I doubt TLS will publish this letter, but I’ll try anyway.
By now everyone has seen the recent news about an Ocean County Judge rejecting a Lakewood board approval.
If you read the comments all over the internet and social media on this topic, there was one general consensus on the matter: It’s too little too late, and attempting to fix the broken system is like closing the barn door after the horse left the barn.
I agree we have some serious issues in town, but I do believe some things are fixable.
Let’s start with electing the most qualified people for the jobs.
Why are members of the zoning and planning board appointed, and not elected? Just like there are elections for the Township Committee members who are in charge of making decisions for the town, wouldn’t it only make sense to elect planning and zoning board remembers who are qualified to make crucial development decisions for the town?
There is no reason for someone with zero professional background and education to be sitting on a board responsible for making decisions that will affect thousands of people on a weekly basis.
It’s time to take the town back, and put it in the hands of the people. Elections should be held for all committees in town so we can salvage whatever is left of this town.
[TLS welcomes your letters by submitting them to [email protected]]
The people running the town won’t allow it for it would prevent them from doing what they want !!!
100%
We need to have people that have the interest of the community. Unfortunately it is well known that many of the board members are have financial interests that come first. Chillul Hashem to say the least.
FYI, there are some board members that have been banned by official court order from participating in certain applications, after highly dubious financial relationships were discovered. And the courts don’t even know the whole story.
You are right about the damage being done, with the end result being $10’s of millions on lost township revenue at taxpayer cost, insane traffic,zero zoning integrity with residential units built in formerly commercial zones, and schools placed anywhere a builder wants (including on formerly quiet residential blocks), a lower quality of life and rising taxes.
There is not much land left in town so I suspect the next “frontier” of development will be to build higher.
Not sure what having voting for these boards will help as the current committeemen, who appoint these boards and caused this damage keep getting re-elected with low voter turnout
Some of these schools also sneak in large banquet facilities without informing the neighbors beforehand, so they can be deprived of expressing their valid concerns with the planning board.
The Yated’s Lakewood section had an article about this issue recently. Of course, schools are important and Simcha Halls are beneficial. But the insanity level of placing them in quiet residential areas is crazy and only makes the neighbors furious when hundreds of cars clog their streets on a nightly basis.
It gets even worse when the applicant is less than truthful about the size of the school’s operations and makes everyone think that it’ll be a lot smaller, when he knows that the reality is they’ll be much bigger. This leads to terrible traffic jams that rob the neighborhood of untold hours of their lives and the associated aggravation and stress. It is a classic example of nizkei shcheinim and gezel harabim.
Just because a school building might be permitted to go up almost anywhere in town, doesn’t give license to the school owner to stick 1000 kids where the infrastructure can only handle car and bus traffic for 300.
Additionally, I would not send my child to an institution that procured permits for itself in such a manner. Honesty has got to be the policy. The education of our children must be pure if we want them to succeed as ehrilche people. Anything less is just not good enough!
Some of these schools also sneak in large banquet facilities without informing the neighbors beforehand, so they can be deprived of expressing their valid concerns with the planning board.
The Yated’s Lakewood section had an article about this issue recently. Of course, schools are important and Simcha Halls are beneficial. But the insanity level of placing them in quiet residential areas is crazy and only makes the neighbors furious when hundreds of cars clog their streets on a nightly basis.
It gets even worse when the applicant is less than truthful about the size of the school’s operations and makes everyone think that it’ll be a lot smaller, when he knows that the reality is they’ll be much bigger. This leads to terrible traffic jams that rob the neighborhood of untold hours of their lives and the associated aggravation and stress. It is a classic example of nizkei shcheinim and gezel harabim.
Just because a school building might be permitted to go up almost anywhere in town, doesn’t give license to the school owner to stick 1000 kids where the infrastructure can only handle car and bus traffic for 300.
Additionally, I would not send my child to an institution that procured permits for itself in such a manner. Honesty has got to be the policy. The education of our children must be pure if we want them to succeed as ehrilche people. Anything less is just not good enough!
When you vote for the township committee members you are electing committee members who will be appointing planning and zoning board members. Maybe think about electing qualified people for the committee who can appoint qualified board members?
How would elections stop someone with zero professional background and education from running and winning seats on the boards?
I couldn’t agree more. Thank you TLS for being transparent and publishing this letter. I always wished Lakewood would be developed like a nice suburb for example Detroit. Nicely made streets with private houses nice lawns BACK YARDS. Ya know a real healthy quality of living….wishful thinking. I feel that who ever did ok a lot of these developments or duplexes plopped down where it does not make any sense didnt have this in mind. They most probably come from the city. So they have a different mind set. It should have never been okayed by the board. Why did they build and then think about the traffic??? Hello? First build the streets or widen the 9 and then build responsibly. Its not ok. Stop this recluse building and do thing responsibly!!!!
Lakewood needs to be changed to a ward system of government where the town is divided into wards and representatives are elected by the people of the ward they represent.
Just wait til you see the players and $ trails on the Dominion purchases.
Film at 11.
1) good points but the ship has sailed – it’s to late. To you see the building going on fast roads. Both residential and commercial
2) the rich and powerful in town wanted these ppl in power to control the real estate
3) the selfish Money hungry behavior has cost many ppl money and causes accidents that can kill People
Sorry but the composition of the planning board and zoning board and the fact that its members are appointed by the Mayor and governing body is dictated by State law.
DICTATED as in DICTATORS.
There’s a nice op-ed on this topic in last weeks Shopper.
I challenge the TLS to run a poll on this issue.
Transparency. transparency. transparency. A report on how the committee came to decision available for anybody to see. and a requirement for a traffic study or at least an assessment for every project approved, big or small. As of now as far as I’m aware only the very large projects need traffic assessments and even then it’s up to the committee to decide how much is too much there should be guidelines which the committee needs to abide by.
Many of these applications for variances hire the same engineer as their “expert witness”to testify how the variance will have no effect on the surrounding area.
This engineer has perjured himself over and over, and he should be banned from testifying in front of the planning and zoning board. yet he keeps plying his trade and is never even questioned about his history of demonstrably false testimony
Whether we vote themq in or not, in this town people are told who to vote for so does not make a difference.