##VIDEO ID:e9xyrUkWNeU## we're live we're live excellent I'd like to call the meeting to order uh meeting of November 25th 2024 please rise for the allegiance if you're able to to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all here we go then we'll move on to the open public meeting statement pursuing to this open public meetings act notice so this meeting was sent to Cranberry press Trenton Times and home News Tribune on January 5th 2024 posted on the Township's website and sent to those who requested a copy of this notice we'll move on to roll call Mr fronte here Mrs kir Miss excuse Dr Rogers here Mr Scott is excused and mayor bway here thank you thank you do we have any um additions to our agenda today yes we're going to be adding to the consent agenda item F which is resolution 11-4-1 providing the insertion of a special item of Revenue and Municipal budget community and energy plan Grant thank you we'll we'll uh discuss that when we get to the perfect um anybody like to uh make a motion to accept the township uh committee minutes from November so moved second thank you we're gonna move on to roll call Mr fronte yes and Mrs can is excused Dr Rogers uh yeah Mr Scott is excused and mayor byway yes thank you thank you very much so we are up to our communication reports and we do have two uh members that are absent I have a report from Lisa that I will read but would any of you like to start go ahead read I yeah yeah should I read it okay all right so um Lisa prepared these and I'll read them as is so for the zoning board November 6 um nothing to report back the next zoning meeting is on December 4th so that's was her report uh HPC the meeting held on November 19th uh lasted for two and a half hours and the bulk meeting was focused on hpc's follow-up from the planning board meeting on the historic district buffer zone changes they've come up with a comprehensive document to answer many of the questions for both residents and the planning board and she made the suggestion of adding an executive summary and um moving details to an appendix to streamline answers back to the planning board and she suggested to modify and add clarifying language in the existing enforcement code and other towns were cited as Best in Class to use as a model the next meeting is December 17th chps she attended two wasel planning meetings for this for chps and she is reminding everybody that the event is sold out but they are looking for volunteers for the evening and I don't have the date of that December that's Saturday 16 14 is it the 14th I don't want yeah 14th so December 14th okay they're looking for volunteers so those that will be interested please reach out to uh chps and that is it from Lisa thank you Lisa either of you happy to go next um I attended the parks um and wreck and Library board meeting at the library board meeting they're continuing working on the solar project um they're working on um working with Aon on sort of the solar um the project to get solar panels attached to the library um nothing too much else to report at the library um parks and wreck um it was a shortish meeting because um there's a lot of people were at the um the uh Municipal uh League meeting so our res our recreational director there but there was a lot of brainstorming on 2025 activities including discussing an offleash space in Cranberry Brook preserve as well as a statue for Helen Cody in Heritage Park um and then I reported once again in the township decision on chess tables and the only other thing I had have moving forward is a planning board December 5th um and at that meeting the HPC um there was going to be a vote on the HPC Amendment they've since changed the wording on that so that will not be a vote at that day so it'll just be an update for the planning board so that would kick towards 2025 for that Amendment for the master plan I have nothing else to report thank you any questions for Michael all right Barb uh I attended the environmental commission um meeting November 18th um they are um actively going through the preserves to identify areas that need updating or and they actually had a trail maintenance day and a group of Scouts from Troop 2024 helped um in a couple of the Trails um a uh Community wildlife habitat certification um Dela has signs that she would like to put in The Preserves to um to indicate that they are habitat certified and she will provide a list to DPW and DPW will attach them where they see fit um in the locations um then uh the Girl Scouts um Kelly and Jane uh they came and they provided um the information for their monik way station in cranber Brook preserve there's a kiosk there that had a lot of information about um the grasslands that are in that area that were planted gosh 10 15 years ago um so they're going to update it with additional information about the Monarch um it's it's now a monarch Way Station they put in native plants for monarchs to hang out um and then um we also received a 10,000 GL uh dollar Grant um from the Board of Public Utilities um through sustainabil sustainable Jersey to create a community energy plan um and uh we're going to have a kickoff meeting um uh to to find out more about what it is you know how it's going to go go go forward um basically the the grant is um to help identify ways um a Township can reduce greenhouse gases and sustain and um you know have a better Energy Future um and we're going to strategize way to reduce emissions um energy resiliency renewable energy such as you know improve our zoning and look look at our zoning and regulations for Ev infrastructure um solar on private as well as Community solar we're already doing the community solar um and Energy Efficiency Etc so um um looking forward to being able to put something together at for the at the municipal level so that we can all both the municipality and private citizens can now now look at their Energy Efficiency so um and uh also looking into another Grant um it's uh climate resiliency um there is now in the master plan um when we update it um there's an element about um climate resiliency and this grant would um would kind of get us ahead of the Cur possibly um to see what we can do as you know identify our assets that are vulnerable um to climate um change and find ways that we can move forward on that the other thing we went to um am man and I went to um the municipal league and S of this whole crew here um um and uh it was really great it's it's it's a it's it really helps get you excited about what towns are doing in um in in New Jersey and um and gets ideas of what we can do as a town too but um the one talk that I did go to was about Farmland preservation and um since I'm on the middle sex County um a development board um it was uh great to hear the update of they are now doing a new way of compensating Farmers that are the formula to compensate Farmers that are considering going into the Farmland preservation um uh uh plan uh program so that was um really uh really interesting so um anyway that's it any questions congratulations on the grant that we're going to approve tonight yeah that's through the Environmental Green environmental great it is it'll be great thank you excellent uh no questions for Barbara I will give my report I wanted to start out by wishing everybody Happy Thanksgiving and I have a little tidbit here according to the US Department of Agriculture approximately 46 million turkeys are eaten each Thanksgiving 46 million turkeys would be enough to feed the entire populations of countries like Spain Argentina or South Korea with over 300 million people living in the United States 46 million turkeys works out to be about one turkey eaten for every six or seven people celebrating Thanksgiving so happy feast everybody like Barbara and Denise and Debbie I attended the league of municipalities meeting last uh last week and still catching up on so many things as as a of that um I did not make it to the municipal Alliance meeting but I did go through their uh their their YouTube video I wanted to share with you all that at when we were at the municipal the league of municipalities meeting I attended uh one of the events where um it's it's the we won a grant for $10,000 I ended up writing this grant in about a day and a half and uh didn't know whether it would make it or not but but we were one of 11 towns selected for this Grant and they said it was a very nice program that we were doing so it was for the Teen Mental Health program that they do out of PHS for the 10th graders so kudos to Joanne charwin and her vision for this uh program and I'm really happy that we could fund it this way at the municipal Alliance meeting they discussed their school jam fest they discussed speakers for the uh for the next year and they voted to cancel their December meeting uh because that meeting was not listed as optional they will be paying a small nominal fee to notice that um let's in terms of meetings I did want to just uh lift up the library initiative that we heard about last meeting the one book one reader where they'll be gathering in front of town hall for read aloud and details of that I'll put in my mayor's update but certainly go to the library website for that they've got a li a lovely list of readers so I'm excited to that would be the same night as the cranberry luminaries and the fire department will be doing the gifts from Santa as they do every year the fire department will deliver one gift of reasonable size per child during the weekend of December 21st and 22nd typically in town you hear a lot of sirens and you expect something disastrous but it's not it is a wonderful welcome visit from Santa and his fire buddies um drop off the gifts at the firehouse on Monday the 2nd 9th or 16th between the hours of 7 and 9 and this is open to Cranberry resid residents only um I will put the email in my update so people can connect uh if they want to take advantage of that and the fire department is also hosting an information session tomorrow at the cranberry library with regards to their um initiative or their information surrounding a fire district that is all I have my friends any questions for me it always takes me about two hours to remember that the sirens are for the gift Distributing not some massive fire somewhere completely and if you're a new resident in town um I I work with some of the less fortunate residents and they've never heard anything like this so they call me with alarm like what's happening should we run all good all good yeah all right so we have no subcommittees we have no department heads um any follow-up items um I just want to ask Miss Marabella do we know when the paving project is going to happening like of the roads I know they've done the curb work like on did we do you think we lost our window for the year or no okay okay okay okay cool thank you it's probably already scheduled it just hasn't come up yet something else maybe a good meal of turkey will bring them back 16 million 46 million turkeys okay we have in terms of vacancies uh we have a vacancy on the environmental commission member expiring 12 3124 that is it uh the other resignation does not kick in until later yes it's not effective yet yes and moving right along we have two ordinances for up for first reading one one is first one is second okay one ordinance up for first reading okay we'll begin with um the first reading ordinance of Cranberry Township ordinance number 11-4-1 15 an ordinance of the township of Cranbury amending sewer rates and equivalent domestic consumption unit with the second reading to be on December 9th 2024 I'd like to move to introduce that second thank you move on to roll call for that ordinance Mr fante yes Mrs kiram is excused Dr Rogers yes Mr Scott is excused and mayor bway yes thank you um we'll move on to the second reading um this is for Cranberry Township ordinance number 10-24 D14 an ordinance of the township of cranberry memorializing its acceptance of the dedication of Cedar book drive Clark Drive Conover drive and Duncan Drive as public roadways this is for second reading so we need to make a motion we need to we need to have a hearing right we need to open this for a discussion right up here does anybody I have all right would any members of the public like to discuss this second reading of this particular ordinance 10-4-14 seeing none I will close a public portion members of the TC any discussion on this particular none I'd like to move the approval of ordinance 10-4-14 second thank you we'll move on to roll call Mr fronte yes Mrs kiram's excuse Dr Rogers yes Mr Sky excused and mayor bway yes thank you thank you we're keeping you busy tonight Debbie apologies but we are up to our resolutions we have consent resolutions ABC a a through F because we added one I'm happy to move um a through e plus the added resolution F second thank you we'll move on to Roo Mr fronte yes Mrs kiram's excused Dr Rogers yes Mr Scot's excused and mayor bedway yes thank you thank you that was a lot of work in a very short amount of time we are currently up to our public comment and we do have members of the public here this evening we would like to invite you at this point to share your thoughts your words um I will remind you that there is a three minute limit um and we are here to listen please U just put your name and your address down on the paper as you come up and if you push the button until you see the red light then you will be uh recorded on the YouTube thank you welcome welcome start I didn't start come on bar it's not my first R not her first R thank you hi Lisa R 18 Adams Drive um I'm here today representing the cranberry Housing Association or cha I know Mark gave a presentation about cha at the last meeting and or excuse me already and at the last meeting read you a letter that cha is ready to help in any way meeting the round four affordable housing requirements or feedback that there were some doubts amongst you that c cha is not the organization that you want and we want to put an end to those deps um cha has built and maintains 128 affordable housing units here in Cranberry by comparison the ingr property the last one the Willows and Birchwood uh which cha did not do has only 90 units cha can handle large builds and can obviously maintain those builds without complaints coming to the TC for this next round we are interested in a joint venture with a partner of our choosing in order to receive the federal government tax credit program which could save cranberry up to 70% of the cost our to our attorney is doing due diligence and preparing a short list of potential partners for us our cha board members are cranberry residents we do not want to see our town changing in the negative uh Cha's previous builds have seamlessly blended into our community they have been smaller builds to match the landscape of our area and also not to add too many students to our schools at one time as I mentioned before though we can do larger bills if that's what uh the township wants finally cha is a nonprofit organization if a municipality uses a nonprofit for their builds they receive a credit and I'm sure we are all in agreement that the 265 number for Affordable housing um is High um so cha would want to maximize the number of credits possible and that can only be done if a nonprofit is used um so we know that you need to do a response here in January and so we're just asking that c be brought to the table um so if you do you know start a subcommittee or anything please include us thank you thank you more members of the public welcome welcome hi I'm Man Gordon I live at 127 North Main Street and uh I am a been on board member of CHA for many years at last month's Township meeting Mark Browski um president of CHA gave a presentation and giving you an idea giving you background about Cha's experience and capabilities and planning and developing affordable housing in Cranberry cha is you know is a volunteer organization we're made up of cranberry residents who care passionately about affordable housing and the importance it has in the development of the community and for residents we have an important and valuable role to play in the future of affordable housing can be developed in historic cranberry in our opinion it would be in the town's best interest to take cha up on the offer to share possible solutions to what can seem to be an overwhelming task I believe strongly that when the people of cranbery work together by sharing their concerns and ideas in a fair and fair and successful Solutions can be found um please include us in the conversation thank you thank you an any more members for public comment this evening all right seeing none I will close public comment portion of our evening um I appreciate very much the interest in um not only the process of affordable housing but uh cha sort of putting themselves out to offer themselves as a solution for the affordable housing and we are um in meeting every deadline we are still very much ahead of divvying out what that's going to look like we have not honed in on a property yet we don't know what these project sizes are going to look like yet it's very wonderful to know that we have cha as an option um I do know that both of you did reach out to me uh last week and today I've been on two conferences uh and I've had about four meetings today so you would have been on my list for later on this week to contact I appreciate that there is an interest to extend the you know the hand of help for these projects and I just think that it's a little premature right now because we're still working on um honing in on properties and that's going to take its time and it's going to um you know we're going to cross this year we're going to go into next year you may have new leadership you may have new TC members so this is a discussion and a conversation that needs to continue to be ongoing and I I think that we continue as a TC to uh to keep the options open so thank you again once again for your interest and um anything else from this TC anybody else like to add anything I'm sorry yeah public comment is over right now but thank you so much and uh I hope everybody has a fabulous Thanksgiving I would like to U entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor I I thank you I I forgot to add I mean we