Councii Meeting Highlighs the Week

Council Meeting Highlights the Week

PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

10/17/2023

Contents:

Council Meeting Highlights thie Week

Community Workshop II on New Master Plan - a Report

Coalition of Neighborhood Associations to Gather to Review Impact of one AINR on the Decatur & Tietzen Neighborhood

Informative Video of the 2nd and Final 2023 Forum Among all Candidates for Board of Education

This Week in Teaneck - Oct 17 to 22

Announcements

Town's General Election Ballot Design-for All Voting Options

Council's Presentations on Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)

Flu Shots - for Appointments call 201-837-1600 ext. 1500

CNA Educational AINR Gathering on Decatur - Oct 21 & 22

Cannabis Subcommittee Open Meeting - Oct 23 - Chambers

Teaneck International Film Festival - 2023 -Nov. 5 - 12

Contacting Teaneck Voices

Council Meeting Highlights This Week

Assuming that the Agenda for Tuesday night’s Council meeting is complete as of 1:00 pm on Council Tuesday 10/17, resident attention should be focused on 4 of the proposed actions listed at the end of the Agenda - the Introduction of Ordinances 36, 39, 40 and 41.

· Ordinance 36-2023 ADOPTING CERTAIN REGULATIONS RELATED TO THE INSPECTION OF LEAD-BASED PAINT: If introduced and then later adopted, this ordinance, in order to conform with state law (P.L.2021, c182), would require most Teaneck residences offered for rental to be inspected for lead-based paint. The ordinance specifies several exceptions, establishes a fee schedule the Town would assess for such an inspection, and specifies timeframes for remediation of residences whose lead paint is found to be a hazard.

· Ordinance 39-2023 AMENDING THE TOWNSHIP CODE FOR THE TOWNSHIP OF TEANECK TO ENACT A NEW SECTION ESTABLISHING AND REGULATING ACCESSORY DWELLING UNITS: If Introduced and adopted at Council’s next meeting (11/21/23) this ordinance is almost certain to have a major impact on residential living patterns in the Township and significantly open up new moderate-priced housing options for many town residents. Presentations and discussions of ADU’s were held at Council meetings in July and September. (For access to these presentations, see Announcement section in this Voices edition). And, as promised, this ordinance not only authorizes specific types and arrangements of ADU’s but also lays out standards and certification procedures to be followed by single-family residents proposing ADU’s on their properties. Recent meetings and surveys indicate that participating residents favor some ADU’s. Residents will want to review these provisions carefully to assess whether this ADU ordinance meets their expectations.

· Ordinance 40 AMENDING THE TOWNSHIP CODE FOR THE TOWNSHIP OF TEANECK TO ENACT NEW REGULATIONS RELATED TO OUTDOOR CAFES COMPLIANT WITH STATE STATUTE: Several times during 2022, Council introduced ordinances which would have approved “outdoor cafes and parklets”. But when sent to the Planning Board these ordinances were found to have location restrictions and regulations the Planning Board opposed as too limited and limiting. Council subsequently tabled the ordinances. This time the ordinances proposed for introduction on 10/17 focus attention almost exclusively on ways to make such cafes allowable in accordance with the 2021 law P.L. 2021, c. 15) which has the interesting consequence of being a state law whose authority sunsets at the end of 2024. Hence, were this ordinance to pass, it would cover only a single season - April to November 2024 - unless the state legislature extends the existing law beyond 2024. Hmm….

· Ordinance 41, 2023 - AMENDING THE TOWNSHIP CODE FOR THE TOWNSHIP OF TEANECK TO CREATE A FIELDS ADVISORY BOARD: This Board is an idea first introduced to Council at its previous meeting to create a wholly new advisory board to advise Council on all matters involving Township athletic fields and give specific places on the new advisory board to BOE and existing sports team representatives. The new board would ~~clearly~~ include scope that had previously belonged to the Parks, Playgrounds and Recreation Advisory Board. Residents who use the fields will be among those who should review the membership and other provisions included in this proposed-for- introduction ordinance.

There are two other ordinances that our Voices readers may want to check out:

· Ordinances 37-2023 will limit flight routes over playgrounds, etc. for resident-owned drones, and

· Ordinance 38-2013 which will now, for the fifth year in a row, seek state approval for Teaneck to treat as an emergency the wholly expected and trackable final payments (this year effectively $1M) to its 2023 retiring employees. If approved Teaneck would then be authorized to repay this obligation in equal 5-year chunks. The state’s policy is normally to allow continuing emergency requests of this type just two years in a row. The state is being asked to agree that this 2023 obligation was not foreseeable

Teaneck's Community Workshop II

on New Master Plan - a Report

On the evening of Wednesday October 11, some 48 residents gathered in the Rodda Gym 2 for a community meeting called by the Master Plan Steering Committee and moderated throughout by Town Planner Keenan Hughes and three of his firm’s associates.

Attendance was about half the size of the group that had met for the first Master Plan Workshop in the summer.

This two-hour meeting began with a very brief description of the meeting’s format by Planner Hughes. The plan was to have the attendees rotate to among four separate widely-dispersed tables to address four issues: 1) Housing, 2) Design & aesthetics, 3) Business districts and 4) Traffic/parking and to provide a opportunity for participants to express their views on each topic. (See picture of meeting design in image 2 below.)

After announcing that 1700 responses to the Master Plan survey have been received so far, Hughes announced that the survey’s timetable due date was being extended to October 20 THIS FRIDAY. (See image 1 below for survey and submission instructions).

Hence, what information participants received about the interim survey results came from the conveners of each table topic, each reporting results on their topic as the participants rotated.

The only composite information Voices was able to gather about participant views resulted from participants placing colored circle stickies beside depictions of different types of multi-family designs and different types of mixed-use (retail & residential) development designs. (See images 2 & 3 below). Each green circle placed beside a design picture indicates one participant’s approval of that design; a pink circle indicates non-approval and a yellow circle indicates the participant views the design as neutral.

In at least 2 of the 4 table groups at the Housing table there was robust and positive reaction to the Town Council having given to-be introduced approval to Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU’s). (See discussion of ADU’s in this edition’s lead article and a guide to finding the two ADU presentations previously made to Council in our Announcement section).

One data point from the interim MP survey results was announced to at least one of the 4 housing table groups: only 11% of the 1700 survey respondents approve of more high-rise multifamily developments.

Whatever other summary of this entire meeting is produced will presumably come from the summary notes of the 4-table convenors reporting discussions with the four participant groups.

When questioned about whether any recording (audio or video) had been made of the meeting, several Steering Group members cited the difficulty of making any composite recording. Such a recording was effectively made at the earlier MP Workshop.

Coalition of Neighborhood Associations

to Gather to Review Impact of one AINR

on the Decatur & Tietjen Neighborhood

Join us as we Gather Together at 3:00 pm on both Saturday 10/21 or Sunday 10/22 to learn about, discuss, but primarily actually to experience what Council’s disregard for the Master Plan and its expectations and prescribed zoning can produce in ANY neighborhood in Teaneck.

The massive partially built 255 unit apartment building you will see is the creation of our former Council through a NJ State tool called an Area In Need of Redevelopment (AINR). An AINR, as Teaneck Voices has written about over the past two years, allows a municipal government to designate an area of the town as “blighted,” according to a variety of conditions, and then throw zoning to the winds and bring a developer to “redevelop” the area according to the governments desires, regardless of what the residents of the neighborhood want.

It also allows the municipal government to give preferential tax treatment to the developer by use of a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), thereby depriving the residents of the tax benefits a large new development should bring to the town coffers thereby hopefully reducing the residents’ property taxes.

Teaneck Voices has sounded the alarm about AINRs and their PILOTs not only for the devious ways our Council has used this redevelopment tool, but also for the kind of redevelopment that thus far results of the Master Plan survey have indicated only11% of Teaneck residents want: Tall, massive apartment structures intruding into the charming single family neighborhoods that through its history have characterized Teaneck.

Now you have the chance to see one of these urban structures that has wiped out a charming, congenial neighborhood and may soon encroach on your block!

The Coalition of Neighborhood Associations represents the unprecedented formation of coalition of four very large Teaneck neighborhood associations concerned with and prepared to take action to improve transparency about and public input into development decisions. As the leadership of these neighborhood associations have themselves gone to see what has happened to a specific neighborhood, they have focused this Autumn on expanding the awareness of all Teaneck residents about what can happen to a beloved neighborhood if we throw out prior governmental commitments in order to accommodate the desires of developers about whom government had told us nothing.

Most of us have heard from articulate Teaneck resident Margaret Baker as the proposed construction of a 255-unit, 6+ story residential facility moved for 2+ years through this AINR process. Embedded in that process, Voices has recently discovered, was the admission that the renovated home directly across from Margaret’s front steps which like her home, was a comfortable, renovated single-family residential home which – when examined by the planner investigating as part of a possible Area in Need of Redevelopment – admitted (see image below) was NOT blighted and did not meet any of the regular AINR redevelopment criteria. It met None of the criteria except it could be taken to help enable the huge out-of-scale development being proposed (at that time, in secret).

Long story short, down came the residential property and since March 2022 Margaret Baler and her neighbors have watched their view of the sun rising over the Palisades disappear behind a massive wall with tiny setbacks. Margaret and others will be joining us to describe what it means to have a neighborhood officially attached.

Yes - one purpose of this weekend’s gathering is to focus on the immense injustice to one neighborhood. Another purpose is to experience why it should not – as it is – happen again anywhere in Teaneck. And this is an issue about which Voices believes there is as town-wide consensus. As reported elsewhere in this edition, only 11% of the 1700 respondents-to-date of the new Master Plan survey approve of high-rise multi-family structures in this community. 89% to 11% would appear to be as much of a consensus as could ever be imagined in this diverse town.

But unless that consensus is translated into the tools that belong to the citizens of a democracy (votes, public input, various shows of collective support) the leadership forces that have been able effectively to hide their plans from us will continue.

In sum, you owe it to yourselves, to your own neighborhoods to join CNA (Coalition of Neighborhood Associations) at Decatur and Tietjen at 3 pm on at least one of these two days of this week-end.

For more information, see the flyer about this gathering in this edition’s Announcement section.

Informative Video of 2^nd & Final 2023 Forum among all Candidates for Board of Education

In the 2023 General Election, Teaneck will elect three new Board of Education members for 3-year terms from a field of six candidates. Those six candidates have divided themselves into 2 slates of three each and those slates appear together in columns 1 & 2 on the Teaneck ballots. Although voters can select any three of the candidates, all of the candidates have throughout the campaign advocated that their slate team together would provide the best additions to the Board.

On the evening of October 10, all 6 candidates appeared in a non-partisan forum conducted by the Northeast Teaneck Block President’s Association (NETBPA). The session was effectively moderated by Teaneck resident Therise Edwards.

The hour and a half video of that forum can be accessed at Click Here of the NETBPA Facebook site. Perhaps the most interesting Q & A from the forum came at 1hr&5:30 min of the video when the candidates were each asked to describe in what school district events and activities they have participated during the prior 12 months. Voices readers who have not yet voted are encouraged to watch this video before you do. should address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for? (Audience) Why should they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action)

Create a great offer by adding words like "free" "personalized" "complimentary" or "customized." A sense of urgency often helps readers take an action, so think about inserting phrases like "for a limited time only" or "only 7 remaining"!

This Week in Teaneck - October 17 to 22

Council Regular Meeting – October 17, 2023 at 8:00 pm hybrid and in-person in Council Chambers and by zoom Click Here and add passcode 440946. For Agenda Click Here

· Several Ordinances are scheduled for introduction that will address previously Council-discussed housing, outdoor cafes and advisory committee scope changes. If Introduced, Ord 36-2023 would require a lead-paint inspection (with several exceptions) of every residence offered for rent; Ord 39-2023 would specify conditions under which the Township can approve of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU’s) of several sorts; Ord 40-2023 re-opens the struggle begun in 2022 to allow outdoor cafes; Ord 41-2023 will create a new advisory board that will advise Council on all issues related to athletic fields. These and other issues are discussed in this edition’s lead article.

Youth Advisory Board (YAB) – Wednesday October 18, 7:00 pm in MP-4 at Rodda Center. No agenda available

Environmental Commission (EC) – Wednesday October 18 at 7:30 pm. Zoom, but no zoom access and no agenda available

Board of Education Regular Meeting – Wednesday October 18, 2023 at 8:00 pm hybrid and in-person at the THS Student Center and by zoom Click Here. Agenda to be determined

Senior Citizens Advisory Board- - Thursday October 19 at 1:30 pm. In person only in the Game Room at the Rodda Center

Board of Adjustment (BofA) Special Meeting– Thursday October 19 -Canceled ould address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for? (Audience) Why should they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Teaneck's Gen'l Election Sample Ballot - Same for all Voting Options

Recent Presentations on

Accessory Dwelling Units ("ADUs")

Teaneck's Council in July and September Included 2 Presentations on Accessory Dwelling Units - a potential shift in the zoning rules for single family residences

Click below to review each of those presentations

Regional Plan Association's ADU Presentation to Council | 7/11/23

AARP's ADU Presentation to Council | 9/19/23