I foret the term really cont and then I I'll tell you you they but I'll tell you as long [Music] as you know they they definitely have they're definitely a business cker Michael you have have either of you ever done the recording device I'm just not sure which of the devices recording Nei you have done it should be the gas is not always the cheap it's that's okay this is the camera the contamination that I mean I got all the I got all the I never [Music] saw with apologies for being a few moments late we are going to begin in accordance with Section Five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 19 75 be advised that a notice of this meeting was made by posting on the bulletin board town hall and mailing to the officially designated newspapers a list of the meeting dates annually indicating that this meeting would take place at the Town Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday April 3rd 2024 I will do roll call Allison Canfield here Michael Cohen Here Deborah Nevis here Frank Sak Wy here sua shanandra here shy VJ here David Cosgrove here Michael Zion Gaston helper here and myself that's all present okay the first order of business tonight is the meeting minutes from January 17th 2024 um those were distributed I don't know if anybody had um comments or corrections but I don't see any on the version in front of me are there any additional comments or Corrections okay um looks like everybody was present except for you shie you're right okay I will move to approve the minutes from January 17th to the second Deborah okay just give me a moment the right place to note that apologies oh they're right here okay all in favor I opposed and we'll have Shain he was not here thank you um meeting minutes of 117 were approved as submitted fantastic and then our first and only order of business tonight is uh the business item on ordinance 26672 24 proposed ordinance designating the Short Hills historic district um I'm not sure who is speaking to it in its entirety this evening or we do uh have someone from topology hi to speak and as as the board knows this is our referral from the governing body for ordinance 26672 and with all development regulations our Board gets a referral to do Master Plan consistency review uh prior to Second reading and potential adoption of the ordinance uh and so the most important person after our chair to speak is our planner so fantastic we could we invite you to speak at the microphone to just introduce yourself for the benefit of the public watching in the board and do I face this way that's that would be great yeah hi I'm gold Aspire I'm here on behalf of Graham um who's actually at on fraternity leave he'll be back later this month and golden just for the record you're a professional planner licensed in the state of New Jersey I am okay and you're with the topology for our Township and board planner correct yes thank you and if I really want to be swor and I've actually appeared am might have been the zoning board but um I I've been here before I won't go so far as what dear you thank you for having me here thank you so um what you have before you is I think what's probably a routine uh procedure that this board does which is a governing body produces an ordinance and then in between introduction and adoption it makes its way to the planning board for planning board consistency it's one of the powers in the municipal land use law that this board has um what's interesting about this ordinance is that it's responding directly to a Master Plan element that was adopted as recent as last year your historic preservation element um which was adopted August 16 2023 and what these Master plans do I think this board knows they're what I call like a blueprint of your policy but they sometimes are not regulatory until you make ordinances come to place and make that regulatory so the policy of the master plan spoke about this District being adopted as a designated historic district that has um some HBC oversight and so what the ordinance that is before you is turning that policy into regulatory um enforcable ordinance law um so a memo was produced by our office dated March 25th 2024 I'm happy to answer any questions um we found that this ordinance is consistent with the master plan uh both the 2018 General master plan and then specifically the historic preservation element of uh 2023 um master plan speaks about recognizing and encouraging the preservation of areas and structures that are of historic interest and then your housing element um sorry housing uh I mean to say historic element took it one step further and honed in on this specific area as a designation so it's a short ordinance so kind of a short Spiel happy to answer any questions thank you um and I know Alison I know you didn't prepare this but as you're the le as you've mentioned you wear two hats at time as the the chair of the HP um which had hopefully an instrumental part in the Drafting and the coordination on this element um I had one question and I don't know if you can speak to it if you can speak to Barton Ross is not with us this evening who who to did prepare it um uh and that question was just on um the water of property that we know which you know is not going to have historic significance that's under development I I didn't see it I know you know I saw it was sort of the checklist is non-contributing listed um I'm speaking specifically about the uh chadam Woodland you know approved development which would be I guess inconsistent with historic character as otherwise described um how how is that handled or is that thought or or why was that property uh included I don't know if we have anybody could respond to sure I think we both can respond you want to take so is the question um is this around the hobbert Avenue I'm just so at intersection of chattam and Woodland um which is currently kind of some uh underdeveloped or or it's a site that has been approved for a new development a mixed use development which is going to guess be constructed so I know you're bouncing it to me but um I can certainly you may have a better answer as I'm okay terrific so again I think the confusion is is that we are look everybody looks at the actual structure itself and what it is in a district we're looking at what that whole area represented and that was the downtown of Short Hills so even though that this property whatever goes on it will always be non-contributing until it's over 50 years old or becomes a 100 years old but what it does it allows us not on this particular project that we've approved in the past but what it does allow us to do in the future is if that building were to uh you something happened to that building that again it's about the land the district what that represents certainly anybody else can jump in you know if they feel like um yes I can jump in a little bit because um you know I help work on this um so I mean the idea of a historic district is as we said it's it's the land and the history behind it and in other historic districts in town you have both contributing and non-contributing property and you know it's still considered a cohesive district and if you look if someone has the element you can see that you know we've got the arum on one side then you have the Silverman project and then you have train stations so it just makes sense for it to be a it's a well- defined rectangular District um with with clear clear bounds and um you know the the history of that area is well documented so that's yeah I appreciate that I I mean similarly you know the parking lot on the east side which doesn't have any you know it it doesn't it doesn't keep it sort of well defined and then it you know and then it did not include the rackets club which in historic element was actually called out specifically for its historic character so the rackets Club um is something that we will look to do um separately um so as part of doing this um I actually went to all of the involved Property Owners the exception of Silverman and got Buy in from them and you know we had various conversations as to you know what being historic would mean they had questions I think Allison even did a letter as the chair of the HBC um to you know Comfort some of the concerns um and then all the land owners who were going to be affected agreed to it the um the rackets Club um I spoke to them and they wanted to learn more about it they want us to come do some presentations with their members of their board and there was just no reason to hold this up um you know because that that process of getting Buy in from them is going to be a little bit longer we're gonna have to do more of an education campaign so you know the idea is let's let's go with what we have now and we will work you know independently to get the rackets Club to uh to get by in there and with the vision for that to be also part of this District you would create a separate one for that it's funny because when we add it to the Short Hills historic district or would we add it to then the actual Village so there is a distinctive but what happens here is people don't realize that that particular space let's not talk about the building again okay the Rockets Club really was the first thing that people saw when they rode on the train they saw this that's why they moved into the neighborhood so it has an incredible you know history behind it it was one of the first buildings built it's a community center to the actual neighborhood um of all of Short Hills so again the land has a lot of history um and we're hoping that we can you know uh talk to the rackets Club take a little longer and then I think at that point we'd have to evaluate which side that would go on it borders both of them I'm sorry it borders both of them it does so the Short Hills district runs right up to that uh so that would you know it's always been one of those head scratchers which one which one do we do because it could fall in both so at this time it's not included although it's it's on the tax map outlines that was where I was a little confused like the appendix a so it was envisioned maybe to be part of it but it is not part of it yeah I think originally and um this was put together quite some time ago um so that was probably accidentally left in U but the boundaries I think show that it's possibly not in there page the one in the document yeah in the document the proposed boundary description that's got an outline yeah yep excludes it and if I can say again this is where we said and we made a commitment as HPC that we would educate everyone on the process and so that's exactly what we're upholding is that we're letting everybody know and what it means and the benefits of it so question um are the railroad Bridges included in this yes so that again the railroad itself and I hope we all know the history of that but Stuart har haror was the one that um you know paid for the station the railroad up to a certain point and so again that's all part of it which absorbs across from the P heartworn arbored all the walls the retaining walls um again the railroad by locally designated this will support us in replacing in kind uh those beautiful Stones if something were to happen to you know they start to deteriorate so there's a lot of benefits to us locally designating this area Okay does anybody else have any questions or okay um yeah it definitely seems that the boundary might have changed a little there was also I guess something south of the arbor that appeared to kind of dog leg down but that it's just a an even yeah shade no okay so if there's a boundary line that is needing an update is that what I heard yes the tax map and then if you look at I think you have the old have at if you're looking at that where they where where there's that where it says 19 yes that that that that's part of the arbor the arbor there is not even it has that okay I guess I was looking a couple two pages later where it has a it just looks very FL but maybe that's just it's cut off like the arum has that little chunk that jums out so that's all about that block and loot Miss camfield but it's consistent on the map that's attached to the ordinance um I am not I think that map is this one right this the element historic element this is the proposed ordinance okay I might have a different pronounce okay the satellite photo on um great could I ask a followup just could you characterize the um I guess hesitation or concern on the part of rackets Club it just seems like you know you reflected what I thought was documented in the report which is that it really is this sort of gateway to Historic Shar Hills so we're going through this effort it seems we should want to include it so the rackets Club has a Board of Trustees sure um um and some of the trustees were were you know excited and in favor of this uh others were not yet convinced and on board um they're concerned about you know potentially what it could mean for them if you know the club were fold or you know if they wanted to make various changes Etc and you know we explained to them as a non-contributing property you know they really wouldn't be affected by the variety of changes that they were um potentially going to make but they have you know over 100 members and you know those members need to be educated and what we were getting the sense of is that those people would come out in opposition to this and we didn't want a repeat of what happened last fall so we figured okay let's go with what we have consensus on uh which is the majority of it and let's work to educ at the brackets club and its members and allow them to see the benefits because there actually are benefits to them for being designated um and that's something that we're planning on um you know start that education campaign right away it would be non contributing you said it seems like it would be contributing it's yeah the structure itself is a non-contributing structure so even if they were to tear it down whatever new came in right it would still be a non-contributing so but the land again this is the confusing part for everyone and trust me when I first started to it's the land to which it sets on and it made a lot of sense to kind of break that off a little bit too um because it does set on the other side of the railroad so the original downtown of Short Hills and I think I was I I tried to find it and maybe some of you have it but when this the wood chatam project came in front of us there was a presentation done of that particular District historically okay and what what was there on that strip um so it really makes a lot of sense that we separated that right now and then we we will include this and the more I keep thinking and and I could be convinced otherwise but it really should have been part of the Short Hills District when that was designated in the 80s so again that's kind of the hesitation there and it made a lot of sense to move forward with the actual original Short Hills downtown okay thank you appreciate it thank you both for input um council do you want to share what you prepared should um anybody want to include that in any motion that is made sure to facilitate the process and go right to the adoption of a resolution that can be utilized as it has been in the past as the report back to the governing body uh on the referral to the planning board uh we have uh a one-page resolution that will look similar to one or two that you've seen already um and it provides for the board finding and determining that the ordinance which would be attached to the uh resolution is not inconsistent or favor double negative uh with the Township's master plan so if you concur with uh and follow the opinion of our planner uh this resolution would encapsulate it uh and and serve as the report back to the governing body and so you could go right to a motion second roll call vote to adopt the resolution if that's desire of the board we would be done great thank you on can I see one last question and I just um just sort of as a planning practice I think I know the answer but I was just curious and I was trying to search and was unable to sort of pull it up quickly um the arborium is a conservation Zone uh which I know is sort of our lone local designation but is that typical to include in historic designated districts something like that like sort of almost like double protective like it's on the state it's in a conservation I don't know that I don't know what register it's on or not I I just mean it's in our conservation Zone as is you know other properties around town right I mean it makes sense like it's a municipal District boundary and then there's probably some kind of state level whether it's like a Rossy um it's not I don't think so so this actually there's also deep restrictions on that deed as well they are Frank could you repeat that this this actually gives that area additional protection because it's not on the right seat okay right so this just gives it some additional prote and additional funding so again from a local funding to possibly then National register funding so there's a lot of benefits to be able to do this um there is a myth about protection um I think local designation protects uh them even more uh than some of the other designations even on the state level so again the benefits of funding for this particular property also it is um Town owned so it made a lot of sense to that and even and David brought up the deed restriction but when we were meeting with them um I sit on that board as well they they aren't even convinced that a deep restriction would hold up in court um so uh because it was it from 1959 and you know given it's it's so old it's you know they were concerned about and I'm not the lawyer here the the law of perpetuities and so that's what that's what what they said what one of the lawyers on the board said so we met with them um and um while this town own land the Board of Trustees was of the Au was in favor of this designation thanks thank you and um you all answered it for me I was going to say the if it should have been on the Ross you're one of these things it's probably subject to a different type of Regulation which I think you guys made the the point on my behalf so thank you thank you um and just so this is the Short Hills historic district versus up the hill which is the old Short Hills district the Short Hills Village Village that's not yeah and I don't know why put that yeah and uh we will add Short Hills Village district and that ordinance Short Hills Village area as an historic district but that that's the resolution uh Short Hills Village historic district y y okay thank you y and uh we will we will repeat that throughout the resolution you still can vote on it and revised copy will be sent tomorrow morning short house Village start District yeah okay thanks we'll make that consistent throughout there's one or two other places where it pops up okay does anybody want want to take an action on this I will I move that the uh resolution 2667-20 designating the Short Hills Village historic district as a historic district is not inconsistent with the township plan great and for the record ordinance yeah you said you said resolution said ordinance we know what you meant but sorry no no no no no that's okay okay um nominated by Michael thank you and do we have a second second who fought for it who won okay um how do I indicate who nominated worked for form put an m in and a two okay thank you for bearing with me uh okay great okay I will do our roll call vote so this is not inconsistent with the master plan it's adopting the resolution as revised adopting revised resolution okay uh Allison Campfield yes Michael Cohen yes Deborah Nevis yes Frank San yes sua Shan sh BJ yes David uh David Costco yes Gaston hoer yes myself be Z yes um that's yes for the ordinance finding consistency with the master plan as well as the resolution which will be amended to reflect the title of Short Hills Village historic district thank you um I will take notes after fantastic have no other items of business on our agenda this evening do anybody move to adjourn so moved thank you Frank I will second all in favor I okay meeting adjourned at 8:05 please bear with me until I stop our recording thank you ref