e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e uh good evening everyone the time is 6:07 p.m. this is the township of Springfield Board of adjustment meeting May 21st 20124 adequate notice has been given in accordance with the Sunshine Law notice was published on December 13th in the Star Ledger W of the official newspapers for the township of Springfield for the year 2023 and posted in the Annex Building on December 14th 2023 uh let's stand to salute the flag please I States stands indivisible Justice may we please have a roll call Mr Steven Hawkin Mr Michael wxin Mr Steven bbal pres Mr Raj a sahada Miss Mara naporano Miss Ana doson Vice chair Mark Cunningham here and chairwoman Jody Cohen here we have a quorum thank you very much uh first order of business are the minutes for March 2024 and April 2024 should we do them separately or we can we do them together okay so does anyone have any any board members have any questions or comments on the minutes from March or April if not can we have a motion to approve I'll move and I'll second thank you all in favor I I any extensions objections motion passes thank you okay next order of business are resolutions to be memorialized this evening the first one up is application 2024-25 [Music] the members of the board had a chance to review the resolution are there any questions or comments if there are none is there a motion to approve if if I might just so the board remembers yes this matter Was Heard two meetings ago at that time there was a question as to whether the uh placement of the air air conditioner condenser needed a variance um they've moved it to a place where it doesn't need a variance so that part of the application's been withdrawn the um building permit for the uh the structure that wasn't previously uh permitted the permits are ready it is compliant uh but they won't be issued until this board acts so the resolution reflects all excellent thank you for that with that said are there any questions or comments is there a motion to approve I'll move I'll second Mr Hawkin yes chair Cohen yes Vice chair Cunningham yes yes Mr God it motion passes thank you you uh the second resolution to be memorialized this evening is application 202 24-6 1 South Derby Road Block 3601 lot 74 have the members of the board had an opportunity to review are there any questions or comments is there a motion to approve moot second jump it once up to side Vice chair Cunningham yes Mr Hawkin yes uh Mr Fen bound yes and chair Cen yes motion passes the next application up for memorialization is resolution is the next resolution up for memorialization is for application 202 24- 3524 Ashwood block 251 Lot 21 have the members of the board had an opportunity to review are there any questions or comments on the resolution none is there a motion to approve I'll move chair Cohen yes Mr Fen bam yes Mr Haw yes and vice chair Cunningham yes motion passes and finally resolution up for approval is application 2024-25 have we had an opportunity to review are there any questions or comments if there none is there a motion to approve I'll move second Mr Hawkin yes Vice chair Cunningham yes Mr F bound and chair Cohen yes motion passes thank you okay we're going to move on to the applications this evening um before we call the residential applications that we have up this evening I just want to note for the record that application 2024-25 church Mall which is blocks 202 and 208 Lots 23 and 3 which was carried from our previous meeting will be carried tonight on the record um and we heard on the June 18th 2024 hearing so if there's anyone here for the share Alliance application which is application 202 24-2 that will be moved um carried to the June 18 2024 meeting Bruce I see that you want to say something and also do we need a motion to carry yes please do a motion okay and I have a motion to carry application 20244 to June 18th to carry I'll second Vice chair Cunningham yes chair Cohen yes Mr Hawkin yes and Mr fersen bound yes motion passes excellent okay I'm going to now call Up application 202- 7 this is for 30 Mohawk Drive block 2102 Lot 10 the request is for lot coverage variance for a driveway expansion good evening how are you good how are you guys my God I seem so loud uh making the time this evening um we're just going to um before you proceed yeah uh we're going to swear you in okay please raise your right hand do you swear or affirm to tell the truth yes thank you please State your full name spell your last name give us your home address sure Daniel Fuso it's f is and Frank U CCI l l 30 Mohawk Drive Springfield New Jersey thank you sure okay tell us a little bit about the application before us this evening and what you're looking to do and your reasons for doing so please sure um moved into the house 11 years ago um driveway is a little tight you know when they did the driveway maybe 50 years ago it maybe suited a little bit better uh between the two cars that we have in the driveway it's tight walking up to the front door it's tight getting into the garage we've had a couple instances where someone making a delivery has hit one of the cars or scraped against one of the cars with a box um we just want to extended out I believe it's 3 ft towards the sidewalk line of course Tastefully done it's going to have Belgian block and look very clean we care very much about the house um you know we've done nothing but improvements and obviously you're a key part of that little neighborhood there so we don't want to offend anybody um but we just want to give ourselves a little bit more room we do have family that comes and stays with us also they park in the driveway uh would make it a lot easier for them also to maneuver plus uh both of my kids are approaching 10 years old so we don't expect to move away from here so in the next six or seven years we do expect more cars in the driveway so this would be um another huge benefit of that as well I know some of the pictures maybe it doesn't look as tight as it is but I promise you it is if you widen the driveway it's not really going to help you get into the garage at all it's really to be able to shift the cars to right so that you can and why don't you put a walk along the the edge of the driver I didn't want to take grass away say again I didn't want to take anything away from the front lawn that I didn't want to do it was a consideration but I thought if we could extend the driveway over at least we could move the cars over a little bit and then people could use the drive as the walk to the front of the house it's not about entranceway to the garage because neither one of our cars fit into the garage unfortunately so it's really about um just ease of entry and also delivery and also family and you know just giving us a little bit more space I three and a half feet didn't seem like a lot but I was just wondering why you didn't if you if you're concerned is the walkway about it yeah but so if I did the walkway would that be considered more lock coverage also be the same thing it would be the same thing yeah no consider both so it just felt like that was the right way to go how do you propose to steer away any extra water by the fact that you now have more coverage with mam I don't have an issue with water pooling over there um there is a drain pipe from the house that's under the ground that's going to get replaced so that should help with drainage um but there's really never an issue right now I have an issue with the the existing driveway the way it is it it does pull at the end of it because it's so decayed but I I don't foresee an issue with extending it may I ask you what actual professional experience you have in that regard as opposed to your anecdotal I don't have a problem now um I'm not a professional driveway layer nor am I a contractor but um from being in the house and living there for 11 years I have not had an issue on the front lawn with drainage or with pooling or anything cheating but you don't but um you haven't investigated that with the additional footage that you're proposing I didn't anticipate it being an issue because I do not have an issue now it's only 3 feet wide so it's really not that much more coverage that's about 40 or 50 square feet I think uh if you add the length the yeah it's it's small I'm only going to go to the sidewalk I'm not going to extend the apron the apron's going to stay exactly the same any other questions from the board you're extending this on the right side of the house correct going towards your neighbors looking at the house at the right side yes property yeah I don't see anything here where it shows what the proposed there was a before and after I did see the before but I don't see it on the application how much space is going to be on the on the property line like what they proposed how much how many feet from the property line yeah how many feet from the property line will you now be I know Robert did map it out it looks like it's about at least three feet because there's six to the house and it's about probably about three feet yeah that's another anecdote the neighbors actually offered to come and they're in full support of it so do that the the um setback to the house is 9.9 ft so if they're going over three at least at the house there's still going to be 6.9 feet remaining it is on a slight skew so it will reduce right but it looks like there's going to be at least five feet um from the um driveway to the side property line was that requireed to variance too as well no no well that's okay okay your additional payments going to be Pavements going to be on the U lenpy side of the of your house as opposed to the miltown side correct you tend to re uh redo your drive over to Asphalt or brick asphalt okay yeah asphalt and maintain the actual Belgium blocks that are there now m how wide is it now does it it's 217 is that what it says the um garage Frontage is 21.1 Ft the curbs look like they are slightly in from that so I'm guessing it's about a 20 foot wide driveway now you could fit four cars right now it would be impossible to walk because then basically what happens is either people walk on the front lawn to get to the front door or they try to meander their way through the the cars in the driveway and it's super tight any other questions no any members of the public any questions or comments seeing none one quick question what type of vehicles are you parking in now that there's a Jeep Wrangler and a Buick Enclave okay then the Jeep usually parks against the the curbing all the way to the right of the driveway now to allow for whatever room we do have for kids to get in and out and family members to walk through and deliveries to be made any other questions members of the board any comments should we vote I I just the reason I asked you about the walk it just seems like the complaint was you know getting up to the front door it seemed like it would be more practical and then your G your driveway would be centered on the on the door is still but I mean it's so but you know you're not using it and it's just just a matter of what you decide I think the actual coverage are changing is is the Minimate totally totally thought about it just didn't want to take away any more front lawn I just really want to keep that front lawn piece um and the driveway it kind of lines up with there's a a walkway to the side of the garages so I just thought it would look a lot more symmetrical the driveway just lined up with the walkway and it would solve two problems we have more space and people just walk up the asphalt and then enter the house that way your house you can do it hopefully way I don't have a problem with it personally no I do appreciate that I agree um I think there were increases di Minimus um so I would be in favor of granting the application is there a motion I'll move to approve I'll second thank you Mr Hawkin yes Vice chair Cunningham yes Mr Fen bom no Jody uh chair Cohen yes motion passes thank you guys I very much appreciate it you can come over you can check it out yeah I'll to tomor morning yes have a good evening all right bye right we can talk about him when he leaves uh the next application that we are calling up the evening is application 202 24-8 145 Short Hills Avenue block 608 Lot 10 this is a request for front and side yard variances to put an addition on the home good evening how are you I'm good how are you this evening good thank you we're going to swear you in you swear or affirm to tell the truth I do please State your full name spell your last name and give your home address my name is David gisler GE SS l r my address is 145 Short Hills Avenue thank you okay um tell us a little bit about what you'd like to do here so it all started off wanting to make the bathroom upstairs a little bigger um it gets a little tight when the kids Pile in there and we're all trying to you know cram around one sink um and as we were looking at at layouts to to make that bathroom bigger um we started thinking you know that's above the kitchen um and we we thought it would be a good opportunity to also increase sort of the the foot traffic by opening up the the kitchen floor plan a little bit so and once we started looking at um layouts and and then then we brought up the the survey we learned that the the wall the right side wall of our house if looking at from the front uh violates the the setback by 2.4 in um so the one corner of the house that I thought was safe to work on uh was not inde deed so I need to come before you guys um and another consequence of extending the wall on the the second story is that that would cover the window on my daughter's bedroom um so to move the window to the other side of the room would mean um doing work on on the crust Place facing side of my house since that's a quer lot the variance on that side is I think it's 30 feet it's a front yard setback not a side yard setback so that that setback cuts through like the middle of of my house as it is you're asking for permission to not extend my house any wider but to extend it back a little bit this is really just to address pre pre-existing non-conforming yes issues correct but you're extending an existing non-conforming on the quest place of my correct no on the crush play side um nothing nothing is extending you're not going vertically within the setback um I thought the we are going vertical we have to that's a vertical intensification so I think you need a variance that yeah this Center portion in of Crest right is going up and there's massing yeah right the dimensional setback doesn't change but right just so you know when you go up and you're within the setback that's okay oh okay I mean still we're not adding a third story or anything so we're still under that limit any questions from the board I have one okay the um keep this going here so um where you have the two-story addition identified to the right of that is an existing I guess concrete patio or sidewalk uh yeah there's a concrete pad and will there be access to that concrete now there's what how will that serve a purpose once the addition bumps out into that area um that should still be minus the the two in that the house overlaps that concrete pad that'll still be accessible you'll still be able to walk all the way around the house okay so you're going to use that concrete though that's I'm I'm trying to find out what you're using it for at that point once the addition goes there adjacent to it um for foot traffic I guess okay I was just trying to get eliminate something if it all if it served no purpose taking that out be beneficial your over again your over on lot coverage is not changing but again if if you're using that I thought you're cutting basically the addition is reducing the patio that's there right I thought I was still good onl coverage you are you're not changing the coverage at all but if you can't get to that or it's not accessible or it doesn't really serve a purpose since it's right up against the property line I'm just asking what you use that for any other questions I just think that we need to as part of the variance we have to add the fact that he going vertically up but then set yeah I think that's what the application says it's an existing non-conforming for the 7.8 and then it's a new variant for the 14 the application document says that okay so then yeah I I applied for two variances yes side yard and front yard are applied for I think I misdescribed it uh members of the public any questions for the witness any comments on the application we going to put that on the [Laughter] uh okay members of the board I I'm in favor it's pre-existing and I see it as an improvement yeah I think it's an improvement to the building so uh to the to the existing house so um is there a motion motion to approve second Vice chair Cunningham yes Mr Hawk yes Mr F bam yes and chair Cohen yes motion passes thank you have a great evening good luck with everything it any other business I'll move I'll move to meeting that's it you got it yeah okay second all in favor I I I excellent minutes was I think you won