##VIDEO ID:FbhLjU0x1t4## great this is a regular meeting with The Fair Haven Zoning Board of adjustment adequate notice of this meeting has been given pursuing to the provisions of the open public meetings act at the time of the board reorganization in January of last year the board adopted its regular meeting schedule for the year notice that schedule was sent to and published in the Asbury Park Press on January 26 2023 and the two River times on January 20th 2023 that notice is also posted on the bulletin board in burough Hall and has remained continuously posted there as required by the statute copy of the notice is and has been available to the public and is on file the office of broker copy of the notice is also been sent to such members of the public as I requested such information in accordance with the statute adequate notice having been given the board secretary is directed to include this statement and AD minute to the meeting roll call M here dangel here Mr Ryan here here Dr Walker here Mr canella Mr shetti Mrs Newman here Mr here please me S reply uned States stand right Doug We Gots of office ask the individual be taking the o to please stand raise your right hand repeat after me State your your people state your name were appropriate I Jackie Peter Martin Ryan you sol me swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States s that I will support the Constitution of the United States states and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and the governments established in the United States and in this state in this St under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of the Zoning Board of adjustment member all the duties of the Zoning Board of adjustment member according to the best of my ability best of my abity mayir or say still help help okay thank you I ask you sign above your name and then hand that to me and I will conform those welcome aboard usually whisper this we only y up once sh how many copies of the draft annual report do we have just the ones that just the ones that are in our package yes hey everybody so just a heads up you ladies walked in late we're going to do our reord first then we're going to do our admit items quickly then we're going to move on to our annual report and the discussion about draft that's been circulated then we're going to move on to a quick overview with regard to boards and the master plan and then we're going to have a discussion about the master plan more broad uh that being said we need some nominations for chair Vice chair secretary Etc thank um I will if there is no objection nominate Mr leader for one more term as chair second that four more years so so so Peter so Peter said one more year because we've talked about this and um I have specifically said to him that I have to uh do some sort of an exit that isn't Irish and so um I am okay with um everybody's interest in having me chair the board this year but I want to put it on the record that this is the last year um I want to work towards transitioning um the um leadership of this board um to uh some or all of you and um I would be pleased to sit in the seat for another year but I want you all to hold me to what I'm saying uh it's time we don't haveit you before yeah I could be in I could be in pit it's actually what the back half of this meeting's about tonight right second we have second yeah I think uh Mr yes mangel yes Mr Ryan yes yes drer yes yes no thank you Mr chairman thank you Mr chairman than all you um with regard to Vice chair I would uh be proud to nominate Mr nesne as Vice chair um Peter has been excellent in that seat and I see him as uh part of the future leadership of the board I think he does an excellent job and uh he has my full support second second yes Mr yes Mr yes yes yes yes congratul I think thank you thank you for your support everyone appreciate for secretary who might we I'll just make a motion to uh appoint the board secretary Bo Sheila ol has the board secretary I'll second it with a comment Sheila that I know that it's been a a steep learning curve but you've been doing a really good job we're very very lucky to have you and thankful um that you've elected to work with us and to help the community the way you have thank you thank you thanks sh yes yes Mr yes yes yes yes yes uh poor professionals uh everybody will remember that there's really two ways to go about this we either do the fair and open process or the non-fair and open process as odd as those labels are uh this year we did not go out to bid we did not interview different people we did do that last year um we followed suit with Council we did not do Faron open this year and accordingly uh I'm going to make the recommendation that we reappoint our existing board attorney. fat that we reappoint our existing board engineer CME and our existing board planner um a a AC c c CCH um I'll start with uh dck we need do them all once we need to do second Mr yes Mr yes Mr Ryan yes Mr yes yes yes thank you um I'll make I'll make a motion to appoint the board engineer uh CMA [Music] Associates second yes Angela yes Mr Ryan yes Mr for yes Dr loer yes Mrs Newman Mr later yes uh motion to appoint board planner CL k hin Mr yes Angel yes Mr Brian yes yes yes yes I would like to thank both of you your organization total that done you personally um this board has tremendous guidance uh from its professionals and wouldn't be able to do what we do without your uh good Council thank you thank you yeah uh meeting dates for 2025 um Sheila we had dates that we previously had worked through um do any anybody have any questions about the dates that we had selected and discussed maybe November we have another in your materals you need when is the Masters July July 9th through the uh 21st I'm gonna be out of the country that's what I don't think the Masters conflicts with April 3D so PRI all right I'll make a motion then to adopt the uh the dates we had previously set for 2025 second yesel yes Mr ran yes Mr yes Dr yes Mrs Newman yes Mr yes now what everyone's been waiting for the approval of the official new what before the those sound like the right ones I'll make a motion to adopt them okay Mr yes yes yes Mr yes Walker yes Newman yes yes minutes from December 20 December 5th meeting uh having reviewed the minutes I find no amendments to be made I'll make a motion to accept the minutes as to Second yeah Mr mes yes D'Angelo yes Mr ran you thank you um Mr for uh yes Dr you oh I'll Mrs and Mr yes resolution recognizing and re you want to read the Bridgeway resolution sure so the U the resolution um thanking an outgoing member has become a tradition um and uh the board really wants to recognize all the hard work that people put in most recently we lost Mr Ridgeway just a month before the end of his term um and thereby we have put forth the following resolution whereas John Ridgeway having Ser served diligently as a member of the Zoning Board of adjustment of the B of Fair Haven since February 1 2010 W and whereas John Ridgeway during his years of service consistently displayed thoughtful analysis of L applications coming for the board often identifying conditions which the board should address and offering Solutions which resulted in the protection of the health s safety and Welfare of the residents of the burough Fair Haven and whereas the board desired to publicly recognize and express its appreciation to John Bridgeway for his dedicated Professional Service and invaluable contributions participation as a member of the Z Board of adjustment now therefore be it resolved that the board hereby finds and concludes that special reasons exist for the adoption of this resolution recognizing John Ridgeway for his exemplary Service as a member of the faan zoning Board of adjustment be further resolved by the zoning Board of adjustment that it hereby makes and adopts this resolution recognizing John Midway for his dedicated Service as a member of the zonning board of adjustment and hereby extends to John richway the Zoning Board of adjustments best wishes for successful for success in all of his future endeavors I would thereby make that motion toop that resolution I will second Mr yes yes yes yes yes skip the report yeah yeah uh Goodman resolution 50 place I will make a motion to approve as submitted second yeah I'm sorry second leater thank move out the tears yes dangelo yes thank you Mr I'll state offer Iain please yes motion car uh resolution for Gil 200 a Avenue I will make a motion to approve as submitted second yes yes Mr I'll thank you Mr yes yes that concludes administrative let's move on to the annual reports so um we've done this every year in recent memory but I will remind people that when I originally got on the board this annual report was not being done um we uh du these annual reports for the purpose of actually reporting back to council and the planning board what the zoning board has seen in the past year I believe it's called out in the ml right the annual report of the zoning board called out in the ml yes yeah um and this year um Marty Ryan has worked on it Marty worked on it in the past Frank Forte worked on it Frank had not worked on it in the past whether or not we can identify exactly why it's so spectacular I'm not quite sure um but I wonder if the two of you would like to uh give everyone sort of a summary of uh what you put together what you're thinking is I know that everybody got a copy in advance and let's talk it through yeah me um all right so we have the uh the report so what we did this year was we took the liberty of going back to 2017 to present um to kind of look at the trends that have happened through the through time and kind of catalog those to understand where you know we may be able to improve or where there's um you know issues worth exploring so kind of a high Lev summary is that for 2023 right the uh the kind of Trends fell in line with historical standard so additions represented about 50% of the applications um there were 10 applications received five were heard and decided out of those five four received in 2022 which is kind of interesting right um and then one was received in 2023 so a bunch carried 10% were for new construction 20% were for porch and then 20% were use variants um which that was probably the sticks and sprouts and then there's there's probably something else in here so you know kind of the takeaways and if we go to the back of the report too there's some detailed information um to draw everyone's attention to we went back and broke down every Zone and whether it was historic district or not and catalog what quantity of variances there were for 2023 and then back from 2017 to present so historically if you go back and look General additions represent 60% of overall applications porch at 14 new construction at 12 and then a Litany of like random sort of categories that represent these Splinter factions the overall history so again additions represent important Point most of this if you go back further and you look and we count the number of variances by Zone unsurprisingly R5 has the most right from 2017 to 2023 we've had 21 r10 and r10a both at 15 and then r 30 interestingly enough waterfront property right uh there's all sorts of repairing issues with that come in at 12 um but again it holds true that smaller footprint Lots in town have more challenges with building and variance uh issues therefore come you know before us and need to be uh adjudicated um and then further we did some interesting analysis here on the escrow the average escrow costs it's worth noting uh historically they kind of follow inflation postco they've grown at a pretty interesting growth rate over 6% compounded a year in average esor fees um which is kind of probably a sign of the times and then finally in the very back there's application count by year in history and uh We've steadily trended downward with a peak application count in 2017 actually of 19 2023 10 and then kind of a variation in between but it's steadily trended uh downward so just some interesting stats um you know one of the takeaways I had particularly is going through and doing this with Marty is that the data we have is really not good so the recommendation I have among others is to standardize it going forward so that we can better track and understand where this stuff you know lies right there's a lot of with you know turnover in you know both board secretary people keeping the data it's mishmash together oh forch second floor edition only uh driveway it's like a none of it's standardized so this General Edition category I went through and scrubbed it try to make sure it was as accurate as possible and I think it's directionally consistent anyway with the historical data but one of the takeaways is going forward if we standardize the data we'll have a better idea of what we're doing and then one of the recommendations going forward too is to track the quantity of variances and then how many ultimately pass like one of the things this board does really well right and this is I've gone through two years is we make a conservative effort to try to take down the amount of variances that happen or ultimately we Grant right so we say hey what can we do you come here and you ask for three how do we get it to two or one even if we Grant it we do a lot of that here we do a good job you know kind of reducing that and I want to demonstrate that for the go forward because I think it's important so those are the uh high level takeways good anything I missed excellent no Mar add no just that Frank is an Excel Wizard and I need to take lessons from him and I also want to thank I want to thank Sheila for cobbling together the whole front end on pretty short notice so was much appreciated thanks so you know in a lot of ways um in a perfect town in an Ideal World the zoning board wouldn't have anything to do uh because people would comply with the ordinances the Lots would be consistent the expectations would be in line with the ordinances and we would come here every night we would meet and then we would go have a drink um the truth is that Fair Haven has a lot of really odd lots and the zoning because of the way the town has developed has left us with some things I think that are a little harder here than they are in other places and as a result I think that the Zoning Board in Fair Haven has always been active it's clear that there's been dips when the economy has changed it's also clear um that the uh Spike when the economy gets better um is parent and I think will will be coming through I want to note with the council members that are here I think that what we did with regard to the ordinances um really helped the zoning board over the last 12 months the consistency with regard to the measurement of square footage has made things a lot easier we are no longer in here trying to figure out what the calculations are I don't think that that happened once in the last 12 months and I think that it's inspiration for what we can do in the future not only to evaluate whether or not the ordinance as they sit are the way they need to be but also with regard to how we adapt around Trends and things that people want to do and that's not to say that because we're postco and a lot of people work from home we should let people have bigger houses but it is to say that where we spot Trends we may want to dig in and try and understand whether or not our ordinances are in line with expectations and um and the way that our town has developed over time um it is critically important to me personally and I know the other zoning board members that Fair Haven develops in a way that um preserves what is special about it for the generations to come and I think that working with the council and the planning board to set the rules um is a big part of that process because the rules should be applied evenly to everybody and they should work and when they're not working we should flag it and we should talk about it and I want to thank everybody that's come here tonight that wasn't actually required to be here um because we're going to move into the discussion about the master plan and um that is the town's critical planning document um and so we're about to go through that process and that's going to be a really important discussion I can I add one thing about space so one of the things that's really interesting right everyone here knows you know Co work from home XYZ people are expanding right they want a home office or whatever you go back and you look at the trends the addition right is the most popular request back from 2017 probably if you go back further it is too and you would think that postco the requests for the additions you know outpaced or significantly greater than pre-co it really wasn't the ca it was shocking to me actually I expect it really wasn't the case and I think what it demonstrates is people always want more space and in Fair evant tight Lots right it's you know it's no secret economically it's it's a you know more expensive place to live than relative counterpart so you're always trying to do more with less and I think the data reflects it um but it's just an interesting thought to put out there that people always want more space irrespective of whatever they have whether it's a R30 lot or an R5 people always want to buy and improve um and we should be cognizant of that feable and unable as we go through the uh the master plan so you know and 50 o which we just adopted the resolution on tonight is a great example of how hard this can be correct and how the ordinances in that case really seem to line up with what was suitable for that property it was very interesting over many many hearings to see that project come in line and to see how great it was in the end and the truth is that The Closer it was to the standard the better it looked yeah that tells us that purely tells us that our ratio is correct because the finished product looked like we wanted it to right Frank and Morty it looks like we approve a lot of the applications that come along but that doesn't tell the full story of what this board really does uh and uh although it's addressed in the body of the report I would like would you consider adding a uh a category of adding applications granted after modifications of the initial plans because I think that that really tells what this board does because a lot of people get approved after we modify or ask them to modify their initial recommendation so earlier when I was talking about how we're going to do and maybe we do it for the 2024 one since we already have the data right when we could probably you know uh push it into this but but I want to do a thing where it's quantity of Varian is granted right so if you come in you're asking for three and then what's approved because that really is that's the that's the measurable on the on the modification hey you came in on an average 3.4 variances were asked for and two were granted and it shows that we we've made an effort to push the applicant as close as possible to compliance and I think to your point I think it's 100% right it reflects the good work that's done here because the truth is you can't we we we're not going to deny every application we're not going to approve every application but we make a concerted effort to try to work with folks that come in here to do a good job and I think we're good at it and and we make an effort and it's more to say that here than a lot of other towns right when you look at the category of approvals it doesn't tell the full story of what this board does and I think I think adding a category of approval with modifications um or ultimate eventual modifications I think really really tells more of a story of what this board does we have it approved as submitted or approved after modifications and I think that's what that's yeah easy because basically the data is basically the data very few there are a couple though there have been a couple well it's easy right because the data is basically the amount of Varian is branded is different from what comes in here it's it's essentially a modification that that severity though if somebody comes in looking for 600 sare feet over and they wind up leaving a 250 fet over that good work should be captured right even though the variance is well we asked for one variance and we granted one variance yeah it's a good point cuz I don't know that many cases where we've eliminated a ton of variances there used to be six oh except for 50 50 o obviously yeah but yeah we can easily do it we we should be able to you think we should be able to do I think the majority of people that apply here get get approval but they get approval after we weigh in on on what we think is is appropriate oh you then you know that is the best kept secret so we're going to have to keep it amongst our El and everybody watching both people um you know the truth is that the board does work with people but the fear of getting rejected or the fear of going through the process and extending things out causes developers to not come before this board unless they have to capturing whether it's a resident or a developer is another interesting thing I tell people you know developers don't come in it's usually homeowners um and um and then you know people recognizing that the process is going to take something and so they hopefully want to come only when they think it's really required and I think that that's very helpful as well yeah sure I think we've seen over the years that attorneys recognize that they're not going to get what they want and they always come back with a modification I I cannot remember the last time somebody said I'm going to roll is what I want take take it leave it uh everybody comes back with modification because that's how we lead them on but but I hate the Let's Make a Deal um and so I don't like when there's extras thrown in so they can find a way to compromise and make it look as though they met in the middle um and I don't think that we do that what we actually do is dig in with regard to what they're asking for and we look at 360° of whether or not it's necessary and when we Grant a variance it's because we really believe it's necessary to accommodate a particular situation which is exactly what the mlem do yeah I could just be heard on that sure just to make clear my observation is when the applicant begins to get a sense and then the board is asked for their comments it's not a let's make a deal it's it's a you know I'm I'm having difficulty seeing either reproval and hardship I'm having a difficulty seeing how you've established a special reason I'm seeing difficulty in you carrying the day when you know I I I don't see why you need the extra five Fe I don't see why you need this please explain that to me and in terms of what I do having writing the resolutions you know you don't have a lot of denials but I will tell you there is an extraordinary amount of time spent explaining how the balance of what you were looking for met those proofs you know one of the examples we see may not come up that it's come up here but with regard to our planning in our zoning where we say we want to see mixed residential and commercial in the downtown area that was a result of change in the master plan language putting in special reasons and then when the individual comes in spashing it out within development regulations where those individuals were not carrying the day I mean they may have a special reason because I'm putting this project in but then you don't get the bulk you don't have the and you're looking for waivers for things that don't fit that's that's sort of a a good example of what happened in the oak even though it wasn't residential commercial saying to them look I know you're saying this this isn't INF Phill you're right that's a good thing to do but you're building too much it's too it's it you're I I don't see how you're carrying the day on your proofs I mean we may not articulate it that way and it comes out in the resolution that's what I hear from the board saying you know you're not convincing me of your burden well and the import of that is that everybody that comes here gets a better and in the end if everything that we're doing is tied to the authority that we have to Grant the variances then you can look at Apples to Apples to Apples month after month and nobody's being treated differently because they know people or because they have a lot of money and instead everybody is Tethered to the rules and and let me tell you I mean as somebody who works in in commercial real estate I see a lot of this at the office um this is the exception absolutely the exception and not the rule across the state yeah um one of the things Frank brought up was standardization so going forward and I know we've I've done annual reports across three different secretaries now but we need to find a way for the 2024 and the 2023 data now that Sheila Sheila maybe we can you can come up with a class in your head classification and then we can project over the next 10 or 15 years of reports oh did we nominate for 15 years we do yeah I'm just thinking thinking ahead where when you know so we have the same data going forward so I don't I think standardized form you yeah need to about what your expectations are and what that simp really grabbing the data data from the engineering report the final yeah most recent Engineers report is where I get that you know what they come in with and then what they end up with is really from Doug's resolution yeah I know was no before I give it to I think we just categorize it in a few broad categories that we all decide are new constructions one maybe porch because historically there's been a lot of porch applications addition right historically was like oh twostory Edition addition in the front half Edition in the back like all this wonky stuff and it really doesn't tell you the story and by the way most of those apps also have a porch or something else looped in so maybe there should be a category one or more I I don't know we can mind bu on it but I think if we do that it'll be clear if we do start categorizing what skip said maybe categorize what Todd said maybe the defining Factor there is whether it's an LLC or not which also can get dodgy if you know there's we got to sort of put some thought around it yeah so going forward we're all it'll be a lot easier to do the reporting yeah well also I built out the spreadsheet and now we just drop the data in and it's going to categorize it going forward and it's going to clean all of this as long as we're okay with the old data being whatever M yeah at some point you have to cut it yeah yeah I agree okay whatever we can figure it out so I don't know how many people spend a lot of time with the observations recommendations and also with the conclusions The Selective issues but my thinking is I really like the idea of adding a a separate paragraph addressing where the modifications have been picked up and the reduction of scope I think that would be worthwhile to have in here and going forward and since we're going to discuss um the list of things and people brainstorming um what we think that the ad hoc committee should be looking at over the upcoming year or two uh I'm wondering if we want to just table this at least for the moment and take a look at those sections and hear this discussion and then incorporate that that one paragraph with regard to those changes does that yeah that's good right let's table it until February then we can discuss that we won't have to resolve it tonight I I I don't know that we have to but it just seems to me that there's only good things that we're about to talk about that may have a place in here and I I agree with Skip and I think it really is a big part of the story and I think it should be I agree I mean there is a couple bullets that do say that applications are approved as presented or applications approv following your visions and multiple meeting dat where where are you on page two but if you want a WR up of more colors to that I guess we'll have to yeah it's in the body yeah it's in the body but but I think it should be Academy I think too it's a thing we could track going forward with shelix otherwise think about the Brae damage for her to literally go through everyone well I I actually think that the pie charts are really good and the summaries are really good and I think 5 years from now when people are looking back and they pull this they're going to look to those summaries first um and seeing that maybe 70% of what we see actually gets reduced in scope before it's been approved I think tells the story of approval yeah I agree maybe redu scope the goal of this was to try to tell the story of the good stuff that's going on here right stuff that I've witnessed over the last couple years that is not the uh big bad you know zoning board with the big bad it's awesome yeah it's great the report's been great before but this is the best one I've seen and I'm really really thankful for all the hard work it's obvious um that a lot went into this thank you go head to Drew La Barber report he had a good one he had a good one he had a good one I know know resolution this one's better great job thank you guys so so so the the other big piece of this is that I was looking for Doug to give sort of an overview of planning board the Zoning Board General discussion about CN D variances and the jurisdiction of the two boards and then sort of give us a starting point for the master plan discussion the other element that's out there is a discussion with regard to ordinances that we think uh warrant some review by the ad hoc uh land use committee so um I don't know what order we want to do that but I'm mindful that people came here to talk about the master plan let's doent master plan and then I mean even the ordinance stuff even if we have to wait until Jordan comes back to talk about his points that he made I'm good with that let's go to the master plan Doug why don't you um help everybody kind of understand okay um you know sort of a refresher course on who we are why we are and where we're going all right um this is this is a deliberately designed not to be into the reads this is a a tree tree top view um everything I'm going to tell is is accurate but there are some nuances with regard to height variances whether it's over you know over a certain percentage I'm not going to get into that I'm going to try to give a broad brush um and then Circle it back to the master plan all right New Jersey Constitution gives the legislature the ability to have control over land use development through the ml Municipal land use law the legislature that in turn has turned that over to local Authority provided you do several things number one that you have a master plan number two that you review the master plan on a regular basis that that master plan is consistent with or at least the development regulations and zoning regulations are consistent with the master plan okay the Mantra I want you to all Come Away with is that there is no planning there is no development there is no zoning without a master plan that's the fundamental basis of all of your zoning and development regulations within the mun in addition to having a master plan the condition to have that is that you have a land use board and either it can be a combined board some municipalities have a combined zoning and planning board we and I think it's probably the vast majority of municipalities in New Jersey have separate boards planning board and the zoning Board of adjustment they have specifically different functions okay with regard to the planning board think in terms of site plan and subdivision if it involves a site plan if it involves a subdivision unless there is a Nuance there where there is a d variance and I'll get into the variances in second unless there's a d variance involved it's going to be the planning board that handles that in the burrow it's a nine member board with two alternates and they deal with everything with regard to site plan and subdivision major minor okay if there is a need for a variance and it is only a c variance and it involves site plan or subdivision and it could involve both right sometimes we have a subdivision where there's also a site plan involved then with regard to C variance relief then the planning board is going to Rule the Day on that okay that's on your dayto day the other function that the planning board has is it's charged with the responsibility of adopting and in a sense maintaining the master plan right we're the We're The Keeper of the master plan and I'll get into some of those details as we as we move along in addition with regard to any development regulation or Capital Improvement the planning board will review those applications by way of capital Improvement I'm saying wherever there's going to be an expenditure of public monies planning board is going to review that with regard to a development regulation if mayor and Council are going to uh decide to change something in a zoning ordinance or change by way of some development regulation they adopt it then there's the 30-day waight period in which it's referred to us they are not to act on it until the planning board has either taken action to review that and the review is a limited review it's a review of whether or not it's consistent with the master plan and development regulations zoning ordinances and if it is fine we report the planning board reports back as to that if it is not it is the planning board's function to identified for the governing body where it is inconsistent and usually the planning board also recommends and again it's it's recommending where the consistencies can be how it can be made consistent and how it can be resolved we also do go a little bit further I think uh than most planning boards in Fair Haven um that we really do a robust what I characterize from the planning board does a really robust hearing you know if there are members of the community who want to be heard on certain things on say a capital Improvement they want to V voice those things again realize the jurisdiction of the planning board is fairly limited is it consistent or isn't it consistent where it's consistent fine if it's inconsistent we identify those things but a lot of times the comments that we receive from the planning board go far beyond that and our reports traditionally to the governing body back to the governing body have identified those things you know this is outside the realm of consistency or inconsistency but people are concerned about this and these are the types of comments we had and we share that with a governing body I think that's an important function although it's not consistently done throughout the boards I represent but I think it's an important function because I look at the planning board really as the governing bodies we're the legislative committee if you will if you're more familiar with that structure you know we we examine those things we make our recommendations and we and we present them then to governing body don't make any mistake we don't approve the ordinance we don't disapprove the captain approvement we simply review it for consistency but we advise we don't we don't block it we we can't say you can't approve this that's not our role it's it's really to act as what I characterizes a legislative committee and present that to the goverment body seeing C variances and I'll get into all the variances at once but really we only have jurisdiction in the planning board with regards to C variances the principal ones that we deal with there are C1 and C2 there are a variety of them I'm not going to get into the conditional use variances and those types of things but I will get into the standards in a moment the Zoning Board of adjustment the Zoning Board of adjustment can on a rare occasion get involved with a site plan but usually that's going to be where there is a d variant realize and and again I want to explain the way the ordinance is structured and and Zoning Board adjustment seven members with two alterat the way the Zoning Board of adjustment is structured or at least our ordinances are structured if you're a single family residential you don't technically need a site you don't need a site plan so there's no site plan coming before you if you're if you're developing so the you're but you may see as to a principal structure this is what we were talking about before a porch is going to come onto that onto the zoning board onto the uh onto the structure since it's not dealing with a site plan it's going to come before the Zoning Board of adjustment because you technically don't have that so there's no site plan but there may be the need to have certain variants Rel and in that instance that's a time where the Zoning Board of adjustment while usually it governs only with regard to D variances the zoning Board of adjustment made deal with both variances C variances C1 variances or C2 variances because now it's not a principal structure it doesn't involve site plan but you're not a conforming residential development okay so the you know the the detail work with regard to site plan with the planning board principally commercial developments the Zoning Board gets into that nuance and I I like the way in which Frank earlier referred to you know where we adjudicated it the function before the zoning board is more like a trial type setting it's more of an adjudication it's more of a balancing because usually if you're dealing with a a d variance any if there's any D variance even with a site plan or a subdivision that D variance is going to come before the Zoning Board of adjustment Zoning Board of adjustment deals with everything that's outside of site plan Andor subdivision unless there's a devarian then it's going to be coming before the's Zing border adjustment and the reason for that I know it gets I'm using a lot of terms the reason for that is so you don't end up having to jackass between two boards get my site plan but then I need D variance approval because only Board of adjustment so the municipal land use law is designed that where there's a d variance in the first instance then the then the zoning Board of adjustment can act in that role with regard to site plan but again it's that limited function also and you'll see we haven't seen a lot of this but one of the other functions of the Zoning Board of adjustment is to determine whether or not the zoning officer determination was correct from the beginning you can and usually what you'll do is and you'll have someone some we had this I think going back to the Dunkin Donuts application I think that's the good example in dunin Donuts there was a determination that a a d variance was not needed because it was a conforming use that was challenged and so it's ended up coming before this Zing Board of adjustment to make a determination as to whether or not that call was made correctly and that was The Limited jurisdiction there in some instances what you'll see a fair sophisticated practitioner will do is like look I'm going to question the Zoning Board of adjustment officer not excuse me the zoning officer's determination and in the alternative I'm going to request Rel before the same board so you have that that's that's the overview of of jurisdiction again I don't want to get too far into the reads with regard to those things but to recap Constitution legislator gives it to us the authority through the ml we then to in order to be consistent with those requirements master plan then our zoning ordinances and that also gets us back to the reexamination report the other caveat in order to make sure that we continue to be able to govern and use and have a master plan and have development regulations and have the presumption that they are correct is that we reexamine the master plan or schedule that is frequent and statuto based minimum 10 years at this time although you can do many reexaminations at any time if you need to amend your me master plan and we'll get into that let's talk a little bit about C variance don't don't go for you so one comment I wanted to make was with regard to affordable housing so everybody's familiar that um affordable housing is a front center issue across New Jersey the ultimate Hammer that the um that the state government has with regard to uh forcing affordable housing on municipalities is Tethered to what douet explained with regard to the delegation of the authority pursuant to what we call local rule which is where the zoning Authority is granted to the local municipalities and so what they do and threaten is they threaten to pull away our right to Zone and control our town on its own and so it is the ultimate hammer and so when the overlay zones were done a number of years ago in order to accommodate the affordable housing requirements it's done under the threat that Trenton will remove our ability to govern ourselves with regard to land use and it's incredibly powerful it's incredibly thre um it is on the table again right now it is going to be under discussion as to how we continue to comply um but it tethers really nicely into What doug outlined with regard to the the law as it winds up in Fair Haven moving to us from Trenton um before you go on to the variances does anybody have any questions with regard to how Doug just set all that up um I know that for pretty much everybody maybe except for you that it's it's all kind of an overview that we've all kind of heard pieces of before um I love reviewing stuff that we already kind of know because it kind of resets you back to you know how it all fits together so um any questions or comments regard to Doug's presentation so far all good Doug let's do okay so far so we're focusing on variances um and again I'm really only going to deal with C1 C2 and the D variances um C1 commonly referred to we usually don't do the designation here C1 is a hardship variance what are you looking at with a hardship the C variance with regard to a hardship is that you're looking at really existing conditions applicable to that property what's a good example come on in we take take a brief break to give get him the O give his o yeah sure why not I have [Music] hour we in the middle of uh an overview with regard to um the board functions uh moving into a planning board discussion just got started with an overview of the C Varian you know that you were reappointed so you need to swear to uphold the Constitution again there you go you do so let let the record reflect that Al ready um has attended is now on the days yes raise your right hand follow me along I I thir you Solly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States you solemly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same that I will bear true faith and to True faith and allegiance to the same and to the government established in the United States and in this state and to the governments established in the United States and and in this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform and then faithfully impartially and justly perform the duties of his Zing Board of adjustment member the duties of Zoning Board of adjustment member according to my best of my ability according to the best of my ability this one's made out as alter okay well I swear you in as M our ultimate number two as an ultimate number two minutes yes okay is that what is that what happened what does it say yeah that's what it says yes I mean I got what [Music] yeah where were we okay we're at C1 C1 C1 is a hardship variance uh usually based on the unique characteristics of the property I think probably the easiest one to describe or at least ill to illustrate the point uh is a recent application that we had where the property uh fronted on the river house then had Frontage on the street so you were limited as to the depth of the lot not only were you limited as to the depth of the lot but there was a significant drop off on the property so that you're in a sense you're while if you took a look at it from the sky you seem to have a a lot that was sufficiently deep but in terms of actually making it buildable you would have had to fill in that land so they really the your footprint if you will was significantly diminished which had a had a impact then on all of your per you know impervious service building coverage sidey yards but because of the unique characteristics of the Topography of that property the applicate was able to rely upon that because you what you're looking at is either the narrowness the physical features of the property which make it difficult if not a hardship to build on positive criteria that you're looking for excuse me the positive criteria are those features the negative criteria is that the variance relief can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good and will not impair the intent and purposes of the Zone plan or zoning ordinances right not substantially impaired and I want to I want to focus on that because every variance is an impairment of the zoning ordinances and really the Zone plan right I mean you're asking for an exception but in that instance as I say the the characteristics of that property you couldn't get more property at the back from from the river you could you were already bounded on the street other properties were fully developed so that because of that unique Topography of the drop off the smaller area for footprint the applicant was able to come forward and establish their hardship variance under C one okay the other the other interesting thing about that application is that that was in a larger zone so that was kind of a smaller lot that was undersized which created additional pressures with regard to development so that created this need to understand it differently and that's one of the reasons the zoning board exists the other criteria that you can use for to establish a hardship is you know existing structures already on the property so let's say you had a you know a non-conforming pre-existing non-conforming two family okay technically you're not supposed to be expanding that and if you're and in many instances if you're not exacerbating by putting an additional residence or those types of things you can where you're not meeting your side back or your say your your rear yard depth be able to rely upon that without having to extinguish that as long as you're not generally exacerbating the problem um you'll also hear that you have to that you can establish by way of special reasons where do special reasons come from you know that regard to different variances where do special reasons come from under your Municipal land use law there's a there's a number that are that are already established like air they are reflected in your master plan light air density characteristics of your neighborhood Zone all those things that you're supposed to be preserving those are the special reasons in many instances and again there is no zoning there are no development regulations without planning in many instances if for instance a municipality like Fair Haven wants to encourage infill development you know we don't necessarily want to have tear down and my recommendation to to an entity you know or a burrow like that is put that in as one of your special reasons if you want to encourage commercial growth with a mixed residential and commercial commercial below residential above put that into your special reasons and then that's in your master plan that gives you a basis for special reasons and realize what the master plan is and I I'll tie tie these into to variances the master plan is your skeleton if you will right no no zoning ordinances no no regulations without a basis to find it in the master plan then your zoning ordinances and your development regulations flush those things out and I'll tie this back into the master plan and the reexamination you're not necessarily solving problems in your master plan or your reexamination have a question on the on the special reasons if they're included in the master plan does that create an obligation to Grant the variance it it gives no they still have again that's they still have to prove your positive and negative criteria you know you can't come in and say look I'm building a I'm going to build a uh five story residential structure above one first story is going to be commercial you said you wanted mixed use well if you're not conforming you know then you then you're going to say no a five story you know first four four above would be way beyond what we're looking for it gives them a handhold if you will to establish their special reason but it doesn't mandate because you still have the balancing of the positive criteria you would in that instance if you had in your had fleshed out in your development regulations say that they would not that the height of those structures would not exceed three stories you couldn't rely upon the fact that you were building something that was in the special reason but not conforming to the Zone plan and zoning ordinance because there you would say no that's going to substantially impair negative and positive criteria and not allow you to go forward it's a good question and in that instance where you were building a a permitt it's technically a permitted use but contained within a non-permitted structure because you're over and above that would kick it into a d variance relief and we'll get I'll get into those types of things and there the burden for the D is much heavier okay so C is pretty easy to Envision you know it the hardship doesn't have to go so far as it results in in ability to use the property only that the property's unique characteristics impose a hardship that may inhibit to the extent the property may be used okay um what do you do to balance the positive and negative if someone comes in you look to minimize on the variance relief that they have let's say they're not going to be able to have a sufficient side yard set back because they want to build wider they can't build deeper and what are you doing on the either side you want to ask questions like how far away is the other house on the other property adjoining this property what's the distance are we doing things to buffer or mitigate the impact of not having a sufficient side guard you can certainly do those things and then by doing that or requiring an application applicant to do those things you mitigate the negative the negative criteria okay C2 variances C2 variances almost had to come about because the vast majority you really couldn't really establish your C1 so C2 is commonly referred to as the flexible C and the variance again relates to a specific piece of property that the purpose of the municipal anual law would be Advanced by a deviation from the zoning ordinance and that the benefits of the deviation substantially outweigh any detriment and that the variance can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good a lot of Standards what's it mean let's say you have a Zone where there's a transition right um well I guess probably we can use one one of the examples that came before we had a a a commercial property um in a residential area technically it was a d variance but they also required C variances there was an existing building they had some hardship but there were also some C2 variances that could be granted the key in the C2 variance is not necessarily as to the characteristics of the land but that the development in this instance proposes an alternate that doesn't simply benefit the applicant but has a benefit to the Zone PL and zoning ordinances Beyond individual applicant that's a mouthful but in that particular area that particular property it had been a commercial property for a while the applicant was seeking to improve it but was also going to agree to limit the expansive use of that property as if it were a commercial property okay and came in and made certain concessions and said you know I realized that I need the D variance but it's pre-existing it's been there for a while the D variance I think you can continue to do but I want to do some other things by way of changing of of signage I want to do some changing of of these things I want to do a variety of other things and I'm going to tell you it's not going to significantly change the character of this neighborhood because it's been this way for a while the things I want to do it's going to upgrade the property it's going to make it useful for you know another you know another 10 15 years if you grant me these variances and though I couldn't really rely entirely for the hardship even though there's a pre-existing building for all these things I think if you take a look at the balancing criteria and preserving this the alternative of me simply saying okay I'll scrap the commercial and I'll put in three residential structures in the area which was very close to the to the to the downtown anyway didn't make much sense so if you hold me to those criteria to develop it as a conforming property it's probably not going to be as aesthetically pleasing we're going to be trying to stuff this thing into uh a lot that's not going to be doing well but I'm going to be making certain concessions and I'll have certain conditions that will in the long run not only just benefit me but will benefit the Zone plan and zoning ordinances in this area and you know at when you take a look at what the deviations then are you know do they outweigh any of the detriments and I think that the board in looking at those things found yeah there's a detriment but it's been you know it has been this property for a while when you balance those positives and negatives developing the site limiting the development of the site allowing it to continue to go forward improving some of the parking improving some of the the conditions by way of fencing by way of barriers by way of limitations of light and also receiving a concession from the applicant in in the long run that you know we realize that there's some drainage issues to the extent that we can amarate those in the future we'll take a look at those things I think overall you know doing that work by the applicant wasn't necessarily benefiting them it made they had they had to expend additional monies but overall that was going to improve that site which would have benefits to other property and in and about the area okay again a little more it almost almost had to come about because the C1 very few people could show a a hardship but if they can show that look by doing these things and sometimes um sometimes they're tied to De variances but you can also tie in a couple of other things that are benefiting by way of the bulk criteria and say look I know it's not a hardship but if you allow me to do these things I'll get a better product for you that will be an improvement and remain and certainly you see this a lot of times with the infill of the the residential neighborhood as opposed to a tear down you know there's a practical reality as to what you want to have for square footage that is a livable area and you're saying look in the long run if this is what you want you want to tie it into that special reason that you want to have infill as opposed to simple tear downs and this will maintain the residential character of this neighborhood as opposed to me building something that is inconsistent and you get the flexible C you moving to D to D I'm GNA go to D I want to make a quick comment it's a great application to discuss because I think of the flexible C2 is basically if the council was looking only at this lot what would they want the zoning to be and so I think that that application on River Road is a great example of a commercial property in a residential Zone where the accommodation of the existing structures and all melded into the idea that we were going to look at it as its own thing what I think is stly different than that is when somebody says I'm in an R5 Zone and my lot is is deep and my lot is oversized or I'm in an r10 and I'm oversized by 25% that's not unique we have that all over town the truth is that few lots are actually pinned right to the minimum and so while I recognize that there is an extreme where perhaps a C2 argument can be made with regard to a lot being exceptional or unusual um we often times hear um that sort of standard this lot is oversized um and it's important to keep in mind that um that doesn't make it unique Inari and in many instances what you're seeing with the D2 is again where the court has had an opportunity to focus on it is it's on the characteristics of the land but on the character characteristics of the land that present an opportunity for improved zoning and planning that will benefit the community you know a lot of times what you're doing is is you're you're coming down on that side of saying look doing it this way with the concessions that have been made is going to create an appropriate desirable visual environment and development of this property in any other way is highly unlikely and rather than have something you know go to waste you allow the C2 D1 and D2 VAR these are special reasons the again this goes more towards where you're going to find the core questions for D1 D2 well let's focus on D1 it's where the existing use usually what we see is an existing use rarely do we see a a non-conforming structure but usually an existing use is non-conforming it again back to the one application I was talking about before but it may be appropriate to also talk about was sck and sprouts sprouts fixers it was you know you didn't have a use that was permitted in the area but on balance you took a look and said okay we realize that this is not zoned for this and what they were looking for in that particular was uh an application where they they wanted to put a play area into an existing School in an area where it was already sort of off the beaten path they had develop the site I guess with permission from the church to allow them to have sort of a a a date I don't want to use I don't want to demean it by simply holding it a dayare seem to be much more expansive than simply that but it really an opportunity for kids to uh you know play with one another it was obviously a daycare facility it's certain regard but also to have a play area that would enhance learning and the experience of the kids uh in that area it wasn't it wasn't a a use that was permitted but it kind of fit into a category that we refer to as an inherently beneficial use and an inherently beneficial use is generally something like a public use a school a hospital um those types of those types of things that have a purpose that supports the community in other ways than simply say like a a property owner that's simply going to be developed for the for the for themselves um you look to the special reasons in that instance um cases that come up or head trauma facilities quasi public affordable housing private hospitals for emotionally disturbed residents on looking at the Litany of cases that I gathered as to where they were able to establish and even though this isn't approp this is not a permitted use in the zone this is an inherently beneficial use if you can establish an inherently beneficial use your proofs become easier it's an easier balance outside of the inherently beneficial uses you go to the special reasons going back to the top top that we were talking about before that it promotes the safety of the citizenry that it provides adequate light air and open space if you had a criteria of say look I'm building something that's consistent with the reasons that are identified in the master plan of special reasons to tie it into that then you get to again you have to demonstrate that the negative criteria is not so overwhelming that it initiates the Zone plan and Zone ordinances if you get to establish that then you're probably going to be able to to win the day on your D1 again the board has the ability depending on a d variance to come in and say look here's how we're going to make sure that the aspects of your use the reason the reason we don't want this use here is because we think it's not going to fit into this residential neighborhood and the more that the applicant can come in and establish look I know it's not a permitted use in this Zone but here's what I'm doing it to make it compatible here's what I'm doing to to take away from the negative aspects because you have to respect and you try not to you try not to develop by granting variances I'll I'll step aside for a second just a d variance fi if you find you are routinely granting certain types of variances certain types of bulk variances in certain types of say if you're constantly granting let me not use Free Fair Haven let me use another municipality that I that I represented or represent you know we were constantly granting patios to the rear yard of of residential structures um it was you know they were not necessarily recognized as a permitted use why something we did we ultimately changed that but in addition to changing them being a permitted use because you had impacts of impervious coverage we designed a standard as long it was in the rear yard my way of thinking you're taking from yourself at that point in time you're really not impacting unless there's a big issue of impervious coverage set up a standard that said you know if it's going to be this far into the rear yard and otherwise conforming then we changed our ordinance and we set up a schedule because we were consistently doing that similarly if you found yourself constantly renting front yard porches in certain areas as long as they were of a certain dimension um and this is outside of the D you know maybe you want to really look at your ordinances and say look you're consistently granting these porches as long as they're this as long as they're that they're otherwise conforming you know they don't and sometimes it's it's not misaligning the front set yard setback of all the other properties in and about the area that maybe you want to change your your your zoning regulations and your developing regulations but the D variances is generally is a hard one to meet shifting gears back you know where you have something that is a non-conforming use and someone wants to come in and either exacerbate or do something else with that D variance um you know the Court's attitude towards variance and there's actually a language out there that says you know you should not allow them to expand you should not allow them to enhance um they should you know Wither on the vine the idea is that you not going to allow the non-conformity to be expanded where where do we see things like that let's say you have in a seashore Community two existing residential developments in a single family residential Zone they're pre-existing they're non-conforming and the appli wants to come in and either do something like I want to expand the second floor on the rear building or and this is this is a case I handled I want to take that rear building and I want to add heat to it I'm not going to add a single bit of square footage I'm not going to add any more rooms I'm not you I'm not going to change the interior I just want to put heat in that back building and we were we were successful in convincing the court that that would expand the non-conforming use taking it from something that could be used in the summer and maybe the shoulder Seasons to now being a year use and that would have a negative impact in residential character of the property and something as simple as that could be used to be seen as an expanding of a non-conforming use um again you can you can you can spend you know three days of courses and you will if you're a new member uh on these kinds of things not three days only feels like an attorney only yeah it's much more b i um but those are the highlights you know the D variances should be should not routinely be granted you should be held to a higher standard unless you can tie it into your special reasons and demonstrate that you are taking steps to minimize the negative impact C taking all of this back to the reexamination report Doug do you want to talk about the difference in voting consequence between a c and a D well yeah I mean usually see is is majority of those eligible to vote as long as you have a quorum a d variance requires by our ordinance five positive five positive votes um so the the vote requirement is heighten dou is that is that unique to us no it's not it's not unique to to you but you know I often think it's Unique where someone doesn't have say like a nonmember board has has a larger board you in a sense you have to get more hits on this board you know you you're a smaller board it's five no matter what it's five yeah based off on your or yeah so it's F so in another town they may not need a super majority for they they would still need five but it may not be the same I got you okay okay um if you had a larger Bo obviously yeah which is which leads us to some issues in some instances where someone has a d variance that they need and you know it Happ happens for some reason we can't have a full compliment we will give the applicant an opportunity saying look we have we have five people we can do business but you're going to have to you know you're have to be in a Hall of Fame this evening you're going to have to hit you know th% right so you only have seven voting members so if you only have six people to show you've got to get five of the six that's why we focus on making sure whenever we have a d we absolutely have seven um and truthfully we always want to have as many people as POS POS as possible yeah five plus the rule that's the okay um going back to the to the fundamentals as I said you know one of the rules that the legislature uh said you know you need the land use boards you need a master plan in addition in order to maintain the vitality and what is known as the presumption uh the presumption that your laws and development regulations are are correct um you need to reexamine at least 10 on a 10year basis and it can be shorter and I I'll digress very briefly to reexamine your master plan what does the reexamination involve um generally a look back you take a look at your old master plan what did the last master plan project as the things that we needed to take a look look at last cycle um you know in our our last reexamination report uh highlighted that we needed to attend to the Department of Public Work shur we highlighted that we needed to attend to uh developing um a new I guess ended up being a community facility but a new facility for the for the police department and a couple of other things well you you you were able to check those things off um in addition and we'll we'll end up having to do this our timetable is going to be shortened on the planning board even though our reexamination doesn't have to be adopted until August of of 26 2026 because of the affordable housing requirements in which you're going to have to do your land use element and your affordable housing element 2025 we're probably going to be stepping up that aspect of the reexamination sooner than later and depending on what the planning board's position is with regard to that maybe we do the whole land use element and the affordable housing get that done early and then when we get to the reexamination report we just did this last year or within so many months ago and we're and we're good with that and I want again I want to emphasize at a minimum 10 years you can take a look at different elements and I I'll get get through to what the elements are you can take a look at different elements in the master plan without waiting 10 years which is what we had to do quite frankly what what we've done in the past with the planning board the planning board is going forward we amended the master plan once before with regard to adopting the I guess the environmental commission's report um know we had a pedestrian and transportation plan Transportation plan we did in a sense that was a mini reexamination if you will to my way of thinking what about the additional ordinances that we put in last year from the L use committee with that does that count as part of the reexamination it really doesn't count as the reexamination and again because what you're really doing there is when we take a look at that development regulation as I alluded to before is it consistent or is it inconsistent with the master plan you're really not touching the master plan you're just saying look this development regulation take I guess the last one we did water M um we didn't develop the regulation uh New Jersey Environmental Protection developed the regulation and said you know your ordinances should reflect this your master plan isn't necessarily having the ordinance itself the master plan might say something like we need to attend to storm water management to the extent that you know the state of New Jersey you know produces these ordinances it is the intent of the master plan you know where recommended by its professions to incorporate those ordinances you wouldn't put the ordinance necessarily in the master plan but but the the origin of a lot of the things that we changed was fundamentally tied to the policy goals that were set forth in the master plan with regard to overdevelopment of the residential areas there's a lot of discussion about the commercial so in that way it's tethered but but independent of the plan again as I said the master plan is that skeleton you know the master plan and I say this somewhat time in shap the master plan doesn't resolve anything it sort of sets the parameters this is what we want the development in our town to look like we want a historic district we want you know our land use to be a balanced land use we want a balance of commercial we want a balance of residential we want a balance of public spaces okay how we do that then you then go into the development regulations and the development regulations say look okay we want a balance of commercial okay here are our commercial zones and here's what we think fit within the commercial zones and now the master plan will reflect what the existing zones are and may also make recommendations that you know this doesn't seem to be working or we seem to be seeing a lot of variances with regard to these types of things which is what informs us from the reports from from the zoning board adjustment so we might want to take a look at those things you might not necessarily have those you'll have the zones you'll have the land use element and by way of land use even in certain zones you'll have a a land use map which is which will identify those things that are consistent or inconsistent in in zones you'll have your zone map you'll take a look at those types of things and what you're doing is sort of looking back what have we accomplished the planning board's role in the reexamination report now I think they're at a point where theyve decided we're not going to rewrite a whole new master plan and I don't think and I think that's consistent with what most municipalities do they reexamine they use the the skeleton and then they say okay here's some things that have changed for us since last time and you're looking at everything in reexamination demographics you know has there been a has there been a shift are we seeing people leaving are we seeing people coming in are we seeing an aging of our population are we seeing you know more younger people coming in that will inform you as to what types of facilities that you want to have you know uh you know you may want to say okay we need more playground activities we need we need more green space we need we need to take measures to going back to to to attend to storm water in certain areas and then that then informs mayor and count Council that when we get to development regulations okay we want to see the infill here are the regulations that we're going to develop to guide our infill development you know we're still going to want to do some things like that I want to flag restaurant right so coming out of Duncan the restaurant committee was formed there was a public survey that was undertaken that was significant followed on to the public survey that was done during the last um master plan review um and then a Report was generated and you know that tied into Co and you know what I think that the report in summary really tried to communicate to council was that it was identified very clearly that the residents truly valued the downtown district and that there was an expectation that it would be maintained as it is it would be improved and that the um that the unique location of our residential to our commercial needs to be taken into account as how that those areas are developed and redeveloped because you have residential immediately ABD in commercial which is not always the case um inside of um commercial districts and then of course the affordable housing element with regard to the evaluation of what can we do where can we do it and how can we do it in a way that if it all happened tomorrow we would still recognize Fair Haven as being Fair Haven um those things have all happened since the last reor why don't you come sit at the table why don't you um kind of maybe introduce yourself and and kind of let everybody know you know what's going on just just before by all means grab a chair grab aair before Fred get settled you want to so what so what the master plan is going to do is take a look at all of those elements goals and policies imunity facilities circulation historic preservation conservation Recreation and open space land use and housing take a look at all those constituent elements that make up the master plan reexamine them determine their continued viability where they are not viable how we need to continue to make the viable and what we want to see the town look like what's good about it what we want to see change and where we want to be in 10 years and with that thanks yeah so that was a really good overview really appreciate it Doug and TOD thanks uh for having us here today uh I brought daveo Vice chair of the uh planning board and and Andrew Anderson has come along as well uh both people have taken um you know a substantial interest and uh um have taken on substantial responsibilities with regards to the upcoming reexamination or rewrite we you know we'll we'll get Chris we we've spoken uh on the phone and or I'm sorry over email um we we believe so I'll open with we believe we're leaning towards a a reexamination i for a number of different reasons we haven't formerly adopted that position voted and said this is how we're you know this is how we're um we're going to proceed and so with that I can I can back up a little and tell you what we've done um with regards to um starting this process so you know in July of 2024 at that meeting we started talking about as a board what we needed to do with the upcoming deadline right so the the deadline is um August 18 2026 is is the formal adoption date that we'll need to um approve the the let's for for purposes of this discussion assume it's a reexamination and so we have to formally um have that done by I'm Sorry by the 24th and then the 18th is the meeting date uh the planning board meeting date prior to that where all that work will have been done and and uh we will have voted to um to approve that that uh reexamination and so what we did in that uh in the in the next few meetings has come up with a a very high level timeline that we believe we'd have to follow uh throughout 2025 and 2026 in order to meet the you know in order to meet those uh requirements and we've also looked at the um we've also looked at the um the master plan and the subsequent reexamination and came up with uh one two three four uh five areas where we feel like the the reexamination has to or five elements of the master plan where we feel the uh reexamination uh has to focus on and so that's land use housing circulate uh utilities conservation Recreation and Open Spaces one and we've recently put members of the planning board uh in charge so to speak of of leading the reexamination of those um of those elements and so um for land use it's going to be Andrew uh for housing it's going to be the full board simply because we have the affordable housing piece that's be approved in June of 2025 uh I believe right Chris the June 2025 is when the deadline is for that deadline correct yeah yeah we have to we'll be adopting the number at the the January 22nd special meeting and then we have until June 2025 so as you said Doug we the um the the the housing element by nature of the the statutory requirements is is going to obviously be done prior to the the full reexamination since that's the the statutory requirements there um so circulation circulation is now open so it was Neil blacker but but Neil's uh term hasn't been uh renewed so we'll we'll appoint somebody new at the next at the next meeting to take up circulation utilities is going to be uh Dave with the help of of Rich garella uh the the burough engineer and then uh construction Recreation and open space is going to be handled by David py and so that's what we've come up with so far and you know we appreciate being asked to come here today and and you know solicit advice feedback other areas or other elements in the plan that you feel maybe we need to have uh a uh another um another person in charge of but we feel the reexamination would focus on would focus on those areas the last one we're going to do a survey as well right as part I mean we get into so I I can get into the process of how we're going to sort of like so each person that's going to lead a certain element is going to go through what what we think is going to be a solicitation of uh of the public in in terms of what they want to see in each of those areas and and you know the formation of a survey and then we'll take that information um and come up with the the substance of the reexamination then make that available to the public as well uh and then come back for one more iteration to to close it I think that's the you know high level overview I certainly open that up to questions or concerns so just a comment about that public engagement um when CCH was the burough planner or the planning board planner and handled this process the last time they introduced that for the first time in in my knowledge um the idea of a public survey to actually collect a broad breath response from the public as to what they thought for years after that information was collected I reflected on some of those responses in so far as they related to infill residential development it would be fascinating to see some of the same questions asked to see what some of the answers are now a lot of the population has turned over but also as we've absorbed the infill development people's opinions may have changed I think that would be very very interesting to see in comparison the restaurant committee also did a public survey which tied in some of those questions um and it was incredibly powerful um to see if you believe in the democracy and you believe in majority rules um you will find a lot of really useful information in finding out where the majority sits as to take of these things and and when the majority of fa Haven tells you how important the downtown is it really means something and the truth is that they're not not here tonight um we're all kind of Representative of all the people that we know and I think that getting them an opportunity to communicate directly with us as to some of these questions important one other thing and I'm sorry I'm talking so much um yeah there was a big dust up with regard to the sidewalks on uh Hance RH and um gr um it subsumed the council for the better part of the year and at the end what was concluded um and and adopted was this concept that not every Road in Fair Haven should have standardized curbs and sidewalks um it seems to me that the rub there was that we didn't wind up with the public having direct access to the space that is the Public's by the way of the RightWay but I think the conclusion that there are some roads that are still kind of qu and I know that baton has been flagged to me as another road that feels that way it might be worth trying to figure out whether or not we want to call those roads out um I'd always assume that the circulation plan viewed each neighborhood same but it became readily apparent that the residents don't sorry I'm straight do you wanna is there can join in this yeahp does recognize something called Street very much keep with what you're Tracy could you come forward only because the hourl won't pick you up when you're back there excuse me yeah and frankly I'd invite everybody to come closer I I'd Envision this as being this yeah and so I think we're ready absolutely for all of that so let's just talk tell us about that great well um I was involved in the ATP when uh when I moved here and mayor of gelli formed that committee knew me at my work in my background and so it was a great honor it's terrific piece of was called out in the 2016 reexamination that topic of circulation came up in from since 91 the original master plan and all the reexaminations since then and that was a piece that we checked off the box that's not just substantially complete that one is complete and some of the nuances that you were talking about that was expressed by the people on an anding was actually in the ATP so which takes me back to something I wanted to if I could color in a little bit of what Mr kovat was saying as a council person really as anybody in in our town I look to the master plan as sort of like a road map it's it's the it's the Strategic business plan for fair he and for decision makers whether you're on Council or zoning board or planning board or the environmental commission you know all of that information feeds from the ground this is we do the people's work right this is a democratic form of government um we're we're a representative form of government so the master plan isn't just a bunch of technical information it's also informed by the people whose business we are charged with doing so that's why I'm excited about this because uh it's kind of easy to see what fairing cares about if you know how to read the master plan and I have to say our re-examination report from 2016 I know how to read it but um I can understand why it would be hard for everybody to get through it and kind of understand it for example um I went through it and looked for the complete substantially incomplete or not you know incomplete meaning we haven't done anything on it and the one glaring incomplete work item which has been outstanding for some time and again resurface in the 2016 report is the business district um it spells out certain um and I'll be happy to participate in any way I I'm not here just you know point out so I'm I'll help you um but it talks about a sub element which could be anything from rision plan to um sort of a lightwe Redevelopment considerations um but these are things that are hard to know if you're not used to reading a document like this and I offer that only um because I hope you guys are leaning on your professionals um Michael solivan is a First Rate planner and I think you're I think he's a good resource for the planning board but um more I I love collaborating on this Stu so I'll take a seat or pull up a chair or something and wait for the next yeah I'll I'll just add one thing like one of the things that I'm not sure I said or that we have done is we have reviewed the um the reexamination and and decided or part of the decision process around which elements were were going to be highlighted in the reexamination was based on the progress that was made since the last reexamination so you'll notice facilities is not part of it because obviously all the facilities work that has taken place and is in progress now already we felt or we feel that that's probably not something that needs to be addressed in in the reexamination not to say that that there won't be something updated there but it doesn't need a somebody dedicated to running a process around and and uh turning up all the things that might need to be um included in the in the reexamination and so um and then the the other thing is you know we highlighted in a number of our meetings about what input we would need from the zoning board right so we're not intending to do this in a vacuum um and and so hope it hasn't seemed like that we've only just really started over the last few meetings I mean this isn't obviously it's it's the you know it's a 2026 deadline but that comes up really fast there's a number of things that need to be coordinated amongst all the different pieces of the the town's government people getting involved and and you know giving their uh opinions and guidance on what needs to be done so we wanted to start early we haven't really you know and it was more also because no none of the people on the board myself included were involved in the last reexamination so there was we felt like there needed to be a little bit of an education process over these last several months before we you know formally said whether it's going to be a re-examination whether we really start to get U like Michael Sullivan involved we understand there's cost involved in that so like we really wanted to make sure we as a board were ready to run the process before we started you know um taking concrete steps towards executing the plan I was really hoping what we would have tonight is sort of a brainstorming session that would sort of help you sort of get some ideas and they just they're flooding to to to my head as we sit getting back to the active Transportation plan specifically with regard to the quiet streets it seems to me that I would look to the greatest hits the last nine years right what's blown up in town what what do the public actually come out to talk about and and what's interesting about that particular exercise was that we know what the end result was but you can go around to the other areas in town which are getting new sidewalks so Fair Haven Road right now is you know undertaking this digestion of what's going to happen and I would gather that there's people on Fair Haven Road that feel very similar to the way that people felt on Hansen GRA with regard to the addition of the sidewalks I've spoken to some of them um an evaluation needs to be made of where that's appropriate and where that isn't because you know you're going to hear from people I don't like change but the truth is that we also recognized the benefit of adding sidewalks and being able to help make sure that people can Traverse Town you know in a safe manner [Music] um oh and with regard to housing our our direct experience at the zoning board has been to sort of report back annually with regard to the things that we're seeing and we're very grateful that the council was receptive to forming the ad hoc subcommittee and creating revisions to the ordinances that I I think the Zone board members would agree has gone a long way to sort of um sorting out um the issues that were inherent in the ordinances that were just sort of festering um but we're very familiar obviously with the way that those things are um sort of playing out on a lot by lot basis and and and and all of us individually would have thoughts and input with regard to those things um but re-exam because in many ways very even it really hasn't changed all that much in 10 years um it's more of an extension of the trajectory that we've been on for several decades where we've effectively got lots that are smaller than people would like and we've got really expensive structures built on them we've got a tremendous school system and uniquely um you know an influx of younger families right and and an exit of people's you know whose kids have just recently left the high school I think they say you put up your rfh sign and then you put up your for sale sign the next week um but but we do have people coming in that are expecting more open space and we do know that we had a year-long debate about whether or not we should be picking up another piece of property down by the dock that was a very public discussion and it would seem to me that a reexamination of the master plan should absolutely account for that discussion um because it was wasn't easy um and uh it's there there are going to be I would suggest I you say it hasn't changed that much to the extent that there were ordinances from everything like um you know grass frood fast food category the protection of the residential character ordinances um the adoption of the storm water those are certainly going to be something that we highlight as changing and impacting with regard to development in in the burrow and I think I think we certainly will highlight this in terms of of the public debate how do you no no no I wouldn't put in the public debate no no I I think I would draw from the public debate conclusions that are unique to US versus the form document that you're kind of starting with both look that original document was formed from somebody and it was customized for fair with regard to the what we did with the ordinances to protect the Aesthetics that was done in a way to actually allow people to have greater density inside of those structures so we actually created that space in the Attic so people could find another place to move to without um impacting airl and open space negatively um and we did so because we also knew that we were putting pressure on residents with regard to the water cable that ties back into storm water and not everybody was going to be able to continue to have a basement so so the purpose of all of that was actually around the idea that people wanted larger houses on that weren't getting any bigger and so where do you put it um somewhat subconscious reaction to the results of the report right that 50 to 60% of these applications are for addition maybe a combination how do we give it to them without without affecting airl that's right and we got the bonus with the F Fe of of reducing the scope of these of the bulk to the street I think you you also in terms of creating creating more space on you know you wrestle for a while habitable poor area oh we did and and and you finally said look we need to maybe rethink that whole thing and I think that that was also a portion of what what you came to when you had the Pres the presidential character in addition to creating habitable space without having to use this formula of habitable are yeah and another another goal of that was to create consistency because you know where Doug explained that if somebody comes in year-over year you're hearing the same thing things what you want is for everybody to be able to do what's reasonable without having to come and spend what they have to spend and go through the time to wind up with something that people are feeling is relatively automatic and and acceptable and it may be acceptable I I hope not but it may be acceptable for 3,000 square feet to be in an R5 Zone that sort of review is is prudent um but the truth is that um we're we're we're we're in this ongoing conversation and I think that the report is critically important we regularly refer back to the council we blame you every month this is the rules this this is the set of rules that we have and and we believe they are purposeful and so this is the opportunity through this and and other and other exercises to make sure that that's true and that we don't just have a bunch of old dusty rules that nobody's paid much attention to because we figure we fix it on a lot by lot basis that that shouldn't be the goal a thought a framework for Thought yeah um so when you think about reexamine reexamination or reexamination and update there's um kind of have to see if you're at a forking Rad or not and the fork is well in 1991 we had a master plan any reexamination that's come since then hasn't addressed anything new it's the same stuff from then just is it still relevant and have we done any of it and the truth is we've done a lot of it not all of it but but the fork in the road is well what was the world like in 1991 because it's not just about Fair Heen it's about the world we live in and is our master plan meet our modern needs U the way our families and the way our community lives so in 1991 if you think about it we had not yet had a global pandemic we didn't have cell phones there wasn't such a thing as a worldwide B County we I I the list go on it one this is it is a different world than when the master plan is written in 1991 I don't know to what extent that actually impacts our little go B but that's one of the reasons usually a planner will ask you to think about do you want to look at the larger framework we have a set of and I'm not putting that question to just you I arue a lot for uh but that's that's one of those things that as a community we'd want to think about what's different today that we didn't even have any sense of we didn't it wasn't in the we didn't have economic crisis we didn't have a such as the O8 recession we didn't have you know all of that new health things that new weather patterns um which affect everything we know because we're getting new RS from the state and we've got to integrate those I I'll mention one actually like so electron ELC Vehicles good example I think you're asking do we want to reun right where we want to re exam or difference is significant yeah there's a there more than $100,000 legal Fe difference so well let if I can speak to that also you can and and usually what many municipalities do is that during your I mean you could just do a reexamination here's our reexamination here's a report thank you and good Mone what many municipalities do and what we've already discussed with with Mr Sullivan was in addition to a reexamination and adoption and changes to the master plan you would you can do that in one proceeding if you will in many municipalities do it there's a you know there's an economy of scale of doing it that way in which the reexamination report if we have mayor and counsel you know we're all on the same page that that reexamination can then also inform a decision to make amendments formally to the master plan so it's not just this okay here's where we're going but we are going to change these things in the master plan and I would I would be more Guided by our professionals and those things because there are certain things statutorily that I I think we're going to have to amend the master plan it it doesn't make it that exponentially that cost isn't exponentially greater because in certain instances for instance there there are Provisions that came about in 2018 with regard to strategy on Smart growth storm resiliency and environmental sustainability that our land use element must at least address that there are things with regard to tr uh climate change that our land use element must address those things you've already you know where there's been change in legislation in many instances it's tied to a change in our master plan so I I Envision without overhauling the master plan that you're still going to have certain aspects The Landing element if if if a statute says in 2018 you need to address this in your land sement we're going to have to address that so there's going to be a change anyway so it's going to be a reexamination and an amendment or read-option of the master plan as amended and in many instances what you do is you inform that master plan change by putting it into your reexamination and say this should be done to the extent that we're all on the same page and again we don't necessarily resolve how all those things are going to be doing going to be addressed but it's a lot like recognizing that our affordable housing number is now X the May depending on what mayor and Council have done at that point in time we've either accepted that or not accept that if we've accepted that we now need to make Provisions to provide areas for that that that's going to be a you know a reexamination and then some of it something that we're formally going to modify into the master plan we have to so I I don't think you have to look at those as an either or an or because in certain instances it's going to be a combined exercise yeah I I see that as sort of a technical distinction that that may not be meaningful I've been drafting legal documents for 30 years there's probably a handful that I've drafted from scratch everything com from some yeah I think it's I think it is somewhat of a administrative distinction for a lack of a better description but I I also think that doing a full or or just you know rewriting the master plan from P cloth is a significant and expensive undertaking and I think it it that we're going to need support not only from the planner but you know talking about like let's just take the electric vehicle point for an example right like I mean I don't know if anybody on our board is an expert in in electric vehicles and and the charging stations and the infrastructure that's needed for all that but we'll probably need a consultant or somebody that has that kind of expertise and knowledge to help us advise on what the the the plan should say or how it you know it's one thing to say hey we're going to need charging stations we're going to need to support that infrastructure for electric vehicles and and and the adoption of electric vehicles Etc it's quite another to have a meaningful write up in your master plan reexamination that's substantive enough for a council to follow and create ordinances around so I think that um like the C like like rewriting the master plan is is kind of how I think about a a full rewrite from Whole cloth doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense and the cost I I think we may even be saying the same thing the cost would be better spent on on get you know support expertise to get the elements in the master plan that need to be addressed in a reexamination get that right and with the you know with with competent um you know advisory support behind those recommendations so what I assume that you would want to do with regard to Electric is set some sort of a goal and the real question is it seems to me is whether or not there is a desire to move to towards having um facilities for electric charging in public spaces um and perhaps things that may relate to our infrastructure that will facilitate um the development of charging apparatus on individual Lots which could be done at a high level um without necessarily a lot of the technical I I I just want to emphasize that it seems to me based on what I've lived through uniquely over the last decade is the commercial downtown district um that really that really blew up over Duncan the the the restaurant committee exercise left me with very clear opinions with regard to what the public wants and so where in residential we've struggled with a 1200t house wants to become 2200 sare fet and how is it that you can do that without destroying the neighborhood we have the very same issue right now in our downtown district because we have pressure from the outside with regard to affordable housing we've implemented overlay zones which permit greater density and greater height in order to facilitate what the law requires that we do and the real question is how is it that we're going to preserve and protect the Aesthetics and the um the intangibles that are represented by our quaint downtown versus what someone might have us accept if they had all the money in the world and they could simply take it and redo it um and I I'll I'll conclude by saying that um the word Redevelopment has been thrown around it's being thrown around with regard to the affordable housing um I'm very familiar with it and it scares me because what it effectively does is it enables a particular developer to work with the town to spot don't tell anybody at the office that said this to effectively spot Zone individual um properties for different zoning criteria that relate to a particular goal and what I think what we really want is to have a plan that works overall and not to single out individual lots and provide for Relief as a matter of right versus establishing a plan that everybody would have to stick consistently with so that eventually over time we have something that's cohesive I I I don't know Tracy whether or not redevelopments on the table no this process while the conversation um I could see its usefulness and limited application um I think the West End district is really gotten away from us we've got Pilon signs and wide driveways narrow sidewalks and hazardous pedestrian positions um while parking up front between The Pedestrian infrastructure and front door of these shops so some that stuff's not easily resolved um you know one building at a time over the next Generation Um I don't I'm not proposing I don't have an answer right now these are things that I've been thinking about too and I don't I don't have the answer right now but I do know one thing I will throw out for discussion um and the master plan speaks to it it refers to as sub element and that's a vision plan a sub element can be anything it's up to the community to decide what that sub element is but the um as it relates to the business district one thing that I think would be a very useful tool to um to create a sort of shared vision for our business district is a vision plan because if you think about it we have the Western business district which is quite different than the histor end of town um and then we have this residential section I call the garbell because if you're really they're lsid of barbells but they're very distinct in their these three sections um but if Vision plan would be sort of a high level Community engagement process where we would end up with pictures rendering nothing like built this way but sort of the general sense of uh these are towns that may resonate for you you know you see Fair Haven that's looking like a piece historic edar town or there are parts of par you can see looking like parts of westc the these are this is an exercise I've done with other communities um as a participant and as a professional it's very rewarding it doesn't take a long time and what it does is it gives everybody this you know we suddenly we're all walking around the same picture in our minds of what we're trying to achieve um and that was a long way the aesthetic piece came out loud and clear in the restaurant analysis and what we concluded and and Fred if you haven't read the report the whole planning board should certainly read the report but what it concluded is that the residents largely care what the building looks like more so than what's happening on the inside of that building and the the the problem with that is that the the zoning tie into that is limited because we're not a planned Community we don't have restrictive covenants we have we have the ability to create new sign ordinances and regulations which will steer um but then on the other side of that no no know andreww I I'm I'm sure you've got some insight and I'd love if you can share some um as a as a as an owner of commercial properties in town there's a lot of pressure um on the individual businesses in terms of how to work within these spaces you look at Forefront and you know it was another thing that happened in the last nine years you know a very very complicated process that came before the planning board and what you wound up with is something that I think is aspirational in terms of what you could do because you've got something new and modern and yet it still has all the flavor and charact not maybe not all of but a lot of the character and flavor of what was there before you have a commercial property uh commercial parking lot in the back which had to be integrated with the immediately adjacent Residential Properties and it cost a lot of money and so the the real question is where are people going to park can you make these buildings bigger should they be bigger and and I'll conclude once again um but on the one side of town on the west we did overlays all the way up to this building right here but on that side we existed and we fought and we did not let them require us to Overlay so that we could maintain the historical character of those areas um that's important and and it was saying something and we did a lot of analysis with hiring rule as to what we thought the community wanted now is your chance to take a look at that and conclude as tracon just said right buildings pushed forward parking in the back creating a different model um that's consistent and even within those sort of bulk decisions about parking in the back that there are there are granular level things that can be addressed in design guidelines which are know one but that's actually in the master plan too I think uh but it also came out of that same um survey and the final report out of the restaurant committee um again that that's a really important tool it has its place because what we don't want to see in the West End is a bunch of mini strip centers with you know offices or residential upstairs who to feel like a traditional mainst stream this is you know I'm I'm I'm over my skis here I'm just one person but my sense in talking with my fellow neighbors is we wanted to feel more like a traditional Main Street so there's ways to safeguard that um the the reason for the vision plan isn't just for um what it it the it's how it feels right because it is what it looks like but it's also how it feels which is affected by or which is achieved by bulk and where it's sits and what happens between the sidewalk and that front door of the storefront um because if it is going to be 12 feet back there's all sorts of opportunities for tables and cornhole and I don't want I don't want to put them on a spot but Andrew I think in one of the planning board meetings you had some comments about yeah no so so I think there are a couple things right I think some of it is a matter of codification so I think some of this some of this structure is in the master plan and has been has been in the re examinations but it hasn't been cified and some of the reason we started talking about it at at the planning board he hearings early on is just there had been in the commercial District a taked down of four or five properties and substantial money was put into the properties to restore that so there was an opportunity Miss to bring those properties Street side because you would have had to come in front of the board for vares and the cost associated with that the time associated with that is prohibitive right it's not going to be finally acre so you know I think that there there should be a sense of urgency to ciz on in a way that that makes sense in align with the master plan so we don't keep missing those Traders um because you know like the buildings that I own I put substantial money in them so they're dead for the foreseeable future and it's a shame because if those codes have been in place at that time I would have taken the extra cost associated with it to do that right and so the more trades that happen right yeah of those that has so I think we need to do that and and Sheila was the vision plan that you're referencing what we ask you to pull do you know that oh that's the PPS Corridor study is that what you're talking about it it made it's not that that really isn't the vision plan it's U but it's cool you should definitely look at it there's a lot of good information right so so there's a lot of good thought about that business district so um and and I think you know part part of the um challenge is balancing a developer's need for financial success and a Town's desire to maintain sort of the Integrity in small scale of what we sit and it's a very fine line um and I think that what exists today in the downtown district specifically the Western is a is a mix of product that shouldn't exist to put it nicely um and I think to solve that is important and I think it feels to me that we're at a time where there's a lot of alignment in a desire to solve that and so I think we ought to take advantage of that um well well the consequence of not establishing what we want is to have somebody else tell us what we're going to and so that's very much how the affordable housing piece feels well and so my concern with the affordable and and I know expert in affordable housing but the I I know enough to be a little bit dangerous but the the concern with portable housing for me right is as a a town with very limited vacuum for land we're going to be in a position where we need to identify uh our ability to meet the new needs for round four and if we can't do that in a substantial way there's nothing that prohibits Trenton from saying you know the way you guys could do this is instead of having a 308 foot restriction very easy that you can have a 50 foot restriction well hold on one second so so what we did when we developed the overlay zones was work with the courts and the affordable housing groups to basically push we pushed them and they pushed us and so what we wind up with with was a 35 foot height limit in the commercial District got adjusted to 38 so as to provide for a realistic opportunity to create the third floor the parking tension is there and will remain there the setbacks and the bulk requirements were massaged but ever so slightly there was a planning Purpose with regard to parking in the rear versus parking in the front and and so some of that is there now the question is and affordable housing group's going to have to figure this out but not withstanding the new numbers there's an adjustment from what they say we're required to have which by the way if anyone doesn't know it's hundreds and hundreds of affordable apartments which you can only get by building five times that many because 20% is generally the affordable allocation number was like in the 90s but then there's an adjustment which is called The Realistic development potential which is tied into how many pieces of land you have that are vacant the problem is that when a property comes up and becomes vacant like the snowco say that all of a sudden skews everything in the other direction and so we haven't yet figured out exactly how this is going to lay on top but just know that what we have right now is something that the people that were involved believed was a balance that we could live with that wasn't going to turn Fair Haven into something entirely different and the question is now are they going to tell us that we need to go further we have to do that again now right so we do and and short period of time too right and and and the and the places that we can overlay now without compromising exactly what you're talking about is very limited but all the arguments that we had very delicate but all the arguments that we had before are still true and and where we overlaid and where we didn't and why we did it they all agreed with us as recently as 18 months ago so it's going to be interesting to see where Council advises us we have exposure based on what we didn't do big difference this round is we have an affordable housing plan yeah the exposure last time which threw us into a legal battle and compressed the performance requirements on Fair even you know were exposed we did not have so we have a plan we are in compliance and there's another round coming up and we will have a realistic there'll be an analysis as to what we actually can do and the adjustment will happen and all sorts of lawsuits will play out you know separate from us which already started several we're not any part of any of thaty to say what I want to say is we we're not we not uh we don't have to sounding fire DRS yeah okay like that's what I know yeah do what we have to do so so to understand your point forther you're suggesting some of these other properties on the western just on the western side before they trade before it's taken out of Play Let's codify something that allows them to be well there's some there's some low hanging fruit for instance there is front setb in the commercial District defin at 35 ft yet every survey that's been done that I've read once it pulled to you know much closer to the sidewalk so that it's engaged in the community so that it's more walkable to get parking behind all of these things right which makes a lot of sense for a downtown district like that and so the properties that just traded and were improved are no longer viable for that right that's right so the opportunity has been missed oh know but but but the opportunity is not gone right course and things are going to continue to trade and the to continues to grow and there's new blood in here and people have different Visions that's going to continue to to happen so um so I think it's important to codify that stuff as soon as we can and some of that's going to tie into the master plan and some of that's going to tie into you know do architectural covenants and restrictions belong so that we can have some sort of guard rails on design and aesthetic which can help you know keep the town pointer with more density right visually so there there are a lot of people tools that you can use to to sort of place Garr on these things and then and then I think the the other thing um is it it's going to be important to signal to Quality developers investors that that want to help the town grow in the right way that there's business to be done here because devel right if if the board and and the town is seeing as not approachable you're left with developers that are going to cut a lot of Corners to be able to make the numbers work is going be beneficial to anyone and and to Todd's Point earlier I mean you know we will do everything we can to stay away from coming in front of a board for a lot of different reasons right so so and then you're left with schlocky developers you cook quarters to make it work% being Tech to literally capture an area like say a business district just say you know it's it's obviously used for affordable housing but it's also used to say this is a special area of development we have a separate set of rules that apply for this welcome to be Haven when you buy a building and then say we are it is our goal to to restore it to this is what it's going to look like or this is how this is what the development is going to be like here and then it's not the same thing as redevelop plan and designating a developer which I thought I agree that is not appropriate for Fair Haven in my opinion either but um but some of those powers can still be useful because as you said getting it done doing it and looking at holistically um yeah is I think a smart move and and I think there are other yeah I I think that's right and I think there are other holes right to your point earlier kids graduate high school and a for sale time goes up and I think that's doing part because we don't have any facility to allow older residents to remain in Fair Haven in any affordable manner so for instance tal some right I don't know where that would go I don't know if it belongs but I know that I've heard from plenty of people that have raised their families here generationally they love to say there's no opportunity so you know I I think there are other things like that that we can do to keep people in this town that have been here for 10 and 20 and 30 and 40 years I don't know if there's space for it I don't know where it is but I think some of that can go into a transition zone between townhouse between commercial districts I mean I there there are other things like that that can also help soften some of the streets in commercial areas three comments I think the master plan is the seed for some of this further discussion I don't think it answers any question per se but getting to the heart of what the res want and Distilling that into the plan is part of setting the direction for the future that's number one number two that the tension I think that I think we should be honest about is that there there has been a belief over decades that there's nothing wrong with downtown and there's a belief that if downtown doesn't change then Fair Haven doesn't change and so the the acceptance of the idea that it should be expanded is something I think that people disagree with if there was a vision of redeveloping it in a way that was better than other ways we should point in that direction because it may happen on its own it may happen as a matter of right or it may happen at the end of a lawsuit but getting ahead of what we want can only help us make sure that what eventually comes is not inconsistent with what our vision is and the last comment is about Rumson and so while we were going through our affordable housing thing Rumson was going through theirs and unbelievably we were not in compliance we were racing to the court to figure it out and get it done and we did because we were Guided by some some really really good people and Rumson who was in compliance at least for a while had fallen out and so I don't know if anybody's driven through any of the tow houses that were developing now in Rumson but they are over a million dollars there are arguments that they should have been done before they got three and a half three and 27 to 3 and A4 so they're they're outrageous but but my question for Rumson is did you want to do that on your own or did you want to get that forced on you and a lot of people now that it's there as long as they don't live immediately adjacent to it are like it's not so bad but I went to Forestdale with hundreds of residents that you would have believed I was at that meeting you you remember you would have believed they were about to put a nuclear power plant at rfh it was unbelievable and and that's what comes from to a bigger room room got fil that's what comes from not being in control and so the truth is that control comes from having a good master plan and thinking it through and the sidewalks will show you that we're always not going to agree Tracy and I certainly don't on sidewalks but it's okay because in the end she won the residents got what they wanted let's codify it it shouldn't just be the group that got motivated to fight doing it let's go pick up that and and the other things and you're going to have to find compromises because you're not going to find 100% of the people agreeing on anything you're going to find bare majorities in some cases and clear majorities in others and that's where your direction comes from and and by the way to that point we've talked about at the planning board level I think you know the that public survey is is really important because at the end of the day we're doing the residents work right so and in the in the last survey I don't remember the exact numbers but I think it was 800 and change or 900 respondents out of a town of 6,500 in my view that's not sufficient so I don't know what the I don't know what the solve is for that but I think as a as a board as ATT I think the town deserves our attention to that and and ass Sol to figure out how we get 2,000 or 3,000 people to respond and if that means knocking on doors I I don't know what that solve you're find what my kids think if you go that Michael Sol another example where cost is going to is going to be required to get the results that we need I don't know if you can address I don't know if you can address it in a survey but when you said to somebody in a survey what do you think of the downtown do you like the way it looks you want it better but if you give an example of this is what we're talking about then you'll get a better response a more informed response 100% it's all about context so I think clear we can be in what we're asking that they want that it it it's all about that context and it's all about the questions we have so if we do it right with with all that guidance we're going to get really informed responses I mean there's going to be a bunch of responses but if you look at those numbers it's like you have a bunch of the old-timers that responded a bunch of the new people that responded and a huge void of the middle that are silent and part of it is I think because you like I personally didn't respond to any of those surveys when they were done in town I was new in town I didn't know about them right so I think we miss some people and obviously the more we invite the more you know you know variances and opinions and all that sort of stuff but we can sit through them in a smart efficient way and then really design or redesign a plan that takes a lot of it into consideration and then get counsil to cify and then and really start really start pushing it forward so that so that we have exactly what you said so that we're ahead of it so we don't get a room full of 200 people freaking out about the townhouses be because we plan you're going to get that anyway you're going to get nobody sh told me there was there was a survey please I hear it all the time well yeah there's a couple of really great TR to sort of community engagement stuff that by the way CCH is g to have all sorts of ideas for you I I urge you to this I personally don't think this is where we pinch pennies um I think this this is where we do it right um we do want robust input from but we pretty good line of events and things that happen ongoing throughout the calendar they're going to say well give us your calendar events when the community get together and they'll set up a tent a table and bring maps and pictures of other downtowns and they'll you know they they'll have they'll staff it so and volunteers will be there and you'll engage directly with residents who who have a conversation from that a technical a person a trained person as how to pull out what people say and what they don't say cuz what they don't say is sometimes just important yeah um because if they're not paying attention to it it doesn't matter to them as much but um I uh the the only other thing I wanted to say on the percentages of the respondents if you figure we have 2200 households 6 roughly 6000 a third of them are 18 and under so you're really yes it's roughly a third of our res 18 emphasis part also accessible but the the point is if you get 900 people to respond to the survey it's actually pretty yeah right that's the percentage sub versus yeah that is that is DCH was thrilled with the response rate that we got based on their experience I I want to point out that the difference between what somebody likes and what somebody doesn't like is often times how it affects them and so residents often times think that that what they want is fine because it makes sense to them but if it were their neighbor doing it they would feel completely different we see it every single month um sidewalks right everybody thinks sidewalks are a good idea until somebody says well that 10 ft is ours you're going to have to um to to shovel it and you're going to lose your parking and whatever else so that needs to be filtered because you can't just accommodate everybody otherwise nothing would ever happen um and and with regard to the Duncan experience right like in rooms I I don't know how many of you were kind of riding that out with me some of you are familiar faces in that regard it was unbelievable right we had four hearings in gymnasiums with 100 people and then we did the restaurant committee and then we actually went and did their work and we we we listened to them and we tried to fix it and maybe was it like this Tracy and maybe this many people showed up to see how it went they all lost interest they got really really fired up about Duncan and then they left it to the rest of us to figure out what they meant and they kind of stopped participating that's the reality of it um and so we shouldn't be put off by that um they think Fred that you got it right you got it you got it under control they assume you got and Trace yeah and and C is there anything we haven't touched on I'm so thankful you all came and we managed to have a um a purposeful night of discussion I I think that the master plan is um kind of why New Jersey is a little special right local rues really cool it has its burdens takes a little bit longer um but we really control what happens here this isn't the way it works all over the place um and it's just really cool that we take it so seriously I'm concerned that this affordable housing thing in the next maybe not this year five years but in 10 years is going to cause the state to usurp some of our local room I really do that's person opinion because if we can't if we can't come up with something appeasable there's there's going to be an issue they're just say screw you you can put up a 10 story I think that's right I think that's right I think that's the direction it's going and I think that there there's nothing that prevents them from doing exactly that if they're in in specifically in these towns that have vacant land adjustment at some point if it keeps trending the same direction that we say we have no land like build up that that's happen at some point well that's I was getting to you know sooner this stuff yeah trades right theoretically it it eases the the obstacles to do that those properties are therefore also taken out of play in a good way right and it limits the amount of density that can be put somewhere not necessarily well can't doesn't limit our ability to identify further overlays that will satisfy the the the state working towards meeting their requirement so at some point you ran out of land but you plenty of air the end day we hav't built one unit so yeah I don't think it's any necessar term but but I think you're right I think that's what happened because at some point all these towns are going well the truth is that going from 10 feet at sansu to 38 ft is a significant change and that's already on the books um what I want to be sure that everybody remembers is that um more people participating in this makes it better and so our circles are all independent maybe some are concentric to an extent but we got to talk this up like we got to make sure that when you have a hearing with regard to the master plan that we get people in the room and that people really engage with this because even with the affordable housing right like we feel as though we are speaking on behalf of the residents and we know when we need to dig in we have to be sure that we're right we have to be sure that we're on point and that everybody's supporting what it is that we're doing and not just assume that everybody thinks everything is P King all right I don't think your average resident has a clue about what's happening in affordable housing in this round I really don't hard clue I read a lot about it and in different areas so yeah but I guarantee you your average person has no idea and that's why you get the reactions of the x00 people people in R complaining about you know that's when they Showp never decied to okay there's nothing else in closing right are we good to just wrap it up when they're all in favor never this was a complete oneof you'll never see another one like this all right do we get it all in favor audibly