Morris
County Planning Board:
Over-Seeing or Under-Estimating?
Morris County
Board of Chosen Freeholders
Meeting, November 25, 1997
Waivers
Breaking
Cellular
Towers Cut Down to Size?
Don't
Bet on It! (Cellular Towers)
Lurking LURRA
Looms Larger
Lurking
LURRA Seeks Sponsor
Uniform
Site Standards Adopted
In
the State Pipeline ...
Senate 824
MORRIS COUNTY
PLANNING BOARD: OVER-SEEING OR UNDER-ESTIMATING?
Attention all
residents of Morris County: your Planning Board has decided
unilaterally that you like urban sprawl and you don't like mass
transit. Those were the conclusions recently reached on future growth
and development by the county Planning Board. Frustrated by the
difficulty in coming up with alternatives to cookie cutter zoning and
raising the necessary funds for alternatives to highway widening, the
Planning Board seems to have decided to blame the residents for
refusing to give up their cars or their colonials.
The failure here
may be one of imagination. Workable alternatives are out there, they
just need to be found and implemented. The county Planning Board may
simply lack the vision to seek them out. Somerset County has a Master
Plan which incorporates the concepts of urban and village centers,
with an eye towards channeling development in a controlled manner,
allowing growth but with minimum impact on the environment. Developers
will naturally choose the path of least resistance and maximum profit,
hence their preference for paving over farms and meadows. It is up to
Planning Boards at the county and local levels to provide them with
alternatives that allow them to earn a living within the context of a
system designed to benefit everyone. Throwing up one's hands and
bowing to a non-existent "inevitable" serves no one and no
purpose. -- JM
MORRIS COUNTY
BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS MEETING,
NOVEMBER 25, 1997
Morris County
Land Development Standards: The Morris County Planning Board
presented proposed revisions and modifications to land development
standards at a well-attended public hearing on November 25. The
proposed changes would update the current standards, which have been
in effect since 1972, in the areas of road widening and stormwater
runoff management, and would give some recognition to regional
planning objectives. Under this proposal, the minimum paved width
of a county road fronting along future subdivisions would be 36' with
full curbing on a 66' right-of way. Waivers to the width standards
would be granted for applications in which (1) the existing road width
has been established by previous improvements, or (2) redevelopment of
an existing site will have little or no impact, or (3) single family
residences are located on lots of 2 acres or more, or (4) road
widening would be onerous or impractical.
Before opening
the discussion to public comment, the Freeholders adopted a
resolution to return the proposal to the planning board for further
revisions which will incorporate an additional waiver from the road
widening standards for rural and historic roads, and add a new
provision that the county standards for stormwater runoff management
should not supersede corresponding local standards. The
Freeholders then took comments from members of the public, all of whom
expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal in its original form and
supported the additional changes. Although the planning board will
probably not be able to complete a draft of the new proposal for
public review before the end of the year, the Freeholders encouraged
residents to continue providing input during the interim. -- GCC
WAIVERS
BREAKING
Despite
assurances to the contrary, the Residential Site Standards legislation
in effect since June is already threatening the Great Swamp (and by
extension, other environmentally sensitive areas in the state).
Harding Township's adoption of a "no net increase"
stormwater ordinance has already run afoul of the new uniform
standards. The state Department of Community Affairs board studying
the proposed ordinance for review purposes has used the new
legislation to comment adversely on it. The board is headed by Robert
Kirkpatrick, a long-time foe of no net increase ordinances while
serving as municipal engineer in Chatham Township. -- JM
CELLULAR
TOWERS CUT DOWN TO SIZE?
Governor Whitman
has signed into law the "Crincoli Act" (named for the mayor
of Garwood who championed it), which makes it harder for phone
companies to overturn local ordinances in the name of "inherent
benefit" and erect cellular towers. The law exempts specific
other claimants of beneficial use, including nursing homes and
hospitals, and it is unclear where assisted living facilities fall
under the new legislation.
Prior to the
passage of this law it was common for cellular phone companies to
overturn local zoning and obtain variances in court. In the Garwood
case a 40 foot height restriction was overturned in Superior Court and
Bell Atlantic erected a 107 foot tower.
A cellular tower
is currently proposed for the watershed at a site in Harding Township.
-- JM
DON'T BET ON
IT! (Cellular Towers)
According to
reports in the news media 8/13/97, faced with pressure from the
Federal Government (and their lobbyists in the telecommunications
industry) the state of New Jersey has agreed to build 122 cellular
communication towers along state and interstate highways. Once again
invoking the mantra of "inherently beneficial use", the
rationale includes maintaining emergency communications facilities as
well as normal commercial cellular traffic. However, the state would
receive substantial fees (in the millions) from the companies using
the towers.
The towers would
all be built on state-owned property on highway right-of-ways, thus
effectively removing them from the local zoning approval process (and
possibly from the above-mentioned law). The environmental impact of
the towers would vary, and they would be subject to existing state
regulations, including D.E.P. statutes concerning wetlands. The main
objection over the years has been to the intrusive visual nature of
the towers. Several towers in the area have been designed to be
"disguised" as other objects, including trees and -- in
Mendham -- a bell tower.
Based on news
reports there appear to be four towers planned for the watershed:
three in Harding and one in Morris Township, all along Rt. 287. One of
these is the site already under application in the rest area north of
Sand Spring Road. The remaining sites are unknown. -- JM
UPDATE 8/20/97:
Now you see 'em, now you don't. Alarmed by public outcry, the
Governor's office has put the expansion plan on hold until the
communities involved get to express their opinions.
LURKING LURRA
LOOMS LARGER
The LURRA bill
(Land Use Regulatory Reform Act) is once again in committee in the
state legislature, this time with bipartisan support. Strenuously
opposed by all the municipalities in the state, the bill proposes to
limit (in effect, to eliminate) the powers of local Planning Boards
and replace them with a single appointed official who would wield
great power in determining local land use policies. As to who would
benefit by such a situation, suffice it to say that the legislation
was drafted by the NJ Builders Association.
The bill has been
characterized by some in the environmental community as the biggest
threat to local land use authority since the Mt. Laurel court
decisions of the 1970s. --JM
(Click
here for related material on LURRA.)
LURKING
LURRA SEEKS SPONSOR
A 113-page Land
Use Regulatory Reform Act (LURRA), drafted by the NJ Builders
Association (which was also instrumental in formulating the Statewide
Residential Site Improvement Standards now under review by the
Department of Consumer Affairs) has been expanded from a previous
version which first surfaced in 1995 and is quietly awaiting
legislative sponsorship. The proposal includes a number of
amendments to the Municipal Land Use Law which would greatly diminish
the authority of local planning boards and shift control of the
planning process to the State.
Extensive background and discussion
on LURRA is posted at New Jersey Planning Officials (NJPO),
http://njpo.org.
--GCC
UNIFORM SITE
STANDARDS ADOPTED
Department of
Community Affairs Commissioner, Jane Kenny, approved the Uniform
Residential Site Standards regulations on Thursday December 5, 1996.
The standards are expected to appear in the January 6, 1997 New Jersey
Register. All related municipal ordinances must be changed to conform
by the effective date of June 3. Legislation supported by
municipalities to amend the standards, A-331 (Arnone) and S-1556
(Connors) is stalled.
IN THE STATE
PIPELINE...
The New Jersey
State Legislature Home Page (http://www.njleg.state.nj.us)
lists the following bills introduced in the
1996/1997 Legislative session having the potential to affect life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the Great Swamp Watershed:
A331: Narrows
focus of uniform site improvement guidelines to engineering
construction standards. Sponsored by Assemblymen Arnone and
Pascrell, the bill would limit applicability of Statewide residential
construction site improvement standards (presently under review by the
Department of Community Affairs) to engineering construction standards
as applicable to the physical infrastructure of residential
developments. Among other changes to P.L. 1993, c.32(C.40:55D-40.1,
the proposed amendments would require that the recommended standards
be formulated as a range of standards which reflect the diversity of
the State's geography, soil types and settlement patterns.
UPDATE
9/9/96: NJPO (http://njpo.org)
reports that the bill has been moved out of
committee by unanimous vote of the Legislature's Local Affairs
Committee on August 23, 1996.
A494: Exempts
assisted living residences and comprehensive personal care homes from
certificate of need. Assemblywoman Vandervalk introduced this bill
to exempt assisted living residences and comprehensive personal care
homes from the requirement to obtain a certificate of need (CON),
which "...imposes an artificial limitation on the immediate
development of what is essentially senior citizen housing, and
unnecessarily restricts the right of those persons who need or desire
this type of residence to choose where they prefer to live."
A672: Defines
"inherently beneficial use", modifies treatment under
Municipal Land Use Law. This bill, sponsored by Assemblymen Bagger
and Augustine, is intended to define the term "inherently
beneficial use" and differentiates its meaning when applied to
health care facilities and non-health care facilities. For
applications involving health care facilities (as defined under
section 2 of P.L. 1971, c.136 (C.26:2H-2), the bill would define
"inherently beneficial use" as a use that by its essential
nature or character serves the public good and promotes the general
welfare.
An identical bill
S824 has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Schluter. --GCC
SENATE 824
A bill in the New
Jersey Senate aims to define "assisted living" and give
guidance to communities with pending applications.
Senate
#824.
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