THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ABOUT MASTER PLANS APPEARED IN THE AUGUST 8, 2021 ISSUE OF TEANECK VOICES. WE ARE RE-PUBLISHING IT FOR OUR READERS TO PREPARE FOR REVIEWING THE 2024 DRAFT MASTER PLAN AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK TO THE PLANNING BOARD ON MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2024:
You’ve found the perfect town for your family! Good public schools, charming houses with nice lawns and appealing landscaping, attractive shopping streets, and a variety of restaurants! You’ve connected with a great realtor! Your realtor really understands you and your family and has shown you several houses that could possibly be your dream house.
Perfect!!
But you have a little niggling feeling that maybe something could change – could a tall apartment building be built down the street? Could a 24-hour convenience store be built on the block? Could someone tear down one of the other charming houses on the street to build a huge house that covers every inch of the lot?
You remember visiting friends in Houston. They had a large beautiful house, but they could reach out their kitchen window and clasp hands with their neighbors if the neighbors were reaching out their kitchen window! And the new light rail stop and convenience store were just four doors down their once beautiful street! Why couldn’t that happen to you?
You share your anxiety with your realtor who assures you, “No need to worry! In our township, we have a Master Plan that establishes zoning, something that Houston does not have. Our Master Plan is basically a social contract between you and the town that establishes what can and cannot be done on any piece of land in this municipality.
Master Plan. A Master Plan represents a Social Contract between a municipality and its residents. It is a document that lays out land, infrastructure, and use requirements for a municipality, to result in a harmonious and sustainable environment for the performance of all their economic and social functions efficiently and effectively. The purpose of a Master Plan is to promote growth and guide and regulate the present and future development of towns and cities. Most importantly, the Plan translates community values, desires, and visions into land use and development principles that can guide the future growth of the community.
A Master Plan is based on inclusive planning. It considers all segments of people in society. A Master Plan leads to a balanced growth of the municipality. It prevents concentration of a particular activity at one place and provides for efficient and equitable distribution of facilities, infrastructure, networks, and housing.
You sigh with relief and proceed to go through the stressful and complicated process of purchasing your dream home. You settle in, plant a garden, join the PTO, and reflect on your good fortune. Two years later you hear that your town Planning Board, with the approval of the Town Council, has decided to build an 8-story apartment building at the end of your block. In a panic, you call your former realtor asking how the Master Plan, your contract with the town, can allow it. Your realtor tells you that the Planning Board has spot-zoned the lot, so even though it is in a single-family residential zone, that lot now allows multistory, multifamily housing.
Spot Zoning Spot zoning in real estate occurs when a small piece of land within a specific zone is zoned for use other than the use designated by the established zone. It is a change in the zoning law for one “spot” of land, for example, spot zoning a parcel in a single-family residential zone for a multifamily structure like an apartment building. This can cause problems because residents may want the area to be allocated only for the designated zone use.
Spot zoning is an exception to the normal zoning regulations. Spot zoning normally happens when an individual, group, or business entity asks the Planning Board to allow development barred by the zoning originally designed for the area in order to carry out a particular activity. The local government agency must then consider how the proposed zoning exception will affect neighboring properties and decide whether it is in the public interest before approving the exception to the original zoning.
You barely recover from that news, when your next-door neighbors tell you that they are moving. They’ve sold their lovely four-bedroom home to a family that plans to tear the house down and build a seven-bedroom/seven-bathroom home. You invite the newcomers in for coffee, and they show you the blueprints and elevations, which show the new house extending almost lot line to lot line, and just a few feet from the curb. “But you can’t do that,” you say, as pleasantly as you can, “The town has a Master Plan.” “Yes,” they reply. “We’re going to the Board of Adjustment to ask for several variances.” “Variances,” you say. “What are those?” Your new neighbors smile and reply, “Variances are the way to get around the Master Plan.”
Variances. A variance is a request to deviate from current zoning requirements. If granted, it permits the owner to use the land in a manner not otherwise permitted by the zoning ordinance. It is not a change in the zoning law, but, instead, it is a specific waiver of requirements of the zoning ordinance. In Teaneck, requests for variance are heard and decided by the Board of Adjustment (BOA). In some municipalities, the BOA is called the Zoning Board.
Variances are supposed to be requested and granted when the property owner can demonstrate that existing zoning regulations present a practical difficulty in making use of the property. In reality, variances are often requested to meet the requirements of a spot-zoned structure or to meet an individual’s design wishes.
In Teaneck, the BOA must notify property owners within 200 feet of the property for which a variance has been requested. If there are objections, the BOA may hold a hearing to determine if the variance should be granted.
Upset about the apartment building at the end of the street, and the giant house next door, you develop migraine headaches. A friend recommends you find a doctor from the many on the street opposite the local hospital. “You know,” your friend says, “That street used to be zoned only for single-family residences and small businesses (a B-R zone). But a few years ago, the Planning Board amended the Master Plan to establish a Medical Office Overlay Zone. It's still a B-R zone, but now also allows medical offices.”
Overlay Zones. Overlay zoning is a regulatory tool whereby a special zoning district is created and placed over an existing base zone(s). The overlay zone identifies special provisions in addition to (or instead of) those in the underlying base zone. Regulations or incentives are attached to the overlay district to encourage particular types of development within a special area. The overlay can allow for different uses, higher development intensity, and modified standards, sometimes combined with various bonuses and incentives.
You make a doctor’s appointment, wondering what value is a Master Plan, a Social Contract, if there are so many ways to “get around” its regulations and requirements.
Let’s step away from our hypothetical “you” to shed some light on this critical question. The Master Plan does establish the basic contract between the town and its residents. It must be rewritten, revised, or reviewed and amended as necessary. However, while our “you” in the story above experienced the bad of the Master Plan get-arounds, there are some beneficial outcomes.
For example, the Teaneck Master Plan allows a driveway to extend only to the line of the front of a house. A resident with several stone steps to his front door requested a variance that would allow him to extend the driveway to a street-level side door near the rear of the house. The reason for the request was an elderly parent living in the house who had difficulty negotiating the front steps. The variance requested was reasonable and understandable. It was to aid the homeowner, without infringing on anyone else’s rights and expectations of the Master Plan.
Similarly, a variance was requested to add one additional rig of pavers around a patio to hold a table and chairs. According to the Master Plan, the additional single ring of pavers would increase the lot coverage to a couple of square feet more than the allowable amount. Again, the quality of life of a family was enhanced by the granting of the variance, without violating the social contract.
Overlay zones like the Medical Office Overlay Zone in the example – a real case here in Teaneck – allows the addition of a benefit to the great majority of the people in town without causing harm to any. It was placed over a zone that already allowed businesses as well as residential uses, so was not imposing something that would not fit in the neighborhood.
However, when it comes to Spot Zoning, it is difficult to find beneficial examples. Spot Zoning by definition means putting something that doesn’t belong there, into a cohesively zoned neighborhood. At the Council meeting on Tuesday, January 5, 2021, the neighbors adjacent to Holy Name Medical Center, spoke at length and emotionally about what is essentially spot-zoning for hospital parking in a single-family residential neighborhood. For those residents, the social contract of the Master Plan has been broken. The neighborhood they moved into, with expectations that it would remain the same, has been radically changed in a way that affects their quality of life and well-being.
At the same Council meeting, the Medical Center presented a plan that would involve requesting that the town amend the Master Plan to create a hospital zone where there is now residential zoning. The present residents would still feel harmed. But new residents moving into the area would have to understand and accept the revised social contract.
The more Teaneck residents understand land use and the various mechanisms and tools of government to determine it, the more those residents will be able to participate in crafting a Master Plan and maintaining the Social Contract.
|