JACKSON – Township Officials voted unanimously to approve two traffic related ordinances during a recent council meeting.
Ordinance 22-24 repeals Ordinance 50-79 which had established Andover Road as a one-way street. “This ordinance repeals a 1979 ordinance that made a portion of Andover Road a one-way street. Once this is adopted it will be a two-way road,” Council President Jennifer Kuhn explained.
Kuhn added, “the ordinance we have for ‘no parking or standing on county roads’ and ‘no parking within 50 feet of county (roads) into municipal (roads)’ and ‘permit parking’ (is in effect) and we are looking to strike the 1979 ordinance from the record.”
Ordinance 23-24 amends township code with respect to extra duty assignments within the department of public safety. “This ordinance requires developers who utilize township police officers for traffic control to be charged for an additional four hours if at the last minute, they change the time that the officer has to work,” Kuhn explained.
A prior two-hour requirement was changed to a 24-hour requirement for any modification to the officer’s schedule.
Township officials recently passed an ordinance to increase to the height in pool enclosures based upon setbacks of the same and amended township code with respect to landlord registration and responsibility during a prior council meeting.
Resident Hope Drew asked the governing body “why is it now eight foot around a pool?”
“I’m not going to tell you what you should do with your home that is your responsibility,” Council President Jennifer Kuhn responded.
Drew commented, “that is why we have codes and zoning. What are you talking about?”
“I’m not on zoning,” Kuhn responded.
“You can tell people what they can do with their home especially when it comes to safety,” the resident replied. “You can’t have a fence at certain sizes so that is a weird reason. Does this ordinance now take this away from Zoning (Board) if they want to put a fence around their pool? How does it work?”
The ordinance permits a higher fence but only if the fence is at least 50 feet beyond the zoning setback. So, if it is 15, 20 or 30 feet, if it is beyond that from a neighbor or road they can go to the maximum of eight feet.
Ordinance 21-24 amends township code with respect to landlord registration and responsibility. No one came forward from the public to question the ordinance which went on to be unanimously approved.
Transparency And Tracking Traffic
Council President Kuhn announced during the recent meeting that residents will now be able to see more updated information on the township’s website pertaining to business of the Jackson Planning Board, “to not only see what is on the Planning Board agenda but what passed applications are as well.”
She said that currently residents were only able to see what was on the Planning Board agenda but now information including related documents will be available. This came from a request to the Business Administrator and the township’s website technician worked to update the website.
“Now if you go to the website, (jacksontwpnj.net) if you want to see what is currently on the planning board agenda as well as any past meetings you can go ahead and easily get those documents. It used to be just the current agenda was on there so we did update that so it makes it more transparent,” Kuhn added.
Kuhn previously noted that devices were being set up to track how many vehicles were traveling through the West Lake section of the township “and how many were only cutting through to get to West Lake Mews facilities.”
She also noted this week in reading through a recent traffic safety report that involves Melissa Lee Drive and some concerns expressed by residents, “There are 37 homes located on this street and the speed is 25 miles per hour. The (highest) speed recorded was 76 mph. It is a dead-end road, a cul-de-sac. The average was 30.8 mph. There was 3,387 total car volume that is approximately 480 per day, 96.9 percent of all the vehicles are passenger vehicles. Only three percent of the vehicles could have been buses or delivery trucks etc. The vast majority of the traffic is from the neighborhood itself.”
Summer Concerts And Economic Growth
Councilman Nino Borelli noted the ongoing summer concert series that will feature a concert every other Wednesday at Johnson Park. “There will be food trucks at these concerts. Bring your lawn chairs.” There is information about these concerts available at the Recreation Department section of the website jacksontwpnj.net. He also commended the quick replacement of a stop sign by the Department of Public Works.
Councilman Mordechai Burnstein also mentioned the concert series and his attendance of the first concert on the schedule. “It was great to see residents out and about in our park. The Township Economic Advisory Committee met. It was great to hear from residents all across the town about where future economic growth makes sense to be. Some of those ideas will be forwarded to the Master Plan Committee for them to look into.”
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