2008 Mountain Lakes Master Plan Committee

 

Members:       Gail Boertzel, Board of Education

                        Andy Bulfer, Historic Preservation Committee

                        Louise Davis, Deputy Mayor and Planning Board

                        Celia Flynn, Recreation Commission

                        Cathy Harvey, Environmental Commission

                        Michael Lightner, Chair, Planning Board

                        Joan Nix, Planning Board, ML Highlands Committee

                        Barbara Palmer, Planning Board

                        Roberta Spray, member at large

 

 

Meeting notes, January 3, 2008

 

Introductions: Barbara Palmer thanked everyone for their willingness to serve on this committee. All above were present, except Joan and Mike.

 

Barbara noted that it was her goal that the committee would meet twice monthly when possible and would have a draft of the Reexamination Report ready by June.

 

Municipal Land Use Law review of task

                        Master Plan

                        Periodic Reexamination

The committee received copies of and reviewed MLUL 40:55D-28 on the Master Plan and its elements, and MLUL 40:55D-89 on the Periodic Reexamination of Municipal Plans and Regulations. Members were asked to keep these and refer to them when necessary for the legal requirements of our task in reexamining the ML Master Plan.

 

The first part of our task is to examine the existing Master Plan and the 2002 Reexamination and report on this. The second part is to report on new planning issues since the last reexamination and make recommendations as to which parts need updating, changing, adding.

 

Barbara passed around the Califon Borough 2007 Master Plan Reexamination Report as an example from another municipality.

 

The committee then discussed and commented on the list of issues in the 2002 report:

 

Review of Major Planning Issues in 2002 reexamination—a mandatory part of the reexamination report:

  1. To address the issue of oversized houses, the Borough has rewritten the ordinance addressing permissible building height.
  2. The State Development and Redevelopment Plan is currently being updated. The Borough filed a Municipal Cross-Acceptance Report in 2004 with the County, who acted as the Negotiating Entity with the State. The next State Plan is expected to be released in 2008.
  3. Pedestrian safety and traffic calming measures continue to be addressed. Currently safety measures around the High School are under consideration.
  4. The air stripper on Well #5 is in operation and functioning properly.
  5. Lakes Management: an aggressive treatment program needs to continue, as the lakes are experiencing periodic water quality problems.
  6. Most of the Borough—those parts developed by Herbert Hapgood and the Belhall Company--was listed on the State and National Registries of Historic Places in 2006 (?)
  7. The Borough and Board of Education have addressed the need for interscholastic sports fields in the Borough by developing two new multi-sport fields in Halsey Frederick Park in 2005 (?), refurbishing the fields at Taft and Midvale, and rebuilding Wildwood Field with an artificial turf surface in 2007. The latter was funded by a community group.
  8. No new census figures on the number of children are available (?).
  9. After the wetlands delineations were completed, the Borough decided not to build fields on the Pocono Road property but instead developed them in Halsey Frederick Park.
  10. Drinking water quality, supply, and aquifer recharge are an issue of growing importance in our whole region.
  11. The Borough Council and Planning Board Ordinance Committee have discussed but not instituted a school/government zone.

 

Major Planning Issues to be considered in the reexamination (list incomplete):

Water restrictions

Highlands Regional Master Plan

Historic District (HPC has had an attorney review our MP, made suggestions)

Riparian buffer protection

Wellhead protection

New COAH regulations

Lakes management

School/gov zone

King of Kings property—possible rezone for conservation?

Green community

Stormwater management

Tree protection ordinance

Energy audit—sustainability

New/expanded municipal building

 

Scope of task--Apply for grant?

Committee briefly discusses whether we wanted to apply for a Smart Futures Planning Grant from the State. Louise offered to research.

 

 

 

Planning

For the next meeting, all committee members were asked to read the Introduction and Chapters 1-3 and come prepared to comment. We will discuss these to have a common basis of the assumptions, community characteristics, vision and goals of our current master plan.

 

We divided the other chapters among committee members and will review them at subsequent meetings:

 

Louise – Recycling. Louise will also look into possible ways to include Green community/sustainability goals in our MP.

Celia – Recreation

Gail – Facilities

Cathy – Conservation

Roberta – Circulation

Andy – Historic preservation

Barbara – Relationship to other plans. Barbara will also write a short description of our committee and its task for the website, which Andy offered to post.

Joan – stormwater (?)

The Housing Element will need professional planner input.

 

The committee voted to have all of our meetings be open to the public, with the following rules: Public comment is welcome. There will be a time for public comment and each speaker is limited to 5 minutes. A speaker may not yield time to another speaker.

 

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, January 10, 7:30 pm in the DOWNSTAIRS conference room at Borough Hall.

 

 

Meeting Schedule (tentative) Thursdays, 7:30 pm:

 

January 3

January 10

February 7

March 6

March 20

April 3

April 17

May 1

May 15

June 5