Planner urges town-center strategy, stronger maintenance and rental rules in Old Tappan master-plan reexamination

The Borough of Old Tappan Planning Board on Monday reviewed a reexamination of the municipality's master plan that the board’s planner said is intended to reaffirm existing policies, address new housing types and to set an implementation schedule for ordinances.

John, the borough planner, opened the workshop by noting that the Municipal Land Use Law requires municipalities to reexamine their master plan at least every 10 years and that adopting the reexamination report will help protect local zoning through a rebuttable presumption of validity. "The master plan is a policy document that guides decision making," he said, adding that reexamination lets the borough reaffirm goals and amend land-use language where needed.

Why it matters: The reexamination will guide how the borough responds to state affordable-housing mandates and to recent and pending development pressures, planners said. The board discussed a slate of implementation priorities — including a town-center mixed-use overlay, consolidated land-use regulations, clearer rules for short-term rentals and rooming/boarding houses, more robust property-maintenance enforcement, and sidewalk and crosswalk improvements tied to recent multifamily development.

Key takeaways from the workshop included:

- Affordable-housing compliance and legal protection: The planner said the borough’s fourth-round affordable-housing compliance certificate has been filed with the court and that related findings were incorporated into the reexamination report, which should provide immunity for 10 years once finalized.

- Town-center and redevelopment strategy: The planner recommended focusing growth in the existing town-center overlay to create a walkable mixed-use core, with shared green streets, consolidated or structured parking, rooftop amenities, and public-space elements. He said the borough has limited developable land (the presentation cited about 3.9 square miles and that roughly 92% of assessed value is residential) and should direct redevelopment to appropriate nodes.

- State bills and accessory dwelling units: Board members raised pending state legislation that could allow accessory dwelling units and higher densities on certain sites; the planner warned that state preemption could limit local zoning tools and urged the board to be ready with local standards should the law pass.

- Short-term rentals and boarding/rooming-house definitions: The planner recommended strengthening transient-occupancy and boarding/rooming-house sections of the zoning ordinance to prevent commercial short-term rentals from operating in residential zones.

- Property maintenance and enforcement: Members called for stronger property-maintenance code language and more enforcement authority to address long-standing issues such as dilapidated fences and overgrown lots, while acknowledging enforcement requires staff time and resources.

- Sidewalks, ADA ramps and crosswalk markings: Several members said new multifamily development has increased pedestrian traffic and flagged obstructed sidewalks and missing crosswalk markings on county roads. The planner said some fixes require county cooperation and others enforcement or ordinance changes at the borough level.

Process and timeline: The planner asked members to submit written comments to be consolidated into a single comment document. He proposed circulating a consolidated list and said the borough must advertise the public hearing (distribution to adjacent-town clerks and the county planning board was discussed). A target was proposed to consolidate comments and finalize the notice in mid-to-late July ahead of a scheduled public hearing and subsequent adoption steps.

Board members urged clearer, implementable ordinance language rather than a long slate of aspirational goals. Several suggested the board retain the current combined planning/adjustment board structure rather than separate boards, but they asked that the reexamination text be clarified to remove any contradictory recommendations.

The board also noted technical corrections needed in the draft (for example, updating outdated stormwater citations) and asked the planner to provide a revised draft and a simple priority list of ordinance changes so the borough can pursue the most important items without incurring excessive cost.

The board opened the meeting briefly for public comment; a question was raised about whether the master plan could have altered a prior approval for a nearby project, and the planner replied that while the plan guides decisions, approvals can proceed for other statutory or factual reasons.

Next steps: Members were asked to email comments to the planner for consolidation; the planner said he would circulate a consolidated comment summary, prepare notice language for the hearing, and return with the board at the next meeting to advance the public-hearing and adoption schedule.