Al States councilman Schwarz here councilwoman beler here councilwoman Goldberg councilwoman Oregon here Deputy Mayor Catz Deputy Mayor G here mayor Pagan here adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by resolution number 14622 3 sending a copy to the newspaper's official designated for 2023 by way of resolution number 2223 fing a copy in the township clerk's office and posting out on the municipal building bulletin board and the mayor hereby directs that this statement be included in the minutes thank you Mr clerk good evening and welcome everyone to tonight's special meeting of the Tet Council Township administ ation president at tonight's meeting are Dean kazinski Township manager Doug ruson Township Clerk Scott salmon Township attorney and Ron Goodman volunteer cable caster for The public's information this meeting is in person but is being recorded to be posted online the next televised regular council meeting will take place on Tuesday December 12th at 6:30 p.m. the public portion of that meeting will begin at 8:00 pm we have a manora lighting at 5:30 p.m. on Monday December 11th at Town Hall and invite everyone to please join us for that and lastly Council did not meet in closed session this evening because this is a special meeting our next order of business is presentations but we do not have anything listed for that so we will move on to work session items and first up is old business and Cedar Lane revitalization Mr Schwarz did you want to start us off on that sir yes um do you mind if I stand just so I can face face the council if that's all right um as mentioned in um in sorry guys apologize in past um workshops or past uh Retreats which which were held both at um fdu uh the Student Union building as well as holy name they were more in a horse sh for the purposes of talking and and the purposes of talking is what I really wanted to uh have tonight about when we scheduled this maybe about nine months ago the purpose was and as many people in the audience know specifically say when we discussed the re zoning and rebuilding of American Legion Drive there were comments like don't focus on American leion Drive focus on Cedar Lane over to no this is a work speaking to the council right now we'll face you soon ma' please um the I'm sorry I was interrupted um your train thought was um instead of American Legion were saying vot Lan so um over the last few years we've been meeting with landlords and or trying to meet with landlords we've discussed I've discussed almost every one of you I've walked CED Lane with almost every one of you I've walked Cedar Lane um with management I've walked Cedar Lane with um zoning with with planning board officials and the the purpose of we wanted to do tonight is in sub zoning meeting we've had quite a bit of conversations over the years on what could we do with Cedar Lane we've had conversations in private settings and we've never had these conversations in an open setting and the purpose what we wanted to accomplish tonight was have a conversation amongst us of what we each want to see do feel on Cedar Lane if it's couldn't if it could work if it can't work if we tried if we haven't tried it so we can say is it a way to the Future um so some key potential takeaways is is an anr the key to the future is rezoning if we didn't do it the key to the future is a Redevelopment agency the key to the future is eminent domain which is something I'm not in favor of but is eminent domain the key to the Future um I've asked our attorney our Redevelopment attorney Michael Ash here who will be available for some questions on specific examples if you say hey what about X so the purpose of tonight was just to start this conversation amongst six five six or seven of us to see what do we want to see in Cedar Lane and and I think it's important to start out with something that that community members mentioned that we've actually tried and and the manager can expand on we've had now twice in the last six years try to reach out and coordinate breakfast meetings with ownership of the buildings in Cedar Lane twice with plenty of notice with food that's always important when you do food and we have not had one attendee and I'm talking ownership I'm not talking tency and there's like four or five folks that own most of the buildings right there's there's not a lot of owners and to expand on that and there is a large multi-generational ownership situation on CED Lane something we've all discussed over the last few years um and that is for example uh the Noah Arc strip I call it the Noah Arc strip because I started working there um that that building's been owned that company's actually older than America that's owned it it's there's they traces their roots to the Mayflower they own for the movie theater all the way on down they've owned it forever across the streets all multigenerational these are people that have owned it many of them inherited from their parents or in a corporate structure that will have significant tax consequences if they sell so what we had and I've also I apologize I also just want to introduce if anyone knows our zoning officer Dan melie who I also asked to come out for him to give his comments and input as well Dan spoken to many the owners over the years who are even remotely interested or or applications um it's primarily been I don't want to use the word dead end but I think he'll he'll expand on that in a few minutes and I'll actually turn the mic to him in a second after I finish my introduction um so we we've we've talked to owners and owners have said when I've been able to speak with them some owners who I spoke with over covid and whatnot they said why am I going to sell a property that I can for $2 million to have a$1 million tax bill why am I going to to redevelop something something I've never done before demolish a building of rent paying tenants to get a Lo construction loan from A bank when I have no debt on my property right now to have to go into a business of of building in demolition then steel then cement something I have no familiarity familiarity with to build something that doesn't have parking that I I will be denied on and Mr melie will discuss a few projects that were denied on uh specifically The Miller's Pharmacy building which is now season as Express was a 20 unit building proposed by the owner by an owner and it was denied because there was no parking available on top of Three Star Bagel is a beautiful five-story site that was applied for that was denied because there was no parking available and these both of these applications I don't believe got out of the denial stage because the variants wouldn't work I can't go to a board and say okay my parking requirement is 60 I want to actually offer you zero you'll get left out out so one item we discussed on sub zoning going back was the need for a parking garage for these future developments and then we could discuss where can a parking garage go so we have owners that have no desire to sell have tax consequences if they sell and don't have the ability to build it on their own most importantly the block is approximately 96% least I say least not occupied because there's several large stores such as doll the dollar store in cedarline such as um tape Noodle House such as now Bish offs these are stores that are actually leas they're empty but they're leas so we have a situation where the stores are leased the owners are happy they're making money and frankly couldn't in my opinion this is harsh don't really care what you or I want if clearly they're getting paid and if they weren't getting paid they'd be bankrupt foreclosed on or sold so we can now look and see what other tools can we do um with that I think Dan can I uh turn the um microphone over to you if you want to start with some comments and one last thing I did forget I apologize the biggest issue we have comp on this block compared to other blocks at T neetwork compared to hackin sack and that's something we walked and talked was the depth of the property the properties are not deep if you look it again at certain certain um sites let's say um again to use that Seasons Express Miller old Miller Pharmacy it's about 120 ft deep before you have a a parking a parking lot if you look at the old uh the H&R Block jica house also it's about 120 ft deep before you hit that uh egress road which is easements to all the stores in the back so we really have a situation that absence of anything large scale there is nothing there we're limited to what we can do just as of right as of now so ladies and gentlemen nice for everybody to come out um I've been here since 200 2006 and there's really only been two major properties that have changed hands one one just recently which which is just I'm trying to get my directions right just east of the railroad Trestle that little building over there where you have the Italian restaurant the deli and there's a bunch of Office Buildings upstairs and I believe right around Summit where there used to be the old Bank on the corner um that has now changed into more or less a multifaceted food store uh and I think Lab Corp is next to that and there's another store next to that part of the problem like Mark says is the owners that are there are multigenerational they have no absolutely no incentive to to do anything um you know I've talked to some of them over the period of years and they come to me and they say well can you get us some money for doing improvements and it's like yeah I could probably find an agency that'll get us some money to do some of the improvements the problem is you got to come to me and show me what you want to do you got to spend some money you got to do some drawings uh you got to do some other things and it kind of dies at that point um I think the town has to act first in the sense of we got to provide some parking parking isn't permitted for some of the uses we can change the zoning but changing the zoning saying you don't need any parking really doesn't help because if people are driving down the street and they have no place to park just because you say you don't need parking they're not going to go in the store hence you drive up and down Cedar Lane at various times and you find a lot of places that are you know a lot of people that are double parked or sometimes triple parked you know on the street so just just because we're going to provide parking or just because we're going to allow parking unless we provide the parking really isn't going to help us all that much um and once again like Mark says it's multigenerational if they try and sell the building they're going to get killed with these massive tax uh you know from the from the IRS and there's nothing we can do to kind of give them an incentive to do something to their buildings unless we try and present something to them that's you know we're going to take from Palisades Avenue maybe all the way down to Elm Street and come up with this plan where they're going to have to be part of but they're going to have to spend money and I don't believe that they want to spend money when they already have their cash cow with a ton of money coming in and with no uh no liabilities whatsoever uh even if they knock down the buildings and build a new building that doesn't mean that the tenant was there is going to come back and they probably won't because the rent is going to increase beyond what they're paying now so you know we have a a problem where you got a Main Street that's been there for a long long time it definitely needs to be revitalized um I would to be honest I would rather see almost all the old fake facades coming off the buildings and it going back to what the facades were when they were originally created get rid of a lot of the signage a lot of the Hokey lighting that's going on from what you know from one end of it to the other end of it and and actually see what it works you know we tried to work with Bishops when Bishops closed we got them to you know we got them to open again for a couple of months and sadly it didn't work out and you know it's pretty sad that the place that's been there for many many years um just went out of business I originally I'm from Loi and I used to go to the movie theaters when I was a kid someplace in pamis I always came the Bishops it was like it was like the place to go to go have your ice cream and now it's a shame that it's it's not there anymore so you know we have to be I think a little creative with our zoning we have to be able to provide parking I know people don't want to see a parking lot in certain sections of town um but if we don't provide an area for the people to go park the people that own the buildings are not going to spend the time to do anything because once again they have no incentive and even if they do spend the money they're going to want to know where the people going to park to go to my store and we don't have that so anyone else on Council have any opinions or thoughts mention excuse me I was asking if anyone on Council M sorry so so this issue cannot be unique to tenek have we done any research to see how other towns have overcome [Music] this um so you're not going to want to hear my answer my answer is yes um hackin saac so we know what hackin saac did hackin te had this problem for years they were just dying out and they just went all in and after they went all in they doubled down on Allin and they're creating and they are a city not to say in the words of a city with the city of hacken sack more they call they consider themselves to be more of a city and um there did a Redevelopment agency and which is I believe consists of the of the entire Council of a whole if I'm correct according to their planner and um they've done a massive combination of ainr eminent domain and have really just knocking down buildings um I'm not suggesting we do that here they the level that they're doing it on is I don't want to use the word obscene because it's it's enough for them it's not for us but it is a a significant significant um scale um Engle would started with large parking garages there was whole to do about that because people don't think like how big it was but that was one of their first pieces where they started that garage and then they're taking it and they if almost certain developments came forward and they put quite a bit of buildings throughout town uh Bergenfield is just starting to look at this right now they're just starting to RedZone um large parts of South Washington Avenue so they're really too too new at this um and any of the large towns really don't apply to us obviously pamis and Fort Le are have no connection to us one a heavily retail one a heavily High um you know high rise so that's really not appropriate for even me to to compare just a followup question but Hack and Sack is focus mostly on residential what have they done in their business district um so their business district is where they put the residential so if you ever walk Main Street I'd love to to walk with you um councilman Oregon and I um walked at jocked quite a bit of times um what they did was they knocked down many lowrise buildings on the on on Main Street itself and when they rebuilt it they put retail back on the street front back on the on the street level and large buildings on top of it several other large buildings such as the bank buildings they actually just recreated from a bank office building into Condominiums across the street obviously they took the um Bergen Record building which I'm sure everyone's seen if you haven't driven by is stunning they took a parking lot at um the bowler City parking lot and we met with their developer um it's called now the Ivy and the green it's two large buildings and what they did was they had the developer who's a tinic resident um redo the municipal parking down below so they actually not not only did they not lose spots they actually gain Municipal spots and then they built the buildings on top and they are they are beautiful buildings um I will say and I can't say this exactly for certain but very close to certain many of the buildings if not all do not have an affordable housing comp um um affordable housing um component I say many I don't know if that's for true for all of it that's not something that the council and Teck have ever been interested in ignoring we've always insisted on affordable housing um so I think that answer is your question right now they're looking at the Sears building what to do would it be retail on front or keep the facade and a few other sites that are being demolished but if you've never walked it I'd love to do that with you miss beler um I'd like to just basically uh say that uh thanks for the that that um overview um Mark I think I think it's important to to say that I think most residents from the survey that we we um published um the responses we received that I believe everybody kind of wants to see an improvement of of not only Cedar Lane but our uh districts are all of our business districts but specific the Cedar Lane I think one of the things that is is uh is of concern is you know as Property Owners um to have to incur the burden of cost to improve is is a major concern so um one of the things that I I know that some Town towns have done uh to Deputy Mayor G's question is they have created public private Partnerships and these public private Partnerships have come from um uh entities such as New Jersey Economic Development Authority um I I don't think Cedar Lane as we approach it is not to just approach it as real estate as buildings as brick and mortar but I think we need to come up with an economic development plan and the economic development plan speaks to what do we want to see how are we how is this Improvement going to expand our businesses our housing our parking so it's it is totally comprehensive um I'm not so much in in favor of creating a garage for the purpose of of saying okay what's next I think we need to look at the overall plan the overall economic development plan of the entire cedal Lane that encompasses uh retail it encompasses um the the actual owners of the buildings what to do how far do we go up for housing and uh as well as parking those are my thoughts just a a question on that are we legally allowed to do that if they're privately owned we don't own any of that property so so I would answer it by saying that certainly we have to to invite the owners um certainly I mean they're they're definitely I mean they own the footprint but I think one of the things that I'm I'm I'm listening to and if correct me if I'm wrong Mark you said in the last six years you've asked for two meetings and they and they've not they no one has shown up for the most part I I think that to answer your question I think that it's important that we continue to engage them we have we done a survey have we've asked them maybe they don't want to show up in person but perhaps they would answer a survey what do they want to see I understand generational wealth I understand that that they want to retain and they want to pass on I totally get it but what does it mean uh what would they like to see would they like to retain the footprint and uh be willing to do some type of public partner uh partnership to expand up um what are some of the options I think personally I think we need to engage Beyond who we are I think we need to have visioning sessions I think we need to bring in uh entities like uh Rutter's uh real estate uh school to to give us some thoughts give us some ideas give us some options and possibilities I I don't mean to make this a back and forth but I I think you're you're putting the the cart before the horse and unless we get Buy in from the owners I think all the surveys in the world are just spinning your wheels um and I know that we've reached out to them a few times and the zoning officer has told told us that and the zoning subcommittee has told told us that and as recent as a few months ago you invited them to a zoning subcommittee meeting you brought breakfast for them and they didn't show so I I get it you know to me it sounds wonderful if it could work but I I think um if they don't want to do anything I I don't see what ends up happening I don't I don't see how anything can happen you know what um you know councilwoman um Ogden I I I want to just say that I'm sure we're not unique in that scenario I'm sure there are other New Jersey towns that have had generational owners that have not been willing to to really see the vision so all I'm saying is that we have to create the vision we have to help them see that okay I I think they're basically say saying as owners show me the money show show me how I can retain my ownership show me what it would mean in terms of if I were to allow um a devel a Redevelopment plan what would it mean for me I mean it's like the whim what's in it for me so I think we have to be uh we have to be Visionaries I think we have to uh give options in terms of you know engaging them in terms of what they want to see but I think we also have to provide what are the possibilities I am I'm skeptical but um you know I hope you prove me wrong yeah just to expand on that and I don't think my question really ever was fully answered I don't think we can just look at Hack and Sack and angle with as comps I think we need to look their main streets are dying across the country this isn't you need to Bergen County tenek Etc I think we need to look way beyond our you know our County our state and see what has worked elsewhere there have got to be other examples of dying to dying main streets what folks have done I'm sure the generational ownership is not unique to again tck Bergen County Etc we we need to look at other comps and do the research and figure out what options are because to Karen's point if we don't present the owners with viable options they're not going to do anything um so I think we have some homework to do before we can decide how to move forward and just another point and then I'll I'll stop but I think that's homework that has to be done before we move on with the master plan I can't imagine coming up with a new master plan that doesn't include all councilwoman belur suggestions about Cedar Lane Mr manager can you weigh in on any of our past attempts if you don't if you don't mind so I was ask thank you very much I was asking the manager to please weigh in um I I thought it was twice Mark that we invited the store owners at a zoning subcommittee and that wasn't six years ago that was within the last year uh that we invited um uh the owners to come in and to discuss this at our zoning subcommittee meeting meeting um and again that was over the over the past year and certainly I I I think we really need to look at the expertise of our planner and our Redevelopment attorney who are very well versed in this sort of topic that we're dealing with so no better introduction than uh that okay Mr Ash your thoughts please so um there are other mun IP alties who have struggled with a lot of these same questions um I would say generally the way that towns uh address the you know decline or the stagnation of their Main Street and downtown is to make an environment that is excuse me hospitable to their own private investment so there's there have been a lot of concept steps um discussed on the de so far um there's only so much that you as a a governing body as a Town Council um can actually control with the laws and and tools that you have in place as a municipal body but you can use those tools um to incentivize the private sector to reinvest in the own properties and if you if you create that environment um you find that these generational owners private property owners who have done nothing for a long time um will find ways to improve their own properties to compete with new development to find tenants and uses um that will attract and retain members of the community members of the public who want to come and shop and eat in the restaurants um and there are certain real estate assets that the town does control including your surface parking lots in the downtown um and there are tools that are available to a a municipal body like changing zoning either through uh amended zoning ordinances or through the Redevelopment process which is something that has been um pending in this General location for a couple of years now and it's something that we continue to investigate and um those are the things that that you can do as a municipal body to try and encourage that that that private investment and so you know it's important to um understand the the council's role um it's important to understand the statutory framework that you have um and you can find a plan to execute once you have the the vision for what you want to see there um other municipalities have done it you know I can I could give you uh a number of downtowns throughout New Jersey that have effectively used Redevelopment to um to engage in public private Partnerships but public private Partnerships separate and distinct from the private reinvestment in the downtown um generational type real estate buildings and and one follows the other um so um um an example that um that I thought of that I thought was a good comparison to the the issues that Cedar Lane and tenek are are experiencing um there's a town in Middle sex County called matachin um I brought this up at the community input meeting um I think it's a a good analogy of what real estate assets you do control um the tools that you have available and the desired effect um and Ron if you want to put the slides up the other thing while we wait for the slides to come down that I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on um t- neck is unique in that we are a college town right like when you think of places like Princeton where there's a vibrant Main Street that is largely supported by students um what are your thoughts on how we can leverage the fact that we do have a university right here in town to ritala downtown well um Princeton is is you know kind of a unique place even unto itself and uh certainly the university being kind of right in the heart of of the downtown [Music] um it's it's situated right there but a lot of the uses in the downtown you know on on Nassau and Witherspoon don't necessarily cater to the students um because the students have their own facilities the students have their own um you know private clubs and it's not as if they are you know frequenting the restaurants there it's not exactly uh like New Brunswick College Avenue that that has a a downtown with restaurants and businesses that are almost solely catering to the students um the Princeton downtown almost exists separate and apart from the university and um I spent some time as Princeton's tax Council I can tell you you know the University was kind of a a was an 800 PB gorilla that was you know constantly at battle with the town itself um and recently um Princeton um implemented a special improvement district for their downtown um which is uh an area is defined um within the the Contours of the downtown a boundaries actually defined and the property owners in that uh defined area are assessed a a special tax um it is a specific tax levy um that funds A downtown Corporation um the down Town Corporation manages the special improvement district um and it's a it's a separate entity from from the town it has its own budget it has its own funding um the tax levy uh goes directly to fund that entity and one of the first things that this special improvement district funded was a significant streetscape Improvement to Witherspoon which is kind of the the main intersecting Street and um those improvements consisted of uh reconfiguring the the traffic pattern for that street um removing on street parking um it uh added new uh Street furniture and Landscaping all with the interest of making it as pedestrian friendly as walkable and um and and an inviting place where pedestrians didn't feel like they had to compete with the automobile traffic um on on the one end of that Street Cape Improvement is uh a public parking deck and that was one of the first um Redevelopment projects in Princeton um where Princeton decided that uh there was a lack of parking in the downtown there was a surface parking lot that Princeton owned and controlled and through the Redevelopment process designated the surface parking lot a Redevelopment area built a parking garage um part of that garage is also uh some Municipal space uh including a library um a community uh Gathering space and and part of that um is a public Plaza where um during the summer you can have sort of Cafe tables and chairs and it's a place for people congregate it's also a sort of a courtyard where new restaurants face and that is actually one end of the new streetscape which is now kind of the heart of the downtown and um that runs all the way up to Nassau and so um the streetscape improvements in Princeton are are think they just finished them and I think after uh this winter come spring summer they're going to see that that heart of their downtown is going to be a a more active place that doesn't mean um that you know new tenants are guaranteed it doesn't mean new residents are guaranteed but it will guarantee a hospitable inviting place for people to meet to congregate and and when that happens um the sort of the best practices in New Jersey um with organizations like downtown New Jersey um they they call those Shoppers and and people eating the restaurants they're called Walking wallets because when people want to go spend time and congregate in a place they're going to spend money there and when they spend money there the business owners the property owners take notice and that's when you have the reinvestment from the the private Community when they realize that they could be charging more rent to a a higher end restaurant or a bigger retail space or you know a national retailer because all of a sudden there is demand for that downtown people are are are constantly circulating um that's when you see the the private investment um one point I just want to make mention is that um cedo Lane did have a sid years ago and um it just um you know we can talk about why you know a sid may be something to look at again or not but um one last thing I just want to mention too is that um the ability to create better infrastructure meaning buildings actual buildings attracts more Regional National franchises yes you know a lot of people comment that why don't we have any major franchise you know be it um a coffee shop or a regional um retailer or so and so forth and a lot of times it has to do with not just the demographics but the the actual infrastructure of the building y parking being a consideration of course too absolutely um yeah the the configuration of a building is is a limit Factor you know if you have an old building that can't support modern systems right especially with a with a restaurant or even fast casual um you know where you're going to have significant um infrastructure to support that use old buildings can't support that type of infrastructure older buildings um also have they tend to have smaller retail spaces you know in the 1,000 to 2,000 foot foot range and a lot of national uh retail tenants want you know 3 to 5,000 square ft in a in a perfect box and older retail spaces just can't accommodate that and and that's why they rather go to a strip mall you know on on on Route 17 or you know a shopping mall like Garden State Plaza um so there are limitations in some older buildings to attract those types of tenants and uses um you know and it through Modern Redevelopment and if you're you're G to have like what hackin saac is doing um require mixed use where you're going to um you're going to maintain a a ground level retail space it's going to fit the requirements it's going to be built to Modern standards and it's going to attract those types of tenants and users because it it's going to be new modern space with the right layouts and you know it's going to be marketed as the the vanilla box that any National Credit retailer would would want to see um parking is a limitation in downtowns and it's not it's not just Shopper parking one of the real limitations is if you're a retailer in a downtown it is difficult to hire employes who want to um you know work in your retail establishment and and risk getting parking tickets on a daily basis because they have no place to park as an employee and if you are a a retail employee you are going to take a retail job where that's not a concern where you can easily Park in a strip mall parking lot or in a mall parking lot um and not have to worry about feeding a meter and and ACR parking tickets so um other downtown examples um that have you know revitalized have focused on a significant structured parking component where you're going to create you know excess supply of parking to accommodate not just New Uses but also the employees and anyone who needs to service and and visit those um those downtowns another example um Somerville did that exact type of development um going back 20 years there was a uh a path mark in downtown Somerville and uh right off the main street of Somerville this path mark was the anchor tenant of a strip mall that basically faced away from the downtown so they had their their downtown Main Street and then this strip mall kind of right behind it just facing the wrong way and about 15 20 years ago they decided they were going to use the Redevelopment process and um the the start was that that strip center um where the uh the path mark um and those stores were converted into um structured parking ground floor retail facing the Main Street not behind it with apartments on top and now um through various phases um after that that one significant investment in a project you now have smaller infill projects you now have um a street that was kind of a a small Narrow Street that um has now been closed permanently to car traffic and it's a pedestrian Mall it still has retail on both sides um there's a there's a Yer Cades which is kind of a an arcade space where you know people people go and play you know vintage arcade games and it's it's those types of uses where um you know retail is is not coming back to a lot of Main Streets because you know a lot of us are guilty of this we all have the Amazon we have the Amazon Prime account and all the running of errands and all the shopping on the weekends it doesn't happen anymore it all comes to you so the uses that can maintain a downtown are things that people want to do things that people want to experience restaurants entertainment um yester Cades is a great use in a lot of downtowns um throughout New Jersey because it gets families to come to town um there's one in my town it is my son's absolute favorite thing to do and we go there for an hour and then inevitably we eat in a restaurant in town um and it's those types of uses that a a a revitalized downtown will naturally attracts yes sorry for some wait please don't interrupt please don't this is like a workshop meeting and we're going to let the public speak but first we have to have our conversation amongst ourselves if you just give us a little while longer please yeah Mr Schwarz the purpose of tonight was to hear from a Redevelopment attorney hear from our zoning officer and hear from the council I look forward to hearing from the public quite shortly um I just wanted just Corrections maybe Mr manager you realized um can correct me c Lane is actually a sid currently if I'm correct we consider that legally a sid structure and that the taxes are assessed and that's our budget every year that we approve so now we have our resident Cene um our resident Cene um Redevelopment um art vasis here I'm sure he'll have a lot to say about that um that um the problem is is I don't know how to get over the fact that it's almost entirely leased I don't know you know I don't know if I'm an eminent domain and again not to use that word too often um these stores are paying their taxes paying their rent it just may not be stores we like so I'm not really sure you know do we wait for that Master plan and Mr attorney you were saying do we wait for the master plan to come out do we then have our planner do we do and this came up someone else brought us up a few months ago um the ainr for the entire Cedar Lane and that is that something we do is that something we do under Redevelopment agency which is very similar um I I took the notes on the Eda and we'll look into we'll look into that that further as well so we can try to tie them all together um sit I'm obviously Crossing out because we have that so Mr M did you want I know we skipped you before did you want to um wait anything Mr manager Mr Mayor and I'm just concerned about Kentucky Fried Chicken going out of business as well and I don't know if anyone has heard anything about uh occupancy for for that building that came on pretty quickk it came out of nowhere I mean I usually have a pretty good handle on what's opening and closing on Cedar Lan and it just closed yeah I've gotten some interesting phone calls about cannabis and that property and I told them that it's not zoned for that that who knows what's going to happen in the future but as of right now that is not zone for that and you asked about Princeton fdu started reaching out to us just a couple of weeks ago because they're starting to throw around some ideas of possibly developing their space along the river where the parking lots are where the dorms are and it's something that they want to start talking to us all about but they're first trying to brainstorm what they might want to do because they know they have to work with the town to even consider something like that so we should be getting some contacts from the fdu pretty soon about something along those lines you know Mr Mayor um when I was at the um League of municipalities I actually um uh sat next to the mayor of uh Madison and you know we're kind of sister cities so to um uh to Mr Ash maybe that's a city we may want to look at in terms of they have the other fdu campus so how does how do they how is their downtown how is their you know in terms of you know their retail space and so forth so it's just a thought that I thought about um just one just some little history here we actually in the attorney from Jason Tel's offic is here we actually approved right before it could even be before the last cycle like 2011 a new building for fdu right in the right along the river I think it was a new student Student Union building then they came about the hotel conversation came up which of course we love because hotels we tax you know we get a hotel occupancy tax um part of the requirement was for them to redo the parking L we do the lighting and as many of you probably know they did that um it's obviously a beautiful campus so I'm not sure um I I know Deputy Mayor cats had spoken to fdu a while back and maybe Mr manager you were on the phone with them as well so it's really good to hear Mr Mayor thank you that um they're at least having those conversations again because there were some prior approvals new president has uh he's he's a younger guy he's like 50 he has a whole bunch of new ideas that he's exploring with his board and once they actually start having a more in-depth conversation about that they want to start talking to us to see what we might be willing to do okay excellent um I was hoping unfortunately Council M Gober guess left and she and I had some extensive extensive yeah she has a family emergency so she had to run out okay she she had quite a bit to go over in this we had some heated um sub zoning committee meeting the other the other day on this matter um so is there any other comments before we go into the public I know one comment that please yeah and does Mr Ash want to talk about this after Mr oh yeah I just want to mention one thing that from that subcommittee meeting that we had that um councilwoman M Goldberg said is that she is not in favor of AI INR for a Cedar Lane so I remember having that that heated discussion about sput perhaps a Redevelopment plan um can I actually ask the lawyer to describe the difference if no ainr what does a Redevelopment do sorry if you can just would you mind commenting on that if the council were to say no ainr what tools does that limit to you you limit you in that regard well it would um if you're just looking at it through uh a zoning perspective if I can interject really quickly there's two types of a inrs right Redevelopment and Rehabilitation ye yes there's there's um there is an area in need of Rehabilitation which is separate and distinct from an area in need of Redevelopment and then the Redevelopment designations have with condemnation and without condemnation um um the Redevelopment area designated um for American Legion Drive Beverly Garrison that is a non- condemnation Redevelopment area um a rehab area can be designated um separately um and kind of concurrently and the standards for that designation are um different criteria than a Redevelopment area um it pretty much uh involves um broader um criteria that deal with um the age of infrastructure um and it allows uh for more cosmetic type uh fixes than it does for broader zoning changes um and you know one of the key tools with the rehabilitation designation is the ability for pilot agreements but short-term pilot agreements so a fiveyear tax abatement versus you know a 30-year long-term tax abatement and Under The Five-Year um if a if a downtown property owner were to make improvements to their property if it was in a rehab area and if a short-term tax abatement was uh a possibility then the value of the new improvements made by that property owner would be stepped up on a five-year basis starting with no new taxes then 20% of that additional incremental tax assessment 40 60 80 until after 5 years they're at 100% of the value of the new improvements but they're still paying their underlying tax bill for what existed and that's that's one of the key tools tools for the rehab area and Mr I'm sorry M Bel go ahead no no slides okay okay so the the slides so um what you're seeing here is um it is a it's a map of Cedar Lane um it's broken out into tax Lots um there's different coloring based on the category of ownership and um this this I think maybe highlights and adds a visual element to what councilman Schwarz was saying about sort of the depth of the properties is along Cedar Lane and and um even if you were to try and assemble um multiple properties there it's not going to have uh a footprint that is going to be able to you know accommodate um what we had mentioned earlier sort of the the modern um more uh efficient spaces that can have retail that can have on-site parking and that can yield higher floors with the residential on top I think what um this slide helps visualize is everything in in sort of the let's call it a salmon color um um represent it um everything in the salmon color is is the uh the commercial um everything highlighted in fuchsia is uh municipally owned there we go um and you'll see um sort of at the end of the cedarlane commercial District that what you see in the fuchsia is the surface parking lots you have the the Beverly Garrison and the American Legion Drive parking lot now those spaces while they are not directly on Cedar Lane they certainly support Cedar Lane and they are adjacent to the Cedar Lane uh commercial District but these are the assets on Cedar Lane that you actually control and so the you know the the the crossroads um proposal based on the existing Redevelopment area that is a it's a it's a natural starting point because that is what you as a municipality control those are your key Assets in this commercial downtown setting um the rest of the slides uh I had mentioned matachin I had discussed it at our November 20th meeting um and if we're if if you asked me to find uh an example of another downtown in New Jersey that had the same issues that tck is experiencing I I I keep coming back to my touch in because um a lot of the issues are the same can you put that up for would you mind putting it up Ron slide please uh that is uh a map of tck Ron next one okay that is downtown matachin and that's using the same uh website database uh that we had your T neck map and um if you if you see the orange at the bottom of the map uh that is the rail line that is the Northeast Corridor line that New Jersey Transit and Amtrak both use that provides commuter rail to uh Manhattan nework other places um matachin is um it's a bedroom community um a lot of people uh who live in matachin um do take the train commute to Manhattan other places um matachin is a doughnut hole surrounded by Edison Edison does not have a downtown Main Street um but matachin does um Main street is located kind of at the at the right um of the slide perpendicular to the rail line Main Street mouin consists of about um four uh blocks of retail with two to three stories above um a lot of the retail are it's it's restaurants small shops um with apartments and some Office Buildings um and office uses um on top and and throughout for a long time uh the matuch and downtown was in a a state of decline um stagnation retail uses were um competing with two Regional malls you have the Meno Park Mall uh a mile away from this location and the Woodbridge Mall which is uh you know maybe two miles from this location and um for a long time this downtown um did not have revitalization or reinvestment vacancies were High um businesses that did open there was a lot of turnover um I personally can attest this because I grew up here and I I would see this over you know my my upbringing in the area and you know my return to that area and you know everything continued to turn over about 7 or8 years ago uh mouin decided that they would make a significant investment in their downtown through a public private partnership and the sort of blue boxes that you see um that are contiguous to the the orange rail infrastructure those are two uh new apartment buildings um the fuchsia box uh the longer one is a 600 space structured parking deck um and all of that was constructed on what was surface parking that was available for the communs the apartments um are there about 350 Apartments there um like I said parking for 600 cars in a deck and the smaller fuchsia box is a um public Plaza that was created as part of this project um I think this is um a very good comparison to not I'm not saying matachin is Teck um or vice versa but this is an example of a municipality that had certain assets that they controlled um certain goals that they sought to achieve including um helping the the Main Street downtown um revitalizing their downtown and uh this was a a decision they made to make this this investment in the downtown and um I think it's by their measure it has been a success um even though this project and the the new red vment component is not situated directly on Main Street it has the desired effect of having people uh live in the downtown there's been a you know an influx of new residents in the downtown um even just with the apartments you see here but also this major development investment encouraged smaller pockets of investment um in the downtown itself um on the outskirts of the downtown and and it and it's not you know it's not one plan led to another it was they built this project they they programmed these Assets in a certain way and and new investment followed that significant investment um and and that's that's how the private sector Works um can we have the next slide please can I ask a question um yes U Mike um okay um I agree with you that money you know development good development follows good development um the fact that you have those um you have the apartment buildings you have a the garage that was um uh built from the ground up essentially yes so um unlike T however you have the anchor is I believe that commuter train that kind of speaks to the the drawing that's the draw to that area would you say because it's a it's a commute into New York City for the most part but what I what I want to see and maybe I didn't see it is where do you have existing um property owners in terms of retail do you have do you have that phenomena that we have here where we have you have aging buildings yes you do yes okay and that's on that's on the main Street which um I got it um so the street that we are viewing kind of on the left um the the the more traffic streets are highlighted in yellow um oh yeah if you're perfect we got the mouse yeah I can see the mouse the mouse is moving here so M all right trackpad so this is the Redevelopment project right this is Main Street matachin these buildings look just like your Cedar Lane downtown these are um two to three story buildings small retail spaces you know these buildings are 100 years old plus and this investment and this Plaza that their special improvement district their mouin downtown Alliance um programs that Plaza every weekend midweek with events whether it's a a farmers market yoga class cultural events concerts during the summer they are always programming that space to bring people to the downtown not necessarily matachin residents but people who may come from other towns to hear some music on a on a nice summer night and then they will go eat in the restaurants they will they will shop in the stores they know exactly where they're going to park they're going to park park right in the deck and you know the matachin downtown Alliance works on controlling parking rates in that deck when there are events Staffing that deck when there are events to get people in and out um and even though this this Plaza this project is is you know it's not on the main drag you know Main Street is here the reinvestment in these properties has been signific again and the new tenants and stores that have opened here and restaurants that have opened here um it's been a it's been a sea change for that downtown in the past six seven years if I could ask what was your in what was your involvement in in that other than growing up there were you the Redevelopment attorney for that no so this pure third party right now like yes this is just in in in my opinion given the the lay of the land in Tac and and the similar challenges an example of of another place that made these decisions and I think they're they're they're starting to see the the results excellent so I will definitely drive down there is just sorry I don't know central New Jersey is Somerville near there by inance Somerville is not Somerville is [Music] maybe for 45 minutes it's a 45 minute drive all well I'm driving actually no it's probably closer if you take 287 okay excellent so that we it's about half an hour I'll definitely hit up both okay yeah thank you and yes M organ I just have one question so the the map was flipped before when it was in color there was some blue on the top are those single family homes were those single family where where would they be how close to the downtown here let mean let me go back to the to the slides so this this was the the main project with the 350 units um you have you have all apartments throughout Main Street and this Corridor single family residences um you can see um are in this kind of lighter shaded color you have a townhouse development here um and and some other new apartment buildings um that have rounded out kind of the the edge of the downtown um this is a whole foods that um was sort of the second phase of of this project and there are other retail uses and and restaurants in this area as well but single family residences um are you know bordering the the Main Street Corridor right behind and I I'll just go through the rest of the slides quickly um right that's just a a Google Earth image and and the perspective is flipped this is the plaza this is the residential building this is the parking garage this is how the mouin downtown Alliance um programs events hey Mike uh can you do me a favor go back to that garage one time is that garage like closed red on all sides it is or is there is it can be seen from the outside as a garage or does it look like a building from the outside it it it mostly looks like a garage you can see there is this architectural detail where you have brick and a cornice on top um you know garages can be designed and camouflaged in all different ways um a good example of this is in um downtown Ridgewood there's a garage that when you drive by you know you you have to glance kind of two or three times to realize it's a garage it looks like a looks like a Condo building Milburn built a garage in their downtown that that blends right in with the architectural detail um and and a lot of downtown setting garages um you know are sort of built contiguous to new projects so they they take on the same architectural design so you see the cornice here on the garage matches the same feature on the Residential Building thanks um like you said here's programming of the public Plaza uh a cultural event I think this is Chinese New Year Farmers Market summer concert series and this Plaza gets packed packed with people that will then go and and frequent the downtown they also have um like before the high school prom everybody comes to the plaza to take the pre prom pictures it's it's really um you know it's a gathering space for the community and it's just a it's just a vacant paved expanse that you know with the right mix of management and investment from the rest of the downtown it you know it it activates and it it has the desired effect for me the I think the the most telling use in that downtown of of their success is it's a plant shop it's called Terrace plant shop and it they sell plants which who in this modern day and age opens a a plant shop where they just have plants and it was opened by uh a young resident who grew up in matachin um postco um wanted to open a retail space in the downtown loved plants opened a plant shop but it's more than just selling plants it's you know he he makes the space available for other you es you can rent it for to have a party um there's a communal table where you could come um get a coffee from the place next door and just sit and and and do work and hang out and maybe get some fresh oxygen from the plants he's got yoga classes on the weekends it's a it's a retail space but it's also an active and it's an experience and it's a place for people to go and and if you go and and you hang out there you're going to buy a plant you just will so it sounds like you're ouin has like a really serious like arts and culture Community is that driven by the Sid or is that do you have an arts and culture um commission or how's that work I I believe it's mostly managed by the the Sid which is the matou and downtown Alliance um they do have a website you can check it out see everything that that they're doing all their events um there's a nice YouTube video about actually this process and how they they describe it you know um some of what I'm describing is how they describe it in their own words um there is a um there is a theater there's an old theater that is sort of south of the train tracks um it does not you know it does not attract act kind of national acts it's more of a Regional Community Theater type uh space New Brunswick is 15 minutes up the highway um and they have you know a very robust theater scene with you know multiple theaters and and they attract you know National acts and um dance companies and and Theater so it's hard for a smaller town like matachin to compete with New Brunswick up the road but they do have events that they they do keep to themselves how has this development been received by um residents who are you know on the outskirts but near enough that it might you know cause traffic and you know if they're close enough to where the development is it changes the landscape their access to Sun Etc I'm just curious what the reception was from from them do you know I I don't know um because like I said I wasn't involved if I had to guess I I would say there was probably some resistance opposition and reluctance because just like everywhere else where I have been involved sometimes significant change um is difficult it always is yeah I'd also be curious to see what the impact has been on other infrastructure like Schools transportation Etc I don't know if that's something you can look at um I don't know about the specific um you know feedback or um impact that these types of projects that this specific project had on matachin however um someone mentioned the Ruckers Real Estate School um these are statistics that are actually measured and studied and so um there is a study that the Ruckers Real Estate School a few years ago on the impact of downtown Redevelopment on schools and Counting the literally Counting the schoolage children that these types of projects generate and um it is it's fairly nominal it's about I think it was about six children per 100 units and since that white paper was published in I think 2016 2017 um people in the industry have continued to track those metrics and and they actually find it's less than even the published standard there was recently a white paper on um on parking ratios where the the Ruckers Real Estate School sent surveys to the actual developer ERS in these downtown settings uh to count the number of parking spaces with the number of residents that actually have cars and concluded that you know typical Downtown parking ratios are about you know uh 1.8 spaces per unit and the actual real world ratio is about 1.4 so I think there's there is a lot of information and data available that help shape decisions like this um and um and you know professionals like our planner Keenan Hughes um he's certainly been involved in in studying these things um he prepares Community impact statements for projects um and he's aware of these metrics and you know these metrics can help guide decisions um about these types of project Pro s thank you Mr Ash does anyone else on Council have any questions or comments thank you I I just have a quick com comment that National Association of Realtors says that by placing uh residential in downtown like main streets it makes towns more walkable so it makes towns more um conducive to people walking you know everywhere and that the fact that this matachin has a train there literally you could live there and not even own a car because you could take a train and then you know walk everywhere else so yeah thank you and I could add some uh some anecdotal evidence to that I recently um I had to move out of my house for six months while we were doing some work and I moved into a downtown apartment in my town and I walked everywhere and even though we had cars in the garage um a lot of the garage spaces that were built were empty and not used and so my you know professional opinion based on my my own experience was that you know this was a building with 79 units um mostly two and some three bedrooms and the parking requirement um was excessive and that the parking that was built was um overp parked Mr manager Ju Just quickly we had Joan samuca in from beron County Economic Development and they certainly provide some wonderful resources such as revitalization planning um expansion relocation demographics uh they do a lot of data so if that's something that at some point in time I think we should consider and that may be the quickest easiest way for us to get maybe get some good ideas moving forward and she just invited us to a breakfast next week the film thing yes anybody else on Council no we're good so we can move on to the next order of business which is new business does anyone on Council have anything under new business no next order of business is communication does anybody on Council have anything under Communications moving along Council listed items there's nothing listed so we are going to move our meeting along now to open up public and good and Welfare for public input on any matters each speaker will get three minutes to speak who would like I see a hand Mr Rose your first sir thank you gentlemen the floor is yours Mr Rose thank you good evening Council Administration staff as well as the people behind me thank you tell me what to start okay thank you good evening Council staff Administration people behind me I'm Howard Rose and I'll give you just a very short amount of my background regarding this situation resident for over 40 odd years I've been 16 years I've been on the Tet planning board I've had a store on Cedar Lane for quarter Century I'm a former chairperson for the Cedar Lane improvement district and I was there when they did the streetcape first regarding Miss bel's remark about Economic Development Committee we had one it was disbanded when it was disbanded I called for them to instead of disbanding it change the members change the focus one or the other or both it's dead my story owner multigenerational four storefronts he doesn't want to do anything that you're talking about I'm sure he didn't go to any meetings that were held store owners getting them together heard some cats see how far you get it won't happen no one's discussed what the impact of doing anything is on tenants every store that's rented has a tenant most of them are active business is if you do something like Redevelopment or something like even more drastic that Mark mentioned and by the way Mark and Mr mie Mr Schwarz and Mr mie thank you for your information it was really on point on target what happens to the tenants if you do something drastic something large something in a big scope 80% of them will go out of business and never come back let's discuss that once in a while M orgon you hit the the nail on the head putting the cart before the horse do the master plan we're going on tangents we don't even know what it fits in in terms of the master plan do it in the right sequence we also have multiple shopping areas when we did the Sid I suggested smaller SIDS for the other shopping areas or three others they said no Sid owners pay a special tax and continue to do it well after the 15 years ago when they did the Redevelopment the other shopping areas one of which has been redeveloped a little bit not much didn't have to pay anything it was taxpayer money Mr mie had a wonderful point on Old facades I wish I could have my old facade back unfortunately someone drove a car through it do something with vision sounds like a pipe dream well Miss Oregon maybe you can help us with that you're on the Cannabis committee I'm not any any I'm not touching but touching it has nothing to do with us a lot of development that we may not want and most of which did not impact directly the central business district thank you Mr Rose Princeton apples and oranges regarding both the university and the towns gentlemen and then Mr vaty the the lady behind you Mr vaty good evening Council my name is Norman Levan I'm a 32-year resident of EK uh first I want to express my surprise that we're meeting in hackin saac I think that uh with all due respect to the township manager we should have done better public publicizing that we're meeting here the fact that only a third of the attendees who were at the previous two meetings at Roa Center reflects I think uh poor decision on someone's part um and it feels like that it was a deliberate attempt to minimize attendance I want to express appreciation for Mr Asher's enthusiasm for his native matachin mouin has a population 15,000 that's less than half of EK Somerville 12,000 Madison 177,000 Mr Asher has pointed out that mouin served as commercial center for the larger city of Edison hardly an option for us since we're next door to hackensac his enthusiasm again I think for the public Plaza is irrelevant considering that we have a an Amphitheater in our park and have ample opportunity to have public events should tenek make them happen I like Mr Rose I want to draw a distinction between landlords and Commercial tenants uh while we understand that landlords do not necessarily have an incentive to refurbish their property the zoning incentive to build mid-rise housing above their storage would mean substantially more Revenue to suggest that the current landlords are getting satisfactory rental revenue is laughable considering how many empty storefronts we have the community has been uniform in its objection to a multi-story parking garage and I think that's something I would ask the council to lay to rest the community the township the residents here have been uniform in objecting to the idea that a parking garage would work Englewood is a very vibrant town but no one uses that parking lot so it's just it's a nogo as that seems to be the sentiment that you would have heard the last two meetings sir and I want to stress also our need to keep the Aging population in Tek to have fair market housing affordable Market housing all of which should we find a way whether through an A A NR or not to have housing on Cedar Lane would be the successful route to having a vibrant teamac thank you thank you Mr Len the lady sitting next to Paula Roven yeah they can take the mic to you if that's easier oh great thanks I'm Tracy Carion I've lived in tenek for 30 years I live close to Cedar Lane and my husband and I shop on Cedar Lane we used to do more cuz there used to be more more shopping sadly um it seemed like every other word I heard was parking parking parking parking but I I I didn't hear a word about the good public transit that's on Cedar Lane we don't have a train like mouin which is apparently heaven on Earth and and I should move there I guess but uh there is a bus there are a lot of buses it it's a and and Transit Centric development is a hot thing these days and so I urge you don't forget about the bus and then maybe you know you wouldn't need a parking garage that you're so excited about and that's all I got to say thank you thank you Miss Carion Mr vaty thank you you're welcome thank you Tom art vaty most of you know me uh I have a lot to say I've listened to these presentations this is the third or fourth in series um it's it's you're missing a few basic steps here that as a council you should be aware of I would like to see and I think you should see the initial conditions the conditions of 2022 of how Cedar Lane is doing as a Development Area how successful the Stars the stores are how much revenue you're getting is taxes how many people are using it how many buses we have by the way Cedar Lane is a County Road not a state a city road um and the the desire for parking is out of phase it's old it's not what is current if we're thinking for 2040 or 2050 we don't need that many cars we are overwhelmed with cars with 40,000 people the estimate for the amount of cars in t neck is 32,000 32,000 cars running around in tneck running in running out coming in do we have enough parking now you got to stop stressing parking parking has been proven to be death for downtowns we need alternates and we have six I think six routes in Cedar Lane that's better than a train line going to Manhattan six bus routes going all over the place get a town uh New Jersey Transit Transit map and see how many options we have using the buses you guys don't talk about buses okay um depth of building was a good comment we're kind of Trapped from the prior master plan planning efforts our streets are too narrow to to extend to this but I don't know if we have enough parking as it is now maybe we don't need any more parking spaces maybe we have to redistribute the parking spaces we have now maybe we can reduce some of them and put some taxable property there parking and Zoning owners won't sell or build because they've got a good deal of it is now the residents don't have a good deal we want to hold on to Cedar Lane and we want to see it developed and improved without being a burden on the neighborhood we should try and avoid that the six story parking complex may have been is not going to fly in t- neck we don't have an organization chart of how many agencies have to go through with Master planning we have a a planner here is not a planner what are you attorney attorney we have different levels you may know my time is up yes sir sorry son of a gun couple of us are going to stick around afterward though if you want to talk okay sir I've only just begun but you've gotten my emails so you know about we read them all sir we read them all Robert lazarov resident of EK for over 30 years and a few responses that I I that that hit me over the past few meetings one of them is about the parking spaces that are existent now that are in need of Redevelopment because they're not being used as much there are a lot of underutilized parking lots but then again we want more parking and it's a real it feels like a real push and poll there's got to be a truth somewhere that's not quite being addressed are these parking Lots not being used that we have do we need more parking there's a real confusion that I have as a resident of what that that push and pull is in terms of parking um in terms of what a parking lot can look like I have never seen a beautiful parking garage I've never seen it and I just I think back in the time of Robert Moses Building on the Cross Bronx and wanting to disguise these buildings that were burned out in the Cross Bronx in the 1970s to make them look like people were living in these houses and mayor cotch at the time wanted to put flower pots on metal in the windows so when people were driving by in the Cross Bronx it looks beautiful it looks like something but it really was what it was was a burned out building in front of a that has a flower pot painted on metal to make the drivers going by feel pretty good that they're that that these buildings are not burned out buildings but one of the things that I think of in terms of Cedar Lane what we could do now and this deals with matachin with what you were showing on that slideshow matachin is we have an area on Chestnut Avenue that's kind of a public little I don't know if it's public area it kind of is designed that way because Chestnut Avenue is kind of blocked off so we have a grassy area we have Rocklands we have things that are kind of bordering it there's kind of some benches and some trees that could be used for something I mean it's kind of a No Man's Land right now and that's a small little area but that can be used for something almost like in Ridgefield Park on the weekends they close one of the streets and put up a little stage bring in different bands different kinds of things to revitalize on the cheap what a downtown could be and get get people involved in what the town could be and I think that use of that that and I I might be out of line in terms of what that space is and how it is marked but it seems like a spot that could be used for that kind of offering whether it's musical combos whether it's you know putting more benches there and tables for people to come out and get something from the drugstore to eat or the future Bish shops to eat or something from around there but a place to congregate where kids can congregate and feel good about themselves and that's right there without even you know really ripping up much and and the thing with the landlords hearing about this for the first time that have owned these places for Generations it's really kind of scary hearing what that is like and I just think of the Godfather and in t can we make them an offer they can't refuse you're trying to make the residents an offer we can't refuse by building all this stuff owners thank you thank you Mr lazarov Tony newitz good evening Tony newitz um I've owned a business on Cedar Lane since 1974 I've lived in TX since 1959 so I've seen the evolution and the Devolution and the the transition of EK um one thing I I was just recently in Englewood I'm in engood frequently because one of my kids lives there and um I think in the short term the idea of the parking that Englewood has is infinitely infinitely better and more userfriendly than the parking that we have on Cedar Lane nowadays people can't parallel park that's number one it's a shame but it's it's you know a generational thing people can't parallel park today the way they used to that combined with the the um logistic of the sidewalks and the bump outs I remember why we had to do those bump outs but if you ask me if we could reduce the size of the of the sidewalk to what it was 20 years ago before we expanded them and put and that would enable parallel um angle parking to be a little more viable I think getting in and out of a spot is so much faster in Englewood so much faster and you can fit more cars in the space I don't think we need sidewalks as wide as we have we don't have pedestrians to fill them unfortunately the the sidewalks back in the 60s and 70s were filled with people they were at least a third smaller if not half as small and we all managed to accommodate the people who were walking so I don't think we need the width I think angle parking which I know has been tossed around over the years is a very very good idea and uh getting if we can kind of uh you know um manage to remove the bump outs you know overcome the reasons why we had to put them in I I think that would be a short-term solution to some of the issues that we're facing thank you thank you Tony sir yes you sir Council Council people thank you for uh having this forum tonight this workshop at this uh public meeting so my name is Michael klatzky from tck we have had a lot of information uh from the professionals from the town tonight uh we have a lot of information we I've heard from all of you from our fellow residents business owners and so on and I think there's a lot of there's a common theme here which was the notion that we want to make Cedar Lane a place a place where people want to go Simply Having spot uh you know no empty storefronts isn't relevant when you have uh you know a a blood work laboratory as your storefront no one wants to go there it's a dead storefront it attracts people who have appointments has people it attracts people with appointments and no one else same thing for basically all the metal medal uses on Cedar Lane we have venue uses on Cedar Lane that are closed to the general public the entire day unless someone's an invite or a potential customer of a venue like uh you know like place like rain for example it's just it just doesn't generate any traffic there's no place there and this is a challenge that every single planner in every single Main Street that is competing with the shopping center deals with and I don't envy the position any of you have uh it's not going to be easy there's a saying that basically all the planners around New York and New Jersey say which is that your retail is going to be subsidized by the apartments on top or nearby uh if you go to the plaza that's what happens that's what we see right we see all these customers from all those apartments they all go there and they're essentially subsidizing the Main Street on West Englewood Avenue and queenan road we will never ever have enough parking for people who don't live there people when I say that the people who live across town it will never be easier to go to Cedar Lane than it is to go to Bergen toown center it's never going to happen we can build a 50-story parking garage that subsidized and free we'll even give out free sandwiches if you park there which never going to happen it's infinitely easier to go to berant toown Center than it is to go to Cedar Lane it has to be a place it has to be an amazing place that we want to be at and I you know the Mr Ash spoke about experiential things and addition to retail but every single one of those places has Apartments there's going to that the apartments the housing the tow houses the density subsidizes those uses you know think about all the places you've you guys go to are you going to downtown hackin sack unless you're working there or already live there people do I do I I walk across the bridge to Fu and I walk through here because I'm I like to get my steps in and late at night but I I don't think most of us do that Englewood has a lot of people working there in the downtown we don't have businesses on the second we have some but we don't have a lot not like Englewood does and it's a big question I think that you should prohibit all medical and office uses on the first floor of Cedar Lane it's something that's going to be a tough decision because you're going to push places out of business but they belong on the second floors They Don't Really belong on the first floors um and there's a lot to talk about I don't really want to take up more time thanks for listening thany ma'am hi my name is Eva leedman and I've been living in tck for almost 65 years when I moved to EK Cedar Lane was very different it was vibrant it was busy but from what I gather parking is a big problem but has any re research really been done to prove that it's parking that is making Cedar Lane not the community we want it to be or is it the quality of the stores and what kind of stores are there I I think you I've never seen the parking lot filled where I couldn't get a parking spot at any time morning noon or night I don't think like someone else says I don't think it's parking I think maybe there's something to be looked at in terms of what is cedo Lane offering that make people not want to go there that's my first thing my other thing is I'm very disappointed that you picked this venue when we met in tenek we had almost we had over 65 people at the meeting meeting here it's virtually empty and I think it was more important to have more citizens of T neck here than to see the two slides which we already have seen seen and we have on paper one other thing you site matachin is an example of good Redevelopment but when I looked at the map and you explained it I didn't see where the development affected any one family house houses the one family houses seem to be not adjacent to the development that you put up so I think that's some that's the difference between t neck and matachin the fact that building what you want to build will affect one family homes who live in the area the other thing is does matachin have a park or a senior center we have the Roa Center we have V Park we've had concerts we've had fairs people gather just to picnic at the park they go to Rota Center for all kinds of activities that bring the community together does maten have those things do you know um he'll he'll answer question questions at the end of good and Ware man we can't miss lean we can't go back and forth okay so I'm just saying I don't think maten has a senior center and I don't think maten has a park like vote Park that does bring the community together for sports for fairs for concerts for playgrounds activities what have you um I also think we ought to look at why people are not going to Cedar Lane and I don't think it's part I think it's the quality of the stores and what kind of stores we have there thank you thank you Miss Leman Mr Yuck good evening everybody you all know me Philly Yu um I uh wrote to a few of you about publicizing this meeting better it was not I got four nixel for the tree lighting ceremony very nice no problem got one for this I think I think it makes I have to agree with Mr Lin it makes me wonder did you really want the residents to attend we have a lot of richness in our town we have a lot of talent in our town I'm just listening to people's ideas and um and I can only imagine if you had a 100 or 200 people here to talk to you about what their ideas were how much better this kind of a a forum could be uh you know I've heard number of people saying how things can't happen I think you need to think out of the box and and think about how things can happen what is it going to take um what is it going to take to actually draw the the owners of those buildings on Cedar Lane in to to meet what's going to be their incentive I own a small office building I've owned it for about 4 years I put solar panels on my building recently they were very expensive but the savings were incentive enough for me to re-roof the building and and buy the solar panels and now several years later I broken even and I make money by providing electricity into the grid that's a small example it's not the same as a multi-million dollar project but it's the same concept it's if there's an incentive to do something a a a building owner will consider it if they're going to make money out of it they'll consider it they might have to put money out at the beginning but if the return is going to be good they're going to do it so but Mr Schwarz I thought the parking lots were underutilized are they if so then parking is not the issue why build a parking garage that people will not use and and certainly nobody in my area wants I've never parked in the parking garages in Anglewood or in Ridgewood and I've gone there quite often look at towns like ours in new jerse not only in New Jersey but in other other areas I've been I've been in towns in New York that have vibrant main streets busy vibrant main streets that are attractive and and and make people want to go to them so I think you need to like look further not hackin sack hacken sack is not t- neck Bergenfield is pretty depressed looking even more so than Teck um uh they have a a big job ahead of them uh so I think you just need to sort of begin to like broaden your horizons and look a little further thank you thank you Phil Mr Berliner I'll be Berliner te resident so apologies I had to step out for a school event so if I say anything that came up earlier feel free to imagine that I'm uh just reading some Dr Seuss up here um so I have the benefit of being down here and I don't envy any of the decisions that any of you are going to have to make but I wonder if we're trying to solve a problem with solutions that will only be Band-Aids no matter what we do right when we think about mouin I grew up in Essex County so I imagine the South Orange Maplewood area right what do they all have in common well there are two things one is the railroad right it brings people twice a day in and out even on the weekends there are art centers there are restaurants old building buildings right commercial spaces but they're also at the Nexus at the intersection of major arteries right Cedar Lane is different Cedar Lane is a very long road that goes from one corner of the town to the other right I would support a parking lot a parking garage right but even if you put that somewhere even in the middle of Cedar Lane someone a five 10 minute walk from there they're not going to be able to benefit from that no one's ever going to use that right because it's always going to be we don't have a central focal point maybe that would be tenek Road and Cedar Lane I don't know but if we had a blank slate what would it what would it look like I've always envisioned what Westwood did right Westwood again there's a park there's the railroad and there's the intersection of major arteries that go through the center of the town it's not necessarily a rich neighborhood there's many single family homes right around that area which is that I think makes a different than what we saw from a touch in um in some of the other areas where you do have commercial space that insulates that central part from the residential areas around it but they really they really built that up and again I don't know the mechanics I'm not familiar with what they did and how they did it but it's a nice welcoming area there are areas that are nicer there's a shopping center there there are areas that are not as was suggested maybe the intersection of the what we call the Stop and Shop area with Chestnut Avenue and Cedar Lane is the Sol solution right if we have a blank slate there you have a corner you have an intersection you have wide space maybe there's a way to take control of some of that that area potentially put a park in but I think it also comes back to transportation for those of you that commute you know the buses aren't great and for some of the early uh master plan sessions at the library I kept on bringing this up I do think that we need a better way to funnel residents funnel people uh from the railroad through tenac right they're going to hackin saac we drive to hackin saac we spend money there because that's where we find ourselves twice a day we need a way that's better than the buses to move people from the township to the transportation centers but also bring them through the arteries that we're looking to generate here right what am I looking for on Cedar Lane I go to one of the three uh pharmacies and I go to The UPS Store that doesn't sustain it thank you AI Dr Powers ditto on this location in hackin saac inappropriate um I'm interested in knowing how many members of this Council and also of the planning board which of course is going to be responsible for the master plan you folks are not and I'm wondering how many of you have actually spent time particularly with the land use element of the 2007 master plan and particularly as it relates to all the issues was addressed at three different places in the master plan about Cedar Lane and the question I would ask if we're getting ready to try to figure out what to do with the master plan and how to get Cedar Lane going would it would be what is it that was wrong or right about the master plan and did we as a did you as a council follow through with the zoning that would have been consistent with what was asked for there there's been no discussion of that and without that history I think you're Flying Blind second place where I think we're all flying blind or at least those of us who weren't or you weren't part of the council what in the world was that settlement about at stop and shot it was a it was a very specific suit that somehow got spread and addressed two huge areas of anr one of which was actually begun apparently in response to what was going on in the suit on Al what who in the world made that settlement part of the what it is that this Township agreed to on the 20th of September and has locked you folks in because your idea Denise Miss belsher of having a a real economic devel velopment plan would say I want to take a look at Cedar Lane in the context of what sits beside it and if I have a picture of what all of that and I have a zoning plan for that and I and if I need a rehabilitation area I can get that without having to go to an ainr which in this town is pretty dead I think you probably know I think that you might actually have a way to move forward if you knew what it was that went wrong with 2007 master plan if you knew what in the world went wrong with a settlement that was very narrowly focused on whether or not Stop and Shop should be part of it or not that exploded into a two ainr answer whose idea was that and who was guiding that was that crossw guiding that process all the way through we need to know in order to know what it is that this town should be doing about being locked into something that you can hear this public doesn't want uh and open it back up go for an economic development plan that takes all that area into account and you'll be on a path thank you Dr this resolve thank you sorry Mr vaty you already spoke sir after art hi I'm Bernard LaVine I have a store in Cedar Lane lar Street Music since 1999 we live here so just a few comments first of all this place I mean I had I don't know how I'm going to find my car you know the directions were NE um but uh also the parking thing I get a lot of people that come to my store from all over the place like Brooklyn Westchester Connecticut and no one has a problem with the parking this is during the day like that Big Lot people walk there like you're saying that there's a the mall parking lots are better how long do you it's not any better you don't have to walk a shorter amount of T of you know from a car to a to Macy's it's always going to be a track um as far as um as as far as like input the merchants on Cedar Lane are ignored there's there's the Cedar Lane business district that does not have open meetings that decides stuff without ever polling us I didn't even know about this meeting like what are they doing they they do the street fair which needs to be upgraded like tenek if you want to make it into a Ridgefield or something we need some better vendors we need like antique dealers You More arts and crafts people uh I think there's a way to go like nyak has I mean I don't think I've ever been there but supposedly they have a really flourishing street fair so I think um you know I I I have to say with in being in public Here I Am the Grouch the blueberry pie eating contest I don't want to have to bring it up today but it's one of the most disgusting things that we have of course the business district says it's the most popular event but that's getting off the track anyway um I think more input by the business people might help and as far as parking uh I I'm I haven't paid attention to all this discussion before so I don't really know but a park and garage seems like a really bad idea thank you sir ma'am hi everyone I hate microphones because my voice is screechy okay my name is Alex pman I've lived here for my whole life 28 years I was born in this town I grew up in this town I went to school in this town um and I love it and I want to stay here and many things that people don't talk about I have two words one is empathy a lot of the time when we become planners administrators I work in a hospital system we tend to lose sight of empathy yeah sure sorry um and in hackin saac a lot of those apartment buildings that were torn down or redone were people below the poverty line and they had to move out of hackin saac probably to either Cliffside Park or Patterson because they could not afford to stay in hackin sack they lost their town and it increased the homeless population it happened in California it happened in other states it could happen here because people will have to leave Teck because they simply can't afford it if we be build these apartment buildings I know there's this 10% affordability rate whatever it is it's to the whole County and even then the affordability what is Affordable I'm a healthcare worker you give a discount to healthcare workers it's like not enough we can't afford it the cost of living is too high people my age my generation and Below will leave even older populations if there's not a place for them they will leave who are you left with the other thing that we don't talk about enough is flooding I live on a flooded Street Cedar Lane those businesses flooded their basements flooded and it took them weeks for someone to come and fix it one store in particular who I'm there every month multiple times a month supplies dog food and dog treats my dogs and is a sunshine to our Cedar Lane by the way the Companion Pet Store is the best store that ever opened there she is a lovely individual and cares wholeheartedly for T neck it took her three weeks to get air conditioning her store was burning and she stood there with a fan all day waiting for customers to make a living after she called her landlord multiple multiple times and then when in the winter time when the heater breaks she stands in the freezing cold and waits 3 weeks again for it to work the people who work there are not being heard and yeah they're not here tonight but that's because they're working their butts off trying to make a living and yes there's a zoom and I'm sorry yeah it was really hard to even get to this room I was thought I was going to get lost and had to turn around I parking was fine that was not a big deal but the room itself is Twist around so I beg everyone to think first about empathy and how everyone in the town feels about people who can't afford to live here feel the people who might end up on the streets feel who have to move back to their parents if they have them to lean on think about that thank you ma'am anybody else ma'am hi Gail Lazaro I've lived in tin over 30 years um a couple of things that really stood out sure a couple of things that really stood out to me one the idea of there have to be places for people to shop I know you talked about the landlords and how difficult or unresponsive they are but if there's nothing to come to Cedar Lane for then why are we here the town will just continue to go down and down and down um the other thing has to you know with parking there is all the parking there we do have things that are in the parking lots I don't really understand how it is that we need to think about more parking when as has been mentioned in other meetings about the underutilized parking and finally when I think about matachin looks like a wonderful place looks like there's a lot going on there but as somebody pointed out that development is away from the local community in Metuchen it's right on the railroad tracks it's not there where right across the street from somebody's home and so if you have a community where you can take that space and do that development without impacting you know somebody's second floor window that's one thing but that quality of life for the people who still live here in tenek and want to stay here in Te has to be considered but as much as anything we need places to shop we need a reason for people to come to ten to shop and as you mentioned before people will go to other stores if there's a place to come here like thank goodness we have Lark Street because like that's that's a destination for people we need more destinations we're like oh I'm going to go to Teck now that there's no Bishops we need more businesses for people to come to for people to decide to come to tenek rather than somewhere else thanks thank you Miss Lazaro sir I'm Jan Barry I've lived in Tac a little over 12 years before that I lived in Monclair for 30 that's the town you want to look at in the 80s they were dealing with the same problems here talking about here they did a lot of discussions they brought in a person who was an expert in helping them walk through this get everybody talking about what they wanted you've already seen one example of what can change Walgreens decided to come to town a gas station disappeared a restaurant that was very popular just disappeared when somebody wants to come to town when they're planning as we have seen with the proposal for a round stoping shop a developer just appears and says we want to do this that and the other thing well you need to also have some kind of idea what it is you want to accommodate so in Montclair they developed two parking garages one of them is so bad that everybody kept scraping as they go through these narrow turns but that's where the workers are supposed to park the other parking l lot which is closer to the public library is better but nobody wants to use it and whenever I go back to Montclair and it's usually because of the restaurants or some interesting activity um I know where to park on the streets even in a place that's very busy and offers these parking lots but most of us in New Jersey at least try to stay out of those kinds of situations and then try to figure out the street parking um I would really take a close look at what it is the Monclair went through as a process you may not like all of what they have done but they got rid of the car dealerships on their Main Street which is Bloomfield Avenue they redesigned the railroad station into uh a shopping area that now has reached a point at which they decided to add need to add housing to to that uh landscape but they've gone through various processes in which they've had long conversations involving all sorts of people I loved hearing what you heard from just two examples of people who have stores in town what is it that works for them what do they bring to this discussion thank you thank you Mr Barry Mr Goen what was his name Mr Jane Barry hi Paul Roven um having a meeting here is ridiculous here in there's no public transportation for getting here and it's makes no sense to have had it here so I hope you'll have the next meeting in TK uh where we live um somebody talked about having high-end stor stores on Cedar Lane we don't want I'll speak for myself I don't want to see high-end stores the cost of living is already so high so I don't think people are looking to um go to kind of fancy stores on Cedar Lane it's not going to attract people um we certainly don't want a parking garage we have Municipal Lots on either side of Cedar Lane those are our Municipal parking lots we don't want them turned into um five or six story apartment buildings again I'll say from all of the area associations the Coalition of uh T neck neighborhood associations associations for better T neck we don't want a inrs we don't want development on Cedar Lane without coordinating with we don't want development off of Cedar Lane or T-Neck road that doesn't deal also with the the the businesses on those main streets um we as people have said we already have a beautiful area in in voti park where we can have concerts and other activities we have the Rota Center and we have Parks all over T neck and the and many of them are just really wonderful um I could would make a suggestion that if we want to get more people to Cedar Lane now right away an inexpensive suggestion put some bike bike racks over in the municipal lots have more bike Lanes so people can bike to Cedar [Music] Lane there's going to be a new ice cream store coming soon I hear um is that true yeah yeah ice cream store and we have a wonderful concert venue uh brush and and we need to save our parking lots for people so they can go to the ice cream score store they can go to the cultural uh the the brush uh Cultural Center um so we have to uh somebody made a good suggestion of having more activities in that little area where Chestnut used to be that's very simple to do um so I yeah I I think that and and I'm worried about even I I like the idea what what Anglewood did was having apartments above the stores but I'm so worried about adding congestion to the area it's already so there's so much traffic on Cedar Lane thank you Paula I'm done thank you anyone else aside from Mr mie no Mr milie I'm not kind of speaking for the town kind of speaking for myself um I'll go over a couple of quick points in regards to your buses so when we did the development on tck road for b& one of the first things they did was ask us for additional if we can get additional bus routes and people Port Authority came back to us now this is probably about four or five years ago and came back and says we can't buy buses we have no place to park them and we can't hire any more help because they couldn't find it um I'm sure we'd love to get some additional bus routes but as of a while ago we weren't able to get that so I'm just going to hit a couple of points um and I'm not management this is just a little low me as the zoning guy maybe speaking for these people maybe not um the affordable housing I got to tell you I'm pretty proud of tck when I came here in 2006 it was the only town that mandated uh 10% set aside uh for affordable houses at that time everybody was doing the buyouts where you can buy your way into uh some of the be it Patterson Camden New York Jersey City wherever it was EK was the only town I knew of back in 06 that had the buying right now it's 15% for rental it's 20% if uh if you're buying in regards to the parking especially on State Street when we EV re-evaluated the parking requirements we lowered the parking requirements in regards for apartments and what they needed for parking spaces one of the applications we just passed not only did we lower to parking we got the private developer to put parking in his building for the town the same thing with Holy Name Hospital Holy Name Hospital when it's over and done with they have to put aside 100 parking spaces um the pet store somebody made a comment about the pet store I love that pet store I'm I'm in there all the time I don't care if they're a little bit more money than Chey they're they're a local business and I love supporting a local business and I know about her air conditioning and heating thing but unfortunately that's more between her and her landlord um and anybody else parking garages I think everybody's fixated on the parking garages the parking garages I believe are only going to take place if we did development so it's it's key of doing the development with American Legion Drive and like anybody else it's like show me the money meaning the the old landlords on Ceda Lane show me the money in regards to let's let us do some development on American Legion Drive whatever it may be I don't it's changing as we go along but I think as the landlords on Cedar Lane personal opinion see that Town that's willing to spend the money to improve a certain area it'll outgrow from there um also uh we've worked with Bergen County there's a 17-page resource booklet that I give out to every brand new business that comes into town and it lists to the point where they can get help from students from B Community College it tells them where they can get loans um and it's just it's very helpful for them starting a new business this was never done before we work together with Bergen County and like I said this goes out to every business that goes out and I've gotten nothing but a lot of good comments because it's a good guideline of where they could get things from the county to State and the federal government no no no no it's sorry good and Welfare are you done Dan that's it all right thank you Dan good and Welfare is done Mr Schwarz would you like to start us off sir I I would first of all thank you for everyone that's uh came out um don't believe I'm going to say this but I actually significantly agree with a lot that was said tonight regarding lack to the if I understood correctly the desire to keep the existing parking and not add on to the existing parking now the reason why we proposed adding to the parking was because we were looking to add Apartments which we need the parking but putting all that on the side I I heard everything everyone said and I just want to summarize a few things though I think there's a lot of different conflicts in the room in the speakers for example U Mr Rose um had a lot to agree with us agree with us as a Rel to the landlords but also says we need to keep the tenants in mind if we do any work we'll run the tenants out of business which is very true and they will not come back very very very true um at the same time um just to Mr kman we we need affordable housing the cost of living we need to build we need to build but if we build affordable housing we absolutely have the tools to do so and we're opening up our 39 unit um buildings shortly on tck road which was built in our land we will need to build that on our parking lots because that's the only thing we control so then Mr rin's desire to keep our parking lots it conflicts and they're both very important needs um so I did write those both down and those are obviously both something I've been working on for years and and I love affordable housing um the M Miss newitz um as a member of the ambulance Corps I I beg please we cannot have angle parking there would just be accidents after accidents after accidents you may you you rightfully said people C parallel park 100% correct they absolutely cannot angle Park either and when I worked at Shell's right next to you we used to watch the cars parallel park boom and the bumper cars all day long so you are 100% correct um I I don't know if making these sidewalks now or is going to really work but again took it into consideration and heard everything you said um again Mrs lean the no need for parking there was a lot of comments about that so it was definitely very you know interesting regardless of whether or not we're in hacking Sack or t neck and I heard that comment I appreciate everyone coming out to tonight did take um a lot away from this uh Dr Powers I do know the 2000 land use um work because I wrote it with your wife so while you were out hitting the bars every night we were working on this so definitely um definitely heard it back in 2007 some very late nights um and um I I loved um buzz LaVine is he did he leave already he's there Hi um welcome to your almost 25th year I remember the weekend you moved in I believe it was from Albany actually um and thank you for saying that Mr katco who says that you can park you just have to be able to walk 100 feet away we can't no one in this country has a right to park right in front of every story that that that's not a right in America it's not in the Bill of Rights um so again everyone to thank you for coming out and we continue hearing this you may think it was not well attended you may think it was out of the area for whatever reason we're here they couldn't accommodat us on the other side of the river but thank you again very much thank you Mr Schwarz Miss beler okay I want to also thank U my neighbors for you know coming out um I apologize for the V you um my understanding as I was told that this was just a means by which one of our uh larger neighbors wanted to host um one of our events um and so forth so um going forward I think we'll look at that in terms of you know how that works into this the subject of of the meeting um I I'd like to really just reiterate that I think that it's important that we utilize resources that can help us in this um economic development of our of our uh Cedar Lane of our downtown uh I think it's not just brick and mortar it's not just real estate it is it is truly Economic Development I think we need to really tap um entities like the New Jersey Economic Development Authority we need to tap HUD we need to tap you know federal government State uh government funds and so forth I think planning and development of re uh a retail specialist and I think I heard someone mention this um there are retail Specialists that can come in and talk about when they openings in towns when they vacancies what are the best type of tenants to have um you know consistency and and Rhyme or Reason in terms of selecting types of tenants there are um retail um conferences too I mean there there are retail conferences that are held on you know Atlantic City um different places where you literally go and you meet potential retailers that might be interested in a particular town that has the demographics that we have and I think we certainly should look at those types of options I think Clair is a great example um Mr Barry about a downtown area that that is similar to our town I think we need to develop a comprehensive plan to include a uh private and public partnership an analysis of the types of stores uh the transportation options I often thought think that maybe in you know and not just thinking about parking but thinking about shuttle buses that shuttle between all four of our shopping districts so if you're in in the uh on the you know in the plaza area uh where I live close to if I wanted to hop a bus over to Cedar Lane I could just simply know that there's a rotating bus that goes throughout all the the town uh I think we need to be Visionaries I think we need to incentivize our um Cedar Lane business owners to get to the table and to the point that uh was made um earlier I believe um Mr Ravine you made the point of saying that um you don't know about the the different in uh things that are happening for Merchants what are some of the meetings that are being held surveying uh business owners and finding out from them what are they interested getting them to the table they are the stakeholders so we can't just throw our hands up and say up they don't show up you have to keep keep engaging keep engaging them to see what do they want what is important to them what do they want to see um so I don't think parking is the problem I really don't uh I think the master plan is an important uh uh component but we must assemble the stakeholders um I think uh lastly that affordable housing is important and I agree with um uh Dan that's and saying that we have assembled for the first time a subcommittee on affordable housing we have we are addressing affordable housing by an Adu ordinance that's huge that is saying something uh and I think that we we we're trying to solve for the fact that we don't don't want our young people to leave town we don't want our seniors to leave town we want to figure it out and and by by having uh um forums like this to have this type of discussion so I thank you all for coming out tonight thank you Miss Bel Miss G I'll keep it short and sweet I want to thank my colleagues for sharing all this information I'm not on the zoning subcommittee so some of this was new to me I want to thank our partners for sharing their insights as well and of course I want to thank all of you so many great ideas from this group um one that really stuck out to me was the idea of using that space that already exists in Cedar Lane um that's almost like a courtyard I've seen it used before in the past but we don't do so consistently such a great idea it won't take a lot of investment to see could we be doing things right now to draw folks to our downtown um so I just want to say thank you for sharing your ideas I think we should continue to have um you know this wasn't officially a forum it was a workshop meeting but I think an idea maybe there should be a form to get more input from others and lastly I hear you on uh the space you prefer to be in tck I think we should all hear that loud and clear um if we do this again maybe we we stay in tck thank you thank you Miss G as always I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight and participating and next year we will do this in t to make it easier for everyone and I still feel that we shouldn't do anything until the master plan is complete which should be done in several months and I grew up and lived three blocks away from C Lane and wanted to succeed as much as you all do but we need our residents to be on board with whatever we do before moving forward and I'm always going to to feel that way because our residents come first and that's why we did this tonight because we want to keep the dialogue going on with you guys um but with that said Mr manager is there anything you wanted to say sure just quickly I think everyone uh hit the nail on the head we we need a vision to to move forward as a kid growing up and I was just making a list of some establishments that were on Ceda Lane uh that I frequented uh some more than others and showing major a little bit between path mark Food Town Blimpy Pioneer Pizza Bishops deep sea shenanigans gonos dve his toy store County discount Louise The Gaslight uh the Elms the the tennis club there were a lot of different player cow there were a lot of different places Larry's mobile CED Lane Pizza D East a lot of places that were frequented uh by people uh and came from outside of tck to visit these establishments so we have to create that Vision we have to make cedal Lane attractive um Chestnut Plaza uh I'll I'll certainly uh work with our department and CED Lane Management Group maybe we can have some additional events I know when Bishops came back the second time they had a vision of using that Chestnut Street Plaza for different events to attract people to come there uh we are going to repair the Beverly Road East parking lot so that the um uh Farmers Market can be held there a little more space for them CED Lane is getting uh milled and paved in 2024 there'll be curb work done as well we replaced all the trees power washing weather permitting will take place uh sometime before the end of the year we may have to wait till early spring I know that was a suggestion I brought that up in in the fall as well so we'll get the sidewalks cleaned up once Leaf season is done and that should be done any day now uh DPW said as long as it's about 40 degrees they can go out there after midnight to the power wash and try to get that cleaned up a little bit but the comments were great I I made a lot of notes I appreciate everyone coming out and again we'll consider a different venue location next year thank you thank you Mr manager did Mr Ash or Mr Sam want to say anything no comments no Scotty nothing all right do we have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second all those in favor please say I I thank you everyone for coming out tonight we hope you have a happy holiday and a couple of us are going to be still here if you want to talk ma'am thank you