Amendments to township’s zoning ordinance needed
By:Eve Collins
MANSFIELD The Township Committee held a meeting Dec 31 to take action on issues that needed to be handled before the new year, including amendments to the township zoning ordinance and a long-negotiated contract with sanitary workers that fell through.
The issues were supposed to be discussed at the Dec. 26 regular meeting which was canceled because there were too few committee members in attendance.
The township has made amendments to the zoning ordinance, as required by a court order, before the Dec. 31 deadline.
The amendments are part of a settlement with D.R. Horton, Inc., the developer involved in the Crystal Lake project, which filed a lawsuit three years ago, saying Mansfield was in violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1985.
Each township is required to have housing for low- to moderate-income families. Mansfield does have such housing, said Township Planner Louis Glass, but part of meeting that requirement is rehabilitating existing housing, which the township was doing under the county’s ordinance. The judge determined that Mansfield needed its own ordinance.
The court retained its own expert, Richard Coppola of Coppola and Coppola Associates in Princeton, to determine whether changes to the township’s ordinance were needed.
Mr. Coppola proposed to the court that the township should make changes, Mr. Glass said.
Also at the meeting, approval for a contract with the AFL/CIO fell through even after two years of negotiations with the workers.
Township Clerk/Administrator Donna Snyder said the committee managed to get through negotiations and mediation with the sanitation workers, but that approval of the contract has been delayed because of a mix-up involving faxed documents that were sent to the wrong office. The documents were on the wrong desk for 11 days, she said.
"Everyone, including myself, Ron Carty, and Jeff Jones worked very hard on this," Ms. Snyder said. "It would have been good to get this done for the new year."
Outgoing Mayor Ron Carty also acted as sanitation director for the township.
Ms. Snyder said the contract appears to be delayed once again, but that she has not yet been instructed to add it to an agenda of a future committee meeting and does not know when the matter will be discussed again.

