##VIDEO ID:Xli5hS_B06U## welcome everyone to the L pacan Township planning board meeting reorganization uh regular meeting January 22nd 2025 would you like do the roll call yes I will members Coy herey here George here Mendez here hereo here chairman Samson here okay would everybody please join me in a moment of silence um followed by the oath of allegiance to the flag [Music] pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all adequate notice of this meeting has been provided indicating the time and place of the meeting in accordance with chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 by advertising and notice in the The Star Ledger and The Express Times and by posting a copy on the bulletin board in the municipal building okay [Music] um first order of business Point reappoint swear in uh class two Andrew Melendez class three James poo class four uh Susan Deo I'd imagine we can do all these at the same time yeah Mr Melendez is not hear that tonight right that's correct yeah so that if the two people getting sworn in Mr Leo and Mr PLO would just raise stand and raise that right hands I'm going to Spur you in you affirm or swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and in this state under the authority of the people and that you will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of the office of a member of the planning board of the great Township of L pong according to the best of your ability I do I do very good consider yourself sworn you can if you have those you can sign them and pass them down Mr melindes we we'll get next time I guess we'll have to have him on the agenda for yeah for the next meeting uh okay next order of business we did the roll call um election of officers uh would somebody like to make a nomination for the chairman I like that one second all in favor say I any opposed all right would somebody like to make a nomination for the vice chairman I vote for uh Su Leo I'll second that all in favor I okay would somebody like to make a nomination for the secretary I'll make that Margaret DS thank you I'll second thank you all in favor I thank you very [Music] much you could probably do those as a block the next can't we J yeah that's up to the chair you can adopt all uh resolutions uh 251 through 2505 as a block if the board so desires would somebody like to make a motion to approve resolution number 2501 through 255 I'll make a motion I'll second call Members Co yes Coy yes George yes Leo yes weom yes yes thank you guys very much [Music] and we're going to welcome Daniel black as our CER thank you very much welcome look forward to working with you okay did everyone get the minutes from uh November 26 to December 18 we all get that email yes anybody have any questions all right would somebody like to make what did we do with the correction on that did we just it's not really a big deal I don't think well technically when she did the transcript she noted that Robin had not arrived and that was correct maybe what I add to that front page is just arrived in the time because I have that I'll just put that on I mean you're right they show her in in the votes and everything else so yeah that's fine if you can just note that I will that would be acceptable okay and that sets the record clear as two attendance okay so does someone want to make a motion to approve approve those minutes I'll make a [Music] motion Cole yes yes George yes Leo abstain Le yes chairo yeah yes okay uh new business to fair share obligation um Mr Block would you like to speak about this a little bit sure yeah um what we're working on right now is uh evaluating the obligations that were established by the DCA uh so there's a three part um allocation factor that goes into that obligation that DCA has allocated uh 87 affordable units for the fourth round for low Patong uh we believe we can get it down to around 70 um just by analyzing their the vacant land that the state included in their analysis which we find to be flawed they included a lot of things that are not really vacant and developable so as we cut that number down we can challenge uh reducing the the obligation down to around 7 the units we're still fine-tuning that exact number but we're going to get that in uh to the state by the end of the month um and that will we'll have to do a um a filing with the court to challenge that number and then we will be heard uh by the by the court and and they'll make a decision through the program whether they accept our our numbers or not and then we can move forward with the housing element fair share plan which will be adopted by the planning board and that's got to be done by the end of June okay I thought that we I thought the language in that we had to have a resolution by the end of uh it's the governing body that has to adopt the resolution so but it sounds like we're not that far yet yeah so by the end of January we we have a we have a report ready to go so our findings we just have to find human little bit it's around 70 units um so we can reduce that number down to 70 we will challenge the uh Town Council will have to adopt that resolution and then it has to be filed with the court so it's something that'll happen relatively and I think that the take-home Point um for the board's purposes is that you're going to be in the next I guess five months dealing with revising your housing element and fair share plan um to develop U the method by which this could actually be theoretically built out which is going to take some time and obviously a lot of planning input and probably some time with meetings to to go over that the rule of thumb being and it depends on there's various factors I you know Mr Block knows them a lot better than I do but there's different credit weights about different types of housing rental housing age restricted housing 100% affordable developments you get credits of two for one bonus but you know the rule of thumb is that you apply five towards what your number is because it's a 20% set aside so even at 70 you're looking at 350 new units does it have to be new units or can we if you have existing units that haven't already been used to satisfy a prior obligation then yes you can use those or if there's other types of housing group homes or things that haven't already been used to satisfy an obligation you can use them um it doesn't have to be all brand new housing there are there are a variety of of options or mechanisms they call to to meet your obligation we doesn't have to build new buildings okay I have a question this for kick some people let's just say warm Heights down here all right could they have changed some of their their building or room toing and make them lower income and would that cover that so there is I'm not familiar with that development particular senior citizen condos they probably already have could they go from say 20% to 30% if they were willing to do that and the town could buy down those units there there is a way to purchase the difference between the market value and and the affordable um so town could use their trust fund to to buy down those units and make them affordable that's one option not building more your that would also depend on property owner come up with a negotiation with them on yeah I just thought it was tool well currently we have a rehab program going on that's brand new to existing homes in the town that could go towards you know credit so the rehabs would go towards the what they call the uh the rehab obligation um and numb here L Pac that's a different number than the the 87 um the present need o Pac is actually zero so there is no obligation for that for for this round and it probably was for the prior round but so you don't have to do anything else with that for this round now I have a question I like to know what the process is um so you'll have something the next council meeting is the 29th okay which we have advertised and established for the adoption of whatever the planning board puts forth right so the planning board doesn't actually have to do anything for this for this vilum okay this is kind of information because this is going to ultimately end up with the planning board becoming a part of this planning process so that's why we want to have it on the agenda it's really going to be the governing bodies determination um as to what the number ought to be they adopt the resolution within 48 Hours of that adoption the municipal attorney has to file what called a declaratory judgment action whatever it's called nowadays used to be called a declaratory judgment action with the courts establishing that number but will they have a recommendation yes he going to have a memo yes we will have a memo explaining how we believe what we believe the number should be and how we arrived at that and that will be included yeah yes yeah and then after that there's going to be a period where people can actually challenge that number B and then huh and then after that period elapses And whatever gets adjudicated you have to get the fair share housing element done and one you know the land use sement and housing element can they challenge it on both ways yes up and down um well I don't think that they generally challenge the DCA number it's going to be the reduction in number that people like fairshare housing and other interested parties May challenge um typically the developers who want to build something say I didn't know the resident could come in and say hey you know what make it 60 but to your answer is that there is also another opportunity to challenge it when the board adopts the housing element fair share plan where it starts zoning and putting in recommendations for where this ought to occur people can challenge that they're not going to be able to challenge the actual allegedly uh the selections of and criteria of sites saying that theirs is better but I don't know how else they would challenge it that's what they're really going to say they're going to say I have a buildable site um and this is never will never be built because of environmental constraints right I they they put forth an impossible plan right and there you go We're Off to the Races again so this is the fourth round they say I don't necessarily understand that how long like it's a 10-year uh round so it's going to be redone in 2035 so with within 10 years we'll have to have 70 so yeah you're planning out for the next 10 years to provide a reasonable ability for these housing these 70 units to be built or created or what whatever they are going to be for that 10-year period and then in 2035 you got to look forward another 10 years and there's all different types of regulations it would be lovely if you could just put together a uh what like a a 35 unit of 100% affordable municipally owned uh development because you get double the credits but they wouldn't like that because it's not within the spread that they want with a certain percentage of four sale units little moderate for correct me if I'm wrong but they want all these parameters met yeah there's a lot of different uh requirements that be met so they want more of a of a of a development with these uh different size homes put in intertwined they want more rentals more more open to families not not age restricted and a little diversity yeah and chairman just so you know this is for round four is for the 10 years as you can tell the leg the laws change on this all the time so whether or not it's a real 10 years or not because this is all relatively new this method of going about it we used to have you know developers remedies then we had COA Co didn't happen we stopped working we were kind of left in no man's land um you know R three numbers were never actually fully adopted because they were completely rejected by the court time and time again the grow share model so who know I it's speculation as to where it will be in 10 years all right so the only action the only action for this is going to be for in the short term yeah we know for the Town Council but I mean is there any action that we should take here at all not tonight it's just being informed you don't need to make a recommendation obviously the the numbers still have some uh you know some revisions okay uh it's going to be up to the council ultimately to accept the number and adopt it going to be up to the council and the township to actually file the litigation to uh enforce that number and then ultimately when that that settles it's going to be coming back here you're probably going to want to have a subcommittee recommendation just to have a working group that's you know outside of the open public meetings act not to be non-transparent but just to have Frank discussions with uh the planner about where these things ought to be um you know definitely want to probably have your class two member on there to3 CL one there's the whatever right and class three that's one in class three um members because they're part of the planning board and they're also going to be a Le on with the governing body the May okay Danel will you be able to be at our meeting on the 29th it's at 6:00 Che is that the only AG on the agenda uh yeah that's a special meeting yeah yeah I need to get this speed on all this affortable stuff yeah Paul's always handled it it' be nice yeah for to hear yeah okay I was nervous about the whole thing the way it was worded like we were going to be penalized if we didn't have it in time but it sounds like yeah oh you will be penalized if you don't have it in time yeah but it sounds like we got a pretty good R you're penalized by exposing yourself to developers Remedy or some developer can come in and try to force a development it's like up the road yeah we definitely don't want up that road I guess I'm trying to figure7 aut Ridge and the other one um over the yeah the people that U no the one that when they were all here for the warehouses Overlook record room Overlook Overlook oh Overlook that was a developer Revenue yes maybe that's why they were grandfathered in on [Music] L it's really A Brave New World nobody knows what's going on except what the initial process is and where how it's going to get adjudicated played out how the courts are even going to deal with the volume because most municipalities are waiting till the uh the 11th hour to adopt these and then within 48 hours they're all filing and then it's going to be a lot of litigation yeah a lot of process going in that I don't know maybe they they can handle it maybe they can't but and did you have a question I did um Beth you said something about 215 homes that were low income throughout the township rehab oh no we're going to rehab homes throughout the township we have a program um that we just started um this past year in 2024 so uh they did you know late start and they got flooded with over 100 applications a lot of people applied from our town and um I know that one uh applicant was approved uh for at the very least a new group I don't know what else but um they would spend up to $30,000 on on these homes that are approved for their need you know certain needs new windows roof heating cooling systems we did this many years ago as well was very successful but we only did 15 homes back then so um we implemented this to do three homes a year so hopefully next year we get you know three homes in at least and we make it you know move a little faster and all over they're just all in different all over our town you know as as long as you qualify so if that's publicly funded then we couldn't with our trust fund then that couldn't be be used as the uh low income well it's a different it's a different obligation they have to be income qualified to get to get into that program um so it is for low and moderate income homeowners who have uh issues with their house that needs to be repaired they can apply for this and get grant money um and then they have to put a deed restriction on their house to to keep it as low moderate income for 10 years and after that it gets SED away so it's not a bad deal and you can't am I WR or wellon you can't sell your house for 10 years well you can but you have to pay it back it's not a free if not leave or we can rent it out potentially or now all right does anybody have have any questions any more questions from Mr Block or anyone I was just wondering like in the last 10 years do we know how many new units we added in this now and I know we did Autumn Ridge but a random house here or there the more Landing I think was built in the last 10 years okay I think there was uh at least 50 units over there uhhuh um Delaware Park School was remodeled one unit came out of that one um how many units are in Delaware Park oh you know it's the old school so they put in four and okay we have one okay yeah so that that's what I can think of height South done North was first and then South more than 10 years it's been more than 10 years so like in 10 years we haven't even built a 100 units in the town well yeah we have because Sycamore Landing has at least 50 50 unit yeah they have 50 units at senior and low moderate yeah okay so that's how many low moderat or senior units I was asking like how much grow have we had in 10 years brid has aot yeah there was a lot of growth a lot of units I don't have the number I I was just I was just curious from a you know because 70 units sounds like an awful lot to be adding to the town at this somebody puts an apartment it would have to be an apartment complex yeah it's going to go real quick well it's 70 affordable units really transl the 30000 isn't that place still for sale by you he had only come in there yeah but they that's a beautiful place for D but there's no sewer there I mean they had a lot of he would have a lot a hard time putting a 300 units which place is that next to you yeah on do not I mean he probably has enough space there was N9 acres by the time you get away from the stream you're down to like 3 or four acres got I don't think I know but they probably have to put in private swerve treatment like they did Striker Ro I they did out Striker Road oh yeah but I that's another thing you know I don't know what the status is of our of our swer capacity ability that's yeah that's something we have to look at pretty close to being maxed out I know the sewer engineer did like a Capacity Analysis when we were doing the the two warehouses the bridge development warehouses the post office warehouse and the bridge development warehouse and the NFI warehouse but they went away well they're not gone they're not g they're not yeah they are lurking at every meeting we were close I think there yes we were close to capacity at that time I there wasn't a lot here but we gained a little bit from uh from the mall didn't right because we looked at that too I remember that the capacity doesn't go with the property well they had they had capacity that was right that was allocated for the mall it was allocated for the mall so I think there was some they're taking some portion of that but I think there's there's excess capacity they probably came out of them Mall cuz I don't think that warehouse is going to it's not going to have that what the but there is a report someting around the sewer yeah I don't know what the Yeah and I don't know I know that the I'm thinking back to what Joe PRI was talking about I don't know if there was litigation or negotiation going on with Philipsburg or anybody over there there was it one time right it was based on sewer rates not capacity cor it was like the rates right and that in that agreement um that is up and it was up at the end of last year but there they haven't moved on anything over there phur because they're in the um doing sore rate study right they're doing a stud so they had it moved on you know negotiations for a new rate but I don't even know what capacity they have with State allocated for those are to I I don't know how TR it is but I thought they had to upgrade over there and upsize massive well they're going to have some of their own growth coming as well right right so long as your piping can fit it through the town you got to build the pumps and the you know cleaning process there they may have to upgrade and not have capacity to serve other T knows all right anybody have any more questions about the fair share obligation okay would someone care to make a motion to adjourn I know my phone's ring us out [Laughter] wor song You Know