The West Milford Lakes Committee (WMLC) is proposing an ordinance that would prohibit people from feeding waterfowl and the Township of West Milford Council will be asked to adopt regulations and penalties for people who ignore the law once it is in place.

Committee members in discussing the proposed ordinance at their meetings said it is needed to help protect lake water quality. More discussion is expected at the next committee meeting on March 21 before the request to the council for action is finalized.

An attorney-prepared initial draft includes controls for waterfowl similar to that in place for land animals (modeled after the existing ordinance prohibiting feeding of bears) and the committee consensus has been that this provision should not be included in the new waterfowl law being proposed for adoption.

Building permit applications

Councilman Phil Weisbecker, township council liaison official on the committee, discussed a proposed ordinance amendment regarding lake association property owner building permit applications at last month’s meeting.

The law is aimed at addressing incidents of building encroachment on association property. Weisbecker said that a misunderstanding resulted in notification of all permit applications being sent by the building department to certain associations.

For clarification an official from the planning and building department is expected to be at a future meeting to clarify the procedure.

Questions explored by the lake association representatives during their discussion included, “How does an association know of the pending application if the home-owner chooses not to comply with the notification process and which township department should make the notification.”

Weisbecker explained to the committee that the notification by the planning department was intended when the ordinance was originally discussed by the council but was not included in the original ordinance or the amendment under discussion.

Other questions that arose during the discussion were: when does the 14-day count (rebuttal by the associations) begin and how far from the lake/common property should be specified in the modification process and what information such as decks should be included.

After the building application process was explained the question remained that, if a variance is not necessary, how does the association know if the property owner chooses not to comply with the notification process.

A notification check list is being included in the draft of the amendment. One suggestion was that the property owner would be required to include a letter signed by the association as part of the application to the building department.

Lake communities have elected representatives at the Lakes Committee meetings, usually held on the third Monday of the month. The meetings include discussion about items of general interest to residents of the lake communities.

Source: northjersey.com