black salute flag Tom Collins here Craig palano Richard Patterson here John pittz here Jim galantino Margaret guberti here Steven ji Michael ruffu Andrew Campbell Michael Richmond here this meeting is being held in accordance with the New Jersey statute requirements of the open public meetings act Sun notice of this meeting has been advertised in the press and posted on on the Bolton board in the municipal building all applicants are hereby advised that if you receive board approval tonight you must come forward and sign a form outlining the procedures for obtaining building permits and meril licenses at the conclusion of your case tonight please approach the board administrator pmer to sign the provided information sheet okay so first we're going to have approval of minutes for the meeting of April 25th 2024 all in favor we're not going to do the approval of decisions and Revolution resolutions we'll hold that till next week all right so we're going to start with the first case which is sunrise wine and Tequila LLC 9700 bner Avenue block 131 Lot 21 you know what before we get started there's one thing I want to say um a lot of here tonight everybody's going to get a chance to talk I'd appreciate it if you have any type of comment or anything you wait till you get in front instead of you know talking in the uh meeting um we're going to try to limit everyone to five minutes and if someone comes up and says something and you're have the same type of you know thing to say you could come up and say I agree with the person who just spoke or whatever that'll help the meeting go a little faster okay and Eric uh just before we get started uh Miss scer NTI has a has a conflict so she's not going to participate she's stepping down five board members it's AUM I assume you you're going to move forward we'd like to thank you Mr M okay so Sunrise wine and Aila LLC 9700 veter Avenue block 131 Lot 21 located in the CB D zoning District seeking amended site plan approval together with C variance relief for parking front yard setback side yard setbacks combined sidey yard setbacks lock coverage and potentially others in order to construct a wine and a Kila bar with an upstairs open air Lounge current on taxes Water and Sewer payments proof of advertising and notifications provided represented by Eric as colon one correction on that is you want to swear me yeah Mr mcar please raise your right hand you swear affirm the testimony you'll give this evening it'll be the truth I do thanks located in the C2 Z oh that's right C2 Z not CBD right Mr chairman thank you very much uh Eric Goldstein on behalf of the applicants um as we get started does seem like we have a lot of people here hopefully in support of the application to bring the second phase of what we've previously been approved for back in January now to final fruition so by way of background there are some fairly important facts that I think some of you are aware probably not all of you so I would like to make some statements for the record if that's okay before I get started Mr Manos okay board members are aware this uh application previously was before the board at its January before meeting at that time we were seeking approvals for the second floor rooftop area and the setbacks and parking related to the second floor okay that application was granted by the board and pursuant to those approvals the applicants began and continued construction at their own risk at the time and at the time there was a second floor that consisted of some apartments that were non-conforming along with some older materials that had to be cleaned out above which the applicants began to do right away and finished up rather quickly okay this building as some of you are aware was originally constructed either in the late 1930s or early 1940s the most uh dated picture we have uh Mr hilner was ever able to find was from the mid-40s so um all of you know Construction fairly well when the applicants began to do the additional amount of demolition work it was determined that the walls of the building were just sitting on the grade dirt mostly some brick but clearly it wasn't enough material to support what would ultimately have to go there to make this a safe building so little by little the applicants started to determine that their Professional Engineers that the building wasn't suitable for what it had just been approved for they started to have their contractor work you know without removing one wall after another and it was just impossible as they got down to the First wall which was removed it was on dirt the second wall in a similar way was sitting on a concrete slab supported by nothing so at that point the applicants had a relatively difficult decision to do they continue to build what's approved which would have been much less safe or do they build a safer building with New Foundation with new steel beams with new steel helical pilings all of which would support the upstairs and also the building which was below I mean some of these buildings in town it's it's a wonder how they haven't fallen down already they've just been subject to Salt Air Salt Water water flooding here and there the base of these buildings perhaps is not as great as we're seeing constructed now with concrete and pilings Etc so what the uh Property Owners did was they continued to work by removing one wall at a time and then putting helical pilings in the ground which ultimately would be supporting the concrete above while that was happening other walls were subject to potentially falling down and some point everyone's aware the entire first floor structure was basically leveled because none of it was all that safe at the time that was leveled the engineer for the project Mr Chu said it wouldn't be smart to go forward to put the second floor above we would be in some grave respect seeing a catastrophe in the future just take all the walls down and do a second application based upon the setbacks the lot coverage Etc and now you'll have a first floor that's structurally sound which supports a second floor that's structurally sent then during the time that was happening Mr McLaren Mr galantino City representative said do the right thing come back to the board we don't want this site to be a rebuild without additional permits so so we immediately filed uh as the members of the board know and hopefully some of the people in the audience know a staff committee application which is the first step in completing what we're doing tonight and the staff committee application and Mr McLaren's recommendation was for the first floor to make sure that it was as safe as possible so then the first floor could get rebuilt and then the second floor would follow during that same time Property Owners had contractors lined up for concrete Ste and they wanted to get that done as quickly as possible because this is a fairly well-traveled area in town and Construction in this area Fourth of July weekend was something they desperately wanted to avoid they didn't want to disrupt summer traffic coming in from Longport back and forth because this really is the corridor between Longport and Margate and then going in the other direction so there was a fair amount of time that construction continued without having the approvals that we're seeking tonight at some Point while the walls went back up Mr galantino issued a stop work order just around the time that some additional work was already in process at that point the property owners continued to work no question about it they've never once said they didn't violate that stop work order it has been violated they know they did the wrong thing but they were in the process of doing the right thing by coming to the meeting tonight they had already filed the staff committee application so shortly very shortly after Mr galantino put the red sticker on the building making the stop work order in place we filed our formal application here I think it was the end of April and the board because it was in its wisdom smart enough to not want traffic and construction all summer scheduled this special meeting to deal with this case tonight so the history being application approval work intending to be done pursuant to the approval from an engineering standpoint that became difficult and now we're here to do two things one to legalize what's in place now and to get further approvals going forward for the setbacks on the first floor only second floor has already been approved now while this was pending there was a lawsuit filed by a very reputable attorney Mr Jeff Barnes on behalf of one of the morgate um obors of this project a gentleman named Scott pamer immediately upon getting the lawsuit uh Brian and Dana the owners of the project contacted Mr pamer and said we want to satisfy the desires and hopes of the neighbors to work within a harmonious section of Margate so everybody has good coexistence good rules set for the operation of restaurant bar and deck but also we realize that the Commerce and the importance of building something new in Margate from the ground up which hasn't happened much uh from the business standpoint is also important so Mr Barnes and I uh through a balancing of interests met uh a very very great meeting Mr payer was there along with Brian and Dana and Mr payer represented a group of individuals I believe you were all given a list uh at the last meeting with persons who were concerned about this project and who Mr Tamer was the uh speaker for to try to come to a resolution and modify a lot of these uh neighborhood problems or alleged problems so one of the agreements that we have with Mr pamer along with Mr Barnes is that we're going to put on the record prior to beginning the application in Chief the terms of the settlement I think it's very important to note that Brian and Dana did not have to do what I'm about to put on the record now they did that because they're responsible they live in town they work in town they want this project to go many years into the future without having any headaches you know there's a lot of people here who hopefully are going to say these concessions by Brian and Dana really make all the difference in the world now you can't please everybody and I'm sure there'll be some people to say it's just not enough some people don't want to live near a restaurant they don't want to live near a place where potentially people can make noise that's unfortunate but we're in a small town we don't live in the woods occasionally we are near businesses businesses sometimes are noisy in the morning sometimes they're noisy at night sometimes they cause problems but marget has really good ordinances where it comes to regulating businesses whether it's law enforcement through the police stopping a party because it's going too late or regulations relating to congregation in anyone area at certain times we we have a solution which we believe and it's been confirmed in writing with Mr Barnes and Mr pamer that satisfy much of what was the neighborhood's concern in round one now the issue here with round two should be a much much easier hearing is that the noise aspect was a big concern on the second floor the aspects relating to more people coming to the establishment as you're all remembering was all about the second floor because at the last meeting um I'm sure you've all you know probably listened to the recording as many times as I have at the last meeting a lot of people said you're adding all of this additional seating it's going to make the noise and the traffic worse we've already dealt with that tonight's application is just for the first level and the first level that exists will be exactly as the first level that existed before the walls were taken down so last year's Sunrise Tony balone is in the same footprint as this current application we talk about the additional people coming to the establishment they're not coming more to the first floor because the first floor was already here that would be for the second floor so I do want uh Mr Manis it's appropriate to at least go through the concessions that Brian and Dana made on the first round of um the litigation as well as the presentation we made before the board and I think that might satisfy hopefully um most people's concerns because again that's that's the real Crux of the complaint the first level rep fa in an existing prior first level is it's a trade it's an equal equal swap one for one the second floor is what had everybody a little bit more concerned last time around I'll do whatever the board would like me to do right now yeah I think that that that makes sense to me if you want to so you have some conditions you want to basically put on the record is that basically your letter of April 25th Mr Barnes and then there was a second email that's May 13th or a letter of May 13th there's a letter of April 25th two letters right five p and then there's a letter of May 13th which further clarifies Brian and Dana's concession so we went through this process with Mr Barnes and Mr pamer and you know they were gentlemen they were very much interested in doing the right thing for themselves and for their neighbors but of course you know can't keep everybody happy so I think this does just about all of what we're we're trying to accomplish here and then we'll go ahead and put the case on for the first floor is that okay Mr chairman MH okay thank can I make a couple comments real quick just clarifications because the building is gone this is now a preliminary and final major site plan based on the ordinance the only changes is some of the checklist items which are redundant the monor and also ER the in addition to the structural issues of supporting the second floor was determined that you could not flood proof that first floor to be compliant with the flood damage prevention ordinance is that correct that is correct and now the new structure going up the walls are already flood proof it's a special type of concrete block so what the city is getting is a flood compliant building which is also structurally sound where before it would have a nonf flood compliant commercial building that was considerably less structurally sound in addition to that the even though you got variances for the second floor before you have to reaffirm those tonight basically it's a new application but you know I think they put the proofs on last time but they should re reaffirm those proofs tonight all right so going over the April 25th letter first uh first issue of course is parking and we talk to the objector Mr pamer and his attorney Mr Barnes we've all come to the conclusion that you can't create parking and there's no way to make paring more likely to be found in Margate or long for or Venter or anywhere on any Barrier Island in New Jersey so there's nothing we can do about parking however Brian and Dana are going to number one encourage their employees to attempt to park outside of a three block radius of the establishment to notify their employees on regular basis that if they're getting dropped off to work that would be ideal if they're going to drive do not find parking within three blocks now of course there's no way they can guarantee an employee won't do that but they're certainly going to make all their best efforts to see that the people that are coming to work at their business aren't taking up valuable parking that everybody needs in town okay um I'm sure that if parking became available with any other establishment in town you've got Horizon across the street and you've got fries next door Brian and Dana would be able to discuss with the owners some sort of arrangement but that's just not on the table and you can't force someone to let you park in their lot so we don't really have an option other than encouraging the employees to park elsewhere or get dropped off um it's a bar we don't want people driving to and from the bar so they're going to encourage their patrons to use lift or Uber or some sort of ride service and in order to make sure that the are around the building in front is where they get dropped off they're going to at night put up an area with Horton off so people don't stand there or park there for Uber and lit one of the concerns was that people could get dropped off somewhere down the street on Monroe or on coolage or somewhere else there's going to be a sign in front saying Uber lift drop here it's fairly common in some bigger cities where they have traffic congestion we think that it's not going to solve all the problems but it'll be better than n that's going to be on the ventor Avenue side of the establishment and they're going to keep that area clear okay they're going to coordinate with the city of Margate say Brian and Daya police department and encourage the other neighbors to coordinate with with the police if there are violations of parking problems you know in the summer police are busy doing a lot of stuff other than being here making sure that everybody stays in line but the police can assist greatly in the event that people are not abiding by their parking rules so we're not going to use them as a private enforcement but the deal with Mr pamer and Mr Barnes was to try to use the resources available to the city market as much as possible in that regard okay the uh last time we were here there was an issue with a security plan security plan being what happens at the end of the night when the place empties out and people come out into the street what Brian and Dana are going to do is instruct their security Personnel to politely disperse with some initiative patrons to go home safely almost you know you don't have to go home but you can't stay here they're not going to let people just hang out on the corner they don't want Club W part two they want people to get into their rides if they're driving or if they're getting picked up and leave so that's a pretty big deal because a lot of times outside of a restaurant or a bar on a busy Saturday night people will hang out on the corner that shouldn't happen um at Sunrise the other thing is you know when you have the uh bouncers or whatever you call them now security Personnel they're going to be inside not outside checking ID so if you're checking for people 21 or under that's going to all take place in the establishment so you won't have a long line out onto Venter or Monroe that's a pretty big deal to stop noise from emanating out of the establishment even just talking noise for the people who live in and around the area Okay um they're going to put up no smoking signs cigarettes and vaping it's become just a horrible problem they don't want smoking in and around their establishment they just want people to walk in and walk out not standing outside with butts they're going to do their best to enforce that I don't really know how you can enforce it all that much because you can publicly smoke on a outdoor area but no one will be smoking inside and they're going to encourage again no smoking outside trash is always a big issue dumpster noise and where the recepticles are placed so going to install two new uh dumpsters they're going to be emptied a minimum of three times per week so the trash doesn't build up and smell for the Neighbors the other thing which all of us have seen and it's very annoying when a restaurant or bar at the end of the night takes their trash and all the bottles get dumped into a dumpster it's loud it's like that cling clang noise they're not going to do that after 10 p.m. and they won't do it the next morning early as they're going to have their trash picked up just a little bit later so for people who are trying to sleep in the summer they won't be getting bombarded with constant dumping of bottles into the dumpsters because that does create a little bit of a problem here um the dumpsters going to do our best to Shield them on the back side of the property and make every possible effort to not have them fill up and if they do fill up again three times per week they're going to be picked up the sign on the outside of the building will be no larger than otherwise Allowed by code we're not seeking to sign ordinance variants whatever they can build per code they're going to build live music will shut down no later than 10 pm so if they have a singer or some sort of you know band it won't go past 10 pm and on the outside of the building they're also going to put the minimal foot candle lights possible so that it doesn't create light pollution for other people in the area some businesses they just have these giant bright Hollywood Lights they're too bright Brian and Dana don't want that anyway but they agreed whatever the minimum uh Roger left to tell us are on the outside for commercial establishment we'd like to stick to that I mean the theme of the restaurant it's dark so having less light is better but we don't want to go below the standard but we're certainly not going to go anywhere above what we could do all right um sound is a big deal the next problem being music that emanates from the facility that just goes out on long and long and longer than it should be uh Brian and Dana agreed to have the outdoor speakers shut down earlier than the inside music they're going to speak with the sound engineer and I know we've discussed this in the past Mr Patterson is uh familiar with this A system that that directs the sound downward because it doesn't travel when it hits the wind and there's going to be a parit wall in front of the upstairs area so if sound is directed downward you think it's going to hit the inside of that wall and it won't go out any further like it does in some places when the wind blows it actually blows the sound so we're going to accomplish two things there the sound won't seem as loud outside of the premises and there carbon fiber uh system on the second floor which encloses the entire second floor that can also limit the sound and one of the um other concessions was that Brian and Dana would work with the neighbors in the area to help as much as possible limit the sound to a reasonable respectful number all right I think that's everything but hold on one second think that's it so with those concessions we did get a favorable uh result I've informed Mr Manos he has a copy of the email that Mr Barnes sent saying if we had read those into the record tonight then as far as he was concerned the litigation and the issues with Mr payer hopefully the remaining members of the group would be resolved so as we go forward as Roger said we are seeking just about everything for the first floor as well but we've gotten a fair amount of resolution from the neighbors already uh any members of the board have questions before we begin to put the case and chief on um I don't think a lot of the neighbors are aware because it's kind of a recent occurrence we just got the blueprint but originally the dumpsters and the trash cans are whatever were in the alleyway which wouldn't have flown anyway because they would block erress from the second floor so now theyve and this is going to happen right they cut out part of the building in the back and they're going to make an enclosure with Gates so you're not going to see the dumpsters you're not g well hopefully you're not going to smell them but it's going to be a lot better situation than relying on using the neighbor's property to get the trash out and enclosing the dumpsters totally correct Mr Richmond that that is 100% correct and that is a recent development I'm sorry that wasn't in my letter but what Brian and Dana determined to do once again because there's a neighbor in the back who would be most affected by this would be to physically demolish some of what's been built already turn that area in the back into a receptacle for the trash dumpsters install an additional roll top door to give access to that area so from inside of Sunrise they'll have a roll top door it'll be cut in three feet so there'll be Ingress and egress to the rear neighbor and the building is going to be modified from what's there now to include more room for trash so you'll have all the same stuff I already said but now you also have a trash receptacle area which is pretty tight in morgate anyway but the only way to do this was to make the building smaller which they've agreed to do as opposed to go out or get an easement or some other agreement with the neighbor so the building itself will lose fair amount of square footage at some expense to the property owners but they're willing to do that and of course that's on the record and that's also in the new plan that you have in front of you all the board members have that all right okay so the the reason for the roll up doors my understanding talk with the fire marshall is no doors can swing out into that erass area right and it's actually Brian told me probably preferred because now you can have a little bit of an easier access without taking up space because the roll top door doesn't have to come in it just goes straight up right Eric I'm just going to reference your two letters to the extent you you missed a paragraph or a word or something and if approved I'll work with the Roger I mean someone smoking a cigarette I don't want the zoning office getting called today well I think Mr maners a lot of times in the letter I say they'll make their best efforts because that's kind of what we're down to right best eff there's no way to really enforce any of that some of it okay all right and I I'll if it's approved I'll work those all into a resolution uh I'll share it with Roger I'll share it with you share it with Mr Barnes sure and then we'll share it with the board all right you got it all right ready thank you all all right um once again Eric ging on behalf of the applicants with me to my left we have a representative of the ownership of the building Dan Department Arthur Chu license professional engineer Tom Bago who was the architect for the project so um just by way of putting the proofs on for um site plan Mr McLaren I guess it would probably be easier to do Mr Chu first if that's okay sure okay all right Mr Chu give us uh your name and business address for the record okay and please raise your right hand you swear the testimony you'll give the evening it'll be the truth and you're a licensed engineering planner in the state of New Jersey you're here a couple months ago we accepted your credentials yes I assume I assume Mr chairman will accept his credentials Mike yes yes good and Arthur we've been down this road once before of course when you presented the case in January at that time we were focusing on the second floor we're still going to have some issues with the second floor as Roger requested we addressed but for the most part we're talking about the first floor setbacks and everything else so if you don't mind walk us through a couple questions before we get started however have you reviewed city of Margate site plan ordinance for both major and minor site plans yes I have and you've prepared documentation in accordance with margate's ordinances that comply not only with Margate but also the state of New Jersey municipal and correct yes I do okay so you mind walk us through what we're doing by way of the first because a lot of that really is setback related and coverage related but you were also integrally involved um before I start talking about the site plan uh just to have some testimony in the record tell us what you found as an engineer when you went to the property after the uh demolition began the status of the walls and the foundation or lack of where these walls had previously existed so uh last time I was here we talked about U building and the issues there we hadn't started real demolition or taken down any walls yet so all the testimony I gave before was there was no FSE with it but at the time I didn't know I suspected there was going to be some issues with the foundation but we didn't know 100% so once the demolition started uh when they took the roof off and we could see down the Black Walls we saw there was no rebar in them there was no concrete fill so they couldn't withstand any the flood leaves the was given that we were going to just replace the long P ball with a concrete ball in the same footprint we've done gone through the process during construction with the foundation and the footings to make sure that everything is in the exact same alignment as the original building was uh we went through and the back wall was had numerous uh holes in it uh from Roll doors blocked in walls old windows that were blocked in new windows that were cut in so that wall was not structurally uh sufficient it was more of a curtain wall at that point the structure of the building is designed so the walls are the only purpose of the walls is to keep the flood out to make this a flood compliant so the previous structure was not flood compliant this new structure will be flood compant 100% as we went through uh the front wall on Venter Avenue was mostly all windows that were open in order to support the um loads of the we had to add some manner of structural support uh at one point it was decided and I'm not sure exactly the process there of it was better to take down the walls and build uh new walls in the same exact alignment uh the original scope was just when we found the one wall was bad on Longport side we're going to take that down and then we were asked to just try to keep the other walls up and I'm not sure of all the nuances there of how that process we got it to a point where the structure that's up there now is fully uh all new Port concrete walls with rear that can with sold a flood elevation to Elevation 11 so it's fully code compliant for the flood elevation would it be fair to say that the building that exists now if it's approved and continues to be built is excessively more flood proofed and safe than what had existed previously oh it's significantly more it's 100% it's going to be a poke it's 100% flood proof so when the flood hits that place will be dry inside uh if any water comes in it'll be minor if anything there you get a five foot of water outside with the flood panels it should be able to hold back everything and keep it very dry inside uh there's all the Laurels are poured concrete with large puddings we I think we put in like 70 he piles underneath so the previous building had no piling underneath of it it's a very strong building the previous one significantly stronger than the previous one would it be fair to say that had Brian and Dana continued with their kind of root Goldberg attempt to hold up the walls in the prior structure that it would have been much worse than what we're building in the new Total new structure is a better structure than the sort of patching things together my point is there was no way they could have made the building previously by put additional line of concrete or anything else as safe and as flood proof as it is now it's a safer building now than it was than any other alteration we made we did have uh a plan to put in walls with inside the walls but uh those curtain walls on the outside we would had to figure out how to tie them together there was no Concrete in them so it would have been a very difficult sort of patch together approach to the repair the building all right so let's talk about the site plan a little bit what you designed for the city and how this current site plan meets with margate's code regarding linary and final major and um preliminary final major and amended sub Tom prepared the site plan I so you want me to speak on that yeah's we can talk about the plan itself real briefly we'll have Tom talk about the build but we still have to put on the proofs for a site plan so we need to talk about where the walls are why don't you base your site plan off a sheet A1 that Tom has all right just give us your name and address for the record please and please raise your right hand you swear airm The Testament you'll give this evening it will be the truth yes and your licensed architect in the state of New Jersey yes you were here a couple months ago on this application yes and we've accepted your credentials before yes good enough yes through I'm just going to give you the verys all the new walls are in the exact same location of the existing walls that were demoed on the outside face so we did not expand the outside face of the building if in fact the wall got thicker they got thicker towards the inside of the structure regarding sets the front long side road and the rear are in the exact same location Tom um wall in the back the ocean side wall that was actually shrunk a little bit correct because to allow for a push back for the stairs am I right no actually it was pushed back previously for the stairs oh it was okay yeah what we did was we moved it a little further back right only because the current stairs were non compliant right once we tore them off that's what I'm trying to say you actually actually made it we actually improved the coverage correct yeah if anything we improve the coverage of this vertical wall going further towards long right so if anything the building got smaller at that point especially with I don't want to jump ahead talking about sight I'll let you continue but T that second floor is above the trashing closer right the second floor will p over so building coverage didn't decrease but I understand what you're right the building coverage didn't increase decrease but the first floor footprint did decrease correct building coverage is the same except for the wall being moved to accommodate the the compliance there to the structure itself what Tye of additional and have Des you put top WS well we put a be through the entire we did uh put in a four foot wide footing with hel piles both along the new wall line and then also the building to prevent the walls from overturn the second floor is fully supported by the steel structure that's within the conr so those walls WS back and then the second floor is fully supported by the steel structure there's a uh there was partial steel structure it was the previous building was basically a building and then an addition to a building and we've gone through and made you know one building with a steel frame with concrete deck for the second flooor is proposed and then uh a Timber trust roof with that's supported by a skill structure and that's all 100 pounds per square foot to meet assembly use yes I can't right here it's a good tag team you might need to hold that so obviously you know that we have Tom you're aware that uh Roger had prepared a report regarding building stbs from what is currently existing to what we're proposing correct yes okay you have a copy of that in front of you I just want to walk through just for orientation purposes you have two front yards on the streets and two side yards by definition correct correct I mean Roger references a variance for building setback where 1.11 ft existed and we're proposing that to be in the same footprint you see that yes so there's no change making the building bigger on the ventor Avenue building set correct ventor Avenue building sorry PCH set back uh six Fe required there wasn't one and you're doing at 1.11 correct correct that's also a variance and when we come to the Monroe Avenue to the building zero feet exist that's a zero lot line and we're going zero feet presently correct and the same for the porch and the deck on Monroe and then with the side yards as Roger pointed out we're going from zero to zero on the side same for the deck we're not expanding any of those building on Monroe is 1.38 1.38 on Monroe all of those are existing non-conformities correct okay and then the combined sidey yard where 10 feets required were at 1.38 we proposed to still be at 1.3 correct okay building coverage Roger has as 40 94.8 is existing and we're not making this building any bigger so coverage stays at 94.8 correct it actually a lower so we're getting better but obviously minimally better but yeah let's call maybe 3% we're still over the 60% that's allowed so right so it's still not I I would exclude the stairs from building coverage anyway that's not included yeah but we move the wall so you still need a variance yes correct need a variance but we're heading in the right direction cover and then parking of course is an issue where we've got zero spaces for the entire project zero existed before and zero will exist in the future correct that's for both the first and the second floor so Ro I'm sorry you good no you were I saw you start so just to re reaffirm what happened before you're actually getting R rid of the residential parking demand of four spaces which you had zero provided anyway I don't have a number for the first floor parking demand but the net result is you need a VAR 100% of the parking demand of the first floor correct in combined with the second floor yeah there's no parking so if you're approved tonight I want those calculations of the exact number of spaces of demand of that first floor so you're saying it's no longer a nine space it's more than a n space VAR because in the says equipment lay Prov by other have any seats ATS can you tell me and chairs and maximum because I know in New Jersey There's an actual whereas the designer of the building I can tell you how many people and egress load egress load is 286 people there's no way in the world you're going to put that many people on that what's the first four load from an architectural stand yes first floor load actually second floor load is first and second floor combined 286 if I took the square footage of the assembly area and divided it by 15 i' come up with 286 if you want an actual meaning I could lay out tables and chairs and I can provide you that because New Jersey that's as an architect I can provide it that way realistically you it says occupants so yeah but 286 the reason why I put that on there is because I like to do an erress calculation so what if 286 people are there are stairs are wide enough to get the people out of the building so 286 for the entire building for the entire building so you need 29 parking spaces now last time last time you had 90 people upstairs which was seats counted I actually designed the seats right so we need the same thing for the first I will provide that yeah but I'm just saying we OV exaggerate it for the withth of the stairs because I don't want the stairs to be thinner regardless you're making your variance based on actual tables and chairs yeah that's what that was based on last time yeah I'll provide that I think what Mr V saying is the design can accommodate more people correct but we're not seeking that in the worst case scenario has to leave the building at once he's DES in a way that allow more people to leave well what I'm saying is you can't fit 286 people in there with tables and chairs so you're making it worse for yourself figure out how many people can sit in there and that's what your parents will be Roger I'll provide that calculation so 286 is a very conservative number correct no no it's not conservative conservatively high it's conservatively High exactly that's conservatively High realistically it's going to be about so it would be safe to say that 29 parking space variance is is more than accurate more than more than you need yes so why don't we base it on that okay yeah I'll give you the same calculation I give you before but going forward they need a 29 space parking bar for commercial sure microphone Monro um consider yard correct two fronts two sides thank you anything else designed the building rort you are the state of New zoning Cod state of New MP based everything someone else public could possibly See's a development request all the seeking positives outweigh the negatives now we're also required to satisfy the city of heard Mr at least discuss it a little bit have you reviewed the city of Martin s opion mtim have a question are you g to raise the uh floor inside the building no actually what happened was after demo there's four different slabs in the building right four different heights right so we pick the height by the front door and we're going to correct me if I'm wrong we're going to dig up all the other SL lower and higher and create a zero starting point of a data and then from there we have SL come out the door and sidew go down so we dominant slab so is the slab going to be higher than the sidewalk the higher than the sidewalk they are well they're all higher than the curve right so if I can digress for a second but we have no idea why it was that low but it doesn't make sense to be lower we like to have steps r step in here which is approximately in and then our sidewalk SL as a sidewalk railing sidew coming UPS our sidew St out of ground if we the slab in back would lower that would problem we decided to pick the predominant SL so that was my question so you're going to be about 14 in right many the off the curve I think we're a little more than 14 but that doesn't matter we're sloping yeah we're more than 14 above the curve because of the Cross slope of the sidewalk right the one50 across right so we're 14 off the front two steps here two steps here and your overall height is needing reir corre Yeah by us the off the cur3 Eric I don't know if I'm jumping the gun but let's mark that exhibit A1 with the updated plan the the trash cut out just so we have it on the record I think everyone all the board members have it as an exhibit I'm not sure if you want to go through your report and condition the they were cinder blocks on that old structure is that what they were Cinder I don't think they were cinder blocks they they were they were a hollow core block hollowe 80 years old yeah and and tell me about the footings again there were no fo there were no footings there were no footings there were no pilings it was just set on uh either raw dirt or on uh appear there was some sort of sidewalk in some areas so just set right on the yeah they used to set them on they used to set them on bricks correct yeah the areas we found there was just on Sand okay and Mr Pano thank you for that question of course I think that goes to the importance of putting in the solid walls and the helical underneath those walls you know you could put the best concrete on Cinder or on brick it's going to have effect it's going to crush the brick so by putting in the additional um helical to firm everything up it was fairly important for safety and flood purposes so the original plan Arthur was to reinforce the existing footing with the helical and then you went in there and did some cing did some forensic engineering and you found there was no footing correct to two yeah so that that was the process we went through is uh we were going through and when they peeled the roof off we could see into the hollow blocks and see down there was no rebar there was no Port concrete solid sections uh we did some probes and found no footings so then we demoed the long P wall for the P wall on that side uh on that side we had concerns with uh we wanted to repour that wall and do the Sol wall because of the zero uh set back line and the ability to construct that we would have had to go into the neighbor's property where on the other sides there was enough space to do construction on both the inside and outside of the building due to the rways and the space oce side of the structure hopefully answer your question yes again as Mr palano had indicated earlier we didn't know when the first phase of development began the poor condition of what we working with there was no way to know because the property owners had just started to take off from the top going down if we had known that then we would have come in for the whole building back in January and we wouldn't have gone through this whole mechanism to get where we are now would have made much more sense to just tear everything down to ground and build up from there so I know there is some concern that this was a plan all along trust me this was not the plan to be here four months later after litigation after stop work orders after just about anything negative that could happen and then most importantly this building should have been open for Memorial Day and now we're looking at a later date so the potential to have fixed this early would have been a much much more welcome potential I'm sure to Brian and Dana and the fact that we're here now is fixing what they found out as they went through it was like a bad onion as much as you peeled it back it just got worse and worse and it's done so thank you Mr P for pointing that out but that building was sitting on that's what you come into with renovation work renovation work is definitely not as fun as building from Scrat as you know so all right um Mr McLaren you want to go through the report would you like Arthur to address some of your other concerns is that something you would prefer to maybe wait get some additional board question we we'll do whatever the board pleases us to do um site plan requirements I just want to if author you can discuss that real quick okay there's not much difference from a minor site plan to a major sight plan overall then it presumes that you might be building streets and subed bu lots and you're not doing that here we're not doing no roads no utilities just any up it's not like we're running sore Ms water Ms gas M it's just a single individual lot so a minor site plan that we're working with here we're not so the only utility work you're doing is tying into the water and sewer cor yes so most of the stuff that are in the checklist be either submitted or waved without any detriment to the intent of a major site plan review yes that's correct I would concur with that this application and Roger of course the one thing that's fairly important we know that the city doesn't want any sort of in an ESS on Venter AV now there's no way to do that but clearly we're not touching the Venter Avenue we're not touching the sidewalk the RightWay along Venter or Monroe so that's also good that we're not trying to create a problem both with the city on Monroe and the county on V it's off the table completely so why don't you just go through some of the site plan elements and that I point out that should be included as part of this application and these are all going to be required of course Mr mlar that get sub final site plan approv sure I believe your report begin site you want to go through one at a time or do you want us to concur with your just to highlight like uh the fence along the back to keep the customers of the site on the site until they reach Monroe Avenue are you an agreement with that yeah we're in agreement with that in offence along the common property line get the people coming down the stairs out that way so we're not flowing on to the neighbor property and the last 10t of that can we make it like some type of picket or somewhat semi-transparent for the neighbors next door they're pulling out of the car they can see through it a little bit yes we could do that okay the solid fence not the pick fence but the solid fence we're going to make that six feet Yes yes we it six foot would be ideal I would be able to see over it but that's okay what else if the Fire Marshall has any additional comments about the traction closure area eress I think we've addressed the waste issue fairly well but if the board has questions regarding additional waste we'll certainly answer that but I think uh Mr Richmond pointed out that uh do that TOA uh that's fire Mar that's construction code that's not here right don't reason what's this what's the ceiling well the prob the concrete slab floor below that's going to be concrete slab too so it's in a concrete box so we have to wor more about the head freezing if anything I'd rather my opinion would be not dis that new wall for the enclosure has to be flood proof flood resistant also so we're setting the wall back in and that's going to be the flood wall the the trash area will not be flood I think the description of the how you're going to handle the trash once you get it at the curb how's that going to work out well that's going to be uh at the curve behind the building the where's it where's the pickup the physical the pickup's going to be on Monroe okay at the rear of the building and as we discussed with the neighbor's attorney we going to try to do that minimum of three times per week three times three times if the demand is higher than that will you increase uh yeah of course I mean if the demand's higher than that good for Brian and Dana that means they're doing a lot of business because those dumpsters are fairly significant if they have to dump them they will but right now it's three times a week which is fairly aggressive figuring you're going to have you know probably Saturday maybe Monday or Tuesday but during the week demand won't be that hot so the restaurant will you'll have waste grease where's how's that going to be collected in so the Tony balon's part of the yes building you're talking about so that'll be a grease trap of course and that'll be designed to be taken out by um the owner however they're going to dispose of it normally so typically nowadays the the grease truck comes in there and they they drag a hose in there and they siphon it out and they recycle it somewhere else off site that's going to you're not going to stored grease barrels in the back no there will be no grease stored on site for sure yeah um anybody from the board have any questions or comments okay go ahead so the steel supports that are on the new design they were in the original design as well I was not here for the original yes they were on the original design as well the the steel supports were holding up the whole second floor so uh and just to recap what we had before is we had a liquor store with a bar inside of it and a pizza place what we're going to have afterwards is a liquor store with a bar with a pizza place so nothing's changing use wise nothing's changing with the building footprint from what it was before the only thing that's happened since we were last year is we've upgraded the walls around the structure and we put them we painstakingly put them in the exact same alignment we took down one wall and put up the wall in the same footprint and then when we went to the back wall we off that back wall because we knew at that point that was swiss cheese so we took that down the same footprint and at that point we already had both you know the L set up so we just connected the L the other parts of the L so there was no change in footprint it didn't get bigger uh the walls are thicker but that thickness came in towards the building we made the square foot inside small and Mr pitch one important fact too is the putting itself on the second level has a solid concrete wall going up on the Longport side and on the beach side so when we talk about noise those walls will stop presumably the noise going in those directions part of the uh settlement that BR and data made with the neighbors was to prevent anything coming out on the Monroe and ventor Avenue S so we do have two fairly significant concrete walls Longport and Beachside supported by new walls need so those walls will eventually also be beefier because the structure below can hold more so all we're doing as arur said is creating a stronger building but it's the exact same building as you approved before because what the board what the board actually approved before was the second floor to go above what's there now it was just weaker more dangerous less flood proof proof walls before and what you're getting in its place stronger more flood roof walls same exact configuration so same seating capacity same everything and because of the fact that we had to come back a significant number of concessions that the property owners gave to the neighbors so our coming back here serves really two purposes trying to legalize much more of what's been done to date some of which was done prior to a little bit with the steel after the stop work order and then reconfirming what was done previously because we know exactly now what most of the neighbors concerns were and they've been hopefully addressed so what the board has done by allowing us to come back and kind of pushing this is you're getting a better building and you're getting a better operation of the businesses so think about that for a minute if we didn't have to come back we really wouldn't have had what our approvals were in the first place we probably wouldn't have had to deal with all of the neighbors concerns being here gives the city of Margate A Better Business it gives Brian and Dana a better building FEMA has a flood proof commercial structure and everything else is in the exact same footprint this is the win win win for everyone the neighbors are getting concessions the building is being rebuilt which is much stronger and the city through its flood um manager is getting a flood prooof building really the only ones who aren't win-win winning are Brian and Dana who have had their project unnecessarily delayed and they're making some very expensive concessions but they want to be good property owners and good business corporate citizens in Margate and they've chosen to do that so um what I would ask Mr chairman is uh we would rest just with the ability to recall Mr to Mr Bago and perhaps the property owners themselves I assume we have some people who are going to want to speak oh okay well go ahead uh so there is the the building is going to be dry flood frof are are you building some standards to to make it dry proof I don't the foxs that are in place are water proof I think they're water resist so the fox box are just a form for the concrete the concr is a solid for concrete with a flood stop on the bottom where it's keyed into the pudding so those that's the flood prooof waterproof portion the Fox Blocks are there so you can easily attach siding to it you can easily attach drywall on the inside or whatever finish you want to have on the inside or outside you also have to have insulation on it so that serves as insulation one at a time guys come on one at a time yeah so that's a lot of the building parts of it but structurally it's just the form to help hold the concrete when we P it but it gives a lot of other benefits uh architecturally to the structure that allow them to do those sort of things the insulation the attach siding and the different finishes so it helps out that one other way they're putting a false wall or little shims on the wall so they can pass so it helps the the process go quicker but you're correct this the Fox block it's like Legos as we put Concrete in so that doesn't do much but as Arthur said once the concrete's in and it's cured it allows you to do a lot more than just with the planal you building to a standard right I mean is there there ASC standards we're building to the standards for the for the flood proofing and we've uh all the opening that are below the flood elevation are all going to be flood panels they're all been designed we have overtopping uh footings inside so the walls don't over top we're going to do uh footings on the outside for the flood panels when they get attached so all that is being followed so it's going to be a fully dry flood prooof building to elev 11 and in order to get the CO you have to have a certification that it is dry FL great thanks uh the rear wall that's standing today that doesn't meet the Cur that's going to be demoed you know selectively to to match the new dra so we went forward and we're building to match the old footprint of the building and now we put a pause on it and we're making modifications so we didn't do any more construction and those modifications will require demolition of new things that W installing yeah so on the sort of the right side looking towards the ocean that bump out I'll call it right there something like 21 ft wide now that's going to be reduced to me that's got to be reduced so that way the steps can go yeah and then part of the back wall on the left side facing the is going to be cut out and wall will have to Beed some of these things I'm being told today that I have to design so they get so really we're doing it the right way right now is we're coming in we're getting the approval for what the city wants if we get the approval then I'm going to design to meet as opposed to previously we were just building the walls to match the old walls uh what you found with the the foundation issues are there any concerns about the utilities coming into the building water sewer for example I mean I don't think that building was designed to accommodate so up to 150 or more people it's all new store it's all new water all new the building to the building the the services are being upgraded to the building okay uh as for the means we're getting the approvals from the utilities companies and they're not having issues with supplying us so the capacity is based upon the use of the building of course and once the utility companies give the capacity for water sewer everything else it's just going to get stubbed in and uh there's no problem with the new use based upon the old with water sewer toilets water pressure Etc and it should be pointed out the the only new use is the second floor so we're reducing the use of the second floor by removing the residential and then use by adding in the the commercial part the first floor use isn't changing it's the exact same as it was previous now the previous owner may have used more liquor store than bar but it was sized and approved for the exact same situation okay anybody else from the board all right thank you Mr chairman we will uh press pause let the members of the public voice their opinion hopefully and then uh maybe call Mr CH or Mr Bag go back or make a closing statement of address concerns the board thank anyone from the public like to speak public portions closed oh I'm sorry I can't see behind just whoever is going to go first come up to the microphone name and address and I'll swear you in hi I don't know who I'm talking to who's asking I mean asking just that your name and address please Liz O'Brien Kevin O'Brien 96 okay the building we own in Margate for South mon okay uh Mr Mrs O'Brien please raise your right hand you swear airm the testimony you'll give this evening it be the truth I do you do for South Monroe you own yes okay good you might give it a second we haven't seen the Dr Haven perfect are there are there changes to any of the drawings that were online thanks to be on the uh the side yard that has the trash and the ESS and everything else it looks like so you want to begin goe first off we we we like the development of the corner you know we're very much in favor of that um the portions that we have we we're in to see Mr McLaren and our issues were you know the egress is um going on to our property at all hours of the night as we understand I don't think we covered hours of operation I I don't know what those are but so what we see as um you know folks exiting this bar at all hours of the night and the second problem that we had is it's been a challenge even with the previous owner with the trash and the maneuvering of dumpsters um you know it's been it's been a constant issue uh for us and um you know we did have an understanding with the previous owner with you know you know how to deal with the trash and they did struggle to maneuver dumpsters um but I have a couple other concerns that I wanted to you know before I kind of like trash ask question about the trash are these two y dumpsters got pictures of Y dumpsters I'm just curious they're R out of and then what's Theus and's fence how make that the TRU them where does the one the other being you want to just you wanted you to show us I just I just listen to your testimony Sor didn't mean to cut you off just listen to your testimony you said there's going to be roll top doors here okay but this is showing the still seeing dumpsters from the this dumpster is protruding from it looks like there's a wall build here I see like some supports I see doors that are opening this way so the the fence is going to be here right on the property line going all the way to the front correct yeah iy these be topors well this there's about three or four iterations okay the most current one is they're going to be a they're going to be a little deeper and you're going to have one or two roll doors that go flush with the building on the outside on the outside and the dumpsters are going to be under the first floor so from the outside you're if you don't mind this is the original what we're doing in this geme right there is the stair went back further so this whole wall is going to be flat with two dumpsters but it doesn't portray that here because the stairs not dra the stair actually starts back here and D if you're looking from Monro you're not going to see anything that's the existing existing Dimension we had it at 4 feet it's going to be a little bit more I think it's no they'll wheel it they'll pull it out and reel it sideways and then then the truck empties it they wheel it back push it in grab the next one wheel it out you see you see this you see this dimension of four feet yeah that's going to increase but yes it's going to increase yeah this is this is five I'm say five I don't that's the current Dimension that's not going to change oh so this isn't shown correctly we've updated even Beyond this we've updated three times already so this is actually going to go there and then this is going to be S deep so if I could draw on this if you don't mind this is going to be the truck with the side lift on it right so you drive oh I I'm just drawing I don't know where this right so that's something that maybe has to be considered if that's something that needs to be in in writing maybe this is the location of the truck or further and maybe it get strike that they can't property and then this comes out sideways and then gets dumped and then the second comes out and that get that would be good they're already complaining during the construction phase that we're already having parking issues this is our constructions always an abundance of dump C cut here and the yeah I don't know enough of that I don't know about Waste Management so do you know how the wheels swivel on these dumpsters because I've watched the previous owner try to get it from back here so when you pull it out here the wheels are faced this way right I don't know if they're on cers or not they casters but as an architect I have no idea how dumpsters work okay you guys I'm fine with it just one at the Times CU it's getting recorded and then oh sorry yeah sorry so basically you got pulling at a dumpster that weighs 8 n00 pounds loaded right the wheels are facing this way and then you've got to push it this way by people yeah I'm not in the waste management so I don't know I would I would in Fair in all fairness I don't know how dumpsters going to have to take the dumpster out of this area Eric I had a business with dumpsters and the dumpsters had cut coasters so if you push it out this way you can also move it sideways no he was saying he didn't know I get that they move sideways I'm saying they have coasters but I'm an architect I'm not in W management so I don't well I also worked on the trash truck all right all rightone I think I think a waste management program needs to okay we're going to come back to that one we're going to back back to that one Tom you can stay here though we got another question for you so um we heard the testimony that there's going to be a fence installed on the property line or or adjacent to the property line correct correct okay um I guess the first question that I have is on the stairway uh the stairs themselves this is an egress stairway for emergencies where this is a entry exit just general stairway for the upper Lounge area I'm sorry I your question there's inside there it's an emergency exit it's just for capacity reasons most of the people will go in and out of the Interior St well so this will have some kind of door up here with so what you have here is you have on the second floor these are bathroom buildings second floor is here so uh what you have here is bathroom facility there's really no need to go there there is um lued roofs that go here and there's drop down shades that will reduce the noise flowing out that way they do retract out so it can be an emergency exit but most of the people aren't even going to know that's there answer your question is an emergency exit and ENT stairway for emergency Personnel it's not the primary means of getting this is open air door there all right understood and um just going through this a little bit there's in the drawings there's two different configurations of the stairway okay you've got this U shape that you show here on C CSK 03 so is this configuration here not happening I ask a lot of questions about the stairway because of the hours operation Our Deck and windows are six feet away from this stair so this is why I'm going to ask a lot of questions about this stairway the outside stair on the side on the Monro side okay that straight stairway is the old stair that wasn't Cod compliant so this is the stair the US shap stair okay so we're going to do a U-shaped stair and what is the dimension on the interior of this U shape and how about on the exterior eight ft no four plus plus wall Plus Wall fness how how wide is this stair four foot this exterior stair is four foot this Dimension from here to here is 8 foot there's a wall thickness still the the distance between this wall and the property line is about 5et so this is four feet so that's fourt it fits within the property line and each Direction and it's set back over so this is buing us to be bumped out now the building has been reduced and the stairwell thickness still fits within the existing old footprint of the building okay we talked a little bit about this and this was the uh this Foundation plan you did this one yes so that's being modified now because now there's a stairwell here what's this Dimension 2 that's this is 3 fo three in from Center pile Center pile Center pile Center pile all these dimensions are Center pile Center pile they're not so this stairway can't be 48 in well the center of the pile is within the wall so this is going to be 48 in because this is modified this is going to be 48 in wall because there's 5T if you look here there's what move here this wall move that's the distance from the outside wall to the property line is 5 fo five in okay so that's how they can get the four foot stairwell this wall is being demoed and this four foot is going beot wide this wall Dem this wall here is getting demoed back to a and this one too and this and portions of this one we getting demoed not right here that's not four feet right so it has to be moved no it's 5 foot five from the outside of this wall to the proper so the stairs are going to stick out past this wall they're going to come out past this wall yes not making sense there okay that's not the way it's shown in these other drawings all right like here this looks even right what's this Dimension from here to here the bottom sorry the bottom of the the bottom Riser of the stair where you where you land when you step onto the concrete to the corner of the building St bottom of your stairway the corner of the building we have at least 14 TR scale yeah please scale that for me thank you what I'm just curious you could kind of Express what your concerns are as opposed to just going over Dimensions because it's kind of hard to tell what your issue is okay I'm sorry I'm up here talking I'm the public you back off okay I'll take this with you be able to see it tell me what you're concerned as opposed to looking at here's the point what's the concern my concern is you don't have space for this that's my concern so you're concerned but I started with but I understand and the stair does we're just trying to figure out stair is shown differently in these drawings that we have you have new drawings I get public didn't doesn't have these here's what they this and this are 4T wide this Dimension from the bottom of the stairs to here is 14 ft plus there's add can I have this Dimension from here to the corner wall gra my 28 28t I think you said there needs to be a 5 foot Landing here was shown somewhere in the drawing five foot space here that's like cod is so necess thisp and the remaining is the sprinkler room 15 five and 2 anything else stor in this area these electric panels you only have are up in the air so this should just be nice clean don't the electrical panels have to be within 6 and2 we have keep everything 11 so we have to keep all electrical devices above 11 so access in a flood Barrier Island doesn't shut offs all that everything has to be up in the the purpose of being so they disconnects how do you disconnect them corre it's only five and a half oh that's what I'm asking I don't know no it's six feet above the dirt it's six feet from where you're standing ex reach it's six feet from the dirt it's 11 feet from sea level thank you okay thank you look I'm not trying to give you a hard time about the trash we've watched this for years we got to show you like what it's like to get these dumpsters out of this needs to get to it and not run around get to it and reach it they used to be on the front facing the right but now we have a sprinkler room have the sprinkler room Tak priority of enement coming in it's right here the gas no oh sorry so in the past last summer there were a lot of broken down cardboard boxes werri we go ahead go ahead we made sure that the trash was taken care of that's the should have been dealt with a little earlier but it wasn't but now it is so I we we're going to make them put the fence up six foot we made them recess the trash and have the uh roll down doors you know we've done we've done a lot Roger myself to make sure that we could do as much as we could to you know alleviate your situation thank you I do appreciate that we' only had a couple days we only had a couple days with this guys apologize yeah that's another question we got for you so the fence is going to be six foot high how far out is it coming to almost to the uh to the end of the building you can't do that because you have to have you know you got to be able to see what you're doing so we're going have to pick a fence just like we do with other fenes at at the end that's 10et right so that was our other concern and the fence solves that problem but people the cas of an emergency coming down the stairs and ending up on our property emercy right so that's why we're going to have that and tripping and falling on our property no that's why we're going to do that fence right a while well if they're running from a fire you should welcome that on keep them off your proper uh1 drawing is that the location gases I asked this we have a foot size on that's just that's one for my notes I asked that because the access to that is going to be the sorry the um in order to access that you're that's going to be for my property yes come up two meters I think they're shown on here so are gas meters allowed to be under stairs no well it's shown here it's on the wall these gentl Ladies sorry yeah sure you want to mark that as an exhibit we'll call it O'Brien one thank you obri one I like it's uh two photos no just one one four phot one one sheet one sheet of four photos than so that that's just showing the example one of the pictures is when we poured the concrete in 2020 the next one uh I have picture now the next one I think is from 20 last year so July last year so the beginning of the summer and then September is the bottom left very very dirty and gross and bottom right is today what it looks like right now and that's just the condition of area um so most of that space is our property which was being occupied by the other trash cans that were not ours um and the condition was not kept very well Factor that's that's still the sh from last summer there on the right bottom right I mean that's what it still looks like right now it's never been clean um and that so that was another concern I mean that could be coming under the fence to our sides and another thing I want to point out in those drawings is there's six feet between the buildings and they're pulling out in the same configuration as you have here they were pulling the dumpster you see the dumpster tucked in there that was the previous owner configuration they used to take three guys that'll pull those out of from underneath those stairs and they still you can still see the damage on the side of the building I don't know when that even occurred but there's scratches and and damage on the side of the building six feet away that's what it takes to roll these dumpsters to the front when they're loaded but now I guess we're going to do this in five and a half minutes run their own fence yeah where the goes leave a lot MD no it's not the middle it's closer to the I can show you w the set Pack's about a foot so from the back there's 13 so the fence is going to be a foot off the build their building the reason I'm bringing up with the fence with everything else you've got two gas meters and something else going in there that aren't going to be accessible to be shut off forem you've been here since 2020 19 2019 was it any better last year what's that with the new owners no worse worse you can see the uh mess that was left there that's there from last summer that's all the way up to my building yes none of that is our stuff no I'll bring up the gas because I don't know how you're going to get two gas meters in there where they're proposed now you can see on there the the uh the new St up for the uh for the gas meters is not sh it's shown differently on the plans that is shown underneath there shown on the drawing there that's going to go underneath a stair an eress stair and you have no access to itall this doesn't seem to F that's the location that the location they brought it back up was the location that it was out of the board's purview is Construction requirements and that's the construction department and this place will not get an occupancy permit if anything's illegal or not of to code and that's not up to the board to tell them what's code okay that's up to the construction department so I just appr approved these are the actual plans that are approved to are going to appr the modifications that they've discussed if you look at the uh dumpsters they stick out a little bit they said that's going to be pushed back in and flush with a with a drop down door so these are the modifications to these plans that will be approved we won't know exactly what the plans look like are going there's no F gas isn't it's to details are not know city is not easy to we're going to have to submit new sets of compliance plans and I'll send you a copy if you like you know you'll see exactly what is compliance aftering get vote tonight we have to subm to Mr M and Mr gtino for final compliance plan which will be what actually gets so we're modifying this based on some the board to you add see how you concern sorry it just concerns me that it gets approved and it's kind of all like over there I won't know you w know aop alls we're going to condition of approval that all these things that we talked about are going to happen Okay we're going to make sure about that or else like like we said they're not going to get a c so they want to it's a good point yes they not going to get a CO might heard somebody say but it'll already be built it'll already be built well if it's built and it's not built to the what we um the conditions then they're about to tear down and redo it it wouldn't be the first time okay all right these are Life Safety ones so sorry some of the stuff was already covered and part of that is the plan on how they're going to move these dumpsters out of this area or no that's going to be up to them to deal with I mean part of our plan is is to have the dumpsters enclosed set back uh so that it gives us the erress to come down from the emergency stairs to get out to the site so my question would be I did I asked question answer and it's probably a question for the waste management company how long the process will take because it's a oneway street with parking on both sides there's basically one lane in the Middle with a big truck that's potentially blocking that will be blocking can't get around in an emergency like if somebody from the other end has to get out our tenants has to get out and the truck's blocking how long will be there blocking I would like to know that before it's I mean they could do a trial they dotion they can wheel I mean they can they can theum this way and then move I would presume that these trash operators are pretty good at what they do and I've seen them roll dumpsters in and out pretty quickly and efficiently with a fence in a tight spot my concern I mean most of them are in trash en closes anyway and they got to wheel them out and there's cars parking away i' I've seen operations uh if they can't operate the the dumpsters they got the wrong per wrong vendor you back there please you're being very disrupt so okay the questions on question okay excuse me the best question how do we know how quick it's going to be you know have professional company who does it that's all they do but your concern is certainly well taken that one of your tenants has an emergency while the truck is there there's not really a whole lot that can be done just like I guess if you're in traffic and people rushing the hospital same thing but I assume being a professional company they're going to want to get the out of there themselves they're going to want to get the trash moved away from the building close to the fence and like your husband said damage out to the street dump it in and then go have to do it twice but that's kind of what's involved how but it's probably pretty quick that they do it all the time they get paid by trash so they don't want to get this thing in and this is done by the vendor and not by staff so there's an unknown amount of time that this could be an emergency no emergency evacuation I guess the emergency evacuation maybe five times a week we don't know how many this could be like every day of the week in the summer well no they're gonna they think the maximum they're going to really need is three times a week probably so I count count counted 18 bins last year last summer 50 gallon bins that's 900 gallons which is four and a half yards is two more than two two yard dumpsters and I how often those were emptied last year to figure this out and now we're doubling the occupancy so really need twice that many EMP to be EMP twice as many times so is there a waste management plan did anybody estimate or calculate approximate the amount of trash that will be generated adding the 9 new people upstairs we've watched this operation for years when this was a much smaller operation and it is not easy what proposing it's not easy and you don't have a ton of space in there I would say that you know answer question as the dumpsters still up they so it's more often I guess have more Waste Management com and pi upy tell now how much trash so we went to school for engineering these things can be calculated and estimated what's I mean like I said before we we they're moving the wall in they're going to enclose the you know you're not going to have trash can sitting out there there's going to be there's going to be a fence there that we're going to require I I don't know what else we can do I'm not talking about looking at the trash I know you're talking about getting rid of it but that's BL you know the professionals do right I mean trash trash is really not under our pervie but as a business owner I can tell you that gold medal comes in and within two minutes takes my dumpster empties it puts it back and gets off my property in your case with two dumpsters I would say it couldn't take more than five to six minutes to roll it out and put it in they have two men Tom as dumpster so he's speaking from experience are they access just drive aren't their trucks all day long not all all morning long deer stuff like that yeah I know is there is there parking are there signs that say delivery parking only during the daytime are there not that I know on Monroe Avenue there a loading Z loading zone right for vehicles to pull in I I know we're pounding you on this question we have a rental business that is six feet away from this operation okay when the truck pulls up to do this they're blocking our parking the contractors today yes they're parler black in my driveway this is how it happens that's why we're concerned with the frequency and the time yes a lot a lot but I know but you understand how this is impacting us I know but those guys are um we're going to be on a first name basis unfortunately and it's not what I want to do I want to see my business successful I want to see your business successful your business I'm not here to shut this down I want to see this operate I just want to see operate does it make sense okay perfect so okay sorry maybe we over analy that's why we're very visual want to see some dimensions on want to make sure things work correctly um I just mentioned that it's a good segue into the noise issue obviously we're going to have a lot of trash operation every day is going to be trash day there so that's noise and disruption to us remember you're getting the solid wall in the back there too yeah we don't know this is a question we don't know what that is the whole side your whole side as a solid wall yeah yeah there's no no no it's a solid wall to stop the noise that's so the wall is the bathroom the back of the bathroom is the wall That's the this is all this is this is a Sol right yes what are these tables like a lounge kind of table it's not really a table this is and what's the enforcement on that beers or something and they to meet you're getting the benefit of Brian and Dana talking to Mr pamer that they've agreed to abide by city code to limit the noise based On's s cons to keep speak pointing down mrop resolution lumbly they're going to have one install what is the level no I'm sorry the operation is going to have a decimal metor installed it's actually a deal sorry on the upper level the entire upper level the concrete's coming to 3T which is approximately this here so instead of a reing we're putting a sheet of glass to deflect more how high 42 in2 another in above the so that's all Sol so if you're standing if you're sitting it'll be at conversation level so that was the idea instead of a railing the sound would still go through an extra six in of sound barrier is added 3ot in so so say the noise is a problem and neighbors are calling the police the police are coming the police have a and then there'll be levels of allow sound hours so what happens if there the noise is too high is there a ticket whatever the city does got so say that noise is loud I totally agree with you but my question is I understand so say it's noisy and the police are being called say every single night that's so that's okay no we didn't it even this possibility said that anything's a possibility they call they call on the greenhouse every day is there a way to get an answer to that nothing will change once it's approved so I've heard it doesn't getfor people I don't know literally six feet away the greenhouse closest neighbors are probably I don't even know a lot further we're six feet away and it's our business do you guys do you have anything else to talk about no okay thank you thank you thank you next all allic let's okay anyone else like to speak from the public hello hi name and address Marissa ktis 2v South coolage Avenue 2B South ctis yes k e d d i s all right Miss ctis please raise your right hand you swear from the testimony you're about to give will be the truth I do okay uh thank you I'll just take a minute um I've already expressed my concerns about Community safety and obvious noise issues on the record at the last meeting so I won't repeat that um I'm glad that litigation by some neighbors have fored certain modifications that I myself asked for at the last meeting so that's positive um I've also expressed my concerns previously about parking issues in that area uh due to the ongoing illegal parking restrictions at the overcrowded marget Gardens um and to be clear I have no problem with Sunrise Tula if it remained at a one level at its former capacity um but my now my concern now is that the floodgates are opening in the C2 to additional future venues like the one proposed by Sunrise tequila I wonder where the next twole open air music venue will be built in the in the C2 District it is beyond reason to say that there will be no real detriment to the surrounding homeowners by the application before the board because it used to be a liquor store additionally are we all really supposed to believe that no one inspected the existing walls and Foundation to see if the structure could uphold the proposed addition that's been the testimony tonight that they had obvious holes in them it appears that those implementing the master plan have to decide whether they want to turn Margie into a party destination like Wildwood or if they want to actually encourage new families like my own to move into town at the last meeting a board member listed all the past bars that closed in Margate over the past decades and while that is unfortunate you also have to consider the dwindling numbers of yearr round families and listen to their concerns my son has 28 kids in his grade by your decision were opening the door to who knows how many additional venues uh like Sunrise tequila is proposing group Top party deck whatever anyone wants to call it um and every homeowner on every block of the C2 district is now poised to have a quality of life along with their home values go down the tubes I implore you to take the second chance to rethink how your decision will completely change the face of the entire C2 district from now on it's not just about this one venue thank you anyone else from the public come on up good evening uh Mona Marcus 3 South coolage Avenue Mar okay Miss Marcus 3 South coage please raise your right hand you swear airm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth I do thanks um I my first statement that I want to make is in the last meeting that we attended it it was offensive to me that it sounded that in any way this was directed at Brian and Dana which it is not they are lovely people they are wonderful citizens in the community and I don't think this has anything to do with them personally uh there are some concerns obviously about that second floor there was a discussion the last time maybe two meetings ago that the ordinance in Margate is that you are not allowed to have a rooftop bar this is being called a second store bar or a second floor bar and I believe Mr McLaren said it was an ordinance that you wrote and that that's why you knew how it was to be enforced and I just want to say that as a lay person it is very unclear what the difference would be between something rooftop and second story when there's nothing above it I just wanted to raise that question um there's a question also I have about whether or not there would be an opportunity sometimes to have outside dining I don't believe that's been talked about as of yet but there is a concern that I have about that part of the sidewalk somebody before had used the word about sloped sidewalk and the sidewalk in front of the building is flat and then it slopes significantly to get to the curb and then the road and when there was outside seaing when it was Tony baloney's you really couldn't walk on the sidewalk you were kind of walking sideways and you felt like you were going to fall and kids who were riding on the sidewalk at their bikes were falling and tripping and running over people and I just wanted to have that as an issue to be considered should there be something outside to think about the nature of that sidewalk I don't think I have a question I think I only had statements so thank you very much thank you anyone else name and address please1 Mr singer please raise your right hand you swear airm the testimony you're about to give will you the truth I do thank you well I'm not sure if I'm talking to the planning side or the zoning side of this sport but it seems to me that this one block in morgate is being attacked it has serious issues this plan is providing Zero Market to me that doesn't make any sense you mentioned in the beginning when you open that this buil this was a new presentation so to me all of the discussion about the existing building that came down seems to be Superfluous to the conversation your rules say that you need 60% coverage that's what it should be they should redesign this property once that building came down for whatever reason it's a whole new quank Sate and we should start over so all these conversations about existing walls to me makes no sense those are two issues I had corking and coverage and I also would like to know how this enhances your goal of bringing permanent residents to the community you hav address it and your comment Mr Goldstein a win I don't think so I think it's a lose lose thank you anyone else okay public portions closed I would like to address Mr chairman however a couple of the comments made by members of the public um some people are upset that there's been some other potential issues with an offsite other property we're here to focus on this property only with regard to questions about young families coming to town that is not in the purview of this board however fact that there are newer restaurants nicer places to go lower taxes no crime flood prooof building can't see any more reasons why people if they could afford it wouldn't love to come in Margate we're unfortunately a victim of our own success because people who live here know that we are the town everyone wants to live in and the property values are high so there's a reason why some people can't come here unfortunately is that you've done too good of a job and so has the governing body the mayor and Commissioners have gotten to a point where this is where everyone wants to be so the prices are higher which is unfortunate but in a way it's very fortunate so when you talk about young people coming here what do we have in marate I'll address people say no one can or want to come just recently we've gotten out of every single school in Atlanta County not school district but School the top two Tai school and raw School are one two in the entire County that's thank goodness good governing body for a very long time current mayor and Commissioners are doing a great job our taxes are the lowest in the county with a full-time School District much lower than any other the only town that has a lower tax rate is long for it they don't have any Services okay why people can't come into town with young families is probably more a factor of affordability than a bar in a commercial area no one is choosing not to move here because this structure gets rebuilt in its current footprint let's not get nuts and get off track okay let's focus on the issues there was building that's going to look exactly the same in the same exact footprint period okay parking wasn't there before parking ain't there now nothing is changing other than we're legalizing the first floor ran and Dana have taken this on with turn after turn to stop to get sued to have objections that really are based upon some other greater issue that unfortunately is now being foed upon them they are not the reason people aren't coming into town that's just ridiculous okay we have to focus on what we're here for which is legalizing a first floor of building that needed to be rebuilt and is in fact in the middle of construction okay that's it parking wasn't there before parking's not there now they're excuse me you want to speak you could have come up but please be quiet I think we're getting so far a field of the issues we should be focusing on one thing only do we satisfy your ordinance relating to a major site plan Amendment and we've had expert testimony that says we do now the neighbors who came up with the trash issue that's a very legitimate concern and I'm sure Brian and Dana are going to address that that I think of all the other neighbors is the most legitimate concern because they're right next door and they really had their prep work done very well so so I'm sure we'll address that and I explain to um U both of them that we'll we'll email them a copy of the plan once it's finalized but I'm gonna ask the board to look at when you ultimately take your vote is based upon the prior approval based upon Brian and Dana conceding to most of the questions asked and the concerns of the neighbors putting their construction on hold to legalize what's there now have they satisfied your your ordinance I think there's no way the answer to that question is anything but yes they satisfy your ordinance they satisfy what Mr mclarin wrote up in his report respectfully you all should vote in the affirmative I don't see any reason why you wouldn't because the only professional testimony you heard supports the variance request and the site plan request so we're going to rest cour has further questions we'll answer them but let's not lose track of what we're here for this is a benefit for Margate it's in the commercial District it's not in a residential district the use is allowed everything they're doing is just legalizing what could have been done prior but is being done now and we would just rest with that that's it when you redo that rear wall there's one at least one steel post that's going to have to be move correct we'll address any structural issues as they come up we're here to get the site plan approval of what you guys want and then we'll through mov to meet it they're it'll be moved yeah um there was some discussion with the neighbor regarding U those rear stairs being an emergency access the the door to gain access to the stairs from the second floor will that be alarm an emergency access exit there is no door okay which makes it better for emergency Personnel is Mr P it's actually a carer so I think a door would be I got it I understand a hindrance more than anything I'd rather people leave the building safely during Emer anybody else from I'm done all right um to touch on John pitts's uh question about that what about having a door at the bottom of the steps to prevent people from lingering upstairs after hours open air I don't know you could put like a CH well not a chain but made me like a like a door the S they open picket yeah door that locks right but you can have if you're upstairs you can open it to get out after hours yes that's after hours it's just it's it's not a requirement look I guess we'll examine when the building is finished what makes the most sense we would certainly don't want people using that to come in and out because when they come down to the bottom they're going to be inside of a fence next to trash but I guess if it's a safe way out it's a safe way out but like 3 o'clock in the morning what's to prevent people from going up those steps the at that point at 3 o'clock in the morning remember the upper system that carbon fiber screen is going to be closed so you could get in remember the upstairs area we talked about this last the meeting in January the system it's not going to remain open at night right this enclosure is going to go up and it's going to close everything in I think so so we would Mr mcen certainly look at every possible option but for now we're uh we're cool with the plan as is I I think I'll go a little backwards we'll go over some of the conditions first if a general reference to the applicant will comply if approved okay and we we'll go through these but if approved the applicant will as a general condition comply with any representations made by our on his behalf during the course of the hearing I'm going to make General reference to the conditions set forth in Mr Gold letters to Mr Barnes dated April 25th 2024 and I may may 13 2024 um Eric Mr goldi went through most of them but there was one that talks about limiting the number of seats outdoor seating couple of those things right you know what that's right Leo I missed that so they're going to do u a certain limited number on Monroe and also a certain Li number in front on veter right six and 16 correct six and 16 and they won't take orders from out there and there the speakers will be there's not going to be service out there it'll be I mean people could sit out there they could bring pizza out from Tony balon's of course but it's not going to be you got it it's clear in the letter um so so that covers most of them but then we'll note they're going to put that six foot solid fence to the neighboring to to the uh uh what were their names the O'Brian's property um the last 10 feet will will turn into a picket fence is that Roger six foot picket six foot picket they want we should consult with them too though do they want a six foot picket there or do they want to go a little lower because I mean it's up to them and their tenants I whatever they s with them right can always go down let's keep it six no more than 60 right no more than 60 you'll consult with the BR as to that um um subject to any fire marshal comments they're in line with that we can complying with all representations those uh that dumpster area will be moved so it's flush against the building um have a roll down door with a roll down is it door or doors we don't I roll door and closure it might be one or two but either way it'll be roll door closure um no grease stored on site and then you have your standard conditions subject to any uh necessary outside approvals that may be required um and then anything else in Mr McLaren's report unless otherwise addressed on the record so I think that covers the conditions um the re did you have any comments yeah the stop included fines have they been paid they have not been paid okay so we're not going to you're not going to issue per until the fs are paid we're looking at our options with regard to that right now Mr chairman well I think well from a board's perspective I something you we usually stay out of and let them deal with the city on that however that plays out okay all right also Mr mcclaren's report is last thing is no work without permits will be acceptable permits will be issued in a timely matter as the city does for all applicants so what that means is that just because you're approved tonight you can't start work tomor until you get we will make sure everything is submitted correctly and we've actually already started that process Mr chairman along with Mr McLaren and Mr gtino to get them over a new permit package um which we can talk about with them in the morning but we're not starting work without purpose okay resuming work without purpose okay all right so as far as the specific relief that they need there's preliminary and final major site plan approval uh last time we granted a minor site plan approval but with the basically the demolition we're calling it preliminary final major site plan approval and there are several C variances uh we reaffirm I guess the the stuff for the upstairs and the parking we reaffirm them I'm going to just go through them all the variances as as if it were a basic start from scratch project parking um based on the uh conservative High number of the Mr Chu and Mr Baga provided they said that the the max occupants would be like 286 um it's believed that that number will be lower which in turn would be less parking spaces required but aring on the side of the high number we require 29 spaces as we know they don't have any um and then the rest are setbacks and building coverage you got front yard setback to the building along Venter Avenue six fets required 1.1 1.1 foot is proposed then front yard set back to the deck which was really the subject of the prior application along Venter Avenue again 6 feet 1.1 is proposed front yard set back to the building along Monroe Avenue that's the other front yard six feet required zero proposed same thing front yard setback to the deck along Monro Avenue six feets required zero feets proposed you have the side yard setback on I'll call it the right side if you're facing the property from Venter Avenue um so the Tony Baloney side three feets required zero feet proposed side yard set back to the deck on that side three feet is required zero feet is proposed and then the the the left side yard setback that that is if you're facing the property from Monroe Avenue towards towards the the O'Brien side uh the sidey yard setbacks there 3T are the requirements to the building and the deck and they're at 1.38 feet and then obviously your combined sidey yard set back 10 FTS required and that's at 1.38 FT also building coverage is the final one 60% is required um and the number Mr MCC reports 98.4% I think there was some testimony it might be fractionally lower than that but we'll go with 98 4% it'll be minimally less minimally less and then was a few checklist waivers that we went over most of the items um are not applicable and they'll be the items required by Mr McCaren be supplied and the other ones will will be waved given the nature of the application and unless anyone has anything else we'll need a motion second and a roll call vote I'll make that motion second Tom Collins long meeting tonight um and there was a lot of information brought up a lot of things talked about that really aren't in our perview as a zoning board or a planning board and um it's a shame we'd like to consider a lot of different things but we consider what we have to consider to approve or dis of an application U the first thing we have to look at is whether it meets a C1 Criterion which is a hardship and in this case and absolutely does because they already had pre-approvals and what they've done is had to take everything down at a major expense uh and rebuild as far as the C2 variant substantial benefit to the community uh we now have a much better trash organized property we have a fully suppressed property which is safe for the community and we have a flood prooof property where I know in Florida a lot of these walls that were blowout walls went through other people's property and took out a lot of houses did a lot of damage and in this area that could happen because we are sooner or later we're going to get one of my fav uh it meets both of the criteria already said in my last opinion when I when we had this case before I listed all the reasons why this is very beneficial for the city of marate and why we have to try to continue moving forward and building our community better I wish I could figure a way to bring young families into the community um we'd like to we we come up with programs where we try to see if we could set aside some Properties or zoning but then you can't that because then you're hurting other people's property values and you're depriving them of what's what we're here for and this is our little piece of P So based upon that I vote in favor of the application Richard Patterson because this was previously approved and then as they worked on the building and then found it unsafe uh I see that as a hardship to uh approve it without it setbacks at this time and that's just in addition to everything Tom just said so I approve oh one more thing I would be shocked beyond belief if anybody's property values are worth less tomorrow than they were today and that they're worth more today than they were yesterday Michael Richmond yeah I wasn't happy with the way things played out you know I understand the whole structural situation I'm a builder I've been involved in a lot of major construction like that I still don't quite understand why that wasn't picked up earlier but that's the way it is and you know I I wasn't happy about starting the new construction without permits you I just think that makes the city look bad um so that being said you know everything happens for a reason to some extent I do think that making building flood prooof where it would have been hard to could it's possible but it would have been hard um and I bet it was at the last moment that uh you know and I think that caused a lot of confusion with the O br's because they're looking at three or four different CL that's not fair you know that that that trash issue should have been addressed right from the Geto and it wasn't okay but I'm going to go back to my premise which I think of a lot when people are complaining about or should I put this if you buy a house in the commercial District or near the commercial District then there is you have to realize that things like this are going to happen previously that place was a liquor store and it was a bar now did they use it as a bar maybe like once or twice a year just to keep up their um you know their license to be able to use that as a bar but it was always a bar and it's been there for 70 years so I grew up in that area I grew up on Benson Avenue I lived on Adams Avenue so I mean there's a lot of advantages to living in that area but unfortunately there's some disadvantages so um again if you buy a place near the commercial District then you're going to have to deal with this kind of stuff so I'm going to approve the application John pittz yeah I I've been working diligently for some time reviewing the plans the orces our local ordinances I believe in the concept of the project I think it would be good for Marg business district and the city overall uh my research however has not yielded the reasons to approve the project the original minor site plan which was reasonable no longer applies I think the project could have been designed as a buite uh plan beating all the ordinances of the city could have been a keystone for what we want the future to look like there's negative impact to light air in open space with the building coverag is and ignorance of the setback requirements so I do not approve the project Craig palman well I have to agree with what Thomas said and what Rich has said also I've been going to that store for more than 50 years before that it was a grocery store uh that the building made out of CER blocks uh wasn't very good wasn't very strong as that the footing was insufficient but fortifying the place now building a much stronger structure to withstand for the next 80 years um we approved this plan four months ago I was for it then I'm for it again and um with the changes that they've made they've addressed the trash issues pretty well I think they did a good job on the trash and I with the other board members and I'm going to approve this project to keep going forward the application is approved with four in favor and one approv yeah we're going to take a quick five minutes break okay at our next case is Esther and Mark Kaplan 20 South Cedar G Avenue block 124 lot 18 located in the S60 zoning District seeking C variance relief for Fence location and potentially others in order to relocate an existing 5 foot high open slab fence current on taxes Water and Sewer payments proof of advertising and notifications provided represented by Eric bolstein all right Mr chairman a few things on this as a bit of a preamble as well because I find this to be fairly important I just want to make make sure we're working off of the correct legal standard what we're doing here tonight is not a normal variance application case the case has already been heard it was a year ago last May and it was denied following the time case was denied on behalf of the client I filed an action in L A prerogative writ against the planning board and against the city of Mor in the intervening time since the prerogative RIT case was filed judge blee had several discussions and zoom meetings with Mr Manos and Mr avot who's behind me here and we talked about the merits of the case by way of the existing uh fence the prior application and what modification could be made so judge blee had recommended that we come back before the board for a Whispering Woods hearing we're not Mr poman was called a Whispering Woods hearing I'm going to walk through that that's based upon a New Jersey Superior Court case which describes the method through which a planning board can settle litigation but it's not granting a variance it's agreeing to settle based upon a litigated matter that has to come back before the board to approve the case so just were clear Whispering Woods at BAM Hollow versus Middle Township planning board which is 220 New Jersey super at 172 the year was 1987 and then the progeny that follows says that there's an application that's made that gets denied or granted and someone else appeals but in this case a denial an applicant who files a lawsuit has the ability to settle the litigation but the litigation has to be done in a public fashion so we noticed for a Whispering Woods hearing we previously had notice for the actual application um so what we're doing by way of the standard isn't does the benefits outweigh the detriment is there any negative Associated it's does the board wish to settle the litigation now when we talk about the standards and I've spoken to Leo about this and I'm going to put a fair amount of um legal ease into the record the standard based upon numerous New Jersey Court cases is as follows when you settle a case under the open public meetings act and I'm just going to read first of all from Leo sighting to the Whispering Woods case itself in which holding is basically courts favor sett they conserve judicial time and more importantly represent a rational resolution of a problem by the parties most closely involved and affected that principle applies with equal force in prerogative RIT litigation which is what we're involved with now settlement must be made known to the public subject to public voice and voted upon by the board in a legal fashion so that's what we're here to do tonight Mr Barnard's with me because even though it's not required knowing the board's lack of desire to add to the front yard fence problem if there is one we've prepared a new plan which further gives the board I believe what it's going to need to settle this case all right now your last meeting in April the board really showed an an evolution of its thinking and I'm going to read what has occurred at your last meeting and some of you might remember hopefully all of you do I think everything you said is excellent at the last meeting you approved first full flat roof case in Margate as a variant all right in making your your decision Mr Patterson stated we are going to look at these cases one house at a time each piece of property stands on its own it does not set a precedent pinky said each house is unique in design and each one stands on its own Mr Richmond said we're going to review each case on a caseby Case basis and Mr palisano made the best statement who said we don't want to dictate style it's just one house so when we talk about what we're seeking tonight by way of the settlement of litigation this is one house where fence is presently 75% open and is not into the front yard setback Mr barnhart's going to describe further Landscaping that the property owner desires as part of the settlement and we think this new design which will basically eliminate ability of this fence at all from anywhere forward of portion of Cedar Grove if you're saying each case has to stand on its own and everyone cannot dictate style this case should in fact be settled based upon not only the Whispering Woods case but also what the board is charged to consider by way of its decision making limitation and options and by that the board is charged with keeping an open mind as to every application that comes before it and trying to find on the settlement of a case what is considered Fair without first determining whether any provisions of a prior approval are otherwise invalid based upon personal opinion so what that means in my humble opinion is that you can settle the litigation tonight if not we're back before judge B to continue to litigate over the fence both with the city and the planning board uh John's going to describe the changes that the property owner made but one of the things that was said actually two of the things at the last time this meeting uh this case was put before the board Mr Patterson stated which I agree with the neighbor's fence is a disc gra to the neighborhood and the cin fence if moved forward will accentuate the neighbor's fence John has designed a plan which is going to take away any sort of view of the neighbor's fence coming from Atlantic Avenue and will also Shield it from any angle along Cedar Grove Mr Pomano said a year ago in May there's no way a fence can come out past the front of the house ever and I would respectfully say that those blanket statements on what property owner can or can't do perhaps are incorrect and perhaps the better way to look at it is what you did last month which is this is one house it does not set a precedent it has absolutely no bearing on any other property but just to make sure that we're giving the board back a fair amount of additional reason to settle the lawsuit John's going to talk about this fence coming forward not to the edge of the neighbor's fence which it was proposed last year but rather back a significant amount paving stones are being removed on the left side of the house we're going to give the board and the city increased drainage and then most importantly and I think this really goes to Mr Patterson this area of the neighbor fence is going to be shielded by very large Landscaping shown in Mr Bart's new drawing so that it'll soften this opaque 6ot vinyl up we're going to give the board a condition of approval that the fence will never be more than 5 feet high because it could be six it could be opaque if we left it in its current location so if the property owner wanted to be spiteful but it doesn't he could put a six foot high fence back where it is right now without a variance because it's behind the front wall of the hands additionally Roger and I have talked about this quite a bit and Mr abbit has as well the property owner made his front porch part of the principal residence he could bring the fence out 10 feet it could be solid white and opaque and it wouldn't be a variant we're agreeing not to do any of that just want to move this fence forward enough as the board might remember for the property owner to put in a set of stairs off of the right side of his house so he doesn't have to walk all the way around to get into his pool area here okay so that's the back it's a lot different than the plan you originally saw but I want John to walk through it because there are some setback calculations he did which we think will further Hammer home that with this great amount of additional Landscaping this will never be seen and what you're getting back because the board you know what we talk about does this serve the public what's the benefit to someone other than the property owner I think John's going to explain that right now so John if you don't coming up I'd like to S John Bard in all right and not and not to be redundant but to echo on what Eric said this is what we call Whispering Woods hearing we heard this case in May of last year fence in the front yard it was denied it's on appeal and they've amended the plan so it's not the same thing we denied they've pushed the fence it's still a fence in the front yard but they've pushed it back they've added some landscape and made it in an open fence some you'll hear the test as to what's different from what we denied and we are here basically with the pending litigation on what's called a Whispering Woods hearing because the board after public notice which Mr goldstein's provided uh has to make a determination whether this plan is acceptable to settle the pending litigation so can I can I ask a question just to clarify let's say we approved this don't we have to approve this variance or we're just approving the settlement you're approving the settlement okay okay and and the settlement is But it includes a variance then that doesn't never has to be approved it's not a variance what you're approving is the change from okay what was originally proposed to what's proposed now based upon the Atlanta County assignment judges recommendation that it goes back to the board for a further hearing all right I wasn't clear yeah and it is it is very confusing and that's why the Whispering Woods case does give some good um Direction maybe we can answer the question so the front of the porch if the fence is brought to the front of the porch it's not a variance or ordinance states that fence can't come past the front of the structure if the property owner closed the porch in and made that part of the house if he closed the porch in corre well he would have to do that first wouldn't he well he could do it at the same time I mean he could get a permit from Roger to close the port but he's not doing that that's not what we're looking to do he's going to keep it back behind the neighbor's fence two feet so it will never the forward of the neighbor's fence yeah so maybe John can explain a little better as to exactly yeah uh John Barnhart I stated your name for you ra please raise your right hand you swear you swear airm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth I do and professional engineering planner in the state of New Jersey that's correct been before us obviously numerous times so we'll accept your credentials all right John you've heard proposal for the settlement you put together an exhibit but you've also done a fair amount of front yard setback surveying since we started this so explain to the board please where this fence could go and how far back the Catlin house is from Cedar growth and more importantly how far back this fence is from the street and ultimately whether or not we can soften this area off with a significant amount of landscaping so that nothing is visible from the street at all okay so um I'm going to start with what was what was on the original plan just to refresh everybody's memory if if you don't recall um the application that came before the board that was denied had a proposed uh area or of the existing fence which is in the position that you see here on this photo this photo if you visited the site this photo was taken today so this is exactly what the site looks like today if you're standing on the sidewalk looking back um and it was to take that fence and move it forward to essentially be in line with the neighboring fence which also put it in line with the front edge of the porch um it put that let stop you real quickly that was a big deal last year because we did go back and forth quite a bit where bringing it to the front of the porch not only lines up in the neighbor F but it actually was outside the front edge just a bit so the first time we put this before the board and I know you remember Mr Pomano it was further forward from the porch then we revised the application that same night yeah L it up back but it's not quite as back as it is now so this is actually the third iteration of the distance from the front of the house to the fence right so with that plan the the the the step back to the uh to the fence itself uh was 15t give or take an inch or so that's what was proposed that's what uh was ultimately denied as part of the application what we are what we have before you tonight is is a couple of ideas go you know basically in resp resp to the concerns for the ma for the most part the concerns with with these fences um are aesthetic obviously um and blockage of air light open space um what what we looked at is is to minimize to to accomplish the our client's needs or wants which is which is to get a set of stairs down into his pool area from his porch so the way we laid this out is we went with a minimum stair of 36 in wide to fit to be able to fit off the edge of the porch put the fence right line with the edge of that stair which which puts it approximately 24 in behind the front corner of the neighbor's fence so it be approximately two feet behind that fence excuse me it puts our fence um 17 ft from our front property line um as as as compared to our neighbor's fence which is 15 feet from the front property line but I think the uniqueness of this location um is that Cedar Grove is almost an 8 wide right away and it has a very large Dimension from property line to curve line so you have you have 19.7 ft from properly L curve line um on the street from from our proposed fence position to the curve line we have an excess of 36 feet having said that what we looked at is okay let's look at how the how the the block is developed so we went out and we did a 200 foot stepback survey as if we were going to build a house on this lot or do an addition or whatever the case may be to understand where the front yard setback really is on this portion of Cedar it actually calculated out to exactly 15.0 feet uh when you look at when you look at the properties within 200 feet on our side of the street just like you would to develop your front yard setback requirement for any construction in in Margate it puts the front yard setback for a building not a porch but for a building exactly at 15 ft so we're proposing a fence at 17 back so while we don't comply with your fence ordinance because we are technically in front of that Hardline building wall the position of the fence exists in a location that it could exist on any of our neighboring Lots if their house happened to be a little bit further forward but because our neighbor because our client's house happens to be set back we're at 19.8 ft to our building wall but so because our client's house happens to be set back almost 5 feet greater than what it's allowed to be it puts him at a disadvantage and forces his fence back so I understand that you don't want fences in in front in a front yard I I get that but if you look at how this how this area this little side yard looks with us bringing that forward what we're proposing to do is make a commitment that you see you see the level of landscaping that they have on their property it's it's wellmaintained it's it's mature the plan is to keep that in that location and then to provide an additional screening area which would basically sit right in this area and put it on a a 45 Dee angle and and create a mature height five to six foot height green green space in that location so what it would do is it would mask the ability to even see this fence at all where now you can see approximately half of the fence from the street this layout would still give them the ability to have to get in and get to their gate but it would create a complete mask of that fence um by by installing additional landscaping and what Eric pointed out is frankly it will also help mask the neighboring fence uh if we if we add that additional that additional mature Landscaping but I also want you to keep in mind that I mean just look at that that's that's my survey guys standing on the sidewalk looking back at that fence so yeah that fence is would be in the front yard and it would be a variance if we moved a few feet forward but look how far back it is it it does not look like it's in front of any any houses and it's again 36 ft from the curb line to where we are proposing the fence another couple other points I want to make even with this landscape area that will be on our property not in the public briway to create that screen that that that full visual screen so you won't even see the piece of fence you currently see there's still another 10 ft of lawn area in front of that proposed landscape bed before you get to the back of sidewalk so if you're walking by the property you're going to have 10 of you're going to have additional mature landscaping and then you the only way You' even see this fence if you get by here and start to walk onto onto our clients property to be able to get to that location where the fence is so we get it we understand I've done a lot of cases in town that and fences are a sticking point on every case I get it but given where this project sits I think that this is that that these elements that we've that we've developed here are pretty good mitigating measures to help help with the aesthetic to help you know get this case settled and I think that it really really is when you look at the specific factors of this case and the size of Cedar Grove Avenue this really is a DI Minimus request in my opinion from a planning perspective and that's not the standard however the standard is does this settle the law getting back to I'm going to just give this for Leo part of a Whispering Woods case says the settlement of of litigation is by its very nature one of the most important factors in the public Realm by this case meaning Whispering Woods we are settling a matter against the city and the planning board Township of what point being this case stands on its own it is not in any way precedent setting it settles the litigation and the other thing the Whispering Woods hearing does is it gives us the ability to have a little more as they refer to it in the cops as colloquy meaning we don't just put the case on and say what do you think vote on it if the board has input I know sometimes we've gone through this and Mr isn't a big fan nor am I when board members say we can redesign this house or we can do this differently we can do that now because the standard is different because we're settling the case so often times you'll know and this was God bless of Mr cistal's thing he'd like to look at his plan and take out the ruler and say well you can move this or move that we missed that but it wasn't necessarily the right thing to do but now that we've got a litigated matter that would be settled we can answer questions we can kind of go back forth a little bit which is kind of the importance of settling the litigation and the courts of course based on whispering was in many cases to follow want that because they don't want to try cases and they don't want you know planning board members involved in litigation so that's the proposal this would end the litigation with the board and with the city but I would ask for input property owner is very reasonable thought that this would be the best way to do it and John's plan by putting so much more Landscaping here it does take away from the neighbor's fence we went back and listened the last time this was presented to everybody's comment and we know what they were and again Mr caly was one of them saying boy the neighbor fence really doesn't do any service being as far as as it out as it is Mr Pomano and Mr Patterson said the same in addition to settling the lawsuit and getting a big blockage here you're getting really big Landscaping here to take away from the neighbor SPS it's a lot more than otherwise be proposed on a normal variance application so that's our proposal we'd like to have some input if you give us some direction um and then we can maybe even tweak it a little more I don't know how much more Landscaping we put there but this this plan John put about as much on oh and the other thing is John talk about theover prior origal application with with the moving of the the f behind add to receive stairs C but John the uh yes sir the pool area increases in faav by about 60 to 70% correct 60 square feet 60 square feet more in the pool area correct but we're taking out yeah I understand for for the yeah for the Landscaping correct but it's a negative to the payment it's less coverage more Landscaping we think I'm sorry so Eric and John if you're walking from vent anyone that sidewalk will you be able to see that fence our fence yes no because the neighbor's fence blocks it actually because we're still behind the neighbor's fence so if you're walking from vender Avenue you're going to see the neighbor's fence sticking out You' see our Landscaping but you wouldn't see our fence at all the only way you're going to see our fence is if you're walking into the gate otherwise the Landscaping here is going to block it's going to block the neighbor from this side you're going to see the neighbor fence no one sees this but the property want to keep the same height of of the ever shrubs that they have here take it right to the top of the to do that same treatment that that triangular area that I show coming this way you're going to be looking at landscape and of the neighbor and if you're coming from this way you're going to be looking at landscape or so what we did and they talked to uh the landscapers Joe Daniels on this we listened to the hearing a couple times over saw what the board members were most concerned about and wanted to address them and we think this plan accomplishes that but we'd like to hear what you have to say and this is the back and forth of the settlement between us and the plan City would be included as well so Mr Abbott's client the governing body would get the release but this is what we're looking at we think legally we can get there but you know we need a vote and that's kind of where we're at I you know I think again are revisiting this it's better plan you really couldn't have done anything about the fence but now at least with the Landscaping in part of that you know I think works out better and they did do other things that that they're not bringing out as far back I voted against it last time but you know I don't want to waste money on lawyers for one thing and the second thing is I think it's better I agree Mr Richmond and again we we I'm sorry I kind of disagree with that because suppose their neighbor wants to move their fence out now that neighbor could say let's get more room for our pool the other people out past our porch why don't we go out past our past our building structure it could be a gripple effect respectfully you know I mean you're hiding it nicely with Landscaping but it's still past the front of the but respectfully and okay go ahead I'm going to use your words you said this case meaning last last month does not set a precedent does not cause as you put it it's just one house we cannot dictate style so everyone is based on murder correct so by saying by saying that the neighbor would want to bring their fence forward they would have to come and attempt to get a variance for a six foot high opaque fence we're going for a five foot fence perfectly clear and and again I'm not using your words against you but think about them for a second what you're saying now is completely contradictory to what you said last month a flat roof that's not on the particular fence well I I think the point is there's no precedent being set here and the amount of landscaping in front of the neighbors house is less and the type of fence is much different it does make a bit of a difference and you know look this property owner has been through a lot we've been through many many versions of this plan so certainly appreciate your input but I do happen to agree with Mr richon that this gives you the ability okay I'm done I'm yeah a quick question on the uh the litigation I just want I don't want to take it sideways but it's just the complainant disputing the decision of the planning board there is more than that challenging the denial of the varant correct okay thank anybody else anybody from the Public Public portion is closed so just Mr Richmond as well which is a big part of the lawsuit and cases that followed this is the third time and notices were sent out first time no one showed up second and third times the same we had a the case the neighbors have never voiced an objection to this the governing body uh got notice of the lawsuit it seems like you know what we're dealing with here is a rational resolution the resolution would be John's prepared it will be hoed so it's not like our client would pull a fast one and change the fence to be solid you're getting permanent Landscaping in front if blocks and it does so much to settle uh not only the Landscaping along the street but the lawsuit and you know respectfully again to the board a no vote means we continue to litigate there will be depositions and I'm not saying that that's a reason to settle but it's a pretty good reason as in the Whispering Woods case it says a rational resolution of the problem by the parties is most closely and affected to conserve judicial time and more importantly is in the public interest so if you need a reason to vote Yes the public interest is served two ways one you get rid of the lawsuit and two you're getting this area which I though the board doesn't like to never be visible again other than if there's a storm or in the winter if the Landscaping is being switched out so we came in with a a variance for a front yard fence it was denied the law suit We Believe gets us to where we need to be but we need four of you to say that you agree and you know everyone's always talking about Landscaping in town do we have enough Landscaping we've got you know this gives you more Landscaping it solves that problem defense isn't seen by anybody so it's not like Mr P S is concerned that it's going to set a precedent so this is the best possible option we think we definitely need your input think we got everybody's input and Eric that you brought that tonight that plan right yeah this is the first time we brought this so we'll call that the A1 settlement plan um he can maybe like email me a copy at some point and get one on file with P that'll be the compliance plan will basically be that if it's approved and basically what we're voting on is whether this to approve or disapprove this settlement plan which is a fence in the front yard 15 feet from the property line the Landscaping is shown on the settlement plan it's going to be an open fence 5T in height and uh and it's basically that plan yeah there's further discussion or questions we can have well I'd like to you know before we does a board feel like there's something else we could do you know we always look at cases we can't discuss oh well okay yeah yeah all right I'll if we're ready we need a motion to approve the settlement plan again I'll I'll specify exactly what it is but that's basically what we're voting on that A1 the settlement plan which I kind of just described the Landscaping has shown the 15 foot fence 5 foot high open fence always be back by again always back from the neighbor's fence not coming out of your fence I'll second Tom Collins Eric as you know especially with rson Avenue I a very big proponent of in the right situation having a front your fence I thought the South property on Rumson should have gotten it we didn't vote for it um in this case here I missed the first meeting so I wasn't in on it so you don't have a quote from me but bottom line is that I look at things as whether it is a hardship or a and in this case this to me is blackmail okay you're coming in and saying oh well we'll sue you Whispering Woods or whatever you want and then you can say it doesn't set a precedent not for offense no it doesn't every property is individual but we're in morgate and you start telling people oh W you don't get what you want the judge will kick it back and you'll just get it approved anyway this is not right okay to me and the reason it's not right is because the only one benefiting this is the owner of the problem number two it's going to an awful lot of trouble and expense to move a little fence it it doesn't it doesn't commute it's something's wrong okay and you're saying that the decision that this board made which I wasn't part of but I wish I was because I still would have voted no on this one that you can challenge our integrity or opinions or ethics and say well you know if you don't do this we're going to cost the city money you know what I think that's ridiculous and when you see what goes on in today's world and I'm not on a soap box here but with the college Camp well we'll negotiate with terrorists on college campuses this is out of control I think we need to let the court handle it if that's the way it goes I'm only but I think this is just totally wrong and there's no justification for the original or this and to use covering up an ugly fence of a neighbor as a a bonus we don't do Aesthetics here we're we're not into the building business I I really have to vote no this is not a good deal for us for the city Richard Patterson since we're hearing this noise I've gone over this and over this and over this and a lot of my questions were answered with what you brought ton night so and considering what you brought tonight it it doesn't change my mind I I vote that we don't accept the settlement uh I agree with what I'm said Michael Richmond yeah like I said before everybody talks about defense that we can't do anything about well they're doing something about it I I I don't think anybody driving down Cedar Grove Avenue looks at that fence and says oh look at that that's ugly that's ruin in the neighborhood I mean the the uh testimony from Mr barard about how far that thing sets back um I I I really don't see any I voted against it the first time okay but that was not the same application this is a new application there's more Landscaping they're taking away the pavers yeah do I like to be bullied by lawyers no but do we have bigger uh fish to fry than a fence I'm sorry that that to me is a waste of money I sometimes I think the board has a propensity to say okay let's let's spend more money on lawyers then settling it uh I vote for it Margaret goober NTI um well I recognize that this is a by in the front yard this plan is what exists there while I did vote no on first meeting this is a better plan with modifications we gain Landscaping we gain five foot fence versus what could be a six foot fence I don't agree that I feel like we're being blackmailed into this I think it's a better plan Cedar Grove Avenue is John pittz yeah um I thought I had my mind made up until I hear Tom speak um it's a Pity we didn't get this plan in the first place because it's a good plan I like it but it's the vote tonight is to approve the the settlement of the litigation agree with Tom i v Craig PA the neighbors's vents adheres to the ordinance are equal to the front of their property the applicants fence aderes to the ordinance they adhere to the ordinance at the front of their property and um I don't I don't I agree with Tom 100% And um I I also agree with P Patterson and I vote no it is let me just raise an issue here since we can do this since we're not out of our jurisdiction because the court R jurisdiction we'll be back at some point in the future again you know what is the board looking for it's important to know because you do adhere to the ordinance why do they why do they want to move the fence the purpose of having a planning board is to consider when cases come before you if you're saying you're not going to Grant any variances then why are you here I agree but not looking to be you up but at some point we'll be back for another another so the judge will will see that we turned this down twice only well the only the first time is the application the second time is the confirmation here but now it'll get litigated as to whether or not your decision is reasonable that's it anything else yeah I did oh for General anybody from the public have anything else to say right so I hear a motion and we're back here two weeks from tomorrow right 12