(June 5th Planning Board Meeting Transcript)

[Arnold Korotkin]

Part 1 (June 5th Planning Board Meeting Transcript)

- 00:13:49: Fourth Round Housing Element and Fair Share Plan

- 00:23:00: Motion to Approve Housing Element & Fair Share

- 00:24:29: Old/New Business, Adjournment Motion and Meeting End

00:13:49.760 --> 00:14:05.240

your shot. No. Take the entertainment where we can get it. Our next application is a public hearing. Township of Little Falls fourth round housing element and fair share plan prepared by John Barry

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AICP PP of Higher Cruel and Associates public hearing and adoption of the housing element and fair share plan. And I can only tell you that a lot of work has gone into this over a long time. Mr.

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Barry, thank you. Um, can you address this one? Yes. Yes. You swear from the testimony that you're about to before this board is going to be the truth, the whole truth. In other words, I do. Um, obviously we know who you are, but just for the record, confirm that you're the board planner

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and what your credentials were. Uh John Barry uh professional planner licensed in New Jersey for a little over a decade and uh worked for the firm hire grow associates and the board's planner and township's planner. So um board members I'm going to I'm going to do the quick version. If we

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have questions we can blow it out as much as we need to but we'll start we'll start small and see where we end up. The document that's been on file for the last uh 10 or 11 days is the the township's fourth round housing element and fair share plan. It is a component

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of the township master plan. So, it's adopted by the planning board. And basically, we have uh state law going back, you know, over 50 years at this point and most recently amended in 2024 that outlines this process where every town in the state has an obligation to

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plan for its fair share of affordable housing. Um we have a number of affordable housing units for the fourth round that was established through and initially a number was provided by the department of community affairs. We went through and reviewed that number and

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ended up reducing it by about 111. It went from 285 down to 174. The township governing body adopted a resolution back in January fixing that number of 174. there was a challenge to that number by

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a interested party. Um ultimately we went through a process with uh with the program that's designed to mediate or adjudicate those those challenges and the number that we established of 174 was upheld. So that's the that's the the township's obligation for the fourth

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round. The township as everyone well knows has gone through a planning process with affordable housing previously. The third round plan was very robust and put a number of different mechanisms in place to address the township's obligations at that time.

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All of that remains and is a solid foundation for where we are today. In looking at the 174 number, obviously there's very little developable land left in the township, especially considering the changes to the flood hazard regulations that have come about.

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We're familiar with that with um the application on Main Street that um was approved and then was ultimately unable to to get its permitting from D to construct residential. So the number of areas in in the town where residential development can be built has shrunk over, you know, especially since the the

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third round plan with the changes to those regulations. So we did a vacant land assessment which is part of the the process for planning for affordable housing. We identified basically one area in town, one parcel that has changed circumstances from the third

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round. Obviously, there's other things that have happened. Things have been built, torn down, rebuilt, but um most notably at the corner of Main Street and Stevens there, there was a gas station uh for many years and that was demolished and now you have a a vacant

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piece of property uh that's certainly developable and is zoned for development that could accommodate multif family residential. So we identified a realistic development potential of three units based on the availability of that

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property. So with that we have our 174 topline number say well realistically we have land for three. So the unmet need is what it's called is the remainder that 171 after we subtract our realistic three from that that topline obligation

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of 174. So, in how do we satisfy our obligation, keep everybody um happy and out of trouble? The three units that are anticipated through this process for that that Main Street and Stevens

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property um they essentially take care of themselves. It's zoned for uh multif family residential development. Now, can be expected to generate those units if somebody comes in with an application to the board. So, in terms of planning for it, we say, "Well, here's land. this is

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what it can produce and we've got zoning in place already that takes care of that. Under the more recent amendments to the Fair Housing Act, the fourth round rules that we're operating under, they say we need to identify a realistic potential or a opportunity for

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redevelopment that might construct 25% of that unmet need number. Um, so we were targeting uh do the math off the top of my head. I have it written down. 43 units is 25% of the unmet need. So in

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looking around, we already in the township already had some stuff in place that was done since the third round plan was adopted that wasn't already considered in the third round plan. The downtown redevelopment plan was put in place in uh believe it was in 2020 um or

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more recently than that. Um there was also some uh there's the uh central business district the transit village central business district zone that permits um multif family development or mixeduse development that includes affordable units that wasn't accounted

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for in the third round plan. So with those two areas, parts of town that are already that have already been zoned or put into a redevelopment plan, looking at the amount of land that's available there, the relative density that is

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consistent with the other um zones nearby and just extrapolating out that math for how many units might be built if redevelopment takes place, we more than cover that 43. um probably looking at more like 90 to 100 units depending

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on um which parcels get built out. So the long and the short of it is we have an obligation to hit. We have a realistic number that is vacant land that already has zoning in place and then we have this unmet need that we can factor in two different areas that

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weren't counted in the third round. So we're not double counting. We're we're looking at new new land and new zoning that was put in place since that third round plan. And with the potential buildout of those areas, we've more than satisfied the chunk of unmet need

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obligation that we have an obligation to plan for. And subject to just, I think, some minor amendments to those ordinances just to clarify the densities that are permitted because in both cases, it's a little open-ended how many units per acre are

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allowed. But honing in on that number, in the case of the Transit Village CBD district, the other Transit Village districts allow 35 units per acre. So, uh a minor amendment to that ordinance to permit the same would take care of

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that. And then with the uh main street or the the downtown redevelopment area, the um uh implementing is a density in that that does not have a a density clarified in the plan, but um we had the prior to

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my time, but the board had the 16-50 uh Patterson Avenue approval set both sides of the street, the two different approvals. If we look at the densities that were approved there and basically apply a similar density to the remainder of the redevelopment area, that more than takes care of our

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obligation. So, two minor changes may need to be implemented by the governing body to follow through. We have um under the rules, we have until March for the township to make those changes to be consistent with the timelines that are in place. But um hearing and adopting

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the plan this evening uh will take care of the most pressing deadline which is uh June 30th for for everybody around the state to get these plans done and submitted. Um and then from there there's very little left to do. We have a couple resolutions, just some housekeeping kinds of things that the uh

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governing body will need to adopt. But otherwise, hopefully uh absent any any push back or challenges from parties who have not yet made themselves known, uh we should be in good shape and the the township's plan should be solid moving forward.

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Thank you for all the hard work you put into this, Mr. Barry. Any questions to the board? We've got a professional here if you want any information on this. Very well. Um, chairman. Yes.

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He didn't give me the one minute to call you. Go ahead. She indicate on the record there are no members of the public here. Uh we're going to indicate on the record that no members of the public are present in the uh building.

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Thank you. Um should I just do the motion to approve and you'll have some comments after? Well, the motion would be to adopt and approve the housing element and fair share plan as an amendment to the township's master basket plan and also

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to memorialize the resolution that's been provided in Port. May I have a motion based on what Mr. Brigade Ro has just recommended? So moved. May I have a second? Any

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discussion? Please pull the board. Mr. Barry, yes. Mr. Kash, yes. Mr. Luke Damiano, yes. Miss Catalo, yes. Mr. Sber, yes. Mr. Pochius, yes. Mayor Damiano, yes. Councilman Silva, yes. Mr. Kilpatrick, chairman votes, yes.

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Announces that the application is approved and that the res do we need a separate resolution memorializing? We did it all in one vote. Very good. Um then I'll just continue on as the resolution has been

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memorialized. Thank you very much everyone. Uh is there any old business? Any new business going forward? I'm recommending we drop the approval of bills because we don't get to see bills. So that must be going

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through our finance office. Um anyone have any questions or comments? I thank all those that are attending the uh session from the NJPO which is what New Jersey professional. Thank you. Planning

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official organization. We will all be trained by the end of June. Um may I have a motion for adjournment? Second. Second.