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Prepare to Discuss New Master Plan at Planning Board Mtg.


PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

8/19/2024

Contents:

  • Prepare to Discuss New Master Plan at Planning Board Mtg.
  • Teaneck’s Council and BOE Candidate Update
  • Teaneck’s New Website – A Work in Progress?
  • Brief Update: Diversion Process – Rte. 4 Bridge Replacement/Widening
  • This Week in Teaneck - 8/19 to 25, 2024


Announcements

  • Library Schedule for Renovation Closing – 8/16 to 9/3
  • Teaneck Day Weekend - 9/7-8
  • LWV Local Election Candidate Forums – 9/23 & 30



Contacting Teaneck Voices:

  • Email: teaneckvoices@gmail.com
  • Phone: 201-214-4937
  • USPS Mail: Teaneck Voices, PO Box 873. at 1673 Palisade Ave. 07666

Prepare to Discuss New Master Plan at Planning Board Mtg.

MONDAY, AUGUST 19 AT 7:30 IN TEANECK’s LIBRARY AUDITORIUM


ALERT  Teaneck Voices strongly encourages all residents concerned with the Town's future to prepare for Monday's Planning Board meeting in the Library Auditorium by reviewing the new draft of Master Plan 2024 and speaking during this public hearing. Voices is very concerned that the current draft is seriously deficient (see below) 


  • Although this meeting will be available on Zoom (Click Here and add passcode 095654), only those persons in actual attendance at the meeting in the Teaneck Library will be permitted to speak during the public hearing notice for this meeting. 
  • The agenda for this meeting currently on the Township's new website does not specify a public hearing but does call for a vote for adoption. The official notice for the meeting in designated media does specify a public hearing - as well as adoption – BECAUSE OF DEFICIENCIES IN THE PRESENT DRAFT MASTER PLAN (SPECIFIED BELOW) TEANECK VOICES HAS ASKED THAT ADOPTION OF THE DRAFT BE TAKEN OFF THE TABLE. WE HAVE BEEN ASSURED BY THREE PLANNING BOARD MEMBERS THAT NO ADOPTION VOTE WILL BE TAKEN. Legally adoption cannot occur since the draft now on the new website has not been accessible for the required 10 days
  • That being the case, the public hearing on Monday should provide Town residents with the opportunity specifically to guide the PB to a significant redraft and revision before the Master Plan is finalized. 


HOW IS THE DRAFT MASTER PLAN DEFICIENT?


Deficiency – Accessibility, Organization, and  Missing Pieces

The process for getting Town website access to the current draft Master Plan was significantly altered when the new Township website itself was unveiled on the afternoon of August 12.  The process of getting to the 124-page draft MP is easier than it was last week. In the search bar front and center on the Website's home page simply type in Master Plan. You will be taken in two steps to the current draft. 



BUT that is only the beginning of access trouble. Very likely if you scroll through the website's MP document you will, at about p. 48 encounter this image.

And it is impossible to see anything beyond that! That means that getting to the real substance of the MP draft (which begins about p. 61) is impossible! That deficiency in itself is enough for residents to ask for a redraft of this document which is made inexcusably large by tens of large pictures in color - pictures that are without captions to explain what you are looking at. 


You might assume that one way to clarify your review process would be to print specific pages. Not so easy!


  • HEADS UP IF YOU WANT TO PRINT OUT SECTIONS OF THE DRAFT MASTER PLAN: The first 6 pages of the draft master plan are paginated with lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi). Then the document moves to standard numbering (1,2,3….124). So to print specific pages, you need to add 6 to the actual page numbers you want to print. If you want pages 10-15 of the document, you have to ask for pages 16-21 to get the pages numbered 10 through 15. This is because your printer will count pages starting with the first Roman numeral as page 1. (If you ask for pages 10-15, you will get pages 4-9!)


  • What if you are looking for a specific topic? Like Cannabis, AINRs, Auxiliary Dwelling Units (ADUs), Rail Safety, Pedestrian Safety, High-rise Multifamily Buildings? Where is the search mechanism? There appears to be a search mechanism available in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.  It is not a search system internal to the Master Plan. Instead, it is Google's full internet search system. So, let's say you have been told on pages 9 and 12 that you can find the resident survey results in the Appendix. If you type “Appendix” into the Google search option, it takes you to a definition of Appendicitis. (We kid you not!) In sum, THERE IS NO SEARCH MECHANISM TO ALLOW THE READER TO SEARCH AND LOCATE A TOPIC OF INTEREST IN THE DRAFT MASTER PLAN. 


There is a workaround for many residents - as we explained to Voices readers last week. The best way to take control of the MP document is to copy it onto your own computer. Then you can scroll through the entire document and search it for specific concepts. Here's how to copy the draft MP onto your own computer – if you have PDF or Adobe capability:


You can

  •  Copy the entire draft Master Plan from the Town website to your “Download” file. Then
  • Copy that file address to wherever you keep your data files. Then
  • Open that document and in the upper left-hand top line is an image of a round magnifying glass with 3 dots. THAT IS THE SEARCH/FIND MECHANISM. 


Type in the word/words you want to find, and, voila! You can find whatever you seek! But wait - not quite everything. Let's go back to our prior example. We were looking for the Appendix promised on pp. 9 and 12 where we could see the actual results of 1800 residents to the online survey. Whoops again - THERE IS NO APPENDIX. No – seriously, NONE.


Which leads us into:


Deficiency - Substantive


What is the function of a good Master Plan? What must be done to ensure it serves the appropriate municipal functions? Remember, a Municipal Master Plan is a “social contract” between the town and its residents. Every time a development project or area is identified, conceptually approved, or its final site plan is reviewed, the Planning Board must decide if it conforms to/is consistent with the Master Plan. Then the Planning Board must tell the Council whether or not the proposal meets that requirement. Councils usually do not move forward if the PB says a project/plan is "Inconsistent with the Master Plan."


So it is necessary to ask, "Does this Master Plan draft have the characteristics that allow the Teaneck Planning Board to make a sound judgment about what is consistent or inconsistent with the MP.”


Let’s start with an example. The image below is from the side of Margaret Baker's home on Alfred & Decatur Avenues. Instead of seeing a residential home across her street with the sun rising over the Palisades behind it, Ms. Baker sees this monstrous AINR-sponsored apartment building every time she sits on her front steps or looks out her front windows. Virtually every Teaneck resident we are aware of who has gone to Margaret Baker's house has said, "This should not have happened to the Baker family and their neighborhood.” 


But something broke down. No, this gigantic development is not consistent with the 2007 Master Plan In other words, in 2021, the Planning Board made a mistake in saying this 329 Alfred Ave development was consistent with the Master Plan.  

The question rightly to be posed about the 2024 Master Plan draft is this: Does this Master Plan have sufficient specificity and clarity of detail and purpose that would enable the Planning Board to have said, "No, this facility in this location is not consistent with our new Master Plan"?


If the current 2024 MP draft fails that test, then it is not yet ready for prime time. AND IT FAILS IN SIGNIFICANT WAYS:


What about the 2024 draft's discussion of AINRs?


In a special section of the glossary on p. 15 there is a discussion of the NJ state statute's redevelopment process, the establishment of Areas in Need of Redevelopment (AINRs) created to deal with real urban blight. AINRs (to deal with real blight) are allowed to disregard established zoning to impose whatever the governing body deems will deal with a devastated urban site. The process that wipes out any established zoning allows the governing body to do essentially whatever it wants and largely in closed-session consultation with unnamed developers who are not selected by any competitive process.


Unfortunately, for the past 6 years, Teaneck’s Council, without ever passing an ordinance, has adopted AINRs as a primary mechanism to implement development and thus disregards established zoning in Teaneck. As our readers know, Teaneck Voices has reported our and our readers’ concerns about Areas in Need of Redevelopment (AINRs).


We searched and found what this Draft Master Plan has to say about AINRs. First, the aforementioned Glossary provides no hint that ever since the June 14, 2023, first MP Kick-off meeting, residents have actively complained about the Town's and Council's misuse of AINRs. (See Click Here). To add insult to injury, on page 41 through 3 lines on page 43, this draft devotes minimal space to this draconian effort to erase zoning in 9 specific areas of Teaneck. Ironically, these AINR projects are treated as though they are just another type of zoning - when, in fact, AINR's ALL dispense with existing zoning in the Areas in Need of Redevelopment identified. 


The most insidious thing about including AINRs as a type of zoning is that, in the future, ANY AINR LIKELY WILL BE FOUND CONSISTENT WITH THE MASTER PLAN!!! 


Not only does the Draft Master Plan include this devious device under the Zoning section of the Plan, but, more importantly as we have said, IT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT THE ONGOING AND ALMOST UNIVERSAL OBJECTION OF TOWN RESIDENTS TO THE WHOLE CONCEPT AS EXPRESSED IN THE COMMUNITY MEETINGS, COUNCIL AND PLANNING BOARD GOOD & WELFARE SESSIONS, AND RESPONSES TO SURVEY QUESTIONS. 


We ask Town Residents to carefully review these 3 pages of AINR coverage in order to comment on and evaluate the Planning Board answers at the meeting on August 19.


Deficiency -- the USER-FRIENDLINESS of the draft

 

Here are our recommendations


  • Add an Executive Summary(ES) – The reader should be able to read the ES and understand the key elements of the Master Plan,
  • Add a brief description of present-day Teaneck (mature suburb, almost fully developed, towering trees, few open spaces, etc.),
  • Rewrite the Vision statement to provide a Vision for the Teaneck described. The Vision statement on Page 11 is generic and could apply to any municipality,
  • Write a brief statement of the methodology used to infer from community meetings, surveys, etc. to the goals and objectives,
  • Provide a discrete List of Goals with 1-2 sentence Objectives for each (see 2007 Teaneck Master Plan for example), and include a part of the Executive Summary,
  • Place Acknowledgements and Glossaries at the back of the Document, 
  • Re-paginate the document: remove all Roman numerals and begin the first page as Page #1. This will allow easy selective printing.
  • Caption all photos and provide the relevance of each. Remove all photos that do not have a specific purpose. (E. g. Do we need so many large pictures of the October 2023 meeting attended by fewer than 40 residents?) 


Voices assumes that by the end of the Monday night meeting, the general outline of what is needed to revise the current draft will have emerged.


The public should assume that it will likely be at least a month for the Planning Board to work to produce a revised draft 2024 Master Plan. When that work is done, and the new draft posted on the new town website, we all will look forward to a rescheduled public hearing.


Please contact us, at teaneckvoices@gmail.com with any thoughts, comments, or suggestions Voices can provide to the Planning Board as this process moves forward.  

Teaneck’s Council and BOE Candidate Update

Council


3 Teaneck Council members will be elected on November 5 to the 7-member Council, the Township’s municipal governing board. The date by which potential Council candidates must submit at least 316 petition signatures signed by verified Teaneck voters to the Township Clerk is August 22 at 4:00 pm. The Clerk’s office reported to Voices on the afternoon of August 16 that 5 potential Teaneck Council candidates had submitted their petitions.


Board of Education


3 Teaneck Board of Education members will be elected on November 5 to the 9-member Board. 5 BOE candidates have been certified by the Bergen County Clerk for that election and ballot positions for those 5 candidates were drawn by the Clerk on August 12. The results are seen in the image below.

Teaneck’s New Website – A Work in Progress?

On the afternoon of August 12, Teaneck residents who went to the Township website (https://teanecknj.gov) were greeted with a notice welcoming users to the long-awaited re-design of the website and asking its users to “tell us what you think”(But it was not clear to whom that response was to have been sent – nothing to click.)


Voices is not yet a fan. That is perhaps because our editors have finally learned how to navigate the prior version. But clearly important databases are either no longer available or the path to them is not via the new search mechanism found at the top of the new home page.  


A couple of examples. The slow but excellent database that enabled a user to look for Council resolutions and ordinances from 2013 to the present is apparently not there – or not anywhere that either we or the Clerk’s staff could find this week. And the old website allowed you to search the documents sections of Township employees to find files on specific subject matter for which they were responsible. Try finding the current introduced budget under either the CFO or Manager. Or, in fact, anywhere (see related story in this edition.)


It is early yet –We hope that the missing information just has not yet been connected to the search mechanism or to the topics listed somewhat randomly on the home page. We remain concerned but eternally hopeful.

Brief Update: Diversion Process – Rte. 4 Bridge Replacement/Widening

In our 8/12/2024 Voices newsletter, we promised we would keep our readers apprised of what we were able to learn - from both the Town and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) - about 1) the New Jersey Department of Transportation's (DOT) planned parkland taking associated with the proposed Rte.4 bridge replacement and road widening and 2) the process that led to selection and evaluation of municipally-owned property at the northeast section of Shepard Avenue.



Readers who want to learn more of what Voices has found about this project can go to our website at Click Here

This Week in Teaneck - 8/19 to 25, 2024

If additional information about access and agendas for this week’s public meetings becomes available, we will update our Teaneck Voices website at this post (Click Here) in RED font. 


Planning Bd. Mtg. – Monday, August 19 at 7:30 in the Teaneck Library Auditorium and by zoom (with no hybrid input) at Click Here and add passcode 095654). Hearing on New Master Plan draft. 


Environmental Commission (EC) – Wednesday August 21 at 7:30 pm by zoom. No zoom access information or agenda information available as of 8/18. 


Board of Education Regular Meeting – Wednesday, August 21, 2024 at 8:00 pm in the THS Student Center. Zoom access and agenda for this meeting presumably will be found on the schools website (https://www.teaneckschools.org/  ) 24 hours prior to meeting. 


Teaneck Council Regular Meeting – Thursday, August 22, 2024 – public session presumably at 8:00 pm to include a public hearing on the budget (as indicated and described in the public notice found at Click Here. )Neither zoom information nor the agenda for this meeting is available as of 8/18/2024.

  • Presumably, Voices will be able to review both the agenda and the zoom addresses for this Council meeting during the week of August 19. If information we find to be of significant importance to our readers, we will publish a special edition of a Voices newsletter. 
  • Voices has placed the information it has been able to gather about the 2024 introduced municipal budget – it may be found on our Teaneck Voices website at Click Here



Announcements

Contacting Teaneck Voices


Co-Editors: Dr. Barbara Ley Toffler and Dr. Chuck Powers

IT Editor: Sarah Fisher

By Email: teaneckvoices@gmail.com

By Phone: 201-214-4937

By USPS Mail: Teaneck Voices, PO Box 873. at 1673 Palisade Ave. 07666

Teaneck Voices' Website is www.teaneckvoices.com


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