##VIDEO ID:8hY7axNVWSU## [Music] right everyone good all right then let's call this meeting to order annual notice of this meeting was provided to the home News Tribune The Star Ledger and the Highland Park planet on January 23rd 2024 in addition notice of this meeting via Zoom was emailed to the home News Tribune The Star Ledger and the Highland Park planet on January 23rd 2024 and was posted on the burrow website at www.hpborrow.com and on the Bolton board at B Hall 221 South fth Avenue Highland Park New Jersey and has remained continuously posted as required by law fire exits are to the left and right of Chambers and as a reminder as always please remember to speak into your microphones uh when speaking can we take a roll call please miss ham here Mr Chen here Mr eor here miss hataz Mr H Mr Lis Mr carlman here Mr Williams here Mr Thomas here Mr cenza here Mr C here stand very good all right first item on the agenda is a review of our July 11th 2024 minutes and if I may I'll I'll start with some comments to the minutes Mar you could take them down um on the first page under April 11 2024 regular meeting that first line it says April 4 April 14th 2022 I assume that's just a typle that's also supposed to say April 11th [Music] 2023 and then if we go to the third page of the notes it's actually titled page four one two oh my mistake uh page four of the notes the third paragraph from the bottom where it says miss hand you see the paragraph I'm talking about this one add there okay add oh wait no that's not the right I'll give you my notes when we're done um I think this whole paragraph Was referenced say um kind of a joke that the board was had going back and forth I don't think it was an actually part of the recap of what we were talking about materially so I think that whole paragraph should just come out um okay okay so that one and then on page five the second paragraph says miss hand asked will that would apply to C dealerships in town two things number one I actually think that was KRA who asked about whether that applies to the car dealerships in town this had has he and then that's just um I think the sentence just needs to be cleaned there with the order of words you don't have the same one I do does everyone else have the same version that I'm working off of or am I the only one with this version I see that on page four but I'm not you're saying we're on page five this was the version I was working off of if I'm working off the old or incorrect version well I don't know about that I think what happens is sometimes when things get downloaded they get download funny maybe that's that's my position with regard to all technology well I only had one more comment beyond that one and that was that the next paragraph after that says Mr H asked about food trucks and then there's um a random capital T on the word them this is my version clearly everyone else seems to be working off another version I have you have that one on yours okay I don't know why it ended up on my page five or what's going on but those were my comments on the not you can take mine and see see where it matches [Music] up I had one comment goe on that page four there's a paragraph that said Mr H stated is a second paragraph yeah I'm clearly working off a different version check your version page yeah page four is Page four Mr ha stated that the NP that paragraph is repeated at the very bottom of the page and I don't think I said the same exact thing twice well it's possible though it's very I'm generally not that consistent yeah that was a good response so one of them can go I'm not sure which one probably the last one let me say that I'll take more comments on these but I think what we'll do is we'll have these re types between the two differents rece them at the next meeting any other overarching comments about them no okay so with that we'll put the July 11th minutes to the side and revisit them at our next meeting or okay I don't think we need an open comments on that all right so moving on we have a uh the appointment of our new recording secretary Moren p p who's here with us she's worked with us at our last meeting she's here with us tonight and we need a motion to formally appoint her to be our recording secretary I can make a motion motion seconded by Alvin voice well do a roll call all right roll call please Mr Chin yes Mr ier yes Mr H yes Mr Laris Miss H yes Mr Williams yes Mr fman yes all right welcome aboard welcome aboard all right now we're get to the big item on the agenda tonight we have a consistency review from Town Council ordinance number 24-20 N2 an ordinance of the burough of Highland Park adopting the Redevelopment plan entitled 810 North 2 Avenue Redevelopment plan and with that I'm going to turn this over to Scott for you're not Scott I don't know why I said Scott turn over to Chris for a presentation on the proposed Redevelopment Plan before I start just want to make sure the screen share is working U Madam chair members of board members of the public online suppose um thank you for having me here for a consistency riew of the 8 10 Second Avenue R plan you'll notice that a rather smaller version of typical R plan written uh this is intended to really test out a sort of simplified streamlined uh process for smaller scale streamline planning a significant cost toate project needed um so I guess I'll start with meanwhile outside the downtown area we have a site here at 810 Second Avenue it's small commercial building specifics about existing conditions with the existing zoning land use the the master plan speaks to about its contexts within it uh that is the C Corridor and briefly go over the regulations plan and so on so for same type of presentation but this uh read plan is intended to do is provide for a really a sight specific plan to encourage that the ReUse of the existing building sort of a neat opportunity to provide for small missing middle housing within the existing building and really try to maintain some of the vestages of the industrial and office path as as you know a lot of it's gone through the plan developments Crossings andage so as terms of the agenda this hopefully be a brief meeting of anology so my voice may be a little Croy so my wife said don't talk as much uh so for interms agenda typical process over procedure condition context vision and regulation as indicated before terms of the process we on the left side basically receive a ordinance just like any claim ordinance from bur Council for basically news for a s specific re plan we're on the Second Step which is for this board to review whether it is not inconsistent with master plan or otherwise designed toate the master plan once the board recommendations are modified uh into a resolution or through a memorandum from the attorney to the board then they'll take action or may take action at a public so this site is in the Northwest part of town blocked 503 Lot 24 on the west side of North Second Avenue it's a 7,000 foot lot with about a one and two story building um I say one because that's the portion of the building the portion of the building front some second one story the re portion two stories uh and it totals about 5400 squ feet this a small parking area service by driveway on 1 second which provides for five part spaces as far as our records could tell the building was built in 1940 as AAL auditory and was occupied as such uh through that 2022 and has been vacant since that time as far as our records show oops as far as our records show uh there's no environmental contamination and the property is within a sewer service area terms of the zoning uh through some research but more to come at a forthcoming meeting uh we found that the property was in the conservation Recreation Zone up until 2001 which it was reson to the Rae it appears that in 2013 rezoning effort for to create the basically the Zoning for the the cross property that is the pur1 the ordinance indicated C lots for to be Reon pd1 but not this particular Lot number 24 Even Know M if you look at24 map as well as the recent 2019 map that did it shows it in that P right that's actually mistake be corrected this is in the ra residential eological preservation as you imagine office is not permitted in residential so friends what does the master plan talk about got this site so 2019 as you recall uh we did a mass plan examination report a strategic update of land plan and when we did the Lang element uh we looked at several corridors Cleveland Avenue Corridor being one of them and uh with the master plan as you recall master plan had extensive public Outreach and as part of several questions that we had asked do should this quar remain the same only 6% of those that indicated that they should be remaining the same uh the common issue that was brought up included encouraging appropriate mix of uses address unpleasant streetcape and address the unutilized uh vacant properties throughout a corridor and I think this property sort of ticks all three of those conditions that the burrow seeks to really amarate uh so again 6% of respondents indicated remain the same several issues indicated statement in want to preserve really the unique characteristics uh of the community as well as Corridor uh and really trying to encourage and mix abuses uh and support state for complete streets and some of the strategies that were identified that could really propagate the and really address those issues including take advantage of R tools this is one method reel plan expand the range of us including missing middle housing that's a key phrase I want to repeat second time uh it's just forthcoming uh and also improve the Aesthetics and functionality of projects including this particular site so what's the particular vision for the site so as I indicated in the report uh in the overview basically what's the purpose of this plan purpose of this plan is to encourage adaptive reuse and to accommodate a really small apartment building with the existing building uh this will help sort of preserve the inherent culture Heritage and historical value of the existing commercial older building including maintaining some of the uh industrial history or Legacy of the uh industrial past of the Cleveland Aven Corridor in a neighborhood that is otherwise dominated by single family uses um and it's an neighbor that's already undergone significant change with all the changes to the planing developments to the north along rail line um with respect to the m plan I think is directly connected to part of the strategy for and the vision for this plan is to really provide an opportunity to provide for this middle housing in this case I use the word small Mis middle housing uh whether that is through adapted reuse or potentially if that doesn't work out a single family home with an Adu should be permitted at this site through this re so um again we go through the Lage regulations be very brief again a one property One S be very simple um the permitted land uses are going be multif family apartments and La workor units but only if the building is adapted for use building can't be reused it can be demolished otherwise the underlying option will be you can build a single family with an Adu or without ad or you do two family so either option where you do multi family apartments with any existent building or a new home with the ad or two none of those three options are available through the exist Z terms of BU regulations U real simple if we're going to be utilizing the existing build for B reuse to generally maintain the existing footprint uh with some modest improvements to setback I'll get to that in that slide otherwise if it's going to be a single family or two family it is subject to the same standards of the underlying ra Z terms of development standards so development standards really talking about design standards they are not so when I talk about development standards this is only for adaptive reduce uh so for this particular property assume it's partments are they working it's one parking space per unit uh with Le restrictions Our concern obviously is people parking on the neighborhood streets which is very concern with the officers so this is opportunity to regulate that uh reasonable parking standards realistic uh as well as restrictions who neighborhood one bicycle per unit uh improve the driveway and parking area setbacks what that means is that when we review the existing survey and site conditions we observe that the existing parking lot actually encroaches over into the neighboring property so we're requiring that that be revenu pull it back saw cut it down whe stops and provide bu landscap this is our opport opportunity to fix that obviously building goes away all that goes away and house is built single family for two family we also want to improve the parking space and provide Ada since they have to repay or restrike the parking lot they got put 88 in so that's more or less a site reir but this is reiterated that those will be part of any future plan for adap reuse continue on for devel stand again it's only for ad reuse of existing building I'll try to properly address refuges recycling right now there really isn't any in the existing building so there has to be combinations for that codes flexible similar to other re plans that be done in the past and now'll be sort of negotiating complet for you as well as to read for this site right now it's not really figured out but it will need to be uh replace the existing Shrubbery at the existing Shrubbery along the front of building is while mature it blocks the sidewalk you can't walk in front of that building so uh we put specific requirements in the case of AD use you have remove that shy replace it with appropriate scale Foundation plantings as Street trees at Street trees is necessary and as we indicated before add buffering and Landscaping par l through lighting make sure tilted or angled the right way full cut off and the appropriate warmer temperature uh in terms of the Kelvin want to lower amber orangy color because that will be more compatible to uh neighboring homes uh with their lights Windows this will improve glay as well as color temperature uh finally you need to incorporate s Water Management green infrastructure where they are required for DVP regulations uh as well as incorporate some sustainable design strategies just typical all PL trying to encourage developers to do more than just the bare minimum do the right thing and that's it pretty simple plan basically what comes down to to really think about it this plan allows for a single family home to be built which can have an ad or a two family but provides an option for that existing building to be reused but generally in the same scale same floor area ratio same massing um with Apartments whatever they can fit depend how much parking they can put in they want more parking more units they got to take away part of the building so it's a little bit of balancing at uh and I think we found a balance that's appropriate for the site and it was will be better than existing use and better managing have application that's it what what's the current zoning regulation again what does that permit for based on Research you look at the zoning map you're going to see it's P1 apparently incorrect it's the Rae it's the current Zoning for property which permits only single family homes not multifamilies correct and doesn't Okay comments from the board um could you just add if it becomes Apartments if there anticipated number of Apartments say that like how many you think that they might be able to if they decid to try and do the apartment rout well that will be probably based on their development approach I would estimate this is not scientific I would estimate between four and six units uh I say that because with the existing building having five parking space they easily fit four they need to add 8 f is one space for unit you can fit for they can add more spaces they peel Away part of the building which is part of the one story portion to the St um and I think they need to do that anyway because it's sort of blocking access operate site to access so part of the plan does require pulling back parking get rid of the uh encro into addition proper remove park building already um so they can get five or six spaces therefore five or six units uh if they start taking away parts of the building sorry one is and of those units there would be an affordable component to that as well uh based on the regulations and that housing plan element they reach achieve five or more units the require have one unit just close to 20% they go to four or less be Noor question so the part of this property that fronts Wayside Road that is not it is or isn't I if that's the overgrown looks like it has a like a white fence WRA around the corner it's not showing up in your so you're to the left side of yeah okay so that's actually a green area sort of open spacing call open space is a new term that's part of the common area of the crossing property oh it's not okay long so is there is there a property line there the where you see the contrast between the screen aerial and the battery line identifying the site those are the property lines okay so it's not their when I walked I said it wasn't yeah I I thought to myself you know that' be a great Urban patio condition but the set less than feet so don't it belongs to another another it's not it's not the subject it's not like owned by the same it's not own by the same owner that green space is owned by the common area Tire the tire can you clarify also the parking encroachment on neighbor property I'm looking at the diagram and I'm not sure whether this is the encroachment or whether the encroachment is just in here um I would assume that are you saying that this area is was being used as the parking area uh so let me clarify so I have to be honest I had to pull it survey but either the right side which is the South or bottom is going to be Westerly side part of the parking Area encroaches inent Property by about foot and on the bottom of the image which is to the West there's a small lean to of the building like a one-story shed that attaches to the building but not shed it's has shed roof the one story portion building it's actually on top of the proper line and this plan inquirers that that be removed okay mention there's no history of determination there based on the limited records I reviewed through the data monitor nothing okay the the the companies that were there made biological products or biological assay so there's a possibility that you could have some biological contamination still there certainly could so I think any demolition occurs interior that have be coordinated through Scot office make sure it's disposed correctly um looking at I'm I'm on I guess it's the page four which I guess is that slide um so are there other non-residential uses in the immediate deity yeah so at this point this is an isolated lot um and an otherwise residential area yes um as I understand from what you said I think development standards they're going to be required to eliminate the one one story portion of the building uh yes so when I say one story I'm not referring to the entire front of the building at the back of the building bottom of this page is a very small uh shed like structure one story I would say about 8 ft deep maybe 15 feet wide that could be wrong that portion of the building actually is on top of the property line with the house to West and the plan requires a dep remir for ample buffering and screening it can be replaced with an awning structure your access so is the they all two stories there a portion of the building to the east bottom of this image is two stories uh you can see a little bit of the color differentiation uh which portion is two stories which portion front the portion along North Second is one story portion at the rear of the building is two stories so when I read your develop it said existing height and I said I wouldn't write a standard like that because then you can't tell what's without going out on the site right but I I take it the the that since you're not envisioning that the building will be knocked down and have to comply with that r that standard because once you knock it down or modify it then then this this option goes away right okay so I will put aside that what what strikes me as weirdness and bad practice given the peculiar circum yeah so to be clear uh what Mr ior is referring to on page 18 yes page 18 section 6.3.1 maximum height is not greater than what presently exists I don't normally write that I agree with you we're basically saying to any developer redeveloper you can't go toall can't make it more massive you can stretch a little bit of the building with a front yard step back uh 35 ft to the second floor because we're allowing for some flexibility to improve liability and cability but we don't want to make it such a massive addition where we lost control and really did wrong by the neighborhood I they're used to this mass and our goal is to not make it a situation where yeah we're adapted reuse and it's double SP right so that's why we trying to write it in such a way it is odd to make sure they stay within the confines of building in fact what we're saying is actually need to reduce the parts of the building would it makes some sense would it makes some sense then to indicate on that on that sentence um not greater than what presently exists [Music] um the building the existing building um with a caveat saying that the building is is removed reverts back to the Raa stand or Rae standard I think the first part saying existing building might be more appropriate probably cleaner way but I don't think we need to say related to reuse because subsection a in the very beginning stipulates that these regulations only apply at least to buildings the following section B says oh single family house two family go with the ra so is there any developer interest in doing this yes that's actually would start prompted this project and burrow receive the concept plan Pro Council received concept plan and was interested uh I don't know you want to add anything further to that but there I think the mayor and Council were interested in the concept of adapted reuse and I also inserted well in case it doesn't work out we need to clean up the zoning saying allow for a house to be built I think there a great opportunity to try and AD you perhaps so I will just comment in general conversion of non-residential buildings to residential buildings is ordinar very expensive I take it Bo that this this would have to this would not be governed by the rehabilitation code this would be covered by the the current version of the building code I have to refer to Scott on that he's not here but that's what he govern but ordinarily the conversion is very expensive my experience is it's often cheaper to knock down the building and building from scratch um and we're not talking about luxury apartments here we're talking about smaller Apartments yes so um I'm intrigued that someone thinks it's worth L um and I hope they're right I will say during the process of I going to call negotiation but sort of collaborating with trying to create a plan fit into the neighborhood I know I personally said make sure you do your homework because it's not worthy of the burrow in my time to write something that can't be done I think they're pretty confident they can do something okay um but we'll see but that's why we added the option if in case doesn't happen build a house with an edu which would love to see honestly person not professional but also to so that it does speak to try to provide for some this either option whether it's duse or through else any other comments or questions from the board just real quick uh if they decide to tear down um or demolish the existing structure for single family or two family they're going to have to abide by the um the the regulations for all those you know we had we adopted them a couple years ago which was the site standards like you know we have like I I think I remember I remember like Shrubbery I remember like Landscaping I remember like the position of the garage you know that that's s out front of the house everything need both in terms of flexible zoning standards sets and flexible with a lot as well as Al form based Cod I don't know what we call those there's a lot of them and frankly it's little confusing still it's new I've seen a couple homes be buil standards I have a question um assuming that the uh the developer does choose to demolish and then build a single family house with an Adu required I just want to be sure that I'm understanding an Adu be permissive it's not required okay so there could just be a single family house uh and nothing else besides that uh there could be and they won't be required to enter AEL agreement we treat them like any developer homeowner building house but someone want to use reuse they have to enter that's more control to deal with those remaining issues like refuse Recycling and just to be clear if it's at one family house there's an edu if it's a two family two it's no Adu correct right so if there's a one family house then the Adu is permissible it's not required but if there's a two family house there's no Adu that's I appreciate the effort um to um to implement the uh Missing Mill goals from the 2019 master plan a small start okay all right then at this time I'm gonna open up the floor to the public to see if there's any comments from members of the public see no members of the public presence I'll close the public portion of that's he works for us I know I'm use council meeting well you don't take questions from public online our board does not take questions from online we we uh if you want to participate we encourage you to come down and speak to us in person that's our current our board's current policy so while we hope people are watching us live online or subsequently later on YouTube you want to make a little comments you need to come down thank you I know I've asked before apologize make you say that again no worries I'll say it every time if you do um and I will also put out the reminder that the master plan can be found at Burrow's website www.hp.com so that those of you playing along at home can check to make sure that these plans are not inconsistent with the master plan all on your own all right and with that Madam chair members of the board uh if you concur generally with what Chris has indicated uh what is required of you at this point pursuant to the statute is that you make a determination as to um Chris has recommended that this is not inconsistent with the existing Master youur with that you should subit a motion to that anyone motion to that effect motion take second from Alan LS I heard him first and we'll take a roll call please oh wait before we take a roll call I just want to make one comment to the actual language in the ordinance to Roger's point where it says um the one two 3 four fifth where whereas Clause that the uh planning board reviewed the redel plan determined that it was substantially consistent with the B master plan that language should say substantially not Inc you would think that after all these years they would change that language and Steve I'm a little disappointed that you haven't recommended that that's another story anyway and then with that we can take a roll call on the Mr H yes Mr Williams yes Mr Chin yes Mr Eiser yes hand yes mrman yes okay with that motion passes that it is not inconsistent with our master plan and that'll go back to council and hopefully the developer will run with it and put something beautiful in there and we'll have more housing available which we desperately need okay with that normally I'd ask Scott what else is going on in t but he's not here and uh does anyone on the board have any other comments or questions about anything really irrelevant question does anybody know why's going to that restaurant uh between first and second what kind of restaurant on souths side the one they just redid with the black facing with the wood trim I heard it was a Greek restaurant that's a rumor the the the rumor um they're they're in doing some negotiate but we think it's a Greek Med Mediterranean I don't think it's specifically Greek Mediterranean restaurant a restaurant um I don't know if anybody can give us an update on the supermarket R development plan uh where we are on that we haven't seen them uh and yet they seem to be uh they they've got an opening date the 20th post it and we haven't we haven't seen back so what's what's going on there as far as I can tell given that no site Works proposed it does not really trigger a application devel so it's not necessary for them come before the plan for not they prepare change to the site would have been nice to building and I I would I would agree with Chris under that circumstance since I drove by thinking that I could actually get something before the meeting only to find out when I got closer it is not the 20th and therefore there's nothing to get uh but the fact of the matter is that it is occupying the exact same footprint and it is the same use so I would agree that there's no requirement for a start plan however that plan does Envision other elements and as soon as they start doing other elements which will require modifications they will be bad before they get any commit now there was there was something we talked about a little bit before uh the meeting started in terms of U some driveway modification I I assume that that's something that is going to be subject to either a temporary Co or something of that nature uh I'm not directly involved my assumption it's going to be probably related to a TCO and further negotiation on every don't and and I would hope that that tcos are are always problematic and uh you know one hopes that there is a relatively short time frame for those things to occur yes I've seen him go on for years I understand and nothing you can do but at the very least I think we got what the Burl mayor and barl Council wanteded to see which is a new grocery store coming so that was accompl I GA that that was and still is the priority to grocery store too absolutely and you have to come back next week after it's open to the Sho and maybe I will I'm camping out the night before all right one more formality before we wrap up i' open up the meeting for public comment on items not on the agenda seeing no members of the public I will close the public portion of the meeting and at this point we're all set as far as agenda items so I'll solicit a motion to adjourn so move to adjourn second by jff all in favor thank you very much everybody always a pleasure [Music] much