Despite New State Ruling, Planning Board to Still Reexamine Master Plan

When the planning board met last in April, members had been gathering to start the heavy lifting of reexamining the Master Plan, last tinkered in 2006. At that point, municipalities had to reexamine its planning guidance document every six years per state requirements so there was a deadline to catch. Then, but two days later, the governor changed all that, moving the requirements back to ten years.

But Ridgewood isn't going to wait that long to look at what it can do to make stronger planning guidelines, deciding on Tuesday night to have Village Planner Blais Brancheau work with the committee assembled to still trudge forward.

"My feeling is we still need to do the Reexamination," Brancheau said Wednesday night.

"It's a long process as it is," said Mayor Keith Killion in agreement. "We should start now."

Killion has said while on the council that there are village codes that have not been examined in over a decade that should be reviewed periodically to maintain relevancy with the times, so his endorsement of the initiative is not surprising.

Board Vice President Albert Pucciarelli added that the desire should not necessarily be to meet a deadline, but rather, be a mark of recognition that some issues should be explored.

Brancheau reported that he and the committee will develop a preliminary list of issues for review and present them to the planning board in upcoming meetings.