BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer
MONROE — The mayor and council clashed with a political adversary Monday over issues related to proposed adult community zoning.
Former Republican Township Council candidate Audrey Cornish criticized the council for not including the future needs of the Board of Education in a proposed ordinance that would set aside developer fees for the purchase of open space.
Cornish told the council that she had attended a recent school board meeting where she advised board members to come to Monday’s council meeting to ask that some of the land that is eventually purchased be given to the school district for future growth.
“I came forward today to speak about the fact that the Board of Education has not shown up,” Cornish said. “I want it on the record that they did not show up after I spoke at their Board of Education meeting and explained to them how important it was for them to be part of this land exchange.”
Mayor Richard Pucci, a Democrat, replied that the school board was not entitled to benefit from money set aside by developers to preserve open space, because the proposed ordinance listed only the municipality and the developer as participants in the arrangement.
“We’re not talking about when we do a density transfer and property may be given, as part of the transfer, where it’s appropriate for municipal purposes,” Pucci said. “That’s one type.”
The council is still crafting the ordinance, which aims to provide Monroe with additional open space funds while allowing more senior housing. The ordinance would establish PRC-overlay zones, or areas where planned retirement communities could be built, even though the land in question is zoned for single-family housing.
Under the proposal, developers would be allowed to build planned retirement communities, but to do so they would be required to donate land or money to the township for each lot on which the PRC housing would be built. That money would be put into a township open space fund.
To be eligible for the overlay zone, the land must be zoned R-3A, R-30, or R-60, and must be at least 50 acres in size.
The ordinance as originally written required the donation of $6,000 per unit in the R-30 zones, $30,000 per unit in the R-60 zones, and $40,000 per unit in the R-3A zones. Pucci said those numbers, as well as the formula used to obtain those numbers, are being analyzed, and will likely be amended as well.
“We wanted to use logic with the formula so that in each category the formula made sense, and I can only represent from what I’ve seen now, [but] there’s a tweaking of that financial formula, where both the 3 acres and the 1 1/2 acres will show a slight increase [in the fee],” Pucci said. “And dealing specifically with the issue of the 3/4 acres, the formula then adjusts that so that increases by about 60 or 70 percent.”
He also said the Planning Board will be asked to recommend an appropriate fee for the developer, but that the final decision will be made by the council.
Also under the original draft of the ordinance, a portion of the money collected for the open space fund would be set aside in a separate fund. That fund would be used to make small improvements to land purchased with money from the open space fund. The council has yet to determine how much money will be taken from the open space fund.
“We haven’t settled that yet but we’re talking in terms of 20 percent,” Pucci said.
Still, Cornish said this would be a good opportunity for the council to provide the school district with some much-needed land. A donation to the school district would likely ease the district’s portion of the tax burden, she said.
“My kids are already out [of the township school system]. It’s your grandchildren that are here, and your grandchildren that are going to have to live through Applegarth School, not mine,” Cornish told the council. “This is your chance to give this to the kids, and if you don’t give it to them, it’s your responsibility, not mine.”
Pucci told Cornish she is confusing the principle behind the proposed ordinance with a density transfer.
“We were advised by our attorneys, and everyone extensively reviewed it, [that] funds could be put into a trust account and we could use it for open space purchases, which we are,” Pucci said.
According to Pucci, land acquired by the township in a density transfer can be used for any purpose the municipality deems appropriate. Land obtained through the establishment of a PRC-overlay zone, as would be the case with this proposed ordinance, is much more restricted in its use in order to prevent the town from not preserving enough open space.
“The Board of Education can certainly endorse, any time they want from their meetings, if they thought it appropriate, that they support open space,” Pucci said. “And they have had discussions with us about [securing] properties for them in the future, potential school sites in the future. How we go about it, and what we are allowed to do, and the laws we have to follow, that’s a different consideration.”
Cornish then told Pucci the council does not always follow the laws, but only adheres to them when it benefits the municipality.
She referred to the current land swap in which the township has offered 77 acres in return for 35 acres in Thompson Park across School House Road from the current township high school. That land would be used to build a new high school adjacent to the current high school building, which would become a middle school.
Cornish said that land swap represents the township’s circumvention of the laws of the state Green Acres program, which is reviewing the township’s application for the land exchange.
“You’ve already attempted to break Green Acres laws, so what makes you or me think that you’re going to follow the law?” Cornish asked.
Pucci responded that the municipality has never broken a Green Acres law, and that Cornish had no proof or documentation to support her accusations.
Cornish contended that a representative from Green Acres called the proposed land swap “an insult,” and that the land the township is offering for the park land is not an extension of the park, as Cornish claimed township officials had asserted.
She added that although she did not intend to go into the details of the land exchange at the meeting, she felt it should be established that council members were speaking untruths at the meeting and had done so on previous occasions.
Councilman Irwin Nalitt said the council, as well as the municipality’s attorneys, have studied the ordinance and its compliance with the laws that govern such situations, and that anyone who has not studied both the ordinance and the laws should not be interpreting those laws for the council.
Since the ordinance has been tabled, he said discussions on it should be halted temporarily and renewed when the appropriate changes have been made, and it once again comes before the council.
“I think right now we are like a dog chasing its own tail,” Nalitt said. “Nobody knows where this conversation is going; it’s absolutely going nowhere.”