um this is the regular uh meeting of the Council of Mor Board of adjustment for Monday uh February 26 2024 a legal notice required in accordance with the open public meetings act has been satisfied and a statement certifying same will be executed please join me in the pledge of allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for [Music] all okay [Music] welber here here here cber here M Simmons here Mr wooder here Mr rer here Mr Hansen here Mr Phillips here sanago here okay first item of business is the consideration of several uh minutes from previous meetings first is the minutes from October 23r 2023 board members any comments on the minutes if not I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes move second second all in favor I I any opposed second is the uh minutes of the regular meeting on November 27th 2023 board members any comments if not a motion motion to approve thank you have a second second thank you all in favor I opposed next is the uh minutes from the regular meeting of December 11th 2023 board members any comments not all entertain a motion motion to approve a second second thank you Mr all in favor I I any opposed okay next are several resolutions Mr oler thank you Mr chairman the first is with respect to a um application filed by Scott and Sharon Bertram for property at 8 Hillview Terrace um the applicants applyed to the board for permission to modify an existing non-conforming two-story dwelling by constructing a two story addition to the rear and left side of the dwelling and to construct a raised open porch to the front and left side uh requiring several variances with respect to front yard sidey yard combined sidey yard building coverage improved block coverage and of course expansion of a non-conforming structure uh for the reasons set forth in the applic in the resolution that application was conditionally granted with our standard conditions okay board members any comments if not I'll entertain a motion to approve this resolution somebody who would actually motion to approve have a second second thank you roll call Miss Santiago Mr goldbert yes M rman yes Mr tackenberg yes Mr Schuster yes wh yes next resolution again a memorializing resolution with respect to the application filed by Patrick and Megan luani with respect to property at seven Old Glenn Road the applicants applied to the board for permission to modify an existing non-conforming dwelling by constructing a one-story second floor edition of above an existing family room in the side yard of the property it's created a sidey setback of 11 ft where 20 ft is required um properties in the ra1 single family Zone and for the reason set forth in the resolution that um application was conditionally granted with our standard conditions thank you board members any comments if not I'll entertain a motion so Mo thank you m Rothman do I have a second second thank you Miss Mr Goldberg Santiago Mr Goldberg yes M rman yes Mr track dber yes Mr Shuster Yes W yes some Mo okay and the U last one again a memorializing resolution with respect to the application filed by Stephanie Horman for property at 163 Western Avenue uh she applied for permission to construct a depat 22x 40 two-car garage creating a sidey yard setback of 3.72 feet where a 15t sidey setback is required and to maintain an average height of 20.85% Ed into the garage without approval of the township engineering department or the board and that prior to the issuance of a building permit the applicant shall confirm the storm waterer management plan is satisfactory with the township engineering department okay board members any comments if not I'll entertain a motion motion to approve okay thank you thank you Mr tackenberg the second second thank you Mr Goldberg M uh Santiago Mr Goldberg yes M rman yes Mr tackenberg yes Mr Sher yes Mr wer yes so move okay now moving to the public hearing the first is ba 26-23 uh Miss Santiago yes Mr chairman this is ba 26-23 Jonathan block block 3103 lot 60 c0061 one which Farm Road in the PRC zone for section c applicant proposes installation of a whole house generator in the front yard where no accessory structure shall be located closer than the minimum front yard requirement and the actual front yard setback of the principal structure okay uh who are both of you going to be testifying okay oh okay sorry can I have your appearance please ton Jonathan mad secretary reest ISS anywhere yard sure Mr Block would you raise your right hand please do you Solly swear that the testimony you will give for this board will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God would you state your full name for the record please why don't you guys have a seat comfortable Rosemary if you wouldn't mind I don't think that might microphones on but if you would push that button in the middle the green light will come on there you go you're good thank you before I sit down though we did prepare just came here pass some one way and pass some the other 18 pages one more counselor just to give you an idea the 18 Pages the first page is just the proposed location of the generator subject to ultimately the hoa's approval as to the exact location and then other generators within the community and what the generator steps are that are for the generator being toos okay thank you so Mr BL can you just by way of background let the board know when you bought your unit just one second do we want to mark that as it's A1 and it is1 okay okay go ahead thank you March 1st of2 and when you bought your unit it had been advertised to you that it was approved to have a generator um installation for the unit correct yes I was told that the fer owner had done the research had a and approval to install a generator however when you went to install the generator um to obtain the permit for the generator I should say you found out that that information wasn't exactly accurate so when you excuse me one moment I need to to speak into the microphone because we're being recorded okay thank you so prior to applying for the permit for the generator did you contact the management company for your HOA in regards to the process yes contacted Integra uh the manager was Scott verow and was told about the process and we were told where we could place the generator relative to the structure and that a permit would be required and is that what the first page of the package is is this is the side of your unit correct yes this is the side of the unit and this is what uh you were informed by your HOA would be the approximate location that could be approved to puty generator correct correct it's a little different because this unit is unlike some of the other units in that there's a utility access in the middle of the unit for the association so there's a general utility room for lighting sprinkler system and water m in the center of the building which makes this building an exception to the balance buildings plus it has to either go to the front or to the back and either way front or back you're still stuck with the same problem as well as you're on the end correct correct what's the three streets that your town housee faes faes Wheat Farm Road is the is the front have Deborah and cadino correct and so in speaking to the HOA management company it was determined it was better to go a little closer to the front versus to the back correct that's correct yeah okay so can you flip over to the next page okay this is re Wheat Farm Road correct yes this is literally the townhouse that is adjoining your townhouse correct yes and they currently have a generator on their side correct they do and is that all these pictures in here just for purposes of the record are pictures that you took yourself correct except for the Aerials which are done by will correct yes okay so the next page this is the three front facade on the page after is z generator which is the unit adjacent here correct that's correct and are the type of generator you're looking to propose similar to the generator that they have it's it's almost exactly the same it's the modern version the updated version of that generator yes and how big would the pad be approximately for the generator approximately 3x 5 fet okay and then in here you also have just for the board some other uh units within your Association that also have a simar situation with the the generators and their placement correct yes okay so next you took some pictures which the location is this this one is six be sheet okay and that one's located on this side correct and it backs on to Deborah yeah and it backs on to Deborah correct and then there is some as you show in your picture some buffering correct around the generator yes and the HOA told me that I'll be required to do the same thing so that it would have Shrubbery basically burying the generator so it wouldn't be visible and can you just tell the board why you would like to have a whole house generator for your unit sure having been a resident of Mars County for 40 years in Mars Township Floren Park Cedar Nolls I'm back to Marist toown I've had the uh occurrences of being without power from anywhere from 3 to 14 days uh depending upon storms and the like and now that myself and my wife work from home as well at least 60% of the time it's very very critical that we have continuous access to power she's a medical researcher particularly and runs her business via video conference so the ability to maintain that continuity is very very important in addition to which we have relatives who have not come to visit because they come with a nurse and support and can't be in a house without backup generation and then the rest of the packet here you just have a few more examples within your HOA correct yes okay and then I believe you also took a picture of a um similar single family residential house on Deborah as well that has the same issue with where their generator is placed correct correct that was a corner property and it was literally up the street on Deborah and Alexandria and it's a side it's on the side of the house but it's under what I would perceive to be the front by definition and clearly visible from the street and then the end of the packet is just the type of generator that you're looking to install correct that's cor and these are some of the specs of the generator yes sir okay and this is a generator that um you already made an application a permit for the municipality with correct yes and you did receive a denial for that pending if the board were to approve your application correct that's correct so is there any way on your property I know we've looked through this is there any way we can make the generator be in a compliant location on your property I don't think by the definition that no and that's the quand Mr chairman MERS of the board okay and that's why we're here tonight seeking the variant as mad secretary already indic um unfortunately considered access structure and that being we're either violating the minimum front yard setback and or we have it on the outside of where the principle on the property the applicant willing to make sure appr for we then have to BU his final HOA approval which um they will not entertain their Grant until after this Bo has action as so um in A1 the um metal doors on the front page the metal doors with the light over it is that the utility room you were referring to it is yes and how far is that um door from the uh your uh air conditioning condenser approximately how much it's uh approximately 15 to 20 feet okay maybe 20 20 plus feet it's it's basically dead center in the side of the building right I'm just wondering is there enough room to put it back there and uh but I guess that's conditioned up on what type of things this the um Association has stored back there I don't think again do they need how how much how much access do they need to get into they need something large to get back in I can't answer that question I I've never really seen them go in there other than to see some maintenance people on rare occasion uh go into adjust sprinklers or to adjust a lighting remote panel uh or possibly to do some other types of inspections but they don't contact me and I have no knowledge of when they go in or out or what they do there okay but they indicated they want the generator further towards um the street your street old we Chief well actually I had a contractor come in and evaluate the property and they suggested this location because of the access to the main gas line right then we presented the contractor and I to the association this particular uh presentation and they preliminarily approved it almost nine months ago okay and they approved that location they did with the contingency that we do Shrubbery around the generator at that point okay so they wouldn't be responsible for the Shrubbery you would yes they maintain it or would you maintain it my understanding is they would maintain it because part of the maintenance of Shrubbery on the property okay but it would have to be installed at my expense all right board members any questions of the uh applicant no I just have just a clarifying question sure um from the application itself it says um the answer to question five in the packet on page two it says the generator will be placed behind the existing brick wall by the AC condenser shielded out of sight then there's a picture in the packet of sort of not the packet you handed out tonight but the one that was in our packet of this little brick wall area back here is that where you originally intended to put it I'm just trying to I'm a little confused about the brick wall that's being referred to the brick wall is the surround that kind of masks the entrance into this utility area and it creates a little bit of a a difficult uh extension if you will so the running of the gas line to the generator so far as the contractor was concerned would be more efficient if it were up to the front because again I'm not an expert but my understanding was the gas line to the generator is easier to the short run and then the electrical line from the generator Ator and then into the house is easier and more flexible to run that's what was explained to Mick and then also for clarification the HOA had some concern about the exact placement with the way the wall is as far as access in and out of that utility area um because originally the idea was if we could completely Shield it it obviously would make for a better presentation to the board and would obviously be better for the client who well um but given this unique factor that his unit has with that utility room it was either as Mr chairman said going much further through the back behind the AC condenser or bringing it up closer to the road okay thank you for clarifying that appreciate it okay board member any other board members with questions Mr chairman I have a couple of comments sure on it um couple of things if the board's inclined to uh vote in favor of the application for additional conditions would be that the uh association should sign the owner's consent form in our application package currently the um the applicant signed it Mr BL signed it but that should be signed by the Association as the owner um also um you should would then have to provide us with copy of written approval from the association for the installation of the generator in the same location as the board would be approving and also um conditioned to install landscape buffer supposed to the satisfaction of the township engineering department with an indication from the association that they will maintain it okay yes yes Mr Hansen do you have anything to add uh just following back on the wall questions or comments from Mr Goldberg this entire development has a 8 foot high brick wall around it you will not be able to see this unit from debor you won't see it from kadina the only way you'll see this is through his proposed bushes once you're on weat Chief uh Road itself right uh it's one of those secur it was supposed to be security and privacy uh fencing walls around this uh development and he's stuck in a spot where he's got basically three frontages and he doesn't own the frontage away from where his uh his house is because the next unit is right next door so this is the only viable location to put it right it ends up being in the front yard but it won't be seen by the general public right so I I have no problem with it it's just we had to go through the process to uh approve the the generator all the other generators he spoke about in the development HOA gave their approval before I made my recommendation and I made sure that all the noise was less than what was required by our ordinance to the next adjacent residential unit that was out there okay thank you and his unit as proposed is is fine for noise thank you your was the first uh building built in that development wasn't it that's what I'm told that's that's what I figured I also remember it being built okay board members any comments questions no um I'd like if no one has any I'd like to make a motion to approve we gotta open it to the public members of the public any questions any comments close the public portion now Mr Schuster like to make a motion to approve this application with the conditions Mr Aller has set forth thank you okay Willams yes okay Santiago roll call Mr Goldberg yes M Rockman yes Mr Williams yes Mr Schuster yes Mr tractenberg yes M Simmons yes Mr Woodford yes so move thank you very much you're welcome you're welcome [Music] [Music] his okay the next application is ba-22 d23 Handover Estates Santiago yes Mr chairman next application ba 2223 Handover States LLC block 10302 Lots 1 through 4 245-251 East Handover Avenue in the r87 zone for Section D and see applicant propos a construction of nine townhouse units creating a FR yard setback of 21 ft with 25 ft is required and proposed in previous coverage of 60.6% or 55 ft is required okay Mr Brady good evening Mr chairman um if I can I I'll give a little AEF overview of the application I'm here cor on beh the applicant Hanover Estates LLC uh property in questions 245-251 East Hanover Avenue which is block 1032 loots one two 3 and four property in the ra7 zone which is zone for single family detached residences on 7500 foot lots lots about 225 ft wide 150 ft he with 33750 s ft it's on the south side of East Hover Avenue which I have to note is a County Road heavily traveled commuter type of throughway uh I in fact travel every day my office uh the property's on the same side there this piece of property a combination of single family two family and businesses across the street is the County garage and then a little further down the road is a large retail facility behind it is all residential historically the property was used as a junkyard junkyard that operated until about the year 2000 then between 2000 and about5 all the cars and the associated material pulled off the site I think there was a building also that was knocked down we have a licensed site remediation professional which as you may know kind of a unique animal in the environmental setting uh L sement mediation pression was kind of a hyd part private and part public meaning uh they are certified and licensed to come up with plans that the D then do not go to a long review and back and forth process he basically accepts those plans and then audits them at some point after their file he is indicated that he's working on a remedial action work plan and health and safety plan that will s are you saying that you have an lsrp who's going to testify I did not bring testify Mr chair or Mr because our approach is that's going to be a condition we cannot get the raw that allows this use for residential purposes then we're going to have to come back and think so this board isn't uh aren't experts on environmental things the D is certifications and LIC so you don't have an RA you don't have an Rao yet don't have an W actually is the newest terminology remedial action work I've spoken to him I have a letter from him that indic proposal is two buildings containing uh nine essential St Town essentially townhouse style units uh seven or Market units two are low and moderate income units we have one and two garages for all the units except for the low and moderate income units because those units are stacked not vertical like the others Courtyard style arrangement with the buildings facing each other with the parking and driveway in between them and the end of the building facing Handover with one driveway onto that road and buffering and land we do have some variances Santiago Rie them briefly just put them on the record we've got a used variance because this is a single family detached delling Zone we've got essentially density variance 7500 per family is required have 3750 as indicated the front yard to Han gra was 21t whereas 25t is required although I'll in rear greater than the required 25 the impervious coverage is 60.8% with the addition of a trash enclosure that's been added since the plans were originally put together 55% is the maximum on that again I'll note though the building coverage is we have some steep slopes that are being disturbed and Mr will talk about that the have an 8ot buffer rather than a 10 foot buffer and the parking stall are 9 by8 rather than required 20 um I have three Witnesses tonight Rusty shammer our professional engineer um Kevin Paul our architect and Mr MCD who hopefully will finish and for get here in time as our plan my client is available uh in in the audience but I'm not planning having any testim Mr can I ask you a question before we proceed so applications that I've heard previously and just in my experience usually were dealing with a property that has a letter of no further action from D I have never seen this situation before but that's not to say so can you elaborate on so the process when we don't know if the site you know site hasn't even doesn't have a plan yet even to be clean to residential standards so the board of adjustment doesn't have jurisdiction over the D issues right because it's an outside agency and any approval will be conditioned on obtaining a d permits as needed um and I don't believe it's in our checklist that they produce any kind of no further action letter or Rao or raw or seems to change monthly but um you know that's if it's not in our checklist we can't require it to deem the application complete we can hear it I would suggest to you that the applicant must feel pretty strongly that they will get that because this process costs them a lot of money and if they're wrong they have to come back again or just never build what they want to build to a residential use right so so it does have to be cleaned up to a residential standard not a commercial standard so it's a little more than the commercial standard and if they can't get there then they'll have to come back with a different plan the lsrp indicates we can get there and is in the process of putting together the raw the remedial action work plan okay if there's no further questions I'll call Mr Scher as my first witness pres would you stand raise your right hand please do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give for this board we the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you got I do your full name for the record please Richard Scher junor thank you and Mr shmer will be testifying as an engineer the engineer testifying as an engineer yes okay if you could for the record you've been here a lot of times Mr but I like it on we we we have had him qualified as an engineer many times so you can skip shower your license is still current if you would Rusty if you could talk a little bit to the board about the site location the surrounding uses then get into the site itself sure um I think I'm okay son to just to share sh your screen is it is that microphone on sounds like it is okay so let me try to do [Music] this are you are you in Zoom yes you are in Zoom I in zo but I'm not GNA turn my camera on do I need to turn my camera on no I didn't think so and I'm not I turn I'm not on with my audio just I'm just in the zoom meeting oh okay okay let me you not as a panelist yes it asked it said I'm as a panelist okay all right you so so there we go it worked look at that I love it when it works okay good evening okay um I have a few different exhibits and I'll identify them as we go through uh first uh this is an aerial exhibit with today's date um and I'll zoom in in a couple spots here but basically there's two views rest before do we have hard copies of this too I I I emailed these to Sonia earlier today okay everything you're about to show we have yes separately okay you have it electronically okay so you want me to share with you well yeah I would like you to email it to me but I'm just curious if we have members of the public how do they see if we only have an email version we don't you need a hard copy from them so that it's in the I well yeah yeah right so we'll need a hard cop okay that's fine okay no problem all right and then as we go we're g to each slide I guess would be of A1 two three okay so if you would just describe what A1 is then for the record okay A1 is an aerial exhibit labeled aerial exhibit with today's date um there's two views on this particular exhibit one with existing conditions and one with the uh proposed development superimposed so I was going to start with that and uh let me zoom in here so these okay doesn't move at the same Speed on okay so uh these uh this exhibit um shows on it's a split view on the left hand side uh shows the existing site um here sort of in the middle of the page uh the property consists of four Lots block one z302 Lots one two three and four and if I zoom in a little more you can identify these um Lots one two three and four as we look at this exhibit uh the uh the lots have a total Frontage combined and we're going to be dealing with all four lots a total Frontage combined of 225 ft on East Handover Avenue and East Handover Avenue is on the front of the site here uh just for direction North is kind of to the bottom of the page um the total site area of the four Lots combined is 33750 square ft um each of these Lots you can see was created fairly consistent with consistently with the Lots around them we're in the ra7 zone which is a 7,500 squ foot minimum lot size um Lots uh two three and four are consistent with the 50ft width of other Lots around them lot one is a little bit wider and it's slightly wider because you can see here um maybe I should zoom in more easier to see it looks more zoomed on my screen so Cedar Street uh which comes which is behind us uh used to extend through to East Hanover Avenue and Cedar Street was vacated so at the time of that road was vacated half of the RightWay goes went to lot one and half of it went to an adjoining lot lot 12 in Block 10302 can I just interrupt for a second was it deed to those uh that lot or how was that done uh there was not a deed that I know of I believe it was just because of the ordinance vacating the street by operation of laog get Street gets SP down the middle half okay so there so there wasn't any like it's it would be encompassed in any uh Township resolution vacating the street is that you don't have a not have that but if I need to get a copy of for the board's records I can get you think we need one do you have a title binder that certifies I did not participate in the acquisition proper the ordinance will be fine there was a there was a survey U property survey done which was submitted uh as part of the application right but the survey can say this is the line and we just want to make sure it is the line sure so um as I said the the property consists of those four Lots um the it's in the ra7 zone and I'm just going to zoom back out we can kind of look at both both of these uh views again showing the uh the property uh the properties to the West uh on East Handover Avenue and to the rear uh behind us uh are single family properties single family dwellings to the east or as we look at this to the left of us uh as a the commercial property uh that's the acupuncture uh facility site uh to the uh west of to the east of that are some single family homes until reach Monro Street and then you get to more commercial uh to the to the east of that uh as Mr Brady indicated East Hover Avenue is a county road it's a heavily traveled four lane road uh it is also the municipal boundary between Morris Township and East and Hanover Township uh across the street directly across the street is the County Garage uh there are other commercial uses uh Office Buildings uh retail facilities uh in the in the vicinity and in Hanover Township um the property was originally a sand and gravel borrow pit uh so the uh um the property was excavated for those uses uh after that it was used as a Auto automobile scrapyard that use ended in about the year 2000 it's currently vacant and um uh any of the facilities that were on the site have been removed so it's overgrown a little bit there are some trees at some of the perimeters but basically it's a vacant site as Mr Brady indicated uh the applicant has engaged the Li and lsrp licensed site remediation professional he's done investigations done testing um and basically the plan is that any impacted soils from past activities will be removed from the site um and uh and then one of the uh REM remedial or accepted remedial practices is the capping of the site and the capping of the site similar to what is being proposed by this application is an accepted um remedial uh action uh and so it helps make uh helps serve the site from that standpoint and it can be used for residential purposes but as Mr Brady indicated the lsrp has to go through preparation and submitt uh and go through that entire process to get a final sign off from the D um what I'd like to do is uh go to one of the I have to change sharing and share go to a different plan and specifically let me show [Music] this they with me a second [Music] looking for the right trying to get the right um plan I want to show here and for some reason it's not popping up why is this what I wanted to display for you and I don't know why it's appearing on my screen it doesn't appear on your screen what I'll what I'll do is is this um just going back to this exhibit uh and I want to enlarge what I wanted to show is that on the plans that we submitted was a steep slopes area and looking at the looking at that plan what we see is it's in it's sheet two of the plans that were submitted uh and for some reason this doesn't want to appear here guess that won't pop up if I share that doesn't just share my screen let me try I'm bear with me one second let me try one other thing we should share screen okay there we go so this is sheet two of the plans and these are the plans that were submitted this is existing conditions and what this shows on the left hand side if you have what this shows is existing features and it shows where we did an analysis of the steep slopes uh the property slopes up from East Handover Avenue and which is at the bottom of the page up to the rear there's about a 12 foot difference in grade from from the front portion uh to the rear and what you can see with the colorization of the steep slope areas is the band of steep slopes that exists here uh was really the result of past activities namely the uh borrow pit activities which created this embankment so this these steep slopes are really a man-made condition um and this really does generally delineate the activities that took place or or where they took place uh which is towards the front of the property towards the front of the property in front of this band of steep slopes and that's where the basically the salvage yard activities took place behind this uh was really less Disturbed but again these steep slope areas were um uh were man-made uh from prior site activities you said it was a burrow pit that means that material was excavated from that site sand and Sand and Gravel was excavated from the site and then some sort of fill was placed back in afterwards there was some fill that was placed after that was excavated ated after after that process or that activity stopped then there was some fill placed back into the site uh and so uh we are proposing disturbance of these steep slopes uh again they're not natural steep slopes but uh that's a waiver uh we are requesting relief from uh under the township coordinance uh there's right now there's nothing on the site uh there's no infrastructure there's no there's no other features like Wetlands or Waters or streams or or water bodies or anything like that uh to be dealing with also so let me uh go from there and I want to then go was that A2 for the record was that it was part of the plans part of the plan and and see it's rendered but what we have is rendered too coration right I think it's exactly the same yeah looks like it but not A2 pardon is sheet number two yes sheet number two not A2 correct correct sheet sheet two of the plans that were submitted we're talking about the current site and it's abandoned aage auto salvage yard is it fenced and if so what kind of fencing it is fence there's chain link fence around the site uh uh today and as I said it's currently vacant so um this isn't another exhibit uh this is entitled site plan exhibit with today's date and shows it's basically zoomed in to the site to showing the proposed development so um and this is what I'll refer to for the most part we can zoom in and look at it more closely uh if that's helpful and if there's something that you want to zoom in we can we can do that so um again we have a vacant site uh and uh the proposal is two buildings um seven Market units two affordable housing units so we have uh sort of four four portions of each unit uh so units one through four on the leftand side uh units three four five uh four five six seven and eight and nine in the back right hand corner is the location for two affordable units one one-bedroom unit and one three-bedroom unit in the affordable housing uh unit and those are stacked one over the others the other seven units are pretty much standard tow houses uh they're vertical so they're divided with vertical walls but the entire unit uh is is the townhouse unit uh again uh as Mr Brady indicated uh um we're in the ra7 zone 7,500 square feet per family uh and the proposal is 3750 square feet per family and and you'll hear more about that from our planner when he testifies um the property will be owned by a homeowners association so all of the common property will be uh maintained uh so this is pretty much a standard townhouse type Arrangement as you can see we have a single two-way access driveway off of East Hanover Avenue uh we reviewed the access with the county and this was the form of access that they preferred we looked at some options with them and this is uh this two-way driveway it's a 28t wide driveway and this is what uh what they preferred in terms of access um building setbacks uh the front yard setback as Mr Brady indicated is 21 ft and that's the closest point of the face of the building to East hore Avenue uh the ra7 Zone by comparison is 25 ft so we're just a little bit short of that however the side yard set back and rear yard setbacks conform with the ra7 standards so the side yard setback we show is closest at 12 1 12 fet and the ra7 standard is 10 feet so we meet the sidey guard setback of the ra7 Zone the rear yard setback requirement in the ra7 is 25 feet and we have our buildings at the closest point at 28 feet so we're compliant with side and rear yard setbacks and those are the sides are closest to adjoining Residential Properties uh so the only setback relief we're seeking is the front uh the 21 versus 25 ft towards East Anover Avenue uh building coverage is compliant the ra7 fromit 30% building coverage and we comply with that limitation uh we are a little over on impervious coverage uh where 55% is permitted in the ra7 zone uh 60.8% is is proposed on this plan and I'm kind of giving you the numbers our planner will go through more detail about uh about the variances when he testifies um so we uh we've had this property we've looked at uh with a couple different options and how to lay it out uh we've had a few meetings with the TCC and we we actually came up with this layout as the preferred layout uh the reason for that is we have an internal Courtyard area the two buildings face a common Courtyard uh the we're looking at the ends of the buildings Facing East Hanover Avenue so we don't have a long uh uh solid mass of building all fronting on East Hanover Avenue we're actually looking at two uh two ends of the buildings so this this arrangement we thought worked better was a better layout with the with the buildings facing an interior Courtyard uh so the and we'll look at architectural elevations of the ends and so we get a better sense of that and our architect will present that uh We've this is as I mentioned the property slopes up from East Handover Avenue to the rear and there's about a 12 foot difference in grade from front to back and so what we've done is we've tucked this into the hill uh so at the back of the property uh you can see we show a retaining wall at the back we also show retaining walls along the right and left side so this is the back of the development and where we have some parking spaces and basically the back uh adjacent to the units uh will be tucked into the hill uh and the we will have a retaining wall which will be about four to five feet high at the maximum and on top of that retaining wall we also have a 4ot privacy fence now we do have the fence and the wall staggered from each other so they're not right on top of each other there's a setback so they don't count as a single uh single structure um but what that effectively does is by having the um the back of the site about four to five feet lower than the rear property line it tucks this into the hill uh it effectively screens and hides the parking at the back and with the fence on top effectively you really won't see the first floor of these units from if you were on the adjacent property for example to the behind this uh and looking to here you'd with the way that the Topography is and with the with with the wall and with the fence you're not going to really be seeing the first floor of the units and that's going to be effective right from the start uh from day one uh we also have Landscaping along the back and at the perimeters so uh the walls the topography with this being set into the grade and the fencing will really do a good job of shielding the parking shielding the units from the adjacent properties um uh really on the three sides um the fence goes around all three sides that's correct yes and and the wall goes around most of the three sides there's a little bit in the back where we didn't need the wall but it does slope down and the and the unit four for example is still tucked into the hill um the uh the market end units which is unit one unit four and unit five those uh there's three of them they'll have two car garages from the rsis standpoint that counts as 3.5 parking spaces when you have a two-car garage and the spaces in front of them available for parking the middle four units will have onec car garages uh so from a parking standpoint you get to account as two and then the affordable units will have surface parking in total when we add all this up we have a total requirement of on parking on site of 26 spaces and by calculation because of the how you how the rsis counts parking we actually end up with a proposed of 26 and a half spaces obviously we don't have a half space anywhere but we again that's because of the factor that the rsis uses for a two-car garage with a two parking space places uh in front of it they don't count it as four they count it as three and a half so uh we meet the parking requirement um uh for for the project now the parking spaces we are showing are 9 by8 which in the industry is standard and I know you hear this all the time uh so but technically we need a variance relief on the size of the parking spaces uh we have uh uh we did this was submitted to the fire chief uh he provided a letter um and found that the uh the arrangement was was acceptable um we also reviewed this with the public works department uh and this was something that we came out of the TCC reviews uh uh with with your engineer and planner uh and and the public works department said that this is a suitable arrangement for a trash pickup and just on that note we're not proposing a dumpster we did not want to have a dumpster uh on this project uh so trash will be kept in the garages and for the affordable units we actually have a uh a trash enclosure at the back right corner uh of the of the project uh that can provide uh containment for uh for trash uh in there um but DPW found that uh this was they could get in and out of the site um again we did review it with the county um we still have to get approval from the County planning board uh but we did review it with them in terms of access we looked at a couple of different Arrangements uh for Access and they prefer this as uh as the best arrangement to get in and out of the site uh along the county road along the front of dvis Handover Avenue we're going to have new sidewalks and curbing is going to be installed uh this exhibit is consistent with the landscape plan that we prepared and so we also show some some Street trees along East Handover avue v um as I said the site is vacant uh the middle part and what I showed you from the topography where it's been Disturbed there's not much there other than it's overgrown there are trees around the perimeter uh we did include in the in the uh plans a tree removal and replacement plan uh 21 trees are going to be removed based on the calculations from your ordinance that requires a replacement count of 73 trees uh our our goal is to to meet that replacement requirement as much as we can um uh through the planting of trees and through upsizing of trees and we'll so we'll get as close as we can to the placement requirement on site uh and to the extent we can't uh meet all of that there's a formula for providing a contribution for the remaining trees per the ordinance uh Landscaping I mentioned a little bit about the buffering at the at the back and along the sides uh and again we've got the we've got Landscaping we've got retaining walls we've got the units set down into the hill uh and we have a fence on top of the uh on top of the wall um so that that provides we believe a good screening and for example at the back again you're going to you're going to have that lower portion of the units well hidden from uh from neighboring properties um the Landscaping plan was uh submitted as part of the application it was uh we followed the townships do not plant list and no invasive species and so forth so compliant there we are proposing three new light fixtures internally and those will be in the courtyard area uh so that keeps them uh more hidden from View From The Neighbors uh all of the lights will be dark sky compliant and given that we have a homeowners association uh that can control the lighting on the units um so that we can we won't have flood lights uh blaring off somewhere it'll it'll all be controlled and under the guidance of the homeowners association so that all the lights can be dark sky compliant and the lights that are on poles are 12 feet tall correct you know I don't remember have to look at the plan I can pull it up because that's how I read okay all right they're 12 12 to 15 ft at the most which is consistent with what we do in the township uh we we try to keep the lighting levels fairly low you know more like a single family residential type of neighborhood we're not going to have flood lights um there will be people will have lights at doorways but again they can all be they'll all be um in compliance with the HOA standards um but they and the lighting being having a courtyard type of arrangement uh and you can see here I didn't really get into this but we have breaks between the uh um between the units and then a larger brake we're actually going to step the building have a have a break in the buildings as it goes up the hill again to work with the topography um all the utility connections will be through come off of East Handover Avenue um we have uh a letter from the southeast Morris County mua about Water Service uh and they can provide water service uh so that'll be detailed with them uh so uh because we're proposing buildings and pavement and so forth on the on the project we have to deal with storm water runoff so we have a storm water management plan we submitted a storm water management plan as part of the application to the township um and what we're showing and you can see in the center portion of the courtyard we you can see the texture is a little different in some of this pavement and what we're proposing is to use porest Pavement in this Center area so porest pavement is uh is an accepted best management practice by the D it's a green infrastructure practice accepted it helps with uh collecting runoff it helps with treatment water quality treatment um so we collect the runoff uh we have underground uh storage system underneath uh the um under the porest pavement so that the water gets soaked in it's stored in there uh so that what we have at the end of the day is less runoff from the site than occurs today so we went through that calculation that analysis that's detailed in the storm water management report uh that that was submitted as I say um but the uh the use of porest pavement really helps to mitigate the increase in improv coverage on the site and it's very effective um uh for for that purpose um and again it is it is recognized uh as a management practice by the D and and the township uh rsis and so forth um I think the environmental commission mentioned something about a Swale and I think that needs to be clarified little um well because as I mentioned we're building this into the hill uh at the at the left side and and on the right side uh everything is still does pitch down toward East Anover Avenue we have some swes really just for management of storm water to help direct it uh so the general flow of water is all to toward East Handover Avenue uh we're going to collect the area in the courtyard we're going to collect some of the building areas into the courtyard and into the storm water system uh under the courtyard uh and then we'd have some storm water collection systems in the front uh and at the and at the sides that will collect and Connect into the county uh drainage system in East Handover Avenue uh and when we do the analysis what we see is what we collect and what we store on site doesn't convert to runoff uh we balance that again against some areas that do runoff and at the end of the day we have less runoff from the site under developed conditions than we do under existing conditions um no as a result there's no negative impacts to adjacent properties uh um or flooding results flooding impacts as a result of this we're not in a flood Hazard area there's no there's no flooding concerns here um as I mentioned we do need approval from the Morris County planning board Morris County solar Conservation District uh so those uh those who if were successful those certainly be conditions of approval um we had as I indicated some TCC reports uh we went to a few TCC meetings which helped to develop uh this uh this scheme um and provided good input um I mentioned the letter from the fire chief uh uh and the letter from the Morris County mua Southeast Morris County mua and the environmental commission I think I kind of hit on the items that may have come up in their letter if I missed something you please ask me about it but uh I think that's pretty much what I have at the moment points that I've checked off okay so can you explain to us when you said uh the they're going to be capping the property yes what what does that entail well the uh the construction of buildings and and pavement uh on the property serves as a cap uh over the property and the placement of soil in the other areas serves as a cap so the lsrp uh that's been engaged on the property uh indicated that capping uh uh is a accepted remedial from I'm I'm not an lsrp so I may not use the right terms but is an accepted um action for um what we're dealing with on this property okay so you're saying that the buildings itself would be part of the cap yes and what about Mr chairman the buildings will not have basements right I I've I noticed that in the plans um what about the um concr uh the asphalt the center that you said is porous yes will that be a c is that cap worthy material or can water come back up through it water won't come back up through it it'll be a means for water rainwater to that that falls or is collected on the surface to get collected into a storage system underneath of that for storm water control okay when you say say the storage system is that going to be an enclosed tank it's it's actually stone with some piping yes and will that prevent water from coming leeching out of the soil and into that collection Point yeah there's no there's no issues with groundwater here uh the testing that was done indicated that groundwater is is say very deep in on this site so we don't have a danger of groundwater being collected into this system um what about M what about other pollutants possibly leeching out from water being coming into the site uh from uh from my understanding of this this is an acceptable uh practice uh for this for this use given given what's on the site and that based on what the lsrp did and the testing that they did okay would that all be before the D as far as uh storm water runoff with would they be considering these plans when they yes yes they will be considering these plans now could you point out the eight uh parking spaces that are uh not on Drive driveways or uh in garages so there's a again on the you I'm G to zoom in is it help if I zoom in a little bit please so um let just move this so the affordable units are eight and nine on the upper right hand uh side here and there are three parking spaces in front and five parking spaces along the back so those are eight surface parking spaces okay now if you assume that both units eight and nine have two vehicles that basically leaves four free spaces if they have four if they're occupying four then there would be four remaining okay that's correct what's the requirement for ad guest parking visitor parking is required at 0. five per unit and we counted that in the analysis so if you look at the parking demand uh for the for three better bom units and we assumed all of these are three bedroom units they will be two to three bedroom units but we took the worst case all of the market units being three bedroom units require 2.4 parking spaces per unit the one bedroom unit requires 1.8 uh and then the re the um visitor parking requirement is 0.5 per unit uh so there's nine units 0.5 it's four and a half you go through that analysis and you come up with a requirement of 26 spaces right but 26 spaces 18 of which are basically for the uh seven other units correct um I mean they're not General you just can't just pull in and park anywhere in those 18 uh in those 26 units basically three two or three are reserved for each of the other units you've got garage spaces and a space in front of the garage so those would typically go those will go with the units and then you have the eight spaces uh for units eight and nine right guest parking okay fact some of the surface parking in front of the garages for the two car garages is 20 feet wide correct this if you go down and look at front there are but Mr Brady nobody can nobody else will park there because how can you put a car in front of somebody else's garage no I said the units with the garages the spaces in front of those are typically for those units but for units eight and nine and for guest parking that's the other eight spaces okay and one of the of the affordable units one is a one-bedroom and one is a three bedroom as required okay all right let me get back to my so for the affordable units are they are the spaces allocated and designated are they just part of those General Eight they first come first Ser are there actually dedicated spots for the affordable units directly in front I don't think we really uh landed on that as to how if they they could be I mean you could you could you know designate one for their one bedroom and two for the three-bedroom you could you could do that um we hadn't designated that but that's certainly something that could be done and and then the others are are open for parking can we assume it's Thanksgiving where's the nearest place that someone could park a car and walk to this development if they cannot find parking um where's the nearest place where's the nearest public parking spot offand I don't know there's no because there's no on street parking correct so and there's no real neighborhood connection to this site correct it doesn't connect to an adjacent Road um but front in front's on East Handover um but not unlike other townhouse developments where you have limited parking sure they all have limited parking but sometimes they just have exactly the same amount and sometimes they have more so and there's a sidewalk in the front correct there's a sidewalk in the front correct we're putting a sidewalk across the frontage of this property yes there's a sidewalk on the other side of Handover that goes down to the retail area that on a Thanksgiving afternoon probably right but then you got a cross Handover Avenue there's a light and a crosswalk because I crossed it myself okay and then that could that's by the acupuncturist or just break down from the right where the I don't know Ry can zoom out well we don't this doesn't show the entire neighborhood do you want to see right it shows the East Handover where there's a spot light right at the corner where the uh yeah this this I can pull up the other exhibit but um there is a light there and parking at that at the retail area do there any requirement for any uh handicap designated parking uh not not that I'm aware of no Rich are you aware David are youw Dave may know that no no James Place andan didn't have to put in any handicap parking spaces okay what about EV the um the units uh can be made EV ready uh so the garage parking can be EV ready well you have to do that now anyway right for the condos for a certain number yeah yeah do you have any surface like the in the rear do any of those we didn't designate any of those but if those those could be or a couple of those could be um wired for Ev ready oh it would give you a credit right towards some parking I don't I know you're saying you don't need it but right you're hearing from the board that when you look at it it's pretty underp parked so when you when you just stay with the parking for a minute when you look at those five parking spaces to the rear and the parking spaces coming out of the corner units mhm how how tight will the back bumpers be on those the five um corner you know if you numbered them one to five left to right space number one and number five trying to back out of there if you have cars parked the two here that you're talking about the two at the the one your your number five and the one at the top here of this two corners and then you have cars parked in the what I'll call the driveways right of the units so you know and you're showing that 18 foot foot long space in instead of the required 20 foot right and the 18 feet you're measuring right from the garage door and you know people tend to right touching the door so how does that car either get into that space or back out of that space at the at the one on the garage here over by unit four we actually have 21 feet um depth uh from the garage from the building itself out to the first space uh so is actually 21 feet there the spaces themselves are 9 by 18 uh cars are not 18 feet long as we know um uh so that space uh so we have room there to to back out or there's room in front of unit four uh the other one I think you're mentioning is uh are the two at the other Corner again they are 9 by8 but we have an extra very wide area in the middle area so we have between sort of what would be the back of the parking uh in the garage say for unit four and the parking space in front of units8 and nine we have uh 45 ft of distance uh so there's there's room to to back up out of these areas uh to maneuver um but this Arrangement is the same as you see in any parking lot we have the corner type arrangement like you have out in the in the lot here behind the Municipal Building 9 by 18 spaces and they're 90 degrees to each other um that's a common Arrangement you see in parking lots all around um right so it's your testimony that someone parked in one of those five parking spaces could somehow turn around in the middle of that Court yes yeah they could they you could do it a couple ways you could back straight out and and turn around you could you could back and turn uh the Courtyard area here without going into the garage areas assuming correct that there's cars Point correct staying out of staying out of those areas correct because because the width there is it's not just a 24 foot aisle like you have for example in a parking lot where you back out and you and you back out and then you turn to to leave um this is uh 45 ft between the backs of the parking spaces gives you a lot lot of room to maneuver in that area and let's assume that there's snow does it still have enough room yes yeah you you were're not going to leave the snow in the not going to pile the snow in the middle you'd have to pile it off behind the curb where does the snow go are you gonna push it out the Handover avue we how does how's the plow guy G to do it um he may he may you know there is some there is green area as you can see uh you can push it off to the sides into the green areas uh and typically you know if it gets you you push it off behind the curb where you can uh if you have two heavy of a snowstorm then you have to deal with that and you may have to cart it away you can't push it straight up right because you have five cars you'll Block in right you can't drag it out Handover Avenue is a super busy street yeah you can't push it onto the street that's true yeah no you can't push it onto the street so you either have to put it behind the curbing on site or you have to if you have to move it offsite does the same maneuverability apply to a DPW garbage truck coming in there would they have to just pull and forward and then back back out onto Handover r or how do they how would they navigate that top portion they what they've indicated US based on when they would pick up is that they would back in uh to the site off of East Handover Avenue back in yes so they'd come down Handover they'd stop back Handover and then back in correct was there a particular you mentioned something about a particular time period when they were planning on picking that up they typically do this in uh either very early as the common time so that it's off hours so that there's they're not going to do it in the middle of rush hour when there's heavy traffic on East Anover Avenue do do we know what the schedule is for uh Handover for trash pickup for the residences because that would be a good indication of when they show up um I'd have to get the time from that yeah and and they don't stick to the times as you well know there can be any within a three-hour window but we did we did review this with them and they've said this is how they would conduct the trash pickup okay do we have a letter from them yet I do not have a letter can we get a letter from them because I will Endeavor MR chair most of the garbage trucks now have the automatic lift right correct it's on one side of the truck yep right so I don't know how they would back in and get both sides of the street right well they' have to pull up they may have to pull the cans around on one one side because the individual cans would be at each unit right but uh these guys don't won it out the truck and pull it around the one arm bandit they just the one arm bandit so if it's not they'd have to have arrangements for trash all on one side for them to go in and do it it's on their right side as they come in as they're going forward so let's discuss that with the with the public works also okay just one more question on the circulation um in terms of school pickup a school bus would they be backing in also or they picking up on Handover Avenue or I don't know where the school bus stops would be um so I don't know the answer that but they wouldn't I'm sure they would not pull into the site thank you kidding um you mentioned that there' be screening and buffering Landscaping uh along the bat rear and the two sides what's the proposal for the front of the property between the buildings and Handover so you because you're asking for 21 feet from the Cur uh from the RightWay to the building and you've got a sidewalk which I assume is going to be three feet wide so what's G to and then you've got a sidewalk coming out from the sides of the buildings uh what kind of landscape are you putting there to screen the building buildings buff for the buildings from the uh Handover so the sidewalk is in the RightWay uh so the uh sidewalk is on the street side of the property line so that so in that 21 the sidewalk is not within that 21 feet okay we do have and again the grade does change as you go from East Handover up to the units and we actually on the leftand side here we have a a retaining wall uh 3 to 4 foot maximum so the build build sit up you're not just facing straight at them so they they're sitting a little higher uh we have Street trees as I mentioned shown here this and again this is really a uh colorized version of the landscape plan uh so we have some Street trees and we have plantings uh in front of the units uh all across uh and they're in they're detailed on the landscape plan we can we can look at that further if you'd like but we have buffering and Landscaping between uh the buildings and East over Avenue [Music] there the other uh residential buildings along uh Handover how far they set back from the right away uh I don't have uh a a survey of those but we could if we wanted to look at the uh exhibit we were looking at before we could get a sense of some of these so our property is here um I mean looking to the left the uh the acupuncture building it looks fairly close uh and again in fact let's go because we show the units here on this part of the exhibit we show the units uh so you can see again looking at the property to the left it's very close the property to the right is very close to East Anover Avenue uh others appear or a little set back a little bit further so um it varies but we're not much different than it looks like uh property to the left uh the property lot8 um lot nine Lot 10 all appear to be uh similar setbacks I don't have exact dimensions but they appear to be similar uh to the right Lot 12 is closer to the street lot 11 a little bit further back because is 10 and nine um so you can see it varies along there but nothing substantially different than uh the proposal here they seem to be some consistent with the you know in the 25 foot range which is where we are uh except at 21 feet at the closest part of the building the building is stepped uh so part of it would be at 21 and the rest would be further back I do notice uh the retaining wall uh to the left as you're entering the property yes but I don't see any on the right there's none on the right just on the left just on the left and watch is that we didn't need a retaining wall on the right because of the grade so the grade is a little different on the left and the right side but we just we needed it on the left hand side Handover East Handover Avenue does change grade from right to left so it's a little higher on the right side a little lower on the left side okay so how much of a a slope uh save from where the uh visitors parking the the Open Spaces at the rear of the property the five uh spaces back there to um the basically the driveway and entering the premises before you get to the first two units how much of an elevation is that uh the slope of the driveway is about 5% more or less um you want to know the exact difference how many feet it is i' would like to know the percentage I think it's about 5% yeah I think five maybe five and a half percent is where we kept it which is standard is there any problem with that type of grade okay and that's partly why the it's tucked into the hill so that it's lower in the back than natural grade right I don't have any more questions this point board members questions Mr Goldberg I can see you're already the only remaining question I have is I know you mentioned the Swale um and I know I heard you speak of it where is it exactly located again is it not visible on each side um so if you look at the property on to the left of the left building and to the right of the right building simply because the the buildings are set and we have to we want to pitch away from the building and we're pitching from the property line in a little bit so it's simply to help collect water uh so it doesn't drain to the building it's simply a surface water management feature to help I know the um from going where we don't want it to go yeah the thank you for pointing that out um I know the environmental commission was concerned about the maintenance of it there was a comment in there about you know something about removing the debris by hand if it was more than two inches like is that so that's something that HOA would be responsible be responsible for all of the grounds yes and the reason that note is there is that sometimes you can get debris collecting in the sale so you just want to keep it clean thank you yes so Russy I just want to go back to those five parking spaces in the rear and I know before you said you had 21 feet from the garage area but that's only on the left side on the right side it's 18 feet that's correct Y and yeah you have another like two and a half feet where you could push that building back is there a reason why you didn't go back to the setback line to give yourself another two and a half feet um we were trying to keep it compact if you will um but if uh certainly we could uh provide a little more space there and I just think that point yeah back right parking space and and the I know it's not coming out of a garage but that last Corner space you know those back bumpers are kind of like to me they look like they're going to line up again it's similar to any any normal parking lot yeah but um if if we could we' we have a 12 and a half foot setback where 10 feet is permitted yeah I mean that's the ra moved it over two and a half feet that's it's doable yeah I'm just wondering if somebody Parks was F350 back there well who knows parks in the middle SP Dave you can't park there yeah sorry I know maybe and maybe it doesn't work that way but maybe you should just look at that can you get a couple extra feet there sure okay to help that okay and I'm sorry I just I was looking at something else when you talked about trash before so when the um trash pickup occurs said the truck would back in and then for the affordable units that would come out of that container the the since they don't have a garage to store cans in that's why we provided the enclosure all right so then the trash pickup would have to get out of the truck and and go get the cans is that what happened there they'd have to pull the cans out of the out of the enclosure so you s and you heard about the one arm bandit thing that's with the town pickup are you suggesting to use private pickup or Municipal pickup um when we talked to DPW they indic as I said we spoke to them about trash pick up it's something that came up at our TCC meeting so we talked to them and they said you know they thought this site was acceptable they could back in um and and do it in off hours right understand actually the HOA could uh could require that everybody put their trash cans on a certain side of the entrance way well if that's what we're going to do I would make it a condition right now and have you put it in the master de right right so I don't think we should leave it up to them to figure out really the point I think it would be something like uh cans will be placed at a location is determined time to time by the DPW depending on yeah what the design of the truck is left side right side wherever they demand maybe there's a plan now and it could just be put in as a regulation in the master de so they know what the plan is rather than trying to figure it out on their own but I I also would like a letter from from the DPW that this works and how it's going to work okay also too considering let's say we do need all the cans on one side even just the normal cans going out so right now at least for me for my pickup Recycling and trash are the same time right so you've got two cans per unit and minimum two cans per unit exactly and because you can buy an additional can if you want it's not capped um then you've got very very tight parking you know so once all those cans are outside on that day and if all of them have to be moved to one side of the development that's a lot of square feet taken up by cans and also that enclosure we need to make sure it can fit four cans to recycling and to they're they're like manyi dumpsters pretty good so right and that's the point Dave is we don't want the association to figure it out because their answer might be just put them on A Street then come pick up there you have 20 cans lined up that's why we talked to the DPW they did not want that we want to do that I'd like to make sure that the circulation in there works for when the cans are out people put them out of an evening not putting them out at midnight so people are coming and going maybe some people work early in the morning too [Music] okay other board members with questions no Mr Hansen any questions no any questions um yeah I'm looking at the uh latest TCC report and we raised a couple of issues which I think have been addressed through questions of board members one was the meeting with public works with by the trash pick up and I think we just kind of discussed that the other was the point that Mr Aller made about the visitor parking stalls and particularly on the right hand side um and you know whether or not this adequate vehicle turn around because I agree that it's tight maybe maybe the solution would be to push it closer to the side light line to provide some cushion there because it's literally on the on the the 18t line in the in the driveway the only other question that I had Rusty was to go back to parking for a minute so units eight and nine which are the affordables right if you were to calculate the rsis parking requirement strictly for those units right a one of three-bedroom you get if my math is Right 4.2 yes correct yes and you're providing three right in the in the front well we went through the total calculation and to look at the required of 26 versus the calculated of 26 and a half right but but visitors aren't using individual driveways and literally if you if you accepted the fact that that was the demand for the affordables that they would be using part of those visitor spaces I know how RS works right right but I think at the very least that the three space in front absolutely have to be assigned to those units or else they're going have a parking space I mean the market rate units are going to have driveways and garages it would be my strong recommendation if the board considers you know any approval on this that those at the very least those three have to be assigned or else those units may not have the guarantee that there's a parking space and then what do you do forget about Thanksgiving I mean people live here have no place to park so so that's a good idea please take that under advisement cause some an internal stripe yeah that's that's all I have for Rusty Mr chairman okay portable units in havan have ass signed parking okay and there signs up for that would we have to uh allocate four spots for assigned parking for them based upon the uh uh parking requirements or we can do it three Rusty you can comment I believe you could do the three you could do three yeah you could you could and I mean and I don't think that's you know I think that would kind of even though it individually it doesn't meet the rsis which was my question if you would assigned logically one to the one bedroom two to the three bedroom that there's some sort of Nexus and rationale for that okay we can do that and they're also right in front of the units you know where you want to assign them right okay all right any other questions board members members of the public any questions of this witness questions only at this point questions yes I have a question come on up to the microphone identify yourself where you and your address can you uh spell your last name i y okay and your address 499 thank you what's your questions um my question is um since it's a very busy road four lanes as mentioned before uh are the residents of that complex going to be able to make a left out of it out of it crossing the double yellow line um Monro Street right now you're not allowed to make left during rush hour yes so how are the residents going to pull in and pull out only pull in one way pull out one way and if that's the case where are they going to turn around to go towards Low's canover West County didn't indicate any restriction um on turning Maneuvers um so we we presented that with them and they did not require any restrictions yeah I think Monroe is twofold it's to prevent the left lane of Handover from backing up and also so that nobody turns through the neighborhood to scramble around the light you know the light at scen yeah you do youest oh you can't coming out in row you can't make it but there's also a sign there saying a right but there's also a sign saying you can't turn into Monroe from no you can't you can there's there's a left turn there's a left turn oh on yeah that's right there is yeah so they pull out option for to turn around uh which a lot of people are already cutting through there's kids on the road there's a lot of people that try to pass the hand over traffic they're already flying by I personally had a family member that was Swip right in front of my house trying to pull into the driveway because the guy was trying to pass him on the left so there's going to be time for Testimony a little later so just right now question yeah I don't know how they're gonna turn around and I only see the flow going down my road but the answer was the county county has not indicated any requirement for restriction that's correct okay do we have a copy of the letter from the county no Rusty has had conversations with them as we design designed this but we haven't submitted for official approval yet wanting to come to this court first you know before we go there all right so if the county impos a no left turn requirement then what do we have to come back here I don't well it doesn't change our site it just changes the Turning movements right on a county road but then this Witnesses qu uh the um and there's more Rel to this question and we like that's part of what we have to address follow question wait wait wait see if we got an answer here but then the the issue becomes then uh what's the solution right there whether you no matter what if there's no left turns into or out of then whatever you propose for this site is is going to have that sort of prohibition so I'm not sure that it really makes any difference to the application that's here I understand the concern but I think with uh you know this isn't the concern the chairman talked about or maybe to some degree that this gentleman talked about of people cutting through neighborhoods to avoid uh Rush Hour this is one site with nine units coming in and out it's I don't think it's going to cause any through [Music] neighborhoods I think the difference would be you know at least from my perspective is the variance that you're asking for is the difference between single family homes which here would be let's presume four so I think we're asking you know how what's the traffic impact difference between this proposed and asid zoned specifically given if the county were to say you know that your turns are limited well M shmer if we had single family homes we'd have forg driveways onto the county that's correct yes we would okay yes and there would be that that's the main difference in traffic impact we would we would argue that that's more of a problem than having these nine units that come out a a common Dy all right and then some of those problems then start from there you have four different Lots we just talked about garbage four different lines of garbage cans in front of everybody's lot any more questions yes so that was the the easier one the harder one is when you're traveling Hest West towards lows after you make a left off of rale or come off of 24 how are you going to make a left into that property are you going to hold up that whole uh Lane on Handover and back it up even further and cause even more traffic in the area because right now the light on on rale to make a left on to Handover it's backed up all the way to the post office at certain times of the day yes but not been discussing rale Handover alone off of 24 is going to get backed up and people are going to try to make L into that conf jber any comments response again from our discussions with the county they didn't have any turning restrictions um it is a busy road there's no question um but uh left turns in and out uh are not and we we have to confirm with the county and with our County planning board approval but they've not indicated any restrictions so again this is single nine unit um development it's it's not a corridor it's not a it's not a street it's not Ridgedale Avenue it's not uh it's not an entire Street where you have a lot of traffic [Music] but okay well don't shouldn't we ask what a traffic study that's I mean you could Dave do you think a traffic studies warranted for this project n units I'll call Paul Fishinger up or Joe Fishinger up uh I'll get his opinion on it Sonia sent a set of plans over email set of plans over take a look I mean the neighbor made some valid points you you you're going to have 18 to 26 people coming out of here that's for for dwellings single family dwells that's what I'm saying yeah I'm I'm with you I understand okay any other questions um also a concern that was brought up when you guys were going over the cap capping contamination on the site and then saying that the two sections in the middle area of the property are going to collect all the water isn't that going to contaminate all the water and the that's going into the public sewers that you guys are saying is going to go into the the poorest Pavement in the middle is what you're talking about I believe well you said you guys are redirecting it and then connecting those lines to the Handover sewer system which is going to take that contaminated water into the public water system that's going to have to get go back into our well there's first of all it's not contaminated water all we're talking about is surface water runoff that is going to come off the surface you have runoff today coming off of the site it goes down it's uncontrolled there's no storm water management measures today it runs down towards East Anover Avenue uh so we're going to collect a lot of our storm water we're going to put it uh reduce the amount of runoff from the site but you will still have surface water runoff uh but it's not contaminated runoff it's just rain water it's it gets collected um some of it would go into the municip OR Municipal the county storm sewer system that's a storm sewer system not not the water system storm SE system so that's different but it's not contaminated water from just sound of like the area was going to get capped and the dirt was going dirt was going to stay there and even if it's run off it still as I said earlier based on what the lsrp indicated that impacted dirt from that as a result of Investigations dirt that's been impacted by past activities is going to be excavated and removed okay um and then this also serves as a cap in addition to that so but there's no contaminated water coming from the site and then the last question is uh how's the four to 5 foot retang wall on the back going to hold up the 12 foot gr well what I indicated was that there's a 12 foot difference in grade from East Handover Avenue to the back of the property that's the existing chain difference in grade so when you come off of East Handover you're going to climb up uh you're going to go up the driveway you're going to drive up Courtyard so you're going to continue to climb up so that when you get to the back of the property you're going to be at that point about 5T lower than the existing grade at the back property line okay so our our grade is going to be 5 feet below the existing grade okay so we don't there's a 12 foot difference existing but we're going to climb up so we're not we're not going to be entirely flat we can't be so we're going to climb up and when we get to the back we're going to be still into the hill and there'll be a 5 foot difference in grade between for example where those five parking spaces are to the rear property line and and there propert and the and the parking spaces are lower and then there's a wall and I don't know are you right behind the property no oh okay anyway those houses behind there anyway those the back of those houses they'll be higher and the parking spaces are lower no no sure those are all great thank you uh any other members of the public with questions seeing none hearing close the public portion um I do have one follow-up question if it's sure you I was GNA ask any board members with the follow-up questions based on that so based on the history of the site and the contaminated soil that they'll be capped and all that when these markets should they be approved go to be marketed and to owners and renters um is there any representation that has to be made to the public about the history of the site dur or is it just unknown to or is there any requirement as part of that that has to be be part of the r aw the lsrp is indicated there will have to be a notice in the deed notice in the deed be notice in the deed so be end up in the master deed but nothing more um overt to let people know so I mean that are that's what I'm aware of okay thank you yeah do we have can we make that a condition because I don't know because most people you get the title report and you get the master deed and I don't think it would just be in the master deed it's probably be a separate deed notice to satisfy D and they have very specific language that you're going to want but either way it's going to show up in a title report that someone may not read May somebody may not read yeah that's a but it would be a special condition when they went to file was only nine units so they could possibly get an exemption from DCA or filing a public offering statement but it would be a special condition with the DCA Department of Community Affairs when you prepare a public offering statement to put that in so it's in Bol type on the first page it says there's a deed notice and explains what it is if there's a public offering statement if yeah if I say if because it's only nine units and typically under 10 you can get an [Music] exemption thank you yes uh with all the uh comments about vehicular movement in here has anyone considered uh flipping these units and having them all in the back of the site Facing East hand overv you mean put him in a in a line single line yeah we looked at that uh we we did look at that and that's what I mentioned early in my testimony I think that we had several meetings with the TCC we had some Concepts looking at that and it was not as good a design as this this really was a better design to have the internal Courtyard looking at the ends of the building and and our architect will show you you know better visually what what you're looking at instead of having one massive structure where you're facing garages and and you know the units and in one large building but we we did look at that okay thanks t look like a strip well it's safer yeah um um yeah I think the question is functionally Aesthetics aside functionally would it function better being lined up in the alternative fashion yeah parking in terms of how you then get to parking spots uh you ended up with more dead end areas um the county did not want a separated entrance and exit for example uh they preferred this single access as we've shown here that I mentioned um so that was part of what we looked at when looking at that if you had one long building well how do you get in do you want to have a separate entrance and exit in the county uh said no they did not want to see that board member any other questions Mr Hansen anything no further question okay should we take a five minute break shall we take a five minute break and then we convene five minute break okay we're back on the record Miss Santiago roll call Mr Goldberg here M rman here Mr Williams here Mr Shuster here Mr tractenberg here Mr wher here Mr oler here Mr Hansen here Mr Phillips here and sanago here okay Council uh Mr chairman our next witness is the architect Kevin Paul you know we're probably not going to get to your planner tonight you realize that I just showed up I can't just send home sure you [Laughter] can now we saw you walking in so I I let's see quickly go through the AR Mr mcdunn is here anyway so yeah but we're going to have sounds like we're going to need traffic testimony and I mean it's up to you it's your case but if we're g to have traffic then you might want Mr McDon to go after that uh I might or I might want him to come back and supplement it because I know uh this board's agendas are pretty tight so trying to get as much in while I've had people available might might be good for both of us good okay all right let's get going then minutes okay Paul would you stand please raise your right hand do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give to this board will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you gu I do and your full name for the record please Kevin markf thank you I suspect Mr Paul I'm like Mr shmer you're not a frequent flyer before this board so give board not the benefit of your educational and professional background certainly uh Mr chairman boy members I'm a registered architect in 12 States New Jersey being one of them I've involved with this type of residential project for the past 30 years uh I work out of Melville h2m corporate headquarters where I'm a senior partner um we support uh Mr shamer in the parcion office uh with private sector real estate projects um and I'm very happy to be here tonight you have you testified before boards like this I have testified before boards like this in the past um actually in New Jersey and as your license in New Jersey is he still effective at this yes it is I don't have any further questions I'd ask them to be accepted as an expert in architecture all right you are thank you so so Mr Paul if you fill in the board on what you did in this project and and what the basic design layout is Yeah so basically this project we this this these buildings are actually response to the site and the way the site is established in terms of sloping up from Hanover to the to the residential prop in the rear um contextually very concerned about how the project is accessed um as we've already spoken about but also making sure that it fits in with the scale and context of the existing residential neighborhood uh hence the the locating the properties with the short side of the buildings to the street um so they present pretty much like a single family dwelling when you're driving 45 miles an hour a little larger when you're stuck in traffic um and also we think the better the better use of the site relative to the idea of the Court uh the Central Court primary single primary means of access um rear yards for all the all the units front yards uh effectively like every other Suburban dwelling driveway garage and access out to the street uh these buildings were all built slab on grade no basements crawl spaces or anything underground as Mr Scher said they step up the hill to mitigate uh any issues with the existing topography and to kind of benefit uh things like water flow uh easy access um from unit to garage and from garage to driveway [Music] um okay could you tell the board a little bit about some of the materials that are going to be used certainly if I can get rusty to get up a elevation here um so these are once again uh residential in nature so um architectural asphalt roofs porches front porches uh clab siding some Stone uh some Stone you can see on these elevations the short side to North elevations unit one faces Hanover um and you'll see culture stone clab siding um some nice Windows architectural asphalt roof sighting is not vinyl correct no vinyl siding uh this is a cementitious hearty plank is typically U what what it's referred to um requires you know Comes In Colors that will be regulated by the HOA uh is relatively low in maintenance um and kind of uniform if you look at the internal elevations you'll see the the garage doors with the balconies overhead um the stepping up is indicated by that small retaining wall middle of the uh elevation excuse me how how much of that is that step out how high is it the step I believe it's about two feet per unit so we have our between this and this yes between the two between effectively you see that step two feet the the garage floor is is a little bit lower than the main floor and then we step that each units on each side to mitigate that 12 foot difference from entry curb to rear wall this exhibit we didn't an exhibit I think sorry yeah A3 architectural renderings and is there a name on it should be right exterior elevations thank you the units themselves are made up first floor uh garage uh entry hall kitchen living room dining room uh with a powder room laundry uh mechanical space second floors are typically three bedrooms with two baths um and they were all very similar in layout except for the uh the end units eight and nine which are um a one one story one-bedroom and a twostory three-bedroom that back up to that um trash container in the back where we talked about the park modifications a few of the units have the option of being four bedrooms could you explain to the board how that worked three bedrooms three bedrooms excuse me three bedrooms three bedrooms so that once again so they laid out maximum don't scare us laid out for a maximum of three bedrooms um but we we the option is to pull them back to two bedrooms on the second floor and not go further some of the units actually have you see the units with the the upper glazing not the Dormers um have a potential for loft space which is kind of like a little bonus space underneath the the roof um roof trusses talk to the board a little bit about the side that faces so yeah do we have that yeah we do okay there it is so the Handover Avenue elevation this different exhibit different exhibit A4 Street View street view elevation [Music] this trying to pull that we had an exhibit just to get that pulled back [Music] up okay okay so this this elevation shows uh the condition at East Handover Street and you'll see once again the the buildings are effectively a mirror of each other with an entry door um and you'll see that that that grayish band in the back is the retaining wall at the back of the property and these other Stone um Wing walls separate each of the units so as we move up towards the back of the property road yeah that dark line at the bottom is is is approximately the the road line of East Handover so from an architectural perspective what is the importance of showing this this street view this this is is really important in terms of context so if you look at the street as a whole once again this reads as not as a single block of nine um apartments or nine Town Homes it reads as a larger single family development with two homes um large homes but two that are once again more in context with the street the the they are they are deep they run deeper but you don't perceive that especially with the planting the way the grades run when you're on the road driving by so it's really more about what's happening on the street front I don't have any further questions of Mr Paul what is this is A4 by the way Mr yeah I got A4 is the street view elevation how what are the dimensions of the lck as far as height and area b seven seven and a half feet and in terms of maximum height by code they have to slope down to walls no greater than four feet uh at exteriors exterior opposite walls no greater than four no greater than no no greater than four feet um so once again it keeps that kind of Loft has to be open to the space below um and and they they typically range between 180 and 200 squ feet they're relatively small spaces they're effectively what's left over from the attic under the roofs as designed and is there any storage uh in the Attic there's there's storage in the Attic but once again that's the the tradeoff from The Loft so if you develop the Loft you get less attic storage but you can see the roof lines run those cables run all the way back right so the Lofts will be in the center and your storage would be in the wings which is pretty much typically how it's done on the residential scale so other than throwing a 10 or 12 year old boy up there it really wouldn't be a bedroom it it doesn't meet the requirements of a bedroom I know it doesn't meet the requirements of a bedroom but it could be utilized as a bed it could be utilized pretty much as anything but yeah that's it's that's the idea of the Loft there's no door separating from the space below it's open at the top of the stair no closets other than the attic storage no second eag and no secondary eag correct well I'm thinking board members any questions on the colorized drawings are those the colors of the materials do we know what I'm trying to get a sense of what it's actually going to look like yeah that that at this point that's the color of the materials for for for the rendering so obviously at some point we would need a board with real samples on it in terms of the siding the stone the roofing the trim okay the color on the end though on the interior to the court yard there's a change in color between the units correct correct and what you're showing is representative so this kind of peachy color yeah it's more corly than peachy maybe but yeah it's not white it's not not white it's not gray it's not brown it's not brown it's got a little pink to it a little pink to it okay any other board members with questions just a quick question on the affordable unit um it looks like the the one bedroom has a slider maybe to sort of a pad out some sort of outdoor area pad where you can stand outside is it correct that the other unit has is the only one that does not have an exterior space that's dedicated or allocated to it no I think it has on in the uh in the rear second floor on the second floor yeah upstairs at a balcony yeah eight eight eight has a pad outside the door um unit 9 has a sliding door to the rear with the same kind of a little pad facing the rear yard so the pad for eight is shared by uh no I guess it's it's kind of it's kind of an entry pad so it's not not connected but but certainly when you you need to go past that door to get to your door right so eight has a patio and nine the upstairs would have a balcony now okay that's what I'm trying to this is first floor so nine nine on the first floor has a has a slider out to a pad right that's the that's the small unit right and the larger unit has just the entry with the balcony on the second floor is that the only unit with a balcony on the second floor no no the other they all they all have balconies on the second floor thank you front and the back and then this I'm assuming there is no storage in the affordable units to because they're stacked right so there is no there would be there would be attic storage for the three-bedroom unit right limited storage on the one-bedroom unit okay thank you what's the square footage of the various units they they're approximately 2200 square feet without the garages first and SEC first and second floor total could you give me that number again please 2200 square feet okay usable space without the garage without the garage correct could you just elaborate on in your testimony you said that this application sort of fits in with the scale and context of the surrounding neighborhood um when I look at an aerial view of the surrounding neighborhood and the lot sizes and all that I I actually my optic sort of see the opposite of that right so can you just elaborate as to how you think it fits in with the scale and context of the neighborhood once again so if you look at the if you look at the street elevations and you drive around a Highland in somebody other the streets you have you have inline ranches you have wideline ranches you have traditional Colonials um the TR traditional Colonials and some of the wideline ranches have the same type of massing at the street obviously if we're looking at a 50 foot wide lot with a 25 foot inline Bungalow or Ranch it's a different scale uh here the idea of breaking the buildings up limiting the height it's from the front it looks like it's kind of a standard two-story home okay I don't can't just agree they they go deep but once again with the proximity of the of the structures surrounding them you don't really get that unless you're walking and looking so from a from a car Point cars point of view if you drive down that that street and you see um you know you've got some two stories some single stories it's not out of context relative to how it presents to the street I agree depthwise it's there they're large structures um probably twice the size of an average the of an average existing home okay thank you and then my last question is on the statement of application from the applicant um there's a line that really stood out of me it says the combination of commercial uses and heavy traffic volume make the site undesirable for single family homes so could you just elaborate well so why this would be okay so and and and listening to the testimony tonight obviously there were issues with traffic uh on the street um but if you're looking at purchasing a new home U and your choice is a a single or two family house that fronts a busy street um with limited protection um two card two card garage and and two or three cars in the driveway with with your neighbors all dealing with the same thing it exacerbates everything we're talking about when you cluster these things together put give us a single point of access uh and create a little Community you know you have nine units where people are goingon to get to know each other they're gonna they're gonna trip over each other's garbage cans they're gonna they're actually gonna it's like a little it's like a little tiny village here it's not four houses lined up on a really busy street this approach we do this approach quite honestly everywhere we have enough property um single family homes just aside from the fact that they usually don't provide the return on investment for the developers they they only work if you can get them off the street away from the noise and with a certain amount of privacy so you can't you can't in a 7500 sare foot lot you can't give that to anybody because it just doesn't work so as as we kind of look at how people are using their private residences now this is kind of the new model it's not even new it's been around started with Garden Apartments 60 years ago and it's kind of coming back except that we're not building 40 or 50 or 60 units with tons of parking you know a lot of municipalities have adopted um form based codes that eliminate the Nal parking because they want to encourage walkable neighborhoods okay so you're gonna you're gonna see this this is kind of coming um I think this is a is a sensitive way once again there's there are a series of variances there always are issues relative to this because it doesn't exist on the street as it sits now um but I I believe it's really a really good application for this site relative to how housing is in terms of housing shortages with the the flexibility of the number of units and the sizes of the space and the fact that it also takes into account the affordability issue thank you for elaborating you're welcome any other board members with questions uh I was wondering on the you side that you're showing what is the height of that building and could you kind of compare that to some of the adjacent buildings so it looks very tall it looks tall in comparison to what's on the street yeah and once again for if you look at a two a typical two-story house this is a relatively low roof pitch so if you looking at the the height from grade that heavy dark line to the Eve you know you're looking at about 17 feet 18t with structure and you're going to go another six feet to the first Ridge so you're talking about maybe 28 ft to the top of this of the other Ridge once again without context it's hard to pinpoint it and maybe what we can do is if if we come back we can give you a broader street view to show some other relative structures across the street the the the the building across the street the commercial building for the town is probably a little taller in certain sections because it's just a service garage so um yeah once again if you look at there's a little person standing in the doorway that's a little person because that's door six foot 6 foot eight so and that that inure over the front entryway is basically eight and a half feet off the ground so if you take that and kind of bring it up it's you know 16 so not quite as big and it's also if you look at the plan it's layered so there's a portion that projects out and it kind of steps back and then it kind of wraps around the corner on both sides and even in the courtyard with there there there's a vacillation of the which softens it up a little bit so how high are the uh ceilings going to be 9 foot 10 foot once again it's it's Market the market loves a 9 foot ceiling uh on the first floor with an OT ceiling on the second floor um that's is that what you're planning on doing that's typically what we're planning on doing yes board members any questions Mr Hansen any questions Mr Phillips do you put up the rendering showing the view from the courtyard again that one yeah I'm noticing ing here that just looking at the base of the building the first floor of the building that you used I guess it's the cultured stone um and then if I look at the elevation from Hanover it seems to be sort of a split between the Hardy plank or cacious siding and the uh and the culted stone and I'm just War wondering you know why perhaps you might not have carried more of the Stone on the in the front facade aesthetic type of thing and and a little bit of cost more more more time is spent in the courtyard looking at these and will be sent on the sideboard looking back at yeah once again those views are you know people are kind of zipping by um so while it looks good we prefer to kind of provide more texture for the people are actually experiencing it getting out of the cars and walking around that court but we're also obviously concerned how this is viewed from the public realm that can you just go back to the think I think there's one on this yeah so the upper upper the upper left would be the street elevation right that's all I had Mr chairman okay thank you members of the public any questions of this Witness seeing none hearing none close the public portion board members any other questions okay we can start your next witness brings how long will we have Mr chairman you 10 10 you're sure about that minutes you're sure about that Mr chairman did anyone ask about mail delivery no no no one's asked about H Amazon delivery no there aren't any allowed you raise your right hand please do you solemnly swear that the testimony you'll give to this board will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you got yes I do John your full name for the record please hi everyone my name is John McDon at Bel MC capital d n o G thank you Mr MCD your license your professional planning license currently en force and effect yes on both the state and National level as well under aicp and beyond that Mr chairman I assume wave having to go through his credentials we will okay that so as a professional planner Mr McDon if you'd uh first just tell the board a little bit about what you did to prepare for tonight my preparation is somewhat unusual because I've been passing the site for 30 years just about every day um this is my running route in the morning I go to that YMCA I run down horse Hill then I run down Ridgedale come back Handover so I'm getting slower over time so I get to see this site for a longer duration as I go but um I have seen this site I think we all know what it was I think we all know what the area was with all those industrial sites and the spectacular transformation that's that's taking place out there kudos to good planning um and this is another link or Continuum in that in that positive transformation with this really nice Boutique development that the applicant is proposing on what has been a Isa property for way too long and um with that we think there's sound practical planning reasoning in terms of what the applicant is doing here again with this very small scale multif family development on what is a transitional lot between all of that non-residential development that's happening both to the East and and to the West on Hanover Avenue working our way to some of the lower density residential that you see as well and I took some pictures today out there right when that storm was coming through um we couldn't get the Drone in the air today there was some sort of um presidential block usually we like to give the board some good context but I think everybody knows what's happening out there um and I think everybody knows how the land physically integrates and where this site sits in the in the context of that but we're going to give you some ground photographs just to show what the property looks like and why we think the site is suitable from a contextual standpoint in terms of this transitional aspect and also from a condition standpoint in that you have a piece of land that sort of Nestles into the the hillside there where you've got good buffering good shielding topographically and vegetatively to separate this particular pocket from that residential development that's behind it so Mr chairman with your permission I'll I'll hand out a packet sure Dave I think we up the A5 I believe that's what it is John how many pictures are in that pack I think there's four and I got that for Paul over there A5 this A5 be 855 photos of the site yes and these were these are it's actually Four photographs and these are four photographs that I took today I think it was around 9:30 10 o'clock or so again it's a little overcast that was when that storm was coming through so does everybody have this and I don't too fast okay so the first view I'm standing over by the County Garage looking across Hanover Avenue so I'd be looking to the south from this vantage point maybe South West if you will and you can see the subject property with that ugly fence in the front and that vacant land um I remember this with all of the debris out there whether it was a junkyard a scrapyard what whatever it was um it's now been cleaned up to the extent that that's not there but again it's a site that's been sitting vacant and underutilized for a long time and as the whole area starts to transform around it this lot sort of stands out as as the problem lot that's not getting fixed so a little bit of a blight um vacant land that has sat there for for quite some time um not formally designated as an area in need of Redevelopment but certainly hitting what we would consider many of the the criteria there um unsightly not functioning it is zoned for single family dwellings which we think would be problematic because you're going to have driveways and cars potentially backing up to what we know East Hanover Avenue is as a multi lane roadway um you also get a sense from this vantage point of the way the landform works and you look at those homes in the back there that are perched up so to the extent that this development is going to stay on a plane with East Hanover Avenue these homes these new tow houses are not going to stick up like a sore thumb if you will and really we're only going to be looking about at maybe the top floor piercing above that fence line that you see in the background there so the land form works very well to accommodate the development as you start to work your way to the West here that's where you start to see those smaller lot residential development and then as you start to work your way to the east you've got the Mavis you've got the acupuncture facility which is something that was recently transformed from residential to non-residential use uh the car wash and then of course we work our way down to the corner there where we know the transformation that's happening on on both sides including the IHOP the TJ Max and that that whole shopping center there um interestingly as we work away a little bit further to the West that's where you have the whole Redevelopment of the men complex complex which has this nicely co-mingled mix of multif family development and non-residential development as well I think proof proof positive that you can establish this co-mingling of uses in close proximity along this stretch of roadway without creating any substantially adverse impacts so that first uh page just shows you more or less the condition of the property why we think it's well suited for the development the next view just shows the character of the area if you lived here with a single family home this next view is basically what you'd be seeing across the highway the County Garage which is always busy is always active and then further to the east you can see the new shopping center that has emerged at the corner which as we all know was a dead industrial site for many many years and that's what I took a picture of in free frame three I just walked down a little bit more to the east the TJ Maxx HomeGoods and the whole shopping center that has emerged on the corner of horse Hill and East Hover Avenue and just to show on uh I'll say the moris township side of the road frame number four shows again the the transforming nature of the area as well you have some converted residential uses including the acupuncture facility uh there's a I believe a contractor facility beyond that you hit the Mavis the car wash and work your way down to the Garden Supply on the corner and then of course highlighting the transitional nature of the lot you can see the residential uses in the background which would continue to the right or to the east from this particular vantage point so with all of that said we think from a pure physical planning standpoint the predicate is is there also the testimony of the witnesses before me to establish that this site is well suited to accommodate the development that's before the board the primary relief that the applicant is asking the board to move on in the form of 2D variances are are interrelated here um I think it's uh from my standpoint pretty obvious that multif family attached dwellings make good planning sense here again given that transitional nature of the lot uh interrelated to we do have density and if you take your floor area or your I'm sorry your lot area per family requirement if I'm calculating it right would equate to a density of approximately 4.5 dwelling units per acre the applicant is asking the board to move on nine dwelling units per acre seven market and then the two inclusionary as well which we think we provides a a public benefit as well and more importantly nicely fits within the context of the site you've got that good buffering around it you've got adequate capacity to park it to water it and to sewer which is really the core aspect of a density application and a density test as to whether the site can accommodate any problems associated with that additional density I know the board had some concerns about the left movement out I can tell you going to that shop right every day that allows for left lefts out and there are gaps there where one p certainly get across and there's a lot more cars going over to the shop right I'm sure than uh this particular development so there's some I'm not a traffic expert but I can tell you um anecdotally if you will there's some real world proof positive that left out can be accommodated without substantially adverse impacts on East Handover Avenue in terms of the justification for the D1 relief on the positive side we see multiple purposes of zoning being Advanced here um including purpose a under njsa 40 col 55 d-2 promotion of the general welfare again because the site is particularly suitable for the use by virtue of its condition being ideally suited to accommodate the mass and scale of development that's before the board good balance good proportionality in terms of the way the site is laid out it makes good planning sense with the courtyard in the middle the two buildings on the side oriented sideways to the roadway so that the longer access of the building appears um in the interior of the site not along the public realm on East Hanover Avenue so it will sort of continue that massing if you will of the single family homes that we start to see as we work our way to the West Additionally the site is particularly suitable for the use by virtue of the condition uh of the surrounding landscape given the fact that there is a variety of land uses we've got predominantly non-residential on one side we've got smaller lot residential on the other and that's a very logical progression to incorporate higher density residential development which is what this applicant is delivering we also see the advancement of purpose G the planning goal to provide for a variety of housing options according to the needs of all New Jersey citizens not everyone wants to live in a single family house not everyone wants to live in an apartment complex this provides another option as well uh we do have some multif family development just down the street emerging um again with the men in complex as well so that's in my view an indicator of of demand we've also got the advancement of purpose ey the promotion of a desirable visual environment because the site is going to incorporate some very aesthetic high quality well articulated buildings and a landscape plan that will help the built environment blend into the natural environment and this is really going to add value and quality to the site not only functionally but certainly visually as well and then finally the advancement of purpose M or planning goal for the efficient use of land taking a site that is previously Disturbed essentially previously clear this is not one of the wooded lots that we see in your community I'll say ripe to accommodate Redevelopment and in that regard promotes the planning goal for efficient use of land it is also not considered good planning to have land lying stagnant this is going to reverse that ongoing stagnation revitalizing the site pulling people into an area including persons of low and moderate income where they have excellent accessibility to public amenities such as shopping amenities and parks and and the like that are abundant in the area so with all that said we think the positive criteria are met here with respect to the use relief that the applicant is asking the board to move on interrelated to that will carry all of those use benefits down to the density variance as well that the density being proposed is necessary to effectuate what I see is a a boutique type of development you heard the commentary about creating a sense of community here and not isolation and we think the applicant has struck a good balance all planning is about balance um in providing a a critical mass to create a sense of community without overdeveloping the site no relief related to parking or the like here um in terms of the lower level sea relief we do have a front yard setback variance of 21 feet where 25 feet would be the minimum that's required in the context of the overall road streetcape if you will we don't think these buildings are going to stand out in comparison to the other buildings on the street there is good variety along the streetscape and as you heard through Mr sher's testimony there are mitigating measures as well with the landscaping that's uh being proposed in fact allowing the shorter front yard actually increases to some degree the minimum in the backyard so you're not just at 25 ft correct it's a balance yes we're favoring the the back over we're favoring the back over the front then asking for the relief in the front so we can maintain that separation in the back uh likewise the coverage at 66 60.6% where 55% is the maximum that's allowed uh again all goes towards the planning intent to provide a quality living environment adequate parking safe circulation and we think the applicant has struck an effective balance here where the coverage relief is necessary to effectuate an overall good project um counterbalancing that under the C2 test uh we believe the relief can be granted here without any substantially adverse impacts we have a good storm water design system here that has been designed to accommodate the additional impervious coverage on the property and account for storm water quality and quantity measures to mitigate the impact of that coverage relief as a planner when you consider the coverage is the fact that the building coverage is compliant have any sign difference yes but that's your massing control for sure and the fact that the building coverage will be in on par with what the ordinance envisions again we're not creating an overdevelopment in the context of what is physically visible in terms of the forms along the streets key and then lower level design exception related to the slope disturbance these are environmental controls somewhat of a hardship if you will working with that previously disturbed land in the back we think whenever we're dealing with slope disturbance the essence of satisfying the test is stability um Mr Sher has designed a plan here that will be designed in accordance with sound soil erosion and sediment control standards and is certainly subject to that Outside Agency jurisdiction and then lastly relief related to the parking stall size of 9 by8 where 10 by 20 would be the minimum required typical for residential development I think we can look to the uh Statewide rsis standard as a basis for that relief as being reasonable and appropriate as well uh with that said we think the statutory tests for all of the relief are met here uh the higher level D relief and the lower one piece I think I don't remember you hitting is the buffer in the back the buffer is eight feet as opposed to 10 feet relatively minor the Minimus deviation the applicant has provided good Landscaping in the back and and also we've got that vertical separation uh the fact that this building and this development is going to be nestled the lack of horizontal separation is mitigated by The increased vertical separation as well so we'll fold that in as as again looking at the application as a whole uh we always look at your master plan uh very well written 2017 100 page report um which does recognize throughout the report as I read it um that East H Han renue is somewhat different um and there's recommendations in there to take a look at the zoning and the uses along the corridor given the multi-lane roadway the higher speeds and the fact that it is presently zoned for uh single family dwellings um I know personally I have gotten other use fances along the corridor as well uh based on that aspect of the master plan as well so I think that's something the board can give some difference here as well in terms of uh policy considerations for uses other than single family along this particular roadway you see any uh substantial negative U detriment to the public good or to the Zone plan based on all of the testimony and for all the reasons that I've just given and certainly the physical characteristic of this site all variances as we know are supposed to relate to a specific piece of property that's the the board's charge otherwise you're acting as you know in the capacity of the governing body and creating a rezone putting multif family on this particular piece of property I think is pretty clear that it's not opening any sort of a precedent for more multifam along your ra7 Zone District this clearly relates to a specific piece of property which needs help and is sort of in the bullseye between higher density non-residential development and lower density residential development so the answer is no the answer is no substantial impairment to the Zone plan or ordinance or the public at large and I think with that I'll I'll pause I know I have limited time and may actually be coming back we'll [Music] see that's all I have on Direct okay board members questions um you able to comment I know you're not a traffic expert nor do you present here as one but you were able to comment on the left out um any commentary on the left in and your thoughts on that uh and in terms of backing up we had a resident earlier this evening concerned about you know a busy East Handover Avenue you know people stopping to turn left into that development and any um collateral impacts that that might have I know there are left ends allowed into the the shop right as you work your way East I see it happen a lot because I'm waiting to take the right out or the left out um so it does happen and it has I'm not aware of any um safety aspects it hasn't it has not gone away that left out and left in is still there and I I see it on a daily basis and also although I don't see it operate I think it operates later in the day but I did do work on it is the active puncture facility as well and I'm not aware of any that's next door to the subject I'm not aware of any restrictions on left out or left in thank you um oh you had mentioned you know kind of creating a mini neighborhood and how these developments um you know have access to shopping and neighborhoods and I'm looking at this and I'm wondering if there's a way to make a pedestrian back exit onto Cedar Street because if you go if you walk down Cedar you know you can access public parks there and I feel like you know this development that's being proposed is very much about East Handover Avenue and I love that there's a sidewalk that you're putting in and hopefully the township one day will run a sidewalk all the way down I like the idea that people who live there if there were continuation of the sidewalk could safely cross to shop across the street or continue to walk and maybe even walk to shop right who knows but right now they can't walk to the neighborhood in which they actually should be a part of so I'm wondering if there's a way that we can get access so that people you know if they live there and they've got kids could safely walk to those playgrounds in that neighborhood I think that would make it a part of the community instead of isolated on East Handover Avenue a very interesting question and certainly um would endorse connectivity I don't know if there's physical reasons why it can't wrap around there um I think I see children uh walking that street where the bus comes down so I don't want kids on East Handover Avenue no doubt although the bus does stop on East Handover Avenue sure but they're boarding the bus right I'm talking about taking kids or kids in a stroller or kids by the hand and walking what would be out your back door to the neighborhood in which you're If This Were a single family home particularly the one that's on the paper lot Street you know the paper Street that's been abandoned they would have access to the rest of the neighborhood so if we can provide that access for pedestrians I think that would be looks like end coming back we look into that okay a physical thing that Mr Sher has to take a look at okay I think that would be a very good addition though okay any other board members with questions I something came up in I don't know but you probably Mr Sher but what about um deliveries to the premises like Amazon mail again I'm speaking more anecdotally than anything I like the fact that you can pull off into a courtyard you see many vehicles stopping right on Hanover Avenue including buses which I I personally don't like um but what I like about the way this has been designed is it does have a pull off anything can add to that with regard to the usability of the Courtyard by delivery vehicles well also mail where are the mailboxes going to be mailboxes are in the site if you look on the plan uh it's a common mailbox on one of the little islands of vegetation there right okay I don't think I saw that that it says cluster mailboxes on the right hand side halfway okay I get the small can't read that this okay all right any other Bo questions from board members Mr Phillips any questions yeah I have a couple of questions and then I want to I think it would be the appropriate time I do want to provide some context about the zoning and master plan okay yeah I was gonna ask you do that now I'd like to provide it for the board and also have Mr McDon to potentially address it I don't know if he's coming back and I don't know if he needs to do it if we're stopping at 10 but we're stopping at 10 but I'm happy to start the comments questions of sure what what we get through you and we'll ask members of the public and then we can we'll wrap it up okay so just that I understand that John your testimony is that you don't believe that the single family under the ra7 is appropriate here it's not appropriate here okay so I want to provide some contacts for the board and for you on the master plan so in 2007 there was him he's you solemly swear that the testimony you will give give to this board would be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth hope you got thank you in 2007 there was a master plan reexamination it was not by it was not done by me it was done by someone else and in that reexamination they actually had a recommendation to look uh at the Hanover Avenue quarter and essentially if I'm my memory service meet was from Ridge deal to MLK they noticed it was in transition they noticed that the there were some older single family houses largely along the cor with some mix of non-residential uses and I think they wanted to determine whether or not that worked I prepared the 2017 reexamination and as part of that work that I did with the planning board we Revisited this issue of the quarter and what's appropriate and I will tell you that the planning board acknowledged that single family family uh was problematic going into the future basically because you're on a busy highway most of the houses were had been there for some time and the issue was do you want to continue to advocate for single family and ultimately they chose to leave it as is but the planning board did acknowledge that there are problems with single family and particularly future single family along that quarter the reason that the board did not make any um uh recommendations as to zoning changes was that if you looked at the properties that quter the characteristics were small Lots diverse ownership um and lots with a lack of depth to really do all that much and and also importantly there was residential behind it with all those physical conditions and the board for example Le was concerned about protecting the Integrity of the residential neighborhood behind it which is why no consideration was ultimately given to changing this to non-residential to retail right there was a lack of depth whatever retail was going to be too close to the residential so the the the the planning board basically put that to bed and said keep the ra7 zoning even though they acknowledg that single family might be problematic so to some extent was if someone wants to come in before the zoning board make an application make your case to the to the to the board so with that Foundation John if you what I'd like if you can and again I don't know if you're GNA do it now or if you come back but uh I think it's in important with that Foundation to indicate why in yourin opinion this site relative to other properties along the corter in the same side of the quarter which is the Mars Township side is sort of so particularly suited for this use sure and also similarly I think you need to provide a little bit more testimony on the the reconciliation under medich again why this site given the fact that the mass plan and Zoning remains ra7 and last the last thing is you talked a little bit about the density but I'd like you to just embellish that if you could because the density is more than double what the zoning allows it's just slightly over double uh and most of the residential on this side the same side of the street the density is pretty much consistent with the underlying ra7 so those three issues if you can address and again if it's if you're gonna come back that's great if you want to give it a shot now that's fine as well that's up to the board my sense is I'd like to see him come back uh testify on that because we are going to see more testimony from Mr Scher proba and all probability and uh there's all things that the uh applicant is going to provide to the board and given those more those uh submissions maybe it changes the nature of his testimony a little bit and I'd like to be able to benef have the board and the public benefit from that any other opinions on the board as far I think it'd be better to because that way the public can also have time to reply while it's fresh in front of them right so we're going to hold off on any questions from the public now as to this witness okay so when he comes back they can ask questions not only about the subsequent testimony but this testimony okay and you're responsible for reminding me of that good all right so with that where are we going have to select the next available date okay you out April I am not here in April and nor am I Paul's not here neighbor that will put us then on the next available meeting of may just May 20th what is it May 20th I have an application on March 25th we're making revisions to that application possible to put it on for that date in the event our revisions aren't done that way you do one or the other right yes in fact before you leave there's a letter here that uh we're g to go conclude this and then we'll address that letter yeah I don't see a problem with that I don't see a problem with that Carri to that that way if that one isn't ready I'll use that slot and we'll just make an announcement and then at the March 25th meeting if your other application proceedes and this one doesn't we'll make that announcement and members of the public could always call ahead Sonia and find out if it's on or not meeting yeah yeah so you want to be carried to March 25th meeting yeah so it would be either that application or the uing application all right yes okay yes no further yeah so for members of the public this meeting is being adjourned at this point it will continue perhaps on March 20 25th March 25th at 7 o'clock in this room I would suggest that you contact Sonia say a day or so well it's a Monday so that Friday before or that Monday morning and she can let you know if this application is actually being heard on Monday morning she said if it's being heard that night or if Mr Brady's other applic applic being heard if this application is not being heard on March 25th a new date will be assigned to it that night okay and you don't have to be here to find out the new date you can always make a call or check the agendas online or you get to watch us on YouTube or whatever this is on anymore I don't even know on Zoom so many things do we need any extensions um you need one I'll certainly provide it so why don't we extend through uh May 30th okay so censal to time through May 30th next hearing date here is March 25th at 7 o'clock in this room there'll be no further notices from the applicant about it I'll send a letter to thank you thank you thank you all right so that matter is concluded got a list homework items yes I can go over those with you tomorrow or whatever okay um so that matters concluded you're good I just yeah before we go to to whatever might be next you sent us a letter uh Dave on Ying saying uh extension of time to act until March 26 okay so not a new date just okay all right so just so we know on the 20 fifth if this isn't going forward we need an extension for that okay I think we're good all right okay thanks everyone you is that the one with the other attorneys involved no Spring Brook yeah that's Spring Brook no there that's the one with the add octagon the Octagon room they [Music] do okay much easier okay good and will we be hearing from Mr Vin uh the traffic cons that was one of the was he gonna write a report or Dave is gonna contact Mr Fishinger uh find out if he thinks the traffic reporter is uh requ they will communicate that to you as thank you okay have one other items was a draft of the um annual report annual report that's so you know just like what just happened here today made me write a note on your draft of your annual report to give it some thought um and that is you know the checklist items y right so as Sam brought up before um you know there was no P um application filed yet some towns require certain things from D at least an application be filed so you know it's at least moving along um and the other thing is that they didn't file a County planning board application and some towns require County planning board applications to be filed at the same time that the site plan is filed with the town so I mean you could give that some thought put it in your annual report and suggest to the township committee planning board to amend the checklist item so that those things happen right and we talked about having professional planners submitting reports in writing right we should include that also yeah especially with the D stuff because you know to know I dealt with um I Will's junkyard in morst toown on early Street and it took years to remed site years um to get no further action letter and so to to have some basis of understanding of how long could a remediation of this site take also influences your thoughts about hearing you know if it's going to be three years and we're making a decision now how much is that area going to change in three years we're seeing so much the project might be better heard and better for them to be heard after they've cleaned it right so I feel like it's important with these sites as we progress these types of sites the contaminated the steep slopes the last scraps that you can develop are going to be the ones that we're hearing more well yeah because that's all that's left exactly right have front be helpful yeah we're already there yeah yeah that's that's a good good thought yeah it's also going to fre up our time exactly alls exactly res that are pretty straightforward cases most correct right right because who knows what's underneath there right I saw that there's a test well out there so can we have the data can we have some data yeah just listed with d what is on the site dinosaures Le I me it is not within this board's jurisdiction it's strictly State D has complete jurisdiction over that and you know it's the applicant's choice to go forward with us first and if you can't get what used to be called no further action letter right if he can't get that then he'll have to come back with another plan maybe a commercial plan maybe a retail who knows because it's a different standard you know lower standard and would be for res so you know it's his he has to I'm just suspecting but he must have some level of comfort from his lsrp that they'll get it some reasonable time frame and remember when you grant the site plan and they file for preliminary and final they they would get two years of protection because it's final right for zone changes and they can get three consecutive one-year extensions for total five years against zone changes right so they would have it for five years and they it's been three of that with the D it may be but it's still then they have it and then they can go right right I'm just saying I think from our perspective let's say those three years were spent cleaning up and then we saw the proposal that makes it so that maybe in those three years the next door neighbors prop property turned into I don't know Walmart I don't know but change is happening rapidly in that Corridor and to make sure that improving something that is going to continue to be in line with what's happening in these areas um the way your checklists are now right application's complete and they submitted it we have to hear it can we make it or is this something that the governing body would have to decide is that governing it has bring the dirty site to one of our boards is that legitimate no okay because it's not in our jurisdiction okay you know but the governing body by ordinance can say um you know put it in a checklist and say you need to submit not necessarily have it approved already but at least submit that application yeah so that it's proceeding simultaneously and it's at least you have some comfort level at it's going I I'm not aware of any town that requires that though on the you what might be a dirty site you see it all time on D permits itself right um Wetlands that kind of stuff Lois but uh seen that a site that needs a clean up D but to requir it has to be on the checklist okay so I will good I yeah I will I will redraft this I was going to send a copy to you and to Sonia and after you approve it if I have to make any other changes then we can send it out to all rest of the board members okay for the next meeting yeah for the next back on the agenda yep put it back on the agenda great all right J you're allowed to make got now Mo have a second second all in favor I I