MINUTES OF A REGULAR MEETING OF THE PLANNING BOARD

OF THE BOROUGH OF MOUNTAIN LAKES

August 27, 2009

 

Chair Sandy Batty read the Open Public Meeting Advertisement Notice:  Adequate notice of this meeting was given to the Citizen and the Daily Record, posted with the Borough Clerk and the Bulletin Board, and made available to all those requesting individual notice and paying the required fee.

 

 

ROLL CALL:

Members Present: Nachshen, Shaw, Batty, Nix, Selver (7:35), Bailey, Zamierowski

Absent: Kane, Holmberg, Gormally

 

REVIEW OF MINUTES:   Stephen Shaw made a motion to adopt the minutes of the July 23, 2009 meeting. The Board noted the Ferrante decision was not unanimous, board member Barbara Palmer voted against the application.  Jim Bailey seconded the motion; they were approved by voice vote.

 

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

 

Master Plan Committee – Sandy Batty explained the Master Plan was a guide for the town and was the responsibility of the Planning Board. Joan Nix led the review of the following two chapters of the Master Plan.

Chapter 8 - Recreation Plan - Celia Flynn, the Recreation Director, helped work on this chapter. The Board suggested adding the following to the facilities section of the recreation portion of the Master Plan, concession stands at the beaches, sailing instruction at Island Beach, and the Summer Recreation Program. Jim Bailey will work on the Lakes section since he is on the Lakes Management Committee.

Chapter 7 – Community Facilities and Utilities – Corey Nachshen suggested adding information about the shared services study the Borough was currently working on. Joan will add a statement explaining how the DPW Director’s job is shared by both the Borough and the Board of Education. Stephen Shaw stated that well number 3 has been completely rebuilt and this information needs to be updated in the chapter. Joan will add information about the town being under water restrictions due to the Borough being over their allotted capacity. The new Storm Water Management plan/element that was adopted needs to be added to this chapter.

 

Highland Committee – Sandy Batty gave the Planning Board members an update.  She stated the Committee met with one of our planners, Susan Kimball.  Mrs. Kimball presented some alternative plans to meet our housing obligation.  She suggested the town consider permitting accessory apartments for people who are of low income. They would be for a certain length of time and the town will have to give some kind of consideration to the home owner. This would not include existing apartments that are grandfathered.  These would have to be new apartments.

Next week the committee will be meeting with Duggan Kimball, the Borough’s other Planner, to discuss the model ordinances created by the Highlands Council.  The actual ordinances are very boiler plate.

On August 12th COAH met and gave the municipalities in the Highlands an additional 6 months to make their submissions for affordable housing plans.  June 8, 2010 is now the new date to make third round submissions to COAH. Sandy Batty mentioned if we decide not to opt-in to the Highlands Plan we will still try to do some facet of affordable housing. All the data collected during the process will be useful to the town in the future. If we opt-in we have to submit a COAH plans part of our Highlands Conformance information. If we do not opt-in, we do not have to submit a plan but we potentially could be exposed to the Builders remedy.

 

Ordinance Committee – No report was made.

 

OTHER MATTERS & PUBLIC COMMENTS:

 

The Boroughs new ordinances will be ready for review at the next meeting. These are ordinances we discussed already.  The board will need to comment on them making sure they are consistent with the Master Plan.

 

New Board member, John Zamierowski, asked what Planning Board Committee he will be serving on.  Mrs. Batty will determine what committee he should serve on.

 

Adjourned at 10:10pm

 

 

 

                                                                                    Respectfully submitted,

 

 

                                                                                    Cynthia Shaw, Secretary