##VIDEO ID:gbbGpS0h9QU## andice all right this planning board meeting is being held on October 10th 2024 at 7 o'clock pm of adequate notice under the Sunshine Law adequate notice in accordance with the open public meeting Act was provided on January 18th 2024 of this meeting's date time and location the agenda was mailed to the cranber press in Trenton Times po the township Bolton board mailed to those request personal notice and PR with the municipal clerk roll call Miss Anderson here miss elwi here Mr verante here Mr Giddings here Miss Jones not here Mr milenberg here Stuart here Mr Whitman here and Miss Bon advis us she was not attending we have a quum chair okay we did the roll call okay first item on the agenda tonight is the approval of the minutes from September 5th 2024 are there any additions subtractions or anything that the board wants to bring these are really well done that was a lot to compile thank you can I have a second please roll call to appr roll call for the September 5th minutes Miss Anderson approved Miss elwi yes Mr fronte yes Mr Giddings yes Mr Jones is not here Mr milenberg yes Mr Stewart yes and Mr Whitman yes thank you motion passed next item on the agenda is public comments for non-agenda items so if anybody has comments about anything that's not on the agenda and they'd like to talk about it um please feel free to do so hearing no comments for non-agenda Minds I'm going to close out that part of the public meeting and first item on the agenda is an application for luxon Pb 393-2440 okay yes good evening everyone I'm Martina Bailey the board attorney tonight and I'll just say that I I reviewed the um Affidavit of publication and notice and found it to be in order so the board has jurisdiction thank you okay very good thank you do you want to come forward first should we swear in all of our our um professionals both we should probably do the board and and their professionals so sure yes anyone on the applicant side who is going to testify or might testify if you could stand up Raise Your Right hands and I'm G to swear you in do you affirm do you swear or affirm that the testimony you shall give will be the truth I do so sworn and I'll take your names as you present your testimony now as far as oh yeah oh and we'll we'll swear in the township um do you swear or affirm that the testimony you shall give will be the truth I do so thank you as far as the applicants professional qualifications I'm I've known Mark rowski for 40 years now so I will attest to his qualification so he doesn't have to read off a half an hour list of everything done anyway so thank you sorry just um for my benefit could you spell your name please yes b e r k wsk k y thank you uh thank you for hearing us this evening uh my name is Jonathan Mayer from Stevens and Lee uh on behalf of the applicant loyan improvin uh the tenant at 324a Halfacre road block 8 lot 1.01 in the light industrial district uh we're here this evening for their amended minor I mean their not minor that was the problem last time their amended and uh amended preliminary and final major site plan application uh for the installation of a 60x 40t trash compactor as well as an 8 yard Clos top dumpster at the property uh in addition we're seeking two design waivers as it relates to the dumpster first from 150- 15a uh that requires screening around the dumpster as well as from 150- 15b uh which does not prefer the dumpster to be located in the front half of the building uh as will be testified tonight we do not believe that either of those requirements is necessary in this application uh because of the extensive existing screening that exists at this property uh such that it neither of these objects will be U observable to either uh to any neighbor uh this evening uh we have Mr Bowski who has already introduced himself uh who will go over the site plan uh and we also have uh Ken wisuki um the facility manager for the property from loyan in case anyone has any questions about the operations at the property um so without further Ado and without need without needing to qualify Mr Bowski um I'll call my first witness on the bottom than you good evening everyone hopefully this will be a short presentation we have uh exhibits which are part of our uh submittal exhibit A1 which is the drawing that you have is as s1.1 this is an overall site plan showing a key map where the project is located uh then a site map and then a smaller detailed site plan so again we're located on Halfacre Road you probably don't even know the building exists due to the extensive screening of a burm almost 20 feet high and trees above it the next exhibit is a color detailed site plan which we're calling exhibit A2 which is drawing ex1 so this is a colored site plan to show the entire building again the details of the burm along Halfacre Road the uh driveway going to the rear of the property and other properties within this uh development and extensive screening along the property line to the East and lastly is our exhibit A3 which is ex2 and that we're going to hand out to the board members so you can see these photos a Little Closer the uh handouts are exactly the same as exhibit A3 so looking at the property uh from Halfacre Road you see the burm up and barely the top of the building totally uh screened uh from the Western driveway the location of the proposed dumpster is in one of the loading docks and again you can't see that as well for due to all the screening again that's once you get into the property on the uh South Side is the elevation Western View From the proposed compactor compactors again hidden behind the trees and an electric substation and then looking further south uh from the adjacent property total screen with all the trees and vegetation so unless you knew it was there unless you drove into the property you wouldn't know any of these would exist and again they're all in locations of where a truck uh Box Truck Loader would be so it's not like we're add something saying it's really a small uh truck that would be stationed there any questions as to the screening and why we believe this uh two waivers should be approved go ahead are you is this a single tenant operation or there multiple tenant the the building is two tenants locked at T has the eastern half and um so I'm asking in relevance to the fact that there's another company that might be using it that might see it or would it be because you're showing screenings from outside the property correct so the other tenant is on the uh West excuse me the yes the West Side they have more issues of their own compactors in so on your on the side of the building that the um that this would be located in this visible um there's only one tenant that accesses that side no the other tenant is run back to the other plan so the building is divided almost in half so this tenant has all their trucks here as well okay and point out on that where your location would be our compactors over here and you represent the tenant or the landlord the tenant and is the landlord um yes they have signed off uh on the in order to make application as the building owner they had a approve the plan okay great thank you you're welcome any let's go to work David do you have any questions comments or Liz we'll go to David first com turn your mic on sorry are there any comments you want to make about my items two through seven in my October 4th letter yes so the pavement uh question was the uh loading for the uh compactor the pavement is concrete and reinforced to support trucks trailer parking uh there is sufficient lighting existing at the loading docks and servicing of the compactor and the dumpster will be doing uh daylight hours uh I think those were the issues David if I remember would you be willing to to show the hydrants that are in the area there so that we can uh make sure the fire company's happy yes yes because I definitely that's one of the concerns that we want to talk to the abish fire does because there is a uh hydrant adjacent that where the jcpnl just put a huge Transformer in that's all I have sir I I really don't have anything thank you okay I want to open it back up to the board for any additional comments absolutely thank you um first of all these pictures are really helpful so thank you um we uh you've talked a little bit about the screening with regards to sort of the Aesthetics is there any need to have a physical bar barer for safety sake this is a compactor compactor is totally enclosed it's just really a big box more than anything and it cannot be played around with no so the comp the the operation of the compactor is going to be from inside the building into the compactor nothing from outside of the building other than when it gets empty get filled everything is that prohibits anybody from children whatever getting access because compactors can be quite dangerous so it's physically connected to the building uh and there is a sprinkler head in there for fire protection and all the safety requirements are there thank you any um any other questions from the board just um can you point out or did you address where the fire hydrants are like that's we just put your finger there just please to to respond to Mr her we will provide that as a de detail but there is one hydrant right here okay and the fire department have they done their approvals already or not uh we have not seen any reports from them as yet now on that I guess that's the south side of the building you want to put in what is that on the south side again the compact is on the North side and no just the opposite the the dumpster is on the North side and compact is on on the South Side yes is the and you said the dumpster is enclosed it's a covered top not an open dumpster and the purpose of that is mostly for uh non uh recyclable waste I have a a a break area lunchroom so I'll have that kind of waste we going to that dumpster everything else is recycled in the building in bags and then they're picked up internally okay um with respect um anybody else from the board I got yeah go ahead um in terms of the you know the the dumpster on on half drove by today the dumpster on Halfacre Road it's beautifully screened you can't see anything there um the compactor on the bottom side of the page when you drive down this road there are two other uh separate buildings so other people do other owners do or tenants of other buildings do drive by it um I guess you know it's it's I think what um it's no different than a than a tractor trailer back there quite frankly I think what concerned me more was that I would imagine the the retention Pond is full with water when we really haven't had a lot of rain there's a lot of dead trees in it it seems like a lot of the screening that should be there all along the tractor trailers that was probably part of the original application is all dead and missing and it seems like a lot of it's in a retention Pond clogging up the the retention pond so I don't know you know building owner I don't know where all that falls but that's kind of the the lack of screening I think is more of an issue that of than the compactor itself um the other question or that I had is but where's the where on the where's the uh the retention Basin on here if you look on the image in the bottom triangle below the go ahead honestly I don't know where it is oh okay on that one yes it's the bottom triangle yep up the lot a little further to the left a little further to the left up um like it lot makes a triangle right so it's the bottom point of the triangle yep yeah so you look on the Google Earth image there's very little water in there but when I drove by there's a lot of water which just makes me wonder that it's not draining and there's tons of dead trees sticking out and which I assume was the two layers of screening that was probably there from when the building was originally built so it is a very unfortunately exposed area unlike the other side um and I don't know whose issue that is but that's I think that's that's my one comment in terms of screening uh I don't think it's possible to screen the compactor itself but it does seem like something you know that the original screening of the original site plan approval and the retention Pond should be maintenance should be addressed um the other question is we approved an application within the last year or so that I my recollection is when the substation was put in that the substation across the street was going to come out and again this probably is might not be you guys um but it hasn't come out yet so the only I'm aware of is the the new substation that's going here is not fully AC yet it's okay so the other one is still coming out uh as far as I know this was an addition to the one here but I don't have the real details on that but I know this was not fully activated I just think so that should just be I don't know I remember it wrong but my recollection we talked about it coming out and it um taking out the paving yeah and the fence so that just I think is clean up but other than that I have no issue with the application Phil I can say something um the detention Basin that's a matter of Maintenance um sometimes that falls under the zoning officer uh but I don't know why we couldn't put something in the resolution requesting that the owner of the property maintain the outlet structure because if the outlet structure is clean and the rack is clean and and and the outlet orifice is clean then it should drain properly and the water level should be down to where it's supposed to be not the trees are going to come back I don't think they will but there's a lot of just sitting in but they're not yeah the trees shouldn't be in there so if we can get the water level where it's supposed to be and it's not a hard thing it's it's it's a guy with some shovels for a day about all it's up to you if you want to put it in there but you know um I don't have the original plan from whenever this probably was built in the 90s or whatever this is a long timeo yeah so I mean if the board is happy with the screening that they see today in terms of the BMS and and what vegetation there is there probably just leave it alone a picture of the view that Mr Giddings is talking about right no I think you're saying it's not so much an issue of the sight line to the new installation it's to the existing parking for the trailers no matter so when when people come from the other two buildings they're going to see the compa scre there would be a lot property own not care of that because affects the value Aesthetics of the other properties property down similar issues last all the way down a nice building and even if they improved the um the Landscaping that is died and been removed if I'm correct other tenants as they're driving down what's called whether a Tru there comp they're going to be looking straight at that compa well how do we address that do we make I don't know if we can make it part application or it's not part of the application yeah I don't want to get the landlord in any trouble um no it's not this this certainly seems like something that someone could speak to the zoning officer about yeah and there might be a condition in the original approval um for the entire sub property that might relate to this right because it being a good neighbor right so essentially the option would be having by virtue of this coming before us today a potential zoning bya zoning lapse has has come up and we can separately advise our zoning officer to to pursue that okay okay and just to clarify my what I think is the case but I don't want to be making the wrong assumption the truck that needs to pick up the uh waste from the compactor has to be able to access the backside of the comp Factor yes so it's not really possible to put a screening directly in that exactly okay all right um Mr gings are you okay with that suggestion that we parallel path okay any other questions from the board because I have a couple um regarding the I guess the operation of the dumpster um how many shifts do you have in that in the building there well as of last month one shift uh as of this month two shifts and hopefully business continues to improve and they may have additional shifts okay so will this dumpster be used 247 in other words there'll be stuff being compacted day and night no I mean normal operations would be during the normal uh 7 to five shift okay so anything that's being compacted because I'm I'm I'm talking about the noise of the dumpster because they can get kind of noisy when you're compacting on the compactor side dumpster size no noise but compactor would be normal hours so so we could you could I'd like to say we'd like to limit that to daytime operations only when the stumpster is going to be used yeah the compactor is going to be used and I guess um normal pickup during daytime hours too yes not at 4:00 in the morning with you know that would be with the backup lay coming in you know backup horn coming in to pick up this thing so so if that could be I don't know if we could put that as part of the this that okay yes all right so that's number one number two um I would like to I would like you to get something from the fire company that just says this is all right because you're compacting material it could be an issue with potential spontaneous combustion in the dumster and and I don't know if that yeah that we do have a sprinkler head in the dumpster oh in the dumpster the okay all right so I would still just have the fire company oh sure I'm more concerned initially we were concerned about location of fire hydrant to be sure they have clearance around it service okay but are they copied on this application automatically yeah yeah I would just I like them to just to review it and that's an acceptable condition all right any other questions comments from our professionals board members okay um before we vote on this I would like to open this application up to the public if there is any comments or questions from the public please come up and to the mic there state your name and address and okay I don't hear any that we approve the application with the Proviso about the operating hour all right let me close the public I'm going to close the public portion of this uh application out comment period so and I have a motion to approve I move that we approve it with the additional provision of the operating hours that yes I have three conditions that the fire hydrant will be shown on the plans that the um use of the dumpster will be limited to daytime hours as well as the pickup during daytime hours and the fire department will uh review and approve I just correct one I not the the compactor hours the compactor sorry yeah Mr chairman is there anything wrong with filling the compactor at night if they have to just as long as they don't run it well I don't know how you would fill it without running it it's a compactor right right oh okay almost like the back of a garbage yeah that's fine yeah try to make it a little easier okay do I hear a second I'll second all right roll call Miss Anderson approved Miss elwi yes Mr fronte yes Mr Giddings yes Mr milenberg yes Mr Stewart yes and Mr Whitman yes thank you motion passed thank you very much thank you thank you for your can I of the exhibit didn't they didn't get done in time yeah I thought it was perfume but I wasn't sure perfume thanks thanks Martin oh yeah um they do do like creams and stuff ask [Laughter] okay um second item on the agenda PB 39424 byon is they're not here tonight I guess they're carrying it over are they carrying it over or with no new notice I never received a new plan so I don't I don't know what they're doing oh me neither so do we have to just officially Carry It Forward again all right we're going to carry that over to the November 7th meeting then and hopefully Mr hoder gets the new plans and everybody else gets what they agree to redo um before they come we did request changes at the last a lot of changes so um and I think I want to be kind of emphatic I don't want to redo this application like that again I don't want to be building the plane as we're flying it down the runway here so I hope they come in ready to talk with everything approved okay next item on the agenda got nervous and left no she can't leave all right uh amendments to the Cranberry Township master plan pertaining to the historic preservation element and everybody should have a cop should have had a copy of that do we need to have a quick break or are we all good okay um everybody should have time to review that before the meeting and I'm going to turn it over to Liz to go ahead and kind of guide us through this okay so um see you have before you the amendment and it's modifications to the existing cranberry Village historic district and I'm going to go over the designation process I'm also going to go over um how we got here and and why we are here tonight um and then you know certainly the details of the amendment so the process for designating historic districts or historic sites in Cranberry is in Chapter 93 of the ldo and it's a multi-process or multi-step process um first is identification anyone can bring to the HBC properties that they think are historic HBC if it if it you know elect to take that on will do documentation of the property photographs historic res resarch um Etc then once that list is gotten together notice is given to the property owners that would be impacted uh and there's a public hearing um the HPC holds a public hearing um prior to that I guess there's notice to the homeowners it's also listed in the newspaper after the hearing there's a second public notice then the HPC sends the um report to the planning board so just so you're aware a public hearing was held by HBC on October 1st and so they sent to planning board their report um and for the planning board to draft any amendments to the historic preservation element of the master plan because the planning board is uh in charge of the master plan um it's very possible if we don't adopt this amendment tonight that these this site still could be designated because um just like any other ordinance if there's an affirmative vote of the governing body they can even if the HPC or sorry even if the planning board says we're not interested in taking this on um it doesn't mean that it's it's dead in the water that the TC can still um elect to uh designate these properties because once you we have this hearing which we're here tonight on the master plan Amendment um the HPC then will submit this list to the TC and then the TC will draft an ordinance um designating the properties they'll have a first reading um we will then get it back because we will review as we do every ordinance we review it for consistency with the master plan and then the TC will hold a second reading and a public hearing on the um on the draft ordinance so the conclusion of that hearing it's either adopted by the TC or it's not um and it's important to note that the actual historic sites and the properties in the historic district are have to be listed in the ordinance in the ldo um just per law so um it's a multi-step process and there's you know steps and um opportunity for input from the public at a few different junctures um so there some Amendment as I said it involves modifications to the existing sort of downtown Village cranberry Village historic district and to understand how we got there it really starts with the master plan reexamination in 2019 um that made several recommendations with regard to the historic to Historic preservation one was designation of the cranberry station historic district which happened in 2021 but one of the major issues that has been raised and it's been raised in in master plans actually going back through the years has to do with um whether you people know this or not there's the historic district and that around the historic district is a 200 foot historic buffer and there was um concern I guess and I think I put this in the amendment a little bit of history that initially it was like 2,000 feet or 200 square feet feet and it was because the idea was not only were the buildings in the district were uh important but the farms and the agricultural land surrounding it so once those were sort of protected via you know other other means um you know either as preserved open space or Farmland open space that sort of thing about 25 years ago or you know in the late 90s anyway they um the TC elected to limit that buffer from whatever 2,000 plus square feet again to 200 feet um but one of the complaints was that it didn't always make sense and that there were some properties and people who are in that 200 foot buffer who in their minds were were nowhere near the historic district they didn't face Main Street they weren't near Main Street they and they were sort of you know why if I want to change you know something do I have to go to HPC so um there were a couple of recommendations made in the 2019 master plan re-exam one was to sort of rethink the buffer just just to you know was there a way to redraw it or do something with it so that it made sense it made logical sense and then the other was to um designate into the existing historic district additional properties because essentially what you had is you know the core of the District which is sort of south of Plainsboro Road along Main Street more or less you know with a few roads on either side but then there were three designated historic sites that are on North Main Street and they have historic buffers around them and I think the idea was to make it one cohesive District to connect them um so that it was all part of cranbery Village historic district um and so HBC at the time and uh in the 2019 re-exam said you know we would like these to be added um so in 2021 the plan board sort of took this on um and but the HPC I think at the so and and the two recommendations that were initially made um at the planning board level was let's eliminate the buffer and let's designate these properties in between you know the sort of missing and uh you know middle section and at the time it was just HPC discussed it and decided that um they weren't sure they wanted to eliminate the buffer completely because they thought well maybe some of these properties should be designated and now they're not going to be under HPC review and we need to think about this a little bit more carefully before we just completely eliminated additionally um you know per the code in order to designate properties you have to do documentation you have to research them you can't just look at a house and say I think it should be in you know it has to be more carefully um documented and that hadn't been done so subsequently so at the time that the cranberry station was designated there were a couple other small modifications to the district but those two major changes weren't made um so because the HPC wanted a little bit more time to sort of do more due diligence so um subsequently HPC contracted with Richard grub Associates who are you know well known around the state certainly I mean they're located in Cranberry but they're well known around the state for doing historic preservation research documentation um and these historic district surveys and they contracted Richard grub to do this section of um you know Main Street essentially mostly to just sort of document it see what's there were there any resources that were really important you know what what were the properties what is in this area they finished their um survey I think in the end of 2023 and it was you know provided to HPC and HPC then has subsequently made the recommend ations that you see basically in this in master plan Amendment tonight so the existing properties in the historic district remain you know nothing's nothing's you know they are still in the historic district what this amendment does um it does two things as one is it does add those properties sort of in in between the sort of connector properties it also eliminates the historic buffer so a good portion of the properties that are being added were already in the historic buffer so they were already under HPC review um whether homeowners knew that or not is is a different story but they were under uh HPC review technically and um you know so the idea would be okay we'll get rid of the buffers so it does you know and especially in the instances where it really doesn't make sense those properties are no longer impacted but we still care about these other properties what happens on them um and so even though they're we're getting rid of the buffer we'd like to be able to sort of maintain a little bit of oversight of them so one thing I should note is that historic buffers are not something you see often in ordinances but you do see when it comes to Historic districts a designation of properties that are contributing meaning you know obvious historic sites that are contributing to the historic resource because they're from this right you know same the time period That's significant are they the architectural style that's significant or they're associated with you know historic event or a person of History that's significant to to the municipality so they have those but you can also have what's called non-contributing buildings and that's essentially this recognition that not everything is like lined up perfectly there have been intrusions um and changes so you can still consider those properties as being in a historic district you can still include them but they're they're considered non-contributing historic resources so they're in the historic district but they're non-contributing because they could have been built in 1990 you know but it but the idea is that HPC would still review um development or or applications that occur in those non-contributing resources but it would be at a much less owner I shouldn't say owner a much less rigorous standard than um a a contributing historic resource so it it wouldn't be to the same degree that you would that they would apply to a contributing resource um so sorry um let me just see what else I had uh so I think what you know essentially what you see there was um I know an email went out about what the numbers are and so let me just get that just so I don't misspeak um okay so 85 properties because of the elimination of the buffer 85 properties have been removed from HPC review entirely um and essentially those were properties within the buffer and they just didn't make any sense so those people are now um not required to go to HPC for review uh excuse me right but it's removed from based on what you have here right so it's h they're removed in the amendment so to speak so 21 would Bas 21 properties would basically have no change in their review that these are properties that were in the buffer area they are non-contributing properties and so they were supposed to go to HPC before they can Contin they will continue to go to HPC now but the degree of rigor in the review is is a little bit of a lesser standard than a um a contributing resource um then there are 11 properties being added to the district which are currently neither in the district nor in the buffer area um and these are shown I guess in the amendment as non-contributing properties um and so this this is sort of the the bulk of the um I kind of think of it as almost like a dumbbell or like a missing piece you have the the properties that the North End of Main Street and the properties further south and this is uh the properties that were in between that were neither in the buffer area nor in the historic district previously um and again as I said the idea is to have these as connectors between the two kind of areas of the historic district and the idea really is to make it a cohesive historic district and that and the sense that what happens on these properties you wouldn't want it to be um so jarring that it would negatively impact the historic district uh so then also 11 structures are being added to the district as contributing properties um so when I guess Richard gr did his survey he found that indeed some of these properties that you know we had talked about adding in in 2019 and then again in 2021 actually were historic resources in and of themselves and and should be Des designated um so you know that's the gist of the changes you I have in the amendment um you know how this is consistent with the goals and objectives of the municipal land use law and then the master plan going back many years um with regards to the goals and objectives and recommendations about the cranberry Village historic district so I'm happy to answer any questions I have a few questions but I want the board to ask questions first go ahead I have a few just just some of them should be quick um are the requirements um required of the homeowners who were previously in the buffer but not in the district itself the same easier or harder than the non-contributing status that they might have now so most of the ones that are in the buffer are considered non-contributing so with that because there are as I said there's some that were in the buffer that are now considered contributing the non-contributing ones that were in the buffer the change is in review is is nothing okay so but for 11 it would become more onerous than it was before it sounds like right because they were they are considered contributing resources correct and there's not a map here and there's more than 22 properties listed is there a particular area because you mentioned you're sort of filling in the gaps well you can see on the map the green right the map that was in the amendment um no we didn't get it in what we were provided oh it's yellow yellow yeah that was oh well no oh there this is from the amendment no don't do that [Laughter] that's the problem with having an error well I have I oh you need a you need a you need an a to c dongle I would have one in my just the dark blue is the original buffer is what was the jagged bit around it the the green what do you need to hook it up what so that's North yeah so that that's PLS right there that's the Farmland that's sort of as it opens up as you go towards houses that's the dumbell that's the she say yeah so prior there were specific individual properties that were in Z on the North and then and then the problem was the buffer was capturing Jagged bits of all these properties all around it so now you're getting kind of a um you're getting I actually have my laptop in the car because I thought I might this I'm gonna open it up I don't know whose laptop this is and so another question I have is in terms of process other than the public hearings that are still going to occur at other bodies other than us is there is there any opportunity where the people who would whose house status would be changed formally get to engage and appeal that process or not certainly before the TC yes but only in the form of public comments they don't there's no difference between someone who just has an opinion and someone whose home is going to be directly impacted not the way anything in any it's resoning that would be the case as well it's the same presentation so what was being explained before before the record you know on mic is the the status changes the stuff in beige basically in the or whatever it is like those would be the properties that would be in the historic district but you have to see where it's a little hard to see on that where the buffer area is because it's the gray jaget the buff the Dr line that surrounds I I believe you might have answered this but for the folks who have just been added to the historic district if the amendment was approved gr who were non-conforming they have to now go in review for changes uh exterior changes to their property they would um it within reasin which usually is handled by I don't know Robin if you do it or if the zoning officer does it to determine you know if it's uh it's administrative not no if it rises to the level of having to go to HPC the concern is View shed for historic Properties or nature historic nature of the main street I would say Main Street mostly because that's the corridor that's involved in historic district right okay looking at this too because I understand the idea that it's going to be contiguous now which is helpful because you don't want someone to feel like they got sucked up but their neighbor didn't why one side of is that station but not the other side if the idea is you're doing a driving Corridor and you're trying to be consistent why is one side allowed to be outside of it while the other side is not sorry which one Station Road I I think I'm looking at station right oh I say Station Road it it could just so the north side of station you can do whatever you want with your house more or less within zoning but you're directly across the street neighbor along the exact same view corridor doesn't well that's correct but it it's important to note that actually the two properties that are being added are already through HPC review do you see and they're and they're between a bunch of historic properties so it actually in that instance makes sense yeah it would it's contiguous along that side no but but to to follow up what Jason said if you go up to North Main Street you have it on both sides of the street well I think that the focus has always been on Main Street to be correct yeah and so the focus is you know the impacts along Main Street particular I mean there is a run of historic homes on one side of the street and the other side was Farm it was part of the Evans Track right and was uh developed much later and I understand what you're saying but you know I think I understand now that I heard that those two have already done a my main concern is I wouldn't have wanted to be one of those two houses if I had not been subject to review right and be told that I'm just getting wrapped up for some consistency and then my across the street neighbor isn't but you're telling me along that particular Corridor we're really doing the opposite we're saying we don't want to have to subject everyone on the other side of the street and we're not subjecting anyone new on the side of the street where we are at which sounds more friendly to our neighbors than the alternative it does seem a little contradictory from a planning perspective that you're doing it on North Main and you're not doing it on Station Road or Plainsboro because I think you could argue that you know what makes cranber special is that it's the whole Community from the point that you come off of 13 it it's the transition from the Farms into this small little town um and you know you don't want the zoning regulations are very lenient within cranberry so your neighbor across the street could very easily build a mcmansion you know there's no F requirements so they could build a you know they could max out their property um and and what this potentially does I think is it it gives some um some oversight now I think what I saw in the presentation that I don't see in the ordinance is how the two are treated direct differently which I think is very important in terms of how a historic property is is treated versus a non-contributing non-historic property a couple of things one is this isn't an ordinance this is a master plan right and so that doesn't this isn't law and the TC we don't make law here right so the TC will and um I agree it needs to be spelled out we need to recommend that as could we could I mean we don't necessarily but we could and then we have the contributing and non-contributing already listed so I think yeah we could I think that I I think there's a lot of benefits of this but at first to homeowner it seems very scary that now now you're restricting me I can't do this or this or you know so it's new restrictions on homeowners who already bought their house not realizing they're GNA have these restrictions on them but at the same point um you know through my experience with HPC they are very lenient you know especially comparison to other towns and I think it's it's the things like scale it's a thing like fences it's not the it's not the bigger ticket items that people historic houses have to deal with in terms of more expensive Windows more expensive siding more expensive roofs you know but we kind of bought into that knowing that th this is more of all right we don't want you know I like modern architecture but I don't want to see a Frank Gary billing you know in in on Main Street in the village of of cranberry um but it seems like it's missing some of those what how again I saw it in in the presentation but you know I think to maybe scare homeowners less what will be regulated so that we make we maintain the cranberry Community Village land streetcape is is I assume what the intent of this is yes so two things one I think or one thing really is that I I agree but that happens at the ordinance level y right and so that that needs to be made clear that but we could make that a recommendation to TC I guess yeah I mean this is I mean this is a document that's a little bit we can yeah right yeah I mean yes yes I I mean it's a good recommendation I'm trying to understand how we can incorporate it Ian to follow up on what was just said I mean longstanding thing on my part has been like versus like in the neighborhood and I totally agree if I'm on one side of the street and there's all Ranch houses on the other side of the street and somebody comes in and puts it you know maxes out the lot with a with a two-story house that takes up every that's looks compared to the rest of the houses it it it it doesn't fit if it's buried into the development if it's an older development then you know the people around that are going to see it but they're not going to see it from the main streets going up and down the street but it's extremely noticeable if you're riding up and down either Plainsboro Road or you know Station Road or you know some of the other that be St right but unless we recommend changes along that line I mean you know we don't it's taking a while to get here so I don't want toil the process yeah and there has been a survey done I didn't do it it was done by a professional in this in this realm and if that is the recommendation coming out not to include those properties I would defer to that professional is there another stage of the presentation or is there a consistency that you can articulate without making 11 individual statements about what distinguishes the 12 houses or the 11 houses that are now going to be right the survey is an appendix to the master plan and you have to look at the survey I guess what I'm saying is is it very clear like they're all super old also or is there a 1965 one there and the and Mr grub or whoever did the study said well you know I thought that was a pretty significant Architects and now it's contributing no they're they're contributing in within the realm of the of significance of this historic district which is so they're old is that that's one way of putting it yes yeah the historic district has a era of significance I forget the term but I've dealt with it before in which they State the years in which anything built during these years can contribute significantly to the uh to the historic district and so if you DNR Canal uh Canal stopped working and they started selling off pieces in 1933 so if you were in that district and you built something uh in 1934 you're no longer significant to The District in 1931 if you built something even if it was not much anything you are contributing you still exist inside that uh error of significance and I think that's probably and I was going to ask that question do we know what that what those years are but I think that's way too deep for the conversation that we were having so yeah I think if if this is of concern to the planning board members I would take a look at the survey because that that's much more in depth than I can provide right because but we're not here to weigh what's historic and what's old you know um it's it's more so the plan to uh change the hist and I think the reason this stalled in 2021 is because there wasn't a survey to look at towards right you know and then people were sort of saying why is my property in why is my property not in and there was no like indepth there's yeah so they went property by property did their survey uh which are quite significant for each one of those properties each one has a fact card or page where they go through and they check a bunch of things off um there is something in the presentation if that's what we're looking at where they compare two houses that look similar and one is historic and one is just older and and those are two I mean that's pretty significant when you're talking about his historic properties I was just gonna add I think um I was part of the master plan in 2019 so I've been sort of seen every step of the process and this is really at face more of a cleanup effort than anything else like so that I think you you can't under underestimate the weirdness things that that buffer was causing because it was it was catching 10 feet of somebody's backyard that would be facing a completely different direction and it it was doing really weird things I mean the neighborhood right there that up in Carberry station right is I mean those were built in the early 2000s right exactly so that that that arbitrary that arbitrary 200 foot buffer was doing weird things and so he putting a corner of somebody's property or a bit of something so I once once you're infected right historic you're in District exactly you're not historic you're just in the district so even if it was a 10 foot corner now you got to go right exactly so this is really like this is really a cleanup of of sort of that bit and then it's sort of acknowledging and my understanding to paraphrase but I think the the stuff that in the barbell that got connected were properties that were of an age that they weren't contributing when it was done and since have sort of slipped into the zone of contributing everything over years yeah they've kind of they've kind of aged in and so I think it was it was one part of the connectivity of it and one part of is the air of those houses kind of aged in by looking at it again so it wasn't arbitrary just to connect it I think it was it was both of those factors together so and I I mean I live in the historic district um you know I've I've had to go to the HPC when I've done work on my house and it's the right thing to do for where you are in the district I don't know what it's like if you're one of the yellow ones um I imagine it was weird if you if your backyard was in the buffer and you were subject to it so I think this is this feels a little more straightforward I I like the fact that it's it's the net is a way an 8:1 ratio of properties being removed versus properties being added so it makes it a lot clearer about what's in scope and what's not in scope so I think the key to the success of it is that the administrative approval process to lower the burden of those homes that are not historical um and to you know make sure in the ordinance is defined what HBC is looking at for or those non-historical houses and it's basically you know scale character you know fences the the street skate that maintains The Village feel is what we want is I think what we all want to don't want to lose um another example too I think is like the Farmland that's being added at North Main you know um I guess you could you could do a solar farm right 1% of any Farm New Jersey laws I read I don't know I don't know if it's true or not you can do 1% of your a farmer can do 1% of their land as as a as a solar farm to to fuel their property and make money I don't know if that's true or not I WR on the internet as a New Jersey ordinance um but you know same thing with I think there's more restrictions for solar on someone's front of their house in the historic district versus not I don't know if that's true or not um I know you can't do it in the historic district I'm not sure if you're not in the historic district your ability to put solar panels on your front roof so it does well you you build up you bring up a good point because farmers can cover basically their whole the whole farm with green houses yeah I haven't heard anyone who objects to the idea of cleaning up and getting rid of the buffer I mean that seems like a solidly good idea my only concern is revolve around putting myself in the shoes of the 22 people who are seeming I guess all on you know north of Plainsboro on Maine who right now are not subject to any restriction who are either going to be subject to one standard or another standard and making sure that you know that they have that there's a very clear and logic consistency with which they you know have been added and decided whether they are going to be conforming because we're obviously making life harder for them so clarifying question so if if you were if you were inside the gray the dotted line and now you're a yellow what's the what what are the practical implications if you're a non-contributing building and you're within the dotted line you're within the buffer area currently you the same the review uh standard would be the same okay so no change for so there's like that's probably what how many properties is that2 properties 22 properties where there's basically no essentially they went from the being in the buffer to being a non-contributing in the zone no there's 22 properties on your micophone there's 20 if you look the buffer ends just a little bit north of flames bror road right now yeah yeah so everything except those three houses north of that are being added and no I understand I was trying to get I was trying to get the number of properties that were within the buffer zone that are that that were previously were in the buffer zone but now are just going to be the beige in other words there's a number of properties that are currently in the buffer zone that W that that are now going to be Hardline designated yeah but she said that there will be no change because they're but the people on the people on North Main Street are changing they they were not in the buffer zone and and I don't and it also just must be how we do this here but sometimes the construction date of the house can probably be a little deceptive I know just anecdotally for example that there's a house on North Main that Mike Kaiser basically rebuilt from scratch looks you know completely you can tell it was built in you know in the 21st century and it's in this Zone but it's not listed as you know a 2000 something construction date because it was it was taking a tiny part of the original house and completely redoing it right so so right now not subject so so not you know would wouldn't be able to do that again in the future is I guess what we're saying well potentially wouldn't be able to do it they'd have to get approval to do it since they're non-conforming yeah and that house had approval through HPC and by by going to HPC it you know it was a house that was a non script house that even though he you know expanded it as a developer to maximize there's a lot of car taken for the massing to conform with the streetcape and that's what HBC does bring to to to don't get me wrong I like house I'm just trying to understand because you know I look at the the stats and I wouldn't yeah call that out and I don't know there's examples yeah so so what are we without getting into individual properties what are we here to do tonight like what it would be to adopt the master plan Amendment what I just spoke with our attorney um that we can make the recommendation we can add that recommendation about differentiating between you know having standards in the ordinance differentiating between the contributing and non-contributing that we can add that based on this discussion um you know as part of the submission that's part of the approval is I mean I've never read the ordinance so I'll admit that here is there something in the ordinance that does get into contributing versus not cont not currently and so that's if it would need to be clarified there are design standards in there currently um but it would what would need to be clarified is which of these standards apply to you if you're a non-contributing building thank you because certainly not all of them the ordinance does sorry I'll on that the ordinance does distinguish between buffer prop properties the standards for buffer properties and properties within the historic difference and the the only problem I mean sorry the only problem is that it's they're not they're a little vague and so that is not great for property owners you want to be a little bit more specific as to what you're looking for and I think what probably the HBC and I guess I can't speak for the HBC but I think what would be reasonable for HBC would be to trying to um have regulations in terms of sort of massing setbacks things like that that would be um appropriate for the setting um rather than anything having to do with oh gosh you need to do you need to use this kind of wood your house has to be this architectural style that sort of thing so what we here tonight is to this document and if you if you uh uh vote to adopt it to to um have a resolution to adopt that must plan at which point it will get referred to the township committee which will um then take action on it as well and then it'll come back to us for n for uh n then the well you would review a zoning ordinance that implements the recommendations right for consistency yeah lack of non-c consistency right um one quick thing any other comments at least initially we can come back to more comments that's fine because I'd like to invite um the chair of the HPC Jennifer if you'd like to come up and add anything to this if you have anything to add to this sure you know some briefly come up and just um hit the button on the right just sure Jennifer Seer 14 Scott still cour so just just raise your right hand SAR yes so and just give me your name please Jennifer satm 14 Scott St Court thank you um so yes so I would just say like thank you so much Liz for explaining everything to the everything that Liz has said is very much 100% consistent with um what HPC has discussed in our meetings um in our last meeting we did discuss some of the things that you were discussing as well um we did talk as well about for these homes that are going to be that were particularly the ones on North Main that were not in the district and some of them are kept you know again they're historic now so they they've aged into the district others are not historic but now they will be sort of non-contributing properties um our vision had been to sort of follow what has been used primarily with the buffer but given that the buffer is now going away we do need to revisit that language um in our meeting we had a public um meeting and there was feedback that um you know there was feedback on one side we want it to be really specific about what's expected of us but then we don't want you to be too confining so it's very difficult for us because we're sort of in you know place where we're trying to grow and evolve as historic preservationists um with the modern times but also retain the charm and character of cranberry um so we will work of course with Liz on that language within the the steps that follow um so I think I think that's it I think that Mr Giddings and Mr St I think I hear both of your feedback was again consistent I agree 100% with what you were saying about um just the the the goal of of this initiative um I think that we're just we're really we're streamlining things and and the analogy I always like to like think of is that our historic district kind of looked like a voting map before you know it looks like there's some Jerry Mandarin going on where we have like three random houses up there and it looks kind of dis disconnected and so I feel like this is a way we're sort of as as Mike referred to it as sort of we're cleaning it up and we're getting rid of the buffer that is has been huge um point of contention from our community we've listened to our neighbors and that we see that the buffer doesn't make sense we see this as the great path forward and we worked you know extensively with Richard grub did lots of research um worked with um Liz as well and so yeah I hope you guys approve this um this evening and look forward to the next step could you stay one second this is this is both for Liz and for you Jennifer um it's kind of a blessing and a curse that I've been in town here for over 40 years now and met my wife here in 1974 going on 50 years now so um I've been hanging around cranberry for a long time and I did take part in some of the initial work with Betty Wagner the late Betty Wagner who was our basically our um Point person leading us through the whole process to got to get us into the historic district and please correct me if I'm wrong the reason why we did this is because every town in the surrounding area was basically going fullblown development and we we went a very concerted effort to to save our town to to put us in the historic district but also to create the Farmland buffer around our community and anybody who drives down plsb Road knows very well what cranberry could have looked like when you cross into plain rail it is that Stark and that's what was going to happen so I guess my comment is that having a historic Zone with things very you know it was not as well defined as what this is right now but having things you know well defined and well outlined helps Our Town overall and it helps it in many ways number one um and I can only speak anecdotal about this is that the real estate values in this town um have gone off the wall compared to other towns because we have this historic district people like this consistency of having knowing that this is going to be here for now and well into the future and that's what I think the initial goal was is to to launch this thing and hopefully have it evolve into something that makes sense in the future and not everybody you know was in agreement at the time to do this obviously because at that time we created this thing and everybody was like but we felt that at the time it was for the best of the community to to keep us you know maybe this little Oasis in m SE County here which we I think have been very successful in doing so um I appreciate the effort I do I I am concerned though because they're you are adding the new property and and I don't I want to be consistent in how we you this has always been a big thing this is how we do our planning here how we we're consistent in how we review things we don't want to be so onerous that somebody can't do something or you know and especially that has a non performing house so I think that's if we can ensure that somehow and I don't know how we can ensure that because I don't want you know but again if they're in the historic district I don't want a four-story building next to a ranch house I I just I I personally don't ever I don't see that as Being for the Benefit of the town you know a newer house out in in out in the developments or you know you wanted to rip a house down and Shadow Oaks and build a new one that's you know whatever you can do that makes sense but right in this area here where we're all kind of compacted in it makes sense that we try to really limit to an extent of what we're doing but limited in a friendly way we want to always make sure we're working with people to get to some end means and not saying no you can't do it yeah unless it's like you want put a purple shed in your backyard and you know that's not going to happen but oh we um I'm sorry we don't dictate paint colors right right yeah yeah but you still wouldn't want a purple P yeah and we don't want it and we don't want it like Williamsburg where you know there are people that live in in the historic district of Williamsburg that you know they're very limited on what they can do they could have a private residence there but they can't drive on the street during the day they can't I mean it's extremely limited what they can do but that takes it to the you know the N degree yeah I think that um we we mentioned that a lot in our public hearing is that you know are not for especially a non-conforming non-contributing house we're not going to say you need to make your house look older um we've approved a lot of new structures in our historic district um and in the time that I've been in the HPC have been there for five years we've actually only denied one application and that was on a contributing um home that was they were looking to do something that was really going to adversely impact the historic character of our town um everything else we've been able to work with homeowners we like to be a resource to them um and I think that you know one thing that happens a lot and I didn't realize until I became chair is we do do a lot of stuff in the back end I approve a lot of applications without meetings just at my desk working with Robin um I I think that those homes that are sort of non-contributing on North mean I think those are probably going to fall a majority of their work is going to fall in that category our vision is to again be kind of like again I think nothing is really going to change for people who were in The buffer and now become in the historic district as non-contributing in terms of the review process um and the standards and that's not the vision for HPC it's really to just keep that status quo it's just now we're part of more of a cohesive historic district right because I do I do want to eliminate the need for not that I have anything against professionals but I I do want to eliminate the need to have you know again to put some little mon thing that I got to spend $110,000 in engineering fees just to come in for you to to make it a simple approval I'd rather I want to have it as simple as possible for people and even people that are conforming you know you want to make that as easy a process as possible where where people can could come in and get that check mark off before they go to the construction department and then have to submit plans and everything like that yeah we have a lot of concept reviews especially um we just put out a commun putting out a communication about that encouraging more homeowners to do that because we have found that for historic homes contributing homes it's helpful for them to submit their plans before they come to the other departments you know share their concept with us um and you know it prevents headaches later on and so okay could I ask just a couple questions sure goad about the thought process at the time looking at the map um there's a handful of new not previously In the Zone north of the call it you know northmost of the three previously historic homes but not on the other side of the street what was the thinking on that you know those are beyond the on Station Road no we're at the North part main now so you're you've already gone north of the last Street before you're going to hit 130 there are two individual homes that were historic but we went and designated everything on the um west side is historic around them but not on the three or four homes those those homes actually back on the silvers they face Silvers Lane no that's not what I'm talking about no do they yeah they they oh so the the blue one is the last one that's actually sitting on exactly yeah so those houses back they're on Silver's L but they back up to there is one 152 yeah okay I think the the majority of them are facing Silver Lane and they the proper and the exception is the exception because it was already too new or something what was the reason I don't know do you do you all I know is it's been awful to have to review applications for Silver Lane no no I'm not to be clear I I don't think there's any question why we wouldn't do it for so L yeah he says there's one here one house right that so the last house on Main on one side is not being put in the zone it's it's a house just north of Betty Benner's old house right and that was part of the Silver Lane build when they first built it's like 1985 or 88 or something but a bunch of the others are 85 and all that sort of stuff in the zone too I thought the idea is that we were for the future preserving this drive so I wasn't sure so so there'll be one house that could be torn down and become the Frank Gary four-story Mansion right at the beginning of your district and then the rest not well that was the same question that I don't know if you heard when we talked about Station Road like on the north side of Station Road none of those houses are in this and then you have across the street it's yeah and I heard at least there I heard the underlying logic which had to do with those two had already been through historic reservation and none on the other side had so I wasn't sure if I agreed with it but I understood the logic I'm just not understanding the logic of what it sounds like one weird exception on it sounds I don't think anything we're doing here is going to preclude HPC from considering individual properties at later for inclusion so I don't think but I think this is just trying to do this massive cleanup of these hundred some properties well I thought that what we were proving was the document which included a table which was very specific about the homes that we thought were going to be added to it but they came they they came to that through the professional review they didn't arbitrarily select those that's why I was just asking someone who was in the process how they came to that process and I was trying to look so that we could have the logic on the record um Jennifer were you all involved in that process or was it just that professional um no I review they would make the recommendations and we would approve it and there are members of the board of the committee that are more detailed into you know the individual homes and stuff but I think the one comment I would would make is that to me it looks it's it's like it's almost like it's falling within like the Development Area it's sort of with like the Silver's development homes that are within the silver development I don't whatever it was called those are the ones that are kind of not in there those ranches that are on the other side of Station Road I think they sort of start to fall within that development that kind of goes within brainer and and the other one yeah I think that's the that's the real reason again also I think um I mean as a historic preservationist I would love for all of cranberry to be you know uh you know I'd love for for us to be able to you know make sure we have like the streetcape on both sides you know you know you know thinking through but we can't review all those applications we have to make hard decisions to be clear because I I every question I have is about why some should be in as opposed to some not not suggesting you add silver I'm just wondering because I don't remember but I thought the home that is in question was for sale recently and I thought I remember looking on Zillow at it and from the outside I didn't think it looked hugely different in character than the houses on you know uh to the side of it but and the one right next to it is already in the preservation Zone but if you're a neighbor two over and you have a house that looks very similar and you're making the case on why they are being added to the Zone but their house two over that looks very similar to them is not being added that that's the kind of thing I'm worried about yeah well how can we clean that up I don't know that it's our job to clean it up I I'm just trying to under or recommend that if we were going to recommend it then I wanted to understand you know and be able to stand behind individually if I ever got asked why I thought that was a good idea so is it fair to ask that of the of the HPC just to sort of comment on that one property which property is it that you're asking about is it the one that's on the side it's north of of the of the U Betty Wagner well I don't know if you know Betty wager but it's her house it was 15 15 I think it's 156 it was literally for sale like a couple months 156 North and the question is why is that one not excl not in the district and my question is really the opposite of the reason you would think it's not because I'm in a hurry to argue why it should be although maybe for consistency it should I'm thinking is the neighbor two houses over has a very similar house who's in a similar location who's still north of the connector Street for Silvers and why I'm now being added to the zone why my neighbor isn't yeah okay um I'll take that back I can take that back to the HPC we can try to look into that one I mean 100% of my questions and concerns revolve around the area being added north of the previous buffer zone I 100% get the idea that we're getting rid of the buffer zone I 100% get the idea that the people who are being added to the Zone who were in The buffer zone are going to be effect effectively in the same situation they were but with more clarity that sounds awesome I love this I understand the underlying logic of trying to for the future have a clean drive on Main Street yeah I'm in the details because if you're going to do it I just want to make sure we got it right cons I think we're trying to do this exact same thing so I appreciate the question um I I feel like I need to drive down the street myself and take a look um and consult with um some of the members of you said that you had a hearings pardon a hearings yes uh we had a hearing a public hearing um a couple weeks ago and then we also had one back in 2021 when we were first you invited the homes that are being added and and do you had a good turnout we did we had a good turnout last at the one we had before just you know a week ago and then I can't remember I know we had people at the one in 2021 I just can't remember how many was during Co were were the uh 30 we had 30 people and you and you had plenty of folks who were being added to the district show up I don't know I um I mean I would imagine that they would be the most perhaps concerned right and so they all receive home like we send them all sort certified letters we have signatures of everyone you know re so did did anybody show up and were they upset thater was going away and that they were being added no I haven't heard anyone say um that they're added and they're angry about it okay okay so I just want to clarify that point because I think that's very meaningful you every single home being added was noticed that they could participate in these meetings and you were saying not a single person decided to give comments that they were um and that they that they objected to being added no I haven't okay can can I just you know um this this process is you know as we go back to let's go back to what the goal of this is right we're we're cleaning this up we're creating um uh something that's a little um maybe a little more common sense even this is not to impose a hardship on people and the intent of HPC is not to impose a hardship on people I think part of that vagueness in the language maybe to sort of give some of that leeway it's not like you're saying for these particular homes you need this exact material you know you've given guidelines you know it takes into consideration also in the future when materials um sort of Technology material evolves those original items that if you had put down specifics that may be so restricting that that homeowner can no longer find and you know that that may impose hard so this little bit of vagueness may actually be beneficial in some areas so we have guidelines and a little um um you know and a little bit of interest in just um what should I say keeping it historic but not overburdening for these I did want to make one more comment I just REM realized we did have I did want to make sure I was on the record that we did have one homeowner who was upset about this um but they were not moving from the North Main side they were already in the buffer and they were moving into the historic district and they were um upset about that and they were moving in non-conforming non-contributing non-contributing sorry no just their house was Chang designation I just want to just to clarify point but no one from North Main who was in outside the buffer and out you know the 22 houses that none of none of them have come they is they were generally on effect that they were just now colored in in the new table that their status did not change and just to clarifying what was said I think that there's two objectives of this and all of my questions have revolved around one of the two the other I consider non-controversial one of them is the cleanup effort which is removing the buffer and then just putting those people into the district as a non-conforming status the other is a decision to make a material expansion of the historic Zone I mean when you look at it there were three houses out of you know two dozen who were in it before so that's not just cleaning up little gaps that's taking something where there were exceptions but generally not a historic Zone and saying we're now making a decision to materially add to that district and most of my questions revolve around that objective which really has nothing to do with cleanup it just has to do with the decision that we think that there's a either because time is fast which was what was saided earlier or that we've made a decision that really that entire drive along Maine should be a consistent experience whatever the reason that's a different objective at least at least that's my interpretation of it I just want to add that because they've now done this in-depth survey there are at least three properties in that new area that we're not weren't in the buffer which are going to be considered contributing um so if we continued on where we made those contributing and then had the the 200 foot buff around them the way the ones to the north are than that even even more of but again I don't think anyone here I haven't heard a single person have any question about the contributing to getting rid of the buffer I think that um the idea yeah I mean I mean because that's what I keep trying to clarify I'm not in favor of the buffer I was never in favor of the buffer I'm goingon to be very clear about that 100% of my questions are not about the cleanup it's not about removal the I guess my point was not that it was it was that if you saw those colored blue let's just say as contributing because the problem is this map is not contributing versus non-contributing right I think then you would see an even more obvious like hole do do you know what I'm saying it would be see more Patchwork and that the idea of putting it all in a district would make more sense perhaps essentially you're saying there's there's more blue dots that would be filling in that Gap in between and once you put the buffer around those it really does become a clean up but even if we were to get rid of the buffer I think even then you would see more I have a hard time following that though because you said there were three and we know that there are 20 I mean and there's like 20 properties there so six still doesn't make the majority I mean it's not like this was mostly going to be in the district or hisor each one of those uh the ones that they found depending on where they are and how they're spotted 200 foot buffer around it 200 feet is about two you believe in the idea of the 200 buffer which I don't think anyone does but she's saying under the old rule with the 200 foot buffer more of these people would be pulled into but think of it as all or nothing so I didn't think of it as you have to decide that everything about what it is now makes sense or everything about this makes sense to me that you could say this makes sense I don't it's not a either or on the buffer she's saying old rules these new if they found these three new houses under a rock and said okay let's stick them in there you'd be drawing in not just three new properties you'd be drawing it perhaps 10 or 12 new properties into that buffer area that's now regulated which is why the old rules don't make sense we we think we an agreement on that yeah I I don't think anybody here is a for the buffer we're just concerned about um putting uh putting on to the people who are non-contributing in the new area that's being at I think that's our concern is that they're going to show up and they're not going to be able to uh make economically or fairly make improvements to their homes although they're determined to be non-contributing and and what what Aman said about it being vague and that being good I always think of it the other way is because we're all reasonable people and the rules aren't set up for reasonable people to do reasonable things it's when somebody who unreasonable becomes in charge and determines that it's their goal to make everything fit a certain model that so if you have a vague rule you can say well I'm allowed to do this because the rule is so vague so that's why I think we were concerned about just laying out what is the review for non-contributing versus a contributing which of SE say there's seven elements maybe one two and three apply to everybody but four five six and seven also apply to the contributing elements and I think that's I think that's the big concern here yeah the buffer seems to pull in a lot of people that shouldn't be in the process at all but that does that adjust your concern Jason I mean I mean again I I am 100% in support of removing of the buffer I'm 100% in support of converting houses that were in the buffer that are in the previous buffer as part of the historic district I'm probably supportive of adding to it because I do agree that the walk makes sense I'm a little concerned about some of these or the drive makes sense I'm a little concerned about not understanding enough I mean we had testimony earlier that the existing buffer was creating frustration for some homeowners so if the process is so friendly and so easy or perceived as so friendly regardless of the reality of it that that no homeowner would mind then there shouldn't have been any objection from the buffer before right obviously having a requirement that you didn't have before you know just having to get a permit is a hassle right people would prefer not to get a permit so if you have go through any process it's going to be perceived as an additional burden so I but again I'm strongly in support of the change of the buffer I don't know I mean I think and I have not done so I think the statement made earlier is I might need in order for me to feel comfortable to read the underlying survey on why on what they found about those can you know in North Main you know that that added some to to contributing and some to not I might be inclined to do my first extension in 14 years on this board well no we don't we don't want that either um well you have you you don't I'm just one vote no well um I'm I'm inclined to almost agree with you too um because it this didn't give me an understanding of why we added everything north of Plainsboro Road in there I had the same questions um it does make to sense to me what you said about the silver lanes that one house of the silver Lanes whether it's logical or not but that's as a reason and the other is part of the evidence track I could see you know a historian disregarding those areas because of that whole track development um it doesn't it it doesn't provide the um the whole streetscape and preserving the community as much um but I also do know that this buffer zone has been a problem for the last 20 some years that I've been part of it and I've known they I can see they've been working on it for years to get to this point and I do wonder you know what can be changed still my question is what can be changed or what becomes part of the next step of a master plan that as other properties age in and it expands I'm just throwing here here's one option is that um you could remove the buffer around the bulk of the historic district right the I mean you know what's there now but then around individual buildings that are not within the historic district you could keep the buffer that doesn't make sense that's actually what the ordinance says now but yeah I thought the Buffer's been a legal issue and hard to enforce and a whole bunch you know was enforced at some point wasn't enforced at some point it's hasn't been consistent for everyone in the buffer either that gives the sort of the sense of protection of the a historic resource is a contributing resource that what's immediately around it would be under HPC review I I don't I think that's not clean I think that just gets too we we've got to clean make it clean and understandable for everybody yeah my standard is if a neighbor who ends up in one of these houses that been added to the district runs into me after this is all done and says why did you support that change that I can defend it and I just don't have enough information on that north side I mean from a procedural point of view obviously we could just not decide not to vote one way or the other and ask for more information and do this again next time I don't know what the timeline is as as an alternative if 100% of the people were in support of removing the buffer and converting everyone who was in the buffer into it but not not making but punting on the other decision are you able to slice it that way or is it all or nothing right now should be read I I I think tonight's vote would have to be on adopting the amendment as proposed um if if the if the suggested changes were not significant that's okay but I think you're talking about more significant um comments and revisions or information that you might need but um one suggestion would be well the the survey that was done I mean that's available that's been available but I don't know if it was part of the packet that was provided to the board but that and we gave a presentation of the survey to the libr the community at the library in January so we could also get that presentation I mean I I can just say from my point of view again I think when I have fully read all that I might be in support of the whole thing including despite my objection the rest of mainstream once I understand that logic at this exact moment in time I think I've said it a million times I'm only in support of part of it because I'm not thinking I will likely be opposed I wouldn't vote no I would abstain because I don't have enough information to support because none of the testimony here has really answered the logic about some of the expansion of the district in North May I tend to agree with you I I don't know you just the number of non-contributing uh resources that have been identified in added to the district at this point just seems as though there was the desire to tie in the uh the the satellite historic properties at the north end of town and make it continuous I mean when I think of personally Plains B road down to uh to uh cranberry neck is where you see the heart of the historic district and I'm not saying that those homes aren't historic nor important to the history of cranberry on a whole but in the sense that there's just so many non-contributing properties linking them back to the the heart or core of the village you know it kind of says you know it it just in my mind I'm thinking why why are we why are we doing that and perhaps there's a fantastic reason I just don't know what it is um what can I can I can I just make one comment and I think as Liz was mentioning I think one thing that kind of deceives the mind when you're looking at this map is you almost think that all those in the historic district there that are blue you think that those are all contributing but they're actually not all contributing in blue so I just want to make sure it's clear because there's a lot of non-contributing homes and and structures in our historic district um they're still in the historic district that's why they're mapped as blue um so um which makes sense because you want a zone that has consistency exactly and so I mean what has really just happened is that in yellow you think those are all new houses that we're adding but it again this is like your brain and mapping but in reality you've got some houses that are now blue that are in between and then if you look at the rest of the historic district if you were to color everything contributing non-contributing I feel like that would almost like be the way you would see how the Richard grub and Liz and the HPC kind of got to where they are when when the district was established what were the uh what were the limits but I mean they they had to begin and end right uh with certain TR year or which properties uh when they said uh New Jersey state said yes it is a historic district what did they what were the contributing elements and how far did they reach have we expanded upon that area or have we just filled in that area in what you're uh when when you're removing this buffer and we're looking at the new we haven't changed anything the very beginning it's it sounds like you know I think there's a lot of good points here I don't think anyone's not saying no to it but but it's like we don't have enough like everyone has enough there's too many questions too much conjecture still you know I think concerns about not overburdening you know the non-conforming non-c reading um you know and you know I think time for all of us to see the report and why and understand it because we all had the same questions I think um but we also haven't heard from the public yet I think there's two people that are yeah I'm I'm going to take before I allow public comment I'm going to take a fem minute break but I do want to ask is what is the time frame for passing this is there like a hard time frame I mean is a clock stop at midnight on December 31st and we got to redo the whole thing again or can we just punt this down the the road until we get it right I think the answer is you want to punt it down so you get it right okay I think that's the answer so nothing expires has to be it's not like an ordinance where you have to do first and second reading with the same count you know governing body and if we do do that although we still to hear from the public which I'm definitely interested in doing we would I for one would like to see the full survey and the presentation and our materials before before we absolutely com the survey is several hundred Pages it's um I will will read it I'll also laser focus I'm just make a if it's made available to Us online or whatever we need to do we need to I mean a big chunk of that survey is not gonna have anything to do with where we are raising a question which is you know north of Plainsboro so focus on that the other thing I think would be helpful is to be able to address maybe what the what the standards and the regulations would actually look like which is a bit difficult when you're not looking at a draft ordinance but if you know if you if that could addressed through testimony then I think we'd have a little bit more of a concrete idea of of of what this would mean if you're non-contributing and you want to do something to your house what what do you what do you have to do yeah and I if we have more time we can do that and to to Jennifer's Point um is there a plan in which you show us which properties are considered contributing versus non-contributing because the blue and the yellow is former and new right or current and new yeah and and that you're right that is deceiving um it would if there was a map that took those properties yeah identify contributing I think I we could ask someone on HPC to make a map some sort yeah right before we move on to the public one other question we asked question I hope this isn't a long answer or topic um I assume we've determined that it's there's precedence and it's fully legal to add Farmland as opposed to a house to the historic it's it's under the definition of historic site in in your ordinance okay great thanks well I'd like to propose a five minute break please and then um we'll hear testimony from the public this is this this is very interesting but I'm gonna go yes well I live I did live in a in a historic house for 25 years 1892 my house back to 17 are you are you in the district good luck with everything okay I was hoping you'd pass it and then you could always do an amendment later yeah no but I've had to do a public meeting where everybody came out like we don't want and this is what they want which referen I knowed into the basement Bo n month pregn Andy and then they're GNA get scared in the basement well I I think that that is I mean thing that's right now that's like [Music] of but I don't think col their desire the ones that are yeah I mean I just this before it's like this this is contributing this is contributing this is contributing this is contributing it's in the bucker now but it would be at a higher standard so okay contributing but they're not currently only one of them this this one because it's in the I mean in terms of the process like do you or the the consultant you sure okay we didn't do that I mean they did I know that's what I was I did not want to get into I heard of those signant are they like are they little Bungalow type of yeah oh sorry yeah like the pry Bunch house yeah yeah yeah imagine didn't have a basement or antic I like to get started again so I'd like to open this up to the public for comment and I would like the comment period uh per person to last around 15 minutes so no more than 15 minutes please last no no no more than 15 minutes per person so if anybody would like to come up and make a comment uh Mark come on up I mean you could get down in three minutes that's fine you want to give me the Gettysburg Address that's fine too so it's nice to be here we we know who you are but I'm gonna swear you in just for for procedural reasons so not for public comment oh he's speaking are you speaking on as res okay oh we do we do okay I think so yep do you swear or firm that the testimony she'll give will be the truth I do thank you and I got your name the last yes Mark rowy resident uh at 167 North Main Street um I've lived in Cranbury for over 50 years I've been an advocate of historic preservation in cranbery for over 40 years uh I've been a member of the cranberry historical society and chair of the historic preservation committee during the creation of the original historic preservation ordinance I was part of that team that created the ordinance so hopefully a little bit before Wayne but hopefully I can give you some idea of how this thing got created um we discussed in detail limits of the historic district and buffer areas this historic district again was created in 1979 by the state and 1980 nationally it's the buildings themselves that or the historic district you see the plaques all over that's that's our historic district that is certified what comes under HPC which originally was hpac was originally the historic preservation advisory committee it didn't have the teeth that HPC has now so they would advise and that was it now HPC approves or disapproves if they disapprove it then will'll go to tup committee to review and either veto that or support it HPC is a wonderful volunteer as you members are here all volunteers they hear a lot of applications and I think they have helped control the quality of historic district so again hats off to them and I know Jennifer we've talked we're on uh uh historical side together and we can disagree as we all do uh one of the big issues that you brought up uh is the limits of historic district in buffer areas and the one that I'm concerned with not for me personally even though I live there is the three historic houses located they are really outside of the historic village District they are valuable to the to the context of cranberry's housing stock and its historical agricultural heritage no question about it but we have others that are not quite here we have a preserved house on Prospect Plains Road that the hisorical society fought very hard with the developer preserve that house we have one on U Halfacre Road I can name a few of these back to the the context of historic home and the Farmland behind it the three houses that we're talking about are historic houses they're plaed they're very important to contain conin those uh elements the house directly north of the 165 North Main house uh which is a house I lived in and restored so I know that house pretty well why that's listed I have no idea if that should be listed then the house north of that if we want to take this all the way to North Main okay now you're entering historic cranberry fine but the sign now is much further south on that road so the the context doesn't seem to work the house that you refer to which is the one north of Betty Wagner's house that definitely should be in there as much as the house a little south of it the houses across the street which buffer or or access from Silver's Lane still could have a Major Impact to 165 North Maine they could rip down the trees they have a pool in the backyard who knows what they would do in that so why that no longer is in the district it's in the buffer around that 165 North Main but now it's taken out of that so that homeowner could do all kind of crazy things in in the backyard as we go down South M we have all the houses on the east side I don't know what their relevance is to the historic house the three houses on North Main so I think this extension doesn't do what we wanted to I even though I think a lot of you are diff disagreeing with the 200 foot buffer I think what our planner suggested makes sense the district The Village itself can be contained but these three outliers still could have the 200 foot buffer around it and still accomplish saving those houses from any kind of negative changes as we go down in the future the other site I forgot about is the one directly south of uh the 165 I'm north of 165 in a flag lot my house is set way back how that's on here again I'm not worried about it because I like the idea of the preservation for sure but why that's on it when you can't see anything does it make sense the flag lot south of it you can see but because it's only a 50 foot wide strip that's not in it so right now it's not contiguous we have that little 50 foot break so I think there are a lot of things that uh I don't quite understand why we're doing it and I would suggest which was I I I gu agree with this suggestion return this back to HPC to refine to answer questions that we all can be convinced it's the right thing or maybe they'll modify it because after the meeting they did have committee comments uh on some of the things that were brought up but it was kicked off to this board so I think turning it back to the board with these questions maybe we can get it all resolved and everybody will be comfortable so we have full 100% not 95% but 100% support of this we're all looking to preserve what we have here and preservation is more than the buildings as we all know work very hard to preserve our agricultural land which one key key element if we could preserve that the farm the view from North main that would be great but we lost a big view shed on Park placed West where the library is now you don't see Farmland anymore we built the baseball field and then adjacent Property Owners puts up trees we have this wonderful uscape and it's gone potentially the same thing could happen there but we can't control that unfortunately but at least we can control our historic buildings in town so any questions if not I'd be happy to answer if not thank you for your time yeah I guess I have a question back to Li you talked about I'm going to really open up a can of worms for myself here well no but I'm addressing what Mark said about the individual houses on North Main Street where there is a buffer in those houses had a buffer around them um my house is historically plaed it dates back to the late 1700s although the plaque says 1850 it's older than that and there's nothing there's nothing around my house there's no I'm not in any zone I'm not in anything so um but the same thing can apply to me if there's a buffer around my or if you do that kind of thing and don't include everybody else I don't know um these are just I'm just spitballing here these These are good points you brought up so I don't know um but I do agree that there there's got to be a little more of an understanding of why we how we got to this and if we have an opportunity to clean it up or or you know oursel to clean it up or make recommendations on this because I know when we did the master plan it was exhaustive it took years and it wasn't an easy process everybody agonized over you know preserving the farmland and how we could do that and then creating development within the Farmland that was applicable you know we did the the lot averaging you know based on the size of the property and then um you know a lot of other things so I know there was an exhaustive process to to get to where we're at now um but we'll take your comments into consideration thank you okay thank you yes come on up please hi I'm going to swear you in sure do you swear or affirm that the testimony you she'll give will be the truth I don't have a Bible but yes thank you and um can you tell us your name Chris rusik 18 Prospect Street okay how do you spell your last name r u z i thank you so I just just a a couple points of of of clarity I was at the HPC meeting last week on I think it was October 1st and at the end of the meet so there was a number of neighbors there was more people at the meeting last week and my impression was a number of people uh objected and um at the end of the meeting I thought what was happening was the HPC was Voting as to whether or not they were going to recommend to this planning board to adopt these amendments to the historic district and I believe what happened at the end of the meeting was the HPC after hearing from the public decided not to vote to recommend and after I heard Miss sum got the impression and maybe the got the impression that the HPC did vote to recommend and was recommending so I don't know if that's something that needs to be clarified I I'm not exactly sure what the procedure is but that's that's what I believe happened at the at the HPC meeting last week and then and there were there there were a number of people so um just a little bit of context of why I'm here so 18 Prospect Street is one of those um yellowish shaded homes uh at the corner corner of uh it's at the corner of Prospect and Plainsboro Road my neighbor to the left I think is 16 Prospect and then my neighbor in my backyard is on Plainsboro Road I believe that house is relatively new maybe only like seven years old um is that is the house behind so I think those three homes uh I'm not sure about 16 Prospect but I know my home and the home adjacent to the backyard are non-contributing and I heard a lot people say non-conforming it makes me nervous hearing non-conforming because because that it's almost it's almost like predicting the future right like are we going to get end up in this district and suddenly we'll be non-conforming one day um so one of the reasons why I'm here is my co-owner Francine who couldn't be here tonight when we first moved in the prior residents of 16 Prospect Street um talked to Francine about the historic Commission and their home was not obviously because it's being proposed to be designated now is not is not part of wasn't wasn't historic it's old it's a lot older than my home um but it was in you know it's in the buffer right like like my home is now and they told Francine this kind of like horror story there like their advice was like stay away as far away as you can from the historic commission if you're going to do anything with the house like try to do it without getting the historic commission involved and this was my first like EXP experience or impression and the story that they told was that they have this blue paint on the exterior of their house right and it's like old and Faded it's not the original paint of the house right it was like painted sometime like 10 20 30 years ago and it's this old faded blue paint and they decided that they wanted to paint their detached garage which is deep in the backyard and it's almost it's almost like not visible from the street so they were going to paint it like some fresh color but it wasn't going to match the house and what they said was they spent a lot of time at the historic commission which insisted that the paint on the detached garage should match the blue paint on the house even in its faded State you know today so it wouldn't be the original paint so then it was a struggle to like find a paint match that would satisfy the commission and my response to that was like is it non-historic to have a detached garage a contrasting color right is that something from the colonial days where like the dechat garage or Carriage House whatever it may have been at the time was always the exact same color I'm just going to interrupt you one second on that I thought we don't have anything with paint that we can't do anything with paint so we can't tell people what to paint their house so that but that so what you're saying is anecdotal or is it fact is it documented somewhere that this happened that Francine was told this by the ne was it well you could ask she told me that she could she could be fabricating that but the neighbor could be fabricating too yeah so this would have been this would have been maybe 30 years ago oh so so but that but that's just one I'm just brought bringing up that one particular story because that was my first impression of the of the historic commission right so I just want to say this is how I first learned about the historic commission from the neighbor and but since then I've also heard some other stories from people that live in and around Prospect Street Bunker Hill Main Street and unfortunately I hate to say it they were negative stories they weren't positive stories and I won't go into detail about the other things um so that was so this is this is one of the reasons why I'm here because like because of that impression and seeing now that my house is moving into this different position right formerly in the in the buffer now it's being proposed that it's actually becomes part of the historic district I'm concerned right so that's that's like some context why I'm here over the I just got a chance to prepare for this like maybe in the last two weeks I found out about the meeting at the historic commission um maybe like a week before and I asked like why is my house being proposed right because I looked at I actually looked at Chapter 93 I read it and there's an enumerated list of reasons why you would consider a property historic the primary thing is that is there being a historic dwelling right on the property there's other reasons too like something historic happened on on the property that's another reason but I couldn't find anything that would apply to my house which is like a split level home built in the 1960s right it's not historic right and maybe one day 100 years from now it maybe considered historic I don't know uh but right now it isn't so I asked like hey can I I emailed I think I emailed Robin like hey can can somebody tell me like why how did I end up here and I was told that I would need to submit an Oprah request to try to get minutes or something that would show like why I was here eventually I think it was like late in the week or maybe the Monday before the meeting I got the 371 page thing right but I had to make a couple requests I got it and you know I'm working like I I work but like I I try to go through it the best I can and I looked at it as closely as I could I looked at all 371 pages and I'll tell you that I didn't find what I was expecting to find what I was expecting to find was like a detailed rationale as to why we are changing the um changing the district to include these non-contributing homes I think there is you know a rational it's it it maybe isn't like crystal clear but I think there is a rationale in there why you'd want to abandon the buffer zone right that seems sensible but I didn't see a good explanation of like why would you want to then retain some of these non-contributing homes that weren't previously part of the district and like the primary reason is like to to create this like contiguous state right within it and and even though it's not clearly spelled out and even if if those three homes were my home is if they were taken out it would still be contiguous right taking them out wouldn't break the the the I don't know what's the right word continuity or contiguity um so it wouldn't break it it wouldn't break it right so I'm I'm trying to figure it out so the only the only thing I can figure out and this is really an assumption it's not spelled out in the 371 page report is that the idea is to maintain like this like streetcape right which is not explicitly stated in the report but it was discussed at the at the um HPC meeting last week and my concern about the streetscape is it's really difficult to understand like what the streetcape should be so for example like where my house is on the corner you have a split level home built in the 1960s directly across the street on the corner there's a beautiful home and to me I would describe that as a Victorian home right and then as you go down Prospect Street there's a number of old very plain Colonials so like back in 1915 I'm I'm assuming that somebody probably said hey what are we doing with this victoriia and it doesn't fit in right like this and we today consider it historic right we think it's beautiful but it doesn't match the rest of the street right so you don't want anything sticking out somebody may have had a conversation you know similar to the conversations that HBC had a 100 years ago about why is that guy building a Victorian house on the corner so you got a Victorian you got a plain Colonial next to me behind me is a house that's maybe seven years old and it's it's a it's a large modern house it's not a mcmansion because it's in a very narrow lot but it's as big as you could build in that narrow lot right so nothing matches then across the street are other split level homes that look like they're of a slightly different error than mine um and different shape different look to them so there's no one streetcape in that area so it's hard to understand like what you'd be trying to maintain and I think if you look at what the HPC does is it's basically left to like the subjectivity of the HPC and the HPC today could be great um and the way it's written now it's if it has some type of visual impact right um I think that's the way it's written now then it falls within the hpc's you know um it falls within the hpc's realm to decide whether or not like this is something that they would endorse that they object to um whatever it may be so right now I don't even understand how to maintain the streetcape and I think the 371 page document doesn't describe that and there may be a way to get like a historian to take a jumble of houses like you have there right which doesn't look bad I don't think it looks bad the street even though none of the houses really match or or of the same era but maybe you could get a historian to say like hey this is what we think would be a beneficial streetcape right and share that with the community to try to like maintain something but right now it looks like what would happen and what will happen with my house and my neighbors that are being added and even the homes on North Main Street is you want to plant a maple tree right 10 years from now you want to plant a maple tree and the HPC is like you got 10 minutes in an application like is that part of the streetcape that we're looking for or you want to paint your shutters particular color right I know you said that that they don't consider paint but I have the story from the neighbor from 20 30 years ago and there's nothing stopping the HPC from there it whatever your neighbor said that was happened 30 years ago was you know we don't we don't you there's no requirement for pay with all due respect Mr anytime you make a change to your home right like and if it impacts the streetscape let's say you plant a bush let's say you want to change your front door that's all anecdotal right like like every this is not like all those little things add up to the street skate all right I'm gonna give you about another few minutes and then we're going to wrap you this up okay so so so this and this is this is a goes a little bit to my point right it's like if you want to do something to your home home once it gets restricted you got three minutes you got 10 minutes right and it's like you may have thought a lot about it your neighbors may have thought a lot about it but you sometimes end up in a situation where you're making a f minute pitch you're making a 10-minute pitch and it could be something meaningful for your family it could be something meaningful for the street in the future but now you're under this under these circumstances and I just want you to know I don't object to maintaining historic homes I don't object to removing the buffer zone but I do object and I think that I think the planning board should think about it and ultimately the the the township committee should think about whether or not it's beneficial to include non-contributing homes in this in this um in the historic district I don't see from what I was told last week that the HPC can put no restrictions on what you do with your home they can just make suggestions if it's a non-contributing home if that's the case then you're just putting a burden on the homeowner but there is no guaranteed outcome to maintain the street skate what I would suggest is a better way going forward is to take some of the resources like like for example that that report the 371 page report it looks like someone put a lot of work into it like someone went out to my home there's actually some mistakes in the description but like someone went out to the home photographed all this it's great but there's a lot of effort put into like documenting these non-contributing homes it might be better to have someone put together a some like guiding some like some guidance and maybe some ideas about what it means to maintain the streetcape in the historic area of cranberry and cranbery in general right so like if there's suggestions on how you can contribute to maintaining that and you provide it to homeowners and let homeowners use that guidance to kind of help you know help make decisions about they want to do with their home I think that that would be very meaningful but doing a process where like right if you want to like um change your sidewalk uh like if you want to repair your driveway and you want to change it from brick to Asphalt or vice versa whatever it may be and go through each of those little the minutia of those little changes to your home that's non-contributive right it's not a historic home I think is is overly burdensome on the homeowner of the contributing home and I don't think it really will help contribute to maintaining a streetcape because it's just going to be left to the subjectivity of the people that are on the HPC at that particular moment we don't know what the HPC is going to look like in 20 years all right thank you for your comment turn yeah anybody else would like to speak from no there is nobody else here from the public so hearing the hearing no other comments from the public I'm going to close the public portion of the meeting on this subject and what I gathered here from the public comment and from various board members is that it's not that we're going to not do something something in the future with this number one I think what we would like to do and agree with Jason and um others is that I would like to read this report myself and try to you know look how we can maybe streamline some of these things or or get some idea of what the process would be on people that have to do something in the you know versus conforming versus not conforming and and and try to make this you know rational decision I would like to say over the next couple months or or would be nice if we could do it by the next meeting and then kick it over to the township committee I don't think they'll get it done by the end of the year so by ordinance chapter 93 I have to notice the paper 30 days prior to an amendment for the historic preservation element so it wouldn't be able to go until December earliest all right can I just suggest a couple other things while we're asking for our wish list here um I Heard earlier that there were minutes to the meetings where the SN stuff was discussed so it might be nice to include that in the packet um I don't know if that'll have the level of detail or not um and then I think just to add color to what you said we've mentioned what is the exact process and requirement for um contributing versus non-contributing um Liz stated on the record and again pre- actual ordinance which she acknowledge that the expectation was that the process for non-contributing was going to be effectively comparable to the current process for in the buffer um which would have a big impact on one of the speakers so I would just like to be able to compare that so if there is a process for a current buffer home I would just like you know it' be great to be able to vet that what we're imposing upon now in the district non-conforming is comparable to what they should have already been having to do as a process correct um who's going to be Point person for us here is that you Liz so who's who's going to run point on this we got to have somebody that's that's guiding us through this thing or or running Point here to get us this stuff is that with I could send the surveys I could point you to that direction I could send the survey presentation um I can't do the non-contributing contributing map is that something that you wanted I maybe you can do that I I can do that based on what's in in the document meaning you know what what has been recommended is being contributing and I'm contributing I can do that and that can maybe provide some insight but I think in terms of um a future ordinance as to what would be you know what what would be good um parameters even if it's just for the buffer area you know supposing this doesn't go through and the buffer area remains that we could um I can show you what the standards are with buffer area now and we could show what potentially recommended standards could be but there should already be standards for nonconform not I see my I said conforming non-contributing now they're not that's the that's the point there are buffer area standards that's what I meant so wait but there should be non contributing there are not and that that's one of the that was one of the recommendations yeah so there are non-contributing houses but there's no standard at at the moment the ordinance doesn't Define contributing it doesn't Define non-contributing and it doesn't differentiate the standards between non-contributing and contributing within the district it has historic standards and then it has buffer area standards so that would be a process evolving is to to Really sort of uh differentiate that and you also have to be careful there because there's non-contributing houses within the central historic district so if you start taking those out you're opening another can wors too so it really does need a lot of thought I'm not opposed to having everything in one and trying to get to this or something like this where we eliminate the buffer but create more of a Hardline scenario would it be appropriate or inappropriate I honestly don't know the answer it's a legit question um at the future hearing on this to invite Mr grub to speak I don't see that is that a problem no or I the company yeah I don't I don't think uh I don't think uh Richard's doing a lot okay well I heard his I heard him mention by name before so yeah okay whoever whoever is appropriate because there was a lot of questions about why did you do this that we didn't really have answers to we can read all the documents but we may end up with questions again and I'd like the next meeting to be the last meeting if possible yeah I mean we also have to be careful we've we have an HPC that has a defined purpose and a goal and we set we you know they were pursuing this for three years so I think we have to be careful to give them some latitude to they contracted with an expert they've come up with some guidance if we have some questions about that I think we should ask that but I think pulling their expert into this meeting when they've already done that as a committee I just I just think it's I understand we're being asked to personally vote on that we agree with all these things but when we asked the people who were available here they couldn't speak to the details about why that was agreed to or not I think we should get it clear criteria and I think that's helpful but I think for us to sit here and look at properties one by one or or discuss I I think we do need some clarity as to what the historic district was historically versus bringing it all the way to the north end of town um even uh after Mr Bowski spoke he he mentioned that that those Northern properties were uh beyond the district and that was one of the questions that I asked is where where were the limits historically so to get back to both your comments having yeah I could read a report but then what's what was the logic to the thought process of the person that stated those facts and if and if it makes sense to have somebody from Richard's um organization otherwise it's a little weird like every other every this is different obviously because it's a Township process but every other process that usually involves changes to master plan or anything that the township committees on we have the planner who did it who suggested it we're able to directly ask questions here when I'm here you know it doesn't make sense to me to say just trust that there's another committee and you're blindly voting for what they decided to do without anyone whether it's from the committee or the people who advise the committee being able to answer a question so that you can be satisfied that you're not voting for something without being able to explain why you agreed or disagreed correct in the past too this was back in the day when we worked on some of these things we actually had joint meetings with the township committee and the planning board where both bodies were together and then meeting with the planner to discuss you know why we were going to do something or not with respect to the master plan so it it's not like you you um everybody's in a vacuum here you know what I mean yeah and I've heard out and clear and completely agree with the idea it's not our job to start rewriting something right you know it's going to come back to us either the same or different and we're saying yes or no in terms of our agreement with it but you know if we're saying yes we need to be able to stand behind why we're saying yes no can I just um uh you know we're talking about reading this document and it's really long and we may have questions and we want to ask the person this kind of nods a little bit to what the last speaker alluded to is there any way of just asking someone from that side who already has been marinating in this document to provide those little points about every house that's you not every but the the the the 11 in particular that are being included in this just a little bit of something you are included because these are the specific criteria that that make you contributing yeah to to that point the the phase three report that's mentioned in here does that exactly there's a fact sheet each property uh within that report that uh says why they're contributing or non-contributing so that that was what the last speaker was requesting it's in a report so it's there we just need I say just put the mic on please so I put down um two follow-ups for HBC um one is to um the question about the other side of Station Road why um if we're maintaining the streetscape why those homes are not included in the district I also have um the homes on North Maine closer to the brook um how we decided on similar situation one side of the street versus the other as well as um the home I I'm pretty sure it's not included because the home is so so so far set back you can't see it from the street um but I'll double check that um and then the um white space that's next to that one home that's blue that's historic why that home is not um a non-contributing part of the district because to Mr Stewart's question someone could be two doors down and ask why they're not part of the district because their house is similar so those are the the things I was going to take back to HPC if that's what you guys are looking for do you guys have any other question I think I mean that covered most that covered most of mine I mean I think more broadly it would be nice to have a little bit of a statement about what the UN you know to to I think one of the last you know public comments but I had the same question about there was an overall decision here that you're expanding the district you know whereas before the idea was north of Maine there's a handful of homes that Merit special protection and that has something to do with the idea that hey now from the moment you leave 130 you want people or something like that I'm not going to tell you what it is you know but there's some underlying logic like oh we want the experience to be consistent from blank as opposed to where the sign you know is now and I would just like to hear a sum how it came about I can't it's funny I can't remember how it came about I I I believe it probably came about when we were doing the research but I that I will that's what I'll try to you know ask the other members the APC why don't you car carried if why isn't it carried from North mate from Route 130 to Route 130 all the way decision somewhere yeah why we stop at Old Trenton Road and not go south of old how we decided on the boundaries um and then um the other thing I wrote down was the period of significance were you guys interested in that as well okay boundaries period of okay perfect so I'll take those back to HPC thank you um so I guess Robin and Liz will I don't know if you're going to both be running point on this all right and if there's people that have questions in the meantime refer them over to Robin and Robin can get them to Liz on the board yeah and um and then we'll try to reconvene and put this as an agenda it me for me I won't be here in December um it'll be a December agenda item um does the board want to have somebody who can speak to the survey I would I would prefer that I think it would be helpful to understand the nuances of why things were done I mean it's one thing again to read it in the report but then to you know be able to qu to question the logic of why this was done and have that person who wrote that down speak to it I think would be helpful if we can arrange that and I don't think that's out of the ordinary because when people when again back in the day when we were doing master plan reevaluation we always we had experts all over the place come in and testify about why we could do something and why we couldn't do something or why we should do something so want to end by saying I want to thank the committee for or you know commission for its service too I said they do amazing work and none of my questions are about challenging you know that and or not appreciating what they do no and I think that's what I tried to reference in the beginning there's been a lot of there's been a a lot of history and a lot of people that have been involved in the Reay to keep our to make our town historic district and maintain that historic district and it's important to the to the town that we continue to do that into the future so whatever we do here it it goes well into the future it's just not a one-off there you know we're just doing this today because we got no nothing better to do but it's immens us and well in the future and and that's that's important to our to the community as a whole so if we need a little more time to digest this and just feel comfortable why we're approving something or not approving something then we have that so but I think we won't I won't do anything to this amendment until after we've spoken next yes yes right okay all right I'm going to close that part of the meeting out is there any other questions from the board or anything that anybody any discussion items from the board anybody shaking their head okay uh may I have a motion to adjourn move second second yeah yeah we can't leave until you second and so okay meeting closed yeah we're nobody's disagree that to go home no you're not I don't want to say that's unfortunate