hey good evening everybody Welcome to the July 11th uh planning board meeting uh do salute to the flag pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Music] all this meeting has been duly advertised according to section five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 1975 also known as the Sunshine Law notice of the 2024 annual meeting schedule has been provided to the officially designated newspapers the Township Clerk posted on the township website and available at the Hillsboro Township municipal complex application documents plans have been made available to on the Township's website and at least 10 days in advance of the meeting complete application files are available in the planning and zoning department for inspection in accordance with public meeting with the public meeting notice can I have a roll call of our board and all professionals please Chachi Mr Vander and Mr debor abset Mr Wagner here Mr rowitz here Mr scobo here Miss Smith here Mr Vitali here leani pres Deputy Mayor Chelli here chair PE here um Mr Co present Mr Bernstein here Mayu here and myself and the videographer are here thank you uh moving on to consider ation of meeting minutes um you hear a motion for April 4th 2024 meeting Mr chairman the eligible members are Mr scobo Miss Smith dep uh Deputy Mayor chiarelli and committee man leani do I have a motion I'll make the motion second roll call please Mr scobo yes Miss Smith yes commit in the py yes Chelli yes April 11th meeting thank you uh next April 11th meeting minutes do I hear a motion eligible members Mr Wagner Miss Smith Mr Vitali committeeman leani Deputy Mayor chicarelli and the acting chair I'll make a motion second anyone second thank you roll call please told me I thought you were second sorry Mr Wagner yes M Smith yes Mr Vitali yes commit leani yes may trii yes Vice chair P yes meeting minutes of May 2nd do I have a motion same as the last one except add Mr scobo I'll make that motion second roll quot please Mr Wagner yes Mr scobo yes Mr Smith yes Mr Vitali yes commit the P yes trii yes yes uh moving on to consideration of resolutions uh first resolution is the SII middle sex Farms LP file 22 pb5 MSP uh any comments from the deis or okay I have a motion to approve eligible members Mr chairman Mr Wagner Mr rtz Mr scobo Miss Smith Mr Vitali committee M leani and yourself do I have a motion I make a motion I'll second roll call please Mr Wagner yes Mr rtz yes Mr scobo yes Smith yes Mr Vitali yes committee M leani yes Vice chair PE yes uh moving on to consideration of resolution number two which is specialty assays Inc file 23 pb16 SPV do I have a motion eligible members Mr chairman and Mr Wagner Mr rtz Mr scobo Mr vital committee leani Deputy Mayor Chiari do I have moved second roll call please Mr Wagner yes Mr RTS Mr scobo yes Mr vital yes commit in the pon yes Deputy May trick yes next uh number three g&j steel and tubing Inc file 24 pb01 mspv do I hear a motion eligible members are Mr rtz Mr Mr scobo Miss Smith committee Min Leon Deputy Mayor choli I'll make that motion I'll second roll call please um Mr rtz yes Mr scobo yes Smith yes committing in the pony yes yes moving on uh consideration of resolution Somerset County multi-use facility file 24 pb02 I NF same members eligible as the last resolution I'll make the motion second roll call please Mr rtz yes Mr scobo yes Smith yes commit leani yes mayori yes and moving on uh number five campus Associates LLC 20 PB 13 mspv 2024 extension request eligible members are committee Min leani and Deputy Mar chiarelli a flip a coin so moved second roll call please leani yes mayor Chelli yes very good moving along number six Toll Brothers Inc RBG Enclave file 21 pb10 mssp 2024 extension counselor Wagner leani Sharell I'll I'll move make the motion I'll second roll call please Mr Wagner yes commit in the PTY yes Deputy Mayor Chelli yes thank you number seven recommendation of ordinance [Music] 2024-the in the pon yes yes okay we're almost there number eight recommendation of ordinance 20248 green development checklist same six people all moved second roll call please Mr Wagner yes Mr rtz yes scobo yes yes Comm in the pon yesy mayor Chelli yes all right moving on to number nine recomendation recommendation of ordinance 202 24-9 EV and make ready parking spaces same six make the motion I'll second roll call please Mr Wagner yes Mr rtz yes Mr sco yes Vali yes the P yes may trii yes great thank you chair okay uh moving on next item on the agenda planning board business uh we'll have a um Master Plan update Mr KO thank you Mr chairman turn us on thank you Mr chairman since the climate change Hazard vulnerability assessment was adopted by the planning board in December of 2023 the master plan subcommittee has been meeting uh further to update the master plan uh the focus has been on developing the vision and goals and updating various master plan elements uh the next part that's coming soon is the vital component of the master Plan update is participation and feedback from the public uh there's going to be an announcement coming at the next Township committee meeting announcing the uh software that we're going to be using and it's going to be a really uh really important part of our process is engaging the community as much as possible and to get feedback to try to make the master plan as as the best way that we can make it for the community um there's going to be various capabilities that we're excited that he can do it's going to come in various languages uh it's going to give people lots of different opportunities to to provide important feedback for us to then take that feedback and incorporate incorporate it into the master plan um it's basically going to be One-Stop shopping for all the master plan updates upcoming events meetings initiatives and opportunities for the public to participate as much as possible great thank you anything else you'd like to add um no I think it's a it's a move forward uh it's it's something that is needed and uh look forward to participating in that I look forward to the public participating in that as well doesn't um does the software platform have a name uh it does would you like me to announce the company we're working with I don't want to steal your thunder no I was thinking more well the company is public input but uh we've taken a a spin on it here and and yes would you like to do honors yes please do you you can do it oh you like thank you very polite is this a polite off um so uh the platform is going to be called engage Hillsboro okay there you go and the company is called uh public input and so more more details coming soon there'll be a press release and an announcement and there'll be a link to the site and that's going to be where all the different information uh is going to be provided for the master plan and survey and things related to that great thank you Mr Co thank you okay moving along uh business from the floor for matters not on the agenda and as usual refrain from any warehouse discussion anybody want to come forth public a for matters not on the agenda okay seeing none moving along next on the list is consideration of ordinances I don't believe we have any ordinances to consider so that brings us to our uh our application Homestead Road LLC file 21 pb25 Ms mspv and uh I will let the applicant introduce himself again and Mr Vice chair before we begin I need to note my continued recusal on this matter thank you very good Mr rtz is excused and Mr vital Vali okay thank you gentlemen uh Mr chairman before Mr uh gianetti introduces himself I just want to put on the record we have a certification by absent board member examination of record eligibility to vote Mr scobo has acknowledged that he viewed the video recording of the April 11 2024 hearing and he is eligible to participate in this application thank you coun all right Mr gianetti yes good evening chairman members of the board Craig janetti the law firm Dave Pitney on behalf of the applicant Homestead Road LLC this is a continued application for preliminary final major uh site plan approval along with subdivision approval uh in connection with a proposal for two uh warehouses on the subject property uh at the last meeting we uh conducted the direct examination of our planner Christine Kone um and at that point it was going to be open to the board uh and his Professionals for questioning and then uh thereafter cross-examination uh by the public so at this time I'd like to call back Miss Kone very well and then we'll swear her in and then I have to put something on the record very well thank you Mr chairman [Music] yes is it on can you hear me push how about now great name is Christine with a c h r i s t i n e cfone c f o n e business address is 125 Half Mile Road sweet 200 Redbank New Jersey 07701 okay Mr chairman um I want to put this on the record to hopefully get out in front of an issue that I don't think is necessarily an issue uh the township committee is in the midst of discussions for a possible Redevelopment of a property totally unrelated to the application before you this evening that is not before this board at this time they were provided internally a copy of a proposed Redevelopment plan and Report with the caption prepared for the township of Hillsboro by Miss kon's Consulting Group received through the proposed owners application the township of Hillsboro has not and did not retain the Kone Consulting Group or misone individually or any of her other individuals to produce any reports whatsoever regarding a Redevelopment of potential Redevelopment application on another site I wanted to get this out before it got its way out there either through public record or not before people start wondering oh the township has now retained the planner for the applicant before the and isn't that present a problem I will ask M Mr gianetti to put his comments on the record but I want a copy of the report has been provided to all the board members to the objectors but I want to indicate that this does not in any way as far as I can see conflict mapone from providing her services to the current applicant and she has not and is not doing work for the township of Hillsboro so before that rumor gets out uh that was the recommendation we have provided and I've spoken to Mr ganet I believe he has a couple of words he wants to put on the record if at all uh I don't think there's much to be put on uh Miss cfone was not engaged by the town she did not uh work with the town on it it was prepared she was engaged by a private uh property owner and was engaged by them and prepared it on their behalf okay thank you proceed um oh yes I'm sorry uh introduce the objectors my apologies you start objector number one and run through the assigned numbers please good evening well I guess just just to clarify are there were the board professionals having any questions they were going to go after I I thought we were I think at this point Craig it's an introduction for the record Sor we haven't gotten we haven't gotten the questions yet good evening Mike parara policy director for the Watershed Institute Scott gross objector number two Brian Tarantino representing uh stop houses and [Music] trucks nobody else no down to yeah they're coming John and Lucy okay all right thank you and we're at I believe we're at the point of uh forward questions of Miss Kon is and then thereafter a public questioning okay any questions from the the de and any questions from our professionals I had a a question oh I'm sorry that's okay uh Miss Kon could you explain to us maybe I kind of miss on how this application meets the vision of the master plan uh for that area and how did you arrive at that conclusion and had you spoken to anybody in the Township in reference to that I guess it goes back to when the master plan was looked at it 2011 I guess you were part of that um there's I was on Township council at that point uh the chman was um couple other uh people which I'm just kind of you just expand on that for me please sure so I to be clear I was not part of the rezoning when this was done uh there was a master plan that was reviewed in 2010 I did review that master plan in preparation for providing my testimony so how I came to the conclusion um you know as planners often do the first thing that you do when you have a site or one of the first things that you do is you look at the zoning and what the zoning allows and the enumerated permitted uses so if the use program that is proposed by the applicant aligns with those permitted uses and are are allowable then certainly that's one indicator that the application is consistent with the vision for the area sometimes there's a stated purpose in the zone that's not always the case sometimes there is sometimes there's not even in some communities I've seen it where some of the zones in the town will have a stated purpose some of them won't here in the tecd zone there is a stated purpose so I reviewed that purpose and I I found the application to be consistent with the enumerated purpose so when you're dealing with a permitted use in the zone that meets all of the underlying bulk criteria and is an allowable use that furthers the purpose there is no obligation to reconcile that with the master plan but knowing that this is you know a highly tal interested project in the community I did look the master plan that was done in 2010 because there was very specific language in there when the zoning was put in place that talked about considered proximity to residential uses and in the 2010 master plan it reads I'm going to read you from page I believe this is Page Three although many of the uses are permitted in both the cdz and Li district there are a number of uses permitted in the LI District which create potential concerns when in close proximity to residential uses including but not limited to Home Improvement centers contractor facilities vehicle service facilities gasoline service stations outside manufacturing operations private recreational complex self storage facilities parking garages and freestanding restaurants now I will give you that the use as including but not limited to but it didn't even list warehouse shipping and receiving loaded completely within an enclosed building so it did but but what the master plan did was it raised the issue of these types of uses and proximity to residential uses so then with that when you look at the tecd Zone it allows for a buffer of um I believe it's 20 ft is a buffer requirement except that when you're next to a residential use you have to have a buffer requirement of 100 ft similarly when you're looking at the setbacks right the bulk criteria you have to be set back in this zoning District um I want to say it's like 30 I'll get you because I want to be accurate because it's a substantial increase for the sidey setbacks when you're dealing with uh here we go the minimum sidey yard shall be 20 feet except where adjacent to a residential zone or existing dwelling it shall be 150 ft so you have a master plan that contemplated these uses recognize these uses recognized proximity of residential uses and then you have a zoning ordinance that followed that to implement it that increase the buffer from 20 to 100 and increase the sidey setback from 20 to 150 for uses that are adjacent to residential zones so I know this was a really long explanation and I know that I have been cautioned to give yes or no answers when appropriate and that was hardly a yes or no answer but I think that the answer warranted because your question was what informed my decision to come to the conclusion that this use is aligned with the evision for the tecd zone so I wanted you to have an accurate understanding of the things that I looked at and how I came to my conclusion as a planner thank you I appreciate you're welcome anyone else any professionals well I I I do have a question though um I guess for the record what is the stated purpose in the tecd zone I just don't happen to have that open on my uh but you said it it meets the stated purpose so could you read what the stated purpose is CCD Zone yes so at section 18817 do2 of the Hillsboro Township ordinance the stated purpose reads the purpose of the tecd transitional Economic Development district is to provide transitional employment gener development between the high-intensity light industrial and corporate development districts and the existing nearby residential development that is the stated purpose verbatim from The tecd Zone okay thank you you're welcome how um how would you then measure intensity as referenced in the in the purpose there so I would measure intensity by the bulk criteria right when you're when you're planner and you're asked to look at the intensity of a zoning District you look at the bulk criteria and when I say bulk criteria what planners typically refer to as bulk criteria are the front and side yard setbacks the rear yard setbacks and the building coverage so if this application were violative of the front or side or rear yard setbacks or it were um exceeding the maximum impervious coverage for the zoning District those would be things that would speak to well perhaps we are not aligned with the intensity that was envisioned for this District we are so far below this the coverage requirements for the Zone um I don't have them in front of me right now I can I I'll find them for you but I mean we're nowhere near the impervious coverage allowable in the zoning District I testified to those numbers um last time so it's either in my transcript I can pull them up if you want to hear them again we are nowhere near them and we are well in excess of the setbacks so we we far exceed the front yard setbacks the rear yard setbacks so that to me as a plan are speak to the intensity right it's the bulk criteria which the zoning District sets forth and how our application does or does not measure up to those districts have you have you ever relied on any other metrics with respect to intensity yes floor area ratio is often uh looked at but the tecd zone does not not have a standard for floor area ratio so that I would say would be another metric of floor area uh anything to do with uses of the property uh uh including traffic are there any other other measures that are used by planners well if you were dealing with a used variance case then certainly you would look at it right if I were dealing with a use variance and someone asked me to support a case for a use that wasn't allowable in The Zone one of the prongs the planner has to look at is the negative criteria and the impact on the Zone plan so what I would do in that case is I would look at the uses that were permitted and marry that up here this use is permitted in the zone so and there's case law I'm you know I'm not an attorney but there certainly is case law that talks about when you're dealing with a permitted use um you can't really consider the impacts of traffic because legislatively the governing body has already decided that uses a rate at that location so here in the case of the tecd district item number five on the permitted use list is warehouse shipping receiving located completely within an enclosed building when this application was filed that was a permitted use in the zone so very difficult to ask me to come to the conclusion that something that was enumerated as a permitted use in the zone is too intense for the Zone when you look at the standards that were created for it which is why why when you're doing a use variance there's a case called price vedi that talks about the bulks being subsumed because if you think about it it's unfairly prejudicial to an applicant to apply bulk standards for a use that wasn't contemplated in the zone so that's why when you're doing a use variance you really I mean you can look and maybe be guided by the underlying zoning but there are many attorneys and many planners and and case law that point you to the fact that those bulks are subsumed so you don't have to go and then request relief from front yard setbacks building coverage side yard setbacks if you're getting a use variance those underlying what would otherwise be C bulk variances would be subsumed into your D variance so again not a yes or no answer and a little wordy but I think it's important that you know that the board understands that these are things that planners you know evaluate and we are Guided by the zoning and the uses that are permitted in there okay um you mentioned actually in that answer sir um negative criteria and are have you addressed any negative criteria with this development in your report and now reason I say that is I don't recall reading any so you would only address negative criteria of variance relief was required so I talked about that I I thought that might be the response I just wanted to confirm that but the report does address it does or does no it does because it talks about it in terms of the height variance were required which we don't think it is that it talks about that we would meet the negative criteria okay I actually I just saw the height variance issue all right um I think that's everything for me thank you okay okay moving along um anybody else on the Das might have moved a little too quick guys are good professionals nothing from our office Mr chairman thank you Mr Co same for me Mr chairman thank you okay I believe next we would go to objector number one Mr Boro thank you um I do not have any questions Mr Tarantino Scott gross nothing for me oh sorry number three we don't have to go back but um Miss cfone um could you help me understand how this uh how the how the um site plan complies with the section of the tecd um 188 1072 um f 6 um and I could read that if that if that's helpful uh all portions of the development shall be linked via sidewalk and pathway Network as approved by the planning board or Board of adjustment the site shall be pedest pan oriented with a design that enables and encourages pedestrian and bicycle circulation with linkages to surrounding areas the applicant shall utilize the master plan in developing a pedestrian and bicycle pathway Network I just want to be clear you left out one portion of it and by bicycle storage facility shall be provided that would be the complete section yes so okay how we comply with that um so we are not requesting any waivers from that section what we did um I believe our original plan was modified to show a sidewalk Network that went around the buildings that we provided bike racks so somebody could walk uh on a sidewalk path around the entirety of the building our team spent quite a bit of time uh on a zoom call going over this um and whether that there was any real material benefit to having a sidewalk go in back of that building but we included it because it was an ordinance requirement so there is a comprehensive um sidewalk sidewalk pathway Network that goes around the back of both buildings um both the smaller as well as the larger building as well as bicycle racks that are on the property that are proposed as part of the site plan and what about the other other requirements in this section what do you mean the other requirements in this section um bicycle uh the the applicant shall utilize the master plan in developing a pedestrian and bicycle pathway Network we I don't see anything on the plan about a Bic a pedestrian Network or a bicycle pathway Network so there is a sidewalk that goes around the entirety of both buildings so that is what we provided as our path around the building and there are bicycle racks as well okay and what about a bicycle pathway Network we just provided a sidewalk path around so I assume if somebody wanted to really Traverse the site they could either you know ride their bike uh in in the access aisles or on the sidewalk if they wanted to so they could go around the building but you're saying traversing the site they could go across the site there's a sidewalk that goes across the site there's a sidewalk that goes through around the site that it goes around the back of the site they could go from one end of the site to the other on a sidewalk they could ride their bike on that sidewalk there's a there's a sidewalk that goes around the building yes I'm aware but there's no other side walk no correct okay and no bicycle pathway there's not a designated bicycle pathway but there is certainly a comprehensive sidewalk Network that could be utilized to ride a bike um and uh what about um the previous section four same same citation but section four shared driveways that serve more than one property may be provided where deemed appropriate by the planning board or Board of adjustment cross access shall be required between adjoining properties can you please explain how you are meeting that requirement so that reads shared driveways that serve more than one property may be provided where deemed appropriate by the planning board or Board of adjustment so that uses what I call aspirational language May so we are not providing a shared driveway we um did not design the site in that way there are environmental reasons why we're not providing um the shared driveway and other reasons but the ordinance does not require us to have a shared driveway there is certainly a difference between required language and aspirational language when you see the word shall in a in an ordinance that's something that has to be complied with when you see something that reads May that is not a requirement and the applicant cannot be mandated to comply or provide it and did you address that that particular um that particular aspirational uh statement in your report no okay and then the second sentence there cross access shall I believe that's the required language shall be required between adjoining properties that's if you're providing a shared driveway you would have to provide cross access easements I I don't think that's what it says that's how I read it okay no further questions okay thank you John L objective number four I have no other questions here I guess chairman is it appropriate do you want me to wait uh if I have a follow-up question from a particular obor's witness or or cross- examination or wait through them all counselor the next aspect now the objectors have examined your witness is for the public to examine your witness okay as we have with every other witness all right objectives are do I have a motion to open the public so move second all in favor I anybody from the public would like to come and ask questions of this witness and this WT this witness's testimony only and state your name and address for the record please Bill Martin 237 Hillsboro Road um I guess my question is about intensity I think my understanding of it is different from yours you might want to when you testified on oh thank you and again Mr Martin I don't want to be rude to you but it is more appropriate for me to face the board than it is to without permission from the board I'm going to face the chair while I answer your questions so I apologize for having my back to you but that's not a problem I'm I'm doing my best to still be on the mic and I'm sorry go your question again was about intensity M phone is always apologizing that her back is to people I feel rude I don't like it it's not right so I don't like it um again your question is regard to intensity can you be more specific yes yeah I have a question thank you all right on 41124 you stated you've been to this location number multiple times correct yes all right and so you've been to the LI District Striker Lane Eileen Court Jill Court Rider Boulevard yes that's the light industrial district yes all right all right the tecd zone all right no I'm sorry the light industrial district that is contiguous to the tecd Zone doesn't have 53t trailer parking near were mule trucks to move the trailers around wouldn't this be the real intensity of the use of the [Music] property well I don't know that we can compare the use of this property and say it's not appropriate based on what's going on in another zone so again as I answered for for the deputy mayor um as as well as the other board members the things as a planner that it is appropriate to look at intensity is what is permitted in the zone that you're developing and the bulk criteria and it it is an uncontroverted fact that we meet the bulk criteria for the tecd Zone well the difference here is that this is supposed to be transitional from the light industrial into the residential so the light industrial you know should be looked at the amount of the intensity there so did you do a a study of the amount of trucks that are used in a light industrial so we did provide a traffic engineer who looked at the amount of trucks that would be provided yes but not specifically in the light Industrial Area I'm talking about a truck count in the light industrial area for a day say and compare that to your projected use so just so I understand the question you're asking us did we look at other properties in a different Zone and what they're producing as far as truck traffic and how that relates to our project yes the Zone that's supposed to transition from so we didn't do that study I well I shouldn't say we didn't do that study our traffic engineer looked at traffic in the area so I think if you have any questions or had them for the traffic engineer on what exactly he studied that engineer would have been the best witness to ask those specific questions to but we certainly did produce a traffic engineer who looked at not only the circulation on our site but the circulation to our site so those things were certainly cont complained not by me personally but by our team of course but your site is Transitional from the light industrial and he didn't count the trucks that go into and out of the light industrial well he certainly did traffic counts in the area so where exactly he counted them you'd have to direct that to him all [Music] right okay on 41124 you stated that you review the township ordinances and this application must be in compliance with those Township ordinances correct yes all right did you review ordinance 18868 off street parking and loading um I did yes all right 18868 B clearly states access to loading and parking spaces shall be designed for vehicle access without requiring the moving of any other vehicle now at warehouse number two you have stacked parking with access from only one side of 29 [Music] spaces are you talking about on the western portion of our site the trailer parking yeah those are trailer parking spaces yes but they're stacked so you'd have to move one vehicle to get to the vehicle in the back [Music] so I believe that we would meet our parking requirements without including those um if I see what you're talking about the it's hard to see on my site plan how many exactly are there 29 29 so if those 29 spaces were not included in our parking count I believe we would still comply and I don't have that section of the ordinance in front of me so give that ordinance again yeah uh 18868 B I don't have that in front of me so 68b I'd have to look at it and see all right so it's possible you removing 29 trailer spaces tonight well either that if we needed if we needed the relief we'd either have to request the relief if in fact it's required that was not called out as a waiver or a variance in anybody's report so that has and this is application has been reviewed extensively by the board's professionals so um I certainly appreciate that you're reading a section that you believe to be you know accurate and and as as you read it but I don't have it in front of me that relief was not called out by any other um professionals reviewing this application so we do not request that relief okay so have we lost 29 spaces or not I'm not we have not you're going to request relief we're not we don't know we're not I'm not stipulating that I think that relief is required I I would need to go back and look at that section of the ordinance and we would as a team need to make a finding if the relief were required that was not called out by any of the board's professionals as relief being required um there have been professional reviews from both the board's planner and engineer that did not call that out as a relief so if it were in fact relief then we would either have to we would have to either revise the plan and comply and eliminate those spaces or we would have to request the relief but as of right now that has not been called out as a variance or waiver in this application all right same ordinance for off [Music] street that section is governing vehicular parking spaces that's my interpretation of that section of the ordinance is that that governs vehicular parking a trailer is a vehicle I'm aware of that thank you well passenger vehicle parking spaces all right and that's what I'm saying is that there is no no part of the ordinance that calls for trailer parking so no trailer parking should be allowed that's not my interpretation of the ordinance the ordinance certainly allows for warehousing shipping and receiving located with an enclosed building it allows for manufacturing processing finishing and assembly of products Within enclosed building um it allows for industrial and office Parks so in my opinion these uses clearly are reliant on truck traffic the our ordinance actually has requirements for loading spaces so there would be it would be a very difficult conclusion to come to that an ordinance that requires you to have very large loading spaces didn't contemplate that there would be vehicle vehicular traffic associated with trucks well apparently they didn't because that same ordinance does say 64 loading spaces which you you do have right exactly but it doesn't say anything about trailer parking well the ordinance certainly allows for uses that would have trailers so there's no prohibition on trailer parking in the ordinance but there's no dimensions for trailer parking either I don't know that to be true I haven't reviewed the ordinance to see if there is or is not standards for trailer parking I know that there are standards for loading spaces I know that the ordinance allows for use that are relying on trailer and truck tractor trailer Delivery I know that the ordinance certainly contemplates um Drive aisles associated with truck traffic so I I disagree with you that the ordinance does not contemplate trailer parking all right well I guess that'll be up to the board to decide whether trailers are allowed or not right well yes the whole application is up to the board yes okay thank you you're welcome thank you anyone else from the public and also state your name and address and that you're not affiliated with any of the uh objectors organizations hi my name is Leisa G bis I live in Hillsboro and I am not affiliated with um anybody else you gabri bis g a b is and boy e r-b a y l i s thank you first name is l IIA um so I just wanted to ask so just to confirm you wrote the community impact statement is that correct I did um and do you know what the current assessment value of the property is I should look back in the document if it's not in there um if it's in my community impact statement I could get that number if not I can if it's in the do apologize for missing it but I know what I know that um you're estimating it to be about $67 million once it's built that's once it's built [Music] right I don't think we give you a site for what is is it's assessed at now that's fine I was just wondering if maybe the community impact statement only shows what say the new building is going to be and the land is as it is well it shows it's a it's a community impact so it shows the impact of the proposed development it's not it's not meant to be reflective of the existing condition of the development it's meant to be an impact statement to categorize what the impacts of the project will be not the existing conditions on the site thank you so perhaps the whole project once it's done it will be more than it be worth a little bit more than what you have listed in the impact statement because it would include the land no the that would be the total amount the total amount would have contemplated the land because it would have used an equalized assess value of the entirety of the project so it would it would have contemplated that okay thank you you're welcome and I noticed that you use the word Surplus in in the document as um several other CIS statements do um would you is that intended to mean that any new and additional taxes that come property taxes that come from this will be added to the township and the schools and the other entities yes the word Surplus is an industry standard term when you're doing a community impact statement that's meant to indicate what will be remaining after you've applied the costs to the development as well as the revenue to be generated to the development that Surplus you know or in the alternative would be a deficit once you apply those things so once you apply the cost associated with the project to the anticipated tax revenue to be generated the Delta there is what's referred to as the Surplus so that would mean that the township would be allowed to go above their 2% cap by by the mount listed I'm not qualified to speak to that okay um that's how it reads and that is what happens with the township they do have a line item where they could add that but the schools do not so I just wanted to point that out so respectfully it doesn't read that it makes no mention of the Township's 2% cap I I would not comment on that that's not really appropriate for me to comment on and my CIS I would like the record to be clear does not comment on that that's fine it does say a net impact of 171,000 or so to the township and 915,000 to the schools but I just wanted to point out that the schools would not receive any additional money what happens to that money is that everybody else's T taxes go down by that amount um that's a very different statement in my report than insinuating that my report States anything about the town's 2% or I'm just explaining how it works and wanted to see if you understood thank you um one other separate question is uh you were mentioning the sidewalks earlier is there a sidewalk to get to the sidewalk that Loops the buildings like from the edge of the property yes there's also a sidewalk I believe that goes out to um Homestead Road all right thank you so much you're welcome thank you anybody [Music] else another Rich Garmin Winding Way I'm not associated with anyone thank you in your testimony the last meeting April 11th whatever that was you stated that you didn't feel this building I'm not going to call it a warehouse uh the architect described it as a 338,000 ft Flex built with no interior as of yet you stated that you didn't think it fit a truck Depot because there was no Comfort facilities is it conceivable that Comfort facilities could be added later it's not a truck Depot um for a number of reasons if the applicant were to go back and add those facilities later they would likely have to come back before the board because those are not the plans that they've showed the um the board so if they were going to materially change and then try to get a CO for it those plans would be reviewed by the Construction office in Hillsboro so if they showed a different different building that functioned differently than what was proposed in conjunction with this application then the board would again or the zoning officer would again have the opportunity to look at those plans okay so being that it's a flex build even though it's a flex build it can only be a warehouse or it can it be changed later interior wise to reflect something else like like a storage facility is not allowed but you got 52 Bays Flex build inside you put up 52 walls and make it a storage facility I don't think you I think no it's not the zoning office I in my opinion the zoning officer would get those plans and flag them and say this is not this was approved as a warehouse facility a spec Warehouse building and that's not what we have before you fortunately in Boro you have extensive definitions in your ordinance and governances you actually have a definition for a truck terminal I'm not sure I don't recall offand if you Define self storage but certainly the zoning officer would have the opportunity to look at those plans and say this is not in my opinion what was approved by the board so that is is not at all a concern okay of M so this building has to be a warehouse can't be without going in front of the board again the applicant could not provide a substantially different plan or use program for the um for this site and then come in to get building permits for that in my opinion okay thank you you're [Music] welcome okay anybody else from the [Music] public seeing none motion to close public second all in favor and I believe that's it for m your phone counselor I don't have any other redirect [Music] okay you answered that part any recross from any of the objetives based on the answers to the public no um actually I do so miss cfone um related only to the answers that she gave to the public yes like just sort of reminder BR um so miss cfone you mentioned um that that it wouldn't meet the definition of a truck terminal because it doesn't have a comfort facility um and yet Mr valenza testified that they would include a comfort facility so perhaps Mr valenza and I have different interpretations of what a comfort facility is I think if I I don't want to speak for Mr valenza but what I believe he was talking to it would have a restroom in my opinion a comfort facility when you're dealing with a truck terminal um in fact there are articles on this and my office has has represented these things to me a comfort facility at a truck terminal would have things like reservable showers it would have a laundry it would have a food court so you know when we look at this uh truck driers favorite truck stop terminal amenities this is a nights.com publication the top seven truck TR amenities driver's louage abundant food options Services is this has this been entered into I'm answering your question you asked the question so these are this is what informs my decision that this is not a truck terminal or the Comfort facilities I believe your question was Mr valenza testified there would be Comfort facilities I mean sometimes when you're at a planning board meeting you'll hear board members or say we'd like to take a comfort break and they go out and they use the ref restrooms here right so they're taking a comfort break to use the facilities here that certainly doesn't mean that it's a comfort station they're not taking a shower right exactly so there's not reservable showers at a truck terminal you would have those type of comfort stations exactly there's reservable showers and far more extensive things to accommodate those long haul truckers at a truck terminal yeah I okay I mean I respectfully disagree I don't think that those are that and I don't know what reference you're talking about but it the agre to disagree yeah okay anything else anybody else thank you Miss cfone okay thank you thank you any uh we have no further uh Witnesses at this point we obviously reserve the the right for rebuttal Witnesses after the objectors uh put on their case Okay so objectors I guess we'll start in order uh Mr bisaro would you like to Mr chairman can I ask just for like a five minute break to confer with my OB colleague or colleague objectors of course yes we'll uh reconvene uh let's let's do 5 minutes 806 okay we're back than okay on to uh the objectors uh Witnesses Mr pisaro would you like to proceed yes thank you uh Mr chairman again Mike pisaro policy director for the wowed Institute and I have our expert witness Dr Clay Emerson uh from Princeton Hydro s i do certainly uh clay CLA y Emerson e m r s o n Mr Bizarro before you start to examine Miss Dr Emerson let me just make sure Mr Genetti wants to make sure and I want to make sure that everybody understands the rules of so-called engagement you will get to examine Dr Emerson he will then be subject to cross examination by Mr gianetti then by the remaining objectors if they have any examination and then the public and then the possibility of redirect and recross I would just ask Mr Bernstein given that um the objector interests are aligned that uh after uh the testimony is given if the other objectors have questions of this witness they go first and then I can cross examin cross examine thereafter uh I think we're going to handle it in the manner I just described obviously you'll have the right if you want to after their examination to recross uh Dr Emerson or any of their other expert Witnesses but that's the way we've generally been handling it Mr B is excuse me um I think we get a shot too right yes I did want to leave the board out of it but the purposes the and the board professional but for the purposes of the manner the public will again it will be Mr it'll be the board professionals and the board then Mr gianetti and then the remaining objectors and then if there is then the public and then there recross and redirect will go from there thank you very thank you Mr bizar anything else nope all right good Dr Emerson if you could just please give the board it's been a long time since someone had to tell me to talk louder all right sorry about that it's more it's not so much for the board it's for the you really don't want to hear the public in the back I can hear you I will do my best all right Dr Emerson if you could give the board and uh the public here the benefit of your credentials uh certainly um I'm a licensed professional engineer in the state of New Jersey licens in good standing um my background is in civil engineering with the BS in civil engineering from Rowan University a master's in environmental engineering from drexy University and a PhD in uh water resources from uh Villanova University all right and what is your position at Princeton Hydro uh certainly um I am a the senior technical director in the engineering uh department at princ and Hydra and what does that mean I wish I knew um no I I do um as a technical director I'm involved in the wide variety of projects that the company uh engages in from storm water management flood plane management uh stream restoration dam removal uh Wetland mitigation uh projects and and a wide variety of other aspects all right um and from that answer I'm assuming you have actually done stream Restorations designed them planned them as well as dam removals Wetland Restorations storm water uh reviews Etc yes yes I get involved in in um the full variety of work yes and your services you've been retained by applicants by obviously environmental organizations like the water shed Institute but you've also done work for municipalities in reviewing storm water uh systems and plans yes that's correct um we uh I would say the majority of my day-to-day work um it's hard to say but uh we do work for you know uh clients that range from uh single family homeowners to the Army Corps of Engineers and and everything in between um and that includes both applicants and objectors um like this one and municipalities right and municipalities that's correct okay um and you also teach correct I do I teach uh currently I just teach uh one class uh at a graduate level uh course on hydrology and hydraulics at uh Villanova University yeah and this might be obvious but you have been qualified as an expert before land use boards here in New Jersey before I have including um Hillsboro okay like to offer uh Dr Emerson as an expert any objections I think we're good thank you all right Dr Emerson uh you've been retained to I just clarify an expert in the field of what he is an expert in hydrology he's an expert in storm water he is a expert in streams I'm not sure what an expert streams means but you're you're offering as as a civil engineer as an environmental engineer Dr Amerson you have a civil engineering degree you have an engineering Water Resources what does water resources mean yeah so I'm a professional engineer um with uh experience in in Water Resource matters including storm water management um and uh and hydrology and other um aspects that are consistent with the uh two letters that I have um submitted for this uh application you're also a uh remember of the New Jersey flood plane uh managers and the CFM yeah I failed to mention that I'm a certified FL flood plane manager um which is an accreditation through the association of State flood plane uh managers um just to be clear I'm just you said you're offering as an expert I'm asking an expert as I ology watershed management storm water hydrologic water quality I mean he has issued two [Music] reports okay okay all right Dr Merson you've been retained to review this project um and you have issued two letters in this regard that's correct okay all right uh I want to start with the storm Water Management of this project um you've reviewed the latest set of plans from Mr Ford correct I have yes March of uh this year is the latest revision I'm aare and you have listened to all the testimony or read the transcripts uh yes okay and or been present okay and do you have an opinion overall of whether the plans that Mr Ford and the applicant has submitted to the township um meet the requirements of the storm water regulations I do and my opinion is that um that that it does not currently meet the storm water regulations can you tell us why it doesn't meet uh sure um I I like to break the compliance the question of compliance down into the three Central uh components um being uh water quality groundwater recharge and water quantity or Peak flow control and uh as through my review and as is summarized in both of both the June of 2023 letter and the June of 2024 letter um summarize U many of those designed deficiencies um many of which are also Echo echoed in the township Consultants um review letter Mr pizar are we going to Mark these sure if we could I'm sorry we're going to Mark the reports as exhibits why don't we Mark I think we're at objector number four is the next so your June 2023 letter is 04 and your June of 2024 letter is ' 05 if the what just to be clear I'm not sure why we're marking their reports of exhibits they were submitted to the board as part of the record our reports were submitted as part of the record but we didn't mark them as exhibits want to make sure they're on the record actually I believe many of yours were marked as exhibits but it's up to the it's up to the board board acknowledg that we have copies of of Dr Emerson's reports right in civil clerk okay thank you and we will reference some of that report directly so I think it is appropriate to Market and thank you Mr Bernstein um Mr Emerson or Dr Emerson I'm sorry uh I'm still trying to get to you not calling you just clay maybe it'd be useful uh to pull up the site plans if you have those up I [Music] did you want yeah we can go with warehouse number one if you want yeah and just to be clear I'm um displaying sheet five of the what what I believe to be the latest revision um this sheet is March 23rd 2023 and that was plans designed by vanle engineering signed by Michael Ford correct okay all right so looking at warehouse number one can you go through oh you're at warehouse number two okay I'm not sure all that is where oh no I'm sorry I have them reversed no uh perhaps someone else can provide some clarity because on this they're both labeled number two all right let let's go with the this one yes the uh the Eastern which is roughly how many square feet just so we're both clear approximately 370,000 all right so looking at the storm water management system for the smaller of the two warehouses can you explain to the board what your concerns with the plans are yeah um so specifically um on this system there's a series of uh three um subsurface infiltration basins that surround or that are along the perimeter of the uh building um and those are designed with the intention of collecting runoff from uh the rooftop of the building and only the rooftop critically of the building um and I have a number of concerns uh number one those systems are required to have a drainage area that's uh no greater than 2.5 acres and the square footage of this building um exceeds 2.5 uh Acres times three so to adequately treat the full um uh I'm sorry to to recharge the groundwater from the rooftop of the building um it seems appropriate that there need needs to be more than three um because uh uh the total uh building footprint exceeds 3 * 2.5 or 7.5 Acres all right nowhere Mr Ford's report or materials you reviewed did he do a a delineation of those drainage areas no I I I I did not see that in my review all right and can you explain to the board why there's a 2 and a half acre drainage limitation where does that come come from sure that that comes from the um uh 7 Co 8 the green infrastructure uh requirements and that's part of the definition in effect of green infrastructure is to um limit the drainage area uh the the idea is to further distribute uh the storm water systems across the site and the way that they implemented that was with the drainage area limitation which is 2.5 acres and that would be in table 5.1 of the the green infrastructure rule of the S coate correct and if they were to exceed that 2 and a half acres they would have to get a waiver correct or variance from the township yes okay all right anything else with this uh smaller Warehouse from a concerns with its storm water design yes so the uh storm water the same subsurface infiltration systems that I just referred to there are three that surround the Eastern Warehouse um are built on average in approximately 5 ft of fill so that the site under existing conditions has a notable amount of topographic relief it's um lives up to the name of H Hillsboro um and the proposed development by necessity uh them being warehouses um and the associated parking is is a very you know requires a very flat um uh layout or topography so um the net result of that is that there's a a notable amount of cut and fill on this site to take a a rolling topography natural rolling topography and and create these two very flat platforms for this proposed use so uh where that comes into play in terms of the storm water is in in a couple different uh ways but in this case uh these uh subsurface infiltration systems are need to be constructed um in fill and the quality um type um construction techniques of that fill um is not clear in the plants um and some of these including the one that you see at the call the northeast corner of the of the building here are close proximity to um retaining walls the heights of which in some locations on the site approach 17 ft so um you kind of have conflicting interest interests you know uh a retaining wall has certain interests in mind and a subsurface infiltration Basin has different interests in mind and what I mean by that is the purpose of a subsurface infiltration Basin not surprisingly is to infiltrate storm water runoff take surface water and turn it into groundwater get it into the ground and uh retaining wall on the other hand um are designed with Drainage Systems uh to relieve relieve hydrostatic um relieve hydrostatic pressures uh that uh of of water um and their stability uh depends on that so um so you kind of have like I said conflicting interests in close proximity to one another is your goal to infiltrate water is your or is your goal to um relieve the hydrostatic pressure of said infiltrated water and get it out from behind the retaining wall um and at this stage the retaining wall design hasn't been provided to the township at least that I'm aware of so I I see that that's another uh conflict all right and just one sort of clarification and correction and my fault because I was on the screen was way too small for me the one we are talking about right here you reference in your June 2023 report it is labeled as Warehouse 1 368,000 square ft yes so we said it was the smaller one but in fact this is yes and it's labeled as Warehouse one and Warehouse 2 depending on what documentation you're looking at all right so there is no design for the retaining wall that you're aware of not that I've seen and that would be important because we have the as you mentioned the conflicting goals of infiltrating but also not creating too much pressure behind that retaining wall uh with water yes and and you're you're when you're filling in this portion of the site is in um is in fill uh depending on exactly um where you you look um you know what's the point of infiltrating water just so that it's collected by a uh drainage system behind a retaining wall and and and and not captured or or or treated or infiltrated which is again these these three systems if we're looking at this Warehouse um they're there for a reason and that reason is to comply with the groundwater recharge requirements so if the wall released water some of that water would not be infiltrated through the infiltration basins and therefore the groundwater recharge requirements may not be met correct okay anywhere in your review of these documents have you seen the infiltration rate for the fill or the the subsurface correct yes I have seen it and it is uh assumed to be 0.5 um inches per hour but I did not find any justification for that number um obviously it's a nice round number but I I don't know um you know the material that that it's said to represent hasn't been specified isn't clear um wasn't completely clear from from the the testimony that I uh heard from the applicants engineer and I think uh the construction practices themselves that are going to be used to put it in um I think that 0.5 is um you know is not supported and and and may not have good reason to be expected either and does the rules allow for an assumed rate of infiltration well the rules require there to be um infiltration testing conducted in the essentially within the footprint of all the proposed systems and that's another comment uh that was outlined in my June 2023 letter in some detail and I think that comment also appears in the penon letter um so they don't they don't have that infiltration testing currently um and they don't have uh all the necessary uh infiltration testing at at this time um and constructing these systems in Phill adds another level of complication there because that material is not available to test and to construct the retaining wall and all the fill for or the parking lot the subsurface has to be compacted correct yes typical construction practices and that there's language to that effect in the plan set okay and the fill would have to be compacted correct and all of that may impact the infiltration rates correct and so if the infiltration rates are impacted they there there's no evidence right now before you to show that they've met the recharge requirements because infiltration rates may be wrong or different that and the the drainage area limitation I mentioned earlier so in those two areas they' all meet the requirements of seven colon eight correct all right any other issues with this particular Warehouse um or the stormwood design of this particular Warehouse yeah the other uh component is uh and I don't know if it's specific just to this Warehouse is the manufactured treatment devices that are designed to treat um for water quality purposes um the sizing for those systems uh hasn't been done in accordance with the the rules um and so that uh the compliance with the water quality aspect of 7 co8 hasn't been hasn't been demonstrated at this time either all right anything else with this this Warehouse uh no okay let's move on to Warehouse in the north west portion of the site um similar there's been no designs for the retaining walls and this site has retaining walls correct correct it it certainly does all right you have similar concerns from the retaining wall perspective of having to relieve pressure but yet having infiltration systems correct and and and this side um I believe is the side that that has the poorest Pavement in addition um in the around the Eastern perimeter of the the warehouse um between the warehouse and the proposed retaining wall all right and in in your report you note uh there is a I think it was a 15 foot high retaining wall adjacent to the uh Conrail tracks and you mentioned some concerns with that yeah that that stood out to me as as a you know something that I would think Conrail would be want to be aware of and I I don't know um what discussions if any have been with the the railroad um but the construction you know it there's a retaining wall and it's it's the line on the plan is is absolutely on the property on the applicant's property I'm not here to say that it's not but to construct a retaining wall of that height you don't just plop a wall in into the ground um it involves excavation on the upgradient side of the wall uh that depends on the type of wall construction methods and things that haven't been detailed so um that just stood out to me as as something um unusual and that I I would have uh questions about and that wall also would have to have some way to relieve water pressure or hydrostatic pressure onto your site yes and that hasn't be detailed where that is going and how that is impacting the overall site de velopment stormw system no all right and I think in Mr Ford's testimony um want to say it was in June of last year he testified he could create some sort of impermeable barrier uh along the bottom edges of these infiltration systems in order to sort of isolate it from the other parts of the wall yes I I heard that testimony I I don't know um whatever hypothetical system that he was proposing there hasn't been submitted that I'm aware of and it and frankly it doesn't sound like a um uh some something that would would would magically kind of accomplish what he's set out to do and the reason I say that is when you put a subsurface infiltration or any kind of infiltration system in water doesn't just go straight down that's not how groundwater um Works especially when you have layers of horizontal fill you know that's going to be put in at you know 8 in lifts or one foot lifts in compacted um water flows uh horizontally especially uh when you have a scenario like that when you're constructing these systems in in fill and of course it it must flow um laterally when uh you have um when perhaps you have natural limiting layers or um uh shallow groundwater and I believe there's a a wetland Swale that kind of transects this portion is is that the hatched area just above proposed one one story W industrial Warehouse correct right so in that case groundwater um uh flows horizontally and some cases has to flow horizontally so you know putting in an impermeable barrier you know again it it it'll be a nice neat line on the plan but that that that can be placed between the infiltration system and and the wall but um I don't see that functioning in the way that he outlined this testimony nor have I seen the design for it and it's important to have these systems designed so that we can be the the the board its professionals and the public can be ensured that these systems will operate as proposed yes in order to demonstrate compliance with the the rules I I think the applicant's burden is to present A system that um can be expected to function all right um with the other Warehouse we talked about the soil testing and fill concerns do you have the same concerns with this Warehouse as you did with the South Eastern one uh yes and and I I don't I I I believe portions of these subsurface beds are also in uh Phil I looked at all five of them and came up with that average um depth fill of approximately 5et um obviously there's five systems they're they're linear in nature so they cover a lot of ground and again the topography the natural Topography of the site is doing a lot there's there's a a lot of hills and and and valleys and things you can see in this image here that these systems transect you know a drainage uh way so you know the amount of in some cases cut or fill varies widely even in a single system all right any other concerns you have with the stormw design let me let me stop and let me try again do you have the same concerns about the drainage area limitations with this Warehouse as you did with the other um no I believe the main concern was with the uh the other Warehouse the Eastern Warehouse all right any other concerns with the design or lack of information so on this Warehouse uh uh there's also porous pavement that's um proposed in an effort to meet uh to address the uh water quality requirements and um I have similar concerns as I did with the subsurface INF infiltration basins um when it comes to the perious pavement systems and but putting them aside for the moment my my primary concern or my initial concern with the porest pavement systems that are proposed here um is that they don't meet the definition of green infrastructure as it's outlined in 7 Co and 8 um and that definition um is uh green infrastructure means a storm water management measure that manages storm water close to its source by and there's three items one treating storm water runoff through infiltration into subsoil treating storm water runoff through filtration by vegetation or soil or storm water uh storing storm water runoff for reuse and the proposed systems here although prvious pavement um in some situations can be considered green infrastructure um but in this instance um when reviewing the uh design details for this system the system is a uh perious pavement surface course Crush Stone and uh the bottom of the system has an underd drain um that collects runoff and and discharges it I believe ultimately into the uh the pond constructed Wetland 2A so um the runoff is is available to completely bypass obviously there's no vegetation but also bypass um um the subsoil so it doesn't meet any of the three uh criteria outlined in that in that definition um but going back to my previous concerns with the subsurface infiltration systems um here again uh you have kind of these conflicting interests you have porest pavement at the immediately adjacent essentially to uh the retaining wall all right and then with with the porest pavement and I'm trying to find which sheet I don't know if you can remember um the actual cutaway design of it because these are Under drain correct yes that's correct all right and this can you tell us which sheet this is so this is um sheet 19 of the same plan set okay that van CLE and Michael Ford prepared dated uh March of 2023 yes the last revised date on this is the same and so the concerns with the porest pavement not technically meeting the definition of green infrastructure sure can you explain a little more about that yeah again this will be um constructed on top of um compacted fill um you know there's this there to to be fair there's a statement here that says suitable on-site material or imported fill material material permeability rate shall be equal to or greater than Nate than native on-site material um but that's uh there's a lot of unknowns there things that are um and and again I don't the that permeability isn't listed here um and so the ability for that runoff to get into the soil is questionable and uh there's an under drain at at the bottom of the system presumably a 4-in under drain that that will collect runoff and and discharge it to the uh the nearby Wetland uh proposed uh Wetland basin and you would normally see an underd drain where I'm sorry Mr berstein okay so you're looking at um can you describe what you're looking at yes uh for the purpose of the record this is um again sheet 19 and this is the pervious pavement detail in the upper right hand corner of the sheet and underd drains are usually seen where there is no infiltration or you're intercepting seasonal high water table uh correct okay and under drain so they supposed to be at the bottom of the Basin or somewhere within the storage bed well it depends on what you're you're trying to accomplish and in in this case the underd drain is placed at the bottom of the system um thereby allow it's a it's a perforated pipe thereby allowing uh runoff to freely enter it and and bypass uh treatment by the subsoil which again I think is is questionable due to the the compacted nature of the of the fill all right all right and we've talked about your concerns with the manufactured treatment device in water quality um Yes again they they um the the 7 cor rules um and and the BMP manual guidance requires uh the sizing of those manufactured treatment devices or mtds to be based on actual calculated um times of concentration to to come up with the treatment flow rate and make sure that you have the correctly sized device for the application for the drainage area and they used to blanket um constant value which is is not uh not permittable so the sizing of those systems um cannot be uh uh confirmed all right Dr Emerson so you say the assumed or the the assumed time of concentration of six minutes is not allowed is that your opinion or is that somewhere documented in the in the DP rules and guidance yes that is um documented in the D um material okay all right and I think this might be helpful uh because you have some issues also with the quantity reductions if you could pull up uh your June 20123 report in figure two and this is uh [Music] 04 you go all right so with the time of concentration uh calculations done by the uh applicants engineer you raise some concerns can you explain those yes and again this is uh page six of 04 uh it's labeled figure two and it's a section a snip of um appendix J of the drainage report um and let me stop you the drainage report whose drainage report uh the applicants uh Engineers drainage report and um it has a couple modifications that have been made to to be clear first there's a yellow highlight uh over a a a straight dash line at the top of the figure and then there's a series of dashed red lines and arrows denoting the flow directions which which I added and my concern here is uh it it requires a little bit of explanation but one of the requ requirements of uh an applicant is that they uh calculate the existing Peak flow control um Peak flow rates for a site prior to the development because that sets the bar it sets the threshold for how much they need to um how much storage they need to provide how much they need to slow the water down so it's a big deal although it's not really a design aspect it again is it sets the bar and there's um so it needs to be done accurately the the the more that they can the more that they underestimate um this flow path it results in a larger existing Peak flow rate and allows a developer not just them any developer to build uh a smaller storm water system devote less land to the storm storm water system and so the accuracy and the the care that needs to be taken in drawing these lines while it seems like a pretty simple task it actually has pretty big implications on your site design and layout and honestly in some cases what you can fit on a site so I know it just seems like kind of esoteric lines on a map but um it's actually quite important and so the engineer's responsibility when they're um starting a project like this is to make sure that they represent the existing Peak flows accurately that they don't overestimate them if they overestimate them or um then they're uh they're going to release more water than they would otherwise be allowed to and people Downstream um should be concerned about that so when an engineer approaches an existing site like this and you have this topography your goal is to find the most remote point in this drainage area the the path that's going to take the water the longest time to go from the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill and that water can't just go any way that it wants to it has to flow downhill as it turns out um and so what we saw on this figure that was the reason for the comet is they they just have this flow path that I've highlighted in yellow as a straight line it's going to go from this corner of the site right to the p a point which is the point of analysis and I look at this topography and I don't number one I don't think that's the way the water is going to flow um and number two and most importantly I don't think that's the longest flow path I don't think that's going to take the water the longest um you know the fastest way from point A to point B is a straight line and that's a pretty straight line as I look at it and it doesn't seem to really respect the the topography um I would offer that the red lines that I've sketched on here follow the topography you can see it everywhere where that red line where any of those red lines cross a contour which are those light gray lines underneath it it'll cross it at a right angle meaning that it's flowing downhill down uh the slope and although we didn't duplicate or try and recreate um the calculations I'm confident that if we had had done that for uh any of these series of red lines we would come up with a longer uh travel path and a longer time and therefore a lower flow rate and that lower flow rate would mean that their basins that they're designed to to attenuate this peak flow would need to be bigger than they are and maybe they would fit or maybe they wouldn't that's a design uh question that that they would need to investigate but that that that was my concern as it relates to this this figure let me ask some clarifying question so the line the dark line ab and POA that was what the engineer the applicants engineer put in you merely highlighted it as yellow correct and that was what that was the course that they are calculating their times of concentration cor from a baseline yes you've added on the red ones based upon the Topography of the site correct based upon the Topography of the site that their own site plans are showing yes yes okay no additional information yeah all right um and so by going through using one or more of those red lines you would have a slower rate from a baseline which would then have to be matched or reduced correct it would loow it would raise the bar essentially for for the Post construction design and they would have to uh result in a a more restrictive system perhaps bigger basins smaller outlets on same basins all right and that's important to at least that the quantity rules as I understand them are trying to at least reduce the rate that water is discharged so you're having less of a flooding impact yes this particular component one of the three require uh Central performance requirements relates to uh Downstream flooding okay and I believe Mr Ford testified to this in his June but even if this this project was designed completely in accordance with the rules using the right times of concentration and infiltration rights and everything more volume would be leaving this site than currently is leaving it yes that that is correct and and reflects um the calculations he submitted and so making sure that we are at least reducing that rate is very important extremely important okay anything else on storm water no um no I I think that that uh that uh the letters uh especially the June uh 2023 letter has more deta details than we could go into here but but that that's a a good summary of them all right all right I would like to move on if I'm at your your pleasure yeah I go ahead Sean I concur I just have a recommendation that we address that testimony first before we go down the Leeds too far maybe from Engineers or from the planning board to might have questions before we forget so I'll I'll defer to start with the day yeah or to question to engineer first no to with start with engineer y start with our engineer thank you thank you Mr chairman I'd like to um ask for a little bit more clarification on the subject of retaining walls near infiltra subsurface infiltration areas um Dr erson um in your opinion uh in generally in site construction um and I think the Public Notices it as well generally retaining walls are Earth retaining segmental block retaining walls and in and in your experience those type of retaining walls rely on geogrids inserted behind the wall to interact with the backfield material to provide stability for the wall in your opinion uh wouldn't that type of wall um be uh compromised by having an infil subsurface infiltration system behind the wall potentially even inside what would be considered the the GE grid Zone and and maybe you could elaborate what I'm trying to explain as far as that zone of influence on a retaining wall yes so like I said the construction of these systems it's not just you know building a wall that looks simple on a a plan here a line across the plan um you have to construct again there's different uh construction methods as you mentioned geogrids some some kind of tieback system um and with any retaining wall that I've ever seen been a part of um there's a drainage layer to relieve that hydrostatic pressure of uh uh built up by hydrostatic pressure I mean build up of water um it creates an an additional uh uh load on the on the wall uh that it it may or may not be designed to to withstand so again again the the the best I could come up with to kind convey this point is that there's conflicting interests in close proximity to one another if I'm if I'm a retaining wall I don't want an infiltration system uh on the high side of the ground right behind my behind me if I'm a infiltration system I don't I don't want a retaining wall on the downstream side of me because it's it's got an opposite um interest of getting the water out and back to the surface so um you know this is a a a design issue that that is is that the applicant has created um on their own uh here and I think that's an important consideration um we touched upon if it was and like you said we don't have the the full design details on these Pro proposed walls but if in order to eliminate that conflict between say a geogrid and the infiltration system there's there's the possibility the applicant could propose a poured in place concrete wall and in your experience even if it was a concrete wall um the the designer of those walls were introduce weat Pooles at the bottom of the wall I I think everybody in the public has seen 4in diameter black pipe sticking out of every wall that's ever constructed and and the purpose of those weep holes is to relieve hydrostatic pressure behind the wall um so I think if you could elaborate on so even if it was a concrete wall um with the we Poes relieving hydr pressure isn't that in fact removing groundw from behind the wall groundw that was intended for infiltration and therefore can we have any confidence in the recharge calculations no that's that's exactly right I mean regard of what type of wall is proposed I Envision it it will have uh a a drainage layer um behind the wall and like you said there will be pipes that daylight on the on the side of the wall or at the base of the wall and those that system will be designed to collect uh groundwater from the Upstream uh the UPG gradient side of the wall and um and that's exactly where this infiltration system is so it it it really is a conflicting um interest I think for the benefit of the board maybe we should also clarify you mentioned that some of these um subsurface infiltration systems are in proposed fill areas so in typical construction the goal of the contractor is to compact The Fill material as best as he can which inherently be limits the infiltration capabilities of that soil medium um so maybe you could better help the board understand your concern with infiltration systems proposed in areas where based on the Topography of the site the contractor is going to have to fill um before he can build the system right again this this uh on average between the five systems it was on average of about 5T of of fill and this is structural fill but a roadway for um truck traffic essentially um so the the physical properties of soil that dictate how well how easily how readily water will flow through soil are the grain size distribution of the soil is it sand is it silt is it clay um and we don't know that hasn't been specified even the note in the prvious pavement um detail was generic and didn't didn't say what that material um was going to be in terms of its uh texture or its grain size its composition um and the second and sometimes most important aspect of uh property of soil that dictates how fast or if water will flow through it at all is is is compaction um is number one are there poor spaces and um have those poor spaces where air and water could otherwise exist or flow been eliminated through mechanical compaction um and there again you kind of have conflicting interests from a structural standpoint you can have a um differential settlement in the parking lot and so you'll have specifications to compact that material including you know uh geotechnical uh uh Proctor you know tests to to ensure that the material is being compacted being compacted evenly being compacted at the right moisture content um to achieve um uh this level of compaction there's there's notes to that effect in the in the plans as well and th those are not practices or processes that are um that encourage water uh to infiltrate um when you were talking about the exhibit that uh demonstrated the time of concentration or what an engineer would call as a flow path to and that's just one of the parameters utilized in calculating runoff volumes and flows um would you clarify that it's just it's not a subjective exercise by an engineer but rather regulations require the design engineer to to identify and utilize the greatest time of concentration in the existing condition yeah absolutely um and what I what I'll add to that is that if you gave um two different Engineers the same task they might not draw the exact same line but they're going to be very close to one another and and and sometimes almost identical but this is a pretty disperate uh you know um the difference between um the one that the applicants engineer Drew here and ours the ones that that I drew in red here um I think the figure speaks for [Music] itself so it's a it's a requirement it again to your point it's it's it's not subjective um it has to be correct it has major implic ations more than is uh more than I could possibly uh convey from just looking at a figure here with these lines it's extremely important and it has to be the most hydraulically remote uh flow path and uh that's not what I see in this figure thank you Mr chairman that that covers the questions I have at this point based on the testimony at this point great thanks Mr Mayo Mr qu anything [Music] I do not no thank you um I would tend to ask anybody from the de and before after that I think it's time to give our court reporter a a break I just had a quick question you You' um mentioned about a lower flow rate needing a larger retention area can you help me understand that where I would think a higher rate of flow would make that necessary very I'm glad you asked that question because it is kind of counterintuitive um so a higher flow rate in the in the proposed conditions when the pavement and buildings are built would require a larger system but the way the water uh quantity or Peak flow controls work is they don't give a developer a Target they don't say you can discharge at 50 CFS or 100 it's a percentage on the existing so you analyze the existing site with no Warehouse no pavement and come up with your Baseline and so if you elevate that Baseline you raise your allowable because it's for example 80% so if I if I draw a line like this yellow line and I come up with 100 CFS under existing conditions well then I can release 80 CFS but if I draw more perhaps a more in my opinion a more accurate line and and you know I only come up with 50 CFS now I'm only allowed you know 80% of 50 CFS so I have to end up with a larger Basin under proposed conditions so I'm glad you asked that question because it's a little bit counterintuitive it is thank you anybody else I've got two um and then we'll let people take a break um so the back to this this top math here this this path here um is there any indication um where the yellow line is because I can see obviously where the red line is it seems to follow some existing waterways that seem to be on the map on that yellow line there is there any indication that that's a natural flow of of water between the A and the POA as far as what you would see not that it's not existent but it seems like there's a slower path which is creating those kind of water natural waterways and the ones that you drw right the exactly the um the topography here is you know rolling hillsides that have um flow converging and ultimately forming you know first order tributary streams um and you can see that these red lines each of them kind of reflect that you can see how water would flow I'm motioning here with the hand down this way and converge from both directions um and you see each of these even here how there's a little bit of a concave topography that would bring the water you know this long circuitous path before getting to the point of analysis but this uh line is just straight you asked me if it follows some kind of natural drainage path not that I'm aware of not that I see no okay uh and my second question I think that uh Mark answered from the retaining w standpoint obviously normally on a retaining wall there's some sort of mathematic equation on how far you need to go back to set a geogrid to have an adequate structural Integrity of the wall um in your opinion how far away should your bmps be from a wall like that so you get the proper U infiltration that you have without worrying about that drainage through the through the pipes of the wall um I don't have a a set number for that it depends on a on a couple things um and a few of those things are what are the soil conditions how much fill what is the elevation of the toe of the wall versus the the bottom of the system so for example if if the proposed infiltration system were you know many feet below the base of the wall I I wouldn't have concern um I you know um as long as there was relief uh for the system but we don't see that here here we see these in in close proximity in fact I think in some locations the wall itself is taller than uh the separation distance to the system and that's that's way too too close um what I would have liked to see and I think I raised in the June 2023 letter was you know how how the groundwater mounting analyses that were done will those groundwater Mounds intersect um that are predicted from the calculations intersect the walls I don't think that was um discussed whether it would or wouldn't but so I don't have a number on that depends on a lot of factors but I can say for for both of these uh retaining walls the Eastern side of the upper warehouse and the uh Northern side of the Southern or Eastern Warehouse these appear to be uh closer that I I I would expect them to interfere with the retaining wall and vice versa all right and and my last thing I think you touched on it when you're doing analysis for perk right and for a natural let's say pit that they're testing now how do you account for after they do the compaction that they need to do on the cut and fill and to make the road the driveway safe for the the vehicle traffic is how does that change the calculation of when they're designing the system for for proper water infiltration yeah it's it's it's you know conflicting uh goals there the one is to prevent infiltration prevent differential settlement and the other one relies on the poor spaces that you literally remove when you compact soil so uh while they do have some infiltration testing um of the existing site at the existing grades many of these systems will be above that in material that may originate from on-site or anywhere else I think is the the note put it and be compacted however the contractor see fit in accordance with the plan so there's a lot of unknowns there um and not by necessity this is a design choice that was made by the the engineer so um yeah it's it's a it's a difficult uh it creates a difficult situation thank you thank you okay I think we're going to take 10 and we'll reconvene in uh [Music] 920 okay thank you um I guess next it goes to uh Mr Gian Edie you have questions for Dr Emerson I I thought you were just talking about board member questions i' I'd prefer to wait until he completes his whole testimony before I question him okay very well Mr Brar you want to continue yep thank you very much all right Dr Emerson if you could pull up your June 2024 letter yes all right and go to page two figure one yes my favorite topic the Stream So in your 2023 letter you identified this as a stream that would be applicable the Hillsboro stream Court ordinance why why are you calling this a stream um yeah so on the display I have page two figure one of 05 and uh this figure is a section of the plan set the current plan set March 2023 uh zoomed in kind of on the Eastern warehouse and I've added a red dash line here that follows the converging path of uh surface runoff and there's a um a topographic feature uh that is seen at least in this topographic map and in aerial photos and um where water um flows uh it has as can be seen in the topography although not quite at this scale it has defined bed and Banks uh that confine and conduct the normal continuous or in this case intermittent flow of water um uh consistent with um the ordinance definition of a channel um and again it has those bed and Banks which convey water um at least periodically consistent with the ordinance so taking a look at the to topographic lines and I know they're kind of faint here does that suggest why this is or is not a stream yes to to to um to state that there's uh a bed in bank that that's referring to topographic features and you can see how far these Contours uh pull up into the upgradient landscape and the somewhat Meandering flow path that the water uh flows is consistent with my definition of a stream albeit uh a first or tributary or you know a Headwater um not the the kind of stream that you would uh canoe down or or swim in or something like that but a smaller first order tributary nonetheless and a first order tributary is just as much as a stream as a fourth order uh correct in accordance with the ordinance yes all right and we had prepared a colored gradient if you can pull that up [Music] all right if we can have this we'll mark this as 06 I believe it is and this was prepared by my office under your direction correct correct and can you tell us what this shows and why why you suggest it be done in color sure so this is the shown in red is the approximate uh property boundary of lot 33 and um the con there are topographic Contours that are labeled here they're every 2 feet um so you see an 86 and 90 92 94 and and so on um they're not all labeled but a lot of them are here so you can you can follow um and this topographic data is taken from the uh 2018 liar or uh that's where they fly and and literally bounce lasers off the ground surface and get a very accurate representation of the the lay of the land if you will and so the higher elevations are displayed in lighter colors and the lower elevations are displayed in in darker colors in this case monochromatic blue so uh this enables you to see relatively speaking High High Point on on the left side of the property and another kind of Ridge line or high point along the Eastern side of the property and in the middle is what ultimately forms uh this first order stream so you can see how runoff from this side of the high point will flow and converge to the East and runoff from the East side will flow and converge from the East to towards the west and then you see the uh the stream in question becomes a little more def find I think in this in this view Mr cook in his testimony a couple months ago said um that the applicant dug this does the topography suggest that's what happened uh not not in my opinion um and the reason for that there's there's twofold and and I'm just going to object because this happens often they refer to testimony of R witnesses that are just inaccurate so if they're going to refer to testimony of our Witnesses they site to the transcript because they never testified that the applicant created this uh drainage ditch had it created maybe it would be more accurate the applicant speak in the mic please yes so Mr cook testified I believe let me find the transcript again [Music] and as you're looking I'll just mention we will conclude testimony at [Music] 10 I'm looking at it I will rephrase the question does this does the topography as you see it reflect what you would think to be man-made or naturally occurring um yes so to to be clear um before when I was describing the relative Ridge line on the Eastern side of the parcel and the one on the western side and this feature the stream is in in between them so this is an area where naturally I would expect flow to converge and if I were looking for a first order tributary or small ephemeral stream this is exactly where I would find it um and I I don't know uh not know or doubt whether or not someone may have modified this feature at some point in the past whether that be the current property owner previous property owner That's Not Unusual in a agricultural landscape nevertheless I'm left with a feature that meets the definition of meets the uh Township ordinance definition of a stream and a channel and a water course and it's in a place where I would expect to find one um even if the landscape were completely uh untouched no AG no history of agricultural use all right and if you could go back to your report and go to figure two so again exhibit 05 can you tell us what that is so yes this is page three of of 06 of 05 rather um and this is an aerial photo an aerial image obtained from historic aal.com uh identified by that service as a 1971 Arial image of this portion of lot 33 um and uh what you see here or what you don't see here is the um large area of pavement and and parking areas that Mr cook discussed but you see uh in the exact location of the stream in the figure um in ' 06 uh you see a linear feature um consistent with uh my interpretation of aerial imagery of a first order stream flowing in the same direction in the same location all right and so in in your expert opinion the aerial photography demonstrates a natural stream correct and it's not just the the image that I have here I I reviewed uh as many as I could find um and they told a consistent story and now for the record transcript of March 7th line 19 on page 55 question okay all right at the January 25th hearing you indicated you had a conversation with Mr shackley about this feature being man-made correct did he tell you that he made that ditch or had a made answer on page 56 line one he said he had it made Mr shley is not the applicant in this application property arm I'm sorry I stand corrected all right but in your opinion the topography the aerial photography shows a pre-existing natural feature a stream yes all right anything else you want to talk about about this um [Music] uh no no I I I think uh I think it the aerial images speak for themselves I think that that I disagree with cook and the his what whatever you would call it criticism or um comments related to the the ordinance I think this feature meets the definition I think the definition in this case is is is clear and um I also disagree with other aspects of his um latest report with respect to uh the function or in his opinion lack thereof of the stream um but that is detailed in in in the June 2024 report all right and one I think hopefully last question you haven't been on the site right uh no I have not and you were present at one of the hearings where I requested permission to go on the site and we were denied that that's correct I have driven by the site um on Homestead Road but I have not uh had the opportunity to access the site okay your storm waterer testimony doesn't require you to have been on the site no it doesn't require me to have been on the site and your testimony on the stream Corridor or the Stream bless you is based upon aerial photography and aerial photography and topography yes okay thank you very much that's all the questions I have on Direct okay thank you um so we'll move to the questions from our professionals thank you Mr chairman Dr Emerson maybe you could help um explain to the board you said I believe this is a location you would expect to see a stream future could you explain why you would expect to see that in this location sure um and that uh the reason for that I'm going to go back to 06 um that shows the again the the topography or the um relief the topographic relief of the site that shows the high points and the low points so um you see this uh you know that really starts from the main stem the the Royce Brook down at the at the top of the figure here at elevations you know in the in the 60s um you see this low Point kind of reaching up into the into the site the darker colors pulling up um almost to Homestead Road which is is kind of at the High Point here um so this is an area where flow is not different than the uh time of concentration figure that we we talked about prior to the break where flow is naturally converging and um concentrating and ultimately joins you know it has a flood plane that joins the larger flood plane of of Royce Brook here so um the reason that I would expect to find um a feature like this in this location is the fact that all these Contours um converge and bring water uh uh together to accumulate so this is an area that would periodically flow during periods of um uh rainfall or high groundwater uh conditions you know late late spring things like that this is where you'd expect to find uh surface flow um and uh uh you know close you know shallow depths to groundwater things of that nature so is it true in your opinion this is a naturally occurring low area where storm water is naturally draining to and concentrating and therefore flowing yes and based on the lar data there the water course feature is fairly dark is that indicating that it's um there's deeper elevations in that area that the feature has depth to it it it does and and um you know I I can zoom in here and what you'll see is that Contours like if I pick this 88 Contour here it pulls all the way up and wraps around somewhere you know in the 92 or 93 indicating that in in this area the feature is you know for I'll say roughly four to 6 feet deep and and these Contours are not um completely dissimilar from in fact in some cases they may be very similar to what was shown in the applicants materials and I'm going to refer back to to better answer your question refer back to [Music] 05 and um specifically in figure three and you can see in figure three on on the right side of figure three which is a is a clip taken from um I guess I should should be clear here the right side is taken from the uh site plans which were last revised February 17th 2023 um the left side comes from a previous version but uh you can see those Contours pulling up into the landscape on the right side of the figure figure initially I was uh puzzled by this because earlier versions some of the application materials have don't don't show it I I don't know what the what the issue is with with the uh earlier application materials I'm referring to the left side of of figure three where you can see the the stream here this little Meandering darker area where all these Contours are pulling up is absent completely from some of the application material and I I can't explain that I I've looked at the the notes on the plans and I can't explain that um that discrepancy um but uh to your question uh it it does appear on the current plans in any event and you can see it pretty pretty clearly in the in the topography here [Music] you mentioned based on the Contour topographic information that it appears the sides of this water course could be four to 5 ft deep in your opinion would those be considered Banks yes absolutely and in your opinion at the bottom of this feature uh would you consider that a channel yes [Music] uh maybe you could go to you had a um exhibit was an aerial photograph I believe from [Music] 1971 m i do figure two and um if you could use your mouse to highlight the where where you believe that feature is located for everyone yeah so I'm if you if am I correct in the in stating that along that feature it's dark um it's it does not appear to have been planted for crops it appears to be a natural condition and sort of like a tree lines around the property would you agree that in your opinion yes and I do want to be clear that other a images display the stream even clearer than this one does the the significance of this one was that part of Mr Cook's testimony and his uh and his report suggested that it it only existed because of or as a result of and I'm I apologize I'm not quoting him directly but as close as I can uh it was only there as a result of or to support storm water conveyance from uh the parking area that's there now and that parking area wasn't there in 1971 yet yet the the stream feature appears to be present so that was the significance or the choice of displaying this particular image well based on the aerial imagery and what it intends to indicate from my um site cover and based on the topography in your opinion would you say that this indicates water flows periodically through this feature yes based on the topography um and the aerial imagery in your opinion does this feature have a Terminus yes it's termin is clear it's it's the Confluence with the the larger uh stream and in your expert opinion Dr Emerson based on photography topography um does this feature have a source uh yes it does the source is the natural uh concave topography um that that feeds the stream that surrounds the stream that ultimately defines the stream and there's also uh a pipe as was outlined in uh Cook's report um and I'm not sure that it matters but even in your opinion even if that pipe wasn't there there would be water flowing through this feature absolutely that's all the questions I have right now Mr chairman thank you Mark um David I don't have any questions thank you okay thank you so we move on to anybody on the de hi um Dr erson you made a reference to um the ma whether it was man-made or natural the the question I wrote is does it matter if it's man-made or natural and sounded like it didn't but can you clarify what what you had previously said about whether it was man-made or not yes um so my opinion was that um regardless of whether it's man-made or not it's in a location where I would expect to find to to find a naturally occurring first order tributary a small stream an ephemeral stream a stream that just flows perhaps during periods of rainfall or high groundwater um whether it was modified or not or even man-made which I I don't think it was um it it doesn't change its classification uh as a as a stream in in my opinion okay thank you thank you else as we'll go on to Mr gianetti again I would like to reserve my cross examination until until after the objector attorneys question the witness it's effectively the same direct it it's their witness as well I should have an opportunity to hear all the objectors question their witness and then I can cross-examine if I may we are separate objectors with separate interest or concerns they may or may not overlo overlap at times we play that game we all know what your interests are can ask their questions so if they have anything else then I can cross-examine everything as opposed to going in a circle on this I don't see any harm in allowing the objectors to ask them his questions I suspect it will be limited and then I can cross-examine do my cross-examination follow them by redirect from all the objectors then recross is that what you're proposing Mr chetti I'm sorry I I don't know if I understood that you're proposing that all the objectors now question Dr Emerson then you'll question after that presumes that the next round before the public gets to it is Mr pizaro gets to redirect redirect from the or recross from the ejectors and then you get to recross and then we get to the public is that what you're proposing if I have if I have recross I'm just saying based on your theory that's what you're [Music] proposing Mr buron I think you dealt with this in the beginning we do the normal of course um as Mr GTI has indicated multiple multiple times you know I I'm here at the board's pleasure at what they wish to do but you know this is our our part of the case um the normal course would be for Mr Genetti to cross-examine cross-examine by any of the other uh interested parties and then the public that's not normal course he has no basis to say that that's not there's nothing normal about this to begin with it makes sense that all the objectors would ask the witness these questions and then I can cross-examination do my cross- examination this is not out of the ordinary or some yeah crazy Theory I don't think we have the legal experience to that I have to defer to council I I really think without terribly marking up the record the issue of this is not normal it's not the first time and it's not going to be the last time Council that you and I have sat through hearings with objectors I'm sure you have not set up like this so well a as Mr pizaro correctly points out there are five distinct and different objectives with five different and distinct criteria so to speak um if if you were to take your argument to its conclusion Mr Bizarro would be calling a traffic expert he'd be calling an engineering expert he'd be calling all of the usual things that an objector calls that's not the case here he's calling Dr Emerson someone else is calling I understand at their behest and their price a traffic and an engineering expert separately Miss Mr chairman I standing by the position I've made before and we basically have followed throughout this entire process okay then it's it's your uh questions Mr gnet it's ridiculous unless you want to hold off questioning till the next [Music] meeting um I I think I'll start I I I remind Council that at 10:00 this board I think is going to call it quits so sure be aware accordingly Dr Emerson I assume you're available on the 12th of September at the same dat yes thank you Dr Emerson uh in your qualifications and when you were qualified as an expert he talked about h hology and and stream uh but you're you're not a geotechnical engineer are you uh despite my name clay uh I'm not a geotechnical engineer I've had geotechnical coursework uh but you're not a licensed geotechnical engineer well there is no such thing as a licensed geotechnical engineer I guess I'm coming back you but you're not a geotechnical engineer do do you prepare such plans do I run geotechnical tests things of that nature do I have I done GE technical designs yes we have a lab a geotechnical lab in our office finish yes and I've run geotechnical tests I've I've I've done limited geotechnical designs I I don't do that currently but I have done that in my capacity at princ and hydro and at uh one other previous firm as well um have you I guess to clarify that do you design site plans uh it is not something that we we do it's not something that's in our uh and you you motion to this uh site plan that's up here we we do design site plans um we we do not design Warehouse site plant to more specifically answer your question I mean in general do you do you prepare you not your office you do you prepare site plans submitted to planning boards for Land Development activities development extremely rarely do you uh design retaining walls uh not recently but I have designed retaining walls while at the current company and I I did more of that at previous firms uh you you mentioned doing applicant work uh Municipal work and I obviously objector work uh what percentage would you give towards applicant work objector work Municipal work uh so you want three percentages amongst those three well if those are the three types of work you're doing yeah well we do other work Beyond those three but if you wanted to break it up just just those three well when I say Municipal I mean government okay okay um it's it's hard to put precise numbers on it but it's a fair question so I'll try um I do far more more work for applicants than I do obors which I think might be at the root of your question um but you know to put I could put some numbers on that but it it would be pretty uh pretty rough so then you don't have a percentage uh so Municipal maybe it's 20% and 60% applicants uh maybe 20% obors like if if I just look at the hours in a week or the hours in a month or the hours in a year something like that when you say applicant work uh are you working directly with the applicant or you being engaged by an outside civil engineer both sometimes we're contracted by the developer directly but quite often I'm providing services for uh a a more typical site civil firm similar to Van CLE the applicants engineer here have you done uh objection work for against other Warehouse applications yes how many are you currently doing um currently Warehouse applications that I'm working on as as an objector I I believe just two this one and another one that's currently in front of this Township um I cannot think of any others that are Ono right now how about your firm do you know your firm uh we do have a couple other objection cases going on now but I don't think any of them relate to warehouses [Music] I guess since we uh kind of left off or you ended on on the uh the stream issue I guess I'll start there um what have you prepared uh D Wetland application submitted to the submitted D Wetland applications to the D uh can you be more specific by what you mean by Wetland applications uh whether it be uh letters of interpretation uh General permits individual permits yes so I I am not a uh I do not delineate wetlands in my day-to-day work um but I have submitted and fairly routinely submit you know like you said General permits for things that entail permit through uh freshwater wetlands um where I'm the person signing the plans we have other regulatory Specialists that are doing the notifications doing the uh Wetland delineation the field work but I'm involved with those so you're not involved in delting the wetlands you're more of if if something needs to be filled as part of an application submitting that application to the DP correct whatever whatever engineering aspects are involved with the permit application how about flood Hazard area permits have you ever uh prepared and submitted flood Hazard area permits Andor uh delineations to the DP yes that's a big big part of what I do on a day-to-day basis um uh as a certified flood plane manager and and with the background in open Channel flow Hydraulics and flood plane management um I'm very familiar with that process and routinely uh involved in those uh aspects were you involved in drafting any of the uh D Wetland regulations no how about their flood Hazard area regulations uh no no [Music] um in in that if you could bring up figure one from your report which report are you referring to uh I believe it's in the it might actually might be both the I guess June 28th 2024 it had that red dash [Music] line and I guess I want one more point of clarification you you noted before there was some discrepancy at one point plans didn't show uh or it didn't the stream or the the topography didn't show on a prior plan but it is on the current plans was that your testimony not exactly the topography and I'm referring I think you're referring to figure three of the same report the topography is shown there are topographic Contours here they're just not accurate and they're reflected they they tell a extremely a totally opposite story in fact so the stream that is clearly here with these Contours and Clay you're referring to the right part of the figure yes the right side of figure three on page five um so I I didn't say and I didn't mean to say that the topography isn't shown there Contours here I'm referring to you said there was a discrepancy and I thought you were referring to uh the depiction of the stream that it wasn't shown on prior plans but shown on the current plans was was that your testimony yeah but it's it's it's you ask a different question this time around slightly um so it's not that information was missing from this image from the 2022 application materials there is nothing missing here the the Contours are shown it's just these Contours that are shown are not accurate I don't know where they came from and they mask the fact that there's a stream there how about uh so well you're aware the D issued uh a letter of interpretation delineating all the wetlands correct I am aware of that yes and does that show it does it show it can you be more specific well everything you're saying that was not accurate is it correct on that plan approved by the D you objection if you want to show them particular plans or so you you didn't review the D Wetland permits no I'm ask saying if you my objection is you want to show them something specific go ahead but I don't if he said he reviewed it I can ask him a question about it um I believe are you refer you said it and it what what is it is it is it the topography or is it the stream itself because there are various things displayed on these uh exhibits and the LOI that you're referring to but if you could be more specific it would be helpful perhaps well I guess what I'm saying is you have a figure from I think what 2022 and the plans have been revised since then a few times and there were a plans approved by the D right when you get a Wetlands delineation it includes a plan that shows a phography shows a stream and it said in this case it says ordinary resource value ditch right and it has zero uh resource value was there anything on that plan that you believe whether topography identification of the stream that was inaccurate um I I don't know but I think the answer is generally no that the topography that's depicted on the right side of this figure is what I believe was depicted on the plan that's contained with the [Music] LOI and you talked about or there were some questions about this either whether it was a a drainage ditch or a man-made ditch or naturally uh occurring um um and you said you formed an opinion it was naturally occurring based upon the topography correct but as you noted you haven't visually inspected the site correct not for lack of trying uh and you don't know for sure whether it was man-made or not it could be man-made uh I it could be man-made yes but the the fact uh of the surrounding topography tells me that it would be there whether historically someone intervened or not which is very different than if it were in any other location or any other direction or configuration [Music] if you could bring up uh in your June 28th report um I guess figure two of the 1971 aerial [Music] image yes and and you're saying that black and white grainy IM image shows the stream as it exists today uh no I I don't believe that was my testimony I believe that this as you put it grainy black and white image shows uh a stream in the location where it exists today um I can't interpret pull any more out of this image than I think it you know it speaks for itself so it it shows uh a stream feature in the in the location was my testimony of the um stream that is shown in in the other exhibits that we um we refer to so you're saying that that picture clearly shows a stream feature again I chose this picture um there's nothing significant or especially noteworthy about this particular image except for the the fact that it preceded what the applicants expert used to explain the presence of the stream itself which is the the parking area and the the building that's there currently there is no the building that he was talking about in the parking area is not present in this image so if you examine any other areal imagery um you know more recent um the stream is even more evident um in those images so the the reason this image was CH was was chosen was kind of because of the date of the image and the fact that it predates what your experts seem to use as the reason for the existence of the stream itself did you look at any other historical aerial photos that may have been clear from around that time oh absolutely yes you look at 1979 yes was that a clearer picture I don't recall was it in color I don't recall [Music] uh in that picture can you tell how wide the drainage dish is uh I did not include um a scale in this image uh so I I can't scale it off here I know from the T topography that was submitted as part of the application that it's relatively narrow um and it doesn't look any more or less narrow in this image than it does in the in the topography but I I can't um confidently pull a dimension so can you tell how deep that drainage dish is in that picture yeah can you can you tell where the origin is uh yes I mean depends on how you define origin but it it starts in this you able to zoom in by any chance it starts this is Homestead Road to be clear what I'm looking at here can you zoom in any closer um so the bottom of the image is Homestead Road and and the feature appears shortly after or in close proximity to the building that at least existed in in 1971 here and flows north in a generally North Northeast or North Direction um just like it does currently last question Mr Genetti well it kind of goes you'll stick to the photo that's finish that up [Music] yeah I don't think I have anything else with respect to the photo okay thank you Mr GTI okay so with that uh after 10 we'll carry this to the September 12th yes applicant will have a significant portion of the September 12th meeting a motion Mr chairman to continue this hearing to Thursday September 12 2024 at 7 p.m. or soon thereafter as the matter may be heard without further notice do we if given the uh need a time of limited time on the 12th do we know what the agendas look like after the 12th November [Music] 7th and we needed an extension well if at the moment we don't need an extension we have an extension through the end of September if Mr gianetti wants to book in the meeting on the 7th of November we'll need an extension is that a a full meeting do we know there's at the moment it's it's going to again it's going to be as close to a full meeting as possible considering that there are other applications and other matters before it but you'll get a significant amount of the meeting as you will on the 12th okay so motion to carry well I mean before we make the motion are you looking to book yeah you can book it you can all right put that date and we'll extend to that date so we're looking for Al for nov Thursday November the 7th and an extend of time till Mr gianetti at least the 30th of [Music] November that's by the way assuming the expert Witnesses are available yep I remind that this also requires the objectors experts to be available Dr Emerson has indicated he is in case he's finished on the 12th somebody's going to have an expert yeah and the same thing for November the 7th in case we're that's a new date to well I'm just saying keep it keep it in mind when we Extinction to November the 30th Mr gianetti yes thank you so the motion is now to continue this meeting till Thursday September the 12th 2024 at 7.m or soon thereafter as the matter may be heard it shall also be scheduled without further notice before both the 12th of sep September and the 7th of November which is also a Thursday at 7: p.m. or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard and the applicant will grant an extension for time of decision till November 30th 2024 do I hear a motion I'll make that motion second okay a roll call Mr Wagner yes Mr scobo yes Smith yes in the P yes Chelli yes yes one more matter Mr chairman before the adjournment and you go off on summer vacation um motion to cancel the July 25th meeting business meeting do I hear a motion I make a motion I'll second Ron's uh motion thank you all in favor all in favor I I okay with that Mr chairman the next meeting of this board shall be Thursday September 5th 2024 and you do have at least one I if not more applications on that night okay great do I hear a motion to adjourn [Music] okay okay second second all in favor all right enjoy the rest of your summer