e hello everyone this is a regular meeting of the zoning Board of adjustment for 20th March 20 2024 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 Montclair times Star Ledger and Herald news this is a public Hearing in which any members of the public are welcome to attend the meeting agenda is available on the Monclair website as is a link 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 I'll call the role William Harrison here John McCulla here here John Coffield here J church here Angela Harris here J Jerry Simon here Sebastian Vieira here Jamina Grant here Janice heli oh here Michael Sullivan here we have the minutes of the February 21st meeting I have changes on two pages but one many changes on page one M Grant should be marked as being present and then on page four um on line one after the block and lot um put use variances comma and then after line 17 put a new three that reads I'll do this slowly a use variance for lot 7.01 to reduce the L lot area in connection with the use variants previously granted for lot 7 and then on line 21 replace property with building and and then put the word entirely after 2B and then um on line 22 before the word converted um add the word partially and then on line 38 replace church with home or house would be better uh I have no other changes to those minutes does anyone else have any changes motion to accept uh minutes as corrected second okay all in favor say I I I abstain and extensions okay then we have the resolution for the Coleman application on Madison Avenue I don't have any changes to that resolution does anyone else have any changes motion to to accept the resolution there a second all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions abstain okay and then have the resolution for the hillside square application Michael we we bated voting so so we didn't bifurcate the resolution so only those board members that voted for the action taken are eligible to vote so if you voted to Grant the two family use on that lot for example I know Mr Viera did you're not eligible to vot on resolution and um I have two changes to that also on page four I think I only read page four of everything um the on the first first line after um at the end of the sentence for single family homes add located on Lots comparable to the proposed lot 7.02 and then the next to last line put the word uh before new single family home anyone else with any changes to that resolution if the first one okay so after at the very beginning of the first line after four single family homes but located on Lots comparable to the proposed lot 7.02 okay any other changes not someone want to move the resolution with those changes I'd move the resolution Mr chairman With The Changes is there a second second okay all in favor say I I I any opposed any extensions abstain okay okay the first application is that of bdp P 6-10 eie LLC this is for property located at 6-10 eie Street this is an application for site plant approval to reconfigure the parking lot and circulation on the property to convert approximately 6,75 ft of space in an existing building to to a dance studio um the applicant proposes to increase the number of on-site parking spaces from 73 to 88 um add new lighting and Landscaping uh the uh proposed dance studio is not a permitted use in the zoning district and the applicant is also requesting a use variance for the dance studio use Mr Trac you want to give your appearance and proceed sure uh good evening Mr chairman members of the board Alan tulac appearing on behalf of the applicant uh bdp 6-10 Eerie LLC um as the legal notice indicates this is an application for site plan approval for the property is commonly known as 6-10 Eerie Street property is a large one and A2 Acres site uh with Frontage on three streets label Street Eerie Street um and Oak Place there are two uh existing buildings located on the property including uh a vacant building at the corner of uh label Street and Erie Street uh which was formerly uh the home of Richie ciri's restaurant um and that building has been vacant and unoccupied since the restaurant closed at at least 10 years ago and I believe probably longer but that's the site we're talking about located uh uh more or less across the uh street from the Walnut Street uh train station it's property is located in the C2 General business and light industrial Zone District um the applicant uh this evening my client is uh a limited liability company whose principal owner is David placc who's sitting next to me uh at the table here um the LLC is in the process of acquiring this property and it currently has a Master Lease for the entire uh site um Mr placc has uh plans to perform uh various substantial and much needed improvements to this site and this application tonight essentially represents what I consider to be the first phase of the planned improvements to this property and the improvements that we'll be discussing tonight are basically exterior improvements I'm talking about reconfiguring the existing parking areas um which will actually increase the number of on-site parking spaces uh from 73 to 88 an increase of 15 spaces uh along with various other exterior site improvements including lighting Landscaping Etc um in addition to site plan approval uh for the reconfiguration of the lot and the exterior site improvements and the reason we're before this board tonight and not the planning board is because uh we're also seeking approval um to convert approximately 6,000 square feet of uh space in one of the buildings to a dance studio um to be occupied um by what I consider to be an iconic longstanding Montclair nonprofit uh organization Sharon Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts uh Performing Arts which has operated a dance studio and educational facility primarily for children and teenagers for approximately 28 years in town um um Sharon Miller would like to relocate her Studio to this location which she believes and we believe is ideally suitable for her use and much better than her current location on South Park Street uh in a second floor space in the heart of the Montclair Central business district um unfortunately dance studios are not listed among the permitted uses in the C2 Zone and for that reason we require a D1 use variance from this board and that's why this board has jurisdiction over the entire application there's only one other variance that we need uh tonight and that's a parking variance to permit 88 spaces whereas more spaces are required uh under the zone the ordinance but as I think you'll become pretty clear after you hear the testimony this evening um you know we will demonstrate that there is more than enough the 88 spaces on this property are more than enough to satisfy uh the parking uh demands for uh various uses on the property so in summary uh the relief we're seeking tonight is three things one the D1 variants for the dance studio parking variants and site plan approval there were also a few site plan waivers which are I believe mostly if not totally for existing non-conforming uh conditions so I have six witnesses to present which I hope to do in Fairly uh as short a period of time as possible um uh first witness will be Mr placc followed by Sharon Miller then I'll have a uh project architect Alan Horwitz who will explain um the uh building Renovations for the uh dance studio and then after that we have Vince Flanigan from the Langan engineering who will review the site plan and uh Dan desario uh another um engineer employed by Langan engineering who will discuss the parking and from and explain the parking analysis that his firm has prepared and then finally after that we have George Williams uh our professional planner who will testify in support of the D1 variance so uh having said all that unless the board has any questions for me I'd like to um call my first witness David placing I'm going to swear the board Professionals in first would you both raise your right Janice Farwell would you both raise your right hand so you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending for the board yes it state your name and position with the township Janice t director of plan husen Farva assistant planner Mr pic would you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending before the board I do just state your name and address please sure David placc uh 70 Place sweet 240 Monclair New Jersey 07042 thank you sorry um and Mr cic are you U one of the principles of bdp 6-10 ER LLC correct I am okay and what is the um Rel nature of the relationship between your LLC and the property at 6-10 Yuri Street yeah we're the master lesie and contract purchaser of the property we entered into a structured sale transaction to accommodate planning on behalf of the seller 34 label Street Associates LLC uh almost a year ago May of 2023 and the specifics of that contract give us overall rights and control of the property via Master Lease uh for a few years before we actually close on the property we have significant Capital that's been exposed and conveyed to the seller in addition to that we're paying for all operating expenses Capital Improvements Capital expenses uh and for all intents and purposes have full control and oversight of property okay um can you you know provide the board with an overview I know you've got plans for substantial Renovations you know and then not all before the board this evening but I think it might be helpful to give the bo the board a big picture of what your overall plans are for this property yeah of course um and maybe even to give the board a little bit more background on who we are bdp Holdings is a Montclair based real estate investment in development company uh I'm the sole owner of the company along with my wife we've been residents in Montclair for about 11 years have three kids I dragged one of them here this evening begrudgingly but he is a Sharon Miller uh student um and uh you know also a significant property owner within Montclair Township with the ownership of lacana Plaza and a number of other Parcels throughout the Township in addition to property across the country we've actually been a tenant of this building since 2019 and uh you know have called it home I'm a member of fit Loft which is the gym on the ground floor formerly known as defit you can find me there in the early mornings uh five days a week and uh you know generally have have been a fan of the property ever since I was first introduced to it in 2018 so as Alan mentioned you know we do have plans to bring that property back to what it deserves to be um I think the prior owner ran it one way we look to run it a little bit differently as somebody said to me recently I've lived here for 35 years and I walked past that property every day on my way to the train station I don't think I ever knew it actually existed um it's fairly nondescript uh I think a member of the historic preservation commission said it's invisible so we want to give it a little bit more prominence bring the occupancy up to 100% we've been fortunate enough to sign a number of leases uh including with Sharon Miller Academy of the Performing Arts since we took control of the property in May of 2023 uh we're nearly 100% under lease today that includes the vacant Richie ceri site and uh are excited to get the property you know back to the level that it deserves to be and I think you'll hear from Alan Horwitz our architect what some of those improvements are but essentially beautify the site if you've driven by it or you know of it um it's it it needs a little bit of TLC and maybe a little more than just TLC uh we plan to bring in in addition to new parking lots you know Paving and Landscaping uh new painting of the building itself uh putting in the proper Windows there's a hodg podge of various types of Windows throughout the property including that vintage 1980s glass block that I know a lot of you love um but unfortunately we're going to replace that with with more representative windows for the property um bring some art to the property as well Better Property signage uh and most importantly just reactivate the property uh including that vacant restaurant Street on the corner do you have um a prospective tenant for the restaurant we do yeah we're under lease with the restaurant uh and that would include uh liquor license as well we submitted a transfer application to the township last week to bring a liquor license to that location okay you have any how many buildings are there actually on the the property there's two buildings on the property the former Richie ceri restaurant space is to Eerie and then there's one building behind that it's a little confusing because that building has addresses that range from 4 to 10 Eerie Street and then also 7 Oak Place based on where the entrance is uh and what street that entrance is facing but there are only two buildings on the property okay do you have any plans at this time to enlarge or expand any of the buildings we do not okay by the way while we're talking about buildings on the site um there's a um shed and I guess is adjacent to or attached to the ceri building which apparently was never the subject of any approvals uh I'm I'm guessing that Mr ceri just took it upon himself to provide that but in any event the building that shed is there can you explain what that's used for if anything yeah right now it's used as storage for one of our okay all right is it actually physically connected to the restaurant building or it's no this the shed is a standalone structure okay all right um all right so the the plan that's before the board tonight proposes to increase the parking spaces to a total of 88 spaces correct correct one of the many things that are on the plans tonight so I just wanted to um cover a couple of things relating to those plans and in response to some comments in the um review memos from the the board's professionals so um Janice tally correctly points out that there are several parking spaces that I guess a northeast northwesterly corner of the property um adjacent to Tony's Brook that are actually located not on your property or this property uh but the adjacent property at 18 label street is that correct that is correct okay and has that area by the way always been utilized for parking for this site to your knowledge as long as you've been there yeah as far as I understand it um you know those parking spaces in that portion of the property has always been utilized by the uh owner of the Eerie Street property it's actually right okay because they're actually part of the property that's actually located on the other side of the brook interestingly but not part of your property all right have you had um uh discussions um with respect to the owner of 18 label Street um regarding an easement to allow you to formally utilize those parking spaces we have uh and we have a easement agreement that's being negotiated between the parties um that we expect to have you know executed and recorded right and I can say I've been handling that and we would obviously uh um consent to a condition of approval that' be conditioned Upon Us Prov providing the board and Mr Sullivan with a with a copy of a an acceptable uh easement agreement to permit those uh that small triangular piece in the corner of the property to be utilized for parking for this site um the site plan also um provides for um I believe 12 tandem parking spaces um can you explain your intention how will those spaces be utilized will they be assigned to particular tenants what what are your plans yeah the plan with those those spaces are in the the rear of the property or the you know kind of the the western side of the the building um we currently have four or six tandem spaces in use at the property those are assigned to various office tenants during you know regular Office business hours these 12 spaces would work under the same scenario and be uh you know for office tenants and assigned to you know um you know one office user to utilize the two spaces between their staff okay um there was also a comment regarding trash enclosure you have a you currently have a trash enclosure on the site corre we we do not we have a large green dumpster sitting in the middle of the parking lot so we look forward to enclosing that okay this okay so um your plans are to have a trash enclosure that fully complies with the township requirements in terms of fenced in concrete base Etc that is correct okay and how do you handle trash collection from the site uh there's a you know pickup I think on a weekly basis um truck pulls in Maneuvers the dumpster to the Loading forks and uh you know reverses out of the site okay all right and then um you mentioned earlier that you've ventured into a lease agreement with Sharon Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts correct we have and is that provide for approximately 6,000 square ft of space yeah it's it's 6,000 square fet of Total Space um I think approximately 800 of that is storage space on a mezzanine level and of the 5200 squ ft on the ground floor approximately 5,000 squ ft on the ground floor um I think roughly 3,000 of that and Mr Horowitz will likely correct me when he testifies um is to be utilized across three uh independent dance studios within the uh the premises okay all right and which building is that obviously it's not in the ceries building it's so it's in the it's in the 4 to1 Eerie Street 70 Place building it's generally it's closer to the label Street side of the property is that it is fair way to describe it okay um can you explain uh how it is you came about to lease the space to Sharon Miller and why you decided to lease it to her yeah uh I I fed a phone call from I believe it was one of her board members um letting us know that she was in need of space and for us number one it was a great fit just given you know who she is and what the Sharon Miller academy of performing arts represents uh two of my three kids have gone through her programming there we know a number of other families who over the nearly past 30 years have gone through her programming so she's an institution in Montclair it was meaningful for us to have her at one of our properties um in addition to that her classes are generally in the late afternoons to early evenings and given the fit Loft use at the property which is heavily utilized in the morning hours um Sharon Miller balanced off that that heavy morning traffic uh and parking requirement from the gym with her needs being later in the afternoon so they don't conflict with one another so it was really a great you know classic example of shared parking at its finest um and you know that was attractive for us as well okay um I think that's all the questions I have for Mr plac thank you Mr mccullock do you have any questions yes thankk you um um evening Mr place um you made reference to the um to this uh some of the folks uh expressing a um pleasure that this building this facility was going to be utilized uh more fully uh what's this what how was this uh property used originally do you know well I do have a little bit of experience understanding the background of this property okay um it uh it predominantly was used as storage and warehousing um there've been a number of various uses over the decades spanning maybe the last 75 plus years um you know there's lure that it was a manufacturing facility I don't know whether or not that is true um I think we do know that it was used as storage for some of the paper production facilities that at one time existed in this area um there's a hodge podge of retrofits and and um adaptions let's say to the original building structure uh over its time period but it's predominately I'd say you know as far as the history that I understand more recently from you know 2000s maybe the 90s into the the current day has been a number of small businesses um that are owned and operated by people that live in Montclair the surrounding communities MH was this uh was this a u i mean the main structure that we're really talking about today uh was this a structure that was built at one time or over time there had been additions to that yeah it's a structure that was built over time with many adapt ad adaptations Renovations additions and is it your sense that um over time those adaptations have uh resulted in sort of a an appearance that's pretty consistent throughout the building ourself or would people sort of look at and say well what does this have to do with that that part of the I think I think the ladder uh and I can say that because a number of people have said what is what is the glass block and the square and then the rectangular and then the you know unbalanced rectangular Windows how do they relate to one another they don't it's it's a it's a hodgepodge or a quilt work if you will pattern of uh you know various building materials and windows and features is it is it part of your vision over time for it to have a more Universal look or 100% correct yeah we want to give it a uniform appearance uh really on all four sides MH or I guess seven six sides and would you would you um uh venture to say about over how many years that might it might take for that Vision to be realized uh assuming we get an approval tonight it it should be within the next 12 months really that fast yeah so you're talking about more than just changing the windows uh I I think a lot lot of the the appearance of the building is dominated by the windows M um so it's it's bringing uniformity to the windows um quite honestly there there's zero curb appeal to this building and this property and a lot of that has to do with the parking lot uh the condition of the parking lot uh the lack of you know texture and um architecture so one of the the components of what we look to add in the future canopies above of the doors or the entrances to the different tenants uh really provide a pronounced entry way uh you'd be surprised how many Uber drivers are trying to deliver lunch or dinner to tenants and they have no idea where to go I mean there's just a series of doors um and nobody knows which door goes to which address or anything else so really creating you know uh identifying Mark to where the ENT entrances are putting in tenant signage um putting in I identifiable addresses and things of that nature MH so the um the part of the property that will be used by uh Sharon Miller um the particularly the the uh the dance studios um obviously um she's had a long relationship with Monclair and hope hopefully will for many many more years uh but uh uh would you foresee uh that space is uh potentially being converted Ed for other the purposes later on if for some reason uh the academy was not able to continue to operate in that location yeah that's a great question um I think the capital we're looking to invest in her space is unique to a dance studio Fitness Studio yoga studio any number of uses outside of what she provides um it could be adaptively reused and converted to other uses um without a heavy renovation um I think the the significant component of the renovation is going to relate to building it out for her use and then down the road um you know if she were to vacate it could be adaptively reused um with a less intensive buildout to an office use um or back filled with any one of those other Studio uses as well um the uh the restaurant um probably uh amongst many people who are are glad to hear that there are plans for that building yeah um and uh uh I my memory is that it was really oriented uh previously it's Rich Richie ceries as more of an adult oriented um sort of Jazz Restaurant Jazz kind of facility um do you foresee it being that kind of a facility again or uh looking at um sort of the the parking lot study and how the you the the lot will be used um is there a possibility that it would be used in the mornings afternoons and evenings or would it be primarily just an evening facility or yeah I think the intention is there to be a lot light lunch service um and then heavily you know focused on dinner and then weekends you know lunch and dinner as well uh it's not going to be geared you know likees the series was towards an adult only clientele uh I think this would be a more familyfriendly EST lishment okay and I remember that they had a a vault um in the lower level uh and so which would suggest special events do you foresee the restaurant also being utilized for special events if uh people wanted to use it for weddings anniversaries or whatever that kind of thing or yeah I'm not I'm not so sure about weddings um there is in the basement um some private dining rooms um that will likely be used you know for private dining as well so um that raises for me a question about uh valet parking yeah because obviously I mean when we talk about the parking uh uh study a little bit later on in this hearing um uh you know there's uh you know that area of course is heavily used uh not just uh the specific property but of course the farmers market and the soccer dome and area restaurants and there's just a lot of activity that's going on there so do you force see uh this new restaurant uh having a need for valet parking on this property as well or is that something that's been discussed as part of the agreement yeah um first of all we refer to it as the lacrosse Dome not the soccer dome okay I we have lros it's been a lot it's been a lot of years since since just there's a lot of soccer players as well but uh um yeah it's a great question one of the things we've talked about with the operator of the restaurant is the ability to provide valet service uh we're going to leave that up to them to make that decision I think this location unlike many others in Montclair could be you know uniquely opportunistic in providing that service given that we own and control the adjacent lot um which would allow them to you know potentially stack cars under a valet uh service um the one of the great things about this location too in the greater Walnut Street area is the amount of kind of on street parking uh afforded to the area especially with the Walnut Street train station and you know the lack of commuters in the evening hours and weekend hours and having that available for public use so um I think you know valet is certainly on the table and something that the operator will look at okay all right thank you very much thank you Miss Grant do you have any questions not at the moment Mr corfield hi um those CR Soccer Dome if you want to call it um you don't know if there is any um uh agreement for the I guess the coaches there to park in your lot and use that at all you know it's funny I've heard from some coaches that they believe there is an agreement and I've assed them there is definitely not okay um no there there's no reciprocal parking agreement or anything um available to them okay I I saw one of them do that and then go across um but you know you know it's like free parking lots and mon CLA right a diamond dozen seems like yeah um are you aware that part a portion of this lot is in a flood zone yes okay um can you tell me a little bit about the the the kind of like the lot across the street from um Oak Place like what's the story like how did that come into this property over time uh that's not related to this property at all it was at one time under joint owners ship so the owner of this property also owned that lot which is 121 Forest uh no longer the same ownership not same okay so that's not the okay so the survey that was done showed both those lots that's not the case with with with you purchasing this property correct uh I don't know what survey that you're referencing I'm Lang langone survey shows portion of this SL oh yeah so an Affiliated entity under our control owns 121 Forest okay um it's separate than BP LLC okay um that's all I have thank you m Harris thank you um what are the plans for the shed um on the property behind the restaurant yeah Our intention is to continue to use it as storage for one of our tenants at the property okay your intention May differ from mine though um okay um what's the term of the lease um for Sharon Mill that's a 10year lease okay and you mentioned um tenant signage um have you started to look at locations and sizes and yeah our our plan is to install signage in accordance with the ordinance uh for allowable signage at the property okay um and mentioned that there were six parking spots um that were on the adjacent property was that the tandem spots that's some of the tandem spots that's correct okay thank you thank you Mr Church uh since a portion of this property is in a flood zone what are you proposing to do to amarate flooding Mr Church there's going to be an engineer that's going to testify you should ask him okay thank you no question Mr Simon all um a couple things for the tandem spots they are all designated for compact cars and I think you mentioned those are going to be specifically for the tenants yeah so if that's the designated parking area for the tenants regardless of their location is there any other place on the property where tennis will be parking and how would you control that so it doesn't take up space for potential customers yeah so generally the way the parking is demised now in the rear of the property or the western side of the property that Services predominantly the 7 Oak Place address uh there's there's entry doors there to a lot of ground floor tenants and second floor tenants um those assigned spaces would be for the tenants utilizing those back doors if they don't have an assigned space tenants are free to park in either of the you know two different Lots let's say within the property okay I asked because if you're if you're counting on those 12 spaces being used by the tenants and in the event that they don't use them or if they have a car that doesn't classify as compact yeah that kind of factors into your calculations for space available spaces yeah would they would be assigned to tenants so um you know it's a I think a I don't know if luxury is the right word but it's an amenity to have a parking space um you know approximate to your entry door so it'd be assigned to specific tenants uh I can tell you I drive an oversized vehicle majority of the spaces on the property that exists today are compact spaces I park in those spaces along with my neighboring tenants and there there don't seem to be any issues okay um for the shed you said you don't know what's being stored in the shed it's just being used by your tenant uh I don't believe I was asked if I knew what the tenant was storing in the shed uh they store various records and equipment to the best of my knowledge in the shed so considering that that shed wasn't authorized was it ever considered to be taken down and possibly reclaim a parking space or two uh I don't know if the location of the shed would allow a parking space to replace any of it it it's kind of located in the corner that would normally be a dead zone for parking uh so I don't believe we would gain a space uh we could maybe ask our our civil or our parking uh experts to you know attest to that okay going to the gym um what are the hours of a gym yeah normal hours of operation um are typically so the gym is different than a traditional gym you don't walk into it and go run on a treadmill or spin on an elliptical it's a private training and fitness class only gym so the only way you go there is if you're seeing a personal trainer or you're going to one of their scheduled classes uh their predominant hours of operation are from let's say 5: in the morning until probably 10 10:30 in the morning so they have no classes in the afternoon uh I didn't say they have no classes they're predominantly in use in the morning uh they may have evening classes here or there they might have private training in the afternoon one-on-one trainer and client uh the majority of their classes though are in the mornings okay because again in your in the Pro ctions there's nothing projected in that for that facility after 10:00 a.m. so that seems unrealistic uh like I said the majority of their business takes place in the morning hours okay um okay that's all thank you thank you the ER thank you Mr chairman um expanding on the question about the tenants um in addition to the gym where what are the other tenants how many tenants do you have uh there's there's maybe a dozen a little less than a dozen tenants um predominantly suggestion I mean the traffic expert that the applicant is going to call did a detailed traffic study that shows all the tenant so I'm sure he's going to get into detail on those yeah predominantly professional office use space so it's smaller um you know use of the smaller areas not as big as is the um the Dance Academy that's right our our largest user is the restaurant our second largest is the gym our third will be the Sharon Miller Academy Performing Arts yeah and and then in terms of like big picture for for the structure um do you foresee um investing capital in like Energy Efficiency or pursuing a lead uh certificate or you don't uh potentially uh any of you that know me know that I'm I'm very much into environmental sustainability especially if it comes to buildings um it's it's hard to you know retrofit this building to meet any lead standards we've looked at putting solar panels on the roof it's covered with a lot of rooftop equipment um to service the uh heating and air conditioning needs of the tenants I think over time as we're able to modify a lot of those systems we can look to invest more in the sustainability of the uh the project um into the best of our ability the improvements that we'll be doing um you know will be as sustainable as we can thank you thanks I just have a couple of questions um one just to be clear you testified there are two buildings but in fact counting the shed which is freestanding there are three buildings counting that is that correct uh yeah i' say two buildings in a structure if the shed's a building then three buildings okay um then you also said um response to a question and the the ownership of 121 Forest Street is you implying it's a related entity or will be when you buy this correct yeah it won't be bdp 6 to10 eie but it's another entity that you're another entity that we control is is there any plans for that property there are okay well worry about that when if we get it hope hopefully they don't need to be come before this board but I'm I'm pretty certain they will um it's a always been an interesting little parking area that I suspect a lot of unauthorized people utilize but maybe they're all authorized I think we provide the most unauthorized parking within the township of Montclair um and then this is um I'm going to be asking your traffic engineer questions not so much in terms of the current use of the parking lot I see it frequently because I use a Walnut Street train station go to the farmers market and so but the the question that I want you to think about while we're getting to his testimony is you know and I'll give what I'll quot quote the E well a couple easy examples of you know assuming we accept his testimony which we haven't heard it so I don't know but it um that there is you know that there are justifications for the parking variants because the existing uses are staying under the available spaces the the question is you know what controls should we impose and just to do a couple of simple examples a new owner takes over the fitness space and they decide they want to have classes in the evening the restaurant decides want to have wants to have brunch on weekends you know which is not really either of which are accounted for in the parking analysis and you know I want you to start thinking and you'll you know clearly have a while to do that is to you know I'm not interested in having people come back here every time there's a change in hours of operation or a new tenant but on the other hand I don't want to suddenly discover uses are changing in a way that suddenly the parking demand is exceeding what's available and um so if you could just start thinking about that I you know as I said I don't want to have every time you have a new tenant to you come back here um but on the other hand I don't want to discover that the parking demand based on changes either existing uses or New Uses suddenly you know is plenty more parking demand than there are spaces so you just start thinking about that okay um are there any members of the audience who have questions for this witness okay Mr CH you like to call your next witness sure my next witness is Sharon Miller M Miller 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 Sharon Miller 24 Nassau Road up monair 743 okay Sharon how long have you lived in Montclair well I was raised in Montclair um until and went through M school system left to go to New York in 1963 returned in 1990 and so I've sort of been it's on yeah oh I'm sorry I should have known no I've never done this before um I I've lived in Monclair since 1990 uh so 34 years but I grew up in Monclair so I went through Montclair school system and graduated from Monclair High School to live in New York for 28 years so that's and you're back and you've been in Monclair ever since you returned I have and I love it so okay okay and um you're the founder I assume of Sharon Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts correct yes okay if it's all right with you I'm going to referred to Sharon Miller's academy by its uh AC smappa yes um okay so what is your current position with smappa I am the executive and artistic director as well as an instructor okay do you have any formal Ro you're the chairman of I'm chairman of the board I'm sort of everything yeah okay your name is on the door my yeah and the checks okay um we're going to come back and talk a little further obviously about smappa but before we do that can you just tell the board a little bit about your personal background as a dancer yes um I danced all my life I started uh when I was six years old I went on to uh graduate from juliard um I did seven Broadway shows I was a member of the alvan American dance theater touring Europe in Africa for three years um I got married and had a child and at that point decided I could not raise a child in New York City and since I was raised here and I think a pretty good product of this community I came back looking to buy a house which I did and um I've been here ever since and part of why and how smappa came about was that uh the commute back and forth when I had a child and that was my priority uh was getting difficult and I thought what what do I know how to do what am I trained to do what is my passion and my passion was Arts education and I was able to begin a program at monk what used to be called the black why which is now the family why on Glenridge Avenue I started a program there it grew exponentially and ultimately I moved to the Bison Building with my program and the rest is history I just kept teaching and loving it and we've grown and grown and 28 years later I'm here okay so you started out at the uh at at the Y on Glenridge Avenue and then eventually kind of say you know morphed into smapa is that right yes when did you actually uh form uh smapa 1996 we were actually incorporated as a n not for-profit taxes exempt 501c3 the reasoning behind that was that I had previously been with the Y and the uh Dei which is commonly known as now the diversity equity and inclusion concept was something that I wanted to embrace and so by becoming a 501c3 I was able to do that and um ultimately um 1996 we were Incorporated and we've been that way ever since okay and what are the what's the basic fundamental mission of smapa or the purposes for which you know that nonprofit was formed well basically it's to uh provide inclusive developmental training and dance and related Theater Arts to people of all stages of life so it's not we're not just a dance school we are an Arts education organization providing seniors and by the way the mountclair foundation has provided us with a grant that uh allows us to have a free seniors Fitness dance program we also have a camp in the summer for ages 3 to 5 and then 6 to 14 where it's drama as well as dance and these are the reasons um we our our mission covers Arts education and we in terms of our sense of expanding we're really expanding into underserved communities through our 501c3 we are in East Orange or we're in East Orange we are in Newark we are in Patterson providing our programs which we have at the studio in the school districts within the the school day since Arts have been cut from many of the programs we provide these residencies so that's part that's a major part of our mission as well as providing Arts education and yes dance on a very high level at our studio and we have students that have graduated since and are in shows like Hamilton Lion King there're in major dance companies like Alvin American dance theater like um feno so we're very proud of what we do and how we do it and I want to keep doing it as a resident of Monclair and have my home smapa in Monclair how many you curious you mentioned the um there after school programs or residencies and other how many other communities do you Pro well that service in Patterson we are in eight schools in Newark we are in three Charter Schools um North Star Academy and we're going into Kip and for a long time we were at a ful year program at Quitman Street Community School okay all right so then getting back to the studio now um You indicated that when you first organized the uh uh the nonprofit in 1996 97 your first home uh was in the Madison Building yes okay that's on Bloomfield Avenue 427 Bloomfield Avenue okay and how long were you at that location 10 years okay um did you have any on-site parking at that location sorry no just had running running out and maybe getting a parking space in front of the building uh but no there is Bloomfield Avenue is an impossibility as far as Park how how I'm curious how was it manag for you know CH you your students young students who were being dropped off and picked up well most of what happens now and what happened then was drop off but we also have uh we're in several divisions and our preschool division obviously starts at age two um basically the three to five year olds are with without parent or caregiver the two-year-olds are OB obviously with their caregivers um those are the parents or caregivers that have to find parking somewhere take a stroller out of a car and then provide a way for their their charge to get to the studio so there is no there's no parking that we've been accustomed to at all okay so you said you're at the Madison Building for about 10 years and then you left there and went to what loccation 14 South Park Street which is um adjacent to um Urban Outfitters I always forget their name um we're on the second floor again there's no parking there and because the uh Street was redeveloped and redesigned uh it took away I think something like 14 parking spaces that existed because when I first moved in it was diagonal parking and now it's not um and there's a median which allow it's just very difficult so most people who have to come into the studio will find on the street parking or um Crescent Deck Parking or what used to be a parking lot around the corner but that's now a building that's being built as an apartment house so no parking okay and you've been at that location of 14 South Park Street 18 continuously 18 years okay yes um all right by the way do you know roughly the amount of square footage you have in that building 9,000 square fet okay all right um so you've heard Mr pic's testimony that youve ventured into a lease uh to relocate this dance studio hopefully with this board's approval um uh to six- 10 eie Street correct I I thought mine was 10 Erie but I well maybe we'll call it the subject property that yeah okay and uh your lease there provides for approximately 6,000 square ft correct yes okay yes smaller space well as it was explained to me more efficient so instead of having an elevator room and and I don't mean a room like a mechanical room uh in my current location we have a room that the elevator comes up on and you're greeted there's a like a block of worth of hallway space there's stairway space so that's that's inefficient space that we do not utilize for dancing or theater or art okay um how many um studios are there in your current space Studio place where four kids dancing or instructing four okay and how many studios will there be in the new location three okay um can you explain why it is you decided to move to this location or what it is about this location that was particular appealing to you first of all this is all on one floor it's not an elevated building it's not 27 stairs and I do count them every day to go up um and we have a lot of young children um and they have siblings strollers are easily accessible on a ground floor space right now we have a second floor space with an elevator that sometimes runs and sometimes doesn't uh and 27 stairs which you cannot navigate with a stroller so I was looking for something that was not only quieter because South Park Street has become extraordinarily busy um but I was also looking for a space that was conducive to bringing young people in the high school is Right sort of around the corner um Monclair Co-op is sort of around the corner the Renaissance School these are all schools that have a lot of our students and it would be walking distance from their schools to their class for dance if they were going to have a class so I thought it was an ideal place and to be perfectly honest I saw parking lot and I thought wow okay um okay so you now you've been operating smapa for 28 years 28 years um if if you do make this move to eie Street the subject property um do you anticipate any changes in your programs or your scheduling or the hours of operation um after the move or you expect to continue you know business as usual as you've operated over the last 27 years or so well we make changes every year and we are actually in operation seven days a week Monday through Sunday um Friday we have no classes but we're open for business um as far as the redu uction from four room four Studios to three it did not seem like it was a downgrade it seemed like again it was a more efficient use of space because if we have say six classes a day or eight classes a day and we have Friday where we don't have any classes I can put the eight classes that we would be missing into a Friday situation in the news space which would be that third studio um it on paper it works and I'm pretty sure it's going to work um Pro provided we are permitted to move in but you're anticipating the same you know intensity of business if you know if not more so okay be my mainly because of the hours that we do operate we operate from 9:00 a.m. to General speaking 8 p.m. uh Monday through Thursday Friday is 9:00 a.m. to 5 even though there are no classes Saturday is 9:00 a. to 5: and Sunday is 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 we can extend our day to accommodate the the Lost studio if you will okay we're going to go over your you know current SC class schedule in in a moment moment but just so it's clear when you say you're there from 9 to 5: you're not you're not having classes or utilizing the Studios from 9 to 5 on Fridays or during the week I'm talking about other days you were talking about oh well we are there from 9900 a.m We have a dance store so that's the other thing I mean so we do sell because there was nothing in Monclair that allowed for proper attire for dance and we don't do the little tutu things we do leotards tights proper ballet slippers etc etc so we provide a store so there are people that come in to purchase we have business which is has to do with our residencies in East Orange or Newark or Patterson um so the business is being held between 9 and 5 classes per se are not necessarily being held between 9 and 5: okay our regular class schedule basically is after school from 4: until 8 that's Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday no classes to speak of on Friday and all day Saturday okay again we're going to come and go over that in detail in a couple of minutes so I'm really I want to ask you some questions which are really designed um to determine you know what your parking needs are um uh for currently or or at at this facility so let's talk first about how many employees do you have working at the studio all together or on a daily basis well let's say all together Al together I have 40 employees no I'm going talk employees you're talking don't bring the instructors in I want to deal with that separately but I understand you know people who work uh in the building in an administrative role let's say office workers if you will three okay and who are they uh Sonia Cole it works Monday through Friday from 9 until 5: me and uh our financial director who only works on Monday from 12: until 2 just the one day a week yeah and that's it for administrative people and then our our Sonia ends her time at 5:00 and because we have classes that go from 5 until 8 or 9 in some cases we have a person who comes in who does who's a receptionist from 5 until 9: okay so in terms of office or administrative Personnel you're talking about two um and then well and then on the one day you'd have the financial person there yes exactly but otherwise two two at one time and the one day half day with the with the financial person okay all right so let's talk about um dance instructors people who teach the classes how many of those do you have um I believe I have 36 okay Al together and how are their hours structured or when are they at the studio we have specific uh disciplines we have ballet we have modern we have Jazz we have flamco we have West African and those teachers teach at a specific time on a specific day each week so we may have an afran teacher who comes in on Wednesdays and he's only there from 7 until 8:30 every Wednesday that's how we structure our classes where we try and put a teacher um let's say a ballet teacher who teaches beginners intermediates and Advance that's three leveled classes that teacher can teach that day three classes and that's it for the week so it doesn't require the person my 36 teachers to be present every day all day it's just when they are uh they're scheduled in our our so the the instructors are there only when they need to be there to to teach to teach yes so if they're teaching an hour and a half class and that's the only class they have they they come to that class and then they leave exactly and that's true for all of the exactly instructors so so if you had three classes going on at the same time three instruct you'd have three instructors on correct on the site corre presumably would need to park somewhere correct okay or not because I have one instructor for example who who has chosen not to drive and Uber's in and Uber's back what would be the if you can answer this the what would be the maximum number the most instructors that would be onsite at any point in time I would say five tops okay because we have four Studios and there would be one perhaps waiting for their room to be available to teach so okay okay and all right and I want to get into your your your program or your curriculum as as I understand it correct me you have programs are divided into division divisions based upon age yes can you explain what those are we have a pre School Division which is for ages 2 to 5 we have a junior division which is ages 6 to 11 we have a teen division which is 12 to 18 and then we have an adult division which is whatever and then we actually have a senior program which I said before was funded by Monclair foundation so it is now free but it used to be that we charged uh $5 for um two classes a week for our senior Division and that go they range in age from 65 to about 85 and they come in once a week okay okay now I want to get into your typical scheduling and have two exhibits that I like to have more copies from the board yeah so the first exhibit we're going to Mark as A1 it's titled spring 2024 class schedule and then A2 not entitled but it has the number of students enrolled in each class [Applause] all right so um let me just all right so Sharon I I put in front of you the document that we've marked as exhibit A1 can you tell us what that is basically this is our schedule our weekly schedule we have we start on Monday and we as you can see we have 1 two 3 four five six 7even eight nine classes uh and approximately uh out of that nine we have three different instructors uh one is a musical theater teacher the other is a jazz teacher and the other is one of our Preschool teachers who happens to be represented here tonight um and she is our associate artistic director Kristen Weaver on Tuesday when you hold on a second um I'm gonna come so just so what we're looking at is your current class schedule for the spring yes if you call them semesters but for the spring of this year yeah okay um is that a fairly typical schedule for I assume you have a a fall and a spring cycle yes okay is that fairly typical yes okay in terms of the hours of the classes and the variety of classes yes okay um all right and we're going to come back to that in a minute um but I I just want show you what we've marked out as exhibit A2 and ask you if you could tell us what that document is that represents the number of students that are in each of the classes that are in A1 okay and because it starts with MTU W it's Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and so on uh so that and I have added these up and it comes to 450 students I believe total total it looks like the the highest number of people enrolled in any is my class class is 20 yeah that's the test class that you teach yes okay all right um they want to just know I'm alive all right so I want to just I'm not going to go through all the classes that are shown on on A1 your spring schedule but you know just want to have you look at this and confirm certain things so on Monday you don't have any classes until 4:00 is that right correct all right you're there at 9:00 and you're or or whenever you show up you're you have that right I do um and then you've got the other office one or two other people right but is there anybody there you know uh between 9 and like 4:00 when the classes start just Sonia and and Joe our financial director on Monday okay all right and then you've got classes that start at 4:00 and go to as late as 8:30 on Monday okay all right Tuesday you have what I'll say is a very similar schedule although you have one class at 9:30 in the morning it's say a yoga class for adults yeah okay all right and that's the only class you have before 4 o' on Tuesday correct and that yoga class how many adults are enrolled in that class in general it's about three and it because our adult classes are what we call drop in uh you can drop into a class at any time and so it could vary from 3 one week to six the next week back to three the following week okay and the adults would typically drive I'm assuming um yeah a lot of the it's amazing a lot of them live in that General vicinity like the Sienna I mean so it's it's we're just convenient okay so not everyone has a car all right and then going down to Wednesday it appears there that you've got two classes before 4:00 in the afternoon and one is a senior exercise that's obviously for seniors um from 9:45 to 10:30 and then then you've got a music and movement class what is that that's a b well I call them baby classes it's a mommy and basically a mommy and me class it's based on the or uh philosophy of teaching children at an early stage about Rhythm and music and sound okay how many people are enrolled in the mus music and movement class unfortunately there are only four four currently I think it started out with two registered okay it's a new program that we actually got from the nework School of the Arts okay but again Wednesday other than those two programs everything else starts going at 4:00 and Thursday um it seems you've got a lighter schedule but again with nothing beginning until 4 o' is that right Friday this shows two two uh classes currently scheduled one in the morning and one at 4 o'clock 4:00 has been cancelled to Mondays because five Friday is a hard day for children after school okay so do you still have the morning class on fray we still have the morning class it's an adult ballet class and there are a lot of moms in that class approximately how many people are enrolled in that class um again it's drop in rather than enrollment but it's generally about 10 people okay so that's the only thing you have on Friday right okay and then you obviously have a full uh schedule of classes on Saturday morning up until I guess 2:30 well basically the full schedule is up until about noon uh because most of our preschool programming is then and our uh special programming we have like boys only ballet we have boys only hip hop and those classes all take place in the morning time okay and then then our uh junior division um ballet classes really go until about 3 and then our performance Workshop Ensemble which is made up of gifted and talented kids on a pre-professional track goes from 12 until 5 okay and that's it and then you've got a couple of classes on Sunday morning we have one uh preschool program class and we have one ballet class okay so um with respect to so the majority of your um enrollment is children and teenagers up to age you know up to age 18 so is that correct well we've come to have a lot of adults which uh I don't know what what has made that happen but most of our children our Junior Division and our teens are either drop offs or walk-ins so we actually don't have uh parking issues with those kids um the parking issues would be mainly with adults and our preschool division okay okay are you able this is probably an unfair question but I'm just trying to um get an idea I mean yeah what would be the most can you in um venture to guess um I'm now talking about the evening hours the adult programs that you have in the evening hours you know how many of that how many parking spaces would you need for to accommodate you know adults attending sessions after 4 o'clock I I would say that in general I just finished teaching in that out class before I came here and there were seven people in that class um I would imagine that five of them drove the other two a husband or somebody was picking them up because they come in from New York or on a train they walk to the studio and somebody Picks Them Up or they take an Uber so my my general thought is that the average number of parking spaces if you will that would be utilized would be five um if you're talking about how many classes how many adult classes we tend to have perhaps in a given evening two one might be a ballet class and the other might be an afro Haan class and they're two different styles with two different sets of people taking advantage of the class so it might then be 10 but they don't take place at the same time so since one class might be from 5: to 6:30 and the other class might be from 7 to 8:30 if you had five people in a class that those five leave and then another five come for the next class so that's sort of the scenario that I would I would use okay okay um I think that's all all the questions I have I think the board members might have a few M you have any questions good evening Miss Miller good evening uh just a couple of questions for you um uh would you talk about the pattern of growth of your programming over the years uh it it sounds like it's grown quite a bit since uh you began in was it '96 you said 96 yeah yes it's grown exponentially um I think that what Mont Clair in particular has is are families that truly nurture their children and as a result of that I think we're not at all commercial we don't do recy idles we were about the joy of the art form and I think that spread that that thought that the context what we do um was something that a lot of parents wanted for their children and because we then got into the school systems we were certainly um looked upon as viable organization um I think the other thing that that has a lot to do with our success is the level of training and the fact that not everyone wants to dance but just as I'm sure all of you know Sports give children the idea of working collaboratively uh knowing where their body is in space doing all all the things that we have come to understand Sports gives us so does dance dance gives you the same thing without there being a winner and a loser you're all winners and I think that that philosophy grew and I think that that's what has built our programming and again as I said I I believe that by being in the school systems it validated us to a level as well as being being a 501c3 we kept our tuition fee affordable I highly believe in diversity I highly believe in equity and I highly believe in inclusion and these are the things that seem particularly in this town to matter and I think that's why we've grown so so the um would would you say that given the correlation between your program your Academy and the and our relationship with the schools School District um that um like the school district I mean the size of your programming sort of has an EB and flow that as a census of the school happens to increase do you see an increase in the number of of students that you may have or do you see a decline when the census is down in the schools because it it does sort of have in flow at times I think we have always been between 450 and 650 students um the pandemic totally affected our enrollment I think that that at this point we're we're certainly built up I'm not I I'm not about the numbers I'm about the quality of the education and so it's very important to me not to direct traffic in classes but to teach and so I'm not really looking to have a class of fiveyear olds with 25 kids I that's not who I am I'd rather as I have created a Sunday class where the Overflow can come then um I I don't think I'm looking to be a huge institution even though apparently I am an instit institution um but uh I'm not looking to grow for example out of 10 Erie Street I'm not looking to do that I'm looking to do fabulous work and have a place where lots of young people and teens and adults and seniors feel comfortable coming to learn it does it does sound from your testimony though that it will be a little challenging to to um get all of your programming into that space given that you're going from you said four Studios where you currently are to three Studios yes but one of the things that hasn't come up is that there's a fourth studio available for potential sharing and that would be um with the owners of the um def I think it's called doft now yeah I don't know but the fitness place so there there's a studio that I've already seen which is fabulous and it's perfect for us and there's no reason why I I don't think there's a reason why I could not have some kind of a relationship with the owner to utilize that space as an overflow space in the event that we needed it when you talk about uh the Arts education I mean it's what what's the space that you use for that because the the studio is really sort of like a wide open uh space uh where I mean in terms of your the architectural drawing I mean we can see that there's a place where you have a table and chairs and and uh I think called for example we have a camp um and it's a we do a show and we do a show within the studio and we set up chairs chairs can be removed and you know set up we have uh theater type lighting and it's uh if you have a rectangular space that's like long and narrow you just turn it around and this becomes your stage area and this becomes your audience it allows for children to Children teens and adults to have a sense of here's the audience and I'm close to you it's not like I'm not trying to create Broadway I'm trying to create a sense of um people feeling like it's okay to perform like you're o you're you're comfortable does that make sense yes yeah so I mean your space is uh is uh multi-purpose multi-purpose absolutely and then um so for the you mentioned um I'm just trying to move quickly through a lot of these things so you mentioned the sort of the programming in other communities so you have I I just wrote satellite programming I don't know if that makes sense and not but no it does but uh is again what's the how does that sort of relate to this facility I mean do you ever have times in which the leadership of those programs would be foreseen as coming to this location or any of those students coming to this location or so when because we are a 501c3 and because we receive wonderfully generous donations from individuals as well as foundations my goal in putting programming into the districts is not only for young people to be exposed to the Arts to dance to music to theater but there are many many children who are not necessarily academically gifted but are aesthetically artistically gifted but they don't have the means or the wherewithal to develop those talents which give them a sense of confidence give them a sense of I am I can achieve so what I can do and have done over and over and over again happily is to identify those students and be able to give them scholarships to our program and we have as a matter of fact one of two of those people young people one is in Hamilton and the other is in alvan al American dance theater and then there's one who's in fileno and these are people that have been um identified as gifted and offered the training at smappa as a result of us being in their District just to Circle back to one thing you you mentioned just before this particular conver ation and that was you were you made reference to sometimes uh with these classes there are like you don't not you wouldn't call them recitals but you would have like little shows or whatever performances we have what we call parent observation at the end of each semester that is so that a parent can see how a child has developed from day one to the end of the first semester and then again the end of the second semester we have what we call Vision panels and I think I have discussed this with Dave that we will have the same situation in the news space where parents can observe their child's class without it disturbing the class so I I don't know what it's called two-way mirrors oneway mirror whatever but you can look in and the kids can't see you so you're you're you're always aware that your child is safe that your child is learning that your child is enjoying what they're doing but at the same time when you actually go into the classroom at the end that's the child saying here's what I'm sharing with you right so there so there are I mean there are times then I don't know how frequently but there are times when there would be more adults there right so they're theoretically utilizing more parking spaces as well yes absolutely I don't know how frequently that would be but one once in January and once in June okay um just looking at the the um again the census of the classes and I noticed that I just sort of quickly add it up in terms of Mondays based on the classes that you have approximately 40 students um uh divided amongst those various classes um and um but what really sort of caught my attention was Wednesday today uh because you have a a considerably longer list of of classes and uh therefore students and it it may me question um to what extent do you have students that would flow from one class to another class to another class or uh do these numbers actually mean they're all different students no okay it does mean that there are certain students that will take multiple classes on a given day right so therefore that would reduce the amount of traffic exactly and use of the parking spaces because okay exactly all right okay thank you very much thank you is Grant do you have any questions yes I do okay um so where um where do people leave strollers now when they come well because I have an elevator where I am now they bring the stroller up on the elevator and I think I mentioned before the elevator has a ro a reception area so that's where they're left and we also have um a waiting area for siblings and so the strollers are left in there as well do you have a dedicated space plan for strollers at the new location well we what we have for the new location is first of all easy entry so that that's number one which means I depending on whether they Park if they Park they can carry their child into the space because there's no stairs or elevator uh if they bring the stroller and we have what we call what we're calling a party room birthday party room um that is a place that is only used on Saturday or Sunday so strollers could be placed in there okay um I brought up the strollers because um to you know people that you you mention people live close so that would encourage people to walk and come if they know they can just leave their stroller um okay I think the design now also has basically a waiting area so as long as there's a waiting area for people for our patrons strollers can be there too okay thank you you um I know you talked about um growth and your thoughts about growth and class size but do you you anticipate growth do you anticipate growth well I'm happy with where we are and I I right now anywhere between 450 and 600 is I I think is doable for us um I don't like I said I I don't see me going for numbers I see going for the quality of the training and the higher the numbers the harder it gets to keep the quality for me that may not be for other people but that's for me and um my last question you talked about um um your collaboration with other schools I may have missed it but you do you collaborate with schools in Monclair we had we were with the Renaissance School for 13 years they had dance and and drama at our studio and when they moved from their location which was the former Immaculate Conception Elementary they moved to ran prior to their move you know that they walked through the town and so they walked to smappa um for their dance and drama classes every day for 13 years so yeah we we have a re we we do have that and currently my the dance teacher at the high school Camille King is my student and she um is now the dance teacher there Julia sprung is the dance teacher at Glenfield and she also was my student so that we we find our way into the district you have a presence yeah um and I brought that up because um I think you you're going from a um bigger space to a smaller space you talked about utilizing defit and maybe if you did have growth and you wanted to cap class sizes you may you know just utilizing as you talked about the surrounding schools um so that the space is a great fit that's that's why I brought that up that's my only last question okay thank you thank you Mr corfield hi um can you tell me a little bit about your summer programs like your attendances like yeah well for for many years we uh it's called Prime Time summer arts um we have ages 6 to 14 we do it in four groups the diamonds are the 67s the rubies are the 89 the pearls are the 101s and the emeralds are the 12 to 14s and they think they're adults but they're not we do what we call a musical theater review um it's they get drama daily they get dance daily and the two dance um disciplines are very accessible to non- Dan trained students it's West African and hipop um they they work with Chris livsey is our Drama teacher and they uh develop their own I hate the word skit but basically that's what it is and um this year we're not having music and it it came as a result of the pandemic they were wearing we were wearing masks so it seemed counterproductive to have vocal music so we sort of continued that that format of discontinuing the vocal music so they have dance they have drama and they create their own we call them projects um and it's a two three week sessions okay and um there's a True Performance it's like it's like summer stock you know we don't we don't do per recital within the studio but for summer we do a show at the okay and we create the show on them gotcha thank you so much you're welcome Miss Harris hello hi um you mentioned um that you'll have a party room in this new location can you talk a little bit about how that's going to work yeah we we currently use our kitchen for a party room so we actually in the new location have a designated party room um we have birthday parties and a lot of obviously there are a lot of little girls who are the preschool classes and they're parents love the fact that they get to have a dance class birthday party with their chosen teacher and then uh after the dance class they go into the in this case it'll be the party room to have pizza and cake and this is separate from your studio spaces exactly okay yeah and do the parents bring everything in uh for the party or do you yes yes they we Supply paper products or we Supply decorations and we Supply the instructor okay and that's it okay so presumably a parent could have food delivered to the space yes okay and is is the space only um or do you plan to only use it for parties or can other groups rent the space if they we've never considered renting the what is now the kitchen for anything other than the birthday party um I would suspect you know I don't have a feeling for what the new space is going to be because it doesn't exist but um I don't want to I don't want to not think bigger in terms of what the capacity to for its use I and I don't numbers of people I mean cap what what would the use be and it might you know once I see the space once I have a feeling of what it feels like to be in that space it might speak to me in a certain way where it's a perfect drama room you know so I don't know is the answer to that okay thank you just one followup if I might when do you when are do do the do the birthday parties usually occur on what day of the week Saturday and Sunday day okay thank you Mr Church yeah I have no question Mr Simon good evening hi um answer most of my questions already just a couple um for the parents OB observation days is that the same do they all occur on the same day or is it spread out over the month no each te each class that you see on A1 has a separate V we'll call it visitation so if you're in uh pre valet uh ages 5 to 7 at 5:00 your parent will come into that class and observe you will leave with your parent and then the next group comes in okay so it follows the normal class schedule exactly okay um I'm sorry give me one second um do you know what's happening with your old space on Park Street like uh is your lease turn up or is there any basically I'm trying to determine is there any urgency for the move oh my God uh that I touch your nerve I'm sorry can I want me to answer that I'll try want me to answer you can answer it I I I me I can answer that cuz I'm familiar with her lease her lease really ran out okay um and she now basically was in a holdover situation um because of some unanticipated delays with this the matter that brings us here tonight so she's been forced to extend the lease for a year but I guess you're probably four months into that well it it ends January 2025 okay and uh I what I wanted was a month to month the landlord said no he says no to everything so I understand you have to say any um and as far as I I know you say you don't do recital or but do you do you hold any other special events or yes fundraisers at the location no not at the location we have an annual uh concert Gala um for the last three years or this this will be the third year we use a JCC in West Orange it's totally ADA Compliant it's a beautiful theater it has a green room and it's easy for easy access for everyone um so we rent that location for our performance and as I said we have a performance Workshop Ensemble and what our performance is which will be June 2nd uh it's to raise funds for our scholarship program okay but nothing in addition at the location at the location no okay thank you m Mr VI y hi good evening hello um the question I have is around the merchandise store so can you elaborate how does that operate do you need a dedicated person hours of operations well because we're not storefront it's you have to know we're there and most of the people that utilize the store are the actual um students that are enrolled so it's once you've bought your leotard and tights unless you're like 3 years old like my my grandchild seemingly grew like overnight and so even though the leotard and tights had been purchased another set of leotard and tights had to be purchased so we don't have to have a dedicated person we used to but um it it really was not cost effective at all because no one was coming in from the the street level on an elevator to come up to a dance store to get tights so um now what I plan to do is we have a a store that's going to be dedicated uh in our new space I hope um and it's it's sort of part of the waiting area so it's been designed in that way very very uh helpful for us because the person who's our recept cist can also be the store manager so she would take care of yeah the merchandise merchandise so B based on your testimony you don't anticipate large deliveries of materials merchandise that coming into the store no no not at all no just supplies like paper towels and toilet paper basically yeah thank you you're welcome okay I I just have a observation not any questions my fellow board members have covered everything I would have covered but you know I think when you're designing the space you should probably anticipate you're going to have more parents observing than you currently do because both at the Madison Building and on South Park there's no convenient parking for people and now they're going to drop their kid off and say gee look at all these parking spaces and be more inclined to stop and watch they do now and I just take that you know I'm I'm not concerned about you know your Traffic Engineers at the peak times is estimating 30 spaces you're using clearly you're never getting close to 30 spaces and um I have other questions for him in terms of the timing but you know just take that but um are there any members of the public who have any questions for this witness okay Mr Trula you want to call your next witness good job you can exhale thank you thank you um Alan Horwitz Please Mr harwit would you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth of the matter pending before the board yes I do please give us your name and address my name is Alan Horwitz I live here in town at 133 watchong Avenue Monclair okay uh Alan um you're licensed architect in state of New Jersey yes I am okay would you just provide the board with a summary of your educational background and your you know professional qualifications I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in architecture and I'm licensed here in New Jersey as well as in Florida and Wisconsin I've been in professional practice for over 30 years my license is in good stand in here in New Jersey and the other states that I practice in and um I've been uh the principal and owner of my own firm which is called Baseline architecture since 2019 I will accept him as an expert architect thank you Mr chair Al You' prepared the uh uh plans uh for uh the space to be occupied by um Sharon Miller correct yes I did and you also prepared I think think some plans for some exterior renovations to that building yes okay what I'd like you to do is to just um I know you bought some exhibits with you um and um you know I'd like you just to walk the board through maybe starting with the plans for the exterior uh sure and then you can move on to the floor plans um I do have a handout for the board which I guess really correspond with okay all right why don't you again explain I assume you're going to use the easel explain uh hear me if I speak from there or you take that one there is that how's that can you hear me yes okay okay good well um the exterior improvements that we've uh designed for for the building started with our redesign of the space to support Sharon Miller's occupancy and as has been either spoken about or alluded to a couple times during the course of tonight's discussion uh the building has many disparate components it's not a consistent organized One Design at a time building there are elements of the building that are historic and elements of the building that were Creed onto it or glommed onto it over time and so our um approach was to try and as as Dave said in his testimony establish some sense of order and some sense of organization to the elements that were within our purview uh in a particular project with regard to the design for for Sharon space um there are actually three sorry four overhead garage doors which are being removed and then replaced with like construction materials to organize and and make consistent the exterior walls of the building I'm going to suggest since you're talking about the current conditions you know you might want to start by using that um exhibit board sure bring that up here so everyone can see it and correct me if I'm wrong but that's existing conditions today is that right yes that's correct the these photographs represent the existing conditions of the building the large photograph on the lower part of the board is uh what we call the west elevation of the building this faces the um the parking lot lot that is adjacent to Tony's Brook and this is actually a really good example of how disparate the building is uh there are you know can clearly the older portion of the building which is the brick structure but you can also see that the um former masonry arched window openings no longer have arched windows in them they have infill with h plastic and other types of um poor construction materials and older style double hung Windows which really not appropriate to that type of a of an opening we move towards the south end of the building you can see two of the overhead garage doors that I was speaking about these were there for um supporting the storage and warehousing purpose that the building originally fulfilled those those uses are no longer part of the building the doors are in poor condition the right thing to do for the building is to remove them and replace them with uh complete uh constructed walls that have insulation and and modern materials to restore the not only the structural and constructional integrity of the building but also the visual Integrity in the photographs that are on on the top part of the sheet here you see the South Wall of the building uh three additional overhead garage doors that are being removed um the other two photographs show the parts of the building that face uh east and south uh towards the Walnut Street train station and again uh as Dave indicated in his testimony um glass block windows double hung Windows uh of all different sizes and proportions so it's it's really um kind of a hodgepodge of materials seems like the building was um built at different times in different segments and people were using basically whatever materials were available to create the space that was needed at the time so just focusing on the top photos the one on the left and the one in the middle south and east that's the that's the building where Sharon Miller hopes to relocate yes and the middle picture um Facing East and again you correct me if I'm wrong that's what's going to become the entrance to the studio yes that's exactly correct the the middle photograph is the facade of the building that faces East out towards um Eerie Street and the uh new main entrance for Sharon Miller's studio is going to be uh right in that area Okay so maybe now it's appropriate to come put the other board up and show uh what you're proposing um yeah as comparison again this is the uh thanks this is the west elevation and so here we're we are showing that the um existing double hung windows are being removed from the masonry openings masonry openings are fully restored and the new infill windows will match the size shape and configuration of those arched openings we're also going to uh as I said before remove the overhead garage doors infill that with um like U materials for the for the exterior wall construction and then replace those windows with new industrial style Windows uh that are consistent and establish some visual unit Unity to the facade and the studio would be in the portion of the building that's the Stu open portion yeah this um Sharon's uh occupancy wraps uh to about where this first car is in this in this rendering um so there would be a separation wall between Sharon space and other office space that would that would go to the north so her her space wraps around and this treatment would continue I have some elevation drawings of that if we if we want to see the details of that and is there space Also adjacent to the um Fitness St fitness center no it is not um now the f the center is on the east side of the building along Yuri Street okay okay um okay do you have a uh a rendering of the other um facade for the what will be the front of or the entrance for Sharon Miller's place um yes give me a moment this is a rendering of the uh Southeast inside corner so to speak of the of the existing building where um if I reference back to the um existing condition photographs you can sort of see it over over here glass block is being removed new windows are being installed and you see the suggestion of uh canopy treatments to Mark and identify the entrance similar to what Dave was describing in his testimony with some signage over the new entrance for um sppa okay okay um all right then you want to go on um you've got some other um renderings that that were included in the exhibit that I just handed out to the board then you can just review those tell the board what they uh what they represent we can start with our favorite rendering which is this one this is a representation of what Sharon's team refers to as a green Studio it's the largest of the three dance Studios that are part of the project and what this rendering shows is the um the renovation of existing space to create a um an open environment that really supports the um the dance the different types of dance that are going to be offered through Sharon's program here you see the um the roof structure of existing uh wood trusses that are being left in place but refurbished and restored and painted out to create a um uniform surrounding so that the focus can really be on the the instruction that's taking place in in the different St classes also in this rendering you see two exterior windows on the South Wall this this is where the overhead garage doors are going to be removed and will restore the the solid wall up to a sill level of about um about 8 ft and then uh fill in uh between that portion and the top of the Mason re opening for the overheads to create some clear story windows that bring natural light into the studio this is representative of the level of design and quality that's being imposed into the the studio spaces as well as the the other elements that are part of Sharon's occupancy have other two yeah now there um I have one other rendering immediately here which is this one believe Mr Harrison asked a question about or a comment about the where parents might hang out while they're watching their their children uh take their their classes a part of the design includes what we refer to as a Commons area where as you come in this rendering depicts what you would see as you came through the new main entrance of the space reception area to the right and directly ahead a large open space that would have the dance studios either on the left hand side or directly ahead the uh small uh shop for sale of the leotards and and such to the right and comfortable seating and uh and um open space in what we call common area so there could be parents uh seating in different areas or could certainly be places to store strollers here um and just creating a open spacious environment that really feels um supportive of the different dance activities that are going to take place okay there's another rendering which I in the package you might not have it with you I can show it to you I think it's page [Music] um five of the six page exhibit oh okay you do have it there you not going to show my renderings well you made it sound like you didn't have any so here too this is a this is also a view in the Commons area looking towards the the uh the three dance studios so here on the left is the the studio that's closest to the exterior wall uh in the far corner here is the entrance to what we call the green studio and then at the back is the entrance to the third dance studio again all part of this large Commons area uh that allows for um uh classes to come in and out observation to take place and a hangout space for parents who are there to watch their children okay okay all right can you move on then and um discuss the floor plans uh yeah I don't have a a printed exhibit for that um well you have your you can refer to the drawings refer to the drawings right the board should have these yes I don't want I don't want to create a feedback you are you going to sit okay so you're referring to the set of drawings now that were submitted with the application correct yes that's correct so there's no need to Mark those separately so um I I certainly don't want you to go through all eight or nine pages of that but I just want you to um um go to the floor plan and just discuss the floor plan walk the board through that identify you know particularly the the studio rooms the common areas that you've just spoken about sure I think the uh the plan that shows the the entire fit out for the studio is um a100 which should be page three of the floor plan package or the architectural drawing package it's um it's sheet a100 and I believe it's uh sheet three of the package yeah you're look those are langing the Lang and drawings has the heading construction plan is that talking about the same yeah construction plan isn't this a def space in the studio you said they wer contiguous well the main part of this is okay all right is it everyone okay go ahead so the um just to give an overview of what the drawing is is representing the uh the gray area that you see towards the top of the page is the area that we consider not in the contract for the design of of Sharon space so it's the white area that is the proposed um new occupancy the three dance studios are the three large spaces that are um at the bottom of the page and uh in the middle of the page on the left hand side the commons area which the rendering depicts is just above the first two dance studios and that's U ties into the main entrance uh there's a wide double line that separates the lower portion of the plan from the upper portion of the plan that's an existing concrete wall which we are making a penetration through to connect the upper part of the plan and that's where the um uh there's uh more support space as opposed to um to front of house space with the exception of that being the the party room that Sharon spoke about which is on the right hand side just above that um that existing concrete wall so a larger rectangular room the rooms that are to the left are the uh business office in Sharon's uh office itself and towards the uh left-and side of the top portion of the floor plan are um uh changing rooms for students who come in with in Street closing do need to change into their their dance attire okay I'll also point out since um uh it was discussed earlier and Sharon made mention of a possible fourth studio that might be available to her that's a large gray space that's immediately to the to the top of the uh the last portion of the white area and that is a um existing Studio space that's currently used by the um the fitness uh gymnasium that's part of the uh the current uh building and there's been discussion about that being made available on a shared basis and so we proposed a potential uh connection uh you know hallway with a door that can be closed off and utilized if they are able to make an agreement for shared use of that space okay thank you's up on the screen now oh okay oh you're just about finished um you've also showing the second floor space yes the uh the drawing that's on the the right hand side of this sheet represents a um a small uh storage Loft essentially it's a partial second floor that's accessed from a stair um that's dedicated just to the Sharon Miller uh space so no one has any access to this other than than Sharon's um group and it's about 500 square ft and will be primarily used for storage so second floor is about 500 square ft that's correct and what's the square footage of the first floor space do you know uh the first floor space is um about 5,500 ft okay okay so you identified this the three Studios the common room Commons in the middle Reception Area the what could be the party room um and where's the office space on the plan it's um to the to the left uh of the party room see there's a a central hallway that connects the studio area to to the back uh the the two small rooms to the left are um what is referred to as the business office and Sharon's uh private office okay and then there looks to be a small conference room there at the end of that or or is that adjacent to one of the offices uh that's one of the three changing rooms oh okay the the the the three the stack of three rooms that are to towards the top of the plan those those are all changing rooms okay already reviewed the uh facade uh changes um okay I is there anything else you want to add discussing the plans I think you covered what I needed J A okay um uh it's a it is it is a compact layout but as as Sharon indicated in her um remarks uh there's no wasted space in this layout C ation is very efficient and what we really tried to focus on was maximizing making the space usable for the primary functions which are the dance studios and for the the birthday party room and the commons area where where the parents are going to be okay and no further questions Mr mullik do you have any questions yes thank you Mr Horwitz um so um not sure the order in which I'll ask questions so if it seems a bit uh uh jumbled excuse me so fir the the first thing I I want to ask is it it appears as though there is only one um entrance and exit to this facility is that am I reading this correctly or uh no that is not correct okay so would you please point out to us uh the um in fact each um each Dance Studio has its own second means of egress okay um and if you look at the uh the bottom of the plan you'll see two doors leading out to a um a protected uh ramp area that that makes a transition from the the studio floor can you use the pointer on the diagram I can do thank you y is this good okay so pointing out the the second means of egress for for the spaces um starting with the primary entrance this is the the main entrance uh for for the facility each St Studio has its own second means of egress the the two for for this studio are here and we put them into a shared situation there is a change of elevation from the floor of the dance studio down to the the grade of the parking lot so we created a platform and a short ramp to make that transition the third dance studio which is here also has a second means of egress which is shown right here so between the the three second memes of the studios as well as the primary entrance they're actually Four exits for the for the facility all right thank you um so where we have the the three dressing rooms then across the hall there's another white space what is that white space you referring to this space here uh no move your finger a little bit further to the right here yes that's that's a um a a storage room uh which um depending on on the um on the usage could either be shared with with the um the studio for the fit Loft company or it could be used for additional storage for Sharon so and so I guess I mean the the potential of of sharing that with the with the um liftoff uh would be if is's an agreement to share the studio what would be the fourth studio right because you you talked about creating an access point yes that's correct okay all right now in this part of the building there there is a second floor is that there's a second floor construction plan so you have a storage room yes is that above or okay uh we we we tried to arrange this on the drawing so that it aligns with the portion of the first floor that that it's over uhhuh and so um to get to access to the space you would come up the stair that's here and arrive um on this side of the uh the the storage area and this this wall aligns with this wall here M so um and then you have the fugia mechanical up there as well is that right or is that the roof what what is that uh yes that that is true at at the moment we're our current mechanical design doesn't anticipate a need for that um in fact the renderings suggest that uh all the new Air Conditioning uh and condition space for for the building is going to be provided from uh new units on the roof so it'll feed directly down so there wouldn't be a need for that to be a future mechanical room uh probably not okay yeah um and there's no sense at this point as to what that space would be utilized as uh no I will tell you though that there is um one of the reasons why we don't show that being access because there's restricted head height there the uh you know the ceiling slopes and there's a main carrying beam that comes right across the the floor plan here so that that space is not really accessible to be usable space so where we see uh these areas that are quote unquote open to below they they those would not be potentially um observation places no no not at all no they're showing as open to below because we want the the the volume of the space for the activities that are taking place okay the um you have so you have two restrooms located in this facility is that correct yes that's correct okay and those would be uh uh non-gender specific I would presume that is correct both unisex both ADA Compliant okay so I was trying I was trying to reconcile um on your drawings you you showed um Studios with the with paneled glass on the exterior wall sort of elevated correct uh but then on your there was one of your drawings here oh yes where you show the facade it seems to have lower Windows is that correct what is well yes that that the drawing that you're pointing to is the um east facing wall those are lower windows that are part of the existing uh building and uh our our renderings I guess conveniently don't show that on the inside no they don't so no uh um we we didn't we didn't take A View From the Inside looking looking at those windows I I guess what I'm trying to understand is is uh beig I guess what I'm trying to understand is would the just like parents could observe the Studios from the common area would they also be able to observe from the from the exterior um I I suppose we we hadn't really um made any provisions for that I believe the um I believe the the new uh parking lot layout with the site plan indicates some Landscaping uh in in that area uh so I think there would be sort of a a natural um barrier that would prevent a Peeping Tom type of situation well yeah I'm not worried so much about peeping Toms but but uh you know and and maybe uh this is a a question that's better asuda from Miss smiller than than it is for you but I mean generally speaking um you know when I think about Dance Studio there is an element of privacy to them I mean there is a there's a moment in which you you probably would want to have observation uh but for the most part you it's a sort of a private time uh and so if if what I'm seeing is is which depending upon what I'm seeing um if there are windows that are sidewalk level um then there may not privacy may not be afforded that's that's what I'm trying to sort of of understand here I understand um you it hasn't really come up as as a as a design issue um I think if if it if it became a design issue it would be relatively um straightforward to just add some window treatments and and you know have Shades that screen or or block out those windows during class time I understand okay the um the the breakout room are yeah the breakout room uh which is which is also behind the the two restrooms right yes it's right here is is that is that perceived as a as a common space meaning common for for the uh staff and for the um I'm going to call them the artists not not the parents but I'm talking about the people who are actually taking the lessons or whatever is that foreseen as a space that could be utilized by all of those folks um I guess possibly in our in our conversations with with Sharon and her team uh there's been discussion that a room like this could be made um useful for students who need to do their their academic homework if they're in between classes so it could be used for functions such as that could also be used for uh the instructors to have uh some you know uh meetings to discuss class structure and other types of uh things related to the program so I think as as Sharon indicated in her comments it's very much a multi-purpose facility that has its primary purpose is is um handling the birthday parties on the weekends but during the week would be able to easily fulfill those other types of activities so um um are there any kind of kitchen facilities in that space or oh not not a cooking kitchen there there's a a countertop with a full-size refrigerator a sink a microwave oven probably a coffee maker if if needed but no no cooking facilities okay um the um the reception area I told you this would be all over the place so uh the the reception area is right by the front door obviously normally that's where a reception area would be um it is not permanently attended to as we heard from Miss Miller's uh testimony um so what what is perceived as the best means of of keeping this space secure so that it's truly being utilized by the people who are intended to be there and not by others in in other words is with the front doors is there sort of like a a system that's in designed to buzz people into the space or is it really just an open door where people can just walk in or I mean what how is that foreseen you we really haven't had any specific conversations about that requirement I believe in in today's world the studio is open and people come up the stairs and and and come in um so I envisioned or I think we envisioned this operating essentially the same way during normal business hours if that proved to be an issue or or there needed to be an additional level of security imparted to this then I think we would be able to put an electronic control on on the door and have have the access be be more um structured and secured well I think it's something it's something to consider uh and uh because the current uh Academy facilities is already on an upper level right yes a lot of people wouldn't even know that it's there um so the likelihood of someone simply wandering and off the street into the space uh is perhaps not as great um as would be the case here and of course you know there's a lot more traffic uh in this particular area uh and uh and seven days a week at this point I mean in terms of uh you know um so I I think that's something that should be taken into consideration as a as a security measure um for the safety of of those that are utilizing the facilities call it um I'm sorry yes sorry I can answer that I can have Shon Miller um um I'm happy for you to answer if okay because I've spoke with her yes and there's a person who be sitting out there the the one other full-time employee actually sits in the reception area during the day when she's relieved at 5:00 the person who comes in for the night session also sits at the reception so so there's someone there so that that area is always attended is what you're you're telling us yes okay well I I appreciate that and and um um I I think I still would um encourage you to think about U uh what could be done to make that area more secure I mean just on the basis of what I'm seeing in terms of the renderings um that there is an a willingness there's a willingness to incur some expense I know it's not a huge space but there is a willingness to incur some expense to make uh a facility that is very attractive uh and accommodating uh to the clients and that may not be uh asking too much to Simply look at um the entrance to make sure that it's more secure especially you know again weekends well there's you don't have to worry there's a lot of activity going on there on Saturdays but Sundays uh and uh and and then again in the evenings because it it does sound like uh you know there uh maybe activities that may stretch to 8:30 maybe even 9:00 at night uh and and I believe uh we're primarily talking about women and children not to be sexist but but let's speak about the reality in terms of U the issues of vulnerability sure thank you Mr chairman Miss Grant do you have any questions I have one question um so the um historic preservation commission um in this um memo it talks about the um South facade an alternative to proposed stco so on the drawings it calls out um paint is that the new alternative to the stco it's the it's the um the design that's currently on the drawings okay so yes it would it would be repaired stucco um with with a um a new Fresh coat of paint that blends it in okay thank you I'm I'm glad if you don't mind Mr chairman I realized I neglected to ask him about the HPC memo so well I I'm going to so I know you were all right I I'll wait till you ask the question than Mr Crawfield the second floor that exists right you're not building a second floor on that no we're building that new you're building that new yeah and where are you building that yes can you show me like how that gets built and where that's going to be the location off of the other drawing you have there like how where is the second floor going to be put on that um well I can do I think it may be on the drawing that you had here with the um well I think he's asking if it'll show up on the elevation the second level that you're second level up here no no no no it's it's it's within it's within the the um the box of of the building we're not we're not popping up and adding the second floor to the building it's within the the structure within the existing structurein that yeah is there really like a mezzanine level it's essentially a mezzanine correct I mean we it's it's accessed by a stairs um and it has um you know enough ceiling height in that portion of the building to support a um two two floor levels but it's not raising the roof in any way okay um on the drawing showing the entrance to Sharon Miller um there's a bunch of awnings that you have there um looks like the building goes to an l-shape there and the awning is going around that way the gym actually has an existing awning mayor does that going to meet up to that awning that you're proposing the gym has is actually a long uh canopy that extends over that portion of the building uh the current um idea is to remove that canopy and create a new canopy that's consistent with the um canopies that are sh in the rendering so that will go across to where the gym is yes correct okay yep and there are plans to also paint the Gym's wall that part of that wall as well yes again the the the idea is to try and um and introduce some organization and visual consistency to as many parts of the building as as we're touching okay um the building seems to have on the on the on on the roof levels like guard rails is there a reason why they have that th those are temporary um the the I'm not sure if this work is complete yet but a new roof was being added to the building so the yellow rails that you see in the photographs are temporary safety rails that were put up by the construction company no fire escapes go off onto the roofs from any of these buildings to get out uh for the upper levels for the buildings at all do you know of uh there is one in the office portion of the building okay does that go over the roof of Sharon Miller to get out no no it's nowhere near Sharon's area okay all right thank you Miss Harris no questions Mr Church no question Mr Simon yes uh just a couple um sticking with the roof so there's no roof access no nothing planned to be able to walk out on the roof for um for any of the tenants correct it's just not for any tenants that's correct all right um the space in the back corner before the shared studio uh on that right side you said that that would be in the event that the share there's no agreement for a shared Studio that space is just going to be for storage that's correct okay um uh regarding this the brick face the stucco is that a is that like you committed to the stucco for the brick face on that elevation um the this the um what's what's represented as stucco is intended to be a um a preliminary treatment of of the facade in anticipation of other potential improvements to to the building um there's been disc about you're not stuck on a stuck no we're not stuck on St just not scatching Marks here um again you said there there's no kitchen just a countertop uh the other areas for the bathrooms is it one stall per bathroom it's a um single occupant single bathroom and there's there's two of them now is that enough considering the amount of people that are going to be flowing in here I I look through the Wednesday schedule as it currently is you have from 4 to 5 you have 22 people registered you know 5 to 7 5 to six you have 29 people and then from 6 to 7 there's another 20 people so you you basically have over 60 people in a 2hour span 2 to three hour span using one bathroom and that seems to be shared between the artists and any visitors is that sufficient well according to the building code it is we we is it by code we designed according to the occupant load of the um of the of the of the facility and our our page two shows the calculations that lead us to that that uh design okay it it may be by code but I especially in a situation where you have young children I don't think that's sufficient at all and even the distance from the bathroom to the changing room seems excessive you know you're going to have children changing realize they have to go to the bathroom then now they have to walk up to the common area in various stages of you know of changing I think some consideration needs to be put for some restrooms or near to changing areas in the rear um because it just doesn't seem adequate at all in my in my opinion um regards to what the code suggests uh and I think my colleagues covered the rest so thank you Mr VI thank you Mr chairman U so following up on the question Mr Simon asked about the restroom did you consider adding a restroom for the administrative personnel and and um instructors or that was only the the two bathrooms for everyone you know during during the design development of the design we reviewed the overall scope of the fit out two restrooms were deemed to be adequate and they certainly uh in compliance with the code so that's why we we stuck with that but I I appreciate Mr Simon's point and I think I think that's it's worthy to consider a third one um on another subject regarding the secondary means of eress for each of the studios uh you mentioned that they need a WRA because of the elevation change correct yeah and they they are ADA Compliant yes that's correct same for the yellow Studio as well that also needs a ramp um there is a there is a change of elevation um there that we're showing with with one step that the grade raises as as as you move north along the facade of the of the building so it's just a one-step change and there's ADA compliance for that studio coming through the common area so both entrances don't need to have the the uh the ramping treatment okay all right um as far as the uh HBC equipment you mentioned that it will go up on the the rooftop correct yes that's right and the there's currently access to the rooftop for service yes yeah so that will remain for maintenance Personnel to go up and service the yes yeah okay and um uh I notice in the rendering maybe it's not shown the the commons area it's proposed to be condition space correct oh yes yeah okay I just didn't see the dock work so figure okay yeah thank you okay go going to the HBC memo the the the first requirement deals with the windows in the original B brick building do you have any problem with complying with that no none whatever okay and then they asked for the details of the garage door improvements I I mean I would have thought what your plan showed showed what you're doing with the garage doors that well that was frankly was a head scratcher for us because the garage doors are being removed right to impr what's going there in their stad which is largely wall with a door and some windows correct yes that's correct okay then to go back to the stucco question um my understanding of what you said in response to Mr Simon is that um the the owner um is going to consider that um when he comes in for future improvements to the property is that correct uh yeah I think that is that is correct I also think that there's um there's been discussion about uh potential um rotating art program uh for for those facades to enliven them and to maybe demonstrate the work of local artist uh there also um I believe part of the Landscaping plan is uh using treatments that um mitigate some of the larger expanses of of the stucco walls so I think it's it's not necessarily a um a area that requires an architectural solution and okay I I mean I think what I'm thinking about is a condition that just any future application address what they're doing with that I mean I agree with the HBC that's not particularly attractive but I'm not sure for this application it makes any sense to you know in light of the other improvements that are being done to do anything um and then equally puzzling to me is that that you return to them with a landscape plan and that's not really your issue but um I'm at the discuss I assume you were at the HBC meeting what was there an explanation as to why they're into Landscaping it's like um I I really I frankly don't recall the details of that conversation we we did talk about we're going to discuss the Landscaping with the engineer and yeah I think you know Vince will will discuss that as part of their their civil engineering package okay okay um are there any members of the audience with questions for this witness uh we're going to take a break until 10:15 um but Allan get your next witness set up and ready to go so we can yep be ready to start promptly at 10:15 okay thank you for e e e e e e e e e e e e okay so Mr chac you want to call your next witness yep my next witness you can do that in a minute is uh Vincent Esposito Mr esposo would you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth of the matter pening before the board I do state your name and address Vince espo 153 Deborah Court J PA 18929 microphone probably not don't me to say it again I think we got it okay okay um would you provide the board with your educational background and your professional qualification yes uh I received my degree in engineering from Penn State University been practicing engineering for my entire career of 9 years um in a variety of different areas of commercial industrial residential background um civil engineering as all I know I'm also registered engineer in the Comm PA industri New Jersey you're licens in New Jersey correct since uh a year and a half ago I believe okay and are you uh employed by the Langan engineering I am how long have you worked for Langan I've worked for Langan for almost 2 years now and previously 7even years of experience and civil engineering okay you've testified before other zoning planning boards yes and been qualified as an expert witness in the field of engineering this is true I was actually in your position at one point okay well we'll accept him as a civil engineer okay exper M your office prepared the uh site plan drawings for this application correct yes we did all right and I think they're now up on the screen and I'd like you to just walk the board through the site plan you know and um discuss you know parking Landscaping lighting however we want to do it we okay can you hear me everyone all right uh so I'm sure you've all had a chance to familiarize yourself with the plans um from a civil standpoint it's pretty straightforward um we are Milling an overlay in the entire parking area we are restriping it to provide some better circulation in addition to some landscaping and lighting improvements um so to kind of start off uh the existing parking within uh the property a lot of the parking spaces are not compliant the striping is faded the sizes are too small we are bringing all those spaces into compliance with the Monclair Township ordinance um we're also increasing the aisle widths throughout to comply with the ordinance um and then increase the number of parking spaces from 73 to 88 um can run in go we talking about the parking spaces just identify where you're showing tandem spaces on the plant yes so we have there's existing tandem spaces uh on this property we're basically continuing that existing non-conformity uh we have a couple tanon spaces in this area and then tanon spaces in that corner as well okay all right uh going further site access given the address of the property would basically be off of eie Street occupants would circulate through and then we changed this to a oneway um access to provide better circulation for the property where they' exit onto Oak Place um so that improved circulation in addition to bringing the parking lot into compliance uh was our main goal for this so site improvements are relatively minor but main goal was to bring it into compliance okay um so now is the entrance on Oak on Oak Place intended to just be exit only based upon this the entrance is two-way on here the intention for the oneway is to basically better provide for the Sharon Miller Academy um where occupant would basically enter off of Erie um this would designate them not to do a turnaround maneuver in this area and to continue on through out onto oakplace uh to alleviate any curing issues with drop offs okay okay all right you want to talk about um Landscaping yes in the landscape plan so in regards to Landscaping there isn't existing skip plurals on this portion and on that portion in addition to the Oak Place Frontage we're providing additional Landscaping um in the landscape islands and then there's also existing dog Woods along the label Street uh Frontage as well in regards to lighting there is existing Lighting on psng poles throughout the property and along label Street there's two or three lights along label street that have lights on them as well as a couple on the property um our plan is to retrofit those existing lights and basically better Luminate the property for compliance and we're utilizing those poles um in addition to couple additional lights in this area for slight access safety and here um to eliminate this rear area the parking lot which has no lighting all right and so with respect to the lighting I think was pointed out in I think the Boswell report that there are areas where the intensity of the lighting exceeds the require you know the limitations in the monore ordinance can you identify where those areas are and address that issue yeah so based on the Boswell letter um they were speaking about spell over the3 Maximum foot CLE um would be in this area along the side we basically bring it down to a 0.1 to a zero but this area along the western property line is the Tony Brook um there's no Residential Properties along that side that' be affected from here because we're utilizing the existing poles the poles are located within the label street right away as such it's an existing non-conformity to basically use those existing poles to throw light onto our private property um and then in this area along Eerie Street we have a little bit of light Spiller within the public right away to provide illumination for the site access so suppos goes into the right away and there's no adj there's no um are there any residences or other property that are affected by that spill over there no there's all the railroads and parking adjacent to here no residential properties here's the right way no adjacent properties with lights being directed here the Residential Properties that are on the north side of uh Oak Place we provide full cut off fixtures where possible so you'll see there's no light being spilled over onto Oak Place to that would that would further hinder those Residential Properties okay um with respect to the landscape being there was a comment in the planning department memo regarding um Landscaping uh uh on the label Street side and I think a request that there be some additional Landscaping there yes that's correct so right now like I stated earlier there are Skip luros Along here and along this portion with three dogwoods here we do plan on proposing additional skip Laurels to fill in the gaps there to provide that parking buffer as noted in Janice's letter okay can you show that on a plan I don't know what on the revised plan yeah we plan on revising this plan to include that so it would be a condition of approval okay all right um just if you can go back to the site plan I just want you to identify the U location of the trash enclosure that is provided for on the plans right yes there's existing dumpers that Mr plac noted in this area we are now providing a trash enclosure that's going to be in compliance with Montclair Township ordinance trash enclosure is going to be in the same general area up in this corner with board onboard fencing a concrete foundation and additional landscaping and Evergreens that will be placed surrounding it a detail for that is provided on cs501 right there does it have a roof the trash enclosure does not have a roof it has code requires it I believe you're it does it requ okay we can revise it then to re require a roof not an issue okay um are you aware aware of any new signage that's being proposed other than the signage that was noted on the architectural plans for a location yes we do have additional signage to accompany the parking lot circulation we have stop signs here we have oneway circulation signs here we also have do not enter signs and stop ours to prevent traffic from flowing into this area all right so you're talking about signage on the pavement is there any additional signage that you're aware of that's proposed either building mounted signage or um um freestanding signs the freestanding signs would be the oneway sign here it would be the accessible parking signage here and then the free standing signs I believe which are placed here and now we're on the plan for the Do Not enters okay and there was a comment in the I think uh the Boswell letter requesting that you testify uh discuss any fencing modifications that are proposed yes there's an existing 5-ft fence that runs along the tonyb creek um we are replacing that in kind with a a 5ft chain length fence no barp wire and it's going to be black vinyl coated okay what about the comment that I think was raised in the Boswell report as well as the planning department memo about um suggestion that uh to provide curbs rather than wheel stops can you address that yeah so we took a deep dive with this and uh I guess it's important to note where Kirby exists currently um on the plan there's curbing on this area that runs across it's also curbing in here um we're proposing additional concrete uh curbing Islands in this area as well as with our trash en closure up in here um as not in the Boswell letter uh we did look at providing additional curbing along the Tony Brook but that would cause increased erosion to the Tony Brook due to it being concentrated flow right now it's generally sheet flow and we want to maintain that um Boswell was in agreement with this we also explore placing additional curbing in this area however due to grads um the curbing would be more of a trip Hazard uh being only a maximum of 4 in high as opposed to the wheel stops which would be less of a tripping Hazard okay um just sticking with the Boswell report and I might need to give this to you but I just want to have you confirm um that you'll be able to comply with um well I'm going to refer you to paragraphs 12 and 13 in the Boswell letter from February 16th yes so in regards to the Boswell letter all comments are will comply a lot of the comments echoed similar sentent as to miss T's letter um some of the things I do want to take a deeper dive in are landscaping and lighting um like we noted previously uh we're improving the lighting to basically bring it into compliance um by using the existing PSG and poles on label Street um and throughout the property to basically illuminate the property we did a light study on this and determined that the existing light fixtures were inadequate um they provided very minimal lighting uh and it was potentially a safety issue so this is a huge Improvement to the plan from a lighting standpoint um and we worked directly with psng regarding this uh with respect to the color PSG specified 4,000k um we can work with them to see if they'll bring it down but that was a specification that uh they provide it because we are utilizing their pools okay can I add a question since we're talking about lighting I noticed that your the flood lights are being um mounted at a height of 25 ft our code only allows them to be mounted at a height of 15 ft yeah that's an existing non-conformity the existing life fixures on those poles are mounted at 25 ft that's a psng standard and we're maintaining that [Applause] standard um a couple of other comments in the Boswell letter I think already indicated you're going to provide some additional skip laurel um uh along the uh label Street side there's also a request for a yeah we P back to Landscaping we are going to do some additional skip lers to fill those gaps to meet those parking buffer requirements we're also going to switch out the landscaping near the trash enclosure to be evergreen shrubs um and add in that additional shade tree for the um trash enclosure area so all those comments are comply okay so you're talking about comments I think 27 28 29 that's correct 31 you have already addressed on fencing yep okay um uh can you address the waivers that are being requested yeah so to basically summarize the waivers that we're requesting uh one which has already been uh testified to is the tandem parking spaces uh the second waiv we request thing as regards to parking lot Dimensions the code adds a provision to reduce the parking Dimensions to compact spaces um from 9x19 to 8 by17 we are in compliance with that uh provision of the ordinance um it's more of a formality to request a waiver for it um it's also existing nonconformity since many of the spaces on the property um do not meet the current ordinance requirements the additional waiver we're requesting is for a widths as noted with the parking Dimensions the aists are also able to be reduced in size from 20 24 feet to 21 feet um we are doing this only in compact space areas and it's in compliance with the ordinance I think there's only one area where you're showing a 21t aisle if you can just point that out yes I believe it's within this area here right okay and then we've got compact parking spaces adjacent to the aisle that's correct all right and then the final waiver would be with respect to the lighting existing non-conformity utilizing those PSG pools with them being located within the r of way and spilling onto the property to provide illumination the property line uh requirement is not met for that all right I think there's also a waiver for the uh 4 foot setback required between parking areas and the uh property lines yes we are not adding any impervious to this site we're ual lizing the existing in uh asphalt layout um and the existing layouts of the parking as it currently stands uh there's a 3.62 dimension here existing nonconformity and we are not worsing that in any way we are simply milling and overlaying the existing as just continuing it okay okay that's all I have Mr chairman Mr MCO do you have any questions questions yeah just a couple of questions Mr esposo um just going back to where you you made reference to the traffic patterns um if I'm understanding you correctly there are three patterns um so in the area on by Erie by the entrance at Eerie Street uh I'll just there's a b there so I'll just call that area out right okay so um people um cars would enter intoed area but if they're if they're parking within that zone that b area they would also be able to exit to eie Street or would they have to work their way through uh to Oak Street yeah so it's a good question um this is two-way access uh as it stands now and we continue to maintain that the only access we're changing is in the back side of the building here is two-way we are making this a one way to provide for better circulation but our access would be able to provide in and out through Erie the intent for making this the one way is to provide that better circulation for drop off um for the Miller space cars would potentially circulate in through here turn right there sidewalk adjacent to the building and entrances here and then cars would then continue on through not being impeded by the uh reduced width here and it still complies with the oneway access out that way so the the area in uh front let's see okay uh the area F I think FNG G uh that which is FG yeah the yeah back here yes that so going across so Vehicles would be obligated to go out through Oak Street or would they have the option to go either way they have the option to go either way they have the option to go either way is what you're saying okay yeah it's two-way here it's two-way there the only thing we changed is to ride only one way out this way as not just for the circulation but essentially they would have the option right so if if if if people are wanting to use Oak Street they would go up that area and no vehicles would uh from area C and H would be able to make their way over to exactly Street in other words so my question is it is that practical it just sounds like a it sounds very confusing I mean there's sort of like these three traffic patterns right so basically there's tenant doors on this area there's tenant doors all throughout so we're still providing and maintaining the same access at each of these Street Front edges so that's really not changing um the general circulation is the only major difference is just doing a oneway in this area due to the limited payment widths in this so it's really making it a safer circulation pattern just from that instance but cars have the option to go either direction um in this and in this instance as well so there really is no major change of circulation it's just more of an improve of safety in the pinched area here to make this a one way okay um so what about uh um walkways I mean you know because I in terms of the the testimonies that we've been listening to the it's been referenced to people arriving a variety of ways most perhaps by vehicle but some might be pedestrians and so are there walkways uh that sort of span this whole area or what do we call yes you're correct there is uh covered walkways along the entire Frontage here um and then there's easy access for the doorways and Stoops along for the E here as well so if people are coming from the train station and coming off of Erie there's a walkway and sidewalk that provide access to the Miller okay so the the the the walkway um over in the area I think um that would be the yellow Studio I think right that D area D on the gray um that would go to the one way access right this is an egress Point yes so that that um there's a walkway there is that correct yeah we gor stripe that area out so that no cars will be able to enter in that for safety and and that will stretch all the way up going up to the uh parking area closer to Oak Oak Street yeah there's existing doorways to the other tenets all along this building Frontage so that basically stretches all the way through with no parking spots impeding that um there's walkways in this area as well so there's no reason for people to be walking um in the in the in the roadway no sir if they do it's it's a choice they're making you can jaywalk if you want but okay all right well I'm particularly concerned also about I think there's been reference to people who who may be pushing you know baby carriages and that kind of thing or you know toddlers you know just want to make sure that they're not in the street that they actually do have uh free access what what about uh uh bicycles are there any ACC comod ations for bicycles um here like would the I know we've there's a lot of attention given to parking spaces but what about storing bicycles uh at this facility if there are teenagers that are able to yeah there are existing bicycle facilities located uh in this area for the defit use and for I guess any use for uh this building so they're existing B that currently exists correct okay all right okay all right thank you very much Miss Grant no questions for me Mr Crawfield so um the let me pull the map I guess eie Street going north the row is very shallow there is I correct sorry what the the RightWay of Eerie Street it Narrows itself as you go towards Oak Oak Place yeah I would assume so yes okay I think it it does um um so like so we're putting more parking in technically from what is existing on the old survey correct it's correct all right and you feel that we have to adhere to the certain amount of parking because of the the codes and stuff like that that this is going to be an okay situation with this type of operation here I might next I agree but he did bring up some of the traffic so I'm just I'm not going de detail into that okay I just want to I'm looking for flow is what I'm you know yeah I would def heard our traffic engineer on that yeah okay on that aspect of it but did did you come up with the design on that or did you look at listen to the traffic engineer and then put together the spaces off of his report the traffic engineer is also with L we worked hand in hand okay um do you anti the the io with that that the code the waiver that you're looking for says 24 and you're looking for 21 in that space there's no concerns for you in that like if if uh if one of the vehicles was coming out of the space and another vehicle coming down would you see something in that way of trouble I would trust the Monclair clue that if we're going to utilize the 21t width with compact spaces that it wouldn't cause any issu it wouldn't cause that space would you see a bigger car in the over I mean you wouldn't have any but there could be a situation that you would have a bigger car in a compact space that but that's part of not not your purview in that situation um any the the the inlets that you have did uh do they drain into Tony's Brook do you do you know yeah there's a variety of existing catch basins and piping throughout the property all of which usually drains to the Tony's Brook adjacent um you originally had curbs along the Tony Brook but you decided that it best not to do that because of the water flow aspect of it correct that's not correct that's not correct what was We There is existing no curb we explored placing curb based off the review letter from Mrs tal and Boswell we explore plac curbing there and found that it would be uh disadvantageous blocking water to going to Tony brook or why does it right so basically the existing conditions now is sheet flow yeah which is great because it's not concentrated by curbing you would basically create a point source discharge to that ton Brook which would further cause erosion to the stream okay so by maintaining the existing flow pattern um it's just advantageous from the the flow you're going the flow this direction you're not sure what flow right the flow of the parking lot is like 1 to 2% it's all towards this Direction that's correct okay thank you no problem thank you Miss Harris um the building lighting that you're showing um on on this mapa elevation is that are they integrated into the canopy I guess that might be a question for Mr hor we did integrate the canopy lighting um you could see along the building Frontage into our lighting plan yes okay um and I think this might be more of a question for Miss tally but do we need any kind of variances for the non-conforming shed is that something that we need to consider this evening um I we didn't identify any variances for the shed I think what you're being asked to tonight is part of the site plan approval is to approve the shed okay we didn't identify any variances for that shed location okay thank you no further thank you Mr Church you may have answered my question being in the event of a uh flooding situation on that property the sheet flow to Tony's Creek would that be adequate to handle it or would it take additional piping underground to dissipate it so that you don't have uh standing water after a heavy rain which we've been getting a lot of now it's a great question uh so it's a two parter the first part is we're not proposing any additional impervia surface we're actually reducing impervia surface which means there's going to be in a reduction in the amount of flow with these improvements from the existing condition getting to that River uh so we are improving that condition okay and it would be adequate I mean to handle a a heavy rain so it doesn't puddle and yes in regards to the puddling and in the existing pavement areas we are providing a full Mill and overlay to basically create a more uniform and eliminate those bar bath that would be enough be enough okay that's all I have Mr Simon couple questions just going back to signage is there any signage at the entrance to the driveways saying like what stores or facilities these are on the property existing no is are there any plans to to add those I'll defer the architect on that window to speak on uh additional signage for the property okay um okay and the the other questions may not be for you as well is were there any provisions for uh EV electrical Chargers yes there were uh and we are as a will comply item we plan on placing three EV Chase stations uh in this corner here up against the building that's correct so the the three full siiz spaces are going to be the E Che correct that's a welcome play thank you thank you Mr viea thank you Mr chairman um in regards to the um the oneway traffic pattern that you're changing um is there anything that will prevent an emergency vehicle say a fire truck to go the other way uh not to my knowledge no we're not reducing the width in this area we just know it's an existing pinch point of the existing configuration so we're improving that by instead of making this as an existing two-way we're decreasing it to one way to reduce any instances where that would come into play Yeah by a fire drug we not have any problem going one way or the other the Fire Marshall was required to approve this plan uh the existing plan as is so I'm sure he would allude to the same that it's not an issue yep and then as far as um Utilities in general city water um saniti sword do you anticipate any changes as a result of this construction no we're not making any changes or any changes to the drainage uh we're not making any changes to the existing catch basins or piping um those are all staying as isn't existing and electric and gas services will remain you will not have anything new I believe so what's the question utilities I don't believe there's any additional ities with us no all right thank you uh I want to go over the Lang and memo a couple of parts of that where um not altogether clear what you're proposing and let's start with number 11 in terms of where are you putting Curbing and where are you not putting curving I understand along Tony's broke your not putting Curbing and I'm going to come back to that is there anywhere else that you're not putting curbing in there's curbing that already exists on this area there's curbing that already exists in this area the rest of this property there is no curbing um we took a deep dive into the grading of this site and we wanted to maintain the existing dra patterns to the best uh way possible because they're all geared towards the existing inlets and and the piping associated with them um there is not enough gray change from these door access points to the existing building to implement any curbing in that area because you essentially have a 6in curb that's stuck up and it would be level on both sides of it and that's more of a tripping Hazard I feel than the wheel stops where a vehicle is going to be parked in front of the wheel stops how about how about along the uh the northern property line I mean the southern property line I'm sorry along here yeah there's existing curbing that exists there and you you have Curbing and wheel stops why do you have both it was part of the existing condition we're simply keeping it the same configuration can we get rid of that's we can certainly remove the wheel stops from this area if you would like okay so my understanding is you're proposing to Mill the entire parking lot is that correct it's correct so any existing wheel stops will at least have to be lifted up to enable that to occur is that correct the wheel stops will be temporary removed during the Milling process that's correct the the Boswell memo identifies a number of low spots based on your spot elevations where water is currently ponding um my understanding is when when you do the milling and repaving those will be eliminated that's correct and I know it's been added to our plan stating such um the um what is along the south side then what is the if there's existing curbing there what is the purpose of the wheel stops I believe the wheel stops are there as an existing condition we were simply putting them there just to maintain it but we can certainly remove them if you would like us to they don't need to be there if the curbing is there you are correct um okay along my understanding of the survey is your the property line basically runs along the top of Tony's Brook is that correct no the Tony Brook is a little bit to the west of the property line this is the property line is essentially edge of pave okay let let's do there's the stream there's a concrete wall on either side of the stream and then there's this narrow strip where volunteer trees have popped up along what's a foot and a half maybe 2 feet wide and I'm trying to figure out who owns that strip of land that's at the top of the wall on the east side of the Stream I would kind of interpret the survey as saying the wall is the property line but I can't tell that for sure because it doesn't show it just shows the property going slightly Beyond well yeah can you clarify which area I mean I I would read it is I mean it says the edge of Paving is the is the goes to the property line yes okay so only because it is is affecting other people's property am I going to leave you alone on those CU I I think there are other things you could do to control the erosion but you end up would have to do something on the neighbor's property um so um the your there'll be what 15 additional parking spaces as result of that's correct we're increasing from 73 to 88 how is that being accomplished basically we're bringing the existing spaces into compliance many of the spaces are not sized properly so by resizing the spaces adding additional compact spaces to get our widths in we're basically adding in those additional 15 to simplify you'll have you're accomplishing this by making some of the spaces smaller some some are properly oversized size but some you're going from the conventional 9 ft to the compact 8 ft is that correct partially correct yes so the spaces that exist on here are only 14t in length so we're bringing those into compliance then the compact spaces would help us meet uh reach those goals of uh the additional spaces yes okay and um the lighting is the last thing I want to cover um okay so I understand you're exceeding a long eerie and who cares is to be my um the um and I couldn't find in where where is the exceedence where are the other exceedances yep so we're exceeding along label Street and that's because the light fixies as they exist today are within the label Street RightWay and they shine onto our property we're replacing those fixtures so it's a technicality of since all light fixtures located outside the the property at the actual property line it's an overage uh at that point but those those are what I would call the existing street lights that exactly there's existing street lights there and then there's existing lights on those poles that shy onto our property we're simply replacing those lights and is there any other place where there's an exceedance there's minor exceedances of3 but this is into the Tony's Brook and this area um once you actually get to the water level I believe it dnds down to zero um not far off of the property line so it when by the time you get to the other side of Tony's Brook Bit Zero yep any other questions from members of the board Mr Harrison I have a question um we heard I heard testimony tonight about um the students who will be walking to uh uh Sharon Miller's Academy from the high school and from Renaissance School how are they going to get to the entrance if they're walking from the schools sidewalks and biking I'm assuming how they would get there's a sidewalk issue here you know and that's if I wasn't aware that so many students would be walking so I really want to know and and the entrance is on the north side of the building and the school I mean on the east side of the building and the schools are to the West so what is going to be the safe pathway for students who are walking to class just curious I would basically prefer them utilize the existing walkways in this uh all in this property um we're providing sidewalk all on the property Frontage I'm sorry not the building Frontage to provide access to this front building um any improvements would be outside of our subject property well there's no sidewalks along let me say there's no sidewalks on Oak Place on this side of the property are there any sidewalks on eie street if there I'm trying to pick I know that there's there's no sidewalks on this side of Oak Place they would be on the other side of Oak Place I'm assuming you don't want them walking through the parking lot and going through the one-way traffic you want them to walk around the building so and maybe this isn't the best um maybe expert but again I'm trying to figure out the safe way for students walking to the entrance I think the only Safe Way is for them to come down uh far Street to to label and come in that way where their sidewalks Mr no kid is going to do that that's why the attorneys don't testify yeah so I think that's a pretty important consideration so and you might have somebody else who might be able to respond to that okay are there any members of the audience who have questions for this witness I I just wanted to say as far as if if you could you come up to the microphone please an answer to in answer to that question having done it many times you can walk down Chestnut then you walk toward I don't know what that little street is called there's a there's a little Street it has a sidewalk then you go around what you're doing is going around the building and if there are sidewalks there I've done it so and you're going down Oak Place and then there's are there sidewalks on Eerie Street and then you go around okay what I did was I went the back way of yes I entered there and then I used the sidewalk that was along the edge of the building so you can go around the building to the front where Sharon Millers would be can you show me where you get okay well perhaps if people if people are walking there you sh can we make that identify it as a a pedestrian walkway there a protected pedestrian we can certainly add Gore striping in that area I think you probably have the room because you've striped it right we do have the space to add some gore striping in that area but um I'm just trying to think of how to provide safe a safe pathway way for people to walk and if you can show that that's where people should be walking around the building yeah I do know there's space from the building and that's why another reason wheel stops would be important to create that existing barrier in between the building and the parking area I do know there is space in between here that I think I would prefer to see rather than wheel stops creating The Pedestrian area I'd rather see a curb and a sidewalk right so the issue with the curbing there is you would block the entrances you would have equal elevation on both sides of the curb you're blocking there's only one one entrance there there's an entrance here there's a couple doorways all along the side of this building I thought you were getting rid of those you're getting rid of those yes in this area are these entrances on this also being roofed yeah but we can certainly add some gore striping on that side there too I would prefer to see a sidewalk yeah I I'd like to to um voice support for that I mean that was the question that I was asking earlier right about you know pedestrian traffic uh making it possible for people to be able to fully access uh this building from Oak Street or eie Street as well as bicycles I mean it's clearly that's a critical issue especially since you're not going to be walking around the out outside of the building they're going to be walking they're not walking on the North side and the East Side they're going to be walking on the west side so I think need to consider that okay are there any questions for members of the audience for this witness Mr tulac you want to call your next witness yes Danario 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 certainly Dan desario last name is d a r iio I'm with Langan engineering business address is uh Princeton New Jersey I'm a licensed professional engineer in the state of New Jersey as well as several other states I have a Bachelor of Science and civil engineering from uh Temple University masters of transportation engineering from NGIT I've been accepted as an expert in the field of traffic engineering before hundreds of boards throughout New Jersey we accept to miss an expert traffic engineer thank you Mr chairman Dan um you're familiar with the uh parking analysis report uh the revised report dated March 15 2024 yes yeah I mean I realize it was prepared by someone else in your office but you're familiar with that and prepared to review it tonight for the with the board I am and the author of that report is probably on a plane heading to Rome as we speak send him an email this afternoon he was out of the office by noon so if it was later than that Mr chairman he was not going to respond to it okay all right would you review the parking analysis certainly conclusions absolutely given the late hour I'm just going to cut to the chase um and give you the benefit of the highlights of of what's stated the chairman touched upon some of it already earlier in the evening but essentially we went out there and we identifi what the existing parking demand is the way we did that is we did counts that counted all the vehicles that were parked on the property um March 13th which was uh last Wednesday I believe from 6:00 a.m. to 6: p.m. we recorded the amount of parked Vehicles every half hour we did it again March 14th Thursday again from 6:00 AM to 6 PM every 30 minutes and then we also did parking counts March 16th Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. again every 30 minutes between the two weekday counts we looked at what the absolute highest parking demand was it occurred at 9:00 a.m. and it was 62 Vehicles right now in round numbers you have about 20,000 squ ft of occupied office fit loft is about 10,500 Square ft so the combination of that office use and the fit LOF use generated a maximum parking demand of only 62 vehicles uh at any given time during the weekday counts similarly for the Saturday count we identifi a maximum of 47 Vehicles parked on the site and that occurred at noon if again referring to that memo if you wanted to look at the details of how the parking demand varied over over those times that we did our counts I refer you to page five of 11 of that memo when you look at that in terms of the weekday counts 600 in the morning there were 15 cars as a maximum demand at 600 p.m. there was a maximum of 22 Vehicles as I testified to uh the highest parking demand occurred at 9:00 a.m. which was 62 Vehicles so it's clear to me that fit LOF being that type of specialized training facility is really no pun intendent driving the parking demand because as you get later in the day the parking demand at the site actually starts going down uh during the weekday based on those counts 10: a.m. was 59 11:00 it was 38 noon it was 36 1 p.m. it was 36 2: p.m. it was 39 3 p.m. it was 32 4:00 was 29 5:00 was 24 and 6 o'clock was 22 so you can see the effects of fitl in the morning which was consistent with the testimony that you heard from the applicant then the rest of the day it's really the office users uh presumably I would note for the board's information we counted all vehicles that were parked on the site irrespective of whether they were associated with any of the tenants that are actually on the site or if they were associated with other tenants in the area not on this site I think the board's probably aware there is some parking that does routinely occur on this site that has nothing to do with tenants um that currently occupy the site when you look at those maximum parking demands that were you recorded and you want to estimate how that would change with this proposed application essentially there's two components it's this smappa that um is before you this evening but it's also the vacant restaurant that is on the site that's currently not generating any parking demand you heard testimony from um um Sharon regarding smapa we've conservatively assumed for parking uh evaluation purposes maximum parking demand for smappa of 30 vehicles and that's essentially assuming there's an adult class with about 10 adults uh in it and all the adults Drive and then there's a um preschool class um with about 20 parents associated with those students that would also drive and park so a total of 30 Vehicles realistically and practically speaking I don't expect that kind of demand from smappa for but for purposes of parking evaluation that's what we've assumed that they would generate a maximum parking demand of 30 vehicles uh essentially between the hours of 4 and 8 um when is uh they experience their Peak activity in terms of of classes because essentially it's catering to kids after school that leaves the restaurant your parking ordinance requires one space per three seats that restaurant right now has 135 seats in it so that would equate to a maximum parking demand of 45 Vehicles if you look at how restaurant parking demand varies based on published information and we referred to the Urban Land institute's publication shared parking which I believe is it's uh in its Third Edition in that publication it has how or identifies how parking demand varies for restaurant uses as I'm sure you all have dined at restaurants typically speaking restaurant Peak parking demands occur at evening times generally from 6 to 7 o'clock and later and then on Saturdays um again in the evening but they do generate often times some noon time demands uh for lunch so based on the Uli information and the existing parking demand that we have identified at the site we've identified a worst case scenario in terms of parking demand if the board grants approval for this application and smappa occupies the space uh as proposed and the restaurant and the applicant did indicate he does have a tenant for the restaurant so the restaurant goes back into full operation at the 135 seat capacity that you could expect conservatively a maximum Peak parking demand of 95 vehicles on a weekday at 6 p.m. that consists of the 22 vehicles that we counted that occur currently at the site an additional 30 for smappa and again I believe that's a conservative estimate we all expect it to be lower than that and the restaurant would have a demand at 6 PM of 43 Vehicles based on thei information not fully reaching its maximum Peak parking demand to 700 p.m. that would equate to to about 95 Vehicles you've heard this application is proposing 88 spaces so in that limited instance on a 6:00 on a weekday evening there may be the need to rely on some of the on street parking that is in the area to support what I would characterize as minimal overflow coming from this site and practically speaking it probably won't be any overflow because we're overestimating what smappa would generate then similarly on Saturday at noon time we identified existing parking demand at the site of 33 again assuming smappa is running um a few classes and equates to a 30 uh vehicle demand in terms of parking and based on Uli again the restaurant demand would be about half of its maximum Peak parking demand so about 23 if you add those up add up if you add all those components up we're looking at a a maximum Peak parking Demand on a conservative side of about 86 Vehicles so when you look at it holistically and in total based on the existing parking experience at the site today and conservatively adding on top of that the smappa demand and the restaurant demand for most if not all the time periods that you would come to the site there'll be a available parking there may be an hour during the weekday evening where there might not be any spaces available at the site and obviously we would rely on some of the on street parking that surrounds the site to accommodate that overflow but again practically speaking I don't expect that to be the case the applicant as you heard has Master leased this site for a year and currently doesn't experience any parking issues at the site other than Maybe some people that don't belong at the site parking there um but with that I would be happy to answer any questions that any of the board members have M molock do you have any questions did you have that's okay Mr jario just a couple of questions for you yes sir um one of them um uh you sort of alluded to in terms of the the Saturday reality which is Farmers Market I think is the time that most most likely there would be other vehicles that are utilizing that parking space because there's so much congestion at that time um is is that part of what you observed I can only tell you what we counted and identified last Saturday given given the hearing and there were 33 Vehicles parked at noon at the site um and that at 10:00 in the morning there were 47 vehicles that were parked that could be a combination of some of the farmers market activity it's probably more likely that it's the again the fitl activity with their classes you heard the applicant I'm sure all the board members are familiar with the site if you don't know the sites there you don't know it's there um along label Street there's a grade difference between the sidewalk and the street level and where this site's parking level or grading elevation is and there's a lot of landscaping there too that blocks view into this site so it's really not an inviting site in terms of the surrounding streets um and if you don't know it exists you're never going to know it's back there and certainly when I got involved and I did a site visit this evening I went around the block once because I missed to turn on to Eerie Street to get to the site because it's not readily visible yeah I mean I I I I basically agree with you although you know I suspect that you know with the improvements that will be uh taking place you know that perhaps more people will in fact be aware of it and and it's a it'll be a beautiful parking well that's kind of the advantage too if you activate the big space that's now dark where I guess a previous Warehouse type use uh occupied if the studio comes in now you have activated that portion of the building and that portion of the site I think people become less inclined or at least less comfortable to park somewhere where they know they shouldn't be parking when you have an active Academy of Arts you know sppa and and you see people coming and going it's when you don't have that activity people feel a lot more comfortable to do things that they shouldn't be doing okay that's that's helpful pros and cons yeah so the other question I have is just uh the um uh compact versus fullsize parking spaces so uh about 50% I think of the spaces are are designed for compact vehicles uh most of those spaces um are uh on the Eerie Street side of the facility um I mean they're they certainly do stretch up into the into the Oak Street area but for the most part I mean in terms of the fullsize vehicles um those are um on the the the southern border um largely uh of the of the property um how realistic is it that um 50% of those spaces should be reserved for compact vehicles I mean you deal with these sort of traffic realities and the types of vehicles that people are driving nowadays yeah I'll be very Frank with you I drive a Kelli which is a pretty big three row SUV I park in compact spaces all the time without issue um couple things that note specific to the site plan however yes we're proposing wheel stops um but these spaces from what I can tell and almost every instance allow for front overhang so effectively they may be dimensioned as compact spaces but effectively they can accommodate larger Vehicles because of that front overhang the other thing to to Really note other than and Mr Coffield had pointed it out and I'm going to answer his kind of question now as part of answering your question there's only one instance uh really on the site where the aisle width is less than Township ordinance um site PL not up there but you probably remember where the site engineer had referred to it it's about 21 and a little bit in terms of the width of that area it actually gets better um because of the way the parking that's adjacent to uh that aisle is angled so you get wider um other than the one instance but everywhere else on the site the aisles are very wide overly wide MH and because of that it's going to facilitate circulation a lot better even with the compact parking so even if you have a vehicle that's adjacent to one of these very wide uh two-way aisles if they were to happen to overhang their stall practically speaking it's not going to negatively impact circulation because the a whest are so generous all right thank you you're welcome this gr no questions for me for traffic okay Mr corfield how accurate is your science traffic management like is there an accuracy in the science of it in terms of identifying the existing demands they're based on counts so that's empirical in terms of estimating sma's maximum demand that was pure operations so I would say I'm pretty confident in terms of that number using 30 and I think it's going to be less but for valuation and discussion we use 30 the restaurant demand is purely a function of your ordinance so your ordinance requires one space per three seats there's 135 seats maximum demand would be um 45 vehicles how that demand varies throughout a day for the restaurant is again based on empirical data that the Urban Land Institute has collected so unfortunately my profession traffic engineering it's entirely empirically based there's no law of physics that govern what we do so I am reasonably certain that what I've identified and testified to is actually going to occur and I would even respectfully submit to you I think there's going to be less parking demand than what we've put forth to you okay um okay um going going on that um there are variables that we can't necessarily like computate in the sense like that like how do drop offs affect the parking anal I I think your analysis is getting to the situation if you get to the situ if you get to the site there's parking for you but if we if we throw the variables of drop offs and dropping people off and moving that out does that function in that science at all drop off and pickup activity doesn't translate into parking demand in terms of do we have enough spaces to accommodate the man what the park pickup on drop off activity will do to a certain extent is affect circulation on the site so if there's a vehicle that's dropping off and you're the one behind them you have to wait for them to drop off or pick up before you can go unless there's enough width to get around them depending on where that pickup drop off drop off activity is occurring on the site but in terms of parking demand it has no bearing whatsoever okay might just have the a um a disadvantage on the flow of traffic and how the how how the flow enters and and and and comes on to that that's fair okay for for momentary time point of time yes I mean I've I've been in parking lots that um oh like for an example uh up here the Acme there's the there's a supermarket and then there is a um there is a um kind of a daycare it's not a date I don't know the name of it but they have birthday parties there on Saturday now these are totally two different uses but they are thinking of having a birthday space in that location which was going to bring a total different population to this parking lot that I don't think think your science has that in that formulation uh just bear with me for a second um because I think that that science uh I think that is one car per person it seems like because I I can't never find any spaces I I just i' I I've I've been on the other side of being in parking lots and being stuck so I I don't I I see the I don't know where I believe where the science is and you know because I've been in many failing parking lots and not things haven't been moving very well so I just I'm just wanting to get I mean I think you explained your your your Technique and your science I think that's very proven and stuff like that I just my understanding is like I think there's other things that get thrown in these predicaments that throw things off and that's where I'm coming from as an individual in the town trying to get around parking and stuff like that and being affected by that stuff thank you Miss Harris um the kind of 30 parking spaces Max that you have for samppa does that include employees as well yes okay cuz you heard from Sharon a lot of the adults will walk or take Uber or um and it wasn't mentioned but I know I remember when I had my my kids are 26 and 24 now but when they were young if there wasn't like a birthday party oh there's a bowling party you know we have a bowling alley in town I live in South Brunswick OH this friend and that friend and that friend are going okay let's all C pull so one parent takes four kids so um yes it takes into account staff um in that 30 count the only reason I asked is on page three of your memo the weekday uh uh demand projection from Miss Miller uh testified that there were employees um usually on site um from 9:00 and it and and we did not account for the handful of employees earlier in that table okay may I ask why frankly we weren't aware at the time that there were some um daytime staff I heard that testimony this evening um but I think what is important to understand is that the maximum demand of smappa is going to occur between 4 and 8 the restaurant's Peak demand is going to tail into like the 600 to 7:00 time and it's really when I look at this parking lot to me that's the critical time as it relates to the application that's before you and the advantage of the mix of tenance on this site currently is that 20,000 ft of them are office users and by that time of day when smappa is up and running at full operation and the restaurant is starting to gear for full operation the office tenants are generating very little of any parking demand I don't know if this is a question for you or for the applicant but are any of the other tenants permitted to park overnight I know why Ando has trucks I don't know where they Park them um yeah I would have to defer to the applicant okay could we ask yes please you want him to come up now yes please than give him this one it's on uh yeah I'll take the opportunity to add to even with smappa staff parking you know between 9 and 5 according to the analysis langa did there's still capacity if you add you know two to three spaces during that hour you're still not reaching the maximum capacity of 88 spaces uh throughout the day can you repeat your question again regarding overnight I was asking about overnight parking or any of the the tenant permitted to park overnight uh permitted to park overnight not necessarily do some of them Park overnight they do um that's on a caseby Case basis okay um and I mean from just on the uh demand projection from 9 to 10 you've got you know 105 and 117 um spaces um that you're projecting you can go you dismissed understand the the difference between the tables so the tables you're referring to we were just estimating parking demand for not only smapa and the vacant restaurant but for all the existing tenants as well as part of your professionals review letters they made the good suggestion that we should go and actually quantify what existing parking demands there are at the site so in doing that and then estimating for smappa and the restaurant that's towards the end of of the memo so like page five of 11 is based on the actual parking counts that were done so when you look at it based on the existing parking demand and the projections for smappa and the restaurant the total estimated Peak parking demand in the future is a lot lower than just basing it on the ordinance requirements which is what the earlier tables do I didn't even touch the earlier tables CU in my opinion they're really not accurate or valid to the discussion doing the parking demand study at the site is more meaningful in terms of the information because it's accurate and reflective of what the actual demands are and I I'll be frank with you when I heard there was a gym with 10,000 feet my initial reaction was it's going to have a very large parking demand but this gym is really a specialized one where it's essentially exercise classes in the morning and then once you get past the morning it's really not doing that much it's more personal trainer one-on-one type activity so doing the parking counts at the suggestion of your professionals I think was a very good suggestion sugestion and brings more accurate information and puts you in a more informed position to make a decision thank you you're welcome Mr Church no question Mr Simon this is more of a general question might be for Janice what's the difference in the requirement based on the facility so for smappa it says one space per 100 square ft but for everything else is for 250 because our code has a different parking requirement for um like uh dance classes and dance studios that the parking requirement our code is 1 per 100 square ft as opposed to retail which is one per two 200 and then the for the gy was 200 cuz it's 200 250 and then 100 yeah we have a separate requirement for the gym so we're just referencing the requirements in our code got it okay um okay and I don't know if this question is for you but for the restaurant where's the trash for the restaurant it's not for me uh we'll bring we'll bring Vince back up I don't look at the plans that closely I I can answer that question having reviewed the original site plan they have an internal trash area and I assume that they're going to be keeping that internal trash area access from label Street with the new restaurant the applicant is indicating that is accurate okay thank you Mr Vieira uh the only question I have is around uh snow removal again wrong witness okay but so based on your calculations you you think there's enough parking in the event of snow look when it snows you're going to lose some parking unless the applicant carts the snow off the site back in the day when I was young and I got into this business you're able to dump the snow into the stream into the brook don't think you're allowed to do that anymore um so yeah temporarily there might be some spaces blocked because um of of snow removal and storing snow on the site but you know if it the situation became dire the applicant would have to cart the snow off the site thank you you're welcome I have several questions I you know I do this for a living so I'm not going to you know I'm basically comfortable with the numbers and um uh my concern okay let's let's do a couple of things before I get to what happens if the uses change uh one to go back to what we were discussing before and we deferred to you but no one else asked is pedestrian access and is there and the question let me you know um Miss Miller testified that some of her students will be walking from schools that are over by Chestnut Street and um the logical thing for them to do is to walk along Forest come down Oak and because it is definitely not safe to walk around the building on Eerie place cuz it's so narrow there um they'll walk through through the parking lot and you know it and the plans don't really address that pedestrian access and um what how how wide an area I guess should be provided and then we'll discuss striping versus curbing versus you know whatever just a you know an inch Ray sidewalk but how wide should that be well before I answer that qu I'll answer the question directly Mr chairman but I want to add a little color to it yeah a sidewalk probably should be about 4 feet wide but I always look at things practically as well particularly we're trying to cater to high school students or any kids who frequently walk in pairs is right so 5 foot if you wanted to have people walking Side by by side but here's the issue and we had this issue in South Brunswick um with high school kids walking to um in McDonald's not far away from the high school yeah we could put we could Define or put a sidewalk against the building to connect it out to Oak Place I tell you right now kids are not going to use it they're going to take the shortest path from Oak Place to wherever they're going on this site and they're going to walk down the middle of the parking lot not unlike anybody that parks in the back that might be associated with either smap I'm going to get to that question or or the or the gym or any of the other tenants that you would access on the east side of the building so you know practically speaking I think it's important to have connections from the surrounding streets to site but once you get on the site interior this is not a large site in terms of parking it's I would characterize it these are two small parking lots it's very easy to travel in these small parking lots visibility is great everywhere it's no different than if you park in one of these spaces and you're walking to a building entrance so I understand the the comment and the concern I don't necessarily agree with it obviously the applicant is going to defer to what the board wants but just practically speaking I don't think sidewalks would get used particularly by well I I you know and I made the comment before as to what kids realistically will do and I I understand that the area where I am most concerned and you know even with not being able to control where kids walk is the narrow stretch between the building and the brook where cars are going to be coming around that corner and they're not going to see a kid who's you know hidden you know coming from be the building and I I have a real concern there that people are just going to make that turn and hit a kid before they ever even see him if they're walking in the middle of the road and do you have a solution for that and I think that's a valid concern and and a good one to raise um and being being at the site tonight if you're coming from the Eerie side and you're going to the Oak play side that's a blind Corner around that building corner so I totally agree with you I think my initial reaction is we could put up some of those mirrors to basically help and and illustrate for a motorist to see around that corner um Mr placc raised his hand oh yeah he can certainly come up it's his prerogative we have a a Ballard at that corner as well so cars can't encroach to that corner of the building or that Northern facing edge of the building so it forces them to make a little bit wider turn and you have an island coming out but it's I I would maintain their you know and that there's going to be a blind spot there that that you know they before they swing around and be able to see a kid walking you know who's 10 ft from the edge of the building and if they're going at any speed it's fine if they're going you know 5 miles an hour what they should be doing but you know people people like kids who drivers you know follow the rules always yeah and for what it's worth the B fund for education Excellence is located at this facility and provides after school tutoring uh predominantly to underserved kids in our communities that don't have access to cars a lot of them do walk to this location as well so for the last two years 3 years um they've been operating here with some after school tutoring without incident I honestly think it's really unsafe and I think that there's room for improvement you know you could put more ballards around where you have those stripes I actually think that it should wrap around the south side side of the building if you move those parking spaces a few feet away from the building you can create a walkway between the parking spaces in the building so that the kids don't have to walk in the middle of the of the uh the parking lot they can walk right at and that's the quickest we'll give them the option for sure it's the quickest route to the entrance is to walk right along the and I say North I mean South I'm sorry the south side of the building um and that's quicker to the entrance so I think you can make some real significant safety improvements yeah I'd recommend a Ballard or even you know landscape Planters or something along those lines that maybe are more aesthetically pleasing we'd be open to that between that and then creating that walkway you know a a striped walkway yeah we we definitely could take a look at that absolutely um the Okay so one of my um concerns is that you know a significant number of parking spaces are on the Oak Street side and your uses when the restaurant opens on particularly on weekends are going to be focused uh you know those uses are on the Eerie Street side um and and you know and again it comes to and I think I'm not going to require this but the idea of the restaurant having valet service because is probably a good idea um that's just my editorial I don't you know I think my real concern is which relates to that is the fitness studio becomes a regular gym operates you know 58 a.m. till 10: p.m. restaurants open restaurants open for brunch on weekends um the reality is on Saturdays from 9: to 2 many weekday and weekend evenings there is no parking there I mean my wife and I are young I know but we park in the train station because most of the commuters have left and walked to the restaurants cuz it's just easier than driving around the block a couple times trying to find a space and you know and now when the brewery has events suddenly that train station parking lot is full in the evening and you know so it's I don't think you can at times where it might be Peak um I don't think you can rely on off street parking being available um for the site um but and let me give you where I'm coming from that I'm turn so I'm representing an applicant and you know we we do the traffic study and say no impact on traffic you know worst is level of service c um board you know the public you know can't believe the traffic engineer reading from books and you've heard that in your life everyone that has a driver's license Mr chairman I believe are qualified Traffic Engineers so I will just say that um you know and so the board requested and we agreed you know do us traffic survey after phase one we know it's a waste of time and money but we agreed I I'm I'm torn on that because I thought that was a silly requirement even though we agreed but um I I guess the question is bless you um you know we're dealing with two and as I said I don't want to do a condition where you come back cuz uses change hours of operation or a new tenant come in and we you know I'll be spending my life here I close to spending my life here as it is but don't want to um but is do you have a a solute a practical solution that um requires the applicant to do something um to um you know identify if a problem's developing so we can address it and um not um um you know that's that's not going to you know every time you know someone changes is open one more hour We're suddenly having to deal with it I don't have anything like definitive or concrete I think it's a good question and it's a it's a valid concern and practically speaking I don't know how we can address that concern um I will tell you I did talk to the applicant during the break and as you would expect it's in the applicant's absolute best interest to manage the tenant mix that comes to this site so that there isn't a pro a parking issue because the worst thing when you're trying to court a new tenant at a site is to have a full parking lot with no avail parking they're going to look elsewhere I will tell you and I will offer for the board's consideration I think let's say smappa you prove it smappa it's built and occupied and then 10 years later smappa wants to move on whatever the case may be I don't think even though it's a permitted use in this Zone another gym or a gym type operation should occupy this site simultaneous or concurrently with fit Loft I think there should be a limitation on how much gym space is occupied at this site because gyms as you probably know have higher parking demands than say office uses and the reason is the durations for a gym Patron in terms of the amount of time they Park their vehicles are longer off often times than other uses so I would just respectfully submit to you you probably shouldn't have any more gym type operations at this site fit LOF is fine based on our numbers but any other additional gym operation should not come here um and again it's in the applicant's best interest to manage the tenant mix to ensure that they don't have a parking issue at this site cuz it's going to inhibit their ability to attract new tenants if and when they have vacant space in in the future um but I agree with you Mr chairman it's very hard and I've been to other towns I'm sure you have too they have tency reviews and then unfortunately people that own shopping centers or like a mixed use site like this one is are before a all the time I understand just becomes laborious and well let let me let me throw this out is um you know what we have before us is the dance studio we've had extensive testimony that their parking demand is way less than what the ordinance requires the other hand it is a big space and maybe the requirement is just specific to that space that if there's a change in tendency of that space that they would come back um that's and demonstrate that it's not um you know cuz by and large we're we're doing this because the testimony is you know their parking demand is not only less than the ordinance it's less than what you estimated in you know your calculations you okay I think you're looking at me well well it's it's easier or you have an alternate suggestion rather than are imposing something yeah I think though it's 6,000 square F feet including the mezzanine Lev level so if this were General office Bas let's say at the ordinance is what one per 250 for general office right so 1 250 is four spaces per ft that would require 24 spaces I would say that if it's a less intense parking use than the 30 that we wouldn't need to come back to the body but if it's a more intense use than the 30 by ordinance but but you said a change in tency if we have a different dance studio or a different do you mean change in use don't you that's not what he said because this is very specific to this tenant I'm right if we if we were putting in an office tenant we wouldn't be before the board tonight so I guess I'm trying to understand I understand I'm I'm there I'm dealing with the issue that two of them are raising is to um that and how how about if if the ordinance requirement for that space is more than 30 spaces regardless of the tency that triggers the need to come back for Rew I mean I think it would anyway I think that's a given right well if it was going to be in office use it would only be 24 per ordinance and that's not that yeah that wouldn't be the problem but we're trying to do is avoid the problem I I um I think if it were karate studio or something Ong those lines that has a higher requirement we'd be required to come back here well but that's the same the issue is that's the same it's if yes you're okay if it's that's a tendency question okay well well it's it's actually dealing with both right if because if you did to different dance studio it would come in is 60 was that yeah 61 was the number yeah okay so so you're okay with with the condition that if you if a new tenant is going in that space whose parking requirement per the ordinance is more than 30 spaces you would come back here okay we're fine with that okay okay any other questions from the board of this witness okay any members of the audience with questions of this witness want to call Mr Williams call Mr Williams for thank you for your time at this late hour thank than you George Williams do you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending before the board I most certainly do may an address please good evening Commissioners my name is George Weedle Williams with the nwing group located at 105 Grove Street here in Montclair suite number three and four he just appeared last month we accept him as an exp thank you Mr chairman I assume your license didn't go away in the it has not last month okay all right George I want you to focus on the D variant and uh provide your analysis of that and your opinion as to whether it satisfies the you know the request complies with the or meets the criteria for devarian under the municipal lanard law certainly I had a a lengthy testimony based in some of the planning literature and case law but I will go directly to the dearen giving the lateness of the evening uh as this board knows the uh proposed use according to the Monclair code is not among the permitted uses so we are here for a D1 use variance uh for the uh dance studio which is defined a bit differently in your code give me one second I'll get to that definition it's captured in your board plannner report as well but let me just repeat it for a second if I can find it yeah definition give me one second fitness center yeah uh according to section 3472 of your code uh fitness center is defined as follows and again it's a Miss Tally's memo but for the record very quickly an enclosed building or structure with facilities for conducting recreational activities such as aerobic exercises running and jogging uh and which may contain exercise equipment Sports courts and swimming facilities this use is also this also includes establishments for group fitness instruction such as yoga Pilates karate dance studios as well as boxing gems and it goes on uh but there's no Standalone definition for dance studios so we are here for D1 use VAR because uh this particular use um is not included in the C2 Zone District uh there's a lot of language uh a lot of literature that talks about the need particularly uh post pandemic thinking about being more flexible and Broad in the consideration of uh ground floor commercial and Retail uses in mixed use developments such as this saying that to keep uh these kind of mixed use facilities activated and to reduce the probability of vacancies such as the one we have here uh consideration should be given to trending land uses among those land uses are things like the breweries that uh the chairman just mentioned Studios uh Artisan spaces Etc um so you're going to hear me speak uh tangentially about that planning literature when I get to the uh proofs as this board knows in terms of the proofs required for D1 use variance it's a balancing act the applicant has to show both the affirmative criteria and the negative criteria the affirmative criteria is known as the special reasons such as the use is inherently beneficial uh that if you were to grant our relief you would Advance the purposes of zoning uh and that the use is particularly suitable for this site and last but not least if you were deny our application would constitute an undue hardship on the applicant that's balanced against the negative criteria as you know two prong test that if you were to grant our relief to permit this use in at this site in this District it would not constitute an uh substantial detriment to the public good meaning negative impact on the surrounding uh neighborhood or character of this Zone District second prong is no substantial impairment to the Zone plan meaning if you were to Grant this relief you would not substantially uh change or um minimize or diminish the intent and purpose of your land use uh element in my professional opinion again I'm trying to be as quick and brief as possible uh if you were to Grant this D1 uh variance for the proposed use you would Advance several purposes of zoning uh the first would be subsection a and I'll quote um under 40 col 55 d-2 to encourage Municipal action to guide the appropriate use or development of all lands in the state in a manner which will promote the health safety morals and general welfare uh from a planning perspective anytime you eliminate uh deter vacancies that is advancing General Welfare this particular use as you heard from the applicant is uh designed to um promote health of people in this case not only our youth but as you heard Miss Miller say also seniors subsection G to provide sufficient space and appropriate locations for a variety of agricultural residential recreational commercial and Industrial uses in open space both public and private according to their respective environmental requirements in order to meet the needs of all New Jersey citizens in my professional opinion if you were to Grant this relief you would advance that purpose by allowing a use that in my opinion being based on the literature the testimony you've heard before uh is very appropriate for this complex given its mixed use nature and the opportunity to remove a vacancy and to take advantage of the shared parking analysis that you just heard about a moment ago subsection I to promote a desirable visual environment through creative development techniques and good Civic design and arrangement from a professional planning perspective if you were to Grant this relief you would Advance both portions of subsection I you heard testimony from Mr harwitz about uh the design intent for this facility again an Adaptive reuse where uh the focus is to return the building to a semblance of what it once was before some of the bastardization took place also the good Civic design you heard testimony from not only our architect but the civil engineer and our traffic expert about the uh change of the site Lake out uh we are arguing that the U modifications to the site layout include a number of improvements and you heard about the repaving Milling striping right sizing the parking stalls Landscaping lighting uh and a circulation flow which uh you heard sub substantive testimony about uh from both of our experts that make this site more maneuverable safe and appealing uh in terms of particular suitability from my uh professional planning perspective based on the test for suitability what unique characteristics of the site itself make it particularly appropriate for the proposed use uh and you've heard testimony from a number of the members of this team including the applicant who spoke about its proximity to parking for the first time and and I think her history here in Monclair um walkability for uh some of her targeted audience but also from um the Synergy that's mentioned in both the Traffic Engineers report and you heard from the applicant himself that there's some unique synergies from the mix of tenants in this mixed use development that make the addition of the dance studio particularly suitable for this site uh synergies include that with the uh fit lofted use uh and others that possibility for shared Studio space that uh Miss Miller mentioned a bit earlier and again the Adaptive reuse uh element of this application is particularly appealing being able to advance some of the master plan uh recommendations about maintaining the character of some of these uh former manufacturer manufacturing buildings in terms of the negative criteria the first uh prong as I mentioned the uh no substantial detriment to the public good that word substantial comes directly from the municipal land use law and I would submit to this board not only is there no substantial detriment to approving the proposed dance studio but I would argue there's no detriment to the public good and that's based on our site visits and the testimony you've heard from the prior um uh Witnesses instead of a detriment I would argue that the Adaptive reuse is a positive uh benefit that acrs not just to the applicant but to the surrounding Community similarly the improvements that are mentioned by our civil engineer terms of the site improvements those are all to the good and they benefit more than just the applicant it's more than just the studio but rather the surrounding site and in um area finally the shared parking strategy is one that you've heard testimony from our traffic engineer is one that works uh from a planning perspective shared parking is incouraged in situations like this where there is a Synergy and there's an overlap in uh Peak uh parking hours so that it not overlap a separation so it actually works on a site maximizes that site and um is the antithesis of overp parking a site having a sea of Madam which does not benefit the environment the site the neighborhood uh the second prong of the negative criteria again no substantial impairment to the Zone plan uh my review of the 2020 unified land use Transportation element and and the 2016 reexamination report suggests that uh again there will be no substantial impairment rather there would be several goals and objectives that would be Advanced I'm not going to go through all them that I had listed initially I'll try to paraphrase and say that your plan does recommend adaptive ReUse It has very specific language about encouraging certain uses like the proposed uh dance studio that's before you this evening and that the the town to consider uh Visa V the planning literature I just mentioned earlier um reexamining uses that would be appropriate for the C2 and or changing the C2 to a neighborhood commercial Zone uh under the economic development and arts development regulations recommendations and I quote change Zone designation for the commercial District on Walnut Street between Forest Street and grow street from C2 General business and light manufacturing Zone to the neighborhood uh commercial Zone to better reflect its identity uh as a shopping dining uh destination I would submit that um also arts and culture which as you heard from Miss Miller the proposed dance studio is a part of there is an educational component of this studio which is all about art and culture um I note that there is existing dance studio located at 258 Park Street theel Jazelle Renee dance studio which is also in the neighborhood commercial District so uh if you look at that in the context of the master plan uh recommending the rezoning then I would submit that certainly there' be no impairment to your plan because this use would comport with the ngg uh Zone District that would conclude direct okay that's the fastest I've ever gone Mr molock do you have any questions Mr Williams I have no questions Grant do you have any questions that was a shock I have no questions Mr corfield do you have any questions thanks for your brevity Harris do you have any questions Mr no question Mr Simon no questions no questions I have no question to listen to my advice very well [Laughter] um thank you Trac um we have no further Witnesses do you are there any members of the public who have any testimony concerning the application or anything whatsoever you want to say three sentences um I think we need the dbone variance I'm not going to repeat what Mr what Mr Williams just said in justification we need the parking variants I think we've established that there's adequate parking based upon the Synergy of uses Etc terms of the site plan I think we've addressed all of the comments of your professionals and we've also agreed to um the modifications and changes that the board has requested tonight so um I I think this is a really good application it's deserving of your approval and thank you for your time and thank you for staying late did you want to say something if if yes I'll better did you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending before the board I do name and address the green no it is hi Jessica stalsberg I live on Fairfield Street in M Clair um uh I kind of wear two hats for mappa I'm a former parent of a dancer and I'm also I've been on the board for I think five or six years um my daughter I wish I could say my daughter grew up in my home but I actually believe she grew up at smapa and she danced there from age 8 to 18 she's now 21 she's about to graduate from college she didn't major in dance in college but she's continued to dance the whole time she's been at school um I can't say enough about what my daughter gained and every student gains from this um organization and it's it's really like no other it's not common to have a not for-profit uh dance studio we certainly don't have another like it in Montclair and I think there's been so much thoughtful information put into this room both from all of the people who testified and all of your questions and I feel like um most of your questions from Where I Stood were really about safety and concerns for especially when it comes to the parking lot which I really appreciate uh when we're sending our kids somewhere um so that's sort of where I am and I just I think sometimes what gets lost is what is this place that we want to find this new home for and I just hope that when you consider the variances that are needed for this plan that you're thinking also about what Shar Miller's Academy um for Performing Arts brings to Montclair and what it's been bringing here for so long and to so many people um I uh just a couple things that came up that I thought about was that when Sharon talks about the growth of smapa it it won't actually change what happens in those Studios because she is really strict about class size and because like she said it it impacts the quality of the education and I know that because she and I she probably remembers when my daughter didn't get to take a specific ballet class I was hoping she could be in because she said nope it's full and she can't you know that's it so she really keeps that's there's a very fine line with that sort of thing so you don't need to worry about sort of the studio getting too big and too a greater population coming in than um it allows for and the other thing to keep in mind is regarding the High um traffic periods that that is usually at the age where you are dropping off your kids and your kids don't want you there they don't want you coming in and observing and there was a point in my daughter's timeline at mappa where I literally was almost told like your days of looking through those Vision panels have come to a close and you and that was when the car pooling began that's another thing to keep in mind we did a lot of car pooling because parents are busy and when you can get four dancers into a car and dropped off and you leave and go back and do your thing and a different parent comes and picks the same four kids up we did a lot of that for all through high school and um Middle School as well so that's another way thing to be keeping in mind that that traffic that I know is a concern is really reduced um so that was uh that's mostly what I wanted to put into the room so thanks so much for your consideration tonight would you raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth in the matter pending before the board yes I do name and address please I live on 45 Boulevard Inn okay okay um so um I'm a board member I'm a former faculty member at snap oh there we go okay um so I'm a board member at smappa I'm a former faculty member and a former teaching artist and I also want to fortify what Jessica just shared that there are no parents or very few parents who watch their kids uh during the dance classes uh because that's also parents me time for Starbucks and errand running so the the Halls are really never filled with parents watching um I'm uh currently executive director of the New York dance and performance Awards which is like the Academy Awards of dance in New York and also a professional choreographer and director my own company in New York City Sharon Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts is a community staple founded by Sharon a former Prin principle dancer with Alvin ay which is the world's most renowned famous modern dance company um smaa provides Arts education of the highest caliber she provides training for everyone from Toddlers to teens adults and seniors she does not uh she does this not only at accessible tuition levels but also ensures that the young Talent who can't afford at all to train can do so with full scholarship she also takes Arts education outside the studio into schools in Newark and Patterson with teaching artists providing quality dance education to hundreds of students who might not otherwise receive this opportunity all students at smappa learn how to express themselves and their emotions with skill and meaning they learn how to think in new mathematical and creative ways and how to embody their own story and values in movement and in their full being the value of this cannot be measured alumni from smappa are not only performing in the top dance companies around the world they are also students and graduates of top universities in law science architecture political science and environmental justice they are excellent citizens deeply involved in creating equity and Justice in their communities and institutions smappa provide prepares students not only to excel in the Arts but in life smappa is a place where everyone who enters is valued and nurtured Sharon is making the world a better place right here in mon Claire I urge you to support the transition of this Arts nonprofit into our new home for the benefit of the community of Montclair and Beyond thank you start discussion with Mr mullik yes um I am I I certainly am in support of this application um I I do think that uh the uh discussion around uh the uh sidewalk uh is a critical is a critical matter uh and um so I'm not sure how we want to address that but outside of that I I think that this is a a really good uh application and and I think is beneficial for our community Miss Grant I'm in support of the application and I thought that this the discussion tonight um I agree um brought up a lot of um important concerns one was um the security of the door um it's a busy area and then moving um where there will be much more children in the area I think that was a um good discussion to have also um we talked about um traveling as far as the schools and traveling to um and um also flooding and the um milling and repaving um so yes I'm in support Mr corfield um I'm in support as well uh Miss Miller I think you're going to have to add uh parking Zar to your uh profession here um because you're going to need to be out there and check things out but I'm in favor thank you Miss Harris um I'm in favor of the application um I think a for the Improvement to the building which is an isore but also to allow um Miss Miller to continue her work here in Montclair which is important um I think um in addition to the variant is requested we need we should probably acknowledge the shed on the property um and it appears that it's within the sidey the the front yard setback for the property behind the building so it's not it's not in the building line so it's behind the front of the building okay yeah so I don't think there's a there's no variance for okay Mr Church yeah uh I would Echo uh my colleagues uh Ascension to this application with provisos as elicited by the um chairman if there need be it is a good application I believe that it will improve a hidden property that has been neglected for a lot of a long time even though some businesses have gone in there and uh uh populated it but this will give it the added boost it needs to become a piece of property in Montclair that we could all be proud of and uh uh the uh Dance Studio is something that we're proud of now and this will give it much more uh visibility and much more uh space to operate in uh much nicer space so I'd be in favor of this with any um applications that have to be applied Mr Simon um I'm I'm in favor uh the only thing I would consider um I think you should be consider the bathroom situation and uh obviously the walkways but overall I think it's a a definite good use for um facility and for the organization so yes thank you Mr chairman I'm also in favor of this application I think this is a great Improvement for the site and uh also miss Miller I will be uh registering my daughter when she turns two um I'm also in support of the application M Miller and smappa have been a one of the things that make B CA what it is and I'm glad we found a home where you have parking and easier access for parents dropping off their children and um you know I I think this has been an asset to the toed glad you found a new home and it's going to contribute to the property being improved by the current tenant and future owner which will also be a appreciate is probably the most nondescript is one of the plighter words I could use to describe the building um you know I you know I think clearly uh the proofs demonstrate that uh it qualifies for a use variance they uses similar to uses that are permitted in the zone um it you know given the property it's not going to have any um substantial detriment to the public could and you know as I said that's not going to be a substantial impairment The Zone plan to go through conditions um and easement for the parking area and landscaped area that's on the adjacent property um uh shall be submitted uh that um to the board attorney for approval before a co uh is issued for the dance studio and that that easen address both both the the landscaping and the parking on the property and the maintenance of that area by um this property um and conditions 12 13 15 27 and 28 of the engineers report and sticking with the engineers report but modifying somewhat condition 21 the last sentence in the second paragraph which deals with looking at the existing inlets with a specific understanding that it includes the inlet on eie Street that's referenced in condition three of the 1997 approval um condition one of the HBC recommendations um that um any future application on the property um give consideration to either enhancing or replacing the uh stucco portion of the wall and that could include using it for art displays but just um try to at least give some consideration to the other recommendations of the HBC um uh oh I didn't finish with the engineer condition um 23 of the engineers report to be modified to require that the applicant discussed with psng uh whether they would accept um a color temperature of no more than 3500 35 3500 um that's the correct way of saying that um and then condition 32 of the engineers report um oh the the portable toilet um that is installed during the fit out of the space be removed within five business days of the issuance of a certificate of occupancy um for this uh dance studio um that um a revised Landscaping plan be submitted to the planning department for approval that includes have replacing the dead or missing skip laurel along label place and then extending those skip laurel to the edge of the shed so the whole parking lot is screened that um include replacing the grass that's in that northwest corner with appropriate shrub native Shrubbery um and that um consideration to planning um decorative trees in the um planning Islands um you mean in the parking lot yes okay um that the trash enclosure adhere to the be designed in accordance with the ordinance and the plans for that be submitted to the planning office for approval um that the wheel stops on the Southside yes Southside of the property be removed um that um no to State what I think is the law but to make it clear that no snow be plowed into Tony's Brook um if you if you owned it I would be doing more with Toody's Brook because that's could be an asset to the town um the um how to read my own writing that there be a walkway from the northern edge of the 12T wide space between the building and Tony Brook that is at least 3 ft wide and continue around the building to the entrance to the dance studio that will be demarked in a sufficient fashion so it is clear that it is a walkway and plans for that to be uh provided to the planning office as to how that's going to be established um and that if now I can read this that if a new tenant goes into the dance studio space whose parking demand pursuant to the ordinance exceeds 30 spaces that they would have to come back to the board for approval of that use I think I captured everything not doing toilets because they're meeting code though I agree with with you that think that some late afternoons are going to be very busy but code is code uh any other conditions questions discussion and if not some someone want to make a motion motion to approve with the conditions as specified by the chair second okay just going to do Voice vote all in favor say I any opposed any extensions go do it thank you very much uh motion to adjourn motion to adjourn yes see everyone M mid April e