[Music] make sure the uh meeting of the Bridgewater Board of adjustments is now called to order at 6:38 for organization purposes the uh open meeting announcement both adequate and electronic notice of this meeting specifying the time place and manner in which such notice was provided in accordance with the open public meetings act uh specifically on January 9 2024 proper notice was sent to The Courier news and the Star Ledger and filed with the clerk at the township of Bridgewater and posted on the municipal buleon board Please be aware that the Zoning Board of adjustment policy for public hearings is that no new applications will be heard after 9:30 p.m. and no new testimony will be taken after 10 p.m. would you please rise and salute the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands a nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we have Oaths of office for Bruce Boro cordio vesio and John gayeski would you gentlemen just stand and meet me in this corner by the flag any St this and talk him at the meeting ohg please late that's good president here yeah here here here here here here I'm here here thank you now the election of officers are there nominations for the election of the chairperson I I make a nomination to elect Mr Foo as chairman of the board is a men is there a second I'll second roll call please yes uh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes chairman there's your gav thank you Rich you run a fine meeting and thank you to the board for having me back I think we had a great year and it was great because of each and every one of you and uh you know I I for sure I'm still learning as we're going along and my only advice for this year is you know we lost Scarlet who's been with our town for 30 years and I think it's going to be up to all of us to carry some water dig in and kind of in the back of our minds always remember what would Scarlet do and uh again thank you for your trust and your confidence and uh look forward to a great 2024 uh with that next up we're going to have the election of a vice chairman uh opening up to the boards for nominations uh and I'm going to make a motion for Mr widley for vice chair could I have a second that was Mr bonjourno Roger can have a roll call vote please yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right congratulations Jim welcome back thank you uh next up the election of a board secretary uh L I nominate Andy Fresco all right do we have a second please that was Mr lasp on the second for Andy Fresco for board secretary change signature yes yes yes yes yes yeah yes all right congratulations Mr Fresco thank you thank you all right next up we're going to elect an assistant board secretary I would like to nominate Nancy propes our land use administ rator in uh in the admin office she does a great job and uh when Mr Fresco can't get over to sign plans she's an excellent backup second that was Mr widley with a second for Nancy propes for assistant board secretary I did yes yes uh yes yes yes yes yes yes all right next up we have uh reorganization resolutions appointment of our board professionals uh we have appointment of Richard Aller Esquire board attorney the esteemed board attorney from last year looking to return for 24 get a I move was second all right we have laspa yes yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you very much everyone thank you Rich you've been doing a great job welcome back appreciate that all right next up we have board engineer Mr Burr motion please was Mr widley that was Mrs Amin second yes yes yes yes yes yes yes welcome back Bill and thank you for all your hard work and if your boss is out there listening in Point Pleasant thank him for uh pointing you to a Bridgewater again we're very lucky to have you and uh we know you work really hard and uh you know thank you for everything you did last year and look to continue it in 24 uh we have a vacancy board planner that was uh formerly taken by Scarlet Doyle uh I've been told the Administration has narr it down to four firms um there's going to be some interviews and uh if anyone would like to be in those interviews uh let me know after this meeting and we can maybe set up an informal board to ask some questions and look to get somebody on staff uh in the meantime we're going to um be using Michael Sullivan as a planner I'm going to get to his appointment right after we do the Consulting engineer uh we have a resolution for Boswell engineering looking for a motion please I move it was Mr widley second it was Mr LP on the second yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right and as I said Michael Sullivan Consulting planner we have a resolution uh that's basically until we hire a board planner he's going to be filling in um looking for a motion to appoint Michael Sullivan Consulting planner I move widely and that was Mr bonjo second yes uh yes yes yes yes yes yes all right next up we have consultant for our traffic engineering and that's Bright View engineering looking for a motion please yeah move Mr Deli second Mr bonjourno second yes yes yes yes yes yes all right and we last up we have Consulting radio frequency engineer uh that's going to be utilized in our CX case which is not going to be heard tonight but I believe that's February 27th um looking for a motion from the board from Mr Bruce Einstein for RF engineer consultant I move Mr widley second Mr bonjourno second yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right designation of meeting dates I have proposed meeting dates for 2024 and Roger do I need to read them or to be safe you want me to read them in second Tuesdays forward by elction in June [Music] no Mar 12 Mar 26 ail 23 all right could I have a board motion to ratify those proposed meeting dates that Roger just read into the record I move and Mr bjoro second yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right and last we have designation of official newspapers Roger could you read into the record who we're planning on using for the official noticing newspapers for 2024 all right we're sending it down thank you sir have a motion I move second wiely Mr bu yes yes yes yes yes yes all right thank you everyone that concludes our reorganization meeting for 2024 we're going to go offline it's the time is 6:49 we're going to adjourn and we're going to come back at 700 pm and start our regular meeting thank you all right good evening again we're going to call this regular meeting to order Bridgewater Hunter Commons Way Bridgewater New Jersey 0807 that 7 p.m. open public meetings announcement uh both adequate and electronic notice of this meeting specifying the time place and manner in which such notice was provided in accordance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 4-6 specifically on April 19th 2023 proper notice was sent to The Courier News and the Star Ledger and filed with the clerk at the township of Bridgewater and posted in the municipal bulletin board Please be aware of the zoning Board of adjustment policy for public hearings no new applications will be heard after 9:30 p.m. and no new test testimony will be taken after 10 p.m. if you're able please rise for the salute to the flag I flages na indivisible andice for all hi Roger can we get another roll call please here here yeah here here here here here here I'm here Mr here all right thank you uh at this time I'm going to open up the meeting to members of the public that would like to speak on any land use issue which is not on our agenda this evening all right seeing none I'm going to close that portion we're going to work on board minutes number six uh first up is November 14th 2023 regular meeting changes comments actually on the transcript I have little comment and uh I gave copies of the comment to Roger on the very first page it says uh rockbury Township so instead of rockbury it should become Bridgewater Township right and we also have and my my name should be taken out I wasn't there you were not present correct I wasn't present thank you as always Mrs amid Roger you have those right you have a copy yeah all right any other changes and if none could I get a motion please pleas to approve I move second Mr widley and Mr bonjourno is a second yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right thank you next up we have November 28th 2023 regular meeting minutes changes comments get a motion please yeah I'll move Mr widely second second Mr bonjourno yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right last up we have December 12th 2023 regular meeting minutes comments changes yeah on uh the December 12th meeting there are in the trans script that is provided by the code transcriber there are multiple typos on different pages I can go through that if you want but there's no need to go through that we can give Roger a copy instead of going through each yeah Roger has a copy of all those and uh small type was here and there thank you Mrs Zan any other changes or comments if none can I get a motion please move Mr widley second Mr banjo second yes uh yes yes yes yes yes yes all right number seven resolutions we have two the first up is signature Acquisitions LLC and Rich why don't you to take us through this real quick sure signature had submitted um correspondence indicating that they were withdrawing their application and having started the application before the board required as a board vote to uh to dismiss it without prejudice which was their request the board voted in favor of doing so thank you seeking a motion Mr widley do there second second Mr bonjourno yes uh yes yes yes yes yes yes all right and finally we have Gateway 70b an extension of Prior approval Rich what do we have there so uh Gateway had previously received approval from this board and a first extension and requested a second extension second extension for six months which would bring them through June 7th of this year um the board voted in favor of that short extension there were a couple of conditions which is that the applicant shall continue to maintain the of the property to the reasonable satisfaction of the zoning officer and to Municipal requirements failure to do so would result in the zoning officer issuing a violation to the applicant and that all their representations made in Prior public hearings um would remain in full force and that all right and that was Mr Fresco that brought that to the board and I know Roger went out to the site would those stipulations carry forward on this resolution yes okay all right can I have a motion to approve please I move widley that was second Mr laspa yes uh yes yes yes yes U I don't think Don's eligible yes okay okay if we have affidavit we're we're okay I just I would prer we skip it skip it because he wasn't here for the vote that's yes yes yes yes all right uh next up we have our land use development applications now we have a very full docket for the next two months Rich before we get on to Chimney Rock Self Storage tonight why don't we go through any members of the public that may be here for other cases let's make sure they're in the right place there were other items um indicated that might be tonight for example we have CX cow's application that application is not not being heard this evening it is being carried to the uh February 27th 2024 hearing at 700 PM in this room and there'll be no further notices from the applicant with respect to CX to Additionally the application for 1,00 route22 land investors and 1200 route22 LLC holding um is being carried to the February 13th 2024 hearing date at 7 p.m in this room and again there'll be no further notices to the public from the applicant and finally uh Bell Holdings LLC um is being carried to the March 12th 2024 hearing at 7 pm in this room and again without any further notices from the applicant for that hearing thank you Rich so that leaves us with Chimney Rock Storage good evening good evening Mr chairman evening and uh thanks for having us back thank you for carrying uh this at the last couple of meetings without further notice by way of brief introduction you may recall we were last before you on November 14th uh on this application for preliminary and final site plan with with variance relief uh during that meeting the board provided valuable feedback to the applicant in terms of its perception of the variance relief being sought and even though all that's transpired so far is the testimony being provided by our civil engineers take that feedback um back and and we we rolled up our sleeves and tried to um reduce the intensity of some of the variances were being sought uh and all outright remove some of the variances that were being sought uh still at the November hearing we explained to the board and and we'll continue doing so tonight that the topography the layout the dimensions of this particular property are such that there's nothing that can be developed uh without some relief uh which is which is the reality of of the site configuration uh so as I said we went back we try to analyze every angle of the plan that was previously submitted and made adjustments and and we'll have testimony about what those adjustments are tonight we've eliminated many of the variances that we're originally seeking and for those that we did not eliminate uh we tried our best to reduce the intensity or bring it as close as possible to the intent of the zoning plan and and the the zoning ordinance for the site it's our hope that the board sees a lot of these revisions that we made and will be testified tonight as an expression of our willingness to try to do um to listen to the board its concerns and bring this into closer compliance with your ordinance uh our plan is to present for Witnesses tonight um and that the conclusion of those Witnesses and the testimony being provided um including operations engineering architecture and planning uh the board will have a complete understanding of what our proposal is uh here tonight uh just one one quick comment we don't have a plan planner here tonight the township is hiring a planner so I'm going to recommend that when we get to the planning testimony maybe that's where we're going to complete our evening tonight so we can get at least a Consulting Planner on behalf of Bridgewater Township and behalf of this board uh involved to properly asked questions and V your testimony that's okay with you is that was that uh done in the reorganization earlier to evening yes we approved Mr suan yeah I spoke with him yesterday yeah he indicated he wasn't coming today okay right well he couldn't come tonight till we approved so it's kind of you know cart and a horse type of situation so just wanted to throw that out to you and you know we do a full house tonight and you got a lot of testimony and you know when you get to your planning testimony why don't we talk about it we'll talk about it when we get there let's get through the first three anyway uh we we would like to start with the gentleman to my right uh Matt Lang I believe all of the witnesses have previously been sworn in Mr oler can confirm new year new day let's do new year new day let's you want to do all four of them at once you want to do all of them at we do everyone I'll take you up and Bill as well Raise Your Right hands please you solemly swear that the testimony you'll give to this board will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God and would you each let's go uh in order of your Witnesses if you like but just identify yourselves for the record thank you thank you everyone Rich okay so Matt you you did give some brief testimony at the last meeting in response to some questions but we really haven't introduced you yet to the board so I'll start by asking you just to do that just that who are you explain to the board your your business who snapbox is wel us uh thank you board um appreciate your time tonight uh my name is Matthew Lang I am co-founder and COO of snapbox Self Storage we are a vertically integrated Self Storage business based in Philadelphia Pennsylvania we have been in business for 10 years we operate uh over 50 locations across 10 states encompassing over 3 million square feet of self storage and 30,000 individual storage units and um we are here as a third-party management company for the application tell us about your presence in New Jersey we currently operate nine facilities throughout the state of New Jersey we also have another one coming online that's under construction in North Bergen that will be delivering in uh the summer this year uh is there anything that differentiates you from other self storage facilities or what your mission is uh ultimately uh our business is here to serve the community it's a community- based business our customers come from a a small radius around the facility uh as the name would indicate we try and make this uh business and process a snap uh so ultimately customers are going through life events and we're here to make the process for them smooth easy and uh provide great service and a clean safe secure environment for them to store their possessions okay what interests you about this site why Bridgewater why this particular site so as we analyze this location there are a number of factors that we look at uh we look at the amount of competition in a market we look at the traffic patterns we look at rental rates uh that are factors and ultimately in our determination the market is underserved with the amount of existing Supply that is in the market and um over the past few years there's been increased demand for various uses of Self Storage uh this property um obviously has great visibility and with that uh also very good access for customers which is important uh for ease of use at a at a location when you do that analysis do you look at the ex existing um supply of these particular facilities their location relative to this site and what they off or what you would offer that they don't could you talk us about that analysis we do so as we look and and we we do our Market studies we understand the age of existing properties the features and benefits that product is in the market um in this current marketpl there is an under Supply of class a quality Self Storage product climate control something that is able to um keep you know possessions clean dry through that this type of multi-story facility is a newer type of construction within the industry uh a number of the properties in the market are older ventage and do not offer the same type of feature and benefits that a new property would offer talk to us about your planned operations for the site the employees who your customers are going to be just what are the what are the plans yeah so um when we're looking at a a new market for our business we take into account the existing facilities what their hours of operation are what their office hours are we tend to match what is already existing in a market for instance customers will have access to the facility between 6: am and 9:00 p.m. with office hours that are staffed by employees typically from 9:30 a.m. to 6: p.m. that would be office hours staffed from Monday through Friday with limited hours on Saturday and we're typically closed on Sundays with that um we typically have in an operation like this two full-time employees and then we have district managers that would be operating and coming in and and checking on the facility twice a month and working with the team um those two full-time employees are not there uh at the same time we overlap in terms of Staffing hours um but that gives us coverage and and generally it's a very uh light intensive business where uh we don't have a lot of customer Demand on a a regular basis talk to us about security you mentioned the hours that people are able to access the site outside when you have full-time employees so how would they get that access and and what is the security of of the facility so all of our properties have access control uh this specific facility would have keypad entrance where individuals are assigned a unique key code for them to enter the building uh those uh keypads are disabled after hours uh so you're not able to get in um you are able to get out of the building through emergency exits but the the security of it is 24hour cameras that are running throughout the building uh and then the access control can I ask a question you you you said you monitor as people go in and they come out as well yes so if I were to go in and I was a client and I signed in at 9:00 and comes 900 p.m. you could tell that I haven't left the facility yeah so uh there's often exit keypads as well which then can track the incoming and outgoing of customers um oftentimes especially in new developments where we have the ability to wire speakers we have playback saying that the facility is closing this time please finish up what you're doing and you know exit the building that's something that we have going on at a number of our facilities that are new construction thank you do you also interview you people that when they apply for uh for storage in other words do you ask them what they plan to do their household goods or minerals or I don't know whatever what what do you do so there are a number of ways that customers rent with us they can do full service rental online they can rent through a call center that we operate ourselves they can rent through the office uh and the manager there the the lease does stipulate what you can and cannot store in a facility and so we also as the the owner management of any of our properties have the ability to and and the right to enter any unit without notification if we feel that there is any uh issue that that needs to be addressed thank you very much on the same subject can you talk the board through what are some of those items that are prohibited in your lease that that you would not authorize to be stored uh I you know these are flammable items uh explosives um ammunition generally things that cause life safety issues what are who your Target customers what your demographic what do you expect to be your customers uh Self Storage is a unique business where um really any demographic age income is a possible candidate for self- storage um these are folks that um are going through life events typically and so we are typically seeing um customers coming in because they're moving they're downsizing it it is something that is driven by life events so this is marriage divorce death children Military College all of these life events create need uh for for storing your items and in your experience at your other facilities how often do these individuals visit the site how how much traffic do you see generated at the facility so that does vary um a lot of customers we see them twice we see them when they're moving in and when they're moving out uh a number of customers may use it for for business services so they may be storing files they may be storing inventory those types of users will come in more frequently ly um but it it varies tremendously however I would say a majority of our customers are not there on a daily basis um and a a typical trip will generate time on site of less than one hour um I would say it's it's more in the half hour range where there there's no reason for for customers to be on site for long periods of time even for businesses that are storing inventory if if you've been in a self storage facility there's really no reason to linger around uh so they're not that exciting and ultimately folks who come in they get what they need and they're out uh and on to the business that they they really are having to attend to one of the changes and and we're going to have our engineer talk about the changes to the plans but one deals with operation is the trash and recycle um how would that be addressed particular site since as the board will hear and have seen on the plans we have removed the enclosure yeah um trash is is very minimal from our perspective and and recycling for that matter uh recycling is probably more so um just due to packaging boxes things of that nature but um we don't have any uh food refu um this is packaging material from retail items that we might sell for moving and storage um boxes uh but overall that's really it um what we what we have modified is that we can um utilize a storage unit near the loading area for any trash or recycling needs and we have regular pickup and you know our managers can manage that and and provide access to uh the waste H haulers at that time that's all the questions I had for you unless you have something that you think from an operations point of view that didn't get addressed through my questions for the board um I know in our uh uh previous hearing that uh traffic is a concern um and I I want to say that even at a facility that is fully occupied and in this case um you know that might be in the range of 700 customers which on paper seems like a lot but we have less than 10% of our customer base that is visiting us on a daily basis and not only is it 10% of that fully occupied uh space that's visiting us but they're visiting us through the hours of 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. so the amount of uh trip Generations throughout the day is minimal there's minimal sight impact uh folks are not um there overnight uh and also at this location there is uh no overnight parking so from a activity perspective um this is one of the few uses that um has such a low impact on on uh the real estate and property you you mention a lot of metrics that you you gather by saying that certain traffic happens at this time of the day or people don't come in every day I'm assuming that you generate reports on a regular basis to track this information the Access Control Systems uh really are the leading indicator on activity at a site is it online or is a report generated for one of those two people that are permanent employees to review uh this is software that is web- based so really anybody in our organization with the right credentials is able to log in and and see that information um it is certainly available you know at the the site for the managers uh to view it's something that they have open on their screens um along with our POS system and and other softwares but uh overall these are reports that we're able to generate um from anywhere thank you I wasn't clear on the um security features where I have a keypad to get in and then I didn't quite understand your answer for exiting must I key in an exit code do I walk out and somehow you know I'm gone that one wasn't clear to me so so each facility each design tends to to create or or have different demand in in terms of how a customer is entering and exiting and this specific uh instance um there there can be I mean ultimately we want to make sure that from a life safety perspective folks have the ability to get out without any delay typically these are motion sensor doors sliding doors similar to a retail environment um and and so there would be that ability to to get out of the building when needed um a lot of times the the uh security cameras can also take tabs on on activity and they log motion and so we can see if we don't have that exit keypad available we can also tie it back to the security camera which is integrated with our access control and I think what I'm trying to address is if somebody Keys themselves in and you don't know whether they've actually left or not unless somebody asks you to check so um ultimately that's part of the manager's responsibility and and and they are our eyes and ears at the site uh they have a keen indication on customer use and if there are individuals who they see coming in very late in the day we often are addressing that type of activity with the customers because it tends to lead to scenarios where somebody is camping out in a unit or something along those lines um with over 30,000 storage units in our portfolio uh we have encountered many degrees of this type of behavior and our managers are trained on identifying it and understanding it and it's also a reason why we really do even if a customer rents online our team is uh required to make contact with them to introduce themselves to create a relationship uh with those customers and from that point you you get better indication on why they're there when they're there how often they're there and and that's pretty much as you're describing it function of the manager his relationship the tenure that the manager has the sharing of um his duties with the person who comes in after him it's another all I'm trying to say is it's a little Swiss chees likee in terms of determining if somebody's still there or not you want to be able to let them out I understand that the same time I'd like to know that they checked in at 2m and they did in fact leave the building before it closed even though they can get out after the fact yeah right now there's no way to do that no that that's not that there's no way to do that because there are motion sensors going on in the building uh there there are security functions that can alarm us that if there are folks inside the building after hours uh we have emergency contacts that are notified and we have a chain of command between the manager district manager Regional operations myself at that list you know would it be fair to analyze how you're describing this to what we may people in the room may be more familiar with which is you know going to a bank after hours and putting your ATM card to get into the door and then you don't have to do it to get out again um but there's a tracking of what who goes in and I'm sure there are cameras and that's how you track it yeah very similar to that again it's with a unique key code and so these individuals are each assigned and so it it may be an eight dig code um and something that's not easily duplicated there Mr L I don't know if you saw it was in the New York Post today um it was I think it was page three or four 14 weeks a couple lived in their storage unit now that wasn't one of your facilities I'm assuming no I don't think Uhn notification come up on my Google news but uh no no and and is it possible for that to happen in in your configuration of of your security I 14 weeks is a long time in our organization that's not possible uh the amount of the amount of understanding that a manager has of the property that they are overseeing is tremendous and it it doesn't just go to that property and as as you said swiss cheese there's always going to be some Gap in terms of information there's also a lot of systems that we utilize in order to take notes on a unit on a customer that even if some somebody goes on vacation is out of the office for a while that that information has continuity between the organization and different layers of management um and so uh for our team the way they're trained is to understand who is accessing the properties how often when where you know they're they're as much of a security guard as they are customer service and sales um so it's part of their responsibility I'd like to just make it easier for me to understand again the exit is the issue that I'm looking at right now if someone comes in in the morning I come in in the morning and it's it's 11:00 and 9:00 you're closing down how do you know that I haven't had a heart attack in my unit and I'm still there how would you know so each property has a relatively small office a rental office with retail merchandise and things of that nature that is 800 sare ft half of their time at a property in any given day is spent on the property walking around doing lock checks making sure that the units that are vacant are vacant the units that are rented are locked and so the security of it is is really something that they're going through every morning they're doing a check before they're closing they're doing a check if we're seeing anything of that nature we also have motion sensor lighting if there's activity in a unit you'll see a portion of that building with lights on that should not have lights on so why wouldn't it make sense and you probably can tell me why wouldn't you have them have to swipe out as well well life safety is one issue with that and if there is anything that would require somebody to exit a building quickly um we want to make sure that first and foremost that everybody is safe on the property um secondly you would have an emergency exit probably covered by cameras right all entrances and exits are covered by cameras yes okay um um I have a question about your customers are they required to have some kind of a agreement to uh use the space for a certain amount of time so many months or so many days or whatever else uh so can someone have a very short period week two two weeks uh so our customer Agreements are month-to month uh minimum amount of time would be one month uh most customers the average length of stay in today's environment is 14 16 months uh and so some people you know are moving and they have a specific amount of time that they're they think they're going to be out or in transition um what tends to happen is folks who think they're going to be renting end up staying for six months nine months or longer uh ultimately it's a a flexible use for storage and it's an easy way to um put possessions out of the area but we do not rent daily weekly uh minimum time frame is one month see if someone is moving from one house to another and they need a space to put their furniture or something the goods for a week or two weeks uh is that something that that is allowed in your they can use it for one day but they're going to be renting for one month and paying for one month so okay whatever their use is is up to them but those Agreements are standardized so so based on what we saw uh you have more than 500 uh storage areas sections right so uh do you allow any customer to have more than one or two and you can open up the space and have bigger space um so customers are are welcome to rent as much space as they need MH um we rent them unit by unit so we do not necessarily consolidate units if somebody needs a th000 square feet they can rent five units um and and so ultimately that flexibility having it month-to month means that they have the ability to scale up their needs if if they need more space and they have the ability to scale down um if that need is reduced so you mentioned that there's no overnight parking allowed at the facility so if on on the way the manager's way out that evening like what would they do if there's like a car still in the parking lot so typically if if they do see something like this oftentimes uh for instance if a customer's car broke down um they're in communication with that customer um you know if it's there for one night they're not necessarily going to have a toad if it's there if if you know often times a manager will recog recogniz the vehicle of this customer if somebody is frequenting the property on a consistent basis managers can see especially with this design where your entrance is coming up near the office manager going to be able to see that type of activity coming in the parking is right out front of the office so they're going to be able to see who is this and um you know are they a customer are they not if if if they see uh uh an individual parking and then walking behind the property to the community there they would certainly um go to them and and let them know that you know this is for customer use only um if it's something that we see becomes you know one two nights um they would call their supervisor and and see if it's uh appropriate to have a towed okay and do customers like register their license plates when they sign up for a unit is there any information on the vehicle they do not we do take identification um so we have driver's license but as it relates to vehicle license plate um only at properties where we have vehicle storage would that happen thank you so um so Mr Lang let me ask you this a couple things um first is you you referred to yourself as the thirdparty management company for the applicant so let's let's spend a few minute moments not minutes uh drilling down on that um tell us what that means how do you define that uh sure so third party management is defining the relationship between our company uh where we provide Management Services for a third-party owner the owner of the facility is not an operator um and and ultimately they're looking to our expertise to assist them with the management of the property so is there a time issued on that is that perpetuity is it a one year six month months uh it it's on an annual basis assuming we do a good job hopefully it's in perpetuity I see so it's not like it's a ramp up so when a restaurant starts they bring in corporate people they train everybody and then they hand it over so that's not the situation here no it is not okay so then any filings any any uh contact information that the police and the fire it's going to be the third party management company it would be the third party uh it would be us it would be our management team and uh and ultimately you know typically um emergency response may have four or five people listed within an organization uh in that chain of command now what about so and that's Staffing as well so you're interviewing you're Staffing they work for your third-party company that's correct yes they are on uh our payroll and then you know as far as liability goes though so I assume I don't know if there's an owner in the room somebody's actually the owner of this entity um well I guess that that must be in the filing so um liability wise um on the record I mean we know who this person is is this person background checked I mean how you know how how do we really know in terms of the ownership yeah well um they currently own the property uh and so you know they've been operating in in the municipality for many years um as it relates to you know there there's insurance that we carry as a management company there's insurance that we have as an umbrella policy the there there's property insurance and liability insurance that also follow along with that okay and is this the case in all of your properties is this common is in terms of third party management uh it is a very common uh theme within the industry overall uh it is a unique operation it is um uh an everchanging industry and so um a number of owners you know just like uh apartment communities hotels um would prefer to have a Professional Organization run it versus themselves all right great thank you okay so let's talk about the size for a second um I don't for some reason my my notes from the prime meeting I don't have how many units and I understand that they come in probably different sizes and shapes and and I also understand that obviously you're selling space so the more space you have the more Revenue youve you can generate and I respect that I really do so it's it's 129,50 square feet I believe the new building and that's unless something's changed roughly how many units are in that so that is the grow square footage within the design of Self Storage you have hallway corridors elevators office uh stairwells and so typically um and and because of the shape of this parcel we um we have a unique shaped building that tends to increase the loss Factor essentially and so um with that I believe we are ending up with somewhere in the range of 990,000 square feet rentable um in a typical market like this um where customers don't necessarily need a hallway closet they may need an extra bedroom for instance uh our our average unit size I believe um off hand is going to be somewhere around 110 square feet which then equates to somewhere in the range of 800 uh storage units um the amount of storage units is is not necessarily the critical component because as a building leases up you tend to see different demand metrics and and the flexibility of storage is also that you can modify these units through that lease up period to create the best unit mix for uh market demand gotcha okay so and you know right now a mature facility let's say a year old facility what are you at 70% 80% occupancy and you don't have to divulge any industry stuff just roughly I mean 50% so so there tends to be um anywhere between a two and threeyear Lisa period And so you know it's generally evenly spaced across um for second third year all right whatever so let's just say you're at 50% that's 400 units and you said earlier that you're seeing 10% of your CL clients on a daily basis that's 40 spots you know that that's that's that's 40 spots spread out across 15 hours yeah yeah yeah right still 19 it's also loading areas and so um the the number of loading areas that are on the site are going to be utilized the folks that are using uh the parking spaces so um at at 40 you know that's you break that out into 10 hours and you have four cars on site right each hour but if I remember my old Bachelor days you know my my rent was up and I moved out at the end of the month so I would assume that you're busy at a certain time there's got to be some peak times right the end of the month the beginning of the month the middle of the month kind of things um yeah the activity does book end the month and so with that it is something where um there again a lot of um Agreements are signed throughout the week moving activity is generated more so Friday Saturday Sunday um but again that is something that as the property stabilizes it becomes more of a natural flow as opposed to everybody coming in February 1st and having 80 leases signed uh that's not really the case in our business all right fair enough um that's great thank you very much that's all I had you had described the aspects of the site itself and the location as being desirable for your business the demographics of the surrounded area the um the the relative absence of competition at least for the kind of quality facility you propose running and so you know a lot about the business aspect of this this is a an intensification of use on that site the building which exists today in many ways is unobtrusive for a lot of reasons it does not have the the degree of intensity that you propose so my question to you is is it necessary to have that big a building with that many units and still operate a profitable business and which case you can scale down considerably that which you propos to us uh in these meetings and perhaps in some ways eliminate some of the other variances which are going to come to four but from a pure business perspective can you build it smaller and still make money the the design and size of this building the thought in mind was really to meet where the market demand is in this community and and that's what we saw ultimately was the Demand right um and and so as you know self- storage expert you know I I I can't really talk to other factors that are involved in this application what we see is that there's an under supply of Self Storage in the marketplace uh not only that a typical trade area for us maybe three miles or five miles depending on density because of the location on Route 22 we tend to see market demand further out from that radius because of functions of somebody works in this market they drive here day in and day out it's convenient location for them and so you know ultimately the way we look at the business is is the community um being served with the amount of storage that we see in demand but you have operating history of all the facilities which you currently manage or operate and so you do know those which are profitable and those which are ascending into the profit margin all I'm asking is can you build it smaller still make it a profitable investment for the owner of the property and make sense for you as a management company I understand your question but ultimately in my position I can't make that determination uh I'm a manager in this relationship and I understand what can be done and and what cannot be done in our portfolio we certainly have locations that are smaller and we have ones that are larger um in the scenarios where owners you know we're looking at the same uh fundamentals to see that you know just because you're going larger doesn't mean it's going to be more profitable if you're if you're creating something that is too large to serve the market then there's no sense in having vacant space either uh so from that perspect perspective um you we feel that the the design is there to to meet the demand and I understand in this case you don't want to speak for the owner as as you're being the management company but I do know that with respect to the operating history you have of your own facilities or the ones that you manage you do have a formula by which you can determine whether these things make sense and it might be customizable to the individual property and perhaps and my question is best posed to the owner maybe before you I'm going to ask this of the architect as well but you address in one of your responses to the questions from the board regarding percentage factor of the Dead Space the hallways office the office space that is not attributable to the rentable space describe that a little bit and how that plays a factor into your your market analysis yeah so um listen I think the um traditional Self Storage that you would have seen 20 years ago which is the single story drive up um you have a lot of pavement you have a lot of impervious coverage but you have no hallways and so the buildings that you put up are 100% utilized in a multi-story facility which um ultimately uh came out of um the industry for having better locations instead of being tucked away uh in the back of an industrial park um more Self Storage properties uh and and certainly ones that you've heard um in other applications over the years um are going vertical with multi-story again that that creates a need for elevators stairwells and and hallways um an irregular shaped building creates less right angles and more hallways uh and so um as we look at that and and and certainly um uh my colleague on on the architecture side um has much more information relating to that but um even in a single story conversion which we've done of um defunct retail buildings um we have a loss factor and so um you know real estate taxes are not based on the net rentable um and our insurance is not based on the net rentable this is on a gross building Factor um we try and make the buildings design them in the most efficient manner so that customers um have a clear understanding of how to get around the property uh it it um we have interior signage to help with wayfinding and things of that nature but uh ultimately the the design is a way to maximize efficiency ultimately an a regular shaped building because of regular shaped lot will yield more unrented more hallways that's correct I I I if you have a a a perfect square or rectangle um I I think the most efficient we could get in a multi-story design would be 25% loss in a scenario like this we're we're pushing um just over 30% and so uh again we we have gone through iterations to make it uh more efficient while also providing a uh clean and clear um map for folks to be able to get around fair enough thank you one question how much of the demand in this area would this facility address so have you calculated you believe it's X number of units yeah um and so from what we've seen there is continued demand um we have been tracking um other potential development sites in the market uh the interest rate environment has made it difficult to develop uh from a real estate perspective pure and simple um but even with the other applications um and and also outside of the municipality um we saw there being a a demand we started working on this a long time ago before the interest rate environment has slowed down further development so um we felt that there was viability with this project even with um the two or three other projects that we were tracking in the marketplace so this would address 33% of the demand this would probably address 15% of the demand all right I have a question and I'm just going to ask it and Mr Mr Lang you did a great job thank you for you you clearly you're an expert third party management company but in late 2022 the Bridgewater Township Council passed an ordinance which removed warehousing as a primary use in all commercial zones so I hadn't thought about this until your own testimony triggered it and essentially with your quote business storing inventory so you do have customers that are businesses and they store inventory there so what I'm trying to get at is that this case doesn't create impairment of the intent of the township Council which removed warehousing as an effect in in Bridgewater Township so what would happen and again this is going to the operation side not to the planing side what would happen if you saw a number of business customers come to you and say we need to store inventory here and we know that's a demand because we've had infinite applications for warehousing in front of this own board would you reconfigure the 800 approximate spots to start to give this business demand places to store their inventory because I concerned about potentially this becoming a a back door to a warehousing operation even if there was no configuration done to your bay doors and whatever what if you had someone show up and said hey I make iron railings and I want to store 50,000 of these iron railings and I'll pay you X to do it and that X is 30% above your operation margin how do we as a board prevent your company from reconfiguring those 800 spots to create a backdoor Warehouse which the Bridgewater Township Council has removed as a primary use in this case if you have experience from an operations point of view certainly it's a and that's what it speaks to and you put on the record that you have 50 locations in 10 states how do you handle a business customer that comes to you and wants to store a large parcel or large inventory component and they want you to reconfigure your layout to accommodate that what would happen how can I tell the township Council of Bridgewater that we prevented any backdooring of warehousing here in this application uh no it's certainly a uh a valid concern I I I think through our business operations there are a number of ways that we have the ability to um exclude that type of use uh there are a number of ways a a customer who's looking for large amounts of space automatically starts to raise Flags the manager starts to interview and ask more questions about the customer's use also because of the camera and access control we have full visibility on what is coming into the building even if we're not there um so a customer that is is maybe not even telling us that they want to take on that much space could rent it online but we will see that type of of activity occurring no you you testify that this is a part of your business that you have business storing inventory so I mean I'm just saying they they come to you this is a business they want to store inventory and let's say they buy 30 units and they want to reconfigure those 30 units because they have effectively found an Arbitrage a storage Arbitrage and it's an Arbitrage of our ordinances and I want to make sure that I can tell the township Council we didn't allow a local Arbitrage to happen between storage at a warehouse and storage at a facility such as yours so I think there's also a differentiation between traditional Warehouse which is maybe some of the use cases well that's prohibited in New Jersey that's my point understood and and so a number of the factors that you would find in a warehouse you will not find in Self Storage there are no forklifts the the lift or the elevator between floors is a large passenger elevator um there are again small carts that you can use but the the operation of a self storage facility would not be conducive to warehousing of any of if I can just stop you because those are great answers so would you be willing to stipulate that no Fork clifts will be used in this operation 100% okay and now you're a third party manager who only testified you have a one-year contract this is going to run with the the approval of the property so we're going to stipulate that no forklifts are going to be utilized at this property that's correct and there are other factors obviously that we can we can let's hear them because that's a great answer let's keep expanding on that how do we protect this from we've done a lot of Warehouse applications the number one thing is ceiling height that's what they're looking for now and you don't have that here um is that correct that is correct but you could have it if you remove partitions in these because you've already talked about reconfiguring layouts horizontal but not vertical yeah we're we're also the the the type of racking that a traditional Warehouse user is going to want to have you're not going to have in this fac facility uh you may have shelves um and even a consumer has that ability to put up plastic shelves you're in our rules and regulations you're not allowed to modify the space uh on your own and and nor would we be modifying the space for a user like that um so uh while I I certainly understand the concern uh in practice and in operation uh it it would not happen not not and not only is the ceing height about 10 ft talking about here but they're columns spaced every 10t that absolutely that's right and and so uh from an engineering perspective I I I can't tell you exactly where the columns are uh I know that they're tucked away um and so that they're not obstructing hallways um and and ultimately the the floor load of a self storage is is there to uh support the contents that our customers are storing but outside of that um we we do not have um uh in this specific uh instance with this property there's no vehicles that can enter the building um and again no forklifts that would be on site just to put this on the record 129,000 of total 129,000 square fet of total usable space if this was a warehouse application and it got approved you would have a renter in one day I mean so to say that the height isn't really marketable it's untrue 129,000 ft in Bridgewater New Jersey would probably lease in a day so and it's open a debate and I I'll I'll I'll I'll withdraw it but with that said you know I I do want to make sure that the intent here is not the impairment of what the township Council put through in October of 2022 I think it's 126-1 143 and I'm going to ask every one of your Witnesses the same question and how we prevent this the storage Arbitrage and it's an ordinance Arbitrage and we have to make sure and I think the forklift is is a great way to start but we have to ask ourselves with each witness how are we preventing this Arbitrage from happening of our local ordinances because we're one of the few towns that have done this we've outlawed this so we we will be happy to address any conditions of approval that are reasonable that won't impair our operations to prevent them as we go along yeah this is you know a work in progress any anything that would help me go back to the township Council and say we upheld the intent sure from that from that ordinance change in I think October 2022 sure all right any other board questions if an applicant wants to change dimensions of a space do can't do that no so when you build it that's what's going to be there forever when we build it they will come um yeah so what is the largest space you would be renting I believe at this facility the largest space would be 10 ft Fe wide by 20 ft deep so 200 square fet uh typically the largest size that we offer uh in a facility of this design would you also be willing to state that you would never reconfigure any of the existing spaces that that would be a tough thing to I think that's a slippery slope because there are um scenarios for instance that we deal with now at at other properties where um the average unit size was designed to be 90 square fet and through the demand of the marketplace we see that 150 square feet is in higher demand so we have the ability to combine a unit um it it's it's something that we take a lot of time and effort in the planning and the design of this to hopefully match the market and and to create the right target um it's been very seldom that we come across a scenario where we need to modify a building in order to to meet the demand that that we've missed almost never rarely so then you would not have a problem agreeing to that right Self Storage is built in a manner so that it is to a degree flexible now the column spacing the doors that are there the way that these are built uh interior does not make it easy it's not a simple task it's costly it's something that we don't want to be doing either is there an acceptable maximum oh yeah maximum minimum that since we can't since you can't get a vehicle in here anyway so we're not leaving we don't they don't need to be huge you're not using Fork clifts anyway as they're an acceptable maximum unit size and we could also approach I mean generally speaking that is um something that can be accomm at um you know for in our portfolio of of all these properties minimum size might be um call it uh 5x5 with half Heights so those might be considered a locker in this market with the density of population that we have here that's not a highly desirable type of unit um in this scenario our smallest unit size would be 5T by 5T uh and 8 and 1/2 ft tall the largest size unit which believe we have in the unimix is 10 ft wide by 20 ft deep being 200 ft mhm you're you're still projecting and we haven't gone over a lot of the old variances yet but you're still projecting to do three levels three stories yes that's correct thank you all right anyone else on the board Mr Burr thank you Mr chairman pull this Mr Lang had a actually had a question I think it was in followup to one of your responses to Mr kulac where you had mentioned that you have some facilities that are smaller than this some that are larger in size early on in your testimony I think you mentioned you have nine facilities in New Jersey with maybe a 10th one on the way this summer can you give us an idea of what those size ranges typically involve from the low end up to the high end yeah so um and bear in mind the size shape construction uh layout have been evolving over the course of Self Storage industry the industry is relatively new as you think about this the first storage units were popping up in the 1960s so when you think about this as an asset class it's it's still relatively new um with that in mind properties that were built in the 90s and early 2000s tend to be smaller so in New Jersey our smallest location is about 45,000 Square ft uh maybe 350 units somewhere in that range um the the largest facility that we have is 11,000 square fet rentable um the one that's under construction uh is going to be in the 95,000 foot range gross or rentable rentable so when when you say 110 rentable that would be compared to the 90 rentable for this unit is that is that what we're we talking apples to apples that that property happens to sit in a um more Suburban um Marketplace than than Bridgewater um it is single story uh and so there are driveways between 15 buildings uh that comprise of that 110,000 sare ft and the you said a 95 and a 110 of those two that are comparable in size to this one what does the parking look like on facilities like that uh that's that's really uh a great benefit of Self Storage uh typically in Self Storage we're seeing parking um one space per 10,000 square feet and so uh within our portfolio not just within New Jersey we have locations that have um probably one space for every 12 or 13,000 Square ft um the there again it is um retail conversions that had um you know 45,000 foot building sitting on 6 Acres tend to have a little bit more uh parking but I think from the uh 19 I think we actually added some um the the parking spaces that we have on the redesign uh more than accommodate the demand that we would be seeing on a regular basis okay um let me ask you a question about the hours of operation I think you had mentioned 6:00 amm to 900 p.m I heard Monday to Friday uh so the 6: a.m. to 900 p.m would be uh customer access availability that would be seven days a week oh that is seven days a week customer access is seven days a week that's where I so that's where I went off okay and then and then office hours where a manager would be would be Monday through Friday 9:30 to 6 and then Saturday I know 10 to 2 or something along this so it is a 7day operation six to n from a customer customer customer perspective yes and that that is that is standardized across every competitor in the marketplace today and at your other facilities with the exterior lighting uh 9900 pm cut off in terms of you know customers being able to access their units do the exterior lights go off at that time an hour after when did the exterior lights get extinguished um that is actually something that we've um had to modify on occasion based on municipality interest uh we typically have um uh photo cells on lighting so that they turn on at night just for uh um visibility I certainly this time of year um lights are turning on at 4:30 um and so you know I I understand their sensitivity regarding uh lighting for um vehicles on 22 um I think you know the team has addressed that um but ultimately there would be a few lights around the building just around entrances exits for security purposes and then um a fire lane around the back that would be motion censored um for that need very good thank you thank you than you Mr chairman all right uh we're going to open up to members of the public uh first up we had an objector attorney here last time was Miss Westlake I believe is she here hi want to give you first bite at the Apple you could just state your name again for the record yes thank you for very much uh good evening everybody happy New Year um my name is Rosalind West Lake and I'm here uh representing Arthur Self Storage uh just a few questions um Mr Lang thank you that was a very interesting testimony um you said this is an annual uh service agreement that you set up with the owner of the property that's correct so what would happen if the owner decided not to knew that then the space would be unmanaged or managed by the owner if they choose to manage it themselves yes but ultimately um we have a a deep relationship here and so if there were to be a different management company there would be a transition of services but there wouldn't be anything to uh stop the owner from having constructed the building and then unless there were significant restrictions on the structural component from redoing the entire interior of the building and changing the support structure correct I I think financially there would be many reasons why that would not happen but it's possible many things are possible okay um I also had a question uh with respect to the docks do you reserve dock time because there's only the two loading docks so what happens if there's a conflict five people want to use the loading docks all at once well there are two Loading Docks but there are five loading areas and so um in our experience given the size and the demand um not only are are those areas there but often times people are uh utilizing the space with a pickup truck or a van or even a light vehicle uh which they could of course be us utilizing the parking spaces for that as well so you don't do any reservation of the docks in to to control that we've never had a need for that okay all right thank you um so with respect to uh basically the the metrics that you used to identify this particular um location and how to design the site um can you help me understand what metrics you used um the population the you you mentioned radius uh that kind of thing can can you talk a little bit about that yeah in our experience uh we see that um we we look at it um National level Regional level local level and so the various metrics are there is um number of households population population growth household formation uh and and not only that but again um the 22 Cor Corridor brings additional demand from outside the immediate trade area okay so then if you using all of those metrics what specific metric did you use I mean you mentioned um a 3 to 5 mile radius is used sometimes is that the radius that you used here was a three mile radius a Four Mile actually in this scenario we used more drive time again because of that Corridor and and the ability for customers to access the site uh in a typical scenario if higher density if you're talking about a um uh Manhattan or burrow area you're having customers that are coming from one maybe two miles that's more determined by drive time and accessibility than it is by pure radius so ultimately we use these metrics as a way to frame the scenario but at the end of the day the drive time is really what creates the marketplace okay so the marketplace that you've identified or created ated through these metrics is then translated into a building size unmet demand uh I'm not sure I understand that what does that mean we have the ability to track existing Supply in the market we have an understanding of Market occupancies based on rental rates based on concessions and we can back into an overall Market occupancy from there we understand in a municipality or New Jersey or even within central New Jersey uh what the usage is for the space so you backed into the space using the metrics so you you chose a a space of 129,000 square ft and backed the metrics into that yes okay um why did you select $19 9,000 square ft ultimately the way the site is laid out and how this is that was the unmet demand that we saw we could uh help with this new Supply okay uh if you took a different building size could you back into that building size with those same metrics yeah if we could go five stories we would still have that unmet demand so right I understand that that there's an an unknown unmet demand I guess my question is uh if you did a 45,000 foot space similar to the smallest site that you manage which presumably is profitable you could back metrics into it to show that you would be meeting some demand in Bridgewater correct you because I don't understand what back metrics well he using his ter your example of putting 45,000 square foot it's a totally different Market what we have in Manchester Township in in Ocean County is not relatable to this site this Township or this County okay is that because you have a metric that says there's unmet demand of X and we can meet 70% of that because that's what we would like to do as a business or are you saying there's unmet demand of X we have the ability to build a building of this size and therefore we will be able to meet 30% of the demand I'm not sure I understand the question I guess my question is is there a way to design or or to identify a building size that will meet demand obviously not all of it but will meet demand that doesn't take up the entire property I the well okay I'm sorry 86% of the property I'm sorry it takes up 86% of the property but I I'm just having trouble understanding this whole concept of having these metrics and identifying this demand and as in your own words you said backed into the size of the building in order to identify which metrics you would use so that because you're being presented with the option of 129,000 SQ foot building you therefore say the metric I'm going to use is five five mile radius or a drive time of 3 minutes or 10 minutes or an hour it sounds like your metrics can kind of be uh identified to fit whatever building size you're presented with would that be accurate the record the building coverage is 46% not 86% okay I'm sorry yeah so the building design shape that is being presented is a um best-in-class facility the the look The Design the size is also a best-in-class design for the municipality of this nature where customers are going to desire that in doing so in in creating a um roof height from um various metrics that we're trying to adhere to we are going down not going up higher and so through that there construction costs that you know ultimately there are financial decisions in a business like this mhm okay all right thank you I appreciate it I'm sorry I'm not I'm not a financier nor do I understand metrics all that well um let's see I think that's all I have for this witness thank you so much for your time wesle a couple redirect questions absolutely Mr Lang one of the questions M West Lake asked you was about concern that the owner goes and self manages and has no board has no control over complete redesign of the interior of the building you're not a specialist in land user zoning but surprise you to learn that structural change is proposed that we have to put back that would be my expectation you were also asked a question I think I understood the premise about backing into the market based on occupany you testified that even at this size you would still likely your estimation only beur approximately 15% Market that's correct so approximately 85% of the market would still be still be an unmet need likely how does that result or what would the result be for existing facilities out there by your presence the one interesting component to self storage is that just because new Supply is hit a market does do not mean that competitors start losing customers uh this has been a concern that we've talked to Partners investors internally externally um customers do not move and take up a day of their time putting their contents into a truck loading it up unloading it into a new facility because the rate is $5 less $10 less a stabilized property remains stabilized even through new competition if there are other factors of reasons why a customer leaves a facility typically that's relating more towards that facility's own operations versus having new Supply and new competition in the marketplace thank you uh any other members of the public have objectors attorneys present all right seeing none I'm going to open it up to members of the public it's a familiar face here before yeah once or twice good to see you in three years for the would you just state your name though pleas I sure will Evans humic three Crest Drive boundbrook New Jersey I'm in that development just on the other side of the of route 22 and just for the record you're a former zoning Board member correct yes I am thank you good to see you Mr Lang let me let me ask a question uh have you taken a look at the property itself have you walked the property have you seen it because sometimes we have people come in and they make estimates and they come up with a bunch of plans like in the administration office I saw a big pile of uh documents you know so big today have you seen the property yes okay okay and you've got experience a lot of experience in this area with warehous uh with uh with this type of storage okay so a lot of things that you maybe you might hear and and you might not realize things like this do happen even if they only haven't happened yet we had a trucking company that uh at one time in uh wanted to open up some of their space and it turned out they had some material that was hazardous material they didn't know it themselves but they were a place where trucks would come 5:00 in the morning and swap excuse me is this customon just given some background to get to a question yeah this is a little historical information if you want where trucks would come at 5:00 in the morning wake up a lot of uh people and uh in the neighborhood and uh swap goods and they might move it into storage and then another truck could come and pick it up because they deliver further into the city or whatever and that was hazardous material well they didn't put it in and they didn't like the ey they didn't even know that they had hazardous material coming in on their trucks now there's other types of material or things that could happen that haven't happened yet but might happen when you're putting this facility up is the person who wants it built do they want to use it as another source of income let me give you an example we had uh a series of series of time where we had a bunch of collocation towers before we get to your next question the your your backup or your your uh lead into the first question yes about hazardous materials yes is the question how do you know if someone's storing hazardous materials well let that is my question and let me expand it to make it easier for you to answer it you said you had documentation to make sure people didn't bring certain types of hazardous material into the uh uh into their cubicle or whatever we want to call it their space is that what you're trying to eliminate things like hazardous materials yes way back a long time ago in in 1993 in Jersey City uh a company that had a warehouse that uh actually ordered Compressed Gas G and cylinders but it wasn't ordinary compressed gas it was hydrogen that eventually went into the world trade tower and it was used in appropriately in the world trade tower when that first explosion occurred is that something that might be included as well as things like chemicals that might be hazardous and cause a fire yes that's correct good how about collocation Towers is that something that when people buy the space and they're going to put they want to raise the property or the building that's there and put another one in do they plan on if necessary use that piece of property as a staging area like for American Water who apparently puts about four or five vehicles on the property in the morning so they're using it and I'm I'm sure they're charging a fee for that whoever has the building now because they have to pay insurance to have some other service done on the property does that make sense to you I'm not s uh certain that I understand the question the question is is the property going to be used for anything else besides the intended purpose of what you're building it for or is it going to be used for something like a staging area or a place where people uh can meet and get together and let's say swap product from one truck to another is there going to be collocation Towers which you can generate an income from I'm not trying to give anybody the idea but is that some is that a way that you've been able to mitigate some of the cost in the places that you've already established by people using it for a different purpose answer is this is a legal question this application involves one use not so approve it would not be an approval of any other use including Towers outdoor storage vehicle storage okay in the future wanted to do something like that to come back well the the zoning that's being G to that's going to be putting on putting on the property now is what is going to stay with the property change it could if somebody applied for it Mr hmer you could ask him in any of the 50 properties he manages does that occur has that been done putting cell phone tow Towers on the building anything else that people have your that they're using for the purpose of storing Goods which I think automatically is something that you're going to put in while you're moving somebody's moving in somebody's moving out somebody's going to college things are coming into the area uh does that deter folks are not uh conducting business right on the property or in the storage unit they are not uh uh have using this space as a flea market or um swap meat or anything of that nature uh we do not allow that out of our properties okay little sidebar maybe for you in Bound Brook there's a bakery called mediterrania and that's in Bound Brook and they have a board and they have a nice small piece of property it could be appropriate for so many many other things but somebody applied for that property they're they wanted to make it into a skating a skating arena you would never imagine it that this Bakery could turn in this small area could turn into something to have enough parking and enough for an ice skating area inside so you I've seen things that I never thought I would see on the zoning board what things can become over a period apply for it they had to apply for it and it's still up in the air so I bring it up and you you know you may not um think it's very likely somebody's going to bring hydrogen into the property and use it to blow up a the mole but let's say you know we talk about what a great location it is it's great because it's centralized you can come right off 2278 you can come down 287 202 206 you've got so many roads here what a nice place to take four or five boxes or things that look like computers but what they have are say fentanyl in it or some other narcotic that's been brought in so when people are asking about switching cargo let's say from one place to another or one truck to another there's a real serious need for that and by the way on Route 22 I ask if you've looked at the area around here not only the property but there are other places that are trying to do warehousing in the area and that are play trying to do things like uh whatever we would call this you know the what do you call this thing that you're doing self stage Self Storage okay and we talk about it it's B you know for uh for homeowners let's say and and the local Property Owners but I believe you also said that you're going to keep the place closed on the weekends now that might be nice for some people but I think that's a time where a lot of a lot of people that are moving from one place to another they didn't say that they they said it's a 24hour facility did you not allude to the fact that you were closed on weekends facility for customers we we do have office hours on Saturday we would be uh the office there would not be a manager staffed on a Sunday uh but again to concern um these storage units are constructed in a manner where there is an open air ceiling for each storage unit these these storage units do not go all the way to the ceiling of the the top and so on top for security purposes there's like a mesh wire security type fencing on top our managers have uh mirrors on telescoping poles that they walk by they have um uh cameras that they're able to look over top so when they're doing inspections they are looking for items that are not allowed within our property or or use from customers uh and in those uh instances uh our agreement allows us to terminate with any reason we choose to uh that agreement um so these Agreements are written in a manner where us as the management company representing the owner in this instance have the ability to manage the site and keep the property secure and safe and uh and in the examples that you've um provided here uh those are scenarios where our team is trained um to uh look out for to identify and ultimately if if it comes to a scenario where um we need to alert the authorities um we're in very good standing with great relationships with a lot of the emergency service Personnel uh in any municipality where we're serving great way back when 1962 I think is when this building was first built the building that's there now my family has been living there and using the school system and all the services in the area because it was sort of like toward the country when you were out toward Somerville and Bridgewater and that and lately it's turned into well maybe it's an outline Community for Essex County or Hudson County or whatever is there you do need to get to your question without I know but I like to hear myself talk too so I'm sorry I I'll hold I'll hold back on that part question the point being is that things are getting a lot more crowded out here and we put shopping centers in and one thing leads to another and that's great and I think that's important I'm asking the question because the Department of Transportation uh about four years ago allowed an entrance from the hon in which is a hotel about a mile and a half down the road and it it's it's a it has a road that curves over Route 22 and that road is chimney uh Foothill Road and Ronson Road I'm trying to give you definition so you have an idea Ronson road is a very small road but Route 22 is a very wide openen Road very similar to the facility maybe in 1962 you were it was allowed to have an egress from a parking from a parking uh from a driveway but you couldn't do it you could do it then maybe on Route 22 what is your question the question question is are you going to maintain the the the two driveways that you have that go out to Route 22 and our egg is onto Route 22 that of course creates a little bit of a dangerous situation with being slow okay in my opinion that is sufficient erress for a storage facility however we have Traffic Engineers and more studies that can provide professional feedback okay I know and the reason I'm asking is because we've it was almost approved that way they went back to Dot and the dot says no you can't come out of the Hampton in on Route 22 because it create it it's it's not an allowed exit from the and and everything was left to one smaller exit on Ronson Road I'm going to I'm giving you that maybe as a bit of information you don't want to go down the road too far and find out you can do that I have a feeling that I what I see on the maps it looks like you're able to get on to route22 now without without any consideration made to that people uh people coming off or coming out of the fac questions for the engineer who talk about the site design this is the operator of the facility and and not as qualified as the engineer with respect to okay nor did he testify about okay I I understand that you know uh well let me just bring up one more point so that if there's going to be an objection one more point we always hear about 100 years storms we're not going to have this kind of rain and all this here crazy stuff as for the engineer yes it's an engineering okay I hope I can stay and uh it's been very interesting I appreciate it and I hope everybody here I hope everybody here appreciates all these people coming out and doing all this work and evaluating what's being said and this is not their area of uh expertise uh certainly not mine but everybody wants to help out because we want to see the right thing done I want to thank everybody okay thank you Mr hum good seeing you thank you uh whoever's ready come on up ready golf just have your name and your address please good evening hi my name is name is Nora O'Neal Cole 60-year Bridgewater resident thank you um I live around a corner from this guy I'm vasor Avenue right down the street um I have two questions and I believe they're bad operations um I'm a retired UPS driver and I have driven into into storage facilities because the owner of the or the renter of the unit gave UPS the code and unlocked their unit and taken things out on my hand truck and brought them back to the truck and done this in multiple units every day so is there a way we want to not is there a way you can eliminate that or you know make that not a thing there there is a way that the any package deliveries would be delivered to the office these are packages being picked up the woman had a tape business and she would store things can I just call timeout here can we swear you in because I think that's a pretty interesting point of testimony that you're providing and want to get that on the record properly raise your right hand please do you solemly swear that any testimony you will give to this board will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so hope to God I do and you're going to be giving testimony as you were you're going to ask a question at the end of this and just so you know at the end of this case you'll be able to speak for or against as long as you want um but right now you have a question on deliveries I have two questions about operations and you have and you have experience in this fact because you were a UPS driver okay I literally did this gotcha thank you um so you would just take your hand trck and I understand it's not a drive up facility but I would you know I guess what and what would provided an individual uh code for yourself or were you using a customer code customer code they would give it to us and it was be in our diet and then we we'd go to the unit the lock would be there and in that scenario we would see that we have a regular pickup coming from a UPS driver so is that not allowed it is not allowed uh individuals must use their own code they're they're not it is in our rules and regulations so if I rented a unit I couldn't give it to my brother to go pick something up like how do you listen you're the one on on the agreement and so um you know ultimately when we see your brother coming in we're going to ask that individual's name their unit their relationship you know our managers take great care of the facility and want to make sure that uh they're not at risk um being an employee who is there day in and day out and so um that scenario is unique uh we often have deliveries coming to our facilities and picking up from our facilities in our business those occur from the office right so sir would you agree if there were an approval to a condition that any deliveries to the facility from from any Courier would have to go to the office and not be permitted to be Ro at any of the storage locations we would be open to that and and and in addition we'd be happy to put small signage with deliveries you know to the office okay and my second question is you mentioned that the drive time was a big metric for you picking this specific area this specific location and Bridgewater has a lot of bigger houses with lots of garages and I'm wondering if your drive time metric isn't really serving Bridgewater like how is that serving Bridgewater if the metric is drive time so you're just bringing other people in like how is that serving Bridgewater no it's absolutely serving Bridgewater but just because you're serving Bridgewater doesn't mean that you're not serving the next town over uh and ultimately that's that's what I mean by drive time right it is it is certainly and and the unit mix that we're proposing and designing in this scenario is meant for the local community we understand that there are larger homes here again a larger home does not need another hallway closet it needs another bedroom or it needs another garage siiz space and so ultimately as we think about the design of a facility it's to maximize efficiency and ultimately the interest for that Community it does us no good to create something that is not going to be um have the demand from that local community so as part of your metric was it included the massive amounts of Apartments being built in Somerville and Bound Brook and Ron is that all part of the metric to bring people to this specific location I mean if we see housing starts or multif family starts that are going on in a community then I mean apartments are going to need more storage than houses right so I mean I wonder what the percentage is relative to like how many people living in apartments need storage relative to how many people in houses need storage um we operate facilities um across the 10 states where we're at in in markets that have uh household incomes from 40,000 annual to 120,000 um the one scenario is that everybody need storage uh so you know from that perspective um you know whether somebody drives from the town over or is three blocks away ultimately we're still there to serve the community okay thank you thank you hi just your name and address please sure my name is Ashley shes I lift I live at 52 Glenn Road basically the um proposed facility will be in my backyard as well as several residents who have joined me today um I understand that you want questions right now is that correct no statements right I want to make sure I understand the assignment okay just a couple qu a couple questions here um I like the information that you shared with regard to um all of the facilities you have in the New Jersey area but are any currently positioned in a neighborhood or home residential area yes which one or ones um we have a location in Hamilton New Jersey that has uh residential multif family and single family on two sides um we have can I may I ask uh when was that built 2020 okay has there been any data that shows a decrease or increase in property value of those areas he's not an expert you know something had a toal but I certainly wouldn't I'm going to assume that property values there have gone up 30% since we've opened there what do you think attributes to that because housing demand yeah but for the same reason that she can't ask the question he can't put the testimony on the record as an expert now if you want to speculate not it's not expert okay yeah this is all guess work so sure you know if you wanted to say that the national real Association in the last three years as annualized return of 30% you're certainly welcome to do that because I think that's approximate but um if you want to put that back on the record as an approximate valuation absolutely that is approximate I I don't know the home values there um and and ultimately housing demand is is very high understood um I I may get yelled at for this one but I'll just ask oh hell you um what about crime rates or theft or other issues like that you got to have a question I'm sorry what's the question uh the question is has there been an increase or decrease in crime rates I cannot speak to crime rates in a community I can say that our facilities are secure they're well lit we have alarm systems and ultimately we run a a very secure property um but I can't comment on a neighborhood thank you uh just one other question I know we touched on this a little bit I just want to make sure I understand as far as um doing like some sort of background check or identification of the people that are renting from you are any background checks done we do Run Names through uh what's called an of fact check and so that uh will show if an individual is on any watch list um and and so that is uh standard practice for us as well as um taking photo identification and what happens if they've been convicted of a crime I mean if they're not on the ofac list which is you know terrorist watch list um I mean convicted of a crime is a broad statement understood uh well what would happen in that case if if they were on the o Factor list uh we would deny um access and um ultimately I mean in those scenarios uh we haven't come across that we do run that through um a federal website um but again we are involved in the community from a emergency response perspective we are um we host events for um or or we sponsor events for police departments for emergency response and from that perspective we've got great relationships with uh those departments in the communities that they serve and we serve and from that perspective if there are issues uh we communicate and and Par ipate in anything that they're requesting has there been any incidents with your district managers or other Personnel being bribed to include certain items in your storage facilities no okay that's all my questions thank youman I'd like to ask the witness sure go she she's never been sworn in I'll ask the question then okay you can do that your first question premised that you live on Glen Road yes yes sir yes but I can visibly see it I'm sorry your the highway is back well I have my backyard and then yeah my house backs up to the highway you also asked a question to actually it is because there's actually houses on either side from a zoning perspective you know propert in residential zone or is it no I'm not an expert on the property but I am a concerned resident and it will be an eyes sore from my backyard thank you Mr chairman can I can I ask you a question as well absolutely yeah Ma can you comment on the fact you know in the prior meeting there was some testimony or a question I think I think it was question by a resident that said there's a pipe that exits on the westbound side that spills out to the eastbound side do you know of any pipes that are in your neighborhood that are spilling out water in can you comment on that at all so I'm not aware of the pipes to be honest but in my statement which I will give at a later date I will include um some information so every time our uh it rains our basement get flooded and our backyards get flooded and rain comes in so back in 2021 Ida um was giving us a lot of rain I think we had like 4 Ines and like an hour or something crazy like that and we have a um an outdoor fren Trin we also have an indoor French trrain inside our basement water was still coming through the recent storms that we had as well um our drains and pumps were going on and on and on forever we actually have two pumps in my home I have to stop you sorry yeah it just it was really like a yes no but at the end you can certainly and you can ask more questions of the no I'm good but Witnesses thank you for your question I appreciate it thanks everyone clarify something sure um you said this it was customer access 247 correct uh no customer access 6:00 am. to 900 p.m. I'm sorry custom it's 7 day a week 7 day a week not 24 hours okay and the managers are there what days all days uh Monday through Friday normal business hours 9:30 to 6:00 p.m. and then Saturday really is nobody minding the store on the weekend Saturday on Sunday Sunday on on Sunday nobody would be office hours would not be open um but on Saturday yes there would be office hours okay and I think you said earlier that you're going to have two managers there uh that's correct okay not at the same time there is overlap between there but if if you think about those hours you know you you probably end up with roughly 60 hours of Staffing in a week and so for a full-time employee you'll have you know roughly 20 hours of overlap thank you so at the October hearing you testified at least my notes say you testified that the hours of um having someone in the office their employees would be from 9 to six on Mon to Friday and 10 to two on Saturday and closed on Sunday is that corre yeah I I yes that is correct in terms of saying 9:30 um today versus 9 then again it's something that we uh match the market and so when we are actually opening the the store for business um we're again taking a survey of when they're open now market conditions change we have recently identified a large operator in our industry that is now open till 7:00 at night um we don't typically see much activity past 6: pm and so that's a business decision in terms of office hours all right one one item on a question that you asked the um the facility you said was in a residential area in Hamilton is that a three-story facility it is in a a commercial business Corridor that happens to be adjacent and ab buts back to residential that's and that that is that happens to be a single story however we do have uh multi-story facilities that are next to or adjacent also to residential hi your name and address please Deborah Fernandez and 46 Glen Road right behind the building yes the highway is there um so for I have a question about the market um for the analysis you stated that you know the area needs this kind of storage unit um did that include all the new storage units that the area there's um just down 22 in Branchburg they opened up new ones and Bound Brook there's new ones it it did account for them and what about any new ones because it always seems like once something's big there's always a surplus um and then they're empty it tends to be the bias as well so as you start to recognize them you notice them more frequently it's a if you buy a red car and all of a sudden you see a lot of red cars so so part of that is just identifying uh what that is um I would say the other scenario is that that these types of buildings have again existed at least in this market since the mid 80s um and over the evolution of uh the business as well as the use of real estate um they tend to evolve in their locations and design and instead of like maybe taking an existing area that has a storage unit and redoing that to make it the climate control is there a reason why this area versus something that already has it you know that's something that I'm not really qualified to speak on but yeah and I mean it is going to be much larger and intrusive in the area because right now it's you know the building's nice and putting something much larger yes beaut is in the eye of the beholder um it's it's uh this is a a well-designed building us using high quality materials and uh and from that perspective um what's been designed and for the 15% market share is that the existing market share or what's out there no that's what we saw as in unmet demand and how much of that unmet demand would this building supply and then if I guess you know the concern is just like if it does become vacant and like if it's a thirdparty agreement you know what's the the this is this this development is um financially feasible for the demand this is not a um a use or a construction that you walk away from and um in terms of uh active management on the site um even for um a a mom and pop operator that own a single facility um there's great care that that we take of the facility and the relationship that we have um with owners they've maintained this this office that is currently there for for many many years um and and in terms of the uh again the materials the design the thought that went into designing this as well as the maintenance that we'll take care of as an active manager is going to continue to be of high quality um to to walk away from that investment or to um ignore it is I mean it's it's just not in the realm of feasibility all right thank you speaking about your relationship this isn't your this would not be your first facility with this ownership group correct no this is our third and that that relationship dates back quite a way uh yeah it it dates back 30 years I do have one follow-up question to what the woman was asking you one of our residents when you're looking out your backyard as a resident and you see something new which is a complete departure from that which exists today much more substantial structure it's going to be a a different use it's going to create different patterns um it's not just a matter of what's in the eye of the beholder as a zoning board we look at the residents concerns and we look at their um view of the world and try and represent their interest as much as we try and comply with all the rules and regulations that that we have to so I'm a little concerned that it's not just a subjective view it's rather um concerns that the neighborhood expresses and we need to hear those uh I I think that's a very valid point and and you know quite honestly I apologize that that it was uh taken that way it is again a community-based business uh we're not there to force Self Storage to anybody in fact we're only going there because there's demand from the area um but again um in in choosing the materials and the design it's to make the aesthetic as appealing as as we can no and I appreciate that thank you thank you Mr KAC uh it's going on uh 9 o' why don't we take a 15minute break we'll reconvene at 9:15 thank you please approach okay okay but we're absolutely going to take more questions if you have them you can wait till 9:15 just till 9:15 you can be next thank you all right we're going to take a quick break thank you all right we're going to reconvene if we could a quick roll call please Roger here uh here here yeah here here here here here here all right thank you I'm here all right picking up where we left off we're taking questions from the public and sir you wanted to be next thank you my name is Ron CA I'll spell it k Ur Z j a um I lived in the community for 47 years um I'm a practicing attorney in the state of New Jersey I don't have an objector at this point in time can we just get your address sure my office address uh I'm going to give you my office address whatever you want unless you object to that i i m whatever Mr Aller wants actually I'd rather have if we're here as a Bridgewater resident your Bridgewater address okay 32 Shady Lane it's Bridgewater but it uses the boundbrook post office gotcha okay okay um sir I didn't get the spelling of your last name l a n g Lang I looked at the transcript briefly did you give testimony the first night briefly somebody from um snapbox I thought did if I did it was a few minutes we had some questions on office hours and and that first on November 12th he did provide some very quick bits of testimony and he was sworn in for that I'm not I don't Sir with all due respect my objection is that I think you're coaching the witness and I don't want that to happen excuse me I'm serious I I I got a response well time out time out time out I just provided factual testimony of Mr Lang and the fact that he did give testimony to help you out to provide better questioning for the witness so why don't we why don't we just take a deep breath and reset in all fairness I certainly will not coach any witness and I will go out to Great Lengths to coach you yeah who is not versed in land use law as a resident of Bridgewater I will go to Great Lengths to help you ask a better question so with that said here's the deal try to keep that to a minimum because the response I got said keep what to a minimum keep what to a minimum that kind a questioning okay I didn't ask a question I provided factual here's my concern let me let me express my concern I got a response from that gentleman okay he's a motivator for this application and he didn't know if he appear you're pointing at people you're pointing at people which gentleman say it again you just said that gentleman so Mr Lang okay okay now my concern is credibility okay and that's why I raise this issue right now I got a response from him before you for before you came into the discussion that said he wasn't sure he's the motivator for this application okay it's his company who's really pushing this thing and if he doesn't know if he appeared to give testimony in the first hearing of this I suggest that there may be a real credibility issue here okay I made my point let me proceed sure go ahead okay thank you yeah okay sir did you or did you not appear at the first meeting in November I did appear okay so now you say you appeared before you weren't sure no you asked if I gave testimony good you weren't sure that you gave testimony did you give testimony Sor can you answer the question yeah I I answered to the hours of operation okay so you did give testimony in November and you weren't sure before quite honestly from I'm I'm not sure if you were here at that meeting I wasn't here but I read the transcript so a majority of our time was spent going through the civil engineering plan but that wasn't your testimony no it was not I read the whole thing and that was Mr Winters correct that's correct in fact you did give testimony and that's what you're saying now right yes okay sir how long has snapbox been in business 10 years okay were you with the company the whole time I'm a co-founder I'm sorry say that again I am a co-founder okay is um snapbox and New Jersey Corporation we're based in Pennsylvania so are you Incorporated in Pennsylvania we're Incorporated in Delaware we Philadelphia I'm sorry and we have nine locations in New Jersey all right let's start again you're a Delaware Corporation that's correct so you made some statement about Pennsylvania we're headquartered in Pennsylvania headquartered are you authorized to do business in Pennsylvania yes okay um are you authorized to do business in New Jersey yes okay and how long have you been authorized to do business in Jersey 10 years all right and I thought I saw heard from your testimony that there are nine facilities now in New Jersey correct that's correct okay have all of those locations been in business for substantial periods of time yes okay so let's go through them let me let me just make one general statement you testified for about 2 hours but I have not seen one document to support any of your testimony did you bring documents with you here today that support the testimony that you gave for roughly the last two hours I do not have documents with me okay so you you can't produce a single document if I were to get into detail with you about your prior testimony for two hours what is your question what what question right now is general what did you bring so that we can attempt to either verify brought expertise and institutional knowledge I'm sorry say it again I brought expertise and institutional knowledge no documents you said that okay sir of the nine locations in New Jersey they're all active right now correct yes have there been other locations in New Jersey over the past 10 years that are not not now active or no longer your under your control pursuant to what I'm going to call third party management we have sold locations okay when you say you've sold them I'm going to ask that you let him finish the question sure answer before you ask the next question that's fine do you have something else to add to that question we sold that location we no longer operate it just one correct in New Jersey okay when was the earliest location that you established in New Jersey what date late December 2013 okay so that was about 10 years ago yes that was one of your first locations correct is that one still your location yes it is okay um have there and you've only lost one in 10 years we didn't lose it we sold it okay what was the reason for selling it various reasons why we sell property the question was specific can you can you identify the reasons we had a great offer okay well that's the reason all right have you been to the location in Bridgewater yes how many times six or seven times okay so you've walked it yes is it safe to say that that commercial District which is where that lot is it's in the C C5 Zone correct I'm not familiar with classification it's a sliver of land no between donu and Route 22 I'm sorry you're sorry Sarah Sarah you you must respond to me I I'm not sure what a sliver means the questioning right now I'm I'm not sure what a sliver means okay good um this property is triangular isn't it yes okay and at one point at one point of the triangle Donnie Road meets Route 22 correct correct what is the widest dimension of the property I'm not I don't know okay but you walked it six or seven times yes is it 100 ft I'm not sure is it 200 ft I don't know 3 okay that's fine has the company had any litigation in the past 10 years relating to what related to snapbox businesses yes with third party individuals or companies that have have worked with you can does does this solve the problem okay and I'm close enough now all right let me let me do this and I think this will make make the difference is that fine okay so Sir with respect to litigation let's focus on litigation with and and I'm I don't know the term I'm going to use but with your I'm going to call them your business partners and I identify a business partner as an individual or an entity who would provide the land and whatever else they provide for your combined efforts no idea what he didn't testify about that aspect of hiside okay doesn't this board I'm going to address that doesn't this Bard sorry sorry all right I'm I'm addressing the board attorney I don't want to be interrupted okay I'm going to object to your stand I'm going to give a reason why sit down yeah I knowum between attorneys and those who participate um and you know you're more than welc as many questions of this witness as you like respect to his direct the board may ask some additional questions even after you finished and I understand where you're going You're trying to establish what's the background of the company who's going to run this operation for the owner now let me tell you why I believe it's relevant go ahead so the Quorum that we follow here is just not the way you saw we need to ask proper questions in a proper way and this witness and future witnesses will answer those questions you in a and if you don't understand the answer or you're not happy with the answer you're welcome to continue to question that witness but it's going to be based on his Direct morning let me address that issue this cross examination and I should be given Fair latitude significant latitude as to the scope of the Cross okay and I think this board this board has a right to know about the suitability of this company to address or not to address but to stand behind an application that they're seeking approval for this board really should know how viable this company is you didn't see or hear anything land land use approvals are not predicated on the suitability of an owner land use is predicated on the mL of New Jersey this owner but no sell this property the day after it's approved I know that not approving the owner or the operator we're approving or not the request use on the proper but it was testified to that it's feasible not feasible but somebody could likely pull out in a year I mean they could likely pull out in a year that's that question yeah all right let me proceed at this point okay I'm sure we'll have other objections along the way so give me one second I just want you to understand we don't we as a board don't have the right to approve who the owner is or who the operator is it just doesn't come into the equation okay I got that part okay sir in operating the locations you operate in are you governed by the New Jersey statute that controls storage facilities there is not a New Jersey statute that controls self stor that I'm aware of there are certain laws that we need to adhere to okay um they pertain to rights of unit renters correct are you referring to lean laws yes okay so you do yeah okay now you made reference to the use of the term lease with these people these aren't really leases that you enter into are they they're agreements well you call them agreements aren't they really licenses no where they can be revoked at will they're agreements okay but you can revoke the right to use the locker or the storage space at will we can have you done much of that have you done that when circumstances call for that yes we do okay and that's usually when people don't pay their monthly fee could be for a variety of reasons it could be because they're coming in after hours it could be because they're storing items that are prohibitive so yes okay do you conduct auctions very often only as often as needed how often would that be it depends on the property okay one second so I heard questioning to you before about the market that you're trying to meet you you you used a specific term um it wasn't marketability but it was market dynamics or something like that you remember the term I mean it as it relates to what as it relates to finding out whether you can satisfy or or whether there's a market to put it a storage facility in a given location yeah we have analyzed the market and we see that there is unmet demand from the consumer base that is here in the community okay so in fact you did that to establish a likelihood of success at the Chimney Rock location correct yes now I don't recall hearing any testimony in detail about that study was a formal study done yeah we go through the formulas that we do to understand the Dynamics of a Marketplace okay so what specifically did you do to establish demand at Chimney Rock in terms of looking at the market again we looked at the population the population growth households single family households multif family households and then existing Supply in the market as well as some other fundamentals to see if there is addition demand that has been unmet from the existing Supply in what geographic range 1 three five miles specifically for this property correct yes do you have somebody in your organization who does the market studies we have a number of folks that do that are they independent or are they employees of the organization their employees do you know the per the name of the person who did the one here uh it was uh team effort so we would have a number of individuals that contribute to the project okay do you recall what locations that competitor well let me ask it this way did you identify competitors within certain distances we are able to identify competitors within any distance that we choose okay so what did you choose it sounds like we're going that one yeah one three and 5 Mile okay do you remember what locations you found when you decided to look at competition I found everything that you would find uh on a Google search okay did did you find anything in Greenbrook I don't remember offand okay um were you sir if if we can get you back on the microphone please the microphone please I didn't hear you if you don't talk into the microphone people at watching can't hear you and also the hearing impaired can't hear that's fine so I think my last question was did you locate anything in Greenbrook I don't recall that specifically okay did you locate anything in boundbrook I do not have the details with me right now to detail every single location that we've analyzed within the marketplace for this property correct okay what about middle sex what about Warren when you say no you didn't find any or you don't know same I don't have that information right now okay what about Wong again I don't have that information with me okay so any town I give you that's contiguous to Bridgewater you would give me the same response correct do you know that there's a storage facility that was built in Bound Brook other than from your study the competition Supply is not tied to municipality uh areas if a consumer is coming from the next town over to here they're not refusing to choose a Coffee Shop bakery self storage facility because it is in Bound Brook versus the next town over it is what is most convenient to that customer well you're talking about excuse me you're talking about the customers now I was talking about the competition and the reason why I'm I'm not worried about the competition the competition that we've seen is stabilized so I this is not a competitive practice discussion and Mr I can tell you as well that the board would not consider any kind of market economics in making their decision it's just outside of the scope of what they should be consider okay what was the single most important factor that led you to choose this location demand okay and that was what based upon anything specific what factors the factors that I've outlined through my testimony okay I heard heard the board question you about warehousing are you familiar with that issue in Bridgewater uh yes I heard the chairman you weren you were not aware of that issue before tonight we're not a warehousing business so uh no that we are self storage and that's what this application but in fact did you concede that your units could be turned into warehouses they cannot be turned into warehous houses okay and that's because you police them correct it's it's because that's not what the use is and and for warehouses if you if you're familiar with a warehouse Self Storage is very different okay one second no further questions right now thank you sir any other members of the public like to ask a question please come on up just swivel the microphone back and get your name and address please John Lenell nine dear Head Drive and it's spelled l a u r n c l l e Bridgewater resident for 34 years I think long time so when we we've lived there the whole time we're in town and the town has always communicated the posture that they don't want to develop 22 the way Greenbrook and pain planfield have developed 22 with the light pollution the Commerce and everything question is is is that still whole true is that still the town part of town plan this is a time to question the witness just the witness okay so my my questions have to do with quality of life we have horrible problems on the microphone sir we have horrible problems with traffic lighting and flooding in the area all right flooding anytime it's rain if you go on 22 West you see it's a complete mud hole because everything running off the mountain doesn't work as far as catching all the runoff what's being done at this property to Abate that I don't say it because it's directly directly affecting my property but me as a taxpayer I have to pay the municipal workers to go out and clean the highway at a significant cost every time we have one of those dorms excuse me so that's why I want to know what are we doing to mitigate the water sir those three areas in which you identify traffic lighting and flooding were subjects of testimony by the civil engineer at the last meeting now this okay all right so the town is good with the plan then the the lighting isn't going to be horrible we have we have new plans from the applicant that deal specifically with lighting um we're going to get questions to an opportunity to question those plans why don't we ask the attorney what else he's planning and putting on with his case so after the operations witness is concluded we plan on bringing an AR design the building testify about the architecture our civil engineer will come back Andy changes in the plans that were Rec on December which incl the issues that right and of course we have a professional plan and you'll have an opportunity to ask all of those folks questions that's the next meeting next meeting it will be sign subsequent meeting it will not be not it will be a subsequent meeting not tonight's meeting yes there's two ways you're going to be able to find out about it it's either through the land use office and you can also go on our website and we're going to make everyone notice and I I have no questions I man wants to run a business um he needs 20 some odd variances to make this business happen I question why do we have zoning laws if we're going to allow 2ome variances there's the municipal land use law right it defies logic just the common man that defies logic you know get all of that and they're going to present those Witnesses and you can ask all those questions about traffic lighting flooding to their engineer when he comes back subsequent meeting thank you I won't take any more of your time then no if you're satisfied we're satisfied you know we don't have the information in front of us to discuss today so there's no point I don't want to waste anybody's time okay and at the end if you don't get that information by all means you can ask that of the applicant and you can also give a statement for or against problematic I mean the noise the traffic is really bad in that area anybody that lives there could tell you it's horrible I will give you an opportunity to make that statement at the end all right thank you sir any other members of the public all right it is 9:41 like to call okay give you a minute to set up your computer swear minute so Mr I just remind you that you were under roath yes Mr Nella please start by giving the board the benefit of your education your experience name for the record just start with that sure yes my name is Robert Noella I'm an architect with SNS Architects and engineers in monville New Jersey I'm one of the partners of the firm uh in 2001 I received my license to practice architecture in New Jersey I'm a graduate of Virginia Tech School of Architecture in 1995 and I've testified testified before numerous boards including some brief testimony last last year is your license still current in in good standing it is all right this board accepts you as a professional architect how long have you been licensed I'm sorry how long uhhuh 2001 so 23 years just wanted to test your mail Mr uh C why don't you start by describing what you were asked to do and what you ended up designing yes I was brought on board to design the the self storage building itself based on the parameters of the site and and the requirements of my client you've designed self storage facilities and other locations for other clients as well yes I have I've I've designed three this is my third one with this particular client and myself and my firm have done approximately 12 to 15 other facilities that have either been built or still on the planning board stages um or I'm going to ask you next to walk the board through the design using whatever exhibits or renderings that you like I know Suzanne is working on your computer so we'll get you a minute no problem and U well that's that's being done ask are are you going to be referring to the plans that we have already or is there a rendering they uh there are plans that were submitted back in December plus there the exhibits that were sent in last week so it's combin we'll do is whatever you use I'll ask you to describe by date um and if it's something that was submitt in December we won't need to mark it if it's something new we'll mark it and uh rendering Steve I would Mark anything that's a rendering if it's if it's been submitted no architectural plans we don't have to mark right right all right so um I can start by describing the building it's a it's a three-story building uh as was testified before it's about 129,000 Square ft it is three stories two of which are above o grade uh the third level is considered a seller is actually below grade um there's just a small portion on the uh south end of the building that's exposed by the egress uh drive a onto Route 22 um the building height above the grade is basically the same as what the existing office building is right now so in terms of height above ground it's not a real change in in uh from what's there in the office building three levels there's a retail section on the first floor uh that's about 600 square feet uh that's where people first time come come to the building for the first time would would come in sign their agreement take a look at the uh facilities which unit size they would want there's also toilet facilities uh electrical utility room sprinkler rooms uh that's in the front section of the building then throughout the building there's two elevators that would serve all three floors uh there's two egress stairs uh that Services the floors in an emergency situation um the primary loading areas I'll I'll recap this quickly when we got our plans up on there but there's a on the north end of the building there's a sliding glass door that's how most customers will come into the building and then on the Southeast end there's actually a uh covered uh area where cars can come in and unload and due to inclement weather I think we're just waiting on we're waiting on production staff [Applause] yeah this may be a signed from the universe has we're approaching 950 we have a hard stop at 10 I can you put up a board and then I can ask you some questions that you may not need that for so we can time okay let's just make sure members of the public can see this as well you have any recommendations for where it should go then sideways like that to do that [Applause] why don't you describe what You' just put on the easel so what we we put up here is this is a a exterior 3D rendering of the proposed self- storage building uh this is a view from Route 22 looking up at the property so the sales office this is really awkward the sales office is up in this area and then as you move further down Route 22 it slopes off the grade drops off so now you you you did that presentation orienting to the sorry but I know we want the people in there to see it where going needs to see it where I'm going two two things you may have to do that twice but two because we have a stenographer here who's going to be transcribing they don't know where you're pointing so on any exhibit that you point to if you can just describe the general location so that that can pick up in the transcript and I would point out it's now up on the screen there you go okay to the to the right side of the image that is the view from coming in the main Drive aisle off of Route 22 so as you come up from the right you will see the front office and Retail Store uh moving forward moving to the left you see the entrance the sliding glass stores where where customers would come in and out with their mer with their um storage items and then as you continue across the left side of the of the render is the drive aisle that goes along the building along Route 22 and eventually I'm sorry to interrupt again Steve but what you have on that board what we have on the screen are two different yes we're that's I'm gonna get there so the the the doc the if you look at the screen and what you look at the board we have two different renderings you provided both of these renderings as part of the submission in December so unless Mr all disagrees I don't believe we need to Mark these as specific exhibits but the exhibit that is on the board and the one that's on the screen are different and you can explain how they are in terms of alternative exterior treatments that we proposed to the board correct so the the what's on the on the video monitors that the public can see that was the original design that we had submitted for our testimony in in November of last year um as you can see to the right side where you see the brick structure there's a parit that protrudes further than the building the the main building height that parit triggered a variance um so what we did on the board that I have in front of me now we we heard the concerns about the height of the building the concerns about the reason for having a parapet that creates a variance so we lowered that paret to be compliant with the local ordinance that's what this rendering represents that I have on the board here in addition to the additional Landscaping that uh Mr Winter's office had had added since the previous hearing and you may have said this already but is there a date is is there a date on the what you have in front of you on that board there is not a date on there so the first time you're it is no I'm asking about what's on the board so 1020 she's what 1023 would be the that's on the video screen right because you said that was the original that's the original what's on the board is the revised architectur plan is a revised rendering of the of the the architectural rendering right it's an Al it's an alternate we're GNA get there in let's take one step at a time let's just mark the board A4 the board that's on the easel is now going to be marked A4 and for record what's being marked as A4 is the rendering that was revised ruce the height of the correct ring that is on the screen was submitted as part of the early application and we are not marking that correct Mr Aller that was in the original submission I don't think we have to mark So now now that we've done that let me clarify what we're what we're presenting here to the board the applicant has proposed that if the board were inclined to Grant this to give them the option of of the treatment whether from an aesthetic point of view or other reasons they prefer the parapet wall that's on the screen or the one without the variance Rel that is correct the client has proposed two two alternates they would be happy to do whichever one the board if there's a preference they would they would uh go with the board's decision why don't you continue describing right so again so a lot of people have a a preconceived notion of what self storage buildings look like now if you're going to look in more of the highway districts and things you'll see three to four story buildings that are clad in insulated uh aluminum panels usually white or gray and then sometimes you'll see if it's um not a snap box for example um extra space or or cubees smart tends to have bold branding um so you'll see a lot of red you'll see a lot of bright orange for public storage or wasabi green for extra space um in this case we are uh we do recognize it's our surroundings um with the with the neighborhoods nearby the existing office building so what we did is we tried to make this Self Storage not the metal box that you would typically see but something that's um more reflective of the of a residential or an office Park so there smaller scale Windows um brick material uh cornices ephus which is a synthetic uh Stone finish so we really upscaled the quality of materials that that go on this building as opposed to The Standard uh insulated box um we also tried to help um what's important is it's a twostory building as I mentioned is very similar in size to the office building Self Storage has very low floor t- floor Heights so that enables us to keep the height of the building down lower most most offices are going to be in the 13 foot floor to floor so we're about 2 and 1 half fet per story shorter than what a what a new office building uh would be so we've taken measures to try and kind of minimize the impact of the building on the site with by use of the material um and hold on second I'm sorry I don't normally interrupt but I just want you to repeat that so what you're saying is what that this is is is shorter than an office building a two-story office building is that what you're saying it's it's a lot Mo most Office Buildings have taller floor to Fuller Heights so because you need more head room for office space and such so you're usually looking at a 12 to 13 foot height floor to floor Self Storage doesn't need that height because you're you're only given enough room to to put the storage units in so it's an 8ft ceiling minimal sprinkler lighting HVAC and the floor uh so we're able to kind of keep the scale of the building down thank you sorry no not a problem sorry but what you just said this plan would be for an eight foot ceiling so so interior so you'll have the the slab you'll have8 feet to the security mesh that Mr Lang mentioned earlier so a typical storage unit is8 feet high then you'll have room for sprinklers lighting um and the HVAC duct work and then the concrete deck above so it's a 10 foot6 floor to floor but the actual usable height for a storage unit would be 8 feet again also to try and help with the scale of the building you can see on both renderings at the midpoint Point uh between the first and second floor we've got some horizontal banding so what that does is it kind of draws your eye to the midpoint of the building and it it it helps detract from the height so even though it's a shorter than normal building there's architectural features that kind of help increase the horizontality of it and not make it look like such a tall presence on the property Mr Marcel it would be helpful if you could show us how that building is going to appear to the residents that live on Donahue and behind Donahue as well as the residents that live across the highway on vosler do you have something that does that we have we have straight on colored elevations of the building it's not a specific view from those points can you bring that with you at the next meeting we could we could look into making those um presentations um yeah but the elevation just straight up we we'll we'll look at them you you know that's what he's saying he's saying they're straight up they're not true representation of it's not going to be the view from someone's backyard it's going to be a view of or from it's going to be if you're stand like say if you're just standing looking at a building it's again it's it's it's a straight on view okay with no the reason I asked the question is one of the things we're concerned with here for any application is impact on the neighborhood and the best way to show us that is to visualize show us a picture or a rendering of what this facility is going to look like from surrounding residences like those on or behind Donahue or like those on Glenn Road across the highway right so this view would be as actually as if you're right on the shoulder of Route 22 so in terms of what you would see from Glenn you'd have the four lanes of Route 22 whatever trees are lining Route 22 dividing the residential area from 22 um donu what about Donahue Donahue um basically you're going to be looking I can I can pull up that elevation it's a it's a donu is basically a straight road back there and they're looking right into the side of the um you can show us what they will see I I do not have no I do not have we only have two minutes and what he's asking is the next meeting why don't you bring that with you so we can have an impact and really what he's asking for Steve is photo simulation yeah very pretty pictures so I mean you I mean yes we could take pictures along we could take pictures along Donahue and you can photo is really what I think work very helpful okay take it back all right it's 10 o'clock we're we're going to call it a night thank you thank you members of the public that have joined us so before anyone leaves we can announce the next hearing uh can we we have to we can't re notice well let's announce our next meeting it's going to be February February 13th and that evening we're going to hear 1200 route22 land investors and Roger maybe you can help us out when would the next available meeting that we don't already have blocked out for one of our three other cases B so our March 26th meeting we had something for the 12th we we already have a case for the 12th March 26 work the applicant Mr chairman as you can appreciate we our La our first hearing was November 14th it's now nove uh January 23rd welcome to Bridgewater well there's we we still need to be able to prosecute these cases so um is there no Ben is there no way for a special meeting chairman I have to ask up to the board if the board will to do a special meeting and I don't know what they charge for that that's understand understandable to be a charge why would time be an urgent necessity that would require the board to have a special meeting is there an economic impact is there a safety impact is there something that benefits members of the public we wouldn't even know if this room is available the issue Mr chairman is the Genesis of this application is that the existing use is at its end at the end of its useful life there are mechanical structural issues which need addressing if it's going to be an operation much longer this use um would almost be put into play Can Can you document that there can you document that fact how are you going to document that fact is the building going to fall down between now and the end of March that and you forget that March may not be the end of this though I would think based on what we saw tonight it's probably not going right that's why you know if if it was then all right we have one more hearing so my advice to you is to take the March 26 meeting and then also work with our use administrator's office and find when the planning board is not using this because every other Tuesday we only get this two weeks you know so the planning board is has to be taken into consideration also they have a much lighter docket than we do right now so what we don't finish on March 26 at that point I would certainly be willing to entertain a special meeting but as it stands right now if there's no safety or public interest measure at stake here I I I just can't in the short notice schedule that with the statement you just made that you'd be willing to entertain one after March 26 we'll take the March 26 meeting very good so concurrently we should be working on a special meeting potentially and let's get dates that are available and Nancy propes in the land use office is going to be the one to administer that she can tell you what the docket looks like for the planning board and help guide you to a special meeting date if it's needed and she can coordinate then with the board members to see who's available we'd have to make sure there was a quorum available and you know we as we start to approach April and May and June colleges graduate high schools middle schools graduate it becomes a tough time of year for the board so um Nancy can definitely help you out with that and I'm willing to entertain that if we don't finish March 26th thank you Mr chairman appreciate that sheriff you got it all right so March 26 yes no further notice so right so for members of the public this meeting will be adjourned at this point it will continue in this room on March 26th at 700 p.m. and there will be no further notices from the after all right and our next meeting 1 1200 route22 land Industries and I'm sorry land investors February 13th this room 7 PM have a motion to adjourn please I move all right Mr wle second Mr banj now thank you everyone