Teaneck Voices views Wednesday night’s(6/14) 7:00 pm Master Plan Kickoff Public Meeting in the Library’s Auditorium to be the single most consequential public meeting in recent years. Here is how the Township itself has issued the invitation:
The Township of Teaneck INVITES YOU to attend a public meeting focused on the development of a new comprehensive Master Plan for the first time in 16 years! The kick-off meeting will be the first of several opportunities for the public to be involved in this Master Planning process, including through surveys and in-person and virtual meetings focused on specific topics of the Master Plan.
A Master Plan is a municipal policy document that evaluates existing conditions and creates a vision and blueprint for the future of a community. The plan takes a long-range view of a range of topics, including land use and buildings, roads and traffic circulation, community resources and educational facilities, climate change adaptation, and natural resources.
Policy recommendations in a Master Plan become the basis for zoning regulations, which effect how a place is developed in the future.
We need your help to ensure the vision for Teaneck is representative of all of you! Please come out to Teaneck’s Master Plan Kick-Off Meeting on Wednesday, June 14th at 7:00PM at the Teaneck Public Library Auditorium.
Thank you! The Master Plan Steering Committee
ZOOM INFO FOR 6/14/23 Kickoff Meeting:
· When: Jun 14, 2023 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
· Topic: Teaneck Master Plan Kick-Off Meeting
· Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89555233946
Passcode: 765357
· The Town would prefer that you attend this meeting in-person at the Library Auditorium
Why is this meeting so important?
The last time the public was invited to– and did engage – in shaping the Town’s Master Plan was in February 2007 (Click Here) when literally hundreds of residents attended meetings first at Thomas Jefferson Middle School and then the High School Auditorium.
Residents who attended will remember those meetings where the 9 Goals and 12 Objectives, which constituted the state-required First Element of the 2007 Master Plan, were hammered out in meetings that lasted long past midnight. Listen to the participants in those meetings describe how electric was the atmosphere - and how significant they believe the wording of those Goals and Objectives were in defining what values the town wanted its land use decisions to support.
Two months later, the Planning Board adopted the resulting 147-page document (Click Here)
No similar meetings have occurred in the more than 16 years since. That reality does not mean the Master Plan has not been re-examined. Three times (IN 2011, 2014 & 20217) the Planning Board assigned Town Planner Richard Preiss (Phillips, Preiss et al) the task of making zoning change recommendations in specific town blocks and these documents became Master Plan Re-examinations. And in 2019 the MP was amended to incorporate the legal agreement reached by the Town about its fair share affordable housing obligations.
But it is very significant that the exact wording of the original 21 Goals and Objectives in the 2007 MP were preserved in the subsequent re-examinations.
Please do not think that the consistency of the Goals and Objectives wording means that those Goals and Objectives have been accurately and appropriately incorporated into all subsequent changes in Town zoning and/or in the variances from zoning ordinances that have been approved by our land use boards. They have not.
Indeed, the very hallmark of Teaneck development since 2018 is found in the decision by prior Councils and land use boards to designate 9 Town areas as blighted and in need of redevelopment (AINR’s). These AINR's are viewed by many residents as a repudiation of some key Master Plan Goals.
(See Voices stories on how the decision to build a six-story rental facility cheek-by-jowl of Margaret Baker’s home and residential neighborhood on Decatur Avenue cannot possibly be reconciled with Master Plan Goal 3).
But now the Town is apparently ready to invite all Teaneck residents and communities into the long overdue process of sorting out whether what we have for 16 years said were our land use values remain the same – and if not, what restatement of them would best project to our Town leaders and boards what it is that we want Teaneck to be and become.
To-date the new Master Plan Steering Committee has not published the full format for this 6/14 Kick-off Meeting – although it is reported that Planner Hughes will present a short Power Point description of what a Master Plan should include.
Teaneck Voices urges, nay implores, the Master Plan Steering Committee to adopt a format in which:
· The residents voices are the voices primarily heard
· The public is assured that the meeting is fully videotaped
· A secretary/scribe be simultaneously writing down audience questions and suggestions to facilitate extracting critical material from the videotape
· A promise be made to attendees that notes of questions and suggestions will be distributed by a specific date.
· A timeline of the full Master Plan process is presented
As they prepare for this 6/14 meeting, not all of our readers will re-read the full 147-page 2007 MP. (again, Click Here) Few will probably reread the 3 subsequent MP re-examinations and amendments. (Click Here). But we urge everyone of our readers to re-read several times those 21 MP Goals and Objectives (which follow) and decide whether they do or do not say what we want them so say. So here they are:
Teaneck’s Current Master Plan Goals & Objectives–
(verbatim 2007 Master Plan State-Required
Element 1: Goals & Objectives)
1. STATEMENT OF GOALS AND OBJECTIVES The Township of Teaneck has played a special and unique role in the development and growth of suburban communities in the United States in the second half of the 20th century. From the honor of standing as the U.S. Army’s Model Town of the United States in 1948 to the historic 1965 referendum that resulted in Teaneck becoming the first community in the United States to voluntarily bus students in order to racially integrate its schools, Teaneck has firmly established its status as a role model and a leader.
Now, in the early years of the 21st century, Teaneck continues to be a leading municipality – this time in the definition and design of the mature suburban community. With its small-town quality and balance of land uses, Teaneck can increase opportunities for people to work and live within the Township and capitalize on the quality of life that attracts people to establish roots, build families and create lifelong friendships in the community.
As such, the Planning Board has established the following Goals and Objectives upon which the Master Plan is based:
Goals:
1. Advance the purposes of the Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) as contained in 40:55 D-2;.
2. Preserve the character of existing low-density residential neighborhoods forming the predominant character of the Township;
3. Provide zoning protection for existing multifamily housing, and encourage its expansion only in areas where it would not have detrimental effects on single-family residential neighborhoods;
4. Provide a balanced land use pattern and appropriate development controls;
5. Guide appropriate development and growth in a coordinated and managed approach;
6. Strengthen the vitality of existing commercial districts;
7. Preserve, protect and enhance parks and open space while protecting environmentally sensitive, natural, and unique physical features at the same time;
8. Maintain the historic resources and natural beauty of our Township; and
9. Embrace, reflect and bring together the diverse sub-communities within the Township.
Objectives:
1. Ensure practical and appropriate development controls in order to preserve and protect open space, conserve the natural landscape and protect the sensitive ecological areas of the Township;
2. Protect neighborhood characteristics including the enforcement of buffer areas between non-residential and residential land uses, between different residential types, and along sensitive ecological areas of the Township;
3. Encourage the revitalization of vacant buildings and encourage the rehabilitation and restoration of brownfields and other contaminated buildings and land;
4. Maintain and upgrade the existing system of parks, recreation and open space to provide for Township residents of all ages, abilities and disabilities consistent with current and projected community needs for recreation and open space;
5. Preserve the high level of public services and encourage the creation of new facilities where necessary, in order to accommodate population changes, economic growth and the changing needs of residents;
6. Provide mechanisms to encourage the needed upgrade of the existing utility infrastructure including public water, stormwater management and wastewater treatment;
7. Provide for the Township’s fair share of affordable housing as may be required by law as set forth in the Housing Plan Element;
8. Preserve and enhance the low-density residential character of established neighborhoods, maintain a reasonable balance of housing choices, and provide for in-fill development, adaptive reuse and affordable senior housing.
9. Promote historic preservation efforts that will maintain the Township’s unique historic resources as designated;
10. Promote building and site improvements that have reasonable limitations on size, bulk, and site disturbance in relationship to the existing fabric of the community;
11. Encourage the development of a circulation system that accounts for roadways, mass transit, pedestrian/bicycle routes, greenway corridors and existing freight and goods movement facilities;
12. Coordinate land uses with transportation facilities, including but not limited to bus stops and parking for resident commuters to facilitate access and encourage alternatives to driving;
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