Planning, zoning boards may combine in Freehold
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO Staff Writer

FREEHOLD - It may be time to say goodbye to Freehold Borough's Zoning Board of Adjustment and Planning Board as separate entities.

The Borough Council has introduced an ordinance that would, if adopted, eliminate the zoning board and establish a nine-member planning board with all the powers of a zoning board.

A public hearing, second reading and possible adoption of the ordinance is scheduled for the council's Dec. 27 meeting.

Councilman Marc Le Vine, who brought the idea to the table, said he had spoken with people who indicated that combining the two boards would make sense for the borough.

"Given the reduced workloads for planning and zoning boards in recent years, and after noticing that some other towns have already combined their planning and zoning functions," Le Vine said, "we, too, have our own opportunity to consolidate, creating less government in a more efficient and potentially, a somewhat more economical way."

In some municipalities a board such as this is referred to as a unified planning/ zoning board.

Englishtown, which has a population of about 1,600 residents (Freehold Borough has about 11,000 residents), has had a Unified Planning/Zoning Board for almost 20 years, according to Joseph Youssouf, who is the attorney for that panel.

Youssouf, who has worked as a municipal land use attorney for 35 years, said he has been working with Englishtown's unified board since it was created.

"Having a unified board eliminates duplicate positions," Youssouf said. "Under the current land use laws, certain classes of municipalities are entitled to a unified board."

Freehold Borough is one such municipality.

"Merging the two boards is cost-effective. Under the law, while the (planning and zoning) boards do have distinct functions, those functions have grown closer during the last two decades," Youssouf said.

He said the reason a unified board makes sense is because it eliminates what land use law refers to as the "ping-pong" effect of having an applicant who has a specific plan from being sent back and forth from a planning board to a zoning board in one municipality.

That "ping-pong effect" could occur if neither board was certain whether it had jurisdiction over a specific application.

The advantage of a unified board is that an applicant who needs a site plan and/or a subdivision approved, and requires a variance as well, can acquire these things in one venue.

"The (land use) law has evolved quite a bit since it was created in 1972," Youssouf said, "and the functions of the planning and zoning boards have become blurred."

The advantages of merging the two boards, according to Youssouf, would be the effective use of what he referred to as "scarce municipal resources" and the fact that one board would have jurisdiction over both functions. It would also eliminate confusion on the part of the applicant, determining which board to go to with an application.

"With municipal resources scarce, a town will save the cost of two attorneys and two separate engineering firms or even the same engineering firm," he said. "It's one-stop shopping, from an intellectual point of view.

"I'm in favor of consolidation. It's costeffective. The planning board is responsible for the implementation of the development of the town's master plan. Because this board has planning board functions, it is better qualified to analyze the potential impact of any various applications and the overall intent and purpose of the borough's master plan," the attorney said.

"Because the state law covering variances requires analysis of the intent and purpose of the master plan in relation to the variance, who better to decide that than a unified board?" Youssouf said.

Youssouf said the mayor of the town sits on a unified planning/zoning board (and would do so under the Freehold Borough proposal) and has a much larger role than he does on zoning applications under the present set-up of separate planning and zoning boards.

Generally, the mayor sits on his municipality's planning board, but not on its zoning board.