the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible Liberty Justice for All Beth can we have a roll call chairman we um we have to do the Sunshine La please we have a roll call oh sunshine well oh has this um has the meeting been called uh uh the planning board meeting been uh published in accordance with the Sunshine Law yes chairman it has okay we'll have a roll call now Mr algra here Mr Bolton here Mr Elm miss lman here Mr Müller here Mr Shaw here Mr ven councilman sabrowski here chairman Tha here Mr Cornell Mr Fowler here Mr sordillo here Mr pman here M here we have a quorum memorialization of no chairman we do chap in minutes none this evening communication agenda none this evening Mr saak the floor is yours actually Mr chairman before we get to there if I can just make uh two uh two announce or two accomplish two items one uh just so everyone on the board is aware uh we have received a copy of the transcript for this the prior hearing on this uh anyone who was not at the last meeting must review those transcripts and uh certify I will provide a certification for you that you've done so uh before you able to vote on this application um I'm not sure if we're going to get to a vote tonight but assuming um uh we do not uh I will need to have that um done you have to complete that and have that done before you're able to vote uh second we do have a um special uh professional on behalf of the board here this evening in connection with this application uh which who is a uh traffic uh Engineer Expert on behalf of the board and since he is is a special uh professional being uh presented just for this application we need to swear him in so in case any testimony he might provide in connection with this application raise your right hand do you swear or affirm the testimony you'll be giving tonight and any future hearings on this application will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do I do thank you that's all I have chairman thank you Mr Sax it's all yours yes uh thank you Mr chairman uh Lawrence Sachs on behalf of the applicant masit sa sadar house of worship uh if the board will recall we were here back on April 3 uh and that meeting was held over at the burrow council chambers um at that particular time we produced uh uh two witnesses um Mr Adnan Khan who is our professional engineer Who provided us uh basically gave a site layout uh covered all of the site amenities the site features uh the design of the parking lot uh and the actual site plan itself uh we also had our architect testify uh who testified as to the uh four elevations for this building and also a floor plan and incorporated into both of that both of those uh Witnesses we uh covered you know much of the operations that are proposed for this site um there were several questions that the board had at the last meeting uh that needed to be clarified uh one of the them was a question about the square footage of the building and maybe just for the record I will state what the proposed square footage is uh the first floor is 23,8 to square ft the second floor 13,460 Square ft and the third floor is 8,299 square ft uh the total building square footage is 448416 about uh whether or not we had contacted the uh Fire Marshall or if they had had an opportunity to review those plans uh shortly after that meeting we did provide a copy of the plans to your Fire Marshall uh my understanding is they're going to be issuing a letter uh to this board uh with any conclusions or recommendations uh from a fire safety standpoint um there was a question from the board about the possibility of obtaining uh or constructing sidewalk on erston road uh on our site front Ag and believe our engineer testified that that that is not something that the county was in favor of uh however I will indicate to the board and to the board's professionals uh that we're going to reintroduce that concept to the county uh because I think it is a good idea and if uh if we can get a sidewalk in we we'll do that as well uh and finally uh I think we had stated this on the record uh we would agree to do some type of vibration study uh prior to any construction uh which certainly could be a condition of any approval so where does that leave us this evening we we went into the engineering we went into the architecturals uh what I'd like to do this evening Mr chairman members of the board board professionals is I would like to uh get into the traffic which I'm sure uh the board is uh concerned about um and I have a witness here this evening uh my traffic engineer who will provide that testimony uh we also received the report from Mr Fishinger uh who is your board expert with respect to traffic and we're prepared to address uh some of the comments and questions that were raised in his report as well uh so Mr chairman at this point if I could have uh Mr William stimmel our traffic engineer sworn in I'll qualify him and I'll let him testify as to traffic studies and uh traffic on this site and offsite thank you Mr chairman if I may um will you please uh raise your right hand do you swear or affirm the testimony you're going to give this evening is the TR the whole truth and nothing but the truth please state your name and spell it for the record better yes did you get it you got it for the record okay oh state it again Mr William stimmel STI mmel thank you all right Mr stemel uh if you can give the board the benefit of your educational and professional background sure I'm a graduate of NJIT with a degree in civil engineering I've been employed for the past 25 years in the state of New Jersey as an engineer and a planner I'm a licensed engineer I've been licensed since 2004 I'm a licensed planner since 2010 both of those licenses are current I'm also a certified professional traffic operations engineer and have served as an adjunct at NJIT in the civil engineer in Department teaching a traffic and transportation design class Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion to accept his credentials second hi hi thank you Mr chairman thank you members of the board you all right Mr stimmel um I know that you've obviously prepared a comprehensive traffic study you've been out to this site on a number of occasions and if you could give the board uh the benefit of what you performed and what your conclusions and findings are uh certainly um thank you to the board of course um going to start off by reviewing the traffic study which was submitted August 8th of 2023 for the application all the board members have received copies of this um the study the the typical traffic study involves uh going out doing traffic counts at one intersection looking at it projections for the site generated traffic and applying that and then analyzing existing future conditions with the development future conditions with the development um this I think is a little bit atypical in terms of a traffic study first of all because I think whereas everyone is familiar with the apartments and gas stations and fast food restaurants and when they're busy and how they operate I think that the proposed mosque is probably something a little bit new for a lot of people so we spent a lot of time coordinating with the with the board's professional CME as well as with the county to develop scope for the traffic study um and and that was what was in the study that was originally submitted um and again revised through August 8th of 23 the other unusual piece of the puzzle with this application is the fact that the it The Institute of Transportation Engineers does not have a lot of good data published for this type of use um you know some of those other uses that I mentioned the gas station and so on you might have hundreds and hundreds of data points in the it trip generation manual whereas for a mosque you only have two so um the data is a little bit questionable so we were forced to rely on data um based on observations of the operation at the site when the mosque had been operating at the property as well as um a number of conversations with the the client for how they anticipate the facility to operate in the future so with that said um just a brief discussion of the existing site conditions uh the subject property is about 2 and 1/2 acres it's located along westbound ernston Road uh there's currently two single family residential structures and then a third structure which had been a residence had later been a professional office and was most recently used as the as the mosque each one of those sites or or combined between the three sites there's total of four full movement driveways um and that would be to the west of the intersection with Center Avenue so four fold movement driveways on the property under existing conditions the applicant proposes to demolish all of the structures on the subject property and construct a new mosque uh it's going to be somewhat centrally located a bit offset to the rear of the property there's going to be one full movement driveway at the Eastern portion of the site and one driveway which allows full Ingress and right turn only EAS at the Western portion of the driveway um they had been proposed at at one point to be both full movement and we had looked at various other access scenarios with the county and based on their feedback this is the uh the design that was moving forward at the time the traffic study was submitted both driveways were projected to be full movement though so that's what I'm going to talk about first um we have a schedule of events which was provided to To Us by the client just to briefly run through that uh there's typical regular daily prayers which occur five days a week five times a day seven days a week um you're talking about something along the lines of 15 to 30 Vehicles you've got the primary Friday afternoon prayers which was the focus of our traffic study I think it's um it's clear at this point that that is when the mosque is going to be at its busiest uh we anticipate two sessions with 60 to 90 vehicles occupying 60 to 90 parking spaces of course uh religious education on Sunday afternoons with approximately 32 children attending uh 32 Vehicles would enter the site but very limited use of the parking uh because the parents would generally drop off and leave uh the prayer for the deceased um something akin to a funeral service that that many people might be more familiar with obviously it occurs as necessary you'd have something along the lines of 60 to 100 persons attending uh 30 to 50 Vehicles 30 to 50 occupied parking spaces religious weddings again as needed typically on a Saturday afternoon uh these are a little bit smaller you'd have 20 to 30 persons attending with 10 to 15 vehicles and there would be no wedding receptions held on the subject property uh that was already stipulated to at the last meeting and and it's in the record and then finally family nights which would occur once a month on Friday nights with 90 to 100 persons attending uh because it's family oriented event we anticipate High occupancy of the vehicles um and only 25 or or so vehicle staying on the property for the duration so these are all scheduled events obviously the um there's some variation in the funerals and the weddings but they're planned ahead of time nothing nothing occurs spur the moment there's not a situation where two events are scheduled at the same time and certainly nothing else will be occurring during the same time as that Friday afternoon prayer service the other point which it's important to mention and and I guess this would be an appropriate time to do so is that the facility is not going to be an operation 24 hours a day um there was some discussion of that the last time and that is just not the case so uh typically the the daily prayer services which occur five times a day would Mark the beginning and the end of a regular day at the mosque with the the the earliest service being at 6:00 and the latest service being at about 8:30 the existing roadway Network in the vicinity of the site obviously the site fronts on erston road also known as County Route 73 it's under the jurisdiction of middle sex County there's one lane provided for travel in each Direction uh because of the fact that we're located along a County Road the county ultimately has jurisdiction over the site driveway and the driveway configuration Bordentown Avenue is the closest intersection to the West also known as County Route 615 again under the jurisdiction of middle sex County uh there are four driveways which intersect ernston Road along the Frontage um the uh three of them effectively operate as residential driveways and the one is a little bit wider with stripe turning Lanes uh the nearest intersection is ernston Road and Bordentown Avenue it's a four- leg intersection controlled by a traffic signal the Northbound southbound and eastbound approaches to the intersection each provide a left turn lane a through Lane and a right turn lane the westbound approach to the intersection which you'd be using if you made it right out of the site driveway provides a left turn lanee a through Lane and a shared through right turn lane uh there are two minor intersections along erston Road between the site Frontage and the intersection with bordon toown Avenue those being Parkway Place and Ruckers Road uh these are stop controlled intersections with the ernston road traffic having the right of way any sight generated traffic added to those intersections is anticipated to consist primarily of through traffic along ernston Road and will have a minimal impact on operations at these locations we did a number of traffic counts uh we did two separate sets of traffic counts with the submission of the initial traffic study the first set of traffic counts were done April 29th Friday April 29th of 2022 from 12:00 p.m. until 4 p.m. at the driveways for 216 ernston Road when the mosque was in operation um so that was done while school was in session the um I'm sorry can you repeat that date again the the first round of traffic counts that were done for this case were on Friday April 29th of 2022 from 12:00 p.m. until 400 p.m. so school was in session on that day I know that the the board members and the residents were concerned about collecting data while school was in session um and and it's also worth noting that the mosque was in operation at that time uh since been shut down obviously but at that time it was operating so we captured driveway volumes at the mosque under those previously existing conditions those time periods were selected to capture High volumes of Street traffic as well as high volumes of site generated traffic again we expect that the busiest time for the mosque is going to be that Friday afternoon prayer service uh based on those counts the existing peak hour traffic volumes at the mosque driveways were found to occur from 1: pm. until 2 p.m. which reflects the peak times for the Friday prayers at the request of the bo engineer that being CME Associates additional traffic counts were conducted at the intersection of ernston Road and Bordentown Avenue on Friday June 16th 2023 from 12: until 4:00 p.m. and again on Sunday June 18th 2023 from 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. so that Friday count was conducted on a day when there was no school although school was still in session clearly not an attempt to uh to pull any sub turf it was just a matter of uh we had some back and forth with the board engineer until we settled on a scope until we found a Friday when we had people available to count it that's just when it fell um you know we had already had the earlier counts while school was in session and we needed to collect additional data that included bord and toown Avenue both for the Friday peak hour but also for the Sunday peak hour um and rather than wait until the end of the summer and put the project on ice for 3 months we we did it when the opportunity presented itself uh that intersection was selected due to the orientation of site generated traffic at the site driveways when the mosque was in operation um so peak hour volumes for the intersection of ernston Road and Bordentown Avenue based on those June of 23 counts are appended to the traffic study as figure two representing the existing conditions we had also collected data at two other nearby mosques in the vicinity of the site to try to establish vehicle occupant rates meaning if you count 20 cars going into the mosque driveway for prayer services how many people on average are in each of those cars so we counted two mosques in the area one is the anjuman bhan mosque in East Brunswick the other is the daol islamia mosque and Somerset so one is a larger facility it has a footprint of about uh 15,000 square ft with a substantial parking area the other one is a little bit smaller and uh presents as a presents as a residential dwelling more or less it has uh two driveways and a parking lot at the rear but the occupancies per vehicle were uh very close for both of those two sites it was 1.82 persons per vehicle for the one and 1.88 persons per vehicle for the other so uh we took the existing traffic volumes we analyzed them utilizing Highway capacity software uh for the members of the public who aren't familiar this software takes different par parameters of an intersection Lane configuration traffic volume signal timing truck percentages um Etc and analyzes the delay at each approach and at each lane grouping and then assigns a grade based on that average delay on an A through f scale so it it's just like when you were in school a is the best and F is the worst so the analysis the existing traffic volumes for that study intersection are shown on the attached figure three as indicated the movements at the intersection operate at level of service C or D under existing conditions for that 1 to 2 p.m. period on a Friday afternoon site generated traffic volumes as I had said before there's not a lot of Industry data available for mosqu the it The Institute of Transportation Engineers has limited data at two sample sites and there was no data available through the do so the projections for future traffic volumes are B based on a comparison of existing volumes at the site uh in addition to what the client projects as a result of the proposed development So currently the site has currently previously in 2022 the site had had prayers once per afternoon during that Friday Peak period 150 Vehicles entered the site during the busiest hour of the Friday Peak based on those traffic accounts that were conducted in 22 and that day was selected because it repres presented a holiday uh for the uh celebrants and was anticipated to have higher volumes of traffic on that day than on a typical Friday um the again the uh Friday prayers are expected to be the peak of site generated traffic anticipated service attendance on Friday afternoons is expected to be no greater than 90 vehicles uh in the future the applicant if if the facility is approved will have two separate prayers on Friday afternoon thus splitting the traffic versus what had been previously occurring uh the board engineer was also concerned about the volume of traffic generated by the religious instruction for children on Sundays so that's why we also included the Sunday peak hour and the analysis of operations uh we anticipated 30 vehicles at the start of the session entering the site 30 Vehicles exiting the site at the end of the session thinking that parents would be likely to drop off their children and and run errands go home or whatever they do and then come back when it's over uh we didn't take any credit for the possibility or the likelihood in fact that you would certainly have siblings cousins neighbors uh that that might be inclined to carpool together to go to those religious education classes so the projected site generated traffic for both the Friday peak hour and the Sunday Religious Education Services were routed through the U through the adjoining intersection and through the site driveways based on the percentages of observed in June of 22 at the site driveways when the mosque was in operation so the projected site traffic volumes are shown on the attached figure four of the report um the uh CME had also asked that we look at data published for churches as a point of comparison uh using the assembly area of 19,943 Sunday peak hour um which is comparable I would say to what is anticipated for the proposed mosque although the church would experience its peak hours of traffic generation on Sunday morning as opposed to on Friday afternoon for the mosque future traffic volumes in order to account for background traffic growth in the area as well as other developments in sville existing traffic volumes were increased by a growth rate of 1% uh for a 2-year buildout period so it was 20 23 when the study was submitted through 2025 to develop the Future No build traffic volumes the 1% growth rate was selected Based on data published by the do for minor arterial roadways in Middle sex County so the future volumes without sight traffic with just the background traffic growth are shown on figure five of the report the future volumes with the site traffic and the background traffic growth are shown on figure six of the report so once again as with the exist existing conditions the Future No build and build traffic volumes were analyzed using the highway capacity software the results of those analyses are shown on figures seven and eight respectively uh there were no no changes when comparing levels of service for movements under existing no build and build conditions at the study intersections all movements at the site driveways were projected to operate at level of service B during both the Friday and Sunday Peak periods all of those all of those levels of service are shown on the figures at the end of the report they're also shown along with the average delay for each of the movements in the appended level of service delay table uh the applicant has agreed to hire an off-duty officer from the sville police department to control traffic at the site driveways during and after Friday prayer services as well as periodic events which are expected to have higher than typical attendance um per the results of these analysis the impact of site generated traffic on levels of service is negligible the parking Supply based on a review of a site plan prepared by awz engineering last revised February 3rd of 23 clearly the site plan has been revised several times since then the applicants required to provide 113 parking spaces for the combined place of worship gymnasium office and classrooms so that 113 spaces is based on the calculation for the assembly area with the requirement of one parking space per 250 Square ft where no seating is provided that's the calculation that the ordinance requires the applicant to use so the the higher requirement of 362 parking spaces I believe it was using one space per three seats it is not is not relevant here because there's not seating proposed in the assembly area um so 113 parking spaces are required 109 parking spaces are proposed we do need a variance based on that deficiency of four parking spaces just a reminder the gymnasium will not be in use when the prayer services are being conducted the parking required for the gymnasium constitutes 46 of the 113 required parking spaces um therefore we believe that the proposed parking Supply is adequate for the intended use of the property and would address the demand for parking on the property under the majority of conditions as far as site layout and circulation I think the site layout is uh generally compliant with the ordinance requirements uh the typical parking spaces on site measure 9 ft by 18 ft in accordance with engineering standards there's 6 ada8 parking spaces provided including two accessible spaces there's 24t wide aisles throughout the parking area and the provision of two access points allows for safe and efficient access to the site as well as uh relatively quick distribution of traffic to the roadway Network when the primary services are over um I do touch on the middle sex County review I noted that application materials have been provided to Middle sex County for review subject to County approval due to the fact that it's a County Road uh and it says at this point the county has not granted final approval um and they still have not granted final approval but we do have conditional approval for the uh for the driveways and the drainage um and the the site concerns in general for Middle sex County uh there's some technical comments that that remain outstanding but nothing that would impact the U the likelihood of obtaining an approval so that is the initial traffic study that was submitted all right thank you Mr stimmel uh let me ask you a question so you did the initial study was done in 2022 when the musque was still operational at that point correct all right and then you did another study in June of 2023 uh unfortunately school was not in session on that date and I think indicated the reason that you scheduled it them was just that was really when we determined what the scope of the review was going to be and that's when the counts could be done but not withstanding that you did another study as well in uh 2024 is that correct correct all right if you just want to just give the board the benefit uh of your findings with respect to that study that I believe was done in February is that correct uh it was submitted in March the traffic counts were done in February uh traffic counts were done uh March 1st actually I stand corrected um so we submitted an addendum to the traffic study March 12th of 24 there were two notable changes in that traffic study the first was that the Western driveway had been eliminated to eliminate had been modified to eliminate left turn egis movements based on direction from middle sex County the second change was that updated traffic accounts have been performed at the intersection of ernston Road and Bordentown Avenue while school was in session as recommended in the February 21st 20 24 letter from CME Associates so we performed updated traffic Accounts at the intersection of ernston Road and Bordentown Avenue on March 1 2024 from 12:00 p.m. until 400 p.m. um what we found is that during that 4-Hour count period the overall intersection volumes were 6.9% higher than those collected in June of 23 when school on that day when school was not in session specific to looking at the 1 to 2 p.m. window uh the peak hour count were 8.2% higher than in June of 2023 traffic at a given location uh can be expected to fluctuate within a range of plus or minus 10% on a daily basis without the impact of outside factors and by outside factors I mean uh snow construction special events detours traffic accidents things of that nature uh the updated counts completed were within that range but to address any concerns that the board and the members of the public might have related on school traffic we we did provide an updated analysis using the same methodology as in the Tia that was submitted uh revised through August 8th of 23 with the updated analysis contained in that addendum there were no changes to level of service at the intersection of ernston Road and Bordentown Avenue When comparing existing no build and build conditions uh there was no change in level of service When comparing the Friday peak hour based on the June of 23 counts or the march of 24 counts with one exception the exit movements at the Western driveway actually improve with the updated Counts from level of service C to B um I don't want to call it a trick it's something of an illusion because you take a weighted average of the delay for the left and right turn movements exiting the driveway when you take the left turns out they're assumed to take longer so all you're looking at is the delay for the right turn vehicle so there's really no change in levels of service as it shows in the in the addendum there is a slight Improvement for the egis movements at the Western driveway we had concluded in the August 8th 23 Tia that the proposed development will have minimal operations at the study intersection and site driveways the changes to the access configuration required by the county and the updated traffic counts did not certainly affect that conclusion okay um now since the last hearing that we had on April 3D uh we received a report from the board's uh traffic consultant uh Right View engineering Mr Fishinger who I know is here this evening and um I assume you've had an opportunity to review that and I'm assuming you're prepared to respond to that is that correct that is correct okay Mr chairman if you'd like uh I wouldn't mind and and if it's okay with with uh with your board professionals I'd like to go through the resp there are a number of comments and questions raised in that Bright View report and we'd like to at least put testimony on the record okay thank you all right so with that said Mr stemel if you can uh if if you want to just briefly talk about the comment that's made on the Bright View report and then your particular response to any questions that Mr Fishinger may have had certainly uh the letter from Mr Fishinger office is dated April 9th of 2024 uh there are a total of 13 comments related to I'm going to call it traffic operations and then an additional 14 comments related to uh site site plan issues circulation Etc I'm going to start off under the uh traffic impact study comment number one talks about the counts being conducted in in March of uh 24 at June of 23 uh noted that the counts are consistent with uh generally consistent with historic data in the area recommended that additional count data be collected to determine the traditional weekday morning weekday late afternoon weekday evening and Saturday midday peak hours on ernston road uh further recommended a 7-Day ATR style count uh We've counted the the site Frontage we've counted the intersection with bordon toown Road a number of times we've had extensive consultation with the the board professionals the the board's regular engineer CME Associates we've also uh gone through the review process and received conditional approval from the county uh certainly I I hope at this point we're all in agreement that the Friday prayer service is the peak time for operations at the proposed mosque um the the dot has collected traffic data along ernston road to the west of Bordentown Avenue uh which we can and review and summarize uh but at this point um you know we believe we've connected collected enough data to show what the operation of the site is going to be like uh the second comment is based on a recent visit on afternoon of Friday March 22nd the westbound approach to the traffic signal at ernston Road and Bordentown backs up past the site Frontage additional information SL testimony should be provided regarding uh regarding these backup so I had um uh we had collected the traffic data at the mosque in April of 24 when it was operational using uh video camera so I went back and looked at the video footage at the um at the location of the existing site driveway the eastern most driveway which would be the full movement driveway under proposed conditions it's approximately the same location um and what I found from watching five hours of video there is that generally speaking traffic is Flowing freely across the site Frontage um you get a handful of uh cues we're drowning out we can't have that we have to get this on transcript if you could please keep the laughter down I'd appreciate it thank you thank you quiet up so generally in the period for which we had video from 11:15 until 4:15 traffic is freely flowing across the site Frontage there were a handful of cues which extended across the property Frontage which could be could be certainly from the signal could be from school buses going by with the with the stop sign arm stopping traffic um could be from people waiting to make a left turn into one of the streets on the Oldbridge side of the road it could be for a number of factors uh but that was a a handful of times during that period there was a period of queuing when the uh when the mosque discharged their services again that was the the peak Friday service under a holiday condition there was only one service at that time so so there was a significant amount of traffic leaving the mosque but it the cars pulled out into traffic people generally stopped to let them out actually may have been easier to make left turns coming out of the driveways at that time because cars were slowing down for the Queue at that location uh but within 10 minutes let's say the queue from the mosque operation cleared it happened again later at the same time that the samsul elementary school dismissed and again it was um you know similar in nature I would say it lasted 10 15 minutes something along those lines there was A Rush of traffic leaving the school the light cycled through and and the traffic eventually cleared up so in terms of the cues from the light at ernston Road and bordon town backing up past the site Frontage um I I don't anticipate it interfering to any great extent with the operations of the site during those primary prayer services on Friday afternoons um on the occasions that it does it it doesn't apparently POS a safety issue because you've got a on Lane Road in each Direction so there's no there's no zigzagging between lanes to beat traffic or anything like that add in the fact that that the applicant again has stipulated that they would uh provide a uniform police traffic director at the property to help direct traffic I don't see an issue with it all right before you get to the next point so the uh at the time that the mosque was an operation back in 2022 it was one service and it was a full movement driveway obviously we're talking about an entirely different situation now with this proposal with obviously two services and restrictions on turns correct okay Mr chairman that's question what was the square footage of the uh the mosque back in April 22 I'm sorry what was the question what's the square footage of the mosque from April 2022 um not sure it was much smaller we know that we know that uh Mr chairman we're having difficulty with the transcript if we get any chatter from from anyone thank you we C we need to have silence we have to get this on transcript in case we need it so if you just keep it down I'd appreciate it you're doing a great job but we just it's what it is yeah and Mr stimmel how many is a handful for backups six six and what were the times uh I'd have to go back and look at my notes for that I can I can find it so six over the period of five hours of video aside from those two windows the one when the mosque discharged and the one when the school discharged but it was only a handful of times for record six yes okay all right Mr stemel if you want to respond to uh some of the other questions raised in the Bright View report sure just kind of move forward with the review for Mr Fishinger comment number three uh it includes an analysis of the intersection of ernston Road and Bordentown Road for Friday between 1: and 2 pm uh based on and then it goes onto a discussion of some of the different data sets that were provided um and asked for clarification and justification for the use of the 1 to 2 p.m. Friday midday peak hour that was selected as it was the time period that represented the peak of traffic based in the original traffic counts um certainly we could update that we've got a number of different data sets and I think um assuming which is fair that we're not going to complete this application tonight we can coordinate with Mr Fishinger in the inter room and settle on what he believes is an appropriate peak hour uh annual background traffic growth uh comment number four in December of 2023 the do published an annual background growth rate table which increased the traffic growth for urban minor arterials to 2.75% so dot publishes data with background traffic growth rates for different kind of roadways based on counties based on urban and rural locations when the traffic study was originally prepared and submitted that data reflected a 1% growth rate for urban minor arterials in Middle sex County which is how they classify ernston road so that's what was used in the study um they they've since updated their data it now shows 2.75% generally speaking we don't have any issue with updating the report to reflect this I I would note and this gets into the next comment I contacted the sville zoning department and the Oldbridge zoning department and there are no other developments in the area which are expected to anticipate which are expected to impact traffic operations along that section of ernston road so nothing in planning that they're aware of and nothing under construction right now um the other part of that is that those background traffic growth rates for the purposes of a traffic study are assumed to occur whether or not this application moves forward so when you're comparing the no build and build volumes for the future conditions you're you're raising both sets so the difference between the two um doesn't change so it to some extent gets lost in the uh in the background noise when you're looking at it comment number six uh talks about the 150 Vehicles entering the site for the Friday prayers on a holiday Peak period um it would probably be more precise to say that 150 Vehicles enter the site during the busiest 1 hour leading up to those Friday prayers so again that's with the provision of a single service on the property and again with the fact that it was holiday traffic uh comment number seven um I touched on this a little bit already talks about the limited it data for mosques the Tia conducted traffic Accounts at other facilities to determine the average vehicle occupancy um and you know I I talked a little bit about that how they compare to the of the site since it's a rate it it's not a it's not a total number it's not the total number of trips in and out of the site not the total number of parking spaces occupied um we didn't feel we felt that proximity and environment was more important necessarily than than matching all the facilities between the two sites and what the data showed is that that is essentially true the the large site with the extensive parking and the smaller site um in the context of a a residential dwelling is the way it presents from the street have roughly the same occupancy per vehicle uh comment number eight the Tia States a maximum of 90 vehicles are anticipated to enter and exit the site on a typical Friday midday prayer service uh additional data as to how that is how that was determined shall be provided um that was provided Based on data provided from the client uh looking at the previous oper op ation of the mosque on the property and anticipating that that congregation if you will is going to stay largely intact so that the the people that were going to the site in 22 were going to be the same people that were going there in 2024 at the April 3r 24 planning board hearing testimony was provided that none of the amenity space would be utilized during scheduled prayers um certainly we are all in agreement with that the the primary prayers when they're occurring will be the only thing that's happening on the subject property the uh mosjid the the people who run the mosjid will have control over the operations um and certainly it's going to be one one thing at a time it's not going to be all all uses occupied and and in use at once yeah and if I could just comment on that I I don't know if Mr Fishinger or Mr Cornell want us to provide some type of statement as to when those uses will be in in service obviously it's not going to be when Rich activities occur and just to clarify that was the intent of this comment is I understand that you're not going to have a basketball game at the same time as prayer but then when are you using the basketball court the running track the other parts of the site that's fine we we can provide that um the the trip generation estimates for the entire facility should be provided for the weekday morning evening Saturday midday time per periods based on the requested schedule of activities um should include estimates for the classroom space multi-purpose Hall exercise area and so on um you know to a degree we have provided that already it was included in the additional traffic study I believe some testimony had been provided at the last hearing with regards to operations Beyond those Friday prayer services but we can fine-tune that and and resubmit uh for the board's consideration comment number 11 trip distribution uh it appears from the information provided that the trip distribution for the site is based on the count data collected in April of 22 um that is certainly correct uh additional information and testimony should be provided regarding the applicability of using a peak event distribution for a typical prayer service well the people that that go to church on Christmas are the same people that go to church on a on a regular Sunday uh you know we have data at the site when it was operating as a mosque I I don't know that providing a projection based on population studies of the surrounding areas would would give you anything more concrete than what we already have uh Capacity Analysis um and some of this is sort of restating the earlier comment I think about the additional Peak periods uh we've been through this extensively with CME and the county we provided data at times of day and days of week uh which we think reflect the peak periods for the mosque um and you know it's up the up to the board to determine whether whether they feel that is sufficient or not uh number 13 talks about the cues again then it starts with the site plan oriented comments uh the first comment under parking the plans indicate a parking requirement of 377 spaces calculated using one space per three occupants based on room occupancy 377 spaces is more people than they have in the congregation um you know the the I went through this before but the calculation based on the square footage of the assembly space is appropriate given the context here as there's no defined seating uh and when you use that calculation you come up with a requirement of 113 parking spaces we're providing n parking spaces but for that critical Friday prayer service there's going to be two sessions so effectively it's going to operate as 218 parking spaces um so in to the extent that a variance is needed um you know that would be the justification for it along with the fact that that parking calculation still at 113 spaces includes those other uses like the the gymnasium and the calculation which takes up a a significant portion of that requirement right and Mr stimul obviously you're the planner in this uh application as well I'm assuming you'll be covering that in your plan testimony as well yes we'll we'll be revisiting the parking I'm sure when we get to the planning testimony uh comment number two under parking notes that the it parking generation manual has very limited parking data for mosques with an average parking rate of uh 2.38 spaces per 1,000 square feet this results in a requirement of 95 parking spaces um obviously 900 parking spaces is well beyond anything we would reasonably ever expect to see associated with this congregation they already hold their bigger Events off campus either at the high school or the uh war memorial uh uh War Memorial High School or the park uh depending on weather conditions um 9005 is is far beyond what's going to be on this property uh you know the he acknowledges that the it data is based on smaller fa facilities um we don't feel that it's appropriate for the proposed use um based on the analysis of the 20 April 22 data 180 Vehicles were on site between 130 and 145 p.m. additional testimony shall be provided how parking will be accommodated during Peak events such as the one counted in April of 22 as 109 parking spaces are provided um so so the wait lost my place uh so again April 22 data holiday traffic at the mosque with a single Service uh we anticipate that the traffic on a typical Friday afternoon will be much lower and the site will be providing two Friday afternoon Services effectively splitting the demand between them um comment number four before you get to comment four let me just so let me just follow up on comment number three on parking so the data that you collected on April 20 22 was one of the major religious holidays uh in the Muslim religion is that correct correct all right and I know you read the transcri from the last hearing but we've we've already committed to the fact that uh that type of event will not occur on this site it will either occur at the seille war memorial or it'll occur at a park in fact I think for that particular holiday it's going to occur at the park so is that your understanding understood yes I think I I mentioned that but in case I didn't uh the the larger events the the holidays festivals special occasions uh will be held off site at the high school or the park Mr chairman can I ask you a question please so in April 2022 you had a large uh ceremony Service uh at the smaller facility from the client like we like to hear why would you not have it at your larger facility why because first of all that was one of the recommendations of your staff and secondly that's something that since the mosque has been closed uh that's what we've been doing we've I think it's Eid and one of the other holidays have occurred have occurred offsite and we have committed to that I believe we made that certainly that commitment at the last hearing as well okay Mr chair may I have question uh Mr siml you uh mentioned 113 parking spaces were needed in your view the ordinance I believe requires 377 and the IT 6th edition parking generation manual would require I think 9005 so I don't understand how you calculate your 113 and and to if I could further the question is IT industry standard to base your engineering on what a client tells you versus some kind of code uh building code or industry standard certainly not um the S say that again please certainly no no I think he's going to provide you with an answer I thought he said certainly something else yeah oh sorry um no certainly not I I mentioned that right at the beginning typically we rely on data published by the it in a publication called trip generation it's on I believe the 11th Edition now we also rely on data published by the do for various types of land uses uh the it data for mosques is limited to two sites which were much smaller than the proposed facility uh the dot didn't have any published data for a mosque so can I ask you the size of the facility in the study pardon in the it the two the two cases you referenced yes what the what were their sizes I don't have that number at my fingertips to less than 10,000 square ft and we'd like to know how many parking spaces those two facilities had well I think Mr St before you go further when you're talking about the historical data you're talking about historical data that's in the Institute of Transportation Engineers manual correct which is not necessarily applicable to a site in New Jersey per se because that's a national publication and secondly you did do uh counts at other facilities in New Jersey that are operational did you did you not we uh so first things first I'll defend the it a little bit um you know if you get 10 traffic studies for 10 different uses I would say that 10 out of 10 are going to use that it data except for the rare circumstance where you have something like this where they don't have a lot of data um just looking at my notes the it provides parking data in parking generation they're they're two separate Publications trip generation and parking generation which was updated in October of 23 the parking generation references a sample size of three sites with an average area of 4700 Square ft of floor space so that has a uh parking requirement of 2.38 spaces per th000 square ft and I think that's where the calculation of 900 and five comes in the other number that I referenced was based on the sville ordinance and I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it right now because I've got about 200 pages of notes um uh parking requirement for house of worship one for each three seats where the specific amount of seating is undetermined then one parking space shall will be required for each 250 square ft of assemblage area so there's not defined seating in the in the prayer areas the the congregation Hall when we had submitted an earlier version of the site plan we had based the parking calculation I believe correctly off of that requirement for one space per 20050 ft of assemblage area plus the gymnasium plus the office and so on and that's where the 113 came from I think that the 300 some number is U far beyond what the applicants going to require better of course than the the 900 number from the it data but that's what the that's what that is based on so separating that issue from the chip trip generation we did have traffic data collected at the existing site when it was in operation the size of the building is going to be a lot bigger but the congregation is going to be the same the congregation is anticipated to move from the old site to the new site it's not um it's not a gas station it's not a fast food nobody's going to decide to stop in here for Friday prayers because they opened a shiny new location these are the people that are in the area it's drawn from the surrounding area I was just again for the purity of the record we thank you Mr chairman okay I didn't mean to cut you off Mr stemel so why don't you finish what you were saying I'm sorry so that's how we arrived at the data we used in prep ation of the study we do have data collected at two other sites which we could um the the one is more of an Apples to Apples comparison that was the the larger of the two properties where we collected data uh we could take a look at the trip generation and the parking demand for that and um uh confer with Mr Mr Fishinger prior to the next meeting uh to see if he felt that that data was appropriate and and one other point that just so the record is clear when you talk about the fact that traditionally there are no seats in a mosque there are no seats in the mosque is that correct that's my understanding and in fact the prayers occur on a Prayer mat so therefore you're basing the parking calculation the required number of parking spaces is then based upon the square footage taking into consideration those prayer mats yes okay why don't we proceed I know this some other comments that Mr Fishinger had uh I lost track you know what number I was on I think we were Let's see we were four number four four four under parking UH 60 to 90 cars was based on information provided by the client the capacity of two persons per car is slightly higher than the uh data collected at other sites uh but assuming an occupancy of 1.85 persons per car which was the average of the two ites where I collected data at 60 to 90 uh vehicles equates to 111 to 167 uh persons number five under parking uh the ti assumes 90 vehicles in and 90 vehicles out during the Friday midday Peak since two services are proposed please provide justification on how the proposed 109 space parking lot will accommodate both Friday prayer sessions especially during the 30 minute period between sessions when one is ending and the next is beginning uh the services are relatively short they're in the middle of the day the the half hour between sessions is expected to be more than enough to to clear out the property um you know I I think this is a not uncommon situation at other houses of worship uh churches and things where they have multiple services in a given day um the uh the next comment additional information or testimony should be provided uh regarding the tandem parking spaces under the building uh the tandem parking is limited to six spaces in the underground parking area so three sets of three pairs of two parking spaces uh those are intended for use the the interior spaces will be used by the Imam and the mosque staff so they will linger a little bit after the services is over and those won't won't turn over uh site plan internal circulation comment seven uh sheets nine and 10 of the site plans include vehicle turning templates for the site including a passenger car garbage truck s30 delivery truck and fire truck uh we recommend that the Turning plans be revised to eliminate overlapping paths as it is difficult to review uh we have no issue with making that revision and we'll provide number eight based on the information provided it appears that the garbage truck and the s30 truck cross the driveway Center Line to complete their Maneuvers um that is uh that is true that does occur obviously the the garbage truck and any deliveries to the site are going to be occurring outside of peak hours essentially when the site is empty um we we have the driveway configuration that we have based on a number of meetings with the county uh as well as CME Associates um th this truck encroachment with the exiting maneuver is going to occur on a very limited basis and and believe it's a better design choice to keep the driveways the way they are and again this is something that the county has given conditional approval to and none of those conditions relate to the configuration of the driveways I should add uh comment number nine additional information and testimony should be provided regarding the likelihood of school buses or charter buses be on the site uh and the site layout should be re re redesigned accordingly to accommodate buses um well all right um I'll I guess I can comment on that point right now we don't anticipate having any buses uh certainly Mr Fishinger I guess we could we could have that conversation with you if there's an area that we could designate as a drop off area for any buses in the future I'm sure we can probably provide that comment number 10 relates to additional turning templates we can provide that uh comment number 11 says the site plan should be revised to accommodate the left turn prohibition cited in the March 12th Tia update a concrete island is recommended to discourage left turns out of the site at this location um we don't have any issue with providing it obviously subject to County approval so we need to get County buyin on that driveway modification uh justification for the need for two driveways shall be provided uh pair of oneway driveways may be more appropriate for the proposed use um and again and I know I've said this a dozen times we've had a lot of meetings with the county we were back and forth with the driveway configurations we looked at um you know one in one entrance driveway one exit driveway we looked at limiting left turns out of the site we looked at the deceleration Lane we looked at a plethora of options and this is what ended up being proposed we felt that the uh the driveway configuration and I believe the county concurred on this uh was the best option to allow site traffic to disperse quickly to promote safe and efficient access to all areas of the site to improve circulation and in the in the occasion that this would occur to allow for a second access point in case of construction or emergency situations um comment number 13 talks about the connection between the sidewalk along ernston Road and the front of the site I I think Mr Sax already indicated that the client is willing to provide this subject to County approval comment number 14 uh talks about monitors during the Friday services to direct traffic on site um and then goes on to mention also the police traffic control on site every Friday so there's two separate groups there there's the police traffic director who would be uniform police officer directing traffic from the roadway the second is the monitors on site directing people within the subject property as to uh where they can park where there's parking available where the where the lot is full and so on so the police in the roadway mosque staff or community members within the interior of the site all right and Mr uh stimel I guess of course those monitors could be trained it's obviously know what proper Public Safety would be with respect to the internal circulation is that correct sure I think um you know there there's uh traffic glasses available for construction workers to direct traffic at construction sites I'm sure there would be something available for this type of situation okay so uh I believe you've covered Mr Fishinger report um is there anything else you need to add at this particular Point Mr stemo with the understanding that the planning testimony will be separate and later that that's everything I wanted to say in terms of the traffic hi right Mr Sax I have a question for your uh sure expert got 180 spaces Friday afternoon I got a cop out front directing traffic to get 140 people to come to the first one and 40 for the second one what do we do fair question uh we've got 109 spaces proposed uh just to just to clear it up for the sake of the record um you know we anticipate a relatively even distribution uh it's just going to depend on what works best for people schedules but if the situation arises where we've got more people attending one service than the other then there will have to be direction from inside the community to to shift to one or the other and Mr chairman let me just let me just follow up on that point as well um we do have the availability of parking on the other at the church which is located I think in Oldbridge if I'm not mistaken uh if necessary St bernardet up the hill okay quite a walk right and um that's something we're going to we're going to provide some type of uh letter from them uh indicating that uh that Arrangement can occur and uh reciprocally uh they would be able to use our site if necessary during Christmas Easter whatever might be necessary right any questions from the board sir yeah specifically in the question was asked about Will police be used every Friday during the service and I don't think that question was answered by your engineer Mr stimo yes that's my understanding there will be police every Friday during those Peak Friday afternoon Services expensive Mr chairman um just Mr Sy you just on question number question number nine uh you you indicated that uh you would provide um access for a um a buses to go through it would that traffic pattern take away any uh parking places you're talking about uh Mr Bon you're talking about if we had a designated drop off zone for for the parking I don't know but again we don't anticipate having any buses coming to the site uh St bernardet is close enough that pedestrians will be able to access our site from their site double check um last testimony you said they' be shuttling from ues on the weekends when the school's closed so what shuttle would you using no I don't I I think we spoke about the fact that there would be off-site services for for the holidays for Ramadan I believe we spoke about that yes for Ramadan we may have to have parking off site shuttle over to this so what type of the question would be where would your drop off be can the bus can the bus navigate through the parking lot yeah we're going to have to look at the plan and see what kind of revisions we can make or Mr Khan if you want to respond to it now I need to you're still on the RO okay yeah I I think like first of all I believe that was a biggest concern by the county as well when we were designing this thing like what kind of uh vehicles are expected and uh it my understanding that we are not an anticipating any buses however in the front we have a room along the drive while that we can do a temporary pick up and drop off without uh sacrificing any parking so if needed we can provide temporary short-term drop off pick up and drop off uh Mr saaks can we just please I know this witness has already been um sworn in and testified but can we just identify who just spoke for the record and uh confirmed that he understands he's still under oath I I will Mr sillo yes that that was Mr Adnan Khan who testified at the April 3rd 2024 meeting he's a licensed professional engineer he's the project engineer who prepared the site plan um and Mr Khan just to follow up and again I think I told you you were still under oath you'll continue to be under oath for the duration of any of these hearings um we could provide some type of small detail on the site plan showing where that's located yes we can any other questions from the one other question Mr U Mr Silva uh in your calculations down the road about a half mile down the road at the intersection of Bordentown Avenue and Chiefs Quake Road they just redesigned the intersection to accommodate the truck the future truck traffic coming out of the three new warehouses on Cheesequake Road have you in your calculations included or anticipated any of that traffic volume at the intersection of bord toown and erston Road I'm sorry where was the location of the warehouse okay there are all right that's enough okay there were just three new warehouses built on Cheesequake Road and they Cheesequake they just redesigned the intersection of Cheesequake in Bordentown Avenue to accommodate the trucks that are going to come out of that facility and obviously go up or down Bard toown Avenue have you included those calculations in your intersection at the ernston road we performed our latest traffic counts on March 1st so about two two months ago uh were they was The Warehouse open at that time because I contacted the uh zoning department in sville and the zoning department in Oldbridge and they they told me that there were no new developments in planning or under construction which would impact traffic along ernston road in front of our site and they were obviously warehouses that we're talking about are going to have a certificate of occupation within a month or so they're built they're ready to go they're just waiting for the the okay so of course you hadn't right and Mr chairman just uh my knowledge of what probably was in the deliberations I don't know if it was a zoning board application or a planning board application sounds like it may have been planning board since you're all familiar with it uh we're going to take a look look at those traffic reports that were provided because that usually indicates the distribution of how traffic is going to be distributed where it's going to go Etc so I appreciate you're providing us with that information we'll look into that and if we can get copies of those reports uh I'm sure Mr Cornell can probably provide him for us so Mr chair go ahead um help me understand something in your site plan there's a parking analysis and in that parking analysis it says that 324 spaces were required for place of worship and I believe that was based on one space for each three seats and you indicate on there 973 seats so you take 973 divided by three and that gives you 324 spaces needed that was on your site plan so what's changed and that's 113 now nothing has changed the earlier site plan referenced the calculation based on the square footage of the assembly hall because the sville ordinance states that where fixed seating is not provided it should be based on one per 200 square 250 square fet based on the size of the Assembly Hall So based on the review of the ordinance I believe that's the appropriate standard to apply and again that takes into account the the gym and the office and the other space within the building as well well on the on the uh parking analysis and again this is your site plan this isn't a document that any any of our experts generated but this is on your site plan you indicate 973 seats what is that based on it's not my site plan uh just to be clear I'll I'll give it to Mr Khan uh the parking analysis that we did like uh based on the ordinance the ordinance says uh either let me just read it place of worship one space per each 250 square fet or uh uh one space for each three seats whichever is greater so in our case like I mean again we until we get the actual occupancy of the building from the Fire Marshall we anticipate like based on the size of the Assembly Hall you can probably have an occupancy close to 900 plus parishioners so what we did is we took that higher number and then divided by three and we came up with 324 spaces Okay so so that was based on the anticipated occupancy of the uh worship area that is correct okay so why doesn't that apply why does 113 apply why why are we now basing it off the square footage as opposed to the occupancy of the uh place of worship I I may have a different version of the ordinance that Mr Khan does the the text that I quoted where the specific amount of un seating is under determine then one parking space shall be required for each 250 S ft of assemblage area so there's no fixed seating in the assembly hall for the place of worship so that's why in my professional opinion I believe it's appropriate to use the requirement based on the square footage based on the text of your ordinance so you're going to ignore the potential occupancy of the worship area and base it off square footage and this is occupancy based on your planner I'm the planner based upon on your client's planner the based on upon your application yeah for clarity I I understand what you're saying the Assembly Hall has no fixed seating therefore there's no seats where the specific amount of seating is undetermined it's undetermined then one parking space shall be required for each 250 square ft that is my professional opinion the calculation that should be used and setting aside the fact that there's only 300 people in the congregation regardless of whether or not everyone attends on a given Friday so Mr stimo just could we go back to my earlier question because I I still don't feel like I have a clear answer do you base your engineering on a code or industry standard or do you base it on what your client says whether it's a religious use or a building or a store you based it on what you're told will be the it's the store customer base again again I i' I've answered this question several times now I used the best available data in this case the best available data as there was no industry data was the information regarding the operation on the subject property when it had been opened in in 22 and the data provided by the client as to what they expect the anticipated occupancy of the site to be and there so there's no other cases you could have referenced in the entire country to base your data on so it's it's a just a general question we could look at other mosque sites we did collect some data at other mosque site but the intention for that to address a specific comment from the board's engineer was to find out the occupancy of vehicles at those other mosque site we could go back and look at that data and try to parse that and come up with a correlation between the size of the assembly hall for those buildings and the size of the assembly hall for this building but as I had said before I don't believe that's entirely an accurate way to project the traffic for the site I think part part of the issue with it is that you're you're not talking about a typical business um you're you're not talking about a gas station or a restaurant it's not going to be drawing traffic from the existing roadway people that are coming here are coming here with a purpose there are people that were going here in 22 because it was the closest available mosque where they could do their their Friday prayers and that is going to be largely the same I mean is there going to be some fluctuation in the congregation over two years I'm sure there will be a little bit but the the thought on the applicant side and I believe it to be accurate here is that the the congregation is the congregation if uh if when this application is approved the growth will be slow it's not going to be like you uh you open up a new fast food place and you've got a line of 50 cars out onto the state highway because it's the hot new thing I it just doesn't work that way I don't know Mr chairman it's a beautiful rendition I would hope to see something like this is well used and well received by all the congregation and people come from the other areas to come see this well that's yes in theory that's great however I think we can all accept and acknowledge the fact that there have been a number of mosques that have been built in surrounding towns over the last few years uh for instance Oldbridge recently had an approval for a new mosque um there's another one in South River um so you know unfort years ago there weren't too many mosques quite frankly in in central New Jersey there was one in Piscataway uh there was one in North Brunswick there was one in South Brunswick um but over the last few years there have been more mosques have been built um I think the point is is that the congregants who go to the mosque or were going to the mosque back in 2022 before it closed down and are now going to this mosque which is now located elsewhere in sville are going to be the same ones who are going to go to that mosque if this board approves this application when it's built um I mean it's just like any other house of worship and I think Mr yeah and and I'll get in a second on on but um I think Mr stimel has indicated that it is not a commercial use it's uh it's not a fast food restaurant it's not located on Route 9 it's not going to get pass by traffic it's a house of worship that's what it is plain and simple um Mr Khan if you want to add anything yeah I just want to give my experience like I've been in involved in over close to 15 MKS in New Jersey and quite a few in Oldbridge I think two or three which is next on over uh again the based on my experience and again I don't know how much it's applicable here based on my experience the mosques are started in a town because of necessity because the closest mosque is like few miles away and again the parishioners are looking for convenience so I would say except for Friday of course people with in the area might be coming to attend the Friday prayers but 95% of the time it's the residents because it's the closest to them and again if the congregation grows and just like in Oldbridge there are like three three Mosk and I think two of them are I'm still work working for S plan approvals for two additional mask because as the congre congregation grow congregation grows they they understand the limitation of the mask that they are going to and then what they do is like they start find a place and uh try to get an approval for a new mask so that's my experience based over like last 20 years John yeah thank you Mr chairman Mr saaks actually I do think it is relevant uh for contextual purposes when you do bring up two uh two examples of other mosques so what I would ask and I know you probably don't have this information available but I really would and I think I think we would all like to know the building sizes of the MOs that were used as example the size of their membership the park capacity and any any amenities that they may have as well that may provide some context for this application i' appreciate it councilman I think it's it's a good suggestion and I was just talking to my traffic expert and and we will provide that for you thank you I have a second question uh when the 2022 study was performed while the mosque was still in operation was there any data in reference to the amount of traffic from the parking that would cross over ernston Road and onto Route n to the route 9 Direction in other words um not traffic that flow down to ernston down to ernston down to Bordentown but that traffic that would cross over and up to route nine in terms of cars leaving our site and making a left yes correct yes that was counted in the in the 22 study could you just remind me if you know what that number was uh the percentage was about 15 to 20 Vehicles I'd have to go back and look at the original counts to to give you the the number and how what would that be representative of a percentage coming out for each um service it it was uh is that about 30% no no 15 to 20% of cars made left out of the site D because I thought you said 15 or 20 cars that's why I was asking so I just wanted to clarify is it percent or cars percent okay thank you and uh one last question uh if you know where is the nearest crosswalk on ernston road from uh if they're coming and they're walking from St bernardet I don't believe there is one you probably have to go to the go to the county I would imagine to get one approved at that location is that something that the applicant would do certainly okay thank you and I think if it if it came to the point where the the sidewalk was connected uh the sidewalk connection was provided as some of the some of the board members had com mented on and the board's traffic expert I think at that point the county would probably want to see the crosswalk anyway thank you Mr stimel I just a few more questions U I understand how you're interpreting the ordinance and I understand what the the perspective occupancy is of the worship area and um this board has to look at not what the current congregation is but what how how it could grow what what's going to happen in the future um my question to you is you would agree with with me though that if there's not enough parking at the site let's just say you do need um 200 spaces uh and there's only 109 and you have 150 cars that are trying to get into that site you agree that that parking is going to have an issue on the traffic near the site right that lack of parking correct I I'm sorry no you're you're good oh just sorry keeping the noise down chair chairman had his hand up I thought he was telling me to no no no the um so I think there's two issues there uh the parking lots at capacity the the monitors that are in the parking lot are going to have to put up sandwich board or something equivalent by the driveway to show that the parking lot's closed and I think the police traffic director would know about it the applicant has agreed to uh move the the major events side and the other holidays off site to the school or uh to the high school or to the park which I think eliminates some of that concern and then there's also the provision of um off-site parking at St bernardet with the reciprocal agreement that Mr saak was talking about so I think um you know between those ideas I think it addresses the issue of the need for overflow parking um nobody wants to create a safety situation and and we don't believe that that we have in fact we think that the pro proposed parking Supply will meet the demand under the majority of circumstances the um sixth edition it parking generation manual do you find that authoritative it yes and no you know if you have a 100 data points then certainly if you have two or three data points then less so have you ever relied upon it in your expert capacity oh I had said before the the it data parking generation trip generation I use it all the time it's the the basis for the majority of traffic studies out there but you know it it as with anything it says say that the uh in one of the first pages of the book it says that you have to use Sound Engineering judgment when applying the data because not all data sets are created equal so again if you have 100 data points versus two or three you're you're on a lot more sound footing with 100 and in the ordinance the section that talks about one space for each three seats do you interpret that to be one parking space per three people assuming that there's one person per seat it says where the specific amount of seating is undetermined so I don't I don't take it that way I take it to be based on seating so if you're thinking of a Catholic Church like I'm used to you count the number of seats or count the number of uh pews and and base the calculation that way okay the assumption is you're going to have one person in one seat aside from infants I would I would assume yes okay thank you couple of questions for Mr siml so in the 113 parking spaces that you mentioned does that account for anticipated background growth for the next five years or 10 years the uh the the background growth that we were talking about relates to the volume of traffic along the street uh in terms of the growth of the congregation Mr Khan just spoke about this a little bit but it's anticipated that the the congregation is essentially what it is the the growth is pretty limited um you know people are Bor people die people move in and out of the area and so on but it's not something that that really draws Beyond a fixed area uh the demand if if the the population if the demographics in the area change such that there's need for additional mosque capacity there will be another mosque at another location is the U is the understanding so um you know the the parking Supply is sufficient for the use of the site based on our review of the application if the the size of the congreg were to double it wouldn't necessarily it wouldn't likely mean that we would provide double the parking it would mean that there would be another mosque created somewhere uh further down the road and my second question is like you said if you make an arrangement with st bernardet where your parishioners would be crossing the road and coming over have you accounted that in your traffic study how that'll stop the traffic from flowing on un Road well you know again I think it goes back to the police traffic director I think they're going to be cognizant of people crossing the road uh there were a few people crossing the road under those counts that I watched the the video of from 22 uh they you know they didn't really seem to have a problem with it um there's a lot of traffic certainly but there there were gaps in the traffic and then if the traffic was stopped by the queue uh they would just sort of squeak through we don't certainly Advocate jaywalking but it was something that was observed under an existing condition Mr s uh just one followup and know this could be directed to to everyone not I don't know if you're going to be able to answer this but um is everyone who comes into worship have to have a prayer rug no okay that would not be a question for me okay yeah no they're not usually the prayer area is all carpeted with the prayer spaces marked it's not one one one uh parishioner worshipper needs a ro what's the what's the correlation as to you usually it's a carpet wall to- wall carpet with the some um what do you call architectural or religious design on it designating a prayer space for each individual person but it's a wall toall carpet it's a c custom carpet that is like uh been kind of like laid order to designate each space okay so it's not that everyone has to come in with their own prayer carpet it's already in okay it's already in understood thank you Mr chman one one second go ahead well well Mr chairman just before we go on because I know our traffic engineer has a lot of questions I just want to clarify if I may Mr chairman just couple testimony items that were there um just to for the record keeping purposes um uh one was uh and I understand um and this is also to help with the board I think um I think we've we've talked about I think most of the board members understand now but our our ordinances provide for these places of worship two ways of calculating traffic uh parking requirements one is based on seating and one is based on uh the uh square footage of the worship space so what I understand and this is where I'm I'm just want to clarify the record is that the calculations that the traffic uh expert has been testifying to when he came up with the 113 spaces is based upon the uh not the number of seats but the square footage of traffic spaces correct being one being the requirement of one space for 250 square feet correct now for my purposes my question to follow up on that is to get to the 113 spaces what was the square footage you utilize for that calculation because I know there's been some you know back and forth as to the total square footage of of of uh worship space I just want to make sure the record's clear as what was the square footage utilized to calculate the 113 spaces I would have to go back and uh pull my notes for that I I don't have that number at my fingertips okay uh if we can just uh Mr Sax we can have that information because I think it's important to understand because then the board will then understand what the square footage of the of the actual worship space is being is being considered for uh use when he came up with the parking calculations sorry yes clarify the ordinance for me is it seating fixed seating or seating it's just provides seating so that uh so we have seting here today nothing's fixed do we base it on chairs that you could bring in how can you clarify I I would have to defer to our engineer as to um whether or not that's that's you know considered fixed seating or just seating my my understanding is a seating so if you know depending on even if it is folding chairs or moving chairs it's based on the permitted seating but I will defer to uh our engineer on answering that question just just for the record I mean I the questions I had were based upon your site plan and this is where I got very confused because in the site plan there was a parking analysis that you provided and it did indicate there was going to be 973 seats so I was trying to correlate what a seat meant as opposed to there's not being seats here so that's why I'm confused when the traffic expert comes up and says no the real number is 113 because I was basing my questions off your very own parking analysis so that's the disconnect I have we there's a potential occupancy of 973 people in the worship area and the question is what is the sufficient parking for that potential maximum occupancy and maybe I can respond to that and maybe there's an error on the actual page one of the site plan which is going to have to be corrected but the testimony for consideration by this board is what Mr stimmel testified to today that the parking calculation because there are no seats in the mosque all right it's it's it has to be based on square footage um and based and we'll get that number as Mr sordillo asked as to how we calculated the 113 I think it was 14,9 41 Square ft in the worship area so I think that's where it comes from but I'm not testifying yes that's it 14941 question for Mr Khan can you describe the world of war carpet for us please there's a architectural design in in their carpet yeah let's say it's a carpet like this so what it is is like again everybody who's uh comes to the mask for praying they have to stand in a straight line so you will see oh oh sorry so they have to stand in a straight line so you will see the carpet like this marked like about I would say four 4 and A2 ft long and then there will be these lines and then each section our not our SE I want say section each row will will be further marked with some kind of architectural feature Islamic architectural feature to designate each space so that a person can come and uh stand in there so I would say it's about like 3 feet by 5T on an average the entire room have this carpet what is it is the entire room carpet you said wall to wall the prayer area yes the prayer area prayer area so how many of these architectural spaces are shown or would be on the uh flooring it depends upon the length and width of the you have well so we know the Mr alre what we're going to provide for you is we're going to give provide let me finish we're going to provide a lay out and we're going to show exactly where those designations will be so that you'll know exactly how many parishioners will be inside that ritual room so do you have an estimated number of architectural designs that you already we're going to provide that based upon the square footage of this of this ritual area and we'll provide that for you so I guess that's maybe some of the issue everyone Happ right you don't know how many you're going to have but yet you have the engineering behind it completed already well no we know we know how big the ritual area is we know that the and I don't want to use the term prayer map because in older mosques which aren't as modern as the one that's being proposed everybody would bring in their own prayer mat and usually they're probably 3x5 3x6 and I think the architecture we can't have people talking I think the architecture plan listen I'm all I'm asking is to be respectful that's all we can't hear if you're talking thank you apologize go ahead yeah the architecture plan I if I if I remember right it shows a layout of the prayer area with those rectangles marked on the plan which is pretty much a space that's how they come up with this 900 and change so it's on your architectural plan I I believe I believe it is yes and if it's not we'll provide it for you uh Mr chairman um just to follow up I did have one second um clarification point because the during the testimony between last meeting and this meeting and I I I just need to clarify it for my purposes for creating the record and for the future resolution um there was testimony that for certain large events and holidays there was going to be offsite parking that they were going to shuttle the uh individuals and worshippers in and shuttle them out potentially but then I believe tonight there was some testimony that for large events are actually going to be holding the events off site at the H so I'm confused which is which and I think we need to have some clarification on that I think it's by the way Mr Silla we got the transcript just today or yesterday from the last hearing my recollection and I'll I'll provide that for you but my recollection is that for the two or three major holidays maybe four major holidays everything is off site it would be at the it would be at the park uh Ramadan would be at this particular site and that's where you could get a larger attendance and that's where potentially we would be utilizing St bernardet um or having shuttle buses if there's another site that we need to do but I will I will look in the transcript and get you the exact uh the exact testimony as to that thank you um while we're on that subject I'll start with that question would you be amenable to provide in some sort of a traffic management plan so there's sort of a guideline is to say on this holiday this is what we plan to do and just so that there's something that whether it's a zoning department or the police department they have something they can rely on and say okay on Ramadan this is supposed to happen on this holiday that's supposed to happen yes and uh going back one discussion am I correct that you said you were going to provide a a plan I don't believe it's shown on the architectural plans but a layout that says shows roughly how much space each member takes for prayer and work out the math to give us a number so then we can base the occupancy of the building or the parking requirements along those along that information yeah Mr fer will provide that okay and I'm going to go back through my memo and I'll skip over the stuff that Mr stimel has addressed or the board members have already asked for um going back to the beginning under the traffic counts bill I was a little unclear were you agreeable to doing an ATR count or something to establish the peak the B typical commuter peak hours for ernston Road or is that something you're not agreeing to do well we we're agreeable to a lot of things we've done a lot of traffic accounts in support of this application I will spend all of my clients money if you let me we believe the data provided addresses the concerns between the the different counts we provided and the the data from the do ultimately as I said if the board requires it we'll do the ATR data and for the board's information the reason I'm asking for that is not so much for the Friday afternoon facility I've I'm in general agreeing with the volumes that Mr siml provided my concern is the site is open during typical Rush Hour Monday through Friday that may not be for prayer service but there's still a basketball court a running track other amenities that presumably will generate some traffic I don't at this point I don't know how much and presumably erston road is going to be at its busiest at typical Rush Hour on a 5:30 on a Wednesday or what not so my concern is not so much that it's the busiest hour for the mosque but my concern is if you take the busiest hour for ernston Road and put whatever traffic this site is expected to generate on top of it will the will the driveway still work will Inson Road still operate effectively when we have an office building or residential something that you know typically the an office building Peaks at the same time time the road does so we can do one set of counts in this case the site and the road don't Peak at the same time that's why I want to see when the road is going to Peak and if you want to do counts manually or cameras or Road tubes the method as long as it's a typical traffic engineering method I don't care I'm thinking road tubes are probably the most costeffective but that's for you to decide yeah I know one of the members of the public seemed to be a fan of the road tubes from reading the transcript uh we we'll take a look at it we'll provide seven days of ATR data with a directional split that would that would probably settle the the issue one way or the other and I said whether it's Road tubes or cameras or radar as long as it's they're all typical it may make more sense to put a camera out for a week than a than a road to we'll provide the data means to be determined but we'll we'll have it ready and and submit it to the board and Mr Fishinger for review and then um you said you were able to go back to look at your video Counts from 22 is that something you can provide to the board a download link or something to that video somebody is probably going to need to help me with the technical side of it but I think we can do it the file is pretty big so it's difficult to email but um I'm sure between something my office does camera counts all the time I'm sure between us we can work it out um yeah sure um skipping up I think number five it sounds like there were some warehouses that the board members brought up it sound I sound like you already agreed to to look into that yes um then I want to talk about the next thing I wanted to talk about is the whole idea of two prayer services on Friday is there how long do you expect it to take for the parking lot to flip over my concern is you know in that half hour period the 90 cars you have for coming for the first service leaving and the 90 cars coming in for the second they're not all going to magically appear and disappear at once I'm assuming some people are going to walk out of the first prayer service get in their car and drive away immediately and some others might might take a few minutes you know either they're going to be chatting with friends outside or stop or not necessarily talking to someone else at the facility do you have any information on how long that turnover will take because with if you have 90 cars leaving and 90 cars coming in at within a half an hour how do all of them Park on site with only 109 spaces yeah I mean we we understand the concern there uh from reviewing the video data at the site in 22 which obviously was a larger volume and the layout was not optimal I wouldn't say uh it took about 15 minutes for traffic to disperse from the from the service you know you had you had a few stragglers let's say but the majority of people were were out of there pretty quickly um I would imagine ready to resume their day um so we can uh we can go back back and look at that and and tighten that number up um you know again it's not going to be a direct Apples to Apples because the site layout is different and the there's higher higher occupancy at that single holiday service than there will be on a typical Friday but it should at least give the board a a good understanding we could possibly look at how long it takes to get 90 cars let's say out of the driveway and make that the number and I won't get into the technical details because honestly Bill you're probably the only other person in this room that understands this um wa after that review I would ask you to to review the peak hour factors in your analysis because I'm concerned with the tra if all the traffic's moving in that shortened period the peak hour factors you're using may not be appropriate and for the very quickly the peak hour factor is a measure of how how condensed within that hour cars show up or leave if all of them show up at in 11 15minute interval that peak hour factor is different than if they're evenly spread across the hour my concern is it's might be closer to 0. five or point then 098 we we can take a look at that sure and Mr F your one other point as well it's a little bit easier for a house of worship to Monitor and to direct people to do something if it needs to be done versus on a commercial site or a retail site where you can't tell someone you know you have to leave I mean obviously it's going to be Friday it's going to be probably people are going to come to the same uh service every Friday either they're going to go to the first they're going to go to the second but they're going to be instructed to exit the site when the service is over so okay um then moving on to the police and thank you for clarifying they're going to be there every Friday did you I don't believe you said how many officers and my concern with that is will you have an officer at each driveway or one officer that's monitoring both driveways how was that intended to work one each driveway I'm told one each driveway and did you did when you're in your discussions with the county about the potential of a a one-way couple of you know one driveway in one driveway out were they aware of the provisions for police my concern being it might make more sense if a police officer is controlling traffic at the driveway that all the cars are coming out at one point and are controlled by one officer was that part of that discussion my my recollection is yes and the uh engineer agreed with me they they were aware of the police traffic directors and you're agreeing to two two officers during one at each driveway one at each Drive yep and I believe the majority of the uh site plan comments seemed relatively consistent I did want to just point out with regard to buses I'm not worri I my concern is you design the site you build the site once it lasts for hopefully 50 plus years if something changes I don't want to have find out that you can't get a bus on site for later on this is a community facility with various amenities I would I'm recommending to the board that they real for flexibility in the future that a some sort of bus be allowed to get on site I'm saying I'm assuming now you're not holding basketball games in the basketball court but 20 years from now maybe you are so it's just something to consider that we're not I'm not asking you to put a tractor Trail we're through here that's not realistic but a school bus or a bus should be it's not so much that you have to have one I just don't want to it to cause a design issue later on um those are the my primary questions Mr chairman a lot of it was covered by the board when they asked their questions yeah I have a question about when you have the officers at the two driveways exiting the facility apparently you're saying they're not going to be able to make a left-and turn which means they will be making a right towards Bordentown Avenue so you're correct at the West Wait turned around at the east driveway it'll be full movement in full movement out lefts and rights in lefts and rights out at the West driveway the one closer to bordon town you'll be allowed to make lefts and rights in but only rights out okay so you're going to have officers at both those driveways when people are exiting correct correct so are they going to be stopping the traffic coming from Route 9 down B down ernston road towards bordon town to let everyone out of the facility at that point from both driveways they I I would not want to tell them how to do their jobs they're going to direct traffic the way that they feel I'm just saying that I I I drive the road and it you know it's very difficult a not a lot of people are courteous to let you just pull out onto erston roadway you're coming down the road so I would assume they're going to have to stop the traffic to let people exit out of the facility on to erston Road how many cars do you think you can have from the facility to the corner of bording town did anyone ever like take a study of that uh it's about 500 ft from the the western eastern site driveway uh to where bordon toown Road widens out mhm so that's about 25 cars and then it's maybe another 200 ft from there to the to the light where you have the the two or three Lane section uh so you could fit maybe another 25 or 30 there so you're you're somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 50 cars I would say haven't counted it all right all right let's keep it down you're going to have your chance in a second that's that's assuming that the cars split Lanes correct I'm sorry okay right so that's assuming that the cars when they exit are not all going in the same direction because there's two lanes going straight or you can make a right and then there's one lane that makes a left so you'd be splitting Lanes there correct so you split splitting up the traffic exiting to co go towards bord town to the intersection right when we did the traffic study we looked at the counts at bord Town and assume that the distribution of traffic leaving the site would follow the distribution of lefts throughs and rights as you approach bordon town so that's that's how we distributed the site traffic there okay so the police officers will then allow some of the cars exiting to make lefts out of the facility correct yes okay Mr chair and again it would be if their their experience and um understanding of the situation permits it if for whatever reason at a certain date or certain time they say can't make lefts out today then they would direct the people accordingly okay Mr chair go ahead um this application was presented to us as uh requiring a variance of a required 377 parking spaces to a proposed 109 parking spaces based upon the testimony of their traffic expert uh that now has gone down from 377 spaces required to 113 that's a that's a very significant uh drop in the number of spaces uh I I believe we as a board need to know what the ordinance requires if there's any interpretation or whatnot what is the actual number of required parking spaces so that we can consider that in whether to Grant the variance and I don't know if our professionals have any input into that I I read it and I interpret one space for each three seats to mean one space one parking space for every three adults but I don't that's just my interpretation I'd like to know if our professionals have any view on what are what is the required number of parking spaces for this application Mr chairman I I can address that our office was the opinion that the standard that you have are not appropriate for this use one space per three seats is not appropriate is they don't have seats one space for 250 ft is not appropriate for this type of use based upon the prayer services that they utilize what has been done in other towns and other applications that our office has been involved with has been occupancy so we presented that to the applicant indicating we felt it more appropriate that the occupancy of your prayer area be utilized with that one space per three calculation the occupancy numbers were generated I Believe by the architect there was a plan submitted that indicated 97 three occupants in the three prayer areas so that's what triggered the 300 spaces that are shown on the plan it was based on concerns raised by our office because we felt the ordinance that you have was not written for this type of application the ordinance does allow the burrow to go through and provide alternate standards for parking if we feel what's there is not appropriate thank you Mr chairman go ahead just uh a quick question a couple questions um with the traffic study I think it would be important also with those warehouses to um do the study to the warehouses too because those trucks coming off of Route 9 I think are going to go right down ernston Road and make that left on to bording town so I think it would be important to make sure it's not just leaving the warehouses but how those trucks will be getting to the warehouses the um typically when you contact the municipality to find out about other area projects specifically those which have traffic studies what you do is you look at the the traffic figures that are in those reports and assuming they make sense you overlay them on the traffic for your study area so hopefully when we pull those reports they'll show X number of trips going eastbound y number of trips going westbound on ernston road and we add that to our study so it'll include the traffic going through going across our site Frontage and going straight or left or right at the intersection I don't know if that answers your question no that I just want to make sure that would be covered there um additionally I know we had you're kind of basing it on square footage of the prayer halls for parking spaces just in regards to the basketball court I know we mention with churches a lot of times U especially special services they do overflow and overflow can happen into the gym area so is and I'm not familiar with how the services are handled is the basketball Court a potential area for cannot be used cannot be used for any ritual activities the only thing that can be used for ritual activities would be the prayer Hall and we'll agree to a condition on that as well okay and then last is um we mentioned a couple times uh where as a mosque gets full capacity um then then another mosque is built I think i' would like to know is when that you mentioned Old Bridge and you've been involved with a couple of the old bridge what was their capacity and what was their census at that point so are we talking that they were at 3 people but the only 300 people fit in the prayer room so that's why I expanded and I think it would be important if you can to get that information yeah we're going to we're going to provide some more detailed information about some of the air some of the M that we studied if we feel we need to expand that search will do that as well to give the board a comfort level thank Mr chair uh Mr stemo um having historical data of a similar of the same use on the same site is certainly valuable in a board evaluating uh an application however I think there's some additional facts that the Board needs and the public needs in order to ensure that it's an um Apples to Apples comparison as opposed to an apples to oranges comparison um you know looking back at the 2022 traffic uh study that was done um you know we're presenting those numbers as a basis for projected traffic going forward um however are you aware of what the total amount of sanctuary or ritual area was in the um building that was being used at the time the 2022 traffic uh study was done my microphone sorry um was obviously much smaller uh the question came up earlier I believe we had responded to that but I'm not certain the the sanctuary area in the facility at as it stands now when it was open do we have that square footage the 216 erston I think I can answer the question because it's much smaller I I understand it's much smaller I can look at that picture and I can see what existing there but my my question is and it's not and I could also look and figure out what the size of the building is my question for the board members and the public is within that building what's the sanctuary space that's being provided for ritual yeah let me I can answer that question Mr pul because I was involved in a prior lawsuit involving the shutdown of that facility uh so the original mosque was was a was a law office yeah all right uh there was a an outdoor structure that was built uh that was utilized for prayer services uh and they were also actually conducting ritual activities outside as well um the exact square footage I couldn't tell you offand uh but it was certainly much smaller than than this particular uh site that's being proposed uh but there was a lot of there was a lot of spillover activity outside and all of those structures obviously were uh were demolished and removed do we do we also know for purposes of analyzing the 2022 traffic study data um the amount of of the occupancy of the ritual space whether both exterior interior um I I mean I I don't know I would presume that during our winter you know we're not in Florida that during the winter months here that everybody had to at least be inside if not a heated tent um do we know how much occupancy we had when that traffic studies being done so that the board members have an opportunity to compare those numbers to the current proposal within the site plan and application we could I could make a projection based on the data collected at other sites for vehicle occupancy the resolution of the video and the angle at which the video was taken probably wouldn't allow me to pinpoint the the number of people in each of the cars so I could give you an approximation the client may have attendance information for lack of a for lack of a better term and if it's available we'd certainly provide it yeah I I think it's important that that in order to to because again historical data is great and when you have a prior site that was being used for the same purpose that data is valuable uh but to ensure that that it's processed correctly and used correctly we need to know how does the um the square footage of that Sanctuary or ritual space compared to what's being proposed and also you know what was our what was the realistic occupancy of that space compared to what's proposed because you know ultimately in and you know the applicant as well as Council have have articulated that you know the basketball court and the kitchen aren't going to be used for ritual and and and um but there certainly is a significant amount of ritual space and so to compare that very valuable 2022 data to what's being proposed I think the Board needs to know um what occupancy was at that 2022 time so if you could provide that that would be very helpful to the board anything else Mr Sax Mr chairman I don't uh certainly uh our Witnesses are available for any public questioning um yeah that that concludes our presentation for this evening uh obviously we know we're going to have to come back uh we're going to have to provide a good deal of uh additional information as to traffic which we're certainly willing to provide uh and we certainly have our planning testimony as well which will entertain at a future date as well anybody on the board have anything else before I open to the public just uh actually may a clarification from the last meeting on actual prayer times throughout the day we'd like to hear from the applicant uh that's only a testimony but I think on the record from the last hearing yeah but it it it quite differs from what you have in your application and I think times to do adjust based on the moon correct so as the moon is closer or further you have times that may go later than what you have actually I think what we can provide is we probably can provide an annual calendar because that's based on meteorological and we'll we'll provide that for you Mr that's not a problem we're going to hard stop at 10:30 anyway good anybody else chair we uh my court reporter might need a five minute break because I think our fingers are about to fall off so all right it's 9:30 9:35 we're going to start up 5 minutes you e e e e e e e e e e e e right go ahead excuse me everyone while we're um The public's going to now first having the um Prof uh uh Township planner for Oldbridge uh be the first one to ask their questions but as we invite everybody up to ask their questions of the professional who testified tonight I just want to remind a few things one this is not the public comment section this is still the question so the questions need to be of the witness in this testimony that he gave this evening uh you will be provided a time to provide your own comments your own opinions as to this application at a later time uh that is occurs at the end of the application but you are at this point allowed to provide questions to the witnesses that are here and provideed testimony tonight we had the traffic engineer and we did have some testimony from their uh General Engineers you could ask those questions relating to the testimony that was provided second for recordkeeping per purposes when you come up to the mic can you please State your full name and spell it for the court reporter as well as provide your address that will help keep the record clean and make sure that your comments are fully being taken into account uh and kept in the record so once again when you get up the chairman will invite uh people up at at as uh taking everyone get a chance to get up here and taking turns when you get up please give your full name your spell it for for the the court report's purposes and provide your address thank you ma'am go ahead Vina savent planning director Oldbridge Township um question so tonight I've been hearing and especially from the last meeting um I heard that the there are currently the mask has 100 patrons and I don't know I don't remember the exact number but this is what Mr Khan had testified the congregation is roughly 300 and at the last meeting I had brought it up that the house of worship the prayer Hall itself based on building code has a capacity of 667 uh people I don't know where the 900 came from I'll stick stick to the 600 67 what I fail to understand is if the house of worship can accommodate 667 patrons at one time then why would 109 parking spaces be adequate to address that much crowd and I I I I just can't understand because as a planner when you plan you plan for the future your PL your planning for you're you're designing a building that can accommodate much more patrons so then why would you not provide the services like the parking for that many people and if you don't have the adequate land to provide that why wouldn't you shrink the house of worship I kept hearing I kept hearing I kept hearing that the uh Congress conation will not grow I kept hearing Oldbridge and I kept hearing that there are houses of worship in Oldbridge that are currently being uh worked on yes there are there is a house of worship on Route 35 where uh the applicant the applic the engineer is working with us that was approved 10 years ago and has expanded but that's Route 35 it's not ernston Road that's a state highway so something to be noted the house of worship on Morristown Road I don't even know if at this point is a valid application it was adjourned multiple times I would like the applicant to reach out to the planning office and work with us to get the data there is a problem I'm having with a facility on Spring Valley Road which has gone through expansion over years does not have the capacity to hold that many cars and I have been issuing notices of violation so for me it's very hard to believe that a congregation will not grow let's accept that it might grow over a period of time and then address any site issues that may be there so I don't understand and the question is why why are you so confident that the congregation will not grow and why is if it's not going to grow then why is the building or the house of worship area the prayer Hall 10,000 square ft why can't it be reduced is that the question why why it can't be reduced well I I think I can respond to miss Sant um this is the application that is in front of this board this evening and is when was in front of the board on April 3D um I appreciate Miss Swan's comments because that's primarily what it was were comments but Mr stimel if you want to address the and I think you have several times this evening addressed the issue of how you determine what the parking calculation should be certainly you can give Miss Swant the benefit of your answer sure I I think the first thing that I think the first thing that that needs to be reiterated is that the application has this Sanctuary area the worship Hall it has the classrooms it has the the basketball court Etc but the applicant's been clear all along that it's only going to be the sanctuary area that's in use during those prayer services so I think right there that reduces the occupancy of the building um you know we have looked at the parking calculations in the ordinance Mr Mr Cornell and some of the board members uh took a slightly different tack on it but we feel that applying the standard based on the uh area square footage of the congregation Hall is more appropriate than the uh P per person occupancy the it data the number of seats as it were um so we believe that the parking provided is appropriate for the use under the majority of circumstances the larger events the applicant has already stipulated would be moved off site providing two services so it effectively doubles the parking provided on the subject property and the applicant as I understand it has in place a reciprocal agreement with the St Bernadet Church on the other side of ernston road um to to use their parking when they're not using it and vice versa so for all those reasons we believe that the parking Supply is appropriate uh certainly we wouldn't want to provide parking beyond what we believe is necessary because when you when you create a parking space it's there 24 hours a day seven days a week so if you use it for you know a few hours on Friday for the worship Services it's there radiating heat the rest of the week and causing storm runoff so there's a there's a danger to having too many parking spaces too M Mr stimel uh I I think um the capacity I was talking about is not the capacity to include the accessory uses I did not mention the gym the um the multi-purpose room or any of the other amenities I was strictly talking about the prayer Hall the prayer Hall can accommodate 600 plus people and I'm only talking about that I do understand that Rupa covers the other accessory uses so I'm strictly focusing on the house of worship and again just a comment uh when you reach out to the church for the Oldbridge for Oldbridge Township I would love to be a part of it the conversation because I I I am not sure if the church has adequate parking either I I don't have any response to Mr want thank you board thank you for your time I'll be back with for the planner thank thank you very much for coming all right spell your name go to the mic three minutes Don Scarano Frederick Place s c a r a n o uh Frederick place that's good enough thank you terrible so I got a quick question I ain't no slick talking lawyer or engineer or whatever but common sense for 1,941 ft you got 9 Square ft you got a 4 1/2 by 2T you're in this 14,940 people in that place that's all I want to say that's future growth because if you have people come in they're not turning them back so we need to look at Future growth which is going to be important because we can anybody can build anything but if we're not going to look at the future screw the people that live there let's just give everybody what they [Applause] want through the chair please yo through the chair through the chair all right chair is chair is here no disrespect guys you have your religion Catholics have their religion this is not a place it's going to be a nightmare for the people that live here if you want to put in your policy anything over 300 I'll take a fine be my guest take accountability stop being [Applause] sad name address spell your name Nikki n k Ki voio V CCI IO I live at 12 dlap Drive in parl New Jersey so to the board I want to ask the question because we can't do any testimony will you actually are you actually going to be able to to accept their proposed parking because they don't have actual seats but prayer PA places instead is that something you're willing to accept rationally uh Mr chair I can I can speak to that yeah our ordinance provides for that it does allow for a calculation of parking based upon situations where seating is not provided for so let me ask you a question if there's let me just finish the response and also our our board engineer also advised that there's also another methodology of methodology of calculating parking requirements based upon occupancy so the board hasn't accepted any specific methodology yet I'm just advising that the ordinance provides for multiple ways of handling it and our board engineer had also testified to an alternate way of calculating what the parking demand is but in any instance from what we've heard in testimony so far it will require a VAR and that's something the board will have to consider so in comparison if anybody's been to the city in their entire life and has gone to a club the padium let's say there's zero seats in there none so but you would have to accommodate the parking spots for the hundreds of people that were going to go in there and dance it's just common sense that you would have to accommodate for the amount of people that are going to be there whether there's a physical seat or a space that they're going to take up just making sure that's noted secondly I listed I mentioned this last time mashid alwali and Edison how is this not being used as a comparison it's really close to us on top of that it's 18,500 square feet that's half of what they're proposing here I don't understand why common sense is not to just double what's going on over there as a comparison instead of using the current numbers that they're using which is a 15,000 square uh square foot mask and an 11,000 foot mask so Mr saxs I'm talking I'd like to be acknowledged while I'm asking you a question so the question is why are you comparing a mask that is a fourth of the size of this one and a third of the size of this one instead of using double of what half of the size of the one is in Edison well again we we used we utilize the data for the East Brunswick mosque which is very close by and also the um um what was the other MK in uh Parable and Somerset uh we did not look at the Edison mosque I mean certainly we could look at it there are a number of mosques in the area uh some of them are larger some of them are smaller some of them are located in different types of neighborhoods we felt that and and and by the way I have particular knowledge of the East Brunswick Bosque all right uh I live there and I'm also been the township attorney in East Brunswick for 27 years that is also in a residential neighborhood quite similar to this one so but any event sare fet certainly we're willing to if there's other MOS that we need to look at to provide data and I think Mr Fishinger has asked us to provide that we're certainly willing to do that so let me ask the board if there is a mosque that's half the square footage of this one I did call there I did ask the questions how many parking spaces they started out with 50 and then had to add 100 more because they needed 150 spots for an 18,750 foot mosque so if if that's not comparable to need 150 for half the amount of people that are attending uh sorry half the amount of square footage then I would use that as a decent compa comparable to how many spaces are going to be needed for double the amount of space thank you one more question and then I'm done let me ask you a question to all of you on the board if you were purchasing a home had train tracks in the backyard would you accept the schedule of how many times the train would run in the backyard for the current amount of 1500 passengers or would you demand to know the schedule for 44,000 passengers which would be the actual amount of passengers while you were there in the home it's the same exact thing here we can talk to her blue in the face after receiving numbers for traffic regarding the current mosque or nearby mosques but can someone give us real numbers based on the traffic that would impact the area for the 44,000 ft building that is actually being opposed thank [Applause] you state your name your address and spell your name please thank you very much Drew wearth we i n g a r t h I do live in East Brunswick New Jersey I did have the pleasure of talking in front of you last time um again I thank everyone for their time in service again 08859 is the ZIP code for parland New Jersey and there's the sarraille section of parland and the Oldbridge section of Parlin and this applicant is in front of s of sarraille and Sarah in 08859 parland is a beautiful hybrid between the two and I grew up in Madison Park and have the great pleasure of privilege and pleasure of growing up there for clarification questions please to the app app for the traffic study did you per the number of trips did you specifically say the types of vehicles that were part of that it's included in the data and the analysis it's not specifically called out in the report but the trucks let's say were counted and included in the analysis off the top of my head and I'd have to go back and confirm I believe it came out to be roughly 4% along erston Road heavy truck traffic thank you and that was actually what I was going to take away from the distinction between the type of vehicles was going to be the trucks I think this was alluded to but in forward thinking it was stated that there was no certificate of occupancy for what is being called the Arsenal project on chees Quake Road and which intersects with Minn in sarraille uh the warehouses there are the trucks are not fully being coming from that facility yet so I'm asking nicely to please consider that moving forward especially since as it was stated that the intersection of Cheesequake Road and bentown Avenue that intersection was just recently done recognizing that Bown Avenue is a middle sex is is a middle County Road but it was just redone and if you're on Cheesequake Road wanting to make a left-and turn onto bord toown Avenue the traffic light does have a leftand turn signal left you know Green left hand turn on green whereas the other side if you of Cheesequake does not so that of course favors the truck you know will help the trucks coming from that facility go going on making a left onto Bown Avenue going towards Bown Avenue and ernston road if which would then go right past where the mosque is going to be if they wanted to go on route nine just to point that out thank you the next clarification question for the applicant was I do believe you made reference to the mosque in East brunwick can you please uh State again which mosque in East Brunswick are you referring to yeah Mr uh Mr wearth it it's the mosque on Dunham's Corner Road is the one we analyzed and that's what I thought I do believe there are two mosques in East Brunswick and there is one in on New Brunswick correct there's one on New Brunswick Avenue which is uh under construction correct oh so you're saying that I'm sorry you're saying that it's under construction and not it's not open yet not open yet thank you for that and it's near ruse Lane if I remember correctly if it's going to be used as comparison that mosque it is in a unique situation in a more I would think I would compare the mosque on ruse Lane on New Brunswick Avenue more in relationship than the one off of new Dunham's Road based on for the board's consideration and it's more of a again it's more considerations are comparisons are important and again we don't want apples to oranges but if you were to compare for East in East Brunswick I would compare the one in on um New Brunswick Avenue more than the one on um Dunham's Corner Road again I thank you all for your time and consideration thank you thank [Applause] you you're it man with the hat next hi Carol Esposito 6V Anova Road Parlin spell your please excuse me spell your name please es P o s t o thank you at the last meeting Mr saak stated the hours of operation are 6 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at other times he said 8:30 p.m. tonight the times were stated as 6:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. at 8:30 p.m. is that the beginning of the last prayer service or is that when the building's closed um I think my recollection at the last hearing was I think we said all activities would cease by that l service which again is based seasonally but it's around 8:30 okay is that the beginning of the service or end of the service the end yeah it depends on the time of the year but generally it would be okay so based on the times of the year in March and April of 2024 prayer times begin at 510 a.m. and end approximately 8:50 p.m. or 900 p.m. with prayers beginning as early as 3:48 a.m. in June all of May June July August September half of October most of November December January February and March of 2025 prayer times begin before 6:00 a.m. and the evening prayers in March April May June July August and most of September would begin after 8:00 pm so I'm trying to understand the prayer times and your hours of operation Mr chairman if I may ask what time is prayer time today the morning prayer is about 5:15 and the last prayer evening is uh 9:15 p.m. so according to my paperwork here morning prayer this morning would have been 4:31 a.m. and the last prayer would have been 9:119 I have a copy of this if anyone on the board would like to see it yeah that that is the dendo that you can pray the morning prayer the time starts at 5:41 but you can pray until the sun rises so it depends upon which section of five minutes you choose to offer your morning prayer so you pray until sunrise is I'm sorry can you clarify then the start time of the last prayer of the day last prayer let let's today is like around 9:15 and you can pray from 9:15 anytime until uh the next prayer in the morning so but of course like people try to of course it's a working day and most of the time the daily pray prayers are only attended by 5 to 10 people die hard congregants yeah I think we I think we testified that that we had testimony at the last hearing that the early the real early morning prayer and the last prayer of the day are not well attended and I think Mr Khan has indicated it's five or six people especially during winter time and uh in the winter days when it's really cold I would say as I mentioned only the Die Hard congregants go out and pray in congregation otherwise most of the people will pray at home so will the Mas be open from the last night prayer till the morning prayer first morning prayer no but a moment ago you said we're you're able to come in and start 9:15 usually clarify them please when a mask opens the first couple of months sets the pattern like how many people are coming in the morning prayers how many people are coming in the evening prayers and that's how the custodian of the mosque usually they come like 2 minutes or 5 minutes depending upon how far they live they open up the mosque people come pray 5 minute prayers maximum they leave close the mosque they go home that's how it works and we're going to provide that calendar for for the board so if the board would like my copy with sunrise and the times I'm happy to give that to you my next um comment is about the two services at Madison Park Firehouse I'm not sure how there's 30 minutes between Services when the first service is approximately starting at 1:00 and the second service is at 1:45 I'm not sure what the question is how is there 30 difference between the time extra 15 minutes right is that what you're getting at so the first service on Friday begins around 1:00 right the second service begins around 145 so there was comments that there was a half an hour between Services why is it 15 minutes longer yeah that's again also not said every mask has a different timings because based on that usually it's uh I I can give you an example for Islamic Center of Central Jersey which is one of the biggest mosque in New Jersey they offer three services they start at 12:30 all the way up to 2:30 depending upon what service you want to attend so they have three services the same thing if the if this mosque will have two Services they will time it out it can be 12:30 service 1 1:00 1:30 and the next service is usually 30 to 45 minutes later after the first service Mr saxs are you guys flexible on moving that 15 minutes I mean that half hour is yes I'm just talking about what's currently being done at Madison Park Firehouse well I understand and I'm trying to make sure that we have enough time if if this is approved that the half hour is cutting it close or are they an agreement that they could do the 45 minutes like the Madison sure firhouse um I would also like to know if there's been any traffic studies about currently the situation at Madison Park Firehouse with how many cars are there because I can attest to the fact that there are way more than 90 cars at the services we don't have that data we have not done any study for the Madison Park fire I do if you would like it well also also parking at St burad death with all due respect I'm sure the witness has provided in her opinion an accurate count EXC excuse me well you're asking me a question goe okay go ahead Mr chairman I'd love to respond but it's again I it's difficult when I'm being interrupted go ahead we're we're letting her talk but he's answering her question I know I'm waiting for him all right so your question was did we perform a study at the Madison Park Firehouse no we have not however if you've got daddy you'd like to provide for me I would love to see it I know you're not a traffic engineer but I'll I'll take your your opinion as to the number thank you let's also talk about St Bernadette's parking sorry okay sorry sorry sorry okay that's okay sorry also about the parking at St bernardet coming out of St bernardet and turning onto Villanova I'm sorry I live on Villanova road coming out of Villanova Road and turning onto ernston Road I currently have two teenage drivers most of the time I will not allow my children to turn out of Villanova road to make a left onto ernston road because it's just too dangerous currently there is not a crosswalk by Villanova road across ernston road again because it's too dangerous you currently have two lanes westbound that go down to one lane right at Villanova and one lane eastbound that goes up to two lanes it is crazy so I'm not sure how the applicant thinks using um St Bernards and possibly putting in a crosswalk would be safe can you answer that sorry the question was how is it safe to put a crosswalk at Villanova for the people to leave St bernardet well it would again be subject to County review but I think the idea would be that we'd put it there with a rectangular flashing Beacon so it would emphasize the location of the crosswalk have you been there yes okay let's just move on the last part is for the planning for the ernston traffic that you were talking about with the warehouses is the board aware of the construction for Glenwood Oaks the housing development that is being built behind shopright on Route 9 with the intention that that road will eventually lead into Waterworks and connected to um Bown Avenue and how will that affect the traffic in the area thousands of homes are currently being built and apartments are also slated and approved I'm not sure that's a question for us I think I'm asking how is that well first of all we again Mr stimmel's testimony is that he spoke to I believe it was Mr mashensky uh in in sville and Mr holahan in Oldbridge and was advised that there were no proposed developments that would impact uh this particular development if you want to elaborate on that um obvious viously we were provided incorrect information I.E the warehouse project on on uh on Cheesequake but Mr stim you want to reply uh that's the gist of it Mr Sax I contacted the zoning department in sville zoning department in Oldbridge this week got a response from both of them said there were no uh no projects which we needed to consider in our traffic study so you know certainly so there I can agree projects for seral or gold bridge on that plot of ernston road because there's nowhere to put anything however there are um projects in the vicinity which could greatly impact the traffic in the area so that might be something everyone needs to look into that's what I asked that's the answer I got certainly we've understand from the board's comments the the warehouse project and we're going to look into that and might follow up again with the two zoning officers and follow up just on other projects in general thank you Mr chair Mr chair good evening my name is Joseph caresan it's k a r m a z i n I live at 322 erston Road I am a direct neighbor of the mosque sure I'm sorry inter M I just want to make sure folks coming up to the mic know that it's a question and answer period some some of the people are providing firsthand testimony they're not sworn so they have to come back during the general public comment to be sworn in for that testimony to be considered so I just want to make sure that people understand that because I think the last Miss Esposito came up and had some specific firsthand uh testimony that she wanted and it's not going to be part of the record unless folks are sworn in at the end of the uh at the public portion comment so I just want to let people know that so that you don't think that it's on the record because you stay it now it's not you got to come back at the end okay yeah copy that okay April 22nd analysis had 180 vehicles on site and with the 109 proposed spots it just seems like a conundrum um when there's two sessions on a Friday like I think someone touched on this but this is a I think we need to drive this point home 90 cars coming in 90 cars leaving within a 15minute turnaround period on erston road people making lefts um I I really um think it would be beneficial for a one way in one way out scenario like a church any other church has any other place of worship I think people coming and going out of two entrances and exits not far from one another is just people are going to get in each other's way it doesn't make sense I mean just logically the the way way they're they're proposing this is going to work it's it's not going to work uh ernston road now today got backed up almost all the way to the route nine and there's no activity at the mosque right now other than them dump dumping bricks today they're dumping debris back there oh by the way for the record nothing was demolished he mentioned buildings were demolished the tent is still up they use it as storage okay so people are in and out of there I know testimony right yeah yeah I was just I got you I got you I got you just to reminder we understand got to sneak a couple in there hold on hold on please please let me finish just so everyone's aware I understand that there are is going you sometimes you just can't ask a question you're going to have to have some information to give background on the question we understand that but once again you know with testimony or any comments you're going to make even if you make them now they not going to be as the board member said they won't be part of the record the board won't be able to consider them until you do it at the end so that's why we want to make sure you're aware of these procedures because the boards wants to be able to consider your comments and if you do them now we can't I get it I get it the question is um really for the board I suppose um do you guys really feel that this is going to work with that parking situation on the in and the out I mean that's it's not making a left out of there is so dangerous there was already many accidents when they were operating illegally uh you can look it up you can get an Oprah request and see how many accidents are already in front of that place um um okay no testimony let's see um I want to talk about the cops outside for Ramadan now I'm a direct neighbor across the street and the cops leave their lights on till about 11 o'clock at night lights my house up like Christmas it's it's really for 30 days they said ramadan's a one event yeah it's one event for 30 days long and it is 24 hours it's all hours people come and go I lived it um also I wanted to talk about the uh Fire Marshal did you guys say they signed off on this yet or sir and again all of your comments are important and there certainly be the time for public commentary however this session is limited to questions and comments about the traffic portion of it um certainly uh I believe Mr Sax testified um that the there's been a submission made to the fire marshal okay a response has not been received yet when there is it's a it's a document that will be part of this record which will be made available to the public and you can question on um but in order to to ensure a clean record you we we have to limit this portion this section of the application to questions um relating to the traffic study as well as the parking so traffic and parking I have parking questions um well what the fire Tru the fire truck that's part that's part of it right they they're supposed to be they're supposed to be able to turn around they so as part of every application they request a a turning radius or a circulation plan for emergency Vehicles again that that's not part of this part of the application that's not part of it okay um that will be addressed I'm sure by the applicant that will be addressed and again that is a report that would be made available to the public that you would see to show whether or not the V the uh whether or not Saville's emergency vehicles are able to prop properly and safely circulate that property right yeah and Mr pulman we we do have turning templates that have been provided so they already have been provided okay um I believe there was a waiver requested for the the um parking spots in the front they're supposed to be set so far back and they requested a waiver they said last meeting is that correct Mr Sachs yeah we're going to address that with our planning testimony okay I have an issue with the parking spots proposed um they're facing my house which mean headlights will be shining on my house and I have an issue with that point taken okay um you can request that the applicant address screening issues sir screening screen screening screening Ed for the light some buffering some additional buffering okay well I thought that's why you're supposed to be set back so far so oh okay all right yeah sure put bushes um um okay so the crosswalk situation um I know the other uh lady there had brought it up and um being that I live across the street people were crossing right in front of my house using my driveway as a crosswalk the nearest crosswalk is ernston and bord toown the other one is all the way up by Gateway light okay there is no way people are going to not cross ernston road coming from as Park it's a safety concern they're definitely going to do it there's no other way to get there there there's unless you put add an additional traffic light somewhere on ernston road where they can hit a button and cross safely I don't see how this is going to work for overflow I mean it's a half a mile away St bernardet is a half a mile away from their mosque that's a hike you know when it's raining when it's zero degrees outside they're going to make this Trek I I highly doubt it I highly doubt it um oh yes so the other thing was the buses I know they're saying um you know they're claiming there's not going to be buses but there's going to be schooling there's going to be children there's going to be basketball I we all know we've all gone to different churches and played in different leagues there's always buses you're going to need losses it's it's an absolute must there's no way you're you're going to cart these people on a Ford Escape um and I think and I think that's why the the town the that's why the town's uh traffic engineer special traffic engineer did request that the applicant address the busing issue for the exact points that you raised he the expert stated that it he foresees based on his experience that it's likely that there may be buses at some point which is why they've asked the applicant to specifically address address that issue and the applicant has acknowledge that they will and we expect that we'll have an updated report on that before the next meeting oh good um the other thing he mentioned something about a drop off point in the front can you elaborate a little bit about that please well I think we said we're going to provide some type of detail uh which will show where a drop off would be and we'll we'll provide that to the board okay so there's nothing drawn in the parking lot for a drop off point right right now I don't believe there's anything on the plan so it would have to be updated okay okay that's it for me thank [Applause] you how you doing Rudy James I live on Parkway r u d y j m s so Parkway Place that's all you got no I'm good I live I live right off the block so I'm good they can find me if they want to come with the block so um I understand that that's good someone else didn't have to do that either so take that same Liberty I'm curious if either one of you gentlemen have actually done any projects in cille before and what they were any of these traffic you know are you asking of my professionals either one of you yeah whoever wants to answer that question in sville specifically just curious well I'm I'm I I'm well Mr it's a question my office is in Rutherford most of the work I do is up north I'm sure that I've worked in sville in the past but I it's been okay 12 years probably okay um could could we maybe be afforded some of the projects that have previously been worked on with this crew in sville Sor I didn't understand the question we' like to know what projects you previously worked on in Sarahville what project maybe go look it up and come back and let us know yeah well are you able to do that that's the question no no okay no I'm not able to do that okay just because of the variances that we have here I'm just curious how any other variances might have appeared um on top of that is do you have any ideas or is there any plan for permit parking for residents being that you know people may Park otherwise and not want to travel up the block understandably by the way am I aware of permit parking for res like Parkway Place you know if say you know we want to make sure people aren't going to be parking on Parkway Place is there some sort of amenity that's going to be provided like parking permits is that in the plan I I didn't see that just curious so I've lived there for about 10 years sorry I apologize I've lived there just to give you background on this I've lived there for about 10 years I believe previously there were even some signs up over there in that way um there's buses and things that have left there over the years and some of that has dwindled but parking has always been a concern there um it's a small neighborhood and the idea of making a rightand turn out of Parkway Place getting to a question is not only dangerous okay but it has proven proven to have issues for all the businesses in that area Okay because it gets backed up so in the parking reports that y'all did that were of a certain amount of time and obviously I'm sorry Bernie give me a minute here bud obviously not the amount of time that should have been checked okay did you take into consideration the safety and previous accidents that have happened at that [Applause] location okay are we good hold on I I think that TR to write we're trying to write down your question no problem she's actually taking notes might get I I think the gentleman's question is in developing the traffic plan for the site did the experts consider the past history of accidents pedestrian strikes mvas anything along those lines and if so what role did that play in the development of this traffic plan we looked at the traffic safety associated with the proposed driveway locations at the subject property the issue with The Pedestrian Crossings is something that has come come up relatively recently in terms of this project with the possibility of off-site parking at St bernardet so we haven't investigated any past pedestrian safety issues crossing ernston road as far as the driveway is concerned the location of the driveway is a sight lines Etc all of that is is fine it's in accordance with accepted engineering standards and has been approved by the county uh the The Pedestrian issue the the possibility of a sidewalk uh crosswalk rather uh would require some further investigation it sounds like there's a lot of work still to get done here before you submit for an application that that's a question I'm just saying I I'm a business owner I've been doing this for a long time correct this doesn't thank you I'm sorry Mr chair you're correct yeah I know that I need to comply under certain things it's called compliance I know we've talked about accountability but I think that there's been some maybe loopholes taken into account with the I don't know uh how many people are going to be here 250 ft is a hotel room so we are accommodating one person per hotel room is that what we're saying let's confirm that also Mr chairman I I I don't know if it's a comment if it's a question are you estimating on one person per 250 ft well I think no I think the comment by my excuse me I think the comment by our engineer parking space sorry go ahead go ahead L thank you thank you I think the comment by the expert by Mr stimel is that the number of parking spaces in his calculation is based on the square footage in the building and it's one space per 250 square F feet in a 14,000 foot prayer area where's the math mathing I'm sorry what was that where does the math math you ever heard that no okay how does your math add up I think my te my expert has provided that testimony several times this evening sir so he hasn't provided an answer that I believe a math teacher would accept so let's start there all right I'm good thanks [Applause] tough crowd huh speak up please my name is brck Patel brck Patel uh p r u t h v i k Patel p a t e l all right yeah sure all right all right so my question is for uh Mr Khan uh as we discussed uh in the last what oh sorry I'm sorry uh a single court parin all right so as we discussed last time you said the building will be designed as per 2021 IBC right that's the international building code right and international building code 2021 refers to ASC 716 for the wind speeds correct I'm not an architect that's a question for architect but yeah whatever the code requires the building and the whole site will be designed for the building code and uh Township or Town and County ordinances per yes agreed as per AC 716 the wind speed that the building will be designed for will be 115 mph 115 M hour has anyone of you in parin been in this wind speed that's a code that's a code you have to I agree with it I'm a structural engineer licensed in New Jersey I know uh and I agree with the code we have to follow the code but you have not seen this speed right but we still design the building for the worst case scenario you are also going to design the sewage for the worst case scenario but when it comes to but when it comes to parking the traffic engineer very conservatively takes a very low number and he says that my applicant told me that only 150 120 people will come in if you are an I understand that you don't have enough data points he said that the T Tia or the report has only two SOS listed in there and they carried out two other mosque as well I understand four data points doesn't make sense so if that doesn't make sense doesn't it make engineering judgment to go with the worst case scenario you are the engineer sir right on the Town Council you sir yeah you you are the town engineer doesn't it make sense engineering sense that if you don't have enough data we should go with the worst case sir certainly you're C certainly educated in this area I just have to remind you to please direct your question to that engineer and so is your question to the engineer that you as a professional are asking why is the parking plan being scaled down to a lower level than the maximum amount of parking that may be available on the site set please folks please please sir is that your question to the engineer that is my question yes but the reason I asked him was because he is an and it's difficult and there's there's form over process sometimes and I understand how it can be frustrating but in order to ensure that we have a clean Rec there is certainly going to be a time where every member of the public every resident of sville of Oldbridge of parland will be able to ask qu will make comments have questions present this board but at this point yes in that in the process the way the municipal land use law in the state of New Jersey establishes that how these proceedings are done is that the applicant puts on Witnesses when that witness is when that witness is done presenting their testimony they're allowed to be questioned by the board and the board professionals then the public has the opportunity to question these Witnesses when they're doing here then when when the applicant closes their application is when the public by laws provided the opportunity to provide testimony if they want to be sworn in and provide commentary if they wish and that's the process which we have to Pro follow in order to Sure ensure that we have a clean record and that any decision that's rendered by this this board will be supportable and would be would be upheld upon any judicial review and so that's why we have to be a stickler to form here and I'm not going to take your time away because I'm talking a lot and that's my fault um but I believe that I clarified your question which is to the engine why with respect to thep ofk is he scaling down as opposed to scaling up and assuming that it would be the maximum type of use is that correct thank you sir and you can yeah so were you asking me that question or whoever whichever engineer wants to answer parking generally is not designed for the worst case scenario was something I said in response to the planner from Oldbridge before because of a use like this and again I think everyone's in a agement on this most of the parking demand is going to occur during those Friday services if if it lasts two hours from the beginning of the first service to the end of the second service that means the remaining 22 hours of the day and the remaining six days of the week the majority of the parking isn't going to be used by anyone so the more parking you provide on the subject property is more parking that you're not going to have used most of the time the intention with these parking requirements is generally to accommodate most of the parking Demand on site under the majority of conditions and the municipalities that are changing their parking requirements are actually making the parking requirements less for the most part not increasing them because of the other negative effects that go along with providing parking that's not used most of the time you know whether or not someone's parked there you still have the storm water run off you still have the heat island effect you have less room for landscaping and so on so you know and I and I guess in a more light-hearted manner the the issue is uh if you don't have enough parking you've got to find parking someplace further away whereas if you don't design to meet the the wind speed requirements the building falls over and people die so the side effects are a little bit lesser too uh but that's the same rules though no don't we have to follow the code though you can ask a you can ask for a variance or a waiver from the parking requirement the the building code is another matter okay so majority of the time in sville there will be maybe let's say 60 miles per hour wind speeds so let's just design the structures for 60 M hour why are we wasting money ask him how much money he'll save if you design the structure for 60 mes per hour a lot of money a lot of man hours so it doesn't make sense he's telling from the first point that he doesn't have enough data points I agree to his point he doesn't have enough data points that's why we have to go with the worst case scenario and I would like the Town Council uh to concentrate on this point and make a decision on that uh that's all I have do I have to stay till the end do I have to stay till the end no sir you're not required to stay you can you can leave at any time there's no oh no about that signing thing I don't know I didn't all right thank you thank you so thank you Mr chairman um Michael Delaney d l a n y for BAC Place Parlin I just have I beg your pardon talking about traffic I have a few questions for Mr stimel if that's okay that's perfect thank you uh Mr stimel you testified earlier when you were reading from your August 8th 2023 report as well as in the response to um to the Bright View report that one of the sources of your information was information from your client is that correct yes what if anything did you do to verify the accuracy of that information uh mainly I looked at the uh data for the existing use on the property we had counts at the site when it was operating as a mosque and the numbers he was proposing seemed reasonable based on the utilization of that site for that use so for example one of the sources of information I'm sorry one of the numbers that you testified was 300 uh members I guess were calling them was that something that you verified that number that was just provided in testimony at the last hearing the 300 members in the congregation that's something that you said this evening in response to an inquiry with regard to the Bright View report and some of the issues that it raised specifically with vehicle counts you were talking about 300 members that was testified to on the record at the last meeting okay my question again sir to you was did you personally do anything to verify that information which was provided to you by your client no you did not okay in your experience as an as a as a professional testifying as an expert have you ever come across an information where this the data that you relied on is inaccurate other than this evening I wouldn't make that stipulation about the data this evening I would say that I've relied on data which has been updated as more data has has become available I don't think I've ever relied on data that I found to be inaccurate if you did find that a conclusion that you gave was based upon inaccurate data would that also result in the conclusion being inaccurate not necessarily the the we don't have a crystal ball we don't know what the future holds we don't know exactly how much traffic this site is going to generate if and when it gets approved we're trying to provide a projection of future traffic operations based on the best data available so if in the future the site generates more it obviously we're talking if it's approved if the site generates more traffic than what the client had indicated what our projection showed what the prior counts at the site had shown there was a discussion or or I believe it might have been a Mr Cornell's review letter that that the applicant should provide an after the fact traffic study if and when the site becomes operational to review any issues with access parking circulation Etc that may come up and I think you know the client has agreed to comply with a number of other comments from the board professionals and would certainly comply with that so the last thing we want to do is do anything that poses a safety issue down the road we want to get this right we think we've provided the best information we understand the comments from the board we're going to come back at a future date to be determined with additional information and try to address the remaining comments at that point Thank you Mr stimel but would you answer the question that I asked you please the question that I asked you please was in your experience does inaccurate information invalidate a conclusion based upon that information yes it does no it does not it requires a new analysis it doesn't necessarily in validate it you could still come to the same conclusion based on the updated data fantastic okay um I had one more question Mr zabowski asked you a followup about I guess we're calling them comps for some of the other mosques that you viewed uh to use a real estate term um I don't know if if he asked to include any information you had about the number of cars and the number of people but to the extent that that hasn't already been asked uh could I respectfully request that that information can also be provided in your response certainly thank you and uh the last issue I don't last question is I don't know if it's for Mr stimel or Mr Sachs or the board but this reciprocal agreement with st bernardet that we heard about um is that Mr saxs I guess when we're here on April 3D you said there was an overflow agreement is that the Overflow agreement you referred to earlier and to the extent that's an I'm sorry yeah to the extent that there's there's the need to utilize that parking lot that would be for overflow okay to the extent that that's in writing I would also respectfully request that that be submitted to the board and also updated to the uh public documents that are available for public review thank you very much [Applause] [Applause] good evening uh my name is Richard Connelly c o n n o l l y I live at 3050 Cheesequake Road in Parlin that's the old bridge side of Parlin um there's been a lot of chitchat about the number of parking spaces that need to be available and just they had uh services at the Madison Park Firehouse the same road that I live on and I drove by and saw a whole bunch of cars there uh does any this question is for everybody here did anybody of authority go there and actually count carus sir again I have to remind you to please direct your question which is a very good question uh to the the traffic in um to the traffic expert he's the question I think question was I mean if you counted the cars you could say yes sir and if he counted the cars you could say yes did anybody here count the cars sir this and if the answer is no why not at this at sir at this time um all questions have to be directed to the expert and and I and I will just bring to your attention that a prior uh member of the public did ask that question um and I believe M Mr stimel can respond but I think Mr stimel stated he had not viewed the part the the cars at that Firehouse location during services but he can certainly respond that is correct we hav't counted cars at that location we are certainly looking at it for the next meeting I mean I know it's not on the record or anything I counted them I got pictures and and sir when it comes certainly over 100 it was 145 and sir when it comes to the time when when the applicant has closed their case and it comes time for public commentary and testimony you can certainly come and put that information into the record and and the information that you observe you can place into the record at that time and the board will be able to consider it understood but now this is a comment and then I'll be done but this is sel I live INB but somebody from seril should have counted the Cs well we we'll always remind the public and the members of the board that the consideration of the information in this application has to be contained to what's presented during the course of the hearing and the the evidence that's provided by our experts by the applicant by the fact Witnesses and by the applicants experts good evening uh my name is Sayad Ali AI I'm from 44 K Street Parlin 44 K Street K I rst um I don't really have questions but I do have some comments for the board's understanding as well as for the general public now we're talking about all the technicalities here as to how many square footage there how many parking spots should be one has to understand the demographic of the community that we're dealing with now the expert have already explained over and over that the daily five prayers will sir sir sir the information you have may certainly well be very valuable and important but again I have to remind you um this portion of the hearing has to be limited to questions about parking and about traffic related related to that site and in particular I'm going to ask you to to not make any comments about the demog graphic of this applicant about the applicant's rituals about the applicant's um number of of of of congregants within the community because that information is is not relevant to this portion of the hearing and this this and and certainly as I stated before there will become a time um in the hearing when after the applicant has put its case in and quote unquote rested um in which members of the public will be able to provide such testimony and it's valuable information that you may have and we're and no one is disputing that um but right now commentary particularly commentary about the use and about the the demographics of this applicant is not appropriate and I have to ask that that not be part of the record at this time but all the chanting here is about the traffic a number of parking spaces what I'm trying to explain is when we come to the mosque as a as a family if you understand the demographic if I have a family of six I'm not going to come in six cars by the way I will come in one car so anyone counting one space for one car for three you know seats it's actually Irrelevant for this particular project so everybody has to understand plus we're bringing the traffic issue with other projects now this Arsenal project I'm sure the board heard the Arsenal project uh you know testimonies from their expert and traffic studies from their expert and that that has been done now who is here to decide that all the trucks from the Arsenal project has to come to this project of the mosque only there are roads going the other way to the Washington Road there are trucks which are coming to um uh Bordentown Avenue that that is likely to go straight onto Route n the trucks are not likely to make right turn to go on to there may be one or two but why are we making all that conclusion for this particular application so there have been no conclusions have been reached regarding this the board has not rendered any any opinion or any finding a fact with respect to traffic flow and the in particularly off-site traffic issues there has been no determination made by this board the board is hearing the questions that are being raised to this expert and the experts response to it um and and the board will be advised as to what information it can and cannot consider but I just want to be clear the board has not made any finding that any other project um either is beneficial is not beneficial has a greater impact than another impact and certainly has not made determination regarding the impact of offsite traffic all right thank you good evening my name is Osman spelled o Maan last name Zaman Z m- I live at 48 and own 420 Main Street right across the street uh this question is actually for the board I think we got some new information that the intersection of Cheesequake Road and bord Town Road was altered for the Arsenal project and how did that come about and like I wanted to know what what um what ordinances or rules mandated that change because if that is allowed for a business then what changes would be allowed at the intersection of boring toown Road and ernston well uh if I if I may Mr chairman uh that's not relevant to this particular application it's not a I'm not saying it's not a relevant question and it's a very good question and it actually may be something more Akin not to this board but to actually governing body of the borrow um it's not something that's within this board's jurisdiction and definitely not within the jurisdiction of this application so we there's no answer to that you know to give you right now but it not to say it's not a good question it's just something this might not be the the right venue for okay uh that's fine I just wanted that's what my question was and then second I wanted to know would increased traffic flow stop the building of the musjid I think that's what everyone's trying to see could you maybe rephrase the question I I I don't quite understand the question I apologize so um the m has the right to practice their religion the congregation has the right to practice their religion but it looks like that if there's enough traffic that they will not get that right so is that actually true or is it coordinating the building with the traffic uh so there has been no decision or any opinion given by this board regarding any aspect of this application at this time the applicant the applicant which is the mosque has is the party that presented testimony and evidence regarding the traffic which is why we're discussing it today because the applicant is putting this information before the board the reason they're putting it before the board is because traffic flow in and out of the site um the queuing at the site traffic circulation are all relevant topics with respect to any application for land for land use um development um before any board in the state of New Jersey and so the reason this is being discussed tonight isn't because it's a checking a a box that there that that you know we're determining tonight whether it's enough or not enough it's because the applicant is presenting information to the public to the board regarding traffic because that traffic flow in and out of the site the queuing getting in and um on the road and on the property are all relevant issues to consider and whether or not this plan um is is the best plan that it can be is an appropriate so again the applicant is the one who's presenting this tonight the board you know is not um you know is is is not made any um decision on anything right now thank you that's all thank you for the clarification before you testify I'm just going to mention that we're going to stop at 11: okay go ahead ma'am my name is Jennifer Edwards address is 10 Vincent Street Harlin um I live behind this proposed location um I had uh a couple of questions for our experts today um so there was testimony given that the hours were going to be from 6:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and I I know that you reiterated that again um given that the current website has earlier prayer times and later prayer times is it your testimony today that those will not be accommodated or will they be potentially accommodated outside of the hours that you gave us I think I indicated we will provide some type of calendar to the board before the next hearing which will delineate the specific times all right so if I misspoke at the last meeting which I may have because I I mean I had some knowledge that I know seasonal changes do affect it but in general those were the hours that we thought we would be operating there may be some fluctuation based on Seasons but again the testimony at the last hearing as well ma'am was that the first service the early morning service and the late day service is generally not well attended maybe five or six patrons so so it is then your testimony today that you well I don't testify so okay well all right well your comment her your comments I was quick right the potential is definitely there that this facility would be open outside of the hours that you're giving it yes it that that that testimony may be subject to revision based upon our look at that calendar okay um second point or question that I have um is regarding traffic um I live in the neighborhood that is directly behind this location I noticed that absolutely no one here has mentioned it at all um and there's a big concern there um in people cutting through and most definitely parking it is going to be the the location for parking we're well within a half a mile we're directly behind this facility so Center Avenue and Parkway Place are the two side stets between route uh 9 and bord and toown Avenue they're not meant mentioned nobody's talking about them there's been no part of the traffic study involving these Straits also Villanova Road um which is almost uh directly opposite Center Avenue I wanted to ask is there a reason why besides inconvenient truths is there a reason why uh these other intersections were not addressed in part of the traffic study um I'll let you answer that and then I'll continue sure the uh the idea was to focus on the location of the site driveways when the site was operational and also the intersection of Bordentown Avenue uh given that it was the nearest intersection where we anticipated a significant volume of turning movements the intersection of ernston and center and ernston and Parkway Place are controlled by stop signs on the minor Street approach obviously most of the site traffic added to that location was expected to be through traffic and therefore um did not feel it would have a significant impact on operations at that location so that's the reason that it wasn't those intersections weren't counted and weren't included in the traffic study other than a mention in the in the initial traffic report that basically said what I just told you okay um just a comment I uh obviously use Center Avenue often to get out onto ernston Road East um just the a few weeks ago I was trying to make a left out of that intersection and I sat there for full two minutes because I timed it which is two full green lights at bordon town and ernston road to make a left um numerous people in our family have had accidents at that intersection it's a very rough intersection uh just would like to request that it be taken into consideration again it's also where the road goes from two lanes down to one uh additional concerns um parking permits as was mentioned by Mr James um is there a way that we can ensure that no one will be parking parking on these streets that doesn't live there so resident permits um also if there's uh an ex at the West the Western exit of this facility if there's a right turn only required there I'm concerned that people are going to make a right make the first right up Parkway Place and cut through the neighborhood making it thus much harder to get out of our neighborhood um one more one more thing to note there are only two streets out of our neighborhood there are 120 homes two ways out that's it both onto ernston roads both on one side or the other of this location so the only way out is ernston Road I can answer part of that question regarding parking permits um certainly this board could put a condition in any resolution uh if it acts favorably uh that would would basically prohibit this facility to park in that residential neighborhood um and and more importantly I think what the board could do is recommend to the borrow Council uh that there be parking uh signage in residential neighborhood in sville uh stating that it could be resident parking obviously that requires action by your Council but if the board wants to impose a condition upon us that we would not utilize the residential neighborhood for parking you know of course unless somebody lives there and happens to walk to the facility but you know that that's certainly something that we would we would be amenable to right okay and would it be possible also for there be a condition made for no through traffic for no through traffic well I think again that would have to be handled by the burrow C that's outside of the scope of the authority of this board okay it couldn't be made part of a a consideration for approval no not no that that the regulating Street traffic like that is within the purview of the of the governing body may I ask who the governing body is that would be responsible for that the council man okay thank you thank you and I also wanted to thank everyone for asking very valid questions thank you very much all right we've got three people in a queue four people in a queue we got one you hi good evening uh my name is Debbie Lynch palowski Avenue in saille 145 um this evening you talked about the Overflow of parking and everybody's talking about um Kennedy Park the High School St St bernardet how is that a guarantee our mayor our superintendent the pastor of St bernardet they're not going to be here forever who is going to guarantee that that is going to take place do we have Mr Sax do you have an agreement with the St bernardet we yeah we do have the current Pastor I'm sorry correct with the current P we have an agreement with st bernardet I'm not sure who is who's the one who made that agreement but there is an agreement in place with respect to the use of the park uh that is something that has been coordinated with the borrow of cilt right uh you know obviously it's happen yeah it's and and certainly I don't know if the War Memorial High School is being used uh I don't think so right is the high school being used the bo okay so there's an agreement with the Board of Education as well but that's the current Board of Education what happens when Dr Labby retires or when may O'Brien is no longer mayor again I'll respond Mr chairman if you'd like I mean go ahead um I to I can't account for what happens to the Future uh but you know let's all recognize that the mosque is presently operating in sville uh and I'm not sure that there would ever be the intention of either the governing body or the Board of Education to ever reneg on an agreement to utilize public facilities but I I think that is something that needs to be taken into consideration when you're talking about the parking that everybody else has been bringing up this evening and also we talked about the warehouses on Cheesequake Road do we also need to talk about the other warehouses that are being built in town on Main Street all the apartments the condos that are going up we we have what 344 opening up in town on Main Street another 144 in Mechanicsville you got to multiply that by three or four cars per unit that's a lot of more traffic being generated in this town that I don't know if these gentlemen have taken into consideration gentlemen do you need any more info on what's being built I mean we were we were advised quite frankly through both sville and Oldbridge that there were no other developments which would impact traffic for this particular site certainly we know that we all live in New Jersey and there are developments that occur in every municipality um we live in the state that has the largest the the largest population density in the United States um but certainly that doesn't preclude developments from being built no particularly houses of worship okay thank you all right it's five of this is going to be our last uh tonight and then we're going to have some closing remarks my name is galib Sayad three Sophie Street galib g h a l i b as an boy last name is s yed Sam Yankee Edward David three Sophie Street Parlin New Jersey uh just wanted to bring your attention that uh the mosque uh which is under constru which was under construction in East burnswick is operational now and they have uh um approximately 100 parking spots and very well-managed uh uh crowd the attendees come in uh we had uh I'm although I'm resident of cille but I have attended several times the prayers in East burnswick and uh uh they have organized multiple sessions of prayers on Fridays so that uh they don't overflow the parking spots and fortunately their streets are parking friendly okay so in case if they go over overflow then they can park on the streets but the good thing here is on the Masjid of s which we are constructing we have similar prototype we are going to have the number of parking spots specified and then we also have multiple sessions and I believe I'm a worshipper in that MOS I'm not part of the management but I by experience what I have seen that if the sessions are going uh maximizing then they can go and add more sessions so in case in in case if they are having only two sessions of prayers on Friday they can add one more to ensure that there is a organized parking uh management so that's one thing and few years back I also have sat on the board of one of the MOs in Oldbridge and that is one of the busiest mass in the vicinity and that happens to also be on the Route 35 very busy uh uh in traffic and also the traffic flow is very Speedy as well so that brings us to a risk management as well that how do we manage that risk so the way we have done that do you have do you have a question sir I'm sorry do you have a question sir I'm just I'm talking on the traffic yeah but you have to ask a question okay so the my question is going to be uh for to to their traffic engineer traffic and and and actually I don't really have a question I was just going and giving you the information on then you're going to have to come back and give testimony at if after it all okay if you want to get sworn in and give one thing I just wanted to add here is that when we if we have the question here would be that if we exceed the first session of 109 cars 114 cars the second session then are we willing to add one more session on Friday three three sessions of prayers we'll give that some thought okay ma'am you have three minutes Sharon Rus Rodas Second Street sayerville uh sir I'm just asking you know there's three other churches in sayerville have you taken a look at their properties I think these churches were built two of them maybe 75 100 years ago and the new Christ Church on the main Street Extension have you gone over and look at the size of their properties for what purpose to compare what you're building no I don't no I mean obviously you'd be comparing apples to oranges so no we have not okay well they have enormous parking enormous ways to get out of their property and that's what this whole town is worried about the traffic the property the parking in relation to St bernardet if it's a rainy night snowy night I don't know how many people are going to be parking at St perets when they're come walking across erston Road that's going to create a total backup how are you going to handle 30 40 people crossing ernston road you know a man just died in seille about a month ago on Washington Road 51-year-old man how are you going to take care of people walking from St bernardet what if they slip and fall on those side streets who's responsible they are well I'm going to have Mr stimel answer that question but again the the 200 spaces that are available at St burets are for overflow parking if it's even necessary on a Friday uh um but Mr stimel I don't know if you want to respond well yeah certainly I agree with that um and also the fact that we have police traffic directors at the driveways to help people cross so I think those so that'll stop the traffic on ernston road how are medical Vehicles going to get through I think you need to do another traffic study at 5:30 like during the months of September October November December you haven't done a traffic study at 5:30 during the busy months we have not done a traffic study at 5:30 because it's outside of when we anticipate the site to generate a lot of traffic there's been some discussion about clarifying what events are happening at what times on the subject property and the board's traffic engineer has requested uh a ATR data which just means uh automatic traffic recorders that run for a whole week to look at one week 7 Days 24 hours with a directional split to evaluate traffic at other times of the day so we're in the process of responding to that okay thank you all right that concludes our testimony tonight I'd like to thank the public for being extremely uh good this was a lot easier than the first one we are going to have this again well I think we originally were thinking May 15th but that's not going to happen Okay so June 19 June 19th June 19th we will not re notice because we're going to have it in the same place the same time go ahead I I can't hear you yes we're going to start right back up where we did otherwise we'll be here until 2 o'clock in the morning all right Mr saaks you're fine I'd like to thank the board thank everybody that came and thank the officers thank you Mr chairman Welcome All right we need a motion to agree to carry no further notice you need to you need to agree to carry it with no further notice yes uh just so the record is clear the the next hearing on this application will be June 19th uh at 7:30 p.m. without further notice we will also agree to extend the mandatory date for Action to July 31st just so the board is protected thank you same location close the public close it make a motion to close the public take take a close the public portion make a motion get a second second all in favor I motion passed need a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn what's next Mr chairman if I might you're you had an application scheduled for your March or your May 15th meeting that recently has to be carried to your June 5th meeting so you don't have anything scheduled for your next meeting okay so I don't know if you want to cancel or have it for other purposes we should cancel we'll cancel the May 15th meeting all in favor cancel I need a motion to cancel the May 15 [Music] meeting yes all in favor I need a motion to close motion second all in favor I thank you for a great job