Hawthorne council adopts redevelopment and affordable-housing ordinances, endorses housing element for court submission

The Hawthorne Borough Council voted March 4 to approve a package of redevelopment and zoning ordinances aimed at advancing planned projects on Washington and Lafayette avenues and to authorize submission of the borough’s housing element and fair-share plan to the court system.

Council members approved Ordinance 23-81-26, which approves a redevelopment plan for the former Pan Chemical parcel at 1 Washington Avenue, and Ordinance 2382-26 covering properties on Lafayette Avenue (471–491 and related lots). Council members and staff repeatedly described these ordinances as framework documents — “the recipe before baking the cake” — that set policy parameters rather than final site plans. Chair (speaker 1) told residents that traffic, stormwater and parking will be studied as part of forthcoming site-plan submissions and engineering review.

Borough counsel and planners emphasized steps the borough negotiated with developers to mitigate neighborhood impacts. Michael Pascual, the borough attorney, said the town required additional parking commitments and design measures at the Pan Chemical site, including restriping and repaving adjacent commuter parking and a 25-foot wide development entrance tied to the train station with a separate drop-off lane. "We insisted that the developer re-stripe, repave, and reconfigure the commuter parking lot," Pascual said, describing those elements as part of the council’s efforts to reduce spillover parking in nearby streets.

Council also advanced two related zoning ordinances (2383-26 and 2384-26) that revise the borough’s affordable-housing rules to align with the state Department of Community Affairs model. Speaker 5 explained the primary substantive change: set-aside percentages were equalized at 20% across categories where previously there had been different percentages for rental and purchase units. Officials said the revisions are intended to ensure the borough’s ordinance mirrors state requirements and enables filing the amended housing element with the court.

Council later adopted a resolution to submit the amended housing element and fair-share plan to the court system. Counsel and administration staff said the submission is required to maintain the municipality’s statutory protections from developer lawsuits under its settlement; speaker 5 told the council that he has 48 hours to upload the approved documents to the court system. Members debated the wording of the resolution (some members objected to the term "endorse" and requested language that authorized submission rather than expressed approval); the wording was adjusted and the resolution passed by roll call.

Public concerns surfaced during the public-comment period. Kathy Mazzaca asked whether the Lafayette projects would worsen neighborhood congestion and whether schools could absorb additional children; the council responded that parking is planned to be on-site and that traffic and water-flow studies will be required during later permitting steps. Pascual and other officials said the redevelopment approvals do not lock in final floor plans or occupancy numbers and that the borough will review technical studies during site-plan review.

What happens next: Council approved these ordinances on first/final steps as recorded at the meeting and will receive subsequent site-plan and engineering submissions that spell out parking and traffic mitigations. The administration and borough counsel indicated they will monitor developer compliance and enforce site-plan conditions during permitting and construction.