LACEY – Township Committee meetings are normally held on specified Thursday evenings but a recent 9 a.m. session had officials fixing a decade old typographical error in a zoning ordinance.
Ordinance # 2022-23 amended chapter 335 Zoning and corrected a typo. Township Clerk/Business Administrator Veronica Laureigh explained that upon several conversations involving the Planning Board and others “it seems in the way the code book was printed there was an issue about multi-family dwellings on a five-acre tract. Bruce Jacobs referred to the Master Plan update that was done in 2012 that says the minimum tract size shall be five acres. It does not refer to a maximum.”
“When the code book was done it was misprinted with the word maximum versus minimum and he was always referring to the master plan document as opposed to the ordinance so we are just correcting a typographical error,” Laureigh said.
Mayor Mark Dykoff said prior to his vote that he wanted some clarification on the issue “because I know there has been a lot of misinformation. I know some of you are here to speak on this ordinance. Keep in mind how an ordinance works. When we introduce an ordinance on first reading, we don’t open the floor to public comment.
“You can come to public comments and speak but there is a follow-up second ordinance where we actually open the floor to the public to comment,” the mayor said noting this occurs before “we finalize the ordinance.”
“You are welcome to speak on this today but the bite of the apple will be when we read the second ordinance. That would be the time we’d be able to answer more questions. I vote yes thank you,” Mayor Dykoff added.
The governing body then approved on second reading an ordinance that established Flood Hazard areas. Laureigh said this measure was in accordance to new FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) regulations and that municipalities were mandated to adopt new flood maps. If it wasn’t adopted it would result in flood insurance increases for residents and they would no longer be in compliance. Additionally, “we (the township) would not be in compliance as well.”
An ordinance governing noise was also approved on second reading during the meeting. This ordinance adopts a state model pursuant to the New Jersey Noise Control Act. “If you have been following our meetings, we had some concerns with news and quality of life issues in neighborhoods and we had to adopt our ordinance with the state model we got from the state which says it is compliant,” she said.
Deputy Mayor Timothy McDonald remarked, “this is long overdue. We’ve been having problems in residential areas for over a year and a half about this and our old ordinance didn’t have any teeth in it. This now gives us some teeth and gives the police the ability to enforce it.”
Officials also approved a resolution authorizing participation in the Bergen County Cooperative Pricing System. Laureigh explained this was being done in order for Lacey to purchase emergency equipment from a vendor at a more competitive price. “In order for us to purchase this equipment at that price we will enter into the cooperative.”
