The new plan was approved at the Planning Board's Dec. 20 meeting. Towns are required by law to regularly re-examine their plans, but not necessarily to draw new ones. The last re-examination was in 2003.

According to Planning Board attorney Richard Allen, even though the mayor and council haven't made the zoning ordinances necessary in order to practically effect the changes stipulated in the new master plan, nevertheless, the plan by itself does have some authority. For instance, if a developer were to propose building townhouses in one of the zones indicated by the new master plan as appropriate for townhouse development, the developer would still have to get a use variance. The developer could then argue that his proposal is consistent with the master plan, a strong argument in his favor.

At the Feb. 19 council work session, Planning Board liaison Joe Sommer proposed working with the board to establish a series of benchmarks to evaluate the borough's progress towards realizing the goals laid out in the master plan and the vision statement.

In keeping with Visioning

One of the goals set in the vision statement and the new master plan is to evaluate the need for historic preservation zoning regulations and to discourage unnecessary demolition of historic buildings. The council and the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) have started taking steps in that direction. At the Feb. 26 council meeting HPC liaison councilwoman Maura Keyes presented a copy of an ordinance recently adopted by Montclair to require HPC approval of all new demolition permits submitted to the building department. She submitted the copy to borough attorney Lane Biviano in hopes of drafting a similar one for Rutherford.

Last year the council also re-instituted the Shade Tree Committee, in keeping with the two documents' dedication to maintaining Rutherford's designation as the "borough of trees."

More density

However, the vision statement and the master plan seem to disagree somewhat over density. The vision statement sets forth a task to "maintain appropriate housing densities based on public input and vision for town character and the need for new housing." There's no mention of increasing housing density in the borough. The master plan, however, allows for the further development of several areas in town.

The plan recommends rezoning the area bounded by Meadow Road, East Passaic Avenue, the railroad and Route 17 from B-4, business/light industrial to Highway Commercial 1, a designation that would allow for the development of townhouses or apartment buildings. The plan specifically designates this area a multi-family land-use district and the west side of Meadow Road from the American Legion Post to the intersection of Feronia Way as a townhouse district.

The plan extends an existing R-2 zone (double and single-family houses) on Chestnut Street eastward toward Kip Avenue between Franklin Place and Ames Avenue in order to replace the B-1 zone currently on the block. The plan also seeks to change the wording of the current regulations for downtown mixed-use commercial-residential buildings. Currently the ordinance requires such buildings to be primarily commercial, allowing residential units only as an accessory use, "subordinate and incidental to" the commercial use. The new plan would allow residential units as a "complementary" use, thus allowing them to take up more space in the building and freeing them from any financial or functional relation to the accompanying business.

Councilwoman Rose Inguanti said the council might call a special meeting sometime in spring or early summer in order to vote on zoning changes once the new budget has been introduced.