Kingwood Township City Zoning Code
ARTICLE VIII
Development Applications and Review
§ 132-115 Application procedure.
A.
Development defined. "Development" means the construction, reconstruction, conversion, structural alteration, relocation or enlargement of any building or other structure or of any mining, excavation or landfill and any use or change in the use of any building or other structure or land or extension of use of land, including alteration to a site, for which permission is required pursuant to this chapter.
B.
Application. An application for development is required for all development as defined above, except that approval of a site plan by the Planning Board for detached single-family dwelling units and their accessory buildings shall not be required. No building permit shall be issued until approval has been given by the municipal agency for those applications requiring approval. A development application may take the form of a request for site plan approval, conditional use or variance from the standards of this chapter, or it may combine any o the above.
C.
County Planning Board. Review and approval of site plans for any property having frontage on a county road shall be required for commercial, industrial or multifamily structures containing four or more units or any land development for the above uses that require off-street parking or producing surface runoff in excess of county standards. The municipal agency shall condition any approval that it grants upon timely receipt of a favorable report or approval by the County Planning Board's failure to report thereon within 30 days.
D.
Submission.
[Amended 5-20-2002 by Ord. No. 11-8-2002]
(1)
All development applications for the Planning Board shall be submitted to the Municipal Clerk at least 21 days prior to the Planing Board meeting at which consideration is desired. Planning Board applications and plats shall be submitted in 20 blue- or black-on-white prints and shall be accompanied by 20 copies of the application form. The Municipal Clerk shall retain one full set of the application and documentation and shall forward the remaining sets and supporting data to the proper municipal agency. Site plan review shall be given in two stages, the preliminary site plan and the final site plan.
(2)
All development applications for the Board of Adjustment shall be submitted to the Municipal Clerk at least 23 days prior to the Board of Adjustment meeting at which consideration is desired. Board of Adjustment applications and plats shall be submitted in 15 blue- or black-on-white prints and shall be accompanied by 15 copies of the application form. The Municipal Clerk shall retain one full set of the application and documentation and shall forward the remaining sets and supporting data to the proper municipal agency.
(3)
Delivery of an application to the Municipal Clerk does not guarantee that the application will be considered for completeness or on its merits at the next scheduled meeting of the appropriate development agency. All applications submitted to the Municipal Clerk are subject to review for completeness by the appropriate development agency and their employees and professionals.
E.
Delineation of Floodplain Zone. In every application for development as defined under this chapter, the applicant will indicate whether a stream, watercourse, or channel (as defined by § 132-37 of this chapter) crosses the lot or portion of the lot to be developed at any point. If the indication is in the affirmative, then the application for development shall show either:
(1)
The area delineated following public hearings by the Water Policy and Supply Council in the Division of Water Resources in the Department of Environmental Protection of the State of New Jersey; or
(2)
The floodway, flood hazard area and floodplain (all as defined by § 132-37 of this chapter) based on water surface profiles performed by the applicant.
§ 132-116 Format and standards for digital submissions.
[Added 4-6-2017 by Ord. No. 19-02-2017; amended 8-2-2018 by Ord. No. 19-16-2018]
A.
Requirements for submission of digital plans and applications. Whenever an applicant to the Planning Board or the Zoning Board of Adjustment applies for a minor subdivision, final approval of a major subdivision or approval of any site plan, the agency exercising jurisdiction over such application and granting approval shall require upon submission of the application that the applicant prepare and file with the Township a copy of the completed application and checklist along with the plans in a digital format satisfying the requirements set forth in this chapter, and upon approval of the application shall require, as a condition of approval, that the applicant prepare and file with the Township a copy of the approved plans in digital format satisfying the requirements set forth in this chapter.
B.
Data standards.
(1)
This data standard has been established to manage both hardcopy (paper) and electronic data submittals required by the Township of Kingwood. These standards are part of the comprehensive municipal initiative to best manage, inventory and utilize information. This section contains the submittal standards for planning application data. The data submittals will be divided into the following two categories, application documents and design documents. Within these groups data will be submitted in either paper copy or electronic copy as outlined in these standards.
(2)
The Township of Kingwood intends to move toward the elimination of paper copy documents and as such intends to eliminate paper processes, where appropriate, which are obsolete or redundant.
(3)
Standard electronic format for application documents.
(a)
File type: The required format is an archival standards compatible portable document format (PDF/A) file generated directly from document files. They should be compatible with the latest Adobe Acrobat Version Readers.
[1]
Scanned images of report text are not acceptable as the text cannot be searched.
[2]
Scanned correspondence bearing the original signature and seal shall be included.
[3]
Scanned documents will only be accepted when the native electronic files are not available or developed for the application.
(b)
File naming: Application documents and report file names should be named utilizing a reasonable descriptive naming convention.
(c)
Fonts should be those commonly available such as Times New Roman or Arial. Other fonts may not readily open or print from all computers. Less common fonts that are used (for instance ESRI symbols) must be embedded to allow printing in all environments.
(d)
Security settings must be set so as to allow searching of text, printing at full resolution, adding comments (to facilitate electronic comment by reviewers, and for users to annotate their own copies if they wish), content copying and extraction (to facilitate preparation of management direction, and quoting of materials in other documents), making changes related to document assembly to allow users to rotate pages and create bookmarks and thumbnails to facilitate use of the document.
(e)
Resolution: Minimum resolution for scanned documents shall be in accordance with the New Jersey Division of Archives and Records Management (NJDARM) as per N.J.A.C. 15:3.4.
(f)
Cartography: information on maps should be easily understood when reproduced in black and white; sole reliance on color to convey information means maps cannot be faxed or usefully printed in black and white. Where color is necessary or useful, it should be combined with techniques like line coding and patterned fills to ensure all users can extract the information. This principle applies also to labels and other layers added to images.
(g)
Submissions must be on current accepted media.
(h)
All digital media shall be provided with the following label data on both the media and media container:
[1]
Municipality, tax block, and lot number.
[2]
Applicant name.
[3]
Submittal date.
[4]
Revision number.
(4)
CAD file standards.
(a)
Computer-aided design (CAD) is a tool used for producing design documentation and plan sets required for the planning application process. It can also provide a common medium of information exchange. In fact, the true power and potential of CAD is the ability to reuse and share the information contained within the CAD document. The key to realizing this potential is common organizing principles and standards for the production and dissemination of CAD information. The standard organization of files, layers and entities, as well as standardized software applications is essential for effective work and communication.
(b)
This section establishes performance standards for CAD data provided to the municipality with the application package. The municipality does not intend to influence the methods or means of practice of outside consultants. Consultants may use any CAD system to develop design documents as long as the delivered data conforms to the municipalities' CAD data standards.
(c)
Much of the CAD data created through the planning process will be utilized to update the municipal tax maps and brought into the municipal and/or county GIS parcel data system. Data received by the Township of Kingwood must follow these CAD data standards to be readily useful within that system.
(d)
Electronic CAD files for minor subdivisions, final site plans and final subdivisions shall be submitted in conformance with the standards listed below:
[1]
CAD drawings: Consultants shall deliver, at minimum, a CAD document in electronic format to the municipality. The document(s) must include all supporting CAD data and must be delivered as follows:
[a]
In the native CAD format as read only;
[b]
In the CAD "dxf" file format;
[c]
Using the data structure defined by these standards;
[d]
File naming shall comply with the standards established for application documents.
[2]
Text and fonts: Utilize only industry-wide supported fonts; no custom fonts can be accepted. All fonts shall be provided with the CAD file.
[3]
Layers: Specific layers shall be created and drawings organized in conformance with the most current naming convention developed by the New Jersey Digital Tax Map Task Force (see http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/1pt/DigitalTaxMaps.htm).
[4]
When possible, proposed lots, easements and rights-of-way shall be comprised of closed polygons.
[5]
Easement and parcel boundaries shall be coincident in the CAD file when coincident on ground.
[6]
All drawings shall be un-rotated and created at one to one full scale.
[7]
Coordinate reference: All submittals, paper and digital, shall be in NAD 83 (current) New Jersey State Plane Coordinates in United States Survey Feet and North American Vertical Datum 1988 (current) and in accordance with all other provisions of P.L. 2011, c. 217 (N.J.S.A. 46:26A), "Title Recordation Law."
[8]
There shall be endorsed upon any map, plat or plan submitted to the Planning Board or Zoning Board a certification by the municipal or board engineer as follows: "I have carefully examined this map and the required digital submissions and to the best of my knowledge and belief find it conforms with the provisions of the municipal ordinances and requirements applicable thereto." There shall also be provided a line for the municipal or board engineer's signature and professional seal.
§ 132-120 Municipal agency.
A.
For the purpose of this chapter, the words "Municipal Agency" shall refer to either the Municipal Planning Board or the Zoning Board of Adjustment, depending on which Board has reviewing authority.
B.
Meetings.
(1)
Every municipal agency shall, by its rules, fix the time and place for holding its regular meetings for business authorized to be conducted by such agency. Regular meetings of the municipal agency shall be scheduled not less than once a month and shall be held as scheduled unless canceled for lack of applications for development to process. The municipal agency may provide for special meetings, at the call of the Chairman or on the request of any two of its members, which shall be held on notice to its members and the public in accordance with state law. No action shall be taken at any meeting without a quorum being present, a quorum being a majority of the full authorized membership. All actions shall be taken by a majority vote of a quorum.
(2)
All regular meetings and all special meetings shall be open to the public. Notice of all such meetings shall be given in accordance with state law. An executive session otherwise permitted by state law is permissible.
(3)
Minutes of every regular or special meeting shall be kept and shall include the name of the persons appearing and addressing the municipal agency and of the persons appearing by attorney, the action taken by the municipal agency, the findings, if any, made by it and reasons therefor. The minutes shall thereafter be made available for public inspection during normal business hours at the office of the Municipal Clerk. Any interested party shall have the right to compel production of the minutes for use as evidence in any legal proceedings concerning the subject matter of such minutes. Such interested party shall be charged a reasonable fee for reproduction of the minutes for his use.
C.
Hearings.
(1)
The municipal agency shall hold a hearing on each application for development.
(2)
The municipal agency shall make the rules governing such hearings. Any maps and documents for which approval is sought at a hearing shall be on file and available for public inspection at least 21 days before the date of the hearing during normal business hours in the office of the Municipal Clerk. The applicant may produce other documents, records or testimony at the hearing to substantiate or clarify or supplement the previously filed maps and documents.
(3)
The officer presiding at the hearing or such person as he/she may designate shall have power to administer oaths and issue subpoenas to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of relevant evidence, including witnesses and documents presented by the parties, and the provisions of the County and Municipal Investigations Law[1] shall apply.
[1]
Editor's Note: See N.J.S.A. 2A:7A-1 et seq.
(4)
The testimony of all witnesses relating to an application for development shall be taken under oath or affirmation by the presiding officer, and the right of cross-examination shall be permitted to all interested parties through their attorneys, if represented, or directly, if not represented, subject to the discretion of the presiding officer and to reasonable limitations as to time and number of witnesses.
(5)
Technical rules of evidence shall not be applicable to the hearing, but the agency may exclude irrelevant, immaterial or unduly repetitious evidence.
(6)
The municipal agency shall provide for the verbatim recording of the proceedings by either stenographic, mechanical or electronic means. The municipal agency shall furnish a transcript or duplicate recording in lieu thereof, on request to any interested party at his expense.
(7)
Each decision on any application for development shall be in writing and shall include findings of facts and conclusions thereon.
(8)
A copy of the decision shall be mailed by the municipal agency within 10 days of the date of the decision to the applicant or, if represented, then to his attorney without separate charge and to all who request a copy of the decision for a reasonable fee. A copy of the decision shall also be filed by the municipal agency in the office of the Municipal Clerk. The Municipal Clerk shall make a copy of such filed decision available to any interested party for a reasonable fee and available for public inspection at his office during reasonable hours.
(9)
A brief notice of the decision shall be published in the official newspaper of the municipality. Such publication shall be arranged by the Secretary of the municipal agency. The period of time in which an appeal of the decision may be made shall run from the first publication of the decision.
§ 132-121 Notice requirements.
A.
Contents of notice of hearing on application for development. Notice pursuant to this chapter shall state the date, time and place of the hearing, the nature of the matters to be considered, an identification of the property proposed for development by street address, if any, or by reference to lot and block numbers as shown on the current tax duplicate in the Municipal Tax Assessor's office and the location and times at which any maps and documents for which approval is sought are available pursuant to § 132-120B(2).
B.
Notice of applications. Notice of all applications shall be given by the applicant at least 10 days prior to the date of the hearing.
(1)
Public notice of a hearing on an application for development shall be given for preliminary site plan review, final approval of site plans, conditional uses and any variance requested, and direction for an issuance of a permit shall be given by publication in the official newspaper of the municipality.
(2)
Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-47 and N.J.S.A. 40:55D-12, notice and public hearing shall not be required on any subdivision of land classified as a minor subdivision which does not require variances of any type. The Planning Board shall conduct a review and, upon finding that the application is complete, complies with the definition of a minor subdivision and does not require any variance of any type, the Board may grant approval or condition its approval on terms ensuring the provision of improvements pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-38 through 40:55D-40 and N.J.S.A. 40:55D-53 of the Municipal Land Use Act, and shall memorialize the same by resolution. In the event that any subdivision is classified as a minor subdivision but requires one or more variances, then the following provisions shall apply. Notice of a hearing requiring public notice pursuant to Subsection B(1) of this section shall be given to the owners of all real property, as shown on the current tax duplicate, located within 200 feet in all directions of the property which is the subject of such hearing and all public utilities, cable television companies or local utilities which, not less than seven days prior to the date on which the applicant requested the list, have registered to receive notice pursuant to the Municipal Land Use Act (N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq.). Notice shall be given by:
[Amended 11-18-1991 by Ord. No. 7-8-91; 4-20-1992 by Ord. No. 8-6-92]
(a)
Serving a copy thereof on the property owner as shown on said current tax duplicate or his agent in charge of the property; or
(b)
Mailing a copy thereof by certified mail to the property owner at his address as shown on the current tax duplicate. Notice to a partnership owner may be made by service upon any partner. Notice to a corporate owner may be made by service upon its president, a vice president, secretary or other person authorized by appointment or by law to accept service on behalf of the corporation.
(3)
Upon the written request of an applicant, the administrative officer of the municipality shall, within seven days, make and certify a list from said current tax duplicates of the names and addresses of owners to whom the applicant is required to give notice pursuant to Subsection B(2) of this section. The applicant shall be entitled to rely upon the information contained in such list, and failure to give notice to any owner not on the list shall not invalidate any hearing or proceeding. A fee of $0.25 per name or $10, whichever is greater, shall be charged for such list.
[Amended 9-20-1993 by Ord. No. 8-16-93; 11-4-2021 by Ord. No. 21-20-2021]
(4)
Notice of all hearings on applications for development involving property located within 200 feet of an adjoining municipality shall be given by personal service or certified mail to the Clerk of such municipality.
(5)
Notice shall be given by personal service or certified mail to the County Planning Board of a hearing on an application for development of property adjacent to an existing county road or proposed road shown on the Official County Map or on the County Master Plan, adjoining other county land or situated within 200 feet of a municipal boundary.
(6)
Notice shall be given by personal service or certified mail to the Commissioner of Transportation of a hearing on an application for development of property adjacent to a state highway.
(7)
Notice shall be given by personal service or certified mail to the State Planning Commission of a hearing on an application for development of property which exceeds 150 acres or 500 dwelling units. Such notice shall include a copy of any maps or documents required to be on file with the Municipal Clerk.
[Amended 11-4-2021 by Ord. No. 21-20-2021]
(8)
The applicant shall file an affidavit of proof of service with the municipal agency holding the hearing on the application for development in the event that the applicant is required to give notice pursuant to this section.
C.
Effect of mailing notice. Any notice made by certified mail shall be deemed complete upon mailing.
§ 132-122 Conditions to be set forth in memorializing resolution.
[Added 12-7-2004 by Ord. No. 12-25-2004]
Any variance application which receives approval from a municipal agency, whether the Planning Board or the Zoning Board of Adjustment, shall have incorporated into the memorializing resolution the following conditions:
A.
The applicant shall submit to the Board four additional copies of the plans and drawings which were submitted to and reviewed by the Board in conjunction with the variance application approved by this Memorializing Resolution [Alternatively, as appropriate: The applicant shall submit to the Board six additional copies of the plans and drawings which were submitted to and reviewed by the Board in conjunction with the variance application, revised as required by this memorializing resolution] (the "approved plans"), and said approved plans shall thereupon be endorsed with the following designation:
"Approved by the Kingwood Township [insert name of approving authority] | |
Chairperson | |
Dated: ." | |
B.
The applicant shall present a copy of the approved plans, endorsed by the Board as approved, together with a copy of this memorializing resolution, to the Zoning Officer of Kingwood Township and obtain a zoning permit for the proposed construction before obtaining a building permit for the proposed construction.
C.
The applicant shall present a copy of the approved plans, endorsed by the Board as approved, together with a copy of this memorializing resolution, to the Construction Official of Kingwood Township in connection with the application for a building permit for the proposed construction.
D.
Upon completion of the proposed construction, the applicant shall submit to the Board five copies of an as-built survey of the property and all improvements thereon.
E.
No certificate of occupancy shall be issued for the new construction authorized by this memorializing resolution unless and until the appropriate Board, in consultation with the Board professionals, verifies and provides written acknowledgment that the construction as show on the as-built survey has been constructed in conformity with the approved plans.
