Residents had their first opportunity to be part of the borough’s master plan revision Feb. 2 at a group discussion at the Closter Public Library.
Leading the discussion was Jeremiah Bergstrom of the environmental consultant firm TRC, which will lend the town assistance with incorporating a green component into its master plan. Incorporation of green elements is an attempt to make the borough a "sustainable community" as it goes through the mandated revision process, which occurs every six years.
"Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs," said Bergstrom. He then asked the audience to brainstorm and share their ideas of what kind of community Closter is, as well as what improvements they would like to see made.
Among the impressions of Closter that audience members had were that it is historically significant, dependent on cars, affluent, developed, residential and located in a valley. There seemed to be consensus among residents that the revision of the plan should focus on areas such as promoting energy efficiency with transportation and construction, improving air and water quality and being forward thinking in terms of the environment.
Bergstrom was pleased with the meeting and said the next step is to summarize all the ideas and meet with the Environmental Commission to agree on a direction to go from here.
Councilman John Kashwick said the master plan subcommittee will discuss ideas at the next meeting of the Environmental Commission on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. Another public meeting will likely be held in late March or early April and Kashwick is interested in hearing the viewpoints of those in the building industry such as developers and contractors.
"We had a lot of people who are really into the environment [attend]. It would be nice to have people for whom that is not as important to see what their thoughts are," he said.
Resident and Environmental Commission member Steve Isaacson said he would have liked to see more people at the meeting and thinks the focus should be on educating children about green efforts.
"Adults are set in their ways, we grew up not having to recycle. If we get [kids] to adopt good habits it would force the parents to do it the right way," he said, calling the plan to incorporate green elements an "excellent first step." He said it would establish guidelines but said the actual willingness of people to follow through on efforts would depend on expense.
"When everyone wants to be green and it starts costing money all of a sudden they get cheap and want to hold onto their green," he said.
Anyone interested in giving their input may contact Environmental Commission members Adrienne Isacoff or Beth Ravit at aisacoff@lowenstein.com or ravit@aesop.rutgers.edu.
E-mail: wilde@northjersey.com or call 201-894-6706
