##VIDEO ID:iwjtC_3nMZI## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e y your chairman this evening this um meeting has been advertised in accordance of the Sunshine Law roll call Mr kandal Mr algra Mr Elm miss larmen Mr Müller here Mr Shaw here Mr ven councilman zabowski chairman Tai we have a quorum of resolution we don't have any acceptance of the minutes I need to none none Communications no plan hearings volumes yeah great all right hi everyone thank you again for having us as a reminder my name is McKinley MZ I'm a principal planner with higher GRL yes how's that uh my name is McKinley Merz I'm a principal planner with higher gring Associates and my colleague uh to the back right of me is Hannah a davenport she really is the brains behind all of this however she is just about seven months or so short of getting her planning license so I will be presenting it to you all but she'll be available for any detailed questions uh since she actually wrote all of these documents um as a reminder where we stand uh most of the PowerPoint presentation that I have before you tonight is a repeat from last month but then we've added or two months ago I should say but then we've added on the changes that we've made to the plan since we last saw you so I'll jump ahead to this page uh we were here August 7th as you remember we gave a pretty lengthy presentation about all three master plan elements that are before you which the uh land use element the community facilities element and the C circulation element uh at that time we decided not to proceed with a vote on the element so that we could give our office a little bit of time to meet and discuss with the with Sarah with the economic uh redevelop agency of seille uh to make sure that their voices were heard and that any edits and recommendations they had that were agreeable to the planning boards well got Incorporated uh into the plan so after we met with this board we did receive comments from Sarah right before Labor Day weekend they submitted written comments to us uh we reviewed them Incorporated them into the draft plan and then circulated those edits to your master plan subcommittee uh right after Labor Day weekend Hannah had a meeting with the uh with well actually Hannah and I both had a meeting with Sarah to review the edits that they had presented we got a little bit of clarification on some of them uh but really it was a very good conversation between us uh and and uh their planner Vina uh she had some really great ideas that we agreed with that would make sense to incorporate into the plans uh after that Zoom we passed on additional edits to the master plan subcommittee uh with our recommendations for potential changes based on our conversation with with Sarah um after that we submitted the final version to uh to you all and here we are tonight so I'm actually going to skip through these earlier slides as this was our presentation from uh August so if there are any questions or anything you want me to go back to from from the previous presentation I'm happy to do so but all of that would have been repeat from what you saw at the August 7th meeting uh so since that time again we have updated the well really only two of the elements ended up being updated there were no recommended changes by Sarah to the circulation element so that element Remains the Same one that we reviewed back in in August uh I'll go into some specific details about the refined language that were updated but generally for both the land use element and the circulation element we went back since we had the opportunity just to uh make sure that any references to ongoing burrow projects that had for example dates associated with them um like the the Bass Pro Shop we had said construction was estimated to start spring of 2024 that has not happened yet so we wanted to make sure that that was updated to the current uh the current projected date of constru th those types of smaller edits were updated uh and we want to especially thank Jay and Mike for their help on that they were able to give us some updates to make sure that everything was was current and accurate uh so specific changes that were made really just to the land use element there were there like we said there was just minor updates made to the community facilities element all of the major recommendations that came in from Sarah had to do with mostly as you can tell their they an economic Redevelopment agency um Redevelopment was the focus of their of their comments uh so while we had in our in the version of the plan we had reviewed we had talked about updates General updates uh that could be considered and reviewed for the buroughs downtown area uh we honed in on that language a little bit further with with Sarah's edits in terms of what could be done with overlays with potential Rehabilitation or Redevelopment designations uh we didn't call out specific properties in the amendment plan amended plan but talked more about um why the tool might be an effective tool to help with the downtown and some of the issues we've talked about here and and in other locations of the land use element about walkability and the revitalization of some buildings um again we we laid the the groundwork for that so there's not specific properties called out but if the council chooses to pursue it they have the basis in here that was a little more fleshed out than what we had originally discussed uh they also recommended including uh eco-industrial Park overlays uh to encourage industrial business areas to share resources U utilize uh environmentally sound best practices again this was a great idea something we just hadn't included so it's not spoken on any specific industrial area just moving forward as especially this board reviews of site plan applications for industrial complexes gives you a little more a rooting and basis to go back to to encourage more comprehensive and environmentally sensitive design and we went into some detail about what that might mean after that edit was presented back to the subcommittee uh the subcommittee had a great idea to require new Warehouse developments to be constructed for solar ready rooftops um uh I personally serve as a planner on nine or 10 boards in New Jersey and anytime a warehouse comes in I always ask that they make the rooftop solar ready uh even if they're not going to be prepared to provide solar somebody in the future might there's also a beta program at the state level for Community solar where if a warehouse were to construct solar they could then sell the excess energy back to support uh residences in the area in fact I know Monroe Township is doing that with some of their 55 and older communities they have so many warehouses and so some of those uh age restricted communities are getting breaks on their utility bills because of the solar panels on warehouses so that's the type of implementation and and uh way we could see this flesh out so we thought that was a great idea so added that as a recommendation uh finally at the end of the recommendation section Sarah had provided recommendations for five different potential Redevelopment investigations uh in addition to the downtown which is not included in this list because that was really a broader Focus about downtown uh Economic Development and growth in Redevelopment these were more these are very specific uh Redevelopment recommendations uh the first being to expand the Hercules Redevelopment area that's an existing Redevelopment site um but there are areas surrounding it that could benefit from a Redevelopment designation and potential inclusion in the Redevelopment plan itself uh looking at the area there are quite a few underutilized or vacant lots that might be appropriate to be wrapped in uh the second one was the Mini Mall Drive which is the bunch it's like a bunch of pad sites it's north of ernston Road a bunch of pads sites kind of accumulated together there's some very awkward circulation that's happening on that site uh the recommendation from Sarah was to review that in If part of an area in need of Redevelopment study given just hour already their their review our basic review of the vacant stores that are there the really terrible site circulation potential connection issues all of that as planners scream stuss this could have a viable future as a Redevelopment area uh the third one was the intersection of Maine and Crossman Avenue um and that's uh the little shopping center with like the Quick Check and there's a pizzeria and and an industrial Light industrial across Crossman Avenue as well as across Main Street the kind of like quadrants there um those could use a facelift if you kind of if you're looking at it so we again we're not saying that they do qualify based on our visual inspections but they they appear to have all of the qualities that would would would contribute to a designation there uh the fourth one was uh the mission properties development and CMC steel property the huge steel plant that exists on the North side just south of the rarin River uh Ron Bay it is mostly wet but there is a significant part of Uplands that we think and Sarah thinks and we agree could could qualify as an area in need of Redevelopment uh the next one is the Morgan and Melrose commercial areas along Route 35 uh just really just south of the South Amboy border there I mean honestly it goes into South Amboy it would be amazing if we could do a joint project with them to work to designate a whole stretch of that between the two communities uh but if you are driving along there you've probably recognized there are a series of underutilized properties poor circulation uh buildings and property that could use uh a little bit of of uh attention uh so that would be another one that would be appropriate to be studied and the last one is not really a defined geographic area it would be what we call um a scattered sites area in need of Redevelopment looking around the burrow to determine if there are specifically um uh V and Sarah called out brownfields uh that would be ripe and appropriate to to study so that would be depending on the list that's generated numerous non-contiguous sites around the burough uh and all of all five really six with those Brownfield sites uh areas were recommended by Sarah to be studied including them in the re in the master plan element will provide the council again if they choose to pursue Redevelopment because it's it's a policy decision on on their side if they choose to pursue it then the the grounding is already laid here in the land use element uh so it would be a much more streamlined process to to study those if they chose to and then of course this board would hear it uh at that step of the process uh so those that's all I really have for you those are our changes again mostly circulated around Redevelopment uh we appreciated the opportunity to talk to Sarah and to work with them I think it was a really good collaborative process and we had a lot of discussion about wanting you know Sarah's goal is to uh bring themselves the boards and the council into a more uh harmonious and and really being more interactive in their discussions than I think has has happened in the last 10 or so years so we we thought it was a really good conversation and we think their edits to the element really just makes it all that better uh so I'm happy to answer or Hannah is happy to answer any questions you might have about some of the specifics anybody have any questions did a good job great do you make it easy thank you stop sharing hold on so I'll defer to your Council but I recommendation is if you have any discussion of course about the elements but then I would recommend uh taking a vote to adopt all three elements as elements of your master plan we have to open up to the public speak all favor Mr chairman would be a motion to approve one two three elements pleas of the bo do we need to vote on each no no could be all that at once need Motion in a second need a motion to accept either one two motion to accept all three second sure Mr kandal yes Mr meller yes Mr Shaw yes Mr ven councilman zabowski yes chairman Tai yes thank you thank and R for the excellent job guys did yeah next on the agenda the uh Memo from the um burrow Clerk and the resolution regarding resolution number 2024-25 meeting um this is the direct the planning board to undertake a preliminary investigation to determine whether the property identified in the resolution meets the criteria for designation as an non- condemn Redevelopment area Mr chairman the proper this is as actually just being discussed by the planners in connection with the updates of the master plan expansion ofer 3.02 84112 soel process the proper qualifies develop body adops resolution direct Bo conduct investig investigation has to those criteria uh and that accepts that direction and author that stud once the study is completed then the hearing will be bu for this board as testimony from the plan study one way the other the outcome and the public and makes the recommendation body as notel they do they're the ones that initiated saying that the Redevelopment process for detering whether meets qualifies goes from govern B Bo then at the Gover body stret can go back to Sarah for the Redevelopment plan determine what should be developed there what what but theing not is work yes I I some some municipalities do it by voice I like to have especially for revelop to havea so I there for all my boards resolution adop they forward officially yep Mr kandal yes Mr meller yes Mr Shaw yes Mr vosen councilman zabowski yes chairman Tai yes thank you and then next on the agenda is our next meeting is Wednesday October 16th which is being held at the 423 Main Street the active adult center Jay any end no okay yeah that's it take a motion to open to the public make motion to open to the public motion second all in favor everyone have a nice evening thank you [Music]