for it's cool we got out of the Cs [Music] okay in accordance with Section Five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 1975 be advised that a notice of this meeting was made by posting on the bulletin board town hall and mailing to the officially designated newspapers a list of the meeting dates annually indicating that this meeting would take place at the Town Hall at 700 p.m. on April 15 2024 Joseph Coffield here shre Johny here Gary Rosen here Regina Trill here P here Jess here okay um so we are going to start with the approval of minutes from 3424 are there any corrections or changes um does anyone want to make a motion make a motion to approve amend of 342 all in favor second oh sorry second I'll second okay and then we have some memorializations um the first one is calendar 3969 24 that's SV and capadia from 15 Park Road in Short Hills do we have any corrections or changes does anyone want to make a motion eligible or Joseph shandrew Gary Regina Shan motion to approve the memorialization for calendar number 3969 d24 a second yes yes yes yes can we let the record show that Priscilla off as join meeting okay next up we have calendar 3967 24 Lyn de dner that's 14 Great Hills Terrace in Short Hills who's eligible um josei shary um any corrections or changes do I have a motion motion to approve calendar 3967 d24 second second Joseph kield yes yesen yes yes yes okay next up we have calendar 39724 soulmaz and James Queen that's 15 Greenwood Drive in mbour who's eligible same same do we have any corrections or changes would someone like to make a motion move uh calendar number 39724 a second second josephi yes sh Gary Rosen TR yes yes yes okay and finally we have calendar 3972 d24 that's Mecca property development 18 Willow Street in mbour and same um any corrections or changes someone like to make a motion make a motion to C 3972 D2 I can second Joseph Coffield yes Rosen yes TR yes yes yes okay great okay um so first up we have um calendar number 3946 d23 this matter was carried from 3424 the applicant is hongway q okay about to get tonight the truth truth yes your name for the record uh Christine Meo m i EO um and do you want to just provide your qualification absolutely I'm a licensed architect in the state of New Jersey um I've been before this board a number of times uh received my degree Bachelor of architecture in 1981 from Illinois Institute of Technology uh received my license shortly after uh in Illinois uh New York and then started practicing in New Jersey in I believe 1986 and has and I've had my practice ever since qualifications accepted thank [Music] you we're here before you before we even before we start I'm just going to ask you just to clarify that's that's exactly the first thing I was going we're dealing with what that's exactly what I was going to DOI get the drawings that you originally received for this application are um dated 72623 it was a much much larger application uh the application um has been modified to be considerably smaller and the uh front page is dated 4824 and the main differences is the um number of variances required and the overall size of the the addition um there were um five variances uh previous and the Lor area ratio was 34.5% and we decided that we were going to make the addition much smaller and now there were only two variances required and the um addition is uh 37.8% out of 36% uh wait wait what what do you mean by that the floor area ratio so what what you're saying is that the required f the zone is 36% is proposing 37.8% correct and I was just going to go through all the variances um the um the two variances that we are requesting is front yard setback the front yard is existing non-conforming at 20 feet and um with the main portion of the house is 20 feet and we are also putting a porch that lines up with that 20 foot line but unfortunately the way the lot curves around the corner I'm just clipping the corner of the edge of the porch so that number is 18.2 feet the floor area ratio that we are requesting is 37.8 % and 36% is required in the zone the other front yard setback and side or rear um because of the corner lot um are also existing non-conforming but we are not putting any additions on top of the existing garage that is existing non-conforming and the addition that we are putting on the right side of the property um we are making 41.6 feet where uh the existing is 39 feet so we are not encroaching on that setback so we've taken the rear yard set back away the right side front yard set back away and also uh lowering our floor area ratio that was originally submitted a couple month back two Winding Way is in the r six District um and uh the required lot size is 6,000 square feet our lot is 8145 we have one neighbor next to us and that would be on what would be the east side and we are adding an approximately um 11 foot addition on that side but we are still double what is required almost double what is required for a sidey yard setback that is our only residential neighbor to the south of the property is St Rose Al Lima and then we have corners where we have no neighbors uh adjacent to the property uh the house is a small uh post-war cave Cod was built in approximately 1949 I understand that neighborhood was built between 48 and 51 and it's a um two bath two-bedroom one and a half story house um and it is the first lot on Winding Way in the corner of uh Pine and Winding Way we are looking for a C1 variance with an existing nonconformity and we are also looking for a d d4 variant um for floor area ratio um the C1 variance I think is pretty straightforward the house is existing non-conforming and as I had said other than the corner that Clips we are not going past the original front of the house and um what are you proposing in that corner an open porch so there will be no wall on the right side and in the front and it will only have a wall to the left in the rear so what that would be is just railing as you can see on A1 dated 4824 we have a front porch that will just accent the twostory area the area near the front porch is set back and then the second floor area to the left of the front porch is set back to give the elevation a little bit of movement and to take away some of the mass I did not want to just put a big box on top of a box so we've got roof lines we've got some box bay windows we've got a couple Gables another thing that I did is I lowered the Gable plate height on the right side uh to soften the height of the addition also I didn't want this to feel uh real real tall we do not need any height variances we can form with our height variance we can form with our lot coverage and we con form with our impervious coverage and as you can see the right side elevation the garage sticks out and you can see that on the um SP sheet especially and that's this piece here this is at 39 feet what we did is we pushed the addition back a few feet so we're at 41 I believe six um just so we are less uh towards the right side front yard and also gives the house a little bit of Dimension instead of a big flat box the rear of the property this existing garage is very very close to the rear yard fence which is the um fence along uh St Rosal Lima we are not building over that and instead we are only building over the existing house I believe this set back is around 9 ft and the main house setback is um I just want to look real quick um is 19 feet and then we do have a small deck in the rear a one story deck that's low to the ground that is about 14 feet from this you know what I don't know maybe something can clarify is it rear or side it's a side a side okay the side um this sidey yard set back and as you can see the house does have movement on the lot to try to conform to the um the shape of the lot the um the house now is a rather small two-bedroom up uh Cape Cod and what we are looking to do is provide three bedrooms upstairs a laundry two bathrooms and a small office and on the first floor basically what we're doing is we are gutting the main house and providing a very large open plan with an 11t addition for kitchen slre room so that kitchen dining room great room combination is approximately 27 by3 and then there then we have a small bedroom um 11 by uh 14 on the first floor and that would be a bedroom room for my clients parents when they come to visit and also it works that they can stay in this house as they get older um they would be able to live in the house with a bedroom on the first floor they would not have to climb the stairs so they can definitely age in place in this home um we have a full bath a powder room and a back mud room that leads directly to the garage and then as I said we have a very small little deck to the backyard and upstairs primary bedroom 18 by 13 walk-in closet primary bath three bedrooms approximately 11 and a half by 11 and a half and an office approximately 11 and a half by 11 three bedrooms in an office so you're going from from two bedroom two bath to four bedroom four bath four bedroom three bath three bath one full bath downstairs and two full baths upstairs is know yeah we have a full bath here two no there's one here oh there's a powder room on the first floor but that's yeah one powder room and three full baths three and a half let's out somebody want to address specifically the that's what yes um the D4 F variance we're requesting is uh 1.8% um it is approximately a little over 150 square feet um originally we were requesting over 400 square feet and we did have an extra bedroom upstairs and downstairs was much bigger and after um long discussions with my clients I explained to him that you're not going to get it one but two it's a little big for the lot and I think with the house with the Lesser bedrooms upstairs uh it pulled away from the right side not built building over the garage to the rear and pulling in the addition towards the uh left neighbor it brings the scale of this addition um uh down to be appropriate with the lot um one of the items for the um d4 variant is that if the about the massing and composition of the house on the property and I feel that the site can accommodate this because it's a very very long piece of property unfortunately it's a very narrow piece of property because of the way the house is set on winding W versus um set on Pine but as a corner lot with two front yards uh you're often limited that you can't have that nice Square house and a long narrow lot you have to stretch the house out to make it work um and also the house is existing non-conforming um I think that the roof lines that I've provided uh make the house more pleasing and um the the gables and whatnot are an um are an advantage for this design and I think it's uh works well with the neighborhood I think it's within the scale and the character of a lot of the houses in the neighborhood um the loss of light and air in open space is not necessarily an issue with this design because we are so far from our left side neighbor um we're over 22 feet from the sidey yard setback and with St Rose Al Lima we're looking at a parking lot unfortunately so we got lots of light and air to the rear and because it's corner lot we have really no encumbers on the uh two fronts um [Music] see I don't believe that there is any substantial detriment to the public with this house because I think the house will be an attractive addition to the neighborhood I think it uh this addition boosts the property value Val of this home considerably and within boosting the property value of this home it also um improves the property values of homes uh in the neighborhood um I believe that this building project uh could Advance a number of the goals um in the land loose land use law um that it's good for the general welfare it brings the house up to current standards um with modern appliances amenities bathrooms and room sizes um it also um allows for the owner to stay in this house um well beyond his running up the stair days um so I I think it uh also promotes a desirable visual environment for the neighborhood um I'm trying to I think that is pretty much it if you have any questions yes um to the left of the great room on the first floor is that another little desk uh yeah it just because of the way the um the grade is and it's sliding glass doors you can't have steps right out by code I need a platform okay so it's really not deck per se it's more a way to get down but code I can't just so there's a door off the great room yes because of the sidey yard this lot um as you saw is sort of unique um it really has no backyard um it's it's it's got a small patio but it's not really usable and you've got the fence you've got the parking right here this would would be the area most likely that their children would play so there's three doors to the house there's the side the backyard and front um no there's four doors to the house there's one on every elevation there's one in the [Music] um on the front that goes to that bedroom Den there's one on the other front that is the entry and then there is one to the rear and then there's one big uh all of these are 12 foot sliding glass doors to the uh side in the uh rear or the two sides I'm sorry I'm really presiding so I no I was just going to say any other questions yeah so look I I commend you in terms of the work you've done scale was way over this is clearly better I do Wonder just looking at that street and I know you have some photos here of other houses I'm not sure why they're there but when I look at that street you know there are smaller houses and I still wonder how this house as proposed would compare to other houses on the street and so do you have any information about the fs or the other houses on the street um I I don't necessarily have FS but I do have information I looked through the uh text uh information that the town has online in terms of uh how big the houses are and the houses in the neighborhood other than the one that was just granted a variance I believe in December um which I think is about 3,500 square fet most of these houses are between 18 00 square feet and 3,000 a little over 3,000 square feet um so there are other homes that are in the high twos and and a couple just a touch over three and what I did is I took um five houses to the right and I took five houses across the street so I compared those 10 houses though I do know that there were a couple new houses up Pine being built and like I said I believe 29 um uh Winding Way had a pretty uh is a pretty sizable house that's ready to be built so what's the square footage you're proposing the total square footage in terms of if you're you're saying most of the homes in the is 2000 I'm sorry um is 2777 Square ft in your lot SI 8000 change yes so to Gary's point you didn't from the tax records look at the size of the lot in relation to the square fledge in the neighborhood I I I didn't go to FL ratio I really just went to sizes of the homes um just like with this lot you see the house you don't necessarily see how big the lot is that lot could be twice the size no one really realizes how skinny it is uh driving by and it's the same with a number of other Lots there's quite a few Lots on Winding Way that have the same sort of limitations um the corner lot and this one this one this one this one um are all approximately 70 feet deep the houses face Winding Way you know coming around and so you have very very short front yards those houses all have approximately 20 foot front yards and um so you have longer houses on winding way I did not necessarily get the square footages of these houses what I did is I basically worked within the houses within the 200 feet I think yeah to I think I went to uh lot 15 oh I'm sorry lot 17 number 18 question in terms of St Rose helpful application you describe to the board what's going on that oh you know yes right now um basically the um you've got parking you've got machines being stored there's uh I believe they're doing some minor construction there's there's a lot of I don't want to say junk but garbage basically what would be along this fence line most of the car Park here and there's stuff just sort of hanging out here so it's not a real desirable look um we would how big is say St Rose I don't have the exact size but you've got a church you've got a school you've got a um I believe there's a rectory so there's very very large buildings and a very very large parking lot um on the property to the rear or but they're they're much farther down no well yeah the buildings sit right about here and all of this is pavement question so the existing F was at 17.3% uh building up second floor yes if you double that up it comes to about 35 little less than 35% how do I reconcile that 35% doubling to the 37.8 because we are adding a twostory 11 foot by 30 foot addition to the left side of the house and that would be if you take a look at the SP that is this strip right here so it's um this area is a twostory Edition that twostory addition is what will house the um basically the master bedroom and then on the first floor it is the kitchen and great room or the kitchen and portions of the great room and roughly what are the dimensions of both those areas uh 11 by 30 31 so it's about 1,200 square feet give it give question again about the the entryways this um the steps and the door to be to the right of the of the proposal this one will they be visible from the street um so I'm looking at page A1 of your yes because that is the uh yes they would be right here and have it on the other side that would also be visible from the no because the garage extends quite a bit past that as you could here it's easier to see here the garage comes all the way out to here those steps are down here so you would not see the steps out the back from Pine how about from the front front of us it looks like what I'm looking up the front elevation those are steps here on the to towards Pine right so would they be visible from the front elevation yes and where did those go into that's to the extra bedroom that's into the free standing bedroom yes that is the um first floor bedroom and did those steps and those structures add to your F no because they're non covered and they're just uh they're just steps they're in they're listed in coverage lot coverage but they would not be considered an F I guess it's it's conforming to have steps like that visible from the front STS the side and steps STS thank you one followup question myev sure so you added 31 by 11 yes on two levels that adds up to about 680 600 yeah not 1200 right so just just help us understand the thought process in going because you're only up by 150 yes right for your 1.8% so what was the thought process in going with 31 by 11 versus say 31 by9 which would actually make you conforming uh the problem had to do with um well 312 we still would be over a little i' had to go almost three feet I'd almost have to go three feet I mean the question is did you think about how did you think about if if at all it was possible to mitigate this ask uh just because of the size of the master bedroom um if we would have cut three feet off the master bedroom it would be 13 by 15 which is really sort of borderline it's not a very big master bedroom um it would be considered a big master bedroom for houses built in the 50s but houses built in 2024 a 13 by 15 or a little bit under 13 by 15 master bedroom would be considered lacking in terms of uh resale and everything else um the primary bathroom they wanted a big steeping tub and shower h a private toilet and a sink um if we cut three feet off of that would be very difficult to accommodate that as it is the bedrooms the kids bedrooms are not very large they're they're a a little they're about 11 and a half by 11 and a half which is not a big bedroom that's really a onekid bedroom um it's really tough to try to put two kids in an 11 by 11 bedroom now days um and even the office is only 11 by 11 so we shrink the house considerably I mean the master bedroom was quite a bit bigger we had a a fourth bedroom upstairs plus these bedrooms were all larger and we came to the conclusion um that it was getting a little greedy and asking for too much I I think asking for this 150 square feet over the floor area ratio is is a reasonable ask um we would have to come before you anyway because of the house is existing non-conforming with the front yard setback and we felt that the 150 square feet would not change the neighborhood if we cut three feet off the house would you notice driving by probably not and I don't think it would change the mass of the house any either but that 3 feet would really change um the the kitchen the great room the way they want to be able to use this space this space is Kitchen dining room family room this is the main uh portion of the house and um you know my client can testify to how many people there'll be living in the house and and his family and whatnot and then you get a better idea of what is needed oh do you have any other questions anyone else question just one more sorry to ask any questions front yard setback are you exacerbating that with this proposal yes as I had testified before um the porch is exactly in line but the way the lot curves just this corner okay Cuts over and from what we had investigated from the uh front elevation of the house that it would look a little hinky if that porch ended here versus at the end of the house so if we cut that porch off and it ended right here I I think it would look foolish it would look like somebody made a mistake or the Builder screwed up um we felt that to line up with the side of the house though we are not going past the front of the house uh would be the way to go but that's only part effect yes everything else that we're we're adding is either exactly in line or quite a bit behind what the existing 20 feet is do have any questions from the audience okay sorry hello uh everyone uh my name is uh hu uh so we purchased the house about 2018 at the time my kids are small but uh you know we didn't think school is important but you know at that point we finally realized hey we need to move so uh we are uh after we moved here signed up after the summer right so the case came back from school they really really enjoyed Glenwood you know they like all the teachers students and Dr J you know they are really involved in the teaching uh all the activities right so at that time uh we we we really didn't think like the house is too small because the kids are small you know one of them is was still sleeping in our room so uh the house doesn't have a formal like a dining room there's no uh family room and uh so we ched the one of the room uh on the first floor into a kind of like family room but separated by a wall to the kitchen and uh uh as kids growing bigger we find that it's becoming a problem my uh like parents and my parents-in-law they come here like uh you know uh visit us for a couple of times and uh really is becoming very crowded and then the pandemic started and uh so Ms so everybody having meeting or class in the same area so once my wife was having a meeting the manager was like Hey can you move to somewhere else so it's becoming a problem and uh since then like we my wife was like uh keep it like a like a dream to to make it bigger right so uh so finally uh I think uh now we can do do that that's why we uh come to the broad to ask the you know approval and uh uh since then I guess before uh the pandemic my wife uh has a kind of normal job goes to the office but now she landed a job like uh uh working from home so uh she need a kind of office that is going to add to the uh uh uh Flor area right and uh what else uh so uh everything else I think Chris uh talked about already is a COR a lot and uh I think uh I want the both to consider that we do have a hardship uh one more thing is uh uh we uh both my wife and uh me uh uh we really like the current design you know we shrink the lot already and uh the current design is like you know uh the result of working with Chris with my wife several several times like going through this process several times we like uh remove the bathroom uh above the entrance uh you know shrink the office uh you know in the end we come up uh with this size and we don't think it's buy also because you know um we are kind lot unwinding with there's another canot the B just approved right so uh we are asking like less than 3,000 that's the flow area and their flow area I think is much larger than ours and uh um as Chris said you know um um the house is really a old one you know the previous owner didn't uh do much and we didn't have time to do any improvement from inside or outside so inside is DET outside you know if we drive through you will know what I'm talking about and uh I think if uh we have the chance to work on that it's going to be uh really uh making the neighborhood uh you know the the house will be nice making the neighborhood look nice so I think in the end uh I don't think we we are going to hurt the public but in the end we'll help the public right so um I hope the board uh consider all these elements so uh to answer uh some of your question you know I think behind the our property in the rear outside uh we are uh next to a parking lot our uh uh the church uh your architect yeah yeah okay uh that's all I what I want to see yeah do you have any question for me me any questions from the audience um have anything else I can't think of anything um do we have any comments from the audience this application open it up to the board I guess a little torn on it um I I as I said before I do commend you for um taking this down substantially I think they ask us just too much before um I do think I do worry a little bit about how this will kind of look in the rest of the neighborhood I do think the house needs I think this will look better in the current house and the current house is small I acknowledge that and I do think there needs to be some expansion of the house um but I do worry a little bit about how it will fit in um I do think you benefit from the fact that you're on a corner walkot and you um you have the sa Ros of parking lot behind you I think that makes it easier rather than you being sort surrounded by other houses so I'm a little bit on the fence on it but I I I I do appreciate the effort to scale it down and I think I could be supportive but I'd like to hear from okay next um so I agree with what Mr R said but I do appreciate that you've made it a lot smaller I can certainly understand the hardship it's literally called Winding Way so I think there are some curves there that make it a hardship um um so I can appreciate that youve you've taken measures to try to make a nice design given the restraints of the hardship so um I don't love the steps to the side which you probably know but they're in compliance so so nothing I can do about that and it's a little bit of a big massing with that big square roof but all in all um I would be supportive of this application because I think you've taken it down as far as you can to be reasonable to accommodate the hardships that exist on this property yeah I I could be supportive as well I think uh the effort that you have made to bring it down uh I think it's commendable and uh while I don't like that 150 square F feet I but I do see that that's the need uh here and uh it's not a very Steep askk and I think uh that rout can hold it that property can hold that extra um or the f is not I share Gary's point of view read my mind almost um one thing that jumps off the page of me though is that since the lot is essentially turn perpendicular to all the other Lots in that area it seems to me that it can afford that enlargement if you will so I be um again I know exactly if you're saying on that um I could be supported this as well um I I would agree too I think the location of the property makes a big difference um it be for lot and right next to the church um you know we never like you know overes when it comes to F but I think that the house can and the neighborhood can handle the external 150 square feet I'm I'm not that concerned about the massing um I I you know I I do think a lot can can handle it um so I would be I would be able to support this application as well um does anyone want to make a motion so before uh anyone makes a motion want to remind the board that this is a f variance um so it's a form of C sorry form of D variant of the 4.55 ds70 D4 and as a result of that requires five affirmative votes from the board to pass should we um break it up yeah that would be a good idea to break it up between the D4 variants and then um what has been submitted as a C1 variant request I I can move approval for U calendar 3946 d23 for the D variance D4 D4 variance a second Joseph Cofield yes shra yes Gary Rosen yes Regina Tru yes yes yes yes I can move approval for uh calendar 3946 23 for the C variance I can second yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you [Music] I all right next up we have calendar 39 7124 the location is 404 brid Road and the that's Cor anyone who's going to testify raise right you're gonna say something yes it right hand do you swear testimony your P to given tonight's hearing to be the truth whole truth the truth your names for the record please ababi a b o u s a thank you so good evening everyone my name is scha uh sh dedi uh owner of 404 White Oak uh been in town for almost 10 years but I complete 10 years this June uh we bought this home in 2014 and um over a period of 10 years we've had two kids as a small family and uh as a part of this application that we are doing I just like to speak a little a little bit about what brings us here um I'm a product manager with BS Fargo so I work from home uh with this new pandemic uh post pandemic operations and my spouse is a part of uh Robert Wood Johnson so um as a part of this application that we are doing we are working on the second floor of the house only the second floor of the house uh if you look at the pictures it's uh narrow and Tiny and uh we need to make it more functional to accommodate our growing family um technically we are only expanding within the property line of the house so uh and if I if I literally talk about the additions we are adding just one bathroom but uh when you look at the designs uh just as a part of expansion we are I would say reconfiguring reconfiguring the second floor a little bit so swapping bedrooms in such a way that uh we get a bigger master and slightly bigger closets because that's our paino right now and adding one master bath to the second floor and um the whole idea is to accommodate our family uh on the second floor of the house making it more functional uh I've just delivered a baby 6 months ago so the idea is to continue living here and to continue upgrading the house as a part of our lifestyle okay thank you um sorry any questions okay my name is Imad ababi um for qualifications I'm a pral planner at state of New Jersey graduate of Rutgers University uh been uh licensed in good standing I've testified before boards for 25 years uh in planning uh also a licensed landscape architect I'm the project designer and I'll be testifying to the merits of this application um I have so your qualifications have been accepted thank you I just ask maybe for you to move that closer to you just so the other um board members can see it thank you while I'm doing that I'll point out that this exhibit is not in your packet I can mark it a and I have a hand up for you to see see it much more closely so and you're the only one who's going to be testifying tonight the architect is not here the architect is here in case we need him but I can testify to really all the merits of the project in the interest of brevity I think I can cover it all if that's okay with you okay apprciate so I'm passing out this what I call presentation images hand out y so yes so what you're handing out is a duplicate of what you're showing on the easel it's just a smaller version it is I also have a duplicate of what you have in front of me this is an additional image that shows some aerial information and some tax information minut but what I'm asking is that what you're handing out oh yes is identical to what you're showing yes it is on the 2x3 plan correct yes it is so we're going to mark this as A1 with today's date so the record should reflect that of A1 is being marked for identification with today's date and you provided um duplicates in I guess 11 by 17 forming color to members of the board professions that is correct so thank you for having us um I'm going to go through a couple of things I'm going to begin with a description of the variances that are sought I'm going to describe the project itself and then testify to uh the special reasons why we think that this project uh variance relief can be uh granted um the the variances that are sought are for sidey yard setback um the there are existing non-conformities two of them one for building coverage and the other for coverage I can refer you to the application itself uh in the attachment F where the numbers are described and also in attachment e and here I apologize that my slide rule was not working that day the uh existing right yard setback is 6.7 feet the required is 22 therefore the deviation is 15.25 and the same for the left side variance the existing distance from the property line is 14.8 required is 22 the deviation is 7.2 feet that just clar clears up some of that could you repeat that I wasn't following that at all so what you're referring to yes is attachment e yes where um under the column extent of variance yes for the right side uh sidey yard setback you have 13.25 and that's an error and it should be 15.25 and for the left side side yard setback on that same column and attachment to e it should be 7.20 not 5.20 that is correct thank you the design proposal is as the applicant has described it is a second floor alteration uh the second floor exists as two bedrooms and a bath and an office it will remain two bedrooms and an office and a bath and we're adding a second full bathroom um I'll point you to the uh this image over here um what you see is the existing facade and the proposed facade what we're doing is essentially taking the Dormer and shifting it to the left we're taking the roof which goes front to back and essentially tilting it up to accommodate the infill of that square footage all of this is being done within the confines of the existing footprint there's no no uh no going Beyond it um we're providing more storage increasing bedroom size the second full bathroom as stated uh we are adding egress windows as required uh to uh update the for the newed for the new bedroom bases we're changing out existing uh Windows potentially based on cost um for in the interest of overall building uniformity we're replacing the roofing and siding increasing the insulation per the new codes where needed to improve its thermal efficiency that is in a nutshell the building expansion like I said we're maintaining the ridge height we're pop ing up the front and back we're moving the Dormer and infilling with those enlarged spaces there are two variances well the sidey guard setback is relates to both C1 and C2 pardon me um C1 being that is an exceptionally narrow uh uh property uh C2 being um that it's uh setback variants it's my professional opinion that the relief requested can be granted for the following reasons noting that C1 undue hardship is not in it of itself sufficient cause for granting the variance we will show you Five Points the application relates to a specific property the property is the one that's outlined in blue that's uh filled in in Blue uh right here it's a 50 foot wide property the adjacent uh properties are all 80 and 100 and 112 um so it is specific to the neighborhood uh under sized if it was just 80 feet wide we wouldn't be here for setback variances let alone the 100 that's typical in that neighborhood um I show you some Aerials thank thanks to Google aerial in 3D where you can see the existing home within its surroundings um and then a plan view of the home uh and again how it relates to its neighbors and it also shows you what buffers already exist in place uh to help buffer the the addition um number two that the purpose of Municipal a will be Advanced by deviation that the variance can be granted without substantial detriment that the benefits of deviation would substantially outweigh the detriment and that the variant will not substantially impair the intent of the zone okay number one so those five things number one is that a specific piece of property we've described that it's a 50 foot wide property uncharacteristically narrow than narrower than the rest of them uh the purposes of the M land so will be advanced in three ways to guide the appropriate development in a manner that will promote the Public Health and Welfare to provide adequate light air and open space and to promote a visual desirable environment the addition is wholly designed within the limits I really apologize for my voice within the limits of the existing footprint the addition is designed uh while maintaining the existing Ridge height it takes advantage of mature landscape and uh the proposed addition in my opinion is modest while um it while it um it meets the family's grow growing needs uh it will promote increase in property values all around it will allow for the needs of the growing family potentially multigenerational Aging in place thus reducing the burdens on senior programs and Society in general uh it's my opinion that this variance can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good again restating those physical features that we have uh proposed in our design and that the benefits of deviation would substantially outweigh any detriment as they relate to the goals and objectives of your 2018 master plan re exam uh that this design proposal will promote the character of the township as a small suburb of the highest quality that it will protect the character of this established residential neighborhood and its appropriate scale and density and that the proposal is compatible with the prevailing neighborhood context and again I draw you to the images of the proposed design and it's surrounding neighbors yes sorry I was going too fast one yes why don't you so you're you're seeking two sidey setback bances one for each side why don't you explain before you get to all those proofs yes why don't you explain to the board and the public where the homes are on the adjacent properties relative to your propos proposal in terms so the board can assess how the setback deviation relates to adjacent properties okay um so the so you have the the your Lots in Blue on A1 correct okay so why don't you describe what's going on to the left to the right so to the left side Lot 18 would be this home right here in between this home and the applicant's home is a driveway on large mature stand of evergreen trees right here on the right side of the applican home is lot 20 and that's shown here in this area of image it's also newly improved um and is set is uh is separated by some driveway space some fencing uh and in addition that home is set back a little bit further so you can see what's happening with the applicant's home the area of develop is forward of anything that they could possibly look at so is the Landscaping on either side there is mature Landscaping on what me about mature how high does it goast when it C would it go up to the second floor it goes beyond the second floor proposed yes on the left side it goes beyond the second floor on the right side it's still new and growing but they are trees that will get to that same height was that sufficient and in terms of the setback on the property line um I can show you that on the left side facing the applicant's home uh there is the you know the it's it's a it's a bungalow with a second floor um the addition is is hatched as on your uh drawing um and it's sits over the porch and it sits over the living room and again it just takes the Ridge and Pops it up and fills in all of that space within the footprint so can I can I ask before back to the proof so just so I understand the part so I understand you moving the Gable over and then so what's happening where the looks like there's a porch so that's being filled in is that I can tell from this on the first floor number five on the first floor uh there's a porch now and a floyer and a living space in a kitchen on the second floor you go up these stairs on the second floor the outline of the second floor pretty much follows the porch line and uh just a little bit further in from the existing living room so what we're doing is taking the second floor uh rooms and pushing them out and out in this fashion feeling here we're leaving this roof alone we're leaving this bedroom alone and we're increasing the space of this bedroom increasing the space of this office and increasing space in here to accommodate a full B again I'm Miss to pors the porch Remains the Same yes there is no change to the porch what is the facade like what are we what are we looking at here they wanted the the applican wanted to modernize it a little bit from the uh the clapboard and uh and and shutter style uh so what we're proposing is uh what you see very often today um hardy hardy board uh cementitious uh panels um in certain patterns um to more modernize it uh we are installing casement windows instead of double hungs removing Mullens black trim um introducing some differences in color in the facade um not necessarily a red door that was just something playful I'm not sure what the uh what the applicant wants for the front door I love colors but not that much we're being playful um so this takes the the ceiling Dr right the roof up uh and I guess only only the outside of the roof the ridge will stay the same so it will remain this is the existing Ridge right now and this in the back is the existing roof the front today looks exactly the same to here what we're doing is taking the front up completely and the and the back this this high is so the highest point of the roof will not change will not change good question this little bump out here is existing correct it is an existing shed yes thank you the driveway withd to the detach garage in the rear is not being impacted that is correct questions you have any questions from the audience any comments from the audience board members what do you think yeah this doesn't seem like a particularly material ass to me and I think when I look at it's a very narrow lot when I look at the size of the house compared to the neighbor houses usually we're concerned about massing and I actually think you need some Mass so I think um I think this makes sense and and I think I would be support there is hardship here given the narrowness of the lot and I think it's very elegantly done in terms of what the needs are of the owners I could be supported with this Echo what they said I agree with everything you said I think you've done a very clever job of updating was small house tiny house was pasted um and I think you've done a brilliant job of modernizing it and um I agree visiting it is it's actually rather small compared to all the other homes in the neighborhood I just want to say that it looks adorable the way it is now there my kids are out so mine have started exactly different stage in life agreed would someone like to make a motion motion to approve the application I can second yes yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you for your time appreciate it thank you first resp is yes you can okay um next up we have one Alexander Lane the applicant on Truth for the KY k i mam m o g a David mam m o g ad Timothy Clon K start sure uh yes so Kylie and I moved uh into our home in 2021 uh we've been looking for a long time to find a town and neighborhood that really F fit what we were looking for uh we really love where we are uh we have a young family we have a four-year-old and a three-month-old uh this is really where we want to be and uh we love our location we love our house functionally there are some uh issues that we encountered which is uh why we started looking into what our our options were here uh and also you know we wanted to expand our our family and our home so that's really what kind of brought us to this point and in talking to Mr Cy we realize that there are a lot of things uh with our home when we compare it to what is traditional uh such as like you know we come in through the dining up a set of stairs that's kind of like this you know with two kids and groceries and everything like that that doesn't really you know work you know so well functionally long term and it helped us you know create this plan with him that creates a much better flow for our growing family in the area and makes it a much more you know desirable house uh you know for us than the time that we plan on being here which is an extremely long time and hopefully that's Timeless in how we you know create that yeah I you know I we hopefully are going to be my I grew up in town my parents still live in town so we want to stay here um we love our home we love the area of course um and uh that's why we you know talk with him to try to just kind improve a little upon the house um we home so we're really hoping that we can some slight changes and uh see where it takes us so they hired me yes I'm my name is Tim cie I'm a licensed architect in New Jersey and New York and been licensed for approximately 30 years and my license is in good standing I've been appeared in front of this board on uh numerous occasions um it's block 51 lock 25 it's one Alexander the original address of this house was 281 White Oak Ridge and um the clients want to flip it back to White Oak Ridge because it's a little confusing that you know it's on the corner it's been a little confusing when people come over that um it's on Alexander but the house actually faces white oak gidge so part of what we're doing tonight is to kind of rotate the house a little bit and get it back to White Oak Ridge okay and then we will change the address back to White Oak Ridge I think it was changed uh about 20 years ago I think that's accurate it it was changed by the prior owner um I think prior yeah I I don't know exactly what she did but she did change it it was to1 WB and she owned it and then she changed it Alexander I think because the garage is technically on Alexander so it's an R4 it's got a lot area 215 26 so it's actually a little over you know the R4 is required to be 20,000 it's I I'd say it's a split that was built in the 50s it looks to me like an early 50s split um we want to renovate this house clean it up and also add to it that's what's going on as part of it um trying to do a couple of things and I'm going to go to my boa1 sheet which is exactly the same as yours and we're asking tonight to remove the driveway that's on Alexander and put in a circular driveway on White Oak Ridge so I've just flipped over to my proposed site on the right side and take the garage and make it a little bit wider because it's kind of like a car and a half now so make it a two-car garage and then come into it from White Oak Ridge then we also have some addition work going on there on the second floor and a deck going on to the rear that deck is a variant for seing tonight and the garage doors facing the street is another variant we receiv and then when I did the average front setback we conformed on way is what we have what you're you're showing yes is a difference in color we have black and white you have some green on there I think it's got a little green on it yeah that's all no it didn't work you have all those little numbers on it don't you or no they're all little area numbers they're just in black but I don't see I don't see the red yeah the red is little areas like why don't we do this okay why don't we mark it as A1 okay and just describe so in other words this what you're showing is your sheet boa1 dated January 17 2024 yes with some colored markings yes and mine is in color and yours is in black and white is I guess what happened here I think our print just to force to block T you can try and get it fast I know I'm trying I just can't pull it off the um and all those little numbers in there are really are in calculations to pick up these areas um so anyway that's all we're doing is putting in this driveway coming into the front of the garage then we can come through a mro and get into the kitchen that's what the intent what we're trying to pull off tonight so I'm going to move to m there's got to be a work around the um I went down in my boa2 sheet which is really the basement plan doesn't really even apply to us tonight it's a new garage and you can see this faint dotted line of the removal of the existing garage and that is actually triggering a variance for us because we're adding about 3 feet in width to the garage as we get closer to Alexander and in this case it's a corner lot Alexander's a front and that's triggered the front yard setback requests that we're making tonight is to make the garage large enough to be workable and then this is our new basement space really for our new mud room some other small interior alteration work below and then I'm going to go to my boa3 sheet which is really the first floor of the building we come into the new garage remember the old garage was coming off of Alexander coming in this way we come into our new garage we can go through a mud room go through the sun room and get into the kitchen that's really what we're trying to do here and then we are renovating a little bit of this floor just kind of interior alterations but we're also adding the deck and the deck has a side yard setback requirement of 15 feet the deck attached to the house becomes part of the primary building so we come through and you can see my property line on the angle here and um I'm not GNA do it I want to mark on the drawing but I'm stopping it's kind of I'd like to I'm GNA call this A2 and just work on it oh my so what I just want you to see is the request for that deviation for the deck is really that area is that triangular area I'm sorry that's A2 is which sheet it's uh bo33 triangle area and I I left out the stairs because I don't think the stairs count but I mean you could probably include the stairs into this to and then the other thing that's going on which I guess we don't show clearly here is the sidey yard or the street side the Alexander side coming in oh and I I can see the deviation right there is at 3 or 3' 2 in that to get the garage big enough to fit two cars and that's kind of a little bit of a problem because the existing fireplace chimy is coming into the garage and sort of made what was already a small garage even a little smaller so is that that's a length issue not a width issue or it's a width issue really we made it longer but it was really you know I kind of you know I would I think a garage should be 24 by 24 that's just the thing I've sort of decided some you could say 22 by 22 but it seems to me it should be 24 by 24 so when I project it in about 2 feet because of the existing chendi that's why I made it in this case 26 feet because I really lost two feet of it here and what it gave me inside was 22 foot n in I can see how my guys have indicated from the face of the chimy to the inside face of the wall so it's led me to a variance on this side for about three feet I I'll show you exactly the one of the Bays is impacted by fire yeah yeah the fireplace is really it's like a sort of would say in my business a bad design you know maybe done in the 50s but still maybe the whole split level thing in general was a bad design I don't know but the um but a little bit of a a little bit of an awkward situation but they could have just moved the house over three feet complied to the 40 foot and made the garage actually work but that's actually my deck area and then I come up and I come up to the second floor and you can see the sort of garage building mudroom and then we've added over sort of the low of the split so that we could pick up additional bedrooms bathrooms and a laundry when I come to the outside on my boa Five sheet now when I come to the outside we left the existing porch was already which is there presently right the house is really you come in split down to the basement level and split up to the bedroom level and we came up again to this new bedroom window and then we did that thing where we tied the roof across and created sort of a bonus room up here but we did that to kind of um break the look up the split and try to make it look a little more homogeneous and then we come over here and that's our new garage and you can see the chimy coming down actually into the garage so we kept the character of the building we just um modifier and we come across the back you can see the deck coming across the back on my boa sit sheet and I uh and our new bedroom area and sort of up half a flight to our new bonus area I just wanted you to see one more thing that I wanted to pass on this is my yes A3 there A3 it's a a photo board that um I created of the existing building and it also has a site plan that I added trees to and planting to give the board a sense of how we could minimize the impact of the garage doors from the street on White Oak Ridge and I have shows what is on A3 depicting I see some I think some green Yes trees does the board have have that I have a I have this part to pass around as an example that would be why don't we Mark that as a that doesn't have photo it should be here right what's A4 A4 is just going to be the survey with the trees yes all I did was added trees to the survey and I did it really to do a couple of things for my client the first thing was I added trees in this back corner so I could create sort of a yard space for them because you know this is that corner lot problem where I don't really have a backyard so I came around and I put in 12 skip Laurels across the corner just to close it the existing house on um on Alexander is really has no windows on this side and a deck here and that deck start stops at approximately the same location as our deck is so I added those every time I took a tree and I put kind of a line through it see where I did the slash line through the tree that's an existing tree and they're big they're you know like that's a caliber of 18 inches or 12 inches or 10 inches all the stuff that I planted is lower things you know more screening trees if you look at this site like um even driving down Alexandria you can see that there's a lot of overgrowth like there's a lot of big trees but they have no low plant planting on them no you know like they need to be underfilled with Shrubbery so are the the skip Laurels that you've identified on A4 um I see certain areas where you say that they are six feet does that mean six feet at the time of planting yes okay yes and there's other areas I see particularly next to the garage where you have three skip Laurels but it doesn't identify what the height at the time of planting I think they're all six yeah it's my fault that's right the um and I I was just trying to create a little yard area in back here and it had some planting I mean if you had if you drove down here it looks it's a little like it's looks like it was planted about 40 years ago and everything's overgrown I kind of like the skip Laurels now because they actually grow slow so they don't get like the um like the green Giants do where they get almost overbearing a little bit so I put them into here I came and then I added planting in front and I did this planting in front here really to Shield the garage right so I planted in the four Court area in front of the driveway you know to minimize the impact of the driveway but also to Shield the garage itself from the view of the street and the garage has like a carriage door I mean they're good doors like it looks good so I guess just so everybody knows um I went from Dorset up to jro park did you know where I mean Dorset is on the right a little below Alexander which is on the left and I found well I I found seven houses with garage doors facing the street okay plus the firehouse but I think the firehouse is probably different right but the fire all of a sudden I driving by I like of firehouse is doing it too so I don't think um that it has a uh like a negative impact on the street is what I'm saying it's I I I don't think it's out of character for the street to have it and it it solves a a big problem for this site and I think we've mitigated it pretty well with the planting in the front and so what all I did was add planting so that I could minimize the impact of the really the garage just elaborate in terms of the garage some of this is self evident but why it needs to be front facing there no other solution what they say and and what does this mean in terms of how much concrete are you adding to the property the site is uh you know the site's 21526 so it has um it's over the 20,000 required it's a it crazy it has about over a th000 square fet of still available F and that or I mean still available lot coverage and that includes the pool and the pool patio into this um so it's not like yeah the the current driveway is about, 1400 square feet what's the proposed the proposed driveway the proposed driveways 2200 what 2200 2,200 I went from 1500 to I added 700 square feet can you identify on A4 where the existing driveway is yes you can see it actually it's right there there and then there it's s it's it's that area it's it's very visible from alander right now that whole paved situation I said a well I thought you meant that this is A4 on A3 I was a little confused myself confusing but I I intended for to say oh okay but that that's actually where that driveway is and then our new driveway is supposed to come around and come in this way and then I shielded it by the planting that I put in we just allow was to get the yard space and probably take the pavement off of Alexander which I think actually is an improvement to Alexander itself do you know how close the existing Alexander driveway is to the closest Jason driveway this this driveway the driveway for this house is on the other side of the property so I'm going to guess 100 feet away okay so it's not like it's just next to it and you moving no dver i' say it's probably 100 feet maybe 80 feet probably 100 in your survey of garages that you did how many properties have a circular Drive LS I don't know the answer to that I could Google it and figure it out but um I think that there's probably I I know that the houses to the right the two new ones both have a circular drive but the garage is not facing the street but I know that they have there's probably a concern that you'd like a circular drive on white o Ridge because it's kind of a busy road you know nobody wants to back out into it you know so that that case is circular D and this is a pretty wide lot like it could absorb it I think follow Mr rosen's comment yeah what would happen if you put this Garage in the back and then had a more discreet driveway to the back like if you move the sun room to the front of the house I'd have to take the mud room and the sun room and move them right but they're not existing currently are they they're no they're no they're new so it wouldn't be like you have to move them would just be on paper I mean just on paper you have to move them on paper because that would take care of the the front facing garage I mean they're beautiful garage doors but they are kind of big and it's right there on way well it would um yeah it would kind of have you enter the house sort of the wrong way a little bit because I mean if you flipped it well I just mean that you know you could be coming you flip it you sort of want to come into the rear side of a building come in I guess you'd have to maybe put a door on the side steps or something but yeah the driveway could right you come it could stay it could stay where it is we wanted to kind of get rid of it because it helps us to create some kind of yard space here also so then that well I mean I guess you could minimize the impact of the driveway by coming in this way and just dog leing legging to turn around you know well or your whole driveway I mean like you could eliminate that leg of the driveway if you know if you want if the concern was minimizing the kind of right but you wouldn't be entering a wide open no we still ENT no I'm saying you could come in a way to brid this way and then go this way and come keep the entry way when Alexander I mean I guess you could probably go this way in Alexander too anyway just hum for me with that would it be theoretically possible to put the garage in the back of the house and then you would yes it would definitely can you identify just so um in terms of what Gina is asking you where that would be on A3 I I I would think that what you would do is you would put the garage here yeah and then you would put the mud room in front because I can't do what I want to do which would be to go garage mud room and house because I can't extend the length so you'd have to go garage mudroom and then you come it's a little Lo because you come into the living room you're also putting the sun room in the front too and I guess you put the sun room in front which would be next to the living room then you would come it would be these two blocks it would be the um the two the you really talking about the mud room and the sun room that's what it looks like to mean just a thought I only say that because um I remember a thing like this years ago with Joe Steinberg and of course you can figure out another way to design it I mean it would be ridiculous to St an architect to can't figure out how to design it you yeah so but you could see I guess that if the garage was to be here then these two blocks are going to come forward so I guess you'd enter through the living room that's what you firl there's not really space to enter that way because of the fireplace and the other that we wanted reason we were also thinking this is because no one comes to our front door at at this point like we never actually even use our front door because our driveway is on Alexander and nobody realiz like nobody really parks on white of Bridge to come to the front so we thought that doing something like this would also sort of kind of help that out where you know we could use utilize like the entire space of the house and even for people com like to deliver packages the mail Pur you know all of that kind of stuff um we sort of were looking looking to kind of put a little bit of the flow that way as well with this I think we were discussing by doing all this and reorienting are you then kind of creating a situation where the pool becomes located in your call the effective sidey yard right either way right the pool is actually in sort of side yeah no but I mean in terms of the orientation if you have the orientation of the house from Alexander to your point let that way the pool is sort of in in the effective rear based on your entrance as you just testified but if everything's coming now through way off bridge you have a pool right here off on the side yeah it's it's a better layout for the owner I guess the the key would be to try to minimize its its impact I mean I I guess the the paving isn't even really a variance I guess really you think about it the lock coverages we're still under by 994 sare feet of lock coverage like we haven't I guess it looks like a lot of Paving but I I would Shield that Paving with planting is what I'm hoping to do here I'm assuming because maybe this is narrow the forks of the of the driveway are narrower but just and if this is to scale I mean it does seem like you're just adding a lot of driveway but that may be not quite accurate because of the size of the PRS but it does seem to be like you're just add a lot of driveway to it to get the circuit of drive and the front facing garage yeah well I May permitted to do the CC Gage right yeah but you're asking for theing garage so right it's really the garage I I I think the the way to to minimize it would be to create almost a drive maybe it maybe it would be a I just kind of draw it and send it to you so so whether it's A3 or A4 yeah can you show so you're asking for a front yard set back vars right yes on this side what that's no go go go back to the survey okay back to the survey so we we you you've outlined for us um in terms of the triangle where the deviation is for the deck right for the side yard setback deviation we know that the garage cannot be open to the public Street and that's what's being proposed just show us where the deviation is regarding the front yard setb okay on the Sur I just want to see exactly how much it is it's really on not on the white o Ridge side it's on the Alexander side because this site really has two the average on Alexander is the average that's requir is 40.5 right and the request is to be 36.51% S and I'm just looking at attachment e here okay which in my book is page 12 inside that so so it's the G it's the new garage that's it's the new garage it's the new garage and that section of mud room behind and what's happening is we're a little we're a foot closer than the average because now the average doesn't include our house it's three up so when I did the three up it came to 40.5 even though we're existing at 39.7 and our request is to go to 36 .51 so we're requesting to move in three it's about 3 feet to move in from where we are but the deviation is actually 3.99 and and the point which I think is relevant to the consideration this application is that with regard to the front facing portion of the garage to White out Bridge Road that in and of itself is not also triggering a front yard setback deviation to right R Bridge cor that's correct the the location of the garage is fine as I started to do the um this other driveway that I was kind of talking about which is almost like a driveway that could come in and then te so you can turn around which is a little bit of a parking area sometimes and yeah e doesn't like it because it kind of creates a parking area but as I look at that it's actually worse because now you look straight up and you see the right Mr it looks better than the circular well it does but you see the garage is a problem we shouldn't do it but it it feels to me like I don't know it feels like you're add a lot of to this property which it would be a variance that is triggered by a suggested amendment by board so the fact that they didn't notice for it would probably not be an issue well what's what would be what would be the the VAR uh front yard parking area because it's it's it's a turnaround it becomes just you drive in and you know part of the struggle here I think is to your point Mr Ros that that the circular driveway isn't necessarily scaled or or or is it in other words it looks like it's pretty wide and the question is whether that can be significantly narrow yes your numbers 10 seem I can't 1400 and 2200 that seems like the new driveway would be 50% more when I look at this drawing again maybe it's because the for very narrow but it seems like a lot more well the driveway is is is very wide at the horizontal part the part that's horizontal that part of the driveway could be much smaller you know could be could go through at 12 feet maybe you tighten it off I don't know it just seems like too much um so so also by narrowing that horseshoe it provides additional opportunity for landscaping and pervious coverage and you know better for drainage and so that's exactly what I meant to say it's good you wrote it down for was it the um I like the Horseshoe because I thought that it was giving me a place to plant in front of the driveway and minimizing the impact of the driveway that's why regular driveway maybe you want planting for a larger driveway you're right in a normal in a normal situation I guess you wouldn't have plant but I was trying to minimize the impact of the garage doors also visually the garage doors look good yeah I think the garage do look good but I narrowing that circular driveway and putting in some more skip rolls the fact Mr testify to the fact that they do not grow as fast as gr Giants that you may want more than less so that because in the event you're able to immediately see over these six foot skip walls the additional screen before as you're driving long way a bridge in relation to the front faceing but that's going to camouflage your house and you're not going to be able to see house numbers I feel like you put you put skip Laurels one in the front of a house you're not house could be the fire department won't be able to find it I mean doesn't have to necess skips it to be other Landscaping yeah but I mean it could camouflage the house if your point is to try and camouflage I don't I don't mind the circular drivery myself as much as I do the front facing garage I mean yeah I think that in terms of front faing garage I another consideration is that whether you skip Laurels or other types of landscaping you don't necessarily have to prevent anyone from seeing the garage but having a little bit of a screen with without camouflaging the house maybe right right where to go you don't want the garage doors I think your garage doors are actually beautiful and it's so hard to find pretty garage doors and those you've done a really good job but I I feel like it's a big massing of garage doors in the front of the house I don't mind the circular driveway myself it's the front facing garage do you can put a driveway on the side on Alexander and leave the semicircular drive I can app appreciate that you're delivery people are confused and I was a little confused by I was myself when I was trying to find the house what oh it's this one um I know just s for thought Tim could you turn to boa3 just get talk about the uh SL apprach 9 ft when 15 is required it's the deck yeah that's the um that's where the property line is kind of skewed coming on an angle here and this area of the deck is actually in violation for the setback I think it has very little impact on the adjacent house because the adjacent house is about where my hand is and there's actually a they have a deck and a fence back here it's not even uh really in play with them but that that is our our request tonight that triangular piece of deck any thoughts of configuring that so you're minimizing that at some point um we wanted to make a deck that was actually big enough to be able to be on I mean the deck could be you know the deck could be shaped like that I mean it's just but it's a little bit awkward you it's a half an acre but the way the building is configured it sits in the back left corner the building is like pushed up too close to Alexander and into that back corner yeah it's a big site and it reads like a big site because the corner Lots actually read really big because they show so much Street you know but it's um you know but we want to live in this area really I think I think it has no impact at all no nothing neor how far you said that the driveway of the neighbor is on the other side of the property yes how far is that triangular area how close is it to the property line to to neighbor neighbor the neighbors off about 15 feet from the line yeah and they're faced like remember Alexander is this way and their face parallel to Alexander so they're stepping away as we go their house is here and then they have a deck behind it all really ending Before Our Deck ends it's all they're all forward of it one one deck is right this way vertical yeah uh perpendicular I guess would be exactly say it you know probably goes out about 15 feet looks to me like it's about 25 fet long do that also at the side of the property or is that at the back of their property it's really their backyard cuz I'm coming Alex ander's running up the house is facing now Alexander it's a mid lot and the the lot has a little bit of a parallelogram kind of look to it but the building is parallel to Alexander so we're getting away from our deck is or they're going away from us even though we're getting squeezed they're getting a little bit expanded actually you can probably see it on the on the tax map in the packet I don't I could come back with this if you wanted more information related to the site so I could just it's more of a comment so you have some outdoor space you have a pool you have H this area you have this area we have a fairly beautiful deck so just saying trying to weigh the pros and cons of moving the the garage to the back because I know you said you wanted to preserve this area but you do have some other we have up here this is really the living space so I just again food for thought I could you know I'm not saying I'm solid in this but I would feel better if it's a Dragway those garage doors because if we approve the garage in the front 20 years from now somebody changed those to ugly garage doors not the Beautiful on you you're still like going to be stuck with it facing way over it it's a little bit like we want these spaces to the rear of the building that's the problem here do you want me to take it back and I was GNA yeah just say is there anyone from the audience here like to ask questions one more so what's the width of this horseshoe at the center well the Horseshoe at the center is wide because we made it so you could pass a car but it could be much smaller it could be 12 feet and I think you want it to be 12 feet like we could stipulate it at 12 feet what do they typically no 12 feet is pretty good 12 it's typical and this one is well we got really wide there you know we' got up to almost 18 feet wide so you could pass a car okay and it's is it 12 feet at the two ends of the yes yes yeah I mean we could we could tighten that our two neighbors also I I don't know makes a difference the two neighbors well one right next to us and to the right exactly they have I don't even know what kind of driveways they are but it's basically the entire front of their yards are basically paved so they do can park cars and they can you know put their cars in there so it's kind of similarish to at least those two homes to newer houses to the right to that point it's like if you combined our other driveway and the circular one together it is a lot coverage of driveway it actually is much larger than even the largest version of this St can I add one more thing about why I believe it's very important for us to move our driveway uh I mean I would think that most of us here have children white overage is not the you know it's a fairly busy road so if we can create more space on the corner of Alexander that is for our kids to be able to play I would feel a lot better every day than having that space in the front that it doesn't really get utilize so much so just another thought but we could agree to just hold the driveway at 12 feet hold on let me let me just go back to the I don't think we have anyone you know from the audience here but let me just ask anyone who would like to make a comment on this application from the audience okay um why don't why don't why don't we make give give our comments and then maybe we could go from there I don't know if we're all on the same page this so okay want to start so so so so the public portion is now closed and now you're up to board deliberation Mr plus you're comfortable with that yes yeah so to reiterate what I've said I mean I I don't love I understand reasons for it but I don't love the front facing garage and all the concrete in front um I I would be more comfortable with it if you know you did stipulate that you would limit the driveway so um I prefer it wasn't this way but I but I could be okay who else would like to well you go ahead because I've already talk yeah I just think that if this is narrowed and I'd like to see the numbers in terms of you know how that horseshoe would be compared to what you have at 14500 square feet versus what you have in the new one uh uh personally I think uh uh horseshoe looks fine to me if it is narrower you could also consider you know instead of having a horseshoe and just you know my thoughts here if you had that side which is closer to the garage you know broaden it a little bit and take that out keep that as a bay you know go go through certain distance rather than having a hor shoe just you know another thought for how this could be you know configured again I look look to other thoughts say something I I think you have a bit of a hardship on on Wide Oak Bridge I too live on a busy street and I have a I have a horse to driveway about s driving very grateful to people who put it in it wasn't me so I actually don't don't mind the semicircular driver and I I I agree with you that you need you need a turn you need a driveway that you can enter and exit more safely on wide open TR backing out I feel like that you're gonna have a lot of trouble backing out on to wide Ro Bridge um so I'm actually mostly concerned with the garage that's front facing I don't love the way it looks but I think you're also going to have trouble backing out you're going to need to go into that semicircular to turn around that creates a lot so I would be more likely to approve it if you move that front facing garage to possibly the side which I know may take away this small triangle of grass but you do have plenty of other grass you could Dar say you could always like take out the pool if you were looking for a way but I wouldn't I'm G say you should do that I'm just saying you could if you were really worried about a safe place for your children to f um you know I'll say I'm not a a big fan of you know front facing garages I think that on white o Bridge it's a really busy road and um there are other houses when I when I first drove by the house when I first took a look at the application I thought before I really read through that the front faic garage was going on Alexander and I drove up and down the street and there are no front facing garages there once I realized that it was on White Bridge I took another drive both directions down white o bridge and there are definitely other homes that have it the thing is white o bridge is like a busy road you're not even going even if you're going at at the speed limit and not speeding you're you're still going quite fast where it's not even as noticeable when a garage is you know a front-facing garage um I think if the garage is going to be front-facing you I I think you need this kind of driveway for safety reasons um we we had the other application just before this that was on voo bridge and I mean I pulled in to take a look at that house and you know trying to get out during busy time of day it's it's dangerous so you know I mean again if we're going to be granting the variance for the forward facing garage Tores you know I I think you need this um and I think you can landscape nicely around it so um it doesn't it doesn't bother me um I don't you know again I don't I don't have a huge problem with the you know this in this particular case with it I think it's the property can handle it sh board members does anyone else want to weigh in just so we could get the applicant in arle thoughts and from there I'll jump in I agree with you Jessica as far as the front facing garages on White Oak there are several I think 301 actually has it angled a little bit they actually had a crescent driveway at one point they closed it off just that means anything to you they closed off one set so it goes in and out at the same side um of any places you're right on Alexander that whole neighborhood nobody has a front P garage at all so I when I got the app I did the same thing and I opened up closely and did the same thing um if any place was going to have a front facing White Oak does not I can see that um it's a busy street and as the other properties along that going towards Jiro Park they've totally decor infilled with the greenery and so on you can't see the homes um I do have an issue with the this the the side setback in the back I just think that I know no one's talking about it and some point it may come into play for the people that are behind you that they want to come here and do something with it as well um but me okay I'm um I'm okay with the driveway as is front facing I agree with Jessica that when you're driving down white o Bridge you don't notice it because you're going so fast um not that I'm going that fast but I'm okay with it um we didn't you know we we have been giving a lot of attention to the front facing garage I think you're the only commented on you know the back um and the um sidey setback for the patio does anyone else have comments about that I do agree with uh uh Jo that the deck is too close to the property I just check the Google Google Map ISS like the neighbor is very close as one even though I don't know the number but if I look in in in the Google Map it looks like it can wave to each other that's okay Mr you've heard some some comments um I think we should study it a little more and come back if that's okay okay sorry what doing it's so hot yeah I don't think I'm here pleas I what you say May 20 yeah I can't do okay thank you this application will be carried to the meeting of the board on June 3rd 2024 7 o'clock at this at this room no further notice will be provided by the applicant we're going to take a five minute break e e e e e e e e e e e e e tonight proceeding be the truth hold Truth by the truth yes your name to the record my name is n n eh h a kuani k u b a n I am kubani a m a r last name k h u b a n i Timothy Cy k l s I'm gonna let Mr kuani start because I can't take any just kidding Hi how are you um so uh first for the trust uh armor trust inel Investments uh I'm the sole owner of that trust um we just put that the house in a in a uh in a LLC for protection purposes um so we moved to town me and my family mo we live in the house we moved to town in 2020 with our two uh very young kids um they're now seven and three that's my wife n um so really uh love the town uh love you know love the schools we made a lot of friends here we plan to stay here for a very long time and uh are making have been making improvements to the house along the way and um what we want to do now so during the uh the summer months we spent a lot of time out outside in the backyard on the patio there was an existing patio when we uh bought the house and uh so what we wanted to do actually when we moved in is cover that uh patio to create shade uh and we also found that we can add fans and we can add some uh some heat heat so we can make it into like a nemon kind of living right fall and spring also greatly improve our experience of the house so uh that's what we'd like to do um any questions thank you anybody can say welcome back no um do you want me to qualify yes okay I'm a licensed AR I'm Tim KY licensed architect in New Jersey and New York and been licensed for approximately 30 years and appeared before this board on numerous occasions the um you know it's 346 hard Shor it's uh the idea here is to take an existing patio and to put a Pergola structure with operable louvers over the patio um you have I have my my A1 sheet which is exactly the same as your A1 sheet and the photo a that I use there is to just to give you a sense of what we're talking about it's a louvered patio system or a loued perus system that goes over the patio and in our case if I go to my survey our patio is really existing at 12 feet off of the property line it would be required to be 15 feet it also makes it fail on well we also fail on site combined also we fail on site combined by 2.8 ft so it's basically the same as the other three feet and it's again I have a lot line that's on a little bit of an angle so it's not the entire pergola that we're requesting the deviation for it's really a triangular piece that's three feet at the worst condition and then tapers down to nothing it would allow us to put this Pera system over the existing patio the we fooled with the idea of pushing the perola in a little bit so that it wouldn't be a viol but it just looks so awkward on the actual site that it seemed to us to make more sense to come here tonight I went and really looked at the site if you look at my existing photo C down in the lower left hand corner this is really from the street and you can see that this I'm going to say is not visible from the road it's uphill there's a lot of Shrubbery it's um we're proposing to plant additional sharpy and it's a it's really very minor from the road the the second photo D so why don't you show us on this point on existing photo C where the pur the the purle is behind the building um I don't know it's maybe off the way the angle is it would be visually here look to be about 5T to the left off of the building if you if you could follow the plane of the building you would see that the purle itself is just let's be clear about something existing existing photo C which is on your sheet A1 yeah shows two buildings one that is concealed by a big by a tree and one that is not right yes follow me yes the subject property is which house the one on the right one on the right that's concealed by the tree right yes so the so the perola is going to go like behind the left side of the structure yes right so you can't see it from hor right correct it it would be I'd say extremely difficult to see it and then existing photo D what are we looking at there we're looking the the subject property is the structure on the right like when you see that little white that's there that's actually the owner's fence right that's your fence and that fence is right there at the end of the building is that where that fence that fence is literally at the end of the building where you see that fence coming from the corner of the building to the property line that's a 6ot fence that white piece right there I have a probably a better photo if you'd like me to pass it around like the original of the photos so would you be able to sit well you know you're looking uphill that's why I don't think you'd have be able to see it over the six foot fence but that is the same as photo c um are you are you handing out something that is not yes I'm handing the original of photo C before it went through our plotter so we're going to mark that as as A1 additional photo C okay yeah yes who's got it okay would you make it give it an A1 then I I'm going to calling additional photo additional photo today's day and now I'd like to identify what this is we looking at it is exactly the same as existing photos see that's on your board or on on your sheet except it's I think it's um the photo is a little better quality that's the only reason why I wanted you to see it is this the applicant driveway no no neighbors neighbors you know it's a little bit like the lot line is on a little bit of an angle that driveway is approx Ely here going up to the neighbor you know I can um I have a better image of photo D also if you would like to see it this is p the um I'd like to just send this one around do you want to see it or no your case I'll send it around that's what is so your Mar that's photo D yes I called it A2 it's photo D and you can see the um the umbrella in there in that picture and that umbrella is very CL close to the point of the edge of the um the covered pergola that we're talking about tonight okay that's why I wanted you to see it and then the final image is photo8 where you can see how the two buildings are kind of coming together and you can see our patio in the rear and I think this one is relatively clear and that's the patio that we're seeking permission to put the purles over tonight right it's literally right behind this corner that left corner of the building what what are the dimensions of the I say it's about 20 by 20 can also I think you can see that white fence in that last picture in that photo e also get idea where the fence is so our intent is to put up fence is right behind the five air conditioning unit yes yes off that corner of the building off that rear corner the our um intent is to install this pergola and not to wall it right it wouldn't be walled it would be open so remain as is with a louvered ceiling and give us the ability to use the pack IO for let's say four or five more months throughout the year that's all we're asking for we're willing to stipulate that we wouldn't enclose the Patty you know the pergola or anything else to it what's right what's the height 10 feet 10 feet high it's uh yeah just about that it's in line with the ceiling of the rooms so like when you come out is on the same plane the pera the proposed Pera how far would it be from the fence like guess does it go all the way to the corner there or will it or would it it it it's it hits the tangent of the building and the fence is where it starts and comes out perpendicular to the building fine it doesn't go beyond the building right that side no it's going it's in line with it's in line withal side if J just take a look at this point yeah I mean I went to the site today so okay this is the the building is ending right there let's say the building is about 35 feet deep so it's going to be pretty close to the fence and we know it's perpendicular but it'll be barely yes at the worst Condition it's 12 ft off the property line required to be 15 ft the deviation request is for three feet so just so the fence is is 6 feet tall and the proposed par will be 10t tall so there could potentially be 4 feet higher yeah but you're looking from the street you're looking up at it and I saw some lights today when I went there there's patio lights looks like in the back I could see string lights this is that there's like patio lights on the back on that back patio existing the string lights that we string lights I can see them from hard so or we can take them down that was they don't bother me I'm just saying that I see the you could probably see if you were really looking this it's pretty far away but if you were really looking walking myg and based on existing photo it looks like there is some Landscaping on the neighbor's property that that would be separating the perola from their Pao is that accurate yes they have a a lot of landscaping and we're also proposing to add additional Landscaping in front to supplement when you say Landscaping you're talking about in front of the air conditioning units in front yes in front of the air conditioning and you're putting Landscaping on the neighbor's property too just what are those circles there to they're the existing those are the existing planting of the Neighbors which is pretty pretty dense and then we came back and added some additional planting in It Forward of it and also underneath the neighbor's planting is it an operational gate there yeah yes it's a gate it is there is a gate but we usually use the one by the TR okay because there if you put Landscaping in front of it you'll lose the function of the gate right there's space where you could still use it the if the Landscaping is forward in front of the units you can still access the gate because the gates set back oh okay I wasn't sure what all those I guess they're squares or circles are Circle squ are the AC units last year we had also planted between our and our neighbors property on the on the uh side to create even more more of a more plantings between the two um properties we put arbores in there so those will grow those will grow taller I'm gonna also remind the board that this applicant came before us or this property the applicant itself came before us um approximately a year ago and received variant relief from this board um to permit the location of the air conditioning units on the left side of the house toose the the board has already reviewed in essence that left side of the property in terms of setbacks impacts and Ne Etc have you discuss this with you NE yes uh the the perula now we discussed we discussed the AC units uh with him last year um and he actually he came and testified on the board that we're really good friends so he came and testified and said he had no problem with us putting it there I haven't talked about this with him but I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem you're proposing that screen these units on screen yes I know that's why I screened them because they were never screened from last time I guess okay so I wasn't here so the Landscaping in the screen as proposed on your a one is what is going to be installed yes yes everything that is darkened in is new planting the Open Circles are existing planting but yes all of it would be installed right and and um with regard to the air conditioning units the board based their approv of that on C1 analysis I'm assuming that you're proposing the the same analysis holds true for Relief ra of the per yes you want to go more into detail about that well I think that it's not really visible from the street it's also um we're adding the planting to even enhance the division between the two properties and um the lot itself has an angled side which is really making this more restrictive and if the patio was in a different place we would be asking to put the Louver pergola in a different location also not and you're not en closing no we agreed not to enclose the door I think it's a existing C created hardship i' say the area which has that 3T variance how close is that to the neighbors property deck whatever that may be on the other side of the property he has a hot tub right by his fence um it's about 12 it's 12 feet from the property line we are 12 and the hotub is probably 12 supposed to be oh he's better than 12 yeah maybe maybe 25 ft he's pretty far off to the hot tub there's no portion of the building or Windows no no this is both of these buildings really align and these accessory uses are behind both of the buildings this is the biggest impact would be probably the hot tub which looks to be R 12 feet and then 20 more feet so I I'm gonna say it's a pretty good distance are there any questions from the audience for this application any comments from the audience have to say that this go first and sorry walked by today beautiful home by the way um I um I think you can see it a little bit but with the plantings I think you'll take care of that issue of U of of not being able to see any of this from hard Shor Drive I think if you put those plantings I'm comfortable with improving this it's a pretty modest mas and I can see why you would like to shade that thank you it certainly looks beautiful very uh artistic and uh will be certainly enhance your you know uh style of living I I would think that hearing none from the neighbors and U hearing that there is as per your testimony that there is enough gap between that variance portion to the neighbors whatever structure is there there's enough Gap I I think it's it's it's fine I would be supported with the application anyone else um if we're making a motion would someone like to also stipulate that the plantings are in there do we need to do that if it's expressed in The Proposal yeah I mean the fact that the the plan things are identified that's what I asked about on the site plan okay um I don't I don't think we need to uh because it's proposed um six skip RS if somebody wants something different we should probably let the applicant know we need to to get what would they have to come back for oh because then it would actually be a building any motion motion to approve the application for calendar number 3975 d24 second yes [Music] yes yes yes thank you okay last we have calendar 3968 d24 this matter was carried from 4124 the property location is 249 Main Street and the um applicant is 249 MF partners [Music] [Music] you SC from Tes back tonight hearing the truth yes names the record your sure I love a a l a merchant m e r c h a n t Nikita gadia n i k i t a g o r a d i a Richard Keller k l l e r hi I'm Evan drachman attorney for the applicant um thank you all for sticking around tonight um we have a um application here that on paper has a bunch of variant is included but really what we're looking for is two variances the reason I say that all of the other variances are pre-existing but also approved previously by the board um so these are variances that have been discussed in in past uh past hearings have been approved what we're really looking to change here is one parking space and the use of the property from an automet office to a dental office um everything else on the property is staying the same um so I'll start by my first witness Mr Keller I was gonna go have you first uh we G do planning too yeah just you're gonna I'm gonna have you walk through the application okay great so uh Mr Keller if you could introduce yourself good evening Richard Keller for the applicant I'm LIC professional engineering planner in state of New Jersey licensed for 35 years as uh as both I've appeared for this board 110 boards throughout the state of New Jersey I have a Bachelor of Science and civil engineering in the concentration of water resources and environmental engineering and they also hold that is from rers University I also hold a masters in architecture with the concentration in urban planing and design and that is from New Jersey Institute of Technology where I also Tau for about 11 years uh I just uh got my brand new license having completed another 24 hours credit so I am my license is in good stad and it's always nice to be back for board before we even start yes sir Mr Jackman mentioned that there are prior um variances that have been maybe it's pre-existent not form conditions that were approved by the board is there a resolution regarding that like in which board approved it when yes they were submitted with the application okay it's in the application these These are notices I'm talking about actual variance like resolutions approved apparently your copies didn't have oh yeah they were submitted with one I guess maybe just one copy I don't know only one cop the uh the the doct Dr Mone who got approval in 2008 I was also the engineer and planner for that application as well I think I was also the um planner and engineer for the previous applicant before that which was the printing shop okay so just again we're just trying to make a record here so that the um this jbq printing from December 16 2002 is that the prior approval that we're referring to there there's one more in 2008 was uh Dr Vincent Mone um trading at New Jersey contact lenses June 2nd of 2008 there's a few in there yes now we're going backwards okay Dr so June so would have been submitted to the board are various resolutions um from the board adjustment most recently dated June 2nd 2008 where the applican Dr Vincent Mone uh trading as New Jersey contact lenses those are the prior approv correct yes I can I hold on to these or can you make c g me the eye C let the record reflect sure I mean it's gonna be I know where you live you know where I live okay I will return at the end of the uh session thank you go ahead I'm sorry certain so um let me uh the U the property in question is 249 um Main Street it is block um 101 lot 18 it is located about um 66 ft on the west side of of Main Street um in the Washington District it is located about 66 ft north of Ocean Street and about 225 ft south of the intersection of Willow the far diagonal Corner being where shoppr is uh the other B3 um building being the Columbo service station um since I repres repres everything by food it's about 370 feet north of of M Familia um so it's either shop right or me a familiar every day I walk um my office is right across the street I actually was one of the my uh my family who owns three buildings there we were noticed um because we're within a couple hundred feet so um we uh we obviously um are not here to object um we're here for the applicant because we think it's good for the neighborhood um to go through the details um the site is approximately 88 feet wide by just under 100 feet deep located again on the west side of Main Street uh close proximity to uh where Main Street goes over Route 78 the property contains 7,600 71 square fet um I will uh I will point out that um among the San features in the neighborhood um the Main Street Corridor is a mixture of uses on the drawing you can see we've colorcoded the different zones um the uh Corridor along the west side being in an R8 Zone which which promotes and and advances multi multif family housing on that side uh although it is littered with a lot of older commercial uses across the street the green area being where my building is located that being uh the CMO Zone where light industrial as well as uh commercial medical offices are permitted and the area U further into the Washington District behind uh the properties that line Main Street is actually R7 Zone which is primarily one and two family zones the um the red line on the drawing here uh delineates everything to the right of that is actually what was formerly considered the flood plane of the West Branch of the Railway River uh along with the Confluence where it joins Ben lnl Brook coming from Springfield that area being the primary flood zone as of last June um the state of New Jersey uh raised the flood elevation by three feet uh on FEMA Maps or two feet on studies um either way they raised it significantly so that line now has migrated from being just off the site essentially goes up to the intersection of mechanic and just just where me familiar so this area uh was no was not previously under DP jurisdiction but as of June of last year it is so that certainly controls and dictates the amount of permiss permissible uses that can go into that area the um the uh development of course is then regulated by the New Jersey DP flood Hazard Control Act rules basically those restrictions say that uh no new multif family housing can go into that area multif family being three units or more um you can't create any additional commercial or residential habitable space on the first floor no fill can be placed in the property um if you do any kind of expansion there's no basement um and there's also the substantial Improvement clause which says if you if you invest more than 50% of the value of the structure in a new structure uh you trigger enhanced regulations and again you kind of lose that you lose the basement and you lose a lot of the first floor so essentially It's Made uh development for the permitted uses pretty much non-viable because we if we look at the uh permitted uses in the R8 Zone um single family dwellings there's not there are some older single family dwellings they're very small uh but there's really no new no market for single family dwellings on Main Street two family dwellings the geometry this lot we looked at doing uh two families um again you can't increase the footprint uh would require two driveways and the geometry means you have to back up on a Main Street um uh and you can't really with the substantial uh Improvement criteria and then again apartments and attached dwellings are strictly prohibited because you have to have dry access for emergency vehicles so the the dry access ends pretty much uh at Main and leaker about 3 uh about 400 ft to the South so for the permitted uses none of the permitted uses in that zone are really viable any longer so we're looking to do in that zone is essentially um make the best use of the of the buildings that we have at this point the um just to uh because I may use it when I get there um I already prelabeled them exhibit A1 uh allocated aerial photo 249 Main Street Milburn dated April 15 20 24 uh this is a near map satellite image uh the image is from March 3rd 2024 and essentially what I've done is I've shown the property um you can see there's the Columbo service station uh on the corner this actually was a deli um with no parking there now they've now got use to put uh residential on the first floor um there's a 12 unit condo immediately to our right um actually when when uh I was doing the demo personally on our building back in 1877 there was actually a nice little bar there that had great hamburgers um I actually missed that but um that was raised to make room for the 12 unit condo the building the subject property located in the center um the front half of the building was actually at one point was used for the item it was their um their offices and there is some rumor that was some printing went on in the back but it doesn't seem big enough to have been printing the whole runs but there were printing presses in the back uh and there was one of the oldest houses in town sat on the lot next to it that woman sold off this property to uh Luigi sagata to buil a four family that building um when um the next user was model prototypes uh they built Proto uh prototype models for uh entrepreneurs before we had 3D printing um they actually sought to take that building down HBC um came to look at it and they decided that we needed to take it down before it fell down even though it was 200 years old it was held together with horse hair and newspaper pretty much no no floor lolium on dirt that went away and uh the model prototypes built an eight an eight car parking lot next to it with cyclon approval the um the rest of the block is a is a mixture of uh two family four family uh commercial office uh two family one family two family one family and then you work into the nursery school at the end and there's commercial uses that that pick up on the next block of hair salon famia Etc so it is it is a diverse neighborhood the um and you'll see that uh one of the reasons I I decided to show this is that um one of the one of the existing nonconforming conditions is a buffer condition and I'm not sure who needs to be buffer from who because a lot of these old old buildings in the in the uh Washington District are owned by contractors so you can see right behind us you got 1 2 3 four five contractor Vehicles parked right behind us I think we need screening from them not the other way around um again phota Board number two this is uh labeled A2 dated today 4:15 2024 there are six photos that represent they were all taken today by myself uh they represent the site as is today uh the property in question looking slightly Northwest from across the street pretty much in front of our building um you can see there's a two it's a two-story building there's a one-bedroom uh apartment on the second floor and then there's the uh the primary space that there's three steps four steps up into the back space um again here's the front um recently because the old awnings were in such bad state from Dr Mone uh from Market the building uh Bruce coni the current owner did put up a brand new awning we going any proposed signage we restricted to that the only change we're making to the site I'll get to the site by a second is there is a light a lit sign box on the subtly facade that is coming down so that'll be removed and the only other change is there'll be a new owning that will be put up uh with the uh with the doctor's uh information basically in that same band not on the on the soing part but just on the vertical band it'll be the The Firm name and the doctor's name and the address uh the signage that's proposed would be less than previously approved by Dr mclone so we do not need a variance for that even though we the Dr Mone needed a variance for we're coming in less than that so we're Grand looking at it slightly from the southwest you can see there's the parking for the uh for the uh 12 unit condo um most of the people who looked to oper to uh to buy this who weren't commercial and and wasn't my applicant all wanted to tear that down and do four five six units of housing there was no way or or even add a floor on to it there was no way you could do it without uh negatively impacting the neighbor airl open space without multiple setback deviations um for for side yard setback Etc uh and then again the two family Liv just wasn't buyable one family w't sell so any of the any of the people we've uh um done feasibility studies for in the last uh two years since Dr Mone died um none of it's been viable or or it's always been multif family which is not rich was there ever any um attempt to market the space to another optometrist there was an optometrist that was interested uh they decided they they um we met with them and um maybe I put my thumb on the scale a little bit their their business was a lot more intense than Dr mllo um so we directed them up and they have purchased the zeret building which is a commercial building in the CMO Zone uh where medical uses are permitted on the other side peer and they've got probably double the space because it's a it's much bigger operation so uh we did try to get a like you so we wouldn't have to come back to the board um paradoxically Dr Mone had two non-permitted uses there was the do doct office and there was a that's 5 600 square feet of the space dedicated to retail sales of of eyeglasses so um so there were two re uses we're taking out that second use but what happens is when you remove the 600 square feet of or so um of retail and you replace it with medical which is at a higher parking count we actually upped our parking count by one so whereas Dr mclone needed 17 spaces we need 18 spaces eight are provided so we increase the intensity by the one um just to finish off the photos uh this is the four family um that was built on the corner you can see uh there's adequate Landscaping there is a lighting that shines down into the parking lot and the perimeter uh there are eight spaces including a handicap accessible space and you can see that there's an existing six foot fence which actually used to meet the buffer requirement back in the day for separation between um residential commercial what I also wanted to show was the view of Main Street although um our our applicant who hasn't given their their hours of operation and their intensity yet um they will but um they are a less int use than the prior doctor was um what's interesting about the resolution which you haven't read yet is the um the Dr Mone indicated all the spaces the eight spaces on the site would be reserved for patients because he saw six to eight patients at any one given time um and all of the all of his employees would park on the street um which they did um this act this tenant actually feels given their intensity given the nature of their use that both the staff as well as visiting patients can all be on the site but I wanted to show photograph 5 and six which were taken 11:45 this morning um looking down towards me and Familia back up towards the corner where sh is you can see that there's not one car parked there parking is available from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m 2our parking um there is always parking available one contractor pulled up to talk to me because he saw me taking pictures but that guy was there to see me um and left so for the most part um there's adequate parking so even in the in the rare event um for some reason um a space was filled on a Saturday the second floor tenant always gets one space um as long as I've been there that same tenant has that one car um but if for some reason that tenant had three guests stay over at night on a Saturday and um the doctor had patients there's more than adequate parking on the street to handle any potential overflow the um we then go back to our site plan um what we generally do it's a little hard to see up here but it's a little better in your in your packets but we take the existing site and we screen it and then we in in a darker tone we put all the proposed um site improvements you'll see there's nothing dark except we showed in we showed the buffers there are no changes to the site so if you look down the site data box again gets confused because it allows two family tax Apartments we're none of those so it's a complicated grid but the most important thing is onose you'll see everything is no change coming all the way down um the only thing that uh um is that we have eight baces are proposed and existing we went from 17 up to 18 so that's listed as as what we consider to be a new variant everything else were existing nonperforming conditions that are Remain the uh we need variance relief um as a D1 variance to permit a non-permitted medical use and it's a tricky question because we already had a medical use but the nature was there was specific testimony given that it was an automet what the nature of their business was and there was a retail component so since we deviate from that we're back for another D1 variants from this board the um we also need a c variant for parking um and that's where again 18 are required eight or provided it's a deficiency of 10 again um since the prior use had a little bit of retail they only required 17 um that was a deficiency of nine spaces that was approved so now we're asking for anic an increase in that deficiency of one space um existing non-conforming conditions that are on the site that were referenced in Prior um prior applications are the buffer requirements you have a buffer requirement from a non-residential used to a residential use in the enjoining we don't meet any of the buffers we have some existing non-conforming uh conditions as to the sidey yard and setbacks um we also have a uh um I mentioned before we don't comply with the signage because signage there's only two square feet of signage allowed in the zone um but since we are less than was approved for Dr M loan we don't need variance Rel for that um and there are some design waivers in the paring locks or a few areas where you back up um there's a little elevated concrete Landing where you don't quite meet the backup um and uh our stalls are a little shallow so 9 by9 is required 9 by6 was approved by this board in 2008 and the aisle width um at that one U minimal point you got a 21 and A2 foot backup where 23 was required again that was all shown exactly this way on the Mone application in 2008 so with regard to the planning testimony um a d variance um obviously any variance you need to show you meet the positive and the negative criteria to advance the positive criteria for a D1 variant we need to site show that the site is particularly suited for the proposed use and this advances or further advances uh the first purpose of zoning and that's uh and that's General Welfare the um we think the site is particularly suited for the proposed use obviously um it's uh and if we partic pay particular care attention to the impact on the neighborhood um this site has been used for commercial purposes for at least 50 years that I know of and I don't know who was there before the uh uh before the item was there uh the site has uh has an off street parking lot to provide eight Vehicles again which is more akin to a commercial use um than a uh a residential use and it sized perfectly to meet the uh the user needs uh and furthermore um the area along Main Street has an abundance of underutilized street parking again with from 700 to 7: p.m. 2our parking which which doves Tails fine with a with a with a visit um and again I would point out in that resolution um you'll see Dr MC's testimony in 2008 was that he would have six to seven patients and four to six staff on site every day um and so uh and the resolution specifically stated that the parking lot will be reserved for patients uh and staff and doctors would use available street parking obviously we're not looking to continue that condition any longer and I think you'll hear testimony um from the dentist that uh her operation will be significantly uh less than Dr mlon um and the site is not viable for any of the permitted uses so uh certainly it makes it appropriate for commercial and and and I think it's particularly suited for this this level of intensity for this uh for this doctor um and that being less than the prior prior doctor um other purposes advant Advanced um it eliminates a two-year vacancy Dr Mone di died a little over two and a half years ago um there's been um no viable takers on this building either leasing or to purchase um and we're providing for a variety of commercial uh uses to meet the needs of the community uh there are no dentists there's a lot of medical and surgical offices in in the CMO zone so we deem that right across the street we deem that medical offices are appropriate there are no dentists so by adding a dentist into an existing commercial space I think we're uh we're providing a need um all of the other variances the parking variance and and any of the other existing non-conforming conditions they're generally considered to be subsumed for the for the positive purposes they're considered to be subsumed in the D variants I think it's especially appropriate here uh since the deviations specifically relate to the long-standing commercial use and there are all pretty much existing non-conforming conditions um the negative criteria again in two prongs that there's no substantial detriment to the public good and there's no um uh substantial impairment to the intent and purpose of the master plan uh we think there is no detriment to the public good I would like to see someone in that building because I whenever it's occupied they get maintained uh much better than they do when they're vacant um the site has been at commercial use forever I wish we could bring the bar back with good hamburgers but um uh the dentist office will be less intense in the par medical use uh the number of of uh on-site parking will be adequate to support both the employees and patients of the dental practice without the need to rely on street parking daily operations but it is there and it's abundant um deliveries will be consistent with the prior approval pretty much everything comes by FedEx except in Dr mone's application because they did a trade in in contacts they receive deliveries every day uh we don't think that they'll need to get deliveries every day for this use um there's always some potential negative impact of having a commercial use in in relationship to residential but I think um in this case there's really no change to the neighborhood and I think it's good for the neighborhood with regard to the uh uh the master plan the primary objective um is to uh protect the character of established residential neighborhoods and encourage land use and development that are appropriate at an appropriate scale and density we think we have no negative impact on the surrounding residences again we think they're a little more intense use than we are um and another goal goal number four of the 2018 master plan is to uh maintain and enhance the economic V Vitality of downtown and other business districts and this really does act as a business district um so we believe it is not consistent with the master plan the medich court says we have an enhanced burden of proof is that we need to reconcile the omission of this use from the Zone if this is such a good use uh even though it's been there for so many years why didn't the frame of the master plan consider that um and usually it's because the use is too new but in this case the in 2018 they very specifically looked at this Zone and reconsidered that uh uh that it should probably be changed so the recommendations on page 53 of the 2018 master plan is that uh the township should examine whether Lots in the R8 Zone along Main Street should be rezoned for officecommercial use to better reflect the current development pattern so uh I think we meet the enhanced burden of proof because the township is already thinking that it would probably be better use if we took some of these and that's even before the flood plane change and we uh we ratified them and made them as permitted conditional uses I think it meets the positive negative criteria I did foreshadow some of my um the client testimony and I think they'll back that up I hope I wasn't expecting to lead off but but um I'm happy to answer any questions can I make a suggestion please so typically I can't remember we heard planning testimon before we've heard testimony from the applican in terms of operations and how the site's going to work and all that and unfortunately my my recommendation before Mr K got started is that we're going to have to hear from Mr K again even though in a much more truncated manner in terms of the various proofs for the positive negative criteria given this is a de use variance so what I'm going to suggest is that before you ask Mr Keller any questions why don't we hear from the applicants let's go through uh Mr ped's uh planning report talk about operations and other things I'm sure there may be some questions from the board from the public and then we can get back to uh some planning questions any member of the public or sorry any member of the board there'll be plenty of time for questions from the public has any engineering questions for Mr Kell okay so while don't we go Mr Jack to your clients um I'm gonna introduce uh Dr Nikita gadia um if you could introduce yourself and your background and hi everyone um so I have been a resident of the town since about 9 years now and um absolutely love the uh Community I hold a degree from rgar School of Dental Medicine and I've been working extensively in private offices uh which um across not Jersey i c currently work at florum Park and aveno and uh previously have worked in beo Jersey City and um and Union uh it it has been life my lifelong dream to own my own practice and um I started thinking about changing uh turning this into a reality a few years back uh we started looking around for opportunities and um after uh after searching everywhere we came across uh 249 uh Main Street we spent the last few months thinking um like uh thinking about the uh the reason why we should go for this uh it has been empty for a year like uh Rich mentioned and um while it is a little bigger than what I was looking for it it has the layout the location is great and the other aspects of the property which are ideal fit for a dental office so um yeah if you have let me know your questions why don't we jump into a little bit more questions for you um why specifically is this property um good for you in terms of um location layout Etc um so it since it was like uh initially used for um the uh uh um opthalmologists and the Opticians uh I could immedately uh imagine it to work for a dental office it had the layout that I always had in mind for my office um uh it has a great reception area and it can work for operatories for a common area sterilization and all the other needs um and what and the size of it works really well especially after covid because we are looking for more distancing and um a greater protocols after all of that so this really uh fits the bill um can you describe for the board a little bit about how your practice is going to start uh so it's going to be a startup and hence I'm thinking that we will start uh with uh with one assistant and one front desk um I will be running one column per day uh I will start with a couple of days in a week um I'll continue to work with my private offices and as we grow is when we will start um start every um like all the um week days what are your hours going look like um your full I'm thinking about 9 to five so General working hours um when you say 9 to5 is that Monday through Friday have weekend hours um so initially it would be a couple of days of the week and then it will ramp up to uh every weekday and then eventually it could be um every other Friday or every other Saturday um can you just mention again specifically um number of staff I it's you as the main doctor and then what does the other staff look like number of people specifically so it could be about two people in the beginning and as we scale up it will Pro um I would love to have a hygienist uh so it would be approximately two to three more people when we are fully functioning okay um and the um the residential Department that's there are you going to make any change to that uh no the renter is going to continue staying in the same area okay and and um continue to have parking or is that change yeah he'll continue to have one parking spot okay and you're um how many patients are you estimating to see at any specific time so initially the plan is to have one uh column so it's usually one patient per hour uh but then it could be a couple couple of times depending on emergencies considering it's a dental uh practice and there there are emergencies it could be about two patients uh per hour but that is that will probably happen later um I think that's really all the questions we have all the questions I have for you uh the board has any questions is it adults only or is it pediatric as well it will be for everybody Pediatric and um adult I think I counted like eight Bays on the plans is that correct are there are there spots for potentially eight patients at once because there's like seats that I count that wrong it look like the layout no there are four Bays the rest is uh lab room sterilization room a consultation room a private office for the staff at the back so they look exactly like the base okay but they're effectively offices thanks for clarifying so it's very most there could be how many people if you were like operating at 100% you could have four patients one in each chair hypothetically if you brought in another dentist um Let me let me ask you part of that question um the flow of the practice ises that generally that you have four patients in chairs or is there any rotation that goes on usually a rotation so when we bring one patient in uh we start with uh prepping like X-rays and stuff like that and then while that is being done we might check in the next patient in the Next Room so we always want two operatories for any provider just as a u backup especially since you know a lot of the treatment could be emergency based is we uh do back up and then we just need that overflow so would you be planning to have all Bay all um rooms occupied at any given time um typically not unless it's like a very busy uh um day just it just ends up being a day like that so that's your plan but potentially you could have four patients and then a consultation so would that be five uh no the consultation is usually with the patient who is already getting treatment done and um like we when we uh do evaluation we have comprehensive plans so we need to discuss it with the patient and considering Hippa we cannot discuss it in front of everybody um and we might have to explain everything uh show models so we prefer having a consultation room where we can be seated show them the treatment plan uh what what to expect for the treatment and stuff like that so maximum number of patients you could possibly have in the building at a time it's four maybe four okay and do you have any plans to bring in a second dentist um not right away because it's a startup so um I'm expecting the growth to be like slow because it takes time but you could potentially bring in a um ideally the first step would be to have a hygienist not a associate dentist a hygienist so that individual would be possibly cleaning teeth at the same time so that maybe you would have four patients then sorry to be just I'm trying to get like a realistic answer for right right I think that um you know I think part of your is part of your intention to be having four patients or um do you expect that you know as a hygienist is is looking someone else is cleaning a room and there's a consultation going on right so it typically could be like if it's at full capacity at maybe in the evening at some point it could be for uh patients but usually in the daytime it's we do not expect it to be all four at the same time and if you had a second dentist could you get exceed four um yes but I would like that that wouldn't make sense to have a second dentist if we don't have enough chairs to work off this space is limited by yeah the opport I think where m tr's going is um are you willing to stipulate is part of the board's evaluation or you know as Mr Keller stated the positive and negative criteria Board needs away um are you willing to stipulate as a condition of any possible approval by the board um max of having a limit to the number of dentists practicing in the do I I think we would of course we prefer not to um if you look at once you have a chance to look at the prior resolution uh Dr M did have two automist interests working there I know practice really well I Mone practice and they were never all operating at the same time tot totally understand that um so I I think the intention is that given the space given the layout of the interior floor plan having to fulltime dentists would also not make sense in the given space right um it is possible that there's a second dentist because when she takes off it's always nice to have coverage and not close down the practice but um given the restrictions of the space having a second full time is is that accurate right so yeah I was going to say but I think what I'm trying to establish is how many people would be in how what is the maximum number of people that could be in the building at the same time you Poss patients and the uh assistants and the staff secretary yeah so front office staff front office so maximum what you're asking for unless I'm wrong yeah is in a normalized state aspirationally what's the max we could fill it right is effectively four staff right that includes her uh because that's her plus two assistants front office hen is and so reason she works at multiple clinics right now which is part of the course in the industry is there's always a backup because dentists don't usually work 52 weeks a year so you kind of have to supplement that by having secondary dentist in the mix so usually we consider that a half resource right because if they're there she or the other hygienist may or may not be there the very same day so it's four staff and maximum four patients at any point in time now to her point they're also riddled in fortunately with a lot of emergencies yeah so could there be one two or three patients baiting in the baiting area at any point in time on a specific day in a month maybe so that's not not something you can really control uh but generally on a normalized basis right it's like a seven to eight seven to eight people with a potential to go up to 11 yeah right so are you willing to stipulate as to maximum of four staff and friend patients at any one time four approximately four if everything's running smoothly the patients would be a little harder to stipulate only because of emergency situations well you can say four and four except in the case of okay I think with as with Dr Mone the most important thing is that there's some flexibility to bring in a second dentist um at some point they're going to retire you want to transition so I know Dr did the same thing someone came in a came in to um have part-time their name was on the door but part-time at for that transition to take place unfortunately Dr M died way too young but um It's always important to have that transition so and and that was what Dr Mone was thinking when we did that for 2008 it's critical that he have the ability to have at least a second professional but I think if they if they're willing to stipulate that uh four that would include a hygienist as as well a billing person that works as long as there's not a limit to only one D no just just the whole point is at one time what's just int view you can have three d challenge is the challenge is the unpredictability like we could commit to you saying X number but the reality is there are always edge cases where we can't really control that and the unfortunate part right at that point in time is to is to deny a patient saying oh you can't come in with you know you could be patient number five six or seven functionally because you already have four in the seat that's the velocity and volatility unfortunately right but what what this board's job is to do is to assess the variances one sides if you requireing use variance you also require parking variance y so all these questions are are are legitimate and go to the use and trying to minimize the intensity of the use so that there's sufficient off street parking which what the in but I think the the um Rob's suggestion that uh a maximum with a little flexibility for that certainly works it's obviously not going to be full time I'll be the first one complaining if I my off but um I I think that can work with what we've talked about you know clearly if there's an emergency and someone walks in you're not going to deny there's also um one other yeah one other point the the other uh a benefit of the prop is there any other benefits of the property yeah so the other reason why we also love the property is its access from the public transportation there are enough bues that come there and also there is obviously there's a train station um so the idea is that if there is a possibility that the staff members can um avoid taking driving then the uh idea is to uh use the public transportation and uh also um like car poool if that is possible to minimize the number of cars that the staff would require to park in the parking areas allowing the patients to have the um have the parking spots available to them so is the I'm assuming the current proposal is to have the employees Park and parking right current because you're going to be you're ramping up to start correct you're just going to have one or two staff members correct mhm right she open the par right but if if the once you wrap up you're willing if you there's not no paring for the for the patients to instruct your staff members to park on the street or find other places absolutely including for her yeah I canulation don't be selfish Mr K um there there was something about about uh existing illuminated box sign on the south South facade to be removed yeah to be REM that is absolutely being removed yeah um if the board would like we do have a mockup of the proposed signage um if you'd like to see it it is in compliance what with what has been previously approved and I think this would be a three or A3 A3 you guys so there was a comment from um Mr ped regarding construction Logistics regarding the interior renovation and the fit up yeah um including involving like staging and deliveries and yeah all the construction related equipment and staging will remain entirely on site with for parking access and a uh availability to the existing tenant uh we will be using the back door to manage the demo debris as well as bringing in the new materials and Equipment um during the construction phase we will um we will be housing all the needed uh material within the building and everything else will be stored at the vendor Warehouse um this the tenant has a separate entry from the front foyer which will will be undisturbed are you doing anything about when you walk into the space there's really annoying steps that head up to where you have your treatment area they shown on your floor plan area right yeah okay those can't be ada8 compliant is there anything you can do about that or is that not possible it's uh based on what we know yeah absolutely and we've had contractors Engineers Architects equipment vendors everybody comeing so far and structurally it's not possible and hence there is a back door that is actually flat with the parking lot and that's ADA Compliant to kind of give them direct entry into the treatment rooms yeah thank you is there parking back there though yes yes pressure I have a question for you Mr so there's eight variances but how many of them do we really need to consider because they've had prior approval so look I think the only um significant variances that you need to assess are the parking right because you know now they need you know one extra space because they took the what I'll call the optician area and they converted into Medical Dental space um and then also a use variance and so part of the use variance analysis besides the positive criteria and the H quality of proof Mr Keller went over it is that every use variance is different right so Dr MCL had a certain way of operating and a certain intensity of use this is a new use with a new intensity of use and Board needs to assess that in relation to not only the prior use because I will tell you as Mr Keller stated that Mr mlo Dr mlen hasn't been practicing there for for a couple of years whether you want called abandon or not is sort of side the point I think every case is different and you have to look at this user in relation to the positive negative criteria for for a D1 use variance is is this space particularly suited to the use right does it does it meet the the negative criteria um I do believe that if I recall correctly that regarding this particular portion of the township that there was a question raised in the master plan about whether residential development in the future is viable given the flood plane that Mr du Mr Keller testified to the existant existing development pattern along Main Street in that area so that all needs to be considered as part of your your role I don't if that answer the question all right so really just two parking and use yeah I I I think that the others whether you want to call them subsumed into the use variants or previously addressed um by uh other applications I don't think they're as as relevant the loading use variants what I would do is I would ask the applicant what are what are your expectations regarding uh deliveries of a little bit already for construction no during dur practice typically we have um just uh deliveries from uh the labs which are like their drop off it's like no different than a Amazon delivery or something like that which can be just dropped off at the front except for the during the construction phase except for that one construction that's will there be x-ray um equipment on site yes and will you have like I guess you'll build protections res so there's a separate room that's been carved out called the Imaging alcohol with all those protections around the wall specifically for that and the noise like the hand pieces yeah will there be stop moving the reson that's above you I mean um the compressor would not be uh affecting the uh uh the renter yeah the noise would be it won't be it won't um it's not going to be affecting the upstairs no uh because bulk of the heavy machinery actually is going to go in the basement basement but if you're drilling like a cavity out of not but that won't that's not so loud like that that that never happens anymore with all like it won't be any different than kids playing actually the the renter is over the reception are area and the waiting room so the operatories are in the one story portion that's behind the okay thank you quick question for Mr Keller the parking requirement it's 18 spaces here required versus existing is eight how do you reconcile I why do we need one space I didn't quite get that well what I said for Dr M Dr McGlone when you went through the Matrix because Dr McGlone a portion of that so um medical is one for one space for 150 retail is 1 for 200 so there's a less Park less parking requirement for retail so because Dr mllo in his Lobby in his waiting room had a had a area carved out specifically for retail sale of glasses we were able to assess that at the lower number so with Dr mclone they only for the same square footage um and his two uses he only required 17 he required 17 spaces eight existed for this use because we're getting rid of that retail component and we're assessing at the higher parking value we now need 18 for E perm minutes so the intensity so there was a nine car parking Devi car parking deviation approved in 2008 we're now looking to make it 10 so we one yeah and I think what's significant here is that it's testified to by the applicant that they're not they're not proposing any even right 9 to so I actually only saw Dr Mone once or twice not that regularly um but I know in his testimony um there was one doctor one part-time doctor uh four full-time staff and two part-time staff so there was between six and eight employees on staff um and maybe not in the final years but that's what they had testified to and then they indicated there would be availability for between six and seven patients um could be and so that comes out to be you know up to 15 whereas our applicant has indicated that their maximum everything goes great is going to be eight four and four in the worst case so I still think it's a less intense use and whereas Dr Mone was relying on on street parking for his employees and second professional and himself most of the time that really will no longer be required so while there's parking available and the doctors indicated that in those unlikely event that you have an emergency and and they're backed up um they can park their step on the street so this this parking lot actually I think in my opinion works better for this particular um type of medical office that this particular dentist than it did previously now obviously Dr mone's practiced e and flow it was busy for some years and slower than others but um I think the important part is that um there's plenty of parking on site and there's plenty of parking off site adequate parking there will always be one reserve for the for the residential tenant so I think I think parking really is not an issue and you know we don't get very many buildings in the commercial districts anywhere that have eight spaces so certainly not in the B4 Central business district and you don't find Residential Properties with eight parking spaces so I think the site is particularly suited for this particular use and and um it's true if even if as often happens in the dental business where with startups you know you want to get patience so during often times um dentists by other dentist practices dentists die for going disability and people buy up their practices or their books so to speak done a lot of that work um and so but by having these safeguards in place in terms of having you know ceilings and maximums it you know helps mitigate against any type of over intensification use particularly with regard to the space and part you just need to be reassured as we as I'm sure you have to prove with your prior tenant the prior owner or practice practitioner that there is enough space for everybody that it won't be a burden on the community in that area so I can't I mean it's just that's the burden that we have too y except for times of Paving I don't and when who done work on my office we've never parked on Ocean or the side streets there's always plenty Park on Main Street which is obviously a major feeder into the town so I think uh I I can't see there being any negative impact on residents on Ocean or mechanic or going up to Willow uh because there's just as as we show in those photographs there's just ample parking people don't like to walk so they'll Park as close as they can yeah and was bus stop you said very close the number 70 bus right across stops a chop right any other questions questions anyone in the audience who has any questions is there anyone in the audience who has any comments so so before we continue so Mr Keller you've heard the testimony of of the applicants with regard to this you prod provided some planning testimony support positive criteria for the city d d variances um is it safe to assume that based on the testimony that you just heard made part of the public record that it only amplifies and strengthens the reasoning behind your Stellar testimony earlier than you absolutely it's 10:30 you want me to be brief right that's why I as the question thank you well said Mr um board members would you would like to make any comments I I think the the use is uh is particularly suited to to this to this property um and uh I think it's positive for the town that the space that be filled finally um I don't see there being a significant parking issue it seems like the on space parking will be sufficient obviously there's a risk and a hope that your practice grows and that you'll have more patience but um it seems like based on the testimony uh that there is adequate parking around the office as well off site so um so I I think that um this is a a positive for the town that the requirements for uh the E variants and and and the the parking variants or the seat variants uh have been met and I would be supportive of the application I concur agree y agree okay so are we going to I think that based on the um discussion amongst the board I think you can just one make one motion um keeping in mind though that um it's a d variance D1 variance the to get and it requires five votes to get appr so I would suggest that if anybody has any questions about the the D versus the C Etc we should take two separate notes but I haven't heard anything I don't have a question just do you want to could should we add a stipulation that there' be no more that whatever X number of people in property except the event one of the conditions of approval will be that there'll be there no there'll be a maximum of four staff and four patients at any one time except in the event of an emergency patient patiti do training um we're we're not quite comfortable with that uh condition there might be out there might be times where um there's a training staff person who's shadowing or an extra person around and and we don't want want to run a foul of of any problems the space will constrain too much use um and and certainly will constrain intensification of the property uh but limiting to those numbers is is going to be a little tough you had given us a number previous was it 11 people what was it yeah 11 right if you assume One Challenge also is um and I'll let her speak in the last two years as an example a dentist at any point in time needs to assist assistance because that's how we work each alternate room in the last like you know year and a half or two she cycle through 15 just because they leave at a very high velocity because they're all paid by the hour and so at all points in time she's constantly having to train multiple assistants and so is there a possibility while she has two she's training a third as a backup or fourth absolutely because if there is no assistant that's a lost day for her she can't work she can't treat patients there's no Revenue nothing of that type so you can't really run that risk in this business because you can't even contract the assistants saying you know it's mandatory you know they're at will so that's always been a constraint for us uh and that's where it gets tricky because then the legality comes into play oh you got a back up over here who's the fifth sorry right and then we go follow off some stipulation which yeah so what is the numberers what what is the number that in terms of Max occupants on a given day um subject to emergencies so taking into account your potential need to train additional staff say you got to give us a reasonable number yeah of what yeah yeah makes y I think it'll be like maximum 12 no we already spoken about 11 and so if you think about one one dentist a hygienist two assistants in front office staff who will also alternate maybe hopefully as an assistant so that's you know peak level five right there you have four patients that's nine account for you know patients in the waiting room it could be one two or three I'm not accounting for right so so before a maximum of four staff and four patients at any one time except due to Patient emergencies was okay now we're talking about many more we're talking about other circumstances so I I think the confusion was that there's um the expectation is about 8 in normal practice times if everything's running smooth it would be eight but then there might be times where there's a training person that brings it up to nine maybe 10 we had discussed the number 11 had been floated earlier so we're right really in that range and I we don't want to quibble over a person here or there um so quite honestly we rounded just slightly up to be safe we don't want to have to have a problem with why we just say maximum of for St and four patients any one time except due to Patient emergencies or for staff training so the trick the trickiness with that is um while we schedule each patient for an hour sometimes depending upon the severity of the treatment which she has no clue until the patient sits on the chair there have been situations where she's treating the same patient for three hours so what that functionally does it backs up patients in the waiting room so they're still going to show up and at that point in time can be in a situation where you tell the patient sorry you got to go back home because we don't have capacity to to host you because you don't have the parking just like using that as an example is that is that a regular way thing no but it's frequent enough that it's not at go right if it's a tough root canal if it's an implant it's a crown it takes a bit and a half more than an hour to effectively fix so you kind of have to provision for that because there's too much uncertainty like what I do for a living has a lot more certainty she doesn't and that's kind of like the challenge that you have to deal with would it be possible for your front staff to mitigate some of that to say oh we've had an emergency we need to call you or move your appointment typically we do try to do that but the thing is that if the patient is already on the way or is already SE that would be one patient but it wouldn't be right but it's just like considering the worst case scenario so there that would fall in the realm of emergency which would be covered by the stipulation um I I think we would be willing to accept a a 10 people um restriction subject to the emergency yes subject to emergencies absolutely that's unfortunately the medical world we don't have to I mean the fact that you're going through this and like you're conscientious to say that you're trying not to break anybody's part on parking but you also don't want to be we don't want to be back here because we we don't want to be back here for one person because so we we we're trying to work we like I think 10 is a reasonable number given immediate growth and future and you know all works out well and we need more at that point at past 10 we can come back and discuss certainly I'll move to approve the application subject to the requirements at the max of 10 subject to an emergency situation second this is for both for both the D and the par yes so we're not saying for staff or patient we're saying a maximum of 10 staff and patients combination a one time except for emergencies for patients emergency in St no patient except for patient emergencies yes yes Ros yes yes yes thank you thank you appreciate the patience [Music] okay does someone want it someone want to I will move to ajour all in favor