There’s something seriously wrong with the system. All over. But let’s use Atlantic Highlands for an example. Get Out of Jail Card
The Atlantic Highlands Planning Board, presumably like all planning boards, is hard working, intense, knows what it has to do and takes pains to do it correctly.
Under the current chairman, John Goldrick, who was unanimously re-elected at Monday’s reorganization meeting as chair, it is a dedicated, determined, organized, and very investigative and inquisitive board.
Members listen carefully to every word an applicant or his professionals says, review every file that is presented, obviously do their homework in advance of the meeting, and ask questions that bring out even more information and help them make decisions.
When an application is continued at subsequent meeting, it is obvious these planners bring their notes with them and continue to ask questions that may not have been answered before.
The fact so many who have served eagerly agree to subsequent terms when offered is more indication they are dogged, tenacious, and resolved, to say nothing of generous with their volunteer time.
One of the purposes of a planning board is to hear evidence and make decisions on granting variances, deviations from the borough’s laws that determine the health and welfare of all residents, the esthetics of the surroundings and the preservation of everything from history to the life of a tree.
Ye it does not appear to be anything in planning board rules that requires an applicant to know, research or report on any history of anything he wants to change.
Nor is there anything that stops a person from buying up a piece of land with the express purpose of making money, then coming to the borough and ask for change so he can alter the appearance of a property or a neighborhood or a business district, all for the primary purpose of filling his own pocket.
All of which makes it rather ironic when you realize: the purpose of a variance is to give person the legal right to break the law.
In many cases, there are reasonable arguments and rationale for breaking the law.
A house may have been built in the right way on the right size piece of land, obeying all the rules at the time it was built. But then the borough changed some laws and all of a sudden, that particular property is not in conformance with the new laws. Should that owner want to do anything say enlarge his house, or put in a driveway, he then needs to appear before the planning board, meet all their requirements, fill out all the papers, pay all the costs,and request the right to break the law that went into effect after he bought or built his house.
But when a resident or businessman wants to stretch the matter, when he wants more than a few little things, he begins to change the nature, the character, the historic significance of a particular section, or perhaps the entire town.
Then, with planning board approval, all of a sudden his particular domain becomes a part of the sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, changing environment. And the community begins to look different, all of which makes it easier for the next guy to point to the changes the planning board allowed and use it as his excuse and reason for his doing the same thing yet someplace else.
And so, piece by piece, little by little, section by section, the little community that was organized in the 19th century on lands they themselves had already changed, becomes something else.
All these changes lead to other changes that create other problems, other reasons to have other people ask for other reasons to break the law. Allow a daily commuter boat to come in and out of the harbor like they did in the 19th century when ferries brought New Yorkers to the beaches and you learn that in the 21st century, that also means fewer beaches, bigger boats, changes to the environment, lots more cars, need for more parking area, and the latest, electric chargers to keep the newest battery driver cars mobile.
Convert what used to be living quarters for small shop owners into highly sought apartments over a busy shop avenue and all of a sudden there are huge parking problems.
Pave the roads, build more houses, bring in new industries all impact the level of the land, where the water goes, and so much more. Change a corner of the main street into a brewery with no esthetic exterior value and you begin to blur the beauty of the old home town.
The borough rightfully prides itself on being a Tree City, a sign it recognizes the need for nature to be included in every ambitious development.
But is permitting the destruction of 33 fully grown mature trees and their underground, rambling root systems with the same number of young new trees really protecting the environment?
How does the uprooting and attributes of the old trees affect the surrounding soil, the surrounding surfaces that absorbed water?
Does tearing down old buildings to make way for new, really improve a town?
Is permitting improved and more energy-requiring apartments that increase the value of the borough financial assets worth the change they create?
Does attracting more residents who require more parking, other improvements they miss from their old neighborhoods then push to have those things introduced into their new home space mean the new folks the very things they came here to avoid should now be introduced here?
The list goes on.
Where it gets more dangerous and means quicker changes, even for the newer folks who don’t even know or care what was here before they were, is when the planners are swayed by arguments for variances like “you did it for them, why not for me?”
The latest example of that was at this week’s planning board meeting when the applicant, who has already made major changes on First Avenue appearance, argued, that indeed, all those trees should come down, sure we’ll replace them. But four houses should really be built on the property even though the law only allows three. After all, you just did it not long ago on the west side of town. Remember, the professional told the planners, you allowed the same thing to happen simply because a bigger piece of property would require a bigger more expensive home in order for the property owner to make a profit. And after all, most of the homes in that neighborhood are small, so it would look “funny,” “out of place’ and not in keeping with the neighborhood. You said it was okay for him, so it should be okay for me as well.
More irony.
Forget about the fact you specifically bought the property in order to build and make money on it. Are we really all supposed to believe you did it to preserve the old neighborhood?
Sometimes there may be good reason to break the law. Sometimes there should not be a new law in the first place. The planners one case this week made it better than it would have been had that not been involved at all.
And maybe that’s the real purpose of a planning board anyway. …approve stuff, make it better than originally planned and keep both the applicant and the public each a little bit happy.
But a board designated to decide when and how that should happen really owes it to the entire town, not just those who want to make money in it, to give a long hard look at every aspect before giving their stamp of approval to changing that little corner of the world.
