Fw: Please email the Planning Board before the Tuesday Meeting

[Richard Pfluger]

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Long Hill

To: undisclosed-recipients

Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2011 12:53 PM

Subject: Please email the Planning Board before the Tuesday Meeting

The Planning Board email addresses are listed at the bottom of this email.

To make it easy for you to read, we have placed many related Valley Road documents in one place at Valley Road Development (http://tinyurl.com/valleyroaddevelopment)

Some of the documents you can find here include:

Township Committee's Revised Ordinance -  The Township Committee wisely removed residential and three story buildings before sending the proposed ordinance back to the Planning Board.  But its not enough. With excessive lot coverage rules, over development can still happen.

Open Space is a Good Investment - A must read if you care about taxes!  Don't let the "ratables" argument sway you.  Increased revenue from development is a fallacy over the long term.

Passaic River Basin Flood Report - A must read if you care about flooding!  This report is new this year and comes from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.  Pay particular attention to recommendation number fifteen (15).  The Planning Board and the Township Committee have not started any public discussions on the recommendations in this report yet they seem more than willing to make it easier to build in the floodplain.

The township flyer against over development - With over 100+ residents attending the last planning board meeting and countless others showing support, we think what the flyer is suggesting is reasonable.  These are not extreme positions, the flyer does not suggestion that Valley Road be turned into all open space nor is it suggesting that all development be banned.  Solving existing flooding and traffic issues makes a lot of sense before considering pro-developer laws. The flyer suggests that ordinances be pro-business, and pro-environment first.

The Valley Road Business District Element of the Master Plan - This is the signed version, not the "draft" that you may find at the Township web site.  Much of what the plan says makes good sense for an area like Main Avenue in Stirling but not for Valley Road.  It's important that the Master Plan and Ordinances agree with each other.  After reviewing both, it's difficult to see where they agree.  The plan desires that Valley Road agree with the village character of our town but the ordinance doubles the build-able area.  The plan recommends environmental best practices while the ordinance ignores the NJDEP recommendations.  On the contrary, the ordinance adversely impacts the environment by reducing conservation easements and eliminating conservation zones.

The divergence between the Master Plan and the ordinance - this is a map that shows where the master plan disagrees with the ordinance.  There are other places too but this map is helpful to visualize inconsistencies.

After reading, please take a few minutes to write to your Planning Board representatives.  Tell them what you think.  We hope that you agree with our research but understand if you don't. 

Dawn Wolfe <pz...@longhillnj.us> - Planning and Zoning Administrator
Barry Hoffman <barrym...@yahoo.com> - Planning Board Legal
Kevin O'Brien <Shamro...@comcast.net> - Planing Board Planner

Planning Board
Chris Connor <lh...@att.net>, Chairman
Mead Briggs <makb...@verizon.net>, Vice Chairman
Nan Harrington <ma...@longhillnj.us>
Tom Behr <tom....@verizon.net>
Don Butterworth <donbutte...@aol.com>
Kevin Dempsey <kevin....@credit-suisse.com>
Guy Piserchia <gu...@longhillnj.us>
Brendan Rae <brend...@gmail.com>
Mike Smargiassi <sm...@braincomm.com>
A.J. Batista <a...@sardobatista.com>

Since most of the confusion centers on the proposed ordinances, it may be helpful for you to know that Mr. Connor, Mr. Batista, Mr. Butterworth and Mr. Behr are on the ordinance review committee (according to the Long Hill Township web site)