##VIDEO ID:Cg1SdB5YE-s## e wait till wait till the clock I'm calling to order the township council meeting of West Windsor on January 27th 2025 Allison can you please call the RO gaas here Jers here Mandel here voice here Whitfield here please stand to salute the flag and were we adequately noticed yes we were adequately not noticed on January 17th 2025 to the times in the Princeton packet filed with the municipal clerk posted at the municipal building and on the township website thank you for first order of business we have two uh topics for priority consideration the first one's going to be a presentation by the friends of West Windsor open space on the Moses tunder to Tommy Trail and the second one is going to be uh by the mayor on the affordable house in resolution uh the way this is going to work is we're going to have a up to 10-minute presentation by um FAS and the associated groups and at that point um when that presentation is over I'm going to ask the mayor to say a few words on the project and then I'm going to open up um allowing Council to ask any questions they might have um as far as the public after the two presentations uh we're going to have public comment uh usual public comment and that would be the time to make your comment on anything that on on these two items and also on anything that's going to be voted on tonight there is a second public comment period however um these items will be voted on before that comment period on that note um Mike if you'd like to um come up with the Pres presentation good evening everybody um thank you for holding this uh council meeting and ironically this is the third oh sure my name is can you make sure to speak into the microphone raise it a little otherwise you're not going to be uh be recorded it up towards you more okay thanks okay is that better yes okay goad so my name is Michael Shu s t I live at 234 Windsor Court in Ying so uh thank you for uh having me here tonight and I'm here toh discuss the Moses Tomy tunder Tomy trail and I just want to say this is the third time I've been here within the last few weeks uh talking about the trail and it's a pleasure to be here tonight to hopefully pass a resolution where the the township will agree to match the Green Acres funding for this so uh thank you very much so just uh real quickly um I'm the acting president of the friends of West Windsor open space Allison Miller um is the president and this is my second Tour of Duty it's kind of like Tom Cruz and his mov movie in that I was one of the founders of Po was back in '95 and I was the uh president for several years uh in the late 90s and I'm very proud to say um the combination of work with foes and and the township the township has uh 50.9% of the land in the township is preserved this open space and I'm very I'm very proud of that so tonight we're going to talk about this proposed ton Trail and this first slide you could see is a represent representation allst representation of the trail and the trail is going to be between pen l Road and the uh duck Pon Run pump house which is uh at the end of the Jacob Jacob Drive extension and in total uh the trail is be close to a mile in length and the beauty of the trail there's two things beauty about this whole concept in the trail the first thing that is amazing about this is that the the location of the trail is within a very historic area as as you may know um West Windsor had ay uh in Indian uh nation and one of the leaders was was Moses tundi Tom and he was here in in the 1700s and and we know that because the Deeds for this area uh have have his name on it and so the beauty of the trail is that we'll be able be able to walk the area that that this historic area that this uh that uh tabe uh was in so and the other second thing that's great about this the entire Trail is going to be over an existing uh sewer line and the property imediately Jed on both sides is all all Township property it's great there'll be uh no environmental degreg and you you can walk through the trail and see beautiful uh canopy next slide please Clark so this this application we're making to the state Green Acres would fo is Friends West Wind open space is doing it uh with a historical society West Windor and the bicycle and pedestrian Alliance next please and uh as you can see from this picture it's a little older picture but the three gentlemen uh to to the left of Harley Pickins dick SNK and Ron Rogers were instrumental in establishing fers and as you and you probably know Shing fuche former mayor and council person and by the way Shing is doing really well next slide please okay uh this is the concept plan and the concept plan shows uh the the route of of the uh Trail you can see on the right the Red Dot it will be pen loyal and then running a little bit over it'll be crossing the Duck Pond Run where that star is and I already met with d to talk about any possible permitting and there'll be uh uh permit for this bridge there an existing Bridge there now but it doesn't meet ADA requirements so uh Bridge meets ADA requirements which won't be large in size will will be constructed there and then at the other uh R little box um shows the intersection with North Post Road and then the dog leg uh shows a reminder of the trail going to the um the pump house next okay so why the trail as I said it's already cleared access is promoting exercise and appreciation nature and as we just talked about will be embracing uh Moses Tom Tam he's a significant will not be a negotiator and Diplomat next slide please okay so who will use it well first of all by we're going to be putting Crush Stone the length the length of it between um pen L and and north post and this a special type of crush Stone that's very easy on the feet us to walk on and it's going to be the width of it within the sewage treatment line is going to be uh 10 ft and what's what's great about this as you know there's so many surrounding neighborhoods for instance Birchwood Estates uh L Park one it's very accessible to uh to the neighborhood surrounding uh the trail next please okay so the benefits to to West Windsor it's going to be connect connecting neighborhoods and also as we said um good for exercising the appreciation of of Nature and the history that we just mentioned next slide please so as I just mentioned we're going to need some permits and uh one permit will be for replacing this this small uh Bridge making Ada appropriate over the duck fund run and we and we're going to be working um uh with with a DP D for pering and with uh local contractors in consultation with a Township next please so what we're gonna what we're going to do now is that we're going to talk about the uh the costs and this this slide shows you the course summary and coming up to the microphone is going to be my friend and colleague uh Jerry Foster and he's with the bike uh Alliance pedestrian bike Alliance and he's a resident of of Westwind and Jerry before you begin why don't you just tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your background um hello um so my name is Jerry Foster 15 suff Lane here in West Windsor um a longtime trustee in the W winser bicycle pastan Alliance not currently in a uh officer position or anything like that um I've joined Allison in in the ranks of uh being somebody who stepped back a little bit from leadership of the group um Mike was kind enough or maybe not depend on your depending on your point of view uh to pull me in to uh try to work up some cost estimates for this Trail um one of the things I had done professionally was work as a a uh work for greater merer transportation management association um I worked on developing a Regional Trail plan for Mercer County um if you go out onto uh greater merser tma's uh website you'll find the greater merer Trails plan and one of the nice things you can say for this particular section of Trail is that not only is it in the westmor township master plan in the bikeways the planned bikeways and walkways section it's also on the greater burer tma's uh Trails plan as well so both of these um this particular section of trail of course is a very small section of what could become a longer to timey Trail um but the idea anyway here is we're going to focus on building the first section uh which is what Mike said between pen L and North Post um including Crossings of both pen L and north post so the crossings um in terms of the cost and that kind of thing they're like you have been uh looking at with the with the flashing beacons right you somebody pushes a button the beacon flashes you've got a nice high visibility crosswalk you have Ada ramps on both sides uh we'd have to have some ramps for penl as well as for um uh the north post side um eventually once the if there's a a second section to this um we would want to take what's the existing um sewer line which is got a active construction site right now and then connect it up with Clarksville Road there would be an additional rapid flashing Beacon and Ada ramps that kind of stuff there's currently a side walk that goes on Clarksville out to that spot uh only on one side of the road unfortunately not on the avalan side of the road it's on the other side of the road where all the commercial establishments are but we still can get hooked up with uh sidewalks that way just to let you know Jerry if you want to finish up we are 10 minutes into the presentation okay um the the numbers they're the the numbers um I don't know how much the numbers are going to make a difference for um what you're going to hear in terms of people being for against the trail um but I'll thank you very much for your support thank you very much Mike and Jerry um mayor did you want to have some comments on the trail I will thanks um first I wanted to say thank you for the picture I saw Harley's picture after a long time he was the first guy I met when I joined lion club so thank you for having that picture brought back some memories um so when fouras approach me you can sit down uh when they tell me I speak for too long so you want us to set a Tim or we'll do that that's what my kids always tell me you speak for too long so anyway um so when FAS approached me regarding this Trail um first thing I was happy that FAS was active again I mean FAS since I became mayor uh haven't had uh much luck working with FAS on various projects they have done a lot of good things for Township so I I they did give me a presentation and uh um I did like the idea and I did tell them to go ahead and uh do the work to make the project so um if the council does vote today so to um present uh to apply for the grant and the grant gets made and the trail gets built it's my decision don't make be mad at the council I didn't give them green light to go ahead otherwise it would have been finished but these are the kinds of decisions where the mayor and the council earn their million dollar salaries uh because there's no right a wrong answer here I mean I've heard I've attended now several meetings I I couldn't stay for the last meeting fully but I did hear all the objections and then following the meeting I did uh talk to a few people uh who have objection to the uh Trail so I do I do see there's valid points or valid concerns on on uh both sides of the um argument and genuine concerns um one of the things that I would like to address is uh people have talked about money about $300,000 just rounding of the number money is money I mean people have said uh that the money can be used better in some other ways which is always true and when uh developers approach me asking for pilot trying to convince me that uh the Municipal Taxes will go down I tell them that a dollar coming out of my right pocket is as painful as dollar coming out of my left pocket it's the same so uh that is true but this money is going to come out of our open space tax fund it's not going to come out of our operating budget or even our um this budget so that that open space tax is meant for projects like these we collect the tax and after and we have managed the manage the tax and manage the money well we usually uh buy properties as soon as we get matching grants from other people so one of the question question that was asked is whether this if we do get the grant whether the money is given direct right away or like all other projects my grandkids will get the money so it's good to hear that money is the 50% matching Grand from uh Green Acres is given right away and Township doesn't have to spend the money first to get the grand later sometime years down the line so money is a genuine thing but that is exactly why the open space tax is collected and why open space money is used and that money if we do go ahead with the trail that is the money that will be used to uh fund this um again if if the council does vote tonight to uh approve the um Grant application and we do get the grants we will um have one of the sessions we will try to address as many concerns that the residents have um about the trail as best as I can I mean if I'm still the mayor I as best as I can um they're not they're not uh nimi complaints they are genuine complaints I do understand that but having seen and heard both sides I would recommend the um Council to take the next step and at least apply for the grand to Green Acres and see where we go from there so and if they have any questions for me I'll be happy to answer them thank you um I think that what wasn't mentioned was um friends of West Windsor open space did hold a public hearing uh last week um it was about three hours long a number of council people and a number of other of neighbors and other people did attend and we did get the more than 10minute um of uh description of of this projects and it's there's also a bunch of information online on the F spot in addition to um what came out with the agenda I'm going to open up to the council for any questions I can start on that side if you'd like to thank you um there was a comment about possibly continuing this over to Clarksville now is that part of this um plan or is that um a potential second phase so so Dan that's not part of this plan and I'll I'll tell you why it's not part of this plan in that some of the uh Parcels between the pump station and Clarksville that you're talking about the department H excuse me the the uh Township has a easement over those Parcels but they don't own those Parcels there's two Parcels so those two Parcels um the only thing that the township is allowed is the sewer is the sewer um the line right and and the it there's an easement so what we would do um in consultation with the township we would speak to those uh two property owners and we would negotiate renegotiate bless you the the easement to allow not only the sewer line but to allow the trail to continue so that would be some people say oh that would be the second phase possibly if the property owners would agree to open the easement to allow the Trail thereon got it so at this stage it's not included it's the potential of a second phas and there's a lot of ifs to that it' be really nice to see that because that would actually open up the entire Trail to a completely new set of community folks on to access it from the clal agree um and just to clarify what we're voting on today is the agreement that we're going to apply for the grant well when we say we is that the friends of West West Windsor open States will be we are applying for the grant it's a nonprofit and then what will what you'll be voting on is two things number one the the township would be amenable for putting up the 50% of the project cost and the other the other part of the resolution would be the the use and and the m and the maintenance of of of the trail now it's very clear now it's very clear now that since that areas owned by the township people can walk that right now but we we're going to be improving that to have a better experience and more comfortable experience and a historical experience right that was going to be my next question is right now that's Avail that space and that trail is available and accessible to people now just it's not it's not Eda available accable and we we're going to have special Crush Stone along the portion between pen L and north post that is specially designed for pedestrians to be very be very uh comfortable to walk on and now uh currently it's not it's not easy Le for me to walk the trail because of the large stones that are part part of the sewage authorities um building of of of their construction okay thank you okay thank you D sorry I had the same exact same question um but um I just would like to see like can we at least make a mention that there there is a potential phase two of it um so we could connect the trail all the way to Clarksville road is that even AB absolutely so and our application is not due until February 5th and part of the reason why we're here tonight not only to get your okay but to get more public input and we've gotten public input already um matter of fact not only did we have the hearing that um Andrea spoke about but I've met with some of the objectors in person and we talked about it and I want to be very inclusive to have know the objectives you know information what problems they have so we can address it and hopefully since hopefully if this does go through our intention is to continue meeting with you know the objectives and all people in in in the neighborhoods to get more of their input on what this is going to look like right um my second question is I know in the plan we don't have um any concept or um thoughts on par paring space for this Trail um even if it's like three or four spots like not a big I'm not talking about a big parking lot but uh for most Parts I I think in my personal opinion it'll it's going to be the um neighborhoods residents from the connecting neighborhoods who would use the trail um but to avoid from people from parking in these neighborhoods to access the trail is that something that has been talked about or possibly in the future maybe well well let me just um and I'm I'm saying like it could be just a simple gravel area where three or four cars at the most can park my neighborhood connects to to a trail and there is a parking lot for maybe four or five spots and I've in the last 16 years that I've lived in I've rarely seen any car there um ever so it's mostly used by the connecting neighborhoods um very rarely do I see somebody or at the most if they park there they walk down the down down the road to go fishing or something like that so so so Sonia um to address what you're saying as you know West Windsor we have a habit here of naming out neighborhoods okay so there's approximate if don't quiz me but there's approximately 10 different neighborhoods know the park one uh Bridgewood Estates um uh Lake Shore Drive there's approximately 10 neighborhoods uh Sunrise uh West Winds Princeton Ivy so all those neighborhoods it's easily you easily accessible to walk to to the trail and in addition um you have the parking and it's not that far away you have the the parking icon over you have parking at High School South you have parking at at Ward and then if you really want a good workout you have parking right here at a municipal building so we envision this mostly having uh the you know surrounding neighborhoods uh using it now as you heard in the public meeting we had a few days ago on this it was mentioned it was mentioned at that um public hearing that the uh that the pump station at the end of uh Jacob Drive Extension is going to be is going to be eliminated in maybe about two years or so according to the township so so I'm not advocating this I just want to make sure I'm not advocating this but at that pump station if that goes away there is room for if the township wants um limited parking you know three or four spaces that you say but we're not proposing that we're not advocating that I'm just saying that that could be a possibility but I want to emphasize that this Trail is easily accessible to literally 10 surrounding neighborhoods and there like I said there is parking on Conover you know the Conover fields at at High School South Ward Field so you know people who want to use the field excuse me you use the trail walking for instance from uh High School s South is wouldn't be what we call a a big schlep to get to get to the trail so I hope I've answered your question Linda I know no one I know when the mayor mentioned about you know having having met with you know you and and and some other people about this that that all the work was going to be done by foas on this um but then but then there was a lot of call calls and emails and everything to staff and staff got very busy and just I guess didn't have enough time to fully look at this that was the reality of of what was happening behind the scenes because this just came up a couple weeks ago I know through the years has been discussed on and off by many many people in town um but now it's formally come come back again so it's feeling a little bit um in some ways um rushed now when I when I look at the finance um sheets the uh estimated cost things before we continue could I just address that or you want you going to another issue now should I just address that or you want I mean I I I know that staff I could not get through the staff okay um because staff members were were super busy and told not to not to work any further on this and I as a council person is I'm trying to just have some discussions get some confidence because there's a lot of estimates that were that were made here and our Engineers downstairs um have a lot of experience too and the people have put together put this together to have have some experience there's also an assumptions um section on the on the second page which is assuming work being done by the DPW and maybe some materials and different things I have no idea how much like that costs I don't know if a commitment from the administration um or not so I I just had um some questions and I even went even asked the the uh the township attorney after the shade tree commission which you were at there and I was out there walking out like can they look at this really quick and no so um so that that's just a little bit of a difficulty for for me not having some administration review and and having give them the time to get back to council um with saying oh this is great this is perfect or no we we need to do this differently maybe it costs more maybe the estimates come lower I I don't know I don't know but it's a it's it's a nice project I love the historical um you know significance of that and and and and all that the Historical Society can help uh with putting out um you know all all of that information um it's a beautiful area I went out yesterday I must have spent an hour hour and a half or so walking it um it's very nice I I didn't have any trouble with the stones not saying it's perfect um but but it but it's there it's there it's a wide path it exists walked over that little bridge that you just showed little little icy there but um but I walked over it but once you make improvements to the path and you put down Crush Stone now now it seems as if that triggered a 350 foot Bridge um which is 116 yards in a football field it's football season is a is 100 yards so it's more more than the length of a football field um so that doesn't exist right now uh so it's just a lot a lot of concerns different things spinning through my head because this just seem to have um come up I don't know whether there are any other options for for maybe doing a um scale down version of this and to include the history maybe correct some of the stones get smoothed out or different things as opposed to um having that Crush Stone and having to build this very big expensive bridge in the wetlands and and and all the permits and and all of that um and I I was also really trying to get like does that estimate look good or is this not in the ball not quite in the ballpark of of of the engineering Department's experience and and doing Bridges and different things may I respond okay you said a lot and some of the stuff you said is erroneous and a lot of stuff you say is very general so let me see if I can hit them all first of all foas is not doing the project what foas is doing is preparing the application to submit to Green Acres we're not constructing the project and another thing you talked about this 350t bridge that's not accurate that is that is a a walkway the bridge is very small it's going to be very it's going to be very similar to the bridge you see now um it's it's going to be ADA Compliant so so the the new bridge is going to go there is going to look very similar to the existing one except it's going to be ADA compliance have railings it's going to be a little bit wider and so the Bri you're talking about this massive uh Bridge that's not what you're talking about is not the bridge what what we're gonna have is a walkway over some area where it's wet and I've already met with d about the permitting and it's not an issue okay I just want to say that second of all let me please let me continue uh a lot of uh brain power went into this and not even talking the help that we got from the township which we appreciate a lot we we had a uh a civil engineer work on this we have uh two accountants on working on it and we uh had two attorneys so if you can give me specific problems uh with the proposal I'll be glad I'll be glad to answer your questions I just hear right now generalizations right because this this is that's what we received I mean I've served on the planning board for 10 years and when an application comes in you know it there there's reports and there's review and there's discussion back and forth and that's and that is sort of what I I felt that this is missing because this has just come up in the past couple of weeks so I don't I don't have any any memos you know from Chief Financial Officer about funds that we have open space who's who's doing this project I thought fo is getting the Grant I was more under the impression that we are getting you're sort of you're you're doing all of this involving Construction no we're not there's no place the application says that we're doing the construction so who's doing it then you're saying the township is going to no host who's doing but it is um Jerry why don't you come up and tell them about the the process about you know picking the um the companies who they actually do the work no but who like who's controlling it are you going out to bid are you request for proposals or I'm trying to understand the process that's all I'm trying to do sorry um most of my experience is with um safe Ro of school grants that are do grants or not D grants what so what I'm going to tell you is what I've read in the application itself which describes a process and there is a bid process which has to um follow the same um bidding standards and process that the uh municipality would follow um so so it's not the case that we can just do a no bid for example um there's also the rules that have to do with the uh prevailing wage uh have to be followed exactly the way the township would have to follow them so yes a lot of the process that I think you're familiar with with the township uh type of a project would also exist with this type of a project does that does that ENT your question Jerry I would assume that before we even get to building this um and there there is money in there for that you're going to be hiring a firm that's going to come in is going to come up with the designs then once the design is pretty much agreed to by everybody including the township at that point they will prepare bid uh bid preparation so the bid could be sent out is that coming before what we were even talking about at this point yes so um for example and I'm not this are things that haven't been necessar I things that I've talked about with with individual people at Foos right is uh Lawrence Opel Trail for example Lawrence Opel Trail is like Foos it's a nonprofit organization it has no governmental association with anything it's private organization um they applied for and have gotten um grants for building the Lawrence opal Trail over the last 25 years right so what they've done as an organization um in the past is they've hired a project manager part-time and the project manager goes through and follows that process the same process that the township would have to follow and you know basically do the lines get the you know across all the te's get all the uh um they have to hire a construction engineer to do an actual physical Design This is not physical Design This is concept right it's lines on a map so all the things that you're used to seeing would still have to happen yeah did that answer your question yeah I I was it was on a consideration of any like a a smaller scale of a project or or or not um so kind of clean it up so my experience is all from the planning end um so uh generally speaking for a trail it's a million dollars a mile okay um this this pretty much fits into that ballpark um it's a little bit high in in some ways uh because we already have um we already have some part of it already constructed because Jacob Drive extensions already paved out to where the houses are and then it's already graveled out to where this pumping station is so we don't really foresee a lot of extra work there um so we get sort of that for what what's there today for the most part um so from the perspective of the township um all that really means is if this comes in way under that then we're covered with the grant okay the the danger from the Township's perspective when I don't say the word dangerous the risk the Financial Risk from the townships perspective is if we're low and we we apply for less money but it comes in at a higher cost then where's that money going to come from so the the advantage of going on a grant proposal isn't to say you know can we Whittle this down right because we don't want to whittle it down what we want to do is get it done if it happens to cost you know only three quarters of that because you know we had a $40,000 contingency fee that we didn't have any contingencies right we had a you know estimate for a boardwalk and a in a bridge but you know what it came in in a lot less um so just for example one of my friends who's also a planner who works and does these Trail projects I said well what do you guys do with with Bridges and boardwalks she goes ah Bridges and boardwalks we don't we just build those ourselves they're too expensive to get somebody else to come in to do them you know um do we have that possibility I I don't know but that that's kind of all in the future at the point at this point um we have to sort ort of go with you know what we have today and and um I I am reasonably confident that we should be able to come in uh under you know but again who knows the future well I know I know it's very it is it is difficult I don't know where it's going to come and nobody nobody knows to you really um do more of this you know the specs and it's more engineered or we're not at that point right yeah and to answer your question about the 350 fet um we're we're posing the boardwalk um what's happened is that there's a lot of gravel out there right now and and it goes from the pen L section um over to where this one manhole cover is for the sewer line right and then about 10 or 15 feet further on there's the bridge and there's no heavy gravel that's been done between there and the bridge right because nobody's going to drive over that right no you can't and then from right so from the north post it's the same thing there's a lot of gravel that's already been put down so you can drive into the next existing manhole cover which is about 350 ft away um but between the two there's no gravel okay there or very very little gravel it's all if you if you walked over there it's all kind of mushy and everything so the proposal was um based on what we've seen with Lawrence hop Trail um is to put Boardwalk over that section rather than putting down a whole bunch more gravel and crust Stone and everything like that and BP is generally they like that because it doesn't um it doesn't interfere with the flood plane and all that kind of stuff right than thank you Linda Martin do you have questions I'm good my questions were answered thank you um I think I've been asking a lot of questions for the last week uh and my Mike's laughing um what one question would be would you look at putting a bike rack at a couple of places here so somebody wanted a bike to it and then walk great idea um and Linda had a great idea too so Linda why don't you tell us the idea that you had that we were incorporating my idea was just about problems with maintenance in and weeds we barrier type Linda suggested we do Linda was very concerned about weeds and she told us about weeds in her garden so I spoke to Jerry I said Jerry what can we do about potential weeds so the Jerry came up with this special mat right that's permeable water but right so um it shows you you know you want the bike racks you know Linda wants the weeds to be taken care of so they don't grow so you know we taking input and advice so yes you'll get your bike right it's great idea um yeah the thing would be um at in this point if you read the resolution uh this is essentially a concept plan and the administration our professionals haven't been really involved in design yet and once this comes back if we do get this grant then it'll be time for a conference for people to sit down to work out um what kind of changes might be requested uh whether or not like I do have some concerns on do we need to go to the other side where um the Jacob extension is yet we I definitely am thrilled with the idea of of the uh phase two where we go to Clarksville and we now have a whole way for kids to walk across and uh and and eventually that that'll be a nice thing to have um and but as far as right now is that something we want to do and and especially since we're now in the middle of working on this uh Pump Station where we're going to have trucks going back and forth probably moving things in and out so that might be something um when when it's all worked out uh how how it goes and then there's also once we get the actual bids in it could turn out that something's too expensive some's too whatever so I'm assuming there is a a good amount of flexibility when the final design gets worked out between all the administration profession and then uh it's brought for say a final agreement uh to the council so um that um one of the things that they you'll be doing I know you told me is is talking to people and getting their concerns and I'm sure that the administration will be talking to people and getting their concerns and I'm sure the council will be hearing because nobody's ever shy um about any concerns that people in the area might have see what what could be addressed in what way so this is um I guess as um Mike and and Jerry and have mentioned this is basically an agreement for fos to go out and apply for a grant and for the town and also it's an agreement from the town saying that we agree with um allowing this particular piece of property to be built on uh in some way to provide a to provide a path that we agree with the UN like the idea of the whole historical path because I don't think we have anything in West Windsor quite like this and I don't think we have anything dedicated yet really to the Native Americans um so this will this will be something new for West Windsor and but all this does at this point is says yes um you can go get the grant we will match the grant uh up to the amount that's in there and that we will um that the that once everybody's agreed what's to be built that you'll be able to hire people and go and do the building I describing this uh reasonably accurately uh perfectly okay um does anyone have any additional things that now we're not as I say we don't vote until we get to the resolution there will be opportunity for public comments so I don't want anybody to get nervous um but does anybody have any other comment they want to make or question before um we shut this piece down I mean just one comment to what Linda said we did get certification we did get certification from the CFO that the funds are available otherwise nothing moves forward right and that's in the resolutions yes that that the amount of fund the matching funds are available so just to make clear so the audience understands when you say CFO it's the township CFO right the Chief Financial Officer for the township before we pass any resolution and in this case we're not actually giving anybody the money usually it's an allocation where we're we're saying that money is available in this case it's in case you get the grant he's saying that that money um is available and we do need that certification whenever we do a resolution involving money and and just to make it clear again that money is coming out of the open space correct right which which can't be used for other than open space um maintenance of open space or various types of developments in open space that would be approved thank you okay okay um thank you if you'd like to hang around so you can hear the public comment that would probably be a good idea and I guess we can go on to the next portion which is our um affordable housing mayor thanks now I really am going to speak for a long time so um so um as those of you who are new haven't heard um the fourth round of FAL housing has started between 2025 and 2035 uh the state passed a legislation called A4 which required the towns to adopt our affordable housing obligation number uh the DCA did give us a number and it required town to adopt a resolution either agreeing to the DCA number or to come up with a new number saying this is what we believe Our obligation is and the council is required to pass that resolu resolution before January 31st in order to maintain immunity from Builder remedy loss which is very important so then we could keep our control so the resolution is on the agenda tonight and my comments pertain to that resolution requesting the council to pass the resolution the council did uh discuss that resolution in close session uh at the last council meeting 15 uh days ago so they have had an opportunity to look at and that report is on the township website but uh there's a report the planner prepared that will be attached to the resolution sent to the uh DCA and they have had opportunity to look at the report and ask any questions that they may have so if you're looking for the report you can go on the township website and there's a present and prospective need analysis report from our planner um so before I speak about our response to the DCA provided number for required affordable housing units in West WIS during round four I would like to talk a little bit about affordable housing there's nothing new that I'm going to say today that I haven't been saying for the last several years but it Bears repeating the affordable housing requirements started under Mount Laurel because certain townships were trying to restrict people from moving into their Town West Wier has never done that since I started paying attention to the issue both under mayor and definitely not since I became mayor in 2017 West Winston is one of the most Progressive towns as far as offering affordable housing is concerned and now I know being mayor for seven years I know what other towns in mser County are doing until now we have not allowed an exclusionary housing insisting that affordable units be dispersed throughout the development with ever increasing requirements even the most Ardent supporters of this approach have told me privately that it's time to rethink we always insist that the developer provide same amenities to people living in affordable housing that they provide to market rate units I have seen planning board spend significant time during the approval process to make sure that the affordable units are not treated unfairly West Wier has never slowed construction of affordable units in fact during round three we were one of the few Township ship which had fully engineered plans for each of our approved development before we went to CT and that is why we won so easily in COD against all the objectives almost every development approved under Plan Three under round three except one has started construction and some have finished construction you can compare that to our surrounding towns when in certain cases they won't even break ground for another year there's no food dragging in invest ins served as the saying goes no good deed goes unpunished in spite of being very Progressive West Wier has received short end of the stick during round three and probably earlier rounds as well and that's easy to understand because Builders like to build here it's very easy to sell a townhouse for a million dollar and make a lot of profit this round my Approach was to do what's good for West Wier residents while providing our share of affordable housing units to make possible for people to move in town the best affordable housing policy is to reduce the cost of living in New Jersey making it affordable to everyone one of the most important components of it is to rethink how the state funds public education however that is heavy lifting and the legislature would rather find an easy way out therefore they passed an affordable housing legislation assembly Bill four if for required the Division of Community Affairs DCA to come up with numbers for each Town based on three factors land capacity factor or what is your available land equalized residential valuation Factor that's a little more complicated an income capacity Factor each of the three factors have equal weight in which uh towards your affordable housing calculation that itself doesn't make any sense to me but that's the law the DCA did analysis of these factors and came up with a prospective need number of 661 and present need number of 61 units for West wior this is one of the highest numbers in the state and post post puts West wior among top 20 towns in New Jersey when our planner and assessor analyzed the number we found a number of errors in DCA calculation now the income factor is based on some survey there's not much you can challenge because it's based on a survey um so people in town make too much money that's our problem um but we have an excellent assessor who found an error in equalized non-residential valuation factor which reduced our ratio from 4.42 to 3.78 and that's all in this report getting a little bit in the weeds the assessor also points out that this factors affects West Wister negatively since morer count is lumped in the same group with manmat County manmat County does an analized assessment which keeps their ratios very high which means their actual assessment and real assessment is very close to 100% whereas in West wiser and most towns in merer county is very low less than 90% in some cases less than 80% we don't know how DC adjusted for that while calculating share of regional non equalized valuation change in other words if we group differently with either other County or by merer County by itself our number would have been much lower the biggest error in DCA calculation was the land capacity Factor the DCA calculated weighted developable land area of 777.com Warehouse side as they considered that as available for development after adjusting for that and a few other sites we our planner calculated our developable land area as 177.52 one Acres this significant change from last several years we have been having a debate about what will happen if we had not agreed to let Atlantic realy lease the land for warehouses the proof is in these numbers where our developable land would have been lot closer to 777 acres and a number of required units closer to 661 during the last round we had an upper hand since the Atlantic realy land was not zoned for housing if we didn't have the forite to lock up the land before round four we would have certainly been forced to reone it for housing during current round then it's anyone's guess how many homes the developer would have proposed putting on the property would have been much harder fighting that battle given that our ratio of affordable housing to market rate unit is 1 to three or we require 25% affordable units which is also one of the highest ratio in the state most towns require either 20% or 15% the 61 units proposed by DCA would have meant a total of 2,644 new units in West wion this is in addition to all the construction that is already going on in town with the two corrections to the DCA number We Believe Our obligation for f housing under the A4 legislation is 392 units a reduction of over 40% as relieved as I am with this reduction this still puts us among the top 50 townships in the state I'm requesting the council to adopt a resolution today to State Our obligation for federal housing units is 392 this is a requirement under the A4 legislation once the council adopts the resolution our attorney will petition the court to give us immunity from Builders remedy lawsuits which is essential for us to control our own destiny however we are not finished yet as the resolution States the the township retains the right to conduct a vacant land analysis to determine our realistic development potential at a later date that's the next step we believe although we have not done that analysis yet we do believe that analysis may show our number to be lower than 392 number that the council will adopt today and when we present our fair share housing plan to the court we would have finished the vacant land analysis and we would go to the court with that number that is expect Ed if the current timeline holds that is expected sometime in June of this year since becoming mayor in 2017 I maintained that I was getting ready for the fourth round of Fel housing which started this year because I had experience I was on Council uh when the third round was going on and they were asking for a number of 2,000 the fair share housing center were asking for a number of 2,000 which at that time we had only 20% um ratio required which would have meant 8,000 units so I meant what it meant for the township this meant I had to make several hard decisions to engage The Land Before round this round started I faced critism from several people some genuine some political for the decisions I have made those decisions allowed us to reduce Our obligation from 661 to 392 which will result in reduction in total new housing from 2,644 to 1,5 568 a reduction of over thousand residences I'm hoping that the waken land analysis or waken land adjustment will make that number even lower I want to thank everyone who supported and stood by me while I made those hard decisions both council members and residents who told me they understood why I was making the choices I was making we are certain to face code challenges to our decision as it's very easy to sell houses in West Wier at great profit we are the favorite T Target for developers I'll continue to do what is right and moral for both existing residents and people looking to move into town it's still a long game we are probably in round three of this whole how we determine our number there's still lot of steps left but we'll continue to play that and see what we'll end up with our number and if any council members have any questions I'll be happy to answer them now or at the time of resolution thanks thank you mayor um I didn't time your speech but uh just I just want to add a little clarification before we get to council questions um just a little on the background the way these numbers came up is the state of New Jersey came up with a complete number of prospective need for the state of 84,600 a bunch of uh regions we wound up in region four Mercer Mount excuse me Mercer monment and Ocean County and that region got a prospective need obligation of 13,820 and then the deal is the numbers divide that 13, 822 amongst the three involved counties and as the mayor did mention um there's three different numbers and it winds up being an average so for instance the uh equalized non-residential valuation um which is essentially um actually it's a uh rather complicated formula but it's it involves the changes in non-residential property value versus the total Regional change so whatever was determined as our change in non-residential is divided by total Regional we get a percentage out of that and that somehow leads to our percentage obligation in the First Column then there's the land capacity factor which is a division of the West Windsor Acres that are available div uh divided by the total Regional numbers that they've determined to be available and that's the number that went down for something like 778 acres for us when we removed the um area the mayor was talking talking about uh down to 178 Acres um and that's that's the second factor and then there's an extremely complicated formula my eyes were glazing over on income but the bottom line is um it's how much we make our the our medium income with various factors versus other medium incomes as compared to so much money under a poverty level and in that particular case yes we have our medium income for this town is very high so um and that's based on published numbers so there wasn't really much we could do with that these three numbers are now averaged and that's how we came up with our original um average allocation Factor was I think 4.78% and then that went down to um 2.83% and that's um that's how we were able to um and there's all kinds of spreadsheets that the DCA puts online that everybody's welcome to play with um and that's how we came up with the with the new numbers so um thank you for the the job that was done uh between the administration and the planners I know they've been working extremely difficult hard on it and that publication's available um now I'll start out with some questions Martin do you have a any um and Linda no no questions um I I just want to say a few things that um that West Windsor is a leader in affordable housing I think we're we're well known for that and we have all types of affordable housing uh from rentals to condos to houses and we have um sometimes all affordable development projects such as project freedom and others so our affordable housing committee has worked very hard over the years and I've worked with them also from time to time um they work with the mayor and Council to provide Equity by having the affordable units distributed throughout a development and that the affordable units are constructed with good quality materials and that residents of the affordable units don't have any fees for amenities or other such things as indoor garbage pickup and some of the rentals do have that indoors and there's always question of you know could we wave that for for the affordable unit so all sorts of issues like that do come up um with with ious applications um so our present perspective need analysis um I guess as mayor said was done by the township planner um in consultation with the land use attorney land use manager um and the mayor and Council uh did discuss this uh document in executive session and I find the level of of detail to be substantial in the document the methodology that the township has used is in compliance with state law now we don't know if we're going to get challenged we seem to always seem to get challenged when it comes to a lot of affordable housing issues however we're we're using the state law what's what was approved um what was signed by the by the governor that's the formula that we're using we just don't say oh we don't like it we're going to just come up with our own numbers no that's not how it works and that's not how it's being done here um because if there's any legal challenges that a key question that we are in compliance with the law um so you know it's on the agenda tonight and and it's it's needed um to be uh submitted by January 31st uh for the binding resolution to the state's affordable housing dispute resolution program and if we failed to do that then uh we could lose immunity from exclusionary zoning litigation so we certainly don't want that situation um if all goes well between now um by June 30th of this year uh West Windsor must adopt our housing elements and Fair Share Plans and and propos drafts of the zoning and other ordinances and resolutions to implement our present and prospective obligations so from tonight on there's there's a lot of work the next steps um that have to be done uh by June 30th and that will come up very quickly and that's when you you start to take a look at the number numbers and then where would be put the housing and that that takes I think a lot of time uh and discussion so we'll continue to work with um our planners and and um you know the whole the whole team attorneys and all so I have nothing further thank you Linda for all that background Dan do you have anything um yeah some comments um sort of echo what Linda said that the uh the report that was done by our um planning team was incredibly comprehensive and detailed uh and it follows the formula as stated uh we kind of knew um that that what DCA was giving us was a little you know questionable they they basically had to do these reports for every single municipality in the entire state in a very short amount of time and um at the league of municipality conference they kind of admitted that uh that they may have missed a few things that some of the detail that they were using maybe a few years old uh and they encouraged the township to take a close look at it which is exactly what we did which is why we discovered that um not not only the Atlantic realy property but there was a a list of properties that they had included that were truly not um not developable all which is why we were able to reduce that number um so much so I feel that what we've produced is you know is very easily defendable there's a it's based on data and and and real data the other point I want to make out is that in addition to what the mayor said as we do the vacant land assessment which might provide further opportunities to reduce that number um there's the the law also provides a series of credits um so at worst case we're looking at if we round it up to 400600 rough you know houses um there are models that we could put in place that could um limit reduce that by another 25% um things such as 55 plus um housing housing for um disabled folks conversion of commercial properties into residential so there's a whole list of opportunities for us to even Whittle that number down um so that we can that we'll still be able to provide Our obligation and provide that those opportunities for folks um in the low and moderate income levels to to live in this wonderful Community um and in a way that uh doesn't put a huge burden on on our infrastructure so um thank you for all the work that was done um to put that detail together as we've said it's critical that we pass this resolution because it will protect us from being sued um in Via an exclusionary um zoning type lawsuit uh that doesn't mean that uh developers can contest this number but if they contest it it has to go through the DCA and it has to be based on the data and we're pretty confident that the data speaks for itself so thank you thank you so well I don't have any further questions um because we had a very lengthy um discussion at the executive session last um last uh meeting we had I just want to thank mayor Administration and our planners to do a who did a very thorough job um as my fellow colleagues have already mentioned so I Echo their um point of views and um you know we are very very confident um that we um the number that we are proposing is very defendable um if or when I would say when we go to court so um thank you for everything thank you Sonia I want to Echo what my colleagues here have said um that it is um there's no guesswork here there's no games there's no G wouldn't it be nice there that report if you look through it it um it goes inch by inch uh everything the DCA has on their Maps there they went through it and evaluated uh even even to the point of well if if they were saying it's one acre should it really be 09 acre they they they went with an absolute fine tooth comb on every claim that DCA put in there some of which some of what even the little tiny ones where they put something that was 20 feet wide which really or something that was an artifact on a map and they found all those little ones too they didn't just um you know limit for the for the really big one um and so I really appreciate that that was done very very properly uh the amount of time and effort that everybody went into doing that um these numbers are are our numbers there's a spreadsheet and the these are the facts they go in there this is what DCA this is what the rules are this is this is where it is next steps are going to be harder because there'll be decisions to be made made um we know we're going to have to look at various areas do we want to do here do we want to do there uh which which areas um if if you're within so many feet of a train station there there's a there's uh there's a 25% there's a limit of 25% they've they've actually pulled back on what you can do um in this last bill be as compared to what you were able to do before in terms of making um making these uh types of claims to get down it's a total maximum of 25% and know you can't double dip um so I'm sure the administrations and our and our planners are going to be looking at the next set of plans with um tremendous detail and there'll be a lot of discussion on that um so thank you and mayor did you have any additional comments there one comment since uh it's going to wait till tomorrow to post this but since uh Dan mentioned you can get additional credits for converting commercial to residential that's great because that's our choice we get to decide what we want to do or not but in couple of days on Thursday the Senate is going to consider a bill called s 148 which will Define certain assets as stranded assets so if you have a mall or office building that's not occupied more than 50% that will be considered stranded asset and that will give a unilateral power to that land owner convert that into residential without adhering to any zoning laws or regulations so that is essentially giving incentive to landlords to say that don't renew the lease just get your uh site to be as dump as possible so you can then just bypass all zoning laws to make it possible now if that happens it may take two three 4 years and whoever is the mayor people will go and complain to the mayor how did you let it happen it started now it's starting today so if if I request you to contact your legislator to say this is nonsense the local zoning board should be able to control how the zoning Works in town please do because otherwise three years down the line you will be complaining to some Council and some mayor that why this is happening this is how things get done in Trenton and that's unfortunate and I brought it up only because he mentioned the special credit I would love to take special credit but that will be my choice choice not choice of the developer I mean we not in business to guarantee them a return on investment I mean they did that and economy change economy change I mean that's not resident fault that they need to make some money so thank you mayor there's there's re rampant opportunity for abuse by developers and uh and something like that that would take away with the right of local zoning um okay well moving out of the special presentations I'm going to open public comment which is a 3 minute limit per person and I want to remind everybody that this is the only public comment before we'll be taking actual votes on both these and any of the resolutions and also on the one um one ordinance that we're going to be introducing so this will be you there will be a second public comment but that would be after any voting action so if you do want to speak on any of these items uh before the vote now is the time uh I'm opening public comment now so if anybody on the list have a list I have Ann um at this point we don't usually respond to public comment while people are talking if you um you'll ask some questions and then at the end of it we can um we can see what the questions are and uh the Council might be able to uh might ask you some questions on it okay we'll take some notes okay thanks okay so I have an Clifton good evening an Clifton 18 gston Drive speaking on behalf and Clifton 18 gston Drive speaking on behalf of the board of the West Windsor bicycle and pedestrian Alliance in support of the proposed Moses Tunda tatami Trail just to reiterate some of what Mike Shu and Jerry Foster said this Trail has been part of the West Windsor Township circulation element of the master plan for years and part of a greater Mercer Regional Trail plan the West Windsor bicycle and pedestrian Alliance supports trails that connects neighborhoods and communities Recreation and ways around uh this Moses tnder Tatamy trail with a Terminus at pen l Road provides easy access to the trolley Line Trail especially as sidewalks already exist on pan l Road making the trail more accessible allows more residents to enjoy the trail if friends of West Windsor open space gets the green light to submit a Green Acres application a gr a green for an application for the Green Acres Grant the West Windsor bicycle pedestrian Alliance will send a letter to New Jersey D in support of the trail thank you Becky marks hello Becky marks 28 Westminster Court thank you for opening up the public comment um I am here on behalf of Foos I've been a longtime trustee and the assistant secretary right now as Mike mentioned the town has preserved 50% of our open space or of our our 50% is preserved so us and Foos have been thinking how do we continue to support the town and so we've looked at the options and the land and this Trail I think gives a combination of something that's already been in the works as well as history and opening the eyes of the public to both the beautiful Forest that we've thankfully preserved as well as the history of our town um I think to address uh councilwoman jer's point of the rush here as a mom who has 2,000 emails that I don't read all the time I also am with you this came around very quickly and it's because there is a deadline on the Grant and I just want to remind us that there's a lot of work to to be done this is all just a a concept plan and really what we're talking about tonight is giving us the green light to go forward to actually just try to get the money and then there will be a ton of work to be done that nobody's you know holding our a light underneath of us that it has to be done but at least we'll have gotten the funds and given the opportunity for the township to have something that we don't have to fully fund so I am here to lend my support to the resolution and as a side I do want to thank you mayor for your foresight and your presentation on open on the affordable housing I think everybody in West winster wants there to be affordable housing but we don't necessarily need it to change the fabric of our town so thank you for the help protecting that thank you thank you next Diane hassling Diane hassling 12 Jacob Drive West wisor I appreciate all the work that foest does however I have concerns about the obligations the township May incur in being the backer of the 50% match on this application as well as the process used in creating the proposal could there be an obligation for more than the almost 290k from West wisor if the state doesn't provide their entire promised amount or if the final project cost is is higher than the proposed estimate does the plan submitted for the award have to be followed there's comments tonight that it's just conceptual even some of the foest members seem to have reservations about the actual Trail details when they voted at the public hearing I feel the 10-ft width for a trail a 350 foot bridge and apparently boardwalk and two flashing crosswalks are assessive for a trail to showcase the beauty of Nature and the path native Americans may have followed I imagine the town ship may have many higher priority requests for two flashing crosswalks if the award is granted I'd hate to have us lock into this plan I note that the greenacre stewardship application States quote applicants that significantly reduce the scope of their project after funding has been awarded will be asked to withdraw and reapply in a future funding round so I don't know that what what that means for changes the process appears to have been so rushed that I fear Mar residents aren't w't yet aware of the plan to comment on it I received an email on January 13th sent to foa supporters since I am one not an official notice to Residents near the trail details about the plan were only added to the website on January 21st 2 days before the public hearing last week I don't view this a sufficient opportunity for nearby residents to learn about the plan even less to be able to talk as a community or consider it in depth I can't imagine that Township professional staff members have had sufficient time to review the plan either to determine the Township's obligations both the path through the woods and the Jacob Drive Extension Road that comprise this plan already exists for people to experience those areas now it might be nice to refine those in some way and add historical markers but I don't see the urgency in submitting a plan with unknowns concerns and little re Real review in order to meet an award deadline this February I think it would be more responsible to ensure the community has been engaged the plan is a good one costs are accurate as possible the plan and costs have been reviewed carefully by all relevant parties all impacted by the plan have an opportunity for input and a sense of usage of the trail can be determined and then consider applying for a grant like this if after this due diligence it may also be found that there are better uses for the West Windsor open space funds thus I believe it is too early for Council to support a resolution to co-fund this proposal tonight thank you thank you Ian ma thank you for this opportunity my name is Ian W I reside at 119 North Post Road now North Post Road that uh is really on the uh the Jacob extension drive if if you will as are the three properties I'm now retired but I spent 34 years at Ruckers University in a variety of of positions from Professor to Dean to Executive Dean and as the exe executive director of the New Jersey act experiment station after I retired in 2003 I immediately left Ruckers and joined the N what was then the national Association of public and land grant universities I intended to spend five years there but ended up spending 19 my role there was as vice president food egg and natural resources working with the 234 state universities across the country did working on policies derivatives and programs so I do know a little bit about about uh this this kind of thing having spent time at Ruckers as chair of environmental science department as well I hold a PhD from Penn State University and an honorary degree from the National University of Life Sciences and environmental Sciences of the of the Ukraine I moved to West Windsor in 2007 shortly after I I joined Ruckers and I of and long all this time from 20070 to date I've been most of the time a resident here in West West Windsor in 1985 I bought the piece of land that was subdivided from the property that goes from North Post Road down to the pump pump station that that was road is really over the sewer line that was put put in in the n in the 1970s as you're all well aware of this plan as I think look at has some Merit no question about it let me raise two points number number one I am not against Trails or open hiking I did an awful lot of that as a youth and as a college student in central Pennsylvania hiking the alagan mountains and those Trails I can appreciate that I experienced myself and gained a lot from it so I'm certainly in favor of that from a health pers perspective and a wellness perspective and from just the beauty that those Trails can provide to the surrounding area and the people that live in those those areas there's no question about that the second point is while I have no objection to it you know it's I'm curious about the the the the history that goes back into it in terms of the naming of this Trail there's no question that this individual was indeed very very important to the to the work of the lenp Indians and was indeed a leader in in that regard however in the brief time that I've had a chance please finish up your thoughts okay be happy to you know I find little evidence substantive evidence to suggest that indeed he was really a resident of this area other than some Curious not notations therefore I I think while that's that's good and and well and we ought to recognize our Indi indigenous population I'm not sure this is the best way to do it in in in this regard Jacob Drive Extension is a one road it is a narrow road it is not conducive to have either vehicles and pres and pedestrians on it at the same time it just doesn't work that way it is dangerous when we built that those those houses there we did not put an additional cut into North Post Road because Elmer Bergman said no we don't need to do it we'll use that road than for your thought sir we're at our three minutes to to move ahead with this is risk to everybody who wants to use that trail thank you thank you sir okay Rebecca me thank you to the council my name is Allan I live at 117 North Post Road um and I want to just thank you for having the chance to speak tonight I'm a educator classroom teacher for 20 years my husband is a professor at Ruckers we have five kids um we love this community we've been here for about four and a half years so uh we have enjoyed our time we have concerns about this proposal uh for the trail the first being as an educator looking at um a nod to the indigenous people who live here there didn't seem sufficient evidence that this is something that was consulted with Lenape Tribal Council there didn't seem to be a lot of research behind that so we you know want to make sure that we're doing this in appropriate way um second uh safety being boots on the ground on that Jacob Extension Road it's a very narrow section of of Drive the part that is paved you cannot fit two cars down that at the same time um and you can ask many of my children who walk in the grass on those sides they've lost several shoes in that because it's Mucky and gross so the um concern of safety of two cars on there um is problematic and then you're asking to put pedestrians on that walkway as well it doesn't seem safe at all Additionally the idea for the crosswalk would not be at the corner of Jacob and north post it would come down a little bit um and when you do that there's actually no way to get onto to the path from Birchwood to States so it's uh unless you use the already constructed paths that people have created themselves through um the trails back there so that is a problematic piece as well to this plan it would be very dangerous for people crossing because event like inevitably people would have to cross North Post not at the crosswalk to actually access the trail that's very problematic um and the cost uh you know we have a poim Ary cost here but I can foresee already the um gravel that they're talking about laying down uh would be at not the nice walkable gravel but the gravel underneath that you're actually going to have to do construction to level where it is on the road that's going to be additional cost we're talking about a parking lot perhaps that's going to be additional cost so I'm worried that while in cons in concept my husband's an exercise physiologist we want to get people outside we want to get them moving I'm an educator we want to educate people I'm not sure that this proposal really kind of supports those pieces um I think we need something more in depth the timeline seem very short we just found out about this last week um so I I would you know oppose this at the moment but let's keep looking at it let's keep talking about it thank you okay thank you Warren mlac I'm Warren metlac I live at five stonely Drive in West Windsor um I want to thank uh friends of West Windsor open space uh Mike Shu and Jerry uh for presenting tonight um one of the things I really like about this town is how easy it is to be outside in this town and um I don't know all the details about what the last few speakers were speaking about but in general I think it's great to build trails in the town um uh another comment I just wanted to make on the affordable housing um the number that you guys presented seems like uh you know we can stay with that number hopefully um but when you multiply it by four with the assumption that you're always going to be having to do the 3 to one I hope you guys will consider other alternatives for that for example 100% affordable or accessory drilling units things that other towns have done to limit the amount of extra housing that has to be built um to meet Our obligation thank you thank you thank you okay Mike should thank you just wanted to would uh address some of the comments that were made already and I just want to say that um I had the pleasure of going out the other day with Becky and we'll be speak about a half hour you know talking about the uh the plan so I just want to make one thing clear the Jacob Drive Extension portion is equivalent to to a dead end there's no there's no there's no amount of traffic there you had three houses using it to get on onto North Post Road so what's been what's been created here is this feeling that it's a main thoroughfare it's equivalent to a dead end um and the other thing I want to address it was said earlier in the comments about how this has been popped on to the public well foz has been talking about this for for year and we have minutes to reflect that some of the people said they didn't have any noce about it get out get our emails um AC see our minutes so we've been discussing this for a year so the idea that this has been sprung on to to the Birchwood State neighborhood is is just factually incorrect thank you okay thanks um Paul Murphy Paul Murphy 15 Lor Lane West Windsor when we moved to West Windsor in 1977 this was largely an agricultural Wasteland with little history behind it except a martian Invasion that didn't happen at a railroad station thanks to the Historical Society the uh friends of West Winds are open space and several Scout Troops we've done an excellent job of documenting the history of the Township from the 17th and 18th century founding by Europeans but before that the history seems to be pretty much blank we know very little about the people that preceded us the U Native Indians I'm sorry that's Eastern Indians um they they are largely invisible to us I believe the installation of the pamy swamp will be an important first step in rectifying that that Gap and can help bring the history of the the ly dbes alive to many uh School uh students here uh the trails ties to Moses toomy seem to be pretty well established fortunately the ground itself is owned by the township and it's already designated as open space it appears that the development of the town of the trail will involve very little disruption to to surrounding areas my own neighborhood Birchwood Estates um is only about is about maybe 100 feet the houses on birwood are about 100 feet from the trail so I don't think and it's well shielded by trees I don't think there'll be any major disruption to them and I think the the project virtually has no downside that I can see except perhaps cost I strongly recommend the implementation of this resolution as I think it'll provide a important insight into the peoples who preceded us which is a could be a important historical resource for our our school children and us thank you thank you thank you um Teresa Warman El you wna oh yeah you want to go oh sure sure good evening uh Tura Warman five stonely Drive uh thanks for the opportunity uh to speak tonight uh special shout out to Mike Shu um because I sat sat literally around the corner from him in the Attorney General's office uh for several years and um I know how instrumental he's been in preserving open space in our community so how lucky are we um that he continues to be such a resource so I'm not totally familiar with the details of the proposed tamam Trail but um I also love open space I'm a biker and a and a hiker you know not up to Mount Everest or anything but you know hiking around town and New Hope and places like that so in concept I think it's terrific I do want to point out um on the affordable housing numbers uh respectfully mayor the Atlantic realy project The Bridge Point site is in deep trouble it is in litigation now uh the Watershed Institute um and they had appeared here at Town Council and in the planning board um spoke uh directly in opposition to the plan um based on the fact that um the planning board at the time did rely on flood maps that dated back to 1999 um they came out against the plan and then when D approved the flood Hazard area permit last year um they filed suit and their lawsuit uh is pending in the appell division so just query uh are we jumping the gun in terms of saying that those 650 Acres that that we took out of the housing calculation will stay out of the calculation I wonder uh because I think that that bridg point Atlantic realy has a long long way to get all the permits they need and I know yeah I am one of many residents who was opposed to the project um and I I am among those uh um supporting a petition that is that will be presented to D and our residents petition is to insist that the 2023 flood maps be opposed be imposed on that site and if that happens we have been told by D that the seven warehouses which will bring 8,760 trucks per day into our community that's right 8,760 trucks per day into our community that that plan would not be approved under the new flood maps so whatever will happen on the Atlantic realy Bridgepoint site may not be the seven warehouses that people think may be going forward it's it's just something to consider and just very briefly um we have posted our you finish thank you take another second uh the residents petition is posted on my Facebook page also in WW peeps it is still timely for residents to sign and our our uh request is simple that the 2023 flood maps be applied to that site not the 1999 flood maps because all these Trails we're talking about are going to be in danger if we are inundated with flood which is a distinct possibility thank you all right next we're going down the list here of the signning sheet Diane Newman Al you want to go on next Mike could you hand her the microphone thanks Mike will hand her the mic yeah okay thanks um I'd like first of all to commend the mayor and everybody on the team that went through the affordable housing numbers so meticulously and carefully and I know if there's any other things that they have to do to those numbers they will be equally meticulous and careful and that makes me feel good but I I do um have something to say to Linda no we are not famous in the affordable housing um whatever you want to call it I I go to a lot of Zoom meetings and we're never mentioned our 20 5% set aside is never mentioned although I always write it in um we're not appreciated we should be appreciated because of the good things that we do um I also respectfully disagree with one of my neighbors I uh would hope that we could do our affordable housing without 100% affordable housing unless it's a very small um project and very special project but people are people in West Windsor no matter what their income is and I think they should all live together and as for the um Tatamy Trail we thought of that must have been in 2011 or so uh after we purchased what was then the Jewish Community Front area and we said there's nothing else to be purchased what shall we do and we thought of this Tri this Trail uh other things got in the way but there were there were two or three of us who didn't give up the idea uh of this trail and I just want to remind you of those of us who um can walk but need help and uh there are quite a few of us actually and if this if we get the um we get what we're asking D for and we make this Trail I'll actually be able to walk on it as I cannot now uh I mean I hope within a year everything will be better but not counting on it so just remember those of us who need special help when you're talking about betrayal thank you oh thanks Alison could you just finish up with your name and address for the record um Allison Miller 41 Windsor Drive thank you we we know your natural voice Alis thanks Mike um next on the list is Diane Newman 234 Windsor Court in Ying um I'm reading this on behalf of pauletti who's the president of the West Windsor Historical Society who could not be here tonight so these are all his words here for around 12,000 years New Jersey has been home to a Native American society called the L Lenny lape Lenape tribe in the West Windsor area also was known as the asip pigs they had a unique and meaningful history and cultures distinct from any West Windsor today regrettably colonist drove the Lenape out of the West Windsor area by the early 1700s again the Lenape lived in the area for around 12,000 years that's over 50 times as long as West Windsor has existed yet no significant Memorial to the lp exists within our Town's borders the proposed Trail would very meaningfully Elevate the incredibly long and diverse history of our Town's original res residents and the story of Moses tund tatami one of the most influential lopi of all time Moses tund tatami is referenced in many centuries old Deeds overlapping the present Trail he took part in some of the most significant land treaties in lenapi history including the infamous walking purchase of 1737 that robbed the lenapi of over 1 million acres in Pennsylvania and the Treaty of Easton that established the first ever Native American reservation in the United States tatami was a translator a missionary a diplomat and most importantly a bridge between his people and the colonists in fact fact he was such he has such importance that a Pennsylvania burrow is named after him I emphasize that no other area in West Windsor has such ties to tatami yet there are yes there are nearby walking trails but none of them substantially overlap tat tami's territory if they overlap at All West Windsor is VE very visibly celebrates its diversity yet we will never be fully inclusive without significant recognition of the leni's 12,000-year history and the story of one of its most famous historical figures and his ties to our town the proposed Trail and its interpretive signage may be one of our best opportunities ever to fill in this Gap it would also teach kids and adults about critical elements of indigenous history and may Inspire them to more broadly explore history and value other cultural perspectives and histories um Paul says thank you for your consideration and just as a add a note I have walked the trail as well I have two knee Replacements and a bad hip and I concur with Allison it would be much easier with a more even surface on another note I happen to have rais my kids in Mawa New Jersey which is lapi territory there is an elementary school called lapi Meadows and that's about it that I ever knew of the history there's just nothing out there recognizing them and to bring the history into West Windor as they should do in Mawa would be just beneficial for the kids in the community I I wish my kids had experienced that other than just the elementary school that it was named after thank you thank you next okay Frank lavad good evening my name is Frank Ladera for Windwood Drive uh and I also am the treasur of the Foos uh just let you know about that first I'd like to thank everyone for their consideration of this what I view as a tremendous opportunity for our community and I think it's been said by by many people uh and I also understand that there are many questions and uh Linda in my role as Treasurer um the amount of time and effort that has gone into this is significant not every question has been answered uh but many of them have and Mike thanks me for asking the question so that he could be prepared for this conversation today as well um it is a concept and it's a good one and it is well reasoned spent a lot of time uh in terms of the financial aspects and considerations and uh there is yet a lot to be done we're asking for approval of the concept to be able to request from the state the matching Grant and we will monitor this carefully and go through all of jump through all the Hoops as are necessary in order for us to complete this in a in a very reasonable and responsible manner uh in terms of the affordable housing mayor thank you for the explanation it's not something that I I'm really familiar with and it's it's it's I was very pleased to hear that the allocation of the uh uh the the warehouse section was was taken off um and that that is a benefit I also do want to say however warehouses are not a Panacea either and I understand the difficult choices that go into it and uh very difficult but uh good to get some additional information and understanding on those decisions that are being made thank you thank you thank you does anybody else wish to speak got a list here still oh we're still on the list one two three four five more people on the list okay okay so going in order Eric Lavine hi I'm Eric LaVine I live at 115 North Post Road which is one of the three houses that uh Mo and uh Becky Malin were talked about uh I lived there for about 22 years 25 years I'm sorry uh I'm big fan of foas in fact my kids my wife uh helped plant those trees that are in the open space now when they were in the little cones they were the saplings going back uh again 20 something years so uh you know we we're I'm not against Trails but when I notice people that are getting up to speak in favor of the proposal and they tell their addresses and I look them up on on Google Maps nobody lives anywhere near those Trails okay we're the three houses that are most affected by those trails that road that runs uh to to my driveway and to to Ian's and and Becky's driveway uh it should be it should be a dead end it is a dead end but constantly there are cause on that road and we we definitely don't want to be adding traffic to that um I have a ring camera pointed over my garage so anybody wants to come and see how many cars come come up there whether they be uh delivery trucks um people who get lost making u-turns in my driveway uh it's a constant thing and it you're absolutely right it shouldn't be that it's a dead end but it is that way uh so from a safety standpoint from a uh just from from from the traffic standpoint uh I'm I'm I want to be for the trail like I said I'm I'm a fan of Fus but uh just from this standpoint from people who live there uh it's just not something that we we could we could support so I stand you not position with my my neighbors so thank you thank you thank you okay Josh Mandel good evening my name is Josh Mandel I live at 112 bis Kean court and I'm a member of the board of the Historical Society of West Windsor uh and we're very grateful for everything that the township does to help the historic Historical Society fulfill its Mission I moved to West Windsor for my wife's career a few years ago but it didn't take me long to develop a strong attachment to this community and and three of the things that I love most about West Windsor are its beautiful Open Spaces uh the easy access to outdoor recreation and its fascinating history and I was very excited when I learned about the the tatami trail project which combines all three of these things the and I I want to commend Boos for their vision and all their work in preparing the application for this grant the Historical Society sees this Trail as a unique opportunity to share the history of West Wiser's first resident the Len LPE and we look forward to Consulting on the educational component of the project and I encourage you to vote in favor of the resolution thank you thank you thank you Kevin applicant Uh Kevin appet 135 con Road and I'm the chief of the West Volunteer Fire Company and I'm here to speak tonight uh and supported the approval of resolution 2025 r47 for the replacement of our rescue 43 apparatus uh the current piece of apparatus was originally acquired in 1991 and has served this Township Faithfully for 34 years coincidentally that was around the same time that I joined the fire company this trick truck was originally anti ipated to be replaced in 2020 and we are unfortunately be behind with in its replacement the proposed truck is substantially similar with updated equipment and will make it more useful to us I do want to note that it will take up to two years to deliver the new apparatus based on current manufacturer lead times so I ask that we move forward with this tonight we've had several recent issues with the current rescue 43 given its age and we'll be limping it to the Finish Line until the new truck is hopefully received I do have one other comment uh as well regarding the proposed Trail uh as a lifelong resident and someone who was a former trustee with Foos uh as well as someone who has built a number of trails on a lot of the open space in town uh accessible trails are of liit limited resource in this town uh you know we basically have MC County Park to the South and the canal to the north there's really not much in between uh and you know I personally live adjacent to Merc County Park which is very heavily used uh trail system of regional importance and I I see this proposal by Foos as a as a local draw something that's not going to be a giant Regional resource that could be uh very beneficial to the residents that live around it uh I myself have fre daughters and uh lead hikes with them with their Girl Scout tro so I I see this as something that you know people that live in the med imediate area this Trail could utilize so I urge you to support it thank you thank you thank you all right two more Michael Walsh good evening Michael Welsh 20 Burwood Court in West Windsor been in Resident for 26 years heartfelt thanks to everyone on Council and Foos for all the work you do I know it seems trit but believe me it is appreciated and lots of people don't take the time to say that I'm speaking for them as well so thank you my concerns with the trail are severalfold we have numerous competing options as Kevin just mentioned we've got Mera County Park which has paved and unpaved trails we've got paved Trails underneath the power lines that run through the pen L section we've also got Trails through the woods behind the baseball field that was handled by the Boy Scouts there's signage there and the young man who took care of that Drew everything out on the map so people can walk through the door and know where they're going why can't we do the same instead of Paving and disturbing nature with the tatami trail why can't we just do the signage appreciate the Indian history I am concerned about the ongoing cost there's a lot of trees there what happens when they fall is the town going to take care of it is that another tax burden for us and even though there will be mesh underneath the gravel anybody who's done gardening in their yard knows that that mesh works for a year maybe two if you're lucky those weeds they just find a way to pop up so who's going to take care of the trail who's going to take care of the litter is that another taxpayer expense I have big concerns about the flooding on Post Road the drainage dites ditches that are on the far side of Post Road are always filled with water so if we're going to have a trail there how far is it going to be and is it going to be dry and safe the blinking lights on Post Road let's face it that's not going to work too many people don't stop as it is now at traffic lights the blinking lights are going to be a hazard I don't know that we're going to have a lot of people walking on the trail those of us who live in the neighborhood walk it now I walk the trails I walk every day regardless of the cold the rain it doesn't matter uh again just think about what is being requested here and let's make sure that this is the best use of the town's money as well as F's money if there are better options then let's look at those too thank you thank you thank you Eileen Dube oh you can just tilt it towards you the there you go okay can you hear me oops you can pick it up thanks thank you great thank you um Eileen dub 11 Meadow Run Road and it's great to see so many of my virtu Estates um neighbors here we have a fabulous neighborhood um mayor morate you may be our wonderful West Windsor mayor but Diane hassling is the the mayor of Birchwood Estates she takes takes great care of our neighborhood and she's why we're such a great Community um for decades I've been lucky to have the magical experience of walking the woods that tonight we're referring to as the Moses tund tonomy Trail I've watched great blue Heron's Nest I've seen their offspring Learn to Fly alone in the woods I've played eeko with a barred owl and I probably hear some of the same birds that Moses Tunda Tatamy heard singing in the winter I see snow falling on colonies of Club Moss in the spring I'm excited to see native skunk cabbages trout lies and Jack in the Pulpit when I post photos of the Fall Foliage people always ask are you in Vermont well I've had this private Paradise this Vermont in New Jersey to myself I eager for others to enjoy it and as Allison pointed out to make it accessible um you I Envision folks in the hood dog walkers those out for a post prandial stroll and as some of you have noted um we're fortunate to live in an area where there are a multitude of trails I dream of the day when all these Trails will be connected and we can visit neighbors without having to get in our cars as for cars I can't imagine that many will come by car for a one M Trail as um evidenced by other local Trails I think Sonia um mentioned that um so um I'm so thankful to the uh bike and pedestrian Alliance the historical society and and to Foos for creating this concept plan to the mayor and Council for um considering it and to everyone who has shared ideas and concerns um because with with these wonderful um concerns come ideas of of how to build an Humanity that will meet the needs of everyone and I just want to point out that um I'm not sure if it's up yet but tomorrow on the Foos website Paul liity made a little three minute video about uh the history of Moses t doomy it's a you know great little video and you know Paul I mean he's he's young he's energetic and he just it it's great so thank you thank you thank you anyone else on the list no one else is on the list okay with anybody else yes soia ascarelli 27 Melville Road I'm in favor of this concept of a trail and of giving the public better access to land it owns I do appreciate the concerns of those who live on Jacob Drive and nearby about the changes that the tatami trail could bring for them that they've expressed today and at last week's hearing but as someone who lives four houses down from another Trail the entrance to the millstone Trail I'd like to share my experiences in terms of extra parking and traffic on Melville Road because of the trail it's really practically non-existent this Trail is a local Trail just like the tatami trail would be and you know what of course people have the right to Park on public streets there's also a parking lot at the other end of the trail on Millstone Road and I rarely see cars there again this is serve this is a trail that serves local residents it's not one that people travel far and wide to we do have neighbors who are very close to the trail much closer than those on Jacob drive one is separated by a chain link fence and some plantings we don't hear complaints there is no discussion of crime and trust me if that was the case we would be hearing about it in the neighborhood chat I'd say the same thing frankly about the trolley Line Trail where it's interesting to see how people have created their own private access points by um mowing the the grass so they can get from their property easily to the trolley Line Trail again all these homes are much closer to Trails and the Jacob Drive residence would be that was clear to me as I walked on the trail because I was curious on Sunday afternoon the homes and their property lines are so far back buffered by trees that even in Winter you can't really see much of anything can't see in their homes um and so imagine when what it's like when the leaves are out you really won't see anything but for those who are worried about privacy you can come to my house and take as much for cyia as you like and you can plant it in your yard not on the public side um but I I also would suggest that you then consider keeping the trail signing the trail that is only open from dawn to dusk to alleviate some of the concerns I do also suggest adding another rapid flashing beacon on Jacob drive to address the safety concerns of those who say it's hard would be hard than to cross to the Jacob Drive Extension um I don't feel that rapid flashing beacons of flashing lights detract it all from the nature of from from the beauty of the nature there and finally I do appreciate all the maintenance that Foos has been doing in recent years to keep our Trail our Trails clear um just come walk on my trail and and you'll see what a great job they've done on the affordable housing component um could if I can just have 30 seconds could you just give us a sense of the breakdown on the percentage of moderate income versus low income versus very low income and the income levels for one person or four person families just so everybody has a sense of what affordable housing means I think sometimes people think it just means projects in Trenton thank you thank you is anybody else like to come up to give public comment Jerry Foster 15 Stu again i' just like to address the uh design of The Crossings at Jacob drive or midblock um it was chosen to be midblock for two particular reasons uh one is so that we could run the trail connection from where it crosses there over to the Jacob Drive extension on the other side of the road which if I had my direction the wits around me uh I could tell you which side it is but anyway on the side away from the Birchwood Court neighborhood um also the Birchwood Court neighborhood has one house that's on North Post Road Maybe there owner here and if we ran a trail along there then it would be right through their two sections of their driveway um in addition there were a whole bunch of mature trees that have not been trimmed because um on the bur court side of North Post um there's no power lines so there haven't been maintained by trimming trees on the other side there is power lines and so the trees are gone because they do the the maintenance uh to make sure they're trimmed down so it would it would be easier it what's easier to look at making the mid block Crossing with the blanky light um to the point of Crossings I hope we're beyond the point of of will people stop for blanky lights because I think the evidence is very good that they do if they can see them um we have blanky lights across at Trail Crossings and other places in West msor Rabbit Hill Road particularly is is the newest one uh South Mill Road where there's where there's sight lines where you can actually see the lights blinking people are very good about Crossing J about stopping for people crossing um where you can't see them like at sherbrook and uh 571 is a different story thank you thank you do we have anybody else that would like to get up and give public comment who has not spoken seeing none I will close the public comment and I will ask I guess first the mayor to perhaps answer questions yeah U yeah just just so I can my notes um I've uh taking down what I'm looking and anybody can add for me as what the questions are there are questions about the cost of this and overruns to the cost there are questions on the safety particularly on the Dr Jacob tribe extension side there are questions about the tribal evidence not being being sufficient I know a few people have gotten up and said something about that but we can always ask for a definitive answer um somebody asked um can we make changes how much changes can we actually make after um I think I mention the cost of the maintenance of the trails you can't remember more than three at a time so if I don't answer give me yours and yeah and some of those could possibly be done Al together I will um answer as many as I remember then you tell me about uh um things that I don't didn't answer uh so first I remember uh the Jacob Drive Extension Mr line I did if you saw a Tesla I did drive there today but I'm just to see what's back in there but I can't imagine I mean I've been here 30 plus years the first time I went there so I don't know why people drive there but if it would help I can look into putting a dead end signed or local access only sign there I can't imagine why people would drive there it doesn't show on Google Maps or anything yeah I know I know I mean people do crazy things I know that I I mean I don't have any control but if it would help I can easily uh look into putting a dead end sign or no exit sign or something like that I've seen mayor what could we put a no um no access sign no no no no motor vehicles pass there except the authorized vehicle sign yeah that we can I think that would be better than I mean I'm surprised to hear so okay so that's about the tension um you asked about cost orun um I really don't know that's question for you I mean you can't there can't be cost orun you have done the um estimate based on realistic costs so um again the money is uh money is money um we have always managed to purchase every open space that's on our list when it becomes available and in some cases um going to court and condemning it just like the hall farm so uh we have managed our money well every year we collect every every penny in taxes is roughly 600,000 so we collect that every year plus we continue to get um reimbursement from the state for something M did 15 years ago I mean we just got $700,000 two weeks ago for I don't know what year the property was bought so uh um just I think part of the question was about who's going to pay at this point our resolution only limits to the matching amount that's we requested in the grant so if we had to put any more money in they would have to come back to the council and ask for more money or the other option would be to limit the project in some way um that would limit it to the costs of the of the Grant and what where our matching is is that right I mean you you probably know but I can't spend a single penny unless it's on the agenda some agenda somewhere so I can spend any more money unless they tell me you can spend the money so if the project does run over uh you will have to come back convince the council to give you additional money but we would make sure before the project starts that it is within reasonable plus or minus um of course I mean you don't know if the inflation takes becomes too high suddenly but this is relatively short project it's not um 6 months you will know right one way or the other so it's not like we are planning three years in future so I mean we should have fairly good visibility for year in future now that inflation is moderated so but if it does come to that then we'll have to come back to the council and then Council will have another decision on their hand whether to do that or not um let's see um as far as can we make changes how maybe Mike can answer this um and please come up to the mic thank you at this point um we're talking about how there's going to be conferences between you and between the mayor you're going to be and and we are going to be talking to people um and there might be some changes made so would that um would that impact the the grant at what point would would that totally make the grant go away if we made some changes say um about the Grant and what we proposed I am not that concerned that there's going to be many changes and let me tell you why we put together Bo is such a great team putting this together we've had two CPAs working on this uh we have two people who have extensive work and knowledge in developing Trails including Trails right here in Mercer County we have uh including myself we have uh two attorneys and and my friend Frank you're a CPA too right right excuse me just an accountant okay sorry and then I have 35 years of experience as a deputy attorney general with the exact type of permits we need here and also well most applicants don't do I have already met with d with the permanent people to see how real realistic out out concept is in in proceeding and the cost so yes there could be some changes but I am confident based on the team that we put together their experience my meeting already with with d I don't see much of changes in the plan okay um when you go ahead when you submit the final application can you send a copy to the council and me whatever exactly what you submit but but the question becomes if this comes in it goes to engineering for whatever reason we decide we don't want to put something across the road we don't want to do something else that the town makes the decision that there is something that we that we want to change you're making a very good point then is that going I is that going to be something where you're going to say then I'm going to lose the grant or is that something where we can work together and that I think that is that is the question the question is you're saying based on based on what engineering State the concerns with Pro whatever whe the D will have a problem with that and the answer is no so then we would have that freedom to work together to absolutely to do that and I just want I just want to emphasize that I've met with um some of the objectors and I've told them and I'll tell in public that we we're GNA we're going to work with them and address their concerns especially with signage so this is we're going to incorporate as many people into this process and just be because we do we do get awarded it doesn't mean that we're going to abandon uh input from from the public okay mayor is there any chance we could put a sign trying to limit that traffic now I mean it's a problem now I I'll check with Francis tomorrow okay thank you um so and I think there was a a question on the cost of Maintenance who is going to be doing why don't you start um well okay you start so I apologize to everybody that I wasn't more specific about the maintenance so as far as the maintenance goes as many of you know the friends of West Winds are open space a part of the state green CLE uh clean streets program and we Implement that on behalf of West Windsor so what we do we go around pick up litter and we get paid for picking up the litter and it comes back into follow us for instance this weekend I we walked the trail and we picked up some litter and that's what's going to happen here we we're going to be taking care of the maintenance and we have Jerry and Henry Murphy and they've taken care of the maintenance for over 12 miles the trails already and West Windsor so as far as the maintenance of the trails go we know what we're doing we've been doing it that include weeding no we're leaving weeding we're leaving the weeding to Linda she job Linda's good at it but her knees I have to worry about professional grade and um okay so you're going to do General Trail maintenance and that and that would include I know Henry does go out and and uh cut up logs that might fall down and stuff like that but yeah but mayor did you want to comment to what maintenance the town might wind up do doing for instance uh if if those stones are start get Blended in a little bit and they have to be replaced or things like that yeah mean whatever needs to be fixed needs to be fixed so we'll fix it but this is we'll fix whatever needs to be fixed yeah I mean hopefully this is a new Trail so you don't need maintenance in one year it's probably problem two two Mees down the line so well um does anybody have any else that they heard from the group uh there was a comment I think Sylvia asked about the um the values of affordable housing um can't tell you that I want I wanted to stick on the trails for now just but thanks thanks let's we'll come back to yes and that and that's actually that that's actually a by state law so yeah I just so I don't know if the mayor has it um so so nothing um I know there was a thing on the on the history I think there were several people who spoke on that is there any um and I think there were my I know Paul agti is the professional on it Mike did you have anything to add to um to the history piece of it or maybe some one of your people uh Mike you have to please go to m thank thank you as far as the history piece goes I handed pack I handed out a package to each of you uh describe describing the history as one of the comment is already are prepared and also within the township uh you have Publications I've seen that the uh town of West Windsor has about the H the history of of this uh Lai Trail in West Windsor so there's there's a lot of information available to everybody to read okay um thank you I just have a couple of other questions non-rail related so oh non-rail okay yeah I okay so we're done with the trail question for everybody yeah you want to answer any of those and then we'll yeah so um you asked about uh low moderate and very low income I don't know that's governed by state law I don't remember top of my head but I'll send you that information and each mayor each development is required to have certain numbers in each category but that's all governed by the state law you can find that um I may interrupt you can find that if you go to like our our affordable housing administrator Piaza Patza Associates has a website um and his practice which includes it's not limited to West Windsor but it has numerous towns in it um has a case-by case basis of every affordable house that's available and you could look up what the income levels are for the various species so it's all publicly available I think what Sylvia was asking is when we have to build new what ratio and that would be that should be available on I think the DCA site Mike okay and and there is a and the and the middle the the middle income one I know goes over 100,000 for certain fam so there is a there's there's a fairly high range and there's also a minimum that you have to earn because you have to be able to afford the affordable housing even at the low low level you can't be somebody who you know makes 2,000 a year uh it have you have to make some minimum that you're able to afford the rent that um that legally they have to charge so teachers police officers people like that some young lawyers affable housing they can apply and probably approv and there's and there's also a list by region what you're allowed to charge for for the uh particularly the rental unit stuff see the exact am yeah except they don't get any preference um one last question yeah Mr mle left but he asked about Ed and 100% affordable Alison has been adamantly opposed to 100% affordable you have been adamantly opposed to 100% affordable you have said that and we haven't done yet except for very special uh cases like uh yeah um and Ada units is a very complicated issue Princeton does have a does allow Ada units uh they were not happy with the uh results of that they received and state is also working very hard state may just like state may impose us to allow um developers to change from um some Office Buildings and malls into Housing state may also impose on us on Ada uh state is there several legislations under consideration to force all townships to allow Ada without um any zoning oversight by the town and that's also a strug struggle and a fight that uh League of municipalities is fighting right now council president also a question about what the DCA review and really our review is of the various pieces of property uh that DCA said could be built upon and we said could not and the question was if it the land is at litigation can that land be counted or or not counted as part of our count and I've actually looked at this for for a number of towns and if the approvals are in place for that property they have not been struck out by the court or joined by the court then you can count that as property that is cannot be built upon affordable housing and other things so it does our our count is accurate in that your county and land that litigation involved thank you Mike um okay okay we've closed public comment and now at 9:30 almost we're moving on to Administration comments Carrie um we have some comments tonight um a reminder and and traffic advisory that Mercer County has changed the speed limit on Old Trent Road uh County Route 535 s signage has been installed to reflect the new limits most notably the speed limit was changed to 35 miles between Bear Creek Boulevard and Princeton heightstown Road uh 2025 taxes and Sewer rent information is up on the website first quarter taxes are due on February 1st 2025 but we'll have a grace period until February 10th 2025 payments received after February 10th will be charged interest from February 1st until the payment is received per njsa 54467 sewer rent is due on March 1st but will be will have a grace period until March 10th payments made after March 10th will be charged interest from March 1st until the payment is received for the same statute and sa 54467 the senior center will be hosting ongoing uh AARP free tax services from February 4th through April 15th appointments are required so please contact the senior center if you are interested in uh the Free Tax Services yard waste collection will resume March 3rd so you still have a little bit of time uh before you could put yard waste out but it can be dropped off at public works Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. or Saturday 8 to 12:00 p.m. uh tomorrow at the senior center the health department is hosting a small little presentation addressing the winter blues uh from 10:00 a.m. to 10:45 in the double classroom and a reminder that annual dog licenses renewals uh are due January 31st 2025 all dogs and cats 7 months 7 months of age and older must be license and owners are required to renew each pet license each year um dog license once again expire on January 31st um you can drop that off at the health department or uh go on their website and get more information on how to pay for your dog license and Cat licenses as a reminder on April 30th of this year and uh Burglar Alarm registration is ongoing now through March 31st um all burglar alarms must be registered on an annual basis re-registration of burglar burglar alarms must be done uh between January 1st and March 31st there's a $25 fee to register failure to register a burglar alarm system annually may result in a late bee and or fine you can do this with the police department um go on their website and then um download the registration form or you can drop it off and contact the police department directly and then um finally uh reminder that the 2025 dad daughter dance for the division of parks and wreck is on February 21st from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at mer Mercer Oaks Golf CL club for more information please go to the parks and rec page to register that's all updates thank you Curry um do we put the um speed limit change up out on E bullettin I know they put it on the Facebook page if it had I know I sent it up to them so if it hasn't it will be either tonight or tomorrow good good thank you mayor I just answered the questions unless I missed anything I I think yeah I think you've talked yeah than thank you okay moving on to council members Martin you want to go first huh well it's 9:30 let's well I I'll I'll take a a poll of of the council now this this council is not taking a break but feel free Alice so so so yeah I just wanted to um I wanted to take the time to send our sincere condolences to uh a teacher in the district who passed away by name of art stubs uh he had been a teacher for 23 years uh West Windsor North and Community uh very well respected revered and liked by so many students throughout the years um PE teacher like I said worked at North Community different sports teams uh very time very sad time for his family and for the school district so I just want to say that we pray that God would Grant his family and those who know him um strength peace tranquility and comfort at this time um I just wanted to also mention uh reference I'm a descendant of Cherokee Indians Native Americans in South Carolina and Georgia so I'm always U very pleased when I hear about uh Native American um recognition uh in this country or even in this region uh to to T tasu lindan um which is tundi Moses's actual name um so I'm very very proud to hear stuff like that uh most don't know uh I was President director operations of the Winds athletic cup from 2014 to 2021 and uh the back uh side of the property there is a Statewide Native American historical site already in this town west WS most people don't know that because that's a private property um but I've walked uh back there hundreds of times and I've seen the different rocks and the different pieces um that were brought from the ocean to West Windsor so if anyone ever has the opportunity you're more than welcome obviously to reach out to the W Athletic Club cuz it is a uh Statewide um landmark and it's right here in West Windsor and Mr certis has the information I used to have the paperwork obviously I I don't no longer work there um so but that that is a Statewide Landmark uh the other thing I just wanted to mention um in reference to affordable housing I've said this many times before um I'm one of the few individuals probably in this room who who moved into West Windsor through affordable hous have lived in West Windsor uh through affordable housing and as um you have mentioned so many people have this uh reception of affordable housing unfortunately and I'm just not bragging or boting very proud as an affordable housing individual of you know running the winds Athletic Club bringing uh every ethnic group religious group in this and doing several several events for this County and this community together for eight years uh being a former School Board member um being a present current council member uh my wife working at the winds Le Club my wife working at the township West Wind my wife now working in West Windsor Plains World School District I think we've contributed very very immensely to many things to benefit the West wior Township and residents uh so I just want people to any type of notion that you know affordable housing is less than uh people individuals that less than um you're looking at someone who has contributed immensely and I will once again agree um with others uh I'm definitely as someone who has lived affordable housing upos to 100% afford housing because I've have I have five kids uh two are presently in the district I've heard I've seen the comments that have been made about individuals who are affordable housing and those Notions that have been made towards them um that uh at times have not been accurate and legitimate and I just would not want to see um all affordable housing in this community that's just my personal opinion and once again as someone who's lived affordable housing moved into this community affordable housing uh as well if anyone ever wants to ask me I'm open to the conversation about the process and the procedures to move to a West wisor as an affordable housing I've dealt with Piat and Associates a long time ago many many years ago but I'm very familiar with the process the length of time and things that nature I've actually given so much information over the years to many many people throughout the state um and even Central Jersey about Paton Associates and the benefits of affordable housing uh so I just wanted to make those comments about that thank you thank you Martin and thank you for making that offer um Sonia um I'll keep it brief um I don't have many comments I just want to congratulate um all the members of the volunteer fire companies both Westminster and Princeton Junction on their installation this past weekend um many um received um recognition for being top responders so I'm really um happy to see all our volunteers giving their time and effort to this Township I think it's a huge benefit for our Township and um any support we can give it to them um I think we should do that um Mike I have a question we have a resolution for the uh Volunteer Fire um Station 43 for the apparatus my husband is a volunteer firefighter with the company yes do do I I okay thank you am I come on the the fire police to can I vote on this truck no okay okay well I'm glad we have five people here tonight okay thanks Dan uh no I have no further comments no okay Linda um well yeah also we went to the the annual volunteer fire stations for 43 and 44 so my thanks for for having all of us there for a very lovely evening um it was mentioned in brochure that the um like a Princeton Junction uh Volunteer Fire Company there's 725 calls just for them last year and the West Windsor Volunteer Fire Company went out on 773 calls that that last year the the numbers were in the 600s um I believe for both fire companies and so you know the growth is coming in and the calls are coming in they come in around the clock um all hours weekends and and our vol ters are are there and they go out and they train just as much as the paid um professional uh firefighters so I consider them volunteer professionals because that's that's the standard um so thank you thank you and um I was GNA say I'm happy to vote on the firet truck but I guess I can't but um you know we we need this equipment um these some of these trucks used to be in not the high 7 800,000 now it's like a million one you know so it's it's uh it's a lot of money but you you have to have it that's that's it AB absolutely needed and and they keep us um safe and protect our property so thank you to all you know Chief applia Charlie always always top responder um so uh thank you on that um and also thanks Mike Shu Jerry Foster um for their uh detailed presentation on the trails and answering questions and uh thanks to everyone for coming out tonight um so I guess the the concept plan will uh if it's uh approved the resolution assuming um then there'll be the next spite at the Apple as as more detailed engineering plans um are are completed and more public input too along the way thank you Linda um I do have something to say uh today's January 27th which is international Holocaust day uh many of my friends and neighbors go back to their old country and they visit their relatives whether they came to America last year or their great-grandparents came over in the 1800s I love looking at their Facebook pictures of happy families reuniting overseas for those of us who are Jewish or of European Jewish ancestry no matter if from Germany Poland Austria Ukraine France Italy or many other nations there is no going home like that our fam's homes were taken and 6 million of us were brutally and systematically captured tortured Ed and murdered for the crime of being Jewish I and many good people of all religions and beliefs are deeply troubled by the nuded anti-Semitism both locally and around the world there's always an excuse to hate never again is now on a more hopeful note thank you to the human relations commission for putting on a Martin Luther King Day event last week I particularly liked Elliot Gordon's photo talk about his personal experiences at MLK's 63 March on Washington and what it meant to him I enjoyed saraba Fusion's familiar civil rights songs from the 60s fused with a more modern Indian sound and I would also like to congratulate the West Windsor volunteer fire department members from both 43 and 44 who were sworn in and received promotions and awards on Saturday thank you for going all that training so you can serve the people of West Windsor in a demanding and dangerous volunteer job um thank you for that and that ends our public com I mean our Council comment and um Alison do you have any clerk comments I do not you do not okay can we go to the consent agenda please October 28th 2024 business session as amended November 12th 2024 business session as amended November 25th 2024 business session as amended November 25th 2024 close session as amended December 9th 2024 business session as amended December 16 2024 business session as amended bills and claims does anybody wish to pull anything no can I have a motion to approve so moved second roll call please gaas yes Jers yes voice yes Whitfield yes M yes uh recommendations from Administration and Council clerk okay 202- r036 authorizing the reappointment of Doug Tindle as a member of the Agricultural advisory committee with a term to expire on January 14th 2028 202- r37 authorizing submitt for recertification for 2025 with the Sustainable New Jersey municipal certification program 202- r038 author izing the mayor and clerk to execute a Professional Services agreement with starnet Solutions Inc for Information Technology support services for the police division $763 2025-the the mayor and clerk to execute contract amendment number three to T&M Associates for additional supplementary work for the Duck Pond Run sewer Interceptor project phase two $113,000 850 or $3,850 for a total not to exceed $295,400 2025 D r040 authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute a Professional Services agreement with Daniel Dober milski and Associates on a consultant basis for professional landscape architectural planning and certified tree expert services for the period January 27th 2025 through December 31st 2025 5 00 2025 D r41 authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute the second renewal of a contract with on-site Landscape Management Inc for Public Lands maintenance culdesac and Street tree maintenance and replacement $147,200 2025 r42 authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute a Professional Services agreement with Van CLE Engineering Associates for miscellaneous Engineering Services $2,500 2025 r43 authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute a contract with on-site Landscape Management Inc for landscape maintenance for detention basins and open space lands $134,400 44 authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute a contract with bacus Construction LLC for the 24 sidewalk repair program $89,100 2025 r45 authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute a Professional Services agreement with Daniel Dober milsky and Associates for Professional Services pertaining to the West Windsor Township 2025 Sustainable New Jersey recertification program $20,000 2025 r46 authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute the renewal of a shared services agreement with Hamilton Township for the provision of sexually transmitted disease stt clinic Services 2025 r47 authorizing the business administrator to purchase one new E1 rescue fire apparatus from absolute fire protection Company Inc under sourcewell contract e1113 021 dvg-1 1,1 160,000 398 2025 r48 consent for friends of West Windsor open space to submit a Grant application for the Green Acres Program for the project known as to Tomi swamp Trail 202- r49 present and prospective fair share obligations for 2025 to 2035 fourth round of Municipal affording housing compliance for the township of West Wier okay um question if we have two people who can't vote can we still do a um vote um as a whole and then just uh put that as it stain thank you um is there anything anybody would like pulled seeing none um can I have a motion to approve with the stipulation of the Sonia gais and um Linda Jers uh abstaining on the fire truck uh are uh 2025 r47 so moved second thank you can I have a roll call vote please okay gas yes Jers yes Weiss yes Whitfield yes Mandel yes thank you he introduction of ordinances I 2025 d01 ordinance to amend and supplement chapter 200 land use part five Princeton Junction Redevelopment plan regulatory Provisions in the code of the township of West Wiis article 34 land use controls section 200 to 260 to amend the rp1 Princeton Junction Redevelopment plan District can I have a motion to introduce salute second good roll call vote please gaas yes Jers yes voice yes Whitfield yes Mand yes okay the public hearing is going to be March 3rd 202 March 3rd 2025 public hear okay I'm now going to open a second public comment three minute limit um if anybody does wish to get up and speak I think this will too all right okay uh Alison Miller 41 Windsor Drive thank you all for voting yes on um tademy and the affordable housing uh Dan you had so much so many comments about affordable housing I'm just inviting you to the next affordable housing committee meeting where you'll get all the answers to the questions without my trying to to remember them all so please come and uh if you don't come uh it's all online and aside from that thank you all for voting yes thank you Alison does anybody else wish to get up and speak so Michael Shu at 234 Winds of Court Ying so um I'm the acting president of the friends of West Windsor open space uh as you know Al Allison's the president and I Echo Allison's uh thank yous and I've really enjoyed the process working uh with you on this and I special shout out to the mayor who was has always made himself available and I appreciate appreciate it very much and just I just wanted to say to the residents who live in that vicinity and to all res Town who want to be involved um moving forward with this uh always always encourage you to do so and we're very excited about moving on to this Historic Trail which is going to be unique in New Jersey thank you all thank you Mike does anybody else wish to get up and speak no seeing none I'm going to close public comment and we do have um uh Administration updates nope sorry uh Council reports uh next Linda um shade tree commission met on January 22nd um however there was not a quorum um so the the reorganization um part of that uh has now moved to another meeting uh scheduled for Monday February 3rd at 6:30 p.m. in a municipal building and there'll be some other topics uh on that agenda uh including um the trail that we discussed um tonight um commission will be working with a consultant uh eventually on updating the Township's Community forestry management plan uh and this workers required to be completed uh by the end of this year thank you Linda Dan uh the Recreation Commission met on also on the 22nd uh they had the reorganization and the first planning meeting and probably the the big sort of General concern for the year is to ensure that um as you know this is a self-funded organization but there is concerns to to be able to continue to maintain um level of income Comm measure it with with with their expenses um and how number of ideas were floated about ways that we can um get additional Community sponsorship um business sponsorship for variety of events that have happen over the course of the year so uh we'll be looking at that um and as well as ways that we can um communicate better and more effectively with the Border Community to get more people involved and engaged with the programs that they provide uh board ofed meeting is tomorrow thank you Dan Sonia um no reports Martin sure pling board uh reorganization meeting uh was on Wednesday January 15th uh me meeting began with voting of chair Vice chair and reappointment of planning board members uh planning board chair will be Michael karp uh Vice chair ctis hberman jot Kari Alan sto and Robert L were reappoint to the board uh General procedur guidelines were approved and adopted for 2025 uh we went we then went through proceedings for the only application of the evening which was PB 2411 W uh which Carnegie Center requested sign waivers for the facade sign on the southern part of the building that faces rout one uh the sign will be a 3 foot by 28t facade uh for the largest tenant in the carnegi center building that particular building which is taiho onology uh the sign waiver was approved next planing board meeting is uh Wednesday February 19th thank you thank you the um environmental commission hasn't uh met since the last meeting but but we will be having a separate small meeting on uh recertification to start that going and then we're going to have our regular meeting for February thank you for that Administration updates anything else for mayor Administration okay Alison we have a closed session let everybody know that we're not going to um vote does everybody want a break between the end of the closed session okay all right okay let's finish up you want a motion to go into Clos session and then yeah okay can I have a yeah you'll have to read that can I have a motion to go into close session salute second okay okay okay whereas vote yeah yeah we do roll call oh roll call to go to Clos yeah there's a motion I have to okay yeah thank thank you to every everybody for coming we're not going to do any more voting today so uh when we come out of close session Al s is going to read that and um thank you for everyone who gave the presentation who asked questions and who answered them okay there we go gaas yes Jers yes Boy Yes Whitfield yes Mandel yes thank okay whereas njsa oh I have to read it to go on the close section yeah go ahead whereas njsa 10 Co and 4-12 allow for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the township Council of West Windsor Township has deemed it necessary to go into Clos session to discuss certain matters which are Exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of this Township Council will reconvene and whereas the below stated subject matter shall be made available at such time as the issues discussed therein are resolved and its disclosure would not subvert any particular exemption for convening a closed session now therefore it be resolved at the township Council the township of West Windsor going to close session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10 4-12 to discussion of contracts