##VIDEO ID:42YA1izYP3M## e e e e e e e e e all right good evening I'd like to start the meeting if everybody please rise for a salute to the flag algi to the FL of the United States of America please be seated good evening everyone welcome Township of Albridge Zing Board of adjustments September 19 2024 adequate notice of this meeting of the Oldbridge Township Zoning Board of adjustment has been provided in accordance with the open public meetings act at least 48 hours prior to the commencement of the meeting by prominently posting the municipal complex an announcement giving the time the date and the agenda of this meeting mailing such announcement to the home news and Tribune fing a copy of such announcement with the municipal clerk and also by posting the agenda on the municipal website this portelli can we have a roll call please sure miss Andrews pres Miss Chevalier here Mr ISO here Mr scagno here Mr Stoner absent Miss test here Mr Victoria absent Mr Singh absent chairman Sullivan here uh just a couple housekeeping items uh if everyone I'm sure everyone has one of these little tiny devices please mute it or turn it off so it doesn't interfere tonight with the testimony uh secondly we are being televised on cable TV channel 15 live here in within the township and also simultaneously with YouTube live for those watching at home or here uh if you ever want to refer back to the meeting you can find those meetings as well as all Municipal meetings uh on the uh on YouTube live on YouTube the uh agenda if you have in front of you we we're going to just change it uh a little bit there are four items on the agenda we're going to start with items three and four tonight only because they apply to C variances and not to uh D variances so we're going to move forward with them uh I'm going to ask the board uh concerning minutes of uh September 9th 2024 that's item number three hopefully everyone had a chance to review them absent any comments for additions deletions I would ask someone to move him for adoption test verie is there a second second scagno Mr scagno second roll call please miss Andrews yes Miss Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scagno yes M tester yes chairman Sullivan yes yes okay uh this time we're going to squar in our professionals uh concerning their testimony this evening Mr Cheney do you s swear through the testimony for what you're about to provide I do I do thank you Mr Dary would you identify yourself please on the record certainly Mr chairman rakes dargi with environmental resolutions zoning board Consulting engineer thank you sir Mr hollan yes Daniel hollan I'm Township zoning officer thank you very much all right having said that we're going to proceed then uh we'll Turn the page on the agenda and we're going to go to the back first 36- 2024 Z is Shandra Hanah I'm GNA apologize in advance for the the way I pronounce that no no uh I didn't mean any disrespect but I have a little hard time with that edo3 zone this is low medium density it's R20 it's a block 7128 Lot 12 25 hibiscus Court Oldbridge this is in reference to a fence requiring a c variance the applicant proposes a six- foot vinyl fence uh a portion of which is proposed to be in the front yard where only a 4 foot and 50% open fence is permitted is someone here representing sir please come forward uh if you would you can come up and have a seat and yeah bring whatever you want those are directional microphones so you have to speak directly into them and I apologize for the way uh I I probably didn't pronounce your name right but the board attorney's goingon to put you under oath and he'll we'll put your name on the record sir you Solly swear it's the truth of testimony for what you're about to provide yes yeah and can you say your full name my name is Chandra Pon and last name spelled as p o n n a t h all right thank you sir you can be seated uh you're not represented by any Council and I don't think you have any professionals with you this evening right so you're going to you're Prosecuting this application on your own yes okay uh the board has uh some information as the survey Etc and we know basically what you want to do but what has to happen is isqu a Judicial pro proceedings so there are certain things that you have to put on the record and the board can make the decision based on what you put on the record we're going to ask our professional why this is in a need of a variance our board members have question May questions for you you may have questions for us I'll finally go and I'll have to open the public to a public portion for any comment should there be any absent that we're going to come back to you at which time I'm going to ask you if you want us uh the board to take a vote okay so you can proceed at your own pace tell us what you want to uh what you think is important to us we may have some questions after yeah so I I took this property in 2022 uh thinking that it's a bigger lot and paid a lot of money for the uh premium for the lot too and uh the main reason for taking this lot back off a little bit Yeah because you're getting some feedback nice so the reason we I took this lot as I told you uh was I have a small kid and I want to have a big play area the problem now is because if I don't have a six feet so the security problem is one reason I'll be having and the other one is the Privacy uh issue because my uh the one that the the one that goes towards the road that's a picture of your corner right there right the one that shows the road so your house as we look at that picture your driveway faces out to this side yes and you're talking about a fence around the other side right yes the other side and do you have children there in in the home as well yes okay so this the reason you want to put up a fence is for privacy correct privacy and uh Security on and because that's a a mine is like if you see on the other side it's all empty space and I'm pretty sure I'm a little worried that if any of the animals or uh anyone from can jump into the house when uh the kids are playing in fact there's several houses near you that have fences up already right yes they are but mine is a different scenario because mine is a Inver is there any pictures or anything you want to show the board no I don't okay anything else you want to tell us right now and I'm not you you'll have time to tell me anything else but right now let me ask Mr hollan while you're here okay Mr hollan yes thank you chairman um yes so the applicant is here tonight seeking it's actually two separate SE variances one for the fence in the front yard um where he's proposing 6 feet where 4 foot uh where a 4ot open fence is required um as well as a gazebo in the front yard where no accessory structures are permitted um and I know the Gazebo was made part of the application but wasn't on the denial letter it was added afterwards um but it's two separ SE variances one for the fence and then one for the Gazebo and why for the Gazebo is it the same logic as the fence where it's in the front yard y yeah Gazo is just an alternative because they told me that if I have it can I talk is it okay if I can yeah so the reason why I included gazibo was they said that if uh if you include everything into one application you don't need to go for the second variance one more time so when the board when m Mr Holan is talking about a front yard it's not the front of your house but because of the The Arc or the semicircular design M that becomes part of the front yard Mr Holan essentially yes yep so sir because the regular shape of your front of your yard yes off my ship thank you let me see if the board members have any questions I'll start on my left your Gaz um the Gazo was designated in the Square that's cut off with the word lot yes that's what I'm prop I'm proposing if it's is a square button where's the uh on the diagram uh Mr Holland is it the square in the back it's the blue square that is adjacent to the word lot okay yeah okay all right thank you did you got any you anything further Mr Rizzo yet no no yet okay that's fine sir yes they we do have an HOA oh yes so sir do we need an HOA letter we did let the HOA know also we I didn't I did send a letter to HOA also saying that uh there was a application that was sent that was you did notify them is what you're saying yes okay I I did send a ma mail to them too do we have a response from them from no I haven't received any mail no letter of no interest nothing no I didn't receive any letter from them should the board it comes up oh should the board act favorably we can make it a condition of approval that a letter of no interest or a letter of approval from the HOA is submitt to my office do you understand what he means by that we if if you ask us for a vote tonight and we approve it part of the resolution and uh will be that it's only approved if you get a letter of no interest from the HOA okay so it would be dependent on the H for that particular issue not the fence mhm but for the uh gbo so if that's the case uh I don't know what your rules are there so yeah so Gazo is just an alternative if it doesn't work out I don't need the gazibo well and you were smart to bring forward that you'd want to put one in so it will be if you want we'll decide on that but it will be your obligation to get a letter of no interest or some sort of a letter from the HOA stating that it's okay with them this happens occasionally sir this is not out of the ordinary or anything like that this happens occasionally certainly it's just a condition of approval and uh certainly just be you know reaching out to your HOA and having them just send a letter that that's all believe the very next application has the same issue okay sir uh with regards sir your gazebo uh what are your plan for plans for using it obviously it's in your front yard using with your family with the family okay yes you have any particular size that you were putting you were considering I have any de deed yet so haven't decided yet on the Gaz I think there are some restrictions on what's the size that we need to put but I don't have any uh requirement I don't have any okay I haven't even applied for the permit yet there would be setback issue on that as well could be yeah Mr Holan I'm sorry chairman was a question would there would there be setback issue on the uh on the Gazebo what is the size of the Gaz okay so I haven't applied I haven't even filed an application gotta okay as as it's proposed here um I believe it's under 150 square ft so there would not be um as long as he maintains 3 feet off of the house and then 3 fet off of the property lines um should that increase over 150 square feet potentially um but at this time since we don't know the size of the Gazebo it's it's really hard to tell so that would be something like a 15 by1 sir I mean certainly you know as a condition of approval if the board were to approve tonight certainly I think you could do a 15 by 10 well let me say that again because we changed the zoning to R5 so if it if it's anything under 600 ft the setback is 10 ft where its place is 20t from the front yard property line so up to 600 ft he would not have a setback issue um as long as a gazebo does not exceed 600 square feet um I would be okay with the with the placement as it's proposed here on the plan so if we gave the approval he would still have to come uh to make representation to you uh the size would fit correct correct he would still have to file for a construction permit basically if the should the board act favorably he would just have a variance approval to put a gazebo in the front yard then it would be up to my determination to make sure it complies with all the other setbacks as long as that I got fine then he wouldn't have to return to the board for anything you understand that sir so I know you don't have a particular size of mind but there is a particular limit to what you could do so you would have to check with the zoning officer yes I'll check with so you understand that right so when I'm applying for the permit I'm going to check with Danny to see if uh what are the requirements and whether it will be possible or not all right we'll see as we move forward if you want to leave that in or if we're going to ask if you're going to ask for approval Mr scagno anything else complete thank you yeah does anyone else have a foot neighbor I do not know off the top of my head um do you know if we've seen any other ones in the Oaks it looks to me like if you look if you look on Google Earth you can see that there's several of them so there was there was an amendment to the ordinance in 2023 that on Corner Lots it allowed a fence in the front yard of where the house does not face with this property specifically because it's on a continuous Road it's continuously habiscus and it's not two intersecting streets it's not a corner lot it's an interior lot should there be two intersecting roads he wouldn't require a variance because the house faces the way that it does but because it's one continuous Road um he does require that variance the other thing I did want to note is along the um the Eastern property line there is a or all the way around the entire lot around the bend there's a 4ft utility and sidewalk easement as it's proposed on the plan the fence encroaches into that easement should the board act favorably and I did confirm this with the resident um he wouldd have to relocated 4 foot from the property line which would have him outside of that easement I'm okay with that you understand you you already discussed that right I as you proposed it it was in an easement so those that may be watching at home that it couldn't there it would have to be forth back and if we approved you would agree to that correct yes Vice shair anything else M Andrews anything tver counselor nothing for me okay you want anything else you want to tell us right now so what you were talking about the HOA right HOA do I need to get any letter from the HOA something like that saying that it has to be conditional approv something there was something that was discussed earlier right so just wanted to know do I need to get anything from referring to the where location the fence yeah so there was one discussion that happened regarding the HOA right whether the HOA is okay with that do I need to get any letter from the HOA now or we okay with that well you the resolution wouldn't be issued unless you got that we could give permission tonight but pH the actual resolution will be issued by the next meeting so that's why you would have to get that before that before the email to them to okay provide us a letter all right anything else you want to tell me now that's it I'm going to go to a public portion at this time okay uh 36-22 24z the physical location is 25 habiscus Court it's block 7128 lot2 if anybody has any comments questions concerning this matter please raise your hand or stand all right no one has I'm going to close the public portion uh any final comments you want to make sir before I'm going to ask you if you want us to take a vote I'm good all right uh Mr chairman go ahead so how that the curb what was that on the diagram the dots that's your um what did you call that easement yeah there's a 4 foot sidewalk and utility easement which accompass which encumbers the first four feet of the property so now where you have the arrow for 20 ft with the with the dotted line under the gazebo at 20t a decrease no so the dotted line under the Gazebo is the building setback that's not applicable to this application it's the line closer to the bold black line okay has to go inside of that yes and you said that was four feet yep thank you thank you anything else Bo any comments uh well these are matters that we've seen before uh the yours is a little different only because it's a continuing Street it it quite often happens where people own properties on a combined Street where what we call the front yard what's referred to as a front yard is really a side yard that most people would think so this is not that unusual uh I know that uh you've stated that you want this for privacy matter you have children and for security I think that's probably well stated and I know it's a brand new development I did take the time to kind of view and I've seen other fences there uh I I don't think it's a a heavy lift and uh you know I could probably support your application we'll see how the board votes okay I'm going to take a vote at this time if there's if there's a motion to Sure Mr uh Cheney this is a C1 is it not for yeah C1 yeah it's C1 the hardship due to the irregular shape right corre yeah irregular shape yeah okay uh this is for uh 6 foot where 4 foot is U allowed in the front yard uh uh along we'll do that first and we'll do the Gaz Zebo next so we don't confuse the two um com uh maintaining uh outside of you have to be I should say inside of the um RightWay the uh it's a the water did you say utility and it's a sidewalk and utility easement okay we understand that board someone want to move that for approval just the is there a second second scog now roll call is to the C1 Miss Andrews yes based on the conditions Miss Chevalier yes with a letter from the HOA Mr ISO same yes with a letter Mr scagno yes Mr T yes with the letter chairman Sullivan yeah as to any any of the other stipulations that we put on you're going to have to get a letter and you'd have to stay outside inside of the easement you can't do that I would vote in favor of that as to the other C variants for the gazebo in the front yard that was is that going to be a hardship as well because of the design of the property yeah okay it'll also be a C1 board someone favor and moving and again upon approval it doesn't mean you can just do it you have to do it by size so check with the zoning office if you choose to do that but you would if we granted you would have permission as long as they approve it okay you understand that okay so does this require the HOA approval also for this one the HOA approval you have to get because of the fence for the fence only right okay this you have to get because of uh where you're going to put it and how big it is someone interested in moving the C1 for the Gazebo ISO is there a second Andrew roll call please was that Miss Andrews yes with the condition Miss Andrews yes M chalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scagno yes m Mr verie yes chairman Sullivan yes it's great when people improve their own homes I know it's a new home it's a nice development and I'm sure you want that privacy for your family so my vote is yes the resolution would be available by next month okay sir okay thank you thank you very much for coming before the board all right we'll uh move on to the next item it's 38-22 24z it's Michael and Julian Pacer this is the medium high density R R15 Zone block 120000 21 Lot 8 the physical location here is 16 Jasmine Road Matan this is for an addition applicant proposed an addition the existing structure of the home um Mr and Mrs pasaro yes okay uh and you have a you have a professional with you I'm assuming all right why don't you two sit over here and let the professional go over there who and that way you can share that microphone are both of you going to testify I I would suggest that you both get put under oath just in case you just in case either if you want to chime in at any point it just works I don't know who was supposed to testify but it's always it always happens at the other the other spouse is going to do that one way or the other where attorney will swear you in raise your right hand do you you do you s me swear as the truth a testimony for you about to provide and then just for the record uh can you each state your full names hold on a second push the button and it should turn green there you go Julian pacero uh Michael pacero thank you Junior sir uh Jason P architect you're testifying as an architect correct can I just have you briefly just uh just put qualifications on the record what can I just have you briefly put your qualifications on the record um licensed architect in New Jersey New York Connecticut Rhode Island uh went to njt with a bachelor of architecture uh I've testified here before thank you uh yes you have you going to put him under o as well yeah do you somly swear as the truth of testimony for what you're about to provide I do and thank you and can I also just have you uh just spell your name yep uh p e i s t what was the first name sir Jason Jason okay uh Mr M basar how you going to handle this you want to turn it over to the professional let him do the talking or do you want to start out basically the same thing you want to tell us what you want to do why you want to do it what's going on I'll tell you you can bring that up in front of you yeah yeah we're uh putting a small addition on the rear of our home uh to add an additional bedroom and some bathrooms uh so that other portions of our home can make room for some of our more elderly family members when they visit uh like you know all the grandparents are getting up in age yeah so um we the design that we have requires us to um or what we want to do is to go back into the yard and it takes us Beyond say the buildable area of of the lot um we want to keep a continuous straight line on the house for Aesthetics and also to maximize the amount of space that we can put in the house without eating into the space of the usable backyard for our kids for and family for barbecues and family ored stuff okay uh anything you want to add ma'am at this point no not this time well well stated and those matters have been brought here before often when uh as we age obviously our parents if should they still be alive they somehow come back to roost with us right to it's it's an admirable uh for families to do that I'll turn it over to the architect at this point sir um yeah so I met with the client we decided to go off the back one of the big things we wanted to do is to maintain the backyard um to fit within the setbacks uh it would take a lot of the backyard space that they have um the lot does have a taper towards the back um so we wanted to align with the existing edge of the house um one of the big items was the combined sidey yard setback the existing house does not meet that requirement um and addition the minimum sidey yard was 15 ft um by keeping the existing because of the taper of the backyard um the dimension towards the back was a little bit smaller than the existing um so we wanted to kind of maintain the best we could the backyard um with the uh shape of the lot and What's the total size of the addition I'll tell you in one sec I'll tell you in one second oh uh 546 Square ft and what did you say you were putting in there one bedroom two baths yeah one and a half bath they wanted to add a powder room to the backyard um because the existing bathrooms are further into the house so it's it's it's going to create a violation setback because of you're going to file the same path correct and there's a taper towards the back anything else you want to tell us at this point uh nope Mr hollahan thank you chairman um yes so the applicant is here tonight seeking two separate SE variances one for the sidey guard setback on the right side of the property um where 15 ft is required and 12.43 ft is proposed um as well as a variance request for a side yard combined uh setback where 26.6 ft is required and 40 ft is proposed uh both conditions as they stand now are existing nonconformities uh so due to the exacerbation of those um deficiencies they are required uh to be here in front of the board for those variances okay so both both of those C are you said the pre-exist conditions right correct yes and they're non-conformities correct yes we're just going to expand on that yes approved yep board members on my left questions as to the testimony oh diagram looks good Mr scagno Vice chair Mr Cheney none right now okay uh this would be just for the two C's right yes okay I'm going to go to a public portion if you don't have any further testimony at this point okay is that all right you you heard what I did before right yes sir okay we're required to do so so uh this is 38- 2024 Z 16 Jasmine Road uh and you know I'm before I go to the public portion this is in lak Ridge is it not yes sir okay and I did mention before do you have a letter of no interest we do do we do yes have have we been presented with that I believe one was submitted I have a copy here that's could could you yeah could could you bring that up to me so first the attorney can look at it and then he'll advise if the board can see it yeah could see it I mean yeah it's standard letter of no interest honestly it could beine after we we didn't we did not have a copy of this right um there should have been a copy your should I have looks like this okay good okay perfect okay so we already have that in place F yeah now I'm going to go to the uh public on this 16 Jasmine Road M one for an addition it's in Lake Ridge for an addition to a home anyone here wish to be heard on this matter please raise your hand or stand no one has except the attorney so I'm assume he's not going to testify we'll close the public portion anything you want to tell us board members any questions as to what would be done here and then we'll go to Mr Cheney to advise us to see one or two I guess it's probably C1 I'm thinking yeah C1 where looking at this uh Mr hollan actually can I do we have any clue about the history of the property I know mentioned the taper I just want to make sure we're not dealing with you know something essentially that this is how essentially how the property's B that's how the property is B that's fine leakage is a relatively older development so um I don't know for sure but my assumption would be that the standards at one point have changed which has made this property non-conforming in a couple of ways um because if if you look at the the um the side plan on the top right of the plans um that grayer line would represent that building envelope which the existing building doesn't fit within that envelope um the whole right side of the build building is non-conforming so um should there have not been that taper towards the rear there's a section of our ordinance which would allow them to continue that building line but because that rear portion does taper they actually get closer than what's existing which is why they're here tonight thank you yeah and uh that is the original structure and since then policies have changed which is why the existing structur is outside of the Zone thank you okay anybody else have any questions concerning this am I right no so again uh C1 C1 for the uh sidey yard the right side yard right 15 uh supposed to be 15 12.43 exists we can take them both right the combined is 20 uh would you say was 26 26.1 26.6 yeah 26 2616 we 40 is required right yes all right or 40 is required 26.6 is proposed yes yes board members we can combine the two the two CES at once someone interested in moving ISO Mr second Mr ISO m test verie roll quote please miss Andrews yes Miss Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scog yes M tester yes Mr Singh yes chairman Sullivan I reiterate it's admirable when people do that for their uh their loved ones my my vote is certainly yes there will be a resolution available for you by the next meeting you don't have to appear the next Mee all right good luck on your builds thank you very much thank you very much thank you sir for testifying and you as well need time set up yeah have a good night you're not on there right okay I'm gonna call in the I'm sorry yeah Mr Defenders Singh has uh coming and is on the Das as a member of the body so we marked down his time that he showed up right M okay very good all right this uh is matter 11 dish 2020 4z Carol Baker this is low density zone or 30 Block 1123 8.13 lot 1.13 physical location is 180 Amboy Road Manan is for an addition to a single family home applicant proposes the partial reconstruction of an existing single family residence on the site to create a habitable second floor and create both front and rear covered porches the rear porch proposed would be created by covering the existing deck at the rear of the home Anthony Cambria Esquire representing good evening sir this is a continuation uh the board may recall s good good evening Mr chairman members of the board please be seated more comfortable and the mik will pick you up a little bit better terrific thank you uh Anthony Cambry appearing on behalf of the applicant Carol Baker sitting to my left uh with me also this evening are two professionals one per your suggestion uh Mr will ESR uh founder principal of handline Architects uh he's a licensed architect additionally I have Mr John Kina a licensed planner here in the state of New Jersey um I would have them both self- qualify um as to their education license and experience as needed um at this this point I would defer to both my professionals and offer Mr will EST as for an architect is your first uh witness tonight Mr will estri yes okay Mr EST you've been previously put under oath that's the last so you're still consider yourself still under oath sir yes I will I right in you're still under oath right he is I that all right okay so um I'm going to jump right in then to the uh questions that came and the comments that came and what we're after here if you just you know give a brief a real brief overview to the to the board for just a so we can uh so memories quick overview uh we're adding a second floor to an existing structure that was dilapidated um increasing the F and we're actually increasing um one of the in one of the non-conforming sidey yard setbacks and asking for a variance for side yards and rear yards U for this structure um the house was in pretty bad disrepair when they started doing the renovation and there were portions of it that needed to be torn down for safety reasons and here we are so the we're we're increasing the floor area ratio of the property uh the calculations that were given originally uh there were a few errors that were addressed by the the board engineer that we went back and found and corrected um the actual existing home that was there prior to anything that we had done was is uh 1,912 4 Square ft um and then the proposed Renovations we're adding a small section to the first floor where we're renovating the front porch area and a laundry room as well which increases our first floor to 1,471 square ft and the addition of a second floor over the major portion of the house is in another uh 1, 1933. n ft which brings us up to 3,454 square ft um those numbers when we divide that by the the lot area brings us to the 0. 21 floor area ratio that we're asking our variance for um addressing some of the inconsistencies that were on the bulk the bulk uh board and the lot um there were some notes that called out the front yard setback and we were using the edge of pavement number versus the center of the street this is a very interesting lot in my opinion having the actual property line go to the middle of the road so we corrected that and I'd like to um bring out an exhibit for you guys that we brought up a color map showing the changes approach thank you you could just pass them up to one of us and we'll we'll spread them out I don't see in the notes based on obviously I'm Different attorney than was handling it at the last meeting uh I don't see any prior exhibits on this so this would be A1 one okay just want to make sure I hav't thank you uh so a on we'll do site uh site site slod roof plan so I'm going to address um letter D from the planning comments on page four of seven um it says the uh in indeed the architectural plans indicate the existing heated floor area is 1912 where the proposed was 1951 that was one of the errors that was in the block um that just showed the addition of the square footage at the front porch whereas it just didn't get typed in correctly at that point um it is now corrected showing the numbers I referenced earlier 19 33.9 right yes okay yes that's correct so then jumping down to e um we'll leave that for our planner and then I guess I'd like to move to the bult variance questions um at that point so in the bolt variance the principle sidey yards we are changing our sidey yards because we're adding a roof um to the rear deck of the house which changes that deck to a principal structure so our side yard changes from the existing F feet that was there prior to us and by adding the roof over that porch our side yard is now shrinking to 7' 10 in which it is today or was prior to the demo it was already there but since we're adding the roof I need to call that out as a principal structure and that would be the new um proposed side yard um increas in there um and then the principal rear yard building since we are inro we are increasing that that principal structure by adding the roof that it's also decreasing our rear yard setback that we're asking a variance for where [Music] 75 we're proposing um 61.4 thereabouts and moving down from there applicant so three the reason that we're we're doing this is the the homeowner's daughter was taking possession of the property and with the family growing um providing spaces and safe structure uh for a new family that was the main goal um and we agree the existing structures are to be rebuilt safely and the garage that is still there is deemed structurally sound and so moving further down to the engineering comments um the new drawing shows a turnaround in the driveway that was requested of us in the last meeting that we should show a turning radius for a vehicle that could back out of the garage and turn around and approach the road moving forward so we've addressed that we sort of deviated I said one of the comments asked us to move to the South Side it seemed of the property for that turnaround looking at the site there is a SW on that South Side so we opted to move to the north side where there was more yard we moved the prop moved the turnaround to about 35 ft from the garage to allow a little bit of front yard and some landscaping and to give them room to not mess with the stairwell that goes to the actual front porch and then jumping down to the soil Bo question there was a question regarding where the soil board was done that's shown on the drawing now there's a call out Target for the approximate location um when the driller was there that was the closest he could get to the foundation at the time so he drilled there and was able to produce the documents that we needed and so to speak a little bit about that I guess there was some questions regarding water tables and things of that nature in the last meeting so we spoke again to the driller he hit um modeling at 4 feet down and there in the in the report it's silty Sands and organic silts down to that 4 foot where he hit clay sand that's where he had some soft modeling and didn't hit standing water until he hit about 14 ft so that's about 10t of difference um in the actual standing water and where he had that modeling so we're projecting that there is a clay bed that runs across there there's probably some runoff from above that's resting on that clay but we will definitely say that um if if it's required we'd have a geotechnical person uh perform a test and say if that's the mean water line or if it is down at the 14 to 10 to 14ot range will'll accept that so that being said um we'd like to move forward with the basement um proposed because there is no water in that Swale to the south side of the property which is down to about the point of the basement area moving forward from there um one of the questions that came up was the roof leaders and gutters so we would definitely want to put the all roof water all leaders will go into recharge pits or into French drains there is a covert down the street slightly right here right at the edge of pavement it's a little ways over so in order to get a sump pump or have our recharge pit feed into that Culver we'd need to get a Road opening and it would be a lot of work so my suggestion is we'd like to put a recharge pit designed by an engineer to mitigate any water from the roof and the sump pump into a recharge pit on property on site and and number seven um number seven asked us to revive the retaining wall that was called out by the actual surveyor which is actually some railroad ties and Landscaping not really retaining much but about seven to eight inches of dirt beside the edge of the driveway um the driveway is going to need to be paved especially if we're going to work on this turnaround Edge so we would again do use ties to hold back the grass and plantings and leave a nice clean Edge um sloping the grade as necessary to not have too much of an edge for a vehicle to come over and damage and then and that addresses number eight as well I believe that was everything for me if you have any questions all right thank you Mr jie thank you Mr chairman um I I do have um Miss Savant and Miss Shapiro's report uh I did get a chance to review it this evening and uh the testimony of the applicants professionals provided addresses a lot of the the comments in their memo just a few things real real quick regarding the uh the soils uh I I do agree that we should probably have a geotechnical engineer evaluate the the soils if you have modeling at 4T and then you then you don't hit that water till about 14 ft if there's something holding that up we do need a Geotech engineer to actually say that um and also likewise with the recharge pit uh if if you're going to have a recharge pit to uh take the storm water from the roof leaders that also needs to be again sized and designed by uh a licensed engineer uh also the the water table issue also comes into play with with that as well because we need to make sure that that recharge pit is located with the proper separation 4 feet isn't great because then you won't have the volume but if if the Geotech engineer indeed determines that the the water tables is deeper then then you might have the depth but then again the the heavier soils that are holding the water up that's causing that modeling may also cause the the recharge pit also not to not infiltrate and cause the same issue so that that's something that's a little complicated that does need to be evaluated and signed off by a geoengineer you might wind up having to actually you know discharge that out to the uh to the culbert anyway because you don't have the proper conditions for that recharge to happen but either way that that's something that should if the board asks favorably should be a condition of the uh of of the approval I do agree with that um the turnaround uh looks good actually I agree with the applicant uh applicants architect about the about the location of the turnaround it it's it's a it's a logical location when you look at the street view there is a Swale along that side so really uh wouldn't be great to put it on the other side uh the impervious coverage is increased slightly so we'll need to or I should say the landscape ratio is decreased slightly so we'll need to make that adjustment uh to your landscape ratio um let me just find the table here real quick I apologize uh just a middle landscape ratio here what's the require so you're already you're already below the the the required landscape ratio so you're going to exacerbate that a little bit um so that's variance relief that you'll need tonight uh from the board um approximately how much impervious did you add there do you know um so so we calculated again and just play with the driveway it seemed like we were still back in did you did you reduce impr pervious somewhere else then no no I'm sorry I'm thinking about another situation uh 200 feet plus or minus 200 so 200 square feet and and the size of the lot it's about 16,000 square feet so it's a it's a slight decrease in that landscape ratio I can calculate that if if the board wishes um they listed on the under the zoning information I think down at the bottom right that but that's going to go down even further with that though so it should be another 0125 less uh than than what's listed um Mr ta is going to cover the planning comments um that's all I have Mr chairman as far as um as far as the upkins architect goes I think the uh the comments from Mr Shiro the engineering comments have been addressed thank you Mr Dar councelor your client would agree the were were an approval that there would be an evaluation by Geotech engineering and and the recharge bit absolutely yes all right board members questions of this witness the architect none you're going to in install French drains and that and then uh discharge that out is that correct that would be the goal FR strain or an actual designed recharge pit or FR strains to the recharge pit yeah excuse me I've I had that similar situation and uh when the storm knocked out not only the power so that knocked out the sub pump so is there any thought of a generator backup generator um in there design uh not yet a something to consider definitely something to consider good Mr scaga and I'm assuming that that would be covered by the engineer right who would make that recommendation not not as to whether it should french Trin should go to a pit or not yes yes that that's also covered in in the memo as well correct thank you Vice chair L's on my right okay want to go with your next witness thank you councelor did you have anything nothing nothing for me yeah no is that Mr John tell SP as the truth of the testimony you're about to provide I do thank you sir and then can you just uh put spell your name for the record and just put your qualifications on the record sure can uh my name is John tyina T is in Thomas AI K is in Kelly i n is in Nicholas a I'm the principal of all things planning and development in South Brunswick New Jersey um I have been a licensed planner since I graduated Ruckers University in 1992 had the pleasure of keeping my license a good standing for the last 32 years I uh grew up in town actually have my 40th high school reunion on Saturday and um giving your age away sir excuse me you're giving your age away I am giving my you have testified before this board before and we'll recognize your credentials and your expertise thank you thank you so much so um we are here for a uh F variance um as well as uh some minor bulk variances I'll I'll take you through uh kind of each of them um and and fortun unfortunately we're going to have each bulk variance we will have some C1 variances that relate to the side R setbacks because of the shape of the property and then we'll have C2 variances um that'll relate to our increased uh I guess our decreased landscape ratio and um our and our rear yard setback um where we're covering uh covering that porch which uh increases it's an existing structure today but when we cover it we change it from an accessory structure into part of the principal structure and that's why that setback reduces um so we do have a uh 16,000 foot lot in the R30 low residential Zone uh it is located across the street from um from your brand new uh Golf Course um which was not here when I grew up um and uh and your golf course is lovely and uh the nice thing about your golf course being lovely is all these soil concerns that we're worried about we don't have to worry about that soil is gorgeous so I'm very confident that our geotechnical engineer will be able to address all of those uh potential concerns um so we do need uh some variance relief uh for as I said we have a some existing conditions obviously lot area lot width they're not going to change our principal building rear setback uh is going from 69.81 uh to 59.92419 89 ft again as cited in the planning and Engineering memo and that both of those are because of covering the existing porch and the the house and the lot lines are not parallel so when you extend back we get a little bit closer to the to that rear to that side property line and that is going there they are going to be our C1 variances um likewise our compined side setback is reducing a little bit that will also be a C1 variance we were able to eliminate the variants for a side setback for the deck that has been superseded by the the principal setback um and likewise the accessory rear yard for our existing sheds will stay at its um will stay at their existing 9.81 ft finally is the F variants um the requirement is 0.14 uh we're proposing a. 213 uh for uh it's a 1900 square foot roughly addition um that corresponds to add a little bit a little bit of an addition on the first floor where we're enclosing I guess what was used to be a a porch and we're putting a little laundry room on the first floor then the balance of that is just adding the second floor on top of that and in in speaking with Will um we're being a little conservative on that calculation um we took the entire area of that second floor but as indicated by the architectural plans some of that is going to be quotequote below the eaves so again I think that's going to reduce it but for ease of calculation and Conservancy that we don't have to come back uh we did just take the whole area and make sure that we uh that we addressed it all together and that is the F variant and then finally we did talk about this uh landscape ratio that is going to decrease further by about 200 square feet so that will be uh it will go from 6261 to 613 uh that the1 125 that um we talked about so in terms of our D4 variance our D4 variance is not like a youth variance uh that that you're typically used to um we don't need to show particular suitability we don't need to show the enhanced proofs the standard of it is is much like a conditional use variance where we need to show that the property still um appropriately accommodates the proposed um the proposed additional f even though uh we are in addition uh to the f um we will also need to show uh special reasons for advancing purposes of zoning um we'll talk about how we accommodate it and then of course with all of our variances we'll talk about negative criteria and I'll hold my negative criteria for the end because all the negative criteria will also cover our um our C our C variances and we're only going to say once um to to be a little efficient so terms of our uh our special reasons um I'd submit to you there are three purpose e to promote the establishment of appropriate population densities that will contribute to the well-being of persons neighborhoods and communities and the preservation of the environment G to provide sufficient space and appropriate locations for a variety of agricultural residential recreational commercial industrial uses in open space both public and private according to their respective environmental requirements in order to meet the needs of New Jersey citizens and to promote a desirable visual environment through creative development techniques and good Civic design and Arrangement and will actually did himself a little bit of disservice because I think he did a really nice job with the elevations uh it is it is an attractive home as you've seen from the submitted submitted plans um again it was a little bit dilapidated before is now part of has been demolished for for safety reasons but again I think we're going to uh pull all that together nicely to give us a very nice uh and attractive home on Amboy Road especially uh with the investment the township made across the street uh and your new golf course and then of course we have Val Road next door uh and that new that new neighborhood that was constructed uh not too long ago so uh you have new homes that are immediately adjacent to us and and we're going to be uh much more in keep keeping with that aesthetic which is uh which is desirable um the site can accommodate it again this is uh the home was there covering roughly this area we're just adding the second floor so we're not a lot of the environmental concerns you'd have with additional coverage Etc our actual footprint increase is very very minimal um again it's some of it's covering existing porch some of it's covering existing deck um and again it's going up that that is adding the F uh it is also a very deep property at 214 at 214 ft so we've been able to extend the property to the rear which is the home to the rear of the property which again is is where it can be accommodated because of the depth the challenge there is because our house and our line isn't parallel we kind of get squeezed by that uh by that sidey yard so um that is one of the reasons why uh we did end up with with that variance there um additionally we do have a substantial front yard setback I think the addition of that uh turnaround is is ideal um and we the memo talked about a landscape all Etc the direction that we're going it was literally one landscape tie it was 6 in we'll be able to just grade that out and have that done smoothly when the driveway is is repaved and add that 200 feet and it'll be a nice safe exit uh out onto Ambi Road for our residents um and um so I think for all those reasons I think that it's the property is well accommodated even though we are uh we have the additional f with that that additional second floor in terms of our negative criteria excuse me let me talk about our variant our our uh bulk variances we do have uh c1a variances uh for our side yard setback issues because uh the narrowness of the lot and the taper both kind of force that side R setback to be reduced uh by extending the the property straight back um and then the balance of more flexible C variances uh for our um for our landscape ratio because again I think it's a better plan with that additional uh turnaround there the modest 200 square F feet um and uh I believe covering that back porch will give us nice rear yard area outside and again as we said additional area uh for our uh grow for the growing family uh without having additional coverage onto the property we're just covering up a deck so again I think in each instance we have a a better plan uh in that regard it will be home a home that is more keeping uh with the um with the neighborhood uh that's actually specifically one of the findings in calman V uh zoning boorder of Warren that really was the the seminal case that talked about C1 and C variances is yes it's appropriate for the board to grant that relief when the relief uh facilitates a home that'll be in keeping uh with the surrounding neighborhood and the character um in terms of our our negative criteria uh first uh we have no substantial Judgment of public good again um it's a single family home it's not a noxious use uh we're going to be quote unquote just like our neighbors um we will uh again we're just putting up the second floor in terms of being just like our neighbors uh the planning memo mentioned it as well um but uh so the same way that Miss SW uh calculated the F the she did the surrounding homes um and found I guess three of the five that had FS that were uh in excess of of the um of the standard uh with lot sizes um that were also So Below the standard it's a 30,000 uh s foot lot area and most of the uh all the stuff on Veil Drive is in the 12 to 15,000 square foot same as we are so again we're very very similar to our neighbors um but we did have one two three four five six seven eight um of those homes on fail Veil drive and Hunter Court that are in exceedence of the F of 0.2 and uh with uh three or four of them four of them excuse me that are in exceedance of the f even that we have so again we're not we're somewhat in keeping with our neighbors um we're certainly not going to have any detriment on them and uh and with both of them we are certainly not going to uh blow up our Zone plan uh and and have a negative impact on our Zone plan or our master plan um the I do need I do want to talk about the master plan just very briefly um the R30 Zone uh you know it provides for lowdensity residential um in areas uh serviced by existing and plant SE in water we have sein water um again we're an existing undersized lot within that R30 Zone kind of the whole area got upsized got up zoned I guess uh and left a myriad of non-conforming properties in its wake um and fortunately or Unfortunately they all get to come see you um so again I I think that uh we're not going to have any negative impact on that it would exist it was an existing develop lot before uh where uh we're just finishing its development and improving its Aesthetics uh dramatically um so uh for these reasons I believe the board has the ability to uh to Grant uh the relief requested and I'm available for your questions thank you sir can I just have you really quick run through for what uh for your c1s you're said which ones you were saying for your c1s C1 is the sidey yard setback okay um both for the side yard setback and for the combined sidey yard setback um c2s will be for the rear yard setback and for the imper the landscape ratio thank you right I hit all four of them believe you did yep right okay Dar thank you Mr chairman um I'll try to make this quick I I do agree with Mr Mr T's uh reasoning and and proofs for the for the variances essentially for um floor area ratios typically for commercial floor area ratios that's the intention is to control um intensity of development and density uh for residential typically density is done by you know by units per acre um and the purpose of a floor area ratio for residentials really more because you're trying to establish a certain neighborhood aesthetic uh and I think Mr T's testimony spot on that the the intensity with the de the uh floor area ratio they app is proposing is consistent with the adjoining neighborhoods uh so in that regard I think the the criteria is met for the D4 with regard to the C variances uh again um most of the arguments are are similar because it's an undersized Lot H they're also almost part and parcel of of of that over overall variance for the for the uh for the flow area ratio uh the turnaround is a better design alternative uh it it it does actually promote safety so that's again another impetus or reason for Grant of that variance so uh I don't have any really issues with with that the granting of any of those variances I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have thank you Mr holl you have anything d h no chairman not at this time thank you I remember we talked uh uh at length about the odd design of this Pro this particular lot and when you brought up the golf course that was the old Rose farm properties there and I don't know that that probably wasn't why that lot line went middle of the road because the middle of the road probably wasn't anywhere near what the middle of the road is now and uh this was an odd designed shape probably parsed out from bigger lots for whatever purpose I don't know whether it was for maybe employees maybe it was for some other reason but I think it dates it dates back to that I I agree and and and I would agree that this is a very efficient use of this this property ironically just the other day on Monday I went drove by there and I happen to go by that area often because I live in that area and it's it's I every time I go by I'm saying I hope they can get this thing going and uh I did plan an outing by the way and the course is great if you're golfer you should go just just took it up again after 25 years the fourth kid stopped I do agree with the with with uh Mr I wrote it down es uh I agree with uh his faon findings and and I know that the uh the professionals haven't spoken against that and I haven't heard anything negative there and as to your uh particular planning uh I I would I would agree with your foundations and and I think they were well stated let's see if the board has any questions I'll start on my left Mr Singh Mr Rizzo Mr scagno Vice chair yeah Mr yes the geot it is on turn it if he does get the Geotech he has to get the Geotech yes yes and if there's a problem is it going to affect any other properties if he has to run back out to the road no it it it's possible to engineer uh a drain to go out there it's there's probably some things he has to overcome to get the drain out to that the the storm inlets correct it won't impact the joint properties though and we we'll make it work essentially they'll have to get a roading permit from the county that's all it will be trying to make sure it didn't affect anybody else around very good question absolutely Andre ready real quick uh sir just for your special reasons what was your your first special reason uh it was appropriate yeah is e okay EG and I EG and I perfect thank you Mr J uh you going to have any further testimony this evening no okay uh I'm going to go a public portion on this matter okay this is 11- 2024 Z the physical location here is 1 180 ambo road block 112 3813 lot 1.13 been addition to a single family home if anyone wants to be heard or make comment on this application now would be the time to do so please do so by either raising your hand or standing no one has I'll close the public portion councel final comment comments okay uh board members any questions of the witnesses while we have them here I assume you're gonna ask me for a vote I am okay please any qu any final questions or concerns obviously we do have on the record that you would agree with everything that Mr dargy has stated uh previously put on the record okay so on my left good on my right all right let's review uh we're going to have a we have a defor prevailing here first uh this is uh 0.14 in the zone it's Point 2134 uh with the uh the build and the actually the second floor we'll vote on that first and then we'll go to the bulks is someone interested in moving the D4 variants please Chevalier I'll move it is there a second ISO let's move to Second roll call please miss Andrews yes Miss Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scagno yes Mr tester yes Mr Singh yes chairman Sullivan yes uh as to the C's counselor can we do them all as a bulk they you want to put them each on the record let's do the C1 to have the okay C1 C2 okay uh C1 that would be the sidey yard setback correct two sidey setback two side yeah sidey you want move that move it there a second Andrew seconds roll call please miss Andrews Miss Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scog yes Miss tester yes Mr Singh yes chairman Sullivan yes uh and then it would be the uh C2 correct it's the L right yeah rear yard setb we'll move that please I'll move it is there a second second scog now roll call please miss Andrews yes Miss chalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scagno yes Miss tester yes Mr Singh yes chairman Sullivan yes you covered it all thank you so much well thank you for your uh presentation this evening uh the professionals and to the the attorneys obviously the matter has been approved thank you be a resolution by next meeting approved it next it'll be memorialized moralize the next meeting topic do you have do you have a card I'm gonna ask for five minute recess at this point for the stenographer uh and the board can stand up and stretch out e e e e e e e e e e e all right we've returned from Recess it is I think 8:45 PM I have a roll call please miss belli Miss Andrews present miss chevier here Mr ISO here Mr scagno here miss testy here Mr Singh here chairman Sullivan here okay we have one final application board for this evening it is 54 -223 Z it's conserva irrigation zr20 Zone low medium density residential this is block 12301 lot one physical locations 4291 Oldbridge Matan Road this is for an office for an irrigation company it's requiring a major preliminary final site plan with c and d variances applicant proposes to operate an irrigation company out of the former dry cleaner Lawrence Sachs representing the applicant sir yes uh good evening Mr chairman members of the board board professionals uh Lawrence Sachs on behalf of the applicant conserva irrigation um we're here in front of you this evening seeking uh preliminary and final site plan uh D1 use variance and C variances uh this property is located at 4291 Route 516 it's at the intersection of Morganville Road and Route 516 uh known as block 12301 lot one and it's located in your R20 Zone uh I'm sure many of many of you board members are familiar with this site it had operated as a dry cleaners for a number of years um and prior to that it had actually been a gas station uh the site was probably developed in the early 1960s uh and it actually uh was developed even before all the housing that's surrounding uh this location now on Morganville Road um my client is conserva irrigation uh I have Chris veneri uh seated to my right here this evening he's the principal of the company um he will explain to you what his business is but essentially uh he's an irrigation and sprinkler uh uh installer uh and serer um he plans on using the building existing building on the site which is about 1,850 Square ft uh as his office and also will store some material inside uh which might be weather sensitive um he'll explain how many vehicles he has how many employees is hours of operation uh there's ample parking on this site um we recently met with U Middle sex County planning board because this is obviously on a County Road being route 516 uh and they had made a number of suggestions uh to the plans and that's one of the handouts that I provided to you this evening uh that meeting was facilitated by Miss Swant and Miss Shapiro they in fact met with us with the county uh and there were a number of good uh recommendations made and we've Incorporated that into the plan um so Mr chairman uh what I'd like to do is have Mr veneri sworn in I just have a number of questions for him regarding operations my other witness is uh Mark Liber who's also seated to my right Mark Liber uh is a professional engineer and professional planner he'll explain the plans he'll also get into the planning testimony to justify the use and bulk variances Mr CH Mr V do you Sly swear as the truth of the testimony for what you're about to provide I do thank you sir let's pull this okay Mr veneri if you can U indicate uh the nature of your business how long you've been in business and where you're presently located uh we opened operations in 2014 I'm currently operating out of a rental yard in on Dean Lane in South Brunswick Township um we install and service lawn irrigation systems primarily Service uh we have one installation crew and and full of service technicians with three office Personnel we typically operate between the end of March and Thanksgiving so the building probably remain mostly vacant between uh December and early March we have one office staff person that remains on full time just to answer calls but it's a very limited schedule I don't anticipate being there more than 20 hours a week in those months okay so the the office hours are from uh from what time from 7:30 till uh the field staff gets in at 7 10:30 to to stock up for the day the office Personnel get in at 8:00 P.M average exit time is 5:00 p.m. okay the office Personnel will remain in the office outside of their scheduled lunch breaks and the field technicians will leave by 8: am and return on an average of about 5:00 P PM that could vary a little bit depending on the workload typically in that range all right and that's Monday through Friday Monday through Friday and what about on Saturday uh Saturdays we usually do a rolling schedule office Personnel won't be in potentially one or two field technicians as needed but that's typically only in peak season so probably May and June October November okay uh there's no retail traffic at this site no not at all not at all okay uh and in the winter basically you're telling me or at least you're telling the board that you're essentially shut down for the for the winter months yeah typically we'll take a vacation from the middle of December till about the end of January before anybody's back in there as well all right now how many uh how many employees do you have on a crew uh on a on a daily basis uh on a crew or as a to as a whole well what as a whole and on how many crews do you have so the installation crew has uh five to six people on it depending on who's working for us at that time and we have six service technicians okay office staff all right and how do they get to your site in the morning so the foreman of the installation crew drives in um the people so he has one car usually there one or two cars that drive in six to eight people and then each service technician has their own vehicle okay uh and they'll what they'll do is they'll Park then in the morning at the at this location yes they'll remove their Van Park in that space and then leave with their van for the day the office Personnel will remain okay and do they come in and out during the day or is it one trip out during the day and then one trip back at night no very rarely will they come back in the day only if they require a special part that they somehow forgot to load but we're pretty diligent about that so it doesn't happen very frequently okay and you have 18 parking spaces I think on this side am I correct they're give or take okay um do you plan on doing any maintenance or service of your vehicles uh on this site no we have an off-site Fleet mechanic uh we drop off our vehicles to him he calls us when they're ready we pick them up and all of our equipment is serviced off site our mechanic will physically pick up our equipment drive it to his location and drop it off upon completion and how many vehicles do you have and and what what's the nature of those Vehicles so we have six um service fans um few Nissan EnV a few Dodge proom Masters small footprint Vans and we have one F350 pickup truck TR and one F-150 pickup truck right so you have a total of six Vans and two pickups uh and what about any uh trailers or any other type of accessory Vehicles associated with that we have one 18ft box trailer and one 8ot open trailer um we're actually looking to get rid of the trailers and find a way to manage everything into a truck without having to park trailers on site all right so essentially then just to summarize in terms of the vehicles that would be parked overnight on site it would be the six Vans uh two pickups uh your one small box trailer and your one uh uh eight open trailer okay um and in terms of deliveries uh would any tractor trailers come to this site uh no all of the materials are dropped by our vendors in pickup truck or flatbed truck so nothing larger than a tow truck all right and how often does that occur usually not more than once or twice a month okay all right um all right so Mr chairman I don't have any further questions of this witness uh certainly he's a available for any board questioning sure how many office Personnel was there three we only retain one fulltime in the winter though the other two are seasonal employees I just meant normally you have three right I have nothing else uh Mr Dary I don't have any questions Mr chairman Mr Holan any questions not at this time chairman thank you thank you I'll start on my left if any questions with this witness no Mr scagno it does have septic do it does have septic on site thank you question n srew no previously a gas [Music] station en last time yeah what uh it was gas station and I believe there are monit my engineer can answer that in more detail but I believe there are monitoring Wells that are on the gas station from the gas station use from for many many years ago uh the dry cleaning uh it was really just a drop off store for the most part so in other words uh what they would do is they would people would drop off the dry cleaning and it would be obviously dealt with and cleaned elsewhere uh but I believe the monitoring Wells are there from the gas station use if I'm not mistaken we'll get to that we'll get to Mr Le yeah I don't want to I know he's not yet but he'll he'll answer that for you yeah test ready okay coun okay thank you Chris thank you uh all right Mr Liber uh let's get you sworn in and Mr Liber do you Solly swear as the truth that the testimony for what you're about to provide yes I do thank you and can you just briefly State your qualifications hi good evening once again it's Mark with a c Liber l b r Mr Liber uh why don't you give the board the benefit of your educational background particularly for those at home I think everybody in the board is familiar with Mr Liber let the people at home hear what thank you does for a living yes and uh he's going to be testifying engineering and planning Mr chairman all right so Mr Liber if you can uh give the board uh the benefit of your uh expertise and evaluation with this site you could talk about the existing conditions what's being proposed and at some point we'll go over the reports and then we'll get into planning okay um my background is um with East Point Engineering in Marboro I graduated with a I think he qualified you I think I thought you said for people qualified you're going to just wear two hats tonight right yes but you'll sever those you're going to do two different uh testimonies very good all right so I'll just move on then thank you so you know I did prepare a set of plans that were submitted to the board they were revised for completeness back in October uh you heard earlier we had a meeting with the middle six County engineering department which I'll discuss those changes in a few minutes but I just want to give a little bit of background on the property so again it's block 12301 it is lot one it's 8 acres in size it is a corner lot it's at Route 516 to County Road and Morganville Road the property is about 190 ft of Frontage along 516 and about 175 ft of Frontage along Morganville Road uh sometime between 1963 and 1969 there was a gas station constructed on the property as you already heard it's late latest uses as a dry cleaner uh access here is very good if you look at sheet two of the plans there's a full movement driveway on each of the two frontages and uh when I say full movement I mean left in left out right in right out there is a parking lot on the property uh we count about 14 spaces there on the uh right side there is a fenced in area it's a bit overgrown that is the trash enclosure where there was at one time a dumpster and uh I did take photos today of the property and I just want to start off if you want to mark that A1 y the photos is A1 it's um five pages it's five five five photos of property okay so the first photo I grabbed off you know Google Earth and you're looking at the property it has a little red pin in the middle actually on this picture North is down so it's you know revers from what you used to but in any case you'll see the uh two driveways on Morganville Road um this photo is a little outdated because the driveway nearest the intersection on 516 was closed by the county so that's not there anymore uh Bel below that across the street you have the fire department and you'll notice in the uh surrounding areas residential single family dwellings if you go to the next page this is just an overall view from the corner in other words the traffic signals behind me you see the uh building on the site and the parking lot in the front uh the photo on the bottom is the front of the building so just shows you it's the same single story building uh if you go to the next page this is a view along 516 I'm looking West uh so the property will be on your left uh and you'll see the fire department on the right down at the bottom here is another view on 516 but I'm just looking East obviously you see the traffic light in the distance and the properties is on my right here and then moving on to the next page I just took a photo the intersection um you know just to show you it is fully signalized and then on the bottom now I'm looking along Morganville Road uh southernly so uh the building is on your right and you'll see you know the access to the road is right in the center of the photo actually finally on the last page um this is a view uh again this is the right side of the property when you're standing on 516 and uh you'll just barely be able to make out a fence there it's all overgrown that was the former trash enclosure that was built on the property you'll notice that there's a single family dwelling next door on lot 2.13 uh and then the last photo is really the rear of the building uh if you look at our plans there's some grass area in the back I just wanted to take a photo so you can see what that looked like that would be all the photos so really what's proposed is simply to repurpose the property uh as you heard this would be a office use uh you heard has three office employees we are not seeking to change the um size of the building at all we are seeking modifications to the parking lot uh if you look at sheet two of the plan there's an area that's shaded in in the front of the property that's an area that's currently paved we're going to be removing that pavement and restoring that to a grass area and then if you look at sheet three the driveway that's on Morganville road we will have one driveway uh the driveway that's closer to the intersection will be closed uh and that remaining driveway would be full movement so you could accommodate left in left out right in right out now the driveway that's on Route 516 my plan that you have shows it's a full movement driveway however if you go to exhibit A2 which is yeah A2 just for the record A2 is the other handout I passed out which is a a site layout plan um last revised on May 24th of 2024 correct so there's four very subtle changes to this drawing which the county had wanted um first and foremost is the driveway on 516 is going to be restricted so that not only will a left turn out be prohibited a left turn in will also be prohibited and we're installing a sign across the street with a no left turn arrow you know with the cross out basically notifying drivers that you cannot make a left turn into this driveway um they asked us to extend a little bit of sidewalk uh toward lot 2.13 on the uh right of the plan it's a a seven foot wide sidewalk there is a bus stop in front of this property so they wanted us to extend the sidewalk to the extent of our Frontage on the other driveway uh they asked us for a painted Stop Bar and a stop sign which is fine uh as well as similar Stop Bar and stop sign at uh the 516 driveway then the last change is when we had submitted the plan we were proposing to to fence the entire front of this property with a see-through ornamental fence we would have a sliding gate on Morganville Road and we were to have a traditional gate on 516 um we actually ended up removing all that from the plan namely for two reasons one the county wasn't excited about having a gate along a driveway because it impedes free flow of traffic in and out and secondly the fire chief had a problem with that saying well if we have to respond here and the gate's closed we would have to drive through the gate so all the frontage fencing has been deleted from the plan it's not part of the project anymore we are still however Pro proposing the six foot high white vinyl fence along the back of the property and the right side so that's still part of the plan um two other aspects of the you know design I want to point out is because the applicant has pickup trucks and you heard that there's two Trails we were providing four spaces on the property uh for parking of the pickups with the trailers there's also 18 regular vehicle parking spaces uh on the site now we did get a comment from the Fire Marshall that he was unhappy with the location of the trash that it's within 20 ft of the building um and what I could offer to the board tonight is we could just put the trash back to that existing enclosure location which was shown in the photo from earlier um other than that the last thing that I do want to point out is some of his materials are portable uh for example the black pipe that they use for irrigation and we really don't want that to be walking off the property so there is a fenced in enclosure that is directly uh to the right of this building uh I measured it it's about 1,800 square fet and we call that a materials area so there would be some items stored outdoors in that material area but it's limited to his own materials and in this type of business not a lot of materials are stored Outdoors because a lot of the components are small think of like a sprinkler head or a control unit those are all things that would be stored indoors but the pipe in the spool would have to be stored outdoors and Mr Le with respect to that material none of that is hazardous material flammable material no okay um but we do want it fenced in because we don't want it to disappear um other than that I heard your comment about the septic the septic was recently checked out uh there was some work done to it so it's in functional shape and then there was a very extensive phase one environmental report done on the property uh in fact it was too big to print we had a submitted on I think CDs but in the end what they found on the property was that there was no conclusions that required any further environmental work out here there are monitoring Wells there was some work done in the past uh but right now there's no reason to be doing any other environmental investigation no soil testing no groundwater sampling none of that uh the file seems to be closed as far as I read now we do propose a sign uh and if you notice that photo of the uh dry cleaner building they have a sign as well so that sign would come down and we would be putting up a new sign with the logo of his business the sign is uh 8 fet by four feet and it would also have the street address on the sign for easy identification um this type of business doesn't get what we call pass by traffic you know people aren't driving down the road saying oh I think I'm going to turn in here to buy a sprinkler it's not that type of a business um they don't even get customers to the office because the meetings are held at the customer's property well whether it be a residence or a commercial type of install so I had issued a traffic statement based upon his operations and the number of employees and we came up with the weekday total number of trips is probably somewhere between 13 and 20 trips per day for this use if you look at the winter it's actually Zero from post Thanksgiving all the way up to the end of March there won't be any trips other than maybe one person in the office on and off um and then we talked about the delivery schedule which is rather infrequent [Music] um see if I missed anything uh yes I did I wanted to talk about uh the variances so there are really two items that were raised in the planners report one is the landscape area ratio I think we calculated the existing ratio is 049 and we're reducing it to 0 48 and the reason for that reduction is we did try and offset the parking space that's proposed on the left of the building for the pickup trucks with the removal of the impervious areas in the front of the property here's the catch though a lot of that impervious area in the front of the property that I'm removing I can't take credit for because it's over the RightWay line into the county right away so you know even if we're moving I believe the number is 18 18850 square feet of impervious it's mostly off our property so from a zoning perspective the reduction in the land landscape area of 1% is really you know negligible I would say for the most part somebody driving by this property isn't going to notice many changes because we're not changing the building at all so that being said the other items that were noted were buffering now if you look at the property to the right the ordinance calls for a 50-ft buffer I mean from a practical manner if you applied a 50ft buffer around the rear and right of this property would severely limit the use because a lot of the impervious areas that are there today are already in that buffer and I'm guessing it's because the gas station probably predated zoning and they just paved whatever they wanted now the planers report indicates that the existing buffer is zero to the right um and we're not seeking to change that at all so it just remain as is the one in the rear also 50 ft required uh to the existing condition was measured as 67.8 ft which is really to the back of the building but because we're going toward the back of the property with that Fen in area to store the spool of pipe they're calculating that as a reduction in the buffer uh down to about 23 ft so that triggers a variance for buffering the other items that were noted we seem to be okay with as far as bulk requirements and we apply other than the fact that it's a use variant which you know I'm going to talk about in a few minutes um see we did submit a landscaping plan as well that was sheet four um what we're seeking to do is install a mixture of uh Colorado blue spruce trees which are nice for buffering because they don't lose their lower branches and they um they grow together so we're proposing those on the right side of the property in between this use and the residents um we have a couple of shade trees that were requested and uh we um we're going to screen whatever trash area in you know is installed whether it's moved back to where it is today um because I don't think we can keep it where it is based upon the fire department's comment uh and then along the front of the site we have a bunch of shrubs planted which are really there for not only Aesthetics but the screen headlights so that the cars per parking perpendicular to the road Network you know don't have the headlights into the street um I don't think I missed anything on the site plan itself um before you get into planning Mr lber uh no changes to the existing lighting correct none okay um and no increase in the footprint of this building uh we're going to utilize the existing footprint that's there that's right all right and no no change to the parking lot that's there now just a little change to the perimeter edging you know the where the pavement ends and things like that striping right Mr chairman if you'd like I'll have Mr Liber go into planning and then I can address Mr dargy and Miss Swan's report if you'd like whatever you uh if you whatever you want to do it you have a preference to you Mr chairman yeah your application you can do it any way you want fine all right so let let's get the testimony and then we can address the report uh so Mr Liber obviously now uh you're going to provide planning test testimony uh we require a D1 use variance and we also require some bulk variances so if you can give your analysis and justification for that sure um you know what really makes the case unusual is the fact that although it is a use variance it's already a non uh permitted use on the property it's a commercial use this is an R20 residential zone so when I look at the property it kind of just dawned on me that no matter what you do on this Corner no matter what type of business you put here if it's anything other than a single family detached dwelling it's a use variance so the next step in my analysis is okay considering that we would like to retain the use of this property as a commercial use which obviously predates you know 1970 what is compatible on this corner which really boils down to intensification of the use you know there's certainly things that someone could approach the town and ask for on this corner because it is a very nice corner for example a convenience store well that would certainly generate a lot more traffic and be a more intense use than this office where you heard the applicant's operation is limited number of employees limited activity and basically zero activity for four months out of the year so when I look at that I said wow this is actually really good use for the property because it's it's a quiet use it doesn't generate a lot of traffic I said earlier the numbers were between 13 20 trips per day at most which is probably less than the dry cleaner that was there um you know planning is really about compatibility you don't want to bring something into an area that would constitute a nuisance and there are plenty of either retail uses or service uses nail salons things like that that could be intrusive on this corner on the flip side I don't think this is a very good corner for someone to build a house because it is a busy intersection and I don't think that a house is going to be the number one desirable you know I guess item to put on this property so anyway given all that um that it is an extremely low intense use I think this site is like perfectly suitable because everything that we're doing can easily be accommodated on this property we're not expanding the building we don't need a park variance um we're not asking for floor area you know variances and deviations from things like that so this business fits onto the site very well um in fact the applicant is in the business of enhancing properties so there's really no doubt in my mind that they don't fully intend to enhance what this property looks like whether that's through Landscaping you know or keeping maintenance I mean you saw the photos right now some of the property is overgrown the building looks like it's been neglected the parking lot looks like it's been neglected there's weeds growing out of the parking lot so I think that having someone on this property is going to immediately change that which is certainly a positive um looking at the purposes of zoning which is really derived from the municipal anuse law I'm sure you've heard about these before but the probably the most cited purpose of zoning is to provide adequate airl and open space when it comes to airl in open space we're not changing anything here um you know if we were going to demolish the building and build a two-story building or something that was much larger then that would be obviously encroaching on airl and open space the airl and open space that's there today is going to remain as is we're just literally repurposing the property um purpose G which is to provide sufficient space and appropriate locations for various uses again it's already a commercial use um so we just want to maintain the fact that it's not going to be a single family dwelling but do something that is appropriate on the corner that's not going to constitute a nuisance and then item M which is the efficient use of land there's really nothing more efficient in land use than repurposing something that's already there so I think that we certainly further that goal um and again looking at the positives it's a corner lot can accommodate the use we have good access uh there'll be no noticeable changes you know with regard to um there'll be no building expansions no height additions things like that um other than the Aesthetics that will be improved based upon what the applicant tends to do with this building now usually when you talk about negatives we hear stories about oh you know you need a Wetlands permit or you're building in a flood plane or you're going to clearcut all the woods you're going to add traffic to the road Network those are obviously all clear negatives none of those apply to this project but there are some unavoidable negatives that I have to talk about for example any use on this property on the corner is going to require that there be some trips to and from the property that's unavoidable and traffic is a negative but again with the particular use that he's proposing this traffic is so minimal and again zero in part of the winter time that I can't think of something that would be less intense the other thing is again any use you put on this property is bound to generate some kind of Refuge so we do have to have a trash area and the trash will have to be picked up by a private hauler and that's probably going to be once a week so that's also an un voidable negative but it's minimized because the type of operation here is not a large refug generator and then the same would go for deliveries any kind of use that you put on the property is bound to get a delivery even if it's just Amazon or UPS somebody's going to come there to deliver something again based upon this use because particularly it's not a food use which get the most deliveries of other uses once or twice a month to get a delivery I think is rather you know um the Minimus so I don't think that there's any substantial detriment you know to the general public uh with allowing this type of use on the property you know I don't think that we're impairing the Zone plan uh again to me this is just repurposing a a property that's really not being utilized right now and uh you know I don't see why there would be uh any reason to deny that use Mr Liber uh just quickly I know we have a couple bulk variances that have been identified in uh Mr Dar and Miss Swan's report uh one of them is for outdoor material storage which I think you covered uh the other one is for outdoor commercial vehicle storage uh and I think Mr viner's testimony is the Outdoor Vehicles just consist of uh six Vans and two pickups and and two trailers um I think you covered the minimum landscape area ratio some we would love to Pro I'm sure we would love to provide some additional Landscaping but after doing the survey work on this we realize that a good extent of this property is within the county right of way so we can't touch it if there was some some area for us to increase the Landscaping you know we certainly can do that uh the fifth is the signage variance correct and I think you indicated there's already existing signage there but uh we're we're not looking for oversized signage and then lastly is the non-residential use buffer um I guess looking at it from both a C1 and a C2 standpoint uh certainly the site is the site we're not and we're not expanding the site at all no uh so you know we're we're stuck with what we have but but certainly the unusual uh you know Topography of this site and the shape of this site trigger some of the variance relief uh in your professional opinion um can we satisfy the proofs under a flexible C uh analysis whereby uh the benefit of uh of what we're proposing promotes sound planning uh versus any negative detriment yes and I always default to the C2 criteria uh to be conservative and the reason that I feel comfortable with this is because it's not a nuisance use uh it's probably one of the quietest uses you could invite onto this corner okay um Mr chairman I don't have any more testimony for Mr Liber uh if you'd like certainly is available for questioning if you want I can go over the report I think there's some technical recommendations that you know we can agree to why don't we do that and then we'll see what else Mr Georgie may have okay that's fine um so I'm referring to the report dated September 16th uh 2024 uh page two just cites the uh the uh zoning review um page three talks about the variance uh variance relief that we're seeking which which I think Mr leers's covered um same thing with page four uh so I'll go down to the bottom of page four I know uh there were some planning comments from Miss San I'm looking at paragraph nine um uh I guess you want confirmation that the existing plantings provide a sufficient screen for the proposed storage area uh Mr Liber is is that is that accurate so I have a photo it's the last photo on the last page that shows the Evergreens that are between this property and the one to the South and then in addition we were proposing a solid fence around the outdoor area so I don't think they're going to see anything to be honest you know our our our goal is not to pile stuff on shelves above the fence line it's really to keep stuff below the six foot fence so that's it's secure and actually I won't ask Mr veneri the question but I think I know the answer and I'll ask it to you Mr Liber certainly when you have a business you want to make sure that you don't have a l a lot of inventory on site you want it in the ground that's right okay all right uh number 10 uh was a question about the height of the fence uh they just wanted confirmation that it's at least six feet my understanding is it's a little bit higher than that is that correct I mean uh you know a standard six yard dumpster is 6 and 1/2 ft high so that would mean the wall has to be set 7 and2 ft high but if we do a smaller dumpster then we could drop the wall to 6 feet it really doesn't matter to us I mean if you know if you want a 7 and2 foot high wall I don't think someone could really honestly perceive that that Wall's 7 and 1 12 feet high driving by but you know I just consulted with the client he could do a smaller dumpster maybe a three yard dumpster and then we could just have a six foot wall yeah I I think the ordinance requirement is is 6 feet so that's what yeah minimum I mean we could do a six foot wall and we can go a smaller dumpster okay you agree with that Mr J I do all right uh number 11 deals with parking and uh the comment is parking is sufficient number 12 I think I covered with Mr uh vaneri we uh testify to these size of these vehicles they're just standard Vans and Pickups um uh we're not we're agreeing no maintenance of any commercial vehicles proposed that's all done off site and uh the only storage during off hours is proposed really the storage is just really for the piping outside um anything uh anything else is going to be stored inside because we have 1,800 square feet to deal with um all right number 13 under General comments well I think uh Mr Dar I think we we provided that plan for you now so I think you know the we know the improvements the county wanted um uh number 14 uh Mr Lee Bernie can you confirm that the uh proposed development will not have any impact on the existing monitoring Wells on site no no impact okay uh number 15 I think we covered through Mr veneri uh in terms of his operations I'll get to the site plan um we can agree to certainly paragraph 16 uh 17 uh Mr Liber you want to comment on that real quickly yes we're not going to repave the parking lot but what we would like to do is something called pavement Rejuvenation what that is is is they uh route out all the cracks they fill all the cracks with a liquid uh almost like a rubber material and then they seal coat the entire parking lot to prevent water intrusion and then they stripe it and pavement Rejuvenation is a step above just seal coating because the goal is to extend the life of the parking lot and that's what we're proposing yeah it's basically like a slurry seal um which is that's acceptable looking at the uh the pictures of the site that the asphalt is it's not in terrible terrible shape there are some prominent cracks which which really do need to be routed out filled and then the parking lot sealed so I I don't have an objection to that okay great all right 18 um I guess it's just a note on the plans we have to correct I think the concrete is paved over it yes it is yeah uh let's see paragraph 19 I think paragraph 19 was dealt with the Environmental with the phase one report we'll and we'll certainly get to that in a second uh let's see 20 um I guess 20 is acceptable Mr lever regarding County had the same comment okay uh 21 uh is acceptable that's just a note on the that's just a graphic that's just a note okay yeah that's fine I think 22 deals with that uh very nice black ornamental fence which we've eliminated it's fine uh same thing with 23 we're getting rid of the gate correct uh yeah I think the county really had a problem with the gate we wanted it for security of the vehicles but we understand the County's issue and the fire department's issue so you know we'll we can we can live with that um okay I think 24 we've indicated there are no tractor trailer deliveries uh it's all done by small vehicles and they Cur twice a month maybe um right I guess what what we're asking and that's one part of that question Mr saxville I guess what we're asking is uh turning templates uh to show that the Vehicles can maneuver particular concern was really um the trailers the the trailers turning off onto Morganville Road without impeding traffic for the oncoming vehicles on Morganville road so we just need to see those we'll provide that that's not a problem okay um 25 uh yeah 25 will will certainly agree to that's not a problem that's a Road opening per that's an opening permit um 26 was addressed yeah 26 the delivery vehicles yeah yeah 26 deals with really with the template uh 27 again the gates are eliminated 28 uh we can certainly comply with that Mr Liber yes okay 29 um 29 deals with curbing you want to comment on that Mr Liber yeah we can add curbing okay uh 30 uh okay so 30 deals with Ada let's deal with that first with parking do are we providing any Ada space there's one being provided uh it's right in front of the entrance door but I'll have to look at that because I believe the entrance has a step up into it um so we might have to install ramp there yep okay uh 31 I think 31 deals with the county issue as well with prohibiting left turns so yeah 31 actually I think what we were asking for was prohibiting left turns on Morganville Road and our reasoning for that was you had the ability to maneuver at um uh at the county road but but then with the county restriction on right turns only on on that on that road I think that would mean that we'd have to have some issue um basically we're going to have to withdraw our objection to left turns on Morganville road but we do need to see those templates to make sure that there's no blocking of of traffic because that's really the main concern that's fine we we'll provide the templates and I I think the fact that it's a signalized intersection there should be gaps so yeah and obviously we need to have at least some one full one full movement and it's and I'll get to that when I get to my comments but it it is a lower intensity use as far as number of trips the the type of vehicles are changing obviously so the concerns with with regard to Vehicles getting in and out of the site of that size really needs to be addressed but from a from a number of trip standpoint it is uh much less trips than uh an alternative commercial use or even the prior track leaning use okay uh 32 again deals with the gates but we got rid of that so we're fine uh traffic statement 33 um I think we've provided some testimony as to the number of trips that is really going to be generated um 34 uh that's that's also a land use classification so I guess the idea is we felt that it that it uh this use was more it's less retail on General office than than more like a nursery or some sort of wholesale business like that so um we just wanted the trips calculated with that um with that classification I think at the end of the day the the the conclusion is going to be the same all right U but that's all we're asking there we'll provide that that's not a problem uh 35 same thing we'll we'll provide that information uh 36 uh well 36 is the plan that we have for you so correct we've addressed that I 37 deals with environmental uh Mr Liber why don't you take these as a grouping and indicate what we can provide if if we need to provide anything so the one I wanted to point out is that b1a about the additional groundwater sampling it seemed based upon what they had found it that was already done in the past so you know I'm not sure what the reason to do that if there was no uh open file so to say so so I guess the the phase one recommended additional investigation to confirm ground water had not been contamin impacted so that that's what we're saying we concur with the phase one that you you provided which says that additional testing should be done so if if testing was done you can provide that testing to us if it wasn't we we're just saying perform the testing okay but are you asking because of the dry cleaner use or is it going the gas station use okay because the gas station use had work done right and that's what we're saying if if there was work done the the phase one said that additional testing should be done right so we're saying we agree with the phase one that that you you submitted it says do do the testing for the gas station use for the prior gas station use if that was done then just you can submit that testing if not then you would just perform that testing all right I got it all right and the dry clean use I think we can probably short circuit that if Mr or is the applicant basically put on the record that it was not a dry cleaning use where they actually did a dry cleaning operation it was a drop off store it was a drop store yeah okay so so if that's that's up to council and and the chairman as far as if you're willing if that's acceptable then we would withdraw that that portion of our comment I know many of them that operate in that fashion yeah absolutely work on the property but yeah and it's right it's a small site so I don't even think it could have accommodated a lot of certainly certainly obviously with your recommendation yeah certainly yeah drop off stores are a very common thing and and I would tend to agree with Mr Sachs the size of the building doesn't really lend itself to being an actual dry cleaning operation it was more more than likely a drop off and I I know this only because not as my engineer expertise but my dad is is a tailor and then he's worked and owned ding businesses too so I do have a little bit of of of inside knowledge on that regard as well okay that that's fine all right and Mr Li I guess the last one deals with the septic um yeah I mean uh I think the county had didn't the county inspect this yeah but the the comment saying that we're dry cleaning chemicals disposed of in the septic there are none right exactly that's fine okay all right uh I guess the last one is 38 um I mean I Mr Lia you have any knowledge of this property having any farming activities yeah I mean if you look back at the 1940 aial I mean this entire part of Oldbridge is all Farms the only building that's visible is the house next to the fire station yeah so you know I don't know firsthand what the history is of what they Farm what they used as far as pesticides what I can tell you is that we're not proposing a residential use here uh and we we're not Excavating in the back or anything like that so I mean I don't know if there really is a concern about what that soil could be from the farming activities I guess it would be the same soil that surrounds us so to say well actually Mr Liber there's a Housing Development that surrounds yeah which started to pop up in the late 80s yeah I'm going to put maybe I've been doing this too long but even when I started practicing back in the in the 80s which is when I started practicing early 80s um towns such as Albridge East Brunswick Monroe were were routinely uh requiring testing of soil for the Housing Development so that residential subdivision had to have been fully vetted I mean Mr Libra the site is is is fairly covered with impervious has a lot of impervious coverage I'm not sure there's anything I could find in the records I mean I'll leave it up to you Mr dargy I think i' I'd be more concerned with the with the gas station use if we can get that testing taken care of and I think we'll be okay perfect okay um all right now to move on to the engineering comment ments I think we can comply with 39 through uh through 53 right I don't think there's any issues Mr Liber no these are more technical in nature and they're frankly minor all right and then in terms of uh Outside Agency approvals um we've already we've already uh obviously met with middle sex County on this issue um I think we have an do we have a conditional approval from middlex County planning board I believe I have to check well we'll check on that but if if not we'll we'll certainly whatever we require on that Oldbridge Fire Marshal we'll go over his report in a second D we don't require any D approvals or do approvals D to the extent that if if there is some sort of issue with the with with the gas station use dot was just a leftover that's not a problem all right uh so the last report we have is from the Fire Marshall uh dated uh July 12th of 2024 Mr Liber you have a here you can just briefly comment on any of those concerns they wanted a fire lane which is fine and he had a comment about the entry Gates that we're going to delete KNX box had standard now on all non-residential buildings um he wanted an unobstructed area in front of the gate which is going to go away anyway then the last comment which really was the one that I needed to figure out was that he doesn't want a refuge container within 20 ft of a building so you know I only have two options there I could move it toward Morganville road but then it's in a front yard or I could just put it back to where it used to be that's really my only options or or we can request a waiver from the board as to where we have it now so I leave that up to Mr dar's input um or the board's input you like to put me on the spot don't you I'm putting on the spot you're going to make me disagree you're going to make me disagree with the fire guy I'm going to make you redesign our project right I don't think we want to disagree with the fire Mark so if it was there before as cited in one of the pictures Mr Dar would not be the yeah I I I think maybe having it cleaned up smaller and in the area where it is currently would probably be the ideal thing um and and obviously landscaping around it to make sure it's properly screened from the joining property I just want to check one thing okay I just wanted to double check because this could affect the landscape area ratio the two parking spaces near Morganville road that are shown with trailers we're going to reduce those to non-t triler spaces and then I think I could take that area plus what was going to be the trash enclosure and that would balance out keeping the trash area where it is now so like I shouldn't have a further reduction of landscape area say that again Mark sure play the tape back okay so the area that's the trash right now we were saying on our plan to to be vegetated to plant it mhm so if I just wholesale don't plant it then it seems our landscape area would go down but I think I can make up the difference by taking the two spots on Morganville Road and making them regular parking stalls not trailer parking stalls and then also I'll be deleting the square footage that was proposed for the trash area that's shown on this plan okay and then combining that together should offset that change so we should be able to keep the landscape area to what it is under the application yeah that that makes sense um I would still want to try to reduce that area I mean I kind of I'm always a big fan of you know removing unnecessary impervious and vegetating if where where possible so if we can reduce the area of that existing enclosure to be what the applicant needs as opposed to you know what's there right now that would be ideal if that's possible yes just want to make sure I got this right and we'll provide a revised plan so that you can see it Mr dargy okay uh Mr chairman I don't have anything else so we'll see if Mr Dar has anything else Y no Mr chairman I think um we we sort of went through my whole review memo Point by point so I don't have any direct actually you know I take that back I do have one question that that occurred as I was that's not in my memo um one of the one of the concerns that that um residents uh often have about commercial businesses nearby especially business business of this type where you have people coming in in the morning loading up trucks and then leaving is is Vehicles being left there idling for extended period of time can we get some testimony and maybe some commitments that we can put into the resolution regarding that yeah we we can make a representation there'll be no idling of vehicles permitted thank you um Mr chairman I don'ts we'll give idling alert so if somebody is ID that's fantastic that's great um I don't have any questions for for the for the applicant or the appc professionals but I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have Mr chairman he let's find out we start on my left Mr Sing questions to uh testified as a engineer and he testified as a planner questions to either and anything that Mr you may want to ask Mr D N Mr Rizo your sign is not going to be electrified it's just going to be a regular sign a regular sign and the traffic direction is very good I think it's perfect Mr cogno yes main is that hold on maintenance of the equipment is that done on site the repairs vehicle or our equipment this guy physically picks up our equipment drives it to his site repairs it and drops it back off what is the noise factor in other words uh on a daily basis you got people coming to work they get get out of their car and they go into a van that's it that's it I mean they might start a piece of equipment to load onto a trailer no louder than a regular pickup truck or a commercial lawn mower nothing louder than that okay I'm just concerned about the buffer I wish you had a little bit at least meet us halfway with the buffer that would help with some sounds that equipment can be noisy I mean the only thing we have room for is really a a new six foot solid fence uh and that would be along the South and West and I noticed there's lighting off to the I guess that's the South part that's in the brush yeah that's that's existing that's an existing I mean that that needs to be I'm not um probably don't need it over there yeah we we don't that that was an existing lighting uh when the dry cleaner was was in operation we don't really we don't really need that so we could we could disable that light it's shown on the top of the last page of photos the light fixture yeah okay thank you Vice chair yeah what kind of uh fencing are you putting around the maintenance area uh it's solid vinyl you want to do vinyl all right yeah I think that's that's more for security I mean I don't think we want anybody seeing I mean yeah oh with the slats um we're okay either way but okay sounds nice okay okay M Anders m test ready just something um I I am more inclined to to uh agree with your professional that you know given the location and a commercial establishment that's probably one of the best that could be in this area uh I'm very familiar with the area it's a very it's busy but it's very quiet and it's all residential and I just hope that you're a good neighbor no further counselor nothing for me Mr chairman I I I know my my turn's over but I do have another question your turn um our our zoning officer just actually uh reminded me regarding the lighting and Mr scagno comment regarding the lighting so there so there was no lighting plan in in the plan Set uh what's the intention as far as lighting the site goes uh well I think I mean really there's no activity there at night certainly we're we're closed down after 5: is it Mark is there a light on the building right now the the only other light is to the left of the building which is shown in the last photo on the bottom I see there's two light standards on on the on the plan um so do those light light standards operate and and what do they elimin illuminate I guess is what I'm asking I would be shocked if either of them worked great you might you might have someone in the room I guess it's it's it's a two it's almost a double double edged kind of question because sites are supposed to be lighted to provide safety for the users of the site but we also are want to be sensitive to the fact that you're asking for a use fance in a residential neighborhood and we we'd like to get some commitments about not having lighting operating after certain hours you know what I think we will provide a lighting plan because you're right I don't want the town to have an issue with a dark sight right uh we'll provide a lighting plan we'll make sure that it complies with Township ordinances we'll look at that light in the South and West Corner if we don't need that on we'll disable it I don't think it's on now quite corly more even more importantly than that it's around the building Mr Sax is is is we want to get some commitments about when the lights are turned off yeah so the lights yeah I mean I think we can commit that the lights would be off at 600 p.m. and they wouldn't be yeah we don't there's no activity mean you're going to need it in the mornings right because you're probably going to have some folks showing up I don't know 6:00 a.m. no s seven is early is fantastic that's even better I was trying to be I was trying to be generous but yeah Seven's even better but there's times when seven especially coming up in like early October it gets dark at 700 so or it's still dark at 7:00 so maybe you need some lights then and then maybe some lights at close of time we we'll get your lighting plan and we'll put the hours and a commitment about hours actually the hours we might want a commitment on the on the record here I me certainly I know 6 PM's been said is there for a you know morning is it like at 6:00 AM they go on or I I mean I just I know this this time of year is just like this weird month you know this as we get into early October yeah I mean it may also be affected by if if we have residents that want to test or want to have have comments and questions so maybe we leave that open until until after the comments um we can commit certainly we're we're out of there by 6 PM so we don't need any lights on at 6 PM certainly in the winter I'm sure the lights will be on at 4:30 um and uh in the morning I mean we don't get there till 7 it's usually I I think by 7:00 it's it's light out so I I don't know if there's any concern with Lighting in the morning so I I don't I just don't want it later at night that's my that's the main thing y um at least that's my understand that's what I would want if I Liv next door how about that um and one other thing Mr chairman I guess I forgot in addition to the traffic hat engineering hat environmental hat I am also wearing a planning hat tonight uh so I should probably just give my two two two cents on the planning aspects of this of this application and again I would tend to agree with Mr Mr Liber uh with regard to the particular suitability of this property it is zoned uh R R30 residential but um for all intents and purposes it's been a commercial use for for many many years it is particularly suited for this type of use for commercial use it's particular I would say it's actually even say it more suly it's particularly not suited for the residential use that it's zoned for because it's a former gas station which does have some some history of of of having uh monitoring and all that on the site so it's not really suited as residential property so by so what you'd really be judging here is if this use is is the is a suitable use uh to any other alternative commercial type uses is is really what the board would be looking at uh from a certainly from a traffic standpoint like I said earlier it is less intense than other possible commercial uses um the the type of vehicle or maybe different than what some other commercial uses might have but I think the applicant is making some changes like the parking spots that are no longer going to be trailer spots because it's hard to get out of onto the roadway those kind of things so I think they can accommodate those through through maybe some adjustments to the site to make it so that it is a safe uh property for their vehicles to get onto and out of um again that's that's my uh and with regard to the C variances again I agree that that uh these are uh C2 variances and the appan has met the burden of their proof for the C2 variances Mr Dar and the lighting what about when they're closed four months would you want that same lighting to be the same time of day yeah I I would I would imagine yeah I think you would want that uh if if if the site's not operating maybe we don't have the lights operating but that's again okay just to get it it's your round you yeah we're talking about even though it it could only reason why I hesitate Mr chairman is sometimes you know um and I guess maybe we should ask this question is any other business operation that you because a lot of times landscape businesses I know this is irrigation business but a lot of times landscape businesses get into snow plowing we don't do that okay great good I'm glad I'm glad we got that on the record too he went on the record say he Tes vacation if he did I'd be calling him all right uh that's all for you that's all I have thank you very much uh Mr Sach you have any further testimony to see I do not Mr chairman I'd like to go to a public portion if that's okay with you yes 542023 Z this is conserv irrigation physical location 4 291 Albridge mwan Road this be repurposing a building for the use for an irrigation company anybody here in the uh courtroom wish to be heard please raise your hand or stand ma'am please come forward y you can have a seat uh once again those microphones if you they're directional so you have to speak right into them just not too close Okay uh board attorney uh he's going to ask you to identify yourself and he's going to put you under oath okay can you just sayate your name and address for the record p o o j a last name is barer b as in boy a r o d e k a r a r o d e k a r thank you and your address please 5 for Morganville Road thank you second I'll swear you in do you somly swear the truth of the testimony for what you're about to to provide yes thank you go ahead ma'am what would you like to tell the board well look I mean we understand it's a commercial property we had cleaners before but me we've been living there for a while we've not seen a lot of traffic uh it's not been busy and it was drop off so it was fine um I understand it's going to still be commercial um but two concerns one is the storage of equipment outside is a concern because it's it's going to be an isore unless you cover it um and then the second aspect is the the second aspect is fence yeah the fence could block the view um so I don't know how high 6 fet is honestly because I didn't come prepared with that concept but I just want to make sure that when you're we're driving out it shouldn't block our view um so it's mainly storage is what is the primary concern I don't know if you can view this same this is A1 uh picture one would that be your home to behind the building yeah the one behind on Morganville right uhhuh okay so what you don't what you don't want is the fence back there is that what you're saying look the fence can be there as long as it doesn't restrict our view when we are driving out oh no no that it couldn't do they they removed that fence from the plan they they no longer have fan along the roadway okay and then the the second aspect is the storage of equipment outside I know we briefly spoke um if you can cover it somehow and it's not visible it just don't want to be I'm just concerned at some point I am going to be selling the property and if I have an you know equipment standing out it's going to be it won't really L well I know I'm going to ask him to describe them but I think if they're normal they're Vans right those are the trucks I I think the equipment we're talking about are some compressors yeah there a compressor and a pipe hoer pipe hoer is stored inside of the box trailer so it's enclosed anyway comess give him the microphone the compressors are tow behind so they're on Wheels they look like little little trailers um we could install a canopy or something to try and shield them if that was a primary concern we could tarp would they fit in the maintenance area yeah yeah they're small so then they'd be contained there that's fine yeah so the compressors and that pipe pipe pullers yeah it's a pipe puller they're stored Inside the Box Trail though so they are not visible it's inside a large enclosed trailer yes we can agree to that well our thank you very much man for coming forward testify sorry Mr chairman I just want to clarify one comment that was made a second ago y there is still a portion of fence proposed along Morganville Road it goes from the back of the property Corner in the left up to our driveway entrance wouldn't block any view from uh so their property right what I want to do is I want to go and take a look from her driveway okay just to ensure that there's no obstruction oh they do that's great and then you could cut it shorter we could either lower the fence or we could pull it back saying P further from the street pull it back from the yeah the street I'm sorry um could you put the line of sight for for that on the on the sight plan then for driveway that's how we're going to have to do that yep yep yeah and I I did just notice that there there is there's fence along Morganville Road along that portion you can see now the fence okay so right so he pulls it back okay good thank you anyone else wish to be heard sir no well if you're G to talk I'm G have have you bring you up and swear you or your wife could come back up his concern is about chemical storage if there's going to be any no is that a landscaper is irrigation landscapers use chemicals yeah he's just doing sprinklers so you have no chemicals what's you'd have no need for them thank you thank you all right seeing no one else in the courtroom I'm close the public portion final comments Mr uh sa well uh thank you Mr chairman thank you members of the board um I think uh you've heard really some fine testimony from both my client and Mr Liber this really is one of the least intensive uses that you can really think about on a commercial site so um I I'd request that the board act favorably on this I know Mr veneri will be a good neighbor because he's purchasing the property he wants to make sure that it's uh kept in in very you know good condition uh he'll be a good neighbor to the residents there thank you sir I'm going to ask for board members on my left if any comments before I'm going to I'm assuming you're calling for a vote here tonight yes I am Mr chairman Mr Sing Mr ISO oh microphone please uh regarding the lighting I would strongly recommend that you look into that yeah we're going to provide a lighting plan and we'll make sure that your professional staff is satisfied with that Vice chair no Andrew you have to speak in the mic we're not going to hear it did you mention testing um yes I thought so that's on the environmental correct yes the agreed to to provide the testing in relation to the former gas station no because I know everything was done before New Jersey had the regulations thank you and Mr GE just re reiterate everything on here that we've spoken about is all would be part of any uh approval that's correct with with the only exception being that the applicant um requested to to to not have to do the testing with regard to the agricultural pesticides but you agreed on that we agreed that okay that's that's fine then uh you know my only comments would be U Mr Liber makes an interesting you know it's a common sense comment that there's going to be a D1 use there somewhere because nobody's building the house there and uh it's an interesting observation to way the way to start and I wrote that down it brings me back to a number of years ago where a similar situation happened uh it was over on inest Drive where there was an irrigation they wanted to use uh I don't know if the they're still there I think they are but whether they are or they aren't uh but they did uh there was some neighbors concern they did uh put up an area where they had uh that's I was used to these Vehicles these Vans and apparently got along very well with their neighbors again I don't know business wise it's none of my business but it brings me back to that that it apparently does work this is a low intensity type of uh type of operation for no no nobody's coming in to buy anything you you're not allowing that I there there's nothing to sell there's nobody coming in except your workers and then they're going home your vehicle's going out certainly you don't want them back in building if you're paying for them to go out and work so I kind I kind of understand that so I think it's a good repurpose of that of that building uh the outdoor storage uh is was a concern but I see youve you've rectified that you're going to satisfy the neighbor too and and keep those pieces there that way and and of course you're going to be a good neighbor as as I thought so uh we're not the sign not lit it's just going to be another sign of a destination uh sign right uh I I I think that Mr Lieber and uh and uh yourself sir explained it very well to the uh the board and I certainly stand in favor of your application we'll see how the vote goes uh this would be uh D1 use first uh let me go back to Mr Cheney here so we have D1 use and then we would go to the bulks right yeah okay correct let's get to the D1 for the use on the site and then we'll see what happens after that someone interested in moving for approval for the test is there a second is I have a roll call please miss Andrew yes M Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scagno yes M tester yes Mr Singh yes chairman Sullivan yes now we have we both them yeah we'll do under C2 folks under SE too someone want to move it ja move it is there a second second go I think miss Andrew got you on that one roll call please miss Andrews yes Miss Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scagno yes Miss testy yes Mr Singh yes chairman Sullivan yes and then we have uh preliminary site plan I'll move it is there a second ISO M please miss Andrews yes Miss Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr Scot Miss tester yes Mr Singh yes chairman Sullivan and final oh oh yes I'm sorry and final as the final someone want to move it Chev move it okay is there a second Andrew second Andrew's got you again go ahead please miss was it Miss Andrews yes okay Miss Andrews Miss Chevalier yes Mr ISO yes Mr scagno yes Miss tester yes Mr Singh yes chairman civant one thing I dislike is place is staying vacant and there's it's it's going to sit there and nothing's going to be done and it has for a while so yeah my vote is obviously yes and I wish you luck on running the business there and being a good neighbor thank you Mr chairman thank you members of the board obviously the um it has passed and I thank Mr Liber Mr saak and the proprietor for their testimony here tonight best of luck yes good luck all right we have no one else in the public so I'll skip general public comments and is there anything that you don't have any advisements from the town do you Danny or Mr tari I have nothing Mr chairman I do not chairman no okay Mr Cheney nothing thank you all right well thank you for being here tonight board members uh our next meeting is when October 17th October 17th and we have a special meeting on the 21st I just wanted to remind everybody okay but the 17th is the next meeting right correct all right someone want to no 21st will be the special meeting regular meeting on 17th yes okay I'll move for an adjournment test verie all in favor I we stand adjourn thank you all e