Council's Vote on Master Plan Changes Delayed

A number of ordinances were tabled at a Bridgewater Township Council meeting this month since the planning board has not yet made the recommendation for their approval.

Although a vote was not taken on several ordinances introduced to bring the township's master plan into conformance with a re-examination report recently adopted by the Bridgewater Township Planning Board, the public hearings were still held to give residents a chance to voice their opinions.

But none of the few residents in attendance at the meeting had anything to say during the meeting on Sept. 2.

Township Administrator Jim Naples said the council can now move forward with its vote once a recommendation comes from the planning board.

"The planning board has not yet met to make its recommendation," he said. "The board expects to meet at the end of September to review."

Basically, Naples said, zoning and other changes are introduced by the council, then, before they can be voted on, they must be approved by the planning board.

"The council refers all zoning changes back to the planning board to determine if the changes they propose are consistent with the township's master plan," he said.

An amendment was made to the township's master plan concerning economic development and changes to be made, and was then approved by the planning board in April. This followed a previous re-examination of the master plan in 2005 to set goals concerning economic development in the Route 22 corridor.

The goals of the amendments are to protect the town's quality of life and increase tax rateables, while also enabling flexibility in development and offering building design guidelines.

The most contentious concern when the ordinances were introduced in August concerned a plan to require parking garages to have screening to hide the vehicles from view.

Councilman Allen Kurdyla has said he believes there is more of a problem with shielding the vehicles than not, and voted against the introduction of the ordinance.

But Kurdyla made no comment when the public hearing was held.

Bridgewater Township Planner Scarlett Doyle has said that one of the purposes of the ordinance is to make the garages more aesthetically pleasing by hiding the vehicles from view. This same ordinance, Doyle said, also talks about banked parking in case additional spaces are needed at businesses in the future.

Another ordinance concerns the amount of impervious coverage allowed in relation to business sizes, and changes the standard from the original intent that the floor area ratio of an office building can be increased by an amount directly proportional to the decrease in the amount of impervious coverage on the lot.

Instead, if the ordinance is approved, a developer can have a one percent addition in building size for a four percent reduction in impervious land.

A third ordinance changes clauses calling for a maximum lot area of four acres for business uses, and a maximum office floor area of 50,000 square feet, while also adding additional permitted uses to the zone on the Route 22 corridor.

Another ordinance makes the master plan consistent with other ordinances concerning car dealerships, and the right to be expanded and rebuilt if destroyed, while the final two simply rewrite language, but make no changes.

All ordinances are now scheduled for a final vote Oct. 4.