the hill in and I know you may have some other issues but if you don't bring it in I haven't seen a lawyer yet that says we have a shot of winning that they basically said we should put our money into other things like elections um my point being is that this is the biggest
issue we're facing because if that site gets developed and we don't know what kind of games property owner will pay will play we do know that Khnian is an innocent purchaser so Havanian builds up there and nothing is discovered until
afterwards and we turn it over to the homeowners association the homeowners will be on the hook and the town will be on the hook because the homeowners will start complaining and you can't blame them and so this is our one shot to do it right we need we need two things we've been saying some of us in this
room since last year two things we've been saying is you have to have an alternative site like the village apartments and you have to discredit the hill that it's not a viable site in fact they get into the case because of the changes on this hill it gives us chance as interveners to get in because
normally and there's a recent court case that if you weren't part of the original discussion on the site you can't get in because of the what they consider a major change that's the one thing we have and if we don't do it and I know mayor you had worked trying to get that project done and you work within for the
200 units and all the things that have gone on but we're now in crunch time we're either going to have a town that's going to be overrun with development and more flooding from that hill and who knows what comes leaking out of there into the town or we can have a future
town where we can actually do affordable housing right and some of the things I've heard about the entrance ways and things on the flood rules you have to do mitigation they're not cut and dry you cannot take out sites because access may be through a flood area the rules are designed not to be a taking because then
the state has to buy it so you have to understand that and then my last point because I know I'm running out of time because you're going to be talking tonight about the um historic preservation our ordinances on redevelopment have to be changed there is there's no real architectural
standard you can build a giant box next to a small house and you've got to deal with the traffic situations and the issues there and so I hope that whatever you discussed in close session tonight you're going to prosecute this case uh to the fullest and you're going to
explain why the Hill should be taken out of the plan thanks anyone else john Towns 14 Hancock um again came a little late sorry um my understanding is the village apartments are off the
list now for development plan because No no did you want to ask all your questions and I'll answer them okay very good is it off the the list uh I know the state has come out with new flood
requirements um I believe that does sty us for that location or whoever the developer is going to be for that area uh why hasn't the city looked into filing a
federal fund claim the city not us individual you guys are supposed to be protecting us and I haven't heard anything about this site and the potential for that
being a an open dump site or unclosed dump site I should say why isn't the city all over this why isn't the lawyer all over this why why are we just a hamster in a wheel running around and around and
around sorry guys you put yourselves up there so now you're chopping block so to speak and get some definitive action from the city i haven't seen it
sorry that's all thank you thanks uh those department's not off the list um so that's all I can say about that and u the attorney is not here and so I'm not prepared to answer a question that I don't understand i don't know if anybody
else understood it but I'm not I don't understand the structure of a federal spill claim fund that the municipality might apply for on private land so I'm not quite sure if you wanted to format the question and send it to me I can have the attorney provide a proper response so if you could do that I'd
appreciate it unless anybody has I think I know what you're saying i think the question is does the city have standing and I honestly I don't know we need Bill to answer that question about that about the uh the spill uh but the city you know um as it relates to the uh 295 North
Main Street even though the flooding issues there you know all that means is it's got to be built up a little higher and so that property is still developable we just obviously we've got to take in account that it's in a flood zone it's in the 100-year flood zone and so it's got to be built up enough and so that site as it looks there today when
it gets developed it's not going to look like that because it's got to be lifted up so on the part of the property closest to uh North Main Street you know that's going to look somewhat the same but when you go from the other side it's got to be built up significantly because that's the very low area so that part's
going to look different right yeah i think what you know you can build in in flood zones what the D is providing for is that you have to go up so they'll be having more height there and there has to be a second means to egress exactly
right exactly so and you have to have that ability you know the first floor is you know not habitable so um no it really does just as a it kind of segus into the historic preservation issues that we're going to talk about about you
know the differing building standards that you know promoting now floodprone areas that you know you see a lot more height and I think too that's where we need to tinker with some of our standards because when you get into that
type of height um what you do see a lot are very boxy structures without a lot of ornamental detail and without a lot of you know within the massing you know allotting for you know some of the
things that we used to do like side porches and and a lot of different features that you don't And um you know so some of the things that we talk about requiring particularly in you know in the downtown
I think really need to take a look at because you know if you just adhere to this going up you know you do you get these boxes you know you're like and and that's not really you know we're kind of getting there but that's not really what
it's about when you go down to our neighborhoods you do have you know folks that you know in the you know years ago allotted for light and air better than I think we're doing it now um and so not
to I digress but those are a lot of the things that we have to take a look at in terms of and and certainly I just want to say a robust response to PES i'm always you know in support of pursuing the
departments more and the things that we can do and does that involve us as a town getting into a class action against these manufacturers it's you know some things that our attorney is now starting to look into
yeah I I agree i think um I agree with the council commence final comment board where we go but the final comment Regarding the PAS I think um what I heard you asking John was you'd like some advocacy from the council on behalf
of residents who are affected by this and you know we do need to look at creative ways that we can do that um and and I can't speak for our attorney i didn't even stay at a holiday in last night so I'm not an attorney right um so
you know but we do need to look at ways that we can get involved to to build credence to the actions that need to be taken on behalf of anyone else in the room who would like to offer public
comment online how many people do we have online keeps changing so okay latest 13 13 right glad that people are coming in online regularly that's I think that's a
wonderful thing I'm glad that we we host these meetings so for a motion to close the public comment period please move second all in favor I thank you public comment move on to discussion items I
don't have too much of an affordable housing update we touched on a couple of things the committee is meeting twice a month um expect at uh the next meeting they will probably make a formal recommendation to the city council and planning board for uh our fourth round
compliance mechanisms uh we uh it's great work that the committee is doing i'm really really pleased with it everything is public record um and uh everything from the notes to the locations to what it might yield to what the mechanism is so
uh that more people will attend those meetings or at least look at the look at the record as they as it becomes available um now we're going to move on to the the historic preservation ordinance this is something that um is probably going to take a little bit of time tonight uh this is uh a project
that we've been talking about this ordinance for a couple of years now it's true um and uh and I think it's something really worth considering obviously our women spent a couple of years working on it with uh Debbie Kelly
who's here tonight and Cindy uh and Lisa Eastston in particular so um the way I'd like to do this is the the council has had access to the existing uh um ordinance actually everybody has access to that uh and the proposed new
ordinance um and the proposed ordinance with uh highlighted sections which indicate everything that's new in the ordinance also on the record and we can we can uh release all of these things to the public uh we have a letter of support from the historic preservation
commission and also a summary to the proposed changes to the Lambertville historic preservation ordinance so there's there's a lot to unpack here because it's a significant change and uh part of the reason that we started to consider this was because this would be
a it's a required element of becoming a certified local government something that historic preservation commission has been keen on for uh all the years I've been paying attention at least since 2021 um and Lisa and I Lisa East is the chair of the historic preservation commission i've been
talking about it since I was elected that first year or two when I was busy doing other things i didn't quite give it all the attention I might have but uh but we're here now tonight and um I think if if I may if the council will allow I'd like to introduce Lisa and have her just kind of go through some of
the the basic information about why we're doing this what we're uh what our goal is what the benefits are maybe walk through some of the what are the the key changes um and address any questions that we have um I'll note for the record that we have four members of the
historic preservation commission here um that are here as residents only one of them will speak this evening on the advice of council um representing the historic preservation commission um so I'm gonna ask Lisa to step up to the podium here lisa Eastston is a resident
um how long have you been here 10 years 10 years so Lisa East I'm just going to give you a little bit of a bio because it's really impressive um she is regarded in historic preservation field as an expert architect preservationist planner and historian she received the
largest monetary grant from the Getty Foundation's campus heritage program for her work at the Bronx Community College as well as multiple awards from national state and local uh grant programs uh she teaches at the Pratt Institute um and center for continuing and professional
studies she serves extensively uh around state national conferences she's 35 years of experience as an architect is registered in New York New Jersey Rhode Island Massachusetts Virgin Islands District of Columbia Michigan and a pending uh uh registration in Texas um
qualifications include National Park Services professional uh qualific qualification standards for architecture historic architecture architectural history history and uh among her many accomplishments she is currently working as the development of restoration conservation treatment program and
architective record for the Lolo in San Antonio Texas she uh has been the chair of the historic preservation commission um since uh 2021 she was a member of uh uh the vice chair of the New Jersey Historic Trust um from 2018 to the
present and uh she was also a member of the community advisory team here so incredibly certified and incredibly uh we're very grateful for all of the work that you've done since you've been on uh the commission and uh appreciate your support and coming tonight um we
may ask if you're available to come back to the second uh reading in case any of the public have specific questions but the goal here tonight is to just inform the council have council conversation not necessarily have a public dialogue because this is the first time the council's really had an
opportunity to look at uh we finally just got the the ordinance back in its final form from the state this past week uh with really two years of back and forth with the state they've declared it perfect um so that's that's good that's encouraging so the council's had a chance to look at it and um so why don't
I uh turn the floor over to you Lisa with much gratitude thank you mayor and thank you council members for having the opportunity to speak before you tonight and for you to actually have review the ordinance it has been a labor of love for valuably more than I'd like to admit
um and becoming a certified local government as the mayor mentioned was really the driving force to revising our ordinance so just to give you a little background the letter of support but I'll read it out loud so the public can hear as well the Historic Preservation Commission of the City of Lambertville
respectfully request your support for the update to its historic preservation ordinance so just to give a guideline here the most effective protection of historic resources is designation and regulation at the level listing on either the New Jersey or National
Registers of Historic Places does not save a property if it's privately owned in fact an owner could demolish that property if they so chose so really the teeth of the law happens at the municipal level and how we get our governing legislation is the municipal
land use law and that governs planning commissions the zoning commissions and gives the historic preservation commissions regulatory authority to help designate historic resources in the community so just a little history in New Jersey uh the Bureau of Handfield in Camden
County initiated the first municipal designation of historic properties as early as 1971 in 1985 municipal regulations of historic resources was challenged in courts when the New Jersey Supreme Court declared invalid an ordinance designating and regulating
historic sites and districts in Middletown County his challenge to the designation of historic resources led to an amendment at the state to state land use law to permit the identification and designation of historic sites and districts as part of the municipal
planning and zoning process so local governments in New Jersey derive their authority to identify evaluate designate and regulate historic resources from the state municipal land so here in Lambertville we are very fortunate we've
had a very strong community of uh advisors of legal experts and of volunteers who have put together the ordinance that we are now amending and so the ordinance that we are amending was established in 2002 and it created the historic preservation commission we
again had another ordinance in 2006 which allowed any demolition permit that was coming before the city to be evaluated by the historic preservation commission i think it's really important for people to understand historic preservation commission has perview over the local historic district also called
the CD central business district the city of Lambert bill is entirely listed on the national register and the jersey registers of historic places they're very different things so the HPC really only has curve over the smaller nugget that really straddles Bridge Street and
a bit east or west or south I should say of Bridge Street so our area that we have a purview over is very small so the challenges before you with planning and development are very very critical and we are very cognizant of that but right now we don't really have authority over
anything so that's one thing we would like to talk in the future about expanding this district to have a wider range of of regulatory so to keep going in Lambertville there have been some great people like Stu who has spent a lot of time writing the laws
and the ordinances that we follow so we amended this or had a second ordinance in 2014 which created the historical historic district and again I wrote in 2021 for the actual designation individual buildings and individual
historic landmarks so now what's before you tonight that's highlighted in yellow is putting all of these things together into one document and the purpose of this is to really comply with best practices for historic preservation as guided by the National Park Service and
our state historic preservation so all of the things it's a compilation of everything that we've already been practicing by and the most significant feature of this is that it it codifies the fact that our HPC here in Lambertville which we've been practicing
under for 23 years has been operating as a strong commission what that means is we're allowed to review applications and make a regulatory decision on as our own body we do operate under the planning commission and the zoning ordinance of course however we have a strong voice in
how we look at our historic resources and our community so as a commission many of my members we've all been talking about this for years we encourage you to support this change because it brings us up into compliance on a federal level it brings us up into
compliance on a state level and what it will help us do is become a certified local government and so one of the things that will help us do is it'll avail us to grant funds at the state and federal level that will help us improve our preservation guidelines and help
fund different initiatives for education for the public on preservation so with that guidelines we can start to now address the great threat to our community and planning and development and do that cohesively collectively as part of the larger body of the planning
initiative so that's sort of the synopsis of it i can give you Deb did a great job i want to thank her for all her efforts uh because this was truly a labor of love and a lot a lot back and forth with she has a file over there with all the red
marks of how many times it's gone back and forth with the historic preservation but really the biggest features that are put into here are definitions that did not exist in 2002 with our first ordinance all of this is coming to us by the National Park
Service over time and it's uh now incorporated it talks about alterations demolition gives us define defined um categories for how we look at our historic resources it also creates quite actionable items on how we review
applications so there's no [Music] vag so hope that sums it up happy to answer questions if you have questions so just uh one thing I would note that there are
uh according to the National Park Service 21 28 certified local governments in the United States new Jersey has 43 that's right so there's it's a high bar because you've got to be very serious about your your preservation goals and the people
who are going to participate in this program and and at 43 in New Jersey you know possibility is it opens up more funding right correct so I mean that's a fairly low number when there are 400 565
municipalities so it's a it's a small prestigious club it is and it's really the granting opportunity that we have so helpful to a community as small as ours where we don't have a lot of resources our guidelines as I mentioned were written in 2009 so they're quite outdated so it's really a time where we
need a professional to come review and rewrite them with us to see what the threats to our community are but also what our current needs are and it's part of preservation i've practiced it now for 35 years and part of what I love about it is that we are layering time
we're not staying in time this community that we all love in Lambertville it tells a whole host of stories and it's not meant to be stagnant it's meant to be moving forward in time and we need to promote positive growth we need to promote responsible and acceptable and
appropriate and that preservation standards will help us do that guided by the National Park Service then implemented through the safety preservation office and then fine-tuned for each community such as ours um I think what would be maybe helpful
and thank you for having me here we're lucky to have you um would be for people to understand like really some basics like what the difference you know now that we're going to be doing this with this commission so
what what would a resident be do you know doing to walk through the process you know how is it going to be different how does it operate you know which is like kind of you know kind of nuts and bolts of what we're doing to like you know there's actually absolutely no
difference and how they're functioning now and how they will function with this amended ordinance the amended ordinance is really compiling everything we operate on and it's making more information available to an applicant to understand the definitions that we're
talking about what comprises an improvement a minor uh application versus a major application if there's nothing in terms of our process or the process of the applicant so for example last night at the planning board uh the planning board had
an applicant uh for new construction in the central business district and when I look at the design criteria the additions to design criteria for new construction you would have a lot more to say about that um so I'll just note that and if anybody was at the planning board meeting last night it was a
wonderful meeting lots of questions lots of engagement um so it's a question as well so for example in the design criteria under the through construction um some of the things that you you'll be looking at are height proportion facade proportion of openings rhythm of solids
there's 11 at least 11 12 11 different things criteria that you'd be looking at as a commission um one of the questions I had was in height for example says the height of the proposed structure shall be visually visually compatible with adjacent buildings so does that
potentially pose a an a regulatory issue with um the zoning you know the standard heights in the city or is it you have more latitude to make a decision um so for example last night that the applicant had a building it was just under 40t right um and there was some
concern about the height of that building it was also in the flood plane so it had to go up higher right so uh this this word shall appearing on the design criteria i think we all need to remember that we are subject to the zoning board as well was the planning commission so we would not be advocating
for anything that did not comply with zoning we often get applicants who come before us who require variances and they have the canal commission they have the zoning board they have the planning commission there's different entities that they must present to but we do not override any we are subject to following
zoning it's a good point to make I think yes but I do think though that the what that the commission has the ability from just the experience last night to make design
suggestions i mean because some of the design criteria is I don't want to say broad is the wrong term it's you know it's kind of squishy you know it's like you're at it is vague and the the some of these
issues though that I had referenced before are really that when you when you had said which my ears was we can now take a further look at where our the problems are
because development today is very different than it was 20 years ago when we started this we have people with deep pockets who are able to amass sites and that's like kind of the name of the game it's a little bit different now so it's
not like we're we're as used to be focused on somebody oh don't take down that historic home but now we're like there's there's things going up next to home homeowners that and the
proportions are out of whack the height is out of whack the detail is out of whack i mean we again a lot of what you see that is built and look it's architectural style that goes through
there's all all different things that become invogue and but what I notic is that with the going up everybody builds a box the idea is to maximize your square footage now like we all have smaller homes you kind of renovate them
we right you kind of like kind of made do without a closet people now want a box with with clo big closets and you know big kitchens and open you know floor plan and blah blah blah and it
gets up to now that now everybody wants a deck the way you get your view is the top is the deck right we've seen it at the Jersey Shore in Ocean City we see it it you know everything keeps getting higher and then we play with whether or not there's
a bedroom there or not but it's really adapt but those are the things that are now here you know and that is what I think we need to take a look at because we can't be putting a fivestory building next to a twostory building that has
lovely like you know porches and you know um and and that's encroaching on maybe the people behind them and and we have you know I mean the traffic is one we have streets around there are all one way but then what about then also which
we do address a little bit is is um older buildings that maybe haven't been used for a while but they still had some architectural history and we let people oh oh and combine two that's a whole another thing right and we never had that before
so Yeah I would love for us to do deal with that now like ASAP because it really is it's happening now it happens all over town you know right
you see it you live here but we need that's how we need to respond right and I think one of the things to recognize we as a board as a commission our first point of departure is appropriateness is this application it's individual to the
application it's not a blanket statement of what's appropriate for all the communities so if you're in one neighborhood one set of uh building standards will apply if you're in another neighborhood perhaps different standards apply and by that I mean
architectural style so one of the efforts that our commission has done voluntarily is create an architectural handbook which will be ready for publication any day now it's in its final edits and what we did was we built upon the canal survey from
197879 led by Jim Aman which is a phenomenal document that we all rely on in fact at our meetings we rely on those black and white sheets that Cindy you know I came down I took all those binders and I scan them so that we have a digital version of it because we refer
to them because it gives us the baseline of historic information that that building should be reviewed by and so we took it to the next level where we built another level of of assessment onto it where we started to cate categorize the
actual architectural styles that everything in that inventory listed as veracular so we really tried to provide an opportunity for a homeowner to be able to make the decision correctly the first time before they even come to us to know what's appropriate in their
neighborhood even on their building so it gives you a sense it goes by by tax lot every single home within the historic district that was identified as on the national register is listed in the book we created a whole section for each iteration of architectural style
that has seen which is really a phenomenal collection we have something like 24 architectural styles that are significant in our community so you can't just put a gingerbread house next to you know a high coffee house just wouldn't work so you have to look at
your community you have to look at your environment and that's what we do at the commission it's all about context and appropri I guess I'm I'm wondering and I think it's great and I I think it's great and I'm asking too like what So
what's our is there a next step to to getting into some of the things that we're talking about you know it's kind of next level historic preservation because if It's a protect and I think the next step is to advocate
for the acceptance and enactment of this ordinance so that we can become a certified local government but the first thing we want to do is update our documents to make them more specific so yeah I'm like all for that i think we should all be all for that and so you know you like oh no they're going to be
the paint police but it's like no it's really really good and and actually um you do get help you can get help with choosing your paint colors which are is essential especially when you share a house with somebody else they settled
the all disputes but um but I would welcome it by the ordinance but particularly the next step really eager for the next step because um it's we need it we need a bat we need a bat so
questions yeah I have Oh thank you um so my recollection on why this came about um the way it did is that the city wanted to become but a a certified local government did I say that right yeah i
got the letters mixed up um and that was because we were deliberating the 100-year flood plane ordinance and there was a lot of discussion
about you know what was appropriate to require a homeowner who who um sustained damage property damage and that is covered in here and that's that's really good one of the things we
had had talked about and Councilman Stegman pulled it out of his little Mary Poppins bag there his was this inventory marty okay marty Poppins marty Poppins sorry well you
know was this inventory of what's designated as historic district or landmark will the historic preserv and and there is some reference to um you know having a list of properties in the
ordinance is and that's been there but is there going to be some sort of effort um undertaken to update that inventory because I thought we needed to have that am I mistaken in that um assumption I
could be it's twofold the volunteer at the commission I did that for you okay but the second thing is the county is now undertaking an update to all of the inventory of the whole county historic inventory county okay so we would have
that as a result of this correct okay great and I could I just comment that the I was actually promoting for CLG before the flood happened actually before this this mayor so I've been working at this for a while give us give us enough time
and the rest of the world catch us up four years but you know we'll be 44 instead of Okay thank you i I have a I have a first it's a great document so thank you so much for putting this together and I you know
after Ida is when this really started to affect people uh about building back in the flood zone and there was a lot of confusion and there was a lot of anger and there was
just let alone the damage that was done by uh Ida in the city so the move was to have well how do we handle it as a city and then the can of worms opened up
really it did and uh about what we would have to do to be able to regulate start preservation in the city so it's although it's only a few years ago that I had a hit but it's great to see it the
commission evolve to a strong commission um I went through and I have a question for you uh in in some instances it references a landmark district in this it also references a
historic district in this um historic district is is in the uh is in the definitions but a landmark district just pops out of nowhere it's a really good point
and I was curious about that as well it's actually it's the state historic preservation language that was put in there i would have called it the same thing universally they used the the term interesting well it's it's con well I I would hope that we could demystify what
that really means certainly ask them because it landmark districts mention well then I did a word search because I was countmark district appears 12 times and then historic district appears 35 times so it's those 12 times that it appears
that there's no definition or no it doesn't talk about it so I don't know if we can make the change before we can't make the change without the historic preservation commission the language the language is approved by the New Jersey Historic so
we're allowed to to make well we're going to change it to a confer we're going to confer with them so they can actually or we could put the two definitions in which they would like to because they use the terms it could just be a note right these terms are
interchangeable can't talk so if you you can kind of like look already we already know that thank you oh yes we already know that and that's I sold your read the uh the other question I have is the
commission that we currently have now and this and the future strong commission how do you get right now you had mentioned that and and I know this for effect the CBD is under your perview not the R2 R1 it sees anything right
that's and the CBD extension over by right that extension at the north end of town yeah the um yeah the so my question is what do we have to do in the short
term term uh to have the commission comment on building or or uh renovation to outside the CBD yes extend the CBD or create a
new historic district that was actually the impetus in 20 21 was the idea that there's been opposition i understand you know the community has evolved since 2002 but there for some there is opposition to be listed in the local
historic district which we fully respect however we do feel that there are pockets of the community that could become our own historic district we don't want to expand the CDB create other historic districts and this is really the impetus for the architectural handbook that we created because we
started to identify themes or commonalities that could define a district and give it integrity to have its own sustainable historic so to your point it would be listing additional historic districts okay and we as a commission could do
that immediately well well There there seems to be some disconnect between what you think you should do and other departments of the city think you don't do okay and and as far as architectural renderings or
changes to an building that was built turn of the century now wants to lap off the little front porch and and got approval for this and if it's your property I'm sorry but it's the one that came in front of the zoning board
uh where there was a major change to the facade and the question I was here for something else and the question I asked was has you're and the architect was just going through his list of uh of
comparisons to other things that were done in town and and I asked the question of doesn't historic present historic preservation look at this and the answer was no because it was outside the district Hm because it was outside
the district correct where I know that you had your comments or suggestions outside the district since this was formed well yes if the applicant comes before us they're not mandated to come before the HBC unless they're in the
historic global historic district but there are applicants who choose to come before us to ask for our opinion but it's not binding in any way because they're not bound regulatory to come before us right but in the fact the fact that it's not binding is is what you
currently have well no no no i think you're mixing the issues up right now i mean besides the CBD but the 2002 ordinance that we operate under is a strong commission so we're codifying the fact that we are a strong commission the language in there is not specifically
written as the National Park Service now is putting on so we're back to the counciloman's question we're operating in the same capacity we always have applicants are coming before us in the same capacity they always have it's just the ordinance now combines all of these
four different ordinances we practice under into one with better language that is up to there still the challenge though the challenge is I could I couldn't agree with you more the challenge is we would love it if the historic district I mean if I lived in a perfect world everything
that's on the national register would be locally would designate an open district know that that might not be a reality for others so what would have to be done in the meantime so an application that goes to the zoning board although it's
not quote unquote re um mandated that they go through the commission for their input and when I brought that up the the architect said "Oh I'd love to go before them and see what they think of this." So there is a disconnect that we should
work on they should then be referred to us to come present we we don't we don't have access to the applications that are going before we have we have access to the applications that are coming before the HPC correct we have our Google Drive that we live on
and we see all the applicants and we see live every time and just got three applications today for next week's meeting so we are very interactive with those that are required to come before us correct and but the question is that there has to be some mechanism in the meantime
that that would actually not have you act as a strong commission if if if it's outside the district that you're in charge of well no still allow us to act we would still be a strong commission when we're reviewing work within the
district when when it's something that's that's referred to us it doesn't matter if you're weak or strong that candidate could say "Well we don't agree with you we're not going to do what you suggest and walk away and they'd be within their their right so we're still a strong commission in any way you look at it
because we're we we operate in the local historic district so the way to overcome this is to expand the historic the locally designated historic district then the protocol that everyone follows now if it hits the canal commission it goes to planning commission goes to
zoning it comes to us we're all in the same loop we're all on the same application so that's one of your goals going forward after after this is is codified and here's a question you may not know the answer to but uh and uh you
can ask it i can ask it later but I wonder if there's a possibility that you could amend the zoning laws to require outside the district uh applicants most certain all right so that would be the workound in the short term all right i would have Is that short term i don't
know how it tastes well well you know I don't know it would take several months and some research but it's a question that the council's interested in knowing the answer to i can certainly ask the attorney because remember we're all under the municipal land use law and
that governs planning commissions and planning boards authorities zoning ordinances and historic preservation commissions and we're happy to say Deb and I both sit on the board for New Jersey Historic Trust which we've been working for two years now on legislation that just passed last month requiring
all preser historic preservation commissioners around the state to have mandatory training like plan which is in the ordinance the ordinance which is fantastic i mean we talk about continuity and sustainability and
education you really need to know what you're you're looking at to be able to guide it well why I brought it up is I wouldn't want to see an application come through again through a board at the zoning board who's making the zoning board
members are making a decision to approve a a rather drastic change to an existing building with no input from you guys so I don't know how maybe happy to
look into it yeah maybe a work yeah so even Yeah i don't want to confuse with strong and weak but but you know it's uh I think I think this is a great I don't want to call it a first step because it's more than first
uh towards things not slipping through the cracks and and getting getting approved without input from the SC preservation commission council I'll just say thank you for all
the be done i'm absolutely in support of it and I would be in support of expanding that district as well i think that's definitely where we need to consider so thank you and I also have the pleasure of serving on the commission and you know truthfully there are a lot of people that come in and um I learned
a ton that year uh from all of you you knew a lot more than I knew about this and uh you're really helpful with a lot of the applicants and really walk through the process and I don't think I saw anybody walk away unhappy uh it was really nice so thank you
are you will just to close my loop here when we first did this how many years ago 2002 2002 two is it was so new that they allowed a uh sitting councilman to fill
a seat in the but that's not it wasn't permitted so I was at the first few meetings until I wasn't because I didn't fall into the correct category which is but so I I understand
the long road to get this far in agreement for this yes we have a lot to thank you i just want to if I may if there's any more questions I just wanted to read the closing paragraph of our support so it
says "Part of our cultural identity as members of the Lambertville community is a result of acknowledging the past and respecting history and allowing for current and future layers of time representations of civilization to add to the story and environable legacy of the community and physical environment
of land the HPC ordinance is intended to establish a strong historic preservation commission guided by the best practices under the direction of the National Park Services National Park Service and the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office in collaboration with the city of Lambertville's planning commission
updating our governing legislation will enable better policies and practices for historic preservation agreed thank you thank you um thank you so much yeah I I'm I'm just deeply Yeah please have a seat i'm just deeply
impressed by everyone's commitment to this and really grateful and w I'm happy to have an ordinance that's really when you wrote perfect on the ordinance it was fantastic anyway uh so it sounds like I have the go ahead to
introduce this i will do that on April 17th um anybody in the public will will put some of these resource resources online the certified uh local government uh information here really really interesting it tells you about the kinds of grants that we this exactly the the
what happens after um all of these things can be uh can be thought about considered and talked about uh you know changes to the zoning or you know the district all of that it'll I guarantee it'll it'll there'll be a lot of lively conversation I remember the lively
conversation December of 2021 at the council meeting before I was mayor so there'll be more of it but I think this ordinance is a great step in the right direction and again thank you so much for for your time all right uh moving on um next just got a couple of updates here and a
little bit of discussion on a couple of things uh so as everybody everybody might know um I've been working to potentially start a small farm market uh Sunday mornings in the library parking lot i've got a couple of great uh volunteers helping me we've created a
spreadsheet reached out to I don't know 20 different farms in the area i spoke to somebody today very interested in in participating um so stay tuned um we're sort of closing the application process for this in the middle of April um and hopefully we'll get enough farms to
start something in in library parking lot i think it's a it's a really great idea um and I'm looking forward to to being able to talk about this a little bit more the market would be from June 1st to the end of October uh every Sunday morning from 9 to 1 um and uh
I'll keep everybody informed about our progress on that couple of other things that are in the council packet um that I'll just want a little bit of brief uh feedback on we have two uh two proposed ordinances coming our way one is a
construction fee ordinance um this was proposed by the construction office to raise various fees most of the fee uh adjustments are very small we're talking going from $28 to $30 or things like that um I thought it was very obvious most of them are below 5% last time it
was done I think was back in 2021 so unless the council has any concerns about that I'd like to move forward with reduction that you have chance to look at it yeah the increases are minimal i know it's
like oh a dollar50 it's really It's like under on some of these it's under $10 most of them so so um Okay so uh unless there's any more conversation about that uh we'll move on to the uh the proposed ordinance for the
expansion of hours for canvas operations um this is something that I would also like to bring forward at the April 17th meeting this would allow basically any existing um cannabis retail operation in the central business district only that
has been operating for a period of 12 consecutive months in good uh standing to expand their hours um so uh council have any questions about this i thank the city attorney for crafting the ordinance um but I wanted to make sure that everybody in the council was
comfortable with the language and moving forward i think it's it's uh being involved with the with Councilman Sanders on the creation of this um it's
uh all the input we had gotten at the time from the public about supporting this uh supporting getting licenses in the in the city um now uh we have a a way to uh through an
ordinance to increase the hours in the CPD the we've had great testimony we've had great testimonies about about expanding this and given given the makeup of the central business district which
has hours that exceed the hours that the uh cannabis license has especially in the C only in the CBD it makes it makes uh we found a way to get it done is basically what I was saying so um I
think it's a great it's a great move for the the for the businesses number one but also for the businesses of town and specifically uh the the uh the exposure for the current licences in the central business
district it I think it's we found a way to make it logical and and to uh set some guidelines and make it work so it it's a living document and uh the the ordinance for cannabis in the city and
you know when a change is uh put forward that makes sense then you know we're we're happy to look into it and we have so so uh the introduction is like table so yeah I'm very much in favor of
this um you know I appreciate all the work that um Jesse and have done uh And I the real difference here is you know the community came out and supported them um the neighbors are all in support of this uh we would not be doing this if the neighbors uh were not in support of this but you know they obviously were
they've come they've spoken in favor of this um I did get a couple emails from residents around Union Shill today the residents there I just want to make sure everyone understands this does not apply to them i think there was some confusion about that and um you know that's a more obviously not in the CBD uh very
different um and so I would not be in support of uh expanding those hours for you to chill but very much in support of what we're doing here so thank you well and good to follow up it's als C2 area well that is but it doesn't
affect the licenses in other parts of town it's just a central business district so now you can have historically correct can central business district which is All right thank you Councilman
old school all right so be on the lookout for that uh next meeting it'll be on the agenda we have a busy meeting on April 17th but a good one planned moving on to resolutions uh um resolution 7 number
74-2025 this is a resolution authorizing the endorsement signature of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Treatment Works approval permit application of the Lambertville Municipal Utilities Authority so this is um a resolution that provides LUA with
the city's approval of of a project located to Corel Street for their pump station which needs to be elevated above flood level um so uh the one thing I need to ask Councilwoman Kaminsky there's a question of whether you live 200 okay all right so then you're eligible
to vote are there any questions about this very complicated resolution i have a motion please second all in favor please say I i i just phrasing it is that it they're
elevating it yeah I saw the plants um briefly but yeah they have to elevate it you know it is in central business district correct well you actually you know what i will say to their credit the LMUA wanted to
talk to you about pump station at the at the north end of town right they did talk to us about They did so there's an example did they talk about this one yet all right we're gonna keep moving on i'm sure they will since it's date um resolution number
7520- I'm sorry 75-2025 this is a resolution to authorize the officer in charge of the police department to sign the law enforcement training agreement with the county of Ocean for two candidates for hire so this is just a document that needs to be signed for our new recruits
who are out at police academy okay and I have a motion please second all right all in favor please say I i thank you this is for both particip I might have missed uh this is for the signature report no but the
first resolution did we vote on that we did we did okay it was unanimous by the way you voted twice you voted twice sydney struck one of them for the record i'll tell you um All right ordinances first reading uh ordinance number
09-2025 it's an ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits as allowed under NJSA [Music] 404-4-45.14 excuse me cath ordinance um so this uh provides that a municipality may when authorized by ordinance
appropriate the difference between the amount of its actual financial a final appropriation and a 3.5 percentage rate as an exception to its final appropriations in either of the two succeeding years we do this every year
[Music] questions motion please so move all right I'll second it all in favor please say I i thank you carries and to a discussion of the budget not a
discussion just an introduction um I'm pleased to introduce the 2025 municipal budget this evening while introducing or adopting a budget is a fixed moment in time the budget is an everyday part of our efficient public focused operation and long-term planning my very first
meeting with Cindy Iggy after I was elected in 2022 she said "The first question you have to ask yourself before you do anything as mayor is how are we going to pay for it?" And believe me when I say I hear that question in my head every day this is a very good budget and it's
the work of many hands i must first thank the finance team Chrissy Eric Michael Drewis Sue Bhorn Cindy Higgy and council president Lambert every budget line has been discussed and reviewed time and again by this capable team
secondly and of equal importance I thank council members Kaminsky Segment and Lie who offered additional insights and suggestion to further reduce the burden on our taxpayers council members and I share common ground on policy decisions that impact the budget we're very much
aligned on priorities of good governance employee compensation and development capital planning and maintaining and improving our municipally held assets such as our treasured buildings our roads parks and storm water systems this is a team effort and we share the
success of several years work to stabilize our finances and keep the tax rate as low as possible 2025 estimated tax rate for municipal purposes is 0.454 454 up slightly from last year's rate of
0.446 the local increase on the average home value of $448,738 will be $3953 budget will be posted to the city website tomorrow before our next council meeting i will release the budget message with specific information about key drivers of this year's budget we
will set it aside time uh uh on the 17th at our next public meeting for public comment and council and uh that will be before the standard second reading public hearing on May 1st so that is the introduction to the budget if anybody on council has
anything they'd like to say before I ask for a motion to reduce the quick question the $39 and change that's annually yes not monthly yes yes that's the municipal tax rate gotcha it
does not include Just wanted to make that clear that's the school tax school tax is not us so uh very pleased with that number and when when when you read the budget message you'll see that we have some you know every year we have costs that go up
health health uh health care costs uh we have uh accumulative absences we have uh some legal fees that we're planning for this year um so a lot of things that happen every year in the budget um personnel costs have been pretty steady this year we've had some in-n-outs uh
some uh we have a couple people uh leaving so there's some some payouts for that but overall I think it's a a very solid budget i'm very pleased i think it really reflects the the discipline of the council in the last few years and uh stabilized economy a growing valuation
of uh property here in town which is obviously a factor as well so um anyone else i would ask for a motion to introduce the 2025 budget second all in favor of introducing the
budget please say I i i thank you mayor what will the budget be available tomorrow tomorrow morning yes uh user friendly version uh I'm not sure i don't have a date for that yet we'll get it out as soon as we can um I'll put it in
Lambertville Matters last year it came pretty quickly uh the year before that not so quickly but uh we like to turn it around but the budget will be on the city website tomorrow um and then as soon as I finish the budget message that that will be available before the next council meeting I'll try and get out you
know four or five days before the meeting so people can take a look at it and ask about any kind of key um you know key drivers of uh of the budget um all right and now just a couple of uh really only one announcement uh that landlord and short-term rental
applications uh are now overdue um they needed to be in by March 31st cindy was in the office alone that day lindsay was out it was a very strategic day to take off lots of people came in i don't know how many people did you have on March 31st i don't know i think I had at one
point 12 people the hallway was filled with people i had 12 of them waiting let's make sure they had everything that they needed we appreciate all that work i think we're we have a a very high return rate this year um I think we're
down to like a third right that have not completed the process or that might be part of the process we don't consider you totally complete until you've submitted all your documents and paid uh just one other announcement um the
Department of Public Works have gone out and inventoried sidewalks uh throughout the city um I've done this in years past uh they've done a very comprehensive job and uh they will be starting to send out letters for sidewalk repairs uh in the next couple of weeks there are dozens of
sidewalks that need repair in the city that are the responsibility of the property owners uh anything that has a designated or not designated but a perceived or real trip hazard must be addressed by the property owner and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of followup on this because there are
dozens of them this go around including a lot in the central business district so um I'll keep everybody a breast of that but uh certainly if you uh have a sidewalk that has a tripping hazard soon as you can we're happy to
offer advice on the best way to do that we've had the engineers put some some uh advice in the letters about different mechanisms that uh people can use to to make corrections we're not looking necessarily for newly poured sidewalks we're just looking for flat right
doesn't have to be level necessarily it just has to can't trip your toe you can't catch a toe on it quarter inch i think Ken said at one point Yeah it's not New York inch so no but it's in US UCC guidelines oh is that right okay thanks um I'll open this up for a second
um public participation same uh same rules as before you have three minutes of uninstructed time just state your name and your address um 30 seconds we'll start with Yeah let's start with the person online she's had her hand up
you said 30 seconds 30 seconds 30 seconds 30 minutes 30 minutes 30 seconds feels like 30 minutes for you but it's sometimes go ahead and unmute yourself and state your question or comment
wants me to confirm my speaking language [Music] esther Esther can you unmute yourself please maybe she put her hand up and didn't need her all right well
we'll please go ahead [Music] hi Judy Gleason 86 North Union Street so I just have a couple things one on affordable housing which I listened to what everybody said i still don't know
what we're planning to do for our affordable housing obligation i still don't know whether uh village apartments may be in the running for number three or not so it might just be me that I didn't get it
all but um it's still out there of concern by me and many others that the the hill theian property seems to still be out there that many people feel strongly should not still be out there but I just put that into the mix i think
Jeff made a couple of many good points earlier in the meeting so I associate myself with those as well um the other thing though I the historic preservation uh commission discussion I I don't know when that will be available for the
public to see the the draft but what I remember is and thank you councilwoman for mentioning when this came up the first time in connection with the hundredyear flood and all the rest of it and I recall very specifically there was a lot of misunderstanding and
misinformation about when you are exempt or when you don't have to do or what the whole thing is um it it was sort of corrected but not really and the the point that I didn't couldn't entirely follow with what how you guys are
talking about the ordinance i don't have it in front of me obviously so I'm not sure what it is saying if anything about this but there are definite steps that each homeowner who wants to be protected from having to do a lot of things with
under our flood requirements there are steps that are required to be taken through the historic whichever one it is town fade federal and I'm not clear on how this will work with that this new approach
with we can do it ourselves in the first instance and I'm concerned about that and the second thing I'm not sure about is since we frequently are aware that we don't have resources to do things it seems like there's a lot of
resourceheavy activity that might be happening with connection to this new approach or this more complete discussion and I know that if you're not in CBD D you're not really required to do anything but it still seems it would
be helpful before this goes out for people to have some idea it has danger of being a real concern to people and perhaps you want to make sure that what's out there for people to see is councilwoman you made several points of what we don't know so that was helpful
also if you can please do that because I think it's easy to see this as being problematic and maybe it's not but Thank you thanks um village apartments we do not know uh we don't have a timeline for the development of that yet we don't
know whether it's going to be a third round or a fourth round it Well it's not because there's no plan there's no uh immediate uh plan for that it's very unlikely that we're going to include it as part of our It's actually not
possible that we're going to be able to include it as a fourth round mechanism by the end of June i don't see that happening uh we would have to have a signed agreement i'm not uh convinced that we're anywhere close to that honestly and that's all I feel comfortable saying about that fourth round third fourth round i mean I think
what I'm saying is I think that it could eventually you know I'm not basically I don't know uh it won't go it won't be as part of our housing element fair share plan for the fourth round that that much I feel pretty confident saying whether uh development there eventually gets
credited to the third round or fourth round that's a question that I can't answer i don't know that it's answerable right now um the the second point is uh and it's been a while since we've talked about this and I would have to go back through my notes we didn't really talk about it too much tonight but if I
remember correctly and I'll put this out there but I'll have to do a little bit more research or or to clarify the the idea behind the um certified local government was that the city would be able to expand its
historic district and the reach of the the commission's approval process and that would have we could potentially tie that in super complicated because of the National Flood Insurance Program um so I have to do some more research about that it's it's been a while since we've talked about it and I know that we
talked about it a lot when we were looking at the flood damage uh prevention ordinance so I'll have to get back to you on that i just I can't remember i think what allow us to do is actually designate those historic properties so if there is flooding there they're not going to have to comply with the building up and that's what we are
able to do that's exactly and I know that because I lived in that area and my neighbors were freaking out when they were told they're going to have to you know raise these houses that was really an impracticality and the city had no
way to protect historic structures outside the city so yeah so I thank you for saying that i think that the issue at hand was um currently anybody that suffers substantial damage or wants to do a substantial improvement has to go to the zoning board which costs thousand
several thousand dollars and so by expanding the historic district they would then automatically have that protection and wouldn't need to go before the zoning board so thank you for reminding if I may my recollection is that it's the city and then the state and then the
feds before you get to dodge the requirements that was the argument that took place back then when it was all happening and I think that the regulations that exist that are not ours still require you can't do it can't go further unless you do it first so that's why you got to start agree but the local
doesn't get you off the hook it just starts the I think there's a lot of difference to this once we become a certified local government that's my understanding because you have professionals you have people that are trained it's not it's not like an arbitrary thing where we're designating this as historical we have people that
are trained to do this we're following guidelines so I don't want to say they're rubber stamping anything but they're looking at what we're doing at the municipal level and that's much more credence because we're Okay and yeah one other one other point I remember is that you know we we had attempted to use the
DNR Canal Commission as a way to potentially uh u uh let property owners avoid going to the zoning uh board but we weren't able to do that basically because the federal government didn't didn't the standards didn't the criteria
didn't align it was not a mechanism that we could use even though we had looked into it right and a lot of the houses Unfortunately for I mean not unfortunately but they were not even so the the DNR canal commission has different levels of architectural significance a lot of the houses that
we're talking about were not notable or outstanding or significant in terms of their architectural um uh significance and yet they were still houses where people lived right so so we were looking for a way to to sort of circumvent the necessity to go to plan the zoning board
for for those variances so we don't need to rely on the construction officials interpretation of what substantial damage is there's now we have the board so that was a big Sean 21 Velvetier um I've been asking
for a few months now uh about clarity on the groundwater recharge issue on the hill um you know if there's landville law and state law that prohibits that recharging family areas and I'm
wondering um you know it was the storm water management was already going to be an issue clear cutting 12 acres and you know um but now that you can't even use rain gardens if I'm interpreting this
law correctly and I'm asking I've been asking for that you know what what that means you know and if if I'm interpreting it correctly that um you know if you can't even have rain gardens or detention
basins you know what do you do with all that storm water um and is KFA aware of that is that why they asked that why they're petitioning for 450 units now above 200 because they know that they're going to have to build some unbelievable
storm water control that I mean I don't even know how you do that in that situation but um has there been any any followup or on on that is there anything else you want to ask um no I think
that's okay uh not specifically uh so I think I believe at one time you sent us an email and I had Bill Opel answer about recharge or the engineer he said he couldn't do he didn't know okay if you want to I can dig up he said he didn't know twice i don't know if
there's a way to find out um but that would be helpful okay i can look up that email and send it to the engineer as I asked in person and over email okay so I I know that I'm sure that we responded to you and if it wasn't the right answer I'm happy to send the email out to
somebody else to see if we get you the answer i would just uh probably note that the point is moved right at the moment because nothing's moving forward well I think it's it would be important probably as um something to come up in the substantive uh discussions and you know in the court
because it seems pretty substantive to me um so yeah I have It says it's not a complete answer but there's not really one that can be provided unless or until a project at the site reached the site plan review
stage okay so that's your answer so the answer is not going to change it's too late you have to see okay so so we would have to approve a redevelopment effort before that site plan thing could happen and at that point it's pretty much too
late to go back so um I don't I don't know i if whether I don't think it would be too late to go back at site plan right and at site plan that's when they would determine whether it was a feasible project that's my interpretation yes that's right
so after the initial approval that we could deny them based on the site plan and they it has to meet the requirements yes yes the project will still need to meet the requirements related to eros erosion control storm water run quality quantity control and storm water quality
treatment including the use of green infrastructure so all of those elements but without having it you know an actual project it's difficult to be able to make calculate right so but but KFIA
might decide that it wouldn't be feasible to even take the next steps if they knew about [Music] that okay all right well thank you
hey Bird 255 Brunswick Avenue uh a lot of talk about technology tonight all right and maybe you folks without any uh hearing issues right it doesn't touch base with you but we talked about the affordable housing and being able to
listen to the meetings uh if and even being in the audience okay I'll tell you in the peanut gallery if the if people don't use the microphones and if they're not doing a
good job of broadcasting you know uh and and again we somehow got to get this system up the system is broken it's been broken for a long time if you don't believe it use the you know call in online okay and you can't hear you can't
understand what's being said you know we we we need to get that that as a priority in 2025 because I wouldn't be surprised with the you know you know all of the handicap uh items that you're
probably in violation and you're going to end up getting uh you know fine sooner or later so I think for the the uh the citizens or good government all right you need to get it done and another thing is have the microphone where you can hear it all right and
everybody's kind of guilty of that at different times but you know feel sorry for us out in the audience which brings me to the you know council lady um I I didn't I couldn't hear what you had said relative to the judge's
action today all right what what what does it mean today so he uh Thank you see we don't even have enough microphones um so Judge Menon Judge Menon decided the first part of the case
uh the uh the motion which was do they have standing to intervene and he followed the three elements and determined that they met each one of those elements and so he said yes I'm going to allow you to intervene they then wanted to get to the substantive part which is you know strip us of our
immunity uh and he was not prepared to address that on this state uh he felt that it would be a conflict for him because he was a former uh news court judge here i I did get that by then I I I was able to hear it so there's going
to be just that one thing there's going to be a case management conference in the second part of April to the beginning of May uh and it's going to be most likely transferred to a different judge Judge Ballard who's the presiding judge in Thank you very much thank you all
yeah we have one person online uh Stephanie if you don't mind we're gonna go to the person online stephanie go ahead and unmute yourself and state your name um and your ask your question or comment hello can you hear
me yes great so first of all I apologize i was on Hers's phone before so you couldn't you couldn't hear me from from that phone and now I've gone to higher technology my phone um anyway just um I
wanted to make a a question and wondering I know we have Michelle Glasber on our planning board um and she also is on the historic preservation um commission um would it not be wise to
have somebody from the HPC on the zoning zoning commission as well um to have continuity between the two boards um I don't know if that's an ordinance or what it is but I think that it would
definitely help all of us um on both zoning and um planning board to be able to have their expertise of what the HPC has determined on various applications and if they could speak to
that and I don't know if they're allowed to speak to it um but it's just a a a question thank you Sam i'm sorry go ahead secondly um um I'm glad that you're looking at the time frame for the
uh CBD uh thing in the in the for the the cannabis uh especially since the zoning board just approved that um the new brewery uh can stay open till 10:00
um in the CBD district uh so I thank you for that uh or I hope that you'll you'll say it's okay and that's it um just a thought thanks thank you Stephanie um the membership
and and the boards is uh commissions is set by ordinance um so we would have to look at that uh my only concern and I suppose I suppose a member of the historic preservation commission could recuse themselves but the zoning board is the place for appeals and I know
recently for example we've had an appeal from the historic preservation commission to the zoning board i don't know where it is i don't know if it's I I know that it was I think going to happen or there was a question that it was going to happen so my only concern would be uh that was a that was a there
was a liaison between those two boards that there would have to be some uh you know recusal uh noted on on matters in which the AP the HPC is already uh ruled uh or found so I'm happy to look into it
um seems like a a good idea um given the zoning board's you know kind of purview and their mission but I'll need to do a little research but but but good idea thanks for uh sending it my way and I'll I'll look into it thank you
you're welcome general 33 Wilson Street just so you know they are interchangeable a landmark n landmark historic district and a historic district they're the same kind of rules the difference is you have a national landmark in one district ringwood is a
national landmark historic district so we don't have that here so just want to clear clarify that little point um what I wanted to really kind of get back to a little bit is the issue of bus it's under the federal law they come in as a
record site resource recovery act so yes the federal government could be involved if you show the level and extent of the POS contamination is large and it seems to be proving itself right now given the fact that 72 homes we probably talking
over 50 acres um potentially given the size of lots up there the other you know so yes you could and that's again goes back to the state we we really want to get at this issue because I don't under the law we have a privatized cleanup system and we don't know what the person
they may engage with will do because he's not working for the government he's not working for the town he's working for Atlanta and that's a real serious problem in the box guarding the hen house the other issue that I think should be raised is the issue of
environmental justice even though this is not an environmental justice area that community is is multi-racial it's been historically poor um now we're going to talk about putting 40 units of affordable housing on a contaminated site that to me is an
example of environmental racism you don't build on sites that you know are contaminated and I think that's you know a critical piece of it and also you should be looking at doing studies for the streams and the areas around there to see what's leaking out if you're really serious about dealing with the issue of
POS and final point on that issue is we should be pushing the state to do a to do a spill that directive because then they can get access to the site and they can do independent testing and given the extent of this contamination we're heading in that direction the fact that
you have an unwind landfill factory that should have come in under ECAR which was a law back when they closed and that never happened so there's a lot of ser there's a lot of potential legal hooks to look to by that site the most important thing is to come up with
alternative sites so that we can actually move the housing out of there take some window for sales and my last issue is separate it's it's really on you know the site i did a a slate and I did not I'm not a
professional but I did a back of the envelope and um and I watched the cars with a timer and it takes approximately a minute for one car to go from Union Street to the stop sign every time there's a car coming after the direction
they have to stop slow down it's just like on North Union and the flow of traffic on that street if you end up putting in a large scale development uh is going to really gridlock the community i think we really need to either look at changing if this goes
forward changing traffic patterns in the area or it may also because otherwise it would become a a public health and safety issue especially for emergency vehicles because at rush hour the at rush hour from the stop sign at
the bridge where everybody's trying to cut down or come around backs up about 20 to 30 cars and so if you start having events at that time of day you have everybody trying to cut through there it's going to become a real gridlock area thank you
i would just comment about your environmental you know justice uh argument i think it's a really good one i think that's why you know ultimately we need to work with fair share to show them that obviously there there you know that's not a great place for affordable housing to be put on top of a dump um
there's pedestrian access issues there as well um you know just for example the village apartment site you know as I said before is you know right near the school right near the CVS right near the laundromat no pedestrian issues and so hopefully we'll work with fair share they're going to see that we are serious
about providing really nice affordable housing not affordable housing on Hey John towns again Hancock Street couple quick things um historic preservation commission like it great idea glad it's going to help us
[Music] Um well you can't answer the question I'm sure but what designates a historic building in town is it age uh was former use things of that nature and wooden finkles since that was opened in
1917 1918 that building was built wouldn't that fall under that i know it's outside that central business district it's in the district it is in the district that kind of would put the kibash on
some of that overdevelopment there wouldn't it i mean as long as we're sticking to our rules you guys are laying down i like it uh my second question is with the central dis business business district um and the cannabis
sales i I respect my neighbors and I understand their concerns but you guys are going to open yourselves up for trouble when one of those other businesses you didn't chill um are going to say "Well why are you giving them
prefer preferential treatment and you're making us now you said 12 months so I'm going to assume at 13 months you need to chill then would be able to move up to that not in the CV different zone again I just I encourage you all to be very
careful with that because that is something whether you don't mind going to court and paying for it or not it's going to wind you up in court at some point if that's what the lawyer is being paid great um thank you guys appreciate the
um Yeah so our attorney was very careful when he drafted amendments to the the cannabis hours uh and the district so feel very confident uh that that we're not going to face any legal challenges for me to chill um as regards the
criteria for what's historic and what isn't there isn't a set criteria here in the city um and uh you know we rely on the 7879 uh DNR Canal Commission historic survey for basic information um some of
those buildings uh are I'd have to look at the survey but I would imagine that um uh the theater um is probably uh noted in in that survey as probably is the thinkles itself I believe is also the the storefront that you would go
into yeah I'd have to look at that i' personally be surprised if that were listed as a notable or important um structure historically i mean it's an old one but it's you know may have some I think it's good to whine about it right now yeah and um you know we
certainly have the strand across the street and other it's in the historic district and I think that's I don't think I don't think it's appreciate that all right anyone else in the room i would just point out about cannabis revenue by the way uh was
$222,000 last year that the city of Lville brought in through the taxes $222,000 [Music] just just one announcement um the state has finally posted we have a new speed
limit in town and it's finally uh we're enforcing it so um just be aware so it's going to be from 165 from Bridge Street to Feeder Street is 25 miles an hour down both directions from feeder street
um going southbound to west down the line is now 35 miles an hour so we are enforcing it the next stage the uh you already can't tell whether they're going to put some signs up the next two weeks for the the turnaround where permitted
for the company online to make from um downhill street down to main street but that's the next phase they should go that in the next couple weeks but speed limits have been changed and we are enforcing it thanks we'll put that in matters one more thing is the uh motor
vehicle commission coming at the uh in May Yes right at the end of May yeah although they'll coming and you'll get a can get a real ID the the deadline to get on an airplane with a real ID is May 7th but at least and then we'll have
appointments online they are coming up right there they haven't put us yet i check Yeah so closer to look for appointments right now there are like no appointments because people are crazy to get a real ID but we will have the convenience of
having them here at the end of May hopefully maybe put a special notice out as soon as we get the appointments up because like you said they're probably going to go there very quickly i have a motion to close public comment please so move second all in favor i
have a motion to close the meeting please second all in favor i thank you