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Planning board hears overview of New Jersey's Local Redevelopment and Housing Law and the planning board's investigative role
Summary
At an educational session the board received a detailed overview of the Local Redevelopment and Housing Law (LRHL), including statutory history, the eight criteria for designating an area in need of redevelopment, notice rules, redevelopment-plan elements, and the respective roles of the planning board and governing body.
Bernards Township's Planning Board received an educational presentation on the Local Redevelopment and Housing Law (LRHL) at its June 2 meeting, reviewing statutory history, criteria for designation, public-notice rules, and the distinct roles of the planning board and the governing body in redevelopment investigations and plan adoption.
Presenter identified in the record as Behe (a planning/redevelopment consultant) summarized LRHL's purpose and evolution: enacted in 1992 to consolidate redevelopment law, narrowed by court interpretations between 2007 and 2013, with later adjustments in practice and interpretation. The presentation emphasized that redevelopment is a statutory tool to address areas with conditions such as dilapidation, prolonged vacancies or other impediments to private development, and that a municipality need only meet one of the eight statutory criteria to designate an area in need of redevelopment.
Key procedural points presented: the governing body first adopts a resolution authorizing a planning-board preliminary investigation; the planner prepares a map and preliminary-investigation report and the planning board holds a noticed public hearing (publication and website notice requirements apply); the planning board makes a recommendation to the governing body but does not itself adopt redevelopment plans (that remains the governing body's authority). The presentation also reviewed that the redevelopment plan becomes an ordinance and can supersede underlying zoning, that municipalities may choose condemnation or non-condemnation approaches, and that redevelopment plans often include detailed provisions (land uses, bulk standards, affordable-housing requirements and other elements listed in LRHL).
Board members asked process questions, including whether slide materials could be posted on the township website; Mr. Crane requested the presentation be uploaded for public access. Presenter and staff also clarified recent changes in noticing (noting that lots inside the study area must receive mailed notice and that broader 200-foot mailings are not required under LRHL notice rules for an area investigation). One board member noted the importance of distinguishing the planning-board's investigatory role from later decisions about what a redevelopment plan should contain.
The presentation closed with a summary of the planning board's role in preparing or reviewing preliminary investigations and recommendations to the governing body; no formal action was taken and the session was educational rather than a public hearing on any particular study area.
