hi everyone we are ready to start the meeting this is a regular meeting of the zoning Board of adjustment for May 1st 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 of the to the Monclair 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 the link to the Township's uh YouTube channel where the hearing can be viewed live or after the fact the hearing is also being televised on channel 34 William Harrison here John McCulla here John Coffield here J church here Angela Harris Jerry Simon here Sebastian Vieira here Jamina Grant here uh Michael Ruben here Janice Ali here okay we have the minutes from the April 17th meeting I send around numerous change this afternoon which unless someone really wants me to go over all of them and if not does anyone else have any changes besides those not someone want to move the minutes as amended is there a second second all in favor say I I I I any opposed any exstension okay and then we have the resolution uh on the appeal I don't have any changes to that does anyone else have any changes if not someone want to move the resolution motion to approve is there second second all in favor say I I I and any opposed and we have one exension okay the first application is that by Monclair Sky BNC LLC um to construct town homes on a property um designated located at 400 Orange Road the property is located in the R1 Zone um the applicant is seeking D1 variance from Monclair code section 34741 which does not permit multif family units in the R1 Zone the proposed development is nonconforming the applicant seeks a variety of uh bulk variances for the property um and M want to give your appearance and good evening Mr chairman members of the board Gregory M man McDonald and M the applicants by developers proceed um Mr chairman sit would you prefer I you can do however you are most comfortable thank you Mr chairman your microphone um Mr chairman um to repeat some of what you said this is the applicant of Sky developers um for um the creation of eight townhouse units on the corner of Orange Road Pleasant way and world and uh Ward place um is Al also um reest for final site plan approval um Mr chairman members of the board this is an opportunity to contribute to the revitalization of the Southern portion of Orange Road um most of you I am um assuming are familiar with 400 Orange Road it is a property that has been in a serious state of disrepair for the last several years um the new 8 townhouse unit uh complex we believe uh will be a benefit to the community a benefit um to that Ward um we'll be seeking variances as um the chairman had had um stated and just to confirm the variances that we'll be seeking uh pursuant to miss Tally's memo we'll be seeking a variance from code section 34745 A to per permit three stories whereas two and a half stories are permitted I will note that you will hear testimony that we still are below the minimum uh or excuse me the maximum um height that is required we will seek a variance from Monclair code section 347 45b to permit front yard setbacks of 20 ft in Orange Road 15 ft in Ward place and 20t on Pleasant Avenue minimum setbacks of 25 ft are required we'll seek a variance from monair code 347 45d which requires a minimum rear yard setback of 25% of the lot depth 31.5 ft if anyone has done the square root calculation that is required under the code and only 26.6 ft is provided um a variance from code section 347 45e which requires maximum building coverage of 25% the proposed building coverage is 34.3% and a variance from Mare code section 347 45g which permits a maximum impervious coverage of 35.7 um whereas 65.1 is proposed um we will also be seeking deviation um from certain um code section 2818 and a couple of sections in there which we will not be addressing uh primarily this evening it is Our intention this evening um that you will hear from the owner U and developer of the property you will then hear from the architect followed by uh the planner and then if we have time um our arborist who has um visited the property and has very brief testimony um with that Mr chairman I'd like to call my first witness who is Simon clipner stand up Mr Ruben will swear again no stand up and press the Shimon clapner It's s h i m o n clapner k l e p n e r and your address is 17301 biscan boulev Boulevard um Miami Florida Mr clner you're the owner of Sky developers is that correct yes and you're also the owner of the property the and can you tell the board the uh entity that owns the property yeah it's a BN Sky BNC LLC okay and how long have you owned the property uh it's U about 2 years to you bought the property in 2021 is that correct yeah okay um at the time you you bought the property um it was contaminated is that correct it was contaminated yeah and what was the level of contamination and the type of contamination it was um uh speaking it was okay and the level of contamination was I'm not uh I don't know the the quotes but it was contaminated with um it used to be over there um repair shop um years ago and also a gas station um talk to the board okay that's fine put the microphone it's that so canar right why don't just sit down talk to this oh there you go okay thank you you yeah talk to the board please okay okay so there was contamination from the previous use from the previous use yeah and what was the previous use um at some point it was a gas station and then it was also a uh repair shop and for car cars and all I don't know exactly um but you knew it was contaminated when you purchased it yes mic yes okay um might be better if you sat down and yeah okay speak to the board okay I'm not the use and you knew it was contaminated when you purchased it yes and you spent quite a bit of money to clean up the property yes and did you acquire all of your permits from the state and from the the township of mclair yes and all those permits have been closed out yeah and it's your um belief this evening that there is no longer any contamination on the property yes okay um you intend to be the general contractor um of this project is that correct yes and um can you give the board the benefit of your um experience in New Jersey you did give a Florida of address your experience as a builder in New Jersey the projects you're you're working on now for instance yes um I'm building in Jersey City um a few projects right now um one is a 342 Johnston it's a 55 unit and also in 200 monell it's a 38 units that um uh we're finishing now and uh I did quite quite a few projects finished in in Jersey City okay and it's your intention to uh start looking in more Suburban areas for development opportunities is that correct yes okay um has anyone ever um any municipality or or um a board of any municipality um ever had any problem um with any of U the projects that you have developed no okay and how long have you been a developer in New Jersey um now it's uh seven years okay okay Mr chairman I have no other questions this witness Mr mccullock do you have any questions thank you just a couple of questions uh Mr kupner um what is it that attracted you to this this particular property in the first place um um um until now I was building in Jaz City multiple uh uh multi multif family and lately I'm looking into build more town houses and uh and communities and that was um when when the first time I saw this uh project I saw that um on this on this slot was approved approved or it was introduced um 11 years ago eight teles so when I looked at it it was uh the right amount from me to to start and and and try to develop a a small community so from from me I can build bigger communities um and and basically it's a little bit a different type of um um approval process uh it's not it's not in the city it's Suburban areas and mostly in all Suburban areas is communities and and and all types of um houses so that was that was a CH so uh outside of outside of growing your own business um how do you feel this would benefit Monclair um this would benefit first of all I understand that we we're going to have um one one unit is going to be affordable unit and also I will need to contribute for the affordable the other unit that we're not going to provide um in in funds for the for the community and I think also this this this lot looks like that uh um right now it's it's uh covered with um asphalt and and buildings and and turn down basically doesn't look doesn't look good and it sits like that for years and the project that we came up is is a lot more uh SED with with um Greenery and a lot of them mhm and so the the the projects that you normally um undertake um you do you ordinarily provide for affordable housing as part of your strategy yes um each um I have now two projects that I'm providing uh units for affordable uh housing um yeah I have one and it's nine units affordable and the other one that I'm uh starting now is 11 units in in the building that's 11 units that are affordable so some of that is 15% and 20% and I'm also uh talking now with the city they have uh certain funds like we providing here so and they asking me to provide more units and I'm doing that in every project and how many units in this one do you anticipate being affordable in this project yes there is one unit affordable and except this also I will need to contribute to the affordable uh fund okay a significant amount right one of question and that is uh you mentioned um removal of uh contaminated uh materials what kind of contamination did you have to clear from this property it was um gasoline and and also it uh it was there um because of the mechanics it's a different chemical that I don't know exactly uh what is it but it was uh a significant amount to clean it up mhm and I took when I took it I didn't know the exact uh uh amount but it was a big cleanup okay and so all I mean all of this contamination certifiably is has been removed with the and JDP and the the the finalized uh when it's finalized is only one we're going to cap it and this is getting kept with a project with um with the concrete that we need in certain places and this is also with a project that's that's going to cap it what what is it that has to be capped and every time when you when there is a contamination um um we took away a lot of um um um soil soil and we replaced it with good soil we we took out more than 400 ton I think it's it's a lot and and also after when when when it's done and it's covered it's sometimes they they want to see more on when you you going to build a new project that you you there is certain certain things that you didn't build beneath the the project Pro that you're covering and you capping it it's called capping it and that's that's the last thing and then they signing it off all right thank you Mr chairman before I just want to clarify um Mr clner had mentioned a previous um approval just for the record uh May 16th 2007 there was a resolution of approval and we're not suggesting by any means that this board is bound by that approval but there was a resolution of approval for a use of eight units on the site um so just if if you know he did say it and I just wanted to uh to mention that and again we're not by any means suggesting that this board is bound um just so you know the the board has all the prior actions the original approval of the garden center the two denials of residential development and the approval the use variants and couple of bulk variances in 2007 so we have all of those M Grant do you have any questions no Mr Crawfield uh no thank you Mr Church no Mr Simon did did did you say this was your first Suburban project yes first one and how did you come up with the number of units for this property again when it was presented to me um I saw this uh resolution of eight units and that that was my first thought and I started actually we looked into do we we tried to do more so it's not it's not appropriate for this side okay so uh did you consider any other configurations other than eight units um no okay that's it thank you Mr Vieira um no questions I just on on the site remediation uh did did did I assume you had an lsrp who worked on the site is that correct yes that's cor okay and did he issue a an Rao on the site he issued and filed that again and and the final uh uh approval of that is coming with the capping of the site what I said before but uh he ISU one yeah okay it's final signature is going to be I understand the cap is you know will be the project Act is MHM but do you have can you provide the board a copy of what he issued so I don't have to ask you a bunch of questions and I suspect that'll I'd be happy to Mr chairman save time and that that'll answer the question from my client and submitting through Chan yeah I was going to ask the same question so thank you PR you're helpful okay are there any members of the audience who have questions for this witness and again this is just an opportunity to ask questions and just to this witness about what he testified to good come up come up to the podium I Mr okay hi um my name is Jan Hubert I live at five W place across the street directly from the proposed site I'd like to ask you when you remediate it because I've not seen one bit of dirt I saw dirt come out I saw the tanks sit there for 3 months and contaminate the sewer systems and I saw rivers of contaminated soil run into the sewer systems when it rained but I've not seen one ounce of remediation I spoke with the D A couple of days ago they asked me had you put net on the dirt which you have not there's still a massive hole next to seven W plays across the street where Fawn coward lives and none of it's capped none of it's it's still open and there's been no soil taken from that site whatsoever I've been there for the last 2 years without even going on you know for my work out of town and I can attest that you have not remediated one thing on that site the dirt is still there the hole is still open okay um I can show I can show receipts from all the um um talku that went out and there is tickets for that and multiple trucks went out more than I I don't know if it's 400 ton but a lot of tonnage went out and it's a very big company that that did the um the remediation um I will also say that I did more than one Remediation in in New Jersey I did two other ones uh that was significant and I don't know um what you testifying for I spoke to you on the phone and asked you okay whether or not you could remove T questions yes we we I called and as the tanks stayed there for three months with contamination okay I'm just want to know when did you do the do you have dates can you provide those of us with that so-called remediation because I don't know if my neighbor saw it but I didn't see it Mr chairman we would be happy to submit all the paperwork the testimony was that the applicant has say one apply through D um and we'll be happy to again submit through Miss tally uh all of the documentation I I also I'm not uh I can say that she called me once hi uh I'm Shanta Bolivar I live on 17 wordplace and I would like to ask you when you say so to better the community what do you mean really by that and you know for us that lives on that street it feels more that it's going to be a bothered so what's the positive like I said before the positive is for I mean you know for the Comm because you said the community stand the affordable for the city for the money for them but you know what what is it really for the community because the community is the neighborhood correct so right now it's a it's a um the the zoning over there is a um um residential use and this one is a commercial that looks like um a run down uh parking with um that used to be a yeah I I I'm famili amiliar with the place uh it doesn't you know it doesn't particularly bother me like having you know a bunch of building doesn't sound better to me personally okay so but this is when when you have a commercial site in middle that used to be a a gas station and it's run down normally it it looks better when you put up um residential units and also putting um um landscape and it's basically getting rebuilt and how about the traffic what does the traffic there'll be another witness for that testify about the traffic thank you are there any other members of the audience who have questions and again this just ask questions give your name and address Leonor Rush 15 Ward pleas um did you say earlier that you had not um considered any other configurations other than the one that you've presented go ahead are you aware of the current configuration of the area that you are proposing to build in yes so what do what what does that current area consist of not not the the surrounding area not the area that you're proposing to build on single single families so the area that AR that that arounds the area that you're proposing to build on consists of single family homes correct and you want to put your proposed configuration is what it's 8 town houses on on a more than half acre so you want to put eight tow houses in that current configuration that already consists of only single family homes single family house that sits on smaller lots and yes that's that's what I so in what way does that Revitalize an area that already consists of single family homes with children that currently play around the block and that will not Revitalize anything for them because they're it's already a neighborhood I don't I see it as a neighborhood and when we building these town houses I don't see it how it's going to change anything from what you're saying from will change it will change I understand that's that's it will change and not for the positive it will be for the negative are there any other members of the audience who have questions for this witness my name Thomas White 77 Pleasant way m i don't approve we have like to say we have kids up and down the street and all that congested in the corner would be it this is just an opportunity to ask questions not to you'll have a later opportunity to comment on the application I don't approve any other members with questions and please just limit the questions there'll be plenty of chance to comment on the application my name is Fawn coward I live at eight W place so I'd be right next door um my only concern was I didn't know about the contamination and being that my property is right next door and also Cil ly lymph orb that's not here present right now we're both next door to the property so does our soil is it are we in any danger healthwise because of this contamination not no because it was in the other other side in the corner of um orange on the corner on the corner okay but in the back where the hole is no that that was also some um old soil that they took out but um they cleaned it up and they did tests all around and that's why it's open they did test all around and right but was it contaminated it was in a certain level but not as very low contamination in that area okay so should I be concerned about my property and cil's property ma' if I could just just Mr chairman if you indulge me um when an lsrp a licensed um remediation professional um reviews the site part of that review is to delineate the perimeter of all of the contamination okay there is a requirement that if there's a belief that the contamination has spread to adjoining lots that those property owners have to be notified so there would not be State approval if that were not the case okay okay and and they've said just and they said they're going to submit the do what they submitted to D so we and you will have chance to review it and okay okay great thank you just a question about that last statement um suppose the in the process of remediating your property you contaminate the neighbors is there any requirement or liability in that regard there is liability absolutely the the the party who causes the contamination is responsible for the pick for the clean up of that contamination so how would the neighbors be notified is would they have to do their own study or is that no that's part of the the lsrp has to has to Mark the perimeter of all of the contamination Whenever there is a contaminated site I am not an environmental attorney I cannot tell you um exactly how that works but I know as a fact through experience working with environmental attorneys that the perimeter must be marked and all and the contamination within the perimeter is is removed thank Mr I have a question followup question um can you clarify if you perform soil borings or just visual yeah do you know how many boring um a lot uh they started with um I think five and then they did more this is about the perimeter is basically what they're doing they're doing boring and they taking out test and they're checking and they when they see it's it's contaminated they're coming back and they moving it more in around around the contamination till they come to a place where it's clean and this is how they know the perimeter of of how much is contaminated and where is the area where it's clean and then they can stop and they clean up this area and after that when they take out the soil they testing in the B until it comes to levels of that the New Jersey and JDP is approving and then the lsrp is supervising all the takeouts and the way it's done that's what they do okay and and based on the on those results you proceeded to remediate the site correct yeah thank you Mr chairman just a clarification though that the contamination that you had to clear that was the result of when that property was used as a gas station so or does it does it also extend to the time when it was used as a nurse Nery um I don't know about the nursery but I know that that it that the the area where the gas station was was three tanks of um 8,000 gallons that they took out already years ago and they have a Aro for that and that's how they came to me and showed me that that the S clean what I did is I did a test phase one then a phase two phase two is basically testing a few samples and I found that there is other areas because it was not only in the lifetime of this this property it wasn't only a um gas station it was a repair shop and different uh uses that that basically contaminate the site and I checked basically the whole side I found also some tanks still different tanks that's still in the area of orange uh where there is still covered with metal detectors and we took it out and then we the we cleaned that up and Mr M is uh the contamination did it extend over the entirety of the property as far as you know Mr Mr I have I have no knowledge of that whatsoever I I think you know we should wait till we get the documentation because that should all be there should be maps that show the area of contamination where they did the borings the number of Bings what was found yeah okay are there any other members pursue audience come forward hi my name is micen 131 place um Mr clner um are you the sole owner of the sky development um not the soul on 91% so you have other owners uh I have very small partnership from other people okay um my next question is going back to miss Rush's question um there were no other considerations for the property eight units um you're applying for several variances which um had to do with where the property lies so if you would have reconsidered that would those variances be needed you know it's always I I can always uh uh reduce when when we don't need but the reason why and this is the architect is going to testify is it's also an interesting lot because it it has three frontages and normally when we have one Frontage you have a setback only in the front and in the back but over here in the back you have also another side that this is basically another another Frontage of the street and normally when I did a few Corner Lots also um um they in other places where I approved because it's a corner or different type of when you have a few frontages normally it's a normal thing to ask to reduce a little bit the setbacks okay um so I know you talked about you know having that development does um enhance the neighborhood but how how does having those like you said the property being so much closer to the sidewalk bring enhancement to the neighborhood it's again it's it's a big site and it has three frontages so normally when you have three frontages and you you want to put up houses you're not going to get the the same setbacks because it's not a normal site it's not just one fontage you have three sites that has a font and if you calculate normally when you have a three fages and you start calculating there's normally in the code there is no Clarity of of um of uh Corner sites or sites that have a few Fontes this is why we did it can can you speak up please it's really it's really hard to hear um just one last question in terms of the remediation was there any requirement to notify the residents of that not that I know of this is uh I took first of all I want to say also that um I took a professional company with an lsrp license and they did a job so I don't I didn't Michel manage them of how they did what and they have they have license and they did the work so I don't know exactly what they need to do and what they don't legally okay thank you you're welcome any other members of the audience Mr Scott good evening um I have property at 382 Orange Road uh I just have a question in regards to the affordable un your name Sir William Scott okay uh in regards to the uh affordable unit ACC according to the inclusionary zoning order which requires one out of every five if the project was reduced to six units as an example you would still be contributing one affordable unit and you would still also be required to make a a donation to The inclusionary zoning ordinance so I will say this that if it's going to be reduced to six let's say it's not going to be worthed from me to build six because it's I what I understand in uh about the affordable uh donation or whatever it is it's it's going to be a significant amount it's not uh small money so I would reduce it to five when when something like that would happen most likely but but you would have five market rate units uh at that point because you would if you did six one would be affordable and then five market rate units at that point yeah yeah okay it's just okay and with the market in Monclair for single family homes that would be a pretty in some estimation a good return on an investment yes okay thank you that's that any other members of the audience who have questions for this witness okay want to call your next witness thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman my next witness is U Richard Garber Mr Garber is a uh is the architect who prepared the plans for the board Richard can you stand than yes sure oh you you'll move it right hand you somly swear from the testimony about to give is the truth the whole truth or nothing but the truth yes I do please state your name spell it for the record sure it's Richard Garber g a r b r and your address sir address is 83 Montgomery Street Jersey City New Jersey and I'm a licensed architect in the state of New Jersey I've been licensed I think I think that should wait for your attorney to ask you about the qualification there go thank you sir Mr Garber could you state to the board uh your your qualifications as an architect and your licensing uh Etc yes I have a um I have a graduate degree from Columbia University I called them the other day they will not give me my tuition back um and uh I've been a licensed architect in the state of New Jersey I'm born and bred here uh but I've been a licensed architect since 2006 Mr Garber have you testified in front of boards uh in New Jersey in the past yes all over the state approximately how many times uh probably in the last 15 years uh somewhere between 40 and 50 times okay and your license is current every July we'll accept him as an expert architect thank you Mr chairman um great m i can Mr Garber I know that you uh have a presentation if you want to uh give the board the benefit of um your work and the thought behind your work um and whatever else you want to uh Testify the yeah this should be marked as A1 just and you'll give the board a copy yeah so this was emailed um to miss T's team uh at 608 and I realized that was a little bit late apologies for that but uh uh PowerPoint slides there are yeah there are uh uh 27 slides thank you you're welcome so um much has been said about uh this property at 400 Orange Road uh the site has had uh a series of uses none of them residential um we are proposing as has been discussed eight residential units here uh you will hear from me via uh support from this presentation as well as our planner that um we feel that this is an appropriate use this use is more consistent with the context that we're um uh um working in here and um with that I will take you through uh the project so um the first slide depicts the site as it is uh there's been some talk about the um uh the florist that is here uh you can see aerial photos on the left as well as a series of photos of uh the property with a small shed uh along the street these photos were taken in um late fall of 2023 and um obviously my team and I have visited the site um several times specifically in support of this project but are familiar with the site just because of um our existence in the area and Mr Garber the site still looks like that today site still looks like this today yes thank um you see here uh the site location on Orange Road you do see that there is a fair amount of single family context here uh and we 100% agree with that uh however to the South there is on the other side of pleasant way there is a cemetery and orange Road um is uh varied in terms of its commercial capacity meaning there are some single family homes there are some multif family homes and then there are also some commercial and Retail proprietorships along orange way um slightly outside of the boundary that you see here which is the 200t uh boundary that that we're uh providing uh this is uh a snap of uh your zoning map and as has been talked about before this is a single lot in the R1 it is an oversized and oddly shaped lot for the R1 uh my understanding is it has always been uh at least as far back as I was able to look uh designated as a an R1 single family dwelling site however the uses as has been spoken to Prior um have been inconsistent with that and so I would make an argument that yes we are proposing tow houses here um that the tow houses are a more consistent use with the underlying zoning being R1 than either of the two other uses that there's been sometime uh spoken about uh prior now I'm just going to go through some metrics for everyone before I show you my graphic um just to read into the record the lot area uh this is lot 11 is 23718 ft and that's from the survey we're pro we're proposing a total gross building area so that's all the tow houses combined as uh 20,30 Square ft of improvement so the total project size is that 20,000 uh uh 130 ft of improvement um this is broken down into eight single family tow houses that are you will see in my Graphics paired in twos right so it looks like there's sort of four buildings on the site and I'll talk very specifically about the scaling and modulation of the site momentarily um but I will say that the average size of these tow houses 2516 Square ft so that ends up being about the same size if not a little bit smaller than many of the other houses that are in the area so we are very cognizant of the size of uh these these uh proposed buildings the occupancy is uh residential we've talked a bit about the Zone being R1 um lot coverage is something that I want the board to be aware of uh the existing lot coverage right now in its current use is 72.3% of coverage uh uh uh impervious coverage right um our proposed improvements including building Footprints Drive aisle and parking are at 62.6% that's a 9.7 almost 10% decrease than what is current right and that's important our proposed building Footprints with the drive aisle not including parking 19 is 52.6% that's a 19.7% decrease almost 20% decrease of what you have now so to answer one of the questions um that was posed before what are some of the benefits not only are we proposing buildings that are more in compliance with the underlying zoning we're also bringing benefit to the property in terms of its management of storm water uh and it's uh it's open space right uh finally the proposed building footprint only the buildings uh 34.3% that's a total of a 38% decrease than what we have now right and that's just simple math based on the survey which I think you all have and our proposed site plan which again I think you all have um our proposed building High I want to speak a little bit about this we are at three stories and 31t 6 in to top of roof structure right now what your Zone says in terms of height because we are asking for uh a uh uh uh relief in terms of the height is uh 2.5 stories and 35 ft now 2.5 stories is as you all know because many of the structures in Montclair have pitched roofs right we are not proposing pitched roof buildings here um what is important though is when we first started talking about this with um uh the planning office Janice and her team Miss Miss T and her team um we first sought to look at taking the third floor as a percentage of the floor below so the first iterations of the plan that were submitted to the municipality actually showed a building with a third story that was 40% of the second floor right and we're still at about that 40% of the second floor still a three story structure 100% three stories we will need relief for that uh but the point is that we've always tried to modulate that uh that third floor in terms of how it was understood and um to be safe and and father following some further counsel um we're obviously requesting a variance but I just want to State 31t 6 in is lower than what is permitted in terms of your roof pitches so we are lower um but we are requesting three stories here and that third story you will see and I'll show you in the model is just an on Suite bedroom it's a single bedroom uh and and a bathroom and so forth for that bedroom um we will uh provide further average grade calculations by our civil engineer during their testimony um now the number of tow houses we've talked about this also there are eight proposed and you can see here of the eight one is Affordable right and if we do the affordable uh calculation as was suggested by the gentleman just before I think we're at about 1.5 or 1.6 something like that uh is the requirement so what um the owner has elected to do was provide one affordable unit on site and that proportion uh whatever that number is that's less than one will be dealt with in terms of a payment in Li of to uh an affordable housing trust right which is fairly standard but you see basically what we're proposing here these are not that different from um many of the houses that you that you see around us these are three-bedroom units with home offices I'll talk about what those home offices are in a second um and they range in size from um 2280 to 2700 and so that's where I got that 2516 as the average size that is basically the the Delta that we're talking about here number of parking spaces required per year zoning 19 are required as you know defer to rsis standards very popular in the state um State Standards unless municipalities adopt uh other standards on top of that um so per rsis uh 19 are required we're proposing 21 spaces so we're a little better than what is required um 16 spaces are given directly to uh the town homes many of them are in two car garages you'll see one iteration where that a couple of iterations where that doesn't happen um and then five spaces are for visitor parking now how are we dealing with Ada parking right we have one dedicated Ada space in one of the Town Homes I'll show that to you and then we have one dedicated Ada space that is within the loop that we've created and I'll show that to you in a second that is publicly accessible when we were speaking with the engineer um he uh said something to me about strip malls and needing a publicly accessible space I would pause it that this is obviously a project not like a strip mall we don't really have that kind of demand of parking but to his point we thought about uh finding a location for a publicly accessible Ada space and we've done that and I'll show you what that what that is okay so I'm just going to read a couple more things before I get to my Mr Garber excuse me um electric vehicle uh yes spaces yes we have electric vehicle spaces in uh many of the of the town houses per the state standards uh uh forwarded by DCA last year so um as the board uh probably knows we received a uh Memo from Miss Tally's office several weeks ago we were able to get a good handle on that and then we received uh an engineering letter from neglia the board's new engineer um we've uh collaborated with Norberto um uh last uh Thursday night very late like 1 1: a. Friday morning I think or something like that um so um we uh have been able to address architecturally much of that but the majority specifically of the engineering um uh uh uh comments will be uh addressed at a later date by our civil engineer right and so we'll need a little bit more time to do that I've spoken to miss tally about that earlier right um but I'll just read here some of the things that you'll see so first um there was a comment on the planning report about the location of all mechanical equipment we've done that I'll show you where that is um the the mechanical equipment for these projects are are primarily going to be um condensing units one per house something like that uh maybe two small ones per house we're showing one per house uh and that's all handled in a way that is not viewable from the public right of way which is important um description of how the project addresses Universal Design and adaptability principles um we are 100% ADA Compliant every single one of these houses is 100% compliant and what we've decided to do voluntarily is um dove into the code and so in in multif family code for instance um what is what is required is um in lie of an elevator um one of the units a unit on the ground floor would need to be uh fully accessible for Ada use right and that makes perfect sense uh we have a home office in the lower floor of these units now these are going to be privately you know they're they're they're going to be privately owned basically but um to appease this comment because we actually agree with it and take it seriously um I will show you that the ground floor uh office space in every single one of these town houses can be adapted to have a kitchen and we already have an ADA Bathroom on that floor so we meet um the the definition of full accessibility um in our drawings and I'll point that out to you um location of exterior trash and recycling storage we have a location for that that was talked about in the DRC show you on the site plan that will also be picked up by our traffic consultant who will be testifying um later calculations for existing front yard setbacks along Ward and pleasant of the existing subject property have that in our plan you'll see that um finally detail uh two more uh Details of Building Materials provided per Montclair code 28184 B6 uh these are primarily brick and masonry uh with other non-combustible materials like uh metal panel uh so we'll be able to talk about that uh no problem and we are well over the minimum of 50% required per that ordinance uh finally there's um further clarification about the a American with Disabilities Act parking spaces I think I addressed that when I was talking about the parking um now in terms of zoning what are we asking for we've talked about this a little bit already um the primary variance in my mind is the principal use that I think is a d variance um because we are in an R1 single family Zone um there's currently uh it's currently listed as commercial it's the you know the greenhouse the the the um you know the shop that was talked about before and we are proposing uh tow houses uh or two family attached dwellings may be another way to to um describe these things uh so we are listing this as a variance I will say and we'll have testimony to this by others that we are bringing this lot more into compliance with what we're proposing here um what are the other variances they're all highlighted in yellow the W Place front yard setback um the existing is 54 uh that's the deepest part of the site uh the required is 25 we're proposing 15 we'll show you that because of turning angles um the pleasant way front yard setback existing is 133 required is 25 we're at 20 so we're better than what is there but we still need relief for that one the building height I talked about that one already 2.5 stories and so forth um and then building coverage um we are proposing 34.3% when 25% is required so we're listing that obviously as a variance also now this is a site with our setback comparison so this is one of the things that was written in our um planning letter this is included in the drawings that were submitted I think electronically to your office last Friday and then submitted a hard copy five copies I believe Monday or yesterday and you can see here that the florist is this kind of t-shape with the greenhouse um and you can see that the existing I can come over here and show everyone the existing um close sort of pinch point at Pleasant way is 13 .3 um because of the angle this sits at the furthest point from Pleasant 44.2 and then from Ward is where you have that larger depth um it's somewhat light but you can see the footprint of our uh existing improvements here which basically are the 20 and 15 ft that I'll show you in the site plan and I'm going to about to go to that right now so this is our site plan um this uh has not changed uh significantly since the U the last uh submission with the exception of the new Ada space and I'll point that out but the way that this is um uh imagined uh I think is very very um particular to the site right now Montclair um in its history of development has block widths that vary right but some of the older blocks uh are somewhere between 150 and 200 ft wide uh we happen to be about 161 wide here right and so the way that that's set up just to kind of show everyone is you have lots divided so you have a lot here that's deep and narrow that fronts uh Ward and a lot here that's deep and narrow that fronts Pleasant the cemeter is down here for everyone just kind of understanding that now so we have and and the owner talked a little bit about this this really unique kind of condition here where we have a lot that is almost as deep it's actually deeper than it is wide which is something that we don't necessarily see and we have three frontages right so we have three front yards in zoning parlons right that means we have a front yard on Ward we have a front yard on Orange and we have a front yard on Pleasant right so where's the rear yard the rear yard isn't Ward from Pleasant right so what we've decided is that the rear yard and this is in talking with um Miss T and her staff is really this kind of area around back here and what this does is by calling this the rear yard and putting a circulation driveway here we're doing a few things first we're making sure that there's a kind of spatial void between the closest tow houses to the residential development and um uh and allowing a drive access aisle there right and that's important so the access aisle as you can see uh you enter on Ward and you exit on Pleasant and the idea is that you drive through and then there's a sort of circulation dut that allows you to get into the driveways of each of the tow houses right and so what does that mean that means in terms of a Kind of Town form plan right what is our building it's a u right it's capping the rest of the block right very simple very logical right so but where we have um really and this is I um it's been actually a pleasure working with Miss tally and her staff in terms of this town form because the U is further broken down uh at several scales so the first way we break the U Down is we break it down into pairs of tow houses so here's the U right here's the drive AIS here's the circulation right and we have pairs 2 4 68 made in four different buildings and then we further break down those pairs by doing further articulation that you'll see in each of the facades as we get to it right um but you can see here uh just to read off all of The Pedestrian entries we have we can are are from the front now obviously there's entries through the garage and stuff in the back also if you're driving your car in but this is another thing that is very characteristic of Montclair you drive past the house and park in the back right so you maintain manicured Lawns right that's one of the things as we sort of move west of Essex County that sort of you know I don't want to give a history lesson or anything but that emerged in the 20th century here so so um so the idea is that all of the the the units are accessible through front doors and I'll show you what that looks like in our model but you can also access through the rear through garages where you'd be driving cars in or parking right now where is the visitor parking the visitor parking are the are the five magenta spots that we put along what we're calling our rear yard that furthers the buffer from the other residential units and the houses and that's important what else is worth looking at on this plan the location of trash collection in the middle of the the rear of the site not visible from the public right of ways unless you're looking right through the drive aisle um and then this is fairly new uh last week after speaking with uh the uh board engineer what we've decided to do is open up a an affordable excuse me a uh an accessible affordable uh accessible parking space with a 5-ft drive vial here that is accessed off of this um you know let's call it a semi-public turnaround for the residents and that ensures that we have an ex and this isn't even really required actually in My Mind by code but it's something that we feel um strongly about and speaking with um the board engineer that there is uh an accessible Ada spot there um as well um so you get a sense of how our site plan is working working you get a sense of how we have in most cases two car garages we should have stayed over here um so we have many of the units 1 2 3 4 uh five have two car garages um all of the units at least have one car garages with the exception of townhouse um six which is this one why is that because this happens to I talked about the oddly shaped site before an interior angle less than 90° because of that we don't really have the turning radius here to actually fit a garage have it everywhere else right now if this site was actually parallel we would have no problem doing that right so you get a sense of some of the constraints uh that we've I think been made to work fairly well um and then you see the EV spaces in Orange that are um dedicated in um all the units right so all the units have uh uh are available with an EV an EV charging space as a person who drives an electric car I welcome that so this is our proposed first floor plan um not much more I think to talk about than what we we talked about here now um we you'll notice there's some things in here that say approved and that kind of thing this goes back to something Mr merera said before this when we say approved this was a previously considered um uh proposal that this board saw which did inform uh some of the thinking that we have here right but what we're proposing here is 20 ft on Pleasant we're uh proposing 20 ft on Orange and we're proposing 15 ft on Ward why is that 15 ft on Ward again I talked about referring to the front yard setback right the front yard setback yes that I yeah sorry if I yeah the front yard setback so 15 ft on W place and why is it 15 ft again it's because we have this kind of tighter than 90° angle and we're just uh you know it's very important that we maintain that average townhouse size that we were talking about now as we go up in the plans um the second floor plan uh so the first floor plan I should say also in every single unit we have what we were calling office but if you look at the newest plans that were submitted you will see that these all have a kind of gray out kitchen line and all that means is that we can Plum this this space and that's fine because it has logic of a of an existing ADA Bathroom and then bathrooms above to actually accommodate a kitchen or kitchenet um if we needed to make one of these units 100% uh accessible it is adaptable and so that's that's another kind of addition that speaks to the Universal Design goals of the project in terms of the Upper Floor I talked about this uh started talking about this we have two bedrooms in the rear of every townhouse we have a large kitchen living dining space in the front um as that is joined by a stair as well as a full bath for the bedrooms and a half bath for visitors in the living area so I'm walking all over your space I apologize for that but um we have a model here and what you see here is and everyone can kind of come up and uh can we just Mark the model as A2 you can't have it but you can mark it I'm not sure about that I think we need to keep it I think you need if it's yeah if it's if it's you can get it back we'll get it back okay fine no problem um so uh so my team toiled over this so so um you can actually see how this breaks up where we have a stair uh we have a ground floor and that ground floor has that area that I talked about was fully adaptable we have a that's okay this was supposed to all come apart there you go thank you Greg um and then you see actually the second floor kitchen uh living area dining area and what's nice is the dining area is part of a double thank you Richard a double height space so and you can see this in section and we think that this is a really nice design for these units they'll make the units feel bigger than they actually are but we'll have a double height space that contributes to our requested variance for height by the way um and then that you're standing so probably three members of the board can't see what you're this is yeah describing um so double height space and then uh living area dining area kitchen our two bedrooms are back here we have a stair that connects all the floors so this is our double height space I'm talking about right here and then on the third floor we are asking relief for the third floor that would be for what would normally be referred to as an on Suite uh bedroom and that bedroom uh has um uh a full bath up there as well as a modest closet uh and an open to below area and then every single one of the units have fairly large roof decks now where are the roof decks smaller the roof decks are smaller at the corners because we're turning a corner so geometrically these guys get a little bit smaller but you can see that the majority of the units have very large this is I think um uh 15 ft of depth if I'm not mistake and there's a green buffer around and uh by the way I should say the affordable unit is the same I know that sometimes times people come in and make changes on the affordable unit but the affordable unit does have the large deck it has the same number of bedrooms Etc and so that's something that's woring Mr gber none of the none of the decks face any street is that correct correct everything is inward facing so the more public parts of the project where one could be outside do not face the street and that's right back here you can see that deck here as well and can you talk about you mentioned Greenery yep okay yep so I'm going to do that as I go through the plans okay so we have plans here um so this is basically referring to what I just said this is one of the typical units right so you have a double garage two cars you have the ADA Bathroom you have some storage you have the home office and you can see here our adaptable kitchen we're not proposing a kitchen down here we're showing where it would go and how it would work uh coat closet small foyer and this is that stair that goes up that you can see in the model on the second floor you come up the stair you have a large open space the double height space is here at the stair living area excuse me living area dining area kitchen and then in the rear of the unit full bath for the bedrooms bedroom one and bedroom two half bath for G this is laundry excuse me uh laundry room on this floor I I misspoke about that the laundry room on this floor and then when you come upstairs uh this is open to Below in front of the stair so this is that double height space uh at the at the dining area and then the the the uite is here with a full bath um closet here and then you see that stair and off the stair we have a large private deck this width being 15 ft uh so this area uh it varies this is the area that we started trying to do at 40% I was talking about before to kind of keep within this 2 and a half story um this has changed a little bit some of them are a little bit over 40% some of them are a little bit under but they average somewhere around there we're still asking for the the deviation there and then a green buffer exists around the private uh the private roof deck as well so three stories um with the top story being uh a single bedroom and you can see that in the section I think it's better to look at the section in the model you get an idea of what this is uh and then some 3D views where I'll talk a little bit about the materials so this is literally the same cut that you're seeing in our um model and then in terms of the materials themselves these renders are a little bit in progress but we did talk about brick um and so if the board would like to see I have examples um what we are proposing is um Mr chairman A3 all the materials A3 or everyone well why don't we do them separately one by one one by one fine so this is the brick material board this is Brick we didn't have a yeah we thought not to bring a board because everyone likes passing around little materials so sorry you have to not you you have to mark them all A3 A3 so A3 would be basically the kind of L shape that you see here this is a dark gray brick right down here I will pass around around a red brick A4 I guess it's a little heavier careful okay and then up top on the Upper Floor we have a metal panel that basically is applied in standing seam so if everyone knows what you've ever seen a standing seam roof there's actually a pitch as you can see in our model and in here to the building on the third floor that also kind of modulates its scale from the street I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in a second but we have a standing seam material this is uh an alucabond brushed carbon A5 very light and then finally A6 will be metal frame around the windows right and the metal frame around the windows is a little a little bit darker than our standing seam metal material uh I would call this black right so that material goes around the windows and then the standing seam material I talked about is up here where the building slopes a bit and you can see one of the things that we're really doing is putting in a lot of glass and we think that that's really nice this building uh the the site orientation the buildings uh face largely South as well as East and West exposure so we're going to get light through the day so we think that um putting a fair amount of Glass on the front of these buildings makes sense I do have elevations the elevations are really for the purposes of isolating these materials the majority of which I just um passed around to you and I will just call the board's attention to when I when I talk about that pitch we just have a modest almost tutor likee pitch on our third floor here and all that is meant to do is first of all we have a setback already right the setback is 3 feet um but in addition to that 3-ft setback the perspective is forced a little bit more by just adding a little bit of slope and so what we're trying to do I talked about breaking down the proportion we're breaking down the proportion of this building a little bit more by adding a subtle pitch to that third floor roof and uh third floor facade third floor elevation uh and breaking down the material so that you really see the primary material the dark gray brick that's been passed around is largely registering as a two-story intervention we have red brick at the base to announce the entry the doors and then we have the standing seam metal material at the angle sort of minimizing the third floor which is the smallest part given a floor plan of the building itself and then on the side sides and I don't have a sample of this but we do have um a ctitious fiber panel which is a masonry uh which is a masonry product in a gray and those are on um non right of way facing sides uh but that is a fireproof and um you know very very resilient material and then we just did just some elevations to show the scale of these things with respect to some of the neighbor houses Pro some of you probably see your your home in here um if I need a copyright approval I'll to you about it uh and then we just have some exterior details just to show about in terms of numbers a board onboard fence at the rear and then just an axonometric that shows that breakdown of material so this kind of Recaps everything that I showed you we have a kind of completion of the Town form at the three frontages in this kind of overall u-shape we have the first proportionate breakdown of that u-shape into pairs of buildings and those pairs on the orange road side wrap the corner right we then break those pairs with a 10t gap so you can actually see clearly through we provide parking on the lower at grade here and here and then we further modulate the proportion of the masses with glass and a material break I.E that window frame to begin bringing a residential scale into this and that's my presentation I think I have the rendering here but we showed that I think I'd rather end Mr gber you had mentioned before mechanical equipment can you um oh yes show where the mechanical equipment would be located so on the first floor plan and this was located thank you this was this was uh uh provided in the um in the revised plans that were sent we have very small uh labeled M for mechanical these are condensing units so we have condensing units there's one shown for every house now there may be two smaller ones instead of one not designed yet but there's a location here for this unit here for this unit here for this unit here for unit and unit and this is uh shaded by planting in here um here for this unit here for this unit again shaded by planting and then this unit is here in the green space so that's really the only mechanical equipment that would be visible and none of it the we're talking about probably 54 in by 54 wide by maybe 3 ft high and 16 to 18 in wide so nothing significant and certainly nothing you'll see from the right of white Mr chairman I have no further questions of this witness Mr mccullock do you have any questions thank you Mr Garber um just a couple of questions for you sure so uh you mentioned that in Montclair uh the average roof pitch is uh 35 ft that's not what I said I what I said was in the R1 in the R1 okay your height is governed by 2.5 stories in 35 ft okay after speaking with Miss tally and her team uh it became clear that that 2.5 stories is because many of the single family homes have roof pitches and so the way that those roof pitches have been let's say cataloged in terms of your zoning ordinance is calling houses you know single family structures I guess that have those roof pitches as 2.5 stor with a pitch and that pitch has to be less than 35 ft okay so in in this particular in this in the sort of the neighborhood that surrounds it Pleasant Ward y um the the average pitch would be about what height in terms of those single family homes so you could see here I mean I don't have everyone survey I know not everyone you see that there's a variety of pitches everything from um a fairly you know low but tall pitch M where this is clearly this is how you would calculate 2.5 stories it's probably one of your houses um uh where this is obviously habitable space with a window but with this roof this is what your zoning ordinance would call a 2.5 story home so given that this I don't know if this is 35 ft or not but the maximum height of this and and by the way anything that existed before your zoning ordinance is I'm sure GR bothered in but for a new home if it was a single family home this would be the maximum height at 35 ft right um what we're proposing is oh and by the way you have flat roofs right right nearby right you have very low slope almost flat roofs that are then articulated by little popouts right you have one house that's probably a little bit taller you have one house that actually has its pitch going front to back instead of side to side so so you have there's no predominant Town form here 100% that's clear in this in this graphic right but what we're proposing just like the house right next door to us is flat roofs right with the garden in the back right the patio in the back the planted garden and um what we are asking for is three stories now when we origin what I said just to kind of because I think it's worth it to go through this again when we originally spoke with the planning office about this it was suggested maybe we try to keep the third floor to 40% because maybe 40 you know and and I I don't think that there was anything necessarily totally calculated about this but you know there's some amount of living area up here maybe it's 30 maybe it's 50 whatever so we just kind of hit on a number of 40 and so the idea was all of these floors before we were noticing for a variance we're at exactly 40% of the square footage of the second floor that's how we calculated it now we've set it back and we've codified it as a variance condition so these now vary a little bit and they I've shown you the plans there's a slight you know dimensional difference in them but they um they're all somewhere around 40 some might be a little less some might be a little bit more but we're we're noticing for a variance anyway in terms of that condition so given given the variety of of architectural design of of the prop properties uh in this neighborhood um would it be your judgment that that this proposal these buildings would not have a tendency visually to sort of overwhelm this this neighborhood I I definitely don't think overwhelming is overwhelm is a is is in my opinion the right term I would say that there's a um there's a couple of things one that Essex County does have a rich history of these kind of mid-century modern boxy type of buildings um and we love those buildings by the way I mean I think that those are fascinating buildings you know some people that live in them um and also um you know this is in no way a historic neighborhood we're not defining this by historic standards but since your question delves into history a little bit Secretary of the Interior standards basically dictates that new construction should set itself apart from uh existing conditions and therefore we wouldn't try to make a structure look like an older home we would want to differentiate it I would also remind you that this is a very very different kind of site in terms of its size its orientation and its angles and so I believe that this as a a solution um you know has difference but works proportionately and in scale with what we see and that's one of that's one of the main reasons why we actually put this drawing in our presentation right right I mean the what was behind my question was the question of scale y um and so um now can I I just want to talk a little bit about uh the materials that you you passed around here um I one of the things that you know I am concerned about is that uh Montclair has the benefit of historic neighborhoods um and so when we are looking at new construction uh the durability of what is being proposed uh becomes very Paramount course so uh can you speak to or would you speak to I know you can you're qualified can would you speak to the durability of of these materials that you're especially these brick materials that you you've passed around for us to take a look at in terms of sure what kind of what kind of durability what kind of expectancy life expectancy so first of all your ordinance specifically asks for Brick masonry which I think is great now and you can see actually that the houses around us don't have brick masonry it's mostly wood clapboard and some of it is replaced at this point um uh brick is a very very durable material it's been used both as a cladding and a and a structural wall material since Antiquity um I I want to just make sure that something's clear though these are brick samples yes we're not suggesting necessarily that this is thin brick on the on the wall right this is most likely unit masonry this is something that we still have to work out but nonetheless um we are meeting the requirements of your ordinance but also using a material that we very very comfortable will be extremely resilient extremely stiff um these buildings will have fire resistant walls that divide them so everywhere there's a pair of buildings there'll be masonry unit here we'll have non-combustible construction all on the outside and you need that because brick is kind of heavy so these will be built um yeah I mean these will certainly withstand and and outlive the 30-year mortgage that most people will get at like 7% or something like that right and and what about this this um material that will be on the third floor right standing seam right so so so uh especially in um in and maybe not so much here but in other historic districts standing seam metal is a very traditional way of cladding buildings so it's a thin metal but it's um it laps itself so I'm going to put this down for a second mhm sort of locks together like this and that's why you see the seams the ribs going up so it's a kind of materially locked uh it's a it's a it's a locked material so that the boards like the bands of it not the boards but the bands of it um operate monolithically from a sheer point of view M and and so uh just given the fact that this will be on on the third level um uh there's no concern about uh um the impact of weather um that would damage this material or call it to cause it to be dislodged or anything like that no the Mater this material is really suitable for roofing right and as I talked about that we really see this third floor almost as like a roof like it's a kind of low pitch roof like a high pitch roof I should say like a tutor or something like that right so we're cladding it with a material that is typically used for roof um this material can be applied vertically as well as horizontally so there's no issue with that um but no uh I have uh as long as just like anything else as long as it's installed properly um there will be um you know it's it's a it's a fully impenetrable material to weather M okay um and similarly in terms of the the the garden areas on the on the third level y uh those how how would those be constructed in a way that would um minimize the potential again of of I'm glad you asked that debris flying and so you see so basically what we're constructing is a paret wall so that paret wall by code is uh 42 in 39 in either 39 or 42 something something like that um and then from that par so that parapet wall is part of the exterior wall assembly it's a it's a wall right from there we have a 2T or so planting bed that's real plant right that's not fake material that's like literally uh a kind of planting box that has a a a cubic volume of you know two feet of height of planting material and then vegetation I'm not sure what kind of vegetation we do have you know landscape experts that can and a civil engineer that can testify to that so this is extremely heavy and this also by the way provides extremely like excellent insulation for this below where we actually have um you know the um uh the bedrooms below MH great thank you very much you're welcome is Grant you have any questions hello hi um I I didn't the detail of the lighting fixtures the lighting fixtures are going to be facing Orange Road and word um I in the back of the details I think I missed it I just wanted to see the lighting yeah so I didn't really I didn't really talk about the lighting um as much I can tell you that's really we're going to leave that for our civil engineer they will testify to that but just to give you a general idea we have basically low lighting which is lower than our our fence here all along here and then you can see in our rendering We have basically uh taller lights that flank the property and I think you can see they don't show up in our drawings cuz they're on the Civil set but um you can see them here right so you see them in the Green Space kind of going around so there'll be plenty of light on all four FR on all three frontages and what style are are are those lightings I don't know if you have uh we do have something spec I don't uh I think they they are probably in the civil engineering set they're they're basically pole mounted down lights mhm so they'll they'll be casting down and basically um if the concern is are they casting out into the street are they casting into the neighbor's properties they will not be they will be focused so they literally are creating a lit area to the base of the vertical poles and those are only in the front of the building okay so that area um there's the cemetery and there's a lot of deer in the area um in the front there's a lot of um there's you know more Landscaping there so was um has any consideration been given to um whether to deter or um from deer from congregating in the landscaped area because I think the courtyard is um will be paved but the but the but the perimeter um so that was my other question yeah I so I talked about that so so we don't really we didn't feel it appropriate to put any kind of fencing here right now are there other ways to detract Wildlife from being there sure there's like electronic fencing stuff like that but do are we having like walls no I don't think that that's appropriate and I don't think that that's consistent with you know um uh precedents sort of in the area I was talking about the kind of man the kind of green front yard with the driveways in the back in the rear uh just to be clear we have a lot of green area not a lot you can see the green area it's located and then the drive aisle and loop itself is asphalt paving and we'll have the civil engineer speak to that um I'm not a civil engineer um but I will also tell you that the kind of checked Paving that we have for these parking spaces and the entries to the driveways those are all imagined as prvious papers so they will I don't think they necessarily count in terms of storm water management but they will certainly allow for recharge better than you know impervious asphalt and what about um regarding dear the planting schedule like what type of landscaping uh we'll have we'll have other experts speak to that okay um you said that this wasn't a um um a formal historic neighborhood um from your work on this project how would you characterize this neighborhood uh super varied M and and you know I only need to show you the various styles of houses that I was talking about when um uh Mr uh Mulla was was asking me those questions to the fact that on Orange Road as I spoke about before so like you know characteristically I go back and I think everyone kind of knows this but so you do see that orange Road ends up being a fairly you know a fairly significant area the um Cemetery here right you have pleasant and Ward so our site ends up being this cap right so we're talking about that u-shaped cap here orange as you go up and down has a variety of uses some residential some commercial there's some great we've had project dinners um at restaurants on Orange right so there's there's a lot of variation in terms of the uses on Orange and I think orange does contemplate a mix of uses some of them like the gas station and the former florist use um are per year zoning code non they their pre-existing non-conforming uses okay thank you um the um they the brick sample was passed around um what kind of dictated the if that's the final like kind of I mean it's listed here um but the color of the brick so we we we we talked a lot about that and um we talked with the community about that there were some questions of the community about potentially lighting it lightening it you know I I actually think that um uh and I recognized that some of the previous questions were does this stand out too much and and you know I talked about his the secretary of the uh the interior standards I mean we were thinking that you know a kind of Darker building with a lot of glass um would be appropriate here um and you can see that there's you know lighter colors but there are also some darker colors like along the street as well I mean we're you know I mean I think color is still something that is open for discussion but I do think that um you know how we've imagined this with the red uh signaling the entry the darker kind of midsection and then the kind of sloped material we do think we're actually kind of breaking this down both in material and material variation as well as proportion okay thank you you're welcome Mr Crawfield thank you um can you let's talk about the Ada accessible unit that you that you designed like how does that work if somebody is needing that they V vacate the upstairs there and they live in that area underneath the garage so so there really is no basis for that in the IRC and the residential code because single family homes do not have to meet that burden however I thought that when we got the planning report suggesting Universal Design I mean it's something that we certainly U believe in we design a lot of multif family uh housing as well and what I spoke about before is the way that um multif Family Housing Works is if there's not an elevator the elevator would obviously bring accessibility to everything there's no elevator proposed here the way that you would address that is there would be uh a ground floor unit so in the event there was someone with a disability that couldn't go upstairs or something like that you were not discriminating against them by making a unit fully accessible at a level at the first level of Entry of the building and so what we've done here as a way of speaking about that and this was an active this is an active discussion that we're having we we were just having with the the the board engineer um as late as Friday afternoon uh a couple of days ago that um while not required we uh have decided to show in our plans that um should there need to be a fully adaptable living situation we certainly have the ability to do it and the way that we do it is we have this kind of home office area here that home office area is accessible through the you know the entry back here the garage entry all the doors are um you know uh 36 in with the required pull and push widths and all that kind of thing and in the event that there needed to be some kind of kitchen which would be required in an accessible unit we're showing that we can provide Plumbing here to create one this is not required though right and and these will not be built this way unless there's a kind of special concern or a special request to do that uh just showing the ability to adapt which is what the code basically states you have to do okay yep the roof any any no mechanics on top of the roof correct just going to be way these are small buildings gotcha um can you can you talk about the parking that you have on the street um not on the street but uh you have six parking spaces so I'll I'll point to them but what I would say is you know I'd prefer to have the civil engineer and the traffic consultant who will be able to testify but generally if I put the site plan back up and I I had this up already the whole idea is that I mentioned 19 spaces are required per rsis standards right out of your code right out of excuse me it's not your Cod I mean you know the the municipal code um we are proposing 21 spaces uh those 21 spaces we are designating 1 2 3 4 five as guest spaces these are parallel spaces so they're 22 by9 thanks you don't want me moving around as much thank you so I was wondering what you didn't have so these are about 22 by 22 by9 is I think what's required by code so you can kind of just parallel in this is our trash and then here what we decided to do was make this a single garage and this was in discussion with uh neglia right and submitted in our most recent plan and this is a public Ada space with a side aisle right I don't think we're going to need it I don't think we I I'd rather see this as a two-car garage I think the owner would too but um you know I mean I can understand why um you know there might be a need for I I think give you know I'll let the traffic engineer speak to this but I would say that the the the need that we would have for for something like this is probably non-existent because we can make accommodation you know either in a garage we have a an an accessible garaged unit here or if need be you know can do a special kind of unloading on one of these side spaces there's plenty of room on this site to do it but um you know the idea here is in in um wanting to comply as completely with universal design standards as possible and that might be Aging in place things like that we are happy to provide that okay M Mr Garber that's the affordable unit right that just the garage this is the affordable unit but um the choice to put it here was not because it's affordable I and thank you for bringing that up that I I I want to make sure everyone's clear the reason why we put this here sorry I'm walking over again anyway is because we wanted to make sure we had a location where there was a 5-ft access aisle and so that's where this is now here we have an 8ft access aisle and this is a non aordable unit this is actually the biggest unit we have only one one car in this garage with an 8T access aisle so we are providing um Ada spaces both within garage and out of garage so wait so so is it two of the units has only a one car garage is that unit at the corner at the southern Corner this car this unit has a single car garage this unit now has a single car garage with the extra space here and then this unit on the tight Corner doesn't have a garage has a drive it has one car spot right here okay thank you yep and the reason why that is is the same reason I talked about before in terms of our U this is the less than 90° corner it's Tighter and we cannot maneuver a car in there and that's basically a sight feature is that a garage that tight spot there or is that an outdoor parking spot that's outdoor parking that's outdoor parking okay and they have to back out and not hit the back of that house going out that way uh there's clearance we'll be able to show we'll be able to to show the Turning clearances that's been done looks tight to me um uh it's tight because we have a thick magenta line here but in reality there's clearance I I know that you probably can't answer this but maybe the may give us some time for the traffic gue snow removal might be a big issue through this sometime down the road yeah we're prepared to speak about that um okay thank you thank you Mr Church uh no I have no questions the questions I had have been answered thank you Mr Simon thank you excuse me when you were designing this what was your intended intended um tenant for these units like what did you envision that's a great question um you know I actually think that given uh the location there could be any number this this could be a starter house this could be a retirement house for empty nesters this could be a house for a small family I think the idea here is um you know uh and I I don't normally say this actually but like you know in in some ways we're we're really striving for a market average in terms of square footage and that's why I brought up that 20 2,56 foot average for these units that's like right down the middle of of homes here right you have obviously homes that are a lot bigger but you have homes that are smaller and so the idea here is that this is a um sort of De developing part of the municipality and I think that these homes in their location and their level of affordability will be desirable for a very very wide range of people and that's a you know I mean the the owner likes me saying that but that also just I think makes really good sense given the kind of nature of development in this part of town okay I I could see it being a starter home but from an older home or a family there's a lack of common space like just open play area there's there's no backyard for anyone to uh be outside other than you know the open Decks that were designed into the home but in terms of a common outdoor area I don't see anything here right you mean common meaning shared or you mean common meaning just just like you know benches to sit outside sure uh so I I I I think that that's a fine point but I I would say so first of all um this is very specifically a townhouse model not a single family house model right so you can't it's not an Apples to Apples kind of comparison there right we have a lot of landscaped open space in the front of the houses and that is very very consistent with the precedents that I've I've brought up right um in terms of uh open space in the units we have the living room the double height dining room which maybe you don't have to put a table there but we have a giant home office which smacks of playroom I'm I'm strictly speaking on the outdoor space Oh okay because you actually had said something about the indoor space before Common deck and then so yeah so so sure and um I think if you're asking why don't we have a backyard because I actually think that this turnaround ends up being a very efficient way of serving and allowing for PRI garages which I think are actually very very important well I let me just stop I bring it up because it questions the overall design and the density um this is a great design for four udit but considering the fact that lesser number of units was never considered a in if you had three units here three buildings then you would have room to build a backyard or a play Space so hold on I never said lesser units weren't considered I think someone else might have but I I never said that it was stated it was stated by somebody previously testified hold on let me finish sure that that so because of that all these other things Varian is come into play um because you maximized it you built this property and looked at it strictly form eight units from the beginning no okay so what other designs were considered so what what would the code allow here if that's not what I asked I said what other design cons so there were designs for different ganging of units packs of three packs of four um and I can tell you that the number of units were in some instances higher than eight in some instances lower than eight right um and I think that again the configuration of the lot right is not one that's suitable to a typical subdivision in other words you're not going to just cut this down the middle and put a house here and a house here guess you could right but in my mind the context right suggests an opportunity in my mind my me speaking for something different why is that because of this right because you have wide openen space you have fairly densely packed homes sort of to the um to to the West you have that pattern beginning to start here to the east right this is extremely varied and this ends up being in a a very very comparatively large lot I talked about this depth being 160 ft right and that goes back to a more kind of urban precedent for the subdivision of both Ward and pleasant and so you know I understand that it's a non-conforming use right and we've never said that it wasn't I just think that um the lot is too large to do uh a kind of single family now is the number of tow houses uh appropriate I mean I would say it is is it uh something that we could potentially discuss I mean that would be something for the owner but I do think that given the size of the units the amount of the open space the setbacks right we have something that is appropriate and we've made to work and we've provided more parking than what's required in your variants going to the parking on this design townhouse 6 uh the I think it was noted uh that parking spaces 9 and 12 were signed to townhouse 6 which is the one without the garage here right sorry so this is town housee six mhm so this is one spot and then the second spot is in between is here right which is not ideal but I bring that up because in the previous the DRC memo they wanted a 10t separation between the buildings Y which is accomplished but then you is then blocked by the parking space so if you don't need all 21 spaces why not keep that space open at at least on the orange road side I I mean I don't have a problem losing a parking space I think the thing that you're forgetting uh or maybe I wasn't maybe you're not forgetting it I wasn't able to convey it uh as successfully as I had hoped is that there's and we'll have experts testify to this in every single one of these separations which vary from 10 ft to considerably wider than 10 ft we have a kind of planted landscape buffer right and the the the plantings will be you know 5T something like that I mean you know we'll have an expert be able to speak to that so you're not going to really see cars parked in there you're going to see a kind of planted void in the sort of town form right and you're going to see that in all three locations not only on Orange Road right okay Mr Simon if I could just follow if I could just follow up with that Mr can you testify to the reason for the separations as far as you know um you know um aesthetically from the street sure so the the the separations actually came from um this idea of wanting to break down the town form right which I spoke about now interestingly enough and thank you Mr masera for bringing it up when we first came in we had a separation here for parking we had a separation here for parking this was a lot tighter we only had 6 ft there and the reason why is because I actually felt strongly that it made sense to hold this as a single Mass on Orange Road um I got voted off that Island which is fine um and we ultimately now have a separation so that you more clearly see the proportionate breakdown in the pairs of units and you do you believe that the parking space affects that that visual separation no from the street no I don't okay um okay thank so for as far as the materials is there anywhere else in the neighborhood that uses uh those materials or that appearance for exterior um i' I'd have to I'd have to look I don't I can't tell you the answer for that but I think we can look for precedence for sure so definitely not in the neighborhood anywhere in Monclair at all didn't didn't say that I I have to look didn't say not not conceding anywhere in the neighborhood at that point so as far as you mentioned the the the memo I I the interior memo where they say a new new construction to have new designs so sure now that's so that's that's so when you're working so we work in a lot of historic districts and so we and and by the way I'm I'm telling you this for the purpose of like anally this doesn't govern anything that any of us are doing here right but so in historic districts there are guidelines all the way up at the federal level Secretary of the Interior of the Interior adopted by states that carry down through the municipalities and what the Secretary of the Interior standard suggest is that modifications to existing structures should be reconstructed in a manner that is appropriate with the time that the original structure was built so if I was going to go in if this was a historic district and I was going to go in and substantially rebuild that house right I would go look at the tax records I would find that that house is probably built in 1935 something like that and I would reconstruct it with woodframe windows with Pon with all of the materials at the time that's what the con that's what the the secretary of the in interior strand standard says to protect historic uh elements right what this what what they say for a new construction in historic districts is to make the the new buildings contrast with the old buildings so they use so they don't suggest making a new building look old to the contrary and so what you find actually is more contemporary type of buildings uh being built as new construction in historic districts so you use the word contrast that's what it says contrast that's my word okay but it it it says I it probably says something like differ got it um but to what are the limitations to that U like in as an architect what how do you consider the continuity to the existing neighborhood versus a contemporary design uh proportion shape uh application of materials and a kind of break down so that the proposed asset the proposed Improvement functions at a variety of scales Town scale block scale unit scale and you feel this fits here that's what I've testified yes okay um in terms of the development at all uh and this may not be fair for you was there any consultation with the neighbors as to size scale appearance yes what yes we've had uh uh I've had numerous Communications verbal Communications email phone with um uh a couple of the neighbors and we hosted a dinner that was organized by the neighbors uh I don't remember exactly when but it was uh probably several months ago um uh maybe November November I can get you the exact date where there was uh 16 or 18 people that attended and um we have a list of attendees and uh we talked we probably spent over two hours talking about this yeah okay um thank you thank you Mr VI uh thank you Mr chairman um um can you I think I'm a little confused with the previous testimony as far as the the number of units so can you kind of walk us through at a very high level starting from the conceptual design you know the how many units were considered first were more than eight units or less than so you mean in in my work not the previous testimony yeah correct so so how do we start things as an architect so what we typically will do so in this case as has been discussed by the chairman there have been multiple tries let's call them on this site um we were able to access multiple proposals for those tries and we started by reviewing them and those um proposals showed um numbers of units um some lower than eight some higher than eight there were no single family at least to my knowledge what I've seen no single family proposals previously proposed it was always town houses um and there was always some attachment of those houses so in other words they were either grouped in pairs threes or fours and so what we decided to do was you know kind of understand that that seemed to be sort of the spirit of of what was happening here um we initially came in when we first and I should also say when we first were brought into the job um and and to be honest I don't really like doing this but we were kind of given a design by someone else uh and we and um you know I'll withhold my position on that design but that design was brought in I was to the planning office and it was wholly rejected um and and the reason why it was wholly rejected well I I I don't want to speak for the planning office but it was wholly rejected and one of the things that we thought we wanted to do what was discussed is you know holding that block uh in a kind of you know Town end cap right uh so that u- shape that I was talking about before so that shape that propos shape came out of discussions directly I think with the municipality if I can explain I think your first proposal had driveways accessed from the street it did that was the major concern the eight curb Cuts along the street that was that you know my our the direction that our office gave was that was never going to fly so just to explain that no thank you so to address that concern um the proposed solution was to provide a single entrance for all the units and you know the the donut B two curb Cuts one on Pleasant one on Ward each side yeah maintaining the the driveways and maintaining the precedent of typically driving behind homes okay right yeah all right um the next question is regarding unit six I believe okay no the affordable unit yeah number seven so um it is this the smallest unit of all the it is the smallest unit it yeah it is the smallest unit because of it's it's affordable or um no no and and this one uh you know the again there's a kind of shape that is governing some of this so this unit ends up being the largest one because it's on the corner that has the sort of obtuse angle um this unit this unit this unit and this unit are all the same yeah this one is slightly smaller because of this wedge this one is slightly bigger because it's on the corner and this one is the biggest because it's on the obtuse Corner oh and this one is a little bit bigger because of the shape of the driveway we were able to kind of take that and make it a little bit bigger okay and and if I understood correctly based on your testimony the the reason to eliminate one of the parking uh spaces in the affordable unit was not because it's an affordable unit it's because it had to do no no and as a matter of fact I mean we this is open for discussion because I I still don't know exactly how I feel about the necessary of doing the necessity of doing that the affordable unit up until 5 days ago with uh discussions with the engineer had a two-car garage right but because there was a suggestion that we should have a an ADA space that was accessible uh it would be hard to put it up here for a couple of reasons first of all we don't exactly have room room for uh an access aisle a 5ft or an 8ft access aisle right because of the configuration and also these are far away from the units right so what we decided to do was maintain one affordable excuse me one accessible uh uh parking space here on this corner and the other one we decided to cut out of this unit which has nothing to do with it being the affordable unit it just has to do with where it's located because we needed to get a 5ft access aisle here so that's the reason why right I have a question sure I'm looking at your plans and your plans show that townhouse 6 is 2,444 square ft and the affordable unit is 2,495 square ft that's did that change that only changed because we had to to cut it it only changed because of the the the subtraction of garage space previously the affordable unit was not the smallest but now it is the smallest it's the smallest because it doesn't have one enclosed garage space we've basically cut that out of it okay but the Living Spaces are all comparable may I ask you a question Mr Garber if unit uh second one from the left on uh Orange Road oh here yes yep if you eliminated that parking space and put an affordable space here yeah sorry accessible space there that would be fine too and left and not trade if the concern is that the affordable unit has one would that be would that be possible it would be possible the reason why this made the most sense to us is because you're coming around and you're already turning right you come around this way depending on the way I mean these arrows can be flipped actually if you come around this way but if the board were inclined to approve this and we're a long way from there you could redesign that and because it had been suggested that there's one less that we we have one space that we don't need sure or or perhaps we just designate a different building a different unit for the affordable unit that would be fine too I mean that would because really we want to make sure that it's comparable to the others and it shouldn't be the smallest unit in the project if it gets back the garage then it would would be so I think that I think we're open to to redesignating or moving the parking space absolutely if you look at the upper if you look at the upper floors and we actually purposely made the affordable unit here the Upper Floor is comparable to all of these units they're all the same it's exactly the same design right so two four five six and seven uh I did that oh yeah that's right um all the same second and third floor um and it's only so m t to your question you're right in that we lost about 200 square ft in that unit that's because we that's because we cut it out of the garage uh after speaking with the board engineer okay we could we can do one of the two I mean otherwise under the under your code we have to seek a variance for having an affordable or a deviation one of the two I'm not sure it is okay for seeking an affordable that is not comparable size as you know comparable obviously is subjective but right okay well okay we can do that no problem okay next question um thank you the um you mentioned the So within the blocks you have two units there's a fire wall separating the two units to our rating and have about sound um sound proofing yeah so so there'll be uh there's so building code dictates um sound levels um sound sound transmission levels in the walls um a 2hour fire rated wall with insulation is going to exceed the minimum requirements so we're not worried about that okay um the roof deck so the corner units I couldn't find the roof decks where the they're green they're just I told you as I mentioned before they're tight and the reason why they're tight is because of the shape of our cap right and so these do the tradeoff is these units um this unit is is a little smaller actually this unit is larger um but has a little bit of a smaller deck this unit is actually smaller than the affordable unit in terms of its uh not in terms of its outdoor space as well as the um the interior uh the interior layout okay and what is the material of the roof the roof deck um it it would be a like a perious Pap so usually we'll do is we'll have um in in our section I don't think we've detailed it yet but so the section will have a roof assembly which is in here and then on top of that roof assembly we would have uh insulation Vapor Barrier all that sort of good stuff and then on top of that we would have sort of modular papers that have leveling to them um and so they allow the water to kind of go through and then they're almost basically like a horizontal rain screen practically and the water goes through and it drains off the roof okay and and the roof decks are not designed to be a means of ESS as during an emergency right no no they they wouldn't they're like a fire escape or something yeah a fire escape yeah no no need per code yeah um next the U okay so the other part was you mentioned uh um setback on the third floor 3 ft was there any other consideration for you know a larger setback so so we had we originally had a setback of about uh uh less than 18 Ines and really what we were doing is in terms of the front of the building maybe I'll use the model again in the front of the building we basically had this wall built with a low parpet right and then we had this wall the third floor wall I mentioned it's an angled wall almost like a high angle like a tutor almost style roof that was basically right on the inside of that parapet and we initially thought that that would do enough to break the scale down of that third floor right now what that allowed us to do is have bigger roof decks in the back right but I think after speaking with planning staff and having our um DRC it was discussed that perhaps we should take that whole third floor and and nudge it back a little bit just to help break that scale down a little bit and so I think your Vantage Point is a good one because you really do see that step and um so imagine from the street you know if you were here right even across the street your your your view angle is here and uh we don't have a Graphic to show so I'm using a laser to be my best sort of eye here but um you know so the idea is that that setback also plays with the proportion and perspective kind of decreasing the prevalence of that third floor on the street right now if you're asking can we set it back more that was a question right I could yeah I thought that might be where you were going so there's a couple of considerations first remember we have a stair that Links at everything right so that's this stair sort of right here going all the way up so if we move the whole form back that stair has to go back and that cuts into the garage space and we really feel strongly that in this so there was a question before about like who who is this being by Mr Simon who is this being marketed to I can tell you that no matter what age group whether they're empty nesters or first family whatever they're probably going to have two cars right so that's one of the things that we want to make sure that we you know provide for here okay um I think I have one last question regarding the color so was there um any energy considerations on the you know the dark color during the summer you mean like heat gain and things like that y um so so no uh but uh so um you know right so so it it is true that darker colors would would you know absorb they give off more heat heat energy in the summer I mean that's certainly as I said before the color is not we we felt that the buildings would be a kind of Darker more muted color um but we are open to to to other I mean we're not going to make them pink right but I I mean we are open to palettes of you know maybe tonally some lighter colors here um for sure um but I but I don't think that that's going to be that much right so cuz I mean if you think about it as your I'm going through my head as you're asking me a question which is a good question like you know if you were to put your hand in the summer like in your hand is in a total thermometer but you know you can tell like on you know right above let's say a a a a black asphalt Street and uh a kind of whiter concrete sidewalk it's going to be a little bit cooler but it's still sort of giving off heat I mean I I mean I I don't know if changing the color palette would necessarily like from an engineer I'm not you know an engineer but would necessarily make the buildings perform better or anything like that I don't think you're going to see any kind of Real Performance increase in that but from Aesthetics as I said I mean if there's some general thought by the board that we should look at tonally lightening this a little bit I think that that's something we'd be willing to do thank you Mr Vera we will not allow this application to be determined by the exterior color we're open to you know to suggestions as um our architect has said I mean you know if if if it's the color we're happy to consider other tones thanks um let me um I guess one of my fundamental questions on this is the variance uh we granted in 2007 only allowed for the building coverage to go from 25% to 27.5% you're up to 34.3% I guess why given we could achieve a lesser deviation should we approve a greater deviation now what's justifying that um uh well uh you know I would first say 17 years right I mean but but I I would also say that um the I think and what I mean by that I don't I hope that didn't sound callous that's not what I meant by that but I think that the these building sizes are pretty tied to the standards that we are seeing in town now I don't remember off the top of my head in this in this area I should say in particular like in this area I don't remember off the top of my head what the size of those units were I trust they were probably a little bit smaller um I do think that um in speaking with the owner and and and developing the scope of the project um it was very strongly felt that these would be three bedroom tow houses I think anything smaller than that probably doesn't make sense um admittedly we do have that large room on the ground floor which is a flex space I said it would be a great playroom before I mean you know is there something we can do there sure but I I would say that um you know one the size of the units are tied directly to the what what we see as you know demand um and then two I would say that um the I I'd have to look back and see how circulation worked I I may have to punt on this answer sir to be honest with you I may want to like look at this a little bit more and compare um but uh uh uh you know I I would have to look at circulation and things like that I mean I will say that um you know I I I did bring up these building Footprints and drive aisles you know um I we we cannot count the imper the perious pavers as part of non- coverage but we do know that and I could get you a square footage of these we do know that there is going to be some performance in terms of recharge that these things are going to do right so I don't I don't know I mean I don't that probably is not the best answer I will get back storm weather other than I'm going to ask you one question I I'll deal with the engineer but sure my storm water question to you is um how is the storm water getting from the roof to the ground uh so that will be uh formally designed but we will probably bring it uh internally and actually have it recharge uh directly out in other words there's not going to be gutters coming down the sides of these buildings um we might have some scuppers in the rear but uh we will M make sure that uh the the the the water is managed and um I mean from I don't I don't know if you're asking about Aesthetics but we're not going to put gutters all over the front of these buildings it will be managed in the rear and on non-ri of ways okay so you testified about the material on the sides of the building you testified about the material on top of the roof deck what is the rest of the roof of the building going to be made of so I mentioned before the uh and you can see on the rear elevations one second so um the material at the base here is a is a cementitious fiber panel right so that's a it's basically a cement board right um the entire band here is Brick and that goes right to your ordinance with 50% of brick including in the rear on the second floor I'm I'm on the top of the building the roof the top of the building is also I believe the uh let me I'm not going to say something incorrect here let me just look at my notes I think this is the top the ro oh the roof ro oh oh oh I'm sorry the roof is going to be so we have detailed that yet but the roof is going to be a roof structure with a um uh a waterproof uh uh like a a cement board uh with a with a waterproof membrane uh that will have insulation under it based on insulation standards R38 or something like that and then we'll actually put our deck on pavers above that okay so uh well that's how it would be done here no um the the above the building part the roof above yeah so that would be basically as I described a snow de simple roof structure right so joists I I understand I regrettably represent developers who have to do apartments with flat roofs and know what's involved to make it waterproof what is the very top material going to be made of membran and we will um uh you just said something I assume you're an attorney I you said represent um so sorry I just I hear things um so I am an attorney that is sorry we would have uh I was like how is a board uh chair representing so I got it um uh the the so basically what happens is you do a calculation you do an energy check right we run energy models in our office right there is going to be a certain amount of insulation that is going to be needed on that roof now in addition to insulating joint joists the right way to do it is you have some kind of cement board or something on top of the joists that is impenetrable the water on top of that you put more insulation to get to your R38 or R40 or whatever it is what you do is you figure out the minimum amount of insulation that you have to get to your R38 and then the rest of it you actually have thicker insulation that is tapered so the insulation is actually tapered from the minimum thickness required to something bigger than that to control the flow of water okay and because that's my real question I'm going to assume you're making it watertight um is the water being directed to the rear of the building the water is the civil engineer will speak to that but yes the water will be primarily my understanding is to the rear of the building well it's your architectural design and that and I'm I'm trying to going from the top of the third floor roof down to the deck which is in the rear I believe down to the ground is part of your building correct what I and and I'm I'm I own that 100% authored it own it right what I'm saying is um and the civil engineer is not here there will be further testimony what we're going to do is coordinate our work with the civil engineering work to ensure that you have positive slope that is going to collect the water and allow it to drain out what I would guess and I I don't have the drawings in front of me so I'm going to just Venture a guess here that it's going to come out and then out this way to the street right so it's going to kind of collect and I'll deal with the civil engineer on that part of it okay on your deck um your um exhibit shows a railing around it and I want to understand how that relates to the planner planners you're putting in and let me first ask are the planners on all sides or the three sides that are at the exterior or just one side yeah thank you for asking that's a great question um so obviously uh we'll talk about the corners as um oddballs but on the primary units 2 3 four five six we have Planters on three sides we do not have a planter here this is where window and door and the railing so technically we wouldn't need a railing if we have a high enough parit what we like to do because from a from you can never be too safe right we will have a parapet that meets code we will have a 18 20 24 in I don't know what it is but it's in our drawings it's it's probably something like 2 feet depth of planter that goes all the way around right and then inside that we'll have a railing and that railing will ensure I mean look yeah I I mean I can't keep people from climbing all over things right but but from a code point of view this is beyond the kind of Standards to make sure that there's safety there okay and in terms of how high will the railing be in relationship to the plan I people are going to want to reach over to the planners and plant things you'll be able to you'll you'll have access to the planners the railings will be about 6 in higher the railings will be set at 42 in the Planters will be set at 36 and the powerit I think is 39 okay so so basically saying the railing is going to conform to code even though you don't need it is that correct correct correct um the in my understanding of your testimony is the building facades are all going to be identical in all the buildings is that correct they are uh let's say they're of the same family there's modest differences based on areas of materials you know but in effect this this this this this are the same this is a little bit wider this one is an odd ball because it actually is a corner and this one is an odd ball because it's a corner but they'll all have as a feature a kind of large frame window here right that is clad in that dark metal right we'll have casement windows up top this will be a fixed panel this will be casements this will be a large casement window and then you have your entry set in someone driving by they're going to look very very similar in appearance correct only looking very carefully would you be able to say oh that one's a little different because of it's relationship to the street the other building whatever correct um I guess in this neighborhood is that don't virtually isn't there great dissimilarity among the buildings that are there yes agreed um I do think uh and I I think I understand where you're going sir I I um would say that if this was something on the mid block where let's say we had town houses over three three lots on the mid block that were connected I would 100% agree that they should vary maybe not in proportion but at least in material right so color right I think the fact that we are capping a block we're doing something that and as I said I think to um Mr Simon we're really trying to allow this building to operate at three scales we're capping a corner with three frontages at the largest scale we're pairing buildings at a kind of middle scale and then we're differentiating single buildings with things like uh a variety of window sizes and a window frame at the small scale um I guess um I'm going to do a let's start off with this is not an historic district and this secretary's guidelines are not really relevant but I guess I I would State them a little different I would use the word if we were different differentiate first you know the the goal of the secretary is if you're building something new in an historic district you want people to know it wasn't built back then and it look it'll look different and not be of something that it's trying to look like it was if it's a 19 you know say an 1890s historic district it would not be built at looking like it was an 1890s building it would agree you'd be able to differentiate it um the I guess I was what is the ordinance section that you think requires your use of the brick uh I have it here 281 28184 B6 requires all side and rear elevation shall be faced with brick or quarried stone the balance of such area be faced with material suitable in quality durability and appearance and then 28184 B7 requires not less than 50% of total area front elevation in each group of dwelling units so this is for tow houses shall be faced with brick or quarried stone so we're just trying to match the ordinance we actually came in with um lesb and it was suggested that we should follow this which we have no problem doing okay are there any members of the audience who have have questions for this witness and again this is just to ask questions and just about his architectural testimony we'll get to the engineer you want to come [Music] forward hi I'm micel ban 13 W place um mrra you said we talked about this before when we had a meeting on January um however I didn't see you mention any of this since they're going to there's going to be an entrance um on one place and then one in Pleasant way I think we had suggested having some stop signs and pedestrian Crossings I did not see this in this presentation I don't know if this is formally Incorporated in your application to the township uh so we'll make sure the civil engineer testifies to that but we have no problem with that okay um thank you and also too in regards to I guess this went over several times the average square foot of the houses um was based on um was it just homes within the 200 square feet or just no I mean it was just a kind of General survey there's uh been some um real estate professionals that have consulted with the owner on this and so this is all like I don't have direct data that I personally cited I mean it was all anecdotal brought to me saying this is about what you want to do here this is where demand is and and so that's where we came up with that average 2500t size and the number of bedrooms and so forth okay thank you and um just my uh final question um is for the um sorry I lost my Trend I'll just come thank you thank you there any other members of the audience I think you need I don't care about we need to you speak about the Conformity of the building based on what you like but did you consider the Conformity of the neighborhood and what this looks like and how it absolutely does not conform in any way shape or form to anything in the neighborhood right so I've I've spoken at length about that and um I recognize that um you know we may not have full agreement on these things but what I suggested was that we had a very good handle on size of units proportion of units and um absent a kind of standard type of dwelling we are a standard neighborhood we may not be historical based on your words and that use of this is a non-historic building feels like an insult it's certainly not meant to be an insult I I think we were just speaking about it not being designated as a historic but it doesn't conform to anything in the neighborhood and it's capping as you say it's capping our neighborhood did you consider that it would be closing in our neighborhood it's not closing what it's doing is as I said it's um a very uh unique situation in which you have a lot that is deeper than it is wide and these are the older proportion of blocks in this neighborhood and what we are doing is we're coming up with a kind of um Town form that uh is certainly a precedent in in places right where we're capping and then we're looking to break down that building proportionately you know in a variety of ways that I've spoken to okay but may I ask you another question you have most of the traffic coming onto W place that means 27 cars coming onto W place did you consider in your design since Orange Road is more accessible and not bringing all that traffic past my home and the other neighbors home and the kids who play on the Block on their bikes and there's always kids playing football people are whipping around you're talking about your entire complex coming past okay and going straight through fawn's house and the neighbor's house with only the separation of a small fence and then they're going out into the cemetery side did you not consider letting them go through Orange Road and then go out through Pleasant way that way it would never have impeded our neighborhood and our neighborhood is very small did you consider that so the the the reason yes the streets are very small and so and just to I think make a correction I think you said uh 27 so we have 21 parking spaces just to be clear 19 are required 20 and we'll have a traffic person speak to this um but in short um after discussing this with a kind of variety of professionals um the decision was to actually activate a drive aisle in the rear of the lot to create a separation between our proposed improvements and the existing fabric right so there's a void there and it just so happens that we will have uh what I believe the traffic consultant I don't want to speak for this person but the traffic consultant will speak to the volume of cars going through there and I don't think it's going to be particularly significant is it going to be one way in and one way out one way in and one way out but you're still evading my question it's still all those cars coming past Ward into that small area going through and going out into Pleasant where there's absolutely no reason to do it that way so so just to understand your what you're advocating for you're advocating for because again I just want to be clear right yes we have decided very very explicitly to create a buffer between our proposed improvements and the fabric of the block that is beyond Us and how will you do that we do that with a fence a green area a drive a and then more green but they still have to turn onto W place in so so you're in a development like this where you have a fair amount of space right yes um in my mind it makes and again I'm not a traffic expert so I I almost think like I've I feel like I've almost said enough um but uh I can tell you that from a circulation management point of view it 100% makes sense to have one way in and one way out and what we believe and what is proposed here and we will have others speak to it is that the drive aisle as proposed is straight it's a straight line no turns necessary if you're just coming through and by the way it's a private street so we're not going to have through traffic it's only going to be residents and it will be trash collection okay but that's a lot of residents coming in one way and going out we could talk to the I'm not prepared to speak to the volume ma'am may I ask you one more question sure um did you not think in some way to make this I really don't like it it feels like a monstrosity it looks like an office building to have it at least look like a freaking home I don't know what I don't know what that is I'm Sor I mean the the development um the Bobby Brown's um husband is also a developer in Montclair he also came at one point and asked me what would you like to see we said we'd like to see single family homes it is an R1 Zone as long as it conforms the time for questions ma'am okay I understand did you consider any other designs to make it look like a home I mentioned that we've considered multiple strategies for occupying the site yes thank you okay hi Stacy Cooper um nine word pleas sure um so I think the biggest thing that keeps them coming up is the facade and the sorry the the look of the property um it's come up several times here I could vouge that I think every single person here is going to say the one thing that that no one likes I listen we've looked at an eyesore question sorry question question I think that's the biggest thing I don't they have to take into consideration have opportunity for everyone to speak about this later at the toward the end of the meeting okay but it's 10 right now justone ask a question and put the what it looks like into it please um I don't know if I will but I did question Juliana Cordo uh seven workplace um my question was about um the density because I know you said that the size of the units are proportionate and average I was just wondering about whether the density of this property is in line with other density of other town homes and Monclair uh I I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head I will tell you that the the the density is um more than single family um but I can we can we can find that out for next time yeah cuz you mentioned it's Town Homes right so um specifically to that okay thanks I ask you said yous with the neighbors neighborhood because live in the neighborhood across the street um I asked a question you said you had meetings with people who live in the neighborhood someone asked that question I live across the street directly from this property and it's all I've looked at for years so I would love to see something go there who did you have dinner with in the neighborhood because so we had dinner with a variety of neighbors and I'm not quite sure how people were necessarily invited but um we had a very positive and and like a fun time actually talking about the project and you know what it's doing yeah well gee living across the street I would have liked the consideration thank you I know but thank you you're doing a great job no no no we just have a protocol that we need to follow otherwise chaos ensu actually I wanted to point out where the garbage is going to be okay it's lock okay well Fawn coward a or place um next door to the lot um where the garbage is going to be place is it necessary to put a big container there because Monir has two days of garbage pickup can't people just put their garbage in a bin and wheel it to the curb like we all do cuz I'm just concerned with rodents and odors and you know I'm right um we would be happy to revise the plan if the board wanted the original plan was to have um garbage be brought in and out on garbage pickup days right um it was suggested to the applicant that he uh designate a spot for trash collection okay um the applicant would be more than happy not to have that there is the ability of the property owners to bring it out to the curb so again that the applicant would be more than happy to do that but it's up to the board okay okay can I suggest would there be dumpsters in in that area or would you be can cans with some kind of probably with some kind of enclosure I don't know if it would be yeah the ordinance requires an enclosure it would just be to bring the cans so it's a place to keep cans to well not to keep to basically to bring the cans wa for pickup and then bring them back to their to the apart to the units right so cans would be stored in the garages right and because we don't be uh to um um um fawns uh uh question uh you know this was something that we you know we we're trying to mediate here um because I know that this is an important issue so the the idea is that we would have a designated place which was a point of collection because this would be the assumption is that it would be Municipal pickup and neighbors would be required on collection days to bring either recycling or trash out to that point it would be collected the truck goes away and they would bring their containers back to their homes understood that's that's that clarifi thank so I have a question about that so the municipal trucks will go on the private property yes so we were told they would normal they do for part building okay around the roundabout they they don't have to go around the roundabout straight through Mr Scott okay but I I just have another I'm concerned about the number of units and you know we talked about the 8 unit six unit configuration whatever the case is and then you mentioned the the average size of of 2500 square fet is a um possible starter home you 2500 square fet is a is a a mediumsized house matter of fact I've got a one family house it's 2100 ft I've got eight bedrooms 2 and a half bathrooms U my concern is question is is there still a possibility to bring the size of those units down uh because as I mentioned 2100 uh 2500 square ft as an average because some of them going to be larger and maybe smaller but is there an opportunity to reduce the size to that 2100 uh 2, 2100 size per unit just so sir so just so I understand let me just add that and since they're 2500 ft as an average three stories uh that's that's a fairly that's not a in my opinion a starter home I've been in my home for 35 years and it's 21100 sare ft four bedrooms two and a half bedrooms and if that was my starter home I'm still there 35 years later okay so that that is a fairly large unit so so one question about so but since you brought it up do you have a garage in your home yes I do one car twoo it's it's one and a half okay so one okay got it okay so that so that that almost is the difference right there it's the extra car it's the extra Lane so that's what gets us to 2 200 but but to your point so just so I understand and and in general you know we're here hearing you know I'm certainly really hearing what the touch points are and I appreciate that but so just so I and all of this will be considered I'm sure we'll have a discussion with the owner after this or to tomorrow probably at this point but um the the the the question I have is when you say 2500 is too big I want 2100 are you saying all of them should be 2100 or we should have a mix of larger and smaller oh yes the mix could be there it could be from 1,800 to to 2100 Square fet okay that that's you know that still would give you your three bedrooms and whatever the case is your your number of bathrooms um and you mentioned that the actual property uh square footage I think you said it was 237 something like that that's probably close to like a half an acre of land uh uh with that that that those that square footage the question would be if it was in an R1 Zone and you were looking at a single family house you'd have your lot width and your lot depth and in most cases you probably would be what's what's the frontage on Orange Road the width uh I think it's about 10 approximately 150 feet something like that okay but sir I just have to say like I I can't answer I'm I know we're just trying to get some things on the record but I I like these are not single family homes right they they they are they are modeled after a very different set of standards that we've been trying to advocate for tonight so I I think you can compare whatever you'd like for sure but it's hard for me to I if you want me to make a real comparison for you I don't think I'm really able to do that okay I I can accept that just my last question would be when you when you mention the the character of the neighborhood and I live about 250 ft from this particular property that's why I wasn't noticed okay U uh I have a two family house it's 110 years old um it is it may not be on the historical records but it's an historical house okay and I believe uh many of the houses in the neighborhood are in that uh 85 to 100 year plus uh age so the character of the neighborhood absolutely would be changed with this particular type style okay uh and if we're looking for change that's not a problem but I think that the you don't want to overlook the character of the neighborhood because the character of the neighborhood far exceeds uh what this particular look might bring to the neighborhood is is my concern question sir uh he well he did indicate that he took in consideration the character of the neighborhood you have a question how did you go about taking into consideration the character of the neighborhood you said you spoke to a Realtors but as far as an analysis looking at the properties analysis of the Town form no not the town not the town form analysis of where the the houses sit the neighbor the ne the neighborhood form the nebor the immediate neighborhood form not the town form the immediate neighborhood form right so sir I've I've shown you um that um the neighborhood is strongest uh to the so the form that you're talking about sorry about that the form that you're talking about is back here and I 100% agree with you that form breaks down here that form certainly breaks down here that form totally breaks down here it sort of starts again here it kind of is there it's definitely not here and it's not there right so this I 100% agree with you right but what I'm saying is this is not really 100% part of that it's part of this it's part of that it's part of that it's part of that it's part of this whole Corridor and that's what's driving the decision making that we're making okay thank you thank you makes me D are there other members of the audience who have questions for this witness yes excuse me I just got out of the hospital you want this I can bring this to you James dargan 391 orange Ro I am right in front of of the property and if you look at my property it is just about the size of where you building and it's a sang of family house I've been there for 40 plus years this is the first time I heard about some meeting and I'm right across the street I don't see where that we should be changing the neighborhood the tow houses sir do you have a question of the witness please why would you want to change than I sir I I think that the neighborhood has been in a kind of continuous change for a long time and I'm happy to hear that you have enjoyed 40 years God bless in a single family home right across the street we've talked to many neighbors that have been in their homes for a very long time but I'm what we're suggesting is we have no problem and no argument with the the order of some of the more traditional Pockets that exist in this immediate area but I would also say that there is some flux in places along Orange Road this is an orange Road property and we are merely suggesting a use not a conforming use but a use that is more in line with the use that is permitted here on a lot that's larger that in um my mind seems an appropriate fit for a residential model model such as the one we're presenting here um a little further down Orange Road towards East Orange there are two new houses that was built about 15 years ago on a large property and they just two houses on that property conforming with the neighborhood to my I don't see and I hope that you can consider if you was living in the neighborhood would you want it change thank you and need uh I don't think I understand why we here are we here to to knock it or just to hear what you all going to put there or what what are we here for okay that we I mean do we have any to say are we just here okay the applicant is here to offer proofs as to why we should approve their proposed eight tow houses you are here to one at this point ask questions and then when they are done doing their presentation give your point of view as as to what should or should not be occurring on the property and after everyone has had their chance to speak on the project and ask questions on the project the board will vote and decide what to do I mean I'm right there I have I have two houses right behind me on Pleasant way 69 and 77 I mean I think you like trying to put New York in New Jersey you put to much stuff there okay you got this you you'll get to say that later if you have a question for him as to yeah because my question you know what I'm here for I don't have no say where you can do it or not do it you have say that's why you're here I mean a lot of people leaving and it's just not your time to say it you have a time so other words I don't need to be here no no you need to be here and listen and and respectfully if you want to be you're welcome to be here you have a right to ask if I don't have no say so I don't need to you have you have a say so it's just this is to ask questions that it's their turn then you'll have your turn okay any other anyone else with questions I have one last question where do you live are you from the neighborhood no no neighborhood really think I don't really think that's relevant honestly no it's note Mr Reuben Mr Reuben people people have a right to come into a town even though they don't live there and buy property and build it and I have okay okay Mr Robin not your turn either this they're presenting the application you're going to have every opportunity you've had you've asked questions you have an opportunity to give your view I want to is any anyone else from the public who has questions of this witness okay I want to ask a question based on your response to one of theirs you keep saying the neighborhood's in transition things are changing along Orange Road can you give me one example of something that has happened on Orange Road that in any way supports the proposed use of the property sure I think if you were to move hold on I think what we're asking for here I didn't ask as a way of answering your question I got it I understand eight town houses is a little bit more density than what exists here right so there are commercial uses around here and I wish I had a m and how long have those commercial uses been there some of them for very long time okay have there been any new approved commercial uses along Orange Road there's been new retail retail like properties that open sure like retail Proprietors and located in the neighborhood commercial Zone correct I I don't know off the top of my head I don't know off the top of my head right I mean if you're asking me uh I mean I'd be happy to take a look at that and report back to you but if what I'm what I'm suggesting is that as you move north there are retail sorry car can you hold the bike up as you move north there are commercial and Retail Proprietors that in my mind would support um a modest increase in density okay and if they do they can come to the hearing one of them is running for wus in the fourth ward who owns a business in the neighborhood commercial Zone um their I um you know what they would do or not do it's you know really pure hearsay and we don't totally exclude it but you know there you know there is a very vibrant Southend shopping district which is Zone commercial but that that can't that's been zoned that way for as long as I know which is unfortunately a very long time I'm not sure how that can be used to justify what you're proposing here you you indicated there were changes occurring along Orange Road and I'm just dealing with the area you what I I what I meant and so maybe I maybe I said that just to be clear what I what what I'm saying and this is anecdotal is from this site I was able to walk not drive to commercial you know restaurants and establishments like that and so when you're when I what I meant by change I think is in the context that you're saying is that the what I was suggesting is the the modest increase in density here is supported by retail establishments that are accessible not only by car which I think we have covered by parking but by walking and I do feel like orange road is not Main Street right I mean I understand that I'm not suggesting it is but what I'm saying is that there are are um there are very accessible walkable places right from there that's all I was saying and I don't know how that gets you to this site should have tow houses I we'll leave it there okay Mr merer who is your next witness and how long do you think it'll occur how long Mr chairman my next witness is going to be my planner so um I'm not sure how long the board usually goes but this may be a good time to adjourn um I mean normally we'd go later than this but I I have no expectation that your planner will take less than an hour no not at all and we may want to huddle just based on let let me let me um um give you a few thoughts to consider when you huddle um and I'm not I am speaking purely for myself not the rest of the board I mean I did vote for a tow houses on this property I voted to deny larger numbers of tow houses on the property I think um I think there are a host of issues with this design um I think it is totally incompatible with the neighborhood and that's not saying tow houses I that I as I said I vote for I'm not saying that I think um you know I mean lots of towns you know they're talking about a larger scale than this required differentiation among units in a multif family you know townhouse development um I you know the the layout of the property there are a lot of difficulties that um are are presented you know I I do think given the nature of this I'm not sure the logic of having the trash container where you know I'm struggling there and I certainly am not sure of the logic of putting it next to the properties you know the single family homes on wpl um I um you know I I just let me do some other things that um more in ter terms of um you know the the stuff you submitted recently I don't the board hasn't gotten and we we need to get that and I'll leave you to talk to them and so that's all accessible to us as we indicated before the invironmental information and so and then that can be made available to the public on the Township's website um I um you know as I indicated in my question I I am struggling and I'll have questions on the engineer on the impervious coverage but I'm struggling on why we're doing um more a greater building coverage than what we approved previously um because I think that goes to some of the site constraints that are there um I you know it it's um I think maybe more for the public than the board but maybe also for the board and you know I'm the only one who's lived through all the iterations on the property but you know going through this is what a single family layout would look like might have people understand you have some constraints on the property with it getting narrower as it gets close to Orange Road and there's some practicalities that also would raise issues for and I'm you know obviously looking for an engineered thing but you know they're um you know it's very hard to get a number of units um that don't need a bunch of variances um you know that but I'll leave that up to you I don't know if other board members have thoughts as to what they should be thinking about before we see them again I I would highly recommend meeting with the neighbors a larger audience this time um there seems to be people who feel like they were left out of that initial meeting I'm just making my comments I don't need feedback um I highly suggest that that might make things a little easier sure I would like to I'd like to have the Board review single family development in that area uh this is my first look at this property under Development I've seen the property sit there fow for many years and uh although it's tried to be things it never achieved it so I would this to me is just too dense in my mind so I'd like to see something else to try to change my mind if it's impossible to put single family houses in there then it's impossible but we don't know that I don't know that and I'm not comfortable with this so uh I would I would uh Echo the Chairman's concerns that you know we uh come back with some more info this grant so I think when um how the design was presented it didn't feel informed by The Neighborhood um because if you kind of zoom out and look at the neighborhood and um maybe we have some feedback Orange Road is a huge vein that's connected to um do toown East Orange with South in Monclair and it's definitely um residential um like you said there's um commercial businesses um but it's really the if you know the neighborhood or more in like informed of um it's a it's a residential just Vein from there all the way up in Mon cleair and people are very um have a lot of um um attachment um because of how those two neighborhoods developed with um homeownership and the value and the home ownership that wasn't accessible and then it became accessible and so um I think that's where you see the strong opinions about what's going to go there um the other um this my last thing is just when you um like I said when you um kind of was showing showing the neighborhood and then kind of said like this is over here and that's over there um again like that that's not if you know that area it's it's all just one from down all the way up until the top um even canterburry Park is not separate from um you know the other side of the garden center it's just one um solid neighborhood um so there's that distinction even though the distinction was based on use it it it's not it's not there at all all to the people who live who live there um I had one more things oh one other thing about the um well I the neighborhood is filled with like very vibrant different homes um and I I think Mr Scott was saying that the neighborhood um well maybe it's not formally historic um it's it's it has um Great Value the history of the homes and I think that having um that kind of modular um structure there um while separate I did like the design um I like the design I like um I like the design I thought it was um well thought out I just think that the it doesn't it doesn't um I don't think it it works there and that that's it thank you can I just say something yes just really quickly again it's like on a planning aspect this is like they want us to spot Zone this location but is is there any thoughts of from a planning perspective of what this lot can do or any thoughts on that well this lot has a unique history it's a pre-existing non-conforming use it's been used as a commercial use for many years but it's zoned residential so there's an inherent inconsistency there um which is why they're here yeah Year from 200 yeah and um that's why we you'll spend a lot of time reviewing this and considering options Mr P right I I I think couple of things that I would mention to you one is first of all I I want to say I strongly agree with Mr Simon um I recall from our previous hearing um I certainly walked away from it with the impression that neighbors were in support of this and so it's it sort of has a different feel tonight so I just simply want to call that out so I would I would look at that but the other thing is regardless of the design you know so it seems like the nature of of Ward and and pleasant the way the the the neighborhood sort of Loops it has its it seems to have it may not necessarily be technically historical but it seems to have a unique character and so the question would be in the design how could you whatever you whatever ultimately is approved whether it's town houses or it's single family homes or whatever ultimately wherever we land because something will happen with this piece of property eventually that how do you carry the benefits of that design through that little neighborhood so that it feels like a hole you know even though I mean you use the uh the reference to a cap which is fine I I I really sort of get that but how do you how do you sort of take the designed features of that so that they they carry through the neighborhood so so people feel as though it's part of a hole rather than sort of this addition that has been simply dropped into their neighborhood um and and that's not easy to figure out but but I simply would lift that up for consideration when you sort of huddle and think about what are the design features and and maybe it's maybe it's a matter of lighting you know maybe it's about you know how do you sort of continue a theme of lighting through the neighborhood that makes it feel like you know it's all part of a hole or there may be other features like that that simply do that I I have no idea what it is but I simply would would call that out for your thank you for your reflection okay yeah let let me throw out one other thought that actually I'm surprised they didn't why not do all the access from off a pleasant way you're coming up next to the cemetery you're not having the traffic W I understand the Traffic Engineers report and and I normally do bigger developments when I'm on the other side and you know it's but it is what I will call gratuitous traffic on wordplace and given your you I'm not seeing any reason why that's not doable you'd have to widen the driveway coming off but that's comp would be compensated for there's question about the parking spaces are doing but I have questions about that anyway but I I mean that that that just strikes me as a gratuitous insult to the neighborhood is um and you know if looking look at that as as an option and and you're at least your traffic is not driving by homes in the area Mr chairman can I I just um curious as to the board's thoughts about any Ingress or egress off of Orange Road I think the county will look at DIS favor on that would be my guess I had I think they are not going to want a curb cut coming out of here when you have the two w place and pleasant coming out in close proximity normally they would not want that to occur um if you want to talk to the county and see if they'd be open to that I I thought about that earlier as doing a loop off of pleasant and going down I my guess is they would say no um I I can explore it as long as I mean you know feel free to talk to the county if they think that works but um sorry if I ask in in that suggestion the buildings would be masked really along orange and Ward and less along Pleasant which would be given over to circulation I don't think that it would create that much of a a CH I mean you just basically need to double the size of the driveway on Pleasant little less than double the size oh you're saying making it keep keep the design and just yeah I think I think access from Pleasant is much safer than having Going H garbage trucks are not going to go you well we'd have to rethink that but I mean purely from access they Lo no okay we could definitely explore that that's and you can make the building smaller and then it would all fit solve multiple problems well we have some ideas so thank you for the input it's appreciate um where are we we yes we will continue UI uh we promised um the June I forget the date the first June meeting it but it it can be July 17th the June me we carried another application June 5th what do we have for the second June meeting 19 June are three residential applications any reason to think any of them are other than quick they all are quick I believe three of them H there are three of them I yeah but you know some of those go in half an hour I cannot comment on that I okay that that yes I understand but I'll give them the option but what other than those three residential and the one we carried what what else do we have yeah you could be after the residential applications on Jun June 19th or have the whole meeting on July 17th okay but but do we have other application I don't want back us up GR I have other we have other applications but we haven't scheduled them yet okay but Okay we okay so what are the two what it's the June date and the jul it's June 19th and July 17th July 17th is the one where we can yeah so it is up to you we can hear you on June 19th after we do the three residential my guess is you'll probably get about two hours um is June 19th a federal holiday is that juneth or J juneth no that but that Friday Friday I I think they the state and the FEDS did it differently but I think they're both Monday Friday Mr Jed if we I would like to be on the agenda for the June meeting um there might be some things that you know circum ances might change and we can always adjourn we would try to give as much advanced notice as possible but uh I would like to to at least be on that agenda and then work with Miss tally to uh to see whether we in fact can keep that depending on where we go okay so for benefits of members of the public this hearing is be being continued and until June 19th um this room there'll be three res presidential applications before that if it goes as planned but I would be here close to 7:30 in case those fall through for whatever reason you should keep in touch with the planning office whether by phone or the website uh they if it's not going to be on that night um you know that'll say and we'll continue it at that point but uh there will be no further notice so you know for your neighbors who left tell them um come back June 19th um and um if they're going to submit revised plans which I think is probably at least some revisions are likely they will have to be before be received by the planning office by June 9th and they'll be available on the website um for you to look at or you can come in in person and look at them um so uh again no further notice this hearing is being continued to June 19th and if do you give us an extension of time to act until then yes okay and um move to adjourn second all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions thank you Mr chair can you guys bring it upstairs for