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images for your about it my oh I'm sorry that's all right good evening and welcome to the March 24th 2025 meeting of the city of summit planning board my name is Steven spur and I have the privilege of serving as chairman of summit's planning board if you'll please rise we will begin with
the Pledge of Allegiance the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands God indivisible andice for all offer you some brief amended opening
remarks here in accordance with New Jersey statute 10 col 4-10 adequate notice of this meeting has been provided to newspapers of record and posted here in City Hall for the benefit of the interested public this meeting is being live streamed to the city's YouTube page and also broadcast on summit's
government Channel which is Comcast channel 34 and Verizon channel 30 uh any hearings on applications for development in this meeting for which there are none uh would be quasi judicial proceedings uh any questions or comments must be limited to issues that are relevant to what the board May legally May legally
consider and reaching a decision and de Quorum appropriate to a Judicial hearing must be maintained at all times please note that fire exits are to my right your left and at the back of the room where you entered the city has a listening system to assist the hearing impaired if anyone needs hearing assistance please obtain the necessary equipment here at the deas and return it
immediately after our meeting uh Miss CA will you please call the role of the members Miss balson Alvarez Miss Bowen mayor Fagan here council member Hamlet here Mr delm maso here Mr felet
here Mr forelli Mr St U sorry Mr stern here Mr lejoy here Mr Salah and chairman spur here excellent and then maybe just jumping ahead really quick we'll acknowledge uh that Peter
the joy is joining us as a class 4 member alternate one uh Ryan felmet stepping up in the world class four reassignment congratulations Ryan um and Susan similarly stepping up to a member uh but remaining in the class four and if I may pleas chairman the uh and all
three have been administered the oath of office have I believe signed yes uh their Oaths uh and uh they are thus uh uh uh authorized to participate this evening and hence uh took part in the
roll call and we'll take part in the balance of the meeting excellent thank you Mr Warner um for anyone who was interested Mr Warner is the planning board's attorney Mr Warner will advise board members on matters of Law and serves as a key interface with each applicant's attorney uh Mr Warner will not vote on applications or other matters formally considered by this
board uh Nicole kiga who leted Us in the roll call is a city employee and is the planning board secretary Miss K assist applicants in preparing their applications planning our agendas and keeping our meeting minutes uh for anyone who is preparing applications Mr delmo and Mr Nia also pitch in every now
and then um Miss kka does not vote on vote on the applications or other matters formally considered by this board um among the board professionals uh one is in attendance tonight of course in addition to our attorney um the board professionals are contracted annually by the board and provide input
to the board uh tonight Mr Joe Burgess is joining us from Burgess Associates uh Mr bur is seated at the table to the right of the board The public's left and does not vote on applications or other matters formally considered by this board um our board consists of 11 members all members can participate in any hearings that would have been heard
tonight um but in a maximum of nine can vote all applications require a simple majority to be approved I will spare you the next page that I usually offer because we don't have hearings this evening um but uh that's really kind of how we run our meetings and what you need to know to understand who the folks are here on the deis and how we'll be
operating um before we jump into to each of the agenda items I'll just acknowledge that there are no resolutions being voted on this evening we will not be holding a close uh close session for discussion as we did in the last uh in the last meeting for those that are paying close attention and
we're just going to make a slight rearrangement to the discussion topics um so bear with us we'll hear update on Dr review and revision first uh our review of housing element and fair share plan process and then we'll open uh the listening session for preliminary statement plan so hear from the public
last in case we do need the extra time and hopefully some of folks will show we appreciate everyone who made time out of their busy schedule to join us tonight um so let's move first to just quickly approve um January and February minutes as the first question though is were there any amendments following review by
board members to either January or February no okay with that we ask for a motion to approve first the January 27th 2025 minutes so move you got the second I saw you guys
oh PA you sorry all right need a roll call or I'm sorry who was the second Paul uh this is for January 2 January 27th y it does reflect a board memb turn not being here February okay you can hold you can do February then so Augusto is taking
the second okay for January thank you apologize for having to point that out but we got to make sure it's right as was announced that's my job thank you Mr corer all right a roll call for that if you want do we no we can do a voice do Voice vote okay all in favor
any opposed abstain thank you Mr lejoy excellent all right we move then to our February 24th uh meeting minutes Mr Stern would you like to motion that excellent a second okay and then all in
favor I any opposed abstain abstain thank you Mr lejy we will note that accordingly all right thank you we can move on to our discussion topics now um just as a bit of a preface you'll see this is a recurring agenda item um the planning board has committed certainly over the
last couple of years and we're making it a bit of a habit um this year as well to begin a process of continually reviewing and recommending revisions to the development regulation ordinances uh really what the nuts and bolts were R hits the mode uh Road when it comes to
um your zoning ordinances here in the community so um our esteemed Vice chair Miss bson Alvarez is leading that group along with Paul forelli and Peter lejoy um so we'll invite her to offer any kind of informal update if you'd like on how those discussions are going all right
thank you um so as you all know we just did a bunch of edits and there was that was what the attorney and I were talking about there was one thing that I asked Joe about and uh maybe Mr wner can talk about it as well um whether we could add
to our 2024 which are really first quarter 2025 changes whether we could add a line item uh giving us some flexibility to to update some images in there because we didn't really talk about it but there's some not so great images in the Dr that
don't really illustrate the text as well as they could and whether we're allowed to legally just say let us change these or whether we need to actually you know follow up with another package showing the exact changes of what images may get changed
and and uh as planning board attorney because certainly City attorney may have a view as well but it may be uh problematic to do it prospectively to Simply say we're going to add images we don't know what they are yet so
therefore we can't tell you or show you I guess show you more more to the point depicting images what they depict um but we'll do them when we do them um so I I my I would wanted double check to make sure we were comfortable doing that and
that frankly the City attorney was comfortable doing that on behalf of uh the governing body right uh with respect to those amendments because of course we we recommend we master plan consistency review as the planning board but the governing body would be introducing and adopting right those ordinance
ordinances uh it may be that uh with without that language they may be deemed to be not significant or substantial amendments maybe if it's a one for one kind of like this is a better picture of that idea you know I don't know if it if it's just better to say we're going to
be sending images later for you to bless yeah I I would say it could not hurt to have such language and on a case-by Case basis uh particularly the uh City attorney may wish to opine as to whether uh he or she he I
believe uh is or is not Mr jaob I is or is not comfortable with a certain a a set image or set of images coming in whether that's so significant it requires you know an amendment as opposed to simply saying no we told you
more we're coming before that that's the way I would view it right some of the feedback we and I think if anyone's Lost In The Weeds here in the audience or over YouTube revision to the drro is tends to originate here recommendation from the planning board
goes to the governing body and assuming that's accepted or modified would return back planning board that's a lengthy and cumbersome process so what our vice chair is referring to is what we may consider to be relatively di Minimus changes maybe even improvements to the DRL and we would prefer that not to take
call it three months or more to transmit back and forth depending upon the speed and prioritization of it so we're trying to trying to get clever here and see what we can do would this be an appropriate time to talk about any any further changes to the Dr that we might be thinking or speak to some other
potential new top more edits but with regard to changes to the one we just did just never would I suggest that we change any textly no that would every word they need to see and every word I want the governing body to to approve I was just talking about
images for clarity because we have some images that are not great to clarify the text so that was the question anyway so for 2025 Dr changes potential um have a starting running list but want more uh
we had already talked about in the old sub commmittee uh look exploring adus accessory dwelling units um exploring um both we talk to a lot of the commissions and the public and Architects um the historic preservation commission and the
environmental commission have an interest in fewer demolitions in our town and it's also consistent with our goal number one of our master plan it is good for the environment uses few BTUs doesn't fill our landfills maintains a
character of selling which is goal number one so that's something to explore um looking to enhancing the drro uh enhancing the storm water management requirements for a new construction and additions because it we're getting evidence and feedback from
the community that it's doesn't seem to be sufficient what we're doing um so looking into that and then um that's mainly what I have I'm just looking forward to talking to uh our sub committee and going forward what ideas do you have so I have a few one is the
topic of lighting which seems to follow me everywhere I go lately um I think it's it would be interesting to look at the lighting ordinance for a couple of reasons one I think we might be violating our own uh DRL if you look at P it says string lights or lengths of LED lighting around any architectural
element of a building shall be prohibited excluding holiday lights so in uh the summit downtown right now we're talking about taking the string lights off of the tree and you know putting them back up on that cable wire which I think is a good thing but if everybody wants to keep the string lights then we should probably
adjust the Dr accordingly I I know I'm I'm sort of agnostic to I think they look nice but I also wonder um I think they look really nice but a lot of them are hanging a lot of the bulbs are out and maybe somebody in the community has better ideas um so I think we should look at item p and then I've noticed
recently that and I've struggled with the the um consistency review and everybody knows I've struggled with it but for a few reasons so to give you an example we just redid the paddle Courts at Wilson and one of the things I was actually speaking to a for another council member yesterday and she pointed
out that um we need pathway lighting because now people are going to be playing paddle in the dark and we forgot to include pathway lighting so and that that was a city of summit project and that's okay but that's that's again why I keep advocating for the planning board to look at a lot of these projects um
the actual the council member I shouldn't say that that was my idea the uh council member camelon mentioned yesterday um with the changes to where where the tennis courts are and there's a parking lot lighting in our drro it says that lighting to sports facilities
should be turn should be activated by a motion sensor or turned off after the sporting event I think we I recommend that we just change that to at 9:00 P p.m. they're turned off or 10 p.m. or whatever we decide um but a lot of times I don't think Motion makes sense because
if somebody's just walking by the paddle courts so I think we should look very closely considering everybody's lining up at the council door talking about lights uh at that and I think we could probably find a pretty collaborative community and and we could come to some compromise on that if we can strengthen
this those are good and the same thing goes with um with the parking lot at the Fieldhouse right now like lighting's a little rough there oh good anything else come to folks Minds on grro otherwise you know where to find
Jennifer far away you can email me my email start working um yeah cool and maybe just I would acknowledge Dan you reminded me thank you for being here this evening um we had transmitted through the 2024 recommendation
reversion re as a recommendation reversion of the EV standards to the the state model but the next step was to examine what modification beyond what the state model may call for um would be appropriate for Su so I know that was
probably not as well that's we we got part of it in the in the one that's going to council right away and he also had some other good suggestions that will be in touch what was the outcome of that because I know we said in our in our you're talking about elect the state so if we revert to the state what
happens to hours and then it goes away so the the no advertising goes away on the EV Chargers I don't think we had tackled that I know you brought it up but I don't I don't remember the recommendation has been sent to the governing body so if you have time in
has been you can take it from here but this this is the type of collaboration that's intended I recently got a hybrid vehicle so I'm like that's all I do now is research how much I can save and where I can charge so I'm like super excited about this yeah I remember the discussion I remember if it got in the
last one but it'll get in the next one okay so not a lot of lwh hanging recuit left we kind of took that all off in 2024 and now we're digging into some meteor subjects I did want to just put on one other comment it's sort of related I'm not sure where we're at in the meeting but um if we could look at
the resolution for the turf field the most recent turf field uh even though it was a consistency review I believe that we put in one of the conditions that they had to replace the trees between the Summit Housing Authority and the turf field um I'm certainly passionate about uh uh replacing those trees and
there was recently a grant where the Board of Ed and a municipality can apply for I forget the name of the grant but uh I've sent it around so I think that we should uh if it was in the resolution which I haven't looked I think we should hold their feet to the fire and uh it's the right thing to do for the Summit Housing Authority okay not on the agenda
but worth noting thank you we'll follow up on that for sure okay anything else Dr Wise good otherwise okay they keep churning along there in the subcommittee the intent with the drro review and revision is before the end of the year to transmit another round of recommendations to the governing body if
however we deem some of this to be a greater urgency we can of course expedite that it doesn't mean everything has to come through but some of these items are probably a little more clearcut others will Merit some discussion and debate internally here and potentially also with the public okay so concludes our Dr review and
revision updates um as I I mentioned briefly before we're just going to switch these last two um as part of our review over housing element and fair share plan process this evening we'll ask Mr Burgess to Pro provide a general update as to how the process is is conducting what we can expect moving
forward uh we've taken a moment really out of every meeting for I don't know the last probably six meetings to do that um but it's useful as we're really live within the housing element and fair share plan um development process right now uh when Mr Burg concludes his remarks I will outline the public
engagement plan how we plan to engage the public principally here at the planning board regarding the housing element and fair share plan I would just note ahead of what is now the third item of the agenda tonight the preliminary state plan listening session housing is a part of the housing of the state
preliminary state plan it is not the totality of it there's in fact 10 goals 10 Focus areas um and while we would welcome input on housing as part of that conversation uh you will note in the uh public engagement plan that I'll describe for you here there will be
ample multiple opportunities robust opportunities with context um for the public in attendance this evening watching on YouTube tonight um or later um to really engage on Summits affordable housing obligation how we're scoping that how we plan to tackle it so um in case anyone's here for it we
welcome your affordable housing input but know that it's a bit of a broader um scope of of inquiry that we're opening uh invitation for comment this evening so with that Mr Burgess what's been happening in the world of housing element and Fair Share Plans nothing at all nothing at all um as
you're aware the state has started the process with uh six retired uh judge judges who are reviewing uh all the applications for reductions and affordable housing obligations for their individual
municipalities uh interestingly enough a total of 440 municipalities are participating in the process uh which is well beyond what anybody body's expectations were I mean typically the estimates were about 300 to 350 towns so
it's a good number 159 municipalities have received uh formal objections to their adjustments um fair share housing center has uh 68 of those
objections um the New Jersey Builders Association has filed a total of 159 so there's some overlap between the two entities and in addition to that there's some private developers and other interested parties that have also filed
objections um I would say the best thing we have ever done here is not to object to our number recognizing we are going to be seeking a vacant land adjustment anyway um those municipalities that are involved in this
process are it's an interesting process the towns have asked for a reduction in number um in some instances fair share housing center has sought to increase their number uh my favorite example is
one municipality that sought a 25 unit reduction in their affordable housing obligation and because of what's called a reallocation method and I'll explain that in a moment they've received an additional obligation of over 200
units uh which quote a number of people by surprise a reallocation represents those affordable units that are going to be lost through the process by virtue of municipality saying they are fully developed and do
not have sufficient area to accommodate their full obligation um fair share housing center had taken the position that in in this instance about 13,000 units we're talking about that those 13,000 units
have to be reallocated to municipalities who can't accommodate the development um unfortunately what they have done is penalized those municipalities that pursuant to what they were entitled to do by law is by
asking for a reduction U they have reallocated those 13,000 units back to those municipalities that had the audacity of asking for a reduction and that just for clarification that if I may Joe that's Mr chairman that's the
159 Joe was referring to which is roughly a third of the 440 that have had the audacity of to take up the invitation from the legislature and the courts and DCA itself who and DC
conceded that their numbers were not entirely correct and if you chose to challenge uh then uh you get the benefit of reallocation being added to any reduction by anyone conceiv the the DCA
regulation specifically indicated that there's their numbers were preliminary and non-binding and they welcomed and encouraged municipalities to provide additional input so they could refine their numbers I believe and that was the term is
gotcha that's exactly the term so um that process has been ongoing I know Steve has been involved in it a lot um I've represented five of the six judges reviewing plans for over a dozen
municipalities uh um and the process is long and uous on for the towns and not always resulting in a satisfactory outcome I could say um and that process will end next Monday right the 31st
quite statutorily uh March 31 ends on March 31 this year so actually the date is in the statute March so after that uh what will happen is everybody will then know their number
and we start preparing our housing plans now uh Nancy had put together a a timeline for us to act I'm sure everybody let home is the affordable housing Council for anyone who's curious all on a first name
basis um M Holmes um and then the next critical um dates that we are should be aware of is there's a there's two scheduled meetings in early in mid April um to go over the with the subcommittee
on you know some structure of how the housing plan should be developed um the key date is June 30th by June 30th we are required to file our housing plan an adopted housing plan with the state and
at the same time the governing body is required to endorse that plan and include it in that filing if we do not meet that date uh we would lose our immunity from affordable housing litigation so it's very critical that we
meet that date and I know you want to talk about some scheduling for yeah I can speak to the public engagement plan and kind of reiterate those major timelines correct if I may Mr just just one clarification Joe also by the Mr
Burgess first name basis uh Mr Burgess uh the um June 30 deadline for the adoption of the housing element fair share plan by the planning board and endorsement by the governing body um also includes correct me if I'm wrong uh having our draft implementation
ordinances at the ready if you will yes and the key is that their draft ordinances at that point we actually have until March of 2026 to adopt those ordinances so
um so the first major first three steps in the process have really been complete we filed our number we received object certain towns have received objections we did not and you know those that received objections are now finishing the process
with the retire High judges who will be making recommendations to the Mount Laurel judges in court um to step up that part of the process it's a good thing we didn't have to have declaratory judgment actions again this time in the fourth
round as we did in the third round okay wait yes we did you part of part of the problem with the process is that the timeline set up by the legislature never contemplated the reallocation issue in
fact it's never been done before um so this is something new that had come up um the fact that the legislature created a timeline that said every municipality May file as late as January 31st and then the objection period
begins Mar at February 1 certainly suggest that the legislature never was contemplating reallocation because in order to do reallocation you had to know what every municipality in your housing region was re was adjusting their number
down to so if you all filed on January 30th or 31st nobody had any time to look at all those other plans in your housing region typically housing regions are 80 to 125 towns there's six out of 564
municipalities right yeah so every you know nobody would had had the time puru to the the timeline established by the legislature but this has become a big issue that will be is being resolved this week actually or the end of this
week so we'll keep you posted on that we'll see if it's entirely resolved or if there's more litigation to come perhaps well there perhaps that's spoken like a true attorney thankfully all of us have been spared kind of the gore of what's happening in Trenton right now or Zoom calls or whatever may go on De do
you have a question any welcoming question I think if you're sitting at home and you're wondering what everybody's talking about it's a complicated issue so I I want to thank Mr Burgess for giving us the guidance during this process uh the amount of emails and text messages I got when we weren't challenging our number uh it was
like get in line um because everybody was wondering why we weren't doing it um but thank you Mr Warner and thank you Mr Burgess you know we we truly have the best professionals who are leading Us in the right direction um so I I guess my question is who's responsible for the reallocation because it seems to go completely against odds at the original
um um I guess dissection of the of the allocation based on income based on the you know right well the whole issue of reallocation has not been settled yet okay and the reality is that under rounds one through
three reallocation never existed um in fact even with this round originally DCA calculated that Statewide we needed we need about 84,000 affordable units by 30 at
2035 and then they adjusted that downward to 80,000 based on the th000 unit cap that certain municipalities had in their favor and nobody talked about those 4,000 I think it was 3,900 units
as having to be reallocated so even through the process nobody was contemplating this and then all of a sudden out of nowhere three weeks ago two weeks ago this issue came up and I know
initially um during these public these sessions there was a lot of questions from the judges as to the validity of the issue um but they're coming to a head this week we'll find out what they have to say about that and as somebody
just said might have been Steve Mr Warner um in all likelihood it won't end at the end of this week but there will be litigation concerning it it'll just take one municipality to say not going to
fold but our city doesn't have to worry about that but uh and if I may just to if anybody didn't understand what the reallocation is but at least one way of viewing it is it's to get back up to that not the 84,000 Statewide number but
the 81,000 with the cap Statewide number broken down by region so so it is a net adjustment up so to speak um for lost units when municipalities
did correct downward correctly uh their number those that did uh or at least tried to uh the concept is no matter what happens if anybody goes down uh we make up for these lost
units by everybody or subcategory of everybody go up so it suffice to say uh uh that in hindsight U the foresight of the city and not challenging the number was a good thing uh it's been proven
out wow okay stay tuned for more next month any other questions some members of the board for Mr Burgess or Mr Warner if not Mr Warner we've had one of our many people watching on YouTube asking if you can speak a little louder
oh that won't be there we go be careful what you wish for but hopefully you could hear me better now okay um so then the second part of our housing album fair share plan discussion for this evening uh I wanted
to speak to the public engagement portion of it so while Joe and Steve and Nancy are down there fighting tooth and nail and Trenton on behalf of summit and we're grateful for that um it is important that the Public Public input is received throughout this process as
we find the right Contours of the housing element and fair share plan for Summit and the process is not done there's work still to be done done here in Summit kind of working from the back from the end with the end in mind here by the end of June the planning board would have adopted the housing element
and fair share plan and it would have been endorsed by the governing body so what that means in terms of the timeline is likely in the first two weeks of the of the month of June exact date and time to be announced uh there will be a likely a special meeting for the
planning board dedicated to presentation of the final draft a listening session input from the public and then a vote by the planning board itself once if and when that is adopted for which we expect it to be by that point it'll be transmitted to the governing body the governing body would endorse it and we
would have concluded that stage in the housing element and FAIR Plan housing element and Fair Share Plans development here for the city of summit so before that because that is not the only opportunity for the public to input in June that's a awful late um and it is March now we have April and May and it's
the intention of the planning board to utilize principally these regularly scheduled public sessions to solicit public input on housing element and fair share plan so think of it in two parts in April we will invite Joe and Steve again to share an update on what's happening out there in the big wide
world uh we will expand the the conversation a bit um Joe and his team will prepare a brief reflection on round three which will help us kind of look back in a sense on how the housing element and fair share plan for round three was developed what worked what didn't work
what the public enjoyed what materialized what didn't um to give some context the opportunity for the public um to reflect with a little bit of a clear picture um as to how the last 10 years transpired with regard to how affordable housing here in the city we'll open in that session a list a
listening session much as we'll have tonight for cross acceptance um where you're welcome to comment on what you saw or separately what you bring to the session for the board to absorb and kind of take into their considerations uh we will likely in that session break into into a closed session where with our
professionals we'll debate and discuss what we're hearing from the public what we're what we're hearing from our attorneys from our planner um feedback from the state to help inform the development of the housing element and fair share plan then in may we will follow a similar structure um Mr Burgess
again he's working extra overtime for us here and we're grateful for it uh will will turn the attention U for his presentation to the development was occurring in round four so some of the things that we'll be looking for that will be informing the round four housing elment and fair share plan is site
selection where we like we would anticipate um development to occur in the community that would be inclusive of affordable housing density for those sites or generally within the municipality building Heights other dimensions and Contours that will help us have a an understanding as to the
number that we have how we will satisfy it and again with the draft ordinances really being uh glimpse into how we would enable it as a municipality um that's really how the housing element and fair share plan comes together so the May meeting is meant to give the public as well as the board an update
into the number we have how we're wrestling with the relevant Dimensions it'll give you a better opportunity to comment on building Heights whether you want to see continued restriction limitation to four and five story buildings downtown or you'd love to see a 10 story sky scraper um please don't
for my sake say come and say that but you're welcome to offer really whatever comment you would like at that time um for us to again then break into close session where we'll incorporate public input input from our professionals um to help guide the development of the housing element and fair share plan so after two listening sessions dedicated
housing element and fair share plan in April then again in May um prior to the special meeting in June the final draft of the housing element and fair share plan will be released the public will have the ability to pick it apart you know prepare any questions or comments they may have on it and then we'll have the June meeting where we'll invite
public comment for our last time and ultimately vote on it so that's a long winded I hope everyone was transcribing that online we'll type it all out and give you a nice little table or something um but for the folks especially that may have come tonight interested in affordable housing um know that we're not waiting in June until
June to incorporate your input we know that you need context and we're going to give it to you um and really along the way when you come to speak at the deis or if you're to speak to any member of the planning board uh we encourage you to be clear what information are you looking for where do you have doubts or
questions um where are there gaps for you to really offer meaningful input so that's the long-winded explanation of the public input um process that we we plan to spin up here and uh we're grateful for everyone uh board members included professionals as well uh for taking time to be here and be so
thoughtful uh on behalf of the city of summit so that's it for housing element and fair share plan um the real final element of our agenda this evening is the preliminary state plan list ing session um so I'll invite Mr Bridges again to give a very brief overview of
what we may have you may have heard us refer to as cross acceptance or the preliminary state plan uh what that is how it's used um and how Summit is engaging uh through the negotiating entity the county um how we're kind of
passing back our feedback to hopefully inform that in a way um that has some its needs appropriately reflected your input um certainly heard and reflected to the degree that we can and that' be a useful point of resource uh point of reference for everyone moving forward so
Joe I'll turn it back to you okay if you can uh this the uh state of New Jersey had adopted a comprehensive State development and Redevelopment plan back in the year 2000 um that document was a whopping 425
page document that identified in great detail you know how the growth of the municipal of the state has has gone on for a number of years and what the projections for additional growth would be uh they also identified a whole host
of uh goals objectives and policy statements that were very definitive and very detailed um because it was such a Tob I don't think it got the reading that they expected so they are trying a different approach this time around uh they were
supposed to reexamine this docu every number every couple years it was three years yes um turns out it's every 24 years that they're doing 25 years and this time around they've taken a totally different approach instead of being a
document that was a living breathing usable document now it's become just an advisory document um it's brief um it's less than 50 or 60 pages pages and um
it's it doesn't carry the weight that it once that the previous document did it used to be that planners when they appeared before planning boards councils or zoning boards of adjustment uh planners would often talk about that document and how their development
applications were being consistent in furthering the goals of that document this document the state has clearly said is not to be used that way municipality can adhere to the goals that are suggested or
not and so it's been wed down to such a degree that it does not have the power and strength that it once did now having said that we are going through this cross acceptance process whereby um the state has asked the
municipalities through their County to review the document and offer a number of comments about it specifically they have a three-page handout Al that ask some pertinent questions about where you
Municipal each individual municipality is with respect to its master plan or reexamination report and development ordinances and ask for additional information about some other factors that you might want to have considered
uh when you go through the cross acceptance process with your county um and we are you know Tom baren from my office is going through that right now and we'll be probably presenting it at our next planning board meeting I have
to show you what we're saying but one of the things that it does ask is that you identify a number of or the biggest concerns that the municipality may have and I think that's one of the reasons we're going to be bringing in the public to participate in that kind of
discussion at some point um the counties have just begun to hold public sessions on this each county is having is holding one hearing over the next couple months and following that the the uh state is
going to take all that information and make adjustments to their document and then they're only going to have six hearings scattered throughout the state in six different counties um before they will then adopt this document as an advisory document
only okay wonderful so we've saved you a trip to one of those six hopeful meetings and God some knows where right raway New Brunswick Trenton they haven't identified the six yeah exactly probably not Summit um so the intention as Joe suggested is while we're leveraging the
this members of the planning board City Administration um our board professionals to help inform summit's input to the county the County's input to the state um one of the questions and I had to pull it up to get the wording exactly right and I appreciate our Communications office for helping to uh spread the good word over social media
and other channels um the input that we're inviting you to provide is reflection on what are your communities so in this case Summits three most important local and Regional planning goals and priorities it's pretty open-ended uh in the in the flyer that
we had distributed we identified for reference to give you some Contours as to the scope um five of the 10 goals that the preliminary state plan is focused on those being Economic Development housing infrastructure historic and Scenic resources natural and Water Resources so uh while py board
members again as I said City Administration and others um have their own opinions we're Consulting the master plan out of our own experience um we wanted to offer an opportunity and this is this is your opportunity if you're here um to come come up to the Lector
here uh and share any thoughts that you believe is relevant to what you believe are summit's three most important local and Regional planning goals and priorities um I won't do you uh the disservice of a three minute clock or anything as punitive as as the Hat you can go elsewhere for that there are
other plenty other meetings in town that need to use that method um but it ask you to the best of your ability to limit your your comments um to to again the scope of the question that's being presented here I don't know if we need to swear people in I don't think so it's not a public hearing so we do not need
to swear people in that name and address just for the record is helpful though so with that I'll step back does anyone care you came out this evening I put on a good show but not that good of a show anyone like care to come forward and
offer some thoughts on our planning priorities no could watch this on YouTube come on you came all the way down here all right we got one taker oh we got two couple okay thank you good evening Peter
Sello um your address Mr s sorry just for uh 11 Greenfield Avenue in Summit thank you one of the things and strictly a local concern um I don't see it being elevated to the high to the state level maybe
maybe into the county level with the property but Martin's Brook along Butler Parkway is nothing but Deadwood that have fallen over blocking the stream um you get the sports activities
the buses come in the people come in from out of town they get out of the cars and they look at the woods and what do they see but dead wood falling over that are just waiting to burn if we have a hot summer again and somebody discard a
cigarette those woods are going to be gone from one end to the other I'd like to see that cleaned up as an environmental concern and there's a lot of Springs in there as well so there's a a water concern turn okay all
right thank you great example thank you Mr Christ please sure the the first speaker was a great uh a great start my name is Dan chrisop Foy 25 Greenbrier Drive here in Summit nice to see you many of you again
um I'm here on behalf of the environmental commission where I was reappointed by mayor Fagan um under the current Administration uh Donna Patel the chair of the commission asked me to share our
uh case for climate change to be one of the top priorities for future planning um the role of the envir environmental commission is to provide leadership and vision in advising the city and Su of summit on actions and
policies of sustainability and we feel the climate change cuts a across many aspects of planning for the future U storm water management is currently one of our hot topics when I bought my home here eight
years ago I thought that our Hilltop location would protect us but unfortunately we can't rest easy we need a plan for long-term adaptation to climate impacts along stal Brook and our other watersheds a systemic approach can
help us reduce runoff retain more water in the ground for dry periods um the previous speaker mentioned drought each summer it seems to get worse fire could be coming next to
Summit it's getting closer to us uh drought has already impacted our plants and Wildlife uh good planting should help us prepare storms bring power outages as well as floods solar energy can be a
resilient source of electricity and often brings cost savings energy conservation gets very few people excited but modest Investments can save real money um given these risks and opportunities I would strongly Advocate on behalf of the
environment commission for climate to be among the top priorities thank Mr Chris Foy excellent any other feedback anyone like to offer this evening don't worry I won't force you to come but want to give you ample opportunity to okay you're
thinking about it I can see it in your eyes no no anyone all right last call all right that'll be it for this this evening's then public input session I'll remind though the interested public you this evening if you wake up tonight and something strikes you um or anyone
watching on YouTube um that we have available through Summit DCS cityofsummit.org you may send an email with your feedback um we're asking you to return any feedback by April 21st so again we can collect that organize it uh reflect upon it share it with our
planners uh City members of the city Administration that are interacting with the county and ultimately with the state uh but we appreciate everyone who came out tonight interested offered comments or not um no no harm there but uh we're grateful again for the Public's input and interest uh in our Planning and
Zoning priorities this is just one opportunity um actually we have the housing element and fair share plan public engagement which I spoke to earlier uh later in the year we'll be looking to master plan reexamination so if you're interested in planning in zon you found the right place it's the planning board um so we welcome you to
continue to show up offer your input and comment uh with that sorry ohia please thank you Mr chairman I just wanted to make a couple of comments um regarding um I can't your last having a hard time saying Chris Chrisi uh Mr Chris's
comments uh just a quick update we had Congressman uh Kee here last Friday so just a few days ago along with uh Union County assistant manager Amy Wagner and we also had commissioner alme Arabella out here um we spent about an hour hour
and a half at the saltbrook so we would certainly welcome the environmental commission to be as engaged as you would like um we really need assistance uh those residents are really suffering and the holistic view of how the residents in the saltbrook uh are losing their homes is is something the entire
Community should be paying attention to uh we have reached out to and had meetings with New Jersey DP we're working with our grant writers we are literally all over the state of New Jersey trying to fix this problem so I would welcome anybody who has any solutions uh it's a real big issue uh
and regarding uh solar thank you for your comments on that I'd like to update the community uh a few council members uh including myself have uh recently done a re-evaluation of past solar initiatives uh and looking at how we can work with the Board of Ed and all of our
current uh municipality buildings uh to do a complete evaluation and we're going to have further discussions at the board of school estimate meeting on Thursday as we look at electricity costs across the municipality and the Board of Ed so um great comments and I think that uh those are a lot of important
conversations so I just wanted to update the community on that thank you deia all right any other comments or Mr M yeah I do have one comment also um that type of feedback is incredibly helpful because you outlined the issues for example uh
what was mentioned immediately makes me think of urban forestry management you see Deadwood you see a space which is under cared for maybe even underutilized and bringing that problem across to the planning board and helping us prepare these perspectives is what's
going to translate to our response to Union County and on a base level um the government of the city uh has an opportunity to see the issues that us residents face every single day um so
that kind of input we will we are very happy to receive it at that um uh Summit DCS at City summit.org uh email address please feel free to reach out up through April 21st with all of your Insight because this is about yourself it's about your neighbors and
you know every street you walk on in town so keep that in mind and thank you so much for the uh insights wonderful all right with that we have concluded our agenda for the evening for 8:30 I have a question
should redo my oath while we're still in the public meeting or no we don't uh we don't though there's anything you need to sign or what have you Nicole or Steve will walk you through that no problem okay um with that I'll ask for a motion to adjourn so moved second second all in
favor any opposed all right we are adjourned until April 28th 2025 see you then e