##VIDEO ID:_5-QB63DjiQ## all right let's get started uh this is the special meeting of January 27th 2025 held via zoom and this session is being recorded would the clerk please read the statement of compliance yes mayor this is a special meeting of the burrow of Oakland notice of this meeting has been provided in accordance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 colon 4-6 at SEC by notifying the Bergen Record posting a copy on the bu board in the municipal building and file a copy with the burrow clerk public notice of the time date and location was provided in details for public access to this meeting via Zoom are as follows time January 27 2025 7.m Eastern Time join Zoom meeting at https us02 web. zoom. usj 8287 044 2496 and our meeting ID is 828748 2496 thank you very much uh can we please call the role please yes mayor Cala present council president mccan here councilman Pignatelli Council woman Rose here councilman Sally Annie here counc man slinsky here and councilman talamini here I'm letting another person in okay motion to excuse councilman pelli second it all favor I okay uh right now we are going to be open for public comment anybody from the public wish to address the Govern body motion to open open so moved second second all favor I thank anybody anybody from the public wish to address the governing body Wendy let me know if you see anybody nobody's raising their hand give them another 10 minute 10 seconds yep I'll make a motion to close the public session second all in favor hi hi all right so this special meeting we have one item on today's meeting it is a resolution 2581 of authorized affordable housing obligations round four uh obviously Oakland and all the rest municipalities in the state of New Jersey have a dead hard timeline to have our paperwork in this resolution passed by this Friday January 31st at this time I'd like to turn the meeting over to our uh planner Carolyn Ryder so she can just tell us exactly where are we on the process thank you mayor hello everybody um Caroline Raider from the P&M Associates um the buau planner um as the mayor indicated there we are on a deadline an affordable housing deadline the first of a few that are going to be forthcoming this year um this is due to the affordable housing legislation that was adopted and signed into law by your Governor um in March of last year what the legislation requires um is adoption of what's called the binding resolution by the mayor and Council that stipulates what the bureau's round four affordable housing obligation is these um there is a formula for calculating the obligation that was so stipulated in the legislation um and the legislation also directed the Department of Community Affairs DCA to calculate obligations for all municipalities those M those obligations are refer to is non-binding what is going to be adopted tonight is a binding resolution stipulating the Burrow's obligation there is in a process whereby your affordable housing attorney who is also on this call is going to post the resolution as required and also submit uh what's called a DJ action um the DCA calculated an obligation a prospective need obligation of 306 units for for the buau of Oakland we in our office and in um partnership with buau Representatives reviewed um very carefully the data that went into um the calculation of the 306 units um in particular we studied what is called land capacity factor and the properties there in that made that up based on our analysis um we determined and calculated ated a different uh obligation for the burrow and that obligation is 262 units 252 so it is uh the Burrow's decision tonight which how to move forward with respect to its obligation but it is as the mayor indicated very important that you adopt the resolution tonight because you are on a deadline of January 31st for doing so I will note that failure to adopt the resolution which stipulates your obligation this evening or by January 31st could result in the buau losing immunity um and protection from what is known as Builders remedy lawsuits once we get past this point um The Next Step would be then for the burrow for us to put together and develop what's called a housing element and fair share plan that's a plan where we will um detail how the burrow will meet its affordable housing obligation that plan is adopted by the plan planning board at a public meeting with required notice and pursuant to the legislation the deadline for adoption of that plan is June 30th so again the timeline is very tight and we are all moving forward accordingly um Brian Giblin is our attorney at for double housing attorney do you feel that there was anything that I missed or that we need to go into more depth on no I I just uh for some of the council people that weren't on the call uh what um Caroline and her um company did was go through all of the vacant land or the alleged vacant land that the DCA uh thought was developable and take out those properties that are not developable for whatever reason some of them had easements on them some of them were you know a v variety of reasons so that's the reason that she was able to get the number down to the 250 2 thank you we removed 23 such properties for a variety of reasons um as as Brian indicated thank you at this time uh we have 2581 authorized affordable housing obligations round four you have a motion to introduce motion to approve motion to approve have a second second second do we have any disc discussion yes if we were to take the if we introduce the lower minimum is that put at any risk from the state if we're just so they they 306 so when we when we file this 252 is there any risk to the burrow by doing the only risk go ahead thank you yeah the only risk is that it is somewhat more likely that a an interested party could file uh an action against the burrow seeking to increase the number but that could happen even if you stick with dca's number but the lower the lower you go obviously the more likely it becomes that someone is going to challenge your number I think again based upon the work that Caroline did um it would be difficult to challenge thank you Brian appreciate appreciate that I have a question uh for the record uh Caroline um is it true that the um the requirements for what was considered vacant uh what was considered vacant land that wasn't um or was maybe uh um uh to be included is is it true that these um these guidelines or requirements were set by Statute so they were set by the legislation which in turn amended the Fair Housing Act that's your question yes yes so we don't have we don't we didn't have any input as to what those guidelines and what the statute requires correct not unless someone in here is member of the assembly or uh State Senate right so in other words this is the state uh telling us what they consider our U buildable uh uh uh lots are in in the town correct not what we think they are but what the state thinks they are correct right this these properties were identified by DCA via um aerial mapping prepared by the njd New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection so it regardless of what we think is is whether or not we agree that a particular piece of parcel is is developable or not is is irrelevant it's what the state put in the statute correct yes in terms of the calculation of the 306 yes yes yes thank you would we be able to show um on Via Zoom the the map that we saw the other day so so maybe uh if people the people that are watching the zoom can see the the land that's in question if that's what the burrow would like Brian is May or is that what you all would like we have I have that available you can give us in it sure uh Robert are you able to pull that up please yes I'll share my screen so this is Robert D from my office who's I'm here specifically for this reason robt you're sharing our memo there we go so this is what's called a GIS geographic information system uh I'm showing an overview of Oakland's vacant land capacity uh these are the parcels with vacant land capacity and I can zoom in and I'll just start here when you say these are Apostles you're talking about what's in red correct correct what's outlined in red is a parcel with vacant land capacity and it's the yellow areas specifically that have been identified by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs as vacant land capacity so I'll just scroll through I'm sorry Robert I'm just going to jump in um before you get to that I just want everyone to be aware this is that this mapping was done Statewide um you this is a Statewide process based on as I indicated aerial mapping from D and it's not you know and this and DCA provided in November I believe right before Thanksgiving this mapping that um resulted in the development of the affordable housing obligations it was one of the three items that went into each municipality's affordable housing obligation these obligations were released approximately around October 18th and this mapping became available Statewide again it was sometimes before Thanksgiving maybe November 20th 26 second somewhere in there um and Robert am I correct when I say that the mapping was Statewide in other words there wasn't just specific and separate map developed for Oakland and then Franklin Lakes Etc we went in and yeah cared this out corre this was developed from a layer that was published for the entire state of New Jersey and I extracted it uh to show just Oakland here and um as carine said the mapping was created from njde Department of Environmental Protection aals uh flown in 2020 and what they do is they they run an algorithm on the Aerials where they're looking at individual pixel colors and the average of pixels in a certain area to uh try to identify specific types of land land uses or land covers and the land covers that were used to identify vacant land capacity uh included uh several types of different Forest covers and in Oakland we're seeing a lot of uh most of the vacant land capacity if not all of the vacant land capacity is really uh resulting from a specific type of Forest cover ex Robert the clerk has a question yeah we have a question from uh Mr cyy from the public he's asking if the uh can the public view the land that the state felds is necessary to build housing or is it available to see a town hall and he wants to confirm that the yellow areas are the areas that can be developed so the yellow I'm sorry go ahead yeah go ahead the yellow areas are what the state is is saying is vacant land capacity this is the land that the state is saying can be developed that's not what the burrow is saying that's not what we at tnm are saying we're just simply reporting what the state has identified in their analysis now these yellow areas uh this is what the state has identified and we have stated in our analysis we have determined that uh of these 29 properties in Oakland that have vacant land capacity only six of them should actually be considered as vacant land capacity and we've excluded 23 remaining properties from the vacant land capacity that we've used to determine an obligation of 2 52 units so we went from 23 Parcels down to six correct we went from 29 Parcels down to six we eliminated 23 Parcels very good thank you um I have a question um in that process of of going of eliminating those properties did any burrow officials walk those properties to to help in that determination yes it's my understanding that that did occur who wased that so it is my understanding that the mayor did for some of them as well as your um burough engineer yeah okay Council council president just answer your question yes it was myself after we were presented the map uh there was a lot of questionable properties and we indeed did go out and physically walk these properties and find out you know working with the burough engineer to determine whether they were developable or not mayor how many properties did you look at we well after the exclusion that they took out uh why don't we go to the piece property looks like Florida it's up by a 287 in the highway okay you see these Mr MCC especially all these properties right here we walk these this entire area up here uh we also went behind 84 Lumber and the others like you see on the bottom left on the bottom that's that's just the brook that runs behind 84 Lumber which obviously isn't developable so after uh Carolyn made her her assessment and the ones that were't questioned we did indeed go look at the the parcels that required really eyes on and walking the property how that's must have taken a long time sorry thank you thank you for doing that y do anybody else have any further questions um there is a question here by Bill is there any chance that any property in the industrial can be converted to housing as what is happening on the Valley Road Extension in Wade I understand if you cannot answer because it's not the public forum well actually it's not a public for Mr Cy's welcome to come down to F Hall tomorrow yes Mr cyy you heard any further discussion well I I I think that even though it's not a public forum I think I would like to know the answer to that question maybe our uh planner in our um and our borrow attorney can address you know how overlays how this all comes into play with our zoning uh with affordable housing if they don't mind giving us a two-minute thumbnail on how that works so that's a great question councilman thank you um and as I did indicate our next step after this meeting this deadline for the obligation is is um preparation of what's called the housing element and fair share plan and that is the plan where we are going to look at what is the obligation and how is opland going to meet it um and it's really important to remember that there are within the affordable housing regulations there are opportunities for the buau to utilize what's called a vacant land adjust M which is a recognition that the burrow does not have sufficient land to Zone Andor to build for your full obligation so there would be something there's a calculation and Analysis it's done as part of that process which is a process that you that the burrow did utilize under a prior round of affordable housing in addition there's um a process known as a durational adjustment which is um what municipalities without sewer can utilize um such as Oakland um as a addresses its obligation so those are a few of the items we're going to be look at looking at there are a variety of options to utilize to meet an affordable housing obligation and I don't know that we're at a point right now to be you know stipulating exactly what we're going to be doing to meet that obligation but zoning is certainly you know as as the councilman indicated zoning is certainly one tool that is available to municipalities to meet the obligation if I could just add for the purpose of this resolution and what the council has to decide tonight the only question is whether or not this land is vacant land capacity as set forth in the statute it it has this uh resolution and and tonight's meeting has nothing frankly at this point to do with how we're going to reach our obligation it's just whether or not the obligation is accurate thank you both of you anybody else from the council have any question for our professionals not seeing any I believe councilman Sally an made the motion it was seconded by Mr talamini with the this is to approve resolution it was Mr McAn who made the motion and Sally Annie made the second okay very good resolution 2581 resolution committing to DCA fourth round affordable housing present need and perspective need numbers is modified roll call council president McAn yes councilwoman Rose yes councilman Sally an yes councilman slinsky yes councilman talaman yes okay this concludes our special meeting of today January 27th do have a motion to adjer so moved a second second all favor I uh read Jour everybody thank you so much for your time on such such have a good night everybody thank you thank you good night