Serious Questions about the Council & Planning Board Agendas

PUBLISHED BY TEANECK VOICES

1/27/2025

Contents:

Serious Questions about the Council & Planning Board Agendas
Board of Education hears Good News from the Superintendent
This Week in Teaneck – January 27-31

Contacting Teaneck Voices:

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

Serious Questions about the Council & Planning Board Agendas

Two public meetings that will dramatically affect Teaneck residents will occur on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Council’s 1/28/2025 agenda provides us with a series of proposed land use actions that raise questions as to where they are coming from, why they are being proposed now, and what they foretell as to the scheduling of these projects
Once again the Town has introduced the ordinance (6-2025) that would approve and regulate Auxiliary Dwelling Units (ADU). Council had earlier tabled the ordinance awaiting passage of the Master Plan. The Master Plant remains in limbo. What is the rationale for passing this ADU ordinance now?
Also up for a hearing and vote are two ordinances that will newly require permits when residents add fences or retaining walls. What is the impetus for these new regulations?
The Township has been trying to acquire the property immediately to the east of the Rodda Center (1084 Queen Anne) but for a decade has not been able to do so. This Ordinance formalizes the acquisition effort and adds an element – the provision of authority for the town to take the property by condemnation. Condemnation has rarely been needed or approved – what’s the story here?
Back in August, the development attorney for the owners of 100 State and 140 State Street made a presentation about moving beyond a redevelopment plan and to a developer's agreement for a mixed-use and storage facility. The Zoning Subcommittee’s minutes of their December 3 meeting indicate that the developer’s attorney requested changes in his clients' proposed redevelopment plan. WHAT ARE THOSE CHANGES? What are the changes that the developer’s attorney apparently told the December 3 Zoning Subcommittee that his clients needed (Click Here)
The public has not been told. And, contrary to recent policy, the changes from the prior DEVELOPERS’S plan have not been underlined and printed in red in the revised documents that Council is considering. It would also be useful for residents to be told who is/are the owners/developers of these properties. Also, since these newly introduced ordinances were written by our prior planners (Phillips Preiss) who are no longer under contract with the Town. So, what planning firm will be advising the Town now?
The Council has nominated 4 residents for 3 places on the Planning Board. How does its voting decide which three are actually appointed for 2025?
The Agenda for the Thursday 1/30/2025 Planning Board meeting at the Rodda Center (7:30) is an even greater enigma.
The Township had been told since early December that the Planning Board would not continue its hearings on the draft Master Plan until this end of January meeting. But it had said nothing about whether it was making changes to the draft it had provided two months earlier – September 19.
Most residents who have followed this long-delayed process expected that the many suggestions made by the public in September would shape a revised document.
Then when the Town suddenly held a competition for a new planner and chose a new one (Topology of Newark) it was widely believed that dissatisfaction with the prior planner’s work would lead to a better MP draft.
Unfortunately, the document that the Town website currently lists as the current one is – word for word and page for page – the same as the one the Board and residents had in September. In other words, no changes for 4 ½ months!! Residents deserve a full explanation. Will Topology and Phillips Preiss both attend on Thursday?
The PB meeting will start with swearing in of new PB members – and then the selection of its officers and professionals. Apparently the Mayor has handed his Class I position to CM Goldberg (Voices has an OPRA of that correspondence.) Residents will not want to miss these reorganization steps as they will shape much of what will now happen in Teaneck’s land use future.
The final agenda items for Thursday will have the PB decide whether the ordinances Council has been proposing (see above) are consistent with the Town’s Master Plan. Just what that Master Plan is will likely have been shaped by what has happened earlier in the meeting, i. e will the PB have voted on the publicly repudiated draft from September? Or will the 2007 current Master Plan be referenced when the PB looks for MP consistency?

Voices believes its Town residents deserve more competent representation!
Residents will not want to miss either of these public meetings!

Board of Education hears Good News from the Superintendent

The first regular 2025 meeting of the Board of Education illustrates that the newly constituted Board may be ready to proceed civilly and competently. Readers with 2 free hours can review the video of the entire meeting (Click Here). If, instead, you would like to hear 15 minutes of the district’s recent positive achievements (including good district-wide attendance records, a grant to enable FDU graduate students to implement a new mental health program, and a big win by the THS women’s basketball team) move the cursor to 2min&30sec. Or if you want to see the entire board coherently discuss both student protest policy and personnel priorities before sending relevant resolutions back to their respective committees for wordsmithing, dip into anywhere in the hour of video beginning at 38min. Even the 2 public input sessions went smoothly. The next BOE meeting is a Workshop on Wednesday, February 5 at 7:00 pm.

This Week in Teaneck – January 27-31

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.

Presentation on Plans for Route 4 Hackensack Bridge Replacement Beginning anytime on Monday, January 27 to February 7, readers are encouraged to visit a presentation about current plans for the long-awaited replacement/improvement of this weak bridge. The presentation’s website address is Control/Click www.rt4hackensackriverbridge.com

Comments are sought from those who watch this presentation. Plans are scheduled for completion in Summer 2025, and construction is to begin in Winter 2026.

Council Meeting – Tuesday, January 28, 2025, public session at 8:00 pm – hybrid: in person in the Council Chambers and access by Zoom at Click Here and add passcode 909000. For the Agenda Packet, Click Here

Important meeting for finalizing appointments to BOA and Planning Board (see related PB story). A variety of Land Use actions were found variously in the hearing/vote on Auxiliary Dwelling Units (ADUs) and Ordinance Introductions related to the proposed open space acquisition of the long-sought 1084 Queen Anne Property and for some unclear reason two ordinances that would again approve redevelopment plans for both 100 and 140 State Street (see related stories)

Youth Advisory Board – Wednesday, January 29 at 6:00 pm by Zoom – Presumably again at Click Here and add passcode 000695). No other information is available

Teaneck Historic Preservation Commission – Wednesday, January 29, 202,5 by Zoom only at Click Here and add passcode 300907. For Agenda, Click Here

Teaneck Planning Board – Thursday, January 30, 2025, at 7:30 in MP-1 of the Rodda Center. Only participants in attendance will speak. But Zoom is available by Click Here and adding passcode 099780. For Agenda, Click Here

The agenda found on the Town website does – though belatedly – suggest that this long-delayed PB meeting will seek to achieve in this single meeting the following: 1) swearing in of its new members which will apparently number 5; 2) conduct the Board’s reorganization which will include its selection of its 3 officers (chair, vice-chair and secretary) and its appointment of its Board attorney, its planner and its professional board secretary. 3) memorialize resolutions from prior Board meetings, 2 of which involve amending site plans for two approved AINR properties, one which allows a variance for an awning at a house of worship and the other to approve 2025 Board meeting dates; and 4)a continued hearing on the draft Master Plan 5) hearings to review whether 3 ordinances currently scheduled for a final vote on 1/28 (two days earlier) are consistent with the Town’s Master Plan

Currently who the new or newly-reappointed PB members are is uncertain since the Council will have made decisions on 3 of 4 of them two days earlier.
The hearing on the draft Master Plan will be a hearing on the same exact document that was heavily criticized by all but one member of the public who spoke in the prior MP hearing on September 19, 2024 – 4 ½ months ago. Whether the Board will seek to move the draft MP document to a vote is not addressed in the Township agenda.

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