HERE IS A LINK TO THE AGENDA WITH DETAIL
All township BOC meetings are available on video online.
You can also always watch all our board meetings live on Channel 66 RCN cable.
Here is your agenda preview for the Thursday Jan. 19th township meeting. The BOC meetings are the formal business meetings of the elected Board of Commissioners.
Announcements and Presentations:
Proclamation Presentation to Timmer Family:
Dennis Timmer was a long time former parks and recreation volunteer and former chairperson who sadly passed away far too early… The new trailway connecting Hamilton Blvd., Shepherd Hills Park and Harvest Fields will be dedicated the Dennis Timmer Trail in his honor.
New signage honoring longtime township Parks and Recreation volunteer Dennis Timmer.
Dave Nosal – Fire Department Year in Review
Chief Nosal will make the presentation.
HEARINGS & APPROVALS
Resolution 2017-03 – Plan Approval for Michael Kline Minor Subdivision Plan – This is the first of two approvals tonight. This is a minor subdivision on Sweetwood drive. A family would like to subdivide a large property to make additional lots for family members. There were no major planning issues.
Approval of Letter of Agreement Final Draft Regarding Shepherd Hills Golf Course Conservation Easement. This decision was made in large part last week. Information here. This is a formality where the board will authorize signatures of the final agreement. This will preserve the golf course from any future development.
Planning
Zoning and SALDO updates
We have two ordinances dealing with updates to the zoning and SALDO codes. (these are essentially the local rules and regulations relating to development.) SALDO stands for Subdivision and land development ordinance. The term “subdivision” refers to the act of dividing land and making new lot lines; “land development” is improving the land for some purpose. The updates can be put into the following general categories.
1.) Tightening controls on warehousing by making them Conditional uses (as opposed to by right uses) in all zones that we are able. And then adding a number of specific conditions that must be met. This gives us significantly more control.
2.) We significantly tightened up our sign design standards for commercial projects. This included additional regulations on LED signs.
3.) Tightened up landscaping standards for commercial projects.
4.) Required a minimum lot size of 1 acre for an on lot sewer system.
5.) Tightened up the language in our administrative review procedure. A process meant to reduce red tape for small scale, low impact projects.
6.) Increased our required recreation land contributions in liu of fees.
I support all these updates to zoning and SALDO
Managers Report
BOND
Under the Managers report we will vote on the approval of a bond as part of 2017 budget. I have major concerns with the bond issue. Both in terms of increasing our debt payments and also the amount of overall debt we are assuming related to discretionary projects. I will be voting against this.
My thoughts on the bond and budget issues were outlined in detail here on this post.
Hiring civil, structural and mechanical engineers for Community Center expansion.
As I mentioned in prior blogs I do not support this project. While I support library expansion, the problems remains that the project quickly grew beyond the initial proposed scope. While a library expansion of some sort since it is a demonstrated need – as with all bond funded projects the conversation experienced a very rapid “vision creep”. It very quickly expanded from a discussion of matching library funds (for let’s say 250,000 dollars) to secure a grant opportunity for funding a major 5 million dollar community center expansion. I was not ok with the speed this discussion morphed. We had some long term planning activities exploring full gym expansion, but never did I think it was going to become a debt serviced item in the 2017 budget. The amount of money we are considering to spend now should be put to referendum.