live in the council chamber at the municipal building as well as live streaming at www.youtube.com Sparta WP streams um the meeting is called to order adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the public and the Press on January 5th 2024 by delivering to the press and posting on the township website a copy of the notice Christine can you do roll call please absolutely councilman Daniel Sherell chairwoman Kimberly Noel here Vice chair NL sarne here Christine dumbar here Ted G Ted Christine Rogers here Linda Tower here Barbara kazala Landon tener here Robert Otto here Arn solace all right please join me in saluting the flag pledge alance United States indivisible andice thank you all right welcome everyone I'm so glad to see everybody I really appreciate Jim and Chris and all the staff of the township getting everything ready for tonight um we are going to be presenting or a visioning process where we're getting feedback from everybody about the open space and Recreation plan um so I'm going to introduce Barbara Davis from the Land Conservancy of New Jersey and she's going to take us through that process did you want me to speak now about why we're kind of doing this okay so I know that um some of the Fe feedback we have gotten um about why we are doing the open space plan um I wanted to address that right up front so the the environmental commission our ordinance is our guidelines say that we're an Advisory Board to the township to provide advice information and guidance on the protection development and use of the natural resources the open space plan falls under the environmental commission's purview and so that's why we're the commission that's starting to do Do It um initiating it um why are we updating the plan so I'm sure we're all familiar with Jimmy Buffett's refrain don't always don't it always seem to go You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone So if we don't know what we got how are we going to know when it's gone um so one of the first major reasons that we are doing the open space plan is to preserve and protect Sparta's Open Spaces right obviously um why would we preserve Open Spaces to protect our Water Resources our Wildlife Resources protect our lakes and protect businesses believe it or not um Sussex County has 3.5 million visitors this was last year's number um visiting us for tourism the trails the lakes are a big part of that um another big reason that we're doing this now is the timing so a a Master Plan update has been discussed I'm not sure where they are exactly the open space plan is part of that Master planning process there's also a new recreation plan um that's being initiated and so the open space plan will also inform some of these other uh initiatives um many of the towns up here in Sussex County have recently gone through this process and as we know the Bears don't just come into Sparta and stay here right the water doesn't land in Sparta and stay here um so it's really important that we also coordinate across um with our neighbors um and finally the timing is good for our Sustainable New Jersey certification right now we have bronze certification and we'd like to get silver um this uh does get us some points for that um our third big reason is uh money it always comes down to money right um so right now we got a grant from the Highland coalition to um how Highland Council sorry thank you Christine um to pay for uh the Land Conservancy of New Jersey to come and do this work for us um so it's basically free to to us um in addition once the plan is completed it it allows other Green Acre dollars to be available if we choose to pursue them um and lastly as I already mentioned it brings tourist dollars into the town um if we continue to preserve our Open Spaces um yeah so that's why we're doing that at this time and Barbara turn it over to you he'll hear you better if you do no do we want to come down Barbara I think we want to come down there so I just gonna say that I'm going to invite the envir this is very loud you guys are okay with that okay all right okay all right I'm going to invite the environmental commission to join you here that way we can all see the presentation and if there's a question it's easier for me to answer so we'll just give them a second to come down so while they're coming down the first slide has a QR code um for you if you want to you know scan the QR code um in order to be able to participate or you can download uh go to the website so it's um https backo ev.com barbar Davis 928 this is going to be an interactive um so even if you don't want to do it I'm going to look at you until you take out your phone and I'm looking at you you're the best okay and um get it on because it's the only way to have your your voice heard and this is also being live streamed this way people who are live streaming and aren't in the room are able to participate as well and we can capture that type of input so if you could make sure that you're participating in that it'll just be a lot more fun okay so it's going to come up again the QR code is everybody okay for me to go to the next slide okay as Linda gets her phone okay all right as the environmental commission members get their phone see how good they are they they leave their phone aside all right so while they're getting the phone I'll introduce myself I'm Barbara Davis I'm vice president of programs at the L Conservancy of New Jersey and I'm also a licensed planner I've been at the Conservancy for 25 years and I came to the Conservancy because I was chair of my open space Committee in Randolph Township um which is just a half hour from Sparta I'm very familiar with Spa Sparta and I'm embarrassed to say I'm very familiar with Sparta from Route 15 and so um it's been a real pleasure to get to know Sparta Beyond Route 15 I also know Lake Mohawk but there's a lot more to Sparta than Lake Mohawk and and Route 15 which you know so the municipality has hired the L Conservancy to do their open space and Recreation plan just go to the next slide oh so this is about us we had a tour of Sparta so you can see I'm there with members of the environmental commission and your Recreation director the land conservancies a nonprofit Land Trust we based in bottin um what we found was that if we helped municipalities improve their planning for open space that it accelerated and prioritized um land acquisition which of course is our mission statement what we have found is that if you have a plan that states why you want to protect something and where that might be you're a lot more proactive than being reactive when you're reactive to land acquisition it's very expensive because then you really want something and the land owner knows it and it becomes a much more expensive acquisition those things happen but it's nice to be able to head them off in addition as Kimberly said it would qualify you for State funding if you so choose so your current open space plan is really way out of date your first one which I have in my bag is from 19 1996 it was updated sort of in 2003 it was barely updated in 2020 it really wasn't an update um so your open space plan is out of dat and what I mean by out of dat is according to the municipal land use law your master plan documents should be updated every 10 years and you're now easily over 20 and it also doesn't speak to Sparta anymore you've changed in the 20 years you have different priorities different community members it's time to give it a of refresh um the plan's GNA identify what I would say important lands and why so um I use these plans in order to be able to access other people's money so we try to have information in the plan that if the town so chooses they can then complete those Grant applications easily because they know where the information is how to write it and um what to be able to say and as Kim says it yields 10 points towards your sustainable Jersey application and it was fully funded by the Highlands Council um which is great uh when the highlands Council I think first came into being they really hesitated in partnering with towns um you know in terms of supporting efforts that were consistent with the master plan really what they preferred is that you said we're going to be consistent without really giving that opportunity to investigate it and I think that they've stepped way back and kind of rest strategized and supporting efforts like this is helpful for Sparta I'm not sure you would have gone this rout out if you didn't have that funding so completing the open space plan offers the opportunity to access state grants you can certainly qualify and you have applied to Sussex County for funding but Sussex County funding is very limited they have just a little bit of money for open space um it's really the state that has much more funding I have the website up there but all you have to Google is New Jersey Green Acres and the site will come up so the question for Sparta is you know what happens when you accept state funding um for open space or Recreation and Sparta was recently awarded a half a million dollars to improve a playground at Station Park which is great it it's very competitive funding it was very difficult to do the application I really complement the municipality so you're already on your way to accepting State funding um you'll have to put together a list of parks for the states they know what your parks are and which portions of those Parks you want to permanently strict for parks in open space because some portions of a park it really should be set aside for more infrastructure if you need to put DPW services or you have a waterline those should not be on your Recreation and open space inventory I also want to talk about Green Acres is two programs they have What's called the site specific and the planning incentive program the site specific program is if I Mrs Davis live in Sparta and I decide to sell my property to Sparta you would submit an application just for my property it's like a 60-page application you would get funding for my property maybe 25% from the state but if I changed my mind you would lose the funding because it was tied to my property and that's a lot of work for not having any funding whereas because you collect an open space trust fund and because you're going to have an open space plan you can qualify for the planning incentive program which which is like opening up a credit account with the state of New Jersey and the highest awards that were awarded in this past round were $700,000 per town which is a significant amount of money so what is an open space and Recreation plan has several components to it um it has executive summary which is kind of that onepage thing especially for the mayor if the mayor wants to know what to be able to say how much land is preserved how is it preserved you know what are the changes since your earlier plans one of the challenges um having in Sparta right now is that um there's not a good inventory of what's been permanently protected by the town by using your open space trust fund and the town's working on that and that's an important component you need to know what your open space trust fund has been used for so you know which properties really have been permanently set aside we have the goals of the Open Space Program and that's really where we're here tonight we're going to have public meetings this is the the first of several and it offers a history of the Open Space Program which is kind of what I was talking about with the use of the trust fund it gives an inventory so Green Acres is going to want to know um what's protected in Sparta and it's very interesting we just got the list from the state of New Jersey about what they own and you would think it would be completely obvious what New Jersey owns and it's not completely obvious and in fact the list has old block and lot numbers they don't even have the new block and lot numbers so we're spending a lot of time kind of resolving that New Jersey has easements on C certain properties cam Saka is permanently protected um because the state holds an easement on it and it's just an interesting thing to be able to know um if Sparta at one point wanted to purchase uh Camp saaka jaia um it would come with an easement that's held by the state of New Jersey so you would really need to know what's in that conservation easement part this it's called an open space and Recreation plan and I heard Kim talk about how you're going to be doing a recreation master plan it's not a recreation master plan a recreation master plan is a great document for Sparta where it's going to go park by Park um most likely it'll be done by an engineer and it really digs in to what the park facilities are what they could be how fields are designed in an open space and Recreation plan we list all your Parks we give a just description of what all the parks are and we give General recommendations based on what your Recreation director has told us so it's kind of that first step into doing your full-blown Recreation master plan um we do talk about historic and cultural resources I think especially in Sparta it defines the municipality um I went to see the Edison mind site and it's a really cool site um and there's different ideas about connecting trails and history in Sparta and it's something that you should continue to celebrate um and then the Land Conservancy includes a planning consistency section and what we try to do with that is we try to make sure that we record what the goals are kind of across the planning board both locally and regionally and I'm going to show you kind of the first step of what we've looked at but um if you think about it from a public good stpoint you don't want your open space plan to go in One Direction and your master plan to go in another and I'll give you an example and the example from the Farmland program we were working in one of the counties and we recommended this area for Farmland preservation and the state came back and said I don't know about that that area is in a sewer service area why are we going to invest public dollars to preserve it as a farm if it's in a sewer service area I said H good question we went back to the town the ordinance was so old on the books they had never implemented the sewer service area they didn't realize that they had the ordinance on the book and they rescinded the ordinance in order for the Farmland to be protected so it's that type of thing that you just want to make sure that public money is being spent wisely and consistently so that kind of brings us to the affordable housing um question right yes um I think if we could just wait just a little bit if that's okay thank you so much um so the affordable housing question right it's a complicated topic and it's one that all the towns um and I'd say where you're located in tamorris County are really struggling with so again you have to think of public good if a property has been designated on your affordable housing plan as one that the town wants to put affordable housing on it cannot be purchased for open space because you can't have two public goods kind of conflicting with one another um if you purchase a property for open space it takes it off of the roles of available land for affordable housing so it goes both ways and then the plan concludes with recommendations and an action program um we keep our Action Program pretty broad you know my goal isn't to stress anybody out um but the recommendations are good right the recommendations are meant to be realistic um we don't necessarily go lot by lot that you should you know purchase lot one block one um but we give uh conceptual ideas of what's important we'll look at your Trails your historic sites as Kimberly mentioned waterers very important wildlife habitat um your Forest resources are critical and I think expanding existing Parkland and connecting them is one that um would be an interesting opportunity for Sparta so this is what I wanted to show you so we spent a lot of time this week looking at your master planning documents from 1960 through um 2020 that's your most recent Master planning document and what we did was we looked at it with with respect to an open space and Recreation perspective and what you're looking at is called a word cloud so the more the same thing is said the larger the word and denser the color so you can see at this that when we looked at your planning documents and we noted down what the different priorities were from 1960 to the present um preserve came up over and over again um and what else came up your uh communities Germany Flats aquafer Lake Mohawk uh the promotion of recreation the maintenance of your Open Spaces slopes came up as important Wildlife habit at improving Recreation Drinking Water Supplies groundwater Scenic views um your town center came up over and over again um underutilized land and the concern about underutilized land um Sparta Glenn Park uh some of your master plans talked about clustering options to protect open space um the fact that you were in the highlands also came up and your schools so this we thought was really interesting from your Master planning perspective that if you just pulled out the goals and wrote them down on a piece of paper and then you know put it into this computer generated word cloud it comes up how important that we didn't manipulate this this is what came up through the through the work so what are you're going to be your goals in 2024 so these are our questions and then we're going to listen to what your suggestions are um so there's five different types of questions um this is always one of my favorites you know why do you live here really you know why do you move to Sparta why do you live here why do you stay here um what makes it so special and then one of the things I was interested in and I want you to take it with your Municipal hat on what park do you visit the most what Municipal Park do you miss do you visit the most and um why do you like it so much you know I did a tour of the municipality you have something really nice Parks even the Parker parks that Jim is i i i on I liked them um why should Sparta update its plan like you know kind of why do you care you know why is it so important um what would you like to see as an outcome of the plan you know um one of the towns I worked with and uh I came back and told my boss I thought I was in love with them because I do is that they want to purchase every developable property and they have a plan for that so you know in my world that's pretty cool but not every town is is like that but so what would you want to see as an outcome would you want to see your Parks bigger would you want new parks you know do you not want any parks one of the open space plans not mine um when it got to the chapter about open space acquisition said we don't want any more land so that's not my plan yeah that's not what I would write but you know what would work for you what Recreation facilities could you use an upgrade what would you like to see you know improved and what new things would you like to see added to the parks you know when we did ppines open space plan back in the day you know cricket was just coming into being and Paran had a large population that really liked cricket and they were putting in cricket Fields same thing with Edison um pickle ball is is huge right and people would like to see pickle ball um splash pads you know what would you you know walking you know I have I have three grandchildren now so so cute and um it's really nice to have trails that are paved now so I can push the stroller so you know it depends on your life stage what you really want to be able to do so what works what works for you and this is the tricky question and you know we're in a judgment free zone here but you know where would you like to see land preserved in Sparta and why you know and this is your opportunity and if you can't think of something my email address is at the end you can email me after it's AOK or right at the beginning of the process okay so this is where we get to the interactive part so if you're live streaming you should be able to see this as well and I'm going to read the website so you can use the QR code theoretically it works um you know so hopefully and um it's going to be pollev.com barbar Davis 928 so I'm going to wait a minute and if anyone has trouble getting on it let me know what it's going to say is if you're on the site is once you have this screen that says waiting for Barbara Davis 928 presentation to begin you're in the right place okay I have one of my staff members on the live stream just to tell me if it's not working so what did she say okay so she said the screen has a glare so it's hard to see the presentation so I'm just going to say the website one more time for those people who are live streamed and it's um pollev.com sbarra Davis 928 so does anyone here not have it up on their phone anybody need help we're all good okay is it okay if I go to the poll okay and remember that whole judgment free thing if I make a mistake I'm really sorry I'm just kind of saying that right now oh do you need it one more time [Music] okay do you want that's okay did it work okay you can just you can skip that it's Barbara but and you can put in your username if you want but I wouldn't worry too much okay so is it okay if I go to turn on the presentation or did you get it up no but that's christe help him out so it's it's poll EV okay because the whole idea is for everybody to participate so if you're having trouble you know we'll just wait a second po ev.com barbar Davis 928 once I go to the screen I lose that oh my um my coworker Who's online stream corre she's correcting me she says the presenter's username is Barbara Davis 928 so okay she's helping okay so is it so I should be able to start the presentation and you should see it the question should come up okay Rob we're good okay all right here we go okay on the first question okay so the first question there's a timer to this so that we're all not just waiting you know it's G to it's going to end so um remember judgment free zone so hopefully this all works so the first question remembers why do you live in Sparta Township what makes it so special so when the question comes up you have 2 minutes and you can put in as many things as you want my suggestion is to make your answers short like one or two words because it's going to be a word cloud like we saw for the master planning documents so I'm going to hit present and we're all going to take a deep breath and it's going to work okay so once you start respond it's going to come up on the screen ah see there it goes woohoo it worked somebody put in schools so this is why do you live in Sparta Township what makes it so special so you can keep Cory did you put in anything yet that's okay you can put something in it's all I trust you why do you like Sparta you have to put something in what makes it so special this is cool can you guys see or do you want me to sit down okay great keep going Serenity well these are nice words privacy you're doing great you're doing great 2 minutes seems a lot longer than hopefully the people um who are live streaming are also able to do this that's nice someone put folks Birds bucolic history Serenity someone put low I'm not quite sure what that is we're going to get um the input so if there's something that was multiple words I'll be able to see that so the polling is closed and this is what it looks like as to why do you live in Sparta Township what makes it so special oh I'm going to guess it was low pollution um it does it's it's really interesting Bears that's cool like Mohawk peaceful family peaceful comes up a lot the scenery the views the nights I'm going to guess you have black Skies here that you don't have the which is really nice yeah no light pollution makes a big difference the landscape the recreation see Jean woohoo all right clean open space nature Wildlife the schools Sparta schools are all self-contained right you're not a regional district yeah nice okay so I feel really good that was a successful um first first question we're going to go to the second question if I can remember how to do it okay oh good okay so just to remind you the second question is which Township Park do you visit the most and it's going to be multiple choice you can choose three and you have a minute and if um so if we go to the next question and you don't see it on your screen you have to refresh the screen okay if you need help let me know but hopefully it'll just automatically go to the second question so again it's multiple choice you can choose up to three okay so the poll is open so which Park do you visit the most I know I'm [Music] sorry thank you Jim do you see Edison Park getting votes that pocket park isn't that great I don't [Laughter] see great this is cool so 28% of the people who responded um say that they go to Station Park uh the Glenn is right behind it at 22% White Lake Park is just after that um but with closely Ted oh look at that you're right put Sparta Glenn Park in the Glenn no sugars okay toal I don't know I'm going to have to look it's one is 15% and one is um 21% I know [Music] yeah so it kind of gets back to that judgment free I made a little mistake and it's all okay um so and angerman Memorial Park which is a really nice park you know that's where your concerts are it's a nice little Park um North Village didn't get any votes um and Tyler Park did not so um which is and those are both very very specific parks to that neighborhood um so it's not not too surprising okay so question three is okay is it Dyer bar also I didn't know that was the other name ch years okay so we okay so three names okay I'm sorry yeah okay so the next question is what do you like so much about these parks and that's going to be a word cloud and you're going to have a minute and a half so in that one you can write down why you like those Parks so much okay so the poll is open so if you have a misspelling you can can fix it there's one that's p a r HS which I'm not sure if that's paths or Parks so if the person who put in the p a rhs you know maybe if they could just because it's a big difference between paths and Parks I think it's going to be paths because I asked why you enjoy it so much ice cream I like ice cream neighbors this is great so interesting Comm Trails hiking Wildlife nature safe water clean Sports there you go trees those all came up as um more dense walking I'm going to guess meeting Friends concert Serenity flowers dyra so I know what that is now thank you um events Dreams yeah events Recreation events are really important um parking I agree nobody put bathrooms I really like bathrooms at parks yeah all right sorry Jean it's a good thing I wasn't filling it out there's just nothing wrong with a good bathroom um pass oh maybe they fix that Pass highway I don't know this must be two words I'll have to go back to the original it's setting exercise great playgrounds terrific thank you all right so the next question is going to be so this is a little bit different it's going to be a short answer and you'll see when you put up your short answer that there's a thumbs up or a thumbs down that's going to appear both on your phone and on the screen so if someone else has put something up that you like you can give it a thumbs up if they put something up there that you don't like you can put a thumbs down so if I was filling it out and I'd put because I like the bathrooms and someone didn't agree with me like Jean she could dislike it so um that gives an idea of kind of how you feel about it so the question is going to be um let's see uh let's see let me just make sure so why should Sparta update its plan what would you like to see as an outcome of the plan this is a short answer you're going to have a little bit more time to fill it out and um like I said you can scroll through other responses so if someone says why should Sparta update its plan and someone says you know to make Station Park bigger you know and that's what you wanted to say you could just like their response you don't have to retype it um and because there's so many people there's going to be a lot of responses and you can scroll up and down on your screen to see them so again you have two and half minutes which is a longer amount of time um to be able to do that okay so why should Sparta update its plan what would you like to see as an outcome of the plan so if it didn't come up you can refresh your screen did that work and as more people vote for it it'll get bumped up in the on the screen do you want a hand 928 Barbara Davis 928 are you doing this too Christine e okay so the poll's closed and what's coming up with the most Vats are preserving more forest for hiking water um protecting what's left of our open space General preservation let's see if I can figure out how to do this oops I know it's a little bit harder than that sorry oh there we go I can do it um more green space to protect our forests more land protected oh my goodness sorry um to preserve more open space and keep the character of the town I'll report back what I told Jim was that we would provide this to be able to put on the website as um you know kind of what the results were so the next two questions also are short answer with the ability to like so very similar to this question the next one is what Recreation facilities could use an upgrade and what new things would you like to see added to the parks so this will be helpful for Jean as she undertakes her Recreation and master planning and well I'm going to be a little biased but um the open space and Recreation plan is supposed to F focus on outdoor recreation so if you could keep that in mind um that would be great but if you really can't help it and you want you know more indoor basketball courts just say it okay okay so the poll is open oopsy daies um one second I went to the wrong question okay all right so now I'm at the right question what Recreation facilities could use an upgrade and what new things would you like to see added to the parks and again this is a short answer for same type of thing you can you know vote on what someone else has put up I think Trails is coming up as important yes so definitely scroll down on your phone to like things that might already have been said and bumps them up just a bit okay great excellent let's see if I can do a better job of scrolling down Trails connecting Parks let's see planting native trees Loop Station Park Road what does that mean Loop Station Park Road Jean yeah Oh okay that's cool thanks community garden add a large dog Recreation for off Leach have any of you guys been to Wantage wage has the largest dark Park in the state it's a it's a really interesting dog park it's something like 30 Acres it's a really big dog park and it's publicly owned privately managed it's a nice dog park this all fenced in water fountains all parks need permanent bathrooms yes okay playgrounds okay I want Jean to like me so we'll just kind of let that one go did you really all right that's so funny okay and then the last question is the hard one um where would you like to see land preserved in Sparta and why so you can be pretty General about that but you know if there's places that you'd like to see protected or regions or you know maybe you want Lake Mohawk permanently protected or you know I don't know sagol Lake just write it down you know if you um if there's an area in the municipality that you think is underserved by Municipal open space you know put down this area needs more open space um it helps provide Direction or you know if there's um you have a concern you know we want to make sure our Drinking Water Supplies Sparta is all on well water and you have plentiful supply of well water but that's where you get all your drinking water so you know this a thought as well so I'm going to open up the last question you have two and a half minutes same type of thing okay so here we go so where would you like to see land preserved in Sparta and why I would like to see pants along the walkill river oh good thank you for e e okay the poll's closed so um the items that are coming up are the Edison mine abandoned railroad Sparta Mountain connecting it with various Parks like Mohawk protecting the aquifer see the dlw abandoned railroad areas around the walkill river farmlands and undeveloped green spaces Germany Flats aquafer the Walo River Watershed protect the area above the aquifer so it's the recharge area um headquarters protecting the tributaries Spa Glenn that is a beautiful Park um areas along houses Corner Road pimple Hills the proposed state park lands contiguous to Station Park connect the Town Center um Lake Mohawk and to prevent development so very interesting okay okay so this is the time we did it was for me it was really helpful and I hope that it was okay for you and if it wasn't just tell me afterwards that you didn't like it um but I know that you know we really want to give the opportunity for people to also speak so if you're comfortable and you want you have a question or you want to make a comment um I know that you had mentioned you were very patient so thank you you know now is a great time and I'm happy to give you the mic so hey I'm Mike and I have the mic and I'm going to start out by making no friends here I think bathrooms and water founds and all that are great I doubt that this whole process the priority should be things like that I mean let's we could probably do that with a resolution or something I don't know that's nice I also and this is really controversial but all my kids are growing up and my grandchildren in Florida I think we got plenty of parks there soon have one Park per kid I mean I I don't know what more Parks we need my view of this the thrust should be I'm going to differ with you on timing and focus I'm looking to quickly identify land that's critical for the appearance of the town in the future and the near future we've got development press that's ever increasing we have areas that are very right for development if there's a way we can identify them quickly and find ways to preserve them I'd be interested in trying to do that we talk about preserving I'm not sure what preserving means it sounds like there's a way to set aside these lands while actually investing in them or something you made an important part Point once it becomes clear that we are interested in land the price is going to Skyrocket so if there's some way to preserve things without investing in I'm not sure what that might be for example we talked about uh preserving Lake Mohawk far as I know that's a private Lake I'm not sure what would have to be done to preserve it that's a question uh Lake saaki I thought we purchased that from the Girl Scouts decades ago so my overall point is are we going to get I don't want to spend pardon me for being blunt but I've been through open space plans many times I don't want to spend three months talking about niceties that are pretty obvious to almost everybody unless we all think that's the priority let's at least consider whether the priority should be some way to utilize land acquisition to maintain the character of our town so I hope I still have some friends here I I will personally I will personally put a water fountain in wherever you want it was a nice Pres thank you thank you anybody so uh a lot of good comments I I think for me a common theme is you know Green areas hiking I don't think Sparta has a lot of hiking areas Sparta Glenn there small Trails very steep not for everybody um Sparta Mountain has 3,000 Acres of state owned land with great level trails in it but the state owns it and they're logging it um when we're talking about preserving land a lot of the logging that's going on is our Green Acres funds contributing or paying for that logging so if if we had a choice if there was any possibility of acquiring state land and making it green um and and hikable for for for us to go on that would be fantastic and I wanted to open with there's a lot of studies out there that for folks who have um um stress in their lives uh anxiety getting out in Open Spaces hiking in forest and Back To Nature brings them down to a better level my daughter goes all the way to aoflex Lake just to get out to some decent hiking trails we need that in Sparta so hiking trails is is on the top of the list for me and saving it from being logged thank you anybody else want to speak hi I grew up in a town that bought itself it was a very large town it's read in Connecticut and in 1964 the selectman there decided that it's time to slow growth and it's time to keep red and green and so the town and thank God to some very generous residents that sold this the land rather inexpensively was able to save and a able to keep itself green so right now about 40 something per of of reading is open space right and people say well then how the taxes are going to go up but that's not really true there's many many studies that have shown that a developed piece of land cost more to maintain than a green piece of land that's never been touched for the town and so if you bring in until you bring in enough ratables to to reach incredible economies of scale your town never benefits from the ratables I mean if we made Sparta all industrial well I think taxes would go down but we don't want to do that if we make Sparta just part of Sparta industrial taxes will go up because there's services and things that will be required to to maintain the roads to protect the aquifer to I mean it goes on and on and on Police Services Etc so maintaining and and keeping spart green by buying Itself by buying open Land by buying and and that may require financing it I know that reading I know that reading Connecticut did several Bond offerings and they bought bought the town and they paid it off and that limited the amount the size of our schools the biggest thing that grows our taxes in this town is the growth of our schools and SP and reading schools are the same size they were when I was there anyways thanks oh sure I just want to push back a little bit on the idea of buying private property as a outrageously expensive idea for the town um I think there's a lot of people that grew up here that are really invested in their land and their property that would be very happy with a fair market value for their property and I think it's um altruistic even just to get or just to take the fair market value but I think there's a lot of people that would be thrilled to see to know that they're helping to preserve Sparta moving forward so one of the things that um I used to include in open space plans and I haven't done in a while but I can for Sparta is that there's a lot of tools out there in terms of negotiating with land owners as Linda mentioned fair market value and then there was the comment um about you know purchasing something that might be above fair market value there's um especially in Sparta there's quite a few land owners that have owned their property for a long time so their capital gains are going to be pretty high when they go to sell that property because their basis is so low so there's tax benefits to preserving their property um and that's something that as a land trust we talk about a lot with the the different land owners and municipalities can do that as well um from a municipal perspective uh just because we have the manager here um and I'm not sure if there's any governing body members here but um if you go with Green Acres for funding for land acquisition so you're going to purchase a piece of property and you've agreed with the buyer to um to purchase the property and it appraises at a million dollar so you apply to Green Acres for 50% of the value of the what it appraised at so you're going to get $500,000 because the Green Acres the maximum they'll do is 50% so it's 50% of the million that's $ 500,000 but if the landowner agrees to sell it at a bargain sale because they want the tax benefit of that bargain sale and they sell it below the appraised value um and let's say they say they're going to sell it at 800,000 versus the million you still get the 50% of the million because the bargain sale is considered part of your match to Green Acres dollars and that makes a significant difference for a municipality especially one in susex County where the county itself doesn't have meaningful funds for land acquisition so there's different tools that you can use to acquire the land um and they're all very effective tools so if the environmental commission wants something like that included in the report we can include a either a small addendum or a website that you can kind of go to for some advice on that are there any other thoughts or comments my wife's not here can I speak for her of course there's something that she would like I'd introduce myself steo pesnik from uh Sparta uh my wife is kind of passionate about Edison Monument Edison Park up there and one of her ideas is to make that better make it a real park and draw people from other towns into Sparta which would increase our economy in Sparta you can do that in other places as well but her passion again is is at SM lot of history there there was a huge mining operation back in the late 1800s Edison lost lots of money blah blah blah there's a lot of history that that could be learned from what went on there anybody ever wants a tour i' be happy to give you one thank you any other thoughts or comments of course and I think that the gentleman behind you as well you want to go first not to kick a dead water F but uh this this is my opportunity to say things that I've been trying to say for a long time if I look at Sparta today and I look where we want Sparta to be in 10 years to me there's a biggest potential obstacles from getting here to there are development undesirable development and traffic I think they're absolutely the biggest thing so regardless of whatever else we do I hate to the old phrase deck chairs on the Titanic but I think it's not tially inappropriate I was very encouraged by your idea that if there are people with that altruistic that'd be great and you said do we get credit for the market value even if we sell for Less that's another very positive thing I would like to see to the extent that it's plausible and I don't know the mechanisms if this whole open space thing and purchase Green Acres and all that is a means to support the biggest to deal with the biggest impediments we have towards a desired future I'd like to at least focus a part of our efforts on that uh I was involved at doing Green Acres believe it or not 30 years ago and I think at that time the plan was to put a green belt across Sparta if you look at where that open land is now you might actually see a green belt I think we got pretty close so I know that that is actually a pretty effective uh thing the tool to use so that's my last obnoxious comment thank you thank you Mike here's the I have question but I can hide the mic from others if you want at this point all right Dean BL deputy mayor uh just wanted to ask what is typically and can you speak for a few minutes about the role of land trusts and land conservancies and all the ones we always hear of big ones small ones and how they might play a role in helping us Implement part of this yeah thanks so good question so I work for the land conservant we're a nonprofit Land Trust we're a local Land Trust we're based in botin we work Statewide but our land the planning is Statewide our land preservation is really focused on the Northern corner of the state um there's The Nature Conservancy New Jersey conserv New Jersey conservation Foundation Trust for Public land um R and Valley Conservancy these are all organizations that have worked in your area in Sussex County and you know Western Morris County so a land trust organization has access to funding that municipalities may not um we also can access State funds through Green Acres and here's the kicker for Sparta um and again I'm definitely taking advantage of now that I know the deputy mayor's here and the manager if a nonprofit organization uses State funds in Sparta that does not impact any of your local Parklands so when the municipality applies for State funds that impacts all of your other Parks because they all come under kind of the oversight of the state of New Jersey if a nonprofit organization uses State funds to preserve lands in Sparta that has no bearing on any other land within the municipality so that's an important distinction we also when we get those State funds um it doesn't uh we can it can be matched with Municipal funds up to that 50% so partnering with a land trust can really accelerate the state funding that comes within the municipality a land trust can also access um Foundation funding that a municipality may not be able to access and I'm going to be very honest Foundation funding is becoming more and more limited um for a land acquisition um a lot of the foundations have um shifted their focus from land acquisition to um kind of the deij initiative and environmental justice so we see kind of that roller coaster effect of um where funds are going working for with a land trust and the Land Conservancy does this all the time um if you have a property that you're interested in protecting and you have a relationship with the owner that may not be positive don't forget a municipality sometimes isn't seen as um you know benevolent it could be seen as more authoritative um you know and you have a certain structure to you that when you write a letter it can be kind of bureaucratic whereas with a land trust we can approach the land owner on behalf of the town and sometimes the doors open a little bit wider our knowledge of um options for land um preservation is more robust the um knowledge of what the tax benefits are and who to go to to get that information can be more robust um so there's definitely a benefit to working with a a local nonprofit partner and I have to say that in this northern part of the state we're really fortunate to have the number of organizations and each one of the organizations kind of brings a different face to the game um Trust for Public land is basically a realter they don't own land they'll facilitate the acquisition but they won't own it in the end so that's really important to know that they have to find an End owner in order to preserve that property um most nonprofit organizations will own land if it's close to other land that they own because just the work involved the Land Conservancy we've preserved um very close to 30,000 we're we're this close but we only own just under 2,000 you know most of the land we preserve we then turn over to another owner and that's important so it's I think there's a lot of benefits to working with with a land trust um you know we have this is all we do this is all we think about so there's a lot of knowledge there so while I'm here make sure you take advantage of that to try to learn as much as possible are there any other questions or comments okay thanks uh Ron Day first I want to say thank you and thank you to the environmental commission for this a lot of good information and you know I've always had an interest in this and just don't understand it well enough so just been helpful so so thank you um the question I have is when I look at Sparta today and I know there's a lot of Open Spaces out there is there a map or anything that shows where those are located so I can kind of see pictorially you know this is what we have now and kind of Imagine This is where we want to go love those kind of questions okay that was a great question so um yes this plan is going to put a map together of what's preserved in public and it's not as easy as you might think um Sparta does not have what's called a recreation open space inventory um which is a contract between the town and the state that lists all of your Municipal Parkland you're most likely going to be putting something like that together um so what we're doing and you can see how poorly we're doing it um with the one slide about the repetitive Parks sorry um and we didn't have Yonkers landing on there either I noticed that when that slide was up there that's okay all right so don't list that separately okay all right good to know um but there's a lot of land in Sparta that's owned by a lot of different people and um having an idea of you know what is publicly owned you have land in Sparta that's owned by other towns um that your Lakes you have the homeowners associations that own a whole lot of land in Sparta um so we're playing around with the mapping and it takes a while to kind of resolve that out um and unfortunately it's a lot of questions for your engineer and your manager who are really very helpful so that was a that was a really good question any other thoughts or questions oh yes um yeah you had a wonderful presentation and I loved how interactive it was with all of us it seemed like in the beginning one of the things that Drew a lot of us to Sparta was the wildlife and all the ecology here and uh I grew up I grew up like near Sparta mountain and going hiking in all those woods I think it would really benefit a lot of people and also just the community as a whole to kind of have um more information about that and how I know there's hundreds of rare and endangered species on SP Mountain alone and maybe having like a group hike kind of like what you mentioned before but going through those woods or even at Station Park bird watching and pointing out all of these species would be very good for the community and I think that's something that Sparta could use too thank you did you have another thought thank you great comment thanks again let me keep it quick um I do want to thank you too Barbara and the EC for doing this it's really critical that we focus on this now uh if anyone watched the council meeting from Tuesday night um don't quote me we have to dig into the numbers further but there was a pretty robust discussion around ratables valuations and how they have indeed gone up every year for the at least the last eight years that we've looked at the data but if you look at the breakdown and this is the part don't quote me on I think it's about 30 or 40% less open space today than we had I think it was four or five years ago based on valuation analysis so again we want to dig into those numbers a little bit more so don't again don't quote me on that but that was the impression we got from looking at those that data and those graphs is that the open space valuations have gone down uh 30 or 40% in you know a handful of years less than five so uh we're look into that a little further and but it just really proves the point that this is the time to focus on this and make sure we're doing something strategically that we think is important do you think it's because the inherent valuation is going down or because they've been developed why why is it decreasing yeah I I don't I don't know I'm not sure if the evaluation would go down that much uh yeah I think it's a proxy for the land less land that's a cold action as you pointed out yeah yeah yeah I doubt that the land itself would just be devalued that much in a short time frame you think it'd go up yeah yeah so we have to check into that but it's it's uh it's it was enlightening to see that thank you again a really great great question so I just happened to have a schedule so sorry um the end of the day I'm a little Punchy so the whole process should take for me on on our end we should have a draft to the town sometime in the fall in the early fall um we started this I think in the spring in March was our first kickoff meeting um with the environmental commission we have an Open Space Project team that's a subcommittee of the environmental commission that we meet with on a pretty regular basis to talk about the progress on the open space plan the first steps for the Land Conservancy are really gathering information um we now have all of your master planning documents the affordable housing document we have your tax data um we have the GIS mapping we've taken several tours of the municipality so um um we've you know have a pretty good idea of kind of on the ground um and we're going to spend the summer putting the plan together um as I mentioned the plan has uh several components but the really the next step is putting the draft together and once the draft is together we'll give it to the environmental commission they'll have a first crack at it in terms of being able to review it um because this was funded from the highlands Council the highlands Council was very insistent that they be involved in the review of the draft so once the EC has read it and the manager has read it and is comfortable with it we'll then release it um to the public and to the highlands Council for review and then we'll have another series of public meetings sometimes I think it's easier if you have it in writing so you can see what it says in order to be able to provide a comment um you know one things and I've written like I don't know 200 or some plans all land conservation plans it's all I do um but you always miss something always so that draft is a great opportunity to remind me about what we might have missed you know why didn't you think of that so that's a good opportunity for people to get re-engaged and take a look at it with a a close eye um and it's helpful so once we have all of those comments we'll revise the draft and it'll be a final draft and that's what the planning board will review for adoption as an element of the master plan um it's really a requirement for it to be adopted as an element of the master plan in order to get State funding um I haven't had any open space plans that I've worked on not adopted as an element of the master plan um in order to get points from sustainable Jersey it has to be adopted to qualify for Green Acres and it is funded from the highlands Council and the timing is great because the municipalities considering kind of an overhaul of your master plan so this will fit in nicely with that we'll um happy to provide the gis data when we're done so the planner who does your master plan can have that data and that's really helpful so does that answer well yes then come yes absolutely me yeah it was a good tool I'm really glad it worked um yes so that's a good point um it all different ways it really depends on the town um and we'll talk to the environmental commission about what they recommend because they know your municipality the best um I'd like to see it posted on your website so people can download it and take a look at it we can certainly create a website so that if there are comments they could come directly to our office um a lot of times the environmental commission that we work with wants to be able to review those comments so they can help um clarify them for us sometimes it's hard you know if you don't live there to know exactly the intent as to what the comment was said and like I said we'll have public meetings so there'll be the opportunity to speak at a public meeting okay yes this is an element of the master have to planning board right invol right so I spoke to um Jim about this this evening so what the Land Conservancy typically recommends is after it's been reviewed by the professionals and the environmental commission and it's released to the public we recommend the two public meetings one at the governing body because the governing body is the entity that makes the financial decisions about the trust fund so we want to make sure that they know what's in the report and that they've had an opportunity to comment on it before it's adopted so we typically recommend that the governing body meeting be first before the planning board after we've heard from the governing body and also the highlands Council and Green Acres then we'll include any of those comments revise where it needs to be and then go to the planning board planning board can have it at any time the planning board can have it at the outset but the last public meeting will be when they consider it for adoption so at that point hopefully is pretty close to a final draft for the planning board initial then you have to have AAR right secretary the attorney right it's a very prescribed process for a master plan for a master plan um you know for adoption as an element of a master plan it has to be noticed all the neighboring towns have to get a notice and a copy the county has to get a copy um of the proposed you know element and then the planning board you know will review it typically they review it and um they pass a resolution to adopt it which is then memorialized at their next next meeting so it just depends on the planning board process but we can do whatever works best for Sparta so you know on our end we're happy to get the comments and happy to revise where necessary and give you the amount of time that you need to review it and make sure that it it works if you want to see examples of the type of work that we do which might be helpful if you go on our website under the municipal Services tab we do have links to some of the open space plans that we've done recently and it might give you an idea of you know how we write and what it looks like which might be helpful longterm execution right so um as Kim Kimberly said at the outset according to the municipal land use law the environmental commission has the responsibility for overseeing kind of the Open Space Program for the municipality so the environmental commission would then be charged this not being very forward here so just this this is a very I'm being a little aggressive um so the EnV enal commission would be the body that would be charged with implementing the recommendations in the open space plan now the environmental commission can't um make financial decisions so they would then provide those recommendations to the governing body who would then act on them so the governing body is the body that would pass the ordinances in order to release the funding um and they would most likely be the body that would be charged with you know maybe having Jim negotiate for the property or whoever the governing body so chooses but my strong recommendation is that you have a volunteer board that's overseeing kind of the Open Space Program there's just too many things on the plate of the governing body um it's not really the perview of the planning board and it sits best with that volunteer board and in Sparta you're very fortunate to have a an active well-informed environmental Commission [Music] je just mentioned just remind these are you come out with recommendations the end recomendation talking the implementation plan for recommendations just like the master plan has recommendations that come out of but the environmental commission certain element they want they want to tack bring the coun any element of master plan comes out if they want to reone an area to make an ordinance they make a recommendation but that governing body has right so I'm a firm believer in a robust Open Space Program I mean you're talking to someone who's completely biased so everyone needs to needs to know that um and to to take your recommendation about events and programming um you know I'm a big believer that an open space committee or an environmental commission every year every other year should really take a bus tour and drive around the town and take a look at what's out there and you know what's potentially out there and what did we look at last year and kind of where is it um you can do promotional events like you were talking about bird watching Sussex County has a great bird bird watching group um and the environmental commission can promote that the land acquisition component of it is just hard and I I'm not going to sugarcoat that it's very hard to acquire land um you have to be thoughtful about it and you need to be organized about it you can't have five people talking to the same landowner it's why the governing body should really be the end decision maker um you know typically it's the governing body and the um manager who oversees that type of program but it would be the environmental commission who could really provide the recommendations in closed session and why at least in my opinion and that's one model when I was out with the um on the tour with the members of the environmental commission we talked about what other towns do and um especially towns that have open space trust funds and they're not quite sure how to spend them um a good example is I do a lot of work in Madison in Morris County and um their open space committee almost becomes a grant making committee that people come to them with different projects and they help to kind of sift through and prioritize them both for acquisition and Park development and park maintenance and then they provide those recommendations to the governing body so you have that volunteer oversight so there's all sorts of models that Sparta can use to help accelerate its Open Space Program if I'm wrong but a big part of this and the master plan um once they're adopted once they revised and adopted are they're sort of like a back stop the town nothing really happened in the town unless it's consistent with the master plan no um I don't think a master plan has that amount of power so yeah I thought like the zoning and anything that was changed had to be so the open space plan is not going to make Ro zoning recommendations no I the master plan part of the master plan the master plan will have a land use section that will recommend zoning the open space is completely different there used to be and I'm not sure if it's still really actively used what was called a community facilities map which was a little bit more regulatory um kind of a forward thinking map this is where we want to have you know a school or Community Center I'm not sure towns really use that tool anymore but um an open space plan became an element of the master plan because Green Acres funds that and that's really where they came yeah it's an optional element so um you know a lot of time in the past they were called conservation elements um but when Green Acres came so Green Acres started in 1964 um what they found that happened was that they would award money and then um primarily to the cities and the cities would accept the money for new parks and they would sell off old parks in order to buy the new parks which was antithetical to what Green Acres was trying to do so that's when they started to create more of a regulatory process that they give money you know things that exist as a park have to stay as a park and then in like 1990 1991 when towns started to self tax for land acquisition green ACR started that planning incentive program where they wanted to open up a credit account for towns to make it easier and to award towns that self taxed had an open space tax but in order to do that you had to have a plan that said what you wanted and why and that's the Genesis of the open space plan and that's when it became they required that to have to be part of the master plan even though it wasn't in the municipal land use law so it's a lot of detail for people who don't serve on the planning board but that is kind of the Genesis of it okay all right so I think the last slide was a thank you these are your next steps and we've already gone over them and um Christine's going to be super surprised that she's one of the contacts um if you have questions I forgot to ask her um but you can always look me up just go up to the L Conservancy I'm the only Barber there um and you can send me an email emails really much better than a phone call um I I I'm just being honest I'm I'm much much better with email but I do call people back I promise and then I put Christine's name because she's the secretary of the environmental commission is at theun municipality and she's really great so if you have a question for the environmental commission you can send it through Christine and with that I really thank you and I'll turn it back over to the environmental commission are going to continue the meeting weti Mar thank you very much like upate earlier thank you you're the words come up and get darker no definitely it's good to see a lot of General consensus all right we are going to continue the meeting getting ready hi Dean all right um the next item on the agenda is we have two applications to review um planning board application 24 7-17 and planning board application 24718 both of these should be relatively quick but the memo is due to the planning board on the 19th so next week so we do need to take a look at them um let me just make sure I have it in the right order this is the first one um the first one is um just changing the existing signage on the building and installing a new sign with VAR varying Dimensions so I do we want to take a look at this or did folks have a Time chance to look at it online already I didn't I look at it do we have any comments or concerns about this one I guess my only curiosity would be with the main light or the main sign on the actual building is the light increasing like the brightness of it okay I'm not sure if it was in any of the memos though I don't think I saw anything okay we can certainly ask that question I'm I'm sure that the planning board minor site plan committee has really reviewed the signage and made sure that it's the right size and the right color and they also check the lighting on it but it doesn't hurt to check again okay great the next one that we have is for Thor Labs it is also for some changes um to the existing uh minor site plan for proposed change in ten tency who's ever renting the building an existing building and site there's no exterior changes are proposed except changing the name plate and modifying the existing free standing sign so again no building is Happ happening did any you guys had a chance to look at this any comments or questions on that one okay all right all right opening up to public comment [Laughter] again okay thank you very much all right we did have some new business it's not on the agenda um but something that does have to get covered tonight so I'm going to turn it over to Landon all right hello everyone so we don't meet until uh July 25th is our next environmental Commission meeting so the Town Council meets on July 23rd and they are going to be passing two resolutions one is to make a new Trail subcommittee and another committee um but with that they want to have a resolution of support in trail preservation to go along with it and they felt like getting it from the environmental commission would be the best so I'm just going to pass out what I drafted and what I emailed to everyone with the revisions um we can always amend it after because there's plenty of time but um after everyone looks at it then if someone would like to entertain a motion that would be great so does it talk about which um trails that we're talking about or is it just oh here it is I'm sorry I'm getting there I tried to keep it vague but at least putting one that's a priority where's this one again the abandoned Delaware lacana and Western railroad the one up behind the um Veteran Cemetery yeah over by Sparta Junction okay does anybody have any comments or questions at this time I read this earlier looks very good to me and just for anyone this is just a very the public or anyone watching online it's a very just brief letter of support or resolution of support it's having no obligation to the municipality um nothing binding just a recommendation and something to then if it does get passed by the council to get triggered and sent to the Commissioners um Landon could you just um clarify where the four miles is again sure I I can show you this map I should have probably printed this out as well but it's I just need a refresher yeah thank you but it um over on the western portion of Sparta bordering Lafia there's an abandoned railroad line the Delaware lawana and Western railroad line um four miles approximately are in Sparta and there's preservation efforts in nearby municipalities so that's something that has really interested the Town Council so which color is it is it the orange uh the orange and then I believe Sparta's outlined okay the township is oriented uh differently it is it's I think we're supposed to be like yeah it's not nor yeah have we done a review of who owns that and it's pretty A A Unique Piece of parcel actually majority about three miles of it is completely owned by the county which just hasn't had been delegated to anything um and then currently there's some the final mile which is the closer portion to Lafayette where the current poisin Valley terminates um still has to get cleaned up a bit so there's um work being done with Lafayette right now so that's and and it borders the township so that's why there is new reinvigorated interest in that area due to having it be owned like that this this and this is something Barbara is looking at and reviewing regardless right I mean I know you presented it to her and she was really excited about it as well yes certainly yeah so who sorry who owns that last mile uh private property it's private property yes okay do we have a motion do we feel comfortable making a motion at this time who wants to do that well I'm technically Rob left right so I can I'll make the motion what is make the motion to recommend a resolution of support for converting and preserving abandoned railroad lines in open space and recreational trail infrastructure for Sparta and susus County communities okay do I have a second I'll second all right all in favor I I I okay seems like it's unanimous Thank you very much all right anything else for the good of PARTA Township or its residents or the environment tonight this is a great meeting though yeah very good all right do I have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn Linda I'll second it all in favor I I I right thank you so much thank you we had a we had a great turnout in terms of who came you know