Planning board reviews Recreation and Open Space Master Plan; members urge streamlining and prioritizing implementable actions

The Bernardsville Planning Board spent the bulk of the meeting reviewing the Recreation and Open Space Master Plan. Several board members said the document is long, repetitive and difficult to follow, and urged staff to rearrange material so high-priority actions appear up front while background surveys and boilerplate move to appendices.

Committee concerns and recommendations included instituting the plan’s intended annual review (members said the plan is supposed to be reviewed yearly and likely has not been reviewed since 2021), producing a short front-facing summary of top priorities, and keeping a living table that tracks progress on capital items. One member called the current draft "extremely difficult to follow," urging the authors to extract the top five priorities so readers can quickly see the plan’s focus.

Specific project ideas raised: a dog park (noted as a feasible checkbox item), improving and connecting trails with regional systems such as Patriot’s Path, a small amphitheater or a portable stage to host events, and parking solutions along Route 202 to support activities. Members also discussed implementation details such as using high-school volunteers for formatting and converting the source PDF into editable formats, and asked staff to coordinate with environmental and recreation commissions on shared responsibilities.

What happens next: The board asked staff and planners to propose a reordered draft that brings actions and a capital-priority table to the front and to prepare material for the environmental commission to review and implement aspects such as trails and open-space stewardship.