Palisades Park sets boundaries for multi-family housing, massage parlors and pawn shops -...

[massage]

The Borough Council in Palisades Park on Monday adopted land-use changes that limit where three-story multi-residential buildings may be constructed and where massage parlors and pawn shops could open.

The council voted unanimously to adopt the ordinance minutes after it began its special meeting, which was attended by about 60 people, a few of whom voiced disapproval.

The council held a public hearing on the ordinance last month in which several residents asked questions and spoke against the proposed changes. Afterward, Councilman Frank Donohue asked council members to table the vote to adopt because he said he wanted to talk to borough officials further about the ordinance. On Monday, he made the motion to adopt the changes.

“As much as we don’t want to see more building in town, I don’t want it to be all over town, and with applications coming in to build anywhere massage parlors, pawn shops, multi-housing dwellings, as undesirable as it is to build it anywhere, I think in some ways we are restricting it,’’ Donohue said after the vote. “I really thought about this, and I felt that if I voted no, we would see more building, and it would be a tremendous amount of applications and they could be anywhere. They would have carte blanche to build everywhere.”

The ordinance will require massage parlors and pawn shops to be at least 100 feet from schools, houses of worship and day cares as well as require them to apply for annual licenses from the borough.

The ordinance also restricts three-story and multi-residential development containing more than four apartments to portions of Grand, Commercial and East Columbia avenues.

Borough officials have stressed that the three-story residential structures would be limited to areas that are zoned for high-rise buildings.

Residents Marsha Schor, who has said that the ordinance would allow for a vacant piece of property on Grand Avenue to be developed for multi-family housing expressed anger over the decision to adopt ordinance — “All of a sudden everybody is voting against what the people want. If you betray the people, no one will have any trust in any of you.”

Mayor James Rotundo reminded the audience that any project would have to go before either the planning or zoning board for approval.

“This ordinance,” he said “restricts what has been done over the past how-many-years now — all of these buildings going on, all of these multi-families, that are coming in on side streets.”

The ordinance calls for massage businesses to pay $250 a year to the borough for a license to operate, while massage practitioners employed at the parlors would pay $100 annually.

The ordinance calls for all massage parlors and pawn shops to be located in areas zoned manufacturing, with existing massage parlors being grandfathered. Currently, there are no pawn shops operating in town and about half a dozen massage parlors on Broad Avenue, officials said. There are other massage businesses in other parts of the borough.

Pawn shops could not be larger than 2,500 square feet and would have to pay $300 to the borough for a license, according to the ordinance.

In other business, Rotundo announced plans to launch a second borough website that would be in Korean. The announcement came after one Korean-speaking resident, Hyukman Kwon, who had brought a translator, said he had asked for a Korean translator from the town on Friday after he found out about the special meeting and was not able to get one.

At last month’s meeting, Kwon, who also raised concerns about the land use ordinance, had to rely on his comments being translated by Councilman Christopher Chung.

More than 50 percent of Palisades Park’s population is of Korean ancestry, according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau. At Monday’s meeting, several residents were of Korean ancestry.

Rotundo said if borough officials see more instances of Korean residents needing translators at town meetings, they will hire someone to be available to them.

“We know that the town has changed, and we know that we have meetings that all residents should feel comfortable enough to want to understand what is going on,’’ Rotundo said. “If we see — and don’t forget this is one time that we had this issue — if this seems to be a pattern, absolutely … I will make sure that we find someone.”

Let's block ads! (Why?)