August 25, 2025, Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 31 make our decision. I want to focus on this piece of land and things that we know to be different, such as telling us that there's no endangered species, we've heard that from other experts, there are no endangered species. Doing it again is not -- THE WITNESS: I'm not saying there's no endangered species. I didn't say that. I said this is habitat for all species. Endangered species is an indicator of critical concern, but I'm saying that this is a habitat for many species. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: So are you testifying there are endangered species here that have not been previously identified? THE WITNESS: I'm not testifying that, but this is private land and so it's not -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: You have to be careful with the record. Okay. MR. AFRAN: I think he was very clear to say there where no endangered species, endangered species known on the site. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Right. MR. AFRAN: The witness is saying, this is marked on the state mapping as habitat for wildlife and is showing where habitat is here on this site compared to in the immediate vicinity as well and his purpose, as

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 32 he introduced, was to say we need to look at what other links there are and that this is a part of it. He's not testifying to specific species. He's saying this is the habitat for wildlife that the state map shows. This is land that has some of that habitat. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: We know that. MR. AFRAN: Well, you don't know it in relation to what's around it, which is the point of this map. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Well, the people on the Township Planning Board do know that. MR. AFRAN: Well, I don't think they carry around a visual of this map in peoples heads. It's very useful to see this. That's why it's -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: You don't know what people carry around in their heads, so. MR. AFRAN: We don't know what people carry around in their individual head. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Exactly. MR. AFRAN: And we shouldn't make a survey of that either. It's bad practice. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Let's focus on this piece of land, the differences that we haven't heard. That would make the most sense and most helpful to the Planning Board and public.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 33 THE WITNESS: This is in context of the conservation value. That, you know, there's multiple things in this report. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Yes, we understand. MR. AFRAN: Let's just note -- can you go back just one second, please. Just, since we have had colloquy on this subject, it's a slide headed Number 3, Protect Habitat and in the left hand corner it says, Part 2, Smart Conservation Report Card. Since there's no page numbers, I just wanted to identify what the Chair was referring. MS. MCGOVERN: Well, it's also correct to make sure the record is clear, this is going to be O-22, right? We're going to need a copy of it. MR. AFRAN: One thing I was thinking as we did this, the different overlays, so I think we're going to have to find a way to print the different overlays. MS. MCGOVERN: Whenever you figure that out it's going to be called 0-22. MR. AFRAN: This is Exhibit O-22? MS. McGOVERN: Yes. MR. AFRAN: And the Chair was referring to testimony regarding the slide marked 3, Protect Habitat. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Go ahead. A. And the mapping that I showed live, there's a QR

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 34 code at the end which would be in the presentation that I provide that you can get to NJ Mapping. It's very easy to get into. So Protect Habitat, I was not -- this is a slide showing the endangered species. I'm not -- the point of this is it's habitat for many species and this is just kind of showing that endangered species is compatible there. Okay. That's the point I was trying to make. To Promote Connectivity is a goal of conservation. This parcel is, is in a very ideal situation for the garden state green ways. Vision for connected green ways. And so that's kind of an interesting adaptation to land. Protect Forest Core. That's something that was already mentioned, that this does have core forest, that it will be impacted and so that's a conservation goal. I am not trying to repeat testimony, I am trying to make the case that in a smart growth conservation context these are the things we look at to help planning boards make decisions. As far as Protecting Water Quality, there are many aspects of this. This is showing active river area in the red. That's a TNC nature conservancy model that also shows buffers and wetland buffers there and you can see in the purple that this is within the Passaic River

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 35 and it's the Canoe Brook watershed. Mitigating Flood Risk. Again, this is -- now I'm showing further down on the Canoe Brook headwaters being very clear at the start of this parcel. The orange areas there are FEMA and FEMA plus 3, which is the DEP mapping, just to give you an indication that as hydrology changes for this site it changes down river and it will impact flooding events in these area that are now mapped. Steep Slopes. There are a number of steep slopes here that are greater than 15 percent. Again, this is just priorities for conservations. Ideal to prioritize areas of steep slope because they are areas that are often not ideal for development. And number nine here, Protect Important Soils. This has two different branches. One, if this was farmland I would've found farm soils. This is forested land, and so we used the NRCS forest soil productivity map and for that, A1 is the most production. This is 1B. I mean 1A is the most noted and this is 1B, so second tier in productivity for forestry. That's in growing and managing forests. And finally we have Community Green Space. Now, this is one that -- open space is not just for habitat for animals, it's habitat for people too. People like

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 36 to enjoy outdoors, so this model, this is one that we do for the conservation blueprint, is take into consideration if you could be passive or an active recreation. What are the features or factors that would make it conducive to being ideal for usage by people. And so those are the ten factors. Again, you can put your own grades to them. I did not grade these for this, but I wanted to leave that up to the audience to do and to the Planning Board, but to have these factors make you think about what is the context of the proposed development and the importance if it was conserved. Here are the framework of metrics that can help you understand the priorities that the planning world and the conservation world have identified. Okay. So, again, I am kind of wrapping things up here. This is just giving an idea of how we use this Geospatial technology to understand land systems. Landscapes change over time. It is a living system and so we look at the most recent satellite images we have on NJ Map, but we also have going back, here is 1997 and we can see that there is more forest back then. And go back to 1930 and see what the landscape was then. There was a lot of deforestation that happened in the 1800's. This area was forested, and we go all the way back to the Vermeule maps. Vermeule actually surveyed in the

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 37 field, you can imagine the detail of doing this, this is the 1880's. This was forested and many times other parts of northern New Jersey were completely deforested. So this is an area that has been forested at least since 1880's and so, you know, that gives you kind of the context of what is the future going forward for the next 30, 100, 150 years of this parcel. So with that I will wrap up my presentation. Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you for your questions. Here are the maps that I mentioned. Again, it's very user friendly, but you can use this QR code or you can click on these links I provided in the presentation to the board and thank you very much for your attention. Q. I have one quick follow up question. Thank you very much. Could you go back to the soil quality chart. I wanted to clarify one piece of testimony. Now, you mentioned that the purple area is 1B, is it 1B -- A. 1B, correct. Q. And you said that was second tier, meaning it was the most productive before the first, which is the farmland? A. No, this is forest productivity and so 1B, and I

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 38 apologize, the key I had to cut and paste from a web page, so you know, this is the presentation, but on the web page itself it has the full documentation of it but 1A is the most productive soils and 1B is described as slightly less productive than 1A. Q. And there are six levels on your chart? A. Correct. And the blue is saturated forest soils, so that would not be productive but it would be swamp type forest you see there. So you can see the wetlands really pop out on the site. Doesn't mean it can't be forested, but it's a different nature of forest. Q. So when you said it was second tier you only meant that in relation to the first level, this is actually second highest out of six categories? A. Correct. And I, you know, if I were to tell you what my grade would be, this would be a B. This is not an A, it's a B, but you can see other areas that are green, they would be A. As far as forest productivity, the quality of it. And so, yes, it doesn't mean that it's -- the wording literally is slightly less productive than 1A. Q. I just want to clarify, so second tier is second out of the six? A. Correct. Q. It's not just second out of two?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 39 A. Correct. Q. Okay. Thank you. MR. AFRAN: Thank you. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Thank you. Mayor McCartney, do you have any questions -- MR. AFRAN: We can't quite hear you. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Mayor McCartney, do you have any questions on his testimony? MAYOR McCARTNEY: Good evening, Mr. Hasse. I think that this would be a very interesting lesson on smart growth planning for any new planning member. I said that I think this would be a very interesting lesson for all new planning board members to learn about smart growth. I found that it was very useful training. In this particular case though it seemed like this is a community meeting for us to decide -- actually, all though smart growth matches our Master Plan, you would agree with that this parcel is not for sale. So this is a, this is a community meeting for us to decide if we can conserve it. We are trying to do our best to the conserve it and what this particular development has, you do have in your presentation that there was 120 acres, it was also in that slide 120 acres, you said it was 24 units per acre but in this case 25 of those acres are steep slope and 61 are

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 40 developable acres and left standing is 27.9. So as far as this particular case, I think following smart growth planning, they are doing the best they can to conserve over 20 acres of this parcel and we have to decide if they're doing it correctly or not. The inference I felt, my take away was the inference that you were saying is that this is sprawl and from what I see from them trying to condense everything to the 27 acres, it's not sprawl. They're doing the best they can to not create sprawl. I don't know that I have a question buried in there, just seemed that, that was my take away. There was a section about transportation accessibility, we don't have a train station in town but the town has put together a jitney system, we have seven different routes all over town to get people where they need to be. So we are just doing the best we can. So I don't have a question. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Thank you. MAYOR McCARTNEY: As much as we would like to conserve as much we can it's not for sale. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Vice Chairman Guarino, do you have any questions? VICE CHAIRMAN GUARINO: Yes sir, I do Mr. Chairman. Thank you Professor for being here this evening.