Your Weekly Update: A Week in Review of the Planning Board

Image Credit

There was no remote participation link for this meeting.

According to the video shared on the Town Council YouTube page, the Planning Board reviewed the floodplain management regulations Ordinance 2023-03 from the Township Council. The Board had to decide whether they would approve the ordinance.

Background: The latter half of last year, the clerk’s office got a notice from the state, office of dam safety and flood engineering informing every town, including ours, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had thoroughly read over what DEP had compiled as the New Jersey Model flood damage prevention ordinance. FEMA suggested that the DEP make changes to the ordinance to make sure that all of the 553 participating community ordinances and the State follow the national flood insurance program standards. In addition, they told the DEP during the time of auditing that due to Sandy, a lot of the damage occurred. For this reason, FEMA had been persistently going after the State to have stronger and more references to the State building codes that are abided by the local construction officials. Therefore, an individual attempting to do work in a flood plain would do so legally under the State, local, and national floodplain management regulations.

Director of Community Development, Francis Guzik explained that in the memo that he sent to the administration when the notice was introduced. In the March 15th memo, Guzik wanted to explicitly state that the order by NJDEP and FEMA does not affect the current flood delineation standards or existing flood elevations. “If there was a floodplain today or yesterday or last year it’s going to be a floodplain after the standard, it doesn’t get higher, it doesn’t get lower, it doesn’t move around…”

Click HERE to read the memo.

Guzik goes on to say that the 2023-03 Ordinance was created to help West Windsor establish a process of allowing people to develop in floodplain areas. It specifies in detail the standards for how property owners are to assess the criteria for a floodplain and delineate that to meet the State standards. The ordinance has not changed any of the model rainfalls or the storm events that are utilized to compute stormwater runoff or flood levels.

The first section, section one of the ordinance, has a lot of definitions that have been striked out. This is because these definitions are more relevant in other parts of the ordinance where they relate to the land use code.

The article beginning on page 20 clarifies that the Township makes it mandatory for the Town Council to find out the flood Hazard areas and provides space for including more detailed information if there are additional studies that have been conducted.

Municipalities throughout NJ must adopt the new model language, otherwise, townships like West Windsor would not be able to take advantage of the National flood insurance program. The program incentivizes towns to use the language so that property owners will not have to pay higher rates for flood insurance.

FEMA has allowed West Windsor more time to make amends to the ordinance as long as they notify them of where they were in the process.

At the end of the meeting, after Guznik went through the ordinance and answered the board’s questions, the board approved the ordinance as they felt that it was consistent with the master plan.

CIick HERE to read the Master Plan.

CIick HERE to read the 2023 ordinance.

If you value your weekly updates, tell your friends and neighbors, subscribe and support The Voice so we can continue to bring all you need to know, right to your inbox.