By: Erin Haskell
Vineland- The Vineland Planning Board rejected a request from the Environmental Commission Board to incorporate them into the City Master Plan during a board meeting on Wednesday, October 13,2010.
Kathie Hicks, Supervising Planner to the Board said, “ The way the law is written, when they (Environmental Commission) give that (Environmental Resource Inventory) to both boards (Planning and Zoning), we then have to provide them with all applications for them to review and give comment.”
However, the Environmental Commission requested that the Planning Board incorporate them into there City Master Plan which would give them a lot more say in the decisions being made by the board.
“I objected to this strongly and so did the Board Solicitor,” said Hicks. “With a Master Plan you need to find a balance point between everything from economic development to schools and business. Nobody’s truly happy but you have to find a medium.”
The request from the Environmental Commission was first presented to the Board by Hicks during the pre-meeting and was addressed in front of the public during the regular open meeting. It was determined that the statute mandates the boards to send copies of plans to the Commission for comment but the comments are advisory.
Board Solicitor Frank DiDomenico, proposed during the meeting that it is not certain that the Environmental Resource Inventory complies with the rest of the Master Plan nor whether it complies with the Land Use Ordinance generated from the Master Plan. If the document were to be incorporated into the Master Plan, it could cause problems for both the Master Plan and the Land Ordinance.
“We felt that this would tilt the scale too much towards environment,” said Hicks. “Putting all that environment information in, it weighs it heavily.”
After much discussion, the Planning Board entertained a motion to not incorporate the document into the Master Plan either as a conservation element or an appendix. There were unanimous yeses from all board members.
“Fortunately, the board went along with our recommendation,” said Hicks. “Of course I have some members of the Environmental Commission Board who are not too happy with me right now but…tough.”
Future Planning Board meetings promise to hold discussions about a popular new fad in Vineland, solar field requests.
“We’re getting a lot of solar field applications for businesses, houses, electric, everybody,” said Hicks. “All the company’s say that New Jersey is the best state for solar because they offer the most incentive.”
Mayor Robert Romano of Vineland said, “Everybody and their grandmother wants to put a solar field up. We are doing four ourselves. The way the city’s doing it, even with the industry, they’ll let you put up your solar but we’re not going to get into that industry of buying electricity if they overproduce, so that’s the big thing.”
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