Meetings of the Planning Board shall be scheduled no less than once a month and any meeting so scheduled shall be held as scheduled unless cancelled for lack of applications for development to process.

Special meetings may be provided for at the call of the Chairman or on the request of any two Board members, which meetings shall be held on notice to its members and the public in accordance with all applicable legal requirements.

No action shall be taken at any meeting without a quorum being present, said quorum to be the majority of the full authorized membership of the Board.

All actions shall be taken by majority vote of the members of the Board present at the meeting except as otherwise required by a provision of N.J.S.A.40:55D-1 et seq. A member of the Board who was absent for one or more of the meetings at which a hearing was held shall be eligible to vote on a matter upon which the hearing was conducted, notwithstanding his absence from one or more of the meetings; provided, however, that such Board member has available to him the transcript or recording of all of the hearing from which he was absent, and certifies in writing to the Board that he has read such transcript or listened to such recording.

All regular meetings and all special meetings shall be open to the public except as provided in the Open Public Meeting Law C.231, Laws of New Jersey, 1975. Notice of all such meetings shall be given in accordance with the requirements of the Open Public Meeting Law C.231, Laws of New Jersey, 1975.

Subsequent to an application for development being declared complete, the Planning Board shall hold a hearing on the application for development. The Board shall make 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 10 days before the date of the hearing during normal business hours in the office of the Administrative Officer. The applicant may produce any documents, records or testimony at the hearing to substantiate or clarify or supplement the previously filed maps and documents.

The officer presiding at the hearings, or such person as he may designate, shall have the 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," P.L.1953, C.38 (N.J.S.A. 2A:67A-1 et seq.) shall apply.

The testimony of all witnesses relating to an application for development shall be taken under oath or affirmation by the presiding officer, or such other person as he may designate, 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 reasonable limitations as to time and number of witnesses.

Technical rules of evidence shall not be applicable to the hearing, but the Board may exclude irrelevant, immaterial or unduly repetitious evidence.

Except for minor subdivisions not requiring variance relief, public notice of a hearing shall be given for all applications for development.

The Clerk/Secretary of the Planning Board shall notify the applicant at least two weeks prior to the public hearing at which the application will be discussed. Notice of a hearing requiring public notice shall be given by the applicant at least 10 days prior to the date of the hearing in the following manner:

Upon the written request of an applicant, the Borough Tax Assessor, or any other designated municipal official, shall, within seven days, make and certify a list from current tax duplicates of names and addresses of owners within the Borough to whom the applicant is required to give notice. The applicant shall be charged $0.25 per name or $10, whichever is greater, for said list and shall be entitled to rely upon the information contained in such list, and failure to give notice to any lot owner not on the list shall not invalidate any hearing or proceeding. Additionally, the applicant shall be responsible for giving proper notice to all property owners who own property not located within the Borough. For the purpose of reliance on the list referred to above, said list shall be effective for 90 days from the date of its issue, after which, it shall be the responsibility of the applicant to request a new list, or have the initial list recertified.

The notice shall state the date, time and place of the hearing and the nature of the matters to be discussed, and an identification of the property proposed for development by street address, if any, and by reference to lot and block numbers as shown on the current tax duplicate in the Borough Tax Assessor's office, and the location and times at which any maps or documents for which approval is sought are available for inspection.

Regarding any application for development being reviewed by the Planning Board if the Board determines that substantial revisions have been made to said application subsequent to the date when it was determined to be a "complete application", then the Board may require the applicant to again comply with the notice requirements specified in this section of this chapter.

Minutes of every regular or special meeting shall be kept and shall include the names and addresses of the persons appearing and addressing the Planning Board, and of any persons appearing by attorney, the action taken by the Planning Board, the findings, if any, made by it and the reasons therefore. The minutes shall thereafter be made available, after approval by the Board, for public inspection during the normal business hours at the office of the Administrative Officer. 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 the reproduction of the minutes.

A verbatim recording shall be made of every hearing on an application for development submitted to the Borough. The recording of the proceedings shall be made either by stenographer, mechanical or electrical means. The municipality shall furnish a transcript or duplicate recording in lieu thereof on request to any interested party at his expense, provided that the charge for a transcript shall not exceed the maximum amount permitted in N.J.S.A. 2A:11-15. Each transcript shall be certified in writing by the transcriber to be accurate.

Each decision on any application for development shall be reduced to writing by the Board and shall include findings of facts and conclusions based thereon.

The Board shall provide the findings and conclusions through:

The vote on any memorializing resolution shall be deemed to be a memorialization of the action of the Board and not to be an action of the Board; however, the date of the adoption of the resolution shall constitute the date of the decision for purposes of the mailings, filings and publications required in Section 30-708 of this chapter.

If the Board fails to adopt a resolution or memorializing resolution as hereinabove specified, any interested party may apply to the Superior Court in a summary manner for an order compelling the Board to reduce its findings and conclusions to writing within a stated time and the cost of applications, including attorney's fees, shall be assessed against the municipality.

Conditional Approvals: