All right, I'm going to call this meeting of the Ocean Township Planning Board to order. Nicole, can we please have a roll call? Uh, Councilwoman Kaplan here. Miss Valente here. Mr. Deal here. Mr. Edis here. Mr. Mel,
Mr. Vagnovich, Mr. Miy here, Mr. Goslin here, Vice Chairman Palutes, and Chairman Deilia here. And then I forgot Amir because he's at the very bottom. So Amir Bollet.
All right. Salute to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Great. The notice requirements of the open public meeting law for this meeting have been satisfied. A copy of the notice having been sent to the Asbury Park Press in the coaster and filed in the office of the township clerk. There is emergency exit through the courtroom doors and two exits of the rear of this
room. There is no smoking that includes vaping. Board policy is that no new cases will be started after 10 p.m. and no new testimony taken after 10:30 p.m. In addition, the applicant will be limited to 45 minutes of testimony. Please note, all meetings will be video
and audio taped and shown on the Township of Oceanceans Community Cable channel, channel 22 on Verizon Vios and channel 77 on Cable Vision. All cell phones must be turned off. And if you need to make a call, please make your call outside the meeting room. All right, first order of business. We have
some minutes that need to be approved. We need to take these one at a time. So, uh before we start, does anyone have any questions, comments, concerns about the minutes? All right, so let's start. Uh do I have a motion to accept the January 27th,
2025 minutes? I'll make a motion. Moved by Miss Kaplan. That was I have a second. Am I on that? We're good. Seconded by Mr. Beal. All in favor? I I All right. Uh motion for the February
24th, 2025 meeting. Amen. Moved by Mr. Manny. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Miss Kaplan. All in favor? I. All right. March 24th, 2025. Do I have a motion? I'm going to
make a motion. Oh, I think Julia beat you. Okay. Got it. Got it. Second by second. Seconded by Mr. Be. All in favor? I. November 11th, 2022. Um, if you'll just please note these were minutes that uh were never
finalized that we are just wrapping up. So, I will make that motion since I was there. Uh, do I have a second? I'll second. Seconded by Mr. Adis. All in favor? I. All right. We have no new business this evening, but we do have old business. And we will
be moving along to our um redevelopment investigation for block 34, lot 11 on the township's tax map and commonly known as 1610 Highway 35 in Ocean Township as to whether all or a portion of the area here and after described meets the criteria for an area in need
of redevelopment pursuant to NJSA4A12A-5 and should be designated as such. And I think where we left it, uh, topology had just finished presenting. Correct. And the owner's attorney had requested time to review. So, if you'd like to come up
and and share your comments, and then I believe we're going to have an opportunity to cross-examine the uh, that's correct. Great. If you can just please remind us who of your name and where you're from and we'll get rolling. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Anthony Tedar with fakery drinker
bid on wreath on behalf of the property owner CJ realy LLC. Uh just as quick housekeeping matter uh we did submit not only our formal notice of appearance but um also wanted to advise the board that the property has uh recently been
recently signed up a contract. We're going to sell it to a third interested party. Uh we requested just a brief adjournment of the uh area needs study from tonight because we have a quick closing date.
We want to at least afford an opportunity for the new property owner postc closing obviously to be able to sit down with the township actually engage in the redevelopment process. Um I'm assuming your attorney is going to advise you that look we're here tonight.
There's no statutory basis for a further adjourment. U but what chair I believe is you and also Mr. Anderson mentioned himself that this initial process in the in the redevelopment step is it's the initial step. I want to make sure you get it right. Um you don't want to have
any cracks in the foundation. I believe he said and so the apart from any issues we might raise tonight to the report itself uh there is still an area need a redevelopment with condemnation tag
associated with it. Our German request uh was signed on by the uh contract purchaser saying look we we're going to want to speak with the township directly. We have an issue with that condemnation portion. If the board were to continue tonight, make that recommendation, you might have
to take well, you might be taking one step forward, but you're gonna take at least two steps back. Mr. Lexon, please remind me that's not within our purview to decide, though. Our purview is to decide whether or not this area in need of redevelopment at the time that the study was conducted meets the criteria.
Correct. That's correct. You're not making the designation. Yeah, that that would so so if they want to have any uh conversations with the township council, they're more than welcome to because the township council is the one who's going to be actually making the designation, not this board. Correct. So, so my
recommendation is I don't think you should uh delay based upon the fact that they signed the contract. It doesn't make any sense to me personally. Um you are still under directive by the mayor and council to to to uh to evaluate the study. That's not going to change
whether they're in a contract today, whether they're in the contract two months from now, or whatever the case may be. It's still going to be the same property. If they want to talk to the council, they can talk to the council and and that's fair. However, what we're saying is look, the board were ultimately decide to make the recommendation the property constitute
an area in need of redevelopment with condemnation. That latter portion is something that would need to be revisited in the future. So a brief pause in our view I mean that whatever negative impacts which we don't see there being any um are dwarfed by the need to then have to
come back in and reopen this initial step of the redevelopment process. So that's what we submitted. Understand what it's well taken but we just want to make that note. Well from my standpoint I I think that's for the council to decide not for us. We have a very specific task statutoily to to complete
and we're going to do that unless any of my fellow board members want to have a discussion on it. Hearing none, we're we're we're going to we're going to move forward. Fair enough. Thank you. Mhm. And then I believe what we probably want to start out with uh is cross-examining of your
planning consultant. Come on up. Um, one question I guess for Mr. Le, I'm sorry. Um, would it be appropriate to have Misspire, who worked with me on the report, uh, join me up here? Yeah, I have a problem with that. And we just need to have her sworn,
right? Yeah. Are like tied together. Yeah, you should be able to They literally are tied together. I thought I was kidding. keep people from fighting and throwing chairs at the panel. Thank you for uh accommodating us. Um I'm still under
oath. Yeah. Let's just I'll swear you in. Do you swear testimony about to give will be the truth and the truth. Have you got I do. I do. Can I just state your full name for the record? I spire. Thank you.
And I'm sorry, is was the purpose of both of you being up here? Uh, Miss Byer worked with me on the report. Um, and I just wanted to make sure that we had her knowledge here as well. Okay. So, if I'm going to cross-examine you on your own testimony
without the need for any support from another planner. I mean, I don't necessarily think it's appropriate for both of you to be up here to buttress your own testimony if we're just going to ask you some follow-up questions on it. Are are you cross-examining him on his testimony or on the findings in the report? Well, a little bit of both here, but if he's the one who testified to it,
I'm not sure why we need to necessarily supplement it without further direct testimony from another planner. I mean, I I don't want to complicate it. If if if he has questions just for Phil, just ask Phil. Uh golden, don't don't jump
in. And um and if Phil says he doesn't know something, then then we can we can handle it that way. Is that fair? Yeah. I mean, we could we could take it as it comes, but I mean, it's just slightly unorthodox. I So, so, so this
isn't Okay. So, this isn't this isn't a federal murder case, okay? It's it's it's a report. So, if you have questions about something that's in the report that he doesn't know the answer to, I don't think it's outrageous to then turn to her and have her answer the question
if she happens to know the answer because he just doesn't happen to know the answer. I mean, it's not like, haha, you didn't know the answer to that, so therefore, your testimony is irrelevant. We're talking about a specific report and and that's what you're you're asking questions for. It's not it's not a
gotcha game. Correct. There's no gotcha. No, no, I understand that. So, I don't know what the objection would be for her to to be there, but I agree with you in general, depending on the question that it's not appropriate for her to answer a question if it's specific about his testimony. But if he doesn't know the answer, he should be able to say, "I
don't know. I want to defer to her." In terms of process, sorry to interrupt. Can we just do one and then the other? If you say you don't know, then you can that that's fine, too. It doesn't make a difference to me, but I I don't think it's that big of a deal. As long as the record doesn't get muddy, that's all
answering because I mean, look, at the end of the day, it's the board was going to rely on the direct testimony being profered. Now, we're asking questions 100%. And I don't I don't think it's going to get messed up. I have a feeling her voice is very different than his voice. So, I don't think anyone's going to have a problem uh with
differentiating between the two. And we'll make sure to announce ourselves if we change speaker. Okay. All right. Mr. Anderson, how are you doing tonight? I'm fine, thank you. All right. And so you introduced a report dated in March 7,
2025. Is that correct? Uh I'll take your Yes. All right. And then have uh and then you provided direct testimony during the May 19th, 2025 meeting. Correct. I'll take your word on the date. Yes. Okay. And so that was the date of the last planning board meeting.
Uh, I believe there was a little cali with the record, I'm sorry, with the board as to some changes to the report. Do you recall that? I do. All right. And were any of those changes made to the report? No. And so, is it fair to say that the
entirety of the blight designation is your direct testimony and the report as of March 7th, 2025? That's the evidence on record. Yes. Okay. And so let's get into that because what
you testify to the board at the last meeting on May 19th is that uh uh it's your opinion that the property constitutes an area in need of redevelopment based off of criteria D and H. Correct? Yes. All right. And so
flipping first over to why don't we flip to page 14 of your report. But you know what? Before we get into
anything specific, um, did you prepare the March 7th, 2025 report? I oversaw the production of the report in coordination with Gold Aspire and others on my staff. All right. And do you mind if we just for like simplicity purposes, you want to call it, the area needs
report, whatever you feel comfortable with. Whatever you feel comfort fine. All right. And so, um, did you actually, uh, visit the site in question? You did. When did you visit the site? I don't know the date. Okay. But you were personally there. Yes. Okay. Um, and so
there were two on-site inspections referenced in the report, one being in December and one in February. You recall? Yes. Okay. And does that help you help refresh your recollection as to which
one you were on site for? I think I was there independently. Um, aside from those report those dates. Okay. So, you went on a on a third date? I went there before that. Yes. Can you help give us a range? It was before December. Prior.
Okay. Before December. And did you have the authority of the property owner to be on site? Uh, it's a place of public accommodation. Okay. So, yes or no? No. Okay. And so flipping over to page 14 of your
report, um, which starts to get into criterion B under the, uh, local, uh, redevelopment and housing wall. Um, and I'll just real quick read into the record. So criteria B is the discontinuence of
of the use of a building or buildings previously used for commercial retail, shopping malls or plazas, office parks, manufacturing or industrial purposes. The abandonment of such building or buildings, significant vacancies of such building or buildings for at least two consecutive years, or the scene being
allowed to fall into uh so great a state of disrepair as to be untenable. Is that right? That that's criteria B under the redevelopment law. I was reading along with you. Yes. Okay. And so on page 14 of your report, you
summarize your findings under criteria B as the study area, which is the subject property qualifies as a condemnation redevelopment area under criterion B as the building was previously used for commercial multi-tenant plaza that has
experienced significant vacancies. a building which uh with many spaces vacant for at least two consecutive years and a property being allowed to fall into so great a state of disrepair as to be untenable. Is that a good summation as to your findings under criteria B? That's what the paragraph
directly says. Yes. Okay. And so touching on the first part where you say previously used as a commercial multi-tenant plaza, do you have any evidence
uh as to why you said it was previously used as as opposed to currently used? Um the lack of occupancy and the lack of tenant uh the lack of tenants is what I was referring to by previous use. Okay.
Okay. Those are your current use by anybody. So you're you're not aware of any discontinuence of the use. Define discontinuence of use. So it's no longer being used as a shopping center.
Um there's a couple retail tenants that exist in there. Um but otherwise it's vacant. So right but it's it's there's still an operation ongoing on site. Is that correct? I'm just trying to understand the present versus past tense.
It's not being previously used. Is that correct? I just want to Yes. It's it has not been used in a number of years. So, you may say that it is being used that way. I might say it's previously been used that way if it's not currently being used that way. Okay. So, I think
that's just a um semantic um debate that we can have about that. Okay. Well, so it's it's still in operation is what I'm getting out of that. So from there you talk about way you classify significant vacancies and we
don't have to get into any dispute as to whether there's vacancies or not but what I wanted to raise with you is you mentioned in the report your justification for the significant vacancies is the rent roll from 1991. That was a baseline and the only reason
we used that was to get to the um what's the word the demi like kind of the demising plan to look at the different units and their floor areas um to determine you know which were units, how many were vacant,
how many square feet per vacancy. So that was the basis to figure out what the pro like the floor area program was and how the demising plan was set up at some point in time. Okay. I just want to go back to what you just said though. So you at
least utilize this 1991 rent roll to help understand and calculate the vacancies. It was to yeah to calculate it was a it was a good record of floor area um as demised at
some point in time and we had no reason to believe that the areas have been redemised. So the floor area in 1991 correct? Okay. So you use it for just simply the floor area versus trying to understand the tenencies and the
vacancies. Yes. I would hope uh that some businesses were fortunate enough to exist for that long, but that is not what I was after that analysis. Let's hope so because there's quite a few years in our rent rolls between 25 and 91, right? I would agree. All right. And
then you also utilize the business records that are on file with the township currently. I use as much evidence as I could. Yes or no? Do you Okay. I'm sorry. Are we trying to prove that this is not 85% vacant? Are we trying to say it's 84? No. What I'm trying to do is get get an understanding
as to what material I don't want to go through this this whole thing about square footage and and this is this is going too long. No, Mr. Adis he has a right to put this on the record for for his purposes. Although if we could focus
I'd appreciate it but we we resolved 85% vacancy. If you want to dispute that then dispute it. Okay. We'll make it quick. So apart from the
uh uh 901 rent roll and the business records, were there any other materials you utilized in calculating the vacancy rate? Um a visual a visual inspection um on site at the time. So quickly just to wrap this up, you use
the 1991 rent rolls, the registration statements on file with the municipality and your on-site visit on, let's see here, it's the latter of the two to determine the vacancies of the property to determine
the vacancies to determine the percentage of floor area that was vacant. Um, I'm not sure exactly the question that you're asking. I don't want to answer a question. We're I'm somehow using 1991 evidence to talk about a current condition or I'm somehow
using business records to talk about a current condition. I looked at the totality of the evidence. I looked at uh we did a field inspection um and we took all those things together to try to come to a conclusion regarding vacancy and to quantify um the
nature of that vacancy and the extent of that vacancy. But you get what I'm getting at then. It which is the totality of that evidence is three things, right? It's the 1991 rent roll, those registration statements on file with the municipality, and your your uh
uh visual assessment on site. Right. Okay. So, if you're just yes or no, it's those three things. I don't I do not believe there was anything else that we used to calculate or or determine vacancy. Okay. And so
let me just quickly go back to what we talked about in the beginning when you mentioned that you were on site. There was two visual inspections, one from December and one from February, right?
Yes. All right. And so the latter of the two, if I were to flip over to page 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,
24, and 25. Do it in in groupings for expediency purposes. These are all images that you captured dur either during the December or February site inspections. Correct. Some images uh came from Google Street
View but were not captured um by us individually. We uh cited and referenced those where when in when that was appropriate. Um one uh there was one on page on numbered page 18.
Um the entrance vacancy pattern. Entrance vacancy pattern. Underneath that it says Google Street View. Okay. Um there was one that we took. So there's one on page 19 that comes from Google Street View.
Uh in the middle says the top line says sweet 1B autos bar. There was one on page 22 that came from an online review website called Yelp.
Um otherwise those came from um site visits that were taken in December and February. All right. And so that I get a better understanding for these site visits. The one in December, you used a drone to get capture aerial
images of the property. A drone was used in December. Yes. Okay. And what's the point of all this? I I mean, I'm not to Mr. Adis' point. I mean, anyone who's anyone who is ever driven by this plaza knows that it's empty. So So So So like,
are we disputing that it's not empty? We'll get there. We'll get there. I mean, we're spending a lot of time on how did you how did you determine that it's empty? Is there information in the report the the veracity to which you want to contest? I I want to have an understanding as to the extent of each
of these investigations and what I'm also trying to understand is when they were talking about significant vacancies, what materials and what evidence were being used to reach those determinations. I think that was outlined very clearly in the report that the I mean it's cited there's footnotes.
Yep. All right. to to wrap this up. What I'm else I want to get to is when you were on site, did you go inside any of the buildings? I do not believe we did. Okay. And so
the other item I want to just briefly address for criteria B is that when you were looking at the vacancies, did you contemplate that there might be tenants who would be paying uh but not currently occupying a premises. So it's
an interesting point and there's different definitions of vacancy. There's not a definition of vacancy in the local redevelopment and housing law. the vacancy that Co-Star uses, which is one of the um I would say most definitive sources of commercial real estate data, their definition of vacancy
is a a nonoccupancy regardless of whether there's a lease or not. So, um there could be different definitions of vacancy, you know, uh different people of training and knowledge can disagree about what a word means. Um I'm taking the word vacancy under the circumstances
to mean nonoccupied, even if it's least or not least. Okay. And so you didn't take that into account whether the the property owner might be getting paid for other leases. We tried to contact the property owner. We tried to ask for inspections. We tried to open a dialogue. We it there was not response
um from the owner. Who did you reach out to? A letter was sent by our attorney um to Can you just let everybody know what we're looking at? Because um yeah, I'm referencing an email that's not part of the record. Um
the original letter went from um is there Mr. Tadaro? Is that okay? Sorry, Anthony. Oh, it's all good. Um I know we used to be in this formal with you. Yeah. Uh so yeah, a letter was sent
um requesting and sight inspection. That's that letter right there. All right. And would you be able to provide us with a copy of it? Um I we Yeah, we'll get it to Mr. Lexi. All right. And what's the date of it? Uh was it in February? Uh February 18th. February 18th. It was
transmitted February 18th. Okay. So that was February 18th that you requested the ability to come out on site. But if I'm going in the report, just so I have my timeline right, there was an initial inspection where you used the drone in December of 2024
and then February 13th was a subsequent inspection. Mhm. Okay. So, those inspections were completed before you sent that letter. We wanted to do an interior inspection. Okay. That's what the letter was requesting. Okay. It never did though,
right? As far as I know, there was no response. All right. So, all the pictures that you have that you personally took are from the outside, correct? And just for clarification, that letter was actually written to Mr. Toadero is what he just said. Correct. Okay. And
so let's flip over now to your other finding of criteria D where if I'm looking at this right and you help summarize for me so I have a
better understanding here that there is a quote dilapidation or lack of maintenance roof damage and unmaintained uh accessory improvements, parking lot, sidewalks, those types of things. Is
that correct? Those were things that I testified to. Yes. Okay. And so for the lack of maintenance, you referenced appendix H, right, for several violations regarding property
maintenance. Okay. Okay. And so those reports also identify that all of the items that raised were were addressed to the satisfaction of
the township back in 2023. Right. I might have to review those. All right. We can flip to it because it's purpose of the record. It starts on 71 and it goes to the last page which is 73. So these are complaint forms, correct?
Mhm. Yes. All right. And so why don't we start on 71. So these are all of the items stemming from a complaint report that you're using to justify uh lack of maintenance.
Okay. Right. I'm trying to I'm trying to just understand that. It wasn't clear to me in the report. But whether you reference things well I mean they're attached to your report is support for lack of maintenance. Okay.
All right. However, if you go to that 71 right where it says violations found and corrected status passed on page 71. Yes. Do you see that? Um yes. There's something else that says fail. So there was a failed and then a passed I guess.
Um so ultimately yes. Okay. Ultimately yes. And flipping over to 73. Let's just do the same exercise real quick. Um you met to see there where it says uh inspection date of May 12th, 2023. Can
you just read that all for me? Um so there was an initial date of 424 sent notice uh status failed and then another um 512 violations found and corrected passed. Okay.
All right. So all of those items in your reading were abated back in 2023 or 24 at that time. Yes. Okay. That time. And then you also mentioned as part of your testimony that there's a uh uh
lack of uh I guess like I guess what what how do you define the faulty arrangement and design for criteria? I you have to be more specific on your question. Okay. So in and how the property is developed and laid out. You
mentioned that there's faulty design. Um I see what you're saying. Yeah. Um, I think some of the things I was referring to were around an example that I laid out was the worn striping and the the fact that the striping the traffic striping had
basically been been worn away, which is a maintenance item because it would just require paint. But if we all kind of accept that lane markings and traffic paint based traffic controls are important, not having them, whether they
were there because of faulty design or arrangement or they were there because of lack of maintenance, kind of both get us to the same place, which is a faulty arrangement of a site. Okay. And so are you a licensed engineer? I'm not. Okay. Had you
designed a site plan before? I'm not. Okay. But I did review the site plan for this property that was approved by the planning board and some time ago. All right. And do you actually that brings up a good point. Have you reviewed the site plan? I know there was some discussion on it in May 19th. Do you know the impervious coverage for the
property? Yes. Do you know without referring to any of your notes? Why would he need to refer to it without his notes? I'm just curious. It's in the report. Come on. Is it? I believe it is.
Actually, I do believe it is. We're going to go back and calculate it. It's in there. I know it is. Said 78% on page 40. There you go. It's in the report. So, why are you asking? Because it was going to be revised.
They're going to reveal it. So I'm asking whether it what whether they have their own idea as to what that impervious coverage is because they're talking about the law coverage as one as the in without making their arguments they
reference the lock coverage as one of the bases justifying a designation for criteria D. So if we have lock coverage in the report as one item they're going to take a look at it revise the numbers. We don't have any revised numbers. So I'm just trying to understand
Do do you did you go back out and re and and reassess what the impervious coverage is or recalculate it? No. I mean, you're going to have to do that. Obviously, we can't have an incorrect impervious coverage number in the report. Um, yeah. I mean, can I refer to Golda on this because she had done some work
since the last hearing on that. Okay. Do you know, Gold, do you know what the number is? So this was in here for purposes of being a bit more or illustrative. It was more about the subdivision with the auto zone which
is that property to the I guess left if you're looking at it where when this site plan subdivision occurred in the early 80s it was viewed as a 14 acre whatever that percent was with that being undisturbed. I think it was just a billboard at that time. And at some
point, there was a site plan that took that auto zone and developed it up. And we compared the fact that these two lots are now covered. It might not be exactly 78%. It does say the words illustrative
analysis on page 40 to point out this is illustrative using tools. No, we're not engineers. I don't even know if we can get that exact estimate as a non-engineer. with the word with the word approx. Go ahead. I I was going to say my point that I raised at the last meeting was
that there are tools out there that measure impervious cover when I was reading through this report and looking at facts that impervious cover was higher as per NJ map 2 which has one of the better impervious cover mapping ones. So that 78% I think it was closer
to to 81 82% but again approximation here is significantly higher than what the current zoning allows from purbase cover was the point. I I think if we just edit the report to say to include the word approximately, it does say it says approximately. It says illustrative
analysis. It says estimates approximately 78% of our coverage. Oh, it does say approximately. All right. I mean, the word approximately is in there. I'm fine with that. Then I mean because at that point then you're relying to say anything more than 27%
that's allowed by the zoning ordinance would constitute excessive law coverage. I don't think that's a fair statement. But then that's then we need the number and then you could base your your opinions based off of what the actual coverage is. I can tell you as an order of magnitude approximately it's in that
78 range. the things that maybe weren't calculated were some landscaped areas within the like the front courtyard. Um, so but on as an order of magnitude, it's much closer to 78 than it is at 20 than
it is to 27. That's my testimony. Okay. And you're going to re Well, I own that for excessive law coverage under criteria D. Yes. Okay. And so one of the last I really the final criteria is criteria H. Uh
standing on its own. Do you apply that criteria H constitutes a sufficient basis for designating the property as an area in need of redevelopment? So I would typically it's just Would you rely
on criteria HL on it for this property? No. Okay. Did you recommend to the board that they would? I don't think I did. Okay. And then so the final item I wanted to raise here is the
issue for curbing site access with the drive lanes. Mhm. Um are you aware that's NJ or really that Yeah. Route 35 is a state road? Yes. Okay. Do you have the standards for the curbing?
I'm sorry. What are we looking at? I'm looking at the report. I just was zooming in. Okay. Piece of it. Um, so I I think one thing um if it's okay with the board that I wanted to kind of supplement um the record to um
council's point, uh there were two and I'd like to read that provision into the record. Um, all curb cuts shall be at least 15 feet but not more than 30 feet in width except on county or state roads where applicable county or state requirements are established. Unless
specifically permitted elsewhere in this chapter, only one curb cut shall be permitted on any street frontage and it shall be located within the center one-third of the frontage of the site. When I was testifying initially, I can
speak to the what were what were I was reading um from section ordinance section 21-33.2 which the excerpt of which is on page um 37 uh in the report. Um and
the real I think the point that we were that I was more trying to make and I got caught up on the first sentence when testifying back in May. um was the second sentence. Unless specifically permitted elsewhere in this chapter, only one curb cut shall be permitted on any street frontage and it shall be
located within the center 1/3 of the site. On this site, as you know, the curb cuts are on the far ends, not in the center. Okay. And so would you be able to
build in connection with that uh zoning ordinance when it's a state road uh clarify your question? So would you be able to satisfy that ordinance standard given that it's a state road? I don't know. Okay. And so you also
mentioned an accident on Route 35 during May 19th. Do you recall? I do. Okay. And you raised uh uh quite frankly, you mentioned that in your opinion that the
uh uh overgrown landscaping and and shrubs probably caused that accident. Um I'd like the opportunity to review the actual report. Sure.
Oh, Okay. Um, I'm talking about your testimony anyway. Yeah. And I and I don't have a transcript and I don't think you do either, so I'm trying to just be as precise as I can. Um,
I do recall um there was an accident. I do recall that it was I believe um at one of the driveways uh obviously when when there was a vehicle egressing. Which driveway do you know?
Um, I think I'm pulling up a record. Okay. As we sit here right now, I don't have the um the the specific driveway. Okay. And if it's in the report, can you tell it's it's not and I wanted to get right. So
the Did you review any of the police records? Yes. Okay. Were they attached to the report? There's there's I just want to clarify for the record there's a list of appendices and it's not one of them violations. All right. So it's your
opinion that it caused action but you haven't included any evidence to justify that opinion. Is that correct? Right now I think that that's correct. Yeah. All right. And so there's several pictures because like you said
you there were two inspections and honestly right up in the uh the first photograph on the cover page you show several pictures of uh flooding or really some puddling and poolage.
Do you have any uh uh idea when you took those photographs uh when the nearest rain event was? Um no, but I'm sure that um there is a way to find that out. Okay. So, when we're
looking at these photos, because what you did was to show that there was instances of puddling and pooling justify that there'd be a need for storm water improvements, right? Yeah, the in part. Yes. Okay. But
there's nothing to tell the board or or tell anybody that there's that it might have just rained 2 minutes or 2 years before you took that photograph. I could say it was probably closer to 2 minutes than 2 years. But you understand my
point. I do. And but at the same time after it it rains, if it's not raining in the moment, the way that a site the water pools on a site is evidence to us of how the site is draining um or not.
So that that's what we were documenting. Okay. And the report does indicate that you saw moss indicating long-term standing water. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So that's so that's what I wanted to just
reiterate here. So standing on its own for criteria D would it would criteria D on its own constitute an area need of development? Yes. All right. How about for criteria B? Standing on its own. Yes. All right. Thank you. Okay. No further questions. Can Can I
ask you questions? All right. I I just I just want to there was something that was not brought up when you were talking about the the vacancy and I think it's really important that we go back to this that we received testimony from a member of the public who identified herself as a
real estate agent saying that they were not able to rent space despite having multiple clients who were interested in it. Can can you address that at all as as part of this ongoing vacancy? I can do one better than that. I actually have a representative of the ownership here
who could tell you why. Okay, great. Can Can we hear that? That would be Can Mark, can we do that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, yes, it's up to him. Absolutely. Please. I'm I'm very curious. Okay.
Yeah, you guys don't leave the room, but Yeah. Don't go far. Yeah. Yes, they're probably just going to want to swear you in. So, okay. Um, do you affirm the testimony about the gable be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? And just state your name for
the record. Z V I B E R G E. Could you I'm sorry. You got to back up. Start again. Zebra V I B E R G E R. Okay. And what is your relationship? Uh,
I'm the managing owner of CJ Dress Realy LLC. And that's the owner of the property. Yes. I see a man managing agent. All right. Thank you. Managing partner. Managing partner. Okay. All right.
Thank you. So, you ready to introduce yourself as authorized agent, managing member of the property owner? I'm authorized. And how long have you really have ZJY on the property? um since um
2000 uh um about 24 years. Okay. So 2001. Yep. Okay. And so um since to you took ownership of it, you've operated a commercial shopping center. Is that correct? All right. And so uh more
recently, have you decided to sell the property? Yes. All right. Starting when? Uh we did that um in 2000. 21. Okay. And so starting when 21 when
you were actively trying to sell the property um were there any request or requirements from from interested parties and contract purchasers. Starting from 21? Yeah. We had some um interested part parties. Yes. Okay. And
did they ask that you did not renew the leases? That's correct. And did they ask you not to sign up new leases? That's correct. And why is that? Because they didn't want to purchase property and then uh have to worry about buying out all the tenants. The purpose was for
redevelopment and they were going to um change the nature of the of the place uh and they had to knock down that building. So therefore uh they preferred not to um to have any uh have me renew
any leases or negotiate new leases um unless I had their permission for a short term. you know, that's that was like, you know, and and so is it fair to say that their requirement and we don't I want to get into the specifics. I'm trying to be very careful
here because you don't want to get into the negotiations, those other deals because obviously they didn't work out, but u they to the greatest extent possible, they wanted the site vacant. Yep. Okay. And fortunately, you were able to find a buyer. Is that correct?
Yes, I have a buyer. And you're under contract? Yes, I am. All right. very serious one and trying to close in a matter of weeks. Yeah, in 20 days. Okay. So, Mr. Chad, just just because I want to go back to your previous point, you
were very concerned about the use of the phrase previously used. And I don't want to mischaracterize what I just heard, but to me it sounds like they had determined that they were winding down their business operations in preparation for a
sale. So they were not currently using they were winding down. Is is that is that correct? Well, it's still being used, right? There's still some tenants there. It's just that if they don't have any I mean they were going to re-up somebody with an expiring lease, right? And so the number and and that was in
2021, which is four years ago, which is longer than two years is per the statute, right? Okay. Mhm. Okay. Absolutely. We're not Okay. I just want to I just want to make sure that I understand that there's vacancies. We're just trying to explain why there's
vacancy and that's fine that it was going to be temporary for the long was the property under contracts in 2021. Oh jeez. How long was it under contract? During which period the potential buyer said, "We're looking to redevelop and we don't want Well, we
had we had a few of them. We had Havana and we had the last one was in 24 which we had a signed contract. Um and um we would have sold this property already except that particular buyer um just
kept on pushing and pushing and pushing you know it was a 60-day then he went another 45 days. Um 21 and 24. Yeah. So when he finally we finally realized that he wasn't purchasing it then we you know
and so now we're we're up to a real we know this guy's serious because he's 30-day you know the other guy was was you know but this guy is 30 days and he really he's a well-known person around this area. He's done a lot of work. He's very proud of his work and I know that
he can do a great job. He wants to close and get start right away. He's already, you know, looking doing a lot of due diligence and spending a lot of money. Can I ask a question? Let me just ask a question. So, so the town has received,
it's my understanding, multiple over the years, applications to open businesses within the plaza. I mean, tenants. Tenencies. Yeah. Since 2021. Well, I mean, you're saying that's not true. What kind of tenants are you talking about? I mean, we could swear in
our uh our secretary over here who's in charge of that and she'll she'll tell you, but but there have been multiple applications over the years, which just sort of flies in the face from 20 over the last couple years. Maybe not very few though. Not not many. Yeah, there there have been a lot from my understanding. I mean, I can Nicole, I
can swear you in and you can tell us because you're in charge of that also. So, Nicole, let me just Well, hold on. Nicole, do you want to be sworn in? She's going to have to because she has information. Okay. All right. I shouldn't have a choice. Really has a choice. Sorry, Nicole. Trying to give
you some agency here. I just want to know I don't understand the question. What do you mean that people those people who file applications they do they actually start their businesses? Do they did they actually start? Why don't we start her in and get the information because it flies in the face of what you just said and then we'd like to clarify
that. Do you So So do you swear any testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, nothing about the truth. So hope you got and just state your name for the record. Nicole. All right. And Nicole, in your capacity, I understand you're the planning board secretary, but are you do you serve other functions uh for the township?
Uh yes. So I am the uh planning and zoning board secretary. I also was the business license coordinator for three and a half years. Took in new business license applications, uh did engineering reviews. So Right. And can you tell us what your experience is with our applications to open businesses up at
that plaza? 2021. We've received at least over a dozen new business license applications. Not just applications, businesses that have opened, spent their year there, and then left. And we actually we have a new business license application that just came in last week.
Groundb. You're talking about um Growing Kids. That's what just came in. But I could also talk about Just Play that came and just left. Just play. Just Play is leaving now, correct? About the end of this week. But that was a new business
that came in since 2021. So they're Yes, that's it. That's one just play was there from a long time before. They're extending their uh their lease to another to another place. So that's the one that we Yeah, but they didn't do it yet. They're still it's not they're not going in until July 1st. So you have one
tenant. That's it. Well, I don't think that's what she's saying. What I'm saying? So, what I'm telling you is that and since 2021, we have received over a dozen business license applications that have gone into your place and then left since then. But they but they never got to our place. We don't have them. But
either way, well, no one's disputing that that there's vacancy rental. We don't have them. They applied. It's it's okay. It's so I I think that the issue is is that is that the testimony given is that they've intentionally allowed tenencies to die
in the premises because they wanted to hand over a vacant property. It's not that you're conceding it's vacant. You're trying to make an argument the reason it's vacant is because they're intentionally not not leasing out the premises. And what Nicole's testifying to is that that
doesn't uh comport with what she's experienced because there's been license that have come in. It's not one business. It's it's multiple businesses and and I didn't anticipate this testimony. We can get that information before the board of different licenses that have come in for the property. No,
just just play. That's it. No short term. Okay. I don't know what she's talking about. But that's if the board even wants to see this, but but but nevertheless, it's it's Does the board have questions about the vacancy rates of Orchard Plaza
currently? Is anyone unclear? Does anyone have feelings? We've now heard our testimony from topology when we've heard the testimony from or the questioning from Mr. Chad. Is anyone unclear on the vacancy for fidelity? I I've driven by the place full 360. I used to go to autos and some other
places there. So, I'm very familiar with it and it doesn't really matter to me. And I think he also said that they didn't want to fill it unless they had permission from the probable purchaser. So, that didn't mean they weren't filling it and don't put words in your
mouth. That's what that what Mark said is definitely true. That's what we did. We did not have any uh substantial people coming in there because we knew that we're going to get hurt by finding buyers and if that one and just one, you know, just play. By the way, it's that
they came to 21. That's just when we made our decision. So, it's like month here, a month there. But as far as I know, I don't anybody else that came into that place, honestly. And Okay. So, yeah. And we can move on to the next
part which was I wanted to raise in here that there were some complaint forms on the in the report. Actually actually before you go too far on that was my actually my next question for you in just reading this report and I want to make sure that we're not going down a rabbit hole here on page 27 in that
section that starts the lapitation right lack of maintenance. It doesn't actually say that there's a number of outstanding complaints that have not been addressed. It merely highlights those complaints as a history of the lapitation on the site and then proceeds to share a number of
photos of various areas of the site currently that are I think to the naked eye dilapitated. So appendix H was a historical reference not not something for current outstanding violation. Is that your understanding as well? My
understanding is that it was used to help support the finding that there's been a general lack of maintenance. Mhm. So items have been cited and then addressed well runs counter to the idea that there's been a a real that there's a
real lack of maintenance here. Dilation status. I would disagree with that assessment. They're they're being fined and they're being forced to address it. But are are you disputing the the photographic evidence on the the subsequent pages? Well, I wanted to just
go to appendix IH. We'll get there. Okay. So, for H, were there ever they mentioned violations? Were you ever fined? No, we never got any fines. We never received any violations to mail like we had done for the past 24 years. Once when somebody came down to give us
a violation and we took care of it and send it back, you know, we had to check the box that it was taken care of. We had something very unusual for the first time. Um a inspector um Chris Ston, Steven Ston came to uh called me up says
he wants to meet me there. So I went down there and he says, "I want you to do this, this, this, this, and this." We wrote up everything that he did. We emailed in response to that. We took care of this. We took care of that. We took this. This is we still ordered the
material. we need another week for this and for that and subsequently and and within two weeks time everything was done. Okay. He came back again a few months later I want you to paint the whole facade everything front and a
couple other minor uh repairs. We did that and a couple of months later he came again and he said I want you to paint the entire back of the the wall the whole building and the two sides. And we did that and then lo and behold after everything was done
all of a sudden the media came out with all these with all the you know recommendations for you know what what the town's going to do to me and destroyed me. Okay. Now we didn't get anything after that. He didn't come up to me and say hey you know this is no good. This is no good. He didn't get me
a notice. Hey you know we don't like that you're it's vacant. anything that has to do with improving the what the town wanted me to do. I'm here for 25 years. I've been doing pretty good also, by the way. Okay? Because I can show my rent rolling right before CO. It was
over $900,000 a year. Okay? Gross. Okay? We weren't doing that. We got hit by we got hit by CO and after that we decided to sell in 21. That's all. But what but we didn't get any violations. I get back to the point. Did we get any violations?
Did you get any any for so no formal violations? No. Any fines? No. Okay. They were all timely addressed that every item that was raised in those complaint forms. Yeah. I have emails. Okay. And so to the chair's point that that was more historic what's going on
based off of when the site pictures were taken uh in February. So let's start on page 27. Trash and debris. Did you take a look at this? Oh, all I know is after that report, I went down to the strapping center and I didn't see any of it. Okay, so I just like to
conclude that almost everything that's in this report is already taken care of. Okay, even though I have a buyer, I took care of everything that I could. I only held up on the sidewalks. That's it. And the back lock. That's it. Everything else is done, including the storm water bas
including the storm water basin. Because after trees, storm water is my favorite topic. Most of it is out. Most of it is out. The the contractor asked me to wait to the end of this week to pull out there some um some rods or something from the other side next to uh Pet Boys
from the storm. From the in the storm. He said he's pulling that out. That's not a problem for him. Everything in those pictures is gone. You can go there. It's not there. The potholes are all clean. the arrows for the streets that you're talking about for 10 minutes. They're down the
next day. As soon as I saw that, I had my guy do that. In the same way, I would have expected the township inspector to come to me and say, "Hey, he did, you know, he's done been doing this for since ear since middle of November of of before November of 23. Why doesn't he come over to me and say, "Hey, you got
problems here. Can't let me take care of it." Can I ask why does it take the town to go out and point something out for you to do the care that needs to be done to fix it? Well, most of the time it didn't need to be and I had very over the years I had very few violations. But forget
violations because it's not about violations. Violations occur because there's some uh something that's been uh neglected. Neglected. Okay. Why does it take And it's appreciated that you as soon as you get a violation, you take care of it.
Yes. Why does the violation have to come in the first place? And these there's not just one violation. It's not just one issue. You're indicating you saw the report and then you took care of all these things. That's correct. Correct. Right. But why did it take the report for you to go and take care of all these things? What's going on? When I was in
contract, that was my mistake. When I was in contract, I thought all the obligations and responsibilities would be of the purchaser and he wouldn't nobody would care much because he would either demolish it or do whatever he wants with it. It was my mistake. I should have you know um so just for that
year I did rely on you know when I got that information I took care of it. So you're saying this all happened in 2024 that that that 2023 everything was fine. Uh no in November of 23 is when he started I think in March 24 when
everything was complete. What was complete? All the work that he asked me to do over the past No, but I'm talking about what happened prior to November 23. when you began to get these violations, why was the property able to fall into that state of decline? Well,
prior to November of 2023 when you got the when you got the violation before he answers, I just want to clarify that there were no violations issued, right? We didn't have that. Well, you got the complaints from the from from the code enforcement officer. Prior to getting complaints, fine semantics, but I get it. I forget the
word violation. you were contacted by the code enforcement officer and then the testimony is as soon as he got those complaints he took care of it. Why did it take that what was going on prior to November 2023 that the place was able to fall into such decline? It wasn't it
wasn't in 20 only in 23 like I mentioned to you 22 was fine. I'm gonna so what happened in 2023 sorry object because these are complaint forms they're raising issues as to what they deem to be poor state of the the condition of the property there's
nothing on record as to what standards they fell below so state of this in this state of disrepair argument I mean well your client's acknowledging that there were issues that needed to be tended to and as soon as he was made aware of them
he took care of them if everything was wonderful and fine, your client would have said, "There's nothing wrong here. What are you talking about, you town? You're crazy." I don't But that but that but that's not what he did. He's acknowledging that when he was told there was an issue, which he's acknowledged about four times that in
November in 2023, these are when all these problems occurred and as soon as he was notified of them, he took care of them. So, I'm trying to figure out what happened in 2023 that you're saying in 2022 everything was wonderful and everything was perfect. That's right. that in 2023 everything went downhill
and the ballpark. I didn't say it went into decline. You said that. Well, you I'm just saying it something that he picked on and he wanted to care take care of he said I should take care of I would ordinarily would take care of stuff that but I I don't have to I don't have to paint the back of the of a building, you know, uh all the hole in
the way. I think that's a little excessive. And there was other things as well that was really quite excessive. a little thing here and a little thing there. And nobody you don't go to you go to the most modern uh strip malls. You don't I mean they're not going to the one bulb he said one or two bulbs is
around 35 or 40 posts with brand new LEDs and then they pick out one and say oh look it's not working in that report. It's ridiculous. I mean who's we're not perfect. It's not decline. This is just plain old nitpicking. And that's what he
did and that's fine. I'm okay. I was okay with it. I did it. They spent a lot of money and I was and I I was fine and that that's all. Well, what about the arrows on the on What about the uh the other on the ground? Also, I never realized there was a problem with arrows. I I'm here for 24 years. None. No inspector ever said that to me. None.
Forget the inspector. No, that's how do I know that? That's a that's a problem. But you have signs. I have signs on on both sides says you can't do not enter. Big sign. So So is this the only property that you manage? Yes. Uh in in Jersey. But you manage other properties?
No, not actually a little trip net. My other studies in New York are triple net. Why is that? Well, my point is that you have some experience in this field. You've been doing it since 2021, since 2001. So, does it take someone coming to you to tell you that there's a problem before you are cognizant of the fact
that maybe I need to address the issues and that everything you just allow it to just be until until until an issue is brought to your attention. for someone who's been managing property since since 2001 at the very least. This was nitpicking. This was not okay. There was
nothing wrong here. That's well that was my opinion for 24 years and and none of nobody in this township said anything about it. The same all these items were here before. And my only point is is that I don't know why you have to wait for someone to come to you to tell you there's an issue before you go and address the issue. And your and and your
argument is that he didn't think that there were any issues really to be addressed. I wasn't aware it was an issue expert. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Does anyone have any other questions? You don't have any concerns about criteria H?
Criteria H is on its standalone basis. No. Well, well, actually we have planner who could talk about it a little bit more from a planning perspective. Do do you does anyone want to talk about criteria H more? Oh, I have a feeling their planner is going to as he just do you want to talk
about criteria age more? Oh, wait. I'll let it come out. Unless there's something I mean planning criteria. So, H is not required as far as us evaluating whether the site Yes, it is. It's one of the criteria that that we are evaluating it on. I know but
it's um it's not it's a standalone. It's not uh it's not required for B and I I think B and D R and H is a additional information in the most technical reading of it. No, it's our our planner is advising us not to base our criteria
solely on each, but the statute itself does not say that. Just so we're clear, unless I'm mistaken, Mr. Lexine. No, but I think you can follow the advice of what the planner is saying and and that is what he's saying. Okay. So, if you if you want to bring up your planner, if there's anything else
you want to add, I think we're we're there. That's Sure. Yeah. Do you swear testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Help you God. I do. And just state your name for the record. It's cray cran.
R a hen k a m p. And what are you with a firm? Myself. You're with yourself. And you're a licensed planner state of New Jersey and your license is in good standing. Yes. Thank you. Go ahead. You don't Yeah. You don't need the VAR and we we accept them as an expert. Okay. Great.
And Mr. Frankov, you reviewed the uh area need report in connection with this uh preliminary investigation. Is that correct? It did. All right. And before we get into the report, can you kind of just give the board benefit of just rundown of the process of where we are because I feel like maybe it got lost a
little bit just um that this is the area need study and what the criteria is that we're looking at. Well, yes. I mean, there there was a great deal of discussion about property maintenance issues and um sort of municipal administration issues. Um, none of that is directly relevant to a declaration of
blight leading to the possibility of government engaging in condemnation that we'll actually be talking about the designation criteria under the legislature and under case law since um, and I agree with your planner's testimony uh, and the gentleman's uh,
conversation that that age alone uh, by case law is insufficient. So, we'll be focusing on on uh, B and D this evening. All right. Great. and can you get into criteria B and and what really what we'll do. Okay. So, as the gentleman said, there's not a
whole lot of debate on whether or not the center has had um some amount of vacancy. I'll leave substantial for whatever litigation happens in the future. It's certainly a center that's had vacancy over the the recent time. But what's important um is we have a
federal constitutional uh control over the use of of condemnation. Um and that's a finding that the instrumentality of private capital uh will fail to operate appropriately which justifies governmental intervention. Our legislature tries to convert that into criteria and the criteria B was recently
amended to add this two years of substantial vacancy in retail as one of the criteria a board could reach the ultimate conclusion that uh designation and the possibility of condemnation was necessary. Sorry. I'm sorry. Are are we I think we're voting on redevelopment,
not condemnation. Correct. No, we are are voting on condemnation redevelopment. It is not our decision whether or not it gets condemned. It is the council's decision. They are not forced to condemn it. If we were to approve this, they could move forward with redevelopment plan lacking
condemnation. Correct. They could. They could. But but your your Let me finish my sentence. Your report recommending that it be available for that is itself an appealable action. So it's not as if nothing happens until the governing body acts. What you've done is an act and that act can be appealed whether or not
it meets those criteria. So So essentially the council send this to you as a area need a redevelopment study with condemnation and the and the statute requires that they must be very specific with whether condemnation is is part of this or not. They can either say it's not with condemnation or they can
say it is with condemnation. Our vote is whether it's with or without. And so your vote is with condemnation. And that's what you're being asked to determine is whether or not this is an area need redevelopment with condemnation. You're not doing the condemnation as the chairman said. That's ultimately up to the council, but
it is incumbent upon this board to find whether or not this this this property meets the definition of an area need to redevelopment with condemnation. That's a very very important finding that this board has to make.
Correct? We clear? We all clear. Do my professionals agree with me on that point? Yes, we all do. Yes, we all we all agree. Okay. All right. And the criteria that you're offered by the legislature is this vacancy issue in retail. That's a relatively new amendment to the statute that hasn't been tested in court yet. And this may
be the case that does that. Um my point to you is that the evidence that you've heard thus far is you have a land owner who is actively seeking private redevelopment revitalization of the site has been engaged in finding buyers actively for the last couple of years and is currently under contract to
someone who wants to do exactly that. So the evidence of before you is yes the center has been vacant sub I won't use the word substantial a lot of vac vacancy we'll leave substantial to to a judge someday um a lot of vacancy on the site but that that alone is not sufficient evidence to show that private
capital is going to be insufficient in being able for revitalization to occur here. Does government really need to intervene and threaten condemnation to make something happen? And the evidence that's before you is no because that's already in process. that's what's happening anyway. So I would suggest to
you that that criteria B is not met by the facts in this case that's before you. Now criteria D is a very important one. Um it it's in summary I would call it the dilapidation criteria. Um and case law tells us and your planner at
page 13 summarizes one of the recent cases to say how important substantial evidence is and the interior of the building. Evidence from interior of the building is important. That's part of the summary. Um, and unfortunately that's not what you've been offered. Um, you've been offered a whole series of
what I would refer to as maintenance issues. And maintenance issues are explicitly under case law not sufficient criteria for a designation of blight. You haven't been shown structural deficiencies in the building. You haven't been shown that there are interior problems in the building. You
have been shown um, for example, notwithstanding the case law that says maintenance isn't an issue. The first heading on page 27 is lack of maintenance. It's already not a criteria. Uh roof damage was remotely assessed. There's standing water. No comment about when
that when rain happened. Is that bad? Is there a leak? Is there structural damage? There's nothing further than an indicator that there might be a problem. Um and in fact, the report concludes that there's increased risk because of water, not in fact that there isn't structural damage impacting the
building. Um on page 29, we have instances of cracked concrete and that is unattractive. Unattractive is not a blight uh sufficient blight criteria. Page 31, we're t told about missing and faded signs. That's a municipal enforcement issue. That's maintenance.
Page 32, graffiti and older electrical boxes. That's not structural problems. That's not a blight criteria. I believe it says broken utility box. Broken utility box. And does your planner have evidence that electricity is not flowing through those systems? Do not. No.
I'm sorry. Um, page 35, we have inoperable lights, not counting how many of them or where they are in the field. And again, that's a maintenance issue. So, you said there's no nothing about the internal. On page 19, I see pictures of the of the inside of the space. Your planner has already testified he was not
in the building. So, at best, he's taking pictures from outside windows into tenant spaces. And measuring tenant improvements is not telling us whether a wall is falling down or whether the roof is in trouble. it it's not documenting the kind of structural infirmities that would justify a blank designation. So,
we can agree, we can disagree. You can decide that surficial stuff is enough for you, but that's not what the case law tells us. Um, and on faulty layout, we're told of a municipal ordinance on a state highway. There's no statement here that we're inconsistent with the state highway access code or that one way in
and one way out is inappropriate um overall in terms of site planning, just that it's inconsistent with your ordinance. Um, and on coverage, yes, it's higher coverage than your ordinance, but if we're going to conclude that it's a blight designation criteria for every retail site that has 80% coverage, you're going to have a lot
of blighted sites around the state. I would suggest to you that that's not a sufficient designation criteria for blight. Um, so it's not that I'm saying that these things are not there. Um, but I'm specifically saying these are maintenance issues. These are the kinds of things that are typically dealt with between a property owner and a
municipality through property maintenance requirements. And the evidence that you have and you just went through it so I won't do it in detail is every time the municipality generated a complaint that complaint was closed with with complete satisfaction. The work was done when people stopped providing those
those comment th those reports that work stopped and and council's right. Maybe that shouldn't happen. Um but that's an enforcement issue. That's not a blight designation justification for condemnation and the intervention of government in the redevelopment process on a site that's clearly already on a
trajectory to be developed privately. So I'm not negating anything that the folks from Topology said to you. What I'm saying to you is that this is overreach in terms of being a designation report justifying condemnation. Can I ask a question? How do you know the site is on
the process of of headed towards redevelopment? Um, the inside baseball answer is I know who the buyers are and I know their council. Um, that's the honest truth. Um, the reality
is you've got a landowner who has serially been under contract. um why people haven't closed. I don't want to speculate on what they found during due diligence or their meeting with the towns or whatever happened in the past, but there's active evidence that the the act of selling the property has been in
process now for a number of years. Right. But but the fact that someone's buying the property doesn't necessarily lead to the immediate conclusion that that the person who buys it is going to automatically develop it. He could sit on it. There not a whole lot of people that are spending $10 million to sit on it. Yeah.
this these people sat on it and uh the current owners sat on it and and since 20 since 2021 and haven't done anything with it other than try to sell it. We could we could agree to disagree and see what a guy in a road can anything can happen. They could buy it. They could wait for values
to go back up and decide at this point. It's all hypothetical. We don't know. We haven't seen plans. Nobody knows what they're actually going to be doing or not doing with it. And and also the question is which side is is proving what? You're you're proving the that private capital is incapable of doing it
while the evidence before you is the private capital is trying to Well, we don't No, but there's no evidence of the priv All all that's been established here is that someone is actively in the process of buying the property. That does not logically go to the next step
that the person who buys it is going to clean it up or develop it. Put the shoes on the other foot. It's government trying to demonstrate that private capital will not be sufficient in revitalizing. My point is you're stating for the record that there's evidence in place that redevelopment is going to
happen. And my only point is I'm not negating what you're saying. All I'm saying is that your statement that the property is on the track for redevelopment doesn't have any foundation to it because you know nothing other than the fact that there's a contract. I won't disagree. You've
That's my only You've characterized the facts correctly. We interpret them differently, but the facts are the facts, right? Somebody was saying something. He he got to my question. It's the It's the same thing. Just because there's a buyer. Uh
I I've known plenty of folks who have big dreams of restoring antiques they find at Goodwill and it never happens, which this is that at a much larger scale. This could potentially turn into an amazing site, but there is no proof that it will. It's just there's a
contract and that contract isn't finalized. The closing hasn't happened. Well, I'll leave I'll leave to council that there has been a there is a contract right now. Whether there's a closing is the closing is the closing before midnight tonight. No. So, so this board is going to vote on something that
has not closed one way or the other. If we take a vote tonight, it will be there will not have been a closing, which is why we asked for it to be put off every month. That's that's outside of our perview and I understand I understand where you're coming from, but I also I really want to just go back to this point and I want to make sure that we're
all very clear on this. If we vote on this and agree with our planners testimony, it still does not obligate the council to condemn it. Am I correct? You are correct. Correct. And Mr. Mr. Chairman, I'd also sub I'd also submit to you that even if the closing was
happening today, right now in front of us, that wouldn't be a reason for you not to vote tonight because the property is what the property is as it is today. May I take that as a question? I wasn't making a question to testify.
We'll let Mr. Beal ask his question first, but All right, I'll come back to it. It's more of me thinking out loud. So Mark, just follow me here. it. If I heard them correctly earlier, they have a closing in 20 days and our next board meeting is more than 20 days away. By that time, we would know who the buyer
is. And if the buyer is one of the three people I think it could be, then that would lead me to think it could be redeveloped. I'm thinking out loud here. I'm not merely making a point. Um, what's the harm in us pushing this to the next meeting? That's what that's just a question. it it's up to the board. But my my only point was that
there is you have you are obligated by the by the town to make a determination and you shouldn't be making that determination whether or not based upon whether or not they have a contract. The board can do what it wants to do. I'm not telling you not to. What I'm saying is there are no legitimate grounds just
based upon the fact there's a contract. It doesn't change the circumstances of the situation of what you're being asked to conclude by the uh by the council. Okay. So, just let me just add some more fidelity. So, the reason I phrased it that way was the last meeting you had
someone someone show up to defend the owner and he seemed to just find out this was happening and showed up maybe not totally prepared. That was Mr. Tara. That was you, right? Mr. was also very clear that it was that his client was noticed appropriately and
just he had only found out that evening. I agree. So I don't know or that I'm not saying either way. I guess I'm weighing in with my my partners over here if giving them 30 days is going to be a bad thing. Can some can someone
clarify u simply I think I know but um the difference between redevelopment with and without condemnation what hap what's going what would happen if the council determined condemnation versus non-condemation well if they decide to proceed with condemnation that's that's
the adverse taking of the property it's eminent domain domain purchase and and all that exactly but but they they could go forward with a redevelopment plan that does not include that they absolely absolutely could. Right? So they had they chosen and they did not had they chosen to go
through non-condemnation redevelopment it would put them at the same place if we move this forward then they can come up with a redevelopment plan and choose whether or not to condemn it at that time. And the redevelopment plan could include any number of other let's call them creative ways to help facilitate
redevelopment of the site. Am I am I we all in agreement on that? No. No. No. I'm waiting for my turn. All right. Well, come on. Let's let's hear it. So So yes, I agree with with the part that the governing body ultimately has responsibility, but you have responsibility for the document that
you're being asked to adopt. That adoption creates a a a a document that then needs to be appealed if you're the land owner. So we're all going to start spending money immediately upon your adoption within the 45day appeal period. And we're going to be arguing that your
criteria D was light, that H doesn't count, and you went overboard on criteria B. doesn't count. It's it's a state planning case uh criteria. It's a throwin. Um the our courts have decided that you cannot designate blight for
condemnation based on H. So H is is from a litigation point of view. It doesn't count. But I mean it furthers our master plan, something that we wrote specifically. It sure does. And and it's great for the state plan if if sites develop. And any planner could give you great pros on how anything advances age.
And the courts have figured that out. So they basically said, "Okay, we get that. We really want to talk about the criteria for condemnation that are about how bad the property is." So So I'm not I'm not trying to convince you not to think about H. I'm just saying when we get to the next step, a judge isn't going to want to hear anything about H.
It's just over. H is done. My only point is if they were sold and you had the developer in here, right? I'm sorry, not developer because now I got the redevelopment in my head. But say the new buyer is sitting here in this room showing you that they have we have these wonderful plans for what we want to do
with the premises. What What does that mean for the board? Does the board say, "Okay, we'll give you 60 days to develop it before we finish the hearing." I mean, it doesn't work that way. Can I finish what I was going to say? I thought I thought you were done. No, that was one of my three. I've got two more. Go ahead. Um the
question though was proof of what? By whom? To whom? You keep saying our contract isn't enough for you to put this off. And I'm not suggesting that that contract is proof. It's your job to find as an affirmative finding as your council represented to you earlier in recommending to the governing body that
this is a designation with condemnation powers that you have found that private capital will not develop this site appropriately. What evidence do you have to to come to that finding? Alls I'm saying is that there's at least alternative stuff out there which
undermines the idea that you could reach that conclusion. I don't think you have any evidence that demonstrates to you that the private sector is incapable of developing this site without government condemnation. You don't have any evidence. So not to beat that to death. Um the the last
thing about why it matters, there's a thing called condemnation blight that that planners and lawyers understand that once the once this process started, once the newspaper articles started, it impacted the way people look at the site because an investor is looking at the site and saying, "Oh, well, I'm going to
spend money going through due diligence, but the government could take it away anyway. Why am I going to bother?" As soon as you start this process, it has a darkening cloud on the private redevelopment process. So, it matters. This is not just something that we can do this and it it doesn't matter. The governing body will take responsibility.
The thing that you're being asked to do matters. It I'm done. Go ahead. I absolutely agree that it does matter, but it's not our determination. the the governing body has asked us, does it meet the criteria? Not not any of those next steps, but you it's well within
your scope to say it meets the the redevelopment for to be in a redevelopment area, but we're not recommending it be uh designated with condemnation powers. You can do that. That's that's part of your of your power. You do have that ability. You could recommend it without eminent domain if you wished, but that's not
what you've been asked to do by the council. So, so and the planner can our planner should come back up when this is all said and done and rep. Yeah. Um, well, is he is he done? Are you done? Correct. I I was done responding. Okay. Okay. And by the way, we know each other and respect each other. That's fine. We
can turn into a cat. We can actually sit share a microphone. Um, so let me just ask one question about the instrumentality of private capital. And I just want to make sure that we're not like imposing or inventing a new standard. Um there's criteria A through
criteria H. Only one of those criteria um speak to the instrumentality of private capital. You're saying that there's a federal constitution, maybe some federal case law out there. Yes. The charge the the New Jersey statutory
state law charge is for this board to evaluate by the criteria that's contained in the local redevelopment and housing laws. Isn't that correct? No. So they're supposed to look for other criteria. They're always required to be lawful. So in this case, the statutory process
that exists for this type of process is to use the statutory framework that exists in New Jersey. Look, if if you're cleverly asking me if we stay within the four corners of the statute, do we avoid the question? And the answer is maybe. this this amendment to the statute that
put two years of of of substantial vacancy is relatively new and has not been tested in court. This may this may be the case that does that. That's all I'm saying. It may be that it may be one of the other ones that I'm working on. Okay. Um so this whole thing about instrumentality
of private capital and this assumption that the public sector that we're suggest that this vote would suggest the p the private sector cannot do its job. Um that that's the whole point of redevelopment in the first place. Would your would you be saying that if this was a non- condemnation redevelopment
area? I wouldn't bother. And I might think it, but there's no reason to come up and oppose it. The both the both the land owner and the municipality will ultimately benefit from the various financial instruments that the state makes available in that context. So I it would not be in the interest of the land
owner to oppose that. I'm saying I'm sorry. Are you saying that redevelopment without condemnation is a is a positive thing for the for this? In all likelihood, it opens up the door to financial instruments, pilots, RAB bonds, all kinds of things that you could do without threatening
condemnation, right? But you could also do them with the possibility of condemnation. The council could choose not to do that. You could, right? But the the question I was asked, if condemnation wasn't on the table, would a land owner care? The answer is no. And he knows that. And we wouldn't be
talking about the fact that the board's determination that the area meets the criteria is a um some demonstration that the instrumentality of private capital can't isn't isn't going to work here that they
have to conclude in order to in order in satisfying the criteria that they have to now there's this new standard right that's not written in the law in the New Jersey law. There's another standard in in a federal right law, statute, case law, whatever, um that says if you're
going to use redevelopment, you have to determine that government intervention is necessary, right? You wouldn't be saying that if this was a non-demnation redevelopment area. Correct. And there's nothing in the law that creates two different standards for condemnation and
non-condemnation redevelopment areas. Well, I I took your first question as would I be here tonight saying it, not whether or not it's true. Okay. Yeah. Well, then answer both. 80% of the designation criteria are overreaching. In D, they don't have the
substantive evidence that the courts required in contested cases. But would it be a contested case without condemnation? No. So, if you're asking me the practical question, would it be contested if it didn't have condemnation? My answer would be it probably would not be contested. But if you're asking me if it's contested, do
the things I say matter? Yeah. we just wouldn't bother saying them, right? But Malena is a case of non- condemnation where an objector came and yep had things to say about that. It rarely happens, but it happens. Um, so I want to be careful when when I was answering your question, I was asking the
practical question of would we be here, not do I think what I said was true. And to and to get to my second question, there there's only one standard of what's a redevelopment area, right? There's not that's true. the additional ray and cam standard of condemnation
redevelopment areas there is not okay um maybe one day maybe one day um and then so my last question is and I think it goes a little bit to Mr. 's point. Um, I'm working on another criteria B case which miraculously comes under contract the moment that you do this, just like
things get cleaned up the moment that a municipality does this. Um, in that case, um, we were presented with a copy of the contract. Do you know if that happened here? I don't know if it h I'm I'm assuming it hasn't happened yet. That's correct. Okay. And you haven't
seen it? No. Okay. So, all of this is um trust trust but verified. Well, no, not necessarily because we have a letter with requesting it be put off for one month signed by the attorney for the buyer saying that they want to discuss their vision for redevelopment for the
property and that there's a contract, but we have no idea what the contract says. Can Can I just pause for a second? No, I'm good. I'm after this. Um, okay then. No, if you want to question No, it's a question for Mr. Lexine. Would it it
thinking about the possibility of an applicant coming in to to talk about that that I'm not sure I'm phrasing my question. What would it matter if they came in to tell us all these wonderful things that they're thinking about doing if we still don't have any proof that they're going
to do it? Well, one, it's to talk about really to address and we'll note that that's not but but I agree with you. I mean, that was my point before. That's why I said it. It wouldn't make a difference to me if they were sitting here and they said, "Look, we just closed. Don't do this
today because we're going to do all these wonderful things on the property." And that would be a conversation to have with the governing body. That's a conversation to have with the governing body in my opinion because it's not a conversation to be having with the planning board. planning board doesn't doesn't devise development plans unless they redevelopment plans unless they're
asked to do so specifically by or by a resolution of the governing body. That is the role of the governing body, not the planning board. Right? So the question is a more practical one. Do we all waste time appealing this while that happens or we just wait until that happens so none of us waste time fighting on the litigation? So now
you're asking the board to make a political decision whether or not it's appropriate for for this board to say, "Well, let's weigh whether we're whether we're worried about getting sued, so let's hold off and give you how long to determine whether they're actually going
to buy the property or not." I mean, the argument is never going to stop. The argument is going to be one month they're in here, we close now. Okay. When's the work going to happen? We're going to get to it. It takes time. We have to do a lot of due diligence. We've got to get all these plans put together. So, give us give us six months to do it.
Six months later, where are you? Well, it's going to take another month. How many times is this board supposed to not proceed with the conclusion of the report based upon the promise that someone is going to do something? I don't think it works that way. In
practical life, in practical life, it it it disappear. The report disappears and doesn't come back as long as people are on a proper timeline. And does this board have the authority to make a report disappear that they've been asked to prepare by the by the mayor and council because they decide that they
don't want to do it? I I'm not going to debate law with you. Alls I can tell you alls I can tell you is my experience in life. That that's often what happens. That that's fine, but you're the one suggesting it. And what what I'm basically saying is I don't think this board has the authority to just ignore a
directive of the of the council because it determines in its own infinite wisdom. Well, we want to give the we want to give the property owner a lot of time to do what they want. Then then the request that would be before you is move forward on the report absent the condemnation designation table that
portion for 90 days. I I don't know. I don't think the board can do that. They have to make a conclusion. I've watched boards do it. Does it meet does it meet the criteria for with eminent domain or does it not? And that and that's basically what they've been asked to do. And we're stuck with our argument that
it's not. And and that's fair. That's your argument. So Mark, I just again just thinking out loud. I when we were presented with this last month, I was okay with condemnation. I've been to the property. I'm familiar with the
property. I got here in 2001, right when you did when you arrived, but being a good neighbor living here, you know, two decades, I've been afforded some grace in the community. And it's that like you're driving 35 and a 30, the cop pulls you over. He knows you're a local guy. He let you go. even though he could
give you a ticket by letter of the law. Right? So, I I just spiritually don't have a problem with giving them 30 days, but I'm telling you, I do agree with condemnation. So, I I'm not going to change my mind, but I b unless something else happens in 30 days, that's kind of miraculous, but I do believe the case
was laid out for condemnation uh through two of the three areas. And I mean, I can I don't have a problem with that. And Mr. Be, that's fine. And ultimately, it's going to be up to the board whether it wants to decide. I mean, there's a couple things the board could do. The board's heard a lot of testimony tonight. The board could vote tonight. The board could The board could direct
its planner to go back out to the site and and and view these things to see if things have changed at the site that maybe they missed something. And the board's allowed to do that. It's the board's report. You don't have to just go by the report that was put together by the planner and and here's your report. You got to take it or, you know,
take it or leave it. Um, you could ask for more information from your planner if you feel like you want to ask for more information. I think I hope I'm not too much putting too much pressure on you, Mark, but my my point of the grace was to not I can understand how stressful it could be to carry a
multi-million dollar property with not many tenants and you're almost ready to close a deal and then something like this happens. I wouldn't sleep good at night. And you know, being a citizen of the community, I I would like 30 days grace if I were in his shoes. But I'm telling you, I'm down with condemnation. But I understand the 30-day request. It's not my decision. I I don't I don't
I don't live in Ocean Township, Chip. I don't, you know, this is going to affect me either way other than the fact I drive past this place every single day and uh it can much also um Mr. Chair, is it okay? Yeah. Um and I want to direct address a little bit and I respect what
you're saying and I feel you. Um the the appeal period, right, starts when? 45 days from the adoption of a resolution which I obviously would not have tonight because of the fact that um
I I couldn't do it. Okay. 45 days the adoption of a resolution by whom? By the planning board, not by the governing body. Uh designating the area. No, they can appeal the decision of the govern. They can appeal the decision of the planning board the moment the planning board makes that decision. So the
planning board adopts the report. They could they could challenge the report on its own. They don't have to wait for the council to do anything and the council and I've seen this this is what Mr. or Ray and Cam's talking about uh disappearing reports, councils may never act on reports. I've seen that happen.
So, I think if it helps folks sleep better at night, like there's a there's a system set up, right? Um where we all make narrow decisions at narrow points in time, it people get noticed. There's different accountability, there's different audiences, and it's all
happening in public. And we're making a very narrow decision here. Um, so in in a voting on whether this meets a criteria, it's a very factual determination. It's a mixed question of law, in fact, but we're applying a series of of a legal criteria to the
facts that we have identified on the ground at the time of the report. And that's that's what the vote is tonight. Not whether you should do this, not whether whatever. And there's going to be 45 days until there's a lot of time. The board should not be making a
decision based upon whether it's going to get sued or not because it's a wrong thing for a board to do. No, not worried about being sued. Wait, with that said, you should worry about whether or not you feel comfortable with the report the way it is submitted today. You may I
can. So, so if you need more information in the report, you should do so. If you want to follow Mr. There's nothing to prevent what Mr. Beal's suggesting. If he wants to do a 30-day extension, he can. I'm just saying it's not necessary from a legal perspective. It's a nice guy standard which isn't part of the
law. Right. So again, I agree with condemnation. So you had me already on there. That's not my issue. My issue is in just good manners. We if we can give him 30 days, I plan on being here in 30 days. You guys do too, right? I I don't see what it what it's going to be
counterproductive. Yes. Right. And and I'm going to give you some I don't know if this is planning testimony or not, but I work at 25 municipalities. have been doing this for 20 years on redevelopment in particular and I would ask you to entertain the thought whether we would be here or not if condemnation
wasn't on the table whether they would be here or not if condemnation wasn't on the table if as a as a as a standard it's motivating um to property owners and yes it'll be here and it'll be here in 30 days um but nothing's going to
change in 30 days that that's what my whether they sell or ownership could change in 30 days. That doesn't change the site. Yeah, this isn't this isn't personal. Can this this this the report is not based upon who the owner of the property? I
already you already had me on the report. I agree with you. No, no. What I'm getting is you're saying that is you're saying what's weighing into your mindset is the ownership changes. I can add clarity to that. It doesn't change. I'm I'm using a human touch. I own a bunch of rental property. I'm a realtor
for 20some years. I I don't know who's buying this, but I'm assuming they have deep pockets. So, them going through this versus I want to call you mom and pop, but you know, this gentleman I I think is a little different. So, I and I've already told you I'm okay with condemnation. This is just a time thing.
But, Mr. Be, but hold on, hold on. The my my hangup on all of this is that any path forward, including all of the possibly beneficial paths for whatever future older owner through a non-condemation redevelopment plan, don't start, cannot start, conversations
cannot begin until we make our determination. So, whatever the council decides to do after we make our determination, can't start until we have this vote. and waiting 30 days. The the the new owner is not represented here.
They might want to have a conversation with the council about a redevelopment plan. They might be counting on it. We don't know. We can't. We're asked to just look here. And I appreciate what you're saying. We we gave them grace to have this second hearing so they could present their findings. And to be fair,
I think this has been a really good robust discussion on all of the issues, but of our better meetings. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I agree. I mean that in a good way. Yes, absolutely. And I appreciate where they're coming from. Um, but here's here's what I'd like to do. Um, I'd like
to to see if anyone of our professionals or the applicants professionals have any closing remarks and then I would like us as a board to discuss this. Are we are we good with that path forward? Yeah. Yeah. Briefly, just real quick, maybe this might help streamline it a little
bit. I have in my notes that there's still going to be some updates to the report itself. I'll leave it to Mr. They're going to have to be I think right because you're going to make some technical typographical changes. They're nothing substantial. I don't necessarily agree
with that, but Well, it's up to them. I mean, they tell me. Well, if it's there's there's been an assertion that some of the photographs are out of date. No, no, no, no. The as of the date of the report, they're accurate. That's what we're going with. We're we're voting on the report that was presented to us. Whether or not things have
changed on the site since then, they they could change day to day. Mr. The question is, are there any typos within the report that have to be fixed? And if the answer is no, the answer is no.
No. So, so, so, so the report as it is today, well, hold on, time out. Yes. Yes, there are. there based on my test our conversation last time there are nonsubstantive typographical errors that need to be updated substantive I believe you found
three right there some some inconsistencies a few hundred feet on floor or square footage um here and there there was the bus stop concern which was a valid one and impervious with the with the uh front frontage right and the impervious which we said
it was approximate um and illustrative so I think It was listed as two different sizes in the report that he found. One page said one thing, another page said another thing. It it was a typo. It was a transposition of numbers. And if that's all it is, those changes do need to be made. Okay? So, they don't
need to be made tonight, but but if the board's going to vote on this, it has to be with the understanding that those changes are going to be made and and submitted, right? The board wouldn't vote again on the report, assuming that's all we're talking about, right? Because they're because they're minor typos, right? These are Yes, these are
scribers cler clerical things if you wanted to include them in the resolution and then I could include a revised report with the I just need all I would need if the board voted tonight was you're including those scrib you're going to fix those errors and that will be and that's your final version of the
report. You can say that tonight that those are that you're making those changes. We would make no other changes other than the ones that we've discussed tonight that we discussed tonight because what what I'm getting at just to be clear is at the May 19th meeting one of the comments and I believe m chair
was from you and I had it marked down is they're missing one of the biggest things when I'm talking about access. That's that was verbatim when you mentioned the the bus stop. I don't I don't see that as nomclature or typographical errors. So if it's this is criteria age which we've already talked
about is not sufficient to substantiate a blank designation on its own. I I don't see that as core or heart to the matter at all. Like he he probably means maybe from a criteria H smart growth access you know multimodal standpoint
but not about the site in general or about the findings or criteria in general. Yeah, your report already said that it met the criteria for for H anyways absent the bus stop, right? And that that's what my point is. It's either in the report or it's not in the report. And if it's not in the report,
then it can't it's not part it's not part of the argument because they're adopting the report with the addition of the of the of the typographical errors that are going to be fixed. So So the bus stop wouldn't be in there because it's not part of the report. Okay. The bus stop out. Yeah, the bus you can't
put it in. But that that's not a typographical error. Cool. Unless the board wants the bus stop in there, which you can direct him to do and come back and see the report next time. All right. Any other comments, Mr. Darl? No, I just Okay. Whether it was nons substantive or it
was substantive change, the board's going to rely on change in the report other than typographical errors. That would be that would be a adding something like the bus stop would be a substantive change. All right. If we're not going to add it, then we're not going to add it. Okay. All right. Board
members, we've heard a lot tonight and I think we all have some thoughts and opinions. So, let's let's discuss. Mr. Adis, you have something? I think so. Uh I I think that I I'm um I think intent
matters and I think the report maybe uh can justify based on vacancy and and and some maintenance that it uh it meets the criteria for condemnation. But I think as far as the vacancies, they're there.
We heard that they're there because it makes it easier to redevelop the property, not more difficult. I think we didn't see any uh no no one was inside as they as they talked about no one was inside the property uh showing the the dilapidation
and also that I think um maintenance again was intent if once it was shown that there was maintenance required uh there seemed to be some uh reaction to that as as quickly as possible. So, I'm going to vote no on the condemnation. And if I have to vote yes or no, I think
it's no because I can't vote for just the redevelopment. I think redevelopment is a no-brainer. But I think uh I will be voting no on the condemnation. So, Mr. I I understand what you're saying. I disagree. I think for me it is the the vacancies, all three criteria, I believe, have been met. Our our planner
has demonstrated them. I think that the the vacancies alone, the history of the vacancies, the testimony we've heard tonight that the vacancies aren't even necessarily accidental, they were intended. I I think that our planner has demonstrated that all three of these
criterias have been met. I am concerned about the the stormwater basin and how it impacts the town's MS4 permit. I'm I'm concerned about a lot of it. I think that if some of these major infrastructure issues in the stormwater basin, I haven't been out to see what was done to it, but it is hard for me to
believe that based on just the age of the the basin that it has been restored to its original infiltration rates as designed, barring an engineering report, seeing that I can't I cannot accept that it has been repaired to a functioning status.
I think that this we've been asked for to see if this report meets the criteria for condemnation redevelopment and it's going to be up to the council to decide what to do with it. But I I've seen enough I think that that it meets all the three criteria and and and we should
emphasize that this is not one of these cases where it's not it's not the preference of the board members whether or not they feel yeah use condemnation or not use I hate condemnation. That's not the standard here. The standard here is whether as the chairman just said,
have has your planner, it's your report. Has your planner demonstrated to you that the criteria has been met? If the criteria has been met, you're obligated to vote to accept the report as written. You don't, this isn't a preference and I just want to make that very very clear
to the board. Yeah. And unfortunately, Mr. Adis, we're not taking two votes. We're taking one. It's either we accept the the or we send it back to the council for condemnation redevelopment or not. There's not going to be a mix and match there. So, does anyone else have have thoughts, comments they want
to share? Mr. So, um to your point, um our planners were not able to get into the building to see the interior condition, but part of that was because we noticed him and tried to reach out to him and
and uh received no response and you claimed at last meeting that you had only found out that day about this whole redevelopment action. So, I mean, I think that speaks to a history of,
you know, just maybe not keeping up with the property properly. And uh you know I'm I'm in and around a lot of people who are involved in real estate and they all maintain their properties in different ways and usually they they
check on the sites regularly and they say oh this you know and also they have maintenance people constantly going in to fix air conditioners or you know do other types of maintenance and usually those people will say hey this this other thing needs to be addressed at the property maybe you should look into that
and those things are taken into consideration. So I think that you know yes it meets the you know criteria for redevelopment but also it you know all that speaks to uh you know just the general state of the property and how
it's managed. All right. Yeah. So obviously I'm on both teams right now. Um, that being said, I think we do have to remember what Mr. Lexine said, which is that we have to speak to what's going on on the property today. Um, we,
that being said, as a ancillary point, we haven't seen a contract. We've been hearing rumors of, you know, buzzing about what's happening on the property for for a year, for more than a year. Um and the fact of the matter is right now today criteria B is met, criteria D is
met and criteria H while not standing alone is determinative. It it uh adds to the uh to the overall evaluation. Thank you. All right. Anyone else have anything they want to share with the board? So
Mr. Be. So to be clear, I could vote for redevelopment with condemnation next month. Tonight, I can't. I'm looking at it, fellow, you know, Spartaner, and he's asked for
a 30-day reprieve for reasons I uniquely understand. And I'd have no problem coming back next month. We could talk for three seconds, and I'm yes, vote for condemnation. Today, I I cannot support that. And I just don't see the rush. Why 30 days that someone's asked that has
been here for 21 years and has been a good citizen, a taxpayer just ask it for 30 days. I don't see the problem. But I agree our planners have met the burden. I agree the property is categorized properly for redevelopment with condemnation. I'm not arguing that. I
just think 30 days is not much not much to ask for because that's all you ask for is 30 days. Correct. Yep. Yep. With the consent and request of the buyer's attorney. That's where I'm at.
And I think they could ask those 30 days at the council and I think that they could have a really good robust discussion with the council when it comes to developing the redevelopment plan. And I'd rather see that process. So you're absolutely right. So two things could be true at the same time. I want to be clear here.
Right. I know that what he is not actually saying, but I'm saying on his behalf, if you let me, if we move forward tonight, it could affect his sale. And that's a terrible place to be in. That's what the
30 days is for. No. Okay. Listen to your lawyers. All right. I I think Does anyone else have anything they want to say? All right. I I think we are we're about that time. It's time to to make a decision on
where we go forward. Does someone want to move a resolution here? I'll move. You're making a resolution to approve Well, it's not the resolution. You're you're you're moving to adopt a report. I'll prepare a resolution at the next meeting. I move to adopt the report for
economic redevelopment and condemnation. And I'm going to second that. So, Nicole, can we have a roll, please? Counciloman Kaplan. Yes. Miss Valente, no.
Mr. Bill, no. Mr. No. Mr. M. Yes. Mr. Gosling. Yes. And yes. Officer. Four. Four. Yeses. Three nos. All right.
So, the report is adopted. I'll have a resolution at the next meetingmorializing it and sending it on to council. All right. Thank you for listening to us. Yes. Again, and I appreciate the the conversation. This was this was not something this board does often, and I I
appreciate you taking the time to to present it and dialogue with our planner and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you. Next meeting resolution. The next the next meeting we'll have the resolution. Yeah, it's not going to be an extreme resolution, but
uh what is the next meeting? your turn. We could have moved to Okay. Okay. This was a good meeting. I was finally like, "Hey, this is good. This is good." Again, I I just asked for 30 days. It's not going
to kill us. That's a great So, I plan a few. All right. Thank you so much. Do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? Motion to adjourn. Move. Moved by uh Miss Valente, seconded by Mr. Adis. All in favor? I. Thank you.
It's the next meeting by the way.