[Music] I [Music] evening like to call this meeting at 7M and ask cl to read the statement of compliance with the open public meetings act into the record this meeting is being held in compliance with the open public meetings act with the meeting scheduled advertised in the January 10 2024 edition of the Trenton Times the meeting agenda was posted on the bulleon board at City Hall and the city's website on the meeting notice was sent to the members on the list ser and the department heads and a city engineer on Monday June 17th the meeting agenda offers planned action items known at the time of publication and is subject to change this meeting is being streamed live and recorded using the zoom meeting platform vo yes please councilwoman K Kaminsky here councilman live here councilman segman here council president Lambert here mayor not here all right uh we will rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and then we'll remain standing silently for moment uh to Mark the uh the honor of juneth holiday marking Day 1865 when the enslaved people in galon Texas found out that they have been three two years after Abraham Lincoln's emanation [Music] thank you please be seated well again good evening I'm uh glad that we could all spend the first few moments of Summer together summer SS was at 4:51 this afternoon so welcome to Summer doesn't have Tay um we have a a very busy meeting this evening and uh I I would say I I think that this is probably a record for my mayorip in terms of attendance so I'm glad to see so many people in the community here and uh looking forward to the meeting and uh hearing thoughts and uh sharing uh sharing what we know um so I'm going to probably make a couple of adjustments to the agenda tonight uh we're going to do something first and then I'm going to talk a little bit about the agenda how that might unfold uh I want to make sure that uh I explain uh different parts of the agenda make sure that we have some understanding of how many people are interested in speaking and I'll explain a little bit more about the agenda after we um after we take this first order of business which is uh out of order but I think it's important to start off the meeting on a on a on a strong positive note uh and with that uh we are going to consider or we're going to consider the first reading of ordinance number 15-22 this is uh an ordinance renaming the lamberville nature trail as the Russ Lambert nature trail so uh uh this uh this ordinance was recommended or this name change is recommended from uh came from the Parks and Recreation Comm commission to rename the lamber till nature trail as the r the Russ Lambert nature trail and as I'm sure everyone in the room knows uh Russ Lambert was a dear son of lamber pH descendant of the huls and the Lamberts uh lived here most of his life was married to the council president for 45 years uh had their son in 1988 uh was an avid U member of the community participating in many formal and informal ways served on the parks and R commission uh served on the LMU and was really just a remarkable person for his friendliness or his willingness just to to chip in and ask people you I've heard some incredible stories about him uh since uh since uh since passing certainly I knew him well enough before his passing to know what a remarkable person he was so um I I wanted to see if there were any remarks from the council or questions about this coordinance I think it's a wonderful way to remember everything with City and I'm very happy to support I Russ was a great friend and I always say Russ with the Lambert and Lambert and but in in all of our hearts too well I got the pleasure of meeting and working with Russ when Ben uh decided to run with M for Council several years ago and I have to say I I miss him and I miss his coffee he was the best coffee maker good did yeah and all of the activities he did for really no rec nition in the city uh he did not know the word no he just did it without asking and helped out neighbors and helped out city and was uh there when you needed them so uh I know I'll I'll miss this company all right may I have oh yeah I was ask I was give the opportunity I think it would be you and then wanted to give you some time thank you um but I thought it was probably more anyway may have a motion please all right let's do a roll counil kinsky yes councilman live yes councilman Stegman yes council president lber yes Mar yes please go ahead I'd like to thank uh I I don't even know where to begin it's sounding like an Oscar speech sorry I'd like to first thank the parts and Recreation Commission um I had to talk Russ into getting involved and then Maryanne G could not believe her good luck with how much Russ was able to do and Steve Russ never said no unless I ask the question but he was um it really passing I I don't think even I recognized how important he was to this community I am honored to um see the the commemorations and the outpourings of support that so many people have given to me and Russell um I have family members here tonight and I thank the mayor for you know bringing this forward so that people could you know appreciate this with us um we we are so moved and and Russ I think is very pleased with dropping the name Russell e Lambert senior nature so anyway I just want to thank everyone I want to thank my fellow council members for and your support thank you come back yes clapping R but out tonight that note that this uh will be uh there will be a public hearing for this ordinance scheduled for July 18th the second reading and public hearing will be July 18th and you know to just pick up on what the council president said uh you looking around the room I uh I'm reminded that we're all neighbors and we're a community and we all chip in your mic we had a problem I just wanted to to say that you know when I think about R and I look out I look [Music] at when I look at into the room I'm really loud I guess um it just highlights that we're we're all neighbors we all chip in we're all good people we all want the same things for Lambertville in the end and uh I know that uh as we move forward into the meeting tonight we'll keep that in our in our minds and in our hearts and in our in our approach to sort of speaking with each other and uh and Russ antastic example of of what it is to see a good a good neighbor and and a good rant so thanks thanks to to to that um at this time I'm going just a couple of kind of housekeeping notes uh obviously we have a heavy agenda tonight it's probably going to be the heaviest agenda that we'll have this year so uh some of these things have been on the agenda for a long time and uh I want to be mindful of people's time and respectful of uh the ability for the public to comment um so just want to do a couple kind of housekeeping things here first of all I want to make sure that when people speak these speak loudly uh and uh and remember that we really try to have just one person speaking at a time so that uh everybody else can hear what that person is saying if for some reason people in the back cannot hear us please just raise your hand and uh say you know louder or something like that I would be okay we want to make sure that everybody can hear everything that's being said tonight um whether it's someone on the day of speaking or public more um presenter so U bearing that in mind uh move forward uh uh one of the things that we have on the agenda this evening is um uh the second reading and public hearing for the um amendments to the ordinance for the Redevelopment um and I'd like to get a sense if I may just by a show hands how many people would like to speaked to that okay um if if if we move that up the agenda and the council voted to table that um earlier how many people still like to see okay so so that's still quite a few people so what I'm going to do is we are going to first have our presentation on storm water utility um so we have professionals here this is this presentation will probably somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes uh it's been on the agenda for for many months and so I want to be respectful of their time and not keep them here uh through public comments so at this time what we're going to do is we're going to proceed directly to our um our professionals here um Dr Clay Emerson uh going to do a presentation on the stor utility feasibility study uh the report has been generated it's been it's been sent to the council uh and the 200 Page report about storm water utility be study that report will be posted to the city website tomorrow uh and this is the final close out uh presentation of that report so I'm I'm GNA pass over to play with my thanks uh for all of the hard work um and uh if any members of the council want to move over to see the screen there a h shares here and uh just one or two other little housekeeping notes uh you know if you feel like you need to talk to your neighbor I would ask you please step out of the room it's really important that we listen to everybody uh and phone silence so with that play and uh thank you very much thank you so much mayor thank you um everyone for for for being here like you said I'll try and um be be as brief as I can to summarize what was done uh part of the study uh okay so um the consultant team was uh uh princent hydro and wsg um an international firm that has a lot of experience with stor utilities Beyond Beyond New Jersey um and of course we had a lot of help here from um staff I should also point out that this effort was funded by the New Jersey League of conser conservation voters and we're uh grateful grateful for that okay so uh I know just a little bit of background for those who may not be familiar what in the world is a sh water utility the concept is uh like many other utilities a user fee for a specific service in this case the service is the drainage infrastructure the inlets and pipes and CS that we all rely on uh to hopefully keep our homes dry and our roads safe um the user of fee paying public receives benefit from said service users have the opportunity to reduce their quote use I'll talk about what use actually means um and receive a commenor reduction in their fee um it's the idea is it's a dedicated and transparent uh fee for service and this is something that only recently was a a possibility in the state of New Jersey uh how does it actually work uh by and large it works with uh you know the water meter so so to speak is really in verious cover verious cover is uh the primary generator of run off in in a built environment like the city of Lambertville um and it's readily measured um you know easy to update easy to uh measure and and it's a uh you know pretty standard uh process in similar uh storm water utilities across the uh the country uh so what have we done uh it's kind of a confessed schedule we did we did a lot relatively short amount of time on that included interviews multiple meetings uh with uh City staff uh facilitated conversations with the community I'll talk more about that later analyze what some new requirements coming from the state that lamberville along with every other municipality in the state going have to do that they were not doing in years past um and a look at budgets and some forecasting and some mational reviews so what did we find um first of all looking at the organizational review um you know why are we here obviously primarily the DPW storm Inlet and ditch cleaning maintenance replacement street sweeping these are things youve seen them doing both before immediately before and after serious uh storm events that I I I knew before this and found out again you know impact pretty much most of the residents of Community um and obviously repairing and replacing storm SE lines and structures um design and construction of new infrastructure responding to emergencies and then public information and communication systems associated with that and and you know these are photos from from your city that are all too familiar to to many of you probably um yeah there's a lot of cross-jurisdictional um cooperation that goes on now that's that's a challenge um like it is for many other municipalities whether it's do or other entities um again I mentioned the new requirements coming from the state that are required municipalities to do more than they're currently doing in terms of um understanding their their structures inspecting their structures and and there there's a whole list and calendar of compliance that's going to need to happen again has nothing to do with the storm water utility directly that's just the the landscape of storm water in New Jersey um obviously the city experiences frequent flooding even during small storms who am I to tell you that um and this is not a a ding on the DPW but the system maintenance is largely reactive out of necessity and that's you know that's you're you're not alone in that um so STM water leaves a tangled web among um City departments and and this is a pretty common story too um your storm water program coordinator is essentially your mayor but there's a lot of other um services within the city that that touch on things related to storm water or flood response and uh so there's a pretty complex uh network of things that have to happen by by different groups and that's that's a challenge um again the actual work um is done by the uh DPW primarily um and the truth is they're not really sufficiently staffed right now to comply with the new requirements and more importantly to try and shift from a uh more reactive approach to a more proactive approach um trying to look at things um before they become problems and address them um and there there perhaps is a need for uh a storm water water resource Engineer program coordinator again these are these are facts independent of a of a storm water util so the current expenditures uh again proactive and and primarily reactive maintenance uh I mentioned the freeor uh clearing and general blockage removal that your uh that your staff currently do um and and and do a great job at um there's administrative effort um and and on down the line um the big things here in my mind in the fiveyear window for lamberville is is the second last bll here there new um new requirements coming a quote tier a municipality in the eyes of uh the state uh so what do you currently spend on storm water a rough current year estimate is a little over 300,000 and that came from discussions with uh City staff in front of understand you know fractional portions of personnel time appal expenses operating expenses not an easy number to come up with because of that organizational structure that I just showed you um but that is um that is the estimate anyway that's the current level but what needs to be done in the future is is a is a a slightly different story [Music] um there were uh you know I think unmet storm water related needs to meet the city's Vision in terms of resilience response to flooding uh mitigation of flooding um and that information was used along with some very specific um uh information from from City staff and in these meetings that were held to develop a 5-year cost model um this included that things like additional staff and Public Works uh perhaps a new program coordinator to take that burden off others within the city staff a target of inspecting and reining you know upgrading storm water um infrastructure at about two 2,000 linear feet uh per year and so on and so forth this is the information that was used for that um fiveyear cost forat so to cut to the chase uh what does the current that you know uh annual expenditure right now is currently paying PA how might this change under a potential Sor Mar utility that's really the focus of this analysis this P could be a surprise to no one most of the parcels within the city are residential Parcels approximately 75% of them um and we looked at them in in detail I remember I mentioned in previous cover if that's going to be quote unquote or water meter we need to know a little bit about that not just um on the commercial or non-residential properties uh we we we need that information too but we also need to have an estimate for what a typical residential property has and that's what you see here it represented a sample of um uh Parcels residential Parcels were were analyzed to come up with the of about 2,000 uh Square ft and I'll come back to why that number matters um in a minute um so if we look at Who currently pays on a percentage basis for those storm water services um putting aside whether they're sufficient or not um for the present or the the future um we see that 80% of that burden is is carried by residential um you taxes from residential um assessments across City also not too surprising um however if we take all that information on in perus cover in other words if and this is the maybe the the key Point here um especially if you're not familiar with utility but if instead of uh paying for storm water based on your property ass set value If instead you're BAS on impious cover that is you know the areas that generate the storm water runoff if the if the proportion that uh Parcels were to pay was based on the impervious cover not the um assessed amount that 80% would shift to about 54% um and you see uh commercials relatively unchanged there's some other players here that show up in this pie chart that weren't in the previous one and if we kind of take both of those pie charts and put the current system on the left and a potential hypothetical uh sworm water utility for the city of Lambertville specifically you can see how those percentages of you know that 100% Shi from the current system on the left to a potential uh utility or user fee on the right and um so this is kind of the take-home yes there's some other players here on the right side um the enacting legislation uh from a few years ago for the state um specifically requires that there are essentially for the city of lamberville notes exemptions so this is every property so the the uh number of properties within the city who who currently pay any taxes still generate runoff and this law if there were a utility formed would require all Parcels to pay based on their uh in this case um impervious cover so there are some new players over there the only exemption Statewide that's allowed is agricultural properties which is a big player here um so that that's kind of the key take home is that shift from one approach uh to another uh we did do some additional work suggesting a a recommendation on how that PL structure uh there's different methods that utility can use in this equivalent residential unit uh seem to be the best balance of equity which we heard a lot about um cost the setup cost you know the background stuff and and precision we want something that's accurate we want something that's fair and also that's not too big of a a burden on the uh on the program itself and this is a pretty common system um that's used and and this is where that 2,000 square feet that I showed from the graph before would come from so every residential property and there there's tweaks that can be made to this but um you would pay based on an estimated 2,000 square F feet so it wouldn't be analyzing the Imp purpose cover on every single parcel if you if you were to uh to go this route um the highlight of this process uh for me at least was the stakeholder engagement process uh I've worked with a lot of communities I have not worked with the community that showed the concern for uh neighbors their fellow City residents that I saw in in these uh stakeholder meetings and the um and the public meeting so that was a real um pleasure for me particularly to to see and to uh participate in so in those meetings were with uh City staff multiple occasions whether it was a formal meeting or a phone call um and of course the focus group that was formed and I want to thank those who were part of that focus group they showed up um they were not afraid to um offer their opinion whe they don't popular or not I it was some really good interactions like I said I think that was a a highlight for me we we were able to um to host uh an open public meeting as well uh what did we hear you know flooding flooding flooding um the these are all things that uh that we heard from uh from the public and from the focus group whether it's flash flooding flash flooding failing infrastructure locked or clug drains outdated CS these are some of the top um points raised by participants um when asked what was your vision for storm water management in Lambertville prevention Common Sense resilience proactive and there was there was interest in a potential Regional approach because you do have some drainage areas that obviously uh originate outside of the city which is not particularly unique but definitely um characteristic of lamberville for shely um and of course Equity um fairness and an understanding of the difference between the current system and the equity offered by a potential storm water utility so um to wrap up um Revenue uh capacity must increase this really isn't uh this really has nothing to do with the the utility itself that's just a fact and that's a fact for a number of reasons not to mention uh climate change and the kind of rainfall that we seem to be seeing on a more frequent basis um and again the um the state program coming down with new requirements is a big a big shift that that we're going to have to adjust to here so you have have to you have to raise this money really the question is is how do you do it with the current tax base or do you do you look at the source of that runoff um and the impervious cover and come up with a system that uh that's you know Bas based on the impervious cover instead of the assess value is is is really a the question um a couple other benefits the a utility would provide the ability to to leverage funds um so you're city is is is fairly Nimble at going after grants and getting grants whether they're state or federal things that's funded this study for example um and this would give you a dedicated Source or or matching funding that could be used to um kind of get on the short list for some of those U grants um it can it can bond with its own Revenue to pay back interest it can provide like I said match funding for grants for for any storm water system improvements not just ones related to Road improvements for example that you might be used to um so it would um in that way um it would it would allow you to be a little more proactive um in some of your approaches to to to those issues before they become prises um and I think the the main uh thing that we found is that the utility offers a more Equitable way for property owners um to account for stor and water that they they generate um and as you saw in the in the pie charts and that flow chart uh going from left to right it shows the shift in financial burden primarily Residential Properties to a more balance distribution not a not a night today change but but an no to one um and also importantly all land owners would participate the cost and that's a difference a change in what is currently done because obviously there's plenty of impervious own properties that don't contribute to that current uh roughly $300,000 a year um and it can be managed as an internal operation uh of the city government doesn't have to be a a new um you know uh separate entity you know similar to your anyway it doesn't necessarily need to be that especially for a city of of this size um again my in closing you know my highlight was the the stakeholder engagement um those focus group meetings and and seeing um a community that's as tight it as lamberville clearly is um so uh again the planning prioritization and a focus on uh instead of reaction but towards prevention is something that could be uh could be improved upon again and that's not a criticism of lamberville that's that's a story in in every municipality um arguably across the state um but currently the city is is not adequately staffed and comply with the uh future demands of the system again from coming down from the state and reacting to the uh the changing uh climate that we see so um yeah the consequences of that are obvious and and again these are some things that will need to be done utility offers what we found in the study that utility offers a different approach uh to to that perhaps more equable one um and uh I really appreciate uh the opportunity to to work with uh City and its residents and um you know hopefully this you know we set out we promised the mayor that we would provide information that that they needed to um uh to inform the public and and I hope that we've done that and I apologize for racing through this but I understand there's a lot of people here and it's some a lot things to get to so if we have time do you have anybody on the council have any questions at this time no okay um thank you very much play very much appreciate it uh this study meant a lot to me and I means a lot to the city uh this information will be on the city website obviously storm water is something that we're all deeply concerned about I imagine it's a lot uh the reason why you're here tonight um I've talked about it repeatedly It's Been Everywhere if you've gone to any of these meetings uh regardless uh we talk about store Mar all the time so uh you know in the coming years next year we will need to step up our store Mar Management program we will need to make Capital Investments we will need to do a lot more than we're currently doing and I think the study provides us a lot of valuable data that has never been collected before uh in terms of what we spent in the last 20 years years for example for U just regular maintenance um um infrastructure so we really have a great base of data here and and I want to thank hyra want to thank the league of which funded the study through a grant and uh also some some help we've gotten future she's been a great partner for me uh in helping us bring some of these questions about storm water ilence to the Forefront of our so like says for us is you know we kind of put this question aside is that I have to together a 12-point plan of some actions that we should take and that I think we should be taking now as we move ahead and taking a look at stort I know we put some of this aside to study the utility but I'd like to again and into the rec start particular with the MUA and talk about what we're going to do to scope the system to understand this system to be able to then also answer the questions about the project that everyone's here uh tonight about that we're able to speak to it with some knowledge and and to be able to offer more shity about it and so that's why I feel the need to you know to to to move ahead and and I I'm sorry if I keep harping on these tall points but I find that we got to start now and you know I'd start tomorrow thank you we'll be talking about this later in the meeting uh in regards to a Grant application that we're filing state uh to see the county uh later this will be talk about a little B later meeting um so I want to check in with the council here I think that uh what I'd like to do with your uh consent is uh before we do public comment I would like to consider a motion to table the ordinance um and then give a little bit of information about the history of uh the the how the Amendments came to be uh so that people who have are not familiar with this uh have a little bit of understanding and before public comment and that may uh that may answer some of your questions or refine some of your comments uh does the council have any any question with that or concerned with I don't this is St P we go um I think there's been some general confusion about what tabling means so it might be worth a minute or two to clarify that for those in the room so that they understand what M number are you the so that um people understand what steps we're taking and why we're taking that thank you okay Bill will you explain what tabling is please is it bill that City attorney so if the council is not going to take action on the ordinance that's presented so this ordinance was introduced at the last council meeting May 18th uh ordinances required two readings introduction reading and a public hearing and a second reading and then a vote by the council so procedurally um normally you know that would happen sequentially you would have in backtack meetings but if council is not ready to take the vote um they they can do one of two things they can carry it to a date certain which would be you know sometimes the next meeting so the council would say for example if they were going to carry they carry the hearing to July 18th and that's when they would conduct the hearing and line um from what I'm gathering um we don't know this is going ready and it's probably not going already July 18th so C going to put the introduced on table review it um and basically reassess when if it'll be reintroduced um we the coun over right now and that's going be so um they um after they review the various materials they decide to R it you that'll be probably starting over point and the ordinance would be reintroduced at that point but by putting it on the table now it's basically just leaving it there until the council figures out next s so it basically puts it on hold indefinitely well and I and I think it's important because people don't understand and you know I struggle I struggle to understand and I I want to just be clear because people have taken the time to come here and people are very busy and they don't have the time to understand to to research and digest government process so I I think it's incumbent on us to lay it out for the public and in in describing I would like to describe you know doing that is that it's because at least me I I feel the plan needs you know extensive review and revision you know your comments have meant a lot and and the need to be heard I mean is is and being heard is really important oh is folks in the lobby can't hear when the mic press the button know all right now it should work one so um I think the plan needs extensive revision and review um your comments are really important to us and and I really welcome hearing from folks um because um the planning board has spoken back to us and we use your thoughts your input the plan import input as our guide because we want to I want to protect our resources we have something here that that's what people want you know they want to come here and we have to protect not as an isolationist but we have to keep hold dear what we have and make sure that we're sharing it in the best way possible you know the Redevelopment plan is our bar rails so we have to take special care with it to to be able to you know represent our position and what we want to see appropriately and there's more to be done and that is a lot what defining as councilwoman lamber described tabling is about you know it's not a take it or leave it proposition for me it's an evolving living document that we work on with you and and I really want to thank everyone for coming I don't get a chance to answer every single email but like it means something I read them I continue you know hey come to my porch I live across from the post office but it is really important because it's an important Community it's important we all understand each other and it's important that we all share so may I just clarify one thing so in I would not seek to uh to consider this matter again before August of the early so it would not be on the July agenda um I want to make sure that we have enough time to review and and I'll talk a little bit more about this when the council agrees that we are ready to do this before the public yeah so I'll talk a little bit more about this before uh the public before the council agrees to do this now before the public comment um but the earliest this would come back would be August and uh I'm not even going to commit to that so you know you'll just have to kind of see where we end up uh this is the public you notice um certainly not in July did any want to comment about the process potentially tbling it to Mir what uh councilwoman Kaminsky said is that the feedback that we have got the feedback that we have got from all of you U whether it was through emails or at meetings such as this or the last two planning board meetings that I see familiar faces really helps us toine what our plan is and I have to say this just because we introduce this plan or when we introduce this plan we introduce the plan so the public could comment on the plan and and make recommendations to us including the planning board about where this works and where this doesn't work so just by introducing this which we did last month it doesn't mean that it's the final document that we're going to be talking about the final document will it will be will include the the views and criticisms and suggest from residents who here uh and we need to hear that in order to make a sound decision on what will affect the future of the site sorry about getting not only the future of what happens anywhere in town and how that what the long range effects will be on the city and the quality of life we all enjoy and that's why we're here and that's why you Ed us to represent you so once again thank you all coming um yeah I would just add that you know trust the process here this is statement said just because we introduce something doesn't mean we're eventually going to prove it but in order to talk about it like this that's the sex we have to take so um you know again there's a process for this you guys are a very important part of the process and through this there's a lot of things that you talk that I personally hadn't thought about when we were in the early stage of this and that's why we follow the process and you know again we heard everything at the planning board meeting you know we I was there I heard um you know the planning board I appreciate uh Paul Co who ran two very important meetings and you know very a lot of people are very concerned about this and um you get it and that's why we're GNA take the process we're going to take our time make sure that we get it right we are listening to you um and we have to balance everything because we obviously as everyone's talked about we have legal obligations when it comes to affordable housing uh and you know at some point we're going to have to figure out where we're going to put that portable housing is it going to be at this spot is there going to be less of it I don't know that's what we're going to that's what we're going to figure out through this process but we do need to worry about that we do have obligation the judge and at some point judge is going to say you know what's going on with this and we need to have a plan and the plan that we've been following we had B we have not really been complying to that and taken areas out of our uh our plan and we allowed them to come develop since I've been here since 2014 I don't think we've done any portal houses our our deadline is next year so how is the judge going to react I don't know um but we have to downfall that you can't put something in some place that it doesn't fit just to fulfill that obligation um I grew up in a town called haddenfield you know in South Jersey had Feld just got a $27 million verdict against that that the town and the storm waterer utility are going to have to pay and that's because they allowed this area to come developed and the storm water management there was not sufficient so there was flooding there the city ultimately is probably going to have to pay a significant portion of that so we have to down on that too when we look at this project is this going to work with our existing infrastructure or not we don't know but we're going to look at it we're listening to you TR us for the pass thanks I'm just going to speak for few minutes about the process and then we'll ask for motion then we'll go comments it's important to talk about the process and to reflect that we are still in the process and we're still in a very C stage of the process in with respect to kind of the the public have been uh privy to um and some of this is maybe going to be rep for some of the people who have been at some of these meetings but I think it's important to talk a little bit about kind of going what's unfolding over the last two years um and S have a little more of a background first I would know that on the city website we have all of the relevant documents we have the proposed amendments to Redevelopment plan we have all of our information about affordable housing we have memorandums from both the city planner and the uh um uh the engineer so if you go on to the city website uh right on the right on the on on the main page uh you'll get taken to all of the that uh that we've released and that are part of this process I encourage you to read those those are the primary sources what we're what we're looking at what we're doing so if you're concerned about storm water runoff from the site look at the engineer memo on storm water runoff right so uh these are all documents that have been drafted and uh provided by our professionals and I think they have a lot of value so that's a great resource um just a little recap uh so when I when I was elected or when I started in January uh two days after I was sworn in I met with the court and fair share housing and the court master um and they were deeply concerned about recent events um in regards to the the non-development of the the police station site um so you know I met with a court and the fair share 15 times in the last two years last two and a half years um and in March of2 we first had our panian contacted the city to let us know that they were they had some contractual arrangement to purchase or did some contractual arrangement with the owner of the uh the loss in question uh and we began to have conversations with uh K and also you know meeting with the board regularly so you know I think it's important for everybody in the room to understand that at one time or another um yeah at one time or another I and and or the council were're at this intersection with the you know with the court um with uh you know meeting our obligations with pan so all of this was kind unfolding over two years um I would note that in 2018 as a result of the affordable housing litigation with fair share housing center the land height Mite was required to produce 139 total units 67 Town Homes 44 marate departments in 28 apartments that plan was adopted in 2018 and it's still the plan so we are required to do that that's part of our plan with fair share and report so um so that's a a little bit of background information and in fact that that goes back further and if you go to again the city website you'll find all this information about the affordable housing uh timeline and our requirements uh there and I I think it's pretty straightforward um over the course of last couple of years the council uh okay I just a couple of uh notes Here the council met in close session in regards to this uh three times in 2022 seven times in 2023 and T in 2024 um and in August of 2022 U ad C comme we adopted resolution number 159 2022 which uh would P me in the designation of conditional redeveloper and it did in that in that resolution state that there was is going to be the proposed the proposed plan included 202 homs so this has been in the public uh it's been it's been a matter of public record uh since they're just noting that I'm sure a lot of people weren't here in August of 2022 where were pay attention but it has been a matter of record um so you know at the end of all of this you know all these conversations uh city council uh agreed to uh uh to to bring these amendments forward Orin and there was no time during the process when we didn't we didn't stop we had a question so if you know we presented this as a group as and just a followup uh you know there were having two planning board meetings planning board meeting last night planning board deemed that this um Redevelopment plan is inconsistent with the master plan um in this rle that the planning I should I should say is uh largely advisory um so the planning has 45 days to get any recommendation to the city council uh after which the city council city city council the city council city council that little tab it like to make one suggestion this is a wireless system if you have it may it only happens when the room is crowded if you have a cell phone if you can turn it off and the gentleman and ladies standing in front of that closet that's where the receiver is just separated so we're trying to get you know we don't want children to come on sounds thank you nominations yeah um so cour did uh did uh did determine that this is inconsistent with the master plan planning board attorney will be making uh list some recommendations to the governing body I expect to have them probably sometime the next week to 10 days um and those will be considered by the governing body um and and at the first planning board meeting when this was considered obviously uh you know knowing it was going to be a one day turnaround it was not going to be possible for us as the city council to make any kind of responsible decisions and something that that uh that would be sent potentially overnight so uh that's part of the reason why we're sing the table at um there will be more conversations about this publicly uh I have received uh I think more than 60 emails uh I'm about 40 of them answered I still got about 20 maybe 20 25 left to go um we welcome public comment I will note uh I I do want to talk about one last thing think it's important uh so so many of you have probably seen this uh this appeared in my mailbox uh without an envelope and without a stand which I believe is not legal um but point and the one the one thing I want to point out about this document is that it says uh yeah one thing I want to point out about this document is uh something that's not true uh it says uh send an email to the mayor and city council opposing the adoption of the 2024 L High School Redevelopment plan it says do not send it to the mayor alone as he has not been sharing opposing view points with Council that's patently false every single email that I write to uh a resident is iine copy the council members on and that's a very easily identifiable fact I files all of my emails outgoing and in um I do not want the public to think that I do not appreciate opposing views or that I do not share them that would be ludicrous that you know I can't sneeze in the middle of the night without people knowing about it so uh I do need to uh if you that statement and uh I do I do talky the Council on all of my emails unless someone's writing on top that I don't but poliy matters I do and every time my time so me said make sure the public trusts that I am completely open with this Council and with the public so uh making that point it's want to offer any last Rems to the before I for motion watch keep um I would just say yes obviously mayor you know has been bcn us bccn us it's a public issue where obviously we can't have a meeting so we can't email back forth we can't respond so it's usual thing U but he has been given us that that is not true and in this state of disinformation uh you know obviously the best way to get thisinformation is come to council to hear yourself so I will always answer my phone somebody calls it if let's have been a meeting so you can you all have my number it's on the city website I only have one phone I will answer any question that comes my way so please feel free to call me or write me an email sometimes I prefer a phone conversation because printer and it's nice to have a conversation rather email but I want everybody to know they can call me they can come to office they can ask me any question there's no question that I'm agreed to answer no conversation uning smell so at this point I would like to entertain a motion to table ordinance number 11- 2024 the ordinance of the city of lamberville County H in state of New Jersey further amending Redevelopment plan High School Redevelopment area block 1073 13567 8 9 10 11 32 33 and four and five and block 1091 l 1 and 1.01 so move second let's have a r councilwoman Kaminsky yes councilman Li yes councilman Stegman yes council president Lambert yes to tabling this motion to some point in the future to be determined mayor no okay yes thank you all right and now got to open it up to public comment and uh I just because we have we have so many uh new people in new faces in the room to this meeting I'm just going to review the public comment rules uh and expectations so we unless you have mobility issues we would ask you to step up to the podium here we do ask that you state your name and your address we do we our ordinance requires uh three minutes maximum uh we will keep track of the time uh in par to everybody who wants to speak uh lindsy will give you a 30 second a 30 second warning and then I will gently ask you to step away from the day at 30 seconds I do ask that during public comment uh there's no clapping or Noise We Are reminded that we we are listening to one at a time feel as though you need to make some other outside so with the background noise it's hard for something here with herid so please be respectful yeah did everybody hear that yes yes okay um we want to make sure that everybody here everything that everybody has to say um and lastly that Council may or may not respond to to Remar so uh let's get Jeff 33 Wilson Street I want to thank everybody for coming out for all the hard work everyone has done and all the great questions and coming to all the meetings because without that this thing could have been push through and so you know what I want to do is thank everybody and state of the council that I actually don't think the ordinance should be Ted I think it should be withdrawn that this whole plan is a shame and a mistake you know we had this presentation where the guy's going to come in and do a water tax to say we got to do something about flooding if you develop this property you're going to turn lamberville is going to have to change its name to lamberville fall because the water coming down that mountain will never stop the point that I want to make is that the planning board said it was inconsistent with the master plan this project is also inconsistent with the purpose of res zoning which the first thing in it is public health and safety this project would would there so many different ways would hurt this town between the flooding and storm water and the pollution the traffic impacts the fact that there's no proper traffic plan for up there and then kids would have to go out 179 and place you know Dodge them with real cars um the fact that we have infrastructure that can't handle this kind of waste coming down that mountain they can bring down all that water and be at least a million extra Downs on a three three minute rain I mean a 3in rain connected to a that was built in the time of the Toran period this project is bad from day one second point I want to kind of get at is that this is a time you can go back and some of the sites like yac and others that were taken out of the old plans there are other sites we you need to be looking at besides part of Boston Farm because not all of it is historic or environmentally sensitive you've got the old you got Finkles coming in you've got the uh the Old Village Apartments we need to go back figure this thing out secondly and most importantly that this is a matter of trust part of the problem I have is the largest developer for the affordable housing the developer for the affordable housing component of site John J O'Donnell was just indicted on Monday for fraud and racketeer and it had to do with tax um funds and tax uh abatements down in Camden and we're going to be asking this guy to go to the state to get money uh for tax credits for this project they may not even be able to get it they could be banned and that investigation is going on because this company was is owned by Apollo which is Drex B land there so you remember we've Gotan I was involved 590 instances of violations of Clean Water Act and they're going to be building on our Mountain you know I was part of that 54 New Jersey so point I'm trying to make is this is a bad project bad project in a bad place at the wrong time and it's extremely dense it's it's basically almost 20 units per acre you're going to cut down 1,400 trees you can't replace that you can't replace the view shed that's going to be looking at retaining walls and buildings instead of the the woods that are there and then all the extra school children at least 80 to 90 coming out of there this project my dad would call it obliv goes from the boy SCS might remember what that is it's just too big and too dense and it's wrong for this community and we need to go back we need to build affordable housing we need to do it in town in the right places and we may have to do something up there but this project is not this so I think it should with go back to sare again that we please ref refrain from CL I understand that there are a lot of motions in the room but uh every time we spend time doing these kinds of things we uh we break up the process a little bit and uh you know I just think it's I just think it's a matter of the Quorum so I would ask you please uh to not clap or otherwise talk during the public because I because I will need to stop and collect ourselves in the room and I will do it so please uh everyone be heard and you can speak after meeting so um I um I've asked this question a couple times of the planning board you may have heard it before they bounc me over to you we buy fire trucks are we buying police cars are we buying EMS vehicles are we buying extra rooms in our schools employees employees employees and more employees they bounce me to you any answers comment you need toay taxes those so we're buying fire trucks foradian whenever you add more residents and more building whatever develop project you do concern very people talk about we're buy more fire CHS we're also have moreable to do that because we're have more people here more people paying property tax so yes there's going to be Bas so the town will be buying more equipment snow bows you know uh that's probably overtime these guys go till 2 3 4 in the morning uh I don't know if it's double time triple time uh are we taking care of that and Owners Association yes are they paying monthly dues for things like this again my understanding is through our professional there might be two homeowners associations one for the affordable one for the market rate I yes those and again any all the residents are going to be paying tax for the same benefits that we all enjoy as residents here okay is it practical for them to have their own little fire department I know where would you problem can I just um make a comment um I think that you've raised some very good valid issues I don't I don't have the answers to that I don't think anyone that's what I wanted to know maybe it has been and it hasn't and but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be factored in to a future um f as this I see this plan um as a beginning and it's going to evolve all right and I think it's really important as my fellow council members have stated already to hear what people are saying and incorporate that as an iterative process you know nobody's going to get 100% of what they want right but through the process of collaboration we've winded up with something that's ultimately better than what we've got now I don't know but with the G or even bounced around we we're buying rooms on the school we've got to hire more teachers we maybe even have to build onto the school again we're paying for that for that that thank you I'm Camille Lee I live at 54 Handcock Street U I'm just going to read my letter that I wrote to all of you because it will take definitely less than three minutes dear mayor and Council I'm writing to you to express my opposition to the proposed Kian development for the LHS Redevelopment plan as a resident of kov Hill I agree and second all the points in the email from Sean Ellis to the mayor and city council June 15 I find it difficult to believe that such an oversized and out ofpl development of 200 units is being considered for our environmentally sensitive land this proposal raises serious concerns about its impact not just on K Hill residents but on our entire town it seems contradictory to regretted value that I believe landerville upheld flooding the concerns about runoff from the proposed development are significant and deserve serious consideration while off into town could potentially inundate property Downstream exacerbating the risk of flooding in the area the use of outdated criteria and storm water management assessments further compounds these concern as it may not adequately account for the current environmental conditions and potential impacts of increased development BL BL BL anyway traing we've gone over it so many times it's so obvious that it won't work so I'm not I'm going that um adding 400 more cars roads without sidewalks curves or adequate infrastructure raises significant safety concern there was a lady who was sitting up here yesterday who said it's not going to be 300 cars what country is she living in where each of these units is going to have one car had she ever looked around I mean if they give you two spaces to park in you think you're only going to have one ridiculous anyway um the roads this private development function more like Shar driveways and will isolate residents to T Hill and restrict our ability to safely navigate our neighborhood I don't care what this guy from K Manan said when you have a private development those roads are driveways they're not Road he said you can drive your car on them sure you can go visit someone in the development and drive your car there so technically right but they're not through roads it's not this is not a grid okay um uh the potential Coss of safe spaces for children to wait for the bus for to gather in the evenings or walk our pet will diminish our community's sense of connection and quality of life it threatens the vibrant neighborly atmosphere that conom Hill currently enjoys I that um development of no pedestrian access to the central Flor build raises significant issues regarding mobility and Community connectivity developing a home homes 100 yard from town without providing pedest access effectively isolates residents of cono Hill and from this development if you don't care about con Hill fine but even this develop won't be able to walk you don't care about con Hill res everything I hear downam downam down okay nobody talks about o you could wrap up please okay with the name much short um prioritizing the needs of this development over the hill with 100% absolutely 100% can I just read you about the junk bonds that has they are bankrupt we're gonna stick to the three minutes please thank you no this is what we do this is how we function this is how we keep things simple I post I can post this on Facebook if anybody wants toan is almost I need to my name address if you would pleas name 22 beler on P um I don't even know where to say um I am very concerned about this city building a project of that size how many people here have done new construction in lville anyone one two three four okay for the rest of you I want to tell you a little bit about what it's like to build with oh sorry um this very hard to start when we started building our home we found out that the county had no idea that we built our house at completion the county did not know we had no soil erosion plan at the city we had no tracking pads we had no silk fences we had no water management you know where the water runs off as they're doing construction none of that um we had to put a huge amount of money out unexpectedly the city was supposed to have contacted the county they did not um the man at the county was very upset he said that this could turn into something where someone loses their job which is not what we wanted we did not pursue anything like that um we moved into our house and on Christmas Eve we had raw sewage backing into our house the sewer was never connected to the city sewer the construction officer expected uh supposedly the MUA inspected so when I went to the MUA they had no idea that we build a house and they had never come to inspect our sewer so I spent three days digging in you know what in my front yard missing work I quoted $188,000 to fix that so I dug it up with my friends for three days in you know what uh I was on Christmas Eve he didn't come to my house until Wednesday Christmas Eve was on a su Sunday so giving Christmas day on Monday as leeway um I had to go to the municipal building to get him to come to my house to check this the MUA had a map from 1990 they couldn't tell me where the master connection to the sort was on my property um we did all of that and when all was said and done they said okay you can have your uh CE now they sent me someone's sign permit to my email not so I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble what I'm trying to do is bring attention to the need for guidance organization attention to detail I don't know whose job it is to make sure that the Construction office is taking care of these things but if that's any indication that was a half acre one house on half an acre you're talking about 200 units on 12 acres on a hill that has all kinds of problems I really just do not think that you guys ready for it I don't think you are I think a lot of change needs to happen before this even considered being that's it so J GIS 9 Bridge Street something good evening everyone I've been a resident of the incredible city of lamberville for the past six years most of you know me as the person behind lamb the life unfortunately the new development has been a Hot Topic in our community while I'm not for the development development nor against the development one key component to the development is the addition of un needed affordable housing to lorille I've been accused of many things over the past week and while it's not pleasant to hear I can certainly understand the frustration of my fellow neighbor Neighbors concerning my popular opinion I hope after I tell you a little bit about my background you'll understand why this is an important project why I have such strong opinions about the proposed development nearly 15 years ago I was a in my 20-some year of being a marketing executive where my office was in Midtown Manhattan shortly after I suffered a complete mental breakdown I was hospitalized for nearly a year and then discharged after being discharged I was still suffering from tremendous mental health issues and then ended up finding myself homeless I spent seven years on the street typically sleeping for a few hours each night on a random park bench or underneath a highway Hass or perhaps a random bus station wherever I felt the safest place to close my eyes for a few hours of sleep this was my life for seven years one of the places in which Park mention was very safe was the city of lamberville I was holess here in our little slice of paradise Unown unbeknown to most of you many many of you met me for the first time while I sat on a random park rch around town Fisherman's Mark fed me and Hunton Medical Center treated me that I spok while my own situation has changed and my life has turned around there are many people that still are in desperate need of a long-term Housing Solutions I assure you that finding Housing Solutions is a difficult task at best if a developer builds a lville or doesn't it's not for me to decide if you're for the project or against it I'm not here to change your mind what I care about is creating and adding more affordable housing lamberville not for me but those who continue to struggle all I ask is that collectively we can use some of our energy while finding a valuable solution for a portable housing in the near future not what ifs not P dreams but actual viable Sol soltions we need to start working together today for those in need I was lucky enough to find the solutions I needed now I'm asking all of you to help others find the solutions they need thank you hi hi everybody um I'm Beth Brian I live at two Hancock Street on hill at corner of Grant and hand Street and normally I come here to these meetings to talk to talk about the uh topic situation that will be impacted by this development um I also have a Christmas Eve story because we had a car drive into our living room Christmas Eve at the corner of H and Grand Street so best should but um what I want to talk about tonight actually want to ask the council a question I want to know um does the council have a report to share that addresses the P content on the on the development site and the reason I asked this is um I'm concerned about contamination of my H water um we call that we call the high school site we call World High School site but as I started to go through old my online you know they got them scan from the 1800s if you can go back and really look at all the old weekend and I uncovered that yeah the high school closed in 1960 but in 1964 a manufacturing facility took it over called The Tourist Corporation and the tourist Corporation manufactured teon coded Punch Cards teed circuit boards so teon is a component of ch component these days known as peas which are forever chemicals which will forever be in the water and the soil I know you can't I know you can't see this but the developer has created a little area here with a circle that says landfill and where the High School site was is where the going to be pive now I'm curious as to have a soil test been done because understand that we closed the landfill which I really would call a city Dum it was a dump it was not regulated people dump whatever they wanted on our Hill it was like the wild back in the day so although they think they know where the land is they haven't talked about where the high school was and I'm just concerned is that site truly viable for construction is it safe to build there and even though it was it was closed up to New Jersey standards in 1991 33 years ago and E wasn't even on our radar back then and there are stronger newer regulations in place New Jersey updated there since October 22 um the Biden her administration had a national La that went into effect in in April of 2024 and I think that we're going to do this we we need to make sure that we're Shing all boes thank you thank you uh I'm just going to take a minute to respond to that uh there's been no testing of that I know of uh there was one um let's see I'm happy to share this with uh with public I did send this to a couple of people and uh and also the council so one of the uh the neighbors up on Washington Street asked a question about uh High School site um and high school building is the location the proposed location of the detention Basin so there aren't actually going to be any hous built on that site uh on that particular part of the site so that is that's designated as the detention B so uh I'm going to read this this is verbatim from uh representative pav in response to a question about potential water there this is the information that I have obviously on of testing will be required before you know as the site plan so in response to neighbor question before the high school building bur down it housed Horus corporation which ceased operations in 1988 and triggered investigation requirements under New Jersey's then applicable environmental laws investigation and Remediation activities were conducted from 1989 to 1991 and completed to njde satisfaction the njde Department of Environmental Protection issued a negative [Music] declaration issued a negative uh declaration approval in May 1991 to close the case more recently as part of K due diligence it's environmental consultant Ranson performed additional investigation of potential soil and ground water impacts around the former building confirm compliance with current regulations and standards Ransom T Ransom Ransom reports the contaminants of concern were identified in Shallow soils around the former building footprint and are suspected sorry are expected are suspected to be associated with Ash and Cinders from the the burn down building removal and offsite disposal of impact of material of the soil will be required as part ofite development but there is no impact to groundwater gr some further re that other limited contaminants identified in the soils will require remediation that likewise do not impact ground water so that's directly from koban that's all the information I have on any environmental texting did they do that texting before October 20122 this is all I have this is all information I have thank you request that they update their T Bank to the most recent distri than I yes please um so I know a lot of people have concerns about the water and blasting up there and if you remember our engineer about it might be possible that they might not even have to do BL that might be something through this process that we talked about to address some of those concerns maybe that's something we can negotiate them and put them on the pl so hi I'm Maturo I live at wood York street it's the block between North Franklin and 179 we're just downhill from the site um I grew up in Lambertville and I moved back because I wanted to raise my children with town as stound called such of them place and safety unparallel to anywhere else i' that I've been my daughter's proud to call Lambertville her home I would like to thank the board for remembering that thect for recommending the stricted storm water management be required of any development on the LHS site um just like many people in town I also have a blood story and our it was holding my almost two-year-old daughter and my ancient cat looking for a safe place to be in my home I can't hide from the tornado in the basement was filling up with water and I look down out I'm like okay maybe Poli no there's a raging river running down our street um I have major concern this development is going to make the flash flooding so you can get C more intense um especially considering that the developer considered for the project of the history of Clean Water Act violations specific to negligence storm water management I Fe for the lives of my family and for my neighbors um well I do not believe this is an appropriate site for development if we're interested in um in Resto um in being careful about the impact of SL flooding and count um let's say this Project's approved um who will be monitoring the developers adherance to the management practices we require of them um and it also sounds to me like the agreement for was it 137 units in that's the 2018 agreement yeah yeah so right like that's before IA so are we able to go back to the courts and say hey things have changed here let's reopen some kind of discussion um in terms of our new reality thank you I'll just make one note about that you know it that is the current settlement uh I am about the court uh in my last meeting with the with the judge and the court Master we talked about Pro and how it's unfolding uh and and you know many I don't want to be that guy alarm or who's uh trying to people U but it was pointed out judged it out before we finished our conversation if the council knew the potential risks involved in not moving forward with this plan um and those risks include the court uh taking control over development in Lambertville I'm just going to put that out there I'm not saying it's going to happen but you know this is a process and uh you know the challenge of meeting affordable housing those 32 units you know there anybody's open to finding them downtown or somewhere else this is this is great I'm not going to get to we're not to the weeds here but I just want to point out that we are in a precarious position with the court and fair share housing and the fact that we we've actually added one unit I think the last few years was an except Department unit here on South street so you know you attention now you might get more help with some ideas about how to work I'm happy to to have a conversation about affordable housing at any time um thanks hi Sean Ellis uh 21 meler Avenue first of all I want to thank everybody up here mayor the council for all of your hard work um you know You' been working very hard and it's a very stressful high temperature situation and I don't think any of us find it comfortable and um I think we uh should support each other getting through this I I agree with um uh what you said mayor earlier in terms of um you know working together on this and I also want to um suggest that maybe you know I don't know if you're the only one who can have those conversations with the judge but if you need support there I'm sure you could find it and um you know uh I I I think that it's there's there's definitely a real reason to reassess here and I think the Judge would be sympathetic I understand that you know your conversation um there were warnings and um aware of those and uh P but um I might suggest that uh we have some kind of real of this to do things like um you know spend the affordable housing fund wisely I think that Adu on Main Street it's a great idea if that could be publicized more for to create incentives for landlords convert their units to you know for people to build a use and and have funding for that that would be amazing I think you know being able to people um you know a state planning that they don't have anyone to leave their home to and they could you know leave it to our world of housing crisis that you know that would be incredible um you know I know that a group worked on uh Land Trust um ideas uh in the past uh we need to get all these ideas on the table um because I agree that it's just too big and we can't fit that manys up there um and if that's the deal of T it's not a good one and we shouldn't take it um I also I wanted to ask what is the um retention Basin is that the water that comes that is held the storm water so is that that spr yeah it's a princip it's one of the principal storm water management mechanisms and it will hold the water and uh slowly it into the into the into the ground right over yeah into the larger system typically right it will be under I mean the plan again I don't want to get you in the weeds here but plan doesn't allow for or do it does have some underground basins uh for infiltration and water quality uh and it does have a detention Bas Lambertville Lambert Hill has three of them woodrest has one of them uh those are to keep hold the water until it's uh safe to to reduce the to to to release the water a flow rate that's appropriate and uh can meet the capacity of can accommodate capacity okay um yeah because I think putting water in that spot without proper remediation up there this is not an issue that's that's even like this the separate issue from the high school development the you know um that's the only place that that I know of in nville that does not have City water in it might be something to consider um you know whether we knew with this uh go through the Redevelopment or not um so I would encourage um some thinking around that too thank you thank you and this is a a great time to note that uh councilman live will be joining me on all my future calls with the court and the court master and fair share uh I I don't particularly uh I mean I have a good relationship with the court court master and fair share but honestly I'm just one person and this is not just my problem and I want the council and the public to feel confident that these conversations are happening appropriately and that reflecting weird the council's reflecting uh what's really happening behind the scenes um as appropriate so I I welcome counc L support on this he know the judge personally and think that the judge would pleas to uh to have that uh to have that to get I thinkk council president uh Lam for making it um so yes we will be working two of us will be now working with the sh there um my name is Susan rello and I live at e Hillside Court in amberville and probably I'm going to try to really be brief because I'm just going to be reiterating some things that have already been said one of the things that concerns me is that this Redevelopment plan was agreed to in 2018 that's years ago which doesn't take into account climate change the verocity of some of the storms that we're having and all those things and and the the severe uh weather events um and so that's where it's hard for me to imagine and certainly I'm not a lawyer so I don't know but it's hard for me to imagine that we came up if we were able to come up with a plan that helps people without hurting people without hurting others it's hard and and it's going to fulfill um what we need to do it's hard for me to believe that the Court's just going to say oh no forget it you're not going by what what you said before I I really um you know I I really feel that affordable housing is not an obligation I really feel that it's a responsibility it's very important to me and um it's getting harder and harder to living probably for many of us um so but but here's the thing I'm confused about on the one hand I feel like I might be hearing some of you say this is a live process and that it can be changed and then I feel like I'm hearing that no we're locked into certain things like we're locked into developing on that site can someone clear that up for me so I know at least what the possibilities are Bill do you want to weigh in on this a little bit in terms of the the obligations of the city under the the the the settlement agreement and uh you know we can always go back to the court and we are talking the court but still way a little so um so that right now the city's obligation to the court is based on the 2018 Redevelopment plan to the site this process that um count going through going through um was wasn't a that your development plan um to allow for you know projects um from the contract purchas of those properties up there um I mean the city's obligation it's not that's the Redevelopment plan place so that's a place that can be developed that the city can appoint or redevelop or to develop um you know this isn't the you know this process that we've been working through with the court is under the presumption that that going be decided to locate the affordable housing on because there's I remember correctly some correct I'm wrong but there's not reel place any the city this I see there are a few sites that are designated for redevelopment but there's no plan in place you need that those zoning standards site development standards in place in order to designate a developer sir if we came up up with a a different plan um is is that something that we could do or could could we come up with a different plan to be presented um and and let me just tell you I just want to say why um I and I know I'm running out of time here so I'm G to get this out I just wonder there I I just feel like a a development of that size and cutting people off from the rest of town I feel like it's a disaster in the making I feel like it's going to dramatically have a a very NE netive impact on the lives of the people that live on kov Hill I feel like it's going to be dangerous the traffic and and all of that um I I don't think that you can even widen those roads without taking people's properties without taking part of people's properties because the road's not wide enough and I think that it defies the laws of physics to think that a development of that size is not going to to cause flooding I just don't I it's hard for me to believe that there are that many Feats that could really make a difference um and I I um Wonder like things like Alternatives like part of the colon Farm I don't know what's going on with the brewery on Lambert Lane um abandoned tow houses other properties maybe that the city owns I'm even going to go so far as to say something very unpopular but I just want to say we have a lot of ball fields in lville and when I drive down the street a lot of times they're not in use I I think that maybe we could would we have I think there there's there's other land but I think we have to think outside the box and 2018 that was what was available but maybe you need to think outside the box and come up with other Alternatives so that's why I'm asking should I bother to even think about this or is it just such a dumb deal all right I'm gonna ask you step away three minutes and how you address those questions so um it's not a done deal it's not a done deal until the boat until the fat lady things as they say right so there's been no vote we're right at we're right in this process uh we will have to go back to the court I assure you as the as representatives of the city of lamberville and and say at this council meeting we have X amount of people show up I've received 68 letters opposed to this or whatever it is and uh you know what would we need to have a further conversation with the court and I I have no idea how that's going to go in terms of we have in terms of our inventory again I'm happy to answer a question if you go on the city's website there is an affordable housing uh web page on the resident uh section it will give you a breakdown charts of all of our affordable housing units one of the reason why we the council I'll say I uh want thought that this Pro this this plan was viable was 40 affordable housing units in the city of Lambert building and not any 40 that these are family units we don't have family units So Not only would we get I'm not going to go into all the numbers here Lane talked about the sub the planning board meeting it's pretty technical stuff but not only do we get Not only would we meet our third round obligation um completely but we would get bonus credits for the fourth round likely because of the kind of units they are it's very technical all of these layerings so please take a look at the take a look at the available information the website um and uh you know we will be having conversations about other Redevelopment areas so the vill department uh the the people site I have no idea what's happening with any of these at the moment so uh you know hang so we do want to thank the cancel for all of your hard workan I know you put in C hours and your volunteers and you're working on all our behalfs so thank you so much for all that thank you my name is Trina barus I live on 142 George Street and I'm glad she asked those questions I had kind of the same on so at the planning board meeting we don't have to build all of the house right away right we have until uh 49 is that what we I'm not going to go into the numbers right now the weeds for for me to do it in all the comment um we do have obligations and we do have to meet our third R obligations by June of 2025 this is one of the and and the with uh it's 32 affordable units is one of those obligation so we either need to go back to the court and renegotiate a new settlement which we've already done what once or twice in the last couple of years uh and for which the court has uh you know exess probably come to pleasure at having to do this already um so you know we have until 2025 to meet our third obligations so uh that's that's what I'm s does the court uh decide exactly where the housing goes the Court decides to intercede it can yes it can decide it can decide it can take away the process uh and I'm not suggesting that it is going to take away this process in Lal it has done it in communities it has it has taken away the process the ability for our community to decide how much and where and what project looks like because we're taking too long that's basically the we're not meeting our obligations or we're taking too long or whatever the court I can't speak to the court here so okay but you can do another presentation another amendment possibly I don't know okay just it was it wasn't clear to me how many I was at the planning where so my other concern is um I don't know if you know me but I worked very closely with the Hispanic community and I was uh not only that I lose my office during the ID plug I also um intimately was aware with a lot of families that lost their homes I you know there about 40 families not all of them Hispanic but most of them and it was really traumatizing they're the people who got rescued in the boat the one boat a woman who parted on that Bo there was um a young man who was in the hospital he went he refused to EET uh there's one young girl that they had to take her out and homeschool her because she can't be at school so these are the people that deserve the kind of environmental justice that we need to be thinking about if really we are what we say we are is agressive Community then we have to think about the people who are coming in that by the way there from all over New Jersey are people that have went through this they don't get portable hous per say they have to apply through the government so there are all these people that still come here still work here and are having a really hard time and I know a lot of people have flooding but they not so many lost their homes like they did so another thought is that why do do we have to work with these developers that that are on that you're working with they they have contract with the with the property owner so they have a contract with property owner oh oh but so they're purchasing the property so that's a done deal we we don't know the we don't know the we don't know all the details of the contract it's a private transaction oh okay so there's no say in that at all no it's sell your house oh I see okay so there's no that you have no ST in that at all I do okay the city before was thinking about trying to use comination to do that and a very large amount of money the city would have to bond to do that and so they decided to okay so what he's saying is that it would have cost a lot of money for the city to take over that and so they chose to leave it private look at the public record on the short website like I did the other day the amount that they were required to be bonded was over 14 they wanted $4 million from the city to buy okay so um I see that because there's so many Fantastic environmentally I didn't see the so many projects that are just so forward thinking so Progressive that could be so well done that take all these things into consideration clean it out and I see it all over the world I travel and I see these wonderful things so why do we have to be for lack of better word so hope and go with this company that's makes hard housing that has nothing to do with the style people than you hi I'm Lauren Rosen JIS and I live at nine Washington Street um I have a couple of things some of what I wanted to say has already been said um one of the questions was is there some mechanism by which pic prot supports and you know negotiate changes it seems like over the past decade there have as to zonings and overlays and different developmental plans that we've had um the answer seems to continually be either this is Our obligation or we don't know so my question now is do you have any intention of asking the if there is a mechanism by which we might negotiate changes do you have any other questions for I'd like yeah let's ask the questions because I I find this back and forth kind of hard and then yeah um the second thing that I want to say is that and this is just a point it's not a question is that in talking about all the different studies the environmental soil sampling all of this it seems like it's all calling on job to do those studies um and I'm a scientist but I think when corporations hire their own people to do scientific studies how accurate they are there's apparent bias and I'm wondering if there's a way for us to ask for or introduce our own independent studies up there so that's my other point um and the third and final one is that you know we just had a really interesting presentation about storm water utility we just last week had a very I don't know if it was interesting but we had a community Gathering about resilience we have people in the town who are working on resilience who I believe really care about it and really care about this utility too and really understand the issues that are facing Us in terms of flooding and Public public health and safety in our town I also think that affordable housing is incredibly important and it should be a priority for us um and I feel like these things are getting sidey and um that's a concern because they're starting to work against each other and what I'm wondering is if there is a way and I've presented this to the mayor privately another time but um we have a Human Rights Council we have environmental commission is there a way to make an affordable housing committee that has rep representation from a bunch of these from Human Rights from environmental commission from zoning board from planning board that can work together to create a solution and also some citizens who you know I would the first person to raise my hand if you said we're looking for people who want to find Solutions I know we've heard a lot of concerns here um and if we if we used that created that and then presented that judge as we we are working towards something would that help our case those are that's it that's all I have to say right uh just in and Council should always feel free to jump in here uh want to necessarily be the talker and she all the time not even part of the time or some other the time um we are going to have to negotiate with court we're going to have to have conversations I don't know what that looks like I can't I can't be more specific than that um Evan do you have any thoughts on that as my new uh my wing mail the cour we we obviously we hear the concern you know we want to try to work his name is EV we hear concern that you know judge Miller appeared before him a number of times uh you know he was former County counsil on suet he dealt with these same issues as County Council he then became a judge uh he then became the presiding judge of civil and then he became the assignment judge he is a very well-respected jurist um he's also a mediator on the side tried to bring people together and you know the hope is that we can show him that we are acting in good faith and can V for Solutions you know we have maybe something with uh you know build Apartments what might give us some more affordable housing there that will help us you know I don't know if that was part of the 2018 plan I think it was but you know that might be opportunity for us to get them too but if the judge doesn't see us working toward a solution we absolutely are going to be held with think to the fire because you can look at other towns to do that so that is definitely something we have to be concerned about have to this process and that's why you know having the mayor ask me to help him uh because this just one of the opportunities where need that can help so I'm happy to do that in terms of uh studies environmental or otherwise uh typically these uh initial studies all on the responsibility of the property owner and not the city these studies are very expensive to do and so uh the initial studies whatever they are requirements applications with the state all of that is is undertaken by the property owner uh who seeks to develop the property right the city then once those reports once that information is made available to the city city professionals review that if there's a question about them and subsequent independent you know studies can be ired whatever so initially through the through the initial application process until you get to a recite plan the the burden of cost always falls on the property owner we do not want to assume any cost at the city level for property that's not ours um so that answer to that question um you know I'm more than happy to consider an affordable housing commission committee uh we did talk about this I have we would have to have conversations with the council with the attorney to see what's the what's the mission what's the what's the ability of that of that group to to positively impact zoning or you know conversations the court or you know whatever right I don't know maybe Council kinsky knows a little bit more about this having a court Master but I don't know if other if other communities have kind of uh committees or commissions or or whatever or how and how effective they are um so I'm open to it just um on together and I can send that link to thank you and mayor Contin you that I'd be happy to volunteer my time to represent Council I'm I'm completely open to it I just I I want to understand what it looks like and what its mission is and how it's got to have guidelines it's got to have structure it's got to have purpose and it's got to be effective right so those are my those are my only requirements for that kind of that kind of group please I am Charlie grow I live at 216 Union I've lived more than half my life in Lambertville starting down town with you on Church Street and then most of the time with you up on Cottage Hill and now with you all down on um North Union and so I experienced some of the different parts of this what it's like to be in full impervious area and really terrible traffic and what it's like to worry about your well and most recently what it's like to rebuild after Ida um I went to sleep that night listening to the people being rescued in boats and knowing I couldn't get to them we're still working on things even though everything looks pretty good and I seeing these different parts of um and seeing the neighbors who are not back you know that were in the apartments some people aren't back some people are back some people left um and seeing all these different problems together and I guess I want to underline the the fact that uh it won't be a word doc we give the judge we're going to need an Excel spreadsheet um because all the problems are interl and the solutions are going to be need to be interl and we won't have a silver bullet the um we're going to have a little piece here a little piece there it won't just be impervious areas but finding semi perious as we know Lawns are are not impervious but they do affect water when we had the blood I sent an email up to the HSA at the thing up on the hill and receive nothing I think one of the Creative Solutions we can do is to work with hsas because developers are like flippers they just they need to make it look good enough to sell and um we need the HSA to have more to work on not just hey you know you got the wrong color mailbox but also okay this is our responsibility this is how we can uh make less LA area that sort of thing um one of the things we have in Lambertville is our Beauty we keep on liking to be beautiful towns and a lot of time we're against each other when we're thinking of gosh we have we we need to attract the visitors we need to attract the visitors oh I'm tired of being stage dressing for the visitors but both these groups have in common that we want Lambertville to look beautiful and huanian is a liability in that I've lived in um in West Central Jersey my entire life I've seen hnan builds it's not going to attract anybody to Lambertville um and it's not very well built over time what we might think we got our units we may be creating problems um that oh yeah just saw um so I just want to end by thanking everybody for helping me in those times and thanking the city council for tabling this so that we have more time um I think that's what we need I think we can do it and I hope you all don't have to help me [Music] again hi AB before handcuff Street just going to continue some notes from before so it's evident from the numbers that their panian plans to construct four times more High inome homes than affordable housing a large portion of the supposed affordable units cater to moderate income brackets rather than lwi income fames this approach risk misplacing existing low-income residents on the hill this is reminiscent of Robert Moses and now he also marginalized vulnerable communities and look how great New York is doing now Kian only issued dunk bongs right now no one trusts them to pay their debts in 2022 they were only upgraded so only a couple of years ago they were upgraded from being an imminent risk of default investment Banks won't issue the credit that low why is Lambertville trusting such a development to somebody who can't pay their loans back what happens in the very likely event when the real estate market takes a downturn what happens in the very likely event that this developer is not able finish the project that the state V Sue Lambertville where kadian in ability to his hous I noticed that Council got our attorney just went yes I know I noticed that he just got up when I asked him who's to questions that was the question mayor okay would you ask it again when he comes back I will ask it for him please continue will you asking though if if the horrible housing isn't built like what happen exactly and I asked that same question to the developer hovan it's separate Michael Corporation so under the the Michaels is the one who is contracted to build the of a house and then I asked I said what happens if they don't leave it and I didn't get answer so K Manan is saying we don't know who would to Su and let's note the fact that Kian has said we'll hold he lock out uman has said that they will hold a 15% gond of the cost of the for two years but they're not paying their bonds no one expects them to pay their bonds so why are we saying in two years by the way is not enough we've all had warranties in our life that failed everything breaks the second warranty is over so K Manan is obviously one of many that will be exactly like that so why are we trusting them only a 2year 15% Bond and they're already junk bombs why are we why not any other buyer anybody else so Council now you're back yeah so um if kogan cannot complete this development when the real estate market takes a downturn who's responsible who does the state Sue when lamille is not able to ride their repord the state's not going to sue anybody um in the scenario that you presented if they're not able to um they're they would have an agreement with the city to construct this the city would not own any of the property wouldn't own anything related to the construction up there if there is a failure of them to complete the project they' be under the Redevelopment agreement the city have that nobody's going through speak if they don't complete the project if there's a Redevelopment plan in place and if there's an agreement in place between City and K the future they would have obligations to the city to complete the the city have remes against them if they their failure to would would not result in liability in the city we would have to obviously you know or we would be found compliant if the Pro was approved we would be found comping we'd have immunity under the affordable housing litigation involved in um but the obligation is still there to make sure it's not just to approve for it's to create formal housing so we would probably have to come back for but nobody is going to be sing sitting over that it would just be um figuring out a way you know City like I said the city would have certain remedies over the agreement we have to figure out a way of how that would work with the court and moving that forward it's lot hypothetical you'll excuse my clarity on that but you know there's a lot of moving points that would be going on if that scenario and so would you please wrap up if you could also comment on the two-year Bond and how we can also hold their feet to the legal fire of maybe extending that since they're a broke organization thank you the if there was a Redevelopment agreement there would be certain requirements regarding their financing um but again you know going back to their their construction finan if they could get it you know it's for them to construct the project if there would be a private transaction between them and any lender that wanted to lend to them the city wouldn't be involved at all in that other than to say that if there is some adverse action by that lender the city still has rights under the Redevelopment project and whoever steps their shoes has to complete the project in accordance to any agreement that the city approv uh good evening Paul Stevens 394 I have to pic you guys I don't know uh I don't envy you at all in trying to solve this for and not um being able to keep the city resilient or make it even more resilient and and solve our affordable housing unit there been a lot of good points U brought up tonight I'm not going to stand here and tell you I have any new ideas or have any answer uh but what I do want to do as somebody lives on Cory Street yes I'm worried about the storm water that comes off the con Hill I'm also worried about the storm water that comes out of West am Township down the freet and the reason I'm bringing this up is because for those of us that live on the creek we believe that it's going to take a regional solution to actually do much for the uh flooding and the cures on Swan and at the other end of town out talking if we put something this big out there on top of Tom Hill how can we have something how will West andwell want to work with us when we try to ask them about being careful with their development that affects us since we're at the bottom of the hill we're going to have to talk to him sometime if it seem like and I'm just this is just something out to think about when we think about this how it impacts the future for us um and I I wish I did have a solution I know I will say that uh there will have to be conversations with there will have to be conversations with West at some point uh there have already been issues with their detention basins that that that that would speaked to uh behind Lamberts Hill um you know I I walked up the the the creek that runs through the whole comart and you know seeing the three detention basins which empty into that after a rainy day so you know as we consider Regional as we consider relationships with our with our M with our Municipal neighbors uh you know there going to be a lot of things that come up and Stor water management is going to be uh high and and just the application that we that submitting tonight the county we are emphasizing that our Grant application for video system to to uh video our pipes uh underground pipes that we would voluntarily completely actively work toward establishing relationships with neighboring Community to provide those services to them so whether it's West Amwell or Frenchtown that there will be Regional relationships there will be uh Municipal uh agreements uh that are that are contemplated and and and enacted so so we will be having conversations with West an we can't continue not to have conversations with them um whether it's a ter development overall swim Water Management as I pointed out in meetings weed to live at the top of rocktown Lambertville Road when I walk up my old house I know there are 44 uh inlets and all of those inlets drain into uh Swan Creek so you know we know we we can easily Identify some of these questions and some of these challenges and uh we will be working we will have to we will have to talk to our neighbors um on a variety of things so you know that's coming as well can I ask a question think I need that one but the uh the question that came in front of us about uh choosing another site that we could deem for redevelopment this is for Bill sorry is that if we find the site that we think is appropriate to be uh to be to to to have Redevelopment on it what permission from the property owner do we need to move forward with identifying a site for as a Redevelopment area so there's there's two ways well there's one way you to the site first off would have to be the statutory criteria as an area development so you'll recall building departments for example the city council um recommended the planning board study that they conducted the site study they found with that number of the criteria based on dation number of different things so they they check you for that site they recommend the council designated so the council designated um and there's two ways to designate as a non-c comination area area need of Redevelopment or comination Area Redevelopment and it's self-explanatory in one for one designation the city doesn't have the power of condemnation for the other does so explain condemnation in case people don't know what that is condemnation the eminent domain process where government takes private property for a public purpose and compensates the owner the fair market value property um Redevelopment projects defined as purpose in New Jersey so um let not say that people don't challenge that they do sometimes but um in general a city could take property you know provided a spare market value to the owner and use that property for development purposes so when we discuss Finkles when we discuss CVS when we discuss other areas that to us look like it would be a good location for Fair Share House in we really cannot just designate or overlay those areas for fair share housing is what I'm hearing I just want to be clear the city is not contemplating redel defination combination anything for any of those properties no I'm just talk I I let me take it a step back I'm using them as examples of functioning functioning buildings on existing areas that's wherever they are I just use those as an examples because visually we yeah I will say that you don't need the you don't need the permission of the property the property owner obviously has stake in it they have to be noticed of every step in the process but I my experience in lamberville is that condemnation is not a preferred method of of inducting Redevelopment right unfortunately we're in a situation now where we have um fortunately what we have a property we have a contract purchaser that's who we're dealing with but I think um you know my experience from being around here for how long I've been here is that combination probably not Curr because that that that that Pals into the fact that somebody want want there was talk about creating a committee to to look into where fair share housing can be built and if it doesn't have a happy ending there's no reason to go it get I hate to say it gets technical but when we start talking about companies in town we start talking about our fourth round obligation and how that's be calculated and what properties are built and and and and really getting into maybe creating more issues for the and there are right now by opening up a can of worms say that there are more things available and I think right now um we we uh there's a process for redevelopment and in any any like that a municipality goes through and and that's if something came up that could be what we we do but it's kind of we'll just put a lid on that one for a little bit well reason I have a question I mean I I kind of I'm familiar with it but if there's a group people that want to organ a group to look where this can happen I just want to know if that's even feasible well that's a conversation for another meeting I'm happy to have it so let's move on my name is I Amon and I've been a res of lamberville for the past few years um I wanted to make a few comments regarding the recent discussions about flooding measures in mville first I want to express my gratitude to the council for their dedication and effort in these search Solutions I understand this a complex matter and I appreciate the commitment and transparency to the public about reporting your findings little louder please I move the microphone closer um one concern I have the decision to slow down this form utility referendum um I think it wasn't part voted down due to the mailers from a few we ago which many people felt would unduly influence the public and were viewed as theal politically um I don't think that this was their intention and that sometimes the drive for Progress especially in underrepresented groups like environmental advocacy groups can kind of come off as Brash and pushy when in reality it's just urgency for a definely important issue um so I think that we should trust residents to make informed decisions and not let the politics of messaging and what the public get to vote on um as the study has already been completed I hopefully revisit the utility referendum option in the teachers that the PO TR on the matter um I know that there's um other plans and there invensible options in CS and it's just saying what's going on in the city um but again I think it would be good to revisit the issue since we have it that's thank you thank you uh I will say that I'm open to resenting it we only just finished the study tonight um and uh Council and I are going to continue to have conversations about this I honestly feel as though the dust needs to settle on a little bit um I do I would like to at some point uh speak with the council about the possibility of going back to the Department of Environmental Protection to see whether they would consider you know we we did get a grant for that from the Department of Environmental Protection we decided to go I on my recommend under my recommendation uh the council did vote to uh to go with the New Jersey League conservation voters uh Grant um but I would like to have another discussion with the Department of Environmental Protection and and I would encourage people to look at the report you don't have to read all 200 two pages of it but look at it and and uh and let's continue to have conversations I'm never afraid of a conversation um and I do think that these matters are so important that they should be personally speaking for myself that they should be part of our of our community's conversation and educated uh you know residents should be able to drive some of these major decisions so I agree with you K thank you for this conversation um question I have is it sounds like this site is part of a development site plan that um is tied toan no matter what so I guess I would love some clarification on that given um some of the problematic um you know nature of that company and I guess my concern is that we're relying on Environmental Research from um so I just would love clarification bill you want to correct um we didn't that out so they're under contract with the private property owner to purchase the property from them um and they appr perm the city so this it's not really a case of the city picking someone it's some kind of this is who the city this has been has been discussing the site with in order to become up so um that's you know it's not really within the city's control who Who develops I mean certainly it is you know where you know city has to put some approval in place in order to put develop but you know picking and choosing different people um that's not really an option right now um so that's not why because the city doesn't own the property it's private proper and the private property what they so so at this please please yeah we the city has to approve before so their their other contract I don't know what their contract looks like but they're probably not going to purchase it unless the city approves the project they probably have some kind of CLA where you know they're not spending all the money on the property until the city puts some kind of approval in place that gives both KOB and and the property own some assurance that the property transactions going to go full in any event there is a contract the two parties are working with each other to purchase the property so that is why the city hasn't worked with that regard the environmental question yeah when this if the city gets to the point where it's going to enter into agreement with any developer for any site in the city the city um you know puts certain environmental remediation standards in that agreement you know this one would be different than other sites because of the landf UPS um apparently some other contamination issues up there but the Redevelopment agreement between the city and any developer would would you know put some strict guidelines in place they'd have toere a lot of dep protection guidelines things like that so um you know there's I believe we had a um maybe not as extensive as would have been this property but with the police station site there were I don't know if any of you recall those documents were out um however many years ago and that was being those um you can see if they're still on theb I know they proba archived I would think you can see the environment language from our agreements that you know is probably close to this this one may require some more information because of the the landfill situation so um you know the city is not just if it were to approve the project it's not just handing over and saying here you go not rubber stand yeah rubber there's no there's no develop standards in place never mind an agreement construct so we're far from any kind of approval um at this stage but you know the city has significant oversight over what get constructed and Redevelopment that's one of the benefits you know people look at at Redevelopment in New Jersey and especially in you know when you're you get outside of urban areas as as something that's um that's detrial it's the the Redevelopment law is an excellent tool for municipalities to have control of what gets developed you know you designated so you a plan in place you have to you have a ton of ton of oversight ton of say what gets built so I think it's it's particularly helpful somewhere my lamberville where you can have a detail plan braind sight and and city has control over that and and we can say what we want in the agreement to make sure that the interests of of the city are protected in in many development so you this isn't you know any any primary while we may not own the property we it does give the Redevelopment designation does give the city a ton of oversight and and influence overw it's build okay thank you appreciate it hi it's V one corner Main Street um thank you all for everything that you've done I also would not want to be in your shoes um I just um am feeling this very running out of time uh energy from here and I am slightly concerned because um we keep pushing things it feels like off but we're also at the same time saying that by June 2025 we're gonna have to build these um or I I'm I was unclear on whether they actually have to be built by next year or if there have to be there has to be a plan in place so I get some clarification on that yeah have to be build the plan has to be in place okay um thank you that wasn't clear um I do want to point out that we're talking a lot about a lot of expenses that the city has to pay um but it is also incredibly expensive when a flood comes down to the town and about you know a lot of people's properties are destroyed and I I don't think the city wants to have to pay for that either um which I think is a point that everyone already knows but just to make it again um I also want to reiterate um how separated from the town this affordable feels and the fact that it can't be connected from what I understand there's no way to make it a pedestrian acceptability feels really wrong and like it wouldn't be a like this community wouldn't be a part of our town um and yeah I just would like to urge us to kind of act on a lot of what people have been saying with making a committee or perhaps looking at other places to um have it because it's very frightening to think that we only have a year to have a plan of plan in place and yeah thank you thanks I just have one comment uh the city is not paying for anything at the moment uh the KF Nan pays for everything uh all of the consult times all the reports that are generated uh the planners our Engineers um Mr O so so not in for a penny uh at this point I'm Karen thatw I'm at 57 year Avenue I am in West Hall Township I am concerned about the wells up there on the west Am side we do not have a backup we lose our well we have nothing we lose our setic we have nothing to hook up and do have you talked to anybody from the township or considered what would happen to the West B side I'm right on the property line my f is here this is lamberville this is me do you have other questions I'm happy to answer that do you have any other questions uh no we have not spoken to anybody at West project are you gonna do you have a plan or back up for us if something happens are you responsible for a different municipality if something happens Bill do you want to feel that question I don't think I'm I'm able to answer that I think we spoke the last meeting yeah I got three different answers that's why I came up here I think um you know I think it's it's something you have to address with with um bur Council in in West I think that's probably the best way to go the city doesn't have any development rights in West Amwell um you know there's not really I can't speak to potential impacts for something development there I'm sorry I can't give you more clear answer but I think that yeah it's something you may want to thought to your official okay so at this point you have no responsibility Lon with well the other half of canot f ROP just cover the area okay thank you 86 North Union Street I just have a couple of things one has to do with the storm water presentation I may have missed it and I apologize if I did but I don't think I got the how much they anticipate it's going to cost each homeowner here and I'm not sure I got how many staff do they think they would be needing if by day I storm utility so that was an issue that I had I don't know the answers to it I miss it and they said it tonight I'm sorry but I would like it to be repeated second thing in terms of the affordable housing and I've been following this for a while because I've been in Lambertville for over 20 years so I know sort of some of the things we have gotten our affordable housing uh units sort of here and there we don't we don't we haven't done a big place usually I mean we have a couple here a couple there we have some we have ways that we put it together the records on this when you're talking to the court are going to show that after the 2018 plan was not considered appropriate for the that that next Administration some of the representations made by the city were that the residents push back against the autoart store development that was not true I live over that that that did not happen but we didn't pursue that with fair share housing this is from a letter from Fair Hair Fair Share housing to the court then another th Point made in that letter from Fair sh of housing was that we residents push back on the oneck thing so they could so we couldn't do that I do not believe that that was true either we've got that to deal with when you guys are saying what we're trying to do um I was an attorney for many years I did a lot with super fund sites and super fund defendants and super fund everything and I would urge you to consider going to fair share housing talking to them about what we'd like to try to do what Their thinking is and try to go hand in hand to the judge before the deadline say this is how we're trying to do this this is try how we're trying to work together this is what we're this is why we have great concern about this great big 40 unit one building three story tow houses flooding location so I mean it never hurts especially an intelligent careful judge they want this to work they don't want to punish us so it's just a thought thank you thanks uh there was no free structure uh as part of the storm water utility study um that was not part of the study uh and then in terms of uh the uh projected costs those are in those will be in those are in the report on a couple of slides that I I didn't you know I have them there was a conversation before the meeting I wanted to make sure that we remind time those slides be to the website tomorrow and you can take a look at that information and I'm happy to discuss further thank you my name is ky Bing I live at 21 beler Avenue um so this project would start like on the street behind where I live um and I guess yeah I just want to ask a couple questions so one is um the first person who spoke kind of asked if you could go if you could like kind of reject this plan now and just move on like if that's an option because I think the I went to the planning board meetings too and like everyone I heard speak seems very against the plan um and because we like need to do thisly I think there's a lot of IDE I'm just curious like if that is an option because waiting till August that like a lot of time in between yeah I'll go on record to say I would not introduce that to the city council I would not introduce it as as I would not introduce it on the agenda at the city council at all um this would be convers ation that that I would have to have with the city attorney I think it would be I think would pose an incredible risk to the city very very serious risk and and I won't do it so we're GNA have to work through this um but I would not do that y that's that's my answer yes the other thing I just want to talk little about is um yeah the well issue because I live on that street um and so yeah I have concerns about the the water um and I don't want to speak for the hell long just for a year but I've heard stories from my neighbors about you know like kind of weirdly high like infid of cancer and health issues and like you know stories about people dumping up there like outside of the dump um so I think just like that's a concern of mine and I think like regardless of this plan I think there might be anyting kind of environmental justice issue on the hill but I think needs to be just something that's on the I think awareness of city council like in general um so I gu related to that another question is like when you sell your property as a property owner like you're required to do like testing and various things like you have an old oil B like you to fix it or whatnot so I'm kind of wondering any know said the city can't for testing like could we require like is there any requirement that for the sale to go through that like the seller would have to ensure you know that there's some testing done and I'm just curious if that's an option um and uh sorry oh and also I wonder resp because my neighbor from West amall they kind of answered that we don't have any responsibility to them was confusing to me because I did come to the planning board meeting last night and like in that master plan that we're looking at like there were two different things about kind of collaborating um you know with with neighboring municipalities so I think we do have some responsibility to them um and yeah and I also think the committee for the portable housing that involves different residents is a really good idea like I know committees aren't always super effective but I think there's like a very clear objective um and I think that one of the best ideas is like having people build these kind of adus um and just quickly because I know all stuff is what I was trying to build on this land like um the previous administration had these presentations about if you built there because it was been a bigger Redevelopment Zone I guess that you could get you know some sort of tax develop like tax break if you were going to build something like that and like we tried to figure out like how did do that for month to up so I think likeing that you can do that I think a lot of people would really interest um and I think that's like a really good ide pursue and like maybe that committee purs that thank you thank you I think you I mean you feel like you answer the question about testing it really is the responsibility of the property owner and then the city has the ability to BU yeah the um we can't put any obligations on you know interfere with the contract between the property owner and anybody else so that's not a possibility but like I said said there was a in place the city approv then you know site would have to be standard the landf closed a lot would have to go that in order to you know put some requirements on there for proper development thank you I'm just going to note that uh we're just going to have uh people speak once at public comments uh so people have already spoken uh you'll have a second chance later on in the meeting but uh I don't want people to wait in line unnecessarily we're going to go through everybody who wants to speak first and then if uh people want to speak at the second public comment period that will be fine which is in the woods very top of Grand Avenue and the top of the tentacle of the development comps um since I purchased my property 25 years ago um that was 17 anniversary of the incorporation of Lambertville by the way um I can tell you that the narus property owner Maric Wilson of Pennington New Jersey has been almost constant in my life from a very short time you moved in to only three to five years having people drill traes put T pipes through the woods leaving strong cans of in the woods etc etc around my property I will also say that almost immediately you can tell you there were almost 50 to 75 rubber tires or tires in the woods virtually just on the other side of my property line broken glass and many many other things in the trailing papers of whatever was there before and I did do some research in that and I understand that if it was 25 years ago to the dump have been closed 30 years before that so we have no idea what people actually need put in there that being said with my dealings with Mr Wilson personally um he always wanted to buy my property because I am at the end of public sewer line when going have and have off for 25 Tri that means that also um well know everyone up there has a um my association with Mr Wilson I had to deal with Hunters to whom he rented the land he was only allowed to um rent to little Hunters but sometimes they were tra through the wood with nighton here with the bad ones and the horrible ones um and then a very nice man was there once who both gave me dear me that I was happy to have because he respectful of my position of prty over owner and not will to be in the line of fire and ra and ARS that can kill you just as well as a gun okay so yeah I get it so um that being said I know that Mr Wilson he tried to develop this property at least five to 10 times before this in the last 25 years and with all the drilling Drilling and other things that went on it never happened because he never did his HW workk and he never did it right I really question how he has managed to get everyone else to believe that he did it right this time and I really do question that's all I have to say Jeff J K Union Street just want to say a couple things when I walked in I wasn't upset I'm upset now it's not because I don't like you guys no look you personally but I walk in the first thing we see is having storm water is coming off the mountain in such a mous that we have to have storware utility and it needs to be upgraded and we have to work on that and spend money on that and I'm thinking wait a minute I came here because they're putting all the asphalt up there there and the is going to have nowhere to go that's why I came and now we're talking about managing what we have now and not being able to rep that and we're supposed to now take on this okay now I got a little scory that was a rhetorical question but last month for w two weeks ago when we when had the other meeting here and you had the desk over there with the two guys sitting and they representing a committee most of the people in the room and a lot of people probably there thought those people work for the developers they seem to be on the developer side they were always saying stuff like pushing how they could get the 200 units in safe safely and everything and and by the way everybody always uses I've always come with to the meetings where where col are proposed and they always use report I've been using today as long as I can remember as an excuse to build what they want to build so they can make some money and then what happen the portable housing never gets so that's from what I've seen anyway I mean there are other way ways we could address that and hire some Jive develop from Trenton to come in take away all our Wildlife up there which by the way there's a lot of it up there there and everything and you know put in a bunch of ashoo and then we're going to have water from down and just and the people in lamberville are very very giving I noticed that when I had my where my first floor got totally BR get whack and I was down there cleaning it out knocks on my door says 46 people from La want I help you clean out your basement I said really there and every came in they will help me everybody in L is a very giving people as you are as well I'm sure now we're always we always get shoved the affordable housing thing in our base and we get feeling bad for poor people that don't that have need these services but there are other ways to address that that's a lot of which raised here tonight I'm not going to but I want I do want to tell you this story and I know you have a couple minutes left but the two guys were there everybody thought they work for the uh why I think going on here that I don't know the next day I'm in my store this guy walks in just like the guy who was doing all the talking over there big head ofous gr hair I said you look familiar were you at that meeting last night he goes yeah I want to buy a guitar I'm like hey I'll sell you a guitar but let's talk first I said you represent that the U as I think most of the people in what represented the developer he said where' you get that idea everybody thought that because they were really important then I discovered that this orance has been on the hook for 12 something for since 2018 is it and nobody really knew about it till then I know I didn't about it could you wrap up I'll try but I'm not going to cut out everything so anyway the guy told me and right this city council has their freaking might made us they want to do this maybe to pay some bills if they got together be a lot of good tax money and she nobody spoken to anything about money here but there's a lot of money uh talked about you know just in generality a lot of which is there'll be a lot of tax money coming in that and I'm sure the city could use that I'm gon ask you to wrap up please I'm GNA wrap it up wrapping it up come in today and every I'm sure you guys everybody loves the city of lamberville the city council is what that say the city council is supposed to be representing the On's needs and best interests of the city that would be us I don't think anybody in here wants it I think you guys need to reflect what we need and thank you hi joshua1 I uh really just have a quick question um a lot of the problems that we seem to be having here from come develop kobian and the concerns about them and obviously this is a private business deal between kobian and the um seller whoever the the person who who owns these Lots up am I right so is there any way we as the town can speak to the seller about possibly fing a more responsible buyer about possibly considering what it is that they want to sell and how they want to do this or is that something we cannot possibly address it that your only question that is my only question uh I'm just got to feel this very generally uh I would note that the city has been uh yeah the city has been in uh litigation with a current property owner going back in various lawsuits since 1998 I've read many of the Court briefs um and I'm not really going to comment on the relationship of the city with the property owner um at this point uh I will just say that the city has uh has found uh I have found uh in almost two years of conversation and negotiation to kab Manan uh um an Earnest straightforward uh good faith good faith conversations and that's really all that's really like I to say I'm sorry a lot yeah hi I'm cine St I'm 52 I just want to make one quick point and maybe it's reiterating it um everything that's side just the most important I think I have kids in the school system and we've been affected firsthand by you know this merger with with the West H district and um it's been an interesting progression so far but it isn't fragile eosone we are merging two districts in our elementary system and tensions have been high and I just think that we have to really consider the risk of not doing more work and collaboration with West am well especially in this specific realm if you're hurting people's water if we're up for possible class action suit that people's well get damaged I mean things to consider aside from the fact that we already have built a beautiful building I hope it seems beautiful we'll be moving back in we have a growing preschool one of the Pres schools had to be um outsourced to a daycare center it couldn't be house here at the at the um old school which I think they need out great but you know we are growing already is there a plan if this Skywalk is our population and then the school is one of the places that floods it's one of the first places that the bottom of the hill and we just put millions of dollars into billion so I want to make those point and how we need to collaborate with am with our children we're going to be in school together and parents I mean it's a different culture it's a different culture collaborate thank you Max kti 41 G Street lot to say um do you genuinely believe that this private developer with nearly 20 lawsuits in regards to the exact specific issue that we're facing has the best interest of Lille like you're saying that you know we are involved in this process and sure we can say yes or no but at the end of the day it's up to a private seller and a developer that's that's who we're entrusting to like make the right choice who do you think has the best interest of lamber bille have you talked to a single person that wants this like genuinely that's a serious question has any person come up here and said this is a good idea I think we should totally go ahead with this no concerns amount of times I at the meeting yesterday but at the last planing board meeting the amount of times that answer was you know really I hadn't thought of that you know we haven't talked about how how long has this plan been in development six years no 2018 is that correct the existing plan has been since 2018 six years and like 75% of the questions you get are like oh I don't know I didn't think about you know I'm sorry to interrupt you I I I think there might be cross talk yeah about what we're talking about the plan when you say six years this plan it is not this development plan with two hun homes but the plan to have Redevelopment occur on that site has been around for six years so it was it was a plan that didn't have specifics it was just kind of outlined as a possibility okay yeah what we're considering now is more specifics right adding on and amending that plan need to build it I'm sorry and please don't take that as me defending the plan that we're talking about tonight um I for one have what and I think that what's been said should be acknowledged and we should reconsider and incorporate how can I cor you at this point to take in consideration anyone's concerns when we've gotten to this point where you're a year out making the decision this specific development plan has been in process for what two years three years since 2022 no 2 would you finish your question please uh so we can address them okay I have a specific question you can answer how come I found out from other random people speaking at the planning board meeting that camp know even has like 20 lawsuits about this exact thing why are you not talking about that why like whenever a concern comes up about the developer it's like uh yeah like no concern like there is there an actual concern or you actually taking that into account like why have you not talked publicly about all of the lawsuits and the terrible reputation that this developer has I Council have any thoughts about that I don't at this time that that's not a concern the public shouldn't know that you don't think you have a responsibility to disseminate that information no it's not it's not up to us to disseminate all of the information the public needs to be engaged and involved in following what's a I'm not going to get into a conversation with you it's getting late so would you please finish your coms and let's move on what Jeff said about the affordable housing everybody wants affordable housing in lville do you know how many affordable housing units have been built since 2008 was the figure I find you know how many I don't know hand one one unit that was the accessory so all right least wrap up okay it's not you are guys individual faults that nobody in lamberville has cared about actually building a housing for like 20 years but now it is your problem and I this is not the solution I'll just keep it not your um three questions think being familiar with checklists for the fling board I'm pretty sure but I hope you confirm for me because a number of you are also un that there will be an environmental testing Baseline study done before construction is that true yeah can you just ask your questions first please and then secondly um are there any tax considerations any tax forbearance any any Financial circumstances with regards to the city and the collection of taxes and this development number of other affordable housing instances here in town There's Been tax forbearance and I haven't heard anything about that in this regard okay and then um did the storm water study establish a volume rate capacity for the the infrastructure that we have now so that we have some idea of what volume flow can go through there okay that's three question that's three question one com I live in I live in wood in during Ida the catch basin's about 50 yards from my house didn't over so that's great that's some good news yeah uh and Baseline studies would be uh would be required after or as part of site plan uh and probably we would require them in the developer agreement is that right bill I mean we could specifically develop conditions of their approval consideration application okay um in terms of taxes and finances we have not beg any kind of discussion about this um K and and Michaels have well we haven't had any contact with Michaels Michael's organization directly um but K Manan has requested the consideration for a pilot program um and those can be structured in many different ways the city council has already had some conversations uh about what what uh what that might look like um but that's far down the road it's that's not even even really a topic at the moment um Kevin Anan noted that the the the the estimated value of the development exceeds $90 million um so so obviously that will have a big impact on the city in terms of you know finances and uh and the economy um and then the storm water study was not designed one of it to to to to examine capacity of our existing system is not it was not uh was not something stor water U study did that's something that we need to be doing now or in in the very near future uh using new methodologies and and new data so no the storm water utility uh feasibility study did not generate any of that information but over the next couple of years as we begin to really assess our system and understand kind of the hydrology and uh and everything else we'll be having those conversations uh you know I'm very familiar with colberts and I can tell you that the culbert that runs under 179 from Washington Street I've gotten down on my knees looked into it and it's probably it may be 24 in wide but it may actually be only 18 inches wide so you know we know that there are cap I know that there are capacity issues in the city already and we're going to have to we're going to have to be looking at those so in the same sense of not having an environmental testing Baseline you don't have a storm water capacity Baseline either that's that's correct but uh if you uh I don't want to get again I don't want to get two in the weeds here but if you go to to um uh the city website uh you will find the engineer storm water U memo uh you know what we would propose and we talked about this the planning board last night or I shouldn't say what we what what I would propose would be the strictest requirements that were laid out by the the city engineer in terms of managing the storm water from from that site so uh I can follow up with you on that but I don't want to get they always love to come and ask cityne where is this they can't find it I can't find the meeting records that you referred to as the public records from the Clos meeting sessions I so um I'm sure they're there it just didn't happen fight thanks your time hello uh Mike Redmond other at 23 per Street uh 30y year resident of the community uh I wasn't going to speak tonight because uh it's very busy right I want to thank you guys for your time and I'm kind of put off and the reason I'm put off is the mayor uh condemning people clapping clapping is speech Okay the reason we have the public form is you're trying to take the measure in the community we have a citizen that is a very thoughtful comment and we're told what happens right you guys are supposed to be uh measuring our feelings and when someone says something thoughtful and someone wants to clap speeech people shouldn't who people shouldn't how accept that there should be limits for it but I'm really put off by suggesting that I can't clap this is a minor point I get it but that's how I feel I sat there steing and I stewed last month about it first and then it's very important we should take leadership with that thank you am here a bu owner um I've been in town for over 35 years and and then her years ago and water um I but the Reon why I'm here is the building behind the um the unit Brian that building is condemed is it or Department if you have questions please ask them and I'll answer them at the end okay well I don't know if it's condemned or I don't know what the problem is but I the reason why I couldn't open for almost 3 years is because there were rats living inside the other in between walls everywhere and the fact that the building beond is vacant um I don't think it's really healthy and I don't know people in town who there any Ms that's I'm just curious um mold Milo you know there I'm sure I can't only imagine how many animals are living in [Music] building you finished yes okay uh I would just say that those buildings were deemed unsafe structures almost immediately after the flood by the construction official uh and they have remained unsafe structures uh the uh the owner has maintained the property and so far as cutting grass and that kind of thing and when we have had I've had issues I have called the the contract purchaser or what I've called the contract purchaser who's been responsive um I fully agree and we've talked about this uh before in meetings that uh this is not a good this would not be a scenario that anybody here on the de or anybody in this in the community would want um but again uh huge PS almost they're humongous thankar and the fact that I couldn't because they were they show up everything inside but the amaz the oven I had no idea they were living inside it's just horrible so I have any idea how long what's going to happen I do I do not no no nothing I can speak to uh 249 Franklin this is the question um the city generously supports a lot of individuals who are homeless or low income and Fs who pay that doeses that get counted in any way into credits for the pable hous no that's too bad because uh that's a generous service that the town does provide secondly with the is it possible to have the Habitat for Humanity come in and possibly look at that property to I think you're allow what five um five sites for that on that property but just to talk thank you yeah certainly not under consideration because we are in the process of uh which I will speak about if we get when we get to it we get to it um uh preserving that open space thank you um Council mayor and as you very intimately know affordable housing is hug issues um I'm one of the poor people who grew up in town who have been struggling to stay here for a long time and in Seven Generations my great-grandfather was mayor during the FL 55 um I've actually worked with EV on the affordable housing commission after um hurricane Ida flooding is a huge issue as well um and I'm deeply concerned about that I won't get into it you've heard it all tonight my one question is have you looked at all of the class action laws that are against he look the Better Business Geer consumer affairs all these websites and taken into consideration the company that is proposed to do this development I have not any has done any research there's a lot of develop like that but I agree with your point and that's something that obviously as we go forward we do look that but if we don't own the property we are limited in the developer that we can deal with so but yes so would you take into consideration all of these losses including hazardous materials fire safety hazards um for construction risks to the people who would ultimately living there be living there so the members of our community who would be living there um this is this seems like a very valid thing to take into consideration before we go forward with this so would you all be willing to have a conversation even more specific to that view certainly I think uh the council is very serious about Public Safety um and you know I don't know maybe maybe someone else can can feel this but obviously we're deeply uh committed to the process of keeping our residents safe and making sure that anything that comes into the city in terms of development is appropriate and uh and safety and safe so you're welcome to send them to us thank you John 14 my question is what's pass unit planning got I think 250 gallons of waste a day is a unit and what is our spare capacity in order to handle 240 extra units of waste that are coming down now years ago in Hamilton Township when they tried to really Ram a lot of building through it was found that the S treatment PL couldn't handle and actually stopped development totally inh in for a number of years my concern is I mean it's been smelling pretty bad down there recently I don't know why but it's been very so my question is what's the capacity what is the expected extra capacity that's going to come down and if it's not able to handle it what's the solution so uh Bill maybe you know the answer to this certainly it has capacity I mean we wouldn't it wouldn't be able to go forward unless the MUA was able to support it and the water company right so those are the first questions that get asked I don't know if we've actually those if those letters have actually come in yet sorry our conversations where they were aware of the could you stop talking please so we can hear what the bill saying um we had the conversation that they have it's kind of on them to deal with violia and L to make sure that they're not going to get approvals if the system can the project so I mean that's the project will get buil at all can't be supported so kind of I don't know specific numbers I can't answer that question um yeah they're going to have to deal with the water company to make sure everything support they facilities thank you I know I know no you're gonna wait till the second no we have a very big agenda Lawrence and there's another public comment period coming up so I'm going to ask you to hold on and we have we we do have online we do have people online so uh who haven't had an opportunity to speak how many people do we have online please so right now we have 22 about an hour ago we had 45 okay okay so uh do we have an idea of how many hands are up just one just one okay good I mean not good but I mean we'll take what whatever hands are up is what I meant to say Jeff you're a trooper you want to go ahead and unmute not up Jeff if you'd still like to speak you can go ahead uh Jeff if you uh would like to speak this is your opportunity please unmute yourself and yeah talking to you I'm gonna go ahead and lower your hand but there's going to be a second uh period if you want to speak later all right may I have a motion to close the public comment period Please so moved I have a second second all in favor please say I I I thank you all right we're going to move on through the agenda uh I'm going to postpone the approval of the minutes till the next meeting uh I have not had a chance to them myself and I think because of when they came in it's probably a a lest thing to do um let me just a minute here I need to pull out a couple of papers uh did everybody take a look at the administrative reports yes okay uh just want to highlight that the clerk's office took in very a very uh High $35,000 this past month in fees permitting fees and that kind of thing uh good news the new track truck right clap of that uh two two two years after ordering it it arrived the co backlog is H over for us with the trash truck which is good because we spent an enormous amount of money this year alone on repairs for that 2009 trash truck um also the building has uh the expansion work has started the Department of Public Works Yard the foundation was poured this week so that's great news um we took in 16,26 in hotel motel tax in the last month so that's good canaban revenues for the month of um we received a check from Bak By The River today for $227 53 C and we received a check from Union chill today they at 15 95045 so that's almost $18,000 and cannabis revenue for one month so unless the council has any questions or comments about the uh administrative reports I would entertain to accept them so second all in favor please say I I I thank you motion parries moving on to resolutions um with the consent agenda this evening the following resolutions on the consent agenda are considered routine and shall be anoun Ed by one motion should any member of the city council seek separate discussion of any item that item shall be removed and discussed separately um the only two things I just want to note here is that we have a resolution to reject the bids for the lamberville public library um bid amount exceeded the budget amount one of the things we're going to be looking at in July is a potential um Bond we're we're I'm going to put introduce an ordinance for uh Capital bonding in July uh spoken with the uh City architect uh I haven't spoke to the council about this yet one of the items that we may include would be probably $250,000 for a new elevator for the library the current elevator I think is 40 years old and it's not safe so um we're gonna have to step up with that one um so I just wanted to mention that and I would also um mention that we uh are submitting in U um Grant application to the county for um video video equipment I'm sorry I'm losing here guys portable video um system yes for to uh to look at our underground uh um storm drain systems so um I would ask unless there are any questions from the council uh for a motion to adop adopt the consent agenda which are items number consent resolutions number 95 2024 through 103 2025 so quick question yes have we seen uh for resolution 1022 2024 have we SE have we seen the sign I didn't see it's proposed because I have not seen it uh it was sent to it's in the folder and it was sent I sent it to you by email I think it was in the folder if you go into resolution backup it was in the folder with the resolution look at that and it was uh we can take a minute if you want to look at it it was uh um it would go before the historic preservation commission who approved it and this is going where uh this is proposed for two locations um one Bridge Street what yeah both on Bridge Street um both are going to require State approval as well one will be near the bridge coming into Lambertville and then on the far end of Bridge Street closer to Main Street coming into the CBD from from Main Street I don't know the exact location okay but this these are privately put in and do has got nothing to do with this is the historic um Society yeah do has nothing to do but they do need approval from the do to Poli all right we're good all right so we so we have a motion we have a second uh all in favor please say I I okay so the motion carries um moving on to ordinances first reading ordinance number 13-22 24 an ordinance of the city of Lambertville County of Hunan state of New Jersey amending and supplementing the Lambertville city code 2014 chapter 11 fire prevention article one uniform fire safety standards to establish a designated local enforcing enforcing agency responsible for the enforcement of a new the uniform fire code amending ordinance number 07224 to collect a clerical error in 11-16 annual registration of non-life Hazard use in commercial property uh this was uh this is in regards to um an ordinance we adopted last month uh to transfer the lead enforcing agency from the city to the Fire Commission uh there was an error that uh was was visible in the first reading but somehow when it was read formatted we lost three words and the state caught it so we need to correct it um uh so the for adoptions the word above 24,000 square feet were bumped down to the next line which was not resent um so this is really just a minor housekeeping matter um and I would note that uh we have a meeting with the state uh fire officials and we will be transitioning even even though we we have not yet approved this ordinance or adopted this ordinance we will be trans trans transfering the lead enforcing agency over to the Fire Commission as of July 1st um and they're doing a fantastic job uh may have a motion please introduce this second uh all right all in favor of introducing ordinance number 13-22 24 please say I I I thank you the um the ordinance is introduced on first reading and our public hearing and second reading for this will be on July 18th uh now we're going to move on to ordinance second reading um the ordinance and St water Control Ordinance we just haven't had a chance to re get back together we've had there's been so much going on uh in the last two weeks uh but I will t b with councilwoman Kaminsky I think we're awaiting a report from Doug from the engineer on some of the new in standards and um and also I know the fellow from The Watershed was Al going to provide s want it was going to review that for us as well so so will with Doug what I haven't had a chance to tell you is that I did have a conversation with Doug about some of the pance uh uh measurements that Mike talked about and um Doug is um not suggesting that we move forward with those because they're not they're they're nowhere in the state yet so we can talk about that so yeah I think we would need to meet yes we will we will we will and I'm sorry we've just been uh super busy doing other things um the next one is we be doing a motion to carry that yeah yes yes we need to continue to carry it I'm sorry may have a motion to carry that please all in favor please say I I I and mayor um I think you skipped ordinance number 14 on first reading for the Cannabis oh gosh I did I'm sorry thank you Syd um so we're going to back up just a little bit here uh for a first reading for ordinance number 14- 2024 this ordinance would amend the revised General ordinances of the city of Lambertville chapter 16 cannabis section 16 through Section 16-12 the maximum number of permits so we're looking at this uh when the and I'm gon to have to kind of weigh in on this to to explain to explain it uh to everyone when the city adopted the Cannabis ordinance it laid out uh specific zones in which the retail business could go so the city laid out that there could be two um retail operations in the central business district that was one of the one of them and then the other uh one of the other one was that you could have two uh canvas retail uh in either of the C2 I'm sorry the C the C2 the C2 and one in the I'm sorry yeah one in the C2 and one in the C3 and what happened was that we now have this situation where because because of the distances and the doning and the the unlikely uh prospects of getting a fourth license in the C2 um we'd like to uh change the final uh retail operation to the C3 so so what this ordinance seeks to do we have one in the C3 in the north partk which is Union shill this ordinance would seek to allow the fourth business would which would have to be a lier business under the ordinance uh in the C3 southern district which is the the the district down by the uh lace works and um river river W if I could jump in for a second I spoke with Ward Sanders today who was on Council who actually uh I I worked with him on getting this pass uh kind of a sales and he said it was that it was his intention which I pretty sure I know it was to to to choose the southern part of C3 as the location not C2 so it's just one of those things that just got over a lot and I think it's a good location got parking uh By The River the C3 district is yeah south of south of Wilson Street it has parking yes so there are several buildings down there with sufficient parking um so any questions or comments on that one all right so I would uh but I yes uh there's Bill maybe you can explain this to me oh yeah bill would you explain the language why are all these strikeouts in here um first part of the ordinance section chapter 16 that's um that's the Cannabis regulations in the city code so in that section it sets forth that you know it said CDD C2 and C3 so we had to amend that section to clarify what the council wants to remove C2 2 and C3 one the north one the South um the because we're removing C the C2 um we also have to amend the C2 section of the zoning ordinance because in this in the zoning ordinance under C2 Canabis is additionally used so we're not going to allow we have make consistence that we're removing as AAL use and then the final stri down um is the following section C2 regarding parking and just accommodated C retail we them because they're not C2 so it will still be enforced for C3 C3 I'm sorry C3 touch so this was this specifically was C2 yes okay now I understand why it says because there's an amendment zoning ordinance go to planning Bo first okay that's fine that was a little confusing thank you I mean not anymore but it wasn't thanks and thanks for asking that question my mind they clarify may I have a motion please no mo second all in favor please say I I thank you uh the motion carries public hearing on this will be scheduled for July 18th 2024 um and now we continue on with uh ordinance of second reading ordinance number 10 d224 this is an ordinance to amend the Lambertville city code 2014 chapter 7 traffic section 7- 4.4 parking times limited on certain streets mending Elm Buttonwood and Perry Street from North Main to North Union and North Main Street between el Buttonwood and Perry Street to change the time from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. uh the ordinance uh seeks to allow uh some extended parking time uh in the area of the school which will allow people who are driving to the school to not have to you know some people drive their children to the school the school starts at 8:10 we don't want to be in a situation where people are getting tickets because they're getting back to their car at 812 so uh I have talked this through with the Department of Public Works uh and they are they say it's no issue with them in terms of the street sweeping time schedule for those particular zones and it's fine so um uh that's the story with that and I would uh because of the second reading I would now open the public hearing up for this ordinance number 10 2024 uh and ask if there's any public comment about it is there anybody online right may I have a motion to close public comment period second all in favor please say I I I thank you we've closed the public comment uh unless the council has any questions on this I would ask for motion to uh adopt ordinance number 10224 on second reading granting final approval move second oh in favor please say I I I thank you all right the next one is ordinance number 12 -224 an ordinance authorizing an extension of the lease agreement between the city of Lambertville and Fisherman's Mark for the use of a portion of the property owned by the city and located in 260 North Main Street block 102 41 so this ordinance will provide the governing body and Fisherman's Mark with the time required to work out the details of the potential purchase with the farm market uh I would open this up for a public hearing uh and ask if there's any public comment on this ordinance thank you do we have anybody online all right I have a motion to close public comment period Please second all in favor please say I thank you closed and uh may I now have a motion to adopt this ordinance some move second Mo uh all in favor please say I I I thank you we have now just adopted on second reading ordinance number 12 2024 motion car uh moving on to correspondence uh with psng application for an extension of the letter of interpretation line verification uh and there was a letter from Margaret carmelli at Squire regarding the landville high school Redevelopment area which go I can be forwarded to all the council members and it's in the folder um this is also probably just a good time for me to note that uh in the last week I have responded to 40 emails uh regarding the um Redevelopment proposed Redevelopment um plan and still have about 30 that are unanswered so I will get to those when I can it's been a lot of work and trying to keep everything keep everything moving um so there may be they may be a little later than I usually like um announcements I just want to touch uh just want to make a couple of announcements about projects that we're working on um I had an update today from uh or this week from no today from Chon Hydro about the um the stor Mar behind the firehouse uh they have received the Sur the survey is complete um kson Hydra is now working on a design which will be signed off by the city and the national resource conservation service by the USDA um I expect to probably have those plans sometime in the next month or so um and we're probably looking at September before we go if they uh they get signed off by the USDA nrcs so that project is ongoing and this is to solve okay solve is a big word Steve this this is to mitigate thank you yeah mitigate the problems of flood flooding behind the firehouse okay which we've had repeatedly even just the last rain uh the Department of Public Works had to go out and and deal with some problems some problems there so that's the the outfall from uh music Mountain that comes down Alexander Hill and comes down along golly through the woods um the ditch cleaning behind the Lambertville Public School also known as elely Creek is underway um as well the plans uh they are being submitted to the state we got the final document ready today so those plans are going to the state for U State approval the turnaround time from the state is 90 days we may hear about that sooner uh we will need the bond for this project we had money enough to do the design work and the permitting work uh as part of the the bond ordinance next month we will have to bond money to uh remove all of the debris from the site um so all of the the the dirt the sticks the leaves everything that's been building up since Irene uh will need to be put into dumpsters and carded away and we will have to pay for that so I don't know what that number is yet we're going to have to make a guess on it um but that that project is underway as well something else [Music] oh uh Green Acres in hul park uh so we thought we were almost done uh with this and I got an email from the state uh Green Acres just uh this week uh we are required suddenly to do a number of things uh that I'm not going to necessarily go into here but we have to subdivide the property and set Lots we have to Grant an access agreement all of this has to be done before uh we can complete the work of GRE anres these are new uh these are new requirements uh and by Green acr's own admission this has been a really convoluted process so hang tight uh yeah it's commuted and complicated um so uh I will let you know what's that couple of more Hoops what's a couple more Hoops je through and that's I think can I rais a question about about oops one thing one thing of course is uh is there a time frame in which the storm water TRS on Swan Street will get those logs removed which is stopping water from going down yes I asked Cindy to make an appointment uh with the tree guys yes yes so uh I will be going out probably in the next week with um our contracted um Tre arborist to look at several trees that need to come down and also to remove some of that debris on Swan Street um that I'd like to get done soon DPW has no place to put that yeah Works absolutely and just just FYI there's there's marking in front of that property I know I've got to follow up uh I'm hoping that there're the uh Swan Street project there I I encourage them to get their water and gas lines I think the water line may actually be in already gas line yes um they were there marking it off today yesterday yesterday um announcements uh Convenience Center will be open on Wednesday June 19th that was yesterday so that's not helpful um Saturday July 6th Wednesday July 17th Saturday July 20th uh you can find those times on the city website and now we have our second public participation session if you'd like to make a comment please step up to the microphone St your name and address you have three minutes of uninterrupted time the convenience is going to be open next Wednesday next Wednesday from 3 to okay thank you bye I'm Lauren M I live at n Washington Street a lot of you don't know me I wasn't going to say this but I want to say more now that I just sat here um but you know I'm an artist who has worked on mapping water feds for over two decades I served on lamber fi's resilience team for a couple of years and wrote the Grant and worked on the project of the Swan Creek flood education walking tour that goes along Swan Creek po Ida um so I'm deeply invested in this issue clearly so I just want to make that very clear and I sat here on my birthday with 5-year-old so in any case um I just wanted to like put that out there but my question and request is very brief and it's a follow up to my first question which was about the validity or The credibility of studies coming from corporations um I know that there's the answer that I got that you know there's expenses involved in this that the city cannot manage however I just want to point out that we have an environmental commission here in town that has the expertise to put together an environmental summary report assessment of the site um and that can be done right now a lot of these assessments and studies you know are being put off until this plan moves forward and I would just like to please request that that happened that the environmental commission that we have that is not going to charge any money they're volunteers they have the requirement the expertise to do it and that they've done it before on other sites in town is charged with doing that in this time while you are you know exploring and thinking about these issues I thank you for that I have a question do you need permission to go on the property do this one one it's not our property so we don't have permission to go on the property and and two I um while our environment our environmental commission does review site plans as part of this as part of the planning board application um I I would defer to Bill I I would suggest that that they probably don't meet the level of expert and that also testing requires money for which we have no budget uh so Bill do you want to maybe flush that out a little bit yeah as far as the oversight I I I agree that I don't think that the city should be coming out of pocket nor can we because we don't have access to the site but that's the other issue I think that um whatever testing they do city has its own professionals city has planners Engineers attorneys whatever needs to you know review whatever studies there are to you know determine whether they're valid whether you know we agree with them disagree with them that's that's more the professionals work City so that's the oversight soe go ahead no I was going to ask can we um can we proactively ask our Professionals in to come up with criteria um that the developer needs to meet in those areas those areas um you know like if there if there's certain thresholds or certain requirements that are desirable or outcomes can we put that in the the agreement so that the developer has to say okay this is this is the requirement you have to meet in this area is that something that we have an option I mean there's not good answer don't be able to devel that it's not my expertise it's a conversation that we can have our see if there's criteria I just don't know I mean just as a comment um everybody's most people have left but I think what I'm thinking about when I hear everything that's been said this tonight and reading all of the emails it seems to me that we may have an opportunity to push back in the way way we craft the agreement so that we have our list of you know I don't want to say demands but requirements okay developer X you have to do it this you know we want these things from you and then you know then we kind of have some standing with them and things can move forward but we have a little more um focus focus and and a little more skin in like no I want to say we have a lot of skin in the game we have a little more control over what they're doing that's all saying that I I think believe that there was a proposed development on Lambert Lane at one time that the environmental commission did some kind of environmental assessment report about I'm not saying that it was soil testing or these you know very technical things but that there is something that maybe that commission has to offer here in terms of expertise um and some kind of reporting part of the reason why there's a liaison that sits on both commissions uh somebody sits on the planning board um and somebody and that same person is a Le on CH Cel commission I'm fairly certain that she's on maternity Le so I just I just want to make sure that this gets cor I would add one more comment to about your point about cooperations with experts and everything and what I do in my everyday life is I read expert reports and I'm not an expert in this field at all but ultimately the way we cross-examine these experts in court is we look the underlying data and that's what we have City engineers and you know we have a planner to look at to look at the underlying data to make sure that what they're trying to tell us makes sense so yes we're absolutely going to be looking at that and absolutely thanks check that out and happy birthday happy birthday happy birth we should sing no singing um I received this letter from the state uh New Jersey office of e Emergency Management Hazard mitigation unit recovery Bureau have you guys seen this I don't know kind of what they're after and maybe you're familiar and maybe you're not and maybe you'd like to know what this says yeah I can I can respond for that okay please Mr AO and K came in in yesterday I took a copy of it because I was doing a marriage license I sent you an email Sandy um it's a survey they want for uh properties that flood and so I sent you all you have to do is I didn't see it I'm sorry nope just click on the link I sent you it'll take you right to the survey you can complete the survey they're just basic questions there to to open online I did it's freak to me I just oh it takes you right to the home chage all right homeage I sent you a snapshot of the homepage and you just the very first line you click it says exactly what's in that letter and it takes you right into the survey they're collecting dat they okay I'm not signing up for no they're just collecting data they AR going to raise my house the next couple stories up thank you for your help hi I'm Catherine fer um I'm not a resident but I work for the New Jersey League of conation education fund could I speak for a few minutes sure um so three yeah we work with the in the league of conservation voters education fund so we're a 501c3 Statewide environmental nonprofit that works with local communities on their environmental issues so I'm here because there's been some uh questions and confusion and um frustration about our involvement here um so I just wanted to clarify a couple things so one of the big environmental challenges that our organization focuses on is U flooding and water quality from storm water runal so um we provide information on these problems to Residents in the hope that they could um find ways to solve some of these issues so I hope that clarifies for people some of our conversations here in lamberville and um why we supported the visibility study and whatever route that lamberville decides to take on mitigating flooding issues um we hope that the study has provided information and insight about some problem areas um we've seen this issue of flooding across New Jersey in small towns in Suburban communities and some of our urban areas um some of these municipalities are taking this problem headon trying to um have a dedicated source of funding to um solve these issues um whether it's frequent or infrequent flooding um many recognize this problem is not going away anytime soon and communities are suffering from localized fling even from minor storms so um if I keep it an eyer this time here so um this localized flooding is a 21st century phenomenon so many local entities are seeking dedicated funding to address this problem so a community has several options for this um one can be continuing as on um one can be raising property taxes or sewer rat to pay for some of these problems um you could also SE funding from other sources but which is really great if you could secure this funding but it's not always oh I'm sorry it's not always the most sustainable um long-term funding so a storm water utility is a tool that can used to have ongoing dedicated funding for flooding problems um and with this you can um plan for Capital Improvement projects and um I know I'm right out of time so I'll try to keep it brief um there's 2,000 of these that exist across the country it's not a new way to address flooding um so I'm asking to um in the future to consider this as a potential solution to your flooding problems thank you kep title 33 Wilson Street and I wasn't going to get up again but as somebody who was a founding member of the association of new jur the environmental commissions and my wife who served under their executive committee for over 30 years and I've been careair of multiple environmental permissions they have the authority and they have the expertise and they can get the authority and expertise to review almost anything um environmental commissions and you can talk to anj if you want um s not not only do you you can review site plan because that's a class four member is dedicated and you know if you have an environmental commission they sit on the planning board so that planning board can bring get information from the environmental commissioner someone there goes both ways but also can bring a report in many towns environmental commission will actually do an Eis or study on proposed development or even a zone change and then give that information they've also hired experts or in fact volunteer experts we have a town with a lot of with a lot very expert people who could actually help them with together those kinds of analysis and reports um unfortunately in a lot of towns environmental commissions have kind of SLI to the side a little bit but they are great resources to educate whether it's on recycling or treat planting but also in dealing with toxic sites and development ISS so you should really think about do we have that person currently sitting on the planning board or that they have maternity leave or how do we hand I don't remember it's yeah all right is there anyone on line who would like to make a comment or ask a question yes good how many people do we still have we have 11 still well good for them thanks for sticking with us hello uh I'm David ven I live at 59 North Union um I just have a question I noticed that in the past lamberville this the Town blocked uh 46 Lots from being developed up on the hill there and also uh a 59 Town Home Project was blocked um the owner of the property tried to sue the town and the the cases were thrown out um Can the city use zoning to like uh turn the the development into something smaller maybe just like homes uh on on larger Lots so there's less roads less traffic that sort of thing well David I think that the Redevelopment plan really uh the existing Redevelopment plan is the zoning is that right bill I mean it's just the re the the 2018 Redevelopment plan establishes Zoning for that uh that particular site so it's a it's a dis basically a discrete zoning uh area or discreet Zone area right am I right yeah discreet meaning like a zoning meaning singular oh however however what however that could change just because we have a 2018 uh fair share plan on that I don't suggest changing it I mean but that's the only you'd have to remove it from the fair share completely from the fair share world the change the zoning that and that seems to be something that is probably not good too um and everyone everyone agrees all right question David thank you and we appreciate you staying uh with us throughout the meeting uh anyone else okay I have nothing more to say and I'll say that's why may have a motion to close this public comment period second all in favor please say I before I uh ask for a motion to Aden I'm just going to thank everybody who's here still here and everybody who came tonight everybody who's still online probably relaxing at home maybe with a glass of wine which sounds really lovely laughing or clapping yeah you was clapping silently at home right maybe you can have rabbit for dinner all right um so again thank you to everyone uh good meeting glad to see everybody and I ask for motion to in fact I'm going to make the motion to adj Second all in favor please say I I I we are adjourned at 10:37 good night good night pleas