e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e pursuant to section 5 chapter 231 Public
Law 1975 this is to State for the record that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided to the public by posting and maintaining the annual notice of regular meetings on the bulletin board of the municipal building by mailing the annual notice of regular meetings for
202 5 to the news record and Star Ledger in December of 2024 and by filing said notice in the office of the Township Clerk Mr daffis present Mr DeLuca here SLE
here M Herman here mayor Adams here thank you whereas chapter 231 Public Law of 1975 Comming known as the open public meetings act requires that all meetings of public bodies be open to the public and whereas section 7A provides that the
governing body has a discretion to permit prohibit or regulate the active participation of the public at any meeting and where desire the governing body to comply with the provision this act same time to conduct its business in an orderly and expeditious manner now
therefore be resolved by the township committee the township mwood that it does hereby prohibit except to set forth in formal agenda active participation and deliberation of the governing body by the public and acceptance other I subcrib by law does limit the public to
the observations of the actions and discussions of the governing body at all of its regular and special meetings so moved second daffis yes Duca yes Zangle yes Mr Miss Herman yes mayor
Adams yes thank you please stand for the salute to the flag pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you good evening and welcome to the Tuesday February 18th 2025 meeting of the Maplewood Township committee
apologies for being a little bit late our uh close session ran a little bit late with discussions um so tonight we have two appointments for boards and committees we have Robin Gordon affordable housing board and Becky Ganon
for the Zoning Board of adjustment um then we have several ordinances on for final passage those will include uh public any public comment pursuant to those ordinances will be taken during that public hearing
as opposed to public comment on uh agenda items only which happens for the ordinances um then we have uh do we have any un new ordinances no right oh I didn't think so okay thank you and then
we have reports from departments um and then elected official reports we have Committee Member dafis Committee Member DeLuca Deputy Mayor Herman Committee Member Engel if if you're still feeling well enough to join us um and then I go
last we have several discussion items on for tonight um eliminate eliminating on-site non-residential parking requirements in The Pedestrian retail business Zone which is on Springfield Avenue we have another discussion item
expanding permitted uses in the commercial and Industrial Zone we have overnight parking in public Lots then we have a discussion item on amending the recreation advisory committee ordinance to ad Mission expand its membership and
allow of subcommittees then we have a discussion item updating a resolution uh establishing an all access committee to clarify scope expand membership and make other changes and lastly support or not
for mcken Smith Senate bill and Hall Gill climate superf fund act um that is in the legislature right now on a state level then we have the consent agenda we'll have a public comment for uh any
any issue any topics and then we'll adjourn so with that we'll move into boards and committees uh affordable housing board appointment Mr Duca yes thank you mayor I'd like to call Robin Gordon going up to the
microphone there is that mic on this mic on that M what is that so Robin is uh put in a volunteer form to join affordable housing board and you could
tell us a little bit about your experience and affordable housing uh well thank you for having me this evening um I'm a 36e Maplewood resident and uh I've been working in affordable housing and neighborhood
revitalization for um the last 30 years um 20 years of volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity Newark um which overlapped partially with uh 18 years at H an orange-based Community Development
Corporation uh where I was the administrator grants person and worked in community building as well um prior to that I took some time um to raise my two sons who both went through the mwood public school
system and uh prior to that I worked in state and local government in Illinois where I'm from um in those roles I worked in um Capital Improvements to public buildings
and roadway improvements um in summary um I have a passion for U meeting um the the society's basic needs I'm I'm a pretty basic person um uh decent shelter and
enough to eat um are my priorities radical radical I think they're the foundation of a stable and thriving family and that's where I like to put my volunteer efforts awesome great well thank you and
so I would like to nominate Robin Gordon for a position on the affordable housing board through December 31st 2027 I'll second sorry be yes Mr daffis yes welcome thank you
Mr DeLuca yes M Herman yes mayor Adams yes thank you so much for stepping up I think you'll be really valuable with your background yes very happy okay then we move to Zoning Board of adjustment and Rebecca Ganon want to
come on up hi good to see you so just just for the township committee's benefit uh Rebecca and I spoke last year um at a an an a party we were at a neighbor of yours and um she
want expressed interest in being on this and um felt like she had a conflict with a neighbor so she held off um until that project was approved or denied I don't know because we don't go to the zoning board meetings but why don't you tell us about yourself and and why you're
interested in this position um so I have I'm a resident of Maplewood for going on three years grew up in Maplewood moved away in high school of the town and when I got married whopping 20 minute distance
overall in my life um have 10 years of construction commercial experience uh specifically in the uh Health Care sector throughout the state of New Jersey working for all different healthare facilities hacken sack Summit Health Robert Bert wood
um I have had map wood as my hometown for years I want to continue that and there's no reason not to be involved in the town that you're going to be a part of um my experience I'm a licensed engineer in the state of New Jersey um though not so much on the design side
it's all the construction which me working with local regulation zoning building that's everyday work for me so um I'm confident that zoning board is a right fit for me to be able to volunteer and support the community that
we're part of now great any questions for my colleagues no then I will move the appointment of Rebecca Ganon to the Zoning Board of adjustment you have a second second Mr daffis yes Luca yes M Herman
yes mayor Adams yes thank you we finally got you there welcome thank you thanks so much have a good night I mean you can stay the whole meeting but not required so now we have public comment for agenda items only I think what time
is it there was a um someone coming from environmental advisory right yeah and I want to make sure before we um uh have people in in the room we go to zoom to see if and it's Andrew right yeah yeah
Andrew 's on Zoom he can be promoted yeah and he has to take a call at 8 so we wanted to get him on first so hi there can you hear me yeah thank you thank you so much uh so yes Andrew how here from the
environmental advisory committee and I'm here just to say that uh we support a resolution voicing support for a package of New Jersey policy actions to limit the impact of climate change including the proposed New Jersey climate super
fund act s 3545 which I know you'll be discussing later today um climate change is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed at the state and local level for the foreseeable future we recommend going Beyond support for
s345 however um and use this opportunity to speak out in favor of additional legislative measures to reduce fossil fuel demand and provide funding for adaptation and I'm just going to say a few words about that if I may um we very much agree on the committee with the
sentiments that are underpinning the New Jersey climate superf fund act and that is that fossil fuel producers bear considerable responsibility for their contribution to global warming for many years we now have evidence they have earned enormous profits from the sale of
fossil fuels and still have manipulated public perception and the political process to maintain business as usual while knowing that these products cause climate damage much of this damage will be irreversible require expensive adaptation measures and we of course are
seeing those effects in real time play out already uh even here in our own town um now we do feel that this uh s 3545 does suffer from some shortcomings um that are likely to limit its Effectiveness in the end the policy may
not have the desired impact on emissions and on Waring Trends and this is why we would encourage the town to frame support for this bill more broadly um and we have a few suggestions for other priorities we think are even more
important which we would highly recommend that you highlight to the state in addition to any statement of support for that bill um firstly New Jersey really needs to reassert its leadership in the transition out of dependence on fossil fuels um we really
need to replace gasoline and diesel for transportation replace natural gas for generating electricity and natural gas and oil for heat um one point um we would like to make is the current reduction requirement for Natural Gas Utilities right now on a state level is just
0.75% per year that's almost insignificant we think the legislator should be more ambitious than that um calling for annual reductions that ramp up to 5% per year if we have any chance of meeting the goal of 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 a second Point um we
need consistent support for vehicle electrification um and the legisl really should be urged to replace what's a unfairly High registration fee for electric cars recommit to building out the charging infrastructure regardless of actions at the federal level which as
we know is become more challenging now um third point there should be aggressive investigation and action by the legislature to overcome the electric grid and transmission infrastructure barriers to renewable electricity that are slowing down the transition um fourth point the
legislature should be encouraged to provide strong oversight to ensure efficiency efficiency really is key um and electrification funding managed by the investor own utilities and make sure that's being used effectively to meet our climate
goals um two more points I'd make um we believe that the goals of three s 3545 could be achieved more effectively through the implementation of a price on carbon that's really what would be more effective than than than the levy which is being discussed in this bill um
something like um was put forward in New York's Camp invest program which unfortunately has been delayed recently but is still we think a a more forward looking and effective piece of legislation which we think is worth recommending finally um New New Jersey counties and municipalities really do
need financial support for adaptation to climate change we need that immediately rather than waiting for the funding that might come from the super fund which is being proposed in this act adaptation should be favored that recognize that climate change is a long-term problem
needing for long-term Solutions um so we put together those recommendations in a letter we've submitted to you we hope that's helpful uh we very much support what the town is doing on many fronts towards climate um and the challenges environmental challenges that we face as a Township and look forward to
collaborating and supporting those efforts going forward thank you okay is there anyone in the room that would like to speak on public comment agenda items only please identify s um address and three minutes
to speak Jin lamb Falconer three wi thri place in Maplewood and uh s action climate um and I'm here to comment on the climate super fund resolution and as Andrew so articulately uh iterated all the all the many points and the sort of
shortcomings and benefits and so forth um and we we our group had a discussion with the EAC uh last night and we were able to go over some of those things and have a really great conversation about it um and this is an extremely complicated issue as we know and the
bill it does raise many questions uh but it you know it's taken decades Decades of lies and misinformation and greed and billions of dollars in influence pedaling for all these fossil fuel companies to get where they are they get trillions of dollars in federal subsidies every year to continue to
pollute and and just you know kind of ruin it for everybody so we know without a doubt that over the past 150 years the combustion of fossil fuels has contributed greenhouse gases to our atmosphere right we know this um they've caused a dramatic increase in the average temperature of the Earth's
surface and then this surface warming has resulted in these catastrophic changes that we see including temperature extremes hot and cold including droughts and floods including crop losses uh contributions to wildfires increases in disease and pests
and on and on and on there's no doubt that these things are related the impacts are just going to continue to worsen so it's time we hold these polluters to account which is exactly what this bill aims to do and it's not a fast uh thing as as Andrew pointed out
it takes um I'm sure you all have read the bill within two years of its passage it aims to have the treasury prepare an assessment of greenhouse gas damages in New Jersey since 1995 damages that include Health infrastructure natural resources Agriculture and the economy and then
within two years after that the D is directed to calculate the proportional liability and issue cost recovery demands to these companies and collect payments now some people say maybe this is just going to be a super fund for lawyers and who knows maybe it is but it's it we still really need to take a
stand it's it's it's a really tall tall order it may not be perfect it may not accomplish what it intended to do but from where we stand we really need to support it we need to come together in a unified way around the intent of this resolution that you're discussing
tonight uh stand up together to polluters that have made these awful decisions that we're all suffering from and we can communicate with our representatives to make the legislation more effective and concurrent with the things that the EAC has pointed out the other initiatives to reduce demand and
you know concurrent um um policies and programs so as always I thank you all for your time and for your service and uh that's it for me thank you Miss Len not yet go ahead not you him I'm talking to I'm Phoebe sper I live at 44
Jefferson Avenue in Maplewood I'm also speaking about the um climate superf fund act um I'm also from s action climate so I don't want to waste your time by reiterating what other people have already said so I'll just say a couple quick things um one is to note
that our assemblywoman Garnet Hall is a primary sponsor of this bill and so I think this is an opportunity to collaborate with her to show our support for legislation that she's supporting um another point is that um with May Adams advocacy Maplewood was
one of the first municipalities to pass a resolution um in support of the state suing fossil fuel companies for some of these same issues and so this is a chance for Maplewood to continue to lead on that topic
um and yeah other municipalities have also passed resolutions including Hoboken Jersey City South Orange is on the way to passing a resolution so I think we should stand up and pass one too and I very much agree with the EAC that this in itself is not a silver bullet but you know I think every step
counts so yes would be one thanks very much thank you appreciate your time anyone else in the room want to speak to on any agenda items seeing none Mr warus or anyone on Zoom who would like to speak
Mr hul Camp welcome to public portion you may unmute yourself and address the committee thank you it's Dave Hamp 571 Prospect Street I wanted to discuss briefly the discussion item you guys have on the agenda for um for uh
non-residential parking um and um if it's possible I'd like to share a screen I can do that I don't think that's possible Mr home Camp so is it is it not oh you doing it okay yeah except leave it to me
I shared the wrong one hold on um yeah I had uh provided this to the planning board this chart um which is a kind of numerical view of parking and um I wanted to uh suggest that we fill out
the left-and side I had previously done I'm sorry fill like the right hand side I had previously done the left hand side left hand side addresses density and um the right hand side addresses um parking issues connected with multif family um I
I shared that with the planning board after they voted on the various ordinances on the agenda tonight um but in addition there's a second page here that uh kind of gives the circumstances that I I believe we Face regarding
parking and I I would ask that that you review this and consider how it may um Drive our priorities on parking I I I think in summary I would say that um whether it's apparent or not that that a plan for parking at this stage and what
I mean by that is at this point in the 21st century um it vital to all the progressive aspirations um that appear elsewhere in our master plan um and and in fact the author emphasized in this
little clip that I put on the right hand side of the slide emphasized that analysis and po policy changes should be addressed in looking at parking to the Future um so my message for tonight is that zoning really needs to be
forward-looking um yes there are certain priorities um today in the marketplace regarding parking and we are in a transition but but projects done in the next month or six months or year um will be with us for 30 um and there's a
tremendous amount of academic work in this area and I I think we should start drawing on it and and perhaps find ourselves in the Vanguard thank you thank you now promoting Rob Howley to panelist Mr howy welcome to public
portion you may unmute yourself and address the committee hi there Rob Howley 497 Richmond uh I'm also uh joining in and uh about the non-residential parking requirement discussion item um I to
State my for eliminating minimum non-residential parking requirements along Springfield and any other business business district parking is among the lowest value land uses available parking requirements are bad for the climate bad for business dist districts because you
know people spend money not cars and induces additional traffic which no one wants it's overall just bad for the community I hope we can uh continue down this path and revisit minimum parking requirements townwide the land in Maplewood is valuable our ordinance
ordinances should reflect that and prioritize people over required car storage thanks thank you anyone else Mr worry I see no other hands mayor okay
great with that we'll move into ordinances on Final passage we have ordinance number 3142 d25 Miss fritsen uh yes mayor these are all onf final passage ordinance number 3142
d25 is an ordinance to amend chapter 271 of the code of the township mwood entitled zoning and development regulations with respect to site plan requirements this ordinance will amend Article Five zoning provisions of
chapter 271 of the township code to exempt certain interior building alterations and certain development subject to Redevelopment plans from site plan approval requirements okay this ordinance has
been published copies posted on the bulletin board of the municipal building and copies made available to the general public in accordance with the law I'm opening a hearing right now for this ordinance final passage um so is there anyone who would like to speak or ask
questions about this ordinance there's no one in the the room so I'm now promoting Mr hul Camp to panelist Mr hul Camp you're now in public portion hi hello again um I also raised
the point at the planning board meeting on this ordinance and um however it was made after the planning board had voted so I thought I would share with with you all um I I really only have one concern about this ordinance and it has nothing
to do with its intent um but rather the fact that to my understanding um I believe it bypasses um notification to the public by virtue of not requiring a p planning board meeting for a use change and I just feel that that a use
change is is material whether it requires a variance or not is material to the immediate residents particularly in the case of a a restaurant for example that might in fact be compliant but but residents would really like to
to understand um the proposal for the restaurant in particular um we hear regularly complaints or concerns rather about noise smells trash parking and connection with restaurants and to the extent that they're close to residences
um it would be good if if the residents knew that a use change was being done so I I would make the suggestion that that perhaps notification should be required and and residents be referred to the zoning officer so that they can um
express any concerns that they have and then of course the decision is still in the hands of the zoning officer thank you thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak to this ordinance Mr worry I just have a question he are we able to bring yeah him up he wasn't
brought up on the his picture his face no he his camera was turned off so it so if your camera's turned off you don't appear on the screen here could you just remind people to put their cameras on yeah that thank you is there anyone else who'd like to speak to this ordinance Mr worry I see
no other hands mayor okay thank you yes before uh we move on for the record we should state that this ordinance in addition to the other three zoning change ordinances that are on tonight for were all submitted to the planning board and the planning determined that
each of them were consistent with the master plan yes each of them is are consistent with the master plan um Mr daus since you're going to move this I if you want to say anything prior to moving it please do uh just quickly mayor and thank you for the opportunity I'm going to repeat what I've said
before what we've all said before in response to uh some of the commentary we heard tonight uh which is that um our master plan recommends a balancing act it
recommends exempting from site plan review and therefore uh the burden on a potential Small Business Financial and other in circumstances where we can do that and it recommends that we find an
exemption narrowly tailored and what we have done is narrowly tailored and as we uh mentioned before as I've mentioned before the the zoning board um uh we have the discretion always to
if if uh the use the permitted use the change in permitted use is one that is uh more expansive than the previous permitted use um to to require site plan
review and uh and not have um that not go through the planning board but there has to be a balance we cannot force small businesses to sit through and pay thousands of dollars um so that the planning board
and members of the public can an answer questions that our Township officials can answer such as where you going to put your trash what are your hours how late are you open are you having chairs outside or inside I'm not making uh I'm
not discounting the commentary received and I'm not making Li of it but I am strongly recommending that we keep in mind what we want to do here which is to balance things out and to make doing
business in Maplewood easier in the most appropriate Manner and that is achieved here so with that I'm going to move the ordinance be adopted as a whole and the clerk be directed to publish the same as a passed ordinance in the Maplewood
South Orange News Record according to law I'll second that and um just make make it clear that this if there are external changes to uh property for then it does in fact will get moved over for
site plan review so internal changes are uh not necessary so with that miss fritsen you have a movement and a second Mr daffis yes Mr Luca yes M Herman yes mayor Adam
yes thank you next ordinance 3143 d25 M pritz uh yes mayor uh item 7B ordinance number 3143 d25 is an ordinance to amend chapter 271 of the code of the township of Maplewood
entitled zoning and development regulations to rezone certain properties within the highway business zoning District this ordinance will amend Article Five zoning provisions of chapter 271 of the township code to
rezone certain properties currently in the highway business HB zoning District to the R14 residential zoning District or the office business OB zoning District this ordinance has been
published copies posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building and copies made available to the general public in accordance with the law Mr daffis can I get motion for this ordinance oh sorry I need to open a hearing my bad I caught myself though nobody had to tell
me Mr wor is there anyone online who would like to speak to this ordinance any members joining on Zoom would like to speak on this ordinance please raise your hand now I see no hands mayor great Mr taus Mayor I move this ordinance to be
adopted as a whole and the clerk be directed to publish the same as a passed ordinance in the Maplewood South Orange News Record according to law I'll second M priton Mr daffis yes Mr DeLuca yes M
Herman yes mayor Adams yes uh next mayor we have item 7c also on Final ordinance number 3144 d25 is an ordinance to amend chapter suit 71 of the code of the township of
mwood entitled zoning and development regulations with respect to the research and office zoning District this ordinance will amend Article Five zoning provisions of chapter 271 of the township code to
eliminate the research and office R zoning district and to include the subject property in the highway business HB zoning District mayor I know that this uh item is on for second reading
and potential adoption tonight however this ordinance requires uh additional notice and we are working with our neighboring municipalities to receive the um mailing lists that are required for their um residents or property
owners who are within the 200 feet zone so rather than having um hearing tonight I think the most appropriate thing would be a motion to table until the March 18th meeting because it is being tabled to a date certain there will be no additional public notice or you know
posted notice of any kind okay all right so we're not doing the hearing or we're just going to postpone the hearing to next so so we do do we move it vote it down or we just move to table move to table until the March 18th meeting okay at which time both the
hearing and second reading will be held okay Mr daffis you want to make that motion certainly mayor I move that we table ordinance number 3146 d25 uh is that the correct one 3144 oh I'm ahead of myself you are 44
yeah 44 yes back to the research and office 3144 d25 do until March 18th 18th second Mr daffis yes Mr DeLuca yes M
Herman yes mayor Adams yes we have another ordinance on for final uh yes uh mayor it's item 7D ordinance number 3145 d25 calendar year
2025 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap Bank per njsa 4A 4- 4514 okay this ordinance has been published copies posted on the bulletin board in
the municipal building and copies made available to the general public in accordance with the law is opening the hearing is there anyone who would like to speak to this meet ordinance anyone joining on Zoom would like to speak on this ordinance please raise your hand
now moving over Dave Hamp to public portion or the municipal budget okay Mr H welome to public portion you may unmute yourself um please turn on
your video and address the township committee hi um I have to apologize I lost track of the agenda it was was this regarding um the parking or one of the other ordinances no this is regarding the municipal budget appropriation limits
I'm sorry I didn't have the paper copy in front of me I will stand down for mon if you were going to speak to uh the ordinance on um the with respect to the research in office Zone and the highway
business Zone that one is tabled until March 18th while we do public notice or what's it called legal notices to uh with people in the next town that are to 200 ft from the prop from the district yes thank you I I think I
nodded off while that was being discussed and then I was track of the the agenda I'll I'll Stand Down for a moment thank you thank you all right then I will move oh is there anyone else I see no other hands mayor I move this ordinance be adopted
as a whole and the clerk be directed to publish the same as a passed ordinance in the Maplewood South Orange News Record according to law I second the motion Mr daffis yes Mr Duca yes M Herman yes
mayor Adams yes thank you next ordinance 7e uh yes mayor it's ordinance number 3146 d25 on the agenda it's item 7e an ordinance to amend chapter 271 of the code of the township of mwood
entitled zoning and development regulations with respect to residential parking requirements this ordinance will amend Article Five zoning provisions of chapter 271 of the township code to reduce the
number of parking spaces required for residential uses this ordinance has been published copies posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building and copies made available to the general public in accordance with the law did you hear that I'm going to open the hearing for
public comment is there anyone who would like to speak on this ordinance yes I'm moving over Rob Howley to panelist Mr Howley welcome to public portion you may unmute yourself and address the committee hi again Rob Howley 497
Richmond um say I support the reduction in minimum parking uh minimum parking requirements uh two to one that's great uh housy housing policy Research indicates that each additional parking uh unit required raises monthly cost
costs anywhere from $200 to $500 a month um so parking requirements are not only bad for the climate local economy uh Transportation goals but each spot we require severely undermines our affordable housing goals um so I hope we can keep reducing and eventually
eliminate these uh requirements because not to say that no one will build parking anyway if they think it's worth it I just shouldn't require it um and we should definitely keep uh whittling these down on around the train around the train station cuz there's few things
more wasteful than um you know parking next to a train uh walking across an empty parking lot uh to get to the train doesn't make a lot of sense it uh goes against a large body and growing body of Transit oriented development research so
yeah good work thank you and keep it up thank you anyone else yes now promoting Dave H cam 2 panelist Welcome Mr hul cam you can unmute yourself and address the committee hi I bet you expected to hear
from me um so um I I agree completely with with the previous on on the point points that he raised um this ordinance certainly has that effect um and I'm not suggesting that it not be approved but
to put a finer point on my earlier um public comment comments um in isolation really without analyzing site by site in isolation what this ordinance really does and it is to the extent a
site supports it allow for additional Apartments and the end result will of course be about the same amount of parking area consumed um the master plan makes pretty strong statements around a lot of
aspects that drive towards fewer cars um and to the extent that this ordinance allows someone to build more Apartments it's not going to reduce the number of cars um and it's also going to impinge on potential for for active
streetcape so that was of the concern that motivated the chart that I I showed during the public comments um I think that that in isolation this one change is counter to a variety of Master Plan goals um it
should be considered in the context or other aspects should be considered soon um to balance this and and the most obvious one that's highly recommended also by research is a maximum parking
limit um so uh I encourage us to uh and I can certainly help fill out that chart and take a hard look at how parking affects all the goals in the master plan it's heavily researched and there's a lot of data to drawn and I think we can
lead the way thank you thank you anyone else Mr War I see no other hands mayor okay thank you and may I get a motion Mr de with delight mayor um and again I
just want to preface this by saying um this is one of the many things that we're doing uh to meet the goals of the master plan and our policy objectives uh on its own this
achieves um the the goal of reducing the number of parking spaces required for res residential uses but it does not stand alone uh it is also uh to work alongside our other land use and Zoning
uh codes so so again just want to make that clear and with that I move that this ordinance be adopted as a whole and the clerk be directed to publish the same as a pass ordinance in the Maplewood South Orange News Record according to to law a second M fiten
please call Ro Mr daffis yes Luca yes fman yes barer Adams yes thank you very much right now we'll move on to uh reports administrative reports Mr wor thank you mayor a reminder that next
week on the 25th we will have our third and final budget Workshop where we will present open space new employee requests Revenue capital recommendations and budget recommendations so uh that meeting begins at 6 here and will also
be on Zoom for the public all right that's my report that's your whole report the whole thing whole thing any questions for our administrator yes do we know do we have a timeline for when we'll receive uh materials related to the capital budget either tomorrow or
Thursday morning thank you yeah they were working on it with engineering today so there goes all our money any other questions from Mr Wy all right with that we'll move on to miss cdio a brief report mayor uh as you probably
remember there was legislation passed at the end of last year extending the ability to advertise in the Star Ledger even after it had gone digital uh through March um as that deadline looms there's legislation now pending that
would punt that deadline to year end um there are still battles being waged in Trenton over whether it should be moved off of uh publishing with newspapers entirely and just to um you know local websites or to some kind of
state Clearing House website uh you know reflecting how uh people get their their information about public meetings today uh but for the moment uh we believe that that is going to pass before the deadline and we will be able to continue using the Star Ledger as one of our
public applications you're okay you know I I would like us to at some point think about taking a position on this because I mean if you look at the Star Ledger online now I mean all the legal notices are at the very end nobody ever gets to
them and if we're going to and this is you know clear when they were a written newspaper and they were paying people to actually report on the news I was willing to let it go keep putting the news the things in there cuz it's a way to support news but now I mean the the
newspaper is all stuff from wi Services Washington Post and Associated Press and all that so they're not really covering local stuff anymore um so if if we have an option of putting notices on our
website and we have to go out and do something else I mean we still have the news record but I would urge us to look at tap into and V Village Green if we have to do it in some kind of electronic format I'd rather do it in support our
local press as opposed to the St 100% definitely yeah and I was going to say I was going to make this part of my report that um I've been in conversation with Senator Burgess Senator mcken um and our assembly Representatives about this and
I urge the rest of you to do the same uh because s 4136 merely extends the deadline until the end of the year it punts the issue and it does not establish a permitted use in the manner Committee
Member DeLuca just described um and local news is the only defense we have right now we know from our social media feeds and everything that's going on that um these big conglomerates are subject to misinformation and
disinformation local news is um really what we need to to um really be permitting explicitly through legislation so as uh attorney cdio mentioned the expectation on Thursday of
this week is that 4136 is going to move out of committee um but it's not too late to reach out to our Representatives with a phone call or email and ask for an amendment to do more I just want to uh point out that
the Associated Press is not a big conglomerate it is a nonprofit and they do very good work um but they are not local we don't have an AP reporter based in Maplewood reporting on Maplewood we do have local reporters that report for
Village Green and tap into and so I would absolutely agree with what Mr Duca said and Mr daffis in that if we were able to put this in a local media source that helps our local reporters that's what I'd like to do why don't we just why don't I make a motion that we send
an uh we ask the clerk to send our position that we'd like to have our local Electronic media tap into and Village Green considered um for local notices yep are we also in favor of uh
simply permitting publication of Municipal meetings on the municipality's website yes that too is the state considering anything about I'm sorry I made a motion okay I'll second your motion yeah but I didn't ask for a second on yet so let me move on um the
is the state considering any resource because let's say you know a contractor wants is looking for rfps or public notice or things like that is there a centralized online thing one of the one of the
options they were discussing is whether there could be some sort of you know clearing house some sort of uh state right instead of somebody having to go to 564 Municipal websites yeah so there's a motion for resolution apparently on the table can I get a
second I'll second it okay thank you Mr daffis yes Mr Luca yes M Herman yes mayor Adams yes thank you anything else Miss CIA thank you any other questions for
our attorney seeing none we'll move on to our clerk's office Miss priton thank you mayor so I just want to report since our last Township committee meeting uh we had a walkth through of uh
Clinton Elementary for uh polling pa place uh relocation from Columbia High School and um we found uh that it would be a good uh change to go back a place that we haven't been at for
approximately 5 years but originated from and sent the township committee my remarks what the positives were and it was my recommendation to the Board of Elections um and they had a representative at the walkth through as
well that we returned to uh Clinton School um I haven't heard anything back but um it would be a positive move for us to do that so if you have any questions and everybody who visited felt the same way from the county 100%
okay okay uh the rest of my report is um basically uh as outlined during the budget Workshops the uh Township's uh clerk's office has been collaborating with the new public information officer uh to improve Outreach
efforts and over the past month we've taken steps to expand communication including a targeted uh e eblast um which can be found on the township website um for those of you
that didn't receive it it's posted up additionally we're working with the public information officer to develop an annual bulletin that would be distributed um we're looking at alongside the uh official um tax
statement mailing and um in this approach would allow us to provide important information directly to Residents without incurring additional mailing costs that's my report okay anyone have
any questions from M britson nothing on the Clinton School thing okay cool all right with that we'll move on to elected official reports Committee Member daas you're thank you mayor I have a few items um certainly code committee
remains busy with zoning uh changes and we have a couple more on for discussion so we'll talk about those when we get there um the Arts Council awood Arts Council met last night for the first time in this new year uh we have a full
Council um in terms of membership and the council is excited about moving forward um a public uh public art installation that they were looking into last year that sort of uh fell apart when they lost access to our uh
Maplewood arts and culture manager because we didn't have one but now that we have one they all met at the council meeting last night uh and it was great and we talked of course about the very exciting upcoming just like a girl call
for female artists age 10 to 20 years old in honor of women's History Month um this March and you can find out more information about that uh on our website and certainly uh we'll be putting out a
lot of communication about that also last night at the same time that the Arts Council was meeting the open space trust fund uh open space trust fund uh committee met as well uh and they approved all of the requests they
were presented with uh those requests amounted to a total of about 596 th000 uh which leaves us a balance in the open space trust fund of about 168 close to 170 uh $170,000
uh and we look forward to their presentation uh next on the 25th right they're coming on the 25th next week we talked about Trenton advocacy for 4136 uh I also urge my colleagues to
reach out to our representatives to talk about state aid and the F the school funding formula uh we understand that there's there might be an opportunity for some amendments to reflect the current reality of things in our communities
especially in light of uh expected reduced state aid um forthcoming uh and that budget is about to be announced I think next week as well and lastly I want to announce and I want to give all of us kudos for this because the
everything that we do up here um is a team effort everything is a team effort um but I have the distinct honor representing this incredible Township and this Progressive forward-thinking governing body at the National Alliance
to end homelessness National Conference in La next week why am I doing that what are we spotlighting well the conference this year is focusing on Suburban communities that found direct innovative
ways to uh support and um find ways to diver convert their homeless uh population and we certainly did that with our um engagement with cspnj as a we presented here to the public and of all the Suburban
communities of all the Suburban communities in our great nation Maplewood in the spotlight um and so I'm really really excited about that and I will be uh presenting um some of the stuff that we presented here in the
public and just talking about how we always felt that was the right thing to do local government should take care of its residents and and do good and everything we do should be rooted in public health because homelessness
prevention is good Public Health that is my report mayor thank you any questions for Mr daffis okay seeing none Mr DeLuca here thank you mayor um Black History Month we're halfway yeah halfway a little more
more than halfway but we have a lot of stuff happening this week um Thursday night we have words is doing something and the Hilton neighborhood is doing something Columbia High School Jazz Ensemble is doing something at South Orange Performing Arts Center and then
at four o'clock on uh Thursday at the Hilton branch of the library we have kids speak out so um a lot of activities this weekend we have Trayvon Martin's birthday party at 11: we have travel and art at aon's G uh Gallery in the
afternoon Kua is having another event there so um we just want to thank all our partners for participating with us on making Black History Month um something very important here as we've said at our various events we're not um running away from diversity and
inclusion we're going to keep promoting it and um while it's just unbelievable that the Department of Defense has just wiped Black History Month off the calendars there and other Federal departments we keep lifting ours up here
so um want to thank everybody for their support I have a few reports from a couple of the Committees engineering Public Works and planning uh dehart Park we talked about that just to remind you all that we're
still working on this um we're we're have a plan to rebuild the grass field uh we've been working with a consultant that we brought on it's VHB consultant and um we'll be putting an underground drainage system underneath the field uh
and then we The Proposal that we saw is to create two multi-purpose Fields uh eliminate the softball Diamond so we're still considering that we're Gathering some input but we'll be coming out and talking to the community more about that but we recognize the importance of
having Fields the idea of having two Fields is we could rest one and while people are playing on another so we'll see see if that's feasible and and um we're coordinating our community services with engineering to talk this stuff out Parker Avenue uh bike Lanes
we're still moving forward on that we've had some meetings with uh some of the stakeholders the institutional stakeholders the high school the Maplewood Jewish Center um we intend to have zoom meetings in the evening uh next month we're going to be breaking up the road based on the way the parking is
so for example between Valley and um Maplewood Avenue there is no parking on West Parker so that we just want to talk to those folks there explain what we're doing with the bike Lanes uh between Valley and Prospect there's parking on different sides uh some of it is parking
on the um on the high school side some of it's parking on the other side so that has a little bit different uh experience there um Prospect to uh boen there's parking on both sides that's probably the widest area there so you know that is a whole different
conversation and then from Boon to Irvington Avenue it gets a lot tighter and a lot more street parking we're going to have a conversation um about that too so uh we're moving forward uh this also will be one of the topics that gets discussed in the capital plan
because uh if we Institute a bike Lanes it will cost a significant amount of money because we want to do it with the proper striping and and protection uh we talked about our sanitary sore overflows we having um some severe problems on low
lower boen Avenue and on West Parker in which we're getting um sewage that's uh entering into people's homes some of it on the street so we're looking at ways in which we can uh divert storm water that seems to be getting into our
sanitary sewer so we'll be working on that uh in the next couple of months uh Prospect Street I know there was a new thread today about the cones um we uh are looking to replace those cones with what's called quick curb with ballards
ballards they're um these Ballers that stick up so they'll be in there they get bolted into the the asphalt uh it's a much better system than the cones um the longer range plan is that in 2026 we're going to pave Parker uh so this year
we're going to be talking about the design what do we want on Parker uh can we accommodate bikes no bikes parking no parking uh bump outs no bump outs so that'll be a conversation that we'll engage in this year and then develop the
plan and uh start the work in 2026 uh on our Public Safety Committee uh last Wednesday night on the 5th we I guess two Wednesdays ago we uh uh went to an award dinner and our
deputy chief Malloy she received an award so we want wanted to congratulate her publicly and just let everyone know uh peace Island organization was the one who did it and uh you know she is uh also going to be the speaker at the Hilton neighborhood association's women
History Month um as our first uh um female deputy chief in the history of Maplewood uh we have police vacancies so if you're interested in being a cop this is the time you can come and uh approach us here in town hall and we can set you up we're also going to be doing a job
fair at Kane University uh crossing guard appreciation week we're having an event for them on Tuesday March 4th and um we hear a lot about enforcement and I could just tell you that the people up here when we meet with the chief and we meet on the Public Safety Committee we
talk about it too and we want um strict enforcement of our driving uh we feel that uh we want to promote uh pedestrian safety make this continue to make this a walkable Community I have some statistics I'll just share with you crashes we don't call them accidents
anymore they're now the the term is crashes because it's really not an accident often times people are at fault so crashes in 2023 we had 777 in 2024 we had 714 so that's a drop of
8% uh crashes that involved pedestrians in 2023 we had 14 and in 2024 we had 11 so that's a drop of 21% we still want to get that that down more um you know the zero campaign is to have no crashes no
accidents no no um injuries so that's what we're trying to do as far as vehicle stops we stopped 4,000 vehicles in 2024 we issued 2,000 moving violations 54 54 radar
summons and 850 warning notices so our police are out there uh they're stopping cars they're checking things out uh um and we're working with them we we'd like to see those um numbers go up and we've we've done some shift changing and we've
talked to the chief about some of his plans for deployment and we think that uh we're going to continue to have good enforcement out there or even better enforcement than than so I just want people to know that we're you know it's not that we're doing nothing uh we can't catch everyone but we are catching a
significant amount of people now and lastly I just want to give you a quick update on the new library um right now the plan is a late June opening to the public the interior construction of the library is just about done got a couple more weeks to
finish that then they'll be working on outside uh once the weather breaks it's a little Frozen right now but they'll be doing the outside work and then after the construction is done inside we need about a 100 days uh and that's to install the furniture in the shelving to
do a flush out and that's a 14-day period where you just run all the systems and get all the bad smells and chemicals and everything out of the building before people go in and then um also putting books and electronics in there so again we're shooting for the
end of June or sometime in June um and but we're moving forward and I'm sure people are seeing more and more progress uh every day and that's my report thank you Mr Dua any questions for our colleague see oh I keep getting asked Mr
Dua about the funding for the library did you find out if we were able to separate out some of that and get some money money before Trump takes it away I think should say so we did get a letter from FEMA um saying
that uh the court case that the money was frozen but the court case overturned that y so as long as the court case is in place um we just got another notice of an allocation of FEMA money for some
work we had uh from Ida on some roads so that's a good sign that the money is being processed but you never know yeah it's about a million five that's in Jeopardy right now and that also affects um the grant that we
have for the police uh heat pump affects the grant for and the grant for electric buses and the grant for uh that through Mikey Cheryl's office for almost yes and the sanitation right so hopefully uh the courts will continue to be strong and
not allow this money to be uh not spent yeah it's been congressionally allocated so yeah well and the and the word with FEMA is it's been obligated so an obligation with feema is like a contract yeah yeah so once it's obligated that gives you a sign to go
ahead and do the work right so you figure all those communities that were devastated by Ida and by all the subsequent storms and what have you they all relied on that obligation to to do work people spent money and and uh you know and they need to be reimbursed
right so all right we'll move on to Deputy Mayor Herman yes uh so I hope everyone has been enjoying all of these wonderful Black History Month events um I wanted to point out another one that is next week it is the CAC Soma race and
special education it is the annual look at the inter cality of race and special education in our community and this is a meeting that CPAC has been doing for a while so I hope people will join we have special guests Nicole Josie and Ellis Peters Ellis is the one who's been doing
swim lessons for adults at our pool and Nicole has been um very involved in in PTA and president's Council so that should be a really good meeting and it'll be on Zoom so um easy to attend um so I have a few updates um in the health
and Community Services meeting we two of the discussion items are about some of the things we discuss the fields committee and the all access committee and so I have been talking to some folks who raised their hand to serve in these um in these committees and I'm also looking you know for others um we've had
we put out the call in the community for um volunteers to our committees um so um those are two that we are looking I'm specifically looking for the recreation advisory committee we need volunte here for that and especially if we have the
field subcommittee um included in the recreation advisory committee we need people to put their hands up in step forward um and the seniors committee is also looking for members and there are some members that don't have to be seniors um so um you can take a look at
that as well um I wanted to point out we had a really wonderful discussion this morning in our Communications committee um and so if you are not following us on Instagram please go right now it is Maplewood TW WP on Instagram and we're
pushing out a lot of news including reminding everybody when our Township committee meetings are so that you can tune in and watch us um we're reminding people about um recycling if you can't keep up if it's co-mingled or not you can check us there and you know and then
um we're doing tip Tuesday so every Tuesday we'll have a special tip and we're trying to get out all of our um storm water utility reminders um to tell residents about this lots of good stuff so please follow us there and also if you have not signed up for Town emails
please go to our website and sign up we also have an archive now on our website of those emails you can take a look at um really good information this is a mustre email that you have to read every week and um we've seen the numbers
increase both on Instagram and on our email and so that's a really good sign that we're reaching more and more residents but there are more residents to reach so I'm going to end with a really happy news this is so exciting um our basketball program so we have a new
spring basketball program mapso Madness and we actually had to delay the tryy out dates because so many of our teams made the playoffs this is like this is amazing so okay if you have your phones out here's another Instagram to follow
it's mapso basketball and you can see how our teams are doing I want to give a huge shout out to the fifth grade girls they finished the regular season first place with a 14-0
record and they're going into playoffs um as the first seed and so um really congratulations to all of these girls on the team you can look on your Instagram and see pictures of them um also want to say congratulations to the fifth grade boys they finished at 12-2 and clinched
the second seed and then we have our uh third and fourth grade girls 13 in one with a second seed and our uh third and fourth grade boys also finished 13 in one and clinch the second seed so um we've got the playoffs coming up at the
end of this month it's going to be really exciting to see how they how they all go and we'll be pushing the information about when these games are on our Instagram so follow us follow MSO basketball and you can cheer our amazing youth athletes on and that is my report
thank you and thanks shout out to coach Mike and assistant coach Ed because Mike's really grown the program and just puts his heart and soul into it so that's great um any questions for Deputy
Mayor no seeing none okay um I know Committee Member angle is not feeling well and there she is I texted you because I didn't want to call on you if you were back in bed try trying to get
some rest but if you're up for a report I have no report except stay home if like I did and thank you for Malia for Miss Herman for reporting on Communications committee thank there you go great thank you feel
better um and for my my report I just wanted to um share with my colleagues especially because I'm going to draft a letter uh in response to um once I hear from the president of the board ofed um
and uh superintendent are meeting about this they received a letter from the United States Department of Education Office for civil rights um it was sent on February 4
14th um basically the upshot of it is that they are threatening removal of federal funding from schools that unless they remove their um Dei policies so and this is in all 50 states
school districts all over um it's pretty disgusting as you know we probably all agree this is they kind of flip the discrimination um Banner if you will um to
discriminating against you know the people who aren't considered being discriminated against and not against those who are historically discriminated against so
these are this is um very disturbing and we are hoping I shouldn't say we I'm hoping um in just brief conversations that we'll get some directive from uh the superintendent and the uh board ofed
president as to what they would like from us but I would uh circulate to my colleagues any letter that I draft for your approval to respond to this and try to you know and if necessary get um as loud as possible um
mayor colum has also been consulted about this um the two of us together so it EI programs they're talking about are being as being discriminatory against those people who are not that we don't
usually use these practices to protect so there was concern about the intentional integration plan or initiative um but that's we're confirmed that that's not based on race and they can't use it as um something against us
because it's something that we have in practice that wouldn't be able to be just stopped like a Dei policy might be so anyway more on that um when I have something more um but I will share with
you anything that um gets written to be shared um I just want to find my other okay um I just want to give a brief update um at our Economic Development what is it Committee of
Entrepreneurship and economic development our seed committee meeting last week we discussed the Maplewood movie theater Redevelopment um plan and also um we will be basically we keep takeaways on
it we updated the plan to incorporate feedb feedback from the public in the other three public sessions um from HPC historic preservation commission the Maplewood Village sence and um the Maplewood
Film Society it's called okay we uh forwarded all those to those written comments from those three organizations to um our planner and that we went through the entire plan and Incorporated
much of a combination of all those things those uh things were Incorporated our planner went over them at our SE committee um and we will basically be um incorporating the ones that we all
agreed on and then we will schedule another public meeting um hopefully in the next few weeks but it might be we have to talk administratively of when that would work um but we will do one more public meeting to show the latest
um updated taking in all those considerations um on a future Township committee we will have a discussion uh what that was discussed at the seed meeting on cannabis consumption lounges there is a desire by um a local
dispensary owner to um take advantage of the state law allowing for consumption lounges um but an ordinance on the local level has to be passed um in order for her to uh apply to to do that in
Maplewood so we had some agreements some disagreement in that meeting and we'll discuss it more um you know in the coming weeks so um that's all I have if there's any questions for me I will
entertain them okay that's it so we'll move on to discussion items which we have a few so Mr Davis the first one goes to you for eliminating on-site non-residential parking requirements in
the prb zone yes thank you mayor and uh if okay with yourself with you and everyone else I can you know do the first and the second one together sure um okay so um the first one is about eliminating on-site non-residential
parking requirements in the prb zone this is a continuation of our discussions about eliminating parking in the prb zone uh this is is um an attempt to do that to uh align us with our
recent uh site plan exemption uh ordinance or or or code uh Amendment rather um and also to ensure that we are being Equitable uh in Maplewood Village we don't have a parking requirement we shouldn't have uh
a non-residential parking requirement in the prb Zone on Springfield Avenue so the proposal then and this is something that is recommended um by the master plan although not exactly uh in these words but um it's
clear in our recent discussions in code committee and here that finding ways to eliminate on-site parking requirements in pedestrial Reta retail zone is a a policy priority for the township committee and for our small businesses
and the managers of our business districts and we heard from them in particular about this the proposal then does the following it says that in the prb district on-site parking shall not be required for non-residential uses
there are three exceptions not withstanding that if there is a conversion of residential use to non-residential use if the proposed use requires approval from the planning board or Zoning Board of adjustment or if the
proposed use is part of a Redevelopment area minimum parking requirements under 27150 J shall remain in effect and uh and subject to the issuance of any uh
variances as appropriate so that is the proposal before we um engage in discussion I'm going to ask Township attorney cido to chime in here I believe uh Township attorney cdio has some
questions and or concerns about uh this proposal so with respect to the I'll start with the second part first with respect to the exceptions um that we just discussed I'm not sure if that language perhaps is a carryover from when we were discussing the
modifications to site the definition of site plan exempt which was passed on second reading earlier this evening um because those do sort of track those those same categories right the concept of of
um you know one use changing to another or being within a Redevelopment plan I I think as a as a general rule right if we are determining that um non-residential
uses uh do not require parking it's probably um we should we don't necessarily need to include the exceptions unless there's a specific goal that that we're not achieving so for example example in going from residential to
non-residential if we think that generally non-residential uses don't require parking what's our concern about non-residential uses that used to be on residential sites right what is the concerned about what used to be there as
opposed to whether it was another non-residential use or an empty lot or you know what's the the underlying concern that we're trying to address with that exception or is it just that it's a car over from our our prior conversations about site plan
similarly um if we're saying if we're going to receive any other zoning or planning approvals we you would need to comply with the existing parking requirements are what's our what's our underlying goal in that language because
there may and may may may not be situations where simply going to the planning board for example for an additional setback or or you know some other fairly minor approval may not implicate the parking question in
general and then with respect to Redevelopment plans I think the Redevelopment plans have the opportunity to have very specific parking requirements you know in a very targeted area that perhaps we would like to um leave to those plans as
opposed to addressing more generally that is of course but they would a Redevelopment plan would supersede the existing zoning anyway so if we were to change this to not um require parking for commercial use or non-residential is
that is it any is there any use that's not commercial that's non-residential because I think what we're intending is commercial I just want to make sure we're not that's a great question I mean certainly there are um you know a house
of worship um Civic use is there are there are other uses that that are non-residential that I wouldn't consider commercial that's a great point so maybe um if we decide to do this we change the wording a little bit so that we don't
accidentally but I'm not sure that's what is that what you're saying or are you saying that not withstanding this policy decision we don't necessarily this is what I thought I heard or understood so please correct me if I wrong
notwithstanding the policy decision um adding the uh exemption language may not be necessary here because we've accounted for this elsewhere is that what you're saying that is what I was saying yes okay but then I think the
mayor raises an important question about um more specifically when we say non-residential do we mean all non-residential or do we mean commercial uses I mean we've been using it in the Redevelopment plan discussions as far as
only requiring parking for residential uses like however many that is um like for the movie theater Redevelopment for example yeah although the uses in the Redevelopment plans tend to be a little more circumscribed you don't generally
have you know the full right range of industrial right but since this is prb Zone which is effectively most of Springfield Avenue might we need other language so I'll tell you the basis for this is that um in each of these
so right now on Springfield Avenue there's probably about five properties that are just solely residential so I'm thinking of one that's across street from cornbread it's like a six-story apartment building and
on the first floor are units housing units so someone bought that and decided to take out those housing units and put stores there or a restaurant there um it seems to me that that should be
looked at probably would look be looked at as by the planning board because it goes it's a maybe external changes I'm not even sure if it I'm not even sure now because it you know it's not going to change the external though maybe the front of it would be um so the idea is
if you did did that or you took one of the we have about maybe we have like three single family homes there on the Avenue if you took one of those homes and made it into uh coffee shop or uh something and
you didn't have a way to just say okay that's such a dramatic use that we want to go and say if if it was planned to be a coffee shop you would need x amount of seats x amount of parking spaces for x amount of square footage or x amount of seats so that's what this is it just it
just allows us to revert back to something if if even the planning board if if the planning board didn't look at it or if the plan planning board was going to look at something and we didn't have this um 27 27150 J then what would
they look at so if we talked about the conversion of verou which was a restaurant to Aries which was a 11 unit apartment building and a bar you know so you mean Union pup yeah Avenue pop why say new po oh
I'm sorry AR I'm sorry Avenue Pub Avenue Pub so yeah was from viru to Avenue Pub thank you uh so there was an intensity of use and it added parking so there was parking that had to be accounted for for the
apartments um and now this is a question of if the planning board had nothing what how would they judge whether or not you're providing sufficient parking for the expanded retail use restaurant use so I
heard two important things there um and one of one of them was exactly what I was thinking while you were talking which is intensity of use right and and is it maybe that we want to tie it to increased intensity so for example you know if it was
a I don't know if it was a uh a small or if even a large apartment building let's let's go in the other direction if it was a larger apartment building or a larger home that was then taken down to for a smaller non-residential
use do we necessarily have the same concerns so what I'm hearing really isn't the the change in you so much as the change in intensity um the other thing is to the ex when we're saying what would the planning board look at well if we're
making a general policy determination that non-residential uses don't require parking then they they would look at it without the exceptions and say okay this non-residential use doesn't require any parking um and is there a concern
perhaps about mixed uses as opposed to Pure commercial uses or I guess I'm not sure I'm not sure I well first of all good luck on defining intensity what does that mean you can Define it with floor area ratio and density well how about how about a
restaurant where the average seating was maybe had three turnovers of a table it was open you know some hours of a day where you know you only had 20 tables 25 tables and people stayed there if you ever ate there you stayed there for two
hours um as opposed to a a bar which people are coming in and out more so what is the intensity maybe the square footage didn't change but the the nature of the Beast changed a lot so and and to me if if the planning
board had no way to judge or no way to to require off-site parking for something like that then I would not vote for this because that's not my intent my intent is to have exceptions is generally to allow you know the
commercial space not to have offsite parking but where there's these kinds of activities I mean if we didn't have like when Walgreens Walgreens was in a uh Redevelopment area so when we determine how many parking spaces Walgreens needed
on the corner of of Springfield Avenue and and Bernett we used the basis of what a what a large Store retail store needed so that was the basis and then we negotiated and gave variances or whatever we did so I don't know how the planning board does any of that without
having something to go back to that's what that J that 50j is I have a question I'm sorry I thought the point was though that we are eliminating the requirements for non-residential parking so even if the
use changes to make it more intense or less intense if we're saying that a non-residential use doesn't need parking then isn't that what the planning board looks at I think what you're saying is that you don't necessarily agree that non-residential par should be eliminated all
around because you want exceptions say that you're talking to me you're talking to me yeah I am I'm clarifying I guess you're you're bringing up those old formulas which sometimes get a little Antiquated and sometimes put a lot of burden on small business owners to be able to open and I think the point
is if we're trying to make it less car heavy and we're trying to make it easier for small businesses to open by eliminating some of these parking requirements then we should just eliminate it but if you're worried that certain uses or intensity of uses or bigger restaurants or whatnot might not
fall into that eligibility and that's like a different issue but I'm for this can we tie this C uh requirement or to to both their points so there's a difference in my mind to somebody
opening a business in a downtown or a business district in an existing building that has no parking of its own and so how are they fitting a requirement for parking when they don't have it all the parking's public or on
street right so and then there's another difference between having a lot building a project that has room for parking on site so maybe I don't know what that differential is is it a planning board approval because to the point we just
had before where there's exterior Improvement that's when it goes for site plan approval and presumably something like the bar they would have you know they have a site plan approval necessary and then the requirements so is there a
way we can can make that difference and not requiring it where they couldn't provide it anyway and requiring it where they're doing onsite so H Camp said which is that we want to
we want to uce parking requirements and cars and I just feel like that is just saying I don't know sorry I BL my wait a second Miss angle I wanted to hear from Miss cdio for my question so in your example mayor the existing building
right is a pre-existing non-conforming structure because it doesn't have whatever parking requirement is is required by the zoning code and to the extent that they needed other planning approvals they would then trigger the
review of their all of their non-conformities right that's generally how how those approvals work so um if I need to go in for site plan if I'm for example putting an addition on the back of the business and it's not just
parking it's you know if you have um existing setbacks Etc that are too close to the street you you often see a planning application that will also include uh variance relief sought for their other pre-existing
non-conformities right but if we want to eliminate parking requirements basically in this downtown of Springfield Avenue which is the prb Zone can we do that without impacting
projects like at the corner of Ruckers in Spring that Mr Duca was referring to uh you don't generally see in zoning codes that kind of dichotomy between what is then how do we deal with
existing because yeah so because in that example I was giving you about this this restaurant that changed when the restaurant was there maybe had 30 parking spaces different kind of use bar came in with 11 apartments above they were required
to have 11 parking spaces for the tenants so that took away from that 30 down to 19 say so if you're looking at as a planning board member how do you say okay this is the bar you have so many seats or so
many square footage and I look up on 50j and I see you're supposed to have 25 parking spaces but you only have 19 we're going to give you a variance for six so all this says is it becomes the Baseline upon which the planning board can make that judgment otherwise they're
they go from zero mhm right right well but so I suppose that's a little bit of my point right so say I I'm starting with a an empty lot and I'm building the same
uses we're making the general and I'm as of right I'm within my my other planning requirements if we're making a policy determination that that kind of use doesn't require parking what was there
the both of those restaurant bar uh housing structures I I think we would all think require need the same amount of parking whatever that amount is regardless of what was there before I don't get that no that doesn't
so so there's there's an empty lot on the corner of Wellsley and Springfield Avenue an apartment building built next to it suppose this empty lot they decided I don't feel like building parking or right I don't feel like building residential I'm going to build a uh
stores and I don't have any requirement to park off site so I build you know I I can do 80% coverage of the lot so I build this huge store where do those people Park and shouldn't we have shouldn't somebody
be looking at that so that the neighbors there don't end up with all these cars in their neighborhood But but so that's a great example so I don't know that that's necessarily captured by one of our exceptions that is because it goes has to go to the planning board why if it's
within if it's it's a site plan approval site plan approval it's site plan approval has to but then what yeah then the planning court has nothing to base their parking stuff on right I don't think the
exemption that we just fashion would apply in that scenario right the Redevelopment exception because that was a Redevelopment no that wasn't a Redevelopment oh it wasn't okay I see your point it's not just where you're seeking variance
Rel no the variance is is the least of it it's it's I'm concerned that whoever's looking at the site plan has no basis upon which to judge whether to approve this or not because we're eliminating parking and I understand we're eliminating parking to
do exactly what M Engles talked about is so that we're not not saddling small businesses with off street parking requirements but this is not that this is this is these are site plan these are people who go in and develop stuff yeah are you looking to make this applicable
to small businesses like is that um I'm just looking to make it applicable to to projects so that we don't dump the uses of a of a development into the the
parking into the neighborhood that somehow somebody says okay look you know we have zero requirement but you know you're what you're proposing really requires 20 parking spaces so we'll agree to let you build 10
but right now the planning board can't even do that because there's nothing to negotiate right so so the proposal as stated including the exemptions and this is why uh when we talked about this Township attorney cido
earlier today I I explained or I mentioned that it came it sort of was fashioned out of our site plan exemption our recent uh site plan exemption because we have to keep it consistent with that right like yeah ultimately we
want to get rid of all parking requirements but what we're saying here is sure we're taking that first right step toward elimination of on-site parking for non-residential but there have to be
some exemptions and these exemptions allow us to be consistent across the board right because it references this language is almost very similar to the language that we have in the site plan
exemption to Mr duca's Point how will the planning board know what to do otherwise yeah and I can't think of an example in the village I was just walking down the village through my head and try because every mixed use new
project that's come up and had to go before the planning board it's been in Redevelopment zones so it's been you know zoned already differently yeah it's been a little more but to my my point there's no requirement in Maplewood Village somebody opens a
restaurant and a storefront they're not required to give to provide parking but in some downtowns believe me there is there's still a parking requirement which severely limits business Recruitment and what you can get to go into sites because they're required parking and there's no opportunity for
them to look if there's a way you could figure out figure out how if you have an empty lot and somebody comes in and proposes to build something that we have the right to say that um we want some parking
and and then figure out a way how you base that parking you just can't pull it out of the air that's why I was saying let's use what we have so the other stuff that we you know we dealt with as the mayor just said we dealt with that stuff so if if I have a
storefront and it's empty and I rent to somebody and you're not doing any exterior stuff you don't need to go for a site plan you don't need to provide parking right but if you're going to take a building you're going to take the wine barrel building which has a huge parking
lot and expand that building to another 50% and keep the wine barrel there and and added not have and add more commercial space and not have parking that's that then that means that
Miss Engle you know where they're going to be parking at the wine barrel because I had to deal with blocking my driveway yeah right yeah so you know when we when we talk to people about this stuff we say you know that there is on straight onsite parking for
these larger development so if you could figure a way to do that and by the way this this thing conversion of residential use to non-resident non-residential use is pulled from the village uh right section so and if we want to as I said there's only like
maybe four residential solar res so you want to eliminate that that's fine I'm just concerned that whoever is looking at this whether it be the pl the planning board at a site plan or even the township committee as the Redevelopment Authority that we have
some basis upon which to negotiate or to have a discussion with a developer right now if the way if we have nothing and just say parking shall not be required for non-residential uses you Comm in and want to build something we can't say we can't even have a conversation about
parking so I think what you're looking for is like a like unless like unless yeah these are exemptions would yeah I mean so you figure out think that at some point somebody's not going to build like a huge big shopping
mall or expand the wine barrel without parking because they wouldn't have um people to come visit they might they might so I mean I but I think um you know if you're if you're using Avenue
Pub as an example of you think like like that they need to have parking there in order for it to be viable um I don't know I think that they could have less parking no no I'm not talking about for it to be viable I'm talking about so it isn't a nuisance on the residential
neighborhood yeah I would also like to look at the public parking lots that we have like we have the Yale lot we have the Maple Crest lot like we have lots in our in our town and so I don't know if maybe this is something to tie into it but like um you know we should be encouraging people to park there you
know we have street parking we have these Lots um you know that that Yale lot is Never full like there's never cars back there right but this yeah but we I mean they're not going to park at y lot and go to the Avenue Pub they're going to park on the residential street
on Harvard where it's easier on ruter yeah closest they're going to a pub they should be taking Uber okay so so this is what I'm going to propose I'm going to propose that we take this back to code is that fair and Oh I thought Miss CIO was just going to fix it for us so we
didn't have to talk about I mean I'm okay talking about it one more time at code yeah we can go back to code and maybe word smithing a little bit um is that good with everybody yes okay um first before you continue Mr Davis with the next discussion item it
looks like we're gonna go past 9:30 sorry Amari um but so I'd like a motion to go past 9:30 for this meeting I move it second s daf Yesa yes serman yes mayor
Adams yes okay expanded permitted uses in the CI Zone this is not the least bit that won't this one oh yeah if that had that much discussion imagine this one all right we'll try to get through it though mayor um I just want for the public I kept saying prb that's Peter
Robert Bob um that stands for pedestrian retail business and I got uh something from someone here in real time people are watching us that's great uh saying hey can you define this for the public so there you go we aim to please okay so
um the this is again you know an opportunity to adopt another uh recommendation from the master plan um and this has to do with expanding what is currently permitted as a use in the CI Zone and I'm going to tell you what
it is this time it's the commercial and Industrial Zone okay and for a lot of folks out there nework way is in the CI zone right as a point of reference so the master plan recommends our expanding
permitted uses um as follows right in addition to what's already permitted um these are specifically referenced by the master plan and they are directly taken right out of the recommendations um and you
can go see them for yourself I think it's Pages 98 Pages 133 page 134 um so um indoor Agriculture and food production maker space which shall mean
a collaborative workspace for making learning exploring and sharing uh uses high-tech to no Tech Artisan Artisan Studios art galleries artist Studios and retail sales how however pay
attention retail sales as a secondary use to the primary use um so we're talking about retail sales that are limited to products made on site associated with principal uses so think
about a uh Coffee Roastery on Newark way that is allowed to sell the coffee that they make okay put it in bags and sell it to you but not all retail um craft fairs art shows and other
temporary outdoor Weekend sales events are also encouraged and no I didn't just lose my point here my my place here okay here we are I'm back there are no conditional uses currently in the commercial and Industrial Zone stay tuned for
that uh maybe we'll see how far we can go the master plan also advises and I think In fairness I'm all about discussing these things fairly even though I'm to advocate for what I think we should be doing but In fairness the master plan explicitly says the
following new permitted uses should complement and not compete with existing industrial uses thus standard retail and restaurant uses should be
carefully controlled so as not to push out long established industrial uses es and the introduction of new residential uses should not be permitted there's one limited very narrow exception to that in
the master plan and that is for um if we're doing like an artist studio uh allowing uh an apartment for the artist of this you know who owns the studio to live there is
permitted so um we we added an traditional expanded use that's not explicitly referenced word for word in the master plan and that is co-working space that came up in uh our discussions
about expanding uses in the CI Zone and it's certainly is a use that does not compete with existing industrial uses but ra but rather complements it so um that's another thing the code committee
looked at this discussed this um and they agreed to move forward with these permitted uses but we did have a very good discussion in code committee about expanding uses in this Zone some members
of the code committee myself included felt that this doesn't go far enough sure this is what our master plan recommends and we want to do that but we also recognize that we're not including uses at least
at this stage that are already happening right so in terms of the master plan being a forward-looking document uh maybe some said uh proposed that uh it may already be outdated it
was after all written uh during covid and some of the uh current uses in the zone uh were not there yet only the breadstand was there uh and it was just still new shiny thing uh when the the master plan was being um
discussed and and drafted um some advocated for residential uses and others myself included uh advocated for restaurants and bars again
we have a restaurant that everyone knows already there the way that that happened is by going to the zoning board uh and and getting a variance and that process itself is um you know as we said earlier onerous and
expensive um and the businesses that we're talking about there that are creating these New Uses in this neighborhood in this Zone in the surrounding neighborhood in this zone are homegrown businesses so we want to keep that in mind we're not talking
about big bad Panera or Starbucks or whatever your corporate conglomerate is coming in and taking over and and um etching people out these are local homegrown businesses but if we were to
go a bit further and be a little bit more Progressive here at least keep up with what's happening we would do so in a manner that the master plan recommends which is
carefully controlled so finding ways to condition for instance additional restaurant or bar you or any residential um or any residential on nework way so those are my comments uh
and where I'm coming from we did hear from our um our merchants in the zone who are leading the way and making a lot of great things happen uh in the zone and uh those comments are included in my comments here tonight for the most part
and um first I'm going to see if there is support for the uses that are already in the master plan is there any discussion about those the uses that are already in the master plan not the ones you just ended with
correct everybody okay with those that we yeah is there an issue with the co-working space uh it's not explicitly mentioned in the master plan just need to make sure that it's there is um enough support for including it as a
similar related consist with the master plan that we would not be required to give notice to every property owner in the commercial industry right so right now right now uh the
permitted uses in the CI Zone include Office Buildings so Office Buildings is already a permitted use that be a coworker so a co-working space would certainly would fit in an office building right I would think so I'll take a check at your at
the zoning ordinance to make sure that there's not like a separate yeah so if you want to point is we may not need to add yeah well I don't think you need to add it so just if we have Office Buildings and somebody wants to open up a co-working space we already allow Office Buildings so are we recommending to take
it out yeah if you're concerned about it not being explicit then we could take it out right uh and the only thing I the other one that I added was the um uh the bizarre craft fair and under temporary and if you feel that's a problem we
thought was fine it was yeah I said that still related to the to the principal permitted use it's not a you know unrelated even though there'll be other participants so I have if we're done with if we we're all good with what was existing yeah okay I just have um I
think I'm not all the way there to expanding the uses to include restaurants and bars necessarily I'm not sure I'm ready to to take that leap my concern is two two two things
one we already have a mechanism in place albe it costly somewhat to go for a variance through the Zoning Board of adjustment to open something like Aries which is what that owner did right um my
biggest concern and you made the point that these are homegrown businesses these are great businesses you know if we put in the zoning the permitted use of a restaurant or bar or even retail that's
not something made on site we can't control who buys a building and who opens up something that is not as Fabulous As the existing uses there so that's my personal big concern
and I know all all I you know I've gotten letters and I've had conversations and this is not directed it you know to try to make it difficult I think my concern is exactly what I said because then yes you can get a
Panera no no shade on Panera necessarily but that's not what I think when we're thinking about this we're envisioning cool awesome places like arties but that's not a guarantee once it's permitted in the zoning then we really
have no control over what goes there other than a site plan approval perhaps couldn't replace conditions right no no not in permitted uses no to not being a like a chain right unfavorably litigated in a couple
of yeah is that right yeah you can't best of yeah I disagree a little with what you said um mayor only because like you're saying that you want homegrown businesses cool businesses created by community members at the same time you
want send them to zoning and spend a whole lot of money on the zoning the architect engineer the planning all that goes into it and so I don't actually think that this opens up homegrown businesses I'm in support support of expanding the uses a little bit because
that's what's happening already we already have restaurants open we already have a community of business owners who are wanting people to come and and go to more than one stop and so I don't know why we would not want to en encourage that to create these micro your creating
economic development in the area you're creating a micro Community you're promoting walking because then the community can go walk there and you know I'm I'm supportive of that so I'm not sure why we want to limit it by not expanding the use yeah I think I explained my hesitation and I I don't think it's
unfounded I uh you know with all due respect to those who are purchasing properties and in that area to open a business and yes they're small or homegrown businesses or what whatever whatever we want to call it they're still investing a lot of money in that
and the process is laid out for them to be able to get the use permitted and it's not I mean compared to the price of a buying the building and opening a business it's really not a huge amount of money in comparison to what they
would be investing in it we're not talking about somebody opening a you know a thousand square foot little retail shop we're talking about much larger opportunity so with regard to residential though I'm not
sure if I disagree that residential I I I'm more favorable to residential being permitted than than necessarily right now and I I was already with permitting that but I I have that concern that I stated so I don't know if I want to hear from can we condition can we place
conditions on that un residential what kind of conditions are you thinking Well we'd have to do like a density or right a density no we don't do that that's in the Redevelopment we don't really dictate density do we per per
acre the master recommendation I'm so used to Redevelopment not right carefully controlled and should not be permitted yeah yeah so the retail and restaurant is more of the the carefully controlled
so um you have a couple of options if you that that bre um sorry that residential is is an appropriate use here you can ask board to reexamine that piece of the master plan um and see if they have a a more
updated thought um you know I I hate to go back to the notice question and it's not it's not that we don't want to give lots and lots of notice but the um requirements it's just extremely
expensive it's certified mail everyone affected Zone and within 200 Zone which can be tens of thousands what were the requirements for what a variance so if we are changing a ordinance in a way that is not that is
opposition to the master plan I see so it's permitted to do that but we're required to give this additional notice that could be just extremely expensive also don't we need a super majority do four we need four votes do to add something that not recommended in
the master plan correct so I I you know um I'd like to read a a sentence from the master plan to that I think we we missed uh and it does say and I'll just read the whole thing introduction of
standard retail and restaurant uses should be carefully controlled in these areas to avoid pushing out industrial uses and transitioning to a business district that could compete with established business areas so that's what you're talking about is
that you want Newark way to transition and I think we need to be careful and separate Newark way from the restaurants that have opened on the corner of jacobe Street in boen which are permitted right it's a neighborhood business district district those are permitted and the
developer or the owner of the former gas station I assume he's going to develop something that's going to be spectacular there so no one's complaining about those CU those are by right permitted yep it's the question on Newark way yep and I think the the thing here is that
we want to avoid transitioning that area to another business district when quite honestly we have not yet succeeded on Springfield Avenue why would we create another business district are we saying the neighborhood there doesn't deserve
nice businesses within walking New York way when it's not zoned for businesses they do have businesses the businesses can go where the neighborhood business is so not where not to bring in more businesses for what to create another business district in a commercial
industrial Zone that's not what this says the master plan is clear about not doing that right but it also says long established industrial uses but as those industrial uses phase out and they are
phasing out I mean look this will happen organically right it happened without our officially changing our right our code because it's happening and it's going to continue happening and the industrial uses even on New York
way are going to be going are going to be phasing out and I think maybe that's when we'll have this discussion again and say okay let's let's adopt something that's already happening um but I don't see why we wouldn't want to have another
business district that's I don't think that's correct I don't think industrial uses are phasing out okay the CI doesn't just deal with Newark way it deals with ruer Street too right and there there are no vacancies There Are No Vacancy there's there's one vacancy next to the
building that's existing there as a restaurant and that operation moved because they they moved they didn't have enough space and they had to move and another one went across the street so they're clearly moving around people are moving in people are moving out Newark
plumbing St South Amboy came in the place on the corner stopped a casket company came in there are build there are industrial uses that are there it doesn't there's not like a lot of empty buildings that are not being left on
purpose so again Newark way and ruter is different than where jacobe Street in that really great Center of activity is happening I'm not confusing that the two yeah I'm just talking about New York way that's why I referenced New York way in the beginning of my comment
you know I'm I'm not in favor of changing Newark way to a retail shop I think the changes that we're proposing deals with M engle's talking about we're talking about uh spaces where people can start maker spaces uh artist spaces
we've just nailed down to co-working spaces I think those are those are the way to start I agree with that I agree with moving forward the ones that we we recommend that are in the master plan so I just wanted to jump in as well um I I
wanted to express that I I agree with a lot of what Mr dafis is saying um I think that we are seeing development happen on Newark way uh and nearby that is exciting um and I liked your term homegrown businesses I think that's what
really makes this stand out um that we're not seeing you know these big box retailers but we're seeing actual Maplewood residents and um you know homegrown like New Jersey residents who are opening up they're taking a chance on this new SP spot in
town and it's working um and so you know when we look out for you know the community these are our community members and I think they're doing really good things um you know this area um you know as a teenagers as the teenagers would say it's kind of getting a glow up
you know if you look at it you know a what glow up a glow up what they say you're not are you too new haircut you know um you look at and you see um beautiful new awnings you see more trees which this this area was already you
know we've talked about it they don't have as many shade trees um you know so we see and I think we're going to see more as pallet opens and we you know we've got the new crosswalk there in front of Aries and we're going to redo Dart we're going to see a lot more
people walking around this area and so it it is changing and I feel like as elected leaders you know I'd really like to see us Embrace that change and um you know and and support it um and protect it you know and so I'd like to explore
ways that we could um like like like what uh mayor Adams was saying I would like to you know like keep um CH restrict chain stores from opening up you know I I I would love to do that you know if we're not able to legally like I
wonder like what other ways like what you know it's it's my understanding that the master plan allows us to put conditions so I'd like to talk about like what kind of conditions how can we protect this space and also support what's happening um so I mean I guess
that that's where I'm at and you know I don't know um you know if this could be a Redevelopment zone or if you know if you can sever Newark way from Ruckers because there you're right there's a lot of industrial industrial on on Ruckers
um but then you know like if we can sever those you know I think there's some options and we can certainly I'd like to keep talking about this yeah I think we can keep talking about it I think we should keep talking about it I think this is you know zoning zoning is
difficult and it's difficult for a lot of reasons some of which we've touched on here changing zoning is really difficult and you know I don't think any of us is saying anything opposed to any
business or business owner or anybody trying to do wonderful things on nework way in particular none of us is is saying that that I've heard and I hope it's not taken that way just that we have to be really cautious and
take very careful steps into any changes we do on this because of a lot of the things we said because of the unintentional consequences which we talk about all the time at code because because thinking through all the
way and yeah we might want to make it accessible more accessible to one but not to another and that's not legal so we got to try to figure it out so Mr Deus if it's okay with you that we keep talking about it certainly um more
research is maybe helpful yeah we'll keep explore more ideas more ideas from those who've been calling on us to to add certain uses to the the area you know give us some uh tools with which to do that yeah we should also engage the
community right like we need to do surveys to see what people yeah also want for themselves who live maybe there's a reason it's got to be so I mean I know there's reasons that zoning you know it's got to be so slow because of and and it may slow the the changes
that are coming over there and maybe that's that's an important slowness to take uh carefully so then we'll move forward with the the ones yeah that you you noted group of you minus the co-working space because it's already included in
Office Buildings right and just to clarify is that in both the commercial industrial and the special light industrial because the special what no just no that's a whole another animal that's another discussion yeah because the master plan recommends that the two
be combined uh and we can get to that discussion on other committee more discussion on that in in the future prepare that ordinance for introduction at our next meeting appreciate it thank you over if I'm sorry since you brought up the spe the
light Industrial Area I would urge each of us to take a ride down Camp Town Road before we have that discussion yeah about merging them time just take a ride down Camptown road before you think about doing anything and look at the
boundaries of what's Maplewood and what's Irvington we can do nothing without concurrence from Irvington in that District so if you go Springfield Avenue you take a right on Chan you have to go into Irvington to get into it well yeah well yeah you just take go about
couple blocks down and then take a right onto Camp Town Road okay maybe the new senior Jitney can take us all there ready um okay let's go on to the third discussion
item hopefully the next several won't take quite as long overnight parking and public Lots so I brought this up at the last meeting just in my report that I would be bringing this back to you so I have a proposal uh you all indicated some support to it that um right now we H
have uh the list of existing Lots is number three the Woodland number five Highland number six Yale and number 10 Prospect I suggested uh number one maple quest number eight Indiana and deheart park it was some discussion at um I
guess engineering or maybe a public safety one of the Committees about um the concern about uh all the spots being taken at Maple Crest and at Indiana uh so I would suggest we limit that to 40% of the time limited parking
spaces um and uh then the mayor sent an email around asking why don't we just open it up to all also I'll just tell you the other spots the other lots are uh number two is the lot next to Village Coffee number four is the New Jersey
Transit lot at Baker number seven is the lot behind bagel chatau and then number nine is Baker Street um this is a list from 2013 there might be more because rickleton Square might I think we might have given it we I was going to say that we re we gave
them we converted them to names and I think we should do that uniformally so um we have the names in the number 2018 so uh what if I you know look it's I would not suggest we do anything in the New Jersey Transit lot because people parked
there really early and yeah I don't think we should do that but I I don't know if you want to do these uh ones in the village I I think there's sufficient parking at the Woodland and Highland Place in the village I yeah I agree I would not because it gets into very confusing who's parking there Beyond limits and overnight in space so yeah I
was just thinking if there was any town that there no other ones of Okay cool so if if everyone's okay then I'll work with uh Miss cido and um our clerk to get these into a
resolution thank you is there any discussion I just recommend that we while we're doing this we might as well have a uniform designation for all of our Municipal lots and I recommend that we go from uh numbered designations to names the Woodland lot is obvious The
Village Center Lot is obvious and so on and so forth I just wanted to ask about the the lots that are in the village do we know if there's a need there like um residents who live in those apartment buildings can answer that um you're
saying the the apartments on Maplewood a both yeah is there a need there like have we heard from any of those people who might need an overnight parking spot um the apartments that are above like uh The Bagel chatau side and um the coffee
shop on the end there's no problem there because as um residents there they have an agreement with the landlord they pull their car cinched up to the building and that's where they Park there's never been an issue but the other side of the
street on let's see uh theota side and the um the pub side those people if they have extra vehicles that can't fit behind the
building where they do have parking they uh utilize the Woodland 24 hour from us yeah so there's two lots so there's really you know they have the Woodland 24hour that they could park in um I would say the bulk of the people are
from the Claris though but I would say that Maplewood Village area we can accommodate um overnight parking with what we have okay okay thank you okay so any more discussion on
this sure you don't want to make it as long as the other two discussion items we can keep talking no no okay so you've got uh you're going to get that ordinance up resolution res oh resolution
sorry okay amend did uh Deputy Mayor you have the next two items all right let's see how quickly we can do this um okay so the recreation advisory committee so um so the field so what I'm proposing is
um so the fields committee was a um was created um several years ago and it um it hasn't taken off it hasn't met the members haven't met it was created with
about 20 different um members uh liaison from here leison from there person from here person from there and so it ended up being really um it just didn't end up meeting um and this is something that
the community has has talked about and has wanted to have a committee to discuss the fields in our town this is a problem that we have had um um and I think even you know um when we were talking in the engineering and Public Works committee and this proposal came
up about to Hart Park and the question was well let's run it by our Fields committee well we don't have one so what I'm proposing is that we create a subcommittee in the rep committee and when I went to go and look at that because a lot of committees um in
ordinance they describe the mission of the committee they describe that you know they can have sub committees like pool has subcommittees and they work on different things like marketing or programming uh well the rec committee I went to the rec committee and they don't
have a mission uh so and they don't have anything in the ordinance stating that they can have um subcommittees the rec Recreation Committee website describes the recreation advisory committee as they study and advise the township
committee business administrator and director of recreation um on the acquisition establishment Improvement maintenance and administration of new and existing public parks recreation facilities and programs within the township the committee also reviews the
annual annual budget prepared by the director of recreation and cultural Affairs so um so but that's that's just on the website that's not in the code so what I'm proposing is that we update the recreation
advisory committee ordinance to do the following include a mission Focus for the recreation advisory committee I would propose that we start with what's on the website and you know maybe explore what what are we missing
here what are other areas that it needs to focus on but I think that's a really good starting point um I would propose expanding the membership from 9 to 12 and and and bear with me that this is why um because I would also um I want to
add the Clause we've used this in our youth advisory committee description and I really like it it says the committee should reflect Maplewood Township's Rich diversity race gender ethnicity sexual orientation and gender identity neurodiversity and Geographic and that's a clause that we put in our youth
committee and I'd like to use that um in any of the Committees when we happen to be updating the ordinance I mean you know the feds tell us to take out Dei we're not doing that here and that's important to us um and and then allow for the creation
of a subcommittee such as one for Fields um now something that we can talk about and I would uh like to hear feedback on is whether or not that subcommittee um so I Envision that as including members on the recreation
advisory committee but also being able to include members who are not on the recreation advisory committee and here's why um currently so the recreation advis committee there's a lot of things that they do that are not field related there's a lot of
programming um and I think the fields committee the recreation advisory committee members some of them would like to take part in that but um if they're focusing on fields I want to make sure that the we have members who are on the rec committee focusing on
programming and then on the fields committee you know we get a couple of people in there who have more of a Fields background more of you know um you know a background in the kind of uses that we're looking to use on these fields um and I'm also looking toward
like potentially there are individuals who own um like batting cages or you know produce uniforms or you know they or run like a soccer program you know and these people I may want to hear from them on the fields committee so I don't
know but I wouldn't necessarily place them on the wck committee and so I'm just thinking that there may be other cases and so this is where um you know I would sort of Define the subcommittee as one that would have members but would be
not necessarily have people outside of wreck but could if there was somebody that we thought would um you know because the idea is we want to have a wide range of voices if if the fields committee is a subcommittee of the
recreation committee and the recreation committee members are appointed by the governing body how does that intersect with a subcommittee having members that aren't appointed by I think they should be appointed as well I mean I think that
um but I think the terms can be less because the committee um you know that's part of how we how we set it up I mean if we're going to set up appointed members on the subcommittee then I think that we you know we appoint them the way we do the other committees um I think
that if we set it up as an ad hoc then you know I don't know I I kind of resist opening up to like hey anybody who wants to come comes yeah you know I'd like to keep it more as like a working committee like we we've got a job to do and we're
going to work but I see it as like it's not like the other committees have like a three-year span this would be a committee you know that um they serve they they they they serve at the you know like the recreation committee decides you know um or maybe we put that
in the ordinance that the Committees would need to be renewed you know every year so the pool advisory committee the members are appointed by the township committee yes yes and then they
serve on subcommittees yes yes those folks that serve on subcommittees are members of the pool advisory committee who serve on the X Y and Z subcommittee yes so why couldn't we do the same here
so rack only has nine members and pool has 15 right part of that is the difference that pool has more members and so you can divide them up um personally I think 15 is a bit much for a committee um yeah I agree it's it's just
a lot of people right but what I'm what I'm getting at is your question about how we set it up if we go to 11 all 11 are appointed by the township committee or 12 all 12 are appointed by the township committee and
then onto the rec advisory committee and then some of them serve on this on the field sub we do it that way that's certainly one way we could do it it would um it would limit to some extent because you know like you would have to
be on rack in order to serve on fields and I we you know you'd have to commit to three years of serving on R and Advising on all the programming that we have and so if we have individuals whose specialty is really just
Fields um and it you know then they may not um that may not they may not qualify and then you also have for example um the previous Fields committee had um Liaisons from different committees and
so um you know obviously we wouldn't have that if you serve on another committee you wouldn't be able to serve on this committee so like having representation from um like the previous Fields committee had like that we wanted a representation from Hilton neighborhood
association we wanted a representation from Bardon Park neighborhood association I don't know if I want to I don't want to specify all of these things because I think that was what really kept the previous Fields committee from getting off the ground had you had to have all of these
different individuals so I think part of the reason for that was because it was really a conversation about artificial turf versus not or what are we going to do now that artificial turf got voted down by referendum for the second time and that's really what you know was a
hotter topic so this Fields committee is I think if there's there's some I'm fine with it being a subcommittee and even a temporary subcommittee as subcommittees often are on you know in group in committees um and you can in a
subcommittee I feel like you can call on people they're not appointed so to speak they don't have to be vetted necessarily but you could call on somebody with certain expertise who's not on Recreation to just you know give their advice or be part of a conversation I
don't think it has to be formalized into them being a member so I would be fine with expanding the committee but most you know bringing in like consults if you will like somebody who has expertise
you bring them in to the subcommittee but I don't necessarily I don't feel like you need to have like formalize that formalized yeah I he that we need to appoint the subcommittee because then we're it just feels like to and then that has to be defined with its own thing as opposed to just being a
subcommittee of I me keep it simple right committee well it keeps it simple but it's also reason that there's there's not a definition of the subcommittee so what are we officially appointing them to you know so I that's how I feel I think it should just be
recck members and then those those people can call on members of the community to brainstorm or talk in the fields committee without being officially members of it in my mind what do you think I I support the direction you're
moving in yeah yeah um remember you know the fields committee was set up as you say right after after the second referendum against the turf it really was not created by the township committee it was just set up by the the mayor then uh and then it never got off
the ground and then miss angle tried to get it off the ground and it was very difficult because we did have those slots so and then I think having it separate from the rec committee doesn't make sense so I think that's a good thing is to it should report to the rec
committee and the rec committee should then work with community services and then and bring it back to us and blah blah blah um yeah I think you should take it back to your health and human services committee and work out the details I think whether we appoint the
subcommittee or the rec committee appoints the subcommittee I do think there's something about getting appointed to a committee that gives people a sense of responsibility than just come to a meeting if you want to or not so how you how that happens whether we do it or the rec committee does it I
think having it as a subcommittee of um the township of the rec committee and having the ability of having non-re members on is the important thing so yeah I support it too yeah and while you're at it in terms of amending the ordinance you want to take out arts and
culture which is no longer under wreck yes of course y mle did you have anything you wanted to add no I was just gonna say I support it and as far as Miss Herman's concern about like three-year terms versus field committee maybe it should be shorter
like I feel like they might still be working on fields for 3 years because we have to design the field we have to build the fields we have to manage usage we have to figure out and some some of it is programming so I wouldn't I'm not as concerned about the term limits but I agree with everything you're saying and be supportive of the field committee
being under recod visory and however you deem necessary for the makeup of that committee make sure that it's diverse and I'm sure that my environmental advisory committee leaves on would like to come to those meetings if you can so I'll work on um the details so that
we can see sort of the Lang like put this discussion into language and we can see what that looks like sounds good okay next one is and next one is the all access committee this is a longest meeting since I've been there because we're doing a lot of stuff
a lot of good stuff okay so the all access committee the all access committee resolution um only ran until the end of 24 it expired on December 31st 2024 so I'd like to reauthorize this resolution and appoint several
Community stakeholders and get started my understanding is that this committee was authorized for only one year uh um with that expiration date as a trial basis to get it started um and I would Rec and I would recommend that we
continue this model of having the committee run a full year from um I would recommend enactment so March 202 to March 2026 just to give it more time to get um established and make their recommendations um as the resolution
spelled out the committee would essentially for the first year they would um come up with their proposals and present a plan to the township committee with their recommendations and including in that their recommendation for
continuance so I'm flexible on that date if we want them to finish at the end of this year it just doesn't give us a lot of time so I have been talking with um individuals who have um volunteered to be on the committee so I do feel very confident that we can get this up and
running pretty quickly um but that's sort of my thinking on the timing of it I would also recommend that we refine the focus of the committee so that our purpose is clear the access for all Committee in walwick um where Mr wary
worked previously had this as its mission enhancing the lives of people with disabilities and their families by improving access to Everyday activities increasing public awareness and advocating for inclusivity in our
community so there are access for all communities that run throughout Bergen County maywa Ridgewood Falon tanly Park Ridge Oakland um close to us Livingston has a committee and theirs is called lacd that
stands for Livingston advisory committee for Disabilities and their committee has been running for about 20 years and um the mission statements for these groups are all very similar and they speak to the desire to quite simply
enhance the quality of life for the disabled community and those who have physical Mobility challenges and their families so um that's what I would recommend that we do with the all access committee here here and specifically I
think it's important to use the language and definitions that align with the state division of disability services um and listing the disability communities specifically how they do um in the state and federal so that we can
um you know just be very clear and also you know this would open us up to be a to um grants that are available so those specifically would be one intellect ual and developmental disabilities um people say call this ID physical disabilities including brain
injury blind visually impaired and death blind death blind and heart of hearing veterans on disabilities those are the five categories that our state um spells out for our committee in Maplewood I would recommend that we go a little bit further and also include the following
which our community has specifically spoken out about wanting inclusion for and that would be neurod Divergence and other neurological disorders learning disabilities and mental health disorders um and then so then beyond the
let me see the date the mission those terms I would expand the committee membership from 9 to 12 and I would note that it should also include representation by individuals who are themselves disabled or physically
challenged and or neurodiverse um and finally I would expand the scope of the evaluation currently the resolution has it so that you would be looking at programs events um these sorts of things but I would also include it to um expand it to
include facilities and infrastructure um including but not limited to adaa compliance and best practices and so I Envision the committee also being able to look at you know the width of our side you know like our sidewalks the eies you know new developments and just
making sure that like you know it's basically this would be a place where residents who have Mobility challenges can come to and you know and say Hey you know this this area right here I'm not sure if anybody was thinking about but these stairs are actually really difficult to have in this spot so just
stuff like that um where they would be able to look at that as well um you know so the the the whole the idea is that we would make our wonderful town um even more um accessible um and in doing so in
making it more accessible for this community we would also be making it more accessible to others so that is what I propose and I have been working on the language with some of the um folks that I've been
talking to who want to be on the committee so I'm very excited that I can share um I can share that uh with everyone and Miss cdio um um kind of a redlined version of the resolution so hopefully you know not trying to take
your job but um yeah so that's what I propose questions yeah I think it's great and it's in line with the original scope that we contemplated when we started discussing this uh way before Mr warry joined us but certainly we brought
it up during his interview and he said hey I can do this for you I've done it before uh which was a big plus but um in my conversations during the walk with the mayor health and wellness um campaign I spoke to families uh with
children who were neurodiverse who were special needs and this was their interest this was the scope that they were looking for and this will help us um combat ableism in our community right um it was never intended to be a Dei you
know access to all all inclusive it's really narrowly focused to the scope that you mentioned and I agree that we should be consistent with the St definition so that we can be eligible for Grants and I think we can also use that same Clause that um are in our
other committees about making sure that the membership reflects the rich diversity of our town yeah I'm in favor you have any comments no do we have an ordinance now or is this by resolution about putting an ordinance in right doing it by ordinance or resolution so
the proposal is that we would do this by resolution for one year and then the recommendations from them would um we would then move it to after that one year it would then be an ordinance that we would hopefully create this as a I would only change it to start it maybe
run it like 15 months by resolution so that you have time to get members and get busy before all of a sudden it's a year from March I'm I'm I'm prepared to bring members that I'm proposing right away to our next meeting oh oh okay so
what June 30 of 26 maybe yeah I think that's fair I mean it always takes longer yeah exactly yeah yeah might as well do it that's why I thought Miss angle did you have anything you'd like to add no but I'm fading so I'm gonna
sign off and okay say bye go better okay so you have your marching orders all right and your approvals so we'll go to last discussion item yay um is for support for we heard uh some people speak out including environmental
advisory and um as far as support for the bill the climate Superfund act bill um so we did I think I brought a resolution to the township committee several years ago I don't remember
exactly what year maybe it was 2018 uh to um pass a resolution in support of any Le uh legal challenges or or lawsuits I should say to file lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry um we
passed that we were one of the first first municipalities to do so and not long after that maybe six months to a year after that the State Attorney General did indeed file suit against fossil fuel industry um and of course
that's still going um since then I'd say about 20 other states maybe even it's it's over 25 have also uh signed on to sue the fossil fuel industry I think I don't know if this bill will will pass will go
any farther or if the fossil fuel industry will Lobby it to death and throw money at it but you think you think so but especially um I I just put this forth to see if I have consent from this Township committee apparently I do
yeah I think it's great because we have the governor's election and this is going to be defining line between some candidates and others yeah pass the primary maybe even in maybe even in primary okay so we should give a shout
out to our assembly woman right yes and our Senator is he our Senator no no never mind no no well shout out to John mcken as our former assemblyman but um but to Garnett Hall as the co-sponsor on the assembly uh companion bill
um and we'll ask Miss cdio to or we just do a resolution now we can just we can vote on it now and she can memorialize she can memorialize it let do that she's gonna have to watch the vide tape she left we can tell her okay so I have a motion from me do I
have a second I'll second okay M priton Mr daffis yes Luca yes M Herman yes mayor Adams yes thank you thanks everybody um I'll ask for a motion for the consent agenda move it
second s daff is Yesa yes terman yes mayor Adams yes thank you it's up to our public comment any subject matter since there's no one in the room Mr wary is there anyone online who would like to speak to the township anyone joining on
Zoom would like to speak please raise your hand now I see no hands mayor okay thank you m Deputy Mayor you wanted to say something I wanted to add um I thought but I wasn't totally sure I wanted to check our state senator um Senator bergus is a co-sponsor so I wanted to give her a
shout out as well assembly woman right no no Senator or Senator burgus oh Burgas he is so there's a different bill in the Senate then wait this is a Senate bill yeah this is an assembly bill yeah yeah so we okay great great great awesome yeah it's
the same bill it's in this in it's in the house signed on you mean yeah no it's um co-sponsored in the Senate by um well I guess it's mcken and bergus then in the Senate uh well it was definitely Bob Smith so regardless we thank them
all and we anyway yeah we support it can I get a motion to adjourn please so moved thank you second yes yesman yes mayor Adams yes thank you uh we'll see everybody at our March 4th
meeting and women's history month so there we go have a good evening oh budget next week oh we already mentioned it nobody's watching