Instructor to guide us accordingly.

Um we are on uh Rebu numeral four of our agenda this evening.

Agendas are available outside council chambers, but you can access them on the internet under the city of Passaic, where you will find all the proposed resolutions, ordinances, receipt of correspondence, etc.

available to you as provided by the administration to the council.

In accordance with the open public meetings act, JSA 10 colon 4-1 set, the council opens every public meeting for comments of the public.

However, in accordance with NJSA 10 colon 4-12, nothing in this act shall be construed to limit the discretion of a public body to permit, prohibit, or regulate the act of participation at any meeting.

Therefore, please be advised that the council will not entertain any comments from persons who communicate obscene material, make statements which are considered advised intimidation, in which a person intends to intimidate any individual or group because of race, color, religion, gender, handicap, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, or makes comments intending to harass them speak any offensive language.

The person who makes these statements will relinquish their large five minutes for public discussion.

Is there anyone who would like to adjust the council?

Good evening, Council President.

My name is Yosef Wolf.

I want to ask there's a planning board meeting last night where they actually introduced a very nice multifamily project.

And I asked the planning board why in the past dozens of projects has there not been any for sale construction in the city.

And these are very large projects.

Seems that Passaic has presidential towers, they have Carlton Towers, but in the past dozens of projects, there don't seem to be any for sale housing.

Additionally, there have been some large lots that were sold to developers, and the developers chose instead of putting up townhouses, they chose to put up one, two, or three multi-million dollar houses.

And I've asked this council, and I want to ask again two things.

First of all, the point where it says it's up to the council to make the redevelopment plans that are sent to them.

And I'm asking, is this council doing enough to encourage for sale housing to encourage home ownership, additional housing that people could buy and know that they could stay in these units as long as they want?

The planning board said the city council is sending them the redevelopment plans for a view.

But this council is making the redevelopment plans that they abide by, meaning anything that has to encourage for sale housing for sale as opposed to for rent, has is up to this council.

And I'm asking if this council is doing enough to increase housing in the city that's available for sale, not just for rent.

It was on Century Place in Passaic.

But on top of that, they added a restriction of 15%.

That's one five fifty, I'm sorry, 20% set aside for affordable housing.

That means the developer who builds it has to set aside the five units.

They have to set aside a housing unit that's below cost for them.

But when it comes to rentals, there's only a 15% side, which is lower.

But if you look at the statistics, there's nothing being built for sale.

So what is the big impetus to put in this set aside for affordable when they're not even building middle class housing?

They're not building townhouses, it's not worth it.

So maybe take away the restriction, and maybe people can build for sale housing so people can buy townhouses and places to live in Passaic as to possibly just renting.

My third question is there is a tax abatement that if somebody builds in PSA additions to their house within 30 days, they can go to the city and they can ask for an abatement, a five-year step up.

First, you have to pay 20%, and the final pay 80%, and then it goes to regular.

So someone could be doing a construction project of 150, 200, $500,000, and the city is talking about how they have abatements and abatements for these people, and it's $25,000 that the city is getting them a five-year tax break on.

Thank you.

Mr.

Fernandez, would you like to take uh take a drive here?

I'll try to remember the order, but um Mr.

Wolf likes to take bits and pieces of things and missing the whole picture of the of the discussion.

And quite frankly, the market is what dictates what's gonna happen.

So we don't tell a developer that it has to be X, Y, or Z in our zoning ordinance, right?

So a lot of like century place.

I could tell you for a fact, we did have a specific discussion about having townhouses, and the developer chose to make the one family homes because that is their right, right?

That's the ordinance that it is, that's the market, that's the way it goes.

These are not redevelopment plans far far and large.

Redevelopment plans are very specific, and I could tell you that one of the most recent plans included townhouses, which were on Anchorage Avenue.

So that was something that this council passed at the direction of the mayor, uh had me put together for the council to review.

So, quite frankly, the answer's question more succinctly, it's really up to each developer and their investment in that property, and then it'll come to the planning board for their evaluation of that proposal in comparison to our ordinance.

So, really, we're we don't drive that.

That's based on the investment of the specific property owner.

Um, as far as uh tax abatement goes and the total amount, that is dictated by the state of New Jersey and the um short-term tax abatement law, which dictated the 25,000.

I could tell you that the council uh that the mayor had requested and we proposed an amendment to our um rehabilitation portion of the tax that this council passed to to create greater incentives for uh property owners to fix their homes, but we're limited by the state statute and the numbers that they dictate to us.

But what we did in the last amendment, Mayor, I don't know if you want to add on because I think everybody knows by now the mayor's position on improvements to properties and how we want to promote and not penalize people for improving their properties, still has to be done within the auspices of the statute, and we went as far as legally possible using the statute uh that we must.

If I could ask aside from what Mr.

Wolf was addressing, I'm sorry, aside from what Mr.

Wolf was uh discussing, but just as a general question, does the city uh show um positive prejudice to purchase versus rental?

So it's it's really on a project by project basis, so it has to be it has to sit on its own merit, and the discussions that we've had is a balance of housing.

So all the documents that we write and how we write it, in fact um we propose, right, Mayor, on the R1 zones, townhouses to incentivize you know that for sale on larger lots instead of McMansions, let's call them, which was the term that was used.

Maybe I'm dating myself, right?