##VIDEO ID:Xey1fxttDJ4## 2024 adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 4-6 on February 7th 2024 proper notice was sent to The Courier News and Star Ledger and filed with the clerk at the township of Bridgewater and posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building Please be aware of the planning War policy for public hearings no new applications will be heard after 9:30 p.m. and no new testimony will be taken after 10: p.m. hearing assistance is available upon request aom ation will be made for individuals with a disability pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act or Ada provided the individual with the disability provides 48 Hours advanced notice to the plane department secretary before the public meeting however if the individual should require special equipment or services such as a c transcriber 7 Days advance notice excluding weekends and holidays may be necessary would everyone please rise to salute PL I the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy andice call please you here here here here Mr M here Mr here Mr here Mr B hereo here Mr CH Mr here thank you Miss probes before moving on be it resolved by the Bridgewater Township planning board that this body will now hold a closed meeting to discuss potential litigation involving the area in need of designation for Block 411 lot 39 and block 408 lot 67 when and if the matters discussed become public record this will be made known to the public at that time the open public is excluded from said meeting and further notice thereof is dispensed with in all in accordance with sections 8 and 4A of the open public meetings act I'll move that that's Mr pomus second please a second that's Mr cor Mr chairman just brief conversation um is there for the courtesy of the room we have a pretty full room is there an estimate of how long this conversation may may may may take 15 minutes 15 minutes all right well I'm going to Advocate that it happen as quickly as possible so we can get people back in the room very good I have a second by Miss Sora I have a roll call please yes kers yes Pap yes yes yes Sora yes yes Mr chardo yes Mr Chow I'm sorry Mr yes thank you m pro at this time if everyone could please kindly leave the courtroom than 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 e e e e e e e e e do another motion to and then do we need to roll call again all right I'll make the motion to reconvene public uh public portion of this meeting could I have a second please I'll second that's miss sakur all in favor I planning board meeting is now in session at this time if there any members of the public wishing to address the board on any land use matter that's not on tonight's agenda this evening strictly not on the agenda this evening please come forward at this time good evening please state your name and address for the record hi Kathy Franco 766 weac Road um first let me start by thanking all of you for serving on the planning board as appointees of the mayor or in the case of Michael kers appointed by the council uh my first question comment has to do with transparency an eess was sent out yesterday about this meeting it did not highlight the Redevelopment application as a public meeting or the warry the Quarry Reclamation plan but only the Land Development applications on the agenda both of which are of small residential subdivisions that's not transparency in my mind um the issues that are important to the large population of Bridgewater is the Redevelopment in the Quarry and that should have been highlighted I did receive a response to an email that I sent which said well this is how we've do it this is how we've always done it not that we could consider doing it differently in the future I'm very disappointed in that response and now in addition you just called a you know a private meeting of this board and instead of saying what the common known name of that property is you quoted lot and block numbers those lot and block numbers for the record are the eicon project and I think that should be that should have been stated when you called for your private session finally um during item8 which will be the public hearing will public comment be open again um for both the Redevelopment and the Quarry Reclamation that's a question which I would like an answer to I do have the question and yes it will be open for comment okay thank you very much thank you okay I'd like to make a few announcements this evening well first Mo motion to close this portion to the public second that's councilman kers Mr papus all in favor I I Mr chairman if I may may comment because some of what was stated was not entirely true um this Administration the council and or luse boards are entirely committed uh to transparency we are running uh the uh most transparent government that Bridgewater has ever seen far in excess of state law and likely far in excess of nearly all if not all municipalities across the state of New Jersey we send out an um we have a uh email uh subscription available for those who are interested in hearing what's going on in their land use boards uh I don't typically stand up and take personal credit for things but this was my initial itive because we had heard we had heard feedback that well when a when a case is heard there's only a 200 foot notice what about people who live in the remaining portion of the community and there was all kinds of conversation about maybe we could change state law maybe we could do this maybe we could do that what I came up with about a year and a half ago was to say why don't we do a simple essentially addendum to our newsletter A specialized version for land use and that's what we have and it's its Charter its purpose is to inform those who live in Bridgewater those who live Beyond Bridgewater exactly what land use applications are going to be heard in addition there is a link to the full agenda so those who are interested in seeing the full agenda you're two clicks away you open the email then you're one click away the rationale for not putting the entire agenda into the body of an email is people wouldn't read it we purposely are focused on making sure that through transparency people can know On Any Given night what is going to be discussed in terms of hearings in terms of a land use matters so again the our the administration the council the land use boards are operating with extreme transparency more than we've ever had in our history far more than is required by law and likely as much as any municipality in New Jersey thank you thank you councilman okay if I could I'd like to make a few announcements this evening uh the choir Reclamation plan is on this evening's agenda presentation of a recation plan will not be heard this evening uh that will be noticed at a further time and in our Land Development applications portion the hos Julia carried to 10524 again that will not be heard this evening now moving along we do have a resolution this evening for the Bridgewater Ron Regional School District that is for the middle school classroom Edition at 128 marrywood Road does the board have any changes or comments for the record hearing none could have a motion to adopt said resolution I'll make that motion to adopt councilman kers have a second please second that's Mr Wang can I have a roll call please chman vessio yes councilman K yes Mr Pap yes Mr M yes Mr yes yes Mr Bango yes yes yes thank you m proes moving along this evening if I could get a show of hands from the public who is here this evening for the ethicon site okay that's a good amount okay we're going to shuffle things around just a bit I'm going to move into our application portion for the evening I believe we have Kuma realy LLC that is here for an extension of a prior approval and who's here repres presenting Kumar realy LLC this evening Mr chairman my name is Jay Bone I'm an attorney with the law firm of Schiller piter and Galvin PC I represent the applicant we are here tonight seeking the board's approval for a one year of extension of our time to complete compliance with the conditions of the application I am of course cognizant of that the board has a very full agenda and a lot of members of the public who are here to listen to other things so I don't want to to take any longer than absolutely necessary but if the Board needs it I have the applicant and our engineer here who can offer any testimony that you need uh very briefly the board approved this application last September adopted a resolution October 17th 2023 that gave us90 days to get the subdivision Deeds filed and by my calculation excuse me that brings us to April 24th uh in the meantime we have attempted to document our compliance with the various conditions that are imposed on that resolution uh we have submitted the compliance binders they have been reviewed and approved by your planner we're waiting comments from your engineer um we think that uh we'll be in a position as soon as we get those comments to deal with with any issues he has and to move this forward of course my client has no desire to to let the approval low he owns a property he wants to develop it and in that regard he pointed out that that we understand that there's a possibility that the road is going to be resurfaced soon so he's very eager to get his Road opening permits to get the infrastructure and the driveways in so that he doesn't face a moratorium um with that I I can present them their testimony if you want or Mr B thank you for that review uh if the board has any questions or requires a further testimony uh any questions by our board Mr bone I think that should suffice based on the board Mr peek yeah there under the municipal land use law uh a minor subdivision can get a one-year extension if the applicant has diligently prosecuted uh compliance with the approval uh and has been held up through no fault of his own and that's been the case uh here so certainly under the statutory criteria they'd be entitled to uh a one-year extension as they've requested and uh Mr bone did you uh what's 190 days from October 17 do you know I calculated it to be April 24th so that's when it would run to so really you'd have about six months left to perfect everything yes okay April 4 24 24 okay any comments from the board I have no objection to the extension with that I'll take a motion to Grant the extension Kumar realy all and I just attach that all prior conditions of the approval remain uh in effect that they still they're still obligated to satisfy those so that would be an extension to April 24 of 2025 I'll make that motion I'm sorry I hear a motion that's Mr banga could I have a second please I'll second that's miss sakur m probes could have a roll call please chairman viio yes yes yes Mr M yes yes yes Mr yes yes Mr yes thank you very much Mr bone and good luck to you okay moving along to our other board business this evening we do have a courtesy review for the Bridgewater Ron Regional School District and this is specifically the Bradley Gardens Elementary School Edition and who'll be giving that presentation this evening and again for the uh for the planning boards and the and the Public's consideration there's really no formal action that will be taken by the board in connection with this it's whenever a public entity such as the school board or or the county somebody like that has a project that they're doing that's in accordance with their capital budget uh such as school improvements and and what you're going to hear about tonight um so under the law they have to make a presentation and the board can make recommendations but those aren't binding it's really almost informational and to get feedback from the planning board thank you Mr peek for I can use this one right yes is it on hello yes um no this is fine thank you uh good evening everybody thank you for hearing us uh my name is Alexis Goldman from Solutions architecture I'll be presenting on half of on behalf of the Board of Education Bridgewater ran Regional Board of Education um as you mentioned we are presenting an addition on the Bradley Garden school um the purpose of this Edition is because the Bradley Gardens Elementary School is the only uh School in the district that does not have two large spaces for Gathering all of the other schools have their own independent large gym and then a multi-purpose space where they have um Auditorium like events and a cafeteria so as part of the refence referendum this project was put forth to make sure this school was equal to all the other schools um so we have first the site plan colored site plan if you can see can't see the light um so The Orange Box there is the addition um if you look to the left of that you can see the circular drive that's your main approach when you drive up to Bradley Garden school we located the addition immediately to the right of the entrance this was really the only uh available space Plus provides a centered location for uh a cafeteria addition for easy access for the whole school um as you uh can see there's a drive that leads up to that uh addition that is primarily for Access for uh kitchen deliveries and also provides a fire it's a 20ft drive for fire department access there are uh walkways all around the addition to provide access to the entrance is um an entrance at at the connector that connects to the addition we provided some outdoor patios for you know outdoor seating as the school decides to use it um at the driveway we moved the currently the trash enclosure is at the back of the building where the kitchen is so we've provided a enclosure off this drive in the front for easy access for uh the garbage and for pickup up we've sort of tilted it a little to try to make it easy for pickup um the white box behind the addition is the current kindergarten playground uh preing kindergarten playground that will remain it is fairly new and will remain as is um the uh sanitary lines that uh feed the K the kitchen which is inside the addition as well as some uh new toilet rooms inside the building are connected to uh a sanitary manhole that is existing on site so we're basically just exist connecting to the existing [Music] system let me just make sure also part of this project is a new electrical service that will provide will provide Power for the addition but also will allow air conditioning in a future project the electrical room is actually inside the addition uh which I can show you you yes oh and just to mention the storm Rudder system there is an underground storm water retention system which is underneath the drive um and that reduces the peak flow on the system and the design was based on the year 2100 storm events this is a a floor plan of the addition so in the yellow is the large cafeteria section uh it's about 2,000 square fet and sits 130 students the green section is the kitchen and next to that there are two toilets one uh for the students that's facing the cafeteria and one for the staff that's facing the kitchen there's also uh two storage areas one for the kitchen and one for uh after school events and the large purple section at the bottom is mostly the uh electrical room that I mentioned and then there's the connection um through and back to the existing hallway that's in the pinkish orange color there we are as the as part of this project also renovating uh four classrooms that kind of go north of this that redistribute the space and also provide uh rooms for the future full day kindergarten along with toilets for each of those rooms okay and then so these are some of the renderings of uh what the addition would look like so this is as you pull up from the main drive that's the 20ft wide drive for Access and the brick we would be matching as close as possible to the existing building and we provided some colored brick for um accent this is uh coming a little bit closer to the building looking ahead towards that connection and the outdoor seating areas this is if you come around to the back of the building that is the existing a playground there looking back towards the addition and in the far distance is the existing building and lastly As you move closer to the existing building from the back so existing building to the right looking back at the addition and the connection from the back just let me see just a couple other things to mention we did get comments um from the Sewer Authority from Tom janova we did respond to those comments the changes to the drawings have been made and and sent back we did get comments uh from the Fire official and I think the focus is just showing that we can fit your fire trucks around which we're in the middle of getting the appropriate Siz fire truck that you do have and we will provide that um a diagram showing all the Turning radiuses I think they also asked that there would a fire department connection be brought to the front as well that was in that memo as well I believe okay that was if we were providing fire sprinklers but we're not there's no sprinklers in this building yeah it's under the requirement to provide sprinklers is it any comments questions any questions from the board yeah I just uh Mr Burr have you looked at this is there any concern about storm water management uh no actually I did I did take a look at it and storm water appears to be adequately addressed by way of this this plan there's underground uh detention system proposed and we heard testimony that that was size to meet the new um storm water requirements so it looks fine to me yep Mr chairman um do you have an estimated timeline of when the pro when the construction will begin and end um the Project's going out to bid in about 3 to four weeks um takes you know a month or two to start they if the weather is good they'll start as soon as they receive building permits if it gets too cold and they can't break ground then the schedule will be starting in the spring and then would go a full year so the latest would be March April of 2026 so they wouldn't but they would probably start using that maybe in it's it's really up to the school district when they want to make that switch but that's probably when the building will be ready okay and just to confirm for anyone who's concerned about safety there would be appropriate um barriers erected uh to keep staff students and and and any visitors away from the construction site yes absolutely we'll have a con construction fence around the entire thing we also did spend considerable time figuring out how to place this addition to keep ourselves away from that playground which is heavily used all year round okay you mentioned outdoor dining that's for the students it's really for the school dist to decide we just figured if we're going to create this space we might as well create some outdoor environment that they could be in I don't think they've quite determined how they're going to use that space But we assume if it's next to the criteria they might you know might be a special gift to the students certain groups or you know it depends on their use but not and that'll be on a imperious surface and I think you said the uh storm water runoff is adequately addressed okay yes is s matter are there any concerns from a planning perspective I I have no concerns okay any other questions from the board this time any members of the public wish to comment or question please feel free to come forward at this time okay seeing none any other comments Mr P will a simple motion uh for or deliberation by the board or comments from the board there's no deliberation there's no board action I think it just thank very good thank Miss Goldman for her time Miss Gman thank you very much for your time thank you for your time presentation thank you okay moving along the evening to our other board business I'm assuming many are here for the preliminary investigation of an area need of Redevelopment for the ethicon site also block 11 lot 39 555 route22 and block 408 lot 67 and who will be giving that presentation this evening and Mr chairman before we get the hearing started I did want to remind the board and the public of the purpose for this evening's hearing um tonight's hearing is strictly for the board to determine whether or not the property meets one of the statutory criteria that the state has determined uh would entitle a property to be deemed eligible for redevelopment the Redevelopment process is a long process that goes back and forth between the governing body and the planning board and the Public's afforded the opportunity to to comment at various stages of the process so it starts with the governing body the township Council uh requesting the planning board to undertake what's called a preliminary investigation to determine whether or not uh the property should be deemed an area in need of Redevelopment so that's where we are now the planning board delegated to our planner our Redevelopment planner Michael Sullivan to conduct this study so he's prepared a report and he's here tonight with his team to prepare uh to present his findings as as relates to that property and the eth statutory criteria are first is uh that buildings are substandard unsafe unsan AR dilapidated uh obsolescent basically blighted uh the second would be uh the discontinuance of the use of buildings previously used for commercial manufacturing or industrial purposes uh that have basically been designed for a specific purpose and to be able to adaptively reuse uh is not feasible then there's another uh that either land that's owned by the municipality or the county or Housing Authority uh some public agency like that or unimproved vacant land that hasn't been developed for at least 10 years um there's more but that's that's uh the third then there's another uh which is areas with buildings or improvements which by reason of dilapidation obsolescence overcrowding uh light and sanitary facilities Etc are detrimental to the safety Health moral welfare of the community uh then there's uh lack or total lack of proper utilization of areas caused by the condition of the title that's not uh applicable here uh areas greater than 5 Acres that have been consumed by fire or earthquake or hurricane or some other casualty that uh basically laid low in area and then uh a municipal Enterprise Zone would be another category and then the final is if the designation of Del the delineated area is consistent with smart growth planning principles so and Mr Sullivan will present uh whether or not the property meets any of those eight enumerated criteria then the board is charged tonight it's its sole Mission the only thing it's here for is to determine whether or not the property meets one of those criteria and whether or not they're going to recommend to the township Council to declare the properties uh in area need of Redevelopment then it goes to the town Council who will actually make that determination is this you know we declare it an area need of Redevelopment or we don't at that point the township Council will either direct the planning board or by itself to develop a Redevelopment plan and that's what would guide then the future uses of the property and the the way the property would be laid out and all those it would act as overlay zoning over the property so it's a way for the municipality to gain a little ex ra control over the zoning process but we're not there yet um we're only here to see if the property meets the statutory criteria and then after there's a Redevelopment plan that has to be adopted by the municipality but by the township Council by ordinance and then when that's in place they would designate a redeveloper and then the Redevelopment would would uh take effect so again I just wanted to put that out there because I know it's a you know it's a long and somewhat convoluted process so I just wanted everybody to be clear what we're charged with this evening there'll be other steps along the process where we're dealing with potential future uses if we get that far but we're not there today uh uh or tonight thank you board attorney Mr pek and if I could just make a quick note there'll be an opportunity for the public test questions at some point at which time I believe Mr probes do you have a signin sheet correct by the on one of these desks here on the podium okay we we ask that we need to come up and clearly state your name and address just just sign that sign-in sheet as well for us if you don't mind okay we can proceed with that presentation good evening and thanks for your attention tonight thank you to the public for your attention tonight um my name is Michael Sullivan I'm a principal with Clark Kon hins in Trent New Jersey I'm a professional planner and a landscape architect uh we are the Redevelopment planners for Bridgewater Township I'm a licensed professional planner in New Jersey I'm a member of the certified American Institute of certified planners and the American Society of Landscape Architects I've been a practicing planner since 1992 for the record um tonight um I'm going to be speaking uh I've also brought my architectural partner John hatch who assisted me with evaluating the ethon facilities um um we are both going to uh take on part of this presentation and hopefully we will go through this entire presentation and we will both be available for questions on our testimony and the report at the end of Our Testimony uh we've got uh a presentation that's on the screen and hopefully we'll be able to coordinate with my back and sides sort of to that so as Mr peek uh indicated the purpose of tonight's hearing is for the planning board to consider whether the study area the ethicon facility uh properties uh are in fact an area in need of Redevelopment this public hearing is required pursuant to the mun uh local Redevelopment and Housing law under Section six um the process began when the township Council of Bridgewater uh drafted a resolution passed a resolution in March uh directing the planning board to study the property planning board uh asked us to assist in that and prepare the report and seek evidence um look at the site and seek if see if there was evidence of a Redevelopment area designation on the site um Mr peek did a great job of of blowing through the criteria the eight criteria that we have uh essentially the criteria for redevelopment area are buildings and properties that are dilapidated or falling apart or uh creating a a blight as you said uh obsolescent conditions but also properties that are unproductive in a in a in some way and a large underpinning of the Redevelopment statute is to ensure that properties are Al productive and not bive but also generating adequate Revenue to the municipality in terms of property taxes and that they are on the roles uh to ensure that the municipalities have the ability to provide services and take care of the town the preliminary investigation we're talking about tonight is really um a summary of the characteristics of a site and we compare it to those criteria so part of that is we look at uh the conditions of the site buildings uh environmental conditions natural conditions whatever is on that site so that we can compare it to the criteria um our analysis is contained within the report dated August 30th 2024 which is our preliminary investigation and as I said before I prepared this with the assistance of my architectural partner John hatch will be speaking and my associate Tristan Harrison who's also a planner um in order to do this uh conduct the investigation we reviewed uh whole series of documents that we were able to obtain from the new property owner that included property surveys it included environmental reports it included architectural uh analyses it included summaries of floor area uh other envi I said the environmental assessments um but we also looked at tax assessment data and other data in doing this report um so the report does contain uh physical characteristics and all the information that we thought we could find uh to make a determination as to whether or not we think it meets the criteria you go to the next slide so just to orient everybody the site's located at 555 uh I'm going to look this way US Route 22 on the westbound side um near the intersection of uh Country Club Road and US Route 22 it's composed of two properties the first property is the former ethicon campus that everybody can see from the road and understands that's block 411 lot 9 it's 81.8 n Acres it's got a total uh property assessment of $51 million just over $51 million I believe about 10 of that is the land value and the rest are the improvements um the other property is a vacant lot block 408 lot 67 which is a cross country Country Club Drive at the intersection it's 2.38 acres and that's got a total property assessment of $347,000 with no improvement value on it whatsoever both lots are owned by 555 route22 Associates LLC um current uses um well we've got the existing land use the existing land use is based on tax assessment data and that shows that uh the land classification for the ethon campus is still commercial and that uh block 48 lot 67 the vacant lot is is vacant next uh the image you see up on the screen now is a map uh showing the um the building locations and the building designations are those that were part of uh information we received some of it was from the uh real estate offering and it's the way that they've characterized the buildings on the ethon site so this is their way of designating and naming these buildings and they've got letter designations and also some are just called the fitness center or the family center but some are B C D and M so those are going to be helpful in orienting you and whoever reads this report to the conditions we're talking about so the current use of the is the former ethon campus um it's got buildings and other Phil facilities which are unoccupied except for maintenance and security Personnel at this point it's Zone light manufacturing M1 um the block 408 lot 67 is vacant wooded and it's got some wetlands and some stream action on it uh it's Zone single family residential R40 um and it has not been improved so the general overview I'm going to do a general overview of the ethon site and the and then Mr patch my partner is going to go through each of the buildings and give you a description and talk through the characteristics of those buildings so uh eacon has approximately 15 buildings and or Wings some of the buildings have been connected over time or were built in evolution um it's approximately 700,000 Square ft of space in terms of floor area it's enormous uh was previously used for offices Laboratories manufacturing and employee amenity space es um most notably it was a a needle or suture manufacturing plant um and um approximately 60% of the floor area consisted of offices and related uh support uses and about 40% uh was used for research development manufacturing and medical pro pro products it's more than 60 years since the first buildings were constructed in 1956 this was a real post-war boom facility and it really represents that error in time and um I think the U the glass is very iconic the blue glass um it was designed and redesigned over time to facilitate ethon's specialized use um of biomedic research and Manufacturing operations um in addition to the buildings it's got 1342 parking spaces surface parking spaces a mile of nature paths got sight lighting and an electrical substation above ground fuel tanks uh generators uh monitoring and injection Wells which are associated with contamination of the groundwater we'll talk a little bit about that later a water tower and storm water management facilities uh so it's really a massive complex and it has all of the attributes of support that go along with that um and so that's the general overview of the site um now I'm going to turn it over to Mr John hatch my architectural partner who's going to walk you through uh the individual buildings and their wings and the character of those thank you Michael good evening uh my name is John hatch I'm a principal with Clark Ken hins um I'm an architect I've uh been licensed in the state of New Jersey since 1992 um and uh part of my area of practice has to do with a lot of my area of practice has to do with working with existing buildings redeveloping existing buildings um including uh larger Redevelopment projects and uh and that has included a number of um larger industrial um structures um to to start with as Michael said the the site has a wide range of buildings building sizes building configurations in general uh the buildings are quite um uh utilitarian and Industrial in nature a lot of them have um concrete exterior walls uh or concrete masonry exterior exterior walls many of the buildings are very specific to their fun to their functions to their laboratory manufacturing functions um and the overall site config configuration and that the relationship of the buildings to each other to the parking to the site is also very particular to the functions um that were located here since uh 1956 so I'm going to start by just running through uh and briefly describing each building and its characteristics so the first building is um called building five it's the Family Center or Child Development Center um this is actually one of the newer buildings on the site built in 1997 um for use as an employee Child Care Facility it's one story it's almost 22,000 Square ft it contains classroom play classrooms play areas restrooms kitchen offices mechanical and storage rooms and other spaces relevant to specifically to a daycare center um it's in relatively good condition uh given that it's uh not that old um it's organized as a double loaded Corridor uh with rooms on each side and there's um adequate wind uh light and window access for the use uh for the designed uses which is um TP um daycare center for ages ranging from very young through pre kindergarten so each classroom in the building has a very particular configuration um uh and based on the age group that was being served uh the youngest children those spaces for example have dip diaper changing areas and all of the rooms have um have bathrooms that are designed specifically for the age group so there's uh kind of plumbing and other uh utilities running throughout the entire uh throughout the entire building uh the next group of buildings are actually Wings it's called building 10 and it's wings CDE E F and M and in um most of these are part of the original construction on the site 195 six and these were um contained these each of these Wings contained a variety of uses um ranging from specialized laboratory and research space in Wing C specialized office space in Wing D Executive offices in Wing Wings E and F and administrative offices in Wing M each of these wings as you can see in the plan um that they're interconnected and each has a relatively narrow footprint of between 50 and 60 ft unusual for uh that would be considered unusual today for office or laboratory or research space um the wing C is about 36,000 Square ft and contained microbiology and multi-purpose Labs on the first floor offices on the second and laboratory space in the basement Wing d contains uh just over 47,000 Square ft and consists of primarily offices uh in addition to conference room storage utility space three Laboratories in the basement uh all of the floors of wing D are then connected with wing C and F and the the first floor of wing D is connected to Wing G which is that very large footprint that you see there while the first floor and basement are connected to the old cafeteria uh which you can see kind of between the between the wings and I'll touch on all of that later uh Wing e contains about uh just over 8,000 square fet and is um is all on the third floor above the intersection of wings c and d and it contains boardroom conference and executive office space Wing f is about 20,000 Square ft and is attached to Wing D at the West End and uh to Wing M by an enclosed two-story hallway at the northeast corner that was added um during the construction of wing M um Wing m is uh the new building in this group of interconnected structures that was built in 1964 and has about a 30,000 ft² floor area of office space on Floors one and two an industrial space a vault utilities Mechanicals in the basement um all of these buildings were renovated and altered on on numerous occasions over the course of their life this group of buildings is about it's just about 140,000 Square ft again of specialized laboratory and office space here you can see some of the photographs you can see the double loaded corridors the very long kind of very again very utilitarian um this is not the way these kind of spaces would be designed today um the built uh photograph on the left is a built-in equip equipment in Wing C just to give you some sense of all the equipment that was in the these laboratory spaces and there's um also the photograph on the right is lab space um also in Wing SE uh photograph you can see a photograph of the one of the Executive offices in Wing F and get a sense of the very straight forward um and you very straightforward and simple and utilitarian exteriors of the of the buildings these buildings um in general have uh Windows unlike many of the other buildings on the site next um so this building is uh building 10 also called the old cafeteria um this was built in 196 6 4 as a bomb shelter it is underground it's built of um reinforced concrete it has um virtually no access to exterior light it was renovated uh in 1992 as a cafeteria and then later um as um surprisingly as offices um it is connected um it's it's one story below ground the ground kind of Mounds over it and it's between Wings d f m and and G it's a raised lawn area is what you see in that kind of uh Courtyard space it's accessed um uh through the first floor and basement of wing D and it has just about 15,000 square ft next building is Building 25 this is called the um the the clinic or the beam building it was built in 1961 it's a twostory building quite small total of about 8500 Square ft it uh it contained medical a medical clinic a doctor's offices and exam rooms on the first floor while the basement houses storage and mechanical equipment um the East End of the Upper Floor was con converted at a later in 2011 to an employee health clinic and the West End of the lower level is actually below grade that's just because of the way the the site slopes um it can be accessed by means of a second story enclosed pedestrian bridge from Wing G again this is a particularly um utilitarian bu building and um the only windows are on one of the facades on the North facade which is which you see in that uh in the leftand photograph and you can see the The Pedestrian uh connection to um to Wing G building 30 or Wing o uh was built in 1969 with u a series of later Renovations it's a the three-story building of um almost 999,000 Square ft it consists uh primarily of office space and about 30% of the basement houses workshops and storage it's connected conned to Wing g at the West End and to the ATC building at the North End by by another connection bridge at the third floor um as you can see again this is a very utilitarian building um concrete exterior painted concrete you can see how it's staining um and large portion portions of it um don't have Windows or have very few windows and um I think on the next slide you can get a sense of what some of the interior ior spaces are um this is the workshop and Manufacturing space in Wing o and you can see the height of it um the equipment in it in it and just how particular uh the design is to to the function uh building 40 is the Advanced Technology Center the ATC building this was built in 1961 with later additions um and partial renovations it's two stories about 990,000 Square ft uh with a variety of uses including um offices and lab space on the top floor and Manufacturing with lab space on the first floor it's located located north of of wing o which we just talked about at and Wing G and connected to the O building to the South by another one of these um enclosed pedestrian Bridges most of the building is filled with specialized laboratory equipment and building support systems that were necessary for the building's research and Manufacturing uses um I'll say it again you can see from the exterior just how utilitarian it is and how few Windows there are and and then the very tall and very um specialized space on the interior some of the special uses in here there were stability Chambers and and um other areas that stored very expensive samples building 50 is the learning Institute or Wing G um this building has uh has the largest footprint it is um part of the original Construction in 1956 and this is where most of the manufacturing took place um when it was first constructed it's um a little over 184,000 square feet and now cont most recently contained offices and other amenities along with some manufacturing uh specialized Lab at warehouse um and other facilities that supported the entire campus um as I mentioned it was originally the manufacturing facility but uh went through Renovations in the '90s and 2000 thousands to accommodate this variety of kind of amenity uses that didn't have other locations on the campus and that could be put into a building that had such a large footprint and these spaces didn't necessarily need access to Windows so it's things like the cafeteria which had been underground before um a credit union Warehouse um and training and Conference spaces um it has its own U access and is attached to to several other buildings as well and here you can get a sense of just how tall the space is on the interior this is some of the um the loading and storage areas um and uh just how particular again all of these bu buildings were very specifically and particularly designed for their specific uses building 60 is the research Tower uh this was built a little bit later in 1976 with later Renovations it has about 70,000 square ft um and consists of a seven-story tower on a on top of a one-story base the footprint of the tower itself is about 7,000 square ft per floor the um or not quite 7,000 per floor it uh the building contains offices and conference areas on the first floor and and um mainly laboratory and specialized office spaces on the floors on Floors 2 through six with uh the top floor being executive suites a mechanical Penthouse and utilities um are on the roof and Utilities in the basement um the the building still contains an extensive amount of research equipment Cabinetry utilities and specialized vent ventilation specifically for the laboratory spaces um one of the interesting uh and here you can see on the interior just um some of those specialized spaces the exterior is um uh has two of its faces the West um and East facades have Windows the the North and South one of the facades um the north facade has no windows and the South facade just has a strip of of windows and again that was um very purposely done because of the the lab spaces uh specialized lab spaces again the footprint of the building the way it's designed is quite different from when the way these kinds of spaces would be designed today uh the next building is building 60 the Research Foundation built in 1961 with later Renovations it's one story uh just about 49,000 Square ft and was primarily primarily a research facility containing highly specialized laboratory spaces a surgical center conference rooms and other support spaces needed for those laboratory facilities um like and here you can see some of those very specialized spaces including um um there were a series of walk-ins for for some of the um the lab um experiments being done both on the interior and the exterior exterior of the building very very utilitarian very few Windows the interior is uh largely um uh partitions are painted concrete masonry units with painted concrete floors uh and there you can see one facade with no windows building 60 is the research complex connector this was buil built later in' 76 and renovated in 1997 and it was very simply a connected um it's a one-story um a little over 9,000 ft uh connection between the research Tower and the Research Foundation and it's essentially a double loaded Corridor with some offices and restrooms on either side it does have Windows on one face duve very straightforward um utilitarian double loaded corridor building 70 is the fitness center one of the later buildings on campus this is was built in 1983 it's a one-story Standalone structure of about uh 10,600 Square fet it contains a gym exercise spaces offices mechanical and storage rooms restrooms locker room showers and um although again very utilitarian on the exterior and very straightforward spaces it functioned uh well as a fitness center there are a number of other of other structures on the site associated with uh um with the overall functions on the eacon site and provided utilities and support there's the um the very prominent water tower um there's a a tank farm uh with with has large um oil tanks and other fuel tanks supporting uh supporting the facility and uh Supply supplying generator uh fuel for generators uh electrical substation um and electrical substation so these all provided the the necessary utilities and support for for the rest of the campus and just in closing I'll say again it's um as you saw the buildings are very particular to their functions and um and the overall configuration the site was also very particular so it's um um anyway well Michael very so that's your tour of the architecture of the Etha campus facility I'm going to talk a little bit now about some of the environmental contamination issues that are out there um so there's a documented history of uh contamination out there most notably groundwater contamination um the investigation of groundwater contamination at eacon began in 1983 uh when nine monitor monitoring Wells were installed and sampled for the first time uh and a groundwater classification exception area which is shown on the um aerial photograph on the right was established uh and approved by the D in 2014 um that was for um groundwater there are chlorinated hydrocarbons and they are detrimental to humans and other life um and so there's been uh cleanup and Remediation going on out there ever since um an application was made in 2023 to the D uh in order to reduce the extent of the classification exception area the classification exception area is an area of contamination which restricts the ability to develop the site or have activities there are also monitoring Wells and injection Wells out there which have to be protected um because they are monitoring groundwater and they're also using I believe the injection Wells are using uh their their ports for injecting fluids water to dilute U contaminant um so there was an application made to the DP to U reduce it so that there would have be more ability to utilize the site um as of now uh that's that hasn't been approved to my knowledge and there's an an immense cost with that there's a there's a real cost to that um and that cost uh is upwards of a million dollars uh to make those improvements uh you couldn't just get the classification exception area reduced you have to actually mitigate some things and do some take take some actions in order to do that so that exists um in addition uh within the buildings uh there is evidence of uh three prominent um contaminants first is lead um there is lead in the buildings and Lead has been identified in in building five the family center and child de Development Center in building 10 in Wings CDE E F and M and in the old cafeteria which is attached to that building in Building 25 30 40 which is the Advanced Technology Center in building 50 which is the learning Institute the largest footprint the research Tower and the Research Foundation I've LED and also the fitness center uh so that led uh if demolition occurs uh must be remediated as bestus is also located uh within the buildings within building 10 in all the wings uh within Wing o of building 30 within building 50 within building 60 which is research Tower and the Research Foundation and also pcbs have been identified uh in the buildings um the report that we have is not specific to the uh the exact buildings but there were eight out of 29 analyzed samples for pcbs in caulking that's been used uh and the recommendation is that further study needs to be made for all of these to determine costs um right now um from the reports we have the estimated remediation costs for groundwater and asbest Remediation are upwards of $5 million um uh and what this is telling us is that this is an old U now vacant um M re office research and Manufacturing site um with 700 th000 ft of floor area and that the contamination with the buildings on the site presents an obstacle to Redevelopment here and then it will be very costly to remediate these things let me describe uh block 408 lot 67 which is the vacant lot where is that okay this lot is vacant it's got woods and it's got um wetlands on it and the it's got 587 ft of Frontage on us22 and approximately 194 ft of Frontage on Country Club Drive the wetlands uh without transition areas or buffers as we commonly know them occupy about 30% of the lot that's 31,000 Square ft um and the access is limited due to Wetlands um and there has been no development of that property that's then um in terms of how we look at this property through the lens of the criteria the Redevelopment statute I'd like to go through that now and um can we pull up the slide with Criterion B okay in my opinion based on the evidence that we've we've looked at uh the former ethic on campus meets Criterion B Criterion B uh in the local Redevelopment and Housing law indicates that you satisfy the criteria if the property exhibits the discontinuance of the use of a building or buildings previously used for commercial retail shopping malls or plazas office Parks manufacturing or industrial purposes this as as we've talked about the eacon campus began in 1956 as an office Park in surgical product manufacturing facility and it was expanded over several decades and John went through the evolution of some of these these buildings with additions Renovations and they shifted uses around as they move things through their property and the uses shifted um they moved the cafeteria from the bomb shelter um etc etc um the site continued to be used for its intended purpose and its evolved purpose for over 60 years in September 2015 it ceased its manufacturing operations on site which occupied approximately 280,000 square feet uh approximately 40% of the total floor area was discontinued in terms of use in 2015 60% of the campus continue to be used for offices in the ancillary facilities the family center and the child care center until August 2022 in August 2022 ethicon relocated 1,200 of its employees to a new facility but retained 50 employees uh in the core uh fac facility use for security and basic maintenance operations um the campus was temporarily reoccupied in between September 20 2022 and April 2023 with approximately 1300 employees during the construction of a new facility in raron um and since the completion of the Ron facility uh those employees moved over to Ron and it's now unoccupied except for the core maintenance and security folks who are out there um it's unoccupied other than those folks um in my opinion this facility is obsolete for its purposes as John testified to and described through all these buildings they were all built specifically to function for this use as he said the office facilities don't represent contemporary office development um there are extraordinarily High ceilings and structural elements and uh built-in U lab space and Sample storage space and secure areas um it's and I and I look at these buildings as a whole as each one being analogous to components of an extraordinarily large machine that was custom built to function as ethon function to do the research and have the office administration and manufacture and test and store um when we got the tour we learned that they had animals they were test you know testing on out there they had samples they had all these uh refrigerated units and these were in when you walk through there it's very it's very unusual because it's very dark there not a lot of Windows and there's extremely large floor plates in some cases and I couldn't imagine this this place being readily adapted to any use where people would want natural light um so the departure of eacon has rendered this specialized complex obsolescent in my opinion um it also exhibits known and unknown extents of contamination we've got reports that we've gotten from uh environmental firms on the building and also the buildings and also the um the groundwater U with hydrocarbons lead asbest and PCB in the buildings it's specialized design and configuration along with its sheer size a 700,000 foot campus and that's just you know the buildings uh means that it's hard to imagine it's feasible for this holistically to be redeveloped um to and be reoccupied in its current form um it is a quintessential stranded asset maybe you've heard that term a stranded asset is characterized by the legislature and is would have become common term of Art in the planning and development and Redevelopment World stranded asset is uh essentially a large facility like a Merc which was a stranded asset that was reoccupied or this uh this facility which has outlived its use was specialized and now it the user has moved on and it's very unlikely that someone's going to come in and just take it over and reoccupy it and reuse it when the legislature passed the Redevelopment statute to include this provision um they made some commentary and I'm going to read this uh straight from what they said um because large corporate office parks and large shopping malls have become obsolete vacant and difficult to market today they are characterized in development circles as stranded Assets in order to encourage private entities to work together with Municipal governments to redevelop stranded assets it may be necessary to resort to more potent development tools than traditional land use Planning and Zoning by specifying that vacant shopping mall or an office Park is an area in need of Redevelopment a municipality can offer potential private sector Partners Redevelopment tools such as tax exemptions abatements to encourage them to repurpose these stranded assets why that's important to you or to the township the assessment as I said before for the ethicon campus is $51 million plus the annual tax bill is almost a million dollar it's 929 929 $1,000 the annual cost to maintain this and we got these numbers from uh the representative who's in charge of the facility including property taxes is $3.38 eight million per year to maintain this site that includes security power um all the things that make it go plus the $900,000 in property taxes absent Redevelopment property tax appeal could result in a significant drop in that Revenue uh to the township um additionally If This Were Redevelopment and you brought employees of some ilk back here that would have spin-off in terms of Economic Development and economic activity for the township uh so the Redevelopment statute and the Redevelopment law by providing tools not just the fiscal tools but also the tools for um enhanced zoning and the ability to sift through what is necessary and determine whether or not there are also public improvements that are necessary in order to facilitate this and to utilize the tools of the Redevelopment to get that get some a a more productive uh get back a productive use get it back in the tax roles in a meaningful way make it active again and have a public benefit is what the statute is intended to do the former uh ethicon campus is a class stranded asset in this sense it's exactly what the legislature was trying to address with the housing uh law its obsolescence means it could sit there for a long time if it's not helped um it's specialized design coupled with the sheer size of the campus of 700,000 Square ft makes it a prime candidate for utilizing the planning Regulatory and fiscal tools afforded by the New Jersey local Redevelopment Housing law and I firmly believe believe that it meets Criterion B of the statute let me talk about um the other property now uh block 408 lot 67 um I believe this property meets Criterion C and that is land that is unimproved that has remained so for a period of 10 years prior to adopting adoption of the resolution I'm quoting from the statute now and that resolution is the resolution that the governing body made to study it to direct the planning board to study it and that by reason of its topography or nature of the soil um is not likely to be developed through the instrumentality of private Capital meaning no one's going to develop it because it's got conditions related to the soil um property's been unimproved for 10 years and we've got an aerial uh from 2012 I believe this is so it's an aerial image from the DP is that D or near map Tristan D and when we look uh this year we have a 2024 that's 2023 D imagery near oh that's near map okay there's been no no activity on there no development activity and in fact uh when we look at the tax uh assessment records there is zero Improvement value for the site um so it's unimproved vacant land that's the first prong no improvements it's been vacant for 10 years and this is due in my opinion largely due to the to its location and its relative soils uh it's got freshwater wetlands on it and freshwater wetlands is a surrogate for uh topographic conditions uh soil conditions and vegetative conditions so two of those three are present here and are mentioned in the Statue um the freshwater wetlands occupy 30% of the site the hydrology which is topography the presence of water means there's wetlands there the hydric soils are the type of soils that are there they indicate that there are wetlands there and those Wetlands uh I believe restri have restricted development it's a 2.3 Acre Site um the minimum lot size is just under an acre there but it's broken up the wetlands break up the site and create issues with access and in my opinion this meets criterian C and that the Redevelopment statute could allow for uh maybe some uh facilitate development of the site maybe there needs to be a different access which needs to be gotten from another owner maybe there needs to be uh some sort of improvement or the cost of getting a wetland permit to get access to the site even though you can get General permits but I think that those uh those reasons that this meets Criterion c um I have to I have to admit something that's kind of embarrassing to me and that is that uh these also both meet uh condition uh Criterion h of the statute which is the we call it the smart growth criteria and the reason I'm embarrassed is because we forgot we didn't put it in the report so um but but nevertheless uh this the Criterion H states that the designation of delineated areas consistent with smart growth planning principles adopted pursuant to law or regulation and smart growth planning principles mean that you are uh seeking to redevelop or designate a Redevelopment areas in places where the state has determined where growth and Redevelopment should occur they usually base this on the state planning areas which um actually State planning there's the centers Metropolitan planning area down to the environmentally sensitive planning area the Metropolitan planning area be the most dense and the most uh aggressive in terms of development and Redevelopment the environmentally sensitive planning areas where you don't encourage growth and development uh we are in planning area one here the Metropolitan plan planning area and therefore this would meet the Criterion AG for smart growth um and presuming that we can if designated we move forward with some sort of a very wise plan Redevelopment plan for the ethon site it would represent smart growth as well um so in summary uh it's my opinion that the entirety of the study area does meet the Redevelopment criteria Criterion B Criterion C and Criterion H and that um it's my recommendation that this could be designated as an area in Redevelopment based on the evidence that we have reviewed and summarized in the August 30th preliminary investigation report thank you very much Mr Sullivan and thank you Mr hatch as well um is there also an environmental consultant that needs to be heard as well please come forward yes good evening um my name is Jim lellan and I'm a principal of Appalachia hydrogeologic and environmental Consulting and our company provides uh Services environmental services for the public and private sector uh and land uh land use um what do we do basically the same things that have been and are ongoing at the eacon facility we do side assessments we do investigations and we do remediations from the beginning to the end we've been in Bridge Water since 2006 excuse me and we have our key staff have 35 30 about 35 years of experience our role here is to essentially um use our our specialized knowledge to get a better understanding of the environmental conditions at the ethicon site and then share those findings with the township Administration and the community now our purpose for this decision-making process that we're in is to be the third party that reviews all of these environmental documents summarize and report to the administration and the community and then participate in question and comment discussions as a subject matter expert um thank you for uh asking us to do this um and we look forward to working with everybody um and by the way I'm your resident I live in that neighborhood near um ethicon thank you thank you Mr [Music] lellan again thank you Mr s for that very thorough and detailed report does the board have any questions for the testimony just heard I have a few please sorry I have um I have a couple of questions I Mr Su will probably be the one that can can confirm um or clarify um in no particular order um Can can you re um repeat the estimated remediation cost yes the information that that we have gotten is that the uh the groundwater remediation cost is about 1.6 million and the asbest remediation costs are approximately five4 $4 million so the total would be like in the fives yeah 5.5 million roughly I do not have any did not get any cost for PCB remediation or lead remediation okay so could could be higher yes okay and in the in the intervening time before any construction occurs before any land disturbance occurs uh is that land currently safe I I presume that it's safe okay it it would be it would what would create a situation where it is potentially unsafe and needs to be remediated would be if there's construction if there's demolition if there's Mo if there's disturbance of the ground correct well well I think just well in terms of the groundwater if you were exposed to the contaminated groundwater that would be unsafe in terms of the buildings it's not clear to me how much of the uh contamination is currently um exposed in a way that would actually harm somebody or if it's just that it as you do the demolition you would have to to remediate I believe it's more related to when demolition would happen okay and you again this may be outside of your scope but if eth eacon had people on that well they have they still have people on that property right basic maintenance and and and security until I think sometime in 2020 three they reoccupied the site I guess before putting people onto that site they must have been sufficiently satisfied that it was safe for people to be there correct I don't know for a fact I'm presuming that since they reoccupied it they did it in a way that was safe okay um the buildings that are there were basically constructed beginning in the 1950s with a large number of add-ons um you use the phrase obsolete not readily adaptable um is it just generally the case that you know buildings have useful life um something built in the 1950s was not was not necessarily intended to last forever well I'm not an architectural expert but I think in general buildings do have useful lives and they they can ex they can outlive their useful lives and is is is that essentially what's happened here the buildings by and large have have had a useful life and are now beyond that useful life yes that's what that's what what I understand from John and that's what I understand based on my uh understanding of the specific functions here that those functions no longer exist and that they were special and specific to the ethicon operation okay and the final thing I want to just mention the phrase that was used that that I really key in on was smart growth planning principles um and and I think that's that's going to be really a key phrase as uh we look at this site as we look at others in Bridgewater um you know Bridgewater is largely developed there isn't a lot of land left but there are still some places um and and I think that that phrase uh and its underlying meaning smart growth planning principles are are going to be ones that um our residents will hear regularly um because we have a responsibility to ourselves and to Future generations to make sure that we make um decisions that are going to benefit uh benefit this community in in the long range so I I I think that's a very important phrase that we use as our anchor uh as we think about this and potentially other properties and across town all right thank you K any other questions okay let me try has the present owner given any indication as to a schedule for developing this property or is that very premature right now I have no idea okay secondly uh we talked about uh groundwater contamination uh I suspect D has information as to the depth of contamination in the soils is there any again it's very premature is there any possibility that uh there is a plume that could get offsite or is the contamination localized in the center of the site can you can you pull up the the D map the exhibit so so the if you look at this uh the yellow line indicates the boundary of the ethicon facility the purple area is the classification exception area and it it spans the property line M crosses the property line I cannot speak to the depth and I cannot to speak to whether or not there's a likelihood of spreading I can only look at what the D has posted and what I've read in the reports and I was really focusing we're really focusing on what it means in terms of there are these Wells out there that restrict development and have to be taken care of and that there's this exception area which limits the ability horizontally uh to develop the site certainly my questions are uh very premature you know we'll probably be looking at this again good questions they're good questions thank you Mr MC so a classification exception area is an Institutional control that basically tells the public that you cannot put any more wells in this area or there's contamination um above this this the state standards so to in order to get a CA you have to define or the what we call delineate the plume horizontally and vertically MH to get the ca so those numbers you're asking for are in a fact sheet it's called a CA fact sheet that tells you exactly the the depth the width the length the contamin minutes of concern um and then they post that that map just giving a visual so people have a better understanding of where that plume resides as far as offsite it is offsite it is it is yes that's what that map shows so that's that's really all I know is that I did look into a little bit and I think that answers your question anym Mr Sullivan mentioned that there the wells the monitoring Wells were only recently protected are they do we know if they're being monitored at all or if there's quarterly um water tests being done uh I believe there is quarterly I certainly have to look into the documentation more but based on just a brief overview of what's available um as you stated there's a a tremendous amount of documentation that's available at the DP um there is quarterly monitoring for a certain number of wells and then there's semi annual monitoring for another but keep in mind that this is all under it's called a remedial action permit from the D and that's not issued by an lsrp or consultant it is approved by the DP there's a few things that the D maintained when this Sarah and lsrp program came into effect and that is they're the ones approving raos okay in the end and they're the ones that are approving remedial action permits which they received for the groundwater so they're looking at all this data and they're basically making the decisions that's their jurisdiction um as far as the reduction from what I understand when you're reducing the the ca it's because contamination has has been contracted so the remediation apparently is working because they're able to go back and or revise that classification exceptionary okay thank you when I relates to before before you sit down when it relates to the ca that you just explained and how it's likely the reduction is from a reduction in the contamination per space does that do they have a timeline of when that needs to be completed by they don't they don't they don't um you have to estimate based on the reduction you know they have a graph and they show concentrations decreasing over time and then you extrapolate that out and you basically um you you provide that to the DP and a DP looks at the data and then makes a determination as to okay they accept it or they don't um yeah that D is responsible for holding ethicon accountable to that yes I I believe ethicon is still the responsible party and they will hold them accountable until you know forever in perpetuity until this until the entire every single well is uh has groundwater below um the groundwater quality standards which would be this is a class 2A oer which is essentially drinking water thank you Mr chair yes please quick question uh is the site currently causing this groundwater contamination or can we pinpoint uh some activity or event in the past that's causing this again I I I have to look over the data this is really preliminary um I don't want to get ahead of myself but from what I understand is that they made needles okay syringe needles and basically um when you make wire needles when you're actually manufacturing it you're using a lubricant which is oil okay and basically before they actually turn it into a needle it's in their best interest to get the oil off so they used PC and TC as a Degreaser to take off that oil and essentially sanitize that water wire so that they could turn it into a needle you know in the the very little that I've read it is suspected that that area where they were degreasing that wire to turn into needles um is where this pce was was used and this is a long time ago a very long time ago um and as far as remediation I know that there's been some soils that been excavated my guess is that that's the source area and what's left is this fugitive plume that continues to linger because of the compounds that we're dealing with where that are very persistent um and and I think they're the number one contaminate in the state of New Jersey so and the groundwater contamination area it seems to go Southeast I'm assuming with the direction of uh water runoff there is a marshy area to the north of the groundwater contamination area on the property of the Bridgewater ridan High School is it possible that any of this contamination has leeched into that property and do you know if any testing has been done on the high school property yeah yeah I'm going to have to get back to you on that cuz now you're getting really specific and I need to actually look at the documentation but I'm going to write that down and specifically answer that question thank you in my summary any other questions from Mr lell M Mr chairman just a quick comment um again in the interest of transparency um on the de we've been looking through a 37-page document um which Mr s did an outstanding job and the team of summarizing um and going into great detail but there is even more in this document than was discussed and I guess I just want to confirm you know looking at at at our staff and our administrator that this is a public document and we will make it available to the public okay terrific thank you councilman I have a few more questions Mr cor um I know we talked about ethon probably being responsible for the remediation or the continued remediation of of groundwater what about the lead asbest and pcbs my guess is this is just a guess that it it's between it's contractual between the new owner and ethon who deals with that now we understand that you know as far as clean as best as the bement we'll start there is that that's always done before there's demo okay we don't Demolition and then go find the asbestos we take out the Dem the asbestos before you you know demolish it um as far as the lead same thing um my guess is that um see with the with the lead it's they're really concerned with um particulates so when you're demolishing a building the lead becomes a particulate and it gets in the air and whatnot and the D in the last um year has come up with these new guidelines that talk about perimeter air monitoring New York New York has had it forever it's called Community air monitoring but the has just come up it's called Pam um and so when there is this type of demolition they're worried about the Dust particles because the lead it only it hurts you when you breathe it in okay that's one of the ways and so you know ingesting it breathing it in so they basically have you set monitors around the facility as it's being demolished and that helps protect or at least alerts that maybe you need some mitigative measures like watering it down spraying it as they're demoing it to keep the dust down and keep it in place so it gets carted off and goes to the right place well was the last one pcbs pcbs um CA um tiles right pcbs those tiles is asbest but the CA and whatnot that yeah that's that needs to be taken out and um disposed of so if designated is an area of Redevelopment it wouldn't become the Township's responsibility to okay and only other question I had um was on the water tower I know you just explained it none of that is in service currently right I I believe the I believe the water tower is in service okay yeah and IT services just the ethicon site yes got okay Mr Sullivan you brought us through the evolution of this Corporate Center from its in Inception 1960 or no 1956 I think you mentioned and you brought us through how the underpinnings of the site kind of grew you know from One Wing to another Wing to a fitness center would you say that your designation of Criterion B the discontinuance is it more due to the particular nature that you mentioned of the of these types of structures or the materials that were used during those times that bring condemnation potentially to this type of site this is a non- condemnation Redevelopment area designation and that was made clear by the governing body when they pass the resolution the way that the criteria Criterion B works it's not necessary that the facility be constructed over time over 60 years it could have been constructed in the 80s um you know MC there's an example in White House station you know they've got a million 900 900,000 square feet right in in a Benzene ring they left now unicom's there with like five people right um that was built in the 80s it was built by Kevin Ro Kevin Ro was the architect a famous uh modernist architect um it's a very beautiful building in my opinion that would meet it right and it was built at one time uh for one purpose in the80s so the evolution itself does not in my opinion lend itself to the designation it just has to be large vacant um a large vacant office manufacturing type of place we have many examples throughout this area of New Jersey well there's a rationale behind what the statute said and you know Bell works you know the old Bell Labs I mean you know Somerset took that and turned it into something amazing right but that was a stranded asset too um and that's another you know that's a Aeros serin building so um good architecture is no barrier to becoming a Redevelopment area um and you don't have to do it over time thank you Mr chairman if I can Mr Sullivan um you obviously do this outside of Bridgewater Township and I'm just wondering if you give us some context of this approach to that municipalities are considering in dealing with these kinds of properties that you've mentioned stranded assets uh this facility is not the only one that I'm aware of that has constructed at some point and uh is no longer being utilized by the previous owner of that entity which established it could you just speak to that so we understand the context of this Beyond this property right um I can say that in other towns that we represent where uh there are and it's predominantly office it's predominantly office the office Market has has really bottomed out in a large sense uh we see consolidation you know J&J is consolidating but in other towns they are dealing with similar issues and they have um there have been office properties much smaller than this that you know we're looking at for redevelopment as a stranded asset where uh they've gone to the auction a couple times and they haven't had any biders um then somebody finally gets it at a bargain and they come in and the say say Hey you know we've got all this office space what can we do here other than office and you're trying to retrofit these uh these spaces which were designed sometimes a little too finicky um and too specialized and try to find out what you can put in there what are the right uses and and often at times what I'll tell my towns I said listen you make a list of every use you would you would be okay with Under the Sun and let's figure out which ones could could exist here um given location given the markets given what folks are doing um so these are conversations we're having with other uh in in several communities uh with older Office Buildings um that are no longer fully occupied or in some cases are completely vacant thank you uh I just want to make one thing uh clear regarding Mr Luellen just for the benefit of the public Mr lellan was engaged by Bridgewater Township to serve as a consultant to review this uh property and to advise both this board and the governing body uh regarding the uh environmental conditions on the site thank you Mr Papas any other questions for Testimony how about from our professionals Miss Sid thank you Miss smid Mr Burr no questions thank you thank you okay at this time I'd like to open up to any member of the public that wish to ask any question to the testimony just heard please feel free to come forward at this time time hi good evening please use the signin sheet and just in the interest of time and for respected fellow residents we'll try to keep between two to three minutes I'll be very quick I hope no problem thank you um my name is Mary Gallagher I live on 102 Highland Avenue um I'm very interested in the groundwater and one of the things that I just want actually the board to consider As you move through this whole resolution thing is that that groundwater is extremely important to the people AG green oil because many of us are on wellwater and I really am concerned about disturbing it and spreading that whole out throughout the whole area um a lot of people now are on um city water now I don't want the same thing to happen to Green o that happened to Bradley Gardens when fiser scientific polluted their water they were forced on to city water I don't want to go to City water I don't want that not to be an option so I would like you as you move forward with all this please consider the residence and the quality of life we want here in Greeno that's all I want to say okay thank you Miss Gallagher thank you hi Kathy Franco um try and keep it quick I have a couple of questions concerns whatever my first question is why did um ADB pile buy a piece of property that's not zoned for any business that they do makes no sense to me um you know they they knew they would have to come in and ask for variances or ask for rezoning or ask for redevelopment um I would not go and buy you know my house and say oh I'm going to put a wob there because I think my neighborhood my CAC could use its own personal WWA or Starbucks I wouldn't do it so I don't understand why this company has done that um second um Mr Sullivan you site criteria b as being um the reason why um the block 41 I think meets the uh requirement but when I look at page 30 and 31 of your report um at the bottom of 31 you did talk about the fact that the property was occupied by 1300 employees temporarily from September 22 to April 2023 that's not two consecutive years from today yes there's so I mean we can come back in April and have this discussion um but right now we don't meet that to year mark the there's there's two parts to this Parian B says the discontinuance of the use of building of of a building or buildings previously used for commercial retail shopping malls or plazas office Parks manufacturing or industrial rep purpose semicolon stop have it in front of me that's it we don't have there's no requirement the the requirement you're talking about is significant vacancies of such building for at least two cons itive years that's a separate component of that Criterion we're not applying that and I don't think that would apply here because but yet where you site at the at page 29 or page 30 at the bottom you say Criterion B and then at the very bottom you say the discontinuation blah blah blah blah um and then in um italic the abandonment of such building significant vacancies or buildings for at least two consecutive years or the same being allowed to fall into so I I'm just pointing out what you have highlighted or put into italics or if you look on page 30 the Bold the Bold pH which we have added to that Criterion is what we are applying there are several components within that Criterion all of which Each of which constitutes part of that Criterion you do not need to meet all of those okay thank you um and then you know we we have talked a lot about the contamination of the property and that's going to be a big headache and I'm sure that a Dey pile knew about that before they bought it what we're at 3 minutes I'd like to give you an opportunity ask question my final uh question is because you know I feel very confident that you're going to move this through so um but I do question why aren't we looking to Redevelopment under um some of the uses that are already there you know right now it has um manufacturing lab Nursing Home Medical Offices research essential Services Etc um if you want a historical uh way of looking at this in the late '90s early 2000s Montgomery Township took an ingera Rand property which had been a lab okay it was on 200 plus acres and they they redeveloped it it is now Stonebridge at Montgomery it is a Continuing Care retirement community with 200 residential units we're not we're not here to discuss potential uses of the property or anything again the purpose it's my opportunity to public speak and I feel I should be able to give some recommendations as to Alternatives that can be looked at thank you very much Mr peek I just have a couple questions my name is Howard Clark I live just off Country Club can you just can you just raise the microphone so that it can be heard my name is Howard Clark I live uh just off of Country Club Road MH I actually worked at Eon Once Upon a Time so uh I know a lot about the the the business over there um so quick question um the property right now is it owned by AAL p right now perhaps Somebody by 555 route22 Associates LLC all right is that a subsidiary or related entity of a dual pile the trucking company there's no records to indicate who's behind that okay um uh second question who paid for the study that that was just um that we're here listening to I can answer that question and it's a it's a public expense so it it's part of the government operation oh so Bridgewater paid for Bridgewater Township yes okay so the owner of the property right now didn't didn't buy the study okay there was just to clarify this there was an escrow paid similar to De any development application an escrow amount was posted and the township utilizes that to pay Mr Sullivan okay so Mr solo was hired by Bridgewater Bridgewater Township yes okay um there are uh so there could be a medor medium um land usage uh if you use some of the buildings and say you demolished other buildings U things built in the 50s or something that or the uh as you put it um uh very specific usage U style buildings you can you can somehow take them down there there could be a scenario where you can use other buildings um either for more offices we are in pharmaceutical country we have Verizon we have we have uh you know qualcom right next door we have a lot of things going around here um some some buildings can be demolished some can be used maybe even for housing too that could be a possible outcome of this could be what whatever winds up in the Redevelopment plan but we're not there yet if the property is designated by the township Council as an as you know property in need of Redevelopment then the next step would be a Redevelopment plan in which any or all of your suggestions May well be a part you know maybe the plan recommends you know rehabbing certain buildings demolishing others and it'll certainly recommend you know various uses but that'll be through okay the process okay and and maybe another use could be a park or since the high school's right in the backyard maybe it could be a combination of maybe uh Bridgewater land use okay that's all I have thank you thanks good evening Mr chairman members of the board Mr P nice to see you again my name is Richard d'angelus I'm an attorney for Somerset Corporate Center um Mr chairman I just want to be clear you're limiting folks to three minutes uh respectfully this is the only public hearing that is required under the Act and the only opportunity to create a record I'd like the opportunity to question the planner um and uh make some comments at the end which is what I intended to do I anticipate my questioning will be about 30 minutes depending on the back and forth so before I commence I just wanted to make sure that that would be okay to proceed as such I think that'd be okay however I'd like to hear from members of the public first potentially I I was waiting patiently if anybody else would like to speak I'd happily yield the floor I'd like to give you the platform that you seek certainly absolutely I I I was waiting I gu not very observant no problem uh yes my name is David Daisy I'm a resident 512 Road and um thank you for the opportunity to speak uh I I think the the thing I'd like to impress upon the board is there was an article in the um in the September 24th uh 2024 my Central Jersey magazine that says the head of the trucking and logistics company that bought the former ethon site said that the property's 87 acre Route 22 property uh will have neg negligible impact on the Bridgewater community it was purchased by a dwey pile which is a trucking company they have U they have a a trucking Depot down in East Brunswick which my wife and I went to visit today and I wasn't too thrilled with it quite frankly and then uh they also have a trucking company in Carterette on on Route One plus they have other trucking companies as well but those are those are two of the closer ones um the thing that we're all concerned about is residents in Bridgewater is we don't want to see Bridgewater turn into car at New Jersey and have Route 22 turn into route into route one because it would just be an untenable position it would be an irreversible position for for the town it would drive everybody's property values down and that's the concern I mean you could you could look at a lot of different situations as far as sexual abuse with truckers and putting that putting a trucking Depot next to a high school which sounds like really crazy to me um but that's the thing that we really are concerned about and as far as protocol we're concerned that this will go through a rubber stamping process and this will just get approved and we're going to have 200 trucks going down uh 200 tractor trailers going down Route 22 uh on a day on a daily basis and who knows whether it would go into the night would be 24 hours we don't know we don't we don't have that much information related to this and I know what you're going to say this is really not subject of discussion I just want to impress upon it everybody that that is the concern that the residents of Bridgewater have and I think you could watch your property values take a nose dive if a trucking company is put in a trucking Depot with the capacity to hold as many tractor trailers as that property could hold that's the problem and I and I think you should really consider this carefully because it would cause an irreversible impact to the town of Bridgewater if a trucking company was allowed to put that many track uh tractor trailers in in in that area so that that's all I wanted to say and uh thank you for the opportunity to speak okay and please uh sign the form if you don't mind as well oh sure I'm sorry I'll just make that reminder one more time if you do come speak to the podium please sign [Music] in and thank you hello uh Kevin brockhurst 406 Country Club Road I live uh directly probably the closest person to this site I'm just what this gentleman was saying about when they take the buildings down and they set up the air monitoring equipment uh just say that the monitor goes off and there's contaminants in the air do they run to my house and tell me to get out like because there's poisonous dust in my house now or they just wet it down the next day and they don't say anything w their monitor goes off and is contaminants in the air who who notifies me Mr lelen can uh can address that so it's a great question it's asked by many people CU I live like maybe 100 yards from I get it I I really do because we have a we have a landfill that we're dealing with and we have residents all around it and we have dust and whatnot that's being created with all the heavy equipment that's going in and and capping it same situation if they're going to demo the place they're going to put these these monitors up first they have a weather station that tells you which direction the wind is blowing so every day they won't work if the wind's blowing my Direction no they'll work they'll work all the time okay but what it happens is that those will actually go off in real time they'll actually warn you they'll send it to your phone they sent it to my phone saying we're getting close we need to do something because it's in the air because it's detecting it the levels are going up because it's reading every minute okay or five minutes basically it's doing that and then basically lets you lets us know or whoever's out there um that your levels are getting close to the threshold that's set okay and that's based on OSHA and um there's a number of other agencies that have these and this all you know this has to be approved by D and basically it says you're getting close get out there water it down you know sometimes you'll see they'll actually almost like a your your uh your lawn sprinkler uhhuh to knock it down and then basically you make sure that those numbers go down okay so the answer to your question they monitor in real time and if there's a problem they don't catch it they run to my house and tell me w't be in your house today uh they won't let's put it this way it's not going to get that far okay because they don't want to have to do that okay okay all right thank you and then uh I guess this is another question if they were to put a trucking company in there you know this is ahead of time we you can only that that that site has one entrance in and one entrance out which is directly next to my driveway onto garison Road there is no way to pull out on a 22 I'm sure maybe they would they would have to you can't pull out g into our Country Club Road with track the trailers it's not possible so if they were to send the trucks down Route 22 I would imagine they're going off all over the country whatever how are they how the how would they get to Route 287 78 Route 80 what's the quickest way from that site very very far ahead of our yeah but there's no way there's they have to go down Country Club Road pass this building to get to8 gets to that point a Redevelopment plan will be prepared the Redevelopment plan will not only you just need to know like where the trucks gonna go okay all right this all that will be addressed no there's no way to 287 unless you go down country CB Road or down 22 and make a U-turn and come back there's no possible way to get to Route 287 so plan put that in your planning because I don't I don't see the point of putting a trucking company there if you can't if you can't get to 287 like what's that will all be at at at the time just pointing it out maybe a ton of money cuz not a logical spot to put one that's just that's just my opinion thank you thank you very much thank you Mr Bron good evening hi good evening my name is Tony Hoff I live at 467 Haw road which is also known as the Greendale development it's approximately A4 mile from the eacon site um I just want to say that I appreciate your diligence and your concern and your attention to this groundwater issue our entire development is on a well my well is already contaminated cifor and I have a UV bulb since the past at least 10 years so it is a very very intense concern for all of us especially as I'm he more about this and the possibility that it may spread as the ground is disrupted so I just want to say I would appreciate your attention to that matter on our behalf thanks thank you m thank you how's everybody doing good good listen I my name is Glenn Regal I live on Hal Road right down the street from Tony and my concern is I worked at ethon The Last 5 Years matter of fact I was the last employee out of that place before they turned it over to whomever has it these gentlemen did a pretty good job of telling you what that place is all about um for the people that think they can re re we had people come in there Bristol Meers came through and nobody wanted that site that site is a a mess um that's all because Johnson and Johnson knew they were moving out there a long time ago so they really didn't put a lot of money into that so just pay attention to what's going on there okay because I'm I I'm not going to say anything bad about that cuz I don't want to lose my benefits so uh know or anything like that but but you know I mean they did what they could but they knew they were shutting it down and it was built a long time ago um it's that's that's all I wanted to say just pay attention please cuz I live close and that's it thank you thank you Mr R thank you anybody else seeing none I'll take Mr Rich Angelus back again so again good evening Mr chairman members of the board Mr pek um while I do have several questions for Mr Sullivan I did want to address very quickly um and probably seems a bit out of order since we're so far into this at 9:30 um we'd like to have entered into the record the letter we submitted to this board which was a letter we submitted to the mayor and councel challenging the authority of the governing body to even authorize this inv investigation and asking this board not to proceed the basis for the purpose of the local Redevelopment Housing law as set forth in that statute is to redevelop blighted properties and without going into the specific language of the statute it was adopted and enacted to address properties that had been abandoned by the private market and we've already heard some testimony and we're going to hear some more about the fact that this property was purchased very recently earlier this year and to go back to the escrow Mr papis I thank you for bringing that up that escrow agreement is with the owner but the escrow was paid by a Dewey pile that's who sent the letter with the signed agreement and with the check so Mr peek most respectfully we we can't ignore that fact it is critical front and center here now I know the board's going to proceed and I respect that but I will ask you when you deliberate on this and I do not think we're going to conclude this evening and a matter of fact I'm going to ask that you adjourn because your planner came up with a new Criterion upon which to base his decision his his opinion that wasn't in his report and we're going to have to go back and and look at that I'll question him a little on it tonight to try to move it along but I respectfully will request that we adjourn and come back to address that also the testimony I think it was testimony I don't believe the gentleman was sworn the um environmental consultant I've never been involved in a Redevelopment hearing with a municipality had a witness to appear before this board I've never seen it maybe somebody else has I have not I think it's entirely inappropriate there is no report provided but we're going to get into the whole contamination issue and I say this with the utmost respect to everybody here because I could imagine how important that is it has nothing to to do with what you're looking at this evening there is nothing in the local Redevelopment and Housing law that directs you to look at the contamination of the property this property has already been testified to is subject to the jurisdiction of the New Jersey DP so respectfully you can ignore all that okay Mr Sullivan nice to meet you I don't think we've had the pleasure nice to meet you your reputation precedes you um on page one of your report you talk about the quote enhanced fiscal tools to overcome Financial challenges as being a purpose of the statute is that is that accurately reflect what you wrote in your report and testified to earlier yes the statute does allow fiscal T okay and that's after the designation has been made an area need of Redevelopment designation correct it would be after the designation and the adoption of a Redevelopment plan but would you agree that the the purpose of the act as set forth in section two is to um help provide government to address blighted property that is not likely to be corrected or ameliorated by private effort yes you testified that you were Prov divided a number of documents by the current owner is that correct that's correct okay and we're representatives of the current owner present with you during your inspection on April 17 2024 uh yes it was uh I believe it was an ethicon uh employee not the current owner and for purposes of a clean record when we say current owner we can refer to the LLC we'll call it the LLC so nobody from the LLC was with you yes there were but the the tour was directed by a member of uh an employee of at and do you recall who from the LLC was with you um Peter L I believe and that's the chairman of if I recall a Dy P correct I don't know his exact title does he work for a we pile yes okay thank you you state at page eight of your report I'll refer you to the paragraph at the bottom of the page that you uh reviewed a real estate memorandum prepared by CBR correct that's correct that's a real estate company correct that's correct um you didn't include a copy of that memorandum in your report did I miss it no we did not okay and you relied upon it it was a it contained a summary of the facilities in terms of its locations uh we we did include um an exhibit that was their original um they did a graphic showing the location of the different buildings um so that was included within here um but there was other data in there that we that we looked at too and it was used to confirm um the data we were getting from the ethon employee Mr San can you please speak a little closer to the mic Sor just a bit thank you okay M Mr I guess Mr pek I'll direct this to you I mean we can make an oah request although I mean he is a Township representative um we'd like a copy of that uh it should be included in the report as it's been cited um would would you consider that was it a marketing brochure yes it was it was it was marketing material it was a multi-page um pamphlet again I I submit the board should have that it should be part of the record um that you and myself and the public certainly can review Mr Sullivan you heard my comments a few moments ago and I guess I'll I'll direct you to page 25 of your report which at least by my notes is the first time you addressed the contamination issue um can you direct me where in the local Redevelopment and Housing law contamination is listed as a blight criteria it is not specifically reference thank you very much and you you recommend or opine that the property qualifies as an area in needed Redevelopment under Criterion B under Section Five of the act and that doesn't make any reference to contamination whatsoever does it no okay thank you Mr Sullivan did you um consult with the gentleman please um sir it's Mr lell yes thank you did you consult with Mr lellan at all in the preparation of your report no thank you Mr Danel if I may certainly Mr lellan testified I believe that he hasn't done uh an in-depth study of the property he was retained by the township to provide third party review of the documents and he was basically here to introduce himself and then respond some public questioning came up about his understanding and he qualified his testimony saying he didn't know it was his standing you know as a local resident who's just been retained by the township so he he did not play a part in this I think it's clear he did not play a role in the preparation of this thank you for that clarification I was I just wanted to make sure of the witness and and I think you just hit the nail on the head well I'm sure we all appreciate the testimony really isn't Rel or the responses if you will it's not relevant to this proceeding um Mr Sullivan uh at page page 29 of your report you uh and you you mentioned the zoning it's M1 zoning and I believe he testified to it briefly um at the risk of Mr P jumping on me are you aware whether a truck terminal faciliity is permitted under the M1 Zone in my opinion it's it's not okay did you but you obvious I mean you you quote the well maybe it's not a Verbatim quote but you you provide a list of the approved uses here correct permitted principal uses permitted uses thank you thank you and um are you aware of any recent amendments to the Bridgewater zoning ordinance um specifically to the M1 Zone M2 others dealing with Warehouse use okay so you're not aware that in Fall of 22 Bridgewater removed warehouses as a permitted use in the M1 Zone I I wasn't clear which zone it was I knew that it was removed from one of the zones okay thank you let's go to uh your analysis under Criterion B Mr Sullivan you quote the statute you highlight and underline certain language of the statute related to the discontinuance um perhaps it's me because I heard talk of vacancy could you please State what the specific basis for your conclusion is under Criterion B why the property meets it because you you talk a lot about contamination in the report and in your test Tony but you just testified early that really doesn't have anything to do with it so that's not what I said I said that the statute doesn't specifically contamination okay then we can go back to contamination what is the basis for your conclusion that the property satisfies the Criterion B my Criterion B requires that you establish that the use has been discontinued and that the building or buildings have been previously used use for commercial retail shopping malls or plazas office Parks manufacturing or industrial purposes so it's just that it's that the the former use has been discontinued That's the basis for former use has been discontinued got it thank you so it's not about the vacancy it's the discontinuance it's the discontinuance it's largely vacant but it's the discontinuance at page 32 you state that the departure of ethon has rendered the buildings obsolete now obsolesence is not a Criterion or not a consideration under Criterion B is it it's not it's under Criterion D thank you and your report you don't cite to any studies or reports related to this concept of obsolescence did I miss something my opinion is based on the analysis uh that my office did of the buildings and their specialized nature for the most part fact that the um the descriptions and Mr hatch has reviewed this and testified to it how these buildings comport with uh contemporary standards for office development how they are specialized in terms of the manufacturing and the research and development operations that were on the site um and that that specific use is no longer operating there these were not isolated buildings these were buildings that were part of an overall system um that was intended to administer research manufacturing development testing um and ancillary uses associated with what eacon did once eacon left um this machine if you will composed of several buildings uh ceased to be U related to any particular use and the the purpose it was originally originally intended for uh has left and in my opinion that makes it renders it obsolescent in terms of previous years so you did your own study an opinion all right but so you didn't review any uh again Market analyses or or reports related to the use of this type of building it's just what you developed internally is what I heard okay and did you interview any Market participants Brokers industry participants Architects other than your partner no okay thank you with respect to your conclusion stated at page 32 that the obsolescence is compounded by extensive in extensive environmental contamination here again I don't see anything in the report citing to any independent third party evidence that would support that conclusion can you tell me where it is can you can you explain exactly well let's look at page 32 of your report right you state why don't we that the obsolescence is quote compounded by the extensive contamination at the property so so but just just just bear with me that's your conclusion yep okay upon which evidence in this report or elsewhere in the record is that conclusion based so we we have reviewed reports regarding environmental conditions in this facility there's an assumption that because of the obsolescence of the these buildings that they may be they may need to be largely remediated in order to be either reused or demolished that costs money and I testified to approximately 5.5 million dollar worth of cost that have been projected for some of that environmental remediation ground water and as that's this remediation um so you've got remediation that you you will need to undertake you also and you also have uh a series of buildings that are obsolescent so you're going to be either trying to adaptively reuse them which costs money respectfully we're not talking about we're talking about the specifically your conclusion related to the um environmental contamination right so very simply did you site to anything beyond your own opinion in support of that opinion did you rely upon anything else did you talk to anybody did you review any Market analyses did you talk to Industry participants related specifically to the impact of environmental contamination on this property or or properties in General to lead you to this conclusion that it's causing the discontinuance of the use or compounding the discontinuance of the use I wasn't suggesting that the environmental contamination was compounding it that's what you said compounded by extensive environmental contamination no long it's compounded by the environmental contamination due to the costs involved with adaptive reuse or demolition or reuse of this campus that there environmental cost is as well as the building cost for uh ad adaptive reuse or demolition of those buildings and did I want to go back to that but let let let me ask you this um you state in your report and I believe it was testified to earlier that well you were aware that the property was just acquired by the LLC owner in February you don't list in your report the purchase price do you no were you aware at the time you wrote this report what the purchase price was uh I I believe it was around 20 million that was but I don't you think it's relevant for your investigation the recommendation to this board as to whether a property is blighted one that the property sold we got that but two what it's sold for is it relevant to your review of this analysis not at this time okay did you interview Mr Lada or anyone else at ADP regarding the acquisition no were you aware whether ay pile I apologize I said ADP ad pile were you are you do you know whether anyone at ad pile with the LLC was aware of the contamination at the time they acquired the property oh I I believe that uh I believe they were because you asked them I didn't ask them but they they provided Environmental studies uh and reports that were predating their um purchase very well thank you Mr Sullivan you were appointed in January as the Township's quote Redevelopment planner is that accurate yes it is so you have a contract with the township of Bridgewater yes yes and who contacted you to prepare this study the administrator okay Mr Pap are you aware that the owner a lawyer for the owner by letter dated February 6 requested that the township undertake this investigation I'm not aware of the exact Communications prior to me being engaged and you submitted an RF or a proposal for redevelopment planning studies to Mr papis um for this property correct yes do you remember when you submitted that believe it was in the spring I have a copy of it here you want to take a look may I that's an email from you to Mr papis dat of February 6th correct yes so Mr papis the township administrator contacted you to do this report coincidentally the same day the Township received a letter from the owner asking for the study just a coincidence I don't know okay had you had any Communications with the then contract purchaser LLC ay pile prior to your Communications with Mr papis no okay after you were engaged to prepare this report did you exchange any emails with Township Representatives regarding your report or your draft report yes okay and in fact you provided copies of your draft report to the township officials Mr papis and others prior to um the August 30th draft that we are now looking at correct pretty sure I did and did you meet with Township rep Representatives regarding your draft report prior to making it available to the public prior to I I strike that prior to the township making it available to the public we meet regularly on Redevelopment matters so this was discussed Mr Sullivan you talked a lot about the uh the concept of a stranded asset that was set forth in the um legislative history related to the 2019 Amendment correct yes okay now you say this is the quote I believe you said quintessential stranded asset were you involved at all uh in Your Capacity as a professional planner through uh any uh associate iation with the development of that legislation or providing commentary on that legislation no okay are you aware specifically what the amendment did in 2019 it added I can't remember exactly which piece was added okay do you recall that it what so you've been doing this a while you said uh 1992 as a professional planner that's one year after the local Redevelopment law was was was adopted um do you know prior to that Amendment whether the language discontinuance of use existed in the statute it did it did okay and it could have been for industrial property right right okay so the stranded asset bill was really about the VAC when they added the vacancy provision substantial vacancy for a period of two years so stranded asset really has nothing to do with the quote discontinuance concept I'm I'm sorry to interrupt can we just make sure everything's being picked up by the microphones sorry I'm sorry M no no I just for both for all voice is going it's it's it's all good so I'll ask the question again is it fair to say then the 2019 amend mment which during which the the legislative discussions surrounded about around this concept of quote stranded assets that was more about vacancy and the law was amended to provide for the criteria to include substantially vacant for a period of two years you mentioned the assessment on the property um in this context of the stranded asset discussion and cited to the um assess value of the property and one of the potential one of the uh purposes of the ACT is to avoid diminishing ratables correct yes okay and this rateable this year is assessed for $ 51.4 million that's correct do you know what it was assessed for last year in 2023 I believe that's the I think it was the same I I'll I have 2023 assessment that I don't have 2024 well subject to confirmation it was 46.8 Million it went up so at least according to Mr I think it's dat is that your assessor these days or that's the new Val value one man's opinion Mr Sullivan with respect to lot 67 um the vacant parcel would you agree that to the extent any portion of that lot is developable it's the the Western triangle I would did you do an analysis of whether that could be developed you said you didn't take into account any buffers but what about the building uh the bulk requirements under the zoning code that's a residential Zone correct it's a it's an R40 Zone okay so did you look at the um the regulations to see what could be built there very small very small house so it could be developed based on that it could be but they're a difficulties and limitations due to the the wetlands and Wetland buffers okay from an access standpoint that's on the east side right closer to the Country Club Road okay and is there access off of 22 to that lot subject to do approval direct Frontage on 22 thank you very much Mr Sullivan you write at the very end of your report on page 37 I'm going to get Mr peek to yell at you a Redevelopment plan should be either substantially consistent with Municipal master plan or designed to affect the master plan you see that yes would you agree then that it would be inappropriate to adopt a Redevelopment plan that would be inconsistent with the master plan well I think that if there are if there's rational reasons I think just like a a zoning ordinance can be adopted which is not substantially consistent with the master plan or Redevelopment plan an ordinance be adopted and it may not you would have to indicate it relationship to the master plan develop so if the ordinance was amended to eliminate Warehouse use because of concerns over truck traffic you're saying it'd be okay to have a Redevelopment plan to allow that Mr d'angeles we're getting a little little it's in his report it's in his report come on he brought that up but now you're come on feeling below the Bedrock so it's your testimony then it's okay to be inconsistent with the master plan typical planning practices that you would want to be consistent with the master plan but there are circumstances where land use ordinance or Redevelopment plan which is a land and you can represent to these n's folks when you're drafting the Redevelopment plan you're going to take into account the the planning history very recent planning history here in Bridgewater right you don't have to answer that yep uh let's talk about Criterion H my favorite Criterion even though I have requested that we adjourn so we can get a little more meat on the bones here can you cite one statute or regulation adopted by the state of New Jersey or Department of Community Affairs uh adopting smart growth planning principles DCA qualified allocation plans for affordable housing reflect smart growth principles um legislation with respect to housing is trying to reflect but that's not a statute yet with respect to your last comment correct okay and what what are the DCA were those regulations that you're citing or or is it guidelines the qualified allocation the criteria for the awarding of low inome housing tax set forth in a regulation I don't know whether okay you would agree the the the statute section H requires that the um and councilman I know this is near and dear to your heart and I'm sorry but the fact is there have not been any smart growth planning principles adopted by state law regulation this is a meaningless provision under the statute and has been it has no teeth whatsoever now perhaps something's changed since the last time I looked at this we have a professional planner that we like to present and he can address this more fully um okay let's move on and I think before the board votes on this I don't think we're finishing tonight um subject to the Chairman's discretion of course um I do think that if you want to consider that smart growth issue the report should be amended and we should come back and talk about it in response to Mr Pap's question about stranded ass this concept of stranded Assets in other towns you talk specifically about office properties correct that's what I mentioned okay are you aware of industrial properties being uh uh a stranded asset a high concern for stranded asset recently I don't have any specific examples u in any of my thank you sir Mr chairman that's all I have for Mr Sullivan um I would like to just make one brief comment um to the board and I thank you all for your Indulgence I know it's late um again these hearings before this board it's the only time that an official hearing is required there's no hearing before the governing body so while myself and the folks that are here this evening can show up at Council meetings we have to wait for the public session my experience is that always happens after the board the governing body votes on the issue that's a little quirk in the statute that I think is wrong and should be fixed but what do I know so this is it so this is important and most respectfully Mr peek and I have great respect for you and your firm I know you've been doing this a long time but when you wait for the Redevelopment plan the fight's over the fight's now this is what's important your job as Mr peek laid out is to decide whether they've satisfied the criteria but the statute requires that it has to be based on substantial credible evidence and respect I don't see that thus far and I think too the circumstances by which this has come to you are it's all wrong it should never have happened ay pile made an investment in a property it came to the township and I don't mean you know sometimes mistakes are made with the best of intentions this is not what the law was designed to do the law was not designed to to make deals with developers who bought the property and said oh we want to do X the law provides benefits as was testified to not under cross-examination but by direct examination contract zoning favorable zoning tax tax exemptions Pilots payment in Le of taxes it's designed to clear blighted properties this is not a blighted property there's been no evidence of that certainly not substantial evidence so again we're going to ask you to come back I'm not going to make any more statements we do have a planner a professional planner here Mr chairman we would like to present for Testimony so the board has additional testimony to consider um I will reiterate my request Mr chairman at this time as to whether your intention is to have Mr Sullivan amend his report to address this criteria H if he so desires and then we can come back and address that thank you very much Mr danalis uh I'm not so sure that that's necessary um Mr pek I'd like to hear some commentary from the board after what we've just heard yeah I I can say that with regard to Mr d'angeles is argument about Criterion H I agree that uh a Redevelopment agency shouldn't exclusively rely on Redevelopment age because that's a more future oriented uh criteria as opposed to the existing conditions but it is affirmed that it's it it's a useful tool to supplement other criteria and again Mr you know Mr Sal did Testify the criteria B and C and he threw an H as an afterthought and I think that that's appropriate you know as a supplement it's not what Mr salvin's relying upon to make his uh opinion any other commentary on testimony okay thank you all for your time we have Peter St I will let him introduce himself and his qualifications and I'd also I'd like to do some uh some housekeeping that I overlooked before I neglected to swear our Witnesses and since we're getting into into this I'd like our witness to be sworn that I'll swear Mr St as well so um gentlemen if you could I'll ask you to stand and raise your right hands and then once I go through my quick little Spiel you know affirm and state your name for the record so do you swear affirm that the testimony you have given and will give in the course of this hearing is the truth and nothing but the truth yes okay just State your names for the record Michel hatch yes thank you and also Mr d'el we'll call this this email that you distributed we'll call that 01 great U and again to the extent I mean it's in the public record our letter of May six our letters of May 16th um you received a response to that letter did you not I did a very thoughtful well written response that I completely and entirely disagree with but a response nonetheless so we'll put uh we can put both letters into the record that's fine thank you m thank you Mr P thank you thank you all thank you good evening good evening let me uh put my name down if I may sure then if you could you swear if affirm that the testimony you're going to give in the course of this hearing will be the truth nothing but the truth I do thank you could you state spell your name please uh Peter St stec K uh I'll just uh give some qualifications before I present um by way of Education I have a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a master's in city and Regional planning uh I received my license in 1976 uh and it's still in effect um I in terms of experience have worked with two consulting firms Malcolm castler Associates and Alvin gersan Associates I was the planning director for the township of Montclair for just short of 10 years and for the last uh 20 some odd years I've uh PR been practicing as a um cons private consultant uh for both municipalities and developers and neighborhood groups and I've appeared in um approximately 230 municipalities as well as in Superior Court um specifically also on blight designations and have been accepted as an expert witness in those venues does this board have any issues with Mr St qualifications please no objection pleased Mr um I have copies of a report that I would like to produce and pass out sure and um I have uh one sign SE oh uh I should probably keep one of them yeah well why don't you keep the signed and sealed one and then you can give it to miss propes uh when you're done and she'll retain a copy sorry about that over so uh did you want to have this uh marked no but you can testify using as a guideline and okay follow along well in front of you is a report dated today uh from me it's entitled uh planning evaluation of the eacon campus Redevelopment study and in preparation um I reviewed uh the report that was just presented by your consultant um I toured the surrounding area looked at at your zoning ordinance and master plan um and uh reviewed um the local Redevelopment and Housing law uh up until this evening um the report concludes that both properties are in need of Redevelopment or qualify based on B or C and then we heard at the last minute uh H tonight um on the page number two at the top um I recite the procedures that I'm guessing the board is familiar with but I want to emphasize um the purpose of the statute which is reproduced toward the bottom of page two and I'll read this there exists have existed and persist in very communities of this state conditions of deterioration in housing commercial and Industrial installations public services and facilities and O other physical components and supports of community life and improper or lack of proper development and this is now becomes important which result from forces which are amenable to correction and amelioration by concerted effort of repon responsible public bodies and without this effort are not likely to be corrected or ameliorated by private effort I'm just going to grab some water and the reason I read that is that it is important that this property was recently purchased by a private entity because it's evidence that the private Marketplace is operational now on page three I reproduce the state statute and um as indicated by Mr Sullivan he basically used the first uh part of provision B that says the discontinuance of the use of building or buildings previously used for commercial retail shopping malls or plazas office Parks manufacturing or industrial purposes end so he's not talking about abandonment and this property clearly has not been abandoned it's well-maintained the taxes are being paid not abandoned in fact there's a staff there maintaining the the property and keeping it secure and we're not talking about being vacant for two years because on its face uh two years have not passed on starting on page four I look at the report in various pieces and then make comments on it and I'll kind of run down I'll summarize this um even though maybe it should be identified for the record if you don't want it as an exhibit I'll leave it up to you but you all have copies of the report uh the cover of the report says that it's to be endorsed by the township Council and I just want to clarify that that's not in the state statute um this is the evidentiary hearing tonight uh there's a recommendation to the governing body and they don't have to listen to the public there's no requirement of a public hearing and it's not adopted by ordinance not advertised in the newspaper it's simply a resolution at that time um often times when you oppose these I know that the report was prepared August 30th and apparently they were drafts ahead of time that were distributed um unfortunately in this process you get it late and so uh this was only made available uh by um the advertisement in the newspaper on September 13th um the focus on page one in the introduction of the report is on the financial tools to encourage Redevelopment but in my opinion that's secondary the the whole purpose of this is number one to determine if blight exists as that term is used in the state constitution only if you reach that point do you discuss tools that might be needed because allegedly or necessarily you find that the public market is not operational and again you have to look at that closely because a private entity already purchased this property um the area is described in General on page five in the report and I'm sure you're familiar with this it backs up to the Regional High School um you have the Somerset Corporate campus to the east you have single family homes uh to the West uh there's no apparent detriment to the area at this time because of the ethicon campus the properties all seem to be used uh if you look at the homes some of them are being renovated uh although the contamination has flowed to the east the groundwater contamination you'll note from the graphic that that hasn't stopped U the Somerset Corporate Center from being developed as Premier office space so just because you have groundwater contamination that may affect whether you can put residential uses on the the property but it hasn't seemed to stop development in the area despite the fact that the groundwater contamination has extended beyond the property boundaries um I'm now on page six if you look at the photographs and you saw most of them this evening that are in the report um this is a property that's well-maintained uh there's some still equipment in the property and when it the buildings were examined I think there was a in my opinion a false pretense it says no one is going to walk into and buy this whole property and use the buildings exactly as they are because it's specialized well if you look at what ethon has done over the years is that even they had to change their own property to accommodate their needs there was a reference that the buildings were utilitarian well frankly that's good cuz you can use them for different purposes one of the buildings was characterized by the architect as having tall ceilings that's good that means you can use it for different things if these buildings all had 10-ft ceiling Heights I would say that's never going to fly in in today's market because you need a lot of utilities wires you need a lot of HVAC these buildings are utilitarian they're structurally sound they're well-maintained which by the very nature of the word means they can be used for different purposes and if you look at the number of times when ethon modified the buildings for its own use you'll see that they're amenable to changes to to accommodate the needs of ethon now oddly enough ethon left went to the Raritan campus 1 12200 1300 employees and then why did they have to go back because the Raritan campus had to be modified for their needs that means two things to me it's the nature of the business when you have an an industrial office complex that buildings get renovated you might ask well how could they come back temporarily to the ethicon campus if the properties are untended bull or unsafe well the answer is they weren't 1300 employees came back to the campus that means the property is usable there's been a lot of disc discussion about contamination and the answer is there's been groundwater contamination on this property for a long time but it's being monitored and it's being cured over time that contamination flowed to the east in the groundwater that hasn't stopped Somerset Corporate Center from producing Premier office space and I would suggest that it's not a f Point many properties are contaminated uh they have to be cleaned up for different uses different standards for residential versus non-residential but the answer is that's a given the report talks a lot about discontinuance of use and you have to read that in my opinion with what the purpose of of the statute is if I have a single family house and I decide I'm going to move to Florida for a while and leave my house on the market leave my house vacant for a while that's not a blighted condition just because it's not in use at the current time is not the criteria the criteria is colored by the purpose of the standard why is it being vacant is it because the private Marketplace is not stepping in well here you have a developer that already purchased the property the private Marketplace is operational this is not a unique setup this campus in the back of the report again that I hope that you will somehow identify in appendix D1 first of all in in the back the second few pages from the back appendix c i list all the dates when buildings were built and changed so on this campus if if you said what's built in 1956 has to stay there and when you have to change it that's a sign of being uh a discontinuous and being blighted that's crazy ethon changed these buildings over time they renovated it they improved it multiple times that's the nature of industrial properties you change your production process you change your products you change what's inside the building on appendix D I give you examples of other industrial or office campuses and one of the criticisms here oh this is so l no one's going to be interested in it well the answer is there are other campuses and many of them already in Bridgewater that are larger in square footage are larger in acreage and New Jersey is the Premier State for the pharmaceutical industry or other Industries the point is that the specifics of this property in terms of its size the age of some of the buildings in my opinion is not a basis for discontinuance it's a business decision of ethon I'm going to move to our other campus that I have 280 Acres I have to renovate those buildings so they're not suited they have to renovate those buildings but that's a good that was a business decision that ethon made that doesn't mean that this property is blighted in my my opinion lot 67 corner lot our 40 Zone 40,000 square ft 45,000 Square ft when you have a corner lot the Western end can be built in my opinion with a single family house they may not choose to do that but it's a buildable property if you declare this in need of Redevelopment does that mean that the wetlands disappear no they're there there's probably a deed restriction that references them so whether this is redeveloped or not you're not going to access redevelop the eastern part of that but the western part in my opinion is suitable for a dwelling there's a dwelling right next door that has a similar situation driveway to Route 22 if do says we don't want a driveway on Route 22 well then do has bought the property indirectly they've confiscated but the answer is it's in my opinion developable for at least a single family dwelling which is the permitted use in the zone the fact that it's restricted is not what the statute says the statute says it's vacant for the following reasons and this is not vacant because of its remoteness it's on Route 22 it's not vacant because of a lack of means of access to developed sections or portions of the municipality this is a development developed municipality this is not behind 500 Acres of Farmland the Topography is fairly flat no steep areas here and while the soil might show hydric accommodate hydric plants and it may be discolored in the wetlands area the Western section is not affected by Wetlands so on its face criterian C is misapplied the report relies on information that was discussed there was a CBR apparently document there were certain reports provided by either ay pile or maybe ethon that relied upon in my opinion these should be part of the record we should see if they're being interpreted correctly or you know represent um maybe they don't support the conclusions we don't know because we don't have them in front of me us to to take a look at uh at the last minute the issue of Criterion H came up and again as you know these reports ought to be you're supposed to be two advertisements in the newspaper you know someone should have a chance to look at it rather than the evening of the hearing um I haven't had that opportunity but let me tell you my opinion on Criterion H and let me read it into the law CU it hasn't been on the record the designation of the delineate area is consistent with smart growth planning principles adopted pursuant to law or regulation there is no law or regulation in New Jersey at this time which delineates excuse me which lists smart growth planning principles if you go on the internet you'll see bullet points of different organizations but there's no law or regulation New Jersey that says exactly what they are and they're kind of very arbitrary you can read the regulations and say oh there ought to be Park land next to a train station and then you can read the regulations and say oh there ought to be intensive use next to a train station well which one do you go for they're very vague principles and most importantly they're future oriented that's not what blight is blight is this evening does this property do these two properties meet the statutory criteria under the local Redevelopment and Housing law if I there's a reference in the report to a um a report that was done by Ronald Chen who was the public advocate in New Jersey at one time and the appendix discuss it it talks about the abuse of the Redevelopment process and it that report says Ronald Chen is an attorney was in the public Advocates office it says that Criterion H is unconstitutional on its face it's too vague it's future oriented it can't be applied consistency if you say that areas that are smart growth areas in New Jersey on the on the state plan pa1 pa2 uh centers outside of those areas and parts of the Meadowlands and parts of the um Pine lands there're over 1.5 million Acres in New Jersey that are automatically elig be blighted and that has nothing to do with what's on the property what the buildings are that shows you how absurd it is to apply Criterion AG so back to my summary I think that it is concerning that the orchestration of your consultant via an escro system but it's essentially from a purchaser of the property telling the town I'm going to buy this property but I want you to blight it so you can give me Financial incentives the planning board is charged with the responsibility for investigating this and that means you you pick your consultant not the governing body you pick the consultant because that this is your task and that's not the way it's been here and I think the process has been infected by ay pile and the LLC that's clearly associated with ay Pile in my opinion there is no substantial credible evidence on the record that the ethon property meets Criterion B the use is discontinued but it's changing hands ethon made it a business decision we're leaving the property we don't know what all their reasons were they went into another property that they also had a renovate but if you look at the history of renovation of the ethic property that they renovated for their own purposes it's a specialized machine but it's a machine that can be changed and they've changed it in fact they had to change the Raritan property in order to suit their needs these buildings are substantial in nature they're utilitarian which means they can be used for different purposes that in my opinion you have to look at the purpose of the discontinuance and in my opinion there is evidence that they can be reused and most importantly the private Marketplace is operational as to lot 67 the vacant lot it's not vacant because of its remoteness or lack of means of access the answer is it's vacant because the owner chose it to be vacant this was per that property was also purchased by a Dewey pile or its affiliate and it's developable so even on that small property in my opinion Criterion C uh is not applicable so in my opinion based on the evidence I heard this evening and jumping ahead to Criterion H an area need of Redevelopment is not warranted because you don't have substantial credible evidence to make that conclusion thank you thank you Mr stick can we ask some questions would you take questions Mr St yeah oh certainly okay I I have a bunch of questions um when I consider well-maintained right and you you testified that the property is well-maintained and I'll ask a question after this I don't consider well-maintained a vacant property that has multiple contaminants that could impact the surrounding communities including groundwater right which apparently that size has shrunk but it's still extended way past that area I think there should be a deadline of when that water needs to be remediated by but apparently there there isn't um but there's also lead pcbs and um asbest I don't consider an area the the an area that is currently vacant minus the 50 employees that currently keep it secure and and running um keeping those things on site how what do you consider well-maintained that's different from contamination U there is known contamination in the groundwater and it's being handled it's being remediated over time it's going to be solved DP knows that D controls it that's it's being maintain the first of all the groundwater is being maintained they probably inject Biologicals into it they monitor it it's being maintained the buildings if you look at the pictures is there any picture there that shows you that buildings are falling apart this this is a pretty pristine falling apart means many different things well in my opinion the if you look at the report all those buildings are wellmaintained and in fact they have a stack there that's maintaining them I disagree with you um I know you said uh it hasn't stopped SEC from building and from expanding in the area right the contaminants of the groundwater hasn't correct we heard from a resident of the area Miss Gallagher that is very passionate about keeping well water SEC is maintained on Township water or city water or wellwater I don't know for sure I would assume I don't know but the answer is it's built it's operating it's largely occupied it's one of the Premier office parks in New Jersey I work on the side of it water despite it seems to be doing fine despite the groundwater contamination that's known why do you think um eacon stopped Renovations in 2011 I have no idea it may have been a building it may be a business decision on there they had 280 acres in Raritan they say you know why am I paying over a million in taxes here when I'll go there I don't know it's a business decision but in my opinion it's not evidence two things it's not evidence of of Criterion B but equally important the private Marketplace is operational someone bought the property they walked through it so they knew what they were buying presumably and they bought it for $21 million so what what about the laws that were changed when do you know when laws were changed on contaminants and when you could do Renovations in it depends on what you're going to use I have some lead paint in my house the answer is I don't have to remove all of it I just I I at one time had spece in my house like oops I got that removed but the answer is if you're going to I would would grant you that if you're going to demolish it there are extra protections you have to take but if you're going to reuse utilitarian buildings there ways to do it to Pro to protect the occupants or if you disturb it not just demolish it you just have to do it in a in the in a proper fashion so I know that um and this could be for either either one of you um you you spoke about the buildings being utilitarian in nature and can be used for different purposes right currently at its current state I know SJP right from the letter that was was sent out somewhere around here um say they were interested in purchasing the property right excuse me SJP sec I don't know the details of that maybe he does right that so was their intent to build to use the current buildings if purchased well I don't know I don't know the interest I don't know the details of interest that may have been uh expressed in the past uh the the issue is there's clear evidence that the property is marketable can can I ask can I ask Mr d'angeles this one of many that's what you should consider well it was in the letter that you that that was sent so that's what I'm using from I don't have the details that wasn't involved in that but the point is the property was marketed there were multiple biders and the guys who won want you to light the property so they could get a tax break that's the issue that's before you tonight but you're here from SJP does SJP or SEC do anything that could fit in these buildings the the issue before you is whether this property is blighted or not I'm still able to ask that question yeah but it's irrelevant to you're finding in my opinion is to this evening is the property blighted is the private Market Place not operational you bought brought up a we pile so I could bring up it's on the record already they they indirectly they paid for the study we P we put on the record the letter that states SJP was interested again I don't know I don't know those details all I know is that an affiliate of ay pile purchased the property gave the money to the town to do the study and there seems to be something I need to jump in here because you know you you you you reference uh the escrow system as if it is unique and you know MRC and Mr d'angelus knows and every other person that attends any land use board meeting in the state of New Jersey knows that municipalities are empowered to collect escros so the taxpayers do not have to pay for the professionals that the municipalities retain to review the applications to ensure that the public interest is protected and I'm sure Mr STC if you've been a consultant for a municipality you have been paid from an escrow account given to that municipality by developers so I I don't appreciate the the inference that this is somehow Mr Sullivan whose reputation who Mr d'angelus said reputation precedes him that his report is Tainted Mr suvin was designated as the Redevelopment a a planner for Bridgewater Township several years ago before any of these Redevelopment projects were even um uh a thought by anyone but he and I let me finish let me finish I'm sorry and and Mr Sullivan has a tremendous reputation and um I know for a fact that Bridgewater Township in in in engaging him in any of the work that he has done uh presents his professional opinion that is considered by appropriate governing officials Mr papis with respect to your first comment yes escros are used all the time by applicants before Bo and the Zoning Board of adjustment when they have an application that's not what this is and the law does not doesn't expressly say you can't do it although I would respectfully submit there's case law that says he can't and it's wrong to have the developer pay for it and while Mr Sullivan may have a wonderful reputation the fact that he's meeting with you meeting with the owner to reach a conclusion that appears to be a feta comple is really wrong and what's you're making you're making a number of assumptions here and you're you're inferring things that I think are your opinion your opinion we see won't we after this board votes and after the council votes depending on the recommendation you as the administrator and you as members of this board because what happens after this board votes if you vote to approve it it goes to the governing body that's your recommendation then the governing body decides whether or not they're going to designate the property as an AA need of Redevelopment and like any other AC excuse me I I don't I don't mean interrupt this is highly relevant because there's one very very critical piece that you didn't include it is that we run a transparent representative government here in Bridgewater I don't know what happens in other towns that you work that you work in or for but when we assuming that this process continues and assuming that this is heard before the council we have sufficient public comment whe whether it's on a resolution whether it's on an ordinance or whether it's just on something that matters to the public we hear from our public so this implication that somehow tonight is the one and only chance and I don't remember who said it that tonight is the one and only chance to stop this thing or the one and only chance to talk about truck traffic on 22 or the one and only chance to have input that cannot be further from the truth in Bridgewater Township the way we run our government whether this is news to you or not is with transparency with honesty and with listening to our public whether they come to the meeting room whether they get a hold of us at the supermarket whether they get a hold of us on the telephone that's the way we operate and any implication that somehow this is the one and only chance and the thing's going to now be rolling downhill is absolutely irresponsible not irresponsible respectfully sir why because the statute says there's one hearing that's required that's here That's the Law that's what the legislature has set forth there is not a hearing before the governing body on the designation if Bridgewater wants to be a Trailblazer and I say this respectfully and I'm not questioning transparency although I am questioning whether you've left yourself open for attack in a court of law and you need to be careful and that's assume that's why you talked about it with your council tonight we put it on the record on May 16th this is a problem for the township but nonetheless you've chosen to proceed but Mr Cur most respectfully the law says one one hearing it could be over Law Firm area in need uh coration be another hearing if it gets to the point of a Redevelopment plan that would need to be adopted by ordinance also be subject to a public hearing so let's provide the full context but we know at that point it's over because that's your characterization well that's because that's what the law has said Mr papis that's what the case law says okay say it's over that's your characterization Mr I'm trying to respond to Mr K's question so when I'm talking about the one this is the one hearing that's provided with respect to the designation this is the most critical time I can't tell you how many times I get called when people are upset about a pilot too late nothing you can do at this point horses out of the barn out of the Corral down the trail it's over because this is the critical time the designation it's like a house of cards if the designation Falls everything else Falls but once the designation is in place you have a municipality has under Section 8 of the local Redevelopment and Housing law tremendous authority to do almost anything it wants to see to the Redevelopment of the property it is sweeping Authority so now is a critical time and I'm sorry if you're taking offense Mr papis but the reality is the developer came to you on February you the township on February 6th and said we'd like the owner we'd like you to light this property Mr Sullivan on that same day submitted his RFP his proposal for his study he's participated in meetings with representatives of the township and the owner I've never I've been doing this 20 years I have I've seen a lot of stuff I have and I'm not look it was a mistake okay I think the process should stop you should vote this down and if the owner wants to figure out a new way to approach this have at it this is the wrong way to use the local Redevelopment Housing law Mr chairman on March the um 21st the township issued a statement about this process when the governing body first uh adopted a resolution asking this board to investigate just like to read a couple of sentences from it uh subsequent to ethon's closure the township Administration has been approached by several potential developers regarding the site the initial conceptual proposal submitted by to the township involved conversion of this property from Life Science to either high density residential or Mega Warehouse type use and I know personally that those uh uh representatives from those developers I spoke to several of them they said they were interested in developing this property as high density residential development or Mega warehouses and that in part prompted the governing body to initially adopt this resolution asking this board to conduct this this uh this investigation Mr Pap Mr St you mentioned before that Somerset Corporate has done several retrofits of offices in the past with all due respect Somerset Corporate Center is a different entity on a different part this is we're talking about a residential neighborhood something that abuts a residential neighborhood so to put down the residents that are close by this area here when there with their concerns about contamination about uh about hydrochlor in in the water what you have you I I think I I think we're looking at this all wrong here I asked Mr Sullivan earlier based on his testimony why he was given this classification B was it because of there was the contamination he said no it was not the contamination he provided a compelling argument that the underpinnings of that site it was very much proprietarily put together that it was a customized site it kind of grew onto itself if some it's definitely not a move in move out type of place I think the board has seen this evening based on his report that this is not a submar set Corporate Center where you have a generic layout of buildings that look move in ready move out ready this to the board I'll let the board speak on this however I see a very different argument than sumerset Corporate Center um uh first of all I I don't in any way disparage the concern of the Neighbors on contamination that's important period but the answer is ethon apparently was handling it in a way that D said you're okay you're what you're doing is the right thing to do and they're monitoring it so they're doing whatever can be done I've just heard that there were multiple interests in the property not just by Dewey pile well that's the fundamental purpose back to the beginning is is the private Marketplace operational I think the answer is yes that ends at least from the purpose of the municipal land use law that should end your inquiry because the the whole purpose of this process is to address situations where the private Marketplace is not operational there's no one interested in the property there has been interest whether it's residential high density residential or a state prison or whatever it is that's a different question the question is is the private Marketplace operational and there's evidence that it is evidence that it is in the current state as I said said these are utilitarian buildings and even ethon had to change the buildings over time just to accommodate its own needs that's can't be changed that can't be fixed without remediating all of the contaminants in it so what company I I'd love an example of a company that would like to go and buy that site and renovate the existing old buildings remove all the contaminants and then do exactly the same thing there it doesn't have to be one entity there are examples i' love an example of many entities there are campuses that that uh have multiple users uh in it and if you look at the back of my report I have you know aerial satellite photos of campuses that have different uses within the campus so I'd like to ask you for some examples what examples would you have look at exhibit D what page is that on it's the end end of it appendix d you know there there was a there was an allegation that simply because of the amount of square footage and the acreage no one would be interested in this property well look at the other pharmaceutical companies companies ethon moved to RAR attend more square footage than here 280 Acres now some of that's Wetlands there but the answer is is this campus Is Not Unusual in terms of its size square footage of buildings but it's contaminated and and my house is contaminated I got lead pain in my house does that mean I can't live in it well it's your house but the answer is that somebody wants to buy it you have to disclose it then they have to make a decision there's an entire TR but it doesn't stop the private Marketplace is the point there's an entire tract of residential there's a resid neighborhood directly to the west of this site a high school where children get their education from every single day just to the north now we've heard tonight about contaminants but we've also heard about a site that's not planned as as you would expect for 2024 we're looking at this site today and we're telling ourselves this board's asking themselves is this the ideal plan is this what this planning board the ma the the board that decides what the master plan is going to be for this Township is this the is this part of what our vision is for our master plan a a a a campus from 1968 that appears as though it was it was I'm sorry 1956 I'm sorry I keep thinking 68 years old just because it's 68 years old we're supposed to say oh that's okay let's deal with it for another 68 years that's the planning board sole responsibility here this evening is to determine whether or not the site qualifies we're getting ahead of ourselves we have been threatened with legal action this evening because we're we're deliberating whether or not we want to designate the area in need of Redevelopment we're not we're not approving any site plan tonight we're not talking about traffic this evening there's no traffic to be discussed this evening whatsoever it's hypotheticals we're here simply to decide whether or not Mr Sullivan's report the report that he supplied this evening whether or not that report provides factual evidence apparent evidence of of outdated buildings that AB consequentially need remediation I invite you to read the Spruce Run case that says if something doesn't comply with modern state standards that's not dispositive of a blight you know Mr St I I you know you you um you're very accomplished planner and you touch on the things that that Advance your position but um it seems like you're pivoting a lot and um you you you mention I read the statement from back in March uh but none of those entities wanted to take the existing structures and renovate them but the and how is that you know you touch on that as as being eviden that the property is marketable but you don't go to the next level of discussion that then um is not helpful to your argument that they were not interested in the exist exting structures well other than the fact there's been how is that give me a give me a a respon other than the fact that you have indicated that there's been multiple uses multiple interest in the property none of that information is on the record we don't know what the offers were and that's why I I think the report is you're referencing it as being uh valid validating your argument it it's because it's your task to demonstrate that the private Market is not operational and that's evidence to the contrary Mr papis can I can I just ask clarify question and I I've been meeting to ask this because you you mentioned something before about having to find the purpose behind the discontinuance for for for criteria B and I'm not is that something that's required by the statute to find the purpose behind the discontinuance I think the what you're suggesting to me is that the day after ethon sent their 1,200 employees to Raritan that you could come in the next day and say oh this is blighted no that's you have to know the reasons why and and associ and and are the reasons linked with the fact that there are conditions that are so terrible the private Market isn't interested is that what the criteria States in my opinion you have to look at the purpose of the statute in order to interpret that phrase otherwise the day that they leave the property you're suggesting that it's blighted no um what I am saying is you do have to make a compelling argument about why the crit why the site fits the criteria which is the whole purpose of doing a preliminary investigation but I do just want to clarify because you keep saying that private Market if you have to show that the private Market has interest or is viable that it matters and I just want to clarify for the board that the other criteria do make a connection they talk about having a connection to UNH wholesome living conditions they make connections to not being developed by private Capital they make connections to having detrimental impacts the safety Health morals welfare of the community but criteria B doesn't and it's not without reason probably and criteria B was one of the criteria that was expanded in the local Housing and Redevelopment law and I do want the board to recognize that Mr St keeps saying that the private C you have to show this you have to show this you that could be one of your reasons that could be one of your compelling arguments about why the site fits criteria B but I think the other thing you have to look at is there's an openness to the criteria there's spe I mean it's been argued before there there is openness to have house sites can fit into these criteria because the local Housing and Redevelopment law is supposed to be helpful to the state and to to economic welfare of the state um and so I I just want to be be careful when Mr St keeps saying there has to be connection there has to be a connection there could be a connection it could be part of your argument but in no way does the statute say that and I want to clarify that because Mr d'angeles asked that of Mr Sullivan multiple times does the statute say this does the Reed development law say this and in this case Mr St is saying things that the that the Redevelopment Housing law doesn't say so I want to be careful that the board is considering the criteria and the arguments that Mr Sullivan made in the appropriate context of what's being objected to thank you thank you Mr Mr chairman I know the hour is getting exceptionally late but I I do have just two two items to to cover here um the the first is you know this report which you know we see but you know our audience members don't I I guess this will now become part of the public record and the public will access it and I'm not asking this to trip you up um but you know there's been a lot of conversation about the you know the relationship between this person and this person and the other person you know our report which says Peter GSTC Community planning consultant a planning evaluation of this of this site prepared for Richard d'angeles Esquire and SJP properties so you've been contracted by them to produce this report right yes okay I just want to you know again I'm not asking to trip you upover it's right on the cover yes I know but again people in the audience anyone online they don't they don't they don't have this document I do um the question I have though you talk about uh the condition of the site the condition of the buildings and and and point to the relatively positive condition of the buildings you know they're they're well maintained there aren't broken windows uh you know there aren't there isn't an infestation of any kind I feel like you're almost pointing to that as evidence that um uh you know it's it's viable to continue not that you have a concerned property owner see I I see a well-maintained property as a sign of a concerned property owner whether it's residential or commercial and and your argument almost seems to now want to hold that against the owner that they're not letting this thing fall apart at the seams is is that your contention the I'm just looking at the facts and what the intention of ethicon is I I I understand that in other situations I've seen developers intentionally not fix up properties because they want to uh kind of Grease the wheels for redevelopment that's not the case here this property is well-maintained it's guarded it's secure the the the roadways to it are fenced off and it was sold right but but your part of your argument seems to be you you know it's in wonderful shape what's wrong with it I see that potentially as the owner owner of the property cares to keep it in good condition until and unless either because some plan is going to happen right either those buildings will be rehabilitated different buildings will be built I see that as a representation of the of the previous owners who kept it in outstanding condition and the current owners that seem to want to maintain that I I see that as you know you know you know not they shouldn't be punished for that you you almost seem to want to punish them because because you know well it doesn't look like a place that's burned out it doesn't doesn't have broken windows it doesn't have a Vermin infestation you know because that's what's in the statute so in other words in other words if there was if there was some kind of a disaster that that occurred on this site and and and it was it was now not weathertight or there were broken windows or there were the things that you would that many of us would normally associated with blight then it would be okay for us to say the property is in need of Redevelopment then it might meet the criteria which criteria well if if there was a firestorm it's what Criterion G I mean they're different criteria did Mr Sullivan contend in his report that that that's the criteria is being met that it was substandard UNS he's saying it's specialized and it's big and there's a lot of square footage that's his reasoning and that that there's no other I'm guessing he's saying pharmaceutical company in his opinion that is going to step in without making modifications that's not the nature of the business ethon had to renovate the buildings in Raritan before they could move and in fact they had to move back because the renovations apparently run into trouble point I'm trying to make is you keep is Mr kers is trying to say it keeps getting brought up that the buildings are in good condition but Mr Sullivan's report did not make an argument that it meets one of the conditions the criteria about the condition of the building he didn't say the building is substandard so the argument is I'm trying to explore why what reasoning he offers that it's discontinued and I don't think he has provided a cogent rationale that fits within the Redevelopment statute oh okay okay that's so I do you want to argue the information that he included in the report about why well that's that's the evidence you know no I mean about the history about when they left the building and and all and when Mr that's important because first of all it precludes him saying it's been vacant for two years because it hasn't been but that's not what he argued he he made that clear he argued that the building has discontinued the use of being an industrial manufacturing office building and so I think maybe you should or maybe it's clearer if you arue to the board against the evidence he provided in the report rather evidence he didn't provide in the report or the criteria he didn't argue in the report well you can present whatever you want but that I stand by my conclusions based on the evidence before the board I guess the one other thing I wanted to say is there was a comment by someone about uh the township engaging Mr lellan and how that was unusual in these circumstances the township engaged Mr lell and because of the existing environmental conditions and the concern that the Township officials and likely Township residents would have about those environmental conditions and no matter what would ever occur on this site that the township was through a professional was monitoring that and that may be a wise thing I'm not I'm not speaking to you I'm making a general statement okay um and so that was said maybe Mr d'angelus mentioned it uh and Mr L Allen was here to present himself so uh the board and the residents knew that he was engaged and uh I just think that that was important so people understand the context and wouldn't be dismissive of his participation the the my understanding is that the planning board is the only entity charged with the investigation so it should be the planning board's witnesses that present evidence that you accept or reject the fact that Witnesses are hired by another entity he was paid by Bridgewater Township or will will be by brid and the planning board did on the record have a motion delegating its investigatory powers in connection with the township council's request correct I'm not saying your process was someone did maybe Mr d'angel mentioned that did that theoretically you the planning board pick your own attorney not the governing body you get to vote on your attorney and you get to vote on your experts you're a separate entity than the governing body I'm guessing you're going to be rehired well uh Mr chairman yeah you you said that there are a lot U multiple offers uh can you give us evidence that pharmaceutical company and doing the same thing can utilize this one I don't know but the answer is there was a purchaser uh Mr Papa said there were multiple offers it's not in the record no I didn't say there were multiple offers I said that there were um several entities that contacted the township indicating they were interested in putting high density residential development or Mega warehouses that's what I said well I don't that's that's I don't have that access to that information okay I I would like to hear if you have a chance to present us this you know competible that evidence is in the files apparently of the municipality not in my files well you know there are a lot of scenarios right so right now the company has sold this one for what reason I don't know if you have evidence that this is fully operational to manufacture whatever it has been doing do you have that kind of evidence the the burden of proof is on your experts and in my opinion if there's information that's missing that's not a problem for me that's a problem for you because you have the burden of proof well that's what I heard from you you said this fully marketable and fully functional I didn't say I is that this property was sold to a private developer without contingencies that's sign of an operational Market yeah my question to you is I would like to know do you have evidence that ethon has updated this one to the current technology uh the improvements I took from your expert's report and they're on page uh appendix C of my report and I'll repeat the fact that it doesn't meet modern standards s is not dispositive of whether a property is blighted and there's case law on that well I I would I I I I really want to know that you know if if there your like like your home you said your home has lad paint and if a if you you're going to sell your home for whatever reason you want to upgrade or whatever if a new owner want to you know tear it down and build a new one would that be allowed or would be that that would be allow but that's not it's not because my property is blighted who who buys my house is going to put a bathroom on the first floor and blow out the kitchen I'm sure of that but my property isn't blighted yeah but here you you because you make an example about your lad paint but here this is what I I see you know this property need to be purchased you know I need to you know owned by somebody right and also in our Township we have the the the example or you know evidence that you know some campers have been abandoned right has been abandoned you know this property is not abandoned it's no I I didn't see this this property is abandoned but I said some something is banded you know we do not want to you know have this in the future is we can or whatever is not utilized and Township going to sacrifice some tax money you know I understand that there's Municipal interest in ratables and other things there are there are multiple ways to do that what I'm suggesting is this blighting process is not applicable to this instance it gives you a tremendous amount of power you you once this is declared blighted there's nothing to tell you that you can't through a Redevelopment plan you know allow high density housing you have the right to do that but but the tool that you're using that you've elected to use here area need of Redevelopment gives a tremendous amount of power you can choose the developer even though they don't own the property there a tremendous amount of power you have but it it arises because of the blight condition and this in my opinion is not warranted by the facts it is not blighted is the word blighted a matter of opinion no it's in the State Constitution and it's identical to the phrase area need of Redevelopment so lead that exists in almost every single one of those buildings that were mentioned this evening as best as that exists in almost any every one of those buildings that have mentioned this evening pcbs in almost everyone and unfortunately some chlorinated hydrocarbons that exist on the site and going off site none of those exist within the definition being blighted they're not referenced in the definition and the word contamination is not in Criterion b i I'd like to just clarify the record because Mr STC has kept returning to the notion that a property has to be blighted in order for it to be deemed an area need of Redevelopment if you look specifically at Criterion B which is what Mr Sullivan op find uh would be appropriate for this property and I'm quoting verbatim from the statute it's if the governing body the municipality by resolution concludes that within the delineated area any of the following conditions any of the following conditions is found B the discontinuance of the use of a building or buildings previously used for commercial retail shopping mall or plazas office Parks manufacturing or industrial purposes then there's a semicolon which denotes or under any rule of statutory construction or the abandonment of such building or buildings or significant vacancies of such buildings or buildings etc etc etc clearly as Mr Sullivan testified the whole time it's the first part of criterian B which is the discontinuance of the use of a building or buildings previously used for commercial retail shopping malls plazas office Parks manufacturing or industrial purposes blight is certainly one of the statutory criteria but it's not the only statutory criteria so I would like the board to keep that in mind when conducting your analysis of the various testimony you've heard this evening I just wanted to make a comment as well M Char withs yes just when looking at the property from a valuation perspective it is for 2000 from 2005 to about 2019 it had an average assessment of about 35 million of course the market went crazy starting in 2020 then the valuation went up to 51 million the property was purchased for 21 million and assuming that the purchaser's bid that was accepted was probably the highest and there were multiple bids that was probably lower bids for the other offers so going off of that valuation $330,000 under the or $30 million under the assessment would make me think that there's a functional obsolescence there you did also testify do you mind if I ask one more question you testified that that the market could show that some another company could come in here and do the similar things well whether they do a similar thing or not not the answer is someone purchased the property that was my question you didn't let me get it out okay if you were a resident of Bridgewater and you very well may be would and a neighbor of that property would you like somebody else to come in and do similar things where groundwater could get more contaminated and more things could happen right or certainly a neighbor would not want that and frankly the law would not want not allow that this is his historic contamination that is being cleaned up according to D regulations D is not going to allow any user of this property to introduce more pollution this is historic pollution and I would be just as concerned as the neighbors but the answer is this was done in the past it can't be done again but it's being cleaned up according to state regulations so no other company that does this contaminates property so if another company comes in and does the same thing even though the law states it they can't they can't do that they everyone needs a permit you especially if property's Changing Hands you know there have to be remedies but but the answer is at least in terms of groundwater this is being monitored and apparently it's being improved but the answer is D hasn't given their final blessing to the progress but but this is this is historic they're not putting contaminants anymore in the ground water I'm pretty confident of that this happened years ago well that they're not an operation right now there it didn't listen to my question but that's okay one other comment um I think will be my last one um was mentioned that there was a letter from um SJP properties attorney to the township back a number of months ago and just one for the benefit of the public and the board uh our attorney did reach out to the gentleman who wrote the letter and uh you know as a as a property owner in Bridgewater Township a good corporate citizen the township wanted to engage in a discussion to try to address any concerns that SJP properties had and they uh declined to meet with the the township Mr chairman I did have a couple comments uh Mr St as it relates to this property right now it's M1 Zone correct yes is there any uh reason why a potential buyer can come in and demolish everything within within D and and all the guidelines themselves and continue to do something something within M1 uh M1 doesn't regulate whether you can demolish a property or not that's the construction code right right so it doesn't they could de they don't need zoning approval to demolish anything on the property correct so what I'm saying is this property doesn't need to have an l lrh l in order to demolish and make this usable for some other for some other reason I I don't that's beyond my expertise but as indicated by another witness you can cause contamination in the demolition process so there are additional regulations that apply are different from a manufacturing process right okay I understand I think there's maybe some assumptions or uh that some of the board members potentially are making in with regards to if a potential buyer comes into this uh location and potentially uh is looking to have some other sort of use that they're going to clean up things to to the some extent within the reason of the D but that but nothing precedes or nothing um restricts a potential buyer for the zoning the current zoned use which is M1 which is allowed for this property and if a potential buyer as long as they stay within the right rights of the zoning whether it's uh uh declared an lrhl or otherwise right um so what I'm saying is I I think uh I don't know if there's assumptions being made or or whatever the case is I I think there's a lot some maybe some confusion that this needs to be designated in lrhl in order for people to proceed with potential uh other um for for some for certain cleanups but I think uh my question to you is uh a potential buyer or in this case ay pile whoever it is could utilize the site uh within the am1 restriction and clean up the site as it stands or if they decide to do whatever they felt like as long as it constituted with within the zoning correct that's correct okay um one other item and in the essence of transparency um I would like to see the exact timeing for those uh emails on February 6th uh one I think that was uh directed to the township and then one that was constituted for Mike Sullivan so in in the uh issue in transparency I'd like to see that I think the public would as well um and then the other question that I had here was with regards to criteria B uh and as Mr peek just uh you know uh demonstrated for us um in your opinion constituting an abandonment of uh buildings right I think one of the the statute these bu it's on its face I can say these buildings have not been abandoned abandoned means the owner walks away doesn't do anything taxes are being paid it's secure it's being maintained it's not abandoned that's not on the table legitimately this evening you can't say that these properties in your expertise when you look at other L you know lrh sell conversations does it do does it constitute what you just mentioned in terms of taxes not being paid that there is significant issues with that would be an evid potential evidence um of blight if someone walked away from a property never boarded it up didn't pay the taxes that's an abandoned property I think not talking about blight but just talking about the the definition of abandonment in this case that's my understanding of the definition of Abandonment okay thank you Mr manga the the criteria B doesn't talk about abandonment I just want to clarify that this the the criteria says the discontinuance of a use so I just want to clarify abandonment and any kind of things that happen to a building after it's been abandoned are generally dealt with in the other criteria I just want to clarify that that it's discontinuance of a use and discontinuance of a building in that use so I guess in that case discontinue in and of the use this site was meant for light manufacturing they came back between 2022 and 20123 housing these uh um workers not what what do we know what they were doing does that count as continuous of use and if if so then I think that this premature for this board to be deliberating on this and we should wait until April 2025 I think it is significant that 1,200 approximately employees went back into these same buildings without any further Renovations and occupied them for a number of months I think that's significant thank you no further questions Mr banga any other questions from our board I have a question Mr chair Mr Atkins so I know we're speaking in a lot of specifics and legal e um but I just want to step back for a second and kind of get a holistic picture of you know what we're really discussing uh it's my understanding that the property sits in the M1 limited manufacturing Zone and I guess the buyer wouldn't be able to use that property in the zone for their intend purposes uh so M1 to M1A um but as it stands any buyer could also demolish the property um and really do whatever they want with with the property within uh the guidelines of the M1 Zone which is a limited manufacturing Zone uh but however what the township is hoping to do is step in uh before any buyer any property owner could do that and establish parameters to hopefully serve the community best interests um so this may be a question for our board officials or attorney but what are the implications of establishing or recognizing this property as an area in need of Redevelopment versus not well if the township Council if this board were to recommend that the property be declared an area in need and the township Council agrees and and declares that the next step would be preparation of a Redevelopment plan and that works if you referen the M1 zoning it has the permitted uses and then the various bulk requirements you know your setbacks your impervious cover all that the Redevelopment plan would do that it would establish the type of uses that would be permitted on that property and that can't be changed like ordinarily you can apply for a use variance from the zoning board if you want to do something that isn't a permitted use there's no use variance from a Redevelopment plan that that controls um and it would also set out the bulk parameters and the layout of the site although that could be tweaked you can get variances from that but basically the bottom line is to have a Redevelopment plan in place you can put the you can really the municipality can really drill down on what it will permit what it won't permit uh on that particular property and it also then gives the municipality the right to appoint a redeveloper to select somebody to say okay we want this entity to redevelop the property as opposed oppos to you know under a regular zoning scheme you know whoever owns the property can can come in and and do it and Mr peek would not also allow the residents of the town on behalf of the township a little bit more oversight as to what happens during the cleanup process let's say of contamination well it can the Redevelopment plan within the parameters that are allowed for a Redevelopment plan can can cover all that stuff Mr just for my clarification uh in that Redevelopment plan there relates to and I think there was some testimony towards the end uh of Mr Sullivan's Redevelopment plan should be either sub that can beated whatever government body which in this case would be the council uh or the planning whatever whatever zoning would make sense yeah and there'd have to either be a you know a finding that that it's consistent or it advances the purposes of the master plan or what usually happens if you know if you adopt a zoning ordinance it's inconsistent with the master plan a municipality can do that but they then have to adopt a resolution setting forth the reasons why they would have adopted that zoning ordinance even though it's not consistent with the master plan they'd have to lay out their specific reasons which you don't have to do and I believe that's the same with the Redevelopment plan you know it it's supposed to advance the master plan be consistent with it if it's not you'd expect there to be a a uh complimentary resolution that would explain the rationale for why are you deviating from and does the public and any other parties have the ability to deliver at that time prior to that the Redevelopment plan uh if it gets that far would be adopted just like any other land use ordinance so which would have a public you know public hearing associated with it before the final vote on it so the public would have the opportunity to be heard not to mention that at any other time they could go to a council meeting and just during the general public uh phase could let their opinions be known but yeah certainly before before the plan would be adopted as an overlay zoning ordinance there'd be a public hearing where the public has the opportunity to be heard and bring in professionals like Mr St or or do whatever they would want to do Mr peek I just to clarify there'd be multiple probably multiple public hearings because it would be first reading at the council then come back to the planning board for master plan consistency and then back to the council for second reading and adoption if that was the path plan I I think the only formal hearing would be the second reading of the ordinance but there're certainly plenty of opportunities along the way where this would be debated in an open public meeting and the public always has the right to comment uh at a meeting and and and I'm sorry to State the obvious but you know myself my four Council colleagues the mayor the rest of us we are all exceptionally accessible to the public for any time a person does not have to come to a public meeting and sign a piece of paper and uh uh speak in front of a microphone we all have published email addresses published phone numbers we all go grocery shopping we all take walks in our neighborhoods you know this idea that somehow this you know the mayor and the council or this you know you know you know you know you know Great Wizard of Oz setup it's just not like that we are residents just like everybody else in this room and we want to do what's what's in uh uh the the the forward-facing interest of Bridgewater and that really can't be lost here I mean you know the people on this deas are now devoting a substantial amount of their free time to this because we care and we love about we we love and we care for Bridgewater and that does not change in any way shape or form and I can absolutely guarantee that anyone who wants to have input on this will have more than sufficient opportunity thank you councilman and Mr P if we could reiterate as you mentioned earlier this is a very preliminary step in this process yeah it it's again simply to for the board to decide whether or not the property qualifies uh for being designated in area need of Redevelopment pursuant to one of the eight statutory criteria so Mr Sullivan has opined that criteria B applies to the larger ethicon site and criteria C applies to the smaller 2.2 acre lot and possibly uh criteria H also could but his report focused on the criteria B and C and that's that's really it if you know thank you Mr P Mr St do you have any further testimony or uh no I I guess the public should be able to ask me a question if they do have one absolutely there any members of the public that wish to comment on the preus testimony please feel free to come forward I'm sorry your name and address name and address and please record it on the record please my name is maryan Daisy um I live on Garson Road I grew up in bille I don't know if you guys know where bille is um in my child childhood there were many factories around us that were abandoned uh I wouldn't say abandoned but they not operational half operational half staff's people leaving taxes were paid on them I don't see this eacon situation anywhere near what I saw growing up in Belleville I think these lawyers here from SJP are spoton that utilizing this statute to take control of this property is not is not the correct thing to do legally I'm not a lawyer but I'm just listening to Common Sense here through my brain okay these properties that I grew up in Belleville were abandoned for years no one would buy them you have someone who bought this property let them figure out how they want to redevelop it in the normal process with all the coming to you with zoning changes or whatever they want to do and let the D worry about the contamination because that is their job this contamination was here before I moved into into this town I moved here in 1988 and I was handed by the prior owner a piece of paper where ethon would check my water every year and they did that for 10 years I lived there and now the levels are low so this contamination has been here for years it's now dissipating we let the D do their job we let the new person whoever buys it whether it be pile or whoever do what they do through the normal process and let's take it that way because I do not think that doing this and and making this designation is the proper thing to do and I do think you guys are all exposing yourself to Legal litigation from SJP as well as maybe several other companies that live in this area thank you very much thank you thank you iug you uh good evening more members Michael silbert from the law firm deep Francesco baitman on behalf of 555 route22 Associates LLC I promise I will be quick it's a it's been a long evening uh Mr St in your testimony I witnessed you jump up and down and say it's been sold it's been sold so I'd like to know if you can cite to the explicit section of the Redevelopment law that says if a property has been sold it cannot be designated as an area in needed Redevelopment there's no section that says it that way the issue is is there evidence that the private Marketplace is operational and I would say a purchase without contingency is evidence the uh board is likely no stranger to Redevelopment projects they've probably done Redevelopment projects in the past as as the township um would you say that a prospective purchaser might look at a property and say it's marketable with the prospect that it could be Redevelopment could that impact whether or not a potential purchaser looked at the property I don't know each purchaser has their own interest so do you think it would be important to know that whether a prospective purchaser considered the prospect of Redevelopment um in stating to the board this evening that the property and the free market will take care of development in of itself without any assistance by a Redevelopment plan um I don't know what was in the mind of the purchaser I I know that this purchaser apparently based on the correspondence had interest in this property being blighted and that's in the paperwork and I think that that taints the process so you're saying that developers all over the state of New Jersey do not look at properties and consider whether or not it could be utilized uh for development I didn't say that can you can you expand on my question no I don't know what other developers would do how about your client do you think your client looked at this property and considered to do this uh by way of Redevelopment I I I don't know don't know okay um it's true that uh only one of the Criterion under Section Five of the Redevelopment law has to be met right in order for the board to determine that the property meets uh or or can be designated as an area needed Redevelopment or can put forth that recommendation yes and the study area consisted of two lots is that correct yes would you agree that if the board finds that only one of the three discussed uh Criterion were met that the study area could be designated as an area needed Redevelopment well if only one met the criteria then only one could be designated are you sure about that well there's there's a section three but that has not been invoked in the study this is that has not been mentioned this evening right but the entire study was put together in accordance with the Redevelopment law is that correct in in other words the study references the Redevelopment law it it does okay and just for the benefit of the uh the board I just want to read uh the definition of Redevelopment area under section three of the of the Redevelopment law um and I'm going to read the the pertinent part which says a Redevelopment Redevelopment area may include lands buildings or improvements which of themselves are not detrimental to the public health safety or welfare but the inclusion of which is found necessary with or without change in their conditions for the effective Redevelopment of the area of which they are a part so if the board so determines that and I'm not suggesting that the criteria hasn't been met for uh the smaller lot but if the board says to themselves well we believe that that lot might be necessary for redevelopment and the board rests its decision or recommendation this evening on Criterion B being met for the larger lot would the board be within their purview within their right under the Redevelopment law to designate the entire study area as a Redevelopment area they could but they would have no evidence to base that opinion on because you think that criteria NB hasn't been met for the other law because there's no evidence presented that section three applies uh Mr SE have you been part of on the I I and I've had the opportunity to to work with you in the past uh usually on the other on the other side but have you done any uh Redevelopment work for developers on behalf of developers or you you're you're primarily focused on objector work uh I'd say about half of my uh business is objector work but I have worked uh I helped the developer amenda Redevelopment plan in West Orange for the Edison site so I have been on both sides why do you think it's so so common that uh environmental remediation and contamination pops up in um in preliminary investigations or should I ask do you think it's common it's common but it's not it's not necessarily relevant to the determination I I in my experience a lot of planners throw in a sense a lot of things against the wall uh and this report uh for example said nothing about the master plan a lot of reports talk about the master plan but it's not relevant do you think that a uh planner in this board should consider market conditions I uh let me just pull it up it's in the in the report but I think it give me one moment I think the report estimates that the site currently consists of about 60% office space I'm looking at page 24 416,000 plus Square ft of office space and approximately 40% of what they classify as manufacturing industrial uh just over 280,000 Square ft do you think that the uh the board's planner board's or the Township's Redevelopment planner and this board should consider current marketing conditions with respect to the office real estate market and assessing whether a building that consists of 400,000 plus Square ft of office space would be eligible to be uh declared an area in need of Redevelopment well if no one was interested in the p in the purchase of the property that would be a relevant fact so again didn't you testify earlier that just because a property was conveyed that it does not mean that the property does not meet the criteria for to be designated as an area in needed Redevelopment it's evidence that the private Marketplace is operational so then are you suggesting that every property in in New Jersey uh uh a property owner should not Market their property should not sell it because it'll because thus then then if if they sell it or Market it it will not be declared an air need of Redevelopment it what you're saying is basically that a property owner must sit idly by with their property that they can't they can't sell it because then it should never be declared an area need of Redevelopment I didn't say that and that's absurd well but you are suggesting that just because it was sold that it doesn't meet the area in need designation I'm saying that in this these circumstances in my opinion the fact that it was sold uh not only tainted the process but is strong evidence in this specific situation that the private Market is operational are uh private Public Partnerships uncommon when dealing with properties that require environmental remediation uh sometimes there there uh there's a partnership once a property is blighted and sometimes there there is not a partnership but it is common place to have Partnerships public private Partnerships with contaminated properties um we're talking about whether the property is blighted or not that's different of whether there's a public or private Partners that's not what I asked though I just I was just asking if it's common for there to be public private Partnerships well this is a blight hearing so I don't know what relevance that is well it's it's it's found in the in the Redevelopment law and um um I think that's once a property is blighted it is an eligible tool but you got to find it blighted first the tool has to be appropriate I believe that you you had cited and also the your attorney had cited the uh section two of the Redevelopment law which said that public private without public private Partnerships it's unlikely that the property would be developed so that was the basis for the question but um I thank the uh board for indulging me for a couple of minutes here and thank you Mr St you're welcome thank you thank you Mr sber any others that wish to comment please feel for come forward okay seeing none I believe that closes this public portion for this witness and for the uh for this issue it's uh it's time to to close and deliberate correct Mr peek any any comments or uh no again just to reiterate uh what's been said before this board tonight is charged with determining whether the study Area Property uh qualifies as an area in need of Redevelopment under one of the eight uh listed statutory criteria and if so that would be the recommendation that you would make to the township Council thank you Mr P okay I'd like to close that portion of the meeting and open up for deliberations and I encourage every board member to State the basis for for their vote on the record or the the you know the basis for their thinking Mr Wang thank you um I I think this uh this property um I passed almost every day and um it was surprise to me that um it's have been uh the business has been discontinued there um it's obvious I I I feel so sad that a big company has has sold this one to some new owners the new owner you know from the property usage wise I think that the new owner should you know to bring the benefit um and consider um of course the the interest of the public and the residents neighbors um and also you know for their operating purpose um all the zonings should be um you know at this moment of course we are not talking about zoning but we're talking about if this one could be redeveloped for for such purpose that's going to benefit the township and benefit the community and benefit uh um him I mean the company itself um so you know for this facility my neighbors have been working there for maybe 20 years and I have been heard I I heard from from my neighbor that you know the reason they moved to the other office is because this is absolete a lot of s fac facilities upsolid okay so that that's what I see I don't I don't see any evidence that you know when this property is on the market there is a beating wall from all pharmaceutical companies and trying to produce or manufacture the same product I I don't know if that's true I would like to hear that you know if but I didn't hear tonight okay so that's why I'm I'm you know I'm I'm in favor of uh you know uh the Redevelopment um proposal thank youur okay biomedical research and Manufacturing facilities are very complex and I assume that Johnson and Johnson has the expertise to determine what is a modern laboratory in biomedical research manufacturing facility uh I would have liked to have heard about their reasons for leaving the Bridgewater site I'm not too concerned about riton that's outside of my pile of paper here so um additionally we're talking to 60y Old facility and I have to think about the infrastructure 60y old boilers 60-year old chillers uh air conditioning systems that are old water piping it may be good enough for people to drink but it's not good enough for a biomedical lab it has to be purified electrical systems for the instrumentation very complex the electrical current has to be filtered so it doesn't affect the instrumentation I think there's a lot of negatives in that 60-year old building which haven't been addressed but if someone would have try to put them back into use I don't think it would work out too well so in my case I would vote that the area of the buildings is in dire need of replacement Mr Atkins I mean this property represents nearly 2 and a half% of all land in Bridgewater it's nearly 90 Acres um what we do with this property at least what the township uh decides what this property can have um that's really going to impact residents it's going to impact our community it's going to impact our students at the high school um I'm concerned about many things I'm concerned about the pollution I'm concerned about the lead and the Asbestos and the other chemicals that's in this building um but I know it's late in the night and I know that we've deliberated on this for quite a while now almost I guess 5 hours um but I feel that since there are so many passionate residents here to speak on this issue and since there are a lot a lot of arguments for and against um I find myself very conflicted as if we should continue debate on this or if we should uh choose some other Avenue so I would respectfully respectfully have to abstain Miss chtz um I would go back to what a couple of the residents said we had one resident who mentioned there was another anger saw building in Montgomery that was redeveloped into a senior center and another Resident mentioned they were one of the last um employees of the building and how it had been let go looking at I think it was exhibit it B one of the ones Exhibit C the one in Mr st's report that mentioned all of the renovation years it looked as if it was an average of every six years they did Renovations and the last renovation was in 2011 and they still had people there until 2022 so that was 11 years that went by so they that leads me to believe that they stopped renovating they stopped kind of maintaining it and keeping it up to date um again I will re reiterate what I said before regarding it being assessed at even if we just go with the 35 million at what it had been assessed at for all of those years the average and it sold for 21 million to me that does show that there is a market for it but it's below Market it's so they're not paying what the market value could be they're paying and assuming that's the highest bidder who W so everybody else was bidding lower because they see the potential of the property that they but they also have to put in a lot of money to make it what they want it to be so again that's to me shows from a valuation perspective when you're paying under Market that there is some kind of obsolescence there so I'm just in my mind I do feel like it would need to be redeveloped in order to move forward cor I thought a lot about about what the residents have said as well especially um I believe your last name was Daisy Daisy um and I and I appreciate that and I think even though we have H ly differing opinions I think it's for the same reason um I know you had spoken about seeing what the the disrepair of these types of spaces in your in Belleville um I think about the future here and the future of my kids growing up going through Bridgewater high school but also hopefully staying in Bridgewater and growing a family there too and ethon decided to sell this proper property for some reason that that we don't know right and undervalue um and even though it's currently being paid ta taxes are currently being paid it was being sold for a reason and I can't I can't understand even a very successful company down the road wouldn't want to stop at some point in time in addition even though it was testified by Mr St that the um that the buildings are are wellmaintained I can't imagine they are paying for air and heat and maintaining those those units that are left over and the the walkin freezers and all of those things which will eventually um cause the that property to go into disrepair and uh even though they have people on site it's to maintain the outside of the property is what I can can assume so I think about the future of that property I don't want another company to come in I I know law states that they can't contaminate things we know that still happens and I I don't want another ethicon type building to come or business to come into that site knowing that neighbors that there's so many close Neighbors in the area and our kids go to that high school um and I believe that that area is in need of Redevelopment so for that reason I'm I am for it Mr papus uh thank you um I appreciate Mr um Sullivan's report and thoroughness um that he has and Mr his associate I think it's a sorry i' forgotten your name hatch Mr hatch um I think those points that they presented are very very relevant uh I too as Miss SC said uh understand the concern of the residents um it's a school there um residents along country Club Road and that's the reason that the township engaged Mr Luellen to try to uh address whatever would go there and that that's I think that's an important point is that ethon is no longer there it's owned by another entity and um the Township in one way shape or form will have a role to play as to what takes place there if they would decide to pursue something under the current zoning and that application would come before this board and so there would be an opportunity for the township to to uh U weigh in on it um but um I I do believe that the criteria has been met statutorily as Mr PC said at the outset of this meeting that is the board's role here today and we all understand the other issues that will will come later and uh we're sensitive to that but we're also I think sensitive to the fact that you have a property that is currently underutilized and um in my view does meet the criteria that the statute requires so I would support this you Mr banga sorry all right no I think the um you know I'm I'm very happy that the uh our residents came out today uh on such an important matter here and uh obviously you know the decision of the board is not something that should be taken lightly by any means I am concerned about the means of how the um lrhl requests came to be uh so you know that is something that that that is concerning for myself thinking about the tax assessment and I know one of my colleagues mentioned this but the fact that there was rated at $ 51.8 million and yet sold for 21 you know begs to question um kind of what we were thinking with regards to that why was it rated at 51.8 million if we think this is a site that's in disrepair uh shouldn't be assessed at that high of an amount uh and should have been subsequently R reassessed and if I was ethicon I would have I would have asked for a reassessment that didn't really make any sense to me um you know I don't agree with Mr Sullivan's assessment using criteria B that the site uh had been abandoned for two years first of all uh whether whe whether however you read criteria B uh whether certain buildings were not being utilized or whatever the case is ethicon the fact of the matter is eacon did come back they did utilize it between 2020 uh 2022 and 2023 um and if we were to take a look at that Statute in total that would mean that you know this really should be up for debate 2025 April 2025 uh in front of the board um my perspective on is the owner whoever it is in this case ay pile should work within the M1 Zone it doesn't require that first of all any any entity whether you have the money or if you get it on a substantial discount could come into the site and re redevelop it on their own means it doesn't it doesn't require that the board dictate or the council dictates that and that's my firm opinion on that um so we don't need to have the local Redevelopment and Housing law um you know to pass this I I don't think that there is a reason for redevelopment what we're re what we're deliberating today is if the if a suitable entity could purchase this property and develop it within the M1 Zone and what I'm hearing from my colleagues is that it's not suitable for that and maybe I'm misunderstanding but if this does you know if we if we go through this process and it becomes an M1A and this becomes a Terminal A Trucking terminal which is designated for M1A I think it's going to be a huge uh huge issue for the township and I think it's going to be a huge issue for the board thank [Music] you councilman kersch thank you um first I want to thank the public there aren't very many of them still here but the ones who are here you're the die hards um I don't know if others went home and and are watching uh you know on video or or not um but I do want to compliment all the residents that came out clearly you have a passion for our town and Township and that's appreciated I also want to express appreciation to the to those on the de uh volunteers from the community who are uh you know here acting uh in the interest of our community not just today uh but for many many years to come um I'm uh not swayed in any way uh by the action that ethon took to temporarily return to the site that to me is is not in any way shape or form relevant um to what's going on in this property um they left the site they intended to go somewhere else I guess Logistics or whatever created a situation where they had to go somewhere else where could you go well I could go to the place where I just was um so I'm I'm not swayed by that um I I believe that the criteria that needs to be met is uh that I don't think the 2-year rule uh uh is applicable here I don't think we have to wait until April 2025 to consider this uh I look at this through a couple different lenses one is this specific property uh but I also look at this you know through the lens of the of the wider community and the reality is successful communities adapt and change um I I live in the miltown neighborhood when I meet some people who've been in Bridge order a long time they say oh yeah I remember when that was all Farms um well I call it my home uh Mr Wang calls it his home and we're proud to do that because Bridgewater changed and adapted you know maybe people at the time didn't like it maybe they would have preferred stay stay to farm it's given me a place to raise my family so the reality is that as I just stated successful communities adapt and change uh a mechanism to do that uh is this process that we're undertaking this hearing that we've had I believe that this that this um property is currently uh is in position to be underutilized unless significant change is made uh and that's why I do accept uh the recommendations uh that have been provided to us uh by Mr Sullivan um and I do support uh this as this this area as as being in need of Redevelopment I believe that we should continue to proceed down the process and I will once again reiterate that this is not the one and only chance there will be multiple chances in public sessions and private conversations so that whatever comes of this property it will suit the needs of the needs of Bridgewater the immediate Community the surrounding community and ultimately if we if we if we do this the right way uh we will end up with an asset um uh that is uh environmentally clean that is safe and that um you know can be something that will represent us um for 60 years or more you know there should be there should we we should we should look at this property with pride that it served our community that it um uh employed our residents that it made various advancements in the field of medicine over a period since 19 1956 we should be proud of that and we should be asking our qu ourselves okay what can best serve us for the next 40 50 60 years or more and I believe the pathway to get there is is is through Redevelopment I'd like to thank Mr Sullivan for his report Mr Harrison Mr hatch uh as as well as Mr Denalis Mr hatch as well um I believe that um I'd like to thank the the public uh many of which are not here this evening or that have left already uh most importantly I like to thank the members of De here this evening uh because again to stress uh we're all here as residents on behalf of the community and we're here to better the community and part of bettering the community is taking the time to read through these reports 37 pages of Mr Sullivan's report uh in Mr Sullivan's report um uh again um I read it as very cogent um I thought uh that uh we were tasked with looking for um meeting the criterian B this evening and uh the discontinuance check of use of a building check buildings previously used for commercial check shopping malls or plazas office Parks check manufacturing checks or IND industrial purposes check however we want to read that we've also heard that there has not been enough of an effective argument in Mr salvin's report however on the contrary I don't believe there's enough of and there there was an effective argument on the contrary as well I don't see a problem all with the township having more oversight as to what happens at the site in the future I think again as a resident of this Township we're looking and as a planning board body we're looking to the Future we're looking at 68 years of this site having been there and after having heard that yes there is possible contamination there on that site that could be remediated we need to look toward the future and especially for me I'm looking at the fact that it's AB budding residential neighborhoods and a and in education uh and as the and with the with the high school to the north of it we need to be looking at the future and I believe the future is designating this area as a an area in need of Redevelopment so with that Mr P I believe uh we'd ask for a motion to approve if I'm saying this correctly um someone could make a motion to recommend to the township Council that the area be that the property be designated an area need of Redevelopment or someone could make the contrary motion that it not be recommended Mr chair I I apologize for interrupting Mr Atkins uh seeing that it is passed midnight um and it's now October 2nd is there any legal Provisions that we have to take to ensure that this vote is uh no Bing no we're good all right s yeah we're all right would anybody like to make said motion that's Mr papus and you're moving to make the recommendation that it be deemed an area in need who would like to second that motion I'll second that's Miss sakur could I have a roll call please yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes abstain thank you Mr motion carries I'd like to thank the public I'd like to thank all of those that contributed this evening Mr chair yes uh just one thing about the approval of minutes will we be doing that yes we will okay because I have we're going to go through them right now few little edits toow there miss sakur I believe have some revisions but let's get to those moving back to item six board minutes we have minutes up for adoption from May 2st 2024 Miss probest thank you very much thank you very much Miss prob so then I only have one on August 13th I have a CH a correction yeah on August 13 the minutes say I was absent I believe I was absent but on the second page it says I adj I Mo made a motion to adjourn the meeting pretty yeah I flew here good pickup okay those are for the minutes of August 13th than any other changes to the record I have a few corrections to the minutes of May 21st okay uh on page two there are two places where the text should read chairman vesio vesio and not chairman fous and then on page five there's one spot where it seems a speaker's name is missing uh a speaker's name on page five at the top it says Miz uh and then asked what happens when the homeowners don't maintain and then it goes on thank you Mr Atkins again that's May 21st July 18th August 6th August 13th any other changes or comments for the record well I just how are we going to clarifi how are we going to correct those well the motion I guess would be to approve the minutes as amended cor right but but I mean are we now going to instruct staff to fill in who who the person is that spoke about storm water management Miss prob ALS why don't we just do that simply meeting minutes of May 21st 2024 Mr Mr [Applause] Atkins sorry what was that I apologize we're going to bring them back M right sounds good so 521 with your said changes okay I'm going to do them individually Mr proach all right so are we now still able to take action on July 18 and August 6 because I guess for August 13 we need to understand who who made the motion to adjourn right I'm sorry maybe I'm it's really late maybe I'm misunderstanding miss sakur you were not here on the 13th right right I can't remember so so it's an error that that the motion to adjourn was made so somehow we'd have to correct that I don't have it in my calendar which means I likely was not here yeah with yeah no it already says I wasn't here it says I adjourned the meeting Nancy July 18th uh just a minor change but Mr Bill uh it's Burr with uh she be two hours not [Laughter] three what what page is that Mr first page page one oh page one okay I don't know he left check check out when the others and lastly August 6th any changes or comments for that none we are able to proceed with July 18th and August 6th right now that is correct I'll make the motion to approve July 18th subject to the edit that was just noted cman K Ashley Sor second all in favor I I meeting minutes August 6 2024 we've tracked those changes I'll make the motion to approve subject to any changes we've just discussed councilman kers that's Mr banga all in favor I I August 13 2024 changes have been tracked would' like to make the motion well we can't because we need to understand who made the motion to adjourn we push that one off as well can we move those back to pending okay we'll go back to tape okay that concludes the board minutes up for adoption we don't have any other business this evening I'll take a motion to adjourn I'll make that motion that's Mr Atkins I second that's Mr s cor all in favor hi to know the latest this it's a it's worse than this it well no no some of the some of those Coe meetings went went pretty long I think probably prior to 2018 right you probably had some more