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5/1/18 Business Meeting

By: Joseph L. Kuchie

SOUTH AMBOY – The city of South Amboy has begun to take the necessary steps to update their current zoning ordinance.

The current ordinance was enacted in 1968 and updated in 1978, but has not been addressed since. City Attorney John Lanza believed it was vital for the city to bring it back up to date.

“We owe it to our citizens, and also to us, to have a comprehensive review of our zoning ordinance and have it brought up to date,” Lanza said. “I assure you it’s for a good purpose. It’s something that’s needed in the city especially with the enforcement of zoning ordinances and defending these ordinances we have to put forth.” 

McKinley Mertz, an Associate Planner with Heyer, Gruel, and Associates, presented her firm’s plan to the council during Tuesday’s business meeting. Heyer, Gruel, and Associates helped create the city’s Master Plan and will now look to help redevelop a zoning ordinance that hasn’t been updated in nearly 40 years.

“We spent over a year working with the town, held public meetings, talked with internal stake holders to develop recommendations to amend your zoning ordinance, which is very out of date,” Mertz said. “Our work will entail the next step of that, which is taking these recommendations and effectuating them through a completely new land use ordinance.” 

“This isn’t just making some track changes and coming back, this is a whole rewrite,” she continued. “There are zones in your ordinance that aren’t even on your zoning map ordinance anymore so it’s eliminating those, making sure the ones that are left accurately represent what’s on the ground.”

“We have very proposed recommendations in [the plan] but we’ll do more meetings to make sure this is moving forward in a way everyone likes,” she added. “We’ll hold public meetings, that’s all included in our contract, and in the end, you’ll have a brand-new zoning ordinance.” 

Mertz also explained that with a new zoning ordinance comes a reevaluation of the city’s redevelopment plans.

“That goes hand in hand with the ordinance re-write a little bit but they are standalone documents,” she said. “Several of those haven’t been updated since town changed its course in terms of what they wish to see in some of these areas, so that second phase or step will be amending those plans so your zoning and development plans are complementing each other and they’re representative of what’s on the ground and what you want to see moving forward.”

All council members were in attendance. The next city council meeting will be held on May 16th at 7:00 p.m.