Please attend Plainfield’s City Council Meeting this Monday. The second reading of the ordinance to amend the Historic Preservation Ordinance will be occurring. It is vitally important that the voters and taxpayers of Plainfield join and speak. You will be commenting on ordinance MC 2022-35 on the agenda early in the meeting (on the second page of the agenda).
August 15, 2022
7:00 pm
ZOOM Link to Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/99101955881
Agenda Link: http://plainfieldcitynj.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1215&Inline=True
For years, the city council has been pressured and/or misled into approving resolutions for “blight studies” (euphemistically referred to as “redevelopment studies”) for properties for which there may be need for clean-up, repair, or code enforcement, but for which there is no evidence of blight or the danger of blight to surrounding areas, and no evidence that drastic, destructive “redevelopment” measures are needed, in order to best serve the general welfare of the people of Plainfield. The Planning Board has, in turn, been pressured and/or misled into wrongly and illegally making determinations that such properties are “blighted” and “in need of redevelopment”, aka drastic alteration or destruction.
In the above manner, blight studies have repeatedly been illegally abused, in order to illegally provide taxpayer-funded advantages to developers, and to illegally allow developers to bypass zoning, planning, and historic preservation processes designed to protect and serve the people of Plainfield.
Recently, the Planning Board rightly declined to find Grace Episcopal Church to be “blighted” and “in need of redevelopment”.
Members of the city council have a right to receive word of agenda items and materials needed for consideration of agenda items well in advance of city council meetings. Consistent with unacceptable, but now common practice, proposals for amendments to the Historic Preservation Ordinance were provided to council members at the last minute, with no prior information or discussion.
One of the Historic Preservation Ordinance amendments calls for allowing the city to move forward on projects by municipal departments without seeking Historic Preservation Commission approval. While the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law permits municipal bodies to bypass HPCs in order to serve vital municipal functions, it does not permit city councils to pass, repeal, or amend ordinances in order to alter outcomes of matters already before the city, such as the future of the Grace Church property. It does not permit city councils to take measures to classify otherwise private projects as, in whole or in part, “city projects”, or to add specific properties to existing projects in which the city is a participant, for the primary purpose of advancing projects not able to advance under ordinances as previously written. It would be illegal to attempt to bypass otherwise required processes for projects regarding the Grace Church or former YMCA building, by seeking to include one or both of these buildings in the nearby transit village.
By stripping the Historic Preservation Commission of most of its advisory functions, the proposed amendments would strip city personnel, board members, and city council members of their ability to make decisions based on all relevant information.
By ending HPC informal information sessions regarding matters not subject to Zoning Board of Adjustment or Planning Board review, the amendments would make it unduly cumbersome for homeowners and small businesses to assure compliance with the Historic Preservation Ordinance, and to make sound decisions regarding their properties.
By revoking HPC’s right to ask the council to seek injunctions for serious and irreversible historic preservation violations, the amendments hobble both HPC and the city council in exercising their full authority to meet their obligations to the people of Plainfield.
To avoid abuses, keep processes from being overly burdensome, keep HPC agendas manageable, and afford flexibility to residents and small businesses, HPCs should have to meet in quorum for decisions on large projects, while HPC chairs should be permitted to unilaterally sign off on small projects, when appropriate and legal. One amendment requires the full HPC to meet in regard to even the smallest of projects, bogging down the commission, limiting time available for consideration of large and complex projects, and creating long waits for approval of minor projects, and possible public hostility toward preservation efforts.
While some in city leadership speak of referrals to HPC as discretionary, and adherence to HPC recommendations as optional, the fact is that the Planning Board is required, under the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law, to refer all matters affecting historic properties and districts to the HPC, and that the City Clerk may not issue permits for actions counter to HPC recommendations.
As with the Historic Preservation Commission amendments, city council was given inadequate notice of the proposal to purchase the YMCA building, with no explanation of why the city needs the property. At the most recent city council meeting, the mayor contradicted himself by claiming both that the use of the property would be determined by a robust public feedback process, and that he had already determined that the structure should be used as a “center of excellence” that does not have the kind of defined purpose needed before taking any steps to advance any center of excellence proposal, and does not conform to any common understanding of what a center for excellence is. The city council has a right and responsibility to understand specifics of how this $5.18 million purchase is to serve the people of Plainfield.
The city council president has said that in-person city council and board meetings will soon resume. The letter and spirit of New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Law is best served by continuing to allow members of the public to maintain the option of attending meetings via Zoom, even after in-person meetings resume.