e
e e
e
ladies
and gentlemen this meeting is officially called to order we this is call to order for the agenda and regular meeting combined of the Monro Township Council on this date January 29th 2025 would you all please as we rise to salute our flag pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repu for which stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice all you may be seated never sit in this stupid will the clerk please read the Sunshine Lawn the rec oh God I'm down good roll oh roll call councilman deiro here councilman Marquel here councilwoman seagull here Council vice president vanzora here council president Cohen cler please read the Sunshine Law and the record
in accordance with the open public meetings Act it is hereby announced and shall be entered into the minutes of this meeting that adequate notice has been provided by the following one posted on the bulletin board within the municipal building on December 27 2024 and remains posted at that location for public inspection two printed in the home News Tribune and the cranberry press on December 27 2024 three posted on the Monro Township website and four sent to those individuals who have requested personal notice in accordance with chapter 3
section 17 of the Monroe Township Code public comment shall be limited to 5 minutes unless further time is granted by the council president thank you proclamations and presentations for this month uh s Thelma zwit celebrating her 100th birthday on February 3rd and we seem to be getting an increasing number of people who are living till
at least 100 which is very nice February 2025 is American Heart month and again we will be issuing a proclamation for that and if someone would assist me what is it February SE what day do we wear red February 7 thank February 7th while not on here is wear red day for women's heart health and so you may see many women walking around and wearing some sort of red garment for that while it is not an official holiday heart
disease kills millions of women every year we have our ordinances the second reading 01225 d001 it's a supervisory Personnel 2025 salary and wage ordinance for Monroe Township middlex county 01225 d002 is the ordinance authorizing the recording of easements for municipal
purposes on various municipal owned Parcels item seven ordinances for introduction ordinance amending chapter 79 police department rules and regulations by repealing articles 1 through 5 and 8 and amending and relocating chapter 79 articles 6-7 and articles 9-2
to chapter 3 parenthetical administration of government article 6 Department of administration and finance subsection 3-50 division of police this is in line with the police accreditation update I'm saving your voice for you this we're ignoring my phone Bond ordinance providing for various roadway sidewalk and curb improvements buy and in the township of Monroe in the county of midc state of
New Jersey appropriating $1,700,000 therefore in authorizing the issue of 1,619 th000 in bonds or notes of the township to finance a part of the cost thereof 01225 d004 is that ordinance's number 01 2025-the in the county of middlex
state of New Jersey appropriate ating $250,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of $238,000 in bonds or notes of the township to finance part of the cost thereof would the clerk please do the resolutions for consideration resolutions for consideration under the consent agenda is R1 20229 through R1 20246 does anyone
have any resolutions they wish removed okay we will now move to the resolution for consideration at the 20 at the regular meeting on this date of January 20 9th 2025 R1 12025 047 resolution adopting its present need and perspective need
for the fourth round of affordable housing obligations this will be conducted slightly differently than we do things to allow certainly enough time for all of the public to ask questions and to hear a presentation of what we are doing this evening I am asking the council to please hold their public their questions to our planner who is with us this evening until we close the public
comment section and all of our resident have had a chance to have their questions asked and answered so we would please all do that I would appreciate it and it Jen beam is our affordable housing planner she has been working diligently for many months and she is going to ask that each of you need enter your name and address into our records please good evening can you hear me is this okay yes I can uh my
name is Jennifer beam I'm a professional planner with Leon sakian and my address is 788 Wayside Road Neptune New Jersey and you are joined at the podium by council president Christopher zenaro of of the township attorney's office um here to answer also assistant answering any questions on affordable housing thank you ma'am the microphone is yours okay so uh for those of you who don't know me again my name is Jen beam I uh
have been working on affordable housing matters in New Jersey for uh about a little less than 30 years and um have been working here in Monroe I would say for the better part of 2024 um on this affordable housing issue uh Monroe understood that this fourth round was coming um especially given the recent legislation that was passed that regulates his fourth round and as a result has gotten my office involved in
this process very early on I think I think we met and and Mr Weinberg you can correct me if I'm wrong I think we met initially like early summer um to talk about how uh Monroe would approach addressing their fourth round obligation um and we started looking at property within the community that we knew either had approvals on them um were encumbered by environmentally sensitive areas were owned by the
township or other open space you know Common open space for cluster development those types of things um and started to eliminate areas of the community that would be inappropriate for uh high density residential development we also looked at areas outside the sewer service area where infrastructure wasn't readily available as well and so we started this process long before the DCA came out with
this fourth round um methodology as well as the numbers they were released by The DCA October 18th of 2024 right October 18th is sometime in the fall that's right okay and the only reason I know that is because that was my due date and so it you know I remembered it but um anyway so the DCA came out with a number of pieces of information the first is they identified um the housing
change in each different region affordable housing region keep in mind we are in Region Three which is Middle sex Somerset hun right that's right thanks he's just here as moral support um and what they did was they evaluated the number of housing units the change in the number of housing units in the region from 1999 to present day so about 25 years and they determined that number to be 29,9 units
within the region they then divided that number by two and a half please don't ask me why um to get the proposed low to moderate income estimated housing units for the region which comes out to 11,604 that's regionally you also have to keep in mind that part of this region is in the highlands which doesn't generate you know any development so this this uh 11,600 number was allocated amongst all the
communities within region 3 and Monroe was um given a new construction number or a prospective need number of 751 affordable units that's not total units that's affordable units which is extremely high given the fact that this this cycle or round we're going to call this round four starts July technically starts July of this year 2025 and goes
till July of 2035 however this new legislation that was adopted last year requires municipalities if they want to participate in this process to start the process now so by the end of this month the first step in the legislation in order for a community to quote unquote participate in the process and preserve immunity throughout the process meaning no one can come and sue you you have to adopt a resolution which is what you have on the agenda
this evening either accepting the numbers the DCA put out or challenging them and providing a rationale and detailed information as to why you don't feel that that number is really what the community should be required to develop so about a month after the numbers and this methodology came out and and by and large the methodology mirrors the methodology that was litigated in the third round um in Mercer County
they call the judge Jacobson decision I think it was South Brunswick um sued and it was like a long protracted litigation from which this methodology was affirmed or created and they Incorporated that into this legislation basically saying we litigated that this methodology we're going to accept and so that's what they put into into this bill so
given the fact that we started working over the summer looking at eliminating properties and whatnot and then the DCA came out with these numbers in October and then after which at the end of November came up with hard data on the land capacity evaluation and it came complete with a spreadsheet with parcel data as well as a mapping tool that you can see where these properties are located within your community and evaluate them so
the first thing that my office did was Marry the two data sets so they Mar we married the data set that we had been diligently working on already and we had successfully eliminated a number of properties for a variety of reasons and so we married the two property the two data sets to make sure we weren't like duplicating efforts and eliminating those properties out of the DCA data set at the outset that we already had evaluated before this information was available and then we continued to evaluate
the balance of the DC A's um data set to determine its appropriateness and this was done not just by myself and my office but in conjunction um with your office as well as others within the within the township to go through I mean there definitely this is a wealth of knowledge over here you know he's recite and as is Allan quite frankly who all I had to say was a block number and he knew where the property was so we went through it methodically it took a very long period of
time to go through all the all the parcels as you can imagine you know Monroe has a lot of parcels and we were able to reduce the number of quote unquote developable Acres from what the DCA asserted which was 1258 developable Acres within Monro Township and we were able to lower that number to about 260 acres of developable land so we were able to eliminate almost a thousand developable acres from the equation using
a variety of methods whether it's they're not sewered whether they're environmentally sensitive like I said before have development already on them are owned by the township and they're either going to be put on the recreation open space inventory or in an easement for municipal purposes we were able to significantly reduce that number so what do I do with that right so as I said the the DCA has identified in Region 3
11,600 and for put prospective affordable housing units within the total region and and our Monroe's obligation is calculated against that number based on three factors and these three factors are equally weighted not one factor is weighted heavier than the other the first is a non-residential valuation factor and that's basically an analysis of the overall value of non-residential pro properties within the entirety of the
region and then divide it up amongst the different municipalities and our share of that valuation factor is 4.78% that is not a challengeable factor we through the methodology you know we cannot challenge that factor they didn't give us the details and the data and the raw data to evaluate those factors similarly there's a regional income capacity Factor where they they calculated out the overall income change in
the income level in the region and uh Monroe's income Factor was 2.45% again that's not a challengeable number the number that is challengeable or the factor that is challengeable is the land capacity Factor the DCA had Monroe's land capacity at 12.19% and that's based on that 1259 acre analysis what we've done is we have modified that factor to
2.56% % so significantly reducing it from the 12.19% and the way we went about doing this is the following we took the starting acreage subtract the final acreage dividing by the starting acreage which gives you a percentage we subtracted that percentage from one to give you the percent change that we're dealing with we then multiplied that number by the
12.19% to get us to the 2.56 number then what you have to do is you have to average the three factors and when I say average we're talking basic math add up the three numbers divide by three so it's not like there's any kind of outside you know factor in there which reduced what they call the average allocation factor from 6.47% to 3.26% so we basically
cut it in half or a little more than half you take that 3.26% number which is now our average allocation which is the average of those three factors and you multiply that by the 11,604 affordable housing units the DCA say says this region needs which has enabled us to reduce the overall number to 378 credits from the 751 so all that being said is
that we have meticulously gone through the and area Factor subtracted out pretty much everything we could possibly subtract out and when and I want to say this too because this is important to know we were very aggressive in removing properties so if it's outside the sewer service area we removed it if somebody wants to come in and try to get a particular property included in the SE service area and run sewer however far you know potentially that could affect the number moving forward but I
wanted to start as aggressive as possible because we now have to get this approved through the program which is a group of retired judges that have been charged with overseeing this whole process um as well as fair share housing center and technically based on the legislation they were not supposed to have the same seat at the table as they did in the last go around but no one's 100% convinced that that's going to happen so we're still not 100% sure on how significant their role is go
ahead Chris you mind if I jump absolutely am terribly Council just to give you a little context can you hear me speak a little louder please okay good thank you perfect so just to provide a little context uh it's good to be here so the um the amended bill when it came out in 2024 signed by Governor Murphy it set up um several stages of this entire process and Miss beam was correct that if you engage in this process you are given a period of
immunity and each time you get to each milestone in the bill your immunity is continued for the next stage and so the first stage that was set out is figure out your obligation and so that is every municipality has an opportunity by January 31st to determine Based on data looking at math looking at engineering figure out what is the actual number that has to be calculated pursuant to the methodology set out in the statute
so that's step one and what uh your professionals have been engaged with and that is raw numbers raw data we get to that first step by January 31 every municipality submits their number to what is called the affordable housing dispute resolution program the program is really it's within the court system and that this resolution will be submitted and then there's going to be a one-month period for entities
uh nonprofits developers to potentially bring a challenge the important thing to realize is your number that you're adopting through this resolution is given a presumption of validity that's a really high burden it's a really good burden uh the law the amended statute that was adopted in 2024 uh sets out a very high standard so anyone who comes in over the next month and tries to challenge this um binding resolution can't just simply say you know I'm challenging it they have
to come forward with calculation with math with data so that's what we'll be engaged with over the coming month um after that one month period um there will be an opportunity for the program to review any challenges and the next stage of this process is developing a housing element and fair share plan that comes up with the compliance mechanisms to fulfill that number so it's a two-step process we're in the stage right now of getting the
number correct based on the data I think that's all I'm going to say right now I'll turn it back so just to piggyback a little bit on that ultimately the way the legislation is is drafted it's states by June 30th of 2025 every municipality that's participating in this process has to have an approved housing element and fair share plan along with drafts
of any implement imp menting ordinances that would come afterward it's an extremely aggressive schedule especially for municipal government and I think that a lot of people in the business are skeptical that these deadlines are going to be maintained however I think it's important to note that you know until they are changed through legislation or some Court action it's important that we hit these Milestones that Christopher referenced because if we miss a deadline
we lose immunity so it's important for us to keep on track um so the housing element fair share plan would be presented to the planny board for approval as part of a master plan element and then come before you for endorsement so in theory we would have to be done with all of those things pretty much by the end of May in order to meet the noticing requirements to get the hearing done at the planning board to come back to you
here to get endorsed prior to June 30th so in reality we have until the end of May to get you know the work finished and I don't want to mislead anyone and it's it has been a a tremendous undertaking so we haven't started that housing process right now we've been so focused on the numbers and getting Monroe the lowest possible number that we feel is defendable um in order for us then to start the planning process it's also important to note that in this legislation
um the bonuses that were previously available for communities to take so for example I'm sure you've heard if it's a rental you get a two for one bonus that's gone now they don't give that two for one bonus anymore there's a different bonus structure they're actually pretty strict um and the majority of them are half a credit per unit as opposed to two for one so you know we intend to max out to the best we can the bonuses if you're near mass
transportation you get a bonus if you're part of a Redevelopment you get a bonus supportive needs housing gets bonuses seniors get bonuses there's a whole Litany of them it's a lot more broad it's a lot broader than in the past um the other thing that's important to note is that the cap on the number of senior units has increased from 25% to 30% it's a modest increase but that could be helpful because a lot of communities were not able to take credit for all the senior units that they were a you know they were able to capture in Prior round
because it hit that 25% cap um so there are some nuanced differences to the legislation but the big picture which is kind of what we're here to talk about tonight is how we went about following the methodology to adjust the number um I recommend and I'm sure Christopher does too that you approve this resolution and then it would enable Christopher and your office to file
a declaratory judgement action within 48 hours to make sure we're compliant in participation which will protect us and give us immunity as we start to work out how we're going to implement this process one more thing my goal is that once we get this done right tonight and then the DJ actions filed that we can start putting together like the framework of a housing element you know you have to do the demographic portion of it which is
all census that all all that work can be done you know in advance we know we're going to be dealing with at least 378 units we could start to come up with a plan to address that so that at the end of March when this dispute resolution process with the number terminates we're not starting from zero we've already gotten a good chunk of this done and maybe if there's a couple units that we have to account for in addition to the 378 we're only dealing with the difference we're not dealing with the totality so that
we can continue to aggressively move forward towards this June deadline and then I think anybody who wants to challenge our housing element has the summer pretty much to do it August and then the intention of the bill is that all those draft ordinances that are in the housing element that's approved in June get formally adopted July August right July August yep that's right so that's kind of it in a nutshell I feel like the process is extremely
aggressive I feel like there's going to be a lot of communities within the state that have significant obligations far and above what we're dealing with here that I have a hard time believing they're going to be able to pull it together in like a month but we'll see what happens two items um first is the resolution that you're adopting and even if it wasn't memorialized in the resolution you would still have this ability if there are any changes in the law any amendments to the statutory
structure any court case that come down that um that might result in a down in ability to um apply or to to establish a lower number you've reserved that ability to claim to exercise that right so if if the Law changes in the next few months uh the the the township can always modify its number the second is we're referring to the number uh in fact what you're what you're determining is your fair share obligation of the
Regional need for affordable housing and the the resolution uh establishes two numbers one is your present need number that's what are the number of units you have to rehabilitate in town they already exist and the second portion is your prospective need that's new construction if uh Jen mentioned that I apologize but just want to make sure that's you're it's really establishing two portions of your entire fair share obligation so the number that I've been
talking about the 751 which got adjusted down to 378 that's your new constructed construction obligation or your prospective need the present need is 76 units that's what needs to be rehabed now I don't really need to get too far into the weed of this because we're going to work through this as the process goes but as far as the rehab number goes it's really just a matter of allocating money in your spending plan for a re rehab program I mean you guys this is not new right you guys have been doing this a while and you you continue to participate in the rehab program if people at to to
you requesting uh rehab funds they get income qualified the funds are distributed if the resident stays in the house for 10 years or longer it's forgiven if they leave prior to 10 years they have to repay the loan to the trust fund but if no one comes the fact that you have the money allocated and you're participating in the program satisfies that prong so I don't want people to panic that oh my God we don't have that many units to rehab as long as we
allocate the money for it as well as engagement in the program like of the rehab program that satisfies that obligation which is why we focus especially at this point so much on the new construction number because that's going to be more impactful with new rooftops that are coming in so that's kind of why we focus on that prong Chris you have nothing more to add now you both no thank you okay um I'd like to council president could I add one thing sorry really quick before we open to public and Jen if I
could just add to your and Chris's testimony briefly um and I know tonight we're talking about setting the number and hopefully no one challenges it over the next month and Chris to your point that we are presumptively correct in the legislation is is terrific I do want to point out that the number of 378 to Jen's Point um hopefully we'll be able to get and I know they're defined differently but hopefully we'll be able to achieve those 25% bonuses um that are available which hopefully will bring the number down closer to like 284 from the 3
uh 376 and then as many people in the room also know um when we built the uh Valor point or the veterans housing which was going to be originally 37 units we're able to apply for uh federal tax credits and make that a bigger project of 80 units so we actually go into the next round with an additional 43 units sort of in our pocket so that would bring it down closer to 241 if we got all those bonus credits and we'll be
looking for more so I just don't want everyone to think that it would automatically be 378 ultimately as we get closer to the plan this group and our professionals would be working using all the tools in the toolbox to bring that number using all the legislation that was past and all the all the tools to bring that number down because as many people um here know for every unit that has to be built um that is Affordable through this process um when you see it being built and it's built by people other than
the township itself there are Market rates units that are built as part of it and that's where the the numbers can get larger because there are four of those for every one and previous rounds we'll obviously try and make that lower in this round there's no magic formula but that has been the in the past it has been 4 to one um so we'll be looking to make that lower as well but I just with the 378 number I did want to put a little context about the bonuses and the credits that we have going into next round
so hopefully we are at a a number that's more fair and appropriate within the legislation thank you council president and there's other methodology just to piggyback on that so like a supported needs house which is a single family house with four bedrooms in it for let's say a developmentally disabled adults right Dev adults with autism or you get credit per bedroom so it's not like one house one credit you get credit for per bedroom so there are ways to minimize the number of new rooftops there's extensions of controls there's a whole
Litany of things that we can do to keep the to you can still get to the 378 credit number but doesn't need to be 378 new roofs with the market rate correct so we're going to be as aggressive as possible to minimize the number of new rooftops as we can understood I would like a motion please to open the public comment section Mo thank you may I have a second on that second thank you all in favor anyone opposed no we need to
relocate I got it you get it yep good you want me to sit over there at the podium so well we've got to make room for okay okay don't run away okie dokie now is an extra mic one hopes you're far better with Mike than many
of us yeah this is the public comment section it is limited to agenda items only at this point we really wish that our residents who are here who wish to comment specifically and have the ability to have their questions answered that you come forward now to the microphone giving us your name and address for the record each speaker will be limited to 5 minutes anyone having
any questions in the public about this please come forward now Sher min9 Nathaniel street so is my calculation correct if we get approval for the 378 units of affordable housing times 4 would be 1,512 market rate units that would be built in conjunction
with the affordable housing no what would be the actual number I don't know yet because we have to maximize out the bonuses based upon the projects and the availability of the bonuses and then also you know depending on how aggressively the the town is with respect to a set asde so maybe we say no we're not going to accept a 20% set asde you're going to have to give us a 25% set aside or there's a supportive needs housing which is one unit with four bedrooms and we
get four credits for that plus we get a bonus credit per bedroom in the support of needs housing so it's more than just a straight like the 378 and I think that's what Mr Weinberg was referring to is that that's Our obligation that's credits not units so we have to work through the process at currently at the present time I have reviewed no proposals for affordable housing for this round I know you have had interested people but I haven't seen anything so I can't tell you definitively
now and if I did it would be disingenuous because it's going to depend on number one getting through dispute resolution solidifying the number maximizing the bonuses the best we can taking credit for you know Surplus credits from the prior round which I think you refer to and I think there's more that we there are more so so okay so we only have 30% delivery on the current uh this is on the third round situation so what happens we we
we're not even finished with our third round we're going into our fourth round that third round was supposed to be done by 2025 so you keep saying no but I was at the court case so okay do you want me to answer well he's I'm responding to Mr Weinberg but you can answer we're doing I bet her answer okay so it's not uncommon for like cosos to not be fully issued by the end of a cycle it happens in pretty much every town your
responsib ility as a Township or their responsibility as the governing body is to follow the regulations approve a a plan that has an implementation strategy in there provide the zoning and whatever other you know items were agreed to within the settlement agreement you you have to provide the opportunity so I know that there are some units that aren't built you know there are there are checkpoints that continue to happen there's a
midpoint review there's a annual review and when I say midpoint it's midpoint in the cycle so that has passed but the annual review is all those reports get submitted basically is a check and balance on the status you know but there's no requirement that the units have to be built we have to be done by 2025 it's a thank you because you're taking up my time okay so the land factors that are involved um how much of wetlands were calculated into our obligations
zero okay so all of our wetlands are going to be protected from development okay okay so let me just say this we don't really have the ability to protect the wetlands that's a state of New Jersey regulation and if somebody comes in with a development and applies to the D for a permit to fill an acre or less of wetlands and they receive that permit they're allowed to develop on that property so when I say all the answer is there's nothing that protects all of it there are processes
and buffer averaging and other mechanisms through development that can be employed so that all is not never going to happen what we've done is we've taken out of the calculation the environmentally sensitive areas and I will say too the DCA did not really include a lot of environmentally constrained area if the property was included on the list in many instances it wasn't the whole property it was a portion of the property so so they did not include environment for the most part they did not and when they did we removed it okay because just and I'm going to say it's not going to be well
received however a lot of times we have a Senators state senators and the people who I think are have conflicts of interest who come to this municipality and actually have uh applications who then go to the D and get permits for Wetlands when I think it's a huge conflict of interest and that does not protect the municipality of Monroe and I would like to also say that I have not I am not opposed
to the affordable housing issue I'm opposed to very wealthy uh developers coming in doing a whole lot of Market rates and we don't see that our affordable housing uh the necessity for affordable housing is being really addressed because the and you don't have to answer this this a sort of a rhetorical question I figured it wasn't really a question so I figured I wasn't so um I
I think it is unfortunate that things are happening we have a community that that pays all the prices and the applicants and some of our uh elected officials not necessarily in Monroe but in the state get the benefit of all this market rate housing and and Monroe citizens uh and and other citizens in the State uh really pay the price for all this and I'm worried about environmentally sensitive areas I'm worried
about high congestion and as much as I believe in affordable housing I think the plans are really do a disservice to our community thank you for your comments anyone else wishing to address the council please come forward now your name and address for our record sir good evening Adam Elias 93 Old Church Road I was just kind of
curious how how it inter inter uh interacts rather with the Green Acre obligation and the um you know does the new statute or does your planning at all accommodate for so I'm actually kind of the opposite of view of the last uh resident where I'm wondering if all the open space I think I looked at the master plan the last one that we did was like 50% of the land in the town between wetlands and open space was like 50% so I would kind of want to know if some of that open space could potentially be converted to satisfy the obligation instead of clustering more of the housing does that give
more leeway or is it no so if a piece of property is on what we refer to as the rosi which is a recreation open space inventory which is regulated through the D it's a Green Acres as part of the D you can't to take a piece of property off the Rossi is extremely complicated could it be done it could but it's like to get a piece of property off the Rossi alone is at least a two-year process if if not longer has to
be done through a diversion you have to find a piece of property it's typically 5 to one so if you take an acre you have to find five acres of equally classified property do a very expensive survey and get the State House Commission which meets like twice a year to approve it before you can even entertain it so generally what happens is once a a piece of properties on the rosi it's not considered available so when you're looking at affordable housing you have to
be able to prove that the site is available and being on a rosi makes it not available so it's it's not something that um the state even entertains us to look at like the DCA and we have eliminated all property that's on the Rossy from our calculation which I think is wild because the state is imposing this obligation there's conflicting okay so when you go to the state the D and the DCA do not play nice in the sandbox then you enter in the dot again not a nice partner so they they don't cooperate
with each other um so also so you basically took kept that all out in your calculation all right um I believe you guys were also doing the master plan when we did it a couple years ago were you I was a subc consultant to the consultant that the township had hired yes so based on what you guys have determined are the uh the minimum number of units that we can do to satisfy the obligation how do you see that uh interacting with the master plan do you think that's going to be an impediment so the housing element and fair share plan which is a requirement of this process is an element of the master plan so that has to be adopted by the
end of January and will be incorporated into the master plan no I'm asking if you personally think that it's going to affect the master plan as which was you know approved two years ago okay just one thank you so much thank you you're welcome sir please hi I'm mam president my name is Anan karnati Le preservation drive thank
you so uh this affordable housing please pardon use the microphone so you can all hear the question you're asking the calculations you mentioned you know 378 is that the one time deal or every year you're doing this one it's a 10e cycle 10 year CLE cycle is 2025 to 2035 so this number satis is for the entirety of the 10e 10 year okay next question is how this is going to benefit our residents Monro own so here's the
answer it's a constitutional obligation so it's in our New Jersey state constitution that municipalities have to provide for an opportunity for loow mounted income housing and so what I will say is is that the intent behind that is that you have low to moderate income households in your community that need housing so that's the benefit that's the way they put it but it's a constitutional obligation does it impact our taxes how it is impacts I mean no different than any other development it's you
know there'll be an assessment associated with whatever development happens and it goes into the overall valuation of the community and this is not Section 8 housing I want to be very clear it's not subsidized housing a a for sale housing unit will have a mortgage will pay taxes Etc if it's a rental project the rental owner will have property taxes and and they will you know it's not subsidized housing people have to show an income how this ordinance is burden on municipalities pardon what do you mean
municipalities means you know taxes and burden on the work force it's unfortunate but they don't care it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what your super capacity is it doesn't matter what your infrastructure is your obligation is a constitutional obligation it's been going on since the mid 80s goes every 10 years I mean the last cycle was long because we couldn't get any regulations approved but in general this is you know this is a a discussion at 10,000 ft at the legislature and the impact at local
level is really not factored in other than if the land can handle the property or not but if the road's not wide enough the road needs to be widened if you don't have capacity in your sewer the sewer has to be adjusted and that's their mentality is you we should do what needs to be done to provide the housing so whoever is the applicant got granted this you know so kind of so the developers of affordable housing have been very successful in lobbying both the legislature and the court system
and so there's regulations that prevent towns from putting owner Financial burdens on developers that are building affordable housing development it's called cost generative so you can't expect someone that's building affordable housing because in theory and I'm not saying I agree with it but this is the theory that the the market rate units that are being developed subsidize the affordable units and that there's not a lot of margin in that project
so to burden the developers with like uh tree clearing is a big one that came up in Jackson and Jackson lost the argument uh extending infrastructure uh like a light putting in a traffic light a lot of these items have been determined by the courts to be cost generative and so what happens is is that the town has a trust fund which is money is in that trust fund from development it's not part of your general fund and so in some instances the IP alties have utilized funds out of
the trust fund to help offset some of these expenses so basically you know Builder is going to get you know get the incor all the expenses or anything burden on municipalities or people I'm not really understanding what you're asking all the infrastructure all the infrastructure cost who is going to pay that probably us um that means Municipal I'm not saying we're not going to ask or they'll pay their fair share of it
but if a light has to go in and they're contributing 10% of the traffic to the intersection they pay 10% of the cost they don't pay the whole cost so 90% burden is on the municip well and other if you can capture it from other people other places but at the end of the day our hands are tied like these this leg whose hands are tight our hands means town the town Town town the legislation came down from the state the legislators passed this legislation last year prior to that there were regulations that had been put in place in the 9s that were required to follow
so and the towns fight it there's there is currently litigation pending on the procedural litigation about how some of these things were adopted so far the towns have a 0% success rate okay just to add one item to that and this this Doctrine this uh this bill comes from comes out of years and years of litigation as well case law from the Supreme Court so a lot of what comes and is brings us to
this this stage and that the bill responds to is case law over years that has established a Doctrine in New Jersey so that's one additional item is there any website is available Township is Mr carna your time is up now okay thank you please thank you very much for your comments yes please again your name and address for our records
it takes the fat away anyway gets rid of the wrinkles um Lucio Panos 128 SE andero Plaza Monroe happy New Year everybody it's been a good one so far but anyway I my questions are and I'll run my questions through in the Nu answer jici okay that's my usual thing um we're not we're responsible for all the infrastructure I I don't or some of it
is what I understood from the last one so why why are we not including land that doesn't have water and sewer you is a possibility of a developer coming in he wants to develop 200 units and 50 as long as 50 are affordable housing he gets to do whatever he wants with the rest well he should be able he you should leave that Land open to and let him put in water and sewer you know that would seem a reasonable thing instead of culating everything into just so many
acres 260 Acres um that was question one question two it's the place of Valor was mentioned and that's a concern with a lot of seniors in this area or veterans from what I'm understanding there's 80 units and 37 off of veterans why do is that you know that's my question you could you know when it's done and could somebody please explain to to the public that difference between units and credits so I
can easily so as I said earlier units are physical units right credits are you can incorporate bonuses so I think we've gone through that a couple times so 25% of your total obligation can be taken as bonus credits meaning not a physical unit you're going to get a bonus credit on some type of unit whether it's near mass transportation if it's I okay I got that part thank you you know that you just explain right but I mean you asked me
the question again so I figured I would answer it but the and is the possibility of how many you know could folks would you use the microphone please there the possibility of how many units and such and it's still not a solid number but when Michelle answered asked a question what's the number well you couldn't really give them we give you right so the obligation that we've adjusted is 378 I can't give you a number because I don't have any projects yet so I can't
tell you what bonuses or how many are going to be applied right but listen you're just alluding to it as if it's a goody good thing oh we could get these bonuses and we could possibly get these bonuses and it might not happen at all it is going to happen it is going to happen maybe we don't get up to more def Michelle if you're definitely going to happen maybe she should have got a definitive answer I think the way that may hold on one second Christopher so I can definitively tell you that you we're going to be eligible for bonuses can
I definitively tell you where and how many no so I can't give you a bottomline number because I don't have projects with which to weigh the bonuses against but we will attempt to we're eligible for up to 25% and I think that's what you it's like 95 I got that thank my apologies I didn't fully you know I wanted everybody else to fully understand it cuz me who knows some of this didn't fully understand it okay well why she didn't get her answer so
uh my question about the not including land with not including land with the water and sewer abilities um why not why not we are including the land that has water and sewer no but why if you include more land the number goes up oh okay so if we include more property then the number gets closer to the 751 number okay continuously adjust it down we have to keep the number as low as possible who's going to answer oh where can I get a these judges that are going to
be on this panel that you know it's on the website there's a website all the judges are listed on your website of the if you go to uh Google and you type in affordable housing dispute resolution program there is a website in that is just set up for this program gives you lots of information lets you see what other towns have done um sure thank you Statewide Statewide and then before the valid question because this might not be so popular either and please don't take
it personal um but we have this young man from the law firm that the township attorney from the law firm is that the speaker of the assembly Law Firm I mean it's either is that a goody good thing a good thing or is it a conflict I think maybe there should have been more people involved in this time is a question I know Mr Weinberg do you want to quickly comment yet again about how the B right
so Val how many apartments are in The Valor there's 80 units I'm told with 37 available for veterans but it's called Valor no if I canoun please would you let explain it again so when we did the uh round three settlement um 37 units were in there for uh veterans only and that's part of our settlement so 37 will be for veterans only when we did the tax credit financing with the hmfa we were able to do that as a veterans pref
which means veterans will be go in unless no veterans apply to go into the other 43 units if we don't fill the other 43 units we lose the 43 credits and they become a 4:1 ratio and you get to build another 172 Plus 43 units you get to build another 200 units somewhere in the town so if no veterans apply for those other 43 units instead of leaving them empty of non veteran Americans will move into them I hope there's a a big out reach to the V have 100% there
is anyone else wishing to speak please come forward now I'm going to go back to the agenda items George gunkelman five Kelly Court yes sir um amongst the ordinances for introduction um 005 um
Bond ordinance providing Recreation improvements um my question is to do what where could you repeat that number I had difficulty hear uh it's it's just the the last uh of the ordinances for introduction correct correct the bond ordinance so I I can answer that if you want council president I would appreciate it sure would you like answer now Mr gunman or at the end sorry sure
sure okay so as part of the master plan um and then thereafter the master plan we created two phases of recreational Pro uh program improvements phase one and phase two this is some design money to begin to move forward on both phase one and phase two projects um I can show you where they're on our we on our website in order for us to move forward on these we would first have to put the bonding in place as you see here and then come back to the council with approval uh for design contracts so they're all part of our master plan
uh Outreach effort as part of the recreation uh uh Recreation plan phase one and phase two so the 250,000 is for design only would it's not going to do anything it's just going to design what we would do well yeah yeah you have to design something to do something yeah yes one would hope yes um thank you um in amongst the
cons consent agenda item 031 yes architectural services apparently we for forgot to design something up front and now we're going to pay another 125,000 for additional architectural fees right so this if I could answer council president right so this this firm is doing both uh three components they do the design um they do the bidding and then they do the construction management phase we're in the construction management phase and I was
going to update this a little bit in my report um but the project has obviously moved a little bit slower than than we had liked although it's picking up in the last month or so with the roof going on so this is for construction Management Services this will help us get through uh pay us through December and January and carry us through February and March as well with construction management and hopefully that'll bring us towards the end of the project um collectively this will bring us our design our design bidding and construction management will take us through 16.2%
of the cost of the bid of the project which is not an exorbitantly high number for a design bid and uh architectural design bid and construction management for a complicated project to expand an existing building council president so the project they designed initially and they're managing for us they're taking longer to achieve and because there's a Time overrun we're
going to reward them with more fees correct if I could council president they're not taking they're not taking more time the contractor who's the low bidder is taking more time than we would like um now that we're at the end of the contract period and we're going to give them if I could yeah well not not the construction manager but this is my baileywick the what I did for a living for a very long time the idea that project management isn't responsible for the timeline that the subcontractors are is
silly and you wouldn't get away with it in any meeting they're not the cont I'm leave it okay I'm done with that you know it's just that is not the reality in this world maybe it is in in public Contracting but in commercial not for a second um my my other question is uh 030 and 039 are
the same item resolution authorizing refund of tax over payments correct so we're we're paying them twice it's it's not it's it's different people I can ask the clerk why they put them on separate resolutions it might have been handed in separately by the tax collector at different times but it's morly
administrative it's not different people it's not the same people correct I'll I'll look into it yes it's just two different groups why weren't they put together in one group you can ask you can ask the clerk yeah I believe they were just given to us at different times they didn't combine them but I'll look into it thank you it doesn't matter it just appeared to be a typo but it's not that's all I had thank you very much thank you council president you're welcome anyone else wishing to address the council on this issue that we
have been discussing with our planner and the attorney and or other issues that are agenda items only come forward now all right only what's on the agenda item not into the body of the meeting please Panos 128 Candera Plaza um could you 0 06 036 037 and 038
036 is please explain you know why there's a need for this um 037 how many lights or how many authorizing contract for how many crosswalk flashing light solar powered are we getting 20 it's 23,000 a light are we only getting one and 38 is what is the pricing
per unit what is the unit pricing the amount president 036 has to do with the preemption agreement for the intersection of prospect planes in Applegarth Road this is one of the uh last steps before they will be going out to bid for that uh that project uh the preemption is for emergency vehicles and the agreement is that the township has to maintain that the county will install it as part of the project but we maintain it is that because of the development that's going to happen there preemption I I know what preemption
is it's something councilman depiro requested for the First Responders so they can get through you never told me can't happen anyway council president with regard to 037 that is the uh the uh flashing uh solar powered crosswalk lights uh between the uh Community Center and mil Lake School on Mammoth Road okay but is that 23 22914 197 for one solar powered light
that's two solar powered lights one on each side of the road um this has been an item that's come up I know councilman depiro brought it up a couple times and we've been anxious to get this going and it's it's finally on the agenda I'm actually anxious for my own Community to see how much it is but um it's a little little much and the unit per the unit pricing for publication s ma'am I'm sorry you had that was I said 038 how much is the per unit pricing so how much much is it per unit contract I can um so I
believe it's about I think it's like 16,750 uh to print and mail to about the 23,000 or so uh residents that are on the bulk mailing council president so did you do the math I don't want to do the ma how much is it per unit how much is it per paper I mean I'll try and do it in my head uh 75 cents without a calculator all right thank you
anyone else please happy New Year everybody I'm Beth deiro 404 Spotswood Gravel Hill Road in Monroe Township um I would like to know if rounds one and two have fulfilled we fulfilled the obligation of the
affordable housing well I can answer that um so round one we're done round two um the affordable units are built but the market rates are still being built from 1997 um Monroe Manor was completed about 3 years ago but there are still 80 units in Stratford that are still being built at a clip of about 20 15 to 20 houses a year next to the Monroe Senior Center and I think in about four years even though it started in 1997 1998 uh it should be done in about four or
five years so between rounds two and round three how many more housing units are to be built for the affordable housing so as I just mentioned round two um there's about 80 units yet left for round three which was mentioned earlier I have the numbers in front of me um again as as the as our planner testified it's putting in place the zoning and the realistic opportunity to build them for the affordables 309 of the 850
have have cosos on them that's 36% of the affordable have been built for the market rate 1,252 of the 3,529 or 35% of the market rate um have been constructed have fos on them okay and the the building going on on Mount Mills Road I know they're not built yet but they're coming is that going to be considered round three or round four
everything in the town is round three except for the units next to uh the senior center that are part of Stratford so round four hasn't even been configured yet as to where we're literally sitting there trying to establish the number okay nothing has started on round four um except yeah that's really all I have thank you thank you sir this is like one we have people wishing to come up again I didn't argue with
you I merely just assume that you're doing thank you I'm just not used to you not arguing with me okay so just resolution 043 the resolution about the open space inventory and I know that um councilman deiro has often asked for that so is is this at this point as complete as we have as an updated and amended yes and it is available to the public is
it on where does that belong I just want to make sure I got this right if I could council president so this is adding 41 properties to it it's maintained by the D so these 41 properties will be added to it and it's it's housed on the D website so once this gets mailed into D the updated list is housed I believe on the D website you go under if you go on the Green Acres website there's a like a very simple pull down menu where you put in the county and the community and then
it will give you the entirety all by block and lot the entirety of the list that the in each specific Community like in Monroe in Monroe Township the list will be specific to Monroe Township okay thank you these 41 may take a couple weeks to get added to that once we mail say I wait 60 days but when when will we have it in house as a document that is updated I know you're saying that it's going to to the state that's great the
DP will have that but I know often you know we should have it as well I'm the whole the whole yep Kevin please I know it's been asked uh for many years and we haven't been able to get actually the most updated yeah council president we have it as a spreadsheet it was attached to the master plan included in the master plan process it's been updated I've provided it to councilman depiro I think several times even recently is the last couple weeks and we can certainly provide
it to you but is it anywhere now that like if I went home and found it on any of our websites in Monroe or I have to double check if it's included at the end of the master plan on the website of the planning board if it's not then I'll put it there so we actually do update it on a regular Bas so when this when we buy a new piece of property I put it on there okay yeah that's great thank you I'd like yeah I'd like to have a complete list and I know it's a a list that changes periodically but we should always have like a complete list on there CU that's very important the
Green Acres Program I know and unfortunately in Monroe we have had Green Acres land diversion and uh so it is possible it's a it's a sh it's shameful that it is possible that we take um Land from the township um uh parks and put municipal buildings on it but we did get uh we did get 77 Acres of diverted land some of which was really not the the same quality as Uplands in the park but
I know unfortunately it is possible it is it's just not easy sir again your name and address for our records please president Anan kti Le preservation dri I'm talking about 005 ordinance Bond ordinance providing for creation Improvement open space where
is this location uh can I may I know that locations where is that is it south side or north side so this is a bond authorization if I could council president this is a bond authorization so there's not a specific location yet there's an overall plan for locations in order for us to look at doing a contract and advancing something you have to have a funding source so the first thing you do is set up a funding source so should we come to the council with a specific location um we would have
to do it but it would all have been previously identified in the master plan but we haven't made a specific recommendation on which project yet but first you have to put money in place to be able to do that so I would request you know because I live in Southside you know I would request any Recreations you know southide if you could spend Council and you know president and everybody that would be great y thank you thank you you're welcome anyone else wishing to come before the council at this time seeing and hearing none I'm going to
request a motion to close the public hearing on the agenda session please moot thank you second second thank you all in favor I any opposed we will now move no you can't go anywhere I know this is the council I'm going to ask the council one by one going to begin on my extreme left with councilwoman seagull questions for about
to Jen and Chris regarding this information we've received thank you um so actually I had a bunch of questions today however your presentation was so thorough and it really um explained a lot of the questions that I did have so I thank you for that analysis I know we had a lot of material that we had also received um part of the evaluation so it was very thorough so actually I have no questions other than say thank you for the information and hopefully people in the public that aren't here today will come back and watch the video because
I think you explained it really well thank you Council vice president vanzor I don't have any questions I think Jennifer did a a wonderful job explaining things and it's not a it's not a simple topic either so uh to get into the weeds and read all the different things that that apply um I took my notes and uh I feel like I understand exactly what you said so thank you so much for coming no problem councilman Markel yeah
my only my only question is a new is it is I know this is a new system this year so there's not much experience from this but um from your guess um they have 30 days to challenge our number like outside sources what is your guesstimate that will be challenged by outside sources I know the the the state can't challenge it right stay can't challenge it I'm fairly confident you have one
or two pretty heavy-hitting experienced developers that are have been in and around Monroe over the years I would venture to Guess that if they have experience they're going to do something to get them like in the process um will they have done a deep dive into the numbers like we did definitely not I mean they don't have the historic knowledge either so you know it was invaluable to have your office as well as Allan your information
to help guide because you know I I pulled up a property and they're like oh yeah that property we did that so there's no way an outside developer is going to have that level of inside knowledge but I would be very surprised that a community as as significant as this given the players that have been here in the past if we don't have one or two of them in the mix thank you councilman deiro thank you very much um I have quite a bit of questions so so hopefully we can go through one by one
um my first question is you said we have a bunch of players you know in the town um living here my entire life watching these um Builders come in and get approvals um does the town planning board or the town have any recourse if a developer that came here for round two round three did not fill out obligation and it's coming in front of this board for round four is there anything um I know it's a legal question I'm glad we
have two attorneys here um but does the town have any say if de a developer or a player comes in and says hey I want this and we're going to give them 4 to1 3:1 and they didn't fill their obligations to the to us um in the in the previous rounds so the short answer is is that how you satisfy your obligation is up to you you're not obligated to put anyone in this plan you get to pick and choose the projects
that you want where you want them given what's come your way I mean obviously if nobody comes to the table it's a little different situation but you're not obligated to put anyone in you're obligated to hit the 378 which is where we are at now if you have a plan and and I've had experience with this in other towns where there's a local developer and has you know has a long-standing history with the community and was involved in round two was involved in round three but this past round they were very aggressive and but yet have
done nothing in the entirety of this round which was 25 years um they're going to have a hard time getting a seat at the table right because we don't feel like they've negotiated in the past in good faith um but we still have to satisfy Our obligation so if we can satisfy without them and we say listen you know your credibility is shot you've told us you were going to do this multiple times now it's a bait and switch and we
don't really trust your motives and we have other you know projects that we feel would be more beneficial to satisfying the obligation you're out of luck you can do that that's assuming you have the ability to meet the obligation if you can't meet the obligation and we're short it puts us in a little difficult situation because we're not compliant with whatever the number turns out to be so in that in that particular instance I feel and Christopher you can correct me if I'm wrong we're going to get pressure from fair share housing center and the
court because we haven't hit the number that we need to hit so if we can come up with a plan without them you're totally entitled to do that okay when you say we who is exactly we is it the counil mayor and Council or is a planning board when you say we so so technically this is a a different scenario than you would typically find for a master plan like typically a master plan is 100% a planning board initiative except for this process because this process also involves the expenditure of money so
part of your housing element includes your spending plan which shows how you're going to spend the money in the trust fund and you have to commit to bond for certain things if you don't have money in the trust fund so there's a financial component to this particular element of the master plan that's separate into part from like a land use element or a circulation element secondly part of this process the you the mayor and Council are obligated to zone for whatever project gets incorporated
into the plan so like the days where people say yes you're in our housing plan congratulations and then they go to the planning board with 8,000 variances and get denied the legislature kind of caught on to that and eliminated that possibility so now you have to zone for it my experience is in every town that I work in and I was just telling Christopher this earlier I'm doing this in 28 towns right now so throughout the state the mayor and Council are instrumental in the selection of those
projects that get incorporated into them um in certain towns there maybe like the planning board chairperson is incorporated into like a subcommittee where you have you know one or two governing body members the planning board chair because it does help when you get to the planning board for them to have been involved in some way shape or form before the plan in its entirety is kind of sprung onto them um but my experience has been the selection of projects because of all the components that
have to go into it money zoning Etc in in almost every single instance it's the governing body most times I have on like a committee a subcommittee during the negotiations I usually have like the mayor a council person and the ba they're the ones that are at the table during like mediation and negotiations okay so you mentioned Zone along with us like along with of course so you mentioned zoning um when you calculated the 260 Acres of
uh 42 square miles um 1258 you you sp you said that then you got it down to 260 Acres that you believe is developable land left in Monroe um my my question is did you use current zoning zoning is irrelevant so you didn't use any it doesn't matter so you didn't use any zoning and you can't right because people can come in and ask for variances as you just said no no it's not that you have to Zone the property for the project you have to you're obligated to so the underlying
zoning is irrelevant to the process because the zoning on a piece of property that you're selecting has to change so if it's Zone commercial it doesn't exclude it from the process because you have to rezone it to whatever the project is perfect example of that is man alapin Township the entirety of Route 33 zone non-residential right even for seasons is set like Way Way Back Knob Hill set Way Way Back majority of their projects are on 33 so all that property had to
be resed they had to run a new water main because they weren't anticipating the water demand but they you're expected to modify your zoning to address this issue well that's also uh creeping into Monroe as well the Route 33 State highways turning into a lot of apartment complexes or town Ware so so what what about when we purchased development rates do we get any credits Land Development rates you're talking about no we we buy a piece of a person owns uh 30 40 acres can could
build say 20 homes and we get funds from the state the county and we purchase development right so they it comes deed restricted so they cannot develop it do we get any kind of credit for that it just comes off the the Acres so we don't get any credit at all for this okay so when we purchase open space we purchased open space in the past we purchased um a nursing home home we purchased
a restaurant bar establishment um that's what we're talking about and getting credits um I guess with open space purchases no so you don't get credit for open space purchases but if it's deed restricted open space it cannot be calculated into the formula to generate your obligation it comes out of the total that's the 1,200 Acres down to 260 Acres those properties were removed that's why a th000 Acres was removed from the analysis so you don't get credit for it it just the overall number of Acres gets reduced which then
changes that land capacity factor which reduces the your obligation okay so I I know this developer that um is in our community and was in another Community neighboring Oldbridge and he tried to specifically build all affordable housing on as one parcel like what you're talking about is is the round four designed to specifically go to a parcel or when a developer comes in and he builds um a development each development do they have to put
affordable units in each development or can it just be a parcel specific for affordable hous it depends on how your settlement is identified there is a provision in the law that allows for offsite affordable housing I'm not a huge fan of it because there's a there's a schedule in the regulations that you can't build all the market rate before the affordable it has to kind of once you hit a certain number of Market rates the affordable has to start being built and when it's not on the same property
it's just more challenging but it can be done so you can say so another Community one Builder had two pieces of property not next to each other and it was evaluated by the town and the court in the prior round as one project and one of the sites has no affordable units and the other site has all the affordable units from both sites but the phasing evaluates it as if it's one project so you're not going to build the one 100% market rate while this one waits like it
it phas and it and fair share was very particular about that making sure that the phasing was put in every settlement agreement and that the SES are not issued so you can do it that way it's just a little bit more oversight to make sure that you know the Coos are being issued properly well how does DCA um how did they regulate that like say the past round did they did they want development they didn't want development on one particular parel like saying they don't really care it's up to the it's up to the town yeah okay all right so
they just want the units they really don't care where you put them so I looked at this list and um I just we I just got this Friday okay so and all of us just got it as far as I know Friday um and I just looked at two Parcels that you know that I personally own with my with my my wife or my family and it's it's pretty um non sewer service area I understand how the State puts it in tears and everything um it has my personal house which
I my wife and own for four we owned it for 40 years in a non sewer service area so either MTM or mtud owes my wife and I a lot of money because we do have water and sewer and I'm on this list as non sewer that's not what the list is well it says non sewer service area that that's there's a multitude of things your if your property is on the list of properties that were and I think we talked about this yeah I could talk about well I'm trying to I'm trying to understand so the bottom line is there's
a single house on a large piece of property the state's never going to let us take your whole site off the pro off the available developable list because a house is here and there's property back here that's what I saying earlier the parcel data that the DCA produced is not like your blocking lot in totality they took out portions of the property that are developed and anything that's on the list that went to the T that went towards the 260 acres has water and sewer yeah if it does not have water and sewer it would have been removed from the
list as not developable I can we do we do have water and sewer it was put in by the town and also by a developer in the in you know in the past but who made this list up thises not this list I can answer this question councilman so we received this list of the 1259 acres of developable land from the DCA based on the metrics that they put together through the legislation on that list of the 520 something properties obviously as
you noticed um included Your the land that you own on Spotswood Gravel Hill Road which has I guess five acres in the backyard right or has about 10 10 acres in the backyard I apologize um you know and and so they they identified behind your house right and way in the backyard some developable land that they thought could be developed as part of round four of affordable housing when we met match that up based on the sewer service area from your house forward this is just
looking at the map is in the sewer service area based on the maps that we looked at from your back of your house back right it doesn't show that it's in the sewer service area so we Tred to exclude not just for you but for anything in this in this uh 1,00 59 Acres of property and 521 Parcels anything that's not in the sewer service area we feel and we feel strongly about this we don't have to
include as developable as part of round four we don't have an obligation to add new things into a sewer service area to promote development and so we took you know a 100 Parcels out that were not in the sewer service area or pieces of pieces of parcels the front of your I don't want to get into too much detail is in the sewer service area but the back just on the map we looked at didn't show that was it we had to 521 Parcels so you had to you know had to go through it so that was my understanding of the
situation okay so thank you um so who so they made DCA made this list is what you're telling us so that so it's it sounds like that to be challenged with with your job that your firm did and you did a good job with this and thank you for getting the numbers down but it really doesn't sound like it could be challenged because this is the only thing that could be challenged is the land capacity is what your presentation said
so um we're going from 12.19 down to 2.56 so with that it doesn't sound it doesn't sound like our numbers could really go up they can only go down I would venture to Guess that the development Community would have a different opinion on that like I don't know what they're going to provide I don't know how detailed information that they're going to use to challenge the number I think the thing is I think that anyone who is Cons considering like putting forth a proposal probably
will challenge the number just to get them as part of the process because you can't just interject whenever you want now now it's a very controlled previously through the DJ action and the court stuff you know we had people making motions to intervene at various points in the process and there was no there was no prohibition of that you know I mean obviously the judge could say no you're too late but in general most of the time they let them in here there's a very clear defined today
right I put the put the premise out there um that they have in February so my guess is that if somebody thinks that they want to develop they're probably going to provide something now the thing is is that if you don't have a a whole Litany of people knocking down your door and the development Community can get what they need at the two at the 378 number they don't care right they just want to make sure that there's room for them so if we come up with a plan that
has two projects in it and we can get to the 378 number and developer number three is left out in the cold they're going to kick and scream about it right they're going to say our number needs to be higher so that they can get included into the plan that's kind of where I'm thinking their their thought process is going they have to prove it they do but I don't know to what level of proof is going to be required because we've never gone through this process it's all new so and you mentioned before you know you didn't say the words impact fees it sounded like that's like that's the that we don't talk about yeah we just don't
talk about the impact fees uh but we can ask for it I I absolutely ask I'm using the words that you said you can't ask there's no harm in asking right and and depel depending on the the magnitude of whatever the project is you know some infrastructure improvements listen Road widening those types of things on their side of the street and along their Frontage that's pretty typical I wouldn't consider that cost generative if that had to happen but if the road needs to be widen like for a long stretch that goes beyond their property we
can ask my guess is that they're going to say no but we still as aggressive as possible also it's important to note that if major infrastructure improvements are necessary like water man or something like that and you have however many units in a particular area that this infrastructure needs to be improved in and the set aside for affordable housing is 20% you can use trust fund dollar up to 20% of the value of that Improvement so you don't have to to take it out
of your general fund you can use trust fund dollars plus it's important to know you can also Bond against that trust fund so if there's a major Improvement that is necessitated through affordable housing and you don't have the balance in the trust fund currently you can Bond against it and then pay Down The Debt Service with the development fees that come into the trust fund so there are methods to care my last question is with your experience and and you come well recommended from our our Law Firm um and with your recommendation I mean with your
um track record what would you say one of the residents brought up 4 to1 ratio on the marketable so it would if this is going to whatever our number is going to be um it's 378 or lower what do you think the marketable rates marketable homes would be roughly about so around four I can tell you the development Community will come in and push for 15% which for me is a hard no so that would be a no right off the bat then they turn it around and I think there like I think that there's
justification for us to say no because historically if you did a rental project where you got two for one bonus credits it was a smaller set aside of 15% but eliminating those bonus credits kind of in my mind eliminates the 15% like now everything should be a straight 20% but I'm we should start at 25% at least like how Township 30% in the last round man alapin Township 24% in the last round Hillsboro Township 24% in the last round you
don't want to give us 24% have a nice day someone else will be more than happy to do so and like the judge even told developers in man Alin if you don't come to the table with 24% they're not going to listen to you so you can ask for more they're going to fight it you know they're going to fight about it especially considering the cost of construction lately has been higher than it has been in the past but there's nothing that says we have to accept 20% you know what I mean we can push for higher num and we should because that would decrease the overall number of
units that's necessary all right thank you for for everything thank you thank you council president you're most welcome I am would like to say thank you very much welcome for the professionalism of the information that you gave fact base is always very helpful no problem I am going to ask for a motion to adjourn our agenda meeting please council president if I may um
after review resolution R30 was uh duplicated with R39 there was just one additional property added for the overpayments so thank you Mr gunkelman um so R30 I would like to have removed okay thank you do that when we do the session thank you we can than so much she's letting me we'd like to adjourn our meeting may have motion motion thank you so much a
second on that second thank you roll call please councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes council president Cohen yes this meeting is adjourned the agenda meeting is adjourned it's 802 much regular meeting is called to order motion please motion thank you second thank you again roll call please councilman de yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes
Council vice president vanzora yes council president Cohen yes meeting is in order the time is 8:02 may I have a motion to approve the payment of claims per the run date of January 23rd 2025 so moved second thank you roll call councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes council president Cohen yes motion carries may I have a motion
to approve the minutes of the following meetings as written and presented December 18th 2024 agenda and regular combined meeting January 6th 2025 agenda and regular combined meeting motion please thank you second thank you roll call councilman toiro councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora St council president Cohen yes motion carries
ordinance for the second reading 01225 d001 supervisory Personnel 2025 salary and wage ordinance for Monroe Township middlex County like a public hearing so may I have a motion please motion thank you a second on that second thank you all in favor I I any opposed nay anyone wishing to address the Council on 01225
001 please come forward now seeing and hearing none I'm going to ask for a motion to close the public hearing motion thank you second second all in favor by any opposed may I have a motion to adopt 01225 001 so move thank you second second thank you roll call councilman deiro yes councilman marel
yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes council president Cohen yes motion carries thank you 01225 d002 ordinance authorizing the recording of easements for municipal purposes of various Municipal owned Parcels public I need a motion to open a public hearing motion thank you a second on that second good all in favor
no opposition anyone on the P from the public wishing to address us on this ordinance please come forward now seeing and hearing none motion to close public hearing motion second second all in favor I no objections may I have a motion to adopt ordinance 01 202- 00001 00002 00002 some moved thank you a second second thank you roll call please
councilman Ziro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora council president Cohen yes motion carries thank you five is ordinance for our first reading a 01225 d003 it's an ordinance amending chapter 79 police department rules and regulations by repealing article 1 through 5 and 8
and amending and relocating chapter 79 article 6 2 through 7 and articles 9 through1 13 to chapter 3 administration of government article 6 Department of administration and finance subsection 3-50 division of police motion please motion thank you a second second thank you roll call councilman's appear yes councilman marel councilwoman seagull
yes Council vice president vanzora council president Cohen thank you motion carries thank you for introduction 01225 d004 Bond ordinance providing for various roadway sidewalk and curb improvements by and in the township of Monroe in the county of middlex state of New Jersey appropriating of 1,700,000 therefore in authorizing the issue of 1,619
th000 in bonds or notes of the township to finance part of the cost thereof a motion please so most thank you a second second thank you a roll call councilman deiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes council president Cohen yes motion carries thank you 0120255 Bond ordinance providing for Recreation improvements on open space buying in the township of Monroe in
the county of middlex state of New Jersey appropriating $250,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of $238,000 in bonds or notes of the township to finance part of the cost thereof motion please motion second second thank you roll call councilman toiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes counc counc vice president vanzora yes council president Cohen yes motion carries thank
you would the clerk please do the resolation resolutions for consideration under the consent agenda r1225 d29 through R1 20250 046 minus we will be removing R1 20230 thank you have a motion so moved may I have a second second thank you roll
call councilman deiro uh council president I'd like to um there's two resolutions I like to specify I haven't done this before so um there R12 25031 and r102 25038 I would be a no vote for those two and taking out the one that our Township
Clerk talked about um the rest I would I would say yes to make that no be a separate so the 31 and the 38 I'm a no we'll have a thir we'll have a separate vote okay so that's the way because I know that that I had this conversation with Allan before and he says um you could do that but look they're giv me the right to tell you to do it the other way just check with the layer on my left we're doing it the other way uh after hearing the Public's comments and everything
about this I uh want to do change your heart on on uh I'm listening to what the public said that's fine there's no you know that's fine removing them so we will remove them okay okay I'm sorry for the confusion that's all right yeah okay so right now we have a motion and a second for the resolutions
under the consent agenda removing R1 20253 and removing resolution R1 20250 031 and 038 off of the consent agenda corre okay roll call we will vote for that yes uh councilman deiro this is to remove them correct all right yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes council president Cohen motion
carries okay okay so this is us voting now on the resolutions on the consent agenda R1 2025 029 through R1 20246 r122 25030 was removed r120 25031 and
038 is removed off the consense agenda will be voted on separately thank you start so we need a motion we need a motion please motion thank you we need a second second thank you we need a roll call councilman deiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora council president Cohen motion carries now we have a motion to for the resolutions that we remove for
the consent from the consent agenda you want each of them separately thanks so much okay first resolution is R1 20231 we need a motion motion to approve thank you we need a second second we need a roll call councilman deiro no councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes council president Cohen motion
carries now we do another one R1 2025 38 motion motion approve thank you second second roll councilman deiro no councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora council president Cohen motion carries that's it that was it okay good I'm so excited
okay folks we move to the resolution we do consideration R1 2025 d47 the resolution adopting its present need and prospective need for the fourth round of affordable housing obligations may I have a motion please motion to approve thank you second on that second good roll call councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman
seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes coun council president Cohen yes motion carries the administrator's report sir thank you thank you council president we'll be uh somewhat brief just uh quick we had a snowstorm about two weeks ago uh and uh it was sort of a little bit of a complicated storm because it started as rain and sleet followed by snow so obviously always uh special thanks to our DPW for brining and salting brining before the storm salting during the storm and then our
DPW uh parks and MTD for working overnight to plow and salt as many of us remember it went from uh sort of warm out and then freezing right in the morning and so uh I know folks work throughout the night to try and make it as safe as possible for our residents so I just want to thank them for that um we had a cdbg Grant application on here for $166,000 for a road project um on Links Drive that would be in addition if we get it to the $551,000 state Grant um as was mentioned
earlier apagar and Prospect PLS would be getting that preemption ad uh uh preemption device um but was uh I also do want to mention that we heard from the county that they got their state approval to go out to bid this spring with hopefully construction beginning soon after that's a much needed Improvement at the prospect Plains and Applegarth intersection with uh direct uh left turn arrows and other easier improvements for turning so hopefully that'll get going uh this spring um Paving has increased uh in the last uh
uh 7 years from 1.2 million to 1.7 million and then we usually do about a million between the uh State Grant and our own money um so that's about $2.7 million a year which is positive so I appreciate that um the solar power crosswalk that was mentioned earlier um at the Monroe Rec Center across from Mil Lake that's a much needed Improvement and something that Mary Lang our Recreation director requested and that councilman deiro has metion mentioned earlier has advocated for and that will be an important Improvement um we did
also add a new judge for one additional session once a month a very experienced attorney so excited about that and finally we did have an application on here for a local wreck Improvement Grant we've been successful with this DCA Grant twice before for our uh for our volleyball at the Veterans Park and for our soon to hopefully be under construction pickle ball outside at the senior center and this would be for the community garden playground that hopefully will uh break ground uh later this year so that's my report council president thank you can I just take
that act CBD was a community black development Grant yeah Community Development block grant I apologize for not an acronym also I didn't have it on my notes here but I want to thank uh Mr gunman for catching that those were uh similar ordinances so shout out to him I I didn't uh notice that uh the items were similar so thank you thank you thank you Mr thanks council president uh Allan already mentioned the projects that I was going to report on so I have nothing additional to add thank you so much
Council reports I will begin this time on my right extreme right councilman please oh thank you um Prospect planes with the county do we have any updates on that project I I just gave an update um so it was approved by the state um they're planning to go up no I mean on the bidding like the bidding process right so they're planning to go out for the bid they were approved by the state they're to go out to bid this spring um and they expect to start construction right after okay cuz with the cabinet
getting damaged and everything I I think it's a shout out to the county for getting that back together I mean I've sent so many emails to put concrete barriers as you guys seen them so many times but it would be so much easier if they just put concrete barriers after this is like the second time the cabinet got got hit and but I just wanted to give them a shout out the county for for getting that light back back into work because they were talking two three
weeks correct um I apologize Mr I've been fighting a cold all week and I'm not feeling too well be excused course you can be excused thank I I don't mean to interrupt here no problem feel better feel feel better thank you appreciate sorry everyone everybody coughing take out tissues this is terrible okay so um Saturday I attended a
uh League of municipality U seminar and it's and it was basically newly elected uh and it said experienced um elected officials I attended it seven years ago at the metal lands with uh councilman Basin and and then I just went this pass Saturday by myself down to Mount Laurel as it's funny that they had it there but it happened to be at Mount Laurel and um I got to tell you it
was very well attended it was about 300 uh people were there they had CFOs they had um uh they had Township clerks and attorneys and it was very well attended and and I highly recommend it to uh to I know Council Markle going this Saturday and it's very well um I I appreciate the the town you know sending me there and and I spent about seven hours but I'll tell you it's very
educational and and you got and you'll do you'll really say it's a really good event so I want to give a shout out to the league on that um we've received an email from a resident from Stonebridge in reference to Brickyard Road and wakeoff Mills Road um and I know mentioning U councilman Basin in the past he would always ask us when we were going to pave Brickyard Road and um you know we would always tell them that's our neighboring Town cranberry
and we can reach out to Cranberry and ask them to work with us and trying to get the potholes and the road paved so the intersection is really seemed to be a big problem and we we did see some pictures from the resident and I did go out there and look and if there's something that we could work hand inand with our our DPW guys along with uh cranberry you know to help the residents that our residents their residents
use these roads uh and it just and we did receive the email so I just wanted to see maybe we can we can get that done the DPW and the mtud with the snow and the salt I mean they they work through the holidays and everything they do they do a great job um but I had a question when our governor States state of emergency um I know he you know he did this last snowfall and he didn't have middle sex
County but when he does that is there any recourse for us or is there any funds that we can get from from when they say state of emergency I know Allan and I had this conversation but I wanted if you can elaborate on if there's any funds or any does that how does it help us when he says State emergency it does it not I would add to that to clarify that there are varying levels of State of emergency that the governor can declare yeah yeah um um I could share with you council
president what I shared with you council president I'm not a complete subject matter expert and others may know more than me but my understanding from when the governor declares a state of emergency in a snow situation like that it creates certain powers for him in the state to mobilize resources and do certain things powers that he may not normally have it doesn't really do that much for us as a municipality nor does it do that much for private citizens um so it really doesn't affect us I know a lot of people often have questions sometimes uh you'll
see newspapers do articles what does a state emergency really mean I do believe it means more for him and the state police and state OEM for their powers and and what he or she as Governor can do um it's less for us now sometimes if there's a big enough storm right depending on what it is and the amount of damage or inconvenience sometimes there can be funding through FEMA and other mechanisms um but certainly not in a storm like like this one right right no but I just I just wanted to ask um I also wanted to mention to the um we
had a we had a meeting council president Allen was there the mayor um and we had and Kevin also was on on the street lighting with jcpnl so I want to I want to say you know we started off with our mayor and he made a um very clear uh message to jcpnl is like enough is enough and you know get our get our town back back
uh on On Target here with lights cuz even if you come out of the complex here you from Schoolhouse Road the first 10 lights are out right down Schoolhouse Road right in front of right in front of our high school the lights are out okay and I mean we just go on and on and on and talk about street lights and uh I I suggested that they just give us a monthly report or weekly report so can give this back to the public and say um you know we have a report here of which lights are out which lights they're
working on which lights got completed so um you know the mayor reached out to me and he said we're going to have another meeting and uh and with the same um the same crew and they're going to be more prepared I mean because they were not prepared and I just wanted to thank the mayor for for that and our team because we definitely got the message to them U but you know not by by paying the bill that that 60 70,000 a month is not going to be anything for jcpnl and
uh you know that's not going to help us um get the lights turned on so I just wanted to mention that we are trying and we are going to continue to try with the street lights uh primeville road across from the uh shopping center uh the field is loaded up with garbage again again um I you know there's a wood line there and I know it was snow covered uh but now the snow's melting the weather's in
the' 40s and there's quite a bit of garbage um in that in that area again um I had a question as a lot of our local towns neighboring towns uh we we're seeing a lot of things change with the with the new president everything and this ice that's coming around and they're and they're doing stuff does our Police Department cooperate with ice um I you know I don't I
I think our Police Department cooperates with everyone but I don't know the specific answer to the question I can certainly I know they're Tred I know they're trained for that to do that but my question is do they cooperate with ice again I think they cooperate with everyone I can certainly follow up with them but uh I'm not aware of ice being in Monroe um or have never had a conversation with the chief about it but I can certainly Reach Out well I know I know that our sheriff's department does CU they were just in per Amboy this week uh they
went to New Brunswick they go to to local towns and they don't even announce like to their employees where they're going tomorrow uh when they come to work they say okay we're going to a neighbor a town in Middle sex County so they're they're getting aggressive and I just wanted to know what our local police if we're going to cooperate with that with those programs during uh this past month I was invited to the Middle School um it's it's kind
of it's kind of funny because it's like it's a history it's the history of Monroe and the children wanted to interview somebody that went to Monroe Schools and they had a lot of questions and the teacher I just wanted to say Mrs Miss Christine V visoski uh is the teacher and the children asked me they seventh graders eighth graders and the questions that they kept asking on and over and over
was how did how did the Monroe residents feel with Jamesburg students coming to Monroe well I answered it um with this in 1979 as the year I graduated 1980 Jamesburg children came into to the Monro to the Monro uh school system so but I did tell them the good news was Jamesburg were to Champs and soccer in 1979 and we were the Champs in 1980 at
the soccer so um but I just wanted to say thank you to all the students that put that together that program and they also had a presentation that's how it started at the high school and uh I was the mayor was joking with me I was the long I was all the way to the left when you came to Monroe and uh was it was it was interesting so that's why they elected to interview with me and I also so with the schools I went to Trenton they had a
the division of Education they had a hearing on the fair funding and um I spent you know six seven hours there listening to the problems and I did say you know you get your three or four minutes to speak about our problems in our community and you know it's hard to believe that we only have there's five towns in the whole state that don't that does not have full-time kindergarten full you know
for the full day all day kindergarten it's it's just it's just sitting there listening and everybody's I mean Oldbridge is getting hammered and there's there's Asbury Park and the towns that are like cutting their staff and and really selling schools and to make an education that we all we all here had an education in someone paid for it and helped us and now it's our turn it's just very it was very hard
to sit there and listen to the lawyers that came up and the business administrators and the board members and the you know I I was probably the only councilman there um from a town but I just got to say that the transportation funding is a big the increase of transportation is through the roof and and you know they're saying 2% caps and they're talking about maybe making it 5% or 7%
without even going out to the voters um the special need which Monroe has a huge percentage of of children special need and the cost is it's not dollar for dollar and it becomes the taxpayers expense and all and with all of this being said the panel that sat there um was very good I mean the the chairman at ran it he let everybody talk and we didn't we it was supposed to be over at
12 it got over around 3:00 so but I got to say it was it was very educational and we did have some board members uh two board members came and also past president uh Chris gerby she came and I and it was just it's just unbelievable to hear all the problems that we have and and then we sit here and I'm talk we're talking about the state's mandate and to us what we have to to do and then and then when we need money they just basically closing the doors cuz the
the equalization tax is zero which the cranberry and our town is they're saying we're too wealthy I guess the and all the things that we fight for and here we are in front of us again 2025 uh affordable housing so I just I just want to say uh you know we need to continue that fight I mean hopefully they come back with the formula and then the Board of Ed has to put their budget together and it's it's a very short window and time just like we have with
the affordable um so it's like hurry up rush rush rush and then you know there's no rush after they say hurry up rush rush rush and the final thing I wanted to say I spent a couple visits to our rec center about the pickle ball and we all was here on January 6th and um we we had some residents come about pickle ball you know I don't know anything about pickle ball um or I didn't know that much about it but I'm starting to learn a little bit more
they're trying to get me to play uh but then my wife will never see me so uh the pro the problem with that is uh it it's just a a growing Sport and they're playing nice at direct Center and they need the space and and Mary and the staff is working with them and I've been there I went there today again and I I got to say it's a good group of people that are throughout the
community and it's a so it becomes a social um good time and they're dedicated I mean every time I go there I see the same I see same people and more and and more it's growing so I just want to thank our our Administration and and also our residents that are are making it making that happen so thank you thank you sir Mr Mar M uh councilman deiro took up my time so I'm
going home um anyway I'm going to be short and sweet uh I just wanted to thank the um all the people that worked on the affordable housing to uh come up with the numbers and explain to us uh Council people and and uh people out here exactly how it works I think they cleared up a lot tonight um I know they cleared up a lot with me with the new new legislation and the new rules the only thing else I would like to say
tonight is I I'm on the commission for uh aging uh which I hope has nothing to do with my age but it might but um and that with the Aging uh we deal with the senior community and our main concern is the senior center and naturally we being we have such a large uh senior community here um they're inated with people all the time I just want to give you some numbers I just want you to grasp
the numbers that our senior community um dealt with in 2024 um they had 87,000 registrations for programs in 2024 to me that's mindboggling 87,000 people registered for programs they had 12200 new members in 2024 uh they have a total of over 9,000 members of our senior center right now which is to me outrageous
uh give you an idea the transportation department for for the senior center uh transported over 177,000 seniors last year um 6,300 were for medical reasons and they did over 5,000 trips I mean that's quite an undertaking for these people there um besides that our Betty ner food pantry is one of the best pantries in Middle sex County if not
the state on the website by the way I want to just announced that on the senior website Senior Center website they're going to post every month what they're in need of um so if you you know they got enough canned Campbell Soup I'll tell you that right now so if you go on the website please look they're looking I think this I think I saw believe it or not they want box potatoes and um yeah I forgot what the other issue but there's two things on there right now go on
the website see what they need and what they're short of don't bring Campbell soup right now coffee is always wanted that's one thing I know they always need um I I think that's about all I'd want to say is just um when you go to the senior center any seniors that are watching or here they go there thank them thank them they try their best they're nice to everybody I'm sure they've get some contentious people up there I'm not that I say not that I'm
a senior that I get that way ever but um but uh just uh understand they're fighting a battle all the time with 87,000 Pro people signing up that's all I wanted to say thank you very much you're most welcome councilwoman seagull please thank you council president good evening everyone first I want to wish everyone who's celebrating the Chinese New Year happy lunar new here to you all um I do want to do a quick thank you as Mr Weinberg said with our snowstorms um
DPW does a tremendous amount of work cleaning up our town and I know during the past two sto snowstorms I'd received some um community members reaching out to me saying that they needed some the things were imp plowed the right way and it's amazing to see how quickly the responses from DPW to go back out there and clean up things and make it more safer for our residents and I know I received several compliments which I did share and pass along with DPW so I do want to thank them too for their responsiveness of really making sure things
are cleaned up and safe for our community members uh I do want to give a quick update on our youth advisory commission uh the students last month had opportunity to meet with mayor Delina they got to learn a little bit about his role as the mayor of our town and I think I've shared in the past um our students what they're charged to do is to give back to the community in some way so they're project this year is they are going to be working with some of our boards and commissions and they're going to learn about the boards and
commissions but also try to make some kind of impact and bring a youth perspective to those boards and commissions so we look forward to hearing from them but I also have to give a big thank you to Kyle Johansson back there he is our advisor for the commission and he has about 20 students that he gets many emails he has to Corral them together and he's a great mentor them really guiding them through this um process and the project so thank you Kyle and I did want to
put a reminder again out about the community safety tips being sponsored by our Police Department on they discuss current crime Trends scams and ways to keep yourself safe every year this presentation is new and different or as many times as they offer it so I highly recommend to add this to your calendar it's going to be at the Monroe Township Library on Thursday February 13th at 6 pm. and that's my update thank you I will be brief I wanted to mention two things one this past week was Holocaust
Remembrance Day and one of the local temples hosted um a at their service they had people who had survivors there that evening a woman who was on a death march um and several of them and it's pretty amazing to see them and they live in town but the interesting thing they did was to do some research on those in New Jersey who were part of the resistance movement during World War II and
they had information about a half a dozen people who came here after the war and and survived and lived and it was a moving and beautiful service and I was really glad to be there going back just very quickly to what you were saying about immigration one of the points was made to me that if indeed you are not a citizen of our country please carry your papers with you so that if it
you have a green card or other um information it should be in your pocket or in your wallet because that way you will not be disturbed this was told to me by people who work at Food Banks and have seen an increase in the um observation of people from Ice coming in Immigration Comm I don't know the what the acronym stands for it's always a problem for me but that's what they recommended that you if I were in a foreign country I would have my passport
with me I wouldn't presume that they would never be someone asking uh what this for my citizenship status I thought it was a good idea and in a very positive vein of what we can think of um I would very much think that we all would like to get to the public comment section it's been a a lengthy meeting so I would like a motion to open the public comment section please motion thank you may I have a second on that second thank
you all in favor I I anyone opposed no please come to the mic giving us your name and address please and remember the time limit is 5 minutes Barbara LaVine 38 timber Hill Drive I am the board president of the HOA at Stonebridge I am good evening and I appreciate this chance to talk before the council thank
you I'm here to address the nurses ordinance that was tabled in your July meeting 2024 in 206 when this ordinance was passed it showed sound judgment on the part of the Town Council as there were no emergency services in zone 2 where stowbridge was under construction that has changed significantly there's a firehouse there are EMT Services right on
Hy Reed Road there's an urgent care facility in The Gables and there are others located on Applegarth Road yet this ordinance remains in place Stonebridge is the only 55 plus community in Monroe affected by this ordinance and mandated to have nursing services with an R and 24 hours a day this places Stonebridge in a situation
unlike the other 14 55 plus communities the other communities have the option of deciding if they want nursing services at all they have the option of deciding daily hours they have the option of deciding whether to hire an RN or some other type of Medical Care person Stonebridge has no options to be clear if this ordinance
was removed tonight there would be no change to the current 247 coverage with an RN at Stonebridge however it would allow the residents of Stonebridge the opportunity to vote on any possible changes this vote would require a 67% % approval from the community which is a high
bar to achieve as it currently stands Stonebridge cannot change the nursing hours Stonebridge cannot consider an alternative to an RN for 24 hours a day perhaps during the midnight to 7 a.m. shift Stonebridge has budgeted 442,000 $36 for nursing services for the fiscal year of
2025 that's roughly $468 per home this equates to millions of dollars over the years no other 55 plus Community has this major expense yearly last summer we surveyed the community more than 50% of the residents 446 to 391 voted
that they would like the ordinance removed therefore we ask the Town Council to put the ordinance back on the agenda and vote to remove the Mandate on Stonebridge we ask to be on equal footing with the other communities in Monroe thank you for your consideration thank you for your
comments All right we can't have a dueling match here so somebody walk faster someone walk slower and we can just go on thank you very your name and address for our records please Catherine hunt can you hear me no so a little louder Catherine please oops sorry
about that Katherine hunt 121 um Lowel Lane in Monroe Township it's Rossmore and thank you all you've had a wonderful meeting it's been very interesting and um I would like to call your attention to a packet that you may have can you hear me Haven received it yet I gave it to the clerk to distribute to them oh okay thank you um well
the purpose is to um request that Mon Monroe Township will pass a resolution in support of the New Jersey climate Superfund act in order to offset the financial burdens of climate change on Monroe Township the New Jersey legislature is already considering a bill um Senate Bill 3545
and assembly Bill 4696 called the climate superf fund act and it would make the largest fossil fuel corporations pay for the damages caused by climate change in New Jersey the bill was voted out of the Senate environment and energy committee on December 12th it is modeled after similar legislation passed in New York and Vermont the bill applies the logic
of the original Super fund act which um requires polluters to pay to clean up their contaminated sees and applies that logic to The Climate crisis no estimates are available for New Jersey yet but new New York's version would raise up to $3 billion of Revenue annually for the next 25 years and it's not unreasonable to estimate that New Jersey could
receive about 2 billion doll annually and where that gets to Monroe is that under this act municipalities will be able to recover costs for climate change adaptation projects which would include many things including uh flood protection projects and flood flood remediation projects I think we all remember we had a pretty
big flood here and I even still have a picture of a Lifeboat going down one of the streets in Rossmore people were pulled out of their uh first floor apartments up through the window because they couldn't get out their doors so that caused of course a lot of problems for us but also other communities other municipalities had simil ilar situations uh and this is a
situation where money exits the municipality to take care of issues in this case um with this act money would enter the municipality to help pay for such um incidents um the cost of climate change are um remediation and adaptation are increasing every year and are estimated to reach onethird of global GDP
by 2100 and there's no governmental organization that could afford such costs and the impacts will be devastating so this is um a request that you take a look I did not include the bill because it is many pages long but it's easily accessible on nj.gov so you can see what we could what we could do with this um we would apply uh the same way as we apply now
for funds from the state so the you know the method is there already and uh I think I'll yield to somebody else who could explain how that's done and um how we could apply this to our own experience here thank you very much thank you for your comments anyone else wishing to address this please come forward
George gunkelman 5 Kelly Court Monroe um amongst the U ordinance for first reading uh4 uh was to um about bonding for some some work on um in the township for sidewalks and whatnot um typically when we have Pro small projects go through uh Planning
and Zoning if uh sometimes the sidewalks are Exempted and typically the the developer or the Builder uh contributes to a sidewalk fund is there no money in that fund available for this activity that's presented here Mr Weber I know we have so I don't have the exact amount in the sidewalk fund here the vast majority of this 1.7 million is really tied to uh road paving I know it says sidewalk sometimes there is some sidewalk
involved in it but the you know 95% and 97% is is road paving that helps answer oh okay um the I I don't want to beat up on the our our much beat up topic of of street lightings but when we when we talk to them I really would like this for us to make a case that all Replacements be done with LED uh just
because the life is longer and their ability to get back and do it a second time seems to be greatly impaired that is part of the discussion okay it wasn't mentioned earlier in well but it was not yeah yeah all good um getting back to the uh affordable housing thing I just you know it's it's a process uh the consultant
did a tremendous job although it's hard for Lay people to absorb her experience in one go I mean she's obviously over the top with it and and it's hard to keep up but on our local level I would just like to say that I would hope that we can look to Solutions by the township more in line with what the township did with veterans housing than
these big ratios of 4 to one or whatever that are the the um uh developer solution or whatever they were called at different times and I hope when we start to look at how we're going to fill our needs we'll look at that I mean of of all the things we Bond I would be more comfortable bonding stuff like that and have the overall number of new construction be reduced because that goes
back to the issue that was talked about when we when um uh councilman deir mentioned we don't have uh uh kindergarten full day kindergarten Monroe we we struggle to get uh funding for our schools we don't need to have more burden on our schools until we get caught up with these other needs like
all day kindergarten for for example and and whatnot so if we can keep the overall number of new units down uh and still meet our our requirement or our commitment to the state for affordable housing um I I think it's in the interest of the town thank you anyone else please sir your name and address for the records Adam Elias 93
Old Church Road um I want to revisit also the um the affordable housing um mandate so during uh Mr Dio's questions I know one of the questions he asked was how zoning would be affected and and I believe the planner said that zoning would absolutely have no ability really to uh it would be irrelevant effectively for any kind of affordable housing project so I was hoping to kind of get some clarity on that because you know I think for a lot of people in the public who are very have objections when they see warehouses getting built next to
you know communities or McDonald's getting built next to Senior Communities people don't really understand I think it gives a lot of context it's a very important detail as to why these things may happen if zoning is really kind of set aside so would it be possible I could get some clarification on what it means when they say they have to do it who's they who has to actually approve it where does zoning fall in is it the council that gets to overrule the zoning board I just really want to understand I think the public could really benefit from understanding how zoning is impacted by the affordable housing mandate aren't you lucky our expert
didn't leave I'm so so happy do you mind if I take yeah you want to go first and then and then Kevin you want to comment as well the hardest part will be uh getting this on you hear me good sorry about that a surprise so um I think as U Miss beam explained um the housing element and fair share plan which sets out your compliance mechanisms is wholly within the Township's control you're going to select
what uh projects are going to get you uh are going to satisfy that prospective need number so in um in crafting that you can identify the parcels you want to develop I think the suggestion that zoning doesn't matter is if you don't have um if you don't provide if you don't provide mechanisms to get to your number a builder could come in down the road and force you to change your zoning um part of this
process is if you don't have enough land or you you you don't you can't fulfill your your prospective need number by following the zoning that's already in place you have an obligation at a certain point to create an overlay that creates a new type of um a new overlay Zone to make that project possible so you still have a lot of control but it at the end of the day if things get tight you have to find a way to make projects possible so that you can
fulfill your perspective D number okay so there's still a lot of control but at the end of the day if if you're um if things get tight you have to sort of consider your options but I'm I'm certainly going to look to ke Kevin and Allen uh to speak a little further no that that was perfect and just to give some I guess some historical example to that that that you may be able to see right now is that in the last round and I know this round the process is very different but um in terms of the Township's obligation to change zoning to allow for affordable housing this has
come up for many years not just in Monroe but in a lot of towns so if you're down on Route 33 um across 33 from Applegarth Road behind the Wawa there's and this is just one example that comes to mind is Monroe place and Monroe lofs that was that was zoned commercial um but when we had to fulfill an affordable housing obligation during round three um that developer was willing to and looking to place affordable housing in that location and
the underlying zoning was not um a consideration to not put affordable housing there meaning we couldn't say sorry that's commercial zoning so you know that's not going to be included because as part of the affordable housing process the the township Council had to change that zoning from Highway development to residential with the density that would allow for those 150 units 30 of which were affordable units so that's just one example of how that
has played out in Monro so I'm assuming that decision is you know you reflect on the master plan when you make that decision right so we have we have the the the township between the planning board and the council has to as as Christopher and Jen mentioned amend the housing element and fair share plan um of the master plan which would reflect how we reach that 378 credits whatever number of units that ends up being and then if zoning changes have to take place meaning moving from a
commercial to a residential zone or moving from an R30 to something that has higher density the council would have to take that up only the council is authorized to change the zoning ordinance yeah I just asked because I've always been you know trying to see why there's not more commercial development in Monro and I'm wondering if there's some kind of a priority system as far as what parts get rezoned to accommodate the obligation that's really more of a general curiosity that I'm having yeah thank you so much any I also want
to Echo the DPW did a fantastic job my street always gets neglected uh when it snows and I think I heard the trucks coming down my street before it even 10 minutes into the snowstorm so that was awesome thank you good thank you anyone else wishing to address the council please come forward now please state your name and address for our records hi uh my name is Alan Christopher Gould
I'm a resident at five 18b Hazen Road in Monroe Township okay and I I'm here uh well first of all to let you know that I am a retired um engineer from uh that worked at the uh Dam safety and flood engineering at the uh D DP and I want to come in
here but I'm not representing de I'm representing myself at this meeting as a resident and want to uh include let let you know that I endorse and encourage you uh the members here to um uh to uh vote for uh or approve a uh resolution on the um climate Superfund act and
there that I think is a very uh well well worthwhile system and I can give you some uh you know at least give you some general organization of of how D works that sort of thing and what's in place uh I just want to mention some of the things uh of course I'm mostly uh familiar with uh Dam safety and flood control
uh but uh I am also familiar with land use we worked with them quite a bit there and uh want to say that it's uh you know this is a good area to place this responsibility uh for for this uh climate uh superf fund Act in that uh like land use has a um uh a
permit system that's in there in place already and can handle and matter of fact one of the things is they have a 60-day turnaround where they have to uh reply back uh you know give a response in there so that's D once again is a good good place to put this responsibility in and also um that uh most of our I know
that are um uh for flood engineering that we we provide grants to so the system is looking their system is looking to provide grants to municipalities and such so that would still be a good area um just to let you know how it operates in there and if you have any questions on that thank try to answer best I can I think not but we thank
you for your comments sir okay that's it thank thank you ma'am my name is Karen Chen I live at forley court I'm going to keep this short and sweet happy Lunar New Year by the way to those who celebrate um I'm here tonight speaking on behalf of the Monroe Township Recreation Center pickle ball players uh we would like to update
you on what has here inspired since our last meeting and report on what we have achieved and hope to seamlessly achieve in the future thanks to advice guidance and interventions by Town Council Members Administration as well as Norman olinsky who's the adult community's representative for the recreation Advisory Board and his business card by the way says he's an allaround nice guy um we have made progress toward our goals he is yeah starting this past Monday we
now have access to one additional pickle ball court when the gym space is not being used by tample tennis this has helped alleviate some of the waiting time between games and we have been assured that this is a starting point uh as the demand for pickle ball continues to grow we still hope to have access to other court space one is not being used by table tennis in the future we hope to work closely with the recation Advisory board members and the recreation uh center staff for an amicable resolution toward achieving our goals
we're optimistic that open communication between ourselves and Recreation staff will continue and that the resources can be expanded further to support the great demand for this activity uh we would like to thank all involved in directing and supporting us in this endeavor and we appreciate being heard it's our pleasure thank you thank you anyone else wishing to address us please come forward sh our min9
Nathaniel Street um resolution r120 2529 regarding the pza affordable housing ad as an administrator for monro's affordable housing um it says that there is an agreement with pza is that a contract with them an annual contract yes we do and that contract stipulate what the relationship is between Monroe and their and our expectations and their obligations to the
town yeah my understanding and I'll defer to Tanya if I get it wrong but it's an annual contract um it is uh paid for I believe through the developer funded uh trust fund um that was mentioned earlier several times um and it allows us to work with them to make sure that we're properly implementing our program uh in accordance with the requirements so is it a contract with them contract yes it is a contract we have okay and does that contract stipulate their obligations what do you mean by
obligation well I don't know because I don't have the contract but there are obligations of how many people they're supposed to place how is it done um I know there's it's supposed to be a lottery is that still no you're off uh you're not on sorry can you hear me now yeah it's not stipulated those specifics within the contract it is your straightforward monetary contract approving them for the year as as
our administrative agent but it doesn't say how what they administrate or or you know what they do it doesn't have a breakdown in there it doesn't go into specifics with the lottery system or anything like that does Monroe get a um a report either annually monthly semiannually as to how many people they've placed what they place the low or moderate income people well I was I was I wanted to give you the details
of what I'm looking for yes at at my request or administration's request they provide a report um I think the last update that I receiv received from them was probably in November maybe even October um I can reach out tomorrow to both Frank and Kathy for an updated report okay and that would be a public record correct as well as the contract would be sure everything okay um I would like to make a I know that it's a lottery which still
is to me a little weird because you can uh if if I were in need of that type of Housing and I put in an application uh I could be waiting for years and I could maybe not even get any a lottery my name pulled out a lottery and someone who puts in their name a week a week ago could possibly get an affordable housing unit I'm not sure that that's the best way to solve our
sure that's is that accurate please that someone who just put their name on gets pulled so we've gone through this several times yes but this is for the record no and I understand that I think um pza would be the best to explain how their Lottery system works um they're the administrative agent for the township those who fill out an application and submit it once they are determined what their income is and where they fall within that yes they're placed within the lottery when that random Lottery happens if they are pulled
from it depending upon it I mean they could be in it shortterm longterm then they are offered a final application which goes through another approval process right and I know of people who have not been housed um based on uh like their application to to pza so it concerns me and uh a few months ago you celebrated and gave an award to miss Riser Ryner I think Sue Riser
and she has appealed to uh the affordable housing committee and the commission because I was there when she was doing it that there there are a number of um special needs adults that really could use to uh some housing and I don't know if if they've ever been placed on that so it's not a perfect system and the this this big you know um need for affordable housing I believe does exist but we really need to place
these people who are in the most need and and get them housing so I I don't know what we could do with our contracts with with administrators like pza but things might need to be tweaked to get the people really in need um to and I'll I'll reach out to Su Riser again because I know was a concern of hers either adult children that she works with her own um have have not had housing where they could benefit from I I would just add if I could council president that
the process the process is is very descriptive by the state in terms of you know the eligibility in the process so we can certainly go through that again um it is Project based so there's a list every time something opens a new develop may not open for a year or two years there's a list for that project in terms of how people qualify and who qualifies it is very it is very detailed and prescriptive by the state it's not it's not a criteria that we make up here at the township so if someone qualifies or
doesn't qualify for it it's not a Monroe decision it's a decision that's really determined I believe probably through the legislature and the guidance from DCA um so we could talk about that further I just want to say it's not something we determine here at Monroe it's not the qualification so much it's the placement that is is a concern to me I mean yes the qual qualifications are well spelled out but people who are qualified have not been placed and some
people are really truly in need and and and like I said um Sue was certainly um worth having been recognized and everything but I'm sure there are still people that she would like to have acknowledged and and placed in housing to your point and I we could research this through legal um we can find out if there's such a thing as a special needs preference um just don't know the answer sitting right here um but if there's not a preference like a veteran's preference it's it's supposed to be and it is completely random um but we can research
whether there's such a thing as a special needs preference great thank you very much welcome anyone by the way uh thank you for letting me know but just because I asked the same question again one it's it's for public purposes and two it's for to place things on the record I am not trying to be difficult I'm trying to be informed and I think the public should be informed as well I could so I would just like the courtesy I couldn't agree with you 100% you know how I feel about transparency I have
no problem with you asking questions I provided answers if I could provide more answers to you I will be more than happy to do that you know that thank you yes thank you for your comments anyone else wishing to address us please come forward name and address for our records please name is Donald wolf and I'm just going to asking for your support in climate superf fund act I live over in
Applegate Avenue and next to my block is Forest Park and if you understand back in 2011 my entire neighborhood was wiped out by Hurricane Irene the Town Monroe at the time provided funds that we could rebuild but in the future we get water damage again in our homes in our neighborhood some somebody's got to pay for it now they're saying that New York estimates they get $3 billion a year for
the fund and New Jersey thinks they get $2 billion do a year for the fund now just so you know like one of the things that comes up is where's Exxon going to pay for this where one of the other large o companies last quarter $8.1 million was a total profit after expenses just one quarter for one oil company so I'm just asking for you to support this when it comes up for a vote
okay thank you for your comments sir anyone else wishing to address us please come forward now I'm seeing and hearing none I'm going a motion to adjourn motion I have a second on that second I Clos I'm sorry we're closing the public portion got a little tired thank you so much we heard what you didn't say I just want
I just wanted to make one comment um what the gentleman just said about Applegate uh Avenue and um I need to close this first before wej we did we did close so I just wanted to say um that our fire company goes out there uh all time you know our m and fire companies and go out to these Applegate and Forest Park uh they go out with pumps around
you know DPW around o clock when there's when we do have storms like uh Sandy and and and the rest of the storms our fire company goes out there puts all these pumps out and in the past I think the gentleman was referring to the town did purchase I believe 12 12 Parcels that were uh the houses were destroyed and the town just uh purchased the land so um you know I'm sure that when if if it
comes to this to uh to us I'm sure that we'll support to help our residents and thank we have a motion toj so moved we have a second oh goody we are adjourned thank you we're adjourned it's 9:12 for