Yes. Good. Yeah. Okay. Welcome to the Maple Shade Township Council September 18th meeting. Please have everybody stand for the pledge of allegiance. United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under
God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Everyone can please stand for a moment of silence just over everything that's going on in the world with all the shootings in 911. Thank you. Public notice of this meeting pursuant to the open public meetings act has been given by the township council in the
following manner. Notifying the township clerk July 23rd, 2025. Mailing notice to the carrier post central record, Burlington County Times July 23rd, 2025 and posting notice on the official municipal Bington Board on July 23rd, 2025. Anyone from the public wishing to speak will be permitted to address
comments to the council during public portion only. Um, please place all phones on mute to alleviate the disruption of the meeting. Roll call, please. Terry. Mr. Kaufman, here. Miss Noun, here. Mr. Simon, here. Mr. Sernik, here. Mayor Terico,
here. We're now going to have a presentation for the employee employer support of the Guard and Reserve. Well, hello. My name is Alan Smith, Colonel, United States Marine Corps, retired. I guess I'm supposed to do this. Okay. Actually, I was waiting for
the chief and uh Officer Martino. Yes. To show up. He sent me a note said they are on the way. Yes. So, do you want me to just sit down and then we want to give it a couple minutes? We can give it a couple minutes. We can do the Oh, I don't mind. No. That's right.
Your counsel. Thank you. Sorry about that. He does definitely not need a microphone. All right. We're going to do the open board of health meeting. I had nothing for this month. That doesn't help. supposed to go slow. Can you make Sorry, that's okay.
Nothing to report there. Okay, thank you. Uh, so this is the public portion of the open board of health meeting. If anybody has anything, please come up to the microphone. Seeing none, motion to close. So made. Second. Comments. All in favor?
I. I. Motion to adjurnn. So made. Second. All in favor? I I Okay, we're going to go over to the ordinance introduction and first reading. Ordinance number 2025-17 is an ordinance of the township of Maple Shay County of Burlington, State of New Jersey, amending chapter 4, article
94-42F of the Township Code. Motion for introduction. So made second. Comments. Roll call. Mr. Kaufman? Yes. Miss Nunes? Yes. Mr. Simons? No. Mr. Zandic? Yes. Mayor Terrier Rico? Yes. Publication date September 24th,
2025. Public hearing, October 16th, 2025. We'll move over to the ordinances. Yes, I don't need to know you. Oh, he just got there. Okay, perfect. We're gonna go back to the presentation. No worries. Let's do a police donut. You got donuts. I don't know how you go about it. I
don't want interrupt. Sorry. It's okay. No worries. Custody. Just trying to do stuff. Okay. Okay. Um is is the chief right there? Right here. All right. Right here. Very good. Okay, we'll start
again. Uh, I'm Colonel Alan Smith, United States Marine Corps retired. Uh, I am a volunteer in the office of employer support of the Guard and Reserve, which is a an office within the Department of Defense. Um, couple of notes here to think about is our guard
and reserve presently is about 38% of our ability to go to war. Um, and without them, we would not be able to accomplish that mission. When I was in Iraq, this is 2004, right around 40% of the folks or the service members on the
ground were guard and reserve members. So the the guard reserve members constantly training so when the bugle is blown, they can uh show up and and make things happen. Now look, we can, you know, we easily recognize our our folks
in uniform. uh we see them uh whether it's on TV, whether it's a you know a neighbor, whether it's a relative and they're you know the our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, our coast guardsmen and my marines. Um we recognize them. But there's another group of of patriots
that are just so very important and that is the reason I'm here today. It is the employer patriots. Without having supportive employers and and managers taking care of the their uh guard and reserve members who are
presently part of the workforce as as it is here, we would not be able to function. So, um I I received a uh a a see where I brought some. Oh, okay. I've
got it. Um I received two nominations for employer support of the guard and reserve award. Um and uh before I do that I you know just want to say you know Sergeant Major it is great what you do that you able to manage both your
civilian side and your military side. Well he uh he sent when I say I received the nomination actually he wrote the nomination. So u let me just uh work it down a little bit and here's how it reads.
The Township of Mapleshade, Township of Maples Shade's manager, Susan Dansen, and Chief Christopher Fletcher have exemplified the qualifications of the Patriot Award spirit with unwavering support and
continued willingness to accommodate my military duties when activated, deployed, or for training. They go beyond the requirements of the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, making sure their service members and their families are cared for
while I'm on military duty. Their steadfast support for my service empowers me to continue serving our nation. So for me, on behalf of the Secretary, I would like to present two awards to chief and to manager. if you
would come up and we can do that. And when I say me, I mean all 13 former members or current active members of the garden, not just I can only speak for CSM Martino. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Employer Support of the Garden Reserve,
recognizes Christopher Fletcher and Susan Dansen, Mabel Trade Police Department and Township as patriotic employers for contributing to national security and protecting liberty and freedom by supporting employee participation in America's National
Guard and Reserve Force. For the Secretary Chief [Applause] This is a it's called a statement of support. You can put it in fancy fancy frame and stick it up on the wall. Maybe
put it right behind the mayor's. Thank you very much. Thank you so very much. [Applause] One person. You're all switching in and out anyway. But thank you. We appreciate it. that you guys do for us. The chief's been a champion. I don't know if you know this,
Mr. Smith, but there's actually an entire wall dedicated to all the veterans that serve here downstairs in the police department that Chief Pledger put up and made sure that it maintains. Uh I think it's 13 at this point in time. They're either past or present
either Iraqi or whatever. for your time. Thank you. Thank you everybody. [Applause] Okay, congratulations. Moving over to the ordinance's second reading and
public hearing for ordinance. Ordinance number 2025-10 is a BOD ordinance authorizing the completion of various capital improvements and the acquisition of various pieces of equipment in and for the township of Maple Shade County and Burlington, New Jersey, appropriating the sum of 2,45,000. Therefore authorizing the issuance of
general obligation bonds or bond anticipation notes of the township of Maple Shade County of Burlington, New Jersey in the aggregate principal amount of up to 1,725,050 making certain determinations and covenants and authorizing certain related actions in connection with the foregoing.
Um we are going to now open this to the public. If anyone has any comments on this ordinance, please come up. Seeing none, motion to close. Made second comments. All in favor? I I motion to adopt. So made second.
Comments. Roll call. Mr. Kaufman. Yes. Miss Nunes. Yes. Mr. Simons. Yes. Mr. Zerednik. Yes. Mayor Taylor Rico. Yes. Ordinance number 2025-11 is a bond ordinance authorizing the completion of
various utility capital improvements and the acquisition of various pieces of utility equipment in and for the township of Maple Shade County of Burlington, New Jersey, appropriating the sum of 2,170,000. Therefore authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds or bond anticipation notes of the township of Maple Shake County of Burlington, New
Jersey in the aggre aggregate principal amount of up to 2,66,500 making certain determinations and covenants and authorizing certain related actions in connection with the foregoing. Again, we are going to open it up to the public. Anybody have any comments on this ordinance? Seeing none, motion to close.
So made. Second. Comments. All in favor? I. Motion to adopt. So made. Second. Comments. Roll call, please. Terry. Mr. Coffman. Yes. Miss News? Yes. Mr. Simon? Yes. Mr. Znick? Yes. Mayor Trio?
Yes. Ordinance number 2025-2 is an ordinance of the township of Maple Shake County of Burlington State of New Jersey amending the township code chapter 205 zoning section 113 and 114 requirements for cannabis retailers. We're now going to open this up to the public. If anybody has any comments, come on up.
Seeing none, motion to close. So, second comments. All in favor? I I motion to adopt. I'll make that motion. Second. Comments. Roll call, please. Mr. Kaufman. Yes. Miss Nunes? Yes. Mr. Simon? No. Mr. Zerick? Yes.
Mayor Telerico? Yes. Ordinance number 2025-14 is an ordinance of the township of Maple Shade County of Burlington State, New Jersey, amending a township code to add chapter 155 housing code. Going to now open this up to the public. If anybody has any comments, please come up. Sure. Come on
up. If I may just make one comment and solicitor, correct me if I'm if I'm wrong, but we did need to make one uh slight change after our um our professionals had read through everything over the last couple days. They changed at 155-10
uh the 100 amp to 60 amp. That is because that was not in accordance with the uh international property maintenance code. So, we now have reflected the ordinance to read that it should be um at least a minimum of 60 amps and that that is in accordance with
the property maintenance code and the solicitor was made aware of this. Okay, thank you. Uh you can come up. Please state your name and address for the record. General style. I believe this is for a different Are you here for the Airbnb or the
housing? Uh Airbnb. Both. For the housing code. Um, I just wanted to uh ask well I wanted to make sure that the I do agree with the regulation but I just want to make sure that the
regulation doesn't um limit the growth of um Airbnb or short-term rentals that um business owners can still u maintain uh their
um business while um under the housing code. That's all. Yes. There's no there's no changes. So, this housing code does not pertain to the Airbnb. Okay. It's only for this is for housing for certificate of occupancies. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Anybody else? Oh, Joe, you beat her. She was coming. You're fine. Joe Walters, 163 Frederick Avenue. Um, I've been a licensed real estate agent now and living in this town uh for my
whole life and licensed for 35 plus years. This housing code uh I don't know where it came about. We we years ago started off with uh smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector. At one point
we had some pumps. Um this is getting a little carried away. Um I think it and I don't know if it's part of your proposed ordinance here or not, but you even have if correct me if
I'm wrong, mayor, there's an order. Is this still uh part of this? It's an order to repair or demolish. Um is that part of the housing? It says the housing inspector can order
can order owners to repair unsafe dwellings or in some cases order demolition if the owner fails to address the issues. Failure to comply can result in the township taking action placing a lean on the property for cost. So order
to repair or demolish is that part of this? If I may, I apologize. Your name, sir? Joseph Walters. Okay, Mr. Walters. First with respect to your first point regarding smoke detectors and carbon monoxide that is a state requirement. I understand that that municipalities do not have the
ability to Totally understand that. Totally agree with that. Okay. Well, that was different from what you said. Um I'm sure as a license No, what I said was we started off with that years ago. That's where it was. What what council's introducing tonight is a far overreach of what's necessary
and required by New Jersey state law. It even it even may encroach on fourth amendment rights to people when you start entering as a government into people's home telling them what they have to do what how many people are going to be in this and it's it's going too far. That's not the job of a council
or a township to do. And a lot of these things are negotiated between an agent and the other agent if there's another agent involved or buyer and a seller. We also have things today as you I'm sure you're aware we have home inspections. Buyer has a right to have a home inspection. that wasn't in existence
when I got in the business. So, there are there are ways to protect a buyer and there's also ways to help a seller, but this ordinance tonight, what you're proposing and throwing all this into one can overnight is going to a lot of people. And we have a lot of elderly
residents in this town. So, when they go to sell, they're not going to be in a position to make these adjustments, to make these repairs. What do you do then? How's that work? I have I have another question. When you get into
with your inspections, and this kind of ties in with your short-term Airbnb, which is up on the uh agenda, a couple couple more down. So, it's 31 days or less. But what do you do when you have a rental that's maybe 6
months or somebody breaks their lease? Are you going to ask that homeowner for another fee? Or you're going to ask the owner and I'm talking about owner, not an Airbnb owner. I'm talking about an homeowner or Mr. I'm asking council. No,
with all due respect, I'm asking. With all due respect, we're focusing on solely on this ordinance. Okay. So, there's a separate portion where you'll be able to address any concerns related. So on this ordinance then are you going to ask if there is if there is a
a tenant who leaves in 6 months and now you have a new tenant coming in what do we do then are we going to are we going to that that is not relevant for this particular ordinance? This particular ordinance deals solely with the certificate of occupancy. Okay. So tell me tell me the difference
then between can anybody on council tell me the difference between what you're proposing tonight and what's on the books now? Can anybody tell me? As far as this goes reading it. Um the the buildings that
are existing I agree with you. This is overreach. I don't agree with this at all. All these things that we're dis that we're talking about now just like the other the uh the Airbnbs they were supposed to be discussed and talked
about you know there was a there was a uh thing sent out uh you know that the community develop uh development person wanted to make these changes in my mind if those changes wanted to be made they should have come here not behind closed
doors to do all this the the housing If you buy a house or any house that's built in this state, if you're not renovating it, if you're buying it or selling it, they can't make you change
services. It was inspected and built under that code. And that code, as long as you're not changing more than 5% of that dwelling, is not something that we should be getting involved in. That's a real estate thing in my mind. It's a discussion between a buyer and a seller.
And in my mind, it is going to shut things down because it's going to leave houses sitting there because the old people aren't going to be able to afford to fix a house, put it put, you know, dry up a basement. You're talking a minimum of 20 grand for somebody to come
in and do that. I think it's totally unfair to the people of this town. I don't agree with it in one aspect. And if we're going to have a discussion about it, it should be tabled right now. that community development uh person should come up
here and and sew his pitch to us so that we can discuss it because this right now as far as I'm concerned is be putting in here and it's getting jammed down everyone's throat. Excuse me, attorney. Is this not already passed? Didn't we already pass this?
No, it's introduced. It was introduced. I thought for sure we passed it. Mr. Would you not agree particularly as a licensed real estate agent? Maple Shade is one of the few municipalities that do not require a certificate of occupancy
inspection. That doesn't mean that we should. Well, okay. So, so Mr. Simons stated that the community development director is the one who suggested this change. Is that true? This change is a long time. First of all, a certificate of occupancy
is delivered to a house or anything when it's had work done on it. 5 minutes. No, that's not incorrect. When somebody builds a house or they have worked on, they're they're introduced to have the certificate of occupancy. You can't take
a certificate of occupancy away from somebody that's had it granted to them when the house was there to change it. You're taking away their rights. You're taking away a certificate of occupancy and saying, "We're going to be the ones that determine whether you get it based on the house." Well, that's the way I'm
interpreting. That's absolutely not correct. That's correct. Well, that's your interpretation. That's not my interpretation. I read the ordinance. The certificate of occupancy once granted is good for the life that the owner of business owns the property. Upon resale, that is what triggers this
ordinance for both residential and commercial property. So then back to Mr. Walder's statement, then it's triggering it. It doesn't mean that we have to do it to the people of this town. It's being introduced and saying that if you're selling the house, you're triggering it. Well, quite frankly, in my humble opinion, it's a
public health and safety issue as well. What do you Everything has a Every buyer has a home inspection, but I'll do research. They have a right to, but everything everything has a cause and effect. Talk to a dealer. They tell you not to. No, you don't want to do get an engineering inspection because it might
Who says that? We can't say that. They say it all the time. They certainly moved down here. When I moved down 38 years ago, I was a realer in North Jersey. We if you were telling people that Sandy, you were wrong. We got one meeting going on here. You guys can all talk when she's done.
One at a time. One at a time. And correct me if I'm wrong. This is the introduction of the um the adoption of we're in public. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was I've been here 38 years. I sold real estate at the time. What how real estate is done in South Jersey as
opposed to North Jersey. You're finally starting to get with the rest of the state where most municipalities have a certificate of occupancy. So, if you have a new home, which which uh Andrew was talking about, they need a certificate of occupy. Well, to me, that really doesn't make any sense because it
should be a cert occupancy for everyone because you don't know what's happened in that house since you've bought it. And I've had many people that came into Maple Shade and they basically got a bomb because there was nobody inspecting anything. There was an engine if there
wasn't an engineering inspection. When's the last time you've seen a residential real estate agreement of sale? You said you were a licensed realtor, but I have not. But there's a certificate of occupancy on almost every single municipality. When's the last time you've seen an agreement of sale in this state? When's the last time you seen an
agreement? I haven't. I haven't bought a house lately. No, you haven't bought. But you haven't practiced real estate either. So, in the agreement of sale, there's a clause for a home inspection. Well, no kidding. Okay. It has to be in there. But a lot of times the buyer and the seller sign off on that if it's if you get an inspection, especially in this market, you're going
to tank the deal because you're not you're going to lose the property. There's not enough. That's that's up to the buyer and the seller. But it doesn't mean the agents telling them not to do it. So Joe, you said somebody had commented that other towns do all other towns do this. You said Morristown doesn't. I didn't. Somebody in the audience said
that. Okay. There's there's different regulations in different towns. Now I'll give you an example. Uh, I purchased this is That's all right. I'm I'm curious. That's okay. Let them talk. I I purchased a property approximately 30 years ago.
And they had a housing inspection. I'm I'm the type of landlord that it was it was a rental for me. It was a duplex. I put a lot of money into the property. immediately started fixing it up, making it the house on the block that was the one that was getting everybody else
contagious and and bringing up the value of the neighborhood. I had an overzealous fire chief doing an inspection, an annual inspection, and they called for all kind of Mickey Mouse stuff, whatever. Little stuff, baited it, took care of it, whatever. I had one
thing on a new window that it was a double pane window where it was cracked on the outside, just a hairline crack. They called for that. No problem. I called out to a company, a local company to get a new sash made. Put a new sash in there and I have a tenant in there at the same time. Came in, it was the wrong
size. They gave me certain time frame to do it. Long story short on it, they they gave me another date and they said, "We're going to go into court. We're going to find you and do this and that, whatever." Said, "I ordered it. Here's the proof." Whatever. They thought I was just I don't know what they thought I was doing. And I'm not I'm not a slum
lord by far. This thing got so carried away that I hired an attorney. I'm waiting for the sash to come in. We go into court because I had to. And this is this is what I'm saying. This is how carried away this type of thing tonight can turn into. And you don't want it for this town.
So I go into So I go into court and that the chief wants me find me $1,000. This is 25 plus years ago. Find me $1,000. We explained to the judge the sashes ordered that came in. It was the wrong size. Here we are today. I'm trying to do everything I can. Here's all the
documentation. My attorney says, "You know what? Sit down. I'm going to approach the judge. We're going to try this." So, we got to trial right there that day with it. The chief's up there thinking he's going to nail me to the cross and everything else. I even went as far as taking out one of the panes of glass while I was waiting for the new
sash. And I testified that now I have a single pane of glass, which is how the property was built in 1941. There was no safety issue with it. There was no no hazard. Why I'm waiting for the sash to come in? What do you want me to do? Long story short, I won the case.
My attorney stood up and said, I would charge back to the fire department my attorney fees, but I'm not charging my client. He was a friend of mine. But this is how this is how crazy things can get. So, you think when you introduce something like this tonight, well, it's only going to be this, but that it
mentions water and this and that. What are you going to do? tell people like they can't have a four-door car next. I mean, you can't have a firet truck in your driveway. Is that is that what's going to be? I mean, where are we going with this? Your issues with the whole code in general. The whole code. I'm for regulation.
Obviously, the state law, anything under the state law as far as smoke detector, carbon monoxide detectors, but when you're getting into all kinds of other stuff, water, and and how many people are in there, and we're going a little too far. We're going to turn into without mentioning names. We're going to
turn into other surrounding towns. And let me tell you what, there's other there's more realtors in this office in this audience. I know they are. Jenna just spoke. When you have that going on in a town, you have people that don't want to come to this town. You have people that aren't going to sell because
they can't afford to sell. And then when they die and they leave it to their estate, do you think the estate, the executive execut or New Mexico or wherever they're at, you think they're going to fly out here and take care of the issues? You're making this very difficult. It's going
to backfire on you. It's not the way. You can't jam, like he said, you can't jam it down everybody's throat all at once. I'm all about regulation and and doing things in little pieces. This is not the way to do it. I don't know where the hell it came from. if it came from the community de development director,
where the hell is he at? And where was the discussion? And you guys need to start talking about going back to agenda meetings where you discuss everything on the table in front of the public and then you have your regular session and the following me. That's how this business used to be handled in this town
and that's how we have to start handling it again. Okay. Thank you. Hi. Hello. Good evening, Karen. Mr. Strangelo, 31 Overbrook. Um, I just have a couple questions regarding the definitions that are in this ordinance. Uh, I'll just
right out from the gate, I'm I'm not supportive of it. I think it's a big overreach. But in as far as an implementation of this, I see the words housing inspector or code enforcement. Do we have a housing inspector in Maple Shade?
Yes. a a paid salary housing inspector. And who is that? Kyle Wagner, our director of community development. Okay. So, oh, director of community development. The ones who put this together. Correct. Okay. Or code enforcement, which is Mr. Anzac, I believe. He's a part-time
employee. Full-time employee. He's full-time. Okay. So, I'm not sure how many houses we have on the market right now, but if you're going to pass this ordinance tonight, which I'm hoping you do not, how are the existing people affected? Um, you have your house up for
sale. You've already gotten a CEO, the state required CEO. Are these people now going to have to come in there and take care of this all of this checklist before a sale can finish or are they grandfathered at some point? How is that
implementation from today going forward? How is that going to work? So, I'm sorry. So, that implementation will be done. Anybody that obviously is already under contract that hasn't gone through will be grandfather. Yes, it will be the new. It will be anybody that's new. There will be letters that
go out to realers. Kyle has already started reaching out to some of the real. Yes. Okay. And the the other issue I have was the paragraph that talked about chronic water issues. I have lived in Maple Shade all my life. We all have chronic water issues.
Well, let me if I could explain that. And so the what? Okay. So, I put the French drain in. I put the sump pump in. I got the barrier going on and the water just comes up from the bottom, funnels where it's supposed to and out it goes. But are you is is that a subjective
opinion of a housing authority or a code enforcement that because I've gone to all this trouble and he happens to step down on my crawl space two days after a big pouring rain and sees water, he's going, "Oh, nope. You got chronic water. You got to do a whole lot more than what
you're doing." And I I'm I'm with the the feasibility of trying to sell my house when that's just it's nature and it's in maple shade and water is not coming in from the outsides. I've made sure but it's coming up from the bottom.
I can't fix that. I can only abate it. So how does that subjective word chronic or that definition of chronic water issue play into what's going on here? Okay. So, the township of Maples Shape is also under the International Property Maintenance Code. That's what enforce
that's what all of our enforcement is followed under. Okay. And the International Property Maintenance Code has chronic dampness in there is what it calls. They look for things like roofs and drainage is when you don't have gutters, down spouts, when you have down spouts that are actually going instead of away from the house, they go into the house. They look at things the chronic
dampness. They'll look at things like foundations. If there's a cracked foundation, ventilation, I'm sorry, ventilation. Ventilation. They look at interior surfaces. If something's been abated and there's been remedies that have been taken, obviously then yes, then those things have been taken. It's it's again,
while you say some of it is subjective, there are clear guidelines of what falls under dampness, chronic dampness. I can tell you Karen, that we have been in homes with our rental inspectors here, and you would be shocked at what we find. This ordinance is not to this
ordinance is not to hurt anybody. This is about the health, safety and sanit the sanitary conditions that people are living in and making sure that that does not that things don't continue the way that they have. We have a lot of flippers in the um in the municipality. Either don't get um inspect don't get
inspected, don't get their permits, this will say, okay, if you didn't get your permits and you didn't do this correctly, you need to now. Those are the things that we're looking for. Clear a clear checklist. And and isn't that though the responsibility of code enforcement? Not all of you to see outside,
right? Okay. But to see a house that's being flipped, I can tell you the houses that are flipped within two blocks of me. And if you're It's not that big of a town. If you're driving around, you're a full-time code enforcement. Go in, you can see the dumpsters out there. The dumpster's out there for two months, 3 months, however long it's out there. You
know, that house is getting a lot of work done. And if there's no permits pulled, you can't go in. Why could you can't do anything? when those things are reported to the UCCC construction code official and then he does go in and he will check they will see if there's permits then a notice of
violation is issued this is clearly on the resale and the turnover of a home into a new tenency it's not just the UCCC portion you know the building inspection part of it right I I again I'm I'm not the whole thing in general I'm not supportive of
it I feel that it's an overreach I feel that it's detrimental to some of the seniors that may be in town and I'm going to count myself as one of those now. Okay. But you if if somebody tells me, okay, well, you've got, you know, 20ome,000 worth of repairs that you need
to do before you sell your house and all of my equity is in my house. How do I come up with that money to meet that what was it? A 90-day window or maybe a 120day window. That's an awful lot where I would even have to apply for a loan to
try and get that work done and I couldn't meet that. So, we're going to start all over again with more inspections and more inspections. And I think that's where too, you know, you talk about that that 90-day window and that 120day window. Again, those are places where like our inspectors work all the time with with our residents in
those things. Um, and again, this housing code ordinance, if if I told you if I get three calls a week about whether or not some we issue a certificate of occupancy, my office receives seven calls. I mean, that's how many calls we get about certificate of occupancies. Um, a lot of this did come
up because of the rental ordinance. Um, you know, and the and the rental inspections that we've been doing and what we've been what. So again, you know, so this isn't to hurt anybody. This is to make sure that I didn't mean to interrupt you. I'm sorry. And and if Renault is driving it, then maybe we're address we're
addressing the rentals first, not current homeowners. But we are basically going after everybody at the same time. I'm not a rental. Well, we've had our rental inspection program in place for 18 over 18 months now. like 19 months. Okay. And so this is then the next step
in what in what we have found. Okay. So thank you. Thank you. Got a line back there too. Hi everybody. My name is Holly. I live at 529 Windsor Avenue. I've lived in
town for 53 years. Not the age myself, but I've purchased two homes in Maple Shade. um throughout my actually three now in my lifetime each time I've had a home inspection that I paid for um of course had the normal are the numbers on
your house do you have smoke detectors carbon monoxide all those things but I also paid for the home inspections one of the homes that I own is my father's um elderly lived in Maple Shade of course you know gets water in his basement just like everybody else has a sump pump just
like everybody else when his neighbors sold their house because of a code. They had to redo their sump pump and where it discharges. So now their sump pump discharges right onto my father's property and that adds to his water pro water problem. Um there's
a way to address this without reaching into everybody else's pockets. I feel like this is hey we can get you for $125 inspection here is why I feel like oh we can get you for another inspection here. Oh, we have to come back because you need this and now you need this. I think
it's overreaching and there's no provision in here for somebody who wants to sell as is. If my father's home, I want to sell it as is. Listen, I'm not going in on them doing the repairs and I'm not a contractor and I don't have a lot of experience or time with this type of thing. So, if I want to sell to
somebody who's willing to put in the work or willing to do it, I should be able to sell a house as is and let that person take on the responsibility. They can have an inspection. They could do whatever they want, but for me to have to bear all that responsibility, I think is asking too much of the of the
residents here of the town. If I can just address one point, this ordinance does not restrict your ability to sell the house as is. You still have that right. However, it cannot be occupied by the new owner unless they go through the ordinance and obtain a certificate occup. So, who's going to want to
respectfully who's going to want to purchase it, you know? So, let's just say I want to sell the house as is for $100,000, right? The person's going to say, "Well, great. I'm going to buy this house for $100,000, but now I can't move in until
this is done and this and this and this." Whereas, if somebody wanted to purchase the house, maybe they do it a little at a time. If I was going to purchase my father's house, maybe I'd be like, "You know what? I don't care that, you know, this subpuff gets a little extra water in it once a year, but I'm going to address this or I'm going to
address that instead or I want to update the plumbing or I want to update the avocado green kitchen or whatever. You know what I mean? Like it should be up to the person who's purchasing the house where they want to spend their money and what they deem is most important. You had mentioned about the sump pump.
This ordinance will protect buyers and sellers from those sorts of things. So you're saying that that sump pump now goes into your father's home. This ordinance would have protected that from happening. They would have found that and seen that. It would not have been able to been directed that way. It would have been We reported it to the township
and we didn't have an Listen, we reported it to the township and we also reported the fact that like it drains onto the sidewalk and it drains onto the sidewalk and then it gets ice. But you know what? It doesn't go ice in front of their house. And listen, I I love my dad's neighbors. It's not like they're being jerks or
anything, but you know, it it drains towards his house, so the ice gets in front of his house. So, you know, then we call our homeowners insurance and we're like, "Hey, you know, this is happening." And they're like, "Oh, well, try and go talk to the neighbor and do like you try and do all the right things, but the neighbor just is trying to do what they
were supposed to do as well." This ordinance puts that to rest because it's good for seller and the buyer. So, if you have someone who's going to buy your house as is, if you're going to have someone who buys your house as is, I believe what but the seller there's a disclosure
sheet I I guess still on, you know, when you buy a house, there's a disclosure sheet and you say, "This house has a sump pump because it had water in it or it has a French drain installed or it had a new roof." You have to disclose those things. So, the seller's already protected. The seller's also protected if they want to do their due diligence
and get an additional inspection. This hurts this hurts the person who's selling the house. This doesn't allow them to sell their house how they want to. This says you basically need to hire a flipper to come in, do the cheapest renovations they can to get it past this
inspection so we can get out of this out of this house. Flippers are coming here because we don't have a certificate of o occupancy because it's easy for them to flip. You know what? I'm going to get a flipper to come into my dad's house and I'm going to say do the cheapest thing that you need to do to sell my dad's
house and I'm not worried about the person that moves it. Whereas I'd rather sell the house as is and say, "Listen, this is what you're getting. This is what the house is. I'm going to give it to you to deal because I know you got to go fix that avocado green kitchen and I know you have this and this to do. But if I have to pay to flip it, I'm going
to be like, "Listen, you want to I'm not talking about you. You don't have to pay to flip it. I I have I have to pay. Somebody has to pay to get this work done. So, in order for me to sell the house, somebody's gonna want that CO. They're not going to want to purchase a house that doesn't have a CO. As far as the sump pumps, too, we can
make an ordinance that pertains just to sump pumps because even if we make them people put that stuff in the basement, it goes back to the infrastructure, having it tied into the storm water management system. And this is why I'm saying we need to get a master plan,
slow everything down, and start doing the right thing for the people of this town. That ordinance isn't going to do nothing because groundwater in this groundwater comes up. You can you can fix the basement. Now, we got an issue outside cuz those pumps are pumping all
that water. In the winter time, it's going to freeze. We're trying to put stuff in effect now without thinking it through. And this right here, right now, with all these people here, is what this town should have. Transparency to come up and talk about the issues so we can
come up with a resolution that's going to keep those people happy, not us. That's what this is all about to me, the people of this town. This is way overreach. Overreach. And if they're calling you, certificate occupancies are
for building. All right? as he said, it's a choice that we're making to make people put them in there. And somebody like this woman right here is 100% right. And so is Karen. As a matter of fact, we're telling these people they got to fix these houses to sell them.
And I'm telling you right now, that ain't going to work because they want to sell them as is. Let the flippers How about we get the people in this building to go out and enforce it when they're in there not having a permit? shut the job down because they can put a stop work order on that building, which we have been doing.
All right. Well, then let's start there, but let's not ram a whole new uh housing, you know, code down everyone's throat because we think we're fixing something. We're rushing into everything and we're creating problems later on for us that we have to clean up and we're not keeping the people of this town
happy. That's my opinion. You can take it for what it's worth. You know, anything else? Thank you. Thanks, Sue. Hi, my name is Sus and I live 132 South Maple Avenue, Maple Shade, New Jersey 08052. Good evening. Um, good evening. Um, I too have the
problem with my daughter in the basement and your daughter. Water. Water in the basement. Your daughter? No. No. Well, no. My daughter's my son. Sons I worry about. No, I'm just joking. Um, my thing is you're coming after the residents and I understand that and I
see homes that need work. I see homes on Elm Avenue on the corner. This house was sold 200 and some thousand dollars. Two beautiful girls owned it. It looks like a piece of crap now. These people don't take care of it. Grass is high.
All kinds of things growing on the outside of the house. Yeah, it's yucky. Okay. But what about all the poor people that live in Fox Meadow who have water in their homes? than our housing
inspector now and that's part of does that is more important to the 600 children that live over there so our housing inspector recently with the council's approval we now go in and we the municipality does the multi-unit
dwellings the state of New Jersey was the one that was required for Fox Meadow for the arbor for anything that was a multi-unit dwelling we now have an in-house and it's part of my report this evening we now have an in-house suspect inspector that will do those inspections and those inspections happen on a 5year basis. They don't happen every year.
Just Well, they should happen on every year because of the damage that's done there. So, yeah. Um, you have an inspector now that does. I do feel and and from my heart, I know I've come up here and I've been I've been very passionate about the firehouse. I know I've spoken loudly,
but the thing of it is we all live in Maple Shade. Okay. The world right now is in a horrible turmoil as you said in the beginning of the of what a horrible week we had with deaths. Can we not somehow the newsletter does
not get out to anyone some but not to anyone? Not to everyone. There are so many people that are not aware of this. Could the developer have a meeting and we find somewhere that's large enough
what are we talking and have him here explain why sir we now want to have this in Maple Shade. So talking about like a town hall with the community officer and before we make any major changes and Susan this is not against you but before
they allowed you to become our township manager they did not do it with us and request that we pay the taxes it's our right I understand it was that's the way it that's the way it's done
and I said it's nothing against you okay but anything that is important should be brought up and have a town hall meeting. So in that defense, I will tell you that this ordinance was introduced over a month ago.
I knew that it was here. There have been not there has not been ma'am I'm not talking no one knows about it. Okay responsibility for ma'am I told you everyone does not the website. Sit down does not do that. Sit down.
Hold on. Hold on one second. These are questions that these are comments that need to be directed. We need to get the senior citizens who just we need to get the to not to the muse and say, "Hey, we're going to lower your rent this year," but get the people in the muse involved. We need to have if it
has to be three meetings in a row, do it. I have to say something. People in this town need to take a responsibility of their own to go out and find things. I mean, we can't we can't Listen to me. Let me finish.
People cannot We can't go to every person and put a notice on the door. This is happening here. This is happen. We can't do that. It's impossible. People have to take some of their own responsibility to find out what's going on. Now, whether that's coming to a meeting going online, we have a website.
Uh the agendas are always there. I I I don't understand why because people do not look. Well, they should though, sir. They don't. Well, I can't help that they don't. Of our people don't even vote. Excuse me. You're ready. After her.
It's It's something I feel something this major everyone in town should be aware of. Yeah, you're right. I have a 96 year old man that lives next door to me. He hasn't done work with his house in years.
How's he going to feel if he sees us? I have a woman across the street who just lost her husband. Her home isn't in good shape. How is she going to feel about this? Everyone up here may have money. As you told me, we only made $63,000 a
year. That's why we're a low income township. I never said that. Yes, ma'am. You did. And you can go back three years, Heather. You were here when it was said. John, you were here and not three years ago. There you go. It's off top. When when I approached her and we were
talking about the education, how it had dropped and I said to her about what I felt that we needed more of and she said, "That's right. You're right." Income Township, you only make 63,000 a year. Go back in your records, ma'am. It
is there. Okay. You said that right to my face because I got you mad. So, thank you. You're welcome. Could we please try to have a town meeting? Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Anything else on the housing code?
Here we go. Well, I get a quarter in my basement, you know, and I and because we just had it taken care of all, so hopefully we don't, you know, just how many other townships in the area do this? I think it's like seven or eight
surrounding that we had looked into. Burlington and Camden County, Arl, Deleno, Cherry Hill, Riverside, Pens, Haden Township, Runnome and potentially Maple Shade. Those are the ones that we were able to go on find their we need more money for our because we
spent so much has nothing to do with it enough. Thank you. You're welcome. Have a great night everyone. You too. I just care about my town. We appreciate you coming up. I really do. Thank you. And sir, thank your officers for protecting us because I feel that they
all do a wonderful job and they're great guys. Thank you. Next. My name is Matthew Zable. I am a real estate attorney. I have an office here and I have a different side at 147 Frederick Avenue. No, I don't have any code issues. The only issue I have is
the silver line in front of my property has a bow the opposite way. So, my basement floods once a year and nobody wants to fix in the township. That's not why I'm here speaking because I have film of it showing it. I even have cameras showing the the line that's pitched the wrong way at the end of the street and nobody wants to address it.
So, it's my issue once a year unless I sue people. But I do real estate and you're wrong about the specific occupancy. To get financing and closed, you have to have a co to get into the property if it's required in that township. So, anybody that couldn't do the repairs,
they can't sell, can't be sold. The work would have to be done before closing to get the SE out to finish. And from my experience, the only towns that use CS are towns that are afraid of becoming bad. Like Candid Pensan has them to keep
their town maintained. Woolling is very, very strict. It's probably stricter than everybody. They come out require sewer certifications, heating certifications, all those things. It's for a reason. I don't think we have that problem here. Yes, we get flippers because our price ranges are lower than most of the
surrounding towns. Go to Char Hill and Mortown, you're not going to find very many flips. Just not going to happen. Our houses, a lot of them are smaller. Alden Park, parts of over here on Oddlocks. Yeah, it's to do the CO you're you're going to affect sellers. There's
no two ways about it. You're going to slow down the sale of properties in town. And the older people, and we have a lot of old people, are not going to be able to sell, even to a flipper, because the flipper would have to come in and do repairs before closing. It it's it's not it just slows
everything down, you know, as as an owner and I've owned since what 16 here, but I've been coming here since 1974 and I used to pick up my ex from the high school. The town was always
overall well-maintained. There are their houses with older people if things don't get taken care of, but doing this is only going to make it worse. And what you're going to do is increase fees for people when taxes are not cheap anymore. I mean, I'm across from the high school. I paid $9,600 a year for a small lot
with nightmare parking because of the high school teachers that don't want to park in parking lots and want to park in lock in my driveway every day. So, that's for nine months a year, right next to the job. Trust me, I go through it every day and I curse it. And if I could move tomorrow, I would because of that alone, just that. But it's not
going to happen with rates where they sit. But it's not a good idea from a real estate professional that I've been doing it for 38 years, primarily real estate. It's a bad move. It slows down everything. People look at them like Willing Pens. Pens and I understand
that. Pens and I understand. They make them fix crack sidewalks. They don't want it to turn into candidate and they have a lot of there's a lot of pride in that town. I've done planning board there. Those people they encourage it. See, I have an issue too because I I see I know we're finally changing zoning
ordinance. Thank God because there's a reason why our business district is empty. They make it too hard. It took me four four appearances for a dance studio with no walls with only two people working there as opposed to the traffic of a small dance studio. Took four appearances in front of the board back
in 14 years ago to get that approved. Four appearances when all I'm doing is putting up permits for everything. So, I'm just telling you, thank you. You put too many barriers up, you slow down development, you slow down buyers, you slow down sellers.
I don't think we can afford that because every time you get a new person that comes in, they usually upgrade their house. And when you get people like that, younger people, they have more money and I think they put more into town. And hopefully the new zoning ordinance is going to help because we need to fill in all these stores along. It's
ridiculous that we don't have a decent business district like every other area. Yep. I agree. That's it. [Music] Sure. Christ. My name is Holly. I live in Avenue. Um there's two abandoned houses, one
directly behind me and one caddy corner to me. Like I'd love to see something with those codes done. Like I'm covered in poison ivy and sumac right now because I was in the backyard fixing. Like the township will do the front yards a little bit, I guess, to keep like the property appearance up, but I
live behind them and it's a disaster. So, like I'm back there moving everything out front and chopping down their trees and doing the weeding and stuff so that I don't get critters living in my backyard and things don't, you know, creep over. So, if we're going to do something to like help the town and and boost revenue and enforce some
codes, like it'd be great if we took some of those abandoned homes and made the improvements there, okay, and sold those homes and get people living in them and paying taxes. Just help everybody else that lives next door, too. This Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lou. Okay.
three years. Hi everyone, Terry. I live at 200 East Lynwood Avenue, right down the street. Um there's been a lot said tonight um a lot of contention. I do agree though with um both Andrew and Joe that you
know things need to slow down some. I bought two houses in Maple Shade both as is. I have spent 40 years and untold dollars to fix them. I know my house is ready to go. I wouldn't have any problem with getting a certificate of occupancy,
but I too worry about the people. Um, we do have some people of lower income and our seniors, and I really think that you need to make sure that you're treading through this issue carefully because it could prevent some um some seniors from
really, you know, I I couldn't even imagine coming. I know Susan, you mentioned the electrical. I had seen that that, you know, just to upgrade that electric would have been bad. You know, it's a lot of money. So, I really think that you guys need to slow down. I hope you don't try and push this
through. Obviously, you have a lot of realators here as well that, you know, they're worried to impact their business, but I think we're all worried about the town. Um, we talked a little bit about code. We have a lot of people in this town that do not keep their properties up to
code. I've had um just one just Not to deviate from the subject, but I have had one um instance where I had to call the code enforcement officer. He was great, took care of it. But you would be hardressed to go on any single block in this town and find a home, not find a
home or homes that are kept up to the code. I mean, it could be everything from trash cans in front of your house, um your lawn not being cut. So, and I know that's a different issue, but you know, it is important that everyone, existing residents and new residents do
keep up with the code, but I do again echo Joe's concern and Andrew's and I hope you really kind of sit back and and also the transparency. And I get it, Chuck. I did not know about this. I found out I don't Facebook. I found out
from someone else with Facebook. It is your responsibility. I know you're transparent with the meetings and so forth and you know the information on the website. There probably aren't people that know how to get that information though. So maybe it's just a mass mailing out to the existing
residents. I know it's probably a big expense but just to say hey if you're interested in what's going on in town this is where you can find the information. And we have tried to do this and this wasn't our last newsletter as to we did put this in the newsletter for people to see. Um and I do hear well they have to get to the website
they have to get to the website where they have to get through. We do send it out through Nixl. So you know they're going we have you know couple thousand people on NIXL. Um you know I what I'm hearing uh council is that you know and again this is your decision and I think there's a lot of different ways we're hearing from people that say that
we need these code enforcement. We need these things because we have these abandoned homes and we have all of these properties that aren't enough property maintenance. What our code enforcement officer does is different than what this does. you know, we had the the inspe the example that, you know, oh, the the home didn't have the proper um we got the
slippers that came in and the home didn't have the proper electric or didn't have the roof done or whatever. This will make sure that that's done. But I also do hear the other side of it that okay, it's going to cost. Now I do know I've reached out to towns and I've asked some of those towns and council you can correct me and I'm sure some of the realators will correct me but I
believe that a buyer and a seller there can be an affidavit sold that if they wave their right to the things that have to be done before the co the buyer can wave their their right the affidavit and take on that responsibility so that the seller can still sell the property and I don't know if that's it but some of the
towns say that said that that's what they do they've seen it all the time this way they're still able to give a co so maybe that's that would be great if the people that are buying it have the money to dump into that to fix those problems. But most people in this town are buying houses. They're strapped after they walk
out of settlement and they don't have the initial cash flow right away to start doing that. And as I think it was maybe Karen, I don't know who was up here. Over time, people come into town and they're young. They start fixing their houses up. You know, if we want
Maple Shade to First of all, I think we need to implement going around in the houses. I I I can think of three houses right off the top of my head that have been sitting there. If if we don't start addressing those common things that are problems to everybody in the
neighborhood, all this is for nothing. We need to start going to our township, driving around, have the code official. There's one right down on on uh Collins Lane. It's been sitting there for years. It needs to be demoed and we can't do it. And
this is the thing. We can't do it. We can. We're the government. If we make ordinances, we can do it. The housing code, I remember you make you saying before that the code enforcement officer hands were tied to a certain extent on things and this would help. Yes. So the co the code enforcement
officer deals with property maintenance grass. If there is the normal when someone's living in the home, we talk about the property on Collins Lane. I know which one you're on. It is ti that is tied up in probate court. I've already spoken with the solicitor. I spoke with our previous solicitor about it. I talked with our solicitor last
year about it. That one we we maintain it because nobody else is. There is nobody there to maintain it. So looking at that, you know, look, we can change the ordinances. Right off the top of my head, he's talking about a safety issue. That house is a safety issue. I don't
care if it's in probate or not. Go in there, knock it down, clear the lot. We foot the bill and then when the house when the property is sold, it comes back to us. And again, this goes outside of that. But again, we can't just go in and say we're going to demo it. There's a process. There's a process to it. And those this is what this ordinance is
trying to do is to find ways that we can make the abandoned homes that have those abandoned homes before they were sold to somebody would have had to have a co that house is beyond. That's that's a totally different story. But let's vacant
property that somebody is coming in. somebody sells it before that vacant property would have been able to have to even go to the table. There would have needed to be a co. So all of those issues with that home would have we would have known that they were there. There's other ways to go about doing this and that's fine. If we're going to
address things, let's and in let's address them individually, not put them into a lump sum and then and then just throw it all out there. Let's address the the water pump the the sump pumps. Let's address the abandoned houses. Let's do it individually so it's not
affecting every single person in this town. It's only affecting the things that need to be affected. That house is a safety issue and that's totally up to council. Again, you have the ordinance in front of you. We can choose on the outside, not the inside. Okay. Did you have anything else?
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks. That's why how we got got here. Mr. Manello. No, you got Mr. Thomas, too. You just want to go last. Is that what it is? I don't want to, but they were here. Uh Charles Thomas. I uh I don't live in town, but I grew up in town and my
business has been in town for over 38 years. I've been a realtor in Maple Shape for 47 years. How about you give us your address anyway? My my home address is 1227 Winston Way, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. My primary business address, and I own several
properties in town, uh but my primary business address is 107 East Main Street in Maple Shape. Thank you. Um I own Thomas Realy. I own Forale Realy, Referral Agent, Commission Exchange Realy. Um, and I'm I've been a
realtor for, as I said, 47 years. Uh, one of the things that's a little disturbing to me is that I am very connected to this community and I didn't find out about this ordinance and perhaps part of it is my fault for not coming to more meetings or being more
aware, but I wasn't aware of this ordinance until yesterday afternoon when your zoning official and your code enforcement official came to my office and told me that there's going to be a new ordinance in town for a certificate of occupancy
that's going to begin this week. Now, they were presumptive in saying that there will be this new ordinance in town. It hasn't been, you know, you haven't gone through final recital and you haven't finalized this this ordinance. So, I would I would urge you to reconsider moving forward tonight and
take pause and think about some of the issues that I'd like to address. You know, everyone's talking now about resale of homes. Okay, this also affects rentals. We have a significant rental uh community in our in our town. There's
well over uh 2,000 rental units if you look at Fox Meadow being one of the largest. Um but well, yeah, I'm saying there's that that's just about 2,000 in Fox Meadow in Fox Meadow. Yeah, it's close to 2,000 in Fox Meadow. Yeah, close to 4,000 in town. Uh that
doesn't include all of the individual duplexes and single family homes that are rented out. I happen to manage quite a few of the properties in town. Uh, and again, I'm I'm getting some inconsistent information, so I'd like some clarity on
this if I may. When I spoke to Kyle, our our code enforce or our new zoning officer, I specifically asked him, uh, they just recently the township instituted a rental registration program, which I agree with. I think it's a great idea. Each rental property
should be inspected once a year to make sure that the health and safety of the tenants is protected and to hold the uh the landlords to a standard. Um I think that that program is going very well. When I asked about this ordinance and I
was told that there would be a fee for a single family home and I wasn't I still I looked through this and I'm trying to get an idea of the fees if it's going to be double for a duplex and triple for a for a triplex and and I'd like clarification on that. But I said, you
know, with regard to the fee, if we pay a rental registration, we have an annual inspection and then in the middle of that year a tenant turns over. I was very clearly told that there's going to be a requirement for a new CO inspection and
an additional fee. Now, I believe that's that's kind of double dipping. You've already inspected the unit and now you're inspecting it again. I think you know if and and the the answer to me was, well, the tenant moving out could have done damage to the property and the
new tenant coming in needs to be protected. Well, that that that's a point. However, what if the tenant that's living there that that doesn't move out has done damage to the property? It's going to take a whole year to find that out anyway. So, I I I
don't quite understand why there are additional fees being imposed for change of occupancy as opposed to an annual inspection fee, which effectively accomplishes the same thing as the CL inspection for rental
properties. Secondly, I' I'd like to question, and this is the first time I'm hearing this. I've always taken issue with the fact that the um rentals for, you know, single family homes, duplexes, and so forth, uh would have to pay an
annual rental inspection fee. However, the larger developments are covered under Department of Community Affairs only have inspections every 5 years, which I speak to people at DCA, and they're so understaffed, they're saying that they're lucky if they can get to it every seven years. Okay. We had a tragic
fire in um Fox Meadow a couple years ago and loss of life and and that probably could have been avoided if there were more frequent inspections. I'm not blaming the township. I'm blaming the state for not requiring more frequent inspections. Now, that being said, I
just heard uh our township manager say that we have an in-house inspector now and they're going to take over those duties, but again, only do it once every 5 years. Now, is the township going to benefit from the fees that are paid for that? Number one, do we have the ability
to institute an ordinance to require more frequent inspections? And thirdly, with regard to change of occupancy with this new ordinance, if every tenant turns over between the 5-year period,
are they going to require a CO at Fox Meadow or uh ParkPlace or some of the larger developments that they are requiring on change of occupancy for single family homes, duplexes, and triplexes? Uh I'd like to get answers to these things. I'm also looking at some
of the the inconsistencies that I see in the language for what they're going to inspect. For example, they're saying in in a uh multif family property uh in a common hallway uh lights must be on or available at all times. Same thing for a
single family home. They're saying the lights in a hallway have to be ava on or available all the time. Who who turns their light on in their hallway in the house that they live in? So there's some inconsistencies here that I I take issue with. Um I I mentioned that and I think
someone else I came in about five after so there were a few people that spoke before me but I I heard something in regard to uh wet basement. There's something here for for a certificate of occupancy or change of occupancy for a resale that in they're going to be
inspecting uh you know wet basement floors, walls, and foundations. Well, we all, anybody that's lived in Maple Shade, and I've been here all my life, know that the that's the rule of thumb. Maple shade basement are just wet basements. So, I question, you know,
this in the ordinance, are they going to make these homeowners trying to sell the property, uh, are they going to make them waterproof that basement? This could be tens of thousands of dollars to do that. Okay, it's a significant expense. Now I will I will address one
one thing that again I think was inaccurately uh discussed in a previous uh concern was what what about flippers and what about people that want to sell their property and uh let the buyer take the responsibility. It's my understanding that and again I checked this with your
uh zoning enforcement officer Kyle and he in explained to me that there is a separate application aside from the continuing occupation occupation certificate. There's a a separate application that a flipper or someone buying a property as is can can
get at a reduced rate. I think it's 75 instead of 125. They have 90 days after closing then to bring the property into compliance under the terms of the ordinance. Okay. So that allows flippers to do that, but it gives them a very short window, 90 days. Some properties
take 6 months, some properties take nine months to to renovate because we have a very old uh infrastructure in town. There's a lot of old houses. It takes a little while longer. I'm also a licensed builder. I own Thomas Custom Homes as well. So, I I've I have rehabbed several
homes in town and I know what it takes to to put these properties back into goodstead. Um, I think that it's a good idea to consider doing that transitional type of um uh certificate for someone that wants to buy and fix. However, one
of the other ways to do it, and I deal with quite a few townships that do it this way, they will allow a temporary certificate of occupancy because not everybody that's buying a fixeruper is is a flipper. There are young couples or not so young couples want to buy a house
and they want to fix it up. Well, the seller may not have the funds to do all of the work. if a temporary certificate of occupancy can be issued with with finite limits. You know, you can't leave it open forever, but you know, give them
90 days with an option to extend if they need more time to bring everything into compliance. You know, I think a temporary certificate of occupancy is is is more in order for people who are not flippers that aren't going to basically be going in with a lot of money in
pocket to fix these properties and flip them because as noted by a few of the council members here, you know, we're a working-class town. There people that buy these houses and fix them up as they go. I think that's that's an option that I would urge the council to consider.
Um, I noticed another, and again, this is baffling to me. Um, they're requiring on a certificate of occupancy inspection that all properties must have a 100 amp service for electricity or more. 60. We changed that. That's 60. That that was said before you came. That was said before I came in because I
I can tell you there are several properties I have one on the market right now. 60 amp service with fuses and they're perfectly legal. It didn't go with the uh international property maintenance code, which is what we call. Okay. So, that's something that that you're addressing and that's that's great because you're showing forethought and I appreciate that. I appreciate what
you're doing. Look, I have no issue with having a certificate of continuing occupancy ordinance in place. Uh I deal with it with many, many municipalities. I sell properties all over South Jersey. I sell properties in the city of Philadelphia. You know what their
certificate of occupancy is? You go online, you pay a hundred bucks. Nobody ever comes out and inspects it. That's how that's how bad some municipalities are. Others are a little over the top. I heard Matt Abel talk about Willingboro, Pence, Camden, and they have good reason because they have, you know, failing
infrastructure and they they absolutely need to bring some of these properties up to up to modern standards. But by the way, you can go in, for example, to Penn and get a a instead of a u a temporary transfer co, you can get a temporary CO.
So, that's something that I think that you may want to consider before we pass this ordinance. And, uh, last but not least, I think again going back to, you know, my my question about, you know, double charging people. Um, and and you know, if it's good for the goose, it's
good for the gander. Are we going to be charging a a CO inspection fee for every change of occupancy for Fox Meadow, Parkplace, you know, all all the large developments that I understand they come under DCA rules, but this applies to to
my understanding all rentals. So, I I'd like clarification in that regard. I asked a question, nobody answered it. So, okay. So the DCA, the state has uh their thing. Yes, we can't modify that and we can't do
less, but we can always do more. So we can change and add, we can't change theirs, but we can add to it to make it better if we so choose to do that. Um, and I quite frankly agree with you. There's there's 5,000 apartments in this town and 5,000 homes. That's what it
shakes out to be, believe it or not. Yeah. Yeah. It's about even right now. So, that's a fair question. Are we going is it going to be fair to everybody in this town, the businesses and the people that live here, or are we going to double charge the the the taxpayers? You know,
to me, some of it's, you know, unfair to the people that are buying it, you know, onetime fee maybe. I mean, look, as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to make a motion to table this right now so that we can have a serious discussion
and and go through this, pull things out individually and do them individually. It should be a discussion for a year of time. We're we're trying to fix something. Leave it on the agenda and let's just start talking about it month after month to come up with something
that's crafted for the people of this town. And then all these people get a chance to come up here and talk like you. I know you're not against the the uh the uh fee for the certificate, you know, but that's a choice that we're going to make here. And yeah, you can
have a temporary one, but there's one thing this comes down to. Comes down to money. And I understand the township wants to generate revenue, but I don't think we should be generating revenue like that off the backs of the hardworking people of this town. maybe one fee here or
there, but not multiple fees. So, I can't answer that question for you. I can only assumize that they won't be under that. That's just my I'll just pose this to to council and and all the um the folks at the uh at
the head table here. Um, I I again I'm a lifelong uh member of this community. Born, raised here, educated here. Uh, do my business here. I'm involved in the, you know, I'm I'm a member of the economic development uh, commission, which I'm a voting member. I want to see
this community thrive. I want to see it do well. Uh, I I in principle, this is a good thing to bring up the standards and hold the standards to the community. I just think that we're rushing into this without really looking at some of the finer details. Obviously, you just found out one about the 60 amp service that we
or 100 amp service requirement. Um, there's another law that changed in the state and I know that Andrew is a a fire firefighter and and it's probably well aware of this change, but the state does not require in rental properties uh or the uh transfer of title u the the CO
code that we have now um requires a fire extinguisher in in a house. it has to be a certain type and a certain size and weight and this and the state just rescended that and has taken that off the table. Now when again talking to our fire code official he said on the
transfer of ownership it's not required anymore. I haven't seen that in writing. However, on transfer of occupancy and on on uh tenencies on on rentals, it is still required. So there's inconsistency
in our in our enforcement and the way we're going about this. And again, that's a very small item, but again, it it mushrooms because you start looking at the details, and the devil's always in the details. So I'm I'm going to just ask, does being a realtor in this community for 47 years, being a lifelong
member of the community, I I have a stake in this community. Do any of you have questions of me that are unanswered that we can air out or we can put on the table? Now, I think all of our questions have been answered. John, you had a comment or a question? Yeah, I I have a comment. Um, Councilman
Simon Six says that we're trying to rush things, but on the other hand, people in the town are saying that we're not doing anything. So, it seems I agree that the ordinance needs to be tweaked a little bit and it might the possibility we should table it tonight, but it's getting very disheartening sitting up
here from the public that you guys aren't doing anything. What have you done? What have you done? I cannot tell you the hours and the time I've lost from my personal job, my personal wife, my life, sorry, which involves my wife
who has some medical issues. Um, this was put out last week or last month. This ordinance was read last month. I not I got no not one phone call from anybody in this audience asking me about this. Not one.
Everybody knows where my shop is. Everybody knows my phone number. I got not one phone call. So, it's Nobody knows that. Well, Councilman Zardick, if you recall, my opening comments were I just found out about this ordinance and I'm really tied into the community.
I I understand about it yesterday afternoon when the zoning officer and the code enforcement officer came in and told me presumptively that this is what you're going to need to start following this. No, no. I I understand that you I understand that you just heard about this frankly, you know, again, how did that
not come to my attention if it again, why are why is no one I can't answer why I think it may it may have been it may have been rushed a bit. I do I and I don't mean to interrupt you, but council, we have a um motion on the table to table it by Mr. Just response to one of your statements there. There's still another person that
wants to talk. That's right. I'm sorry to take much time, but I I I have I'm in favor of this. Answer your question. I I have a problem. If if if representatives of this township came in and were presumptuous about that, that's
telling me that they're rubber stamping this or they think it's a done deal. And it's to me that that that's the problem that I have with transparency. There's a process for the Oakland Public Meeting Act that we're not following in my opinion. Period. And this is where this is where
I'm gonna say I have to disagree with you, Mr. Simons, because this was read in last month. Okay. So, Mr. Thomas, so you asked a question about um the CO every 5 years at at the apartments now that now I I I mean I understand that is state law and that's required.
No, that's fine. I was going to answer your question regarding the fees. Yes, the fees are now coming back to the township. This the fees that the state every five years though. Yes. No, every quarter. Correct. It's actually every quarter. That's incorrect. So there is an inspection in those in those properties every year, but a same same unit will
not be inspected every five years. So there's on you're you're you're dancing around that. I'm sorry, Susan. Um the rentals that are registered that are not in the large cluster apartment complexes. Yes. Okay. The ones that are in town,
duplexes, single family homes are required the same unit to be inspected every year on an annual basis. on an annual basis and on change of tenants teny. Well, again, on change of tenency, you're you're going to charge an additional fee based on this ordinance.
I contend that that's being that's being, you know, a little bit over the top with regard to, you know, the the enforcement and the inspection process because it's inspected once a year. We got two more. Why would you have to charge an additional fee and have an additional inspection if that that
inspection and that that license is good for one year? Why are you charging in the middle of that term if if a tenant happens to move out and a new tenant wants to move in? And I question if that's going to happen on the rental ordinance. That's this is this is on resale.
No, this is saying resale and read the ordinance. It's it's talking about resale of properties and rentals, change of occupancy. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Uh that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? I know Lou is coming right
back and somebody else said about No. So you have to get just just get back in line. Okay. Lou, Mr. Vanchel, can you come up? Let's get Let's get done with you in case you need another drink. I know. I wasn't expecting to come up. I
smoke the cigar now and I forgot what I was going to say. I'm sure it'll come back to you. Um, Lou Vanchello, 19 South Boulevard. I'm not a flipper. I'm not a real estate person. I am an old person. Fortunately, I'm still able to work, but I can't
ignore the calendar. When I go to sell my house, uh, I want top dollar. You know, I don't want I'm not flipping. We've been in doing little things, me and my wife, for decades. How am I going to sell my house at top dollar if a
buyer doesn't know what it's going to cost them to get a CO? You had answers before. I'll put it to you. I'm sorry. Could you How am I going to get top dollar from my house if a buyer doesn't know if they're going to get be
able to get a CO? It's more than a rhetorical question. Well, you will be able to find out if you can get a CO within 10 days of the application being submitted by the buyer. No, typically as the seller, you would
obtain the CO. I already have a CO. I don't need a CO. You said the buyer gets the CO. Am I wrong? No. Yes, you are. Okay. So, before I sell my house, I get a CO. No. Typically, every contract is different and most
broker prepare. According to the ordinance, no contract according to the ordinance. This has nothing to do with buyer or seller. But yes, in order to sell I'm a buyer, so it has everything to do with it. I want to sell my house. I want top dollar. Can't be both. I want What's that?
You said you're a buyer and a seller. You can't be both. I'm sorry. I'm Maybe I'm buying somewhere else and I need to sell my house for top dollar. You're really pick that up. You're a real estate person. Very good. That's right. I want top dollar for my house. I'll put it to you folks who live here. Okay,
I got a house. I'm a buyer, too. I found We got We found our dream house. We're going to downsize. Let's Let's put our house up for sale. But we want top dollar. How is a buyer going to give me a top dollar when they don't know if they can get a CO?
Question. That's a question that you got an answer. You as a seller are getting the CO. How am I? And I think what what what he was referring to before was so what's the pro? Okay. So explain to me the procedure. Huh? I'm just asking what you had mentioned earlier was if you have someone that is going to
have an affidavit that they would Well, if I got to have someone do an affidavit that price is coming down. You know that you're in real estate 38 years. First of all, you're not going to have that because you take care of your house. I said you wouldn't have that because you take care of your house.
But the buyer doesn't Okay. I do take care of my house, right? How do you measure dampness? I I don't I don't know how to answer that. The guy who came up with the ordinance, who's the housing guy, should be here. I'll ask you, Susan. How do you measure dampness
under the International Property Maintenance Code? There's a set of guidelines. What are they chapter right here? So, it's chapter So, roofs and drainage under section 304.7, exterior walls under 304.6, 6 foundations under 304.5, interior surfaces under 305.3 and
ventilation under 403. That's the code, the international property maintenance code is the code that we follow for both our property maintenance, our UC. The ordinance mentions dampness. Correct. And those how do you measure d So there's a formula. So those are the things that you do. Yes. You look at roof drainage. You're
some of it is going to be visual. Some of it is going to be So my my all my all my drains drain away. My sump pump drains away. So I don't I won't sight inspection and they and what if they come down and they and they smell musty
they'll look and we'll see. They might ask questions. Yeah, but what criteria will they be using? I just said it will be by visual inspection. It could be the foundation of the property to look at. Well, might have a finished basement. Okay. Am I going to have to take a wall off? How I'm saying what what cr if you don't
know that's fine. What criteria is your housing inspector? That's the criteria. Go into you. Okay. I meet all that. Okay. So, they don't have to come into my then they don't have to come into my basin and you pass. Well, I I don't I don't think so. Again, because there's a way to measure
dampness. I don't know what it is. Your ordinance says So, how would you dampness? How can you say you don't know what that is, but still say, well, it's in the or it's your ordinance moisture meter. So, if if if a person's buying my house and they say, Lou, you got a utility sink down there. You just ran the
washer. It's a damp down here. I'll never get a CEO. I'm out. I I think in some of this we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the inspector and we need Well, the inspector should be here. The inspector should be here. Unfortunately, he couldn't be here this evening. So, well, when you meet once a month, that's
what happens. We're forced to we're forced to address these issues. But anyway, again, do you understand what I'm saying? How am I going to sell my house if a buyer comes in and I want top dollar? Okay. How's that how is a buyer going to
buy my house without a CO? So, I can explain some of that because all this is all great, but at the end of the day, there's a thing called an engineer. And me personally, if I was running into this, I would hire an engineer and just stick it to everybody.
I'll pay the engineer, but I'm not going to lose the money in the house because at the end of the day, he's the engineer. What he writes up as a report is going to be it. So, well, not not if the housing inspector says no, it's damp. The housing inspector doesn't have the credentials. He is licensed. Let's just
He's Is he an engineer? He's not an engineer. All right. Then he doesn't have the credentials because an engineer is the one that decides that without he does not have to be a licensed engineer to be a licensed. Believe me, I'll get the engineers, the lawyers, the real estate people. You know where I'm going.
Yeah, I do. But if that housing inspe I could spend $10,000 on an engineer, but that housing inspector comes in and says it's stamped down here. Yeah. Then you got to sell that to the guess what? It's not my problem. Yeah. It's the buyer that has to go through this. But no buyer's going to give me top
dollar not knowing if they're going to use it against you and lower the price. Yeah. So that's all you don't have to measure to measure dampness on the walls. You got to break through. I got to take down uh pine paneling, which was put up many many years ago. Uh to to get
to my walls. I got to dig up my floor, my I have a floor down. I got to dig that up to get to my uh subfloor to to measure dampness. It's not measuring water going away from the house. That's easy. It's measuring dampness. And there's ways to measure
it. I would assume there's meters to measure it. Depends on the environment. So, if I'm So, what buyer is going to come to my house and buy my house and bid on it and not know if they can move in? And what if
the the inspector comes and says, "Uh, Mr. Buer, you found your buyer, Lou, he's good guy. He paid you top dollar, but guess what? I can't give you a CEO. How long do I have to wait now to get my money?" So anyway, these are more than
rhetorical questions. They're serious issues and that's why I came in because again, I don't tend to go anywhere, but I can't ignore the calendar either. So at some point, I may have to we may have to move and I want top dollar. I'm not flipping it.
Nobody in their right mind is going to start bidding on my house not knowing if they can move in. Thank you. I have a question for them. How did you find out about the ordinance? uh online. Now, when you introduced the ordinance, did you introduce it by title only?
No. No. Oh, is it right? Okay. Yeah. All right. Could you do that by title only? And that's bad on us if we didn't pick up. We only did one by title only, and that was the one because our solicitor at the time was not able to review it in time. She had a personal issue. Fair enough. That's the only one we've ever done this
year. Okay. But I, you know, going on that, um, I should pay more attention because who expects something this radical to be introduced and then come up for a meet. This is radical. Okay. Okay.
It's not radical. You guys, it's not radical. I mean, most of the state has a CO in place. 38 years when I came here, I was still in shock that they didn't have a CO here. I bought my house here 38 years ago without a CO and my particular
realtor said, "You'll screw the deal up if you get an engineering inspection." I was I wanted the house so bad that I decided not to get the engineering inspection. It took me six months. I had to hire my own uh I think it was I can't
remember the name. How long ago was this? I'm talking 38 years ago. Oh my god. But the thing is, you should have you should have had one 38 years ago. A co should have been in place. Do you know the protections that I'm not a realer or lawyer? 6 months it took me 6 months it took me to move into that house to get it
finally approved that everything was okay because there was no CEO in Maple Shade. I didn't get an engineering inspection. So I basically screwed myself as the buyer because the seller walked away scot-free because he did
things he wasn't supposed to. 38 years ago. 38 years ago, but it's still in place now because if you don't have a CO do you know stop what it can happen to anybody? Oh, it's not okay. I say stop. Did you have anything else on that? Uh do you realize the protections that
buyers have? These folks mentioned it. You can have an inspection. There's a seller's disclosure. That doesn't stop you from being sued if you sell. And there's something missing from that disclosure. That's more of what I see when things go wrong.
And you can also have an affidavit that says that if I have to go to if I have to go to a buyer and say, "Give me this affidavit where whatever you're talking about. What do you think that's going to cost me?" And I would never ever buy a house again because every single house I've bought
throughout the state has always had a lawyer at the table. I will never even living down here. That's not how you guys do it. That's fine. But I will never go to a a table again and buy a house without an attorney. Neither would I. Right. We agree. We agree.
Okay. Thank you. But I I I do want and that's and that's all fair, but the guy who came up with this doesn't live here. Doesn't know squat about this town. Let's face it, the CEO. Okay. Where is he to answer these questions? He couldn't make it, but he was working
with our code enforcement. And you could have put this off until he could make it, you know, and he's a house. No, we couldn't put it off. Now, I would just before I leave and I talked to you guys when you got elected, I said you should be meeting every week. No, that would prevent this from happening.
Okay. You were meeting every twice a month, which is fine. You're still on for and now you're down to once a month. So, if I couldn't make it tonight, I can't see my I can't stand I can see you guys, you know, during the day, but I can't this is for an ordinance. I can't uh if I can't make a meeting, I
can't come up and see you guys for two months. You're residents first. You're not here. You're here once a month. Chuck, where' that come from? This is the open public. You know where I know my phone number. I said as a group. This is on the housing code. This is not
open public. But I know. Okay. Take advantage of the time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Mr. Walters again. Yeah. One minute. Maybe two. One. Maybe 30 seconds. All right. First a commercial. Lou. If you want to sell and get top dollar, call me. 1800 get sold. I just have a question on uh Mr.
Zeradnik uh brought up the introduction of this and and Susan also brought up what date what meeting was that? What date was that when this was brought up? August 21st. August 21st. Okay. So, I want to correct that because I watched that meeting. So, if you bring
up your August 20 first meeting at the 1 hour and 46 minute mark when Miss Dansen gives her report and you get in, you went from, if I recall, you went from dumpsters, mayor, and then you went into short-term rentals. Yes,
that's what was discussed. Short-term rentals, not this chapter 155 in this part of it because short-term rentals is coming up on the agenda. We didn't even get to it yet. That's what was brought up in title only. Susan says we can put it on the agenda in title only. That's what was
discussed. Shortterm rentals and the Airbnbs. Not what we're talking about now. I don't know. That's why I said earlier, I don't know where the hell this came from. We had we had a first reading on it, but was not fully discussed. And then if you remember if you remember the one guy came up and he was thanking us for doing it and he misinterpreted as the
short-term rental. I don't know if you watched the public portion, but that that whole meeting to it, but it was bought up to be put on the agenda. Her words were entitle only and that was for short-term rental. It was 1 hour 46 minute mark. Prove me wrong.
Entitle only. Yeah, you're not wrong. You're wrong. You're incorrect. Okay, I just countdown's going quickly. 30 seconds quickly. U if the housing official scuttles a sale, I think you're opening the
township up to liability. Yeah. Because if I have a sale, everything's good. I'm getting top dollar. Buyers ready to buy and pay. Housing inspector comes in and says, "No, it's stamped down here." And then the judge finds that's not right. You
guys are on the hook. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anybody else on ordinance 2025-14? Five minutes. Anything new that wasn't discussed? Excuse me. Anything new that wasn't discussed? I have my own things to say.
Okay. You want to turn? Okay. Uh Joanne Mortimer, 39 Lancancy Road. I reiterate strongly. I was here at that August meeting when you talked
about BMBB Reynolds. I was here. Okay. And then all of a sudden we have a fullblown housing code. Okay. Now I missed last month's meeting.
I because I was at bingo raising money to give grants to the businesses. All right. So I'm not there to tonight. Yep. Transparency was promised
by this council. Just the fact that you're meeting just once a month. There's no transparency. I'm sorry. Okay. I found out about it by reading the newsletter. one little sentence under the B&B
Reynolds about a housing code and I'm thinking to myself, what the heck is this? Of course, I used other words at the time. So, I came up here and on the bulletin board, 14 pages for the
ordinance. 14 pages. This is a major event. Now, I'm asking each council member, have you read through this ordinance word by word?
Have you done that? Because your names are going to go on it by the way you vote. So, you need to think about that. You need to think about everything that everyone said tonight because it's true.
I've been a realer for 23 years. In our contracts, the last contract I wrote had 28 pages. So, if you think our contracts are light stuff, they're not. There's a sheet for every lawsuit that
ever happened. And as far as home inspections are concerned, there's a sheet they have to sign off for that, too. If they wave a home inspection, the buyer, they have to sign that legally.
As far as some pumps are concerned, they used to do inspections for some pumps. The fire department. How they stopped doing them. Don't look the other way, Chuck. No, I'm looking because I've been a realer for 23 years.
Ask Andrew a question. Did they do that, Andrew? The fire department did not. At one point in time, the fiery official was asked to do it when he was doing the state mandates for the smoke in the but they were inspected. Some pumps were inspected just to answer
that question. Now, where it says transfer of title, where you're going to have to have this certificate, does that apply to a transfer if between a husband and wife where they
sell it for a dollar? Does it apply for divorces where the husband might give the wife the house for a dollar? Does it apply? We need answers to some of these questions.
Now, I know they say that this has been a long time coming, and maybe it has, but I remember six, seven years ago, and perhaps Sandy or Chuck, if you were around then, or maybe Lou, they formed a
whole committee of people, including realators. Can you even think about that? We go in and out of houses every single day. We know the laws for selling houses.
You need to do more research and more discovery on where you're leading yourself or you're going to have issues. Now, also you need the name and age of all the persons occupying the premise.
Why do you need that? Can anyone answer that question? That's on page two. I'm looking at the fees. The fees seem reasonable. There's no problem. However, and I know after going through it for
almost a year, fees lead to other things. They lead to more inspections. They lead to permits. They lead to escros. Escross for attorneys that have to examine.
es for engineers that have to examine things. You're talking about a lot of money. And if the repairs have to be done, you're talking about even more. Some of the things were fine.
Uh, one question I have is, is someone going to be able to rent out a room in their house without having an inspection? Can you answer that? They shouldn't. No, I'm addressing the council. No. Yes, that's what I understand. So,
you're telling somebody that they cannot rent a room in their own house when they're paying their mortgage and they're paying their insurance. Never could. You need to know what's in this ordinance.
Yep. And the ramifications. Thank you. Um, the flow of water can't be less than one gallon per minute. Is the inspector going to time that when he comes into
the house? I guess he will. Water temperature. I can understand. We talked about rooms and basements. A lot of people have finished basements, but they might not have the windows in the particular center of the basement.
They might have storage rooms where there's windows. Or are you telling me they can't use their basement? Is that what you're telling me? Even if it's finished. I'm just looking here. Bathrooms.
I have three bathrooms in my house. that have no window. Okay. Three bathrooms. Is an exhaust fan sufficient? Do I have to run it at least six air changes per hour? Do I have to keep it
running or do I just have to have one? I'm asking heaters. I can understand egress. Now, here's a good one. because we have a lot of bungalows in here. Lot of bungalows.
And to get to the second floor, we have a lot of them that have finished attics. So, you climb up a set of steps and they might have a small window in the front. You know the ones I'm talking about. Is that considered a second
egress or is an inspector going to come in now because they did it with one of my people and make them put a larger window in? These are questions we need to take a look at.
Uh, sleeping rooms have to be at least 70 square feet for one person. Now, if you have two people, you have to have at least 50 square feet born. That's 120 square ft.
Many, many, many houses in town have a 10 by 8 bedroom. Well, you can no longer use that bedroom. Is that what you're saying? You
have to look at this code and adjust it to our town. We have bungalows. We have tiny ranchers. Look at Park Estates. Tiny. Popular Grove are even smaller.
You have to adjust this to the town that we live in. Ma'am, if I could just say one point, and your points are respectfully taken. What you're claiming, however, is simply not correct. We cannot tailor this ordinance
solely to address the residents or structures in Maple Shade. We are obligated as a municipality to follow the UCCC to follow the state construction code which set which sets the minimum standards. So what you're saying is
youC is when a new building is being built to the point and any building to answer your question houses that are existing that aren't having renovation work done at 5% do not have to change those egress. If you're in a basement
and you want to have a bedroom in there then you need egress window. All right? If it's a regular basement then no there there are statutes that are code from from the state. So, but this says living space. All right. Well, doesn't say a bedroom.
Well, listen. I said I don't agree with it at all. I don't agree with 95% of it, but that's my opinion. I have a basement that's totally finished. It was all counted as living space. Okay?
Because it's 100% of the footprint of my upstairs. That's what an appraiser goes by. 100% footprint and you can count all of that as living space. Now, you answered my
question about apartments, whether it's going to include apartments, and that could be a good thing. But one question that wasn't answered is, are we going to go in and do and charge the fee for every year or every time there's a new
tenant in an apartment? There's a lot of questions. I am asking you for the benefit of our town to be transparent. That's what you promised when you ran for office. You
promised that. Be transparent. Form a committee. That way, they're going to know that you looked into everything. Okay? Have people that you feel should be on the committee. And like I said, years ago, there were one
or two realtors. Doesn't have to be me. All right. Thank you. Anybody else from the public? All right. So, I'm going to need a motion to close the public portion. So, made second. Comments? All in favor? I.
I. Okay. Um, I'm going to make a motion that we table this, we put a committee together, and we go through this line by line, and we address each one of the things and have
somebody like Chuck, somebody like Joe involved in this so that we can get a good result for the for this township. Because what I'm hearing tonight, a lot of people are not happy. And a lot of the people that spoke don't even have rentals. They just have homes and
they're concerned and rightfully so. Okay. There's a motion to table. Yeah. I'll There's a motion to table with the committee. No. So, is there a second to motion to put it to table with the committee?
I'll second his motion. Okay. Comments. Roll call. Terry. Mr. Kaufman. No. Miss Nunes, no. Mr. Simon, yes. Mr. Znik, yes. Mayor Taller Rico, yes. Ordinance number 2025-15, an ordinance
of the township of Maple Shade, County of Burlington State of New Jersey, accepting a sidewalk easement within block 189- I'm sorry,03, lots five and 502. This is the public portion for this ordinance. Anybody from the public? Seeing none, motion to close. So made
second comments. All in favor? I motion to adopt. So made second. Anybody? No second. Comments. Sorry. Falling asleep. I'm distracted. I'm sorry. Who? Mr. John.
Comments. Roll call. Mr. Kaufman. Yes. Miss Noun. Yes. Mr. Simon. Yes. Mr. Zadnik. Yes. Mayor Tel Rico. Yes. Ordinance number 2025-16 is an ordinance of the township of Maple Shay County, Burlington State, New Jersey, amending the township code to add chapter 154, article 2, short-term
rentals. This is now the public portion. Anybody from the public like to address council? Please state your name and address for the record. Miss Styles Avenue 55 Styles app. So, I just want to um kind of second and support the um
realators that have already gone before me to talk about the housing code and how there should be a committee to be involved and also for them to um involve realators or people who do a lot of rentals um or just know a lot. Maybe an
inspector as well could be involved in that committee to be able to talk on what things should be going in this new housing code as well as um the limitations and regulations for Airbnbs. They're separate. I'm confused. They're separate. I'm confused.
They're separate rentals. They're separate ordinances. You already tabled that first one. How they should have been but doesn't affect the Airbnb and short-term rentals at all? No. No. Okay. So, I I guess my understanding of
that was limited. I didn't know. I just learned about the um chapter 155 today. Okay. Um, so I didn't get to read through everything, but I think there's a lot there to digest if and also for um
all homeowners um to be able to um get to know a lot understand what everything is said in the housing code too because there is a lot there that I feel are more on legal terms and not really
digestible or understandable to the common public. Mayor, if I may, I can give a quick summary of the short-term rental ordinance just so that everybody knows that synopsis there. I was looking. Yeah. So, the short-term rental ordinance, this is addressing Airbnbs, verbos, the swimply ordinances. So, they are going to be permitted. They're only
going to be permitted in an owner occupied single family homes, certain two family dwellings, and some condos if the HOA allows them and the governing documents allow. They will be prohibited in state regulated housing, dorms, shelters, nursing homes, and similar facilities. So, those sorts of things
that we already do not permit here in town. There will be per permits required for the short-term rentals. They have to be obtained on an annual town on an annual basis. Very similar to our regular rentals. They are for 31 days or less is what that rental can be. Okay. Very typical of what Airbnbs, you know,
see as well. And then the op some of the operating rules will be that the owners must provide insurance, emergency contact information, comply with noise, parking, property maintenance regulation. They're for amenity only or amenity only rentals such as uh pools, sheds, driveways, uh parking parking
driveways, and those are prohibited. Okay, so this is the short-term rental, the Airbnb is very similar to how we are permitting regular rentals. Um it's just it's putting something in place. There still will be an inspection of them just like we do our regular rentals, but short-term rentals are permitted.
Whereas the first time you came up here, there was it was prohibiting all short-term rentals. That's not council changed that ordinance. So that's what this is. Um and there will obviously be enforcement. Um you know this way there's just clear standard standards on the Airbnb. But this will address those properties that are renting for seven
days at a time you know 20 know someone is out of their home 3 weeks those sorts of things. So will it be on a 31day basis? Okay. But will the committee be um taking care of that or that's on the housing ordinance that's on separate at all. This is totally different from that.
Okay. So, for um this housing, the Airbnb short-term rental ordinance, will there also be the um if there's a new uh guest or tenant that comes in, will there be an additional inspection? One year annual rental just like we do
our rental or our rentals now is what it is. So, and for those people who aren't here, like I'm representing owner occupied um Airbnbs and short-term rentals, but um there are a lot of people who couldn't make it here because they have family or
other obligations. Um so, for those people that own nonowner occupied and also uh owner occupied, what is there just completely no nonowner occupied? No, no, no. It could be owner occupied.
could be non owner occupied as well. Basically, what will happen is on the new rental on the new registration sheet, it will you will check off whether you are using it as an Airbnb or not or a short-term rental. Okay. So, they Okay. So, there will be some division there and which one they
can do. And then um I just wanted to um the besides the tenants that come in, are there any other um uh what are the penalties um for
uh homeowners or um you know short-term rental owners. So any violations that are found, which are all in the ordinance, those things those fines can be anywhere from $250 to $1,500 a day if those violations are found. very similar to how we would do anything any of our other rentals if we
were to do any of our other property enforcement. Okay. Um if we find that you're if and I don't mean to interrupt you. I'm sorry. If we were to find that someone is uh advertising an Airbnb rental and has not registered with the municipality, that is where we would go in and say you have, you know, x amount of days to
register. Um if you don't, then those fines would be put in place. That enforcement would take place. Okay. What if they are not aware like they're new to Maple Shade and they're not aware of these regulations until they come in and attend a township meeting or find it out online?
So those are the things that as a property owner they are that would be property owner responsibility basically if you're a property owner is going to come in new to Maple Shade very similar to how we get people that call about trash. When is my trash day? When do I do how do I do recycling? You know what trash cans do I use? What that's on the
owner to come and find those things out. So, they are going to be on our web page. Obviously, the ordinance will be there. There's going to be on our web page. There will be a page that says if you're a short-term rental, similar to we do with our rentals, but again, that is owner responsibility. And will there be like a 30-day window
or 60-day window for if they need to make repairs on the property in order to fix it up to the standards of the inspector or Yeah, absolutely. All of those things will be in place. You'll be they'll be notified if an inspector goes in and says, "Okay, you failed for XYZ." then
you know you have so many days to it's typically 30 days you have so many days to uh to abate those once you do a new inspection will happen if it's abated then you're able you know then you're able to go and you'll get your short-term your short-term rental permit so when will that be decided the 30-day
versus 60-day versus 90day um for the regulations of the Airbnb like with any inspection that happens that is on the inspector the inspector has the ability to make that determination of how long we do the same thing with our property maintenance Some things get 10 days for abatements which
is typical. Other things get 30 days depending on the nature and how big is but typically 30 days is what is given. Okay. So it won't be like is there somewhere that we can look at because it's still in process of being created. So I'm trying to figure out like everything will be on the everything
will be on the web page. It'll be on our ordinance. You'll be able to read through our ordinance. The township clerk will then send it to the um to our code book who will put it into our code so you can see it. But in the meantime, you know, by Monday, I would say if you have any questions about it, you could definitely come up and speak to um our
director of community development and he would be able to walk you through those things. I know you would come in today and you filled out the Yeah, you filled out the application, which was great. Um again, the application right now doesn't have the short term or has does have the short term. I think you got the new one. So, yep. So, we know so you'll be going through that process.
Okay. Thank you. Um I just want to speak to um basically um you know I hope that we can create regulations that help um homeowners uh and business owners that are in Maple Shade to uh generate more
business and income um and stay away from overregulation which can hurt business and speak like earlier if uh Charles or um who owns a lot of rentals like could be a part of that process or other realators that um are very
knowledgeable on that and have been in Maple Shade and are very invested in the community would be able to be a part of that. I think that would make it a much more successful um digest. Thank you. I have a question for you before you leave. Um, when I know that you have the
Airbnb, when you got involved in that, um, does the Airbnb companies have a criteria where they'll come out and inspect your your house to meet the the requirements or do they just give them to you? Is there any kind of inspections
from them? So there's um certain uh list of criteria that you have to um complete before you can list on Airbnb. And there is um the platform takes a fee. There's also um you you also have
to be able to um you know make sure your listing has all the right photos and also um description. But there's no uh you know inspection. There is insurance on both sides. So that's definitely
something that people are um aware about. And that is a good question too for the insurance since Airbnb and Verbbo and some of these other platforms provide insurance for both the guest and the um host. Uh so the landlord and the
tenant. So, in that case, uh, are you going to are will will the ordinance require them to have extra insurance outside of that? Yes, because Airbnb does not they they're insuring in case you have damage
in your home. They're actually not uh doing the liability portion of it. That's how that's what they're and I know that for a fact. Actually, I have an Airbnb. Um, so I am very familiar with that. And yes, so there are certain requirements. Again, those are state requirements. Those are not maple shade requirements. In order to have a rental,
you have to have $500,000 worth of liability insurance and you have to have um the lead based paint across the board for all rentals. So, those things will be in place. Yes. And if if they have um a homeowners insurance that covers that, does it have
to be through a specific company that you just have to show it on you? You just have to show because you have to declare it. You're supposed to de have to You're supposed to declare it with your homeowners uh insurance if you are rening your home out in different in different areas. Okay. Okay. I know. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Keeps flying. Anybody else from the public? Brief. I know you guys want to get out. Can you just give us your name and address again just for the record? Uh yeah, Charles Thomas. Uh Thomas Realy at 107 East Main Street, Maple Shade is my business location. 1227 Winston Way.
Cherry Hill is my uh primary residence. Thank you. Uh for the record, I just want to go on on record and say that I'm adamantly opposed to the Airbnb um concept in a predominantly residential community. It
works well in in resort areas. However, uh Cherry Hill, where I live, um has stopped the uh permission to to do Airbnb. Most notoriously, uh, the house that Muhammad Ali lived in, uh, was used as a party house, as an Airbnb, created
all types of, uh, issues with the neighbors, and ultimately that was the, uh, the straw that broke the camel's back that stopped, um, you know, that caused them to to stop allowing Airbnb in Cherry Hill. Um, one of the things that I I see as an inconsistency here,
again, if we pass the ordinance as it as it stands for rentals, short-term rentals are still rentals. Are you going to Now, the Airbnbs could turn over every 7 days, every 3 days. My understanding of this new ordinance
would be every time there's a change of occupancy, you have to have an inspection for the health and safety. That That's the way the ordinance reads, John. You're shaking your head. Every time Airbnb ordinance reads that. No, I'm talking about rental. Okay. Airbnb is a rental. It's a short-term
rental, right? So, every time that turns over, whether it be every 3 days, 6 days, or 30 days, in my opinion, if you're going to hold the other renters to that standard, then you should be holding the Airbnb to that standard, which now makes that business
model a whole lot less tenable for people that are renting out an Airbnb. Because if every 7 days they have to go and get a a a full inspection for health and safety, which I do agree that that's necessary on an annual basis or, you
know, on if you're saying if it has to be on, you know, the transfer or the uh turnover of occupancy, you're going to be turning over occupancy on an Airbnb that's a successful one 50 times a year. It doesn't that that does not count because again, these short-term rentals are every 31 days or less. It's looking
at the rental ordinance that we have in place looks at it for a long term. I disagree with you. I think that if you're holding the rentals to one standard, you hold them all to the same standard. You're looking out for the health and safety of the public. Number two, you're dealing with people that may
not live in the community, that have no vested interest in the community, and will rent just for profit, which is fine. I'm all in favor of of of business and profit. I have no problem with that. However, if it's not controlled properly, you'll end up with the same issues that they ended up in Cherry Hill
and many many other communities. Secondly, with regard to um the Airbnb, uh if you're not well, and going back a second, if we do institute the same standard that you're holding the regular rentals to to the short-term rentals,
which is change of occupancy, you do an inspection, that is going to overtax our ability to uh do the inspections. There's just no way you're going to be able to keep up with something like that, especially if we get multiple Airbnbs in the community. Uh, I strongly
urge you to rethink this this um ordinance and and reconsider, you know, not allowing them in Maple Shade. I We originally had it as a ban and then we re we had people Exactly. And and and and I think that it should be reconsidered in my opinion because I don't think it adds value to
the community. It adds value to the pockets of certain people. With all due respect, I know you have an Airbnb, but it adds, you know, value to the to to, you know, entrepreneurs that want to rent their properties out, but what responsibility are they taking if these people come in and rent a property and
do damage not only to the house, but also to the neighborhood? I can tell you stories about people that have rented properties out in Florida, for example, and had their personal car stolen out of their Airbnb. Things like that happen because you can't really regulate it. You're asking normal, you know,
residents to become hotel years to understand how to run a hotel. And we always put buffers. We put we put zoning ordinances in place to buffer the regular residential community from the business community. How are you
buffering, you know, the neighbor that's next to an Airbnb? So, again, I I I urge you to rethink this ordinance and and consider not passing it. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to table it. We're still open. We're still open to the public.
Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were just stretching. I seemed like you were My name's Tom Marasani. I live at 744 Eastwood Lawn. And as far as what Chuck uh Thomas just said,
uh I'm aware of Airbnb in my neighborhood. And to be honest with you, there's been absolutely no problems. Uh none whatsoever. The police have never been called. The family actually host actually they're hosting right now
someone that's up for a uh religious retreat. They also have a pastor that comes twice a year that they let stay for free. Okay. Also, there's a child in South Carolina
who has a rare disease. He lives in, you know, farmland and he has to go to Chuck twice a year. They stayed in the city and were absolutely petrified.
They stay at the Airbnb for free twice a year, a week at a time. So, there's a lot of good with Airbnb. It's not always parties. It's not always, you know, riff raff. And
everybody in my neighborhood is is absolutely fine with it. So, I just want to make that there's a lot of points that people don't realize. Uh, you know, with Airbnb. Which was your name again? I'm sorry. What was your name again?
My name is Tom Marasani. And as far as the registration, is that something uh when is that, you know, is that something? Right now, we have a rental registration program that's we've had in place for the last eight about 18 months. Gotcha.
So, this is something different. This is specifically to address short-term rentals that we were finding in our from our police department was getting complaints about properties that we had. We have people that rent out pools. We have people that are renting out their driveways. So, that's what this was used to address. And as the mayor had stated um the last meeting that we had there
was um a lot of and I think maybe it was in July there was a lot of um push back about having prohibited Airbnbs altogether. So we came up with a new ordinance to say okay this is what you know we said that where they're still going to be permitted with these parameters that there should be an
inspection because we don't know some are not owner occupied so we don't know what that property looks like. If you're getting someone that only stays seven days, five nights, three days, you know, what kind of what kind of property are they staying in? Is it something that's still protecting their, you know, safe health, you know, their health and
safety? Um, on the other end, we need a way to protect our um our landlords, our short-term rental landlords, because if they're not registered and they don't have, you know, Airbnb is great, and again, I have an Airbnb in a separate state. Like, I know I've had damage to my property. Airbnb
didn't cover anything, you know? Um, so and so those are the things that we're trying to do. We're trying to alleviate when, you know, the police department gets notified that there's going to be a party on Memorial Day weekend and it's been all over South Jersey up to New York. Those are the things that we're trying to to help our own residents
still. So, it's not about taking money away or or some sort of business venture from our residents. It's about what is safe, what is the safety overall for the community. And we felt that this ordinance that we had come up with met all of those needs. it meets it meets the is the property safe? Is it in good
condition? Can our residents still have, you know, the business opportunity to do it? But again, you know, are there are there differences between a short-term rental and and to your point, I understand what you're saying. You know, maybe there aren't, but to have those routine um inspections after somebody's
there seven days on a change of tenency, we don't want to do that either. It makes it it makes it pointless. If you have a three if you have a three-day rental and you have one day down to clean it and someone moves in the following day, how you going to get an inspection? And that's that's what that doesn't
that's why short-term rentals you aren't you aren't so there should be two different rules. So the short-term rentals totally different. You get the annual inspection. We make sure that your that your home is in proper working order. Right. Um, the flip side of it too is
you don't have to approve everybody to stay at your place. Correct. If somebody has no ratings, you don't have to approve it. If somebody has, you know, 35 fivestar ratings and you go in and read, you
know, oh, absolutely great person, uh, pleasant to talk to, whatever, whatever it is, then you're going to say, you know, yeah, we're going to let them rent. But you can kind of weed out, you know, potential refra. Thank you.
Thank you. Anybody else from the public? Deborah Simon 61 17 Overbrook Avenue, Maple Shade, New Jersey. I just have one comment to make and I had gotten some uh messages on my Facebook page. I think they're very important. Um, there's
something going on at the high school right now. Back to school night. What What about this? This is This is on short-term rentals, not public. I know. No, it it it involves this because she wanted to be here. Okay. Okay. Is it okay? Yeah, that's fine. As long as it's about short-term rental. That's what I said. I said it kind of is just I'm slipping it in. She wanted to
be here. Okay. And I think it goes I had gotten two messages. The other one and I won't read them because I'm not going to give their name, but they you guys can read them on Shade Neighbors. Um, but what I'm getting from this is we need two meetings a month.
We have to get these people in this place to talk about what's going on in this town. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else on short-term rentals? First, I' I'd like to thank council for tableabling this from the previous time
this I'm sorry, Joseph Walters, 163 Frederick Avenue. Chuck, stop by and see me. I'd like to thank you for tableabling this from the discussion we had and what was happening before. Uh it sounds like maybe some of you may want to table this
again. Chuck, I know you you're dead against this and I respect that. Um I don't have an Airbnb. I have no skin in the game. Uh I did pose a question to you at the last meeting when I discussed this about Ocean City that evening was talking about 3%. I don't know if
anybody looked into that, but maybe if we table this tonight, maybe it's not a bad idea to see what we learn with the other process, with the other chapter 155. Kind of tie it all in together. And like Chuck brought up some good points, it's got to be fair for everybody. For
the tenants, for the residents, for the township, just for everybody, the fees, I don't think anybody's really complaining about the fees, but how far are we going to go with rentals? How far are we going to go with Airbnb? shortterm, long-term, all all this stuff. Maybe we just need to take a
pause on everything. And uh Mr. Simon, I'd be glad to be on that committee. Be happy to be on it. Um that's all I have to say with that. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else on short-term rentals? Yeah, I'm uh Dr. Dan Keebler, live at 33 West Park Avenue. I spoke at the last
meeting about the issues that we're having with this uh short-term rental specifically. And uh I hope it doesn't get table because we need a little bit of relief from what we're seeing. Y what you know I agree with Chuck. I don't know if Chuck remembers me. I
bought my first house from Chuck. Actually sold my first house with Chuck as well. So I agree with them with the uh uh you know with the Airbnbs. We live in a residential area, right? And uh these these are businesses, right? So
I'm willing to accept that if we come up with an issue, but I'm telling you right now, we have a specific issue with the swimplies. It's being abused and it's being abused today, right? Not specifically today right now. So got tabled last week or actually got
approved last week. It was tabled the week before. And uh I'd like to see this thing get through. We got we got a real mess going on. I think everybody on the council is aware of it. People in administration are aware of it. So, that's just my view.
Thank you. Anybody else on short-term rentals? Okay. I'd like to Well, have a motion to close the public portion, please. So, second comments. Yeah. All in favor? I I You have on the public portion.
No comment. Okay. So, I I'm hearing everybody um I think Chuck's uh description of buffering um I understand your problem what you're dealing with. Um and
again to to to single out an ordinance or to address the issue that he's dealing with, you know, I I I don't know, you know, that's that specific incident I think is just abusing the
system and I think as a township we should just go in there and just shut it down and be done with it for right now. Uh you know I'm I'm not being smart but they're breaking the law. They're they're having people coming in there. They're dealing with it. Let them sue
us. Let shut them down and take it away from them and say make an example out of them and and and say you don't like it, you know, come get us. I I don't know what has to get done, but I mean, I feel your pain. I understand what you're saying. you know, the the lady from
Styles Avenue. There's a lot of reputable people and Tom's the the person with Tom. you you know I don't know how we can craft stuff that's going to please everybody but you know listening to the folks in this room
tonight it I think if we just mesh it all together and somehow sit down and have a little bit of compromise on both sides because I think that's the biggest problem right now that we're not compromising sometime that we'll get something that's crafted that'll keep
everybody happy. That's just my opinion for it. Can I can I say something or can I say something? You come back up. Yes. Uh Dan Keebler, 33 West Park Avenue. I told everyone last meeting about
everything that was going on. Okay. They didn't say at this meeting, but everybody's aware of it on the council, right? So when you say, you know, uh let the police handle it. Last meeting we're saying, well, we're giving them administrative remedies, right? And
that's not enough in order to get the police involved so they kind of shut it down that we have to pass this ordinance. That's what I was told. Now, is that correct or not? Because if it is, the police aren't going to do anything about it until this ordinance gets passed.
I mean, I don't know. I'm new at this, right? So, we did issue we did issue notice of violations and then we did issue violations, actual fines for Yeah, but they're administrative, right? So, Right. Yep. So, I was told that the police aren't going to really do anything about it until this ordinance
gets passed. So, let's pass the ordinance. Without putting you on the spot, can you comment? Here's what I'm going to say. Swimley is not a violation of New Jersey criminal law. Okay? So, the police department cannot go out and effect anything related to what's called the 2C code.
Okay? If the officers observe a violation that is a violation of either existing township ordinance or New Jersey 2C code, then the officers can take an action. But having people over and having them inside of a gated area that we are not allowed to go into,
there's case law, a court decision out of Hadenfield that says you're not allowed to look over a fence into somebody's yard. That was actually an argued case that happened. Okay. Um so the police department has to sit outside. I'm sure you're well aware we have buzzed the area. We have monitored
the area and obviously are aware of what is going on. But, you know, as far as the officers go, we have to follow what the existing laws are that we have in order to take any enforcement action. So, my position to my operations lieutenant is there was a misnomer out
there that people can't have a party. And that's not the case. Okay. The police department can't come over and say you can't have a party. uh under what law are we stipulating that? Okay. So, the swimply issue and I'm not going to get into sources and methods for the
police department. But if you're monitoring social media and you're inside of a closed loop or there's some place where they're communicating a message, if we're not even on the inside of that, we're not aware of what's taking place. We might hear from somebody or we might get a phone call
from somebody that says, "Hey, I think something might be going over on over here." and the officers will monitor the situation. If they observe a drunk driver leaving from the place, they're going to pull the driver out. They're going to take enforcement action regarding title 39, which is the motor vehicle law. Um, but if there's not a
violation of the criminal law, what steps are they going to take to take an enforcement action? Okay, simply is not a violation of the criminal law. If there's an ordinance that passed, and again, it depends on how the ordinance is passed as to who has the enforcement function for it. The police department
generally does not get involved in enforcing these kind of agreements. If there's something that's happened, generally it's on the administrative side of the township. However, if there's a fight that breaks out, we're going to come to that. Okay? If there is uh a medical emergency and we get called
via 911, we're going to come to that. If we come into the area and make certain observations, then we'll address those observations. The officers are fully aware of what's going on over there and and I've put it out through my operations lieutenant who's the patrol lieutenant that oversees all the uniformed officers and they're obviously
monitoring the situation, but we don't have the authority to go over and say you can't have a swimply party because there's no law that I can link it back to that says they can't do that. So the the first question is if there's something with regards to the short-term
rentals, then the township has to decide what the enforcement aspect is going to be and who does the enforcement of that. If it doesn't fall under the police department, it's going to fall under other areas, either code enforcement or zoning, whatever it might be. So I'm sympathetic to you. I had a house across
the street from my house for many years was a problem house. And the final straw is when I come home and there's burnt marshmallows uh molded onto my car from the kids having a campfire across the street. And I and that was that was it for me. So I called the local police who
I wasn't necessarily thrilled with the response that I got. And I addressed the situation with them and told them for now on I'm going to start signing complaints and doing what I got to do to address the issue. And thankfully that resolved it and these folks moved on and have a great neighbor now. But the reality is is that certain things have
to take place in a certain way in order to address a situation. Currently, right now, if we have an observation of the 2C violation, of the title 39 violation, our officers will step in and address that. But going back to Swimply, we don't have the authority to say as a
police department, you can't do that. We just don't. So, this is a business run a residential area and that's what they're getting the violations for, right? Correct. Okay. So, does the police department take care of that? If there's a a guy
that has a garage on his property and he's and he's uh, you know, fixing cars and he's has a business operating without a business license, do you get involved or is it just you guys? Administrative. Administrative. Okay. Well,
then whatever. Okay. So, let me ask you a question. Is there anything that we can put into an ordinance that is going to give the the police teeth? Can you work with the police to put something in there that we can just stop this in its tracks? It's right in front of you this evening. All right. Well, I'm understanding that. Is it is the teeth in there in your
opinion? Yes. But let me clarify. It will always be an administrative remedy. However, the chief is correct. If there is a violation of either 2C or the motor vehicle code, then the officers would be
in a position to respond. Is signing complaints going to help the issue with anything on your end if the neighbors get together and just constantly are signing complaints? So, what are you signing a complaint for? Well, I, you know, sound I, you know,
I'm not aware of the specifics of it. I know they're being tormented. You know, if there's, you know, after 10:00 the sound curfew. I mean, I that's a normal thing, right? This is something that's really kind of abnormal. you got have a business run.
It's a situation. It's a situation that is frustrating. Yeah. Um and and haven't experienced it myself and lived through it for a period of time. Uh I know what it was like for my family to have to deal with what was happening. So, you know, as far as an agency goes,
we we try to do our best to intervene where we can. We try to be creative where we can, but we're obviously not going to put ourselves in a position where we're violating any kind of a uh criminal or civil law where an internal affairs complaints are going to get filed us or a civil suit's going to get filed against us. We're not going to
take those type of actions unless we know we're on solid ground. So, what does this ordinance buy in us? That's what I'm wondering. That's going to be my question to you, Brian. Brian and the chief. If we pass this ordinance tonight, will this give the chief, not the chief, an officer the
ability to shut a swimply party down? No. Yes or no? No. Well, who goes in? Say they like to have a party, right? And we got 200 people there and they're running a business and they're aware that there's an ordinance that police can't come in and say, "Hey,
shut down this business. We want to see your business license." Why? How would that be a violation of any law? this swimply or what will happen is let's take the swimply because that's what we're talking about. If the town now that the township knows and it's saying that you cannot rent out any portion of that then it is
administrative. It allows us to now go and say here is your fine. You are violating it for every day that you're violating it. This is what you're do. This is it. That's what we don't have that now. We can't say that swimply is illegal. We took the action of it's a business but now we're saying swimplies are not permitted. You may not rent out
an accessory use. That's what this gets. Again, it is administrative though. That's where the police department I understand. They they could, but again, but then there are So, they make uh they make $8,000 during a party that fine grand. But then they
come back and if there's multiple offenses, then the fines go up eventually. I mean, you hope that it will. It will eventually. Well, I know if if if a neighbor is having a party, and I never called the police on the neighbors before until this, right? Uh if the neighbors have a
party and it's loud and it's out of control or whatever, you call the police. The police go, "Hey, turn the new the the music down. Hey, uh whatever whatever the issue is, the police come out and moderate that." But isn't that considered a uh an administrative issue?
That's a nuisance, right? So that's disturbing the peace situation. So what else is a nuisance? So that's where we would get involved if somebody calls and says there's a party. Let's just say there's a fight at this location. somebody calls 911, there's a fight going on, it's spilled out in the street, the police officer is going to
come and address the situation and and again depending on the circumstances that they find is going to dictate the actions that they take. So, you know, we we have parameters that we operate within, but the the original discussion was over swimply and and that's where
I'm addressing the fact that the police department is not controlling swimply. We're just not. and the rentals and the Airbnbs that you're having the discussion about. Again, my point is what's the enforcement aspect of that? If it's being handled civily by the township and they're finding them for
doing it, fine. We're looking at it from a perspective of if there's a fight, if there's a drunk driver, if there's a shooting or some type of a situation that happens, we're responding to that and we're addressing whatever the circumstances are that we find on the ground. And again, we are we're
monitoring the situation and we're taking whatever action that we can take within the bounds of the existing code or the ordinance, okay, to see at title 39, which are the things that the police department enforces. So the the issue comes back to be is
whether or not they can do a swimply and that's not a police department related issue. I I don't intervene on people doing swimpllets. I give my advice to the township manager and council over what the concerns are much like you've articulated doctor about hey here's the concerns that we have with them but
that's what I do at this point if if this takes a step or two forward depending on what happens with the Airbnb or the swim or whatever the short-term rental is then the aspect that has to be looked at is who's doing the enforcement of that and that'll have to be addressed
and it is addressed here in the it's very clear what it says in 154-20 it does go one. It's underneath the the rules and regulations of how these are supposed to be run. In F, it says that in event that any complaints are received by the Maple Shade Police Department or the Township of Maple Shade regarding the short-term rental and or the transit occupants and the
owner of this short-term rental is unreachable or unresponsive, both the responsible party in the short-term rental agent listed in the short-term rental permit application shall have the responsibility to take action. So, there we're saying, okay, that's who's going to be responsible. While short-term rental is rented, the owner of the short-term rental agency or the responsible party shall be available 24
hours per day, 7 days per week for the purpose of responding within two hours of complaints. It goes on to say that if there's any nuisance complaints from the Maple Shade Police Department or neighbors arising by virtue of the short-term rental property, that they will be things that need to be addressed within two hours. If the short-term
rental is the subject of three or more substantiated complaints, the council or their designate shall revoke the short-term rental permit issued for the short-term rental property, in which case the short-term rental property may not be subject of a new short-term rental permit application for one year following the date of revocation of the permit.
So that would be a Airbnb. That's an Airbnb. So that put goes to with simply if they're having it, they're not permitted. It's a violation. So, the council or design shall retain the discretion to revoke a short-term rental permit in the event of a single substantiated complaint if in his or so
rest in the interest of the township and its residence justify immediate revocation. Goes on, in the event that the township receives two substantiated complaints concerning excessive vehicles belonging to trans transient occupants, the short-term rental permit for the property is subject to replication. When the township receives a notice of a
civil and or criminal complaint and or code violations at a short-term rental property as outlined in subsection 154-20H and I, the township shall issue a written notice, revocation, or suspension as applicable of a short-term rental permit with the reason for the revocation or sus suspension being
stated therein within 30 days of the action. The applicant shall then have 10 business days to appeal the revocation or suspension in writing. Within 30 days thereafter, the council shall hear and decide the appear uh appeal. failure to make application and or to obtain issuance of a short-term rental permit
prior to advertising in print publications or newspapers or in any. So that again goes to short-term rental but again simplies in this ordinance are not permitted. So if there is right but what's the what's the enforcement mechanism? So the enforcement mechanism is we know that somebody has a swim, we know that
somebody is renting out their their garage, whatever that comes to the administrative side and now it is. You may not have this. It's not a business. We're saying that it is not legal. It is uh up they up to 1,000 up to $1,500 per violation but not less than $250 per
violation per day. So they get a it's 1,500 for each violation to up to $250. So they could have three violations. Maybe they're having a swiveling. Maybe they're renting out their, you know, their their driveway, whatever that, too. They each one is a separate violation. So, they are in here.
Subsequent to the expiration of 30-day period, the fine shall be imposed if a court is not determined. So, automatically, if there's 30 days and we don't the there's no resolution, if there's no appeal, then there it stands. Yes. A lot of it is administrative, but as I discussed with you, if there is noise, if there is something that is
criminal in in nature, that's where the police get involved. Everything else is in I'm just looking at what happened with the other townships as well where they had hundreds of people come in there. I forget what town it was. I said it last me township. Loster was it? Yeah. They and they they
didn't even have enough police on the force to handle it. They had to get other neighboring and then they didn't want to disperse. And so what do we do when this happens? We call the police. We say, "Okay, there's 200 people and they're drinking in the road." you know, I guess then that's the issue that
they'll handle and then they'll contact you and let you know that there's a correct and then the council or their designate can revoke the can revoke the the Okay, so that's it for the swim. So the other the other issue that you guys I believe were going to table it for there's an enforcement mechanism for the
Airbnb. So okay, I'd like to see it pass. Thank you. Mr. Walters, you have 30 seconds. Oh my god. 30 seconds starts now. What are you kidding? Buy one get three free. So I just have a question with the fines. If if you're finding somebody and
they just wave their thumb at you and say, "Yeah, great." And have another party and they're making thousands of dollars. If they don't pay the fine, is that at least leanable? Can we Is the ordinance call for that? That it's leanable through the court. The courts will handle that leanable to their real estate. If that's what the judge decides, then
does the ordinance call for that though? That's under court. That's the court's You can't It can't be in the ordinance. I do not believe that it can be in the ordinance. That's a I do not believe that's permitted. No. Yeah. So, the judge would have I think we might want to check on that. That's why I'm saying maybe table this and dotting all the eyes, crossing all
the tees because if it has to be in the ordinance in order to be leanable, it's a judge. The judge may look back and say, is it in the ordinance? He he may have the the say on it, the judge, but that's my question. Thank you.
30 seconds. First question is, is there an ordinance on the on the uh books now that prohibits Airbnb? No. No. Okay. So, why wouldn't you consider just prohibiting them, putting the administrative fines in place and stopping things like these um you know
200 plus people parties that are happening in somebody's backyard and it was tabled that the residents had made. Okay. Again, there are other communities like Cherry Hill and and other surrounding communities that prohibit it. I urge you to reconsider. Thank Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else from the public on
ordinance 2025-16? Seeing none, motion to close. Some made. I'll second. Comments? No, we already had a motion table actually. Yes. I'm sorry. I'll motion. That's right. Don't worry. All in favor? Closing the public portion? Yes.
Yes. Okay. Now, we're on to the motion to adopt. Would anyone like to make a motion to adopt? We have a motion to table, but I'll withdraw that motion. Okay. Do we have a motion to adopt? Make a motion to adopt. Do we have a second? Who was that? I'm sorry,
Andrew. Do we have a second? Yes, I'll second that. Comments. Roll call. Oh, I'm sorry. You have a clicker? I'm I'm a I'm I'm when when this gets done, I think we need to try and put this in place for
his situation. But I think looking at all of it, I think it's something that we need to discuss for Chuck's point of view. Um you know, this in my mind right now is solving trying to solve an issue that's that's occurring in town and it
needs to be addressed. Don't get me wrong. I mean, we just can't have part the cops are busy enough. They can't be, you know, spending their whole night, you know, policing and doing the stuff that goes along with that. Um, but I would hope to think that if this is
passed tonight that this council takes it upon themselves to to really look at this. You know, I don't know that if you know, you would be willing, Chuck, to be, you know, involved in this, you know, if we make a committee. I it's just something I think we need to
address and look into more um for the township as a whole. Okay. Roll call. Mr. Kaufman. No. Miss Nunes. Well, I'm not agreeing with the committee. So that's not that's just it's not Yeah,
it's about a suggestion. Sandy. Uh yes, Mr. Simons. Yes. Mr. Zerodnik. Yes. Mayor Terica. Yes. Okay. This is the public portion for the consent agenda items only. Anybody from the public portion on
consent agenda items? I got a headache. I'm going to preface by saying that your name and address, please. By your name and address, please. What? Your name and address. Your name and address. Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right. Joanne Mortimer, 39 Lansancy Road. Um, I
appreciate all the time that the council puts in. I try and do as much for Maple Shade by volunteering, by reporting things I think are a little off base. I've reported a couple things to the police chief I know recently. So,
I would like to go on the list for being tax exempt to cancel my taxes. That's supposed to be a joke. Well, no, that's possible if you're a senior. I'm just asking. Yes, I understand that. That was a joke. Oh, military. I'm sorry.
But uh I'm supposing that these are 100% disabled veterans. Is that true? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Schmidt, make it quick. Got the night a five minutes.
Yeah. Gina, can you open that door? Thank you. Steve Schmidt 520. Um, I don't even know where I live. Sunset Avenue. Thank you. Uh, I just had a question in reference to 2025-R179. Excuse 179. I was wondering if I could
just get a little clarification on that. Obviously, I know why he was hired originally and I'm just curious what we're amending. I'm going to go to our solicitor on this. Yeah, thank you. My understanding is council prior to my engagement appointed special counsel to
handle outstanding litigation. Correct. Uh to my knowledge, there was a recently filed motion with the appellet division which is going to require additional legal work um specifically to which Mr. Doy was engaged. Okay, perfect. So that that that
lawsuit's getting more expensive for the residents. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else for consent agenda items? All right, seeing none, can I have a motion to close, please? So second. All in favor? Third. I. All right. So, moving over to the
consent agenda. I'm going to approve it in bulk resolution number 2025-R170 through resolution number 2025-R179. Can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll make that motion. Okay. Can I have a second? Second. Comments? Yes, I have a comment.
Of course. on resolution number 25 2025 R-172 the use of the municipal lot gazebo park and temporary street parking to uh for closure of the 25 2025 holiday fest what's the cost of the township what is the cost
what's the cost to the township so that is still subjective I can say that it's the cost of our police department overtime our DPW uh overtime the Main Street Maple Shade will be contributing including the $3,000 like we had done in
the past or last year. Can you estimate the $3,000 not going to cover all our cost? Estimate close to $20,000. Okay. Anything else? Any other comments? All right. Can we say Do you have one, Andrew?
Just when I say I don't want to vote for one or no. Yes. Yes. You good? Can't do them in bulk if people want to vote. Yes. on summon and no on some Sandy. Yes. Um the second on it. Didn't you make the motion to approve it though?
I did. I don't really care to be quite honest with you. Okay. Do you have a comment? Not. Okay. Roll call. Terry, please. Mr. Coffman. Uh yes, with the exception of resolution number 25-R172. That's no. Okay.
All right. Miss Nunes. Yes. Mr. Sig. Yes. with the exception of 2025R-179 Mr. Znik. Yes, Mayor Talica. Yes. Approval of expenditure list.
Well, we're that I just have a question. Can that be a no or should that be a recusal? I'm guessing it should be a recuse respect to 179. Yes. Yes. That's a recusal. A recusal. So, Mr. Simon, are you okay with the recusal there?
Sure. That's Sorry, I thought that's what you meant. No, you said no. Approval of the expenditure list. Thank you. Current fund bill is 4,642,776.32. Utility fund capital $545,42.30. Capital bill list is $38,1842.
Utility capital $67,19.65. Trust fund is $32,337.50. And the grant fund is $5,274.50. I have reviewed the above bill as submitted and recommend payment when funds are available. Okay. Thank you. Motion to approve. So made second. Second.
Okay. Comments. Roll call. Mr. Kaufman. Yes. Miss Nunes? Yes. Mr. Simon? Yes. Mr. Znick? Yes. Mayor Taylor Rico? Yes. Approval of the August 2025 minutes. Motion to approve. So made. I'll second. Comments. Roll call. Mr. Caufman.
Yes. Miss Nunes. Yes. Mr. Simon. Yes. Mr. Radic. Yes. Mayor Trier. Yes. Okay. This is the public portion. Anybody from the public like to address council? Please come up and give your name and address for the record. Yeah.
Joanne Mortimer, 39 Lancancy Road. during the course of the meeting of course and I have to compliment because there was a lot of discussion tonight and I think the public appreciates it as
well as everyone watching us tonight uh in terms of transparency and the ways we discuss things. I for one was very disappointed when the council voted
just to meet once a month. I really feel for transparency purposes you should go back to two meetings. At first I thought it was maybe just for the summer but of course when September started there was only one meeting. So I'm asking you to
consider that. Thank you. Okay. Because when you only have it once a month. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Stevens, please sit down. Steve Schmidt, 520 Sunset A. Um, a lot of um, conversation today
about rental properties. Um, Miss Dansson stated a couple times that we've had a ordinance in place for 18 or 19 months. Um, and everyone talks about transparency. Um, there's a property at 457 UCLAB that
is not registered as a rental and it's owned by one of our councilmen. So, I think that or one of his businesses. So, I think that that should definitely be addressed. Okay. Thank you. Mike Stevens, 47 Trevy Avenue. Uh the the only thing I want to say is
not the last meeting, council meeting, meeting before that, the people actually beat the out of the police department. I think we have a very very good police department. I think everybody I think uh our police department should
be more appreciated. And if you lived in Philly as long as I did, you would kiss their feet. You're safe. I mean, sure, every town had every pro there problems everywhere, but our police department has done an
outstanding job. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else in the public? Going on. All right. Can I have a motion to close real quick? So, second. All in favor? I I Okay, moving over to staff and professional comments. Mr. Simons, we're
going to start with you tonight. Um, nope. I'm good. Do you want to write down? Okay, you really want me to go? Well, I don't know. A couple a couple meetings ago, we had
issues with some some of the residents near the railroad platform. I don't know what we've done, but I've been by that several times now, and I don't see any more kids there. There's cameras. Is that what it is? All right. It there's cameras. And also kudos to the police department. They did go out
and they went knocking on doors and spoke to each resident. I know the residents had come up to me as well and spoke with me. So, also I know we're doing work on Front Street, so that may they may not want to be there. Um, the other thing I wanted to mention
about transparency. Again, I go back to what I said before. People have to take responsibility to find out what's going on in this town. Um, I have done so in numerous uh
clubs, whatever you want to call it, in my volunteering. Um, you know, I spent 11 years on the school board and I always was aware of what was going on because I took interest in finding out. I didn't rely on anybody to tell me what
I should know. I went out and sought that. The same thing with doing this on counsel. I go out and seek the information. So, I'm telling you folks, you need to be more responsible. You know, you're telling me, "Oh, you need transparency. You need transparency."
Yeah, we do. But we've done a pretty good job, I think, with transparency. The township residents need to take some responsibility of their own and not blame everybody else uh to find out what's going on in their town if they really really are want to do it. And I
know there's a lot of stuff goes on. Um, you know, kids are in sports, kids back at school, and there's a lot of stuff going on, but still, if you love your town, you need to take the responsibility of find out what's going on. That's all, mayor. Thank you, Susan. No, I have nothing.
Terry, no more. You've got Sandy. Oh, I'm so sorry. No worries. I because I usually go to her first. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Well, I want I I agree with your father that you do a fantastic job. The police department
being accredited is is is unbelievable. It's up there and there's so much work that goes just into that. Never mind everything that you have to do with all the changes that are constantly happening. So, we do thank thank you for everything that you do.
Thank you, police chief. We are all right. I'm sorry. You're up. Thank you, Mayor Council. Um, just one brief matter, but I think an important one. Uh, I was asked to research a planning and zoning matter as far as the jurisdiction of the board, and I came
across an inconsistency in your ordinance. Specifically, your current ordinance identifies that you have a consolidated joint land use board. Um, however, you do not. You have two separate independent boards, a planning and a zoning board. Um it seems as
though there was a referendum in 2023 where a public question was put out which was in fact um voted in the affirmative and the yes votes were 1247 no votes were 1070. That referendum was
authorized under NJSA4 column 55D25C2 and that is a special statute that permit permits municipalities over 15,000 people to seek permission um to consolidate boards but it could only
be done by voter referendum which was in fact passed. However, for whatever reason last year there was not the formal although the ordinance was adopted recognizing a consolidated board. The next step of actually consolidating the boards did not occur.
Assuming that is still the case, my recommendation given the fact that we're now toward the end of September is that for 2026 the board be consolidated which we be consistent with your ordinance. And I do believe that the existing ordinance would also need to be tweaked.
um to further bring in an alliance with the municipal land use law. Okay, you're exactly right. That's what happened. And I know these guys weren't here at the time, but we were we were that was a binding referendum. Thought it was a non-binding. It was supposed to be non-binding, but
it looks like it was passed as binding. I I don't believe it's relevant, quite frankly. Um because in my opinion once the referendum passes you would have to go out to public referendum yet again to deconstruct them into two
separate boards. Okay. Right. That's what we thought. Yeah. Yeah. And it was supposed to be nonbinding based on what was coming up in the future. Exactly. Well, thank you. Do you have anything else?
That's it. Thank you. Okay. All right, moving over to my comments, I guess. Uh, we have some events coming up. We have the Knights of Columbus spaghetti dinner tomorrow from 5:00 to 7:00. We have the Burlington County Repair Cafe at the A Center in Morristown on September 21st, which is Sunday. The Shaders Feeding Shaders
competition started yesterday. And then we also partnered with Citizens Bank to do a workshop on scams. That's going to be October 15th at 1 p.m. up here at the building. And that is all I have. Moving over to old business operations. I'll go quick. I promise. I know. Uh just North Cole's road work between Lansancy and Park is scheduled to begin
on Monday, September 22nd at 7 a.m. Those residents should be getting a notice from the contractor Black Rockck Construction uh to their homes. It should take about two months to complete or they have 60 days to complete. Hopefully, it'll be done before that. Uh Eastfront project is nearing completion. If you haven't been down that roadway in
the past week, paving has been Yep. paving has been completed today and now the remaining site work is going to get done. Uh, one thing that council is going to have to look at to no one's surprise, our turf field is reaching its useful life. The turf is starting to show signs of age and replacement of consider or we should and replacement
consideration should be on our minds much sooner than later. Uh, our director of public works did reach out to two companies at my direct my direction to ask just to see how much we were looking at. Um, I was actually pleasantly surprised because the price cost to replace that is just about $400,000. I
know that that's a big number, but that was a lot better than the $1 million number that I thought we were going to have. You should probably consult with the school district because they just did turf field. So, we did we did speak with them and I did ask who their contractor was. Uh, the two contractors that we got quotes for are both under a co-op, which means
that we do not have to go out to bid, which will save a lot of time and a lot of um aggravation. So, council seriously needs to consider the possible re replacement in early 26. We have to consider timing of it all. Uh, we do have the quotes. they will be honored. We have asked the contractors if they
will be honored uh to that date and they will. So that's something that we need to look at. Um we are actively working on the financing for it as well. So tomorrow the municipal building is going to be pressure washed. The building was last cleaned in 2019. So we are due for a good cleaning. That's going to start at 7 a.m. So if anybody is coming up,
they just need to be mindful that the parking areas may be um you know some of the parking spots may be out of commission as we have our the trucks here. Uh, I'm going to skip the next one. I think we've said it at nauseium. It was about that we've begun the inspections of the
multi-dwelling housing units. Business and economic development commission is sponsoring its first color run next Saturday, September 27th. The route will take participants that start they're going to start here at the municipal building. We will head briefly down Styles to Harvard and then the neighboring streets in the one plus mile route ending with a party here in the
municipal parking lot. You don't have to run. you can walk. If you would still like to be a part of this of their first event, please uh you know register, go on to our web page and do it. If you don't want to run walk but want to be a part of it because you want to volunteer either with working at a color station
and um you know or you just want to help up here, please reach out to our BEDC director, Jen Nixon, or you can also go on to our website and fill out the form online and that'll give you all the information. And that's where I'll stop my report. Thank you. Oh no, I'm sorry. Time's up. So, I wanted to say briefly,
Alexis uh is here from Limo. She is going to be our new uh consulting engineer. So, that is who we are going to be going to. Um she will be here next uh month and give a full report, but just wanted to make sure that everybody got to meet her, say hello, see her face. She uh yeah, she'll be here. We've
had a lot of comments and we've been doing a lot of back and forth. I have some business cards I can hand out if you want to reach me directly. So, that'll be good. Thank you. Thank you for waiting through the meeting. My pleasure. I lived here so we talked to I'm a resident. Cool. Thank you,
Chief Fletcher. Thank you, mayor. I want to thank Susan Council, uh, DPW, Maple Shade Fire Department, Maple Shade EMS, the superintendent of schools, and her team, our wonderful business owners and sponsors who financially supported
the National Night Out, keeping it a free family fun event so that anyone, regardless of their economic situation, could attend. Um, we charge for nothing. Anybody who comes, the food, the activities, it's all free. That's the way we do it. Uh my nonprofit board, the Maple Shape Police Chaplain Association,
is the primary sponsor along with police department and PBA Local 267. A big shout out to our board member Misty Weiss. She did the lion share of work out there. Um the the high school we went to, if you remember, the year before it was kind of like, you know,
worried about the rain. Um, we made the decision after speaking with the superintendent, can we please stay? She said yes. Uh, big shout out to Sunb Belt Reynold. They gave us a power solution this year that was just phenomenal and we had like no power issues with any of our blowups and all that. So, you know,
this wouldn't happen without the businesses, the businesses supporting us, uh, the sponsors who come out and support the experiences. It's a wonderful time. It was the largest crowd we've ever had at the event ever. and I only see that continuing to grow. So, I just want to say thank you to everybody
for that. Uh, we held the custard with a cop on Thursday, August 28th in the evening hours in the municipal uh parking lot in the lower area. Uh, we coordinated with the Maple Shade School District, specifically Steinhower Principal Chris Edwards and PBA Local 267 along with the police department
sponsored the event. We gave away $1,000 worth of ice cream and 65 backpacks to the kids to make sure they started off the school right. Uh before the Volunteers of America closed, they had made sure we were supplied with backpacks, so we had those uh safely in
storage. We're able to break them out for that night. So, it was great to be able to handle that. I want to especially thank Lieutenant Dan O'Brien, our school resource officer, Rob Bennett, my secretary, Darren Meyers, for putting that all together. uh for the start of school on Wednesday, September 3rd, we had the entire day
shift out at every single school all around the town. We do that for the first few weeks and then we start to dial things back. We do our best to try to make it a positive experience. We have a first day. We have a lot of um family. It's not just like mom or dad.
It's usually grandparents. It's a big day. We realize that it's always tricky when the schools are in a residential area trying to find a balance there, but we do it. Uh Matt Shaw, our traffic officer, did a great job of just making sure everything was in place and uh we work closely with the school district, the building principles, and the
superintendent that make sure everything goes off without a hitch. So, I just want to say kudos to the traffic unit for getting that all done. um the state chief's uh association membership of which I'm myself a member have been addressing with the attorney general a lot of the issues and concerns
that we see with things that are happening in these gas station convenience stores um and some of the smoke shop with things popping up like CBD synthetic marijuana gas station heroin and a variety of different things including uh most likely the illegal
sale of street marijuana and THC infused vapes Um, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission does not deal with most of the stuff that I just talked about there. I have had conversations with the DEA. Actually had a conference call a while back in reference to a thing
called there's a lot of concerns on their end and what they're addressing on the federal side is one thing, but obviously the chiefs have a concern with respect to what's happening. Uh, we're relying upon our lawmakers in Trenton to kind of close the gap and start addressing this situation. So, at our
meetings, we have members from the Attorney General's office there. We have discussed this with them. They're referring us back to our county prosecutor's office, the gun gangs and narcotics task force to use existing laws to try to address the situation.
We recently assisted the Burlington County Gun Gangs and Narcotics Task Force with an operation, and I have to tell you, it's absolutely astounding what they seized as a result of that operation. So, we are continuing to work with that group to expand and start
looking at some of the locations in our town uh to try to address this situation. We have gotten complaints from parents before and uh I've asked our investigative team to put a focus on this and let's start tearing it apart and see what's happening. The one thing
I can tell you is it does seem like there's some ownership groups that are involved in this and that's an area that we want to kind of take a careful look at as to who invi who's involved. But it's important for us to have the prosecutor's office involved because if we're talking about indictable charges,
we'll have the guns, gangs, and narcotics task force on the ground with us as soon as we start that investigation. Uh, I will say last week we received a delayed report of a delivery driver being threatened uh by a subject with a rifle in one of our lo local apartment complexes.
Uh, it was a delayed report that came into our team. Uh, once we got that and we took some statements from the victim, we were able to get some corroborating information to support the claims being made. Uh, we subsequently conducted an investigation. We ended up arresting the
subject involved, lodging him in the jail. We also seized the rifle that was involved. Um, I know that the delivery driver and the business that he works for was very happy uh with the quick pace that the officers put this together. I got to give a shout out to Justin Jericho. He's our detective that
ran with that case. He did an outstanding job and uh he had support for the other members of the investigative unit and I was appreciative of uh the seriousness with which they took the situation. Um, earlier this week I did get a phone call from uh Annie at RVE letting me know
that she had a verbal approval for the cell block project in the police department. Um, I can tell you it's been very frustrating. Annie is very communicative with myself and Susan. The goalpost has been moved so many times on this project. I I I can't even tell you
how frustrating that is. But it seems like we finally have a line in the sand. So, with the verbal approval, hopefully in about two weeks, we're going to get the written approval, then we can go out to bid and then we can start the project. So, that's the game plan right now. We'll see how things go. Um,
lastly, and the mayor touched on it. Uh, so Misty Weiss retired as community affairs officer. We have Diego Alvarez now, uh, backfilling her spot. Diego is bilingual. Uh, he does speak Spanish. Uh, and that's going to be, I think, immensely helpful, especially in our
apartment community. So, uh, Diego kicked off the third annual Maple Shade School District grade level food drive competition, which runs from preK up to sixth. Uh, the winner of that, who collects the most items, gets a pizza party sponsored by my nonprofit, the
Maple Shape Police Chaplain Association and our board. Um once that wraps up, then we will go into our two-fold food drive, our townwide food drive that we typically run through the business association. And we will also continue with our youth and uh sports competition
food drive that we run where the nonprofit gives out rewards, cash rewards to the people who raise money, those groups. So, we're going to be kicking off that. That'll probably wrap up by about uh mid November. and uh we're hopeful that we're going to be able to help uh put some food in the
food bank because I know that they've been lady's been very busy down there. And that's my report. Thank you. Thanks, J. All right, moving over to site plan. Um they didn't meet over the summer. They met in September. Uh the new Next Track yearly plastic challenge starts this week. They donated to Third Bench to Collins Lane Park. Uh the last farmers
market for the season is Friday, October 3rd at the Fox Meadow Clubhouse. Fall cleanup will be October 19th and they are currently busy collecting Halloween costumes for the costume shops and that's all I have. Oh, I'm sorry. I I jumped over you. Sorry. That was sustainable.
I have to pay. Sorry. You got it, too. Andrew, you're up. So, there was just two for sight board. Uh Kings Highway, uh U-Haul, they came in and I think they finally have everything together. They'll be moving
on to zoning and uh 211 South Fellowship. Uh it was a change of use. It was the old Hunter garage door uh facility. Um and it got switched to a chain sharpening uh facility and uh now
the daughter of that gentleman is uh going to open up like a a 60s7s and 80s type of uh clothes clothes store there. That's all I got. Okay. Anybody else for old business? All right. Moving over to new business. Um
RFPs are going to go out October 14th and are return asked to be returned on November 12th. Yes, we would like to uh the next meeting we will have the resolution to do that. Um but we would like permission to be just take it out a little bit early this year only because council is only meeting the one time a month that gives us the opportunity to put them
together. Um this year we have a couple others that came up. So al so long as council's okay with Terry and I start working on those um and get those together so that we then we can send them to you earlier. You can review them and then we can get them out. Okay. Perfect. Yes. Yes. For me? Yes. Yeah. Great. Thank you.
All right. Anything else for new business? Mr. Simonson, I know you have something. No. Okay. Want to be sympathetic. Anybody else? Where are they going? Zoning or planning? Um okay. Looks like we're going into close session. Would you like to read us in?
Yes. Thank you, ma'am. Uh resolution number 2025 R-180 resolution to meet an in executive session for the following. Number one, matters relating to purchase, lease or acquisition of real property or investment of public funds and two
matters relating to the employment relationship employee number 099186 for your pleasure. Thank you. Um can I have a motion to close? Some may. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Formal action may be taken upon
the conclusion of close sessions. Okay. Can I have a motion to open? Motion to open. Can I have a second? Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Thank you, mayor. Uh, first item, I just need uh council's consent with respect
to the release of the appraisal concerning Sterling Manner. Okay. All in favor of that? Yes. Do we need a motion? No. Okay. So, all in favor in favor? All in favor? Yep. Yep. And then lastly, I assume it would be
acceptance of the performance employee eval evaluation that was discussed. Thank you. All's good there. Okay. Thank you. Um, can I have a motion to adjurnn until the next township council meeting on October 16th at 6:30 p.m.
So, second. All in favor? Iay. Thank you all. You did it before it came. Yeah, I didn't eat either.