Hopewell Borough will be determining whether an administrative process for approving outdoor dining continues or changes as the state law expires this year.
In 2022, Gov. Phil Murphy extended outdoor dining permissions to Nov. 30, 2024. The governor first signed the law that authorized municipalities to expand outdoor dining and the use of tents, canopies, umbrellas, chairs and tables for outdoor dining during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
“The state law that grants essentially a waiver type temporary approval for outdoor dining expires in November,” said Lisa Maddox, attorney for Hopewell Borough. “We do not think it is going to extended.
“We have been looking at the standards and trying to figure out the options. One of the questions is keep the same standard, which is minor site plan waiver approval, maybe keep that procedure and amend the cost in the escrow.
“Another option is potentially going to a permit system where you take it out of land use and make it an administration approval,” Maddox said.
Maddox and Borough Planner Joanna Slagle made the recommendation to stay with the same basic policy that is currently in place at a Borough Council meeting on Aug. 1 “…but looking to ways that you can alleviate some of burden on applicants.”
The time frame discussed was a potential introduction of an ordinance at a September meeting.
“Right now, we have a temporary program that is going to end that does not require planning board approval,” Mayor Ryan Kennedy said. “The thinking was ultimately that restaurants that have the expanded outdoor dining or special outdoor dining should ultimately come to the planning board.
“Many recognized that for something that might have been tested for four years, the escrows or the paperwork might be adjusted perhaps to something that makes sense to the kind of requests they are making.”
The options are to continue with an administrative program or create a process for more traditional site plan approval, Kennedy explained.
“But maybe one that recognizes it should not cost $5,000 to get approval.”
