MANCHESTER – Members of the Township Environmental Commission recently met thru Zoom to discuss developments in the area.
Members fleshed out details of the status of the Grunin Properties – Proposed Retail Development and Homeland Towers – Proposed Wireless Communication Tower and the need for documents on the project.
Board Secretary Lauren Frazee said she had e-mailed the project’s engineer and requested a complete copy of the application package and is waiting to hear back from them.
Middaugh said that this was a CAFRA application which goes to the State Department of Environmental Protection and a transition area waiver that concerns wetlands. More information was being sought on the specifics of the plans.
CAFRA stands for Coastal Area Facilities Review Act, which governs any development near a body of water.
“It is two separate applications it looks like,” Commission Chairwoman Peggy Middaugh said. “In the letter it said the 30-day comment period would begin on May 6. We need to get things well before that so we can look at it and make comments that would go directly to the DEP.”
Member Bill Foor added, “The Planning Board is not even involved with this at this point in time because they don’t have site plan or anything like that for this particular property.”
Regarding Homeland Towers on Route 530, the Pinelands Commission sent the Environmental Commission additional information. Middaugh asked for an update on that correspondence and to make sure that the requested information had been provided by the applicant.
Three Pineland Certificates were also discussed. They were projects by the Kokes Organization, Suburban Agency, and David and Lois Nichols.
The Kokes Organization is for a parcel on Schoolhouse Road where there is a community garden and they requested for the parcel to be split into two parcels so that the garden can be given to the town and the other 10 acres would be subdivided.
The Pinelands Commission sent the panel a certification for that to move forward. “It still has to go before the Planning Board and whatever permits it needs to get before the town.”
It was noted that there was a concern of an endangered species being on that property.
Commission member Mary Demerest-Paraan asked if the applicant had any plans for the 10 acres that would be subdivided.
“I don’t think we’ve seen anything about what they intend to do there,” Middaugh said.
The Suburban Agency filing involves a septic system on Second Street. “It is for permission for them to do a septic system,” Middaugh said.
The last filing also involved a request for a septic system on Cabot Avenue.
Demerest-Paraan said it was a few blocks away from her home, “it is a one-acre lot. I don’t have any trouble with it at all.”
They also discussed a recommendation by member Rory Wells for board members to become more versed with information about septic systems. The commission will also be preparing an annual report.
The commission is looking into having someone come in to make a presentation about the septic systems which are often part of applications that are reviewed by the commission.
It was also noted that due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic social distancing guidelines that the planned Earth Day program did not occur and would either be postponed, possibly part of Manchester Day in the fall, or simply be cancelled this year.
Middaugh asked whether the commission had previously contacted the township Planning Board asking if they had a database for tracking landscaping plans for developments.
Frazee said that the draft memo had been put on hold.
Member Bill Foor said “I had suggested we pull the ordinances before we did that.”
“I did pull our current ordinances to see if there was anything relative to that. It doesn’t really require anything as far as maintaining any type of a log or anything along those lines…There is nothing that says anything about maintaining any type of log or register,” Foor added.
“What we are looking for is just follow up to see if six months later it was really done,” Middaugh said.
“I’m not aware of any log that follows up on it in any way,” Foor said.
Middaugh said she felt it made sense to send the Board suggesting such an addition to the requirements.
Foor said that such a suggested change in the ordinance would need to sent for review to both the Planning Board and the Board of Adjustment. “They are both players in this thing.”
