e e now yes this is a regular meeting of the zoning Board of adjustment for 6th December notice has been given in accordance with the open public meetings act by posting a copy of the notice on the first floor of the municipal building and sending a copy to the Monclair times Star Ledger and heral news this is a public Hearing in which any members of the public are welcome to attend the meeting agenda is available on the Montclair website as a link to the to the Township's YouTube channel where the hearing can be viewed live or after the fact the hearing is also being televised on Channel 34 we will now go for roll call William Harrison here John McCulla present John Coffield here Jay church here angel Harris here Jerry Simon Sebastian riera here um Janice Telly uh Michael Sullivan here yeah okay yeah thank you we have the minutes of the November 15th meeting I have a couple of changes on page one just in terms of who was what um I think Miss Harris and Mr Simon should be listed as excused since they alerted us that they would not be here um and on page two line 37 uh after use variants for the Dormer then replace which with since a use variance for the building and then continue was was previously granted and then on page three line 17 uh replace building with Apartments the first one and line 29 uh put after prospective the change insert to residential and that's all the changes I have anyone else with any changes to the [Applause] minutes as amended okay all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions same then we have the resolution for the property on Windsor Place I have a couple of changes and then I a long one which I'll read but give to her later so we don't have to do it um uh number one on page one it should be Upper Mountain and then it should be Upper Mountain and Highland Avenues plural and then I want to insert a third uh finding which would read the addition will be no closer to the Eastern side property line than the existing house and will not increase the existing width of the house I don't have any other changes to the resolution does anyone else have any changes if not someone want to move the resolution with those changes I'll move the resolution with the changes second all in favor say I I any no any extensions abstain okay and then we have the meeting schedule for next year I'm going to try and do the so I GA we can't meet on the 3D because we will not have the ability to be televised we'll delete that cancel that to the um we can meet in secret and really excite the open public meetings ACT people um then my understanding is Rick is not available on May 15 so we'll cancel that and which is good because I was going to suggest we had too many meetings at the beginning of the year um then I have a question you have July 10th and July 24th and I know why we're not doing July 3rd but I'm not sure why not just have one meeting in July on 17th which would be our normal meeting date I think it's a excellent idea won't disagree with that okay so delete July 10 and July 24 and put July 17th um um questioning but then we're having one meeting a month in October and November about meeting Labor Day week but I guess leave it on and we'll see how the world progresses um anyone else have any thoughts on or changes to the proposed schedule for next year I think I would just request that uh when we receive notice set for our next meeting that we receive an updated list of the calendar for 2024 yeah once a what we'll do is hopefully this will be adopted tonight and then we'll go back we'll edit it we'll publish it and we'll give everybody a copy for the next meeting okay so um anyone want to move the uh schedule meetings for next year as amended so move as amended second all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions okay and then we have a postponement to announce uh so the application 2866 167 Harrison Avenue uh is carried to January 17th uh 2024 at 7:30 p.m. at 7:30 p.m. there will not be any further announcement uh any further not noce of the hearing so if you're here for that application um mark your calendars Mark your phones whatever to that the hearing will be on January 17th this room starting at 7:30 okay the then the first application we're going to hear tonight is for the Monclair Kimberly Academy Foundation for property at 12-36 Lloyd Road this is an application for site plan approval and conditional use approval to construct an 8,850 ft addition to an ex an existing School building on the property to provide additional classroom space the applicant also proposes to construct a new driveway on the south side of the property and various other improvements property is located in the Aro Mountainside residential Zone and is designated on the Township tax maps is block 302 lot 16 the applicant is in addition to site plan and conditional use approval the applicant is also seeking variance from the conditional use requirements set forth among cler code section 347-267-0102 3 47-12 A6 to permit driveways to be separated by less than 150 ft whereas the ordinance requires the driveways be separated by at least 150 ft and if required a variance from Monclair code section 34712 A9 to permit 159 parking spaces on the property whereas a greater number of parking spaces may be required um I assume the property's tax exempt but is a notice in order we did review the notice it is in order okay Mr tulac you want to give your appearance and proceed sure um good evening Mr chairman members of the board Allan tulac appearing this evening on behalf of Montclair Kimberly Academy Foundation uh as the notice indicates this is an application for site plan approval uh and variances involving uh the mka uh upper school campus located at 12-36 Lloyd Road they're basically two primary components of the of the site plan um that we're presenting this evening the first involves the construction of an 8,850 ft addition uh to an existing building uh on the property in order to provide uh additional space and better facilities for the high school STM or stem program um the second component of the plan before you uh involves the construction of a new uh one-way driveway on the south side of the property uh which is intended to provide Ingress from Lloyd Road to the existing parking area in the rear of the property um the purpose of the uh uh driveway um is to provide for better onsite circulation and to uh reduce if not eliminate uh the need for buses and other vehicles to park on Lloyd Road which occasionally occurs and causes congestion you know for both the school as well as um neighboring properties and vehicles traveling on Lloyd roads and we think that's a significant Improvement to the site um and those are the two basic components of the plan this evening uh I think it's important to point out as as our Witness will testify to that although the school is seeking to expand one of the buildings on the property there are no plans whatsoever and no intention to grow or expand the school's existing student population which consists of approximately 450 students number of students attending the school will remain the same uh and there will similar be no increase whatsoever in the number of Faculty members or staff as a result of the um proposed uh addition accordingly uh the project will not generate any additional traffic or generate any increased demand for parking and for those reasons um we are requesting a waiver from uh the requirement of the conditional use ordinance that uh provides for providing a parking plan or a traffic study is part of an application since there's no changes to existing traffic or parking um um we would hope that the board would uh agree with us that a waiver seems to be appropriate there um properties located in the r Mountainside residential Zone district and as this board knows from prior applications uh for mka and and I'm sure others private schools uh schools are permitted as conditional uses in all residential zoning districts in the township of Montclair um the zoning or ordinance specifically section 12 uh enumerates 12 conditions which must be satisfied um by all schools um we comply with 11 well there are some existing non-conformities which are which are not being um exacerbated in any way by this application um there's only one uh condition that we uh do not meet and that pertains to the requirement that driveways be separated by at least 150 ft um we're slightly less than that with the new driveway that we're proposing to be installed um so that requires a conditional use variance which as you know is a D3 variance which is the reason why this board has Juris jurisdiction over this site plan application um we also need an a a C1 variance with which I was not aware of and did not notice for but um I think we have a catch all notice provision in um in my uh notice should be sufficient but we are proposing um retaining walls that exceed the height requirement in the ordinance it's the only way that this uh Loop Road could be instructed going basically up the mountain around the building leading to the parking area in the rear um so that's the only other variant um we're requesting again there's one or two I think additional waivers that minor in nature um I have three witnesses to present sitting to my my right is Katherine Davidson who you're you've known from prior applications who testify on behalf of the school just give a general overview as to what the plans are what the reason is for for this project what the school is looking to accomplish and then we'll have our project AR architect Robert Douglas uh discuss the architectural plans as well as the landscape plan and the tree removal uh plan that he prepared and then finally we'll have our site engineer Brian uh Perry of penon engineering to review the site plan so having said that unless the board has any uh uh preliminary questions for me I would uh call Katherine Davidson and ask that she be sworn in before we do that I'm just going to have our two board professional sworn and also would you raise your right hand so you swear to tell the truth of the matter pending before the board I do I do state your names and positions with the board uh Janice tally secretary to the board or assistant secretary I'm not sure secretary secretary Hussein Farva uh assistant planner secretary to the board all Miss Davidson would you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth of the matter pending before the board do state your name and address please Katherine Davidson 34 Glenwood Road Montclair thank you m Davidson you've you've testified before this board previously on two or three other applications that I'm aware of um is it fair to say that you you're still employed by Montclair Kimberly Academy yes okay and remind us what your position is with the school maybe pull a mic a little okay sorry yep so yes I'm the Chief Financial Officer okay and are you um responsible for overseeing this project on behalf of the school yes okay all right what I'd like you to do is just explain to the board in general terms um the improvements that uh mka is proposing uh for the high school campus and the reasons or the purpose of those improvements yeah so um you there's as Alan as Alan had explained there's basically two parts to the project um yeah the first is an improvement and expansion of the schools science and math or stem facilities I think since the since the building or since this Wing was built in the 1960s I think there's been sort of you obviously teach stem teaching has evolved significantly and our facilities needs today are very different from when this space was built sort of almost 60 years ago our school's currently using a number of like repurposed classrooms and basement areas for our science labs which were never really intended for this purpose um sort of we've been limping through with those that facilities I think a renovated the additional space will provide the ability for us to have like larger Labs with more Collaborative Learning spaces really improved safety um features in the building right now we have very poor and limited ventilation particularly in those Laboratories which is you really an important factor of like kind of those types of spaces and better preparation rooms and chemical storage and Disposal facilities which this building really just wasn't built to accommodate um and also Al really having dedicated spaces for sort of not just our program but extracurricular activities of the students things like our robotics program um computer science environmental science labs and things like that which we just haven't this building just wasn't built to accommodate um you know initially when we sort of set about this project we tried to work really hard to keep the program within the existing footprint but it became really apparent particularly with things like the ventilation needs that that just wasn't and the existing kind of structure that we're dealing with at just wasn't going to be possible in terms of the square footage that we had and what we were trying to accomplish um so as you know the we was proposing renovating the existing building which is I think 19,000 Square ft and adding an additional 8500 Square ft there's no intention to add students to the school or staff the project really addresses the needs of our existing students and our existing program which have long arround this this this existing facility um the second part of the project is to add sort of one-way access road to really improve site circulation and really to like address some safety concerns we have about our car line on Lloyd Road I mean the roads intended specifically for bus traffic and for larger buses and we'll provide a bus drop off and a waiting area at the back of our campus and this sort of actually now occurs on Lloyd Road during our car line so if we have buses they stack up in in our car line and then sit there and wait so not moving on so kind of cars have to go around them and that's really when we get a condition when the car line starts backing up onto Bloomfield Avenue because people kind of pull in expecting the bus to move off and it gets and really it sort of creates a really hazardous situation it also provides really important emergency vehicle access to the back of our campus which right now is really limited um because it's just on like one side of our campus and it's actually very difficult for those sort of trucks to come up that side of the campus um which we also would kind of think would be a valuable addition and finally it would allow us you know although we're intending for this road to really serve like during the school day bus traffic it would allow things like um we have a community swimming program cougar Aquatics which is open to sort of young children outside of the school it would allow a drop off point for that type of activity for them to enter the JM from behind the school whereas right now they have to park either Park in Walden and cross the road often at night or they have to kind of actually come into our car line which provides or creates a sort of worst situation in the car line so it would give us an opportunity to sort of provide a different entry way for that particular program which has younger children so the buses are currently um queue up in front of the school on Lloyd Road the intention would be after this U new driveway or Loop Road leading to the back is installed that if the buses queue up they would be queuing up in that driveway rather than on yes street because especially they tend to be for like um trips or athletic things so it's not like the bus is dropping kids off and heading on its way they're sitting there and waiting often for the start of school so they don't move out and clear out during Carline they just sit in Carline because we have nowhere else to Stage the buses so that's kind of like for us being having a place where we can stage the buses that doesn't impact like pick up and drop off is like would be really beneficial cuz right now when you pull up from Bloomfield Avenue if there's a bus or even in the afternoon if it's an Athletics bus going somewhere that's waiting for kids so it's not heading out anytime soon you know even the cars that come in you have no way of knowing that the bus is necessarily not going to move off so it sort of really creates a kind of really poor condition that we're trying to address by giving them an alternate route okay so you you've indicated that the purpose of the uh addition to the um stem building was to provide better facilities um and that that there's no intention to grow the student population Beyond its current population correct yeah okay was would there would there be any increase in the uh number of Faculty members or staff no okay um so is it fair to say that you wouldn't anticipate there would be any additional traffic going to or coming to the school then no what currently exists any need for additional parking facilities no if you would just even though we're really not proposing any um changes whatsoever to the parking facilities can you just explain to the board where the parking is located that serves the high school campus yes so we have three locations for parking so there's an area behind the school which is sort of two tiers of parking um and then we also in addition have an easement from the township to use the parking on Lloyd Road and then we have an offsite parking for facility next to our field it's actually on Walden place there's another a third parking lot that serves the school so the parking is located in three locations okay I I'd like to just offer um which I I've marked as exhib exhibit A1 the easement with the town of Monclair which dates back to 1995 which deals with those Lloyd Road parking spaces because it was a an item that um Janice tally mentioned in her review memorandum um couple final questions um there's a single family home located on the south side of the school campus correct yes all right that that uh home is owned by mka yes and who lives there the head of school Nigel furong all right and the driveway that the head of school Nigel furong okay and there's a driveway that was mentioned in the engineering memo that sort of encroached upon or some piping installed but that's the driveway that serves that house correct yes okay and so all those facilities are owned by mka yes okay um last question I know the school uh typically uh does some Outreach to the neighbors um before an application comes before this board um did you do any of that in connection with this application yes um we hosted an event for Neighbors on November 11th um so they could review the plans we invite we were there and also we invited our architect to give a presentation so they could provide Ina input and feedback and proximately how many neighbors attended that meeting we had five okay all right um no further questions Mr chair questions yes thank you Mr chairman uh good evening uh Miss Davidson thank um just uh a few questions uh around the context of this project um so first of all let me pick up on that last note uh that Mr Trum was asking and with reference to the neighbors uh and you had an opportunity to visit with some of the neighbors uh has there been any U history of U of uh difficult or challenging relations with the neighbors I think I think we have a pretty good relationship with with with our neighbors and especially around this campus you know I think it's always challenging to live next to a school there's always issues around the Carline and um kind of the you it's you know a dis you kind of A disruption to the neighborhood and you know the students the student the parking issue with students you know is always a challenge I think for any school in Montclair um but I think that we try and work really you know kind of sort of hard to be good neighbors and to be responsive when issues come up and to sort of you know mitigate um those conditions as much as we can so we're certainly you know and as part of our Outreach we certainly um put all our contact information we kind of encourage them to reach out even if they couldn't come to the meeting so we had I think one or two neighbors actually called after the meeting to go through questions they had with the plans um so we sort of gave him a contact person and I think we try and work you know we try and sort of be the best neighbors that we can be given the fact that you know there's yeah 450 high school students at the end of their street right so I'll you certainly stay away from the language of complaints uh just uh it's it's it is normal obviously that there would be concerns uh and I'm just wondering in terms of uh as you have gone through you and your team have gone through the process of planning for this project you've taken into consideration concerns that you may have heard from the neighbors through the years yeah I think sort of one of the reasons for looking at the Loop Road or the access road is to really think about how we can improve our car line um you because and not just for our near neighbors too and their access and certainly and neighb was coming up Park Hurst you know when they can't turn up their street and things you know but they've got no other way of accessing um the house you know certainly to you in fact they were some of the neighbors who who came to the meeting were actually really pleased to see some attempt to address that condition like to be able to keep a car line moving um you know so I think that's why we're looking at that that road in terms of ways that we can kind of improve those conditions you know given the site that we have I I noticed um you know looking at the history of you know some of the previous resolutions that have come before um the township um in the evolution of the school um that uh the census the student census was always a a point of conversation and at one point I don't know if it's still true that that mka had to report to the township the number of students um I don't know if that's still you know applicable probably not but um but clearly uh in terms of the evolution um the the growth of the school has been has been pretty modest uh through the years would you agree with that yes we've had a very stable enrollment so um you we've been you know around a thousand I think we're like 1,50 you know kind of in within that band across the three schools which you there isn't and I think we've been pretty much that size since we merged like in 1974 so it's you know and that is you know part of the being fairly land bound where we are you know I think that's sort of um and it's served us well we have no intention of being bigger there's no there's no kind of I think for us we want to maintain the school at its size and kind of you know deliver our mission as effectively as we can to our students students who are with us MH and the school started off as a boy school and now has become co-head yes so we actually a merger between Montclair Academy which is on the location on Lloyd Road and then our Middle School was Kimberly Academy which was a girl school and they merged in 1974 M so how has that sort of change the nature of how the building is being has been used uh Through The Years well I think that's one of the challenges of this existing building or that 1960s building is it was built for 350 boys so squeeze you know sort of that's why one of the reasons why it's been such a challenge to reimagine or renovate this space in you know with today's classroom sizes and sort of facilities for a facility that was built with a very different population in mind so I think that that has worked differently and better in other parts of the school but I think this is pretty much the last area of the school where you know kind of um what we have really isn't working you know that it was constructed in the late 1960s and it was just built when teaching looked teaching and learning looked very different mhm yeah I I I certainly have um you know some specific questions about about uh the facilities and and how um they can or are planed to effectively accommodate that changing demographic of the school uh and I'll ask that with one of the other Witnesses I think Mr Douglas I'll probably address that with him but um the you mentioned that uh this project will not result in an increase in the number of students or staff and I'm I'm going to assume with respect to the staff um that that means that you're not anticipating an increase of Staff specifically because of this project it doesn't mean that at some point in the future that there could be a vision for more Staffing based on the academic programs and other services of of the institution is that correct yes yeah so as a result of this project we don't anticipate an increase in the faculty of staff at the upper school and that would when I say staff I mean that would be the uh The Faculty as well as uh other the service professionals that um and so do you do you feel that um would would you anticipate that you know if at some point in the future uh when you're sort of living into the space and you're able to Invision ways in which uh more staff uh uh again exclusively uh uh would be required that the parking that you you've currently envisioned would be sufficient to meet that need or do you think that's something that would require review at a later time so I think this is actually the campus where we have the most robust Camp parking that we have across all three campuses so it's actually a campus where um in terms of faculty and staff parking it actually functions really well we have visitor spaces that are out in the front in Lloyd Road so it's not you know I think where we feel a crunch in parking is um like at large events you know which is never going to you know kind of so there there are things that we have that we host for the community and there are things that we host for our community like homecoming and you know sort of um I think Montclair Film Festival uses our Auditorium for events and things like that and that's where we really feel the crunch in our parking situation is those larger community events that extend beyond the upper school community so on a day-to-day basis if I when I'm visiting upper school I that is easy for me to find a parking space unlike you know situations where we have maybe at like our Middle School where the parking is really a lot more tight and it's a much kind of it's a much different campus it is a campus that we actually are able to give students you know their parking spaces in Walen you know so they get assigned parking um when the seniors leave so an entire year plus of students get get parking space you whoever applies them gets parking spaces so we're able to sort of I think really cope very well with um kind of the parking that we have at that site on a day-to-day basis I think when we have issues with parking it's really these bigger sort of much larger community events like we have a a gathering there which is all three campuses you know those types of things where we're we're pulling people from outside that upper school Community MH so when you have um athletic activities on the on the field I guess the the parking in the rear of the building is utilized as as well as on Lloyd Road yeah and Walen I think Walen has good access that tends to be the primary kind of when we have things on Van Brunt it's at the sort of same level as the field that's the kind of field that gets used a lot for athletics activities or when we have games but you know I think it depending on the typ you if it's a homecoming game or like depending on the kind of the the draw or even if it's a Montclair High game they tend to draw a lot more people and those are kind of places where we're using a lot more but those those tends to happen out of school hours when the kind of faculty M parking is free so there's actually parking behind the building so um you I think games and things just depending on attendance the but they normally I think the parking is fine it's more kind of just the general traffic and drop off that just brings you busyness to the area you mentioned the the gymnasium is that located in that round building yeah okay so that's that's fairly close to Lloyd Road in terms of the the the driveway I mean so you I mean I guess the reason why I'm asking is because you talked about the buses would be dropping younger children off at that location yeah so actually we have a swimming pool in the basement of the gym so they use the swimming pool so it's a kind of community swim program that happens at the end of the school day so right now clearly that's like you when they're getting dropped off and when they're getting picked up is at night so I think that's been a big safety concern for us because they make their way across that crosswalk because it's it's too busy on Lloyd Road to have their car line run as well it's also an incredibly Steep Hill so it's not an easy it's actually quite a diff the gym is particularly in bad weather that can be you it can be a pretty sort of quite quite a trek up that hill like so it's not any you know it's in some so having a loop road around the back for those young children would be very helpful also for people who have like in terms of access like Ada access it make it a much easier place to try and come on campus too okay MH so um in in terms of the existing um buildings uh I mean with this with the I mean the new building that you're proposing which is quite impressive and it certainly is substantial um does that translate then into somewhat of a repurposing of the existing buildings um it's actually going to be so the whole project that you're seeing is actually the renovated space and the new space combined so I think it is 18,000 squ ft of existing building and 8,500 of of additional space so it it is things like I mean so right now um you know we have a research science program which shares a space with a chemistry lab so we don't have a dedicated space we don't have a dedicated robotic space we don't have a dedicated environmental science lab you one of our chemistry Labs is sort of they're sort of splitting like locations and there Labs that were never intend there rooms that were never intended to be labs they sort of have been repurposed and sort of um really are not kind of the right size they don't have adequate preparation rooms next to them they're just not set up they don't have proper chemical storage so a lot of the the layout is actually kind of reconfiguring the lab space to actually make them really what would be a normal size lab right now as opposed to really we've squeezed program into spaces that really aren't built for that um and aren't you know kind of wouldn't meet code if you are putting those spaces in today in terms of ventilation and kind of the how the chemical storage is organized and just things like that so there is in the labs there is like you know they actually have shared preparation spaces between the labs that are properly sized that have locked and secure chemical storage you know that takes up a lot of the space and then the labs are just bigger so I think the overall um building adds one laboratory and two classrooms um compared to our existing space M um so although it might look like there's a lot more in there we're really getting an environmental science lab and we're getting two additional classrooms I think because one of the other Trends we've seen is just a higher percentage of our students taking more stem classes so particularly things like computer science where they double up in subjects so it's not that we have more students and it's not that we can put that program somewhere else that they might take six classes rather than five and when they take that class overload it's often a science or a math or a computer science class so we're just seeing a lot more subscription and things like extracurricular activities like Robotics and clubs and coding clubs really don't have right now we we don't have a home for that in that building okay so it's actually sort of the robotics area is actually adding um we're using a sort of basement kind of almost like a hallway which is in the existing building but it's actually giving it a place that they can actually kind of kind of run that clock um because it actually needs you a reason they compete in competition so it's actually giving them a purpose a dedicated space where that program can exist which we simply don't have right now right I think I just have just two more questions for you so one is uh just in terms of chemical storage um in terms of the plan for that uh given the new facilities um uh do you feel comfortable in assuring uh the neighborhood that there would be no concern about those chemicals that are being housed within the school facilities yeah I feel very comfortable I mean they're sort of it it's pretty much things like you know acids and bases being separated you so it's sort of very very normal and regular kind of things that you'd see in a in a household and also in a school lab so they're not sort of you know they're corrosive rather than dangerous so so they things but but in terms of you know there's requirements around them being you know dispos of properly and stored correctly and you know right now in the spaces that we're in that's challenging we do it but it's in kind of not really sort of easy to access weight so they might be in a locked cabinet in a room as opposed to they should if you were designing things from scratch you'd have a preparation room that's somewhere that teachers were in and a sign storage next to it where everything's stored correctly mhm so my last question is just thank you my last question is related to um the intent of this facility uh for uh stem uh and that is um and you you've already alluded to to I think what probably a lot of us are already aware of which is that there's a a growing interest amongst young people around technology and and uh um and uh we hear a lot about Ai and all kinds of things going on so um would you would you say that what's being proposed in terms of this facility would uh be enabling mka to be more on sort of the front edge or The Cutting Edge of of of stem research on the secondary school level uh that uh you know allowing it to be uh you know more competitive than it currently is now um yeah I think it's for us it's about um and I think it's a it's a mix between sort of we have existing program that really isn't well served in the space that we have and being able to really not PR promote that but really people being able to see what our kids are doing and actually allow those kids to allow our students to really flourish and sort of um you kind of really benefit from our curriculum you I think um anything we do is about sort of you know continuing to advance our program and continuing to evolve and you supporting our mission in terms of you kind of delivering an excellent education to the students who enroll and I guess I guess just I guess I should ask since you are the CFO I I should ask uh you know is it your view that uh you know given again the size of this project and the intent of his of his use and that um this is something which is financially sustainable uh well into the future yes thank you very much M haris um you mentioned the um Aquatics program are there other programs that are hosted at in this building um that are not for mka students so that's actually that's in the yeah so in the the swimming pool uh so um right now it's primarily Aquatics occasionally we've hosted not in the stem building but in our Arts Wing we've hosted programs with the Montclair Art Museum um so where opportunities arise that we're able to accommodate I think we certainly like to sort of like you know we welcome we welcome um the community and their ability to use the program so we certainly partner with Mona Film Festival we've hosted films and other events um trying to think I'm just checking in because I think on our like sort of other campuses we have summer camp programs that run for younger children which are open to the town and we have a lot of people from Montclair who participate in those programs at like middle school and primary school I think because of the age of students um sort of something like Camp has been and because of the the way the way the campus is it's like a very steep campus so it's not an area that we have playgrounds and kind of fields EX ible for kind of young children um but I think certainly in terms of like in this facility you know I think we have talked about if there are ways of bringing on summer program that we could open to the town that's something that we're sort of really interested in doing in terms of making you know being able to you know kind of promote programs that would not be just for our students but for students outside of mka particularly around stem programming because I know there's a lot of interest in this area to kind of access that type of programming so for the most part though these programs would take place after the day so yeah so they wouldn't be I think for us it's like on that particular campus because we have it's a high school and there's Athletics and there's clubs and things that run after school it's really hard for us to accommodate you know and I think you know it's kind of in the school day that's just it tends to be focused on school I think when we have things like the aquatics program it's outside of the school day it's a way that we can accommodate a program that doesn't impact the sort of rest of you know the rest of town and that's a pro that's a program we've been running for a very long time at mka um I think when we do other things it's sort of on the weekends and it tends to be things where there's really a kind of a community benefit or Community component that we feel is sort of benefiting our neighbors thank you Mr callfield y um how many buses are there for the pick up and jop off so um we have I think it is five small buses that run um to the school right now now and some of those actually it's three small buses and they can run in the small there's a small loop at the front of the building it's just the larger buses can't run up there so there's two kind of shuttle buses one that runs from Short Hills and Livingston and there's one that comes from West Orange or South Orange and Maplewood that drop off and they drop off in the front of the building because they can't kind of go on the existing driveways and um then in the morning if there's trips so if there's a grade going somewhere that's really where we have an issue is there'll be sort of like there can be you know two or three buses and just even like having one or two buses on lyd road just con it consumes a lot of the road yeah so you know takes like eight car places out and as I said it just causes this situation where people pull in they don't realize the bus isn't moving particularly for us it's not necessarily the shuttle buses that the issue because they stop they drop kids off and they leave it's the buses that are loading for a trip so in the afternoon for athletics for any away games all the is queue up on Lloyd Road and it creates this condition that when you pull in off blomfield you'll get to a part of the and you there can be clear space in front of the bus depending on when they've been able to pull in in the car line that people just don't know that the bus isn't moving so then cars get stuck behind it it backs onto Bloomfield and just becomes a condition where then people finally realize the bus isn't moving and they drive around so during Sports season if we have a number of away games that can be challenging or if we have a team coming to campus that can be challenging okay um when the buses those the buses for the um to go to the sports um things after school um when they they pick if they get on the car line on Lloyd then they just go straight past the school on Lloyd they don't do a k turn or get back on Bluefield right they go kind of I would imagine they go straight through Lloyd and yeah they straight through Lloyd yeah is there any like slightly is there any concern that you might have thought about like now we're going to have buses coming in the back and coming back and coming back on lyer but now they're going to be coming in the other direction like was there any thought of maybe that you know cuz Lloyd Road is like acting like a one way somehow you know all the traffic is going in One Direction now we're going to have traffic coming the other direction did so I think because it's quite close to the junction so right now faculty come all the cars from our back parking lot come out that way anyway so it is a sort of Fairly recognized kind of route of traffic and I think it is you know there are buses but it's not a constant stream of buses it's sort of two or three buses and they tend to wait for school to dismiss so it tends to be like that's the problem is that they don't move off during car line is that they sit there waiting for kids to come out class and then they sit there for 20 minutes for the team to turn up and then they move off so they kind of like they consume just kind of amount of space on Lloyd road so it means our Carline just has less places to stack cars and move off so you know I think there's a number of buses you know it will be coming down but it's not a constant stream of buses and right now because it I think you know there already cars and traffic coming out because that's where teachers come out from school so there's a and I think people are used to seeing that traffic flow and it happens really close to the light as well so they're almost used to like leaving spaces for cars to come out um so in some ways you know it's sort of and it will actually also enable right now when visiting teams come for athletics they come and either they wait on Lloyd Road or sometimes they'll go around and park in Walen but that's fairly unusual so they'll kind of Park on Lloyd Road like further down the street which isn't great for Neighbors either so it will actually enable them to pull up when our car park is empty at the top like and wait for students like in an area that's not in front of someone's house or not on Lloyd road so it will give them access easy access to another parking lot um so yeah I think it's something that we're sort of trying to kind of mitigate some of those conditions that arise on Lloyd Road okay thank you Mr Church uh uh I'm looking at the uh site when I was over there Saturday I I I propose I suppose that the the um road that you're going to use to go around starts at the South End of the campus yes and goes up that's a pretty steep hill it's a very Steep Hill is that going to be degraded or is it going to remain steep like that so there going to be very there's going to be a retaining wall in the back so it's going to but are you going to drop the road to try to level it off of bit I mean you're going like this almost might be a better question for the engineer okay let me ask the engineer okay so that's all I have here Mr viea uh thank you Mr chairman um can you clarify regarding the traffic issues were they identified by feedback from parents from Neighbors by a professional I think it's it's been a concern of the neighbors because I think if you live in that area if you live around a school and there's a car line I think it's certainly an issue that um our neighbors have talked about so when we've actually talked about the plan the there positive feedback we've got got about the plan in terms of um alleviating some of those conditions and some of it has just been observation so we have you know attempt to make Carline move more smoothly we actually St off the Carline there's two um security people who are out there in the morning who just observe you know who've observed those conditions and I think if you from parents as well if you have it's a comment from our parents that when the bus is in the car line mean you can tell when there's a bus in the morning for instance if there's a bus on campus like waiting for a trip you know it instantly impacts Bloomfield Avenue in terms of like that left hand turn into kind of Lloyd Road backing up and people not being able to get round and then that backs on Bloomfield Avenue and creates like a you know additional traffic kind of you know that that is moving out of the way so it kind of closes up one of the Lanes on Bloomfield Avenue because people can't make the left hand turn because there's just nowhere to turn to and and as far as you're concerned really the goal is to mitigate these issues yeah I think yeah it's to mitigate kind of the the bus conditions it's also to provide like right now in terms of emergency vehical access and life safety access you know there is to be able to provide a better route for like a a fire truck or something to get to the back of the campus is also a part of the goal of this of the road in terms of just really that access is pretty limited and that end of the building has sort of no access okay um and I guess the question is that I noticed that the design incorporates uh lead standards so Energy Efficiency is that something that was um I guess a goal from the school or yeah yeah I think that you know it where we can um I think it's very much a priority for the building to make it as environmentally sustainable as possible and I think that um the architect can very much talk about those efforts that we've made so we're hoping to get um lead gold um for this building at a minimum and I think kind of where we've been able to make choices that are more sustainable we've definitely tried to make those choices thank you um for a couple reasons um I want to establish number of students and the number of faculty and staff so um the one place in the application it said 450 existing students and then I think Mr tulac in his introduction said 470 but how many students currently exist 4555 455 yes and what is the maximum number of students you've had that's the maximum um and then how many faculty and staff 92 and is is that the maximum you've had yes okay um okay um Mr tulac submitted with the application three prior resolutions um that one from this board and two from the planning board um are you aware if there are any other approvals for the school no okay and are you familiar with those approv I think they predate me I guess the 1962 approval from this board that was ratified by the governing body had a number of um conditions in it that I'll say it nicely or you know seem to be not quite so there was a condition that um limited the school to 350 students do you know if that was ever modified I'm not aware okay and then uh as Mr mcculler pointed out there was also a condition that that you Ann you file annually with the number of students as of October 15th of each year I'm assuming that has not been followed we do register with the state of New Jersey enrollment and it does it is shared with um Montclair town and the Board of Education okay so we do actually though not directly to the town we're required to report our enrollment um to the New Jersey Department of Education as an independent school the okay um and that actually happens around October 15th so I don't know whether it was thinking that would be aligned with that process um um other than questions of getting you to the right the current number of students and how we accomplish that part of my question relates to the reason for not requiring um a traffic survey was that the population of the schools stayed the same and I'm not sure we can ignore a 100 pupil plus increase in what was previously allowed and say well that just happened and we there shouldn't be a traffic study well I mean I there are a number of resolutions here Mr chairman I mean the the the the 2014 resolution again reiterates this application is not intended to expand the school population or increase staff it doesn't mention numbers the uh 2004 resolution says nothing at all about number of students but I would certainly posit that in order to change a condition of a prior board approval you would have to have a formal action to do that it can't be done unilaterally by the applicant um the resolution you're referring to again which one 196 it's a 1962 resolution it's on the page five of that resolution is where the conditions are the limitation was 350 yes yeah so I think when the population increase was the 19 when we merged with kimbery Academy which was 1974 and accepted girls and so I know that since I've been at the school the high school which is 2015 we've been at the same kind of number at high school it's been in that sort of that range I'm imagining that there significant increase happened like around the merger time which is 1974 when the girls high school would have moved with the boys so around that you know imagine that's a time when that's my assumption of what happened I just yeah don't know what legitimized that happening yeah no so I'm just saying so I'm I the yeah I'm pretty sure that's the the cause of the increase I just don't know how you know kind of how that was addressed at the time then my other question the condition of the conditional use related to parking um has this very peculiar provision in terms of How It's calculated does one space for each full-time staff which I understand then it's one space for every for students eligible to drive and obviously as you go through the school year that's an everchanging number maximizing the day before graduation one year drops off and then through the next school year it's um increasing and I I'm not asking you to try and do something but I want to get a sense of you know is there adequate parking what um how many students typically drive to school I'll say in the spring when more students are prone to drive and the maximum number is of drivers is at its most if we swear you in we you can you certainly can you want to come forward sure would you raise your right hand you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending before the board I do state your name and address uh David Flo 24 Brunswick Road Monclair New Jersey and just indicate your um affiliation with the school I am the head of the upper school okay so we only allow our seniors to park on campus there are 115 of them um So at their Peak there would be 115 seniors that drive to school I don't know the exact number because I don't know if every single senior drives to school but that would be the most that would drive to school and park on campus I I think when we did the calculation actually used 150 um because we we used the number that could drive right and the the calculation in the ordinances one for every four and by the time you're a senior virtually everyone's going to be eligible to drive so so we'd assumed the senior year and some portion of the junior year could drive we actually did go through and look at birthdays as well and it came out with a slightly it came out with a pretty pretty similar number in terms of if we picked the December 31st and then we picked like a date in the spring like because in the spring our seniors actually go off campus too so they're not we have may term so we picked kind of the period before May term and it came out with a pretty similar number of about the 150 it wasn't wildly different so we we'd used the we used I think we did it at various times just average the number and got the 50 okay if if we but the the current policy is only seniors can drive to campus correct if we imposed a condition saying that would that be acceptable I'm sorry that if we imposed a condition that's what we do yes and then You' have a a further justification to tell the Juniors you can't drive because the nasty Board of adjustment let you well the only the only thing I would I would ask to stipulate is that once seniors are off campus in the month of May that Juniors can drive to campus Because when Juniors drive to Campus Drive to school they Park in the surrounding town and this would alleviate that and take them off the street by putting them onto our campus during the month of May when seniors are not on campus so I have no further questions of this witness or any further from members of the board uh are there any members of the audience who have questions for this witness I'm assuming everyone's Affiliated but on the odd chance someone isn't um okay you want to call your next witness yes thank you Robert Douglas would you raise your right hand do you swear to who the matter pending before the board I do state your name and address Robert Douglas 819 West 19th Street in Wilmington Delaware Mr Douglas would you U provide the board with your educational background and your professional qualifications uh yes I have a um undergraduate degree from Harford College in um Urban studies and a graduate degree in architecture from University of Miami um and I am a registered architect and how long have you been practicing architecture since 2000 okay and what is your current business affiliation I'm senior associated with mcav architects in Philadelphia okay have you appeared uh before uh planning boards zoning boards before yes in New Jersey as well as other states yes here in Monclair actually I thought so okay your qualification has been accepted uh in in all before all those boards that you've appeared yes okay um and your license is currently a good standing yes okay we'll accept him thank you okay um Rob your office prepared the architectural plans for this project including the tree removal plan and Landscaping plans that's correct okay and you're prepared to review those rep uh plans this evening correct you were personally involved in preparing those plans yes okay and did you prepare a PowerPoint presentation to assist with your testimony right there it is okay I handed out copies of that before the meeting uh I guess marked at 82 Mr Solin okay okay well why don't you take it away and U walk the board through the plans using your PowerPoint turn the lights down so you is this uh is this Mark working sounds like it okay just so I can be back here advance the slides um well I guess I'll start here this is the um elevation View of the science um uh the the existing science Wing that faces Lloyd Road um it is um essentially expressed as two storage plus a basement um on this level uh and one thing you may notice actually is that the floor to floor of this building is is really low um Katherine alluded to it a little bit in her um her discussion but the big challenge of this building I'll just skip through these slides but we can always come back to them this is the um existing in the addition um The Loop Road location um one of the the big challenges of this building um is that the existing floor to floor Heights are extremely low um that lowest level actually has um the ceiling about 76 and and structure that's down at 72 um that doesn't leave any space for any duct work um above the ceiling um in order to uh provide adequate ventilation to those rooms um so the challenge that we really were trying to address in this project was figuring out how to get a reasonable floor to floor um that's consistent with the the technical requirements of a modern lab building um without creating a mass that was um too aggressive on the site um and so the solution that we've come up with is essentially to step down the lowest level um it actually steps down so that it's the same floor level as the academic center um in the front of Campus leave the middle floor consistent and step the um upper level up uh the second floor up about a half a story um actually it's much less than that's it's about six feet up on that that top level um and then we've put uh math classrooms on the top level again to try to keep that um that overall building mass as low as possible um just to take you through this plan I wish I had a pointer um yeah these rooms down here are the physics Labs um anything you see in yellow is going to be a math or health classroom um the robotics has been brought to the center here it is actually in the basement um of the gym currently near the pool um we've brought that really back to the center to give it sort of a pride of um of place and and some importance and then these spaces down here anything you see then this salmon color and this redder color are um faculty offices and then we've got the uh uh orange colors through the space our breakout spaces or meeting rooms sure thank you um on the first floor plan you see the green spaces are biolabs um the space in between oh sorry these are the chemistry Labs apologize the spaces in between are the um uh the prep space that's sort of Darker green is the prep space that really gives you a sense of how much prep space is required for a contemporary teaching lab um it's almost it's roughly a third um then we've got a couple more classrooms on this level along the backside the West Side um facing up the hill we've got the faculty offices uh and that concept gets repeated on the on the third floor or the second floor so we've got um uh classrooms across faculty offices across the back oh thank you so much biolabs in blue and then um math classrooms um through the rest of the building um the only other feature to point out probably here is that um the uh the the cam environmental science lab on the the middle level actually accesses the roof directly there's an existing green roof on the um academic center and so this allows them to access that space which um was designed to be used for science experiments originally or or for them to do a little bit of growing and and and um working um in nature but because it's difficult to access quick where's Lloyd Road on this plan oh I'm so sorry so this is Lloyd Road as you can see in Bloomfield and then um this is the addition so Lloyd Road if you're looking on these plans Lloyd Road is right here thank you um and again this is looking sort of from Lloyd Road but in the air and this just um to point out a couple of the features of the building roof access to the green roof um right through here um uh one of the features you'll see prominently on this building are sun shades um light shelves that bring light um as deep into the building as possible um we provided some sort of rais planners then the mechanical equipment is located um really carefully um with the intention of using the new volume of the building which steps up a little bit um above the existing volume um to screen that mechanical equipment as as effectively as possible and keep its volume um as small as as small and unobtrusive as possible um this gives you a little bit more of a sense of that there was a collar block on this at one point to help you see it but the mechanical equipment is here um so it does stick up um even above these roofs but as you start to see um this is the street view so that gives a sense in elevation but of course in elevation your eye level is almost in the middle of the second floor in perspective what you actually see the view from the mechanical enclosure that tiny little thing there is the mechanical enclosure um and that assumes that um the only screening is actually just provided on the side here what what's the height of the mechanical enclosure so the the mechanical unit um above the existing above the new roof here right that's 9'5 in so it comes up to a little bit less than 10 ft above the new roof so what you're seeing in that elevation is is just it's the 9 foot tall it's the 9ot tall if you go to the the elevation from the street this is the elevation from the street all right the next one the one where you could barely see it this perspective yeah you're seeing the 9t tall that's the 9 9 ft Above This Mass but we've pushed it as far back to the north as we can get away with it um so that it's hidden by that mass as much as possible um and as you can tell we studied that to within an inch of its life um we did look at an alternate version um that provides an enclosure that comes up to 10 ft above um the roof which sort of I think um meets the code depending on how you interpret the code I think either one of them could be interpreted to meet the code um um but the uh um I find this to be much more obtrusive um makes a much bigger statement about about the equipment this to me this is the the one that um has a much um uh much more consistent with what I think the intent of the code is um in terms of materiality um the bulk of the building is intended to be fiber cement panels those are the panels that are on the existing academic center and art swing um the idea is really just to bring that same aesthetic around as much as possible maintain consistency um the base of the building is going to include um a water table of stone veneer the intent there is actually to salvage the stone veneer from the existing building to try to match it um we've looked at a couple of very close matches in case that doesn't work from a technical perspective as they start to salvage it fails um but our expectation is that there's enough um there's enough salvageable material on um the existing building where we're tying into it that we should should be able to provide um that stone veneer tells an interesting story I think um and then aluminum windows and and metal smal panels um in these tall vertical sections um which reference um the the proportion of the existing building um and sort of the style of the existing building uh this is just an image of the um fiber cement panels that are on the academic center if you're not familiar with them um this gives you a sense of where we're going with material pallet so the fiber cement panel aluminum um aluminum windows and that stone that's this is a photo of the existing Stone that's on site that's the spandrel panel um these renderings just give a little bit better sense of that than any of those black and white drawings do so this is a view from I think your eye level is probably at the top of the first floor roughly here to give you a sense of the overall massing of the building this isn't a view that anybody would ever see um but it's I think it's descriptive of the building um this is a view from the courtyard um looking back at the building so you see a lot of um a lot of glass into circulation spaces in the in from the courtyard side this is a view um driving South on Lloyd Road so if you've just sort of turned off of Bloomfield and you're driving up Lloyd Road this is um as you go past the academic center um really I think what it start to demonstrate is that um you don't actually see this building even at that higher Mass um because how because of how much lower Lloyd Road is um than the building um it's actually hidden by the academic center until you're very close to it I think most of the time you'd experience it in your peripheral vision if you're coming up Lloyd Road in um coming down Lloyd Road or or standing on the crosswalk I think it has obviously much more presence um it is still um pretty far back from the road relative to um the gym and the academic center and I think that um makes a big difference in terms of the massing I've actually um when we look at the landscape you'll see that there are many many more trees here U I made our renderer take the trees out cuz I didn't think you would believe me that the building was completely invisible from the street that's what the that's what the rendering shows when the trees are located as they're actually designed um but we wanted to actually wanted you to actually be able to see the building so um and then the last thing we were asked to do an uphill a perspective from uphill um so from the neighbors who live at the top of the hill um looking down towards the building um that neighbor this is actually taken from the back porch of one of the neighbors who came to the neighbor meeting uh and they um agreed that this is pretty much representative of what they see when they look down the hill just a bunch of trees and you can sort of barely see the building through the trees um they have always requested that we we try to keep the tree canopy down um a little bit as they come through because what you're not seeing in this view is their view of the New York skyline um and so they actually don't want really tall trees um on the backside of the school's property because they want to maintain um their view as much as possible and I know they've asked the school to trim trees before for for basically that purpose um so this just jumps back to the site plan just for a second um I'll take you really quickly through the landscape plan I have included in the PowerPoint um images of the trees I don't think I need to waste your time with that um tonight but if you'd like me to I'm happy to um just to give you a sort of a sense of it but um the tree removal plan this shows um the number of trees that are going to have to be removed um a number of them and um Ellie who's who's doing the landscape architecture um knows the numbers better than I do but a number of the trees are actually pin oaks or Norway Maples that are actually on your forbidden tree list um so we're actually removing a lot of um sort of past trees um from the site as as part of this no but Ellie does 18 of them 18 nor map and six red so it's 12 Norway Maples toal number yeah I'm trying to make sure it's right before I repeat it Norway 18 Norway Maples okay I think we want to stop the uh testimony from the fifth row um I only ask you have this exhibit that you're presenting now and I just haven't yeah um I want to swear you in watch you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending before the board yes state your name and address elun 466 Avenue Apartment 2 Brooklyn New York 11217 and just explain you're um you a employee of uh the architectural firm I'm an architect and Bo Mavish Architects working on the as designer on the project and there are 18 nor Maples that we are removing these are considered invasive aliens and we have six Red Oaks and two pin oaks and we have three um ashes that we're removing for a total of 29 trees um I'll move on to the um the proposed landscape if I can make it go forward um so this gives you a um an overview of of how the um how the new trees are distributed around the site and the intent really is to create an LA uh along the new road um the we're providing um uh red Maples and sugar maples at the entry points uh honey locust around the outside uh Prince and Elms start to come up to they're the largest um specimens in in the project here and then um Sweet Gum as we get a little farther up and then back to Honey Locust for the last couple trees and then we get into um sort of trees with much smaller habits so silver Birches across the back um and then pagota dogwoods um at the top here um which are all um on the Monclair approved tree list um and local to um or indigenous to to New Jersey so that was a um we've worked um to make sure that those were all the total number of trees that are shown new trees 35 actually 40 because we've got some sassa in the courtyard um and a couple of extra dogwoods here on the on the outside of the building okay um there are a couple of other things I would just want to bring your attention to there are some generalized planting zones around the building most of it's actually in the courtyard um a little bit of its facing this outside area which is a little flatter and and potentially a student Gathering space um but for the most part the school prefers that we keep the landscape as simple as possible mostly lawn um keeps it um I think in keeping with the neighborhood character um as well as easy for the school to maintain and useful for the students that brings me to the end of my descriptions okay a couple followup questions Rob there was a comment in the engineers report um asking that we confirm that the new school or the expanded um stem building um they uh comply with Ada accessibility requirements can you confirm that it does yes I can confirm that and um there was a comment in Miss Tally's report uh regarding the screening around the mechanical equipment I think there was a question about the boundaries of the you providing a 10 foot tall mechanical screen um the sh the preferred version actually um is a 7ft tall screen that's the version that that you don't see around the front of the building um and then the taller version is the 10- foot screen right soar do you have um copy of our plans there I do I believe you showed it in your exhibit oh it's definitely in the exhibit I was like to do is it's really not it's very hard to read it in your plans so I'm glad that you showed it here but if you can submit revised plans that clearly show the location of it that so that we have that on file that great yeah I just wanted to yeah it's drawn but it's not labeled so it is hard to find you right we absolutely do I don't like to guess I will absolutely give you PLS that that label that okay you finished and I think you covered all the additional items I had so um no further questions Mr mcculler uh thank you Mr Douglas um would you would you put um I think it's slide number four uh back on the screen yes uh no yes that's um so uh first first of all would you do you know when the the academic center and the Arts building was built academic center is 2016 yeah okay and so in terms of what you're you have proposed I think you you mentioned that in terms of materials that there is a consistency between what you're proposing and with the academic and arts buildings yeah that's correct say a little more about that in terms of where that consistency is and where the deviations might be sure so the consistency is um actually the rendering is probably the clearest Place uh most of this area that's that's gray sort of this modeled gray um is the same um fiber Spence sighting as is on this building um so that is the the place where it's primarily consistent and then the water table that you see around here uh is consistent with the 1962 building um and so we've brought the intent is to try to bring those two buildings together a little bit um and then um the materiality of the windows um is also consistent but we're proposing a black um a black mullon rather than the um clear anodized Mion that's um on the academic center so that's a um a similarity in terms of shape and and and materiality but not a similarity in terms of color that I think it's probably the biggest differentiator um in terms of the overall design I think the other differentiator that's worth being aware of is is um the 1962 building has this very interesting um overhang um the academic center uh made sort of a strange um effort to imitate that but made it much thicker um and a little bit deeper um and we've actually we did um a number of daylight studies um and Energy Efficiency studies and determined that um including uh that overhang was really not doing anything in terms of the building's efficiency and actually hindering the daylight quality inside the classrooms on the up top level um so in this version we've actually preferred to keep it straight up um without that overhang um it actually just the interior of the building just performs better um in in terms of the the the black framing of the windows um do I understand correctly that the historic preservation commission felt that that was a good um differentiator terms of the new building so that's consistent with the report okay all right um let's go back to the to the slide that I was referencing before thank you um so um what would you what would you say is sort of the overall architectural theme of the of the buildings on the campus the historic bu and I'll call them historic for the sake of efficiency but the 1962 buildings they're actually built between 62 and 68 um are very much a late mid-century modern um academic building um that sort of s-shaped um uh uh Arrangement on the site uh is I think intended to be sympathetic to the topography and the views to New York and those kinds of things um and it is um Suburban is probably the right word that sort of stone look and the the way it sort of sits into the site um the later additions to the building are much more um conventionally educational in a 2000s I don't know that I would give them a theme MH um um uh it would be kind of hard for me to to to Define them as a as an art object okay and give it a theme but it would be your judgment uh because obviously this is a substantial addition to the campus uh and uh that this would uh still Blend or complement the overall neighborhood uh with the schools located or would would it feel different once this is actually constructed would this I don't believe that the neighborhood would notice this addition hugely um it fits with everything else on campus um and the intent really was to try to blend those two things together in a way that made um as much as possible the sense that the um the school hasn't changed hugely um and you know the building is cited um intentionally to try to limit um the number of places that you you get a sense of its mass um and the uh the materiality of it is selected intentionally to be part of things that people are already seeing um the building itself the all of the buildings on campus that exist as they are are not particularly in keeping with the neighborhood's character um that's something that's been the case since the 1960s when they were built um so okay yeah I mean it's it's um you know I simply raise it because it it is uh you know Keen interest of of this board to uh you know whenever possible and wherever possible uh to try to make sure that uh additional buildings that uh are being constructed um are consistent with the with the overall Community I mean I mean I think that if you were to put to build this addition as a Victorian reference because there are other Victorian buildings in the neighborhood it would stick out like a sore thumb and it would be the thing you saw and it would be very strange m um by keeping it consistent with what's with the language that's on campus what we've really tried to do is um maintain the continuity of the community um which includes the school as a contributing member of the community um as much as possible okay so some of the uh specific questions about the building itself um so the in terms of the the the the roof uh you have two sections one where you have the mechanic iCal equipment and the other one is a flat roof um what is the what would be the access to either of those areas um probably a roof hatch um into the I mean not probably a roof hatch into the onto the lower area um and then a ladder you need a ladder access to um provided to get up onto the higher level um so there would be um at least in theory no way for students to be able to access the those areas no I hope not you hope not or they would the only reason that would be possible is if Jimmy left the hatch [Laughter] unlocked um have existing is now yeah that students don't get through students don't access those roofs and you can see down onto those roofs and you'd know if students were up there because you'd see debris and stuff yeah I mean I can certainly see that in terms of the area where the mechanical equipment is that you know there has the appearance of some kind of railing or something at least on one part of that so this mechanical unit um this would be absolutely there is no way students should ever be able to have access to that okay um the the screening is there specifically to provide aesthetic screening um and I imagine it you know to a lesser extent it provides Safety and Security for um uh for facility staff who would be up there maintaining the business building um but it's not a public space in any way um the lower area here um that that you're seeing railings here this is a um an accessible space to the students um under the supervision of Faculty right so that's where that's where I want to go next is that lower area so so uh I understand that uh part of that at least in terms of the existing uh building uh is somewhat of a green area already for yeah there's a series of terraces and some green areas and actually if you were to look at the Google Earth you'd see um there's also a an interesting Blue Glass um aggregate up there okay and then there's a is there currently a railing there as on your demonstration here or that would is that a new addition to the um there are currently railings there yeah okay The Limited limited number of railings there and and how how high are the railings approximately um uh they should be 42 in I'm sorry they should 42 in I haven't put a tape measure on them but they were built under current code so I would be surprised if weren't 42 in tring but sufficient to be preventative to students because obviously there's another large area of roof um yeah it's clear that students have not gone beyond that um there's no access beyond that okay because I mean you know safety student safety would be Paramount to us 100% uh and likewise in terms of the new building uh I noticed uh that there's also sort of a railing is a little hard to see in this but yes uh so so there's a slight elevation change between this roof and this roof roof okay um so we provided a ramp up here and a railing there um the parit wall is actually what's providing the fall protection for those students um out here so you're not in the rendering for instance you don't see a railing expressed because the parabit wall is actually providing that all right thank you um all right then um in terms of the the um what I think is the east side of the of the new structure that's the orange would that be East this is this side yeah that's the West actually that's facing I try towards the West uphill uh so um excuse me I know that you have you obviously have a lot of a lot of Windows a lot of glass do you also have glass on that west side which would be facing uh the neighbors to the back is that correct yeah the West Side Glass facing the neighbors to the back it's mostly glass which is the cons the current condition as well okay so what kind of lighting are you int intending I I thought s a reference to LED lighting is that what you're LED lighting throughout yeah and so how how would that lighting um have would that lighting have a tendency to have any kind of an impact um on the neighbors behind the school I don't think a significant one first of all the school would be the school is typically closed in the evenings um the lights would be on um from from the lead perspective the lights have to be on occupancy sensors um so when the rooms are empty the lights will be off um typically we specify time clock on top of that which would shut the lights off um even sort of beyond that um and then the other aspect of it is that um what we're not seeing is the the edge of the property is way up here MH um so these lights um there's not a lot of light spread um up to that the edge of that property it's definitely not any different than the condition is right now okay and and I know that you mentioned um you know the the you had a rendering of the trees from the from the neighbors uh perspective uh and uh would assume that that foliage does drop at the in the fall in the fall that foliage drops okay so that area would be more transparent much more transparent okay than what you presented yeah that is true I think it's important for us to know that um um I should note that the neighbors who saw that have um voiced their approval of this plan though so that's that's fine thank you um then um so uh now there's another rendering uh that takes us into the into the new structure itself uh yes the either one of those is fine so you you described uh the spaces as Labs workspaces just give us that summary again please yeah so this is a a lab that's a lab that's a prep space in the middle here um this is the um science research honors lab so it's a smaller lab that is um for a smaller number of students it's actually just a workspace not a lab and lecture space right um then these Yellow Boxes are math classrooms um and the uh Pink boxes are the faculty work rooms um and then the circulation quarter down here and the other circulation down this direction okay so all three all three levels are basically the same I mean it's it's not a lot of deviation but obviously speciic to the to the academic work that's being done in in those settings yeah that's right the question I the question I have is uh and and this uh goes back to the conversation that I was having with Miss Davidson uh in terms of the changed demographics of the school restroom facilities I didn't see any reference to restroom facilities in in your presentation so there are no restrooms in the current edition or the in the current silence swing um we have added um restrooms in this spot um on two of the floors um just small basically convenience restrooms um our contention is that the the restrooms exist in the rest of the of the facility um are adequate they were reviewed um most recently in the 2016 um academic center plan so um we meet the as a campus we meet the the plumbing count requirements um so new restrooms within this building aren't necessary um so I mean you have a I mean based on on again the presentation of of this the the spaces I mean you have a lot of students uh that are going to be working in these levels we have the same number of students working in these levels as are working in the existing I understand that currently in in the current but obviously in the current in the current configuration of the building they're in closer proximity to the resting facilities in this particular case they're going to be further away away from a little bit the students that are down here have access to this staircase and the restroom facilities that are in the academic center um so they have they have access in two directions to restrooms so uh that I'm G to ask a question you may not be able to answer that maybe Mr Davon can answer the question in terms of um of uh walking time from the classroom to the restroom facilities about how long would it take to get from point A to point B approximately L yeah I would say that so there are restrooms in the gym and there are restrooms in the this is not being picked up in okay I'm okay so yes I less than 60 seconds I think is about right I I would have maybe said 75 seconds to be conservative since I'm testifying on the record but um but yeah I mean the restroom is is here right so if you're in this classroom if you're going to this restroom you're walking down this Hall it's about 50 ft down this half flight of stairs and you're in the restro okay um you know and I just you know would say that you know um I mean obviously you know there's a question about convenience but there's also a question about safety you know and so as students leave you know what is a supervised classroom space uh going to uh you utilize other facilities um you know the question is you know um is do they have safe passage both ways uh and so that helps uh to understand what the uh uh distance is uh cuz I didn't see anything on the renderings that that that addressed that so that's helpful thank you um and then um are there emergency exits from this new building uh yeah there's an emergency exit uh these plans are probably fine um the primary exit is is well I'll call it the primary exit is here um the second exit is in out of the back of the building in this staircase um there's a third exit Point um right here that's at the far side we haven't counted that as part of the means of agress um under our code analysis right and you did say that this building is ADA Compliant yeah actually one of the things we we haven't really discussed um this level might explain it a little bit better is that one of the things this does for the first time there's actually um accessibility from this is the main entry point of the school um there is currently no accessible route from this location to the gym um but through this building you'll actually be able to um take the um the ramp down through the academic center um into this Corridor and the elevator up to the main Flor floor and out to the gym um so the gym will be accessible um to the public um for the first time since 1962 okay so the elevator is is already existing or that's a the elevator is part of the project it's part of the addition okay all right there's no there's no elevator and one of the weird things about the way this building works is that each of these Wings is about a half story off from the other one um so when you come into this you have to come up two short flights of stairs then up another short flight of stairs across here down again across the lobby up again and across the lobby um so there's a lot of St and they're all short staircases but of course for somebody in a wheelchair that's just as bad as a long one um so the number of them is kind of appalling um so this allows like a fully rolling um route all the way through the building okay all right thank you very much Miss Harris um to miss T's Point earlier the plans were a little bit hard to understand so if you do submit any plans in the the future if you can clearly label everything roads rooms existing versus proposed um so we could spend a little bit less time trying to orient ourselves to the plan um I know that you said the um existing academic building the floor to floor heights were were too low um for um mechanical equipment can you talk about how that system works now with the addition are you making improvements to the existing mechanical system in the existing building uh yeah the existing building gets um new mechanical systems a lot of the mechanical um circulation is actually vertical in this case so we're bringing um uh we're bringing duct work in vertically and and limiting the amount that it needs to be distributed around the ceilings of the especially of the lower level where it's very low um and then we've eliminated um for the most part spaces that require um really meaningful ventilation like Labs um from those except um the exception to that being um this chemistry lab here um which actually um is able to ventilate right um at this link point between the two buildings um and the Biol Labs on the on the Upper Floor which are actually able to they're they have access to the roof so they have a less constricted um less constricted ventilation condition okay and so the the units that you have above the existing building they're serving both the both the and the purpose okay and those are just packaged rooftop units gas fired yeah so um electric all electric um there's no gas um in this addition except one gas line that runs to a bunson burner but um so these are essentially mini split units um the the condensing units for Mini Splits um and then this is a um uh dedicated outdoor air system uh package unit so okay and then the screening that you have that you're proposing what material is that and is it shown on on the renderings that you so yeah it is shown on the renderings um we have suggested it um up to this point as uh basically metal Louver system I'm very similar to what we did at the lower school um I would actually prefer that it be the fiber cement panels um that there the rest of it so that you just read the volume of the building um rather than read the mechanical systems separately but and then how tall is the um is the screening in this version it's about 6'6 okay what was the difference you had shown two two views of the mechanical equipment from lyd Road what was the difference between okay so in this version um the mechanical screen basically picks up the edge of the roof um and so it provides a little bit of screening along the edge here um but hits the the roof line of the addition um so that we're minimizing um any any visual impact of of mechanical enclosure in this version what we're saying is we could bring the enclosure around this fully screens the unit um but provides a much more significant visual um visual impact so that additional height that you see in this view that's just screening that's just screening yeah got it um okay and we do we will still have labs in the existing building but they're not yeah the only labs in the existing building though are um these Biol Labs here and this chem lab um here and what's on the the top floor the top floor is the biolabs got it okay okay no further questions thank you Mr Crawfield [Applause] um um I visited the campus I my kids had taken swim classes there many years ago I went up into the campus I think like my my takeaway of the campus is like I guess the architecture and the way that it fits in kind of hides or fit makes the campus fit into the surroundings in that situation and you know I hear that you're going to try to capture some of that um material with this new extension is that is that the attempt here that's the attempt yeah um I mean this is just I this is I mean I'm just going to State it doesn't necessarily mean anything the I I think we're in this like weird stage in life where black windows and black frames I can't wait till that day dies someday down the road or something changes from that but um I don't know I'm not a big fan of that but I but I'm I want to move past that um on the W on the trees I see you have a couple of Maples and stuff like that are those at all like resistant to Lantern flies and Lantern like those cuz you know I'm not sure the the maples would be technically we do not have Lantern fly specific tree resistance as part of our requirement we could certainly look at that okay all right thank you Mr Church no no questions Mr Vieira no thank you Mr chairman um I would like to discuss a little bit about the sustainability elements of the or the proposed plan in terms of storm water management I noticed that there was a a comment in the um application that bios swells and R rain Gardens are not uh part of the project um however there are other elements of storm waterer management can you talk a little bit about that you would get a better answer out of Mr Perry the civil engineer y um uh the other question same thing about solar panels what I I noticed there was plan to install in solar panels is that also part of this project um that's not part of this project the school's um plans to install solar panels are independent of this project but we do have plans yeah in this roof in the new roof um in these roofs primarily I think I mean uh it's not I'm not associated with that project at all so I can't speak on every other roof and also at our middle and primary school so we have a it's been permitted by the town you have to come to a microphone so on pretty much every other roof except the gym doed roof so the art swing roof the existing kind of wing to the side and any available space on the academic center that isn't agre green roof or doesn't have the glass there's there's a solar panel installation going on there it's actually supposed to start next week so and then on top of that we are also installing solar panels on all of the possible roofs at our middle school and all of the roofs at our primary school as well as part of the same project thank you um the other question I had was I guess there was a comment about ventilation and Improvement in uh um I guess air quality M um does the the new Labs have any type of Fume hoods or they're not required or just uh no the labs have um see if I get this right there are two Fume hoods in the chemistry Labs um and one mobile fume Hood um that's available for other other labs as well okay and that will discharge to the roof the exhaust those discharge to the roof exhaust yeah y um the mobile one is recirculating just to be clear yep um and I'm not sure if this is you know guess the fired alarm uh is that part of the same project improvements yeah yeah um I mean the fire alarm was being brought up to code I'm not sure what beyond that you would be asking about specifically adding to the existing fire alarm panel yeah it's added to the existing fire alarm panel um okay okay you mentioned a little bit about means of ESS um I guess there was a IBC uh study done code of course yeah okay just a matter of course for the project yeah and so you're confident the I guess the areas in the basement will comply with the means of e requirements yes 100% yeah because I noticed there um I guess especially in the robotics side in the back uh you will have to go either down a level or up a stairs to get to the nearest exit it yeah that's accurate yeah okay so that will comply with the requirement yeah yeah yeah there's there's no requirement that um the the that you not have to go up and down a flight of stairs in order to get to a point of agress the upper floors obviously always have to do that so yeah understood all right thank you I want to go to the landscaping and um it's as has been pointed out your plans are difficult to deal with and but there appear to be okay you gave us account of the types of trees that are being removed but nothing on the plan shows which of those trees are where is that correct uh that's not correct actually the tree planting plan that's submitted um most recently um the landscape 1.0 um each tree is tagged with a um with a letter here a letter code um and those letter codes are consistent with um the uh the key that's provided on that plan for the trees that are being removed uh for the trees that are being removed no yes um actually possibly not in the version that was submitted um because that was work that was ongoing um when we did the submission before Thanksgiving okay because um there there appear to be trees that you're removing that don't need to be removed and then there are a couple towards the front I think there trees there that are you're not showing is being removed but let's deal with the back area I mean the the trees that you have with the X's I assume those are all being removed yeah so many of those trees that you're seeing that look like they might not need to be removed are in really poor condition um and either possibly going to come down on come down or will probably come down on the their own between now and the uh the start of construction okay it and you have a plan that we just has been submitted that shows what those which call out what those trees species are and their um uh the caliber of those trees yeah okay and then you know and I kind of have the reverse concern that the grading that I suspect will be necessary for the road I'll ask the engineer questions about that there's some trees relatively close to the road that I would be surprised if the grading that's going to be necessary is going to enable those to stay but I'll ask the engineer how you know the depth of the grading the width of the grading and then try and relate that to your Landscaping plan um but as the um Road curves around the building going towards the street um just from the photos of the property and the aerial it looks like there trees in that area not showing any trees being removed I'm looking for the best best plan to to discuss that on um you're talking about this area of the road yeah and back a little further but yes back a little further yeah um the trees to my recollection the trees that are in that area don't meet montclair's definition of tree um which has to do with the caliber size and the height of the tree so they're relatively small um if if we're not showing them eliminated that was that was typically the reason but well you're you're showing but I'll call in the development area several I'll call them small trees that I would be surprised to me is being removed and I guess I'm trying to get a sense of my sense is the vegetation that's there is going to be gone is that correct or not I you can't I can't tell what's staying and what's not staying because it's not shown at all on the plants I understand not being the tree removal but I still want to know bushes whatever you want to call them what's staying and what isn't staying I mean we could provide a landscape demo plan that would be clearer on that point okay and then I just two comments which you don't have to well one you know you list you've clumped together under shrubs both shrubs the inkberry as an example and perennials which are and normally people separate them and so they have a sense of what's going where my other comment I would not plant trumpet vine if I were you I made that mistake cuz my wife thought they look pretty growing along the Parkway and that should have been my hint of if they're growing there but they will attack the trees you're planting them next to they will spread all over they will proliferate wildly I have more trumpet fine plants that I'm cutting down every year from the one little one I planted um they look very nice but you will it will be an ongoing nuisance okay well I'm not requiring you to change it I'm just we'll review that section from practical experience okay any other questions from members of the board I do have one question um in the package that was distributed there are fence types oh yeah that was a question excuse me um these were um this was in response to a question that was in one of the memorandums um um the retaining wall um it should have a fence at the top of it based on the height of it um from a safety perspective um that we and the question was what type of fence is that intended to be um along the back side of the road we were expecting that to be um spit rail fence which is the idea of Disappearing into the landscape as much as humanly possible it's at the backside of the property um anywhere where there's retaining wall um there's no there's no retaining walls that are high enough to require fences in the front of the property um but there are a couple of places along the um the lower side of the road where the retaining wall grows um into a location where the engineer feels strongly that there should be fall protection um and in those cases um we're proposing um the same decard to metal fence that we've used um at the lower school and the middle school in previous projects and is there are there split rail fences on other parts of the property today um no but the location specifically sort of this isn't the best plan to be showing this on I'm sorry um basically right in this location here along the backside I assume this will be part of the engineer testimony yes it's one of the reasons it's that far down in the presentation okay okay I'll just say I I don't think it's in keeping with the design of your building um it's a little rustic for the rest of the property something maybe team should reconsider okay I think we're trying to balance we're trying to balance the fact it's a very wooded area back there so I think putting the ornament you know it's a it's a balance between and it's such a different area from the front of the building if you ever youve it is a really steep wooded Hill back there and um I think we were trying to pick something that wouldn't really sort of Stand Out particularly when there are no leaves on the trees and it's something that neighbors see so we were trying to kind of blend in with the wooded portion of the property so we did have a discussion about whether we use the ornamental fence and fact that that really would kind of stand out and look as you look down look quite different because it's quite far away from the actual buildings where the wall is so I think it was a compromise between finding something that would look would blend in with if you actually go to the back of our campus it's a heavily wooded area and finding something would kind of work in that setting as opposed to um kind of where and also I think the intent is to sort of like hopefully plant some kind of shrubs along there too and try to like think about ways that we can sort of provide other barriers as well and sort of like certainly that's where the creepers are going down the back of the walls as well to try and soften some of that so I think it was an ongoing conversation with us in terms of having something that tied into the rest of the campus and matched everything else or did we try and blend into the wooded area and have something that really didn't stick out as much for Neighbors looking back um so it's sort of one or the other well is there that all shown on the Landscaping plan the Shrubbery the fence the wall no a lot of that came well the Shrubbery is on the Landscaping plan where where this fence is located the fence is not um partly because that came up as a part of as a in response to the um the review comments we just got those yesterday so we haven't had time to review revise drawings for that I've revised as much as I could um in sort of to talk about intent but um the drawing revisions aren't complete so just you said that you're going to plant Shrubbery along the fence where this where this is lo is that shown on your Landscaping plan have yeah so the Landscaping plan um shows this line of Shrubbery along the wall here I thought that was dogwood trees well there's Dogwood the the the highlighted ones are dogwood trees and then the black um planting below I think it's actually clearer on the um the the print drawing um because you can actually see the tags um when it's not it's hard to see because you don't see the road where's the road and where's the I don't know there's something going on with this image honestly cuz it's not how it looks yeah the projector is dropping a lot of lines out of this image um because the like all the road and all of that site workk is is on the print drawing and it's actually on the screen as well Jes yeah so the road along here and then the series of of of shrubs and their their call outs and those TI down to the okay okay I just have one question I forgot the uh 1962 approval required Landscaping along the rear property line and your plans CU your all your improvements but um you know I'd like you to look at what's there now and determine whether that needs to be supplemented at all um it's it's different than what was envisioned the approval which I don't mind we're many many years later um um but if uh looking at that in terms of the intent of what that condition was and um seeing whether any supplemental Landscaping needs to be done along the back of the existing parking area and the homes that are you know right there behind it yeah absolutely we'll look at that any other questions to the board to go through the formality are there any members of the public who have questions for this witness I've always waited for for so what one of the client's other witnesses to come up and ask questions but I have a question is there a member of the public no but I have a I have a question about the just I want to make sure I understand the roof the screening for the rooftop equipment so what you're proposing is you're just going the screening is going to be to have the lower level it's going to be what did you say 7 ft 7t yeah 7 ft but your the mechanic the actual what is it a cooling tower uh the dedicated outoor air unit is the larger one yeah the dedicated outdoor air unit yeah what did you just say dedicated outdoor air unit it's basically um the the unit that brings um the outside air into the building um and includes a um they'll be wheel is isn't that Co did you reference it's not technically a cooling tower the other ones are basically cooling units for split the smaller ones the one that's 10t tall yes the larger one so is that's the the top part of that is not going to be screened in the in my preferred version no um because I think it's actually less visible unscreened than it is screened well what is it going to look like the unit itself yeah because it's you're going it's also going to be visible from the back yeah I mean I think it's unscreened in the back the unit itself um the best description for it is probably it looks um looks like a SE box like a like a it's a metal container painted on all the sides could it be painted to match the the rest of the screening we typically specify them to be painted to match the screening or um we paint that we specify them like gray so they disappear as much as possible into the sky okay um so okay I'll I'll paint it whatever color you want it so what you're going to you're going to go with the second alternative where it's or the first alternative where it's lower rather than the second Al alternative that you showed yes which is fine and I would just suggest that we require the taller elements that exceed that height of the screening material be painted to match yes that would be great it's a resolution okay thank you okay and do members of the board want to push through or take a short break U Mr tulac you want to call your next witness yes Brian Parry would you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending before the board I do state your name and address yes uh Brian Perry P r y work address 103 College Road East Princeton New Jersey okay Perry would you um provide the board with your educational background your professional uh qualifications your current business affiliation yes I am a licensed professional engineer in the state of New Jersey license number GE 45920 as well as I'm licensed in the state of Pennsylvania uh I am a certified Municipal engineer and lead accredited professional in building design and construction my educational background I have a bachelor's degree in civil engineering a master's degree in water resources and environmental engineering uh from Villanova University I have practiced uh in the field of civil engineering for 22 years 18 years of those licensed um and I've appeared before uh several planning and zoning boards uh throughout the state of New Jersey uh not this one particularly but several uh throughout the state of New Jersey sure license in effect and a good standing yes it is okay and you're um affiliated with the penon engineering correct that is correct and we are the uh we prepared the excuse me ala survey existing conditions plan and uh site plan for this application okay um so chairman offer Mr Perry as a expert in the field of professional engineering you're you're license is current yes okay yes we'll accept them okay Brian um you know you're uh familiar with the plans uh prepared um for this project and prepared to review them with the board this evening uh yes I'm actually standing in for the engineer of record however I am the project principal for my firm and I was involved in the uh design uh coordination and preparation of these plans okay all right you want to would you um review the plans with the basic site plan so I'll walk through um unfortunately my uh plans and Exhibits are not as exciting as the ones you just saw they're mostly from the site plan set that was submitted with the application I've got a few sprinkled some color and a few of them so I will try to uh walk through these uh succinctly um thank you the exhibit that's up uh before us this is um for references CS 0101 area and vicinity map from the uh site plan the project uh the site area it's kind of um cross area it is um I'm going to say located the the property the school is located I'm sure you're aware is the south central part of town uh just to the West is Verona Township uh bounded by uh Parker placed to the north Lloyd Avenue to the East and Residential Properties to the South and to the West um we as you heard before block 302 lot 16 um the zoning District as we heard is Falls within the RO Mountainside residential zoning District uh where the existing private school and building addition are permitted uh as conditional or permitted conditional uses um go to the next slide this is a copy of the alter survey sheet one of two submitted with the application uh which's highlighted in red is a subject property this is showing the alter survey for all the properties uh nearby that the the school owns but the subject property again being block 302 lot 16 um totaling approximately it's I think it's yeah 6.66 Acres uh as part of this application the lot itself remain unchanged there are no lot line changes subdivisions property boundary changes um everything is occurring within this uh lot this property um the site topography um it's been discussed previously I'll just kind of go over briefly the site uh currently slopes in a southeasterly Direction from the rear of the site uh toward towards Lloyd uh Lloyd Road high elevation approximately elevation 540 with a low elevation at Lloyd Road of approximately 455 elevations um from an environmental standpoint on the site uh there are no known streams Wetlands flood Hazard areas or riparian zones uh next slide next slide is our demolition plan CS uh 0201 from the site plan set for reference I think we were just looking at this a little bit before uh real briefly the demolition plan is really U uh highlighting or indicating those elements uh only those elements that are being demolished for the purpose of the proposed project that is the building Edition and the road around uh the building so things like um uh I'm going to say sidewalk hardscaping other features incidental again to the proposed improvements uh next slide uh this is sheet cs101 I'll actually jump to the next slide I have an illustrative kind of version of this this is um I'll speak to the site from this plan really um this is just a color rendered version of the site plan at a larger scale so you can see the uh property in the context of its surroundings um as far as the project proposal we discussed the 2 and a half story building Edition shown in red on this plan here approximately 8,850 foot gross floor uh building area um project itself prop well and the other Improvement that we've been discussing is the new access Drive uh around uh I'm going to say the south of the building running around the back of the building uh the total project disturbance is approximately 1 and a half acres um I'm going to speak to some set setbacks Building height and coverage so setbacks um existing non-conformities aside with the existing building the uh building addition in and of itself by itself conforms to all building set packs uh Building height uh 35 ft and 2 and half stories are permitted um 34 and2 ft and 2 and half stories are proposed uh coverage on the site uh impervious coverage 70% maximum impervious coverage is permitted uh in the proposed condition we're going to have 53 uh per. uh principal and accessory building area coverage the maximum permitted is 25 % with the proposed added building footprint we are at 24.99% uh as far as access parking and circulation as we discussed there's three uh I'm going to say primary access drives existing one two and three two of them are Ingress one of them is egress the egress one is the one in the Middle with this application we are proposing um the a new access Drive although it's off of an existing uh curb cut that's currently used for pedestrian access um the drive itself is approximately 600 ft long and uh it's going to be primarily used for bus circulation in a clockwise Direction so it's a one-way circulation around the site it improves traffic circulation in that the existing configuration of the roadway access to the site results in say some dead end circulation towards the back there is a circulation that obviously allows vehicles to pass through but it's all congested up in the front of the building this new access Drive will open up and allow for circulation as you heard before clockwise around the building not to the rear um I'm going to say the drive itself is actually 16t wide we reduce that down from the original submission it was 18t wide so this access Drive was 18t wide um with a adjacent sidewalk it's now the current submission I think it's the November submission I'm referencing uh does show it at 16t w wide I think there was a comment on um addressing the width or not labeling the width we actually had a label unfortunately we had a label uh we had one label and I think there might have been an override so it is a 16 foot wide drive and one of the reasons we reduce that is really uh in consideration of a few things is impact to impervious surface coverage um additional sight disturbance and Earth work uh in general um we did check um maneuverability circulation which I'll address in a later slide showing that we can ially get a buses but also emergency vehicles around this drive I know that was another comment um one of the the other modifications from our prior submission is we did eliminate there was once a we had proposed a branch off of this drive at the peak heading to the lower lot from the rear of the building just from a logistics standpoint construction standpoint it was it was made for a difficult kind of access construction we're already dealing with retaining walls which I'll describe in a few minutes um but that was eliminated so we have just the one main 600t long stretch that connects to the upper lot um the other thing to note about the access drive is it was additionally designed with we do have a 4ot wide bump out along what I will call the drop off area it's approximately 100 ft long or so um just important to note um I don't think we addressed it or it was discussed before but as far as uh buses so the distance up to the drop off would allow for approximately six I'm conservatively speaking six to eight buses to queue on site um you know if if there ever was a peak time for buses to come through allows for again six to eight buses to queue on site off of Lloyd Road up to the drop off um the other thing to note as far from a site standpoint the design of this um access Drive uh it's designed with full face curbing so vertical curbing 6-in curb on the building side of the drive uh we we do have an alternate we have mountable curb not an alternate but on the opposite side mountable curb the reason for that and I think there was a comment I believe in the engineers memo Engineers review uh kind of question that relative to drainage drainage is all pitched away from the building the reason for the mountable curb uh is to allow for um passage of vehicles in an emergency scenario in other words if we have either a bus uh vehicle queued uh either pulled off it just allows for better maneuverability at 16t wide that should be plenty width to pass two vehicles but the mountable curve just allows for I'm going to say from a safety standpoint so that's that's what we're proposing uh additionally there's a little shoulder um it's a grass shoulder but adjacent to the manable curb about 6 feet from the curb to the wall that portion is then pitched back towards the road so everything's contained um the only last thing to note sorry I keep saying the last thing the last thing to note with regard to the access Drive is a realigned crosswalk and Lloyd Road currently the crosswalk uh dumps pedestrians right in the middle of the drive drive but that's because it's a pedestrian access today um we are realigning that crosswalk to align with a new curb ramp we'll be putting in on the south side or plan left side of this new uh uh the vehicular part of the access drive so again there's a realigned crosswalk here while you're talking about that I think there was a comment in um Miss Tally's memo about um the plan not depicting what um the sidewalk or whatever there is to the um south of the the residence well yeah I think Janice I think your concern related to the existing sidewalk where there so we have a crosswalk connecting so there is a crosswalk connecting here and there's a set of stairs and and there is a linkage to get you from this crosswalk uh to a curb ramp that then crosses a drive and then you know leads the to the sidewalk adjacent to the talking about the other side yeah is it it's going to to hook up to the existing ramp on the other side of the street you're not changing where it oh yes correct on this side that was my confusion yes this does not change that point does not change it's really just being realigned on sorry on the west side of voyd road that's correct um I'll I'll get into it on the grading part of things but while we're on the subject on the site plan I'll discuss briefly off street parking um you know while we're not proposing an increased demand for parking we're not increasing staff students so there's not an increased demand we do propose to reduce the existing parking by about three spaces not about there three spaces so at the end of this parking lot in the existing condition there are three spaces where the new access Drive comes in so we're actually reducing parking however we still have adequate parking based on the parking calculations that we discussed previously um that specifically being the per the parking requirement that is for the school is 121 spaces that's based on staff and as the as was previously mentioned the number of students that are able to drive I think the number we had from the school is 155 so 121 is a required spaces um with the loss of the three spaces I mentioned we'd still have 174 spaces now that's a account of for between on street or I'm going to say on site so on the subject lot 76 spaces uh 44 spaces available in Lloyd Road and another 54 spaces available in what's known as the Walden um Place parking lot adjacent to the athletic field so there's 174 um spaces available um I think there's there was also a comment noting that the requirement for visitor parking was not shown on the zoning chart um uh and that's based on our understanding that visitor parking is not require is not specifically required for a high school um so we're showing the the parking on the zoning chart that's uh required uh we already talked about no new staff um or school so again no new parking proposed um while we are reducing the parking by three spaces we're not otherwise impacting or opposing any uh any of the existing Ada parking so there is Ada parking distributed throughout the site on site um uh there's a space or two on Lloyd Road and also on wal Walden parking lot we are not touching any of the existing ada8 parking and therefore are not proposing any newer additional uh parking with this project uh there's also a comment relative to EV parking um it is noted the school has existing a couple of EV parking spots here again we're not proposing any new parking so don't believe um that any new EV spaces are are required or or accordingly they're not proposed on this application um next uh slide so the next slide is the uh grading plan uh from the site plan cs1501 1501 the grading plan so site grading and topography um as shown in the plan uh we have a maximum side slope of 2:1 a 2on one horizontal vertical uh and retaining walls um as you've heard plenty about to minimize the disturbance into the existing slope so specifically disturbance into the existing slope so there's a slope off the back on the back side of the property sloping towards the building this new road way the new access roadway the 600 foot long roadway um traverses a site I think there was a question before gentleman had a question on the slope and how we're uh managing and um I going say tacking that the existing slope so the slope is admittedly is steeper uh coming down so uh we have a maximum slope of 12% on the roadway um we have some flatter areas along the drop off the 12% where that's coming from is um uh we're kind of pulling that actually from the residential site Improvement standards uh the reason for that is 12% is the maximum grade permitted for residential neighborhoods which also consider uh access by school buses and things like that so that's where we came with the maximum that said that maximum still exceeds the slope that we have coming down the slope in the back and so that's where we introduced produce a retaining wall and so what we're doing is we're actually cutting I'll use the term cutting cutting into the slope uh as we start going around the corner of the building so we do have a little bit of I'm going say some cut um into the slope it starts a little bit lesser I can say on the south end of the building at its peak or at its maximum is around maybe the midpoint of the existing building and then it matches back up to existing grade so that is the reason for the retaining wall at its maximum height um at around station 500 or so uh the retaining wall will be about 16 ft 16 1/2 ft um and with a I guess with a with a safety fence along the top 4ft safety fence we're talking total height of maybe 20 20t 20.5 ft um it again that's not the entire wall that's at its maximum it it goes down to as low as four or five ft at the beginning and then graduates up and goes back down there are other walls uh throughout the site on the opposite side of the drive they're not as large I think they are compliant um one one of the comments was to provide additional uh grading information on the plan top of wall bottom of wall elevations we do have them on the plan but admittedly we we we should have more at at some of the point of tangencies point of curvatures and at the maximum high points and low points uh as well as the other walls are not labeled so we we will we've agreed to add those labels can I ask you a question yes um of course with all that Walling and and so forth that's going to reduce that so that you're not buses get up they easy then yes it's not a it's not a steep CL no so so right now the current slope coming down the hill like if you took just straight off the plan it's right you know 2 and a half% so say or two and two to one I should say so that's about 50% we're red the slope's going to be 12% 12% which is a manageable it's still steep but in this part of the Jersey do that fire truck could do that correct that's correct okay and let me have will I have you yes as your your roadway comes around the back of the building yes it splits then it comes down on Parkers side Parker Place side is that am I correct in reading these plans so so the new road uh comes around the south side of the building up the west side of the building connects to the existing parking lot circulation overall circulation for the site does continue around towards Park Parker's place and then back down to where it that's where the the bus is after they do whatever they're going to do that's the way they come out now they will yes they will continue through the existing parking lot down and out the egress the exting curve cut down there yes yep and and I'll show actually on a on a few more exhibits I'll show the those turning movements y okay thank you and can you just point to where the the tallest uh part of the retaining wall is yes sure um I can point here if you want to go to the grading plan uh so the highest part of the wall is approximately this location approximately station I'm sorry station 500 okay yeah and that and that really what that's a function of is you know we're going up at a 12% which is steep but it's flatter than what's there so it's we're we're trying to chase a grade but can't quite keep up because of a flatter slope for road for the uh for the roadway did you consider terracing the retaining wall we did actually consider terracing the retaining wall and we discuss that the the concern of the issues with as you can imagine with we have the other issue of when you Terrace it uh we really need to ter it we need to keep at least 4ot spacing I believe to avoid um I say you know the uh uh additional variance in terms of the Wall height we already have a variance for the Wall height we have but it won't help us there but by doing that by pushing into the slope we're actually creating more disturbance more grading and pro possibly more tree removal is the concern and more earth work so the maximum height permitted for retaining wall is 7 ft mhm sure I don't have an idea of how much of the the extent of the variance so do you have a a a graphic showing where along the extent of that retaining wall it exceeds at 7 feet height I don't have one here I can generally point to it and we'd be happy to provide one in a revised plan we can absolutely show that I would say generally it's going to be roughly I can't read what that station is but roughly this point I'm going to say up to about uh close to where it meets uh the existing parking lot where this is the part where we're really cutting into the slope here at think where it starts is about four five or 6 feet and then it transitions as we cut more into the slope to about the seven or eight foot Wall height and then at its peak as I mentioned around station 500 is where we're at the 16 ft and then we we match back to existing so the the wall reduces in height at some point where we meet the existing parking lot so so it's going to be a 16 1/2t retaining wall plus a 4ot fence on top of it so 20 ft yes where 7 ft's required because we have to add the two yes no I understood and yeah and again the thought was like I said with terracing is um in a normal with a normal slope behind the wall that would be probably we'd probably start there first I think by doing that by stepping into the slope we're actually creating more of a of an issue because we're coming down at about a two to one slope by stepping back we're actually cutting even further and the Wall height actually won't it'll go down because we're splitting it in half but I don't know how much it'll be uh reduced as well as we're creating more earth work uh more soil removal things like that and and tree removal and and sight disturbance and what's planted between the retaining I what's planted between the retaining wall and and the road and the road uh so I'm not sure if the landscape plane calls it up but it would be something would be a grass either grass surface or a river rock type thing for maintenance okay so yeah either a landscape stone or landscape you know grasses excuse me um I think uh so we discussed the wall yeah I guess there was a question about the where the road excuse me AB buts the existing um head of schools residence and right now there's a I'm going to say a pedestrian connection with this road being cut in as you can imagine we are creating a a grade differential between the the driveway of the home and the road so there is a retaining wall there and again by making we the other reason to make it a little bit narrower too is we created a little bit of a buffer where we have like I said a five or six foot wall at this location uh we can go to the utility plan so utility plan is sheet CS 1701 from the plan set I'll be brief on this um Utility Services I think there was a question on Utility Services all utility services for the new building are going to be fed from the existing building with the exception of sanitary and storm storm there's roof leaders coming off the building and tying into a new collection system which I'll describe in a minute um as well as the sanitary laterals which are new there's a new sanitary lateral coming out to an existing uh I believe it's generally in this location so the sanitary lateral that comes off the building and to an existing sanitary lateral system here enger had a question as to whether there would be any new water gas or electric laterals right and and so that to that point that's all going to be fed through the the gas electric any other those servic will be fed through the existing building so there'll be no new laterals for those services uh next actually no you can leave it I'm sorry you can leave on this slide I'm going to touch when we're on this side I'll talk about storm water management uh so this project because we do disturb one and a half acres um and we are greater than a quarter acre increase in impervious this is a major development project uh requiring us to meet not just the municipal code but the municipal code references the state rules uh New Jersey Administrative Code 78 um our storm water management system is designed consistent with those requirements specifically speically uh for the building addition and the associated site improvements we have a permeable uh P system with subsurface Stone and pipe storage uh and for the road the new road system we have um uh what I'm going to call Green infrastructure um manufactured treatment devices that lead then to sub two subsurface Stone storage areas so the design here um one of the nice things about the current storm water rules that were adopted uh say in 2021 and then we had an enhancement where we have to look at projected rainfall amounts one of the nice things about the newer rules is they dovetail with lead and um sustainability in that they require you to meet storm water management requires with requirements with green infrastructure both of these systems proposed meet the green infrastructure requirements with the storm water management rules um so they're both smallscale green infrastructure best management practices or bmps and they meet the standards as required uh we do Rec recognize that the engineer um while they did a review um uh that we're still waiting on a formal review from them of the storm Mar management system um and upon receipt of that we've were in full in agreement to work with the engineers's office if to to address any technical comments they might have so they did do a conduct a um review of the full site plan um but my understanding is they have additional revieww um on the uh storm water management system um next slide next slide is the uh lighting plan uh CS 20002 we have 13 pole mounted lights proposed as well as 18 balled lights um all of them generally complimentary to the Building architecture um for the proposed new surfaces so the roadway surface adjacent sidewalk and any of the hardcap surf Hardscape surfaces around um the lighting is maintained at the acceptable uh minimum levels of 0.5t candles um the there was a comment about uh some minimum uh lighting levels adjacent to the building I think at some of the building entrances of0 2 and3 um what this doesn't do um unfortunately the light Point light Point plot that shown on this plan does not um consider the effect of existing building mounted lighting which I believe there is on this side so I actually think with those Incorporated I actually think we would meet that those requirements um however um I mean we would like to maintain the lighting levels as we have them uh we don't want to be too intense we want to you know maintain uh I'm going say sustainability but also um I'm going say not provide any light pollution or any additional light glare to adjacent properties um if needed uh I guess we could try to figure out what the existing lighting is on the building but there is existing lighting at the building entrances and again I believe that would suffice uh at those minimum levels that we're showing of the 0 2 and3 foot candles so we're seing a waiver is that I would I I would say reing waiver based on the point plot that we have yes only because I don't have th those lighting um those building mounted lights aren't factored into the model that's correct okay uh and then uh the next slide we we talked about the new Access Road uh and maneuverability circulation uh this we we presented with our application two sheets two turning movements one for a school bus one for a emergency vehicle a ladder type uh fire Tru what you're seeing here is we've kind of colorized the wheel path so you could see this is a school bus coming into the Ingress side going clockwise around the building the red lines reflect the wheelbase the wheel path of the truck the gray hatched area of the new road that's that's the pavement the wheel path stays within the curb line and you know a bus can make a complete circulation and come back out the site have a question about that yes isn't that an Ingress driveway that you have the bus exiting um it's tway it's yeah it's two-way two-way existing Oh I thought you when you testified earlier about the circulation that I I may have mistake I know I said there are three existing did I say two Ingress and one egress I may have said that I think it's really this is a two-way Ingress this is an egress an Ingress sorry Ingress and this is an egress so this is ingress only egress only and this is two-way existing okay actually the one by the library is ingress in was the this is actually important we want to make sure that it works by the academic center can you point to it with the that one yeah that is Ingress right the one in the middle is the egress and then the one at the end is two-way this is two-way yeah so ingrace yeah circulation comes up there's a drop off and then back back out out okay you and the next um slide is again a turning movement in the same direction um this the next one the next one is the this is for the fire truck so this is a standard movement for a truck fire truck I say standard that is going clockwise around the oneway um uh circulation uh pattern and again the red is is uh the wheel path um and we're showing that we can stay with inside the curve line as I mentioned before we do have mountable curb in the event a vehicle would need to roll over that in an emergency scenario but in the standard or typical condition uh we're showing the firet truck can make that movement um we did prepare an alternate exhibit that was not part of the original submission package I think there was a comment asking I think the engineer had a comment about whether or not the firet truck could make a reverse movement in other words I guess in an emergency scenario if something happened to be blocked off or whatnot uh a truck can come in and make a counterclockwise movement and come out so that's what this is showing and I have a question related to this for both the the the bus and and the fire TR exiting the site you show them turning right can they turn left they can and yes would turn yeah so and we we can provide that movement I just yeah that was why why doesn't it show a leftand turn yeah we we can certainly show that and and same thing if if anything was coming from the other direction we can that's why this radius Ingress as well can come in but you're asking about yes turning out we can we can absolutely provide that in a revised uh submittal package it's a pretty wide drive that one as well well I think what this shows is it pulling into the on the the wrong lane if it's you see what I mean if if exiting the site it's it's a really wide turn and it's kind of incoming you're talking about so so this is the reverse movement and they exiting you're talking about exiting here no if they're exiting on the other go back to okay the fire this is the standard movement so TR coming from the right lane and then again turning right but yes we could show the movement that you're asking for turning what's what what's the next slide next one is the reverse yeah the engineer had asked asked us to evaluate understand never mind um I'm going to briefly touch on any Outside Agency approvals we know we need to get s County planning board approval and so Conservation District approval um and those applications will be submitted in approvals provided um as a condition of approval um as far as a review professional staff review We are under receipt of the latest review correspondence um our office I know has spoken with the uh staff Professionals in the past um we did provide a prior point point response to each of the review letters and memos we will do the same with the current ones we received with the revised subal package um uh generally we do acknowledge and agree to comply with um the uh remaining uh conditions uh to be satisfied I think there were comments both Technical and requesting some information to be shown in the plans and we an agreement with that so is there anything in the Boswell latest Boswell report that we have not already complied with or we will not comply with uh no future no okay thank you um are you finished yes I just have one follow-up question relating to the driveways cuz um can you just um talk about the new driveway and the variance that's triggered um yes just give the details on that sure yes and it was touched upon so this um has to do with the distance between driveways um so today where we have the three existing driveways there's an existing non-conformity where the separation between driveways is supposed to be 150 ft there's an existing non-conformity between at least the the first first two driveways closest to Parker's place the proposed new driveway and the existing driveway immediately to the north um creates a non-conformity where depending on how you measure this I in the past in other municipalities where there's a requirement such as this as well as I think Reus you measure from inter you know Center to center of the drives if you measure that it's 145 ft if you do however measure more conservatively edge of driveway to edge of driveway we have 128 ft so either way um we are requesting a um a variance from that uh requirement that separation uh we did look at the possibility of trying to move this drive if we could move it over um to avoid having to request that variance there's a couple of complications with that one is we have the existing curb cut which we're trying to make use of also believe even that short little distance has a uh a much larger impact on the slope that we're dealing with um just moving a few feet over the slope of the road continues to go up as well or the slope of the topography continues to go go up it makes it it actually makes it a shorter distance uh to make up a greater um uh change in grade okay um no further questions Mr mccullock do you have any questions yeah thank you Mr Perry uh I just have a couple of questions for you um so one of them is um going back to the to the number number of trees that are going to be removed as part of this project um do you anticipate that this would affect um the erosion of the property overall the tree removal no and and nor is the grading I mean uh what I didn't show here is a Sol erosion sent control plan one of the approvals I mentioned that were required to get is from the so Conservation District which they're going to review the plan for that very thing is to make sure that we have adequate erosion so erosion sent control measures not not only for uh during construction but in the post construction product uh project uh we may have to do things like slope stabilization blankets for things I'm going to say up slope of the rotating wall um but that's how that those will be addressed and as of sort of the current uh moment in time um there is no evidence of any uh water damage uh in the existing buildings um no water that flows down that I mean slope and I would defer yes there is not there is not so they're dry yeah we looked extensively for that because it's hard for me to believe yeah it is hard for me to believe too thank you um and then you you mentioned um that in terms of the um the uh uh principal and accessory buildings on the property uh is uh the limit is 25% and currently uh 24.99% is is accounted for um so um I'm clear that there's no potential of of putting any additional buildings on this on this lot um I guess the question is while this Administration is the current Administration is is committed to to uh maintaining the student population uh to around that 450 number and that doesn't necessarily mean that a future Administration would necessarily share the same view so the question I I have is the existing buildings um in your judgment would any of them be capable of being built up uh to to have additional levels uh placed on them I would suggest that's certainly possibly I mean I would defer to our you know the architect on that but um uh maybe from a technical capacity um no they're not structured that way um they'd have to be rebuilt in order to be taller and then we would immediately fall foul of the zoning code um which limits us to 35 ft I think adding a story to any of these buildings would be more or less impossible okay including the new including the new buildings the new building yes including the new building yeah all right right um then is a you mentioned I'm a little unclear in terms of the number of parking spaces so um talked about 159 space are on the property and then I think you mentioned 170 something number of spaces I guess that includes um yeah so so the parking it's kind of a shared parking scenar that I believe is excuse me a subject of a prior agreement both with the town and um as is typical you know with the school having multiple properties is the number was um 174 spaces okay uh are available and that's between both the parking provided on the site um uh en Lloyd Road that's available to them I think there's an agreement there's 44 spaces are available and then the Walden place lot that's near the athletic field down further south is 54 spaces so I I I think we we heard you know testimony that um when the seniors um uh I guess especially in the second half of their Academic Year have more access to to uh vehicles um that there's a potential for 115 students uh that could have vehicles so does that does that mean that more vehicles I mean that is what is your what is your assessment in terms of sort of the normal utilization of the spaces um in the first half of the the school year as opposed to the second half of I mean is there a significant swell in the number of of spaces that are required as a result of that um as far as what the current operations are I guess I would have to defer to the yeah the school for what that is I mean I know I know what's what's the requirement is based on that number of students that are driving it's one per four spaces required but I know you're asking a little bit of a different question yes uh we have never had an issue with a senior or a faculty member not being able to park on our campus at any point in time during the year so there there is sufficient uh space Avail when you say on the campus you're talking about the parking lots to the street correct okay correct and if I could note Mr McCall if you don't mind I mean that our plan show that the required number of parking spaces based upon the ordinance is 121 M we have 74 which is almost 50% more than the ordinance requires yeah and it which is which I think is great it's just that you know when when reference is given to the number of of uh spaces that students require it raises the question about well what does that mean in reference to other uh utilization requirements U for parking um the other see uh just in terms of the um the retaining walls um and specifically the 16 ft retaining wall uh section um what's what's your sense of of the longevity of a wall of that height well a wall of that height if uh and again a lot of it's the best construction practices but the longevity of the typical life cycle of a wall is of that not so much the height but again it's the constructibility and type of walls I'm going to say 50-year life cycle 50 years um but again you know there's walls you know there's life cycles with everything and depending on good maintenance practices things like they can last much longer than that that's just a typical you know from having done Reserve studies and things like that that's a life cycle that you would typically uh select um so yeah things tend to last longer than that if they're maintained uh properly okay yeah I I I really sort of wondered because again you know with the with the um the with the slope that's behind it you know and um and potential erosion you know would actually that's a good point one of the things I didn't mention on the grading plan is you're right the slope behind it one of the things we're doing with the wall and I failed to point it out on the grading plan is we are creating um a Swale behind the wall so a diversion so water is not just running off the top the wall um and creating erosion we have a drainage system behind the wall as well as red dishing the topography just behind the wall is as little you know creating as little disturbance as we can but creating again a little bit of a diversion well and we're picking it up with some catch basins so that we're not again just dumping water onto the uh adjacent Properties or onto the road itself right okay thank you could you um provide in your resubmission a section of the wall of the wall yes you can do that thank you um I'm not sure who could answer this question but um understanding that buses will be queuing up on the new road can you talk about the circulation of the students from the building to the queued up uh buses will they be picked up in the parking lot uh with this Sor um with the buses queuing in the back our students would exit through the gymnasium okay um there's a door at the far south side of the gym that they could use to access can you point to it with please there is a door here that they could use to get up here there's also ESS here an exit back here by this hallway um which could exit as well they could drive or is there a drop off there there is okay right in here and that's that's long enough for how many buses we sized it uh we couldn't make it too long cuz we're then further cutting to the slope but it's accommodates two buses at a time two buses that's two buses 40 foot long assuming a 10ft gap between the buses okay and is there any accommodation in the parking lot for pickup at all the parking lot back here yeah yes there could be okay thank yeah there there are several exits uh to the back of the building which would be accessible to our students okay thank you um now in terms of the existing Road you said that's a two-way the the road farthest to the north you said that's a two-way Road um how does it work with people turning left onto Lloyd Road are is there any ever any conflict there in terms of people waiting to turn it's actually close enough to the light that it's very very it's actually very close to the light so when you come down the hill it's actually very apparent when people are waiting there so I must say that they're normally pretty good about letting people in and it really doesn't it tends to move pretty swiftly particularly because Carline tends to run the other direction on on Lloyd so when you're coming out um that part actually moves pretty smoothly I mean it really is dependent on the light and in some ways it's good because it means the queue goes back up our Hill rather than back up on Lloyd and when that light goes that traffic moves pretty swiftly and people have I think because the people coming down that road are really familiar with the traffic pattern they tend to leave that clearance um so people can come out for the light because it's really the biggest the biggest kind of not issue but the biggest thing that slows things down there is really the light onto Bloomfield which is a no turn on red so you know that light people are going to stay at that light until it turns so you know busy times of the day like in the morning that light has an extended green left Arrow onto Lloyd so that really helps clear the traffic and in the afternoon it has an extended green and it has a crosswalk there too for pedestrians so it tends to have a pretty good time to clear the traffic on Lloyd so you know when that light turns that traffic moves so it's not as if you know the kind of the the sort of bottleneck for that road isn't the turn it's the light and it sort of it works it functions well I'd say it's not a road that like kind of when that Jun when that when that light turns it actually clears the traffic it doesn't everyone gets to turn when the light turns it's not it doesn't sort of cars aren't left not being able to make that turn so if you've got buses kind of queued up at that exit waiting to turn left and then you've got cars waiting to turn right onto Bloomfield you don't see a car no they tend that driveway is left clear because we actually have Personnel on our car line so so we actually have two security people who work our car line so you're not allowed to block that driveway in the car line it stays open and they actually keep people moving them down so I've never even in the existing conditions we have now because that's how faculty come into class into school now so people coming to work come up that drive so it's pretty regularly used because that's how everyone's accessing that parking lot right now so right now and that's how faculty are leaving as well so it is a driveway that actually functions reason well the two-way portion of it and whenever whenever faculty kind of entering and exiting the parking lot is at the same time it's similar time because there it's not like a yeah I would say the busiest time to enter is between 740 and uh 7:30 and 7:45 the the the exit is actually better because the student pickup is anytime between 2:55 and 3:15 and faculty don't generally leave until after 3:30 so that is completely cleared of all of our families who are picking up their kids at the end of the day and those buses leaving at that time are either leaving usually before the car line they might leave at 2:30 or 235 for an event to get to a game or they might leave at 3:15 or 320 sort of after the busyness of it in the morning it's after yeah oh in the in the morning they would be leaving after 8:00 when it's cleared but right now they're sitting in the car right correct so they'd be sitting up back waiting okay thank you I help Mr Coffield um maybe uh I'll get to you in a sec uh quick question um did did people of the residents Park on LY Road between I know there's an EAS me here they can't park between 7:30 and 5:30 but do residents use the Lloyd Road to park yes usually usually um residents will be parked there until 7:30 in the morning usually the first five or six uh northernmost spots on Lloyd Road and then sprinkled in and out on Lloyd Road but not a major number but it's it's mostly five or six of them of those spots right closest to bloi Avenue until 7:30 in the morning um cuz we had there across the street there's a cond um a place that is issues with parking I'm not sure if they know about LD Road that's where that's where the majority of the that's where those people are coming from is are those apartments okay thank you um a couple of questions um how much cut do you think you're going to take out of that Hill how much cut you taking out okay elevation wise cut is probably it varies of course but I mean it's Peak is probably approaching the 15 16 feet at the peak uh it graduates from where we start the road at Lloyd Road to zero to again going up the slope yeah I can say around 16 feet uh one of the things we will provide and will be part of a site Logistics plan and Hall plan is the earthwork volume we didn't provide it previously because we didn't know if we're going to have any revisions to the plan or whatnot but we'll provide an earthwork volume as part of the uh Revis in Middle as well how would a snow plow get up that hill snow plow yeah let's say let's let's throw let's throw like I don't know 12 Ines on that what a snow plow be able to get up there I would say yes based on the condition of the you know the existing um Drive is a steep incline up the side of the up the side of the slope the also the grade that we selected that we used or that we chose was something that's uh um uh comes out of the residential site Improvement standards and again while this isn't a residence those slopes are meant for uh not just passenger vehicles but the other ancillary vehicles that would be accessing those roads so things like snow plows maintenance Vehicles school buses garbage trucks um so that slope is should be a traversable slope for a snowplow to handle did the driveway in the front was that explored as a way of using I mean let's let's be honest I mean we're only this is only for buses that are used for the um the sports that are happening after after school it's about where they're supposed to queue up and Etc and you know we're making a large I don't know I feel like we're doing a big huge swap for this buses that you know that don't come all the time technically it's only after school did we explore the the driveway in the front in some way of maybe widening it or making it easy for for buses to queue there instead of doing this major thing so I think there's a couple of things I think I know we did look at that um in a previous iteration there are some other complications with the front um sorry let me use the pointer you're referring to this drive along here correct yeah so we did explore that there's a couple things yes width um there are some other awkward turns believe it or not this turn looks similar to that one but this is a tighter turn here for a we explore what have about exploring that and opening that up what about like what about making that much wider in some way right and the other thing I was going to mention there there's steeper slopes that you can't see in this plan but there's some steeper slopes which yes we do have back here um but there's other I think there's some lands in there as well but there's other uh complications there as well the other thing we were trying to do with this drive is not just the buses but also the emergency part of it the the safety uh for the school providing that circulation around like right now this is all I'm going to say exposed to you know some sort of emergency uh I'm going say issue there's no access on this side of the building which there's not today but this also is providing that emergency uh support let's let's talk about that emergency support um we do have a dve we do have a parking area in the back there that does get us access to the back of the property technically this yeah it doesn't get us into the back where thead where the where the proposed road is but that is all you know that is all Wilderness in that area right there right if if fire broke out in the gymnasium I would imagine that the fire would be fought off of Lloyd Road not necessarily this new driveway that's coming in well Lloyd Road to an extent right I mean there's this is 600 ft of exposed plus it's a stone building I I mean the amount of Fire I don't know how bad that would look like in the end um I mean this is my perspective I mean the traffic is bad two hours in the more 2 hours in the AM 2 hours in the p.m. that's four hours per day times that by 5 days a week if you take the school year maybe it's 110 days minus the 365 days a year I mean it's like this is a giant you know I don't know a giant grabed just to get a driveway up there I think there's other ways of maybe looking exploring the other aspects of the driveway in the front and that's you know you don't have to answer that but that's my thoughts thank you Mr Church no Mr Vie yeah thank you Mr chairman uh few questions around the underground Stone storage facilities yes so you have three of them the specifically the ones in the proposed roadway are those meant to infiltrate water or just to reduce the velocity as you know it's going okay so so the systems have to be designed um you know the requirements are that we infiltrate uh we have all all of those all the above we have to provide water quality we have to uh provide Peak rate reduction so reduce the amount of the rate at which runoff is coming off the site reduce not just from the proposed but from what the existing condition is as well as we have to uh recharge a certain amount of water so we have to recharge what's recharging today so the purpose of those Stone beds is to do um all those things the water quality comes in with those manufactured treatment devices that I mentioned that are green uh considered green infrastructure so we polish clean the water and then put it into the stone storage beds and as far as maintenance to those facilities yeah so there's a maintenance plan uh that was submitted with the application that uh what'll end up happening is that'll get um put on file uh and the I believe it ends up getting recorded at the county and school have an obligation to maintain these facilities going forward okay um also a question around um for asphalt or pavers that are proposed is that also meant to extend to the new sidewalk that goes along the radway uh it is not um it's it's really meant for the the area that we have it um just poting it's the the permeable pavers are in this location which happens to be one of the flatter areas we aren't extending it on the rest of the walks because we have a lot of experience with porse both porous asphalt and porse concrete and the like porse asphalt is much easier to work with but there is a limitation on it in that it's not recommended in Steepy steeply sloping areas otherwise normally actually I might have even suggested using it on this drive it's just it's really not recommended in slopes that are greater than four or 5% um and I guess there was a question around snow removal so the was the recommend your recommendation to plow from the top of the hill as a suppos to going out for well I mean that is certainly a consideration I would say what's you know what's uh be something what's easy for the uh I going to say the operator the uh snow removal service is how I would I guess caption that um that would certainly be one way I mean it seems to me that snowplows access the site on the east side today um if they were doing that they could come the opposite way um it would certainly be easier to Traverse down the hill uh than the not okay right thank you so following up on that where would this snow end up so there's a couple things we do have a shoulder um it's a 6ot shoulder between the wall and the road uh as well as there's some space between um adjacent to the uh um to the building okay and following up on Mr caulfield's question about um the cut you'd be doing I know you said you didn't you haven't done the C calculation but I'm assuming all that excess material will be removed from the site I would say yes it would need to be exported based on the size of the site there's really not a place to put it so there would be an export and there would be then a uh a hul plan do you have a sense of you know one truck load 100 truck loads just rough order of magnitude I know you haven't done it but on the other hand you you know how much you're cutting into the hill I I don't actually at this time I mean I I mean and this doesn't help I mean I know a you know typical dump truck does you know would carry 10 to 15 you know yards of material um I mean I think it's it's going to be several admittedly it'll be several okay and then I want to go to the small parking area that's right behind the building um here describe how access to that is occurring and I there's a followup to that but to start with how how one is getting to that parking lot so vehicular access to that parking lot is I'm going to say happens the way it happens today where somebody comes in the drive and uh there's actually it's hard to see in this drawing there's almost kind of what I'll describe as a fork in the road where somebody will peel off left and park or I think I believe the dumpster enclosures are back here as well I think this truck accesses yes yep and and actually and actually that's so one of the things this drive does afford is that a garbage truck can actually come up now come up here uh it gives it provides a little bit better access for garbage truck that could actually there's no way you can make that turn if you come around that way no no no it wouldn't make the turn it would perhaps back in if it needed to back in depending on how the the truck accesses the dumpsters if you follow what I'm saying other words if it picks it up from the front it do it from the front the they would have to go down past the fork and then back in correct okay now they up back up the drive and then they back up all the way the drive yeah they back all the way from here all the way up so this is would be a shorter distance of backing up longer distance to travel long to travel okay so then my understanding from the plans you're it currently people drive up and park in the big parking area behind the school will that will they still be able to do that yes yes yes okay and there my understanding is there's school buses coming in and doing drop offs in the morning is that correct yes the and they're going to come in the new drive and thenes so those the little the little buses come into the mini loop in the front right now because they can make that Loop um so they actually come in come into the door don't they they come in like from the main drive all the way at the end all the way at the end like that one didn't they come down I thought they come in the main one and they do the loop in the front of the artswing yeah they come up and they do a drop in the the midd it's just that that's not possible for a big school bus to go around um and right now so we have I mean for us it's more about the buses that that load so the buses that come in and drive off and kids get off and go it's it sort of tends to function a lot more successfully so there's a couple of buses that come in they drop off and they drive on and they go to a different campus the issues we have like when we have and we do actually have like a fair number of trips and things that leave in the mornings they come and they just they just they'll just park on Lloyd and be there until 8:30 they're not going anywhere until the kids come on and get on the buses but we don't have anywhere else to Stage them um so that's kind of the issue in the morning is when those buses stuck up um you know the ones that kind of come and pull off yeah they're in inconvenience but the ones that like well we have to Stage things for longer periods of time it that that that is really tough on those mornings and you certainly you certainly know when those things are going and in the afternoon with Athletics there's just more of that type of situation so you can definitely when the Athletics classes are there you definitely know I that's fairly regularly in the afternoon and they do really kind of create an issue in terms of there just isn't that much road to access for the the pickup situation the for cars making the left onto Lloyd Road going towards Blom Field Avenue how much room is there between the Stop Bar for the traffic light and the driveway coming out of the property you're referring to the existing driveway coming out well yes and it's it's going to be the continued driveway coming out yes yeah but I mean I guess I was just clarifying you're not okay um I mean the distance to the Stop Bar I don't have the exact dimension on here it's approximately I'm just I'm scaling based on other known dimensions on here um it's probably about 60 feet or 75 feet or so I would say it's about the length of a car just having done it multiple times um and I my question is the school buses that are now coming out there which is going to be a new phenomenon how aren't they going to have to go beyond the Stop Bar when they make the turnout which is going back to the question of showing cars is making bus is making that left turn so you're going to do do that drawing and show rather than speculating but making the point I want to um I um to go back to what I said much earlier um the I am not willing to vote for a waiver of a traffic study um I think partially going back to what Mr corfield was saying um um not sure there is a problem I'm going to say it that way that we're trying to address and the and I'm not sure this isn't making what's not a great problem now because I certainly my observation is yeah cars back up onto the driveway when they're trying to exit and um but that's we're now adding buses to what's coming out and um there's no but I I think having an evaluation um is important for us to evaluate um as Mr corfield said there's an awful lot of work being done for not an awful lot of traffic being accommodated um and and you know and I think maybe you should have a discussion with the fire department as to what they would actually do in a fire that may be helpful to you and may say they'd never go back there anyway um I you know I don't know what they'd say um okay but let let me go back to um some questions um one in observation you have one accessible space in the Walden place parking area I'm not sure how a handicapped person gets from there to the school in a very real sense I um would certainly not to seem to be a easy access you know in terms of normal ADA requirements it's not for access to the schools for access to the field well even there it's not I'm I think you have to reprise when my other question is I would think given the number of parking spaces you're not having the number of handicap spaces that you would normally have in a parking of this many and I don't I'm very reluctant to Grant an approval that's not consistent I know technically you're other than eliminating the three spaces um you're um not changing the parking but I suggest you look at that as to um you know boards have been sued is my concern for not requiring Ada and all kinds of entities have been sued for not having sufficient adaa parking um my other you know you have a comment that the two existing electric vehicle charging stations meets current needs that is not going to be true whether it's not true one year from now two years from now or whatever um you know your parking is all not located convenient to Electric um but I'd suggest you're looking at that and not saying you need to provide the stations electrical Vehicles charging stations now but some thought and if there's fight improvements to bring the electric um should consider adding those um I the reality is going to be you're going to need more than the two and how many years from now I don't know but it's going to be sooner rather than later um the storm water um you know I want to wait for um the engineers review as to whether you know there are questions I could ask but they may be satisfied and I'll not don't want to spend time and then there there were um a number of comments in the boso current letter requesting further information I am not content to say have you say yes we'll meet all of those because there are a number of those that might require changes to the plans and which I would like to see um so um and we're um so just at this point I'm not willing to vote in favor I don't know how you want to proceed tonight I don't know if board members have further questions of this witness um I any questions but you know I think we hear what you're saying Mr chairman and um I you know I think we like to the opportunity to come back with the revised plans and we'll traffic study and address think concerns you don't get overly worried the addition is nice I that those are not you know I don't not hearing from other board members any significant issues with the addition it's um you know and to repeat what I said to the architect I cannot relate the Landscaping plans and the grading plans in terms of what trees are being removed it appears to me more going to have to be removed than are being shown there and then the landcaping plans don't really address the extent of the clearing grading that is going to occur along the road they show the single line of trees with the shrubs and perennials right along but the clearing is going much beyond that I want to know how you're proposing to landscape that area also Al too um if any of the renderings are going to be revised we can have the the retaining wall and the fence shown on the renderings clearly so we understand yeah the and the dimensions because that relates to where the Landscaping is going because taking literally the Landscaping plans and where the walls going they're in the same place and they clearly are not going to be in the same place and I don't know if they're going in front of the wall behind the wall um CH can we have a i it's late but just a short break and I think we're going to propose something that um might simplify this quite a bit um we'd like to amend the application to Simply seek approval for the building addition and um we will not seek approval for the Loop Road or the new driveway or any of the other issues that have you know caused concern um we may come back at a later date after doing further study uh based upon the board's comments but um we would simply ask for the uh site plan approval related to the building addition and of course the various improvements around the courtyard and in the area of that but um but uh remove any um you know approvals relating to the to the new driveway or the uh loop road let me let me meet you halfway there and that obviously the other board members should speak up I think I would be comfortable giving you preliminary approval I think I would like to see what the plans look like um um to it's just this is a big change it's a big change by eliminating but um you know I would like to there are some comments uh in the Boswell letter that relate to that but I um but are the other board members comfortable giving a preliminary approval tonight for the addition yes but I think we we'll need a revise site plan to to understand what that looks like without the road improvements um and also the other issues that we we raise to the architect we'd like to see addressed on Revis plans as well okay let let me let me do conditions and then we'll let someone make a motion but I well we let me do conditions and then we'll have the normal discussion but I what I'd like to do is to um now okay let me ask you are you comfortable if we modify the other approval to yeah I worry about the uh the doctrine of unintended consequences I don't know exactly what we're doing here I mean we're we're buing the building I mean we're taking the roadway out the variance for the retaining W height goes I'm not sure where that left with the exception for the lighting but we could defer that as part of the final site plan so you in theory could Grant preliminary site plan Ru for the building improvements I'm just not sure the nature and scope beyond the building of what we're approving I think that's what we're approving just the building just um I'm try okay there there are it is the building and their Associated changes to the walkways that are occurring as part of that because they're building the building over some of the walkways um so um may actually just bear with me a second I think I can actually maybe Define [Applause] this so we're approving the building and the site improvements that are shown between the gym and the main building I think will cover that's and that's going out to the street there but I think that covers um the changes you need for the building is that correct I see everyone nodding but if Allan or someone can say yes I'm going to Def sorry I just didn't want to do it without theic microphone um yes okay um okay so I think what the conditions I'd like to do is that the number of EX students not exceed 475 the number of faculty and staff not exceed 100 to somewhat redo the the report that is that you're required to submit each year on your student population a copy of that be provided to the planning office um that um not doing anything to that so that's not relevant um that the portion of the rooftop equipment that goes above the screen be painted the same color of the screen um here that the the storm water improvements which are obviously much more limited but still there adhere to the operations and maintenance manual that will will be prepared or is prepared well will have to be rep prepared if one was prepared um and I'm not thinking of anything else we need to do for that um you know for the well for the final it'll show the Landscaping it'll show um show any revisions to the storm water that are necessary uh we'll address address any of the relevant conditions that are contained in the Boswell memo that relate to the addition uh is distinguished from the road um anything else and if not uh start discussion with Mr mullik yeah the we are not we're not as part of this granting a waiver of the lighting requirements the which is not which is not to say you can't come back and say because of X Y and Z we need it um but we're not as part of this granting any relief from that yeah I I think uh Mr chairman I think uh I'll be very brief and just say that I mean I think in in principle um I I can agree to to the building um at the same time I'm a little a little bit uncomfortable because if we were if we had just been presented a plan for the building we might have had a different type of examination of the proposal and so now we're sort of caught in a sort of peculiar space because we've had this much more comprehensive presentation and now we're being asked to sort of set all the rest of that aside and no longer have that be a factor in our thinking and my concern is is only that in in the moment there might be something that we will have forgotten to address and I don't know how we get back to that if if in fact post this meeting it occurs to us that there was some element to this building that perhaps we should have looked at differently in light of it being separated out but in principle I'm in agreement because I think in principle I think the building is is a good addition to the campus I think it contributes uh to to the mission of the school itself I don't see it as being a detriment to the neighborhood um I mean there are issues obviously with traffic and all of that but but if the census of the school is not really increasing significantly then that sort of makes some of that moot so that's that's really sort of my commentary do you think your concerns could be addressed during the final site plan approval or probably I guess I mean and and this this approval is going to be subject to final site plan approval obviously yeah all right so I guess I would say yes to that then um and I would approve I would approve the prelimin preliminary site plan based on what we've seen today Mr field um the only in that's for zoning is the driveway and that's eliminated I feel like um everything else should be okay but you know like I feel like schools like when when traffic when the schools have to get out of the traffic is so it's a lot for every school I feel like in my my my kids school I see it a lot all the time um I just trying to find solutions to help that and and to look at it are always you know things you know I always have to be reviewed and and understanding on that but um you know I I I thank you for thinking about that and thinking about the long term and all that and all that stuff but you know I do thank you for thinking of the short term and the long term and what that applies to the school and stuff like that makes it is it enter that I we can talk after okay Mr Church yeah I would approve the preliminary site plan approval as we discussed um and wait to see what comes forth Mr viea um yes I'm also in favor to approve the preliminary site uh plan approval for the building um not for the roadway um but regarding the uh waiver request for the traffic study does that also I guess this thata well if the D variance is eliminated that that requirement under the ordinance is no longer required okay thanks okay I'm going to do that differently just because I I don't want to go into I think deep deeper issue is you know I I the the concern I had with the traffic study dealt with the new driveway and the impacts and how that was going to change circulation or potentially change circulation and I wanted that evaluate so I don't think that's necessary for the addition um for putting a condition on that's basically keeping student population and Staffing at existing levels with some ability for some minor fluctuations which I assume occurs regularly as to you don't have the same exact number of students every year um um you know I think you know the the addition um you know this is a positive addition it's reflecting where higher education is today and you know the facilities that were built uh mostly built 50 years ago um um you know clearly were not designed for today's tecnical world and um you know I um so I I you know I think this can be a valuable addition to the school and you know is not going to in any way adversely impact the neighborhood and um you know so and you know I think as we've all indicated you know we want want to see you know the the final site plan to make sure everything is as we expect it to be and still have the ability to further condition if necessary and uh with the conditions I mentioned before does someone want to make a motion for preliminary site plan approval I'll make the motion Mr chairman for fimary site plan approval is there a second second all in favor say I Mr M sorry okay if you want to call the [Applause] Ro yes Mr Harrison yes Mr M yes Mr Coffield yes Mr Church yes Miss Harris yes uh and Mr Vieira yes okay do you think you'll be ready to come back at our January meeting I'm just planning for our purposes and if we need it you grant an extension of time till that date absolutely yes and just now that we've carried two matters to then what do we have other things that are coming our way um well not for tonight um we have a couple of minor applications but nothing major on on the uh on the list coming up so um that's where we are have we heard from the Board of Education no we have not I knew that question was coming up okay um wish everyone happy holidays I wish you best with your soon to be new child and someone want to move to a Jour all in favor say I hi happy holidays holid that