The Planning Board shall have the powers listed below in addition
to other powers established by law:
A. Make, adopt and, from time to time, amend a Master Plan for the physical
development of the municipality, including any areas outside its boundaries
which, in the Board's judgment, bear essential relation to the planning
of the municipality;
B. Participate in the preparation and review of programs or plans required
by state or federal law or regulation;
C. Assemble data on a continuing basis as part of a continuous planning
process;
D. If requested by Township Council, annually prepare a program of municipal
capital improvements projects projected over a term of six years and
amendments thereto and recommend same to the Township Council;
E. Consider and make report to the Township Council within 35 days after
referral as to any proposed development regulation submitted to it
and also pass upon other matters specifically referred to the Planning
Board by the Township Council;
F. Prepare, at least every six years, a periodic reexamination of the
Master Plan;
G. The Planning Board shall have such other powers as prescribed by
law, including, but not limited to, the power to grant the following
variances, to the same extent and subject to the same restrictions
as the Zoning Board of Adjustment, when the Planning Board is reviewing
applications for approval of subdivision plans, site plans or conditional
uses:
(1)
Variances pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70a through 40:55D-70c;
(2)
Direction pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-34 for issuance of a permit
for a building or structure in the bed of a mapped street or public
drainageway, flood control basin or public area; and
(3)
Direction pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-35 for issuance of a permit
for a building or structure on a lot not abutting a street.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment shall have the power to:
A. Hear and decide appeals where it is alleged by the appellant that
there is error in any order, requirement, decision, or refusal made
by the administrative officer based on or made in enforcement of the
Land Use Ordinance.
B. Hear and decide requests for interpretation of the Zoning Map or
Land Use Ordinance or for decisions upon other special questions upon
which the Zoning Board is authorized to pass on any Zoning or Official
Map Ordinance.
C. Grant a variance from the strict application of a regulation, upon
an application or an appeal, so as to relieve difficulties or hardships:
(1)
Where, by reason of exceptional narrowness, shallowness, or
shape of a specific piece of property; or by reason of exceptional
topographic conditions or physical features uniquely affecting a specific
piece of property; or by reason of an extraordinary and exceptional
situation uniquely affecting a specific piece of property or the structures
lawfully existing thereon, the strict application of any zoning regulation
would result in peculiar and exceptional practical difficulties to,
or exceptional and undue hardship upon, the developer of such property;
or
(2)
Where in an application or appeal relating to a specific piece of property the purposes of this chapter set forth in §
500-103 would be advanced by deviation from the Land Use Ordinance requirements, and the benefits of the deviation would substantially outweigh any detriment, grant a variance to allow the departure from zoning regulations; provided, however, that no variance from those departures enumerated in §
500-604D, hereinbelow, shall be granted under this section; and provided, further, that the proposed development does not require approval by the Planning Board of a subdivision, site plan, or conditional use in conjunction with which the Planning Board has power to review a request for a variance pursuant to §
500-701A(2).
D. Variances.
(1)
Grant a variance to allow a departure from the zoning regulations,
in particular cases and for special reasons, to permit:
(a)
A use or principal structure in a district restricted against
such use or principal structure;
(b)
An expansion of a nonconforming use;
(c)
Deviation from a specification or standard pertaining solely
to a conditional use;
(d)
An increase in the permitted floor area ratio;
(e)
An increase in the permitted density except as applied to the
required lot area for a lot or lots for detached one- or two-dwelling-unit
buildings, which lot or lots are either an isolated undersized lot
or lots resulting from a minor subdivision; or
(f)
A height of a principal structure which exceeds by 10 feet or
10% the maximum height permitted in the district for a principal structure.
(2)
A variance under this subsection shall be granted only by the
affirmative vote of at least five members.
E. The Zoning Board of Adjustment shall, at least once a year, review
its decisions on applications and appeals for variances and prepare
and adopt by resolution a report of its findings on Land Use Ordinance
provisions which were the subject of variance requests and its recommendations
for Land Use Ordinance amendment or revision, if any. The Zoning Board
of Adjustment shall send copies of the report and resolution to the
Township Council and Planning Board.