Roland you're on record all right meeting of the township of ppon Troy Hills planning board for Monday February 5th 2024 at 7:30 p.m. uh announcement is made that adequate notice of this meeting has been given and that it is being conducted in accordance with njsa 10 4-6 at SEC of the New Jersey open public meetings act nor would you call the rooll Please Mr didich here Mr deero here councilman McGrath here Mr mey Mr meth present Mr napalitano here Mr Shaw here M Smith here chairman dmore here we have our special planner Mr snikes our board engineer Mr kiano and our board attorney Miss steinley and our regular board planner M winter all right if we could stand the say Pledge of Allegiance please to the flag of the United States of America the stands all right it's a little warm in [Music] here this meeting is open to the general public is there anyone here who has something to address to this board is not on our agenda tonight hearing and seeing none um we have no resolutions and the first item on our agenda tonight is the proposed amended Redevelopment plan for 1515 Route 10 block 200 Lots 1.2 and 1.03 Mr [Music] snus good evening everyone can you hear me okay yes coming through okay um good evening what I have for the board this evening uh is the district 1515 Route 10 um Redevelopment plan amendments and that's for Block 200 blocks 1.2 and 1.03 if the board would look at we have distributed to the board a a cover memorandum of February 2nd 2024 we've also included with that a draft Amendment document as well as a draft Redevelopment plan with amendments in it that are highlighted dated February 2nd 2024 I just want to make sure all board members have do and what this is if you recall at the last meeting the board had authorized our office to prepare amendments to this Redevelopment plan for consideration um and essentially what a Redevelopment plan is for those that may have not been part of the process it's an overriding document for that specific area that's called the track essentially and we Define the track within the Redevelopment plan and it really uh relates to lock 200 locks 1.2 and 1.03 and only those two locks so what this is is special Zoning for that area and that special zoning is what's being requested this evening to be adjusted the process would be is tonight I brought those amendments to you after discussing it with the applicant and the details of those uh requested amendments and then from here if the board was agreeable to it we would recommend it to the governing body for their consideration in possibly amending the actual plan so this board is really offering the uh recommendation at this point and then subsequently once the governing body does in fact introduce it it would be introduced as an ordinance essentially and then we would come back to this board one more time under the Redevelopment plan aspect for a consistency review with the master plan and then from there go back to the governing body for a public hearing of the actual amendments I just wanted to go go through that outline real quickly in addition um what we've done in the overall cover memo is to give you the actual uh pages that were amended and what I'd like to do is to I know the board had some questions at the last meeting there is actually some new board members that may not have been part of this process originally and so what I've asked the applicant to do is to come this evening as well to offer sort of a brief presentation as to what the Redevelopment plan encompasses what it what it actually relates to and what the overall uh scope of some of the amendments are I'll go into the actual detail of the amendment for the board but i' I'd look to them to just give you a quick overview you as to what that was what the project was what it is currently where it's currently at right now because I know it's under construction and uh what these overall amendments relate to so with that I we turn it over to their attorney [Music] n good evening Mr chairman and members of the board Nicole madzak m a g d z i a k of the law firm day Pitney here this evening on behalf of the applicant as you heard already we were here back on January 22nd and we provided a brief overview of our request for an amendment to the existing Redevelopment plan there were some questions from board members at that meeting relating to just generally what is the project as some board members weren't here at the time that of its approval and just the status update of construction progress so we did put together a presentation this evening um there there were packets that uh Miss Jolie actually distributed ahead of time that should be in front of you and we blew up a couple of those pages on on big sheets to present on a board I know it may seem like a thick packet but we do intend to run through it relatively quickly so that um we don't spend too much time talking about any individual slide but we do think it'll be really helpful and illustrative to the board as to what was approved and what's currently under construction and then as we do that we'll run through just some of the items that we request which we briefly talked about at the last January meeting as to what we'd like to amend in the plan so with that I have Mark pmet with me who is a representative of the applicant good evening everybody Park can you just for the record spell your first and last name and give your bu address sure Mark pmat m a r k p o TT s c Mt 2807 delmare Drive Beckley Ohio 43209 and Mark you're a representative of Stanberry development correct correct which is one of the um parties of the joint venture developing this site that's correct yeah so if we can just start can you run the board through I'm sorry we'll we'll just swear the witness and just for the record do you raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony that you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do okay thank you so can you just walk us through the presentation materials that we put together starting with the photograph of what was existing at site sure the first uh the first picture you see there on on page two uh is the state of the property when we bought it over over 10 years ago now it was the former Intel office building vacant um at the time that we we purchased it we are also Stanberry were the developers of Union Hill down in Denville and we saw an opportunity to take Udan Hill to the next level um creating the a a retail component in the mixed use project and uh we've been working on that vision for the last decade so what you see on your page three here um is the site plan for that so the the Figure 8 building on the right is a 100% M uh multif family Residential Building 262 units the and that's under construction now it is um weathertight they're drywalling right now putting on the sighing it's going extremely well um the building to the back is what we call Building B and that includes the parking garage the eight-story parking garage that you see driving down Route 10 right now uh that is currently under construction be wrapped with uh retail and the the front and then residential on above that portion of that project is a 55 49 units or 55 and over the rest of it a market rate and then the front building along Route 10 is Building C and that's one story completely uh retail uses uh in between there is what we call the werf the uh pedestrian vehicular uh kind of mingled together to create a pedestrian friendly uh Main Street streetcape uh activated by uh restaurants we have two liquor license uh that we will be using right where it says Building C those are two large restaurants with you see the outdoor dining in front of those and we have a number of restaurants with some additional uh Outdoor Cafe seating um in front of the building B on either side page four is the uh architectural rendering of what that all looks like once again you see building a on the left the Figure 8 building that building is scheduled to open uh late summer this year uh Building B is the one that wraps around the parking garage you see the parking garage sticking out there a little bit that one is uh looking to open roughly a year after that along with the building C the retail uh the retail building out front then slide five Slide Five page five uh shows a state of construction pretty much as it is today and then these next couple pages are just series of some images of what it looks like um ultimately and then where it is with construction right now so that and if you look at page um let me see here slide or page nine on the right hand corner you see The Jug Handle connector we affectionately refer to that as a Gordon meth connector was Gordon's idea I don't know how long ago a long time now uh I think Mr Snus deserves some credit too the two of them but the whole goal there is to to provide access to the properties from our project Delta Dental and the Octagon building so that they can access uh their buildings through this connector and not have to go through the uh 202 intersection so the whole goal is to alleviate some of the traffic at that overcrowded intersection and though that's constructed it's not open yet correct it's not the connector is not open the roundabout is open and that will be open when we open um building a later this summer and then uh page 11 is the uh approved this is the the wer as it was approved um and I'll show you in a in a couple Pages the changes we're looking to make but basically the two large restaurants in the middle of the sea building uh we're looking at covering those outdoor dining Terraces with a permanent U shade structure and then on the bottom right where you see Lounge seating stage and the stickly chair we're looking at changing those to provide some more Cafe seating relocating the stickly chair down to the lawn area um so that on either side of Building B there's opportunity for outdoor dining um in both of those areas and we envisioned those to be uh public seating so you could bring your brown bag um and have lunch there or you can grab it from one of our restaurants the covered dining um in front of the building see larger restaurants will be contained within a a fence uh to control the the liquor excuse me license and then the next couple Pages page 12 uh is what it's going to look like ultimately um when we when it's activated you can see the the cafe seating helps to activate the space there and what we're we've got the the string lights going through there uh once again the idea is to make that a very special Town Center component on slide 13 it's a it's a good view of the the currently approved plant which show no covered dining um and then if you skip ahead to page 17 it's a it's a very similar angle and you can see the covered structures uh on that on that page a couple other highlights this runer has been designed to be closed to vehicular traffic for special events and we part of our agreement with the town is to co-host I think it's six or seven events with your Parks and Recreation um Department to well we haven't brainstormed it yet but the the illustration on page 15 shows the Farmers Market taking place perhaps on a Sunday [Music] morning so that that is a big component also is to be able to activate that space and close it the vehicular traffic on page 16 is what we are proposing you can see the slight difference on the on the bottom right there's outdoor dining there now and the stickly chair has moved over uh towards the center of the wer and the stickly the whole sickly component here was suggested by Council and previous planning boards that we pay homage to uh gustof Stickley and the Craftsman Farm um so that's a nod to that and it's it it's a little challenging um to really take that and run with it but I think our Architects did a great job which I'll I'll show you here in a moment with the colors color palette for the project it's very Craftsman um stickly uh color palette so this also shows the covered the covered uh dining areas in front of the larger restaurants here in the dining uh to the bottom left so th those are really the the biggest changes um that Ed will get into uh later but as it impacts the wounder those are the improvements we're looking to make and then on let's see here another one if you look at page 19 and 20 19 is the approved uh signage roughly the the the size uh that's permitted where it says District Steakhouse and and Wine Bar and then the current Redevelopment plan uh on the back of the building that actually fronts onto Route 10 it's required to be 50% smaller um and we after we thought about that and studied it um that was really too small for the route 10 Frontage we're working extremely hard with all these tens to convince them they need to front onto the werf and not onto Route 10 um so this is going to help us a lot uh and convincing those tenants to go on Route 10 in front onto the werf and architecturally I think the uh the larger signs fit the elevations a lot more naturally so that was another change to being made uh and then I just wanted to share on on uh page 21 these are the the exterior finishes of the buildings and you can see the the color pal here with the the wood the wood siding uh some of the greenish colors the Browns all that is St is driven from the the uh Craftsman um stickly pallet and then on page 22 it's uh you can see a going up and and what it looks like and even since this picture was taken these pictures were taken there's now brick on the buildings and we just think it looks great um and then the last two slides I just wanted to to share the uh the new Jug Handle connector uh you can see it on page 23 in the upper left um and has anybody driven on that yet it's I haven't uh have any I cards moving through there also on 24 it's also on the right uh so when when this opens that'll provide access once again to our project to Delta dentl and to uh and to the Octagon building so just real quick on numbers wise there's uh 407 Market rate apartment units 42 um COI units 49 age restricted units uh just under 60,000 sare ft of uh retail and and restaurant square foot uses on our uh werf we've got 29 surface spaces um 853 garage spaces um and another component is the the the uh electric uh charging stations that we are looking to accommodate on this project so that is the uh the quick 10 years and 10 minutes and Mark in addition to the actual changes that were requesting to the building themselves in the mo area and sort of the amti that you read we're also looking to add uses as well correct yes particularly the medi correct yep and we did talk about at the January meeting in addition to a medical spot also in incorporating medical uses but that has not um been Incorporated has been withdrawn as request so just the medical spot in response to parking concerns given the intensity of medical okay so you just want the aesthetic medical correct Spa not anything that has to deal with emergencies or illness correct or like a dentist often not not that just the the medical spot so effectively you really only asking for three significant changes the one has to do with the signage mhm the one has to do with the medical spa and the third has to do with the restaurants which would include a fast casual type of uh and the covered dining for the yes so the underlying or the original Redevelopment plan allowed for restaurants but didn't really classify the restaurants ads to type and your underlying ordinance does separate based on types of restaurants so to make sure that it was clear and that we didn't run into any concerns with future tenants who operate a more fast casual type of restaurant versus a sit down where someone would come and wait at your table we wanted to do that now with this amendment so that we don't have any issues moving forward and there would still be no drivethru or no drivethru correct okay okay Mr deiro the uh the roundabout going along the back of the tract that's going to complete all the way to Johnson Road right do you complete that uh that's a a tricky question in that that's why I asked there's there's uh private roads between the Delta Dental Building and the Octagon building that provides access out to Johnson Road we don't control those properties but there is you're going to connect to it though right it is yes so definitely it will be connected um to that once again private road it's Public Road I could use this real so this is a is Page Three and there is already an existing easement that has been agreed to and um actually recorded relating to Public Access on South District Drive which comes from the roundabout and runs along the back of the property up to West District drive connected to Route 10 so there is Public Access allowed on those por as part of our approval with NJ do they requested that um West District drive and South District Drive be Public Access so that the traveling public has a way to get out to route to Ral 10 and since pipany and hover didn't want to take the roads we have them with a public access easement over top of it thank you right but there would still as it's constructed now you do not have control over the road that would take it to Johnson Road well our property has a private easement to to use that access it's just not open to the just not a public ACC I'm just it's not in your control really but if I can ask you you have retail components on your site correct so you're inviting the public onto your property and anyway so then your usus if if your easement rights give you the access to it that would include all your anyone who is a patron of your property correct which would be the public yeah I'm not the attorney for that so there's two separate agents that are recorded currently on the property the one that covers South District drive and West District Drive specifically permits Public Access so anyone who's pass through or patrons of the um restaurants retail or guests of the folks who are living there and or if I just happen to go the wrong way and I need to cut through to get back on to rout 10 um and I'm at the roundabout and I realize oh no I need to actually go the other way so that is completely open to the public and is supposed to be functioning in that way the private easement which was actually already existing before this project running an extension of South District Drive behind um Delta and octagon out to Johnson Road um is a separate easement and is worded and written slightly differently so it doesn't actually invite Public Access and it's also limited to um ownership and their like I don't have e with me to read the exact word for you but it doesn't invite all patrons or guests of everyone who's on the property but according to your to your point I would think that the um employees of Intel would have been going out that way without incident back in the day so understood so it is possible to get to Johnson a or Johnson Road from your site using that road but it's not Public Access correct yes you physically couldve physically could drop there okay any other questions by members of the board just one if if that private road they decide they don't like the amount of traffic that's traveling could they do something to make it one way going do you have a way they we don't want it to go so right now it's a tri party agreement between all three property owners and to amend it all three all three have to agree so it's difficult for them to get do something like that yes okay as well they would have to come in this board for site plan approval to change that circulation plan okay thank you okay other members of the board have question Mr chairman yes thank thank you uh I looked at the originals and and now the newer plans you're going down from 10 restaurants down to eight is that right I don't know if that's the case but we're roughly uh roughly what is it uh 20 I don't have those numbers in front of me because they're changing now but with the med spa 2500 2, 2500t of Med Spa and the rest of it would be roughly 5050 uh restaurant and retail okay and then you have Fitness SLS service and a couple spots yes if it's a fitness center are they allowed to serve uh you know protein food shakes and stuff like that is that something else that's a good question I I don't know would they be allowed it's something as an ancillary use associated with the fitness facility I would to imine but yet it rises to the level of something where people are just coming to that sort of activity is then now considered more a restaurant or food service and the service type uses we're thinking is hair salon nails stuff like that okay not not a gym then you're not thinking of a gym we're thinking of Boutique gym like Core Power or cycling or oh okay okay all right um I I I just need to refresh my memory who is the parking garage for is it for residents only no I believe there's uh 502 spaces um that are on the upper floors the five the five upper floors there there's there will be a gate for the uh residents below that gate it's 300 something uh is open for the to the public okay and then how about when people go to the restaurants and um retail where do they Park do they park in the front they don't use the parking garage at all they use the the no those 300 they can use those 300 and and the other ones on the in front of the buildings right okay and then what's the speed limit on the WF road I don't know if we five miles hour sounds good to me I was going to suggest five we got a lot of bikes Scouts in the street in different areas so make sure it's very very low thank you other members of the board or professionals have any questions Mr chairman if I just summarize Mr [Music] Snak again not to belor the point but I just wanted to identify for the board that we highlighted in the overall document the recommended changes those are the highlighted text as well as in the narrative um as Mr chairman pointed out it really is the uh permanent outdoor dining area that you're looking to have now as part of the component where previously there would need a yearly permit in order to have the outdoor dining but this just makes sense from the standpoint of what's actually proposed you even saw it on the earlier site plan so it seems to be something that just is appropriate um and that the activities as well as the um uh the various design details of the available space and how they actually monitor that area that is very similar to our current standards anyways in the code uh what is different Rel relevant to the restaurant is that we are permitting the the loudspeaker usage uh whereas previously in other outdoor dining locations that's not permitted currently uh but we do we did in fact carry over the standards relative to noise and the attenuation of noise uh relative to the times of day as well as uh the days of the week um repeated those conditions within this new order and the Amendments that are in there so I just wanted the board to be aware of that uh Medical Spa we didn't have actually a definition for it yet so we wanted to differentiate that from other uses and that's something as the zoning officer would tell you is something of a new use that's really becoming uh attractive to the community also um EV uh charging stations because of the state statute that is now Incorporated in the regulations it would have had to be incorporated anyway I know that they'll be coming back to you for a plan approval of the a outdoor dining so you will have a chance to see the details associated with that um and again as you mentioned the chairman me the changes to the sign ordinance in order to allow the signage to be on the back of the building in addition to that I wanted to point out one detail is that we are permitting a logo to be permitted within that overall sign calculation but the area the cumulative area of all the sign area would still be in the same compliance it's just a matter of that se logo sign uh we felt it was appropriate you can see it in some of the illustrations that have been provided to the board I think it's very characteristic and complimentary to the building especially if the area is being controlled but also we require that they be no taller than 5 fet so that would be an ultimate uh guideline and then just a Nuance with regard to what we're actually recommending is changes to the Redevelopment plan but also in order to capture the change of use for medical use of medical spot as well as fast Casal restaurant we felt the need to amend the overall zoning ordinance to include those two definitions so that's why it's a separate document that's before you um just so that that's clear for the board so essentially if you were in favor of this you would be recommending the changes in the Redevelopment plan as well as the changes in the actual Amendment draft that you're having PL what we will do at that point is to coordinate that with the governing body office any members of the board have questions Mr Snus on this Jennifer do the approach make sense to you and make your job easier if if we were to approve it yes definitely I I agree I think Med Spa is is a new use that's come to precipi that the ordinance does not uh discuss and I think it's important to not only add it at this location but also to add it to the ordinance and to allow it in uh some different zones within the town so we should suggest to the council that they consider it for other locations yes definitely just Jennifer uh as far as the parking requirements for that that would also need to be taken into consideration yes Ed and I discussed that last week in a meeting and felt that it would be the the same as a normal medical use okay and that's what we have in the current stand revise right there any members of the public who have any questions or any comments on this testimony on this particular case at this time hearing and saying none uh I guess this is your case this is what you want us to present to the council that closes the evidentiary portion of tonight's hearing um is there a desire for any discussion on what we're proposing to the council or should do I hear a motion to uh propose as is or with amendments to the council the Mr diero I'll make a motion to present it to the council as is thank you do I have a second second very good nor would you call the role please did yeso yes yes mey yes Nash yes patano yes Shaw yes Smith yes Dore yes all right thank you all thank you very and look forward to seeing you in what six weeks time or something like that another motion to recommend the amendment to the ordinance all right um I've been point it's been pointed out to me by our attorney that we should also because of the changes in the definitions we should also move to amend the township ordinance uh for the effective uh I thought that was included you need a separate motion for that just for the record we'll do the first one was just about the Redevelopment plan and then we'll just need one to recommend that the ordinance also is changed to match that okay I'll make that one Michael you'll make that one again Mr theel you do it again y nor would you call the role [Music] again yes yes yes yes yes yes okay you got it all thank you and see you at some date in the future if the council agrees with you thank you very much thank you all right it's just after eight we now move on to application number 23 col 511 sir parip LLC 299 Jefferson Road Block 736 slot 7.3 preliminary and final major site plan with C variant major soil moving permit to construct a warehouse of associated Improvement this case was carried from September 18th in 2023 chairman members nice to see everybody for the record Larry Cali on behalf of the applicate thanks for having us this evening Mr chairman members since it's been quite a while since we've been here what I'd like to do is briefly frame what we accomplished at the last meeting a little bit about the applicant background what we've done since the last meeting which has been a significant undertaking by the applicant and where we hope to go this evening with our witness deck Mr chairman for a few minutes any other waivers we need at this point okay yeah no we got to the substance of the case the last time so I understand that but sometimes changes yeah nothing nothing new on that front Mr chairman um excuse me so briefly by way of background again the property is on Jefferson Road it's about a 7 and a half acre site it's in the sc5 zoning District it's an existing multi-story office structure um extensive impervious areas we talked about at length last time the structure was built in 1985 and we're here at the planning board for what is hand permitted use which talk about briefly in a moment just by way of background again and we underscored it at the last meeting during our early profer but the applicant is not a recent owner of the property in parcion the applicant is not new to parcion this applicant has owned this property and several Assets in parcion for a number of years so this is not a typical recent acquisition where it's a speculative adapted reuse of a property this is an applicant that's had this property as um a commercial home as part of their portfolio in this Township for a number of years the board knows very well that office needs have remarkably changed since the pandemic there's been a lot of pivoting and this applicant the longtime owner of this property has deemed it uh pertinent to Pivot to another use of this property that is permitted I know the board realizes that it's why jurisdiction is here not with the board of adjustment but I think our neighbors need to understand that as well that everything about the applicants proposed use and operations here is permitted under the code in the sc5 zone at the last hearing not the fact that the use is permitted we heard a lot of concerns and questions and consideration requests by the board as to what can be done to better enhance this project most of that discussion related to properties to our rear which is a zone line buffer to a residential zone line again we're in the S5 proposing a permitted use but we've got a neighboring zone line Beyond us which is much more limited in its intensity use it's residential and there's a buffer back there we talked about Road rotating the structure potentially and make it front loading where the activated truck use is on the front side Jefferson Road side our engineer has looked at that incredibly thoroughly they've undertaken significant reviews on that and they've also looked at whether or not sliding the structure out of the buffer was also viable the design landed on the plans before you um tell the tale and our engineer will speak to it shortly the slide of the structure seemed to be much more appropriate uh than a rotation from a number of aspects on the design side on the traffic side what was accomplished by that were a number of things that we'll talk about in a moment but you know I want the board and I'd like our neighbors to appreciate the fact that this was months of consideration uh for this relief to be significantly reduced by the applicant there were a lot of sums expended I realized it's beyond the purview of the board but it's a truth and through it all the applicant this longtime owner in the township had been very mindful of their neighbors of the board concerns and they looked at everything incredibly thoroughly the existing condition conditions that we've got on site now and we talked about this Mr chairman at length at the first meeting in September the existing conditions are not ideal the buffer setback is compromised the 150t buffer setback is right now violated by the existing parking at about 60 ft it's 50 cars that can face the residents at any time uh the structures out of the setback what we came in with this applicant's proposal initially was improvements over those violations an improvement of the parking by about 15 ft an improvement of the structured by about 50 ft over existing conditions for the 75 and 109 those conditions were still in the residential buffer and we had a lot of discussion as to whether or not activity in that buffer area was going to impede the residents AB buding us over that zone boundary line and the property line to our rear so what the applicant has done in the past several months has redesigned this and shifted the structure Street side forward towards Jefferson Road which has done a few things it's completely eliminated the violation of the buffer setback the applicant structure and parking areas and loading areas are now beyond that buffer setback there is no relief to the rear now we meet the 150 fot setback requirement quite significant the applicant didn't stop there the applicant's also undertaken uh to implement an acoustic sound barrier you're going to hear from an acoustic witness tonight not part of our original expert witness deck but this evening you'll hear from acoustic expert as to the implementation the applicant is putting at the rear for know belt and suspension let's call it to ensure that the acoustic impact is not going to violate the code in fact it can't we cannot ask this board for a reprieve of Aran or a waiver to violate a noris ordinance it's controlled by title 7 as you know under the state regulations the Township Code mimics that to large extent so we need to comply with the sound regulations the intent is to do so getting the activity out of the buffer into a compliant yard was the first undertaking that's been accomplished the second is acoustical buffer an acoustic wall at the rear which will help further dampen the acoustic impact it's going to be conforming and even further than that there's plantings at the rear as well our engineer and our design professionals will take you through all of that shortly Mr chairman and members of the board but I want to again underscore the um listening that the applicant had done at the prior meeting the homework that the applicant has undertaken since the prior meeting and the results that the applicant has accomplished in their effort to continue to enhance modify and improve the plan that was before the board in September which started out as a good plan we believe it's gotten significantly better Visa the relief that's required and our neighbors concerns but with that Mr chairman tonight you're going to hear a repeat of some of our witness testimony I'll tell you who you're going to hear from and and when um our project engineer Ben Crowder he's the scrier of record of bowler engineering Ben will testify first he's already been sworn in and qualified at the last public meeting Ben is going to walk the board through the updated um exhibit of the site plan rendering um when we get to that point I think Council we're going to be on A3 I think is our next exhibit to Mark we'll walk you through the updated site plan details Ben will locate all the improvements we're talking about the mitigated relief that we've got now on the table as far as the bulk deviations uh and then we'll go from there with any questions of course our second witness will be our acoustic expert Norm D of Russell acoustic has undertaken a review of the acoustic impacts occasioned by this Warehouse structure the building the parking and loading areas relative to the property lines and all the improvements between our structure the parking areas and that property line confirming that it will conform to the code requirements Norm will walk you through all of his analysis and conclusions um then what we're going to do is a very brief recall I think Mr chairman of our traffic engineer John Harter testified to and through cross- examination at the initial public hearing testified as to the benefit of his traffic analysis and impacts I simply want Mr Harter to get on the record to confirm for the board that he won reach the same conclusions as he did the first time around that this remains appropriately designed it's proper for circulation and the like uh and it can be properly parked of course there's no relief on that front uh and as well as um his uh expert opinion that the slide of the structure towards Jefferson was a more appropriate solution than rotating the structure with front-facing trucks uh at that point time per minute Mr chairman will'll go to our architect the board really hasn't seen the skin of this building yet it's a really sharp looking building not withstanding the fact it's a warehouse it's a Well am Iz looking building we want you to see the skin of this building and the structure our architect will walk you through the floor plans which are going to be limited it's a warehouse cor up the two tenants we talked about there's not much within the Box uh we want to show you folks the exterior so we'll show you some of the elevations that you have on file as well as the renderings of what this will look like in the field and then we'll get to our project planner I don't think we get that far this evening Mr chairman but that will be the entirety of our witness deck as we move towards concluding the case for the benefit of the board so you know when to ask the questions and our public as well okay all right do we have uh anything else so we have any other I guess the waivers are done as we said I can go ahead go ahead thank you so we'll start with recalling our project engineer Ben Crowder buler engineering and Mr Crowder as Mr cie stated you're still under o oath tonight thank you can everyone hear me without a mic or should I grab take a mic take a m pleas good [Music] since it has been a few months I just wanted to quickly refamiliarizing to go back to all my testimony on the originally submitted site plan but just a quick Refresh on the site with the application this is what I had previously marked for the record is A1 it was an aerial exhibit of the property that was dated uh the date of our September hearing which is September 18th of last year subject site is about 7 and a half acres within your scd5 Zone as you had heard from attorney Cali currently occupied or formerly occupied by a three-story office building as you can see centralized on the 7 and a half acres one of the main focal points and I did want to use the aerial as just a highlighting factor that was a topic from our September hearing was certainly the compromised residential buffer behind the existing office building where you have parking facilities and loading operations of that office building they're as close as 61.9 ft away from that residential uh Eastern property line behind behind the office building you also see and this will be continuous between what we had proposed with the original application as well as looking at alternative options and then also where we ultimately landed with the slide of this proposed building the two access points on Jefferson Road predominantly in those same uh configuration as we laid out the industrial Warehouse building so what I'll put up now this is the old plan uh so this is what was originally submitted and I'll go side by side on on uh these easel so it'll give you a good comparison of where we were in September from our original application to what we've ultimately resolved to from a design perspective based on some feedback we got from this board and in some further considerations with our design team so A2 as I previously marked was a colorized site plan of what we originally submitted with the application that exhibit as I previously marked it was September 18th of 2023 just some a quick recap of kind of what our proposal is relative to A1 we've now taken a 90° rotation so at the bottom of this exhibit and the future exhibit that I'll mark for you here very shortly the bottom of the plan is your Eastern property line or that sensitive residential uh lot uh that is immediately to the east of our site 10 16,400 ft² industrial Warehouse building a permitted use within the Zone a lot of what I previously testified to is isolating the employee uh vehicular access to the southernmost driveway and then isolating your loading operations it was 14 loading spaces on the Northern side of this building as its own independent access as you heard from attorney c um as we had uh originally presented this plan we were improving that condition from that existing office off building but we were still requiring variance relief from that 150 ft residential buffer to the Eastern property line or that abing residential use to the east so the parking area where we had some of the truck maneuverability was as close as 75 ft so that was about a 14t improvement from that office use and the building itself was 109 uh whereas you know per the ordinance is required to be 150 ft we had also from the balance of the variance relief just as a quick refresh uh because a lot of that will continue forward with this application we had a variance as it relates to loading space size where your ordinance requires the spaces to be 12T wide and the length two times the largest vehicle that is anticipated to be sitting in that space we were proposing those 14 spaces at 13 1/2 ft wide 60 ft long which I had provided was was long enough to accommodate the trailer of the largest tractor trailer which was a WB 67 anticipated to access those those loading spaces immediately across 22 trailer storage spaces setbacks relative to parking and trailer storage was all in compliance with your underlying Zone we're also reducing impervious coverage from that existing condition by adding about 9800 Square ft of Green Space through some of these improvements the balance of the variance relief was really related to steep slopes I briefly talked about that if I go back to A1 when this original office building was constructed there were some man-made steep slopes predominantly focused around all four sides of this office building by a function of demolishing that office structure regrading the site it was uh technically triggering the three categories of your steep slopes ordinance and that was uh the balance of that outside of some of the wall signs that the architect you through on the elevation so now what I will do so so go side by side and I think I heard I'm at A3 this will be A3 Ben yes so now you have a side by-side comparison of originally submitted site plan A2 and as recently revised and considered since that September meeting which I'll mark As 83 to further introduce it site layout plan exhibit stated with tonight's date of February 5th 2024 and this reflects a colorized version of what was recently submitted uh prior to this hearing for our revised site plan so what I'll briefly talk about no change in building size uh parking in the change between the two layouts was only reduced by one and I'll tell you why we did that shortly but really what I'll get into is really three buckets of changes and the first one really relates to sighting the building on the property and as you had heard Ator from attorney C the main thing that we had evaluated was a rotated option which had its traffic and circulation concerns but also a shifted option and we ultimately resolved to a shifted option where this building moved to the west or towards Jefferson Road by 41 ft what that did is along that Eastern property line we now have no Hardscape impervious coverage buildings pav parking or circulation within that entire 150t residential buffer it's all green space now what that also did on the contrary is pushed this into the front yard there's a 100 foot front yard set back we're now requesting variance relief on the 60 ft but we thought in balance with shifting that building getting that green space around the more sensitive residential property line in the back was a good sight layout uh situation for uh Shifting the location of the building Still Remains in full compliance with building coverage lot coverage parking setbacks parking requirements all other yards it's now just concentrated toward Jefferson Road in favor of putting back that green space along the rear second bucket really pertains to parking and circulation so if you look between A2 and A3 still maintaining the two access points from Jefferson Road but we also look to do and I remember a couple board members had the comment about from back on A2 some asphalt pavement truck circulation turnaround area that was protruding as close as 75 ft in here with loading unloading activity for the project we've now lost five trailer spaces so we went from 22 to 17 as I'm back on A3 and we've striped out this area to allow the trucks to maneuver in this area ultimately that's creating 21 ft from this Eastern property line to the nearest activity Associated the loading unloading operation of the proposed use so building 150 ft loading activities 211 ft I briefly talked also about the loss of one parking space so you can see on A2 there were some parking areas that were slightly past and encroaching into that 150 ft we've pulled that back so now it's 99 parking spaces 78 were proposed or required so 99 proposed and as uh from a zoning perspective that's 103 the Delta there as I had previously presented your four EV car charging spaces that per the state ordinance count as as two from a zoning perspective your truck and vehicular access are still separate we've also worked with your uh Fire subcode official within the building department where you'll see kind of faintly hatched in this green space is still the access ability for fire and emergency apparatus to if they need to get to all four corners of this building but as previously presented that's going to be a grass paver reinforced drive so you're just going to have the natural grass growing through it it's not impervious coverage uh but structurally reinforced if a fire Tru had to get back into that space the last element um or last bucket relative to some of these shifts was and we'll kind of lump them all together the Landscaping the screening and the sound attenuation so we do have an acoustical engineer that'll walk you through some of the as attorney CI had emphasized belts and suspenders sound attenuation measures on the property we've also looked at some additional screening mechanisms in addition to creating that 150 ft horizontal separation of any structure outside that residential buffer that being some consistent with the original proposal where there's an existing wood line back here today and we had no intent originally and as recently submitted of disturbing any of that Woods it's largely a deciduous wood line so days like today where you don't have you're in the winter and you lose all the Leaf cover you know it it you can see kind of through it it's very transparent so what we wanted to do and we had done this with the original proposal is adding a full Evergreen screen along the entire Eastern property line and wrapping around to the north we're still continuing to do that as I'm back on A3 with our revised plan but what we've also done is at this Northeastern Corner incorporate a landscape burm so while you can't see that on A3 necessarily 4 foot high landscape burm with also now the evergreen trees on top and that was generally in response to some of the testimony that I provided where we had looked at the architecture of this building to recess those loading space is actually within the footprint so that the building itself was actually doing a good screening mechanism if you were immediately to the east of this building we also heard some feedback residents sight lines if you were north of the property looking back toward the industrial loading use so these Evergreens in combination of this landscape BM also create a vertical screening element in addition to that horizontal separation the last element with which is the biggest one I think it's a an element the client has uh Gone forward with certainly is costly but something that helps further screen and attenuate sound and that is the implementation of about 258 linear feet of sound wall that wall is 16 ft in height uh that's also from a screening perspective also going to help with sight lines or mitigating sight like potential into this norn portion of the site but as you also hear from our acoustical engineer also help from a sound attenuation perspective you'll hear a little bit more on the construction and uh workability of that wall as a whole so that sound wall and Screen wall is also kind of concentrating or isolating this loading unloading component of the development on the Northern side of the building also further away from that Eastern property line so that's about that 21 ft that generally is my direct testimony there's a lot of um the variances that I previously talked about with regard to the Loading space size we have a variance to allow a 30 foot wide driveway for trucks whereas 24 is the maximum permitted um and then our steep slopes uh are the are the balance of the variance relief needed for the application outside of some of the wall signs from our uh architect and the fence height great yes I forgot that one the most critical the wall and fence height so with the implementation of this 16 ft high sound and Screen wall technically within the side and rear yards uh those elements are only allowed to be 6 feet so we're 16 over 6 uh as a function of that that sound screening element that we wanted to incorporate on the site for that loading operation so that'll be a variance yes that's a variance correct all right that's generally it uh for my direct I can certainly take any any questions on the updates tell I'm going to turn all the way down to Andrew down there yeah um thanks for the testimony and the update so just confirm uh what is the front yard set back to the building you have now it is 60 ft and 100 required 100 is required and then I saw that you had several submissions back and forth I think with the fire department that's correct um and I appears that they have one they had additional comments on their last submission about additional turning area what what's your what's the fcan position on that on uh it's something we can accommodate it was basically if the fire truck got down to the end of the parking Row the ability for it to to turn around in that space and then the water department had several comments as well uh domestic Water Service fire service lines um any issues with complying with the water department no can fully comply there and the same for the sewer yes sanitary sewer as well as the latest uh report that you issued and could you just give some testimony on the signs yeah absolutely uh so from a wall sign perspective they'll show up on our Architects rendering so you'll see that uh in the variance relief there the free signs there's two there today that demarcate uh the they were previously approved with the office as this building slides forward the one associated with the southern driveway we're just going to relocate in kind but actually situate it uh within you know the 20 foot required setback it needs to have from Jefferson Road so those signs will stay as is just be refaced and repanel for the tency of of this building and then U as you guys comment commented on the you know the request was to rotate the building yet you have a sound wall and an extra buffer area as proposed how did you come up with the sound wall location and height so uh several iterations from our acoustical engineer relative to the activity associated with the loading uh so he'll be able to provide some testimony on the inputs that go into his sound study which necessitates the location of the wall we certainly played around with its location uh from an attenuation perspective but also utilizing that as a screening mechanism too it's serving both purposes in this application just because of the sight lines and the The View corridors So speaking of the screening um the houses I think it's Emily uh place the uh adjoining residential development um did you consider the height of the those build buildings and their view shed their view toward yeah it certainly went into our acoustical engineer will certainly talk about those levels relative to the different levels of each of those homes but also from a a 16t height is also a good mechanism because a tractor trailer 13 1/2 ft high that was a good starting point and then you also have some elevation drop that occurs in the rear of the site so from a profile perspective that was kind of built into the birming the height of the evergreen trees and then as you got you know the 200 plus feet into the site that sound wall screen Wall height I think that's everything that I have all right members of the Mr mey referring to the access driveway in the southwest corner the one on the left yes you did mention that fire equipment wouldn't have access to that that's correct how wide is that 24 ft terrific that's what I was looking for okay thank you other members of the board of questions uh Mr deiro yeah I'm I'm still not convinced I'm the one that recommended that they rotate the building so the loading would be on Jefferson Road and even further away from the residence on Emily mhm I'm not convinced that that wouldn't produce less sound I'll wait for your sound expert but it seems to me all those trucks backing up and doing the beeping would be more muffled by the building um if that was close to Jefferson Road yeah I I mean it's I'll let our acoustical engineer talk not only not only that but you're going to you're talking about two separate clients one one's going to be up on that the top right hand corner of the building and one's going to be in the lower right hand corner of the building if you had rotated the building they would both be facing Jefferson Road and have their own signs if if we were to rotate this building the the 2500 ft offices based on the way the architecture of the building would lay out would actually be facing the Eastern property line aren't those the offices on the right hand side uh the offices are at the southwest corner and the southeast corner all right yeah I thought they were and the I apologize any confusion if if I directed it that way but they're Southwest and Southeast so as you rotate this those two office building locations and parking would be in the rear yard and while there may be some sound benefits of the loading a focal point for us was Green Space separation getting rid of the residential buffer um encroachment because even if you were to rotate this building you would still have parking and activity within that 150 ft yeah but it would be resident it would be employee cars which don't have backup beepers on them like the trucks do you but you have you have headlights you have circulation you have lighting you have movement back there where we had kind of weighed that against yeah traditional Green Space and buffering and that that 150 ft to give that whole green space back on the plan all while looking at at making sure we're keeping the sound in check as we have to yeah I think the cars in the back would have been less objectionable than than the beeping but I'll wait for your sound engineer other members of the board oh Jennifer um I just I remember during my during the last meeting in my notes we talked about tenants was it is it still a maximum of two tenants maximum of two tenants thank you Mr nalo yes thank thank you thank you for uh these appreciate them all right so there are 17 instead of 22 storage uh Lanes that's correct are any of those going to be refrigerated ones that are on all night long running no those would be empty empty trailers okay thank you for that um just to want to make sure I heard everything right so instead of rotating the building like we we hoped or it did not just okay but you shifted it to the West 41 ft that's correct so now it's another 41 ft further away from the homes or it's more than that than it was before cuz you said you took out a bunch of other stuff right it was 109 I'm back on 82 it was 109 and now it's 150 so it was 41 ft for the structure okay all right I heard 2011 somewhere else what was that one that 2011 is where uh your closest distance to any of the loading unloading activities previously back what was that number before 75 there that's where I got 2 okay so it went from 7 75 to the closest now at 211 to the closest that's correct and you're going to add a full screen of evergreen trees these are full siiz living um already grown trees not baby ones at at install all of them will be 6 to 8 feet in height they're spread out so that they grow and then they can kind of mature into a full screen as they grow and take across the board all right so it might still be noisy for them for the uh first couple years so they fully grow the the Evergreen screen is more from a a visual screen versus sound attenuation but we do put them in a little bit at the 68t height just to allow them to take and grow um and they'll fill in you know a lot the our Landscape Architects have selected species that'll grow one to two feet in height plus or minus per year so they'll fill in quickly all right so there's definitely some improvements uh for the residents who are behind there but okay thank you for those appreciate it Mr meth I'm finally around to you don't worries actually it's a question for Miss Winter for to start sure the 150 ft residential buffer required there's an emergency road in this right is that cons is that an acceptable um addition to a required residential buffer so um my memory of what is required within the buffer is Green Space um so Bond would count and I believe how it's used is the pervious um type papers that the Grass Grows through so I'm not sure that it it wouldn't count as a buffer yeah it really speaks to a structure and then there's also further requirements for for parking in the rear yard so these these pavers are actually kind of honeycomb geoweb so you actually have the grass growing through them so it's not just a a material that lets the water get through but it actually you you wouldn't know these are there um outside of it just being General General lawn okay any other questions by Mr and that that will hold that will hold the biggest fire truck we have that's correct yes we no no we've uh We've speced this on many developments it's an enhanced structural geogrid um that will you know provide a submitt to the fire department for the app it's not impervious coverage that's correct it's it's grass okay how will just just probably a stupid question but as years go by and fire districts and firemen change how how do they know that it's there after once it's once it's in well what we're going to do and it was part of some of the coordination with the Fire subcode official is is also have a signage that direct that direct apparatus if they needed to get to this rear backside that they would know how to go there okay on that same note there I couldn't tell if we have delineators shown or included on the plan so that the fire dep barbit knows where this surface is under the grass and where it isn't so they don't sink do you have delineators sh on no delineators we are implementing signage if that's something that they want for the 26 ft we can certainly I've seen definitely you know some smaller Monument type things that will frame out that that width just so they know where they're I mean they responded their memo was in there they an oversight in the part because when the the if they do need to use this they do need to act they're going to need some visual cue uh beside a sign on where this 20ft wide traffic loaded or vehicle loaded uh suitable area is it's 20 foot wide and it's much much wider back there 26 26 ft that was a request was to actually get it a little bit wider is you need to know they need to know where where their their vehicle is we we can certainly agree to work with them just to delineate that space if they if they want something else in the I think there was also request related to keeping it clear of snow so the delineators would probably be helpful on that front too y oh that's a request from the fire department um fire sub code I believe so yeah so that that could be a little bit tricky M with the grass yeah so what I've seen and we can work with them on whatever mechanism that might be whether it is just a u channel sign but I've also seen some decorative kind of Monument type things that will frame out both sides so it sticks up in a snow event which is very similar to the flags you put on your I say I think it's a very good idea to be adding those delineators so they know where they need to be going not only for during emergency but like you said if this has going to be maintained for snow uh everyone's got to know where that is yep understood Mr D all right my turn y so uh real quick on the on the backyard is it just a green lawn or will there be any trees to protect against this acoustic or sound and everything so we have the if I'm on A3 you have the existing wood line which we're not intending to disturb whatsoever from what's out there today then you've got a brand new Evergreen screen plantings the entire Eastern property line as you get closer to this Northeastern Corner those plantings get up on a 4ot high burm and then from that Evergreen screen to the building is proposed is just lawn up to that full 150 foot width and that's also to accommodate the the fire uh truck access just a high level right so how much uh how many feet is the um the trees versus the [Music] lawn so you're 65 ft from the Eastern property line to those evergreen trees okay and the the the acoustic wall you talked about during the uh near the truck activity how long is that wall 258 linear feet to the entire parking so it extends from the northeastern corner of the building all the way to about 10 ft from the northern property line because there's a setback requirement and then it'll turn and it'll run about another 125 ft along that Northern not the entire parking space right just the par just just about 125 ft North okay and the last question uh or maybe a comment that is the honeycomb delineators we talked about in the back side and again maybe I think somebody talked about making sure it's clear off the snow and everything but how about the weight requirements last thing we want is you know emergency vehicles going in there that stuck right so yeah would there be weight requirements or whatever you know Vehicles yeah so the the geog grid that we spec and we've worked with several of the manufacturers cuz this commonly comes up on developments is adequately loaded we will send them the way to the fire emergency apparatus and then they'll give us the actual geogrid spec and we could certainly submit that you know to your Professionals for their review as well perfect thank you right just another comment on that um I'm not concerned I've seen that detail Ed before uh I'm more concerned about snow plowing um the grass area area about ruining it if they if they dig the blade in the ground you have any experience with the snow plowing we do um that's something we've actually approached the manufacturer about that with the way that the the geog grid is actually installed it hasn't been a concern but it's something that in this application we'll make sure is part of also the structural component of what we propos out and I would suggest signage for the snow fine for the maintenance again they're not going to know what's there absolutely um I see your Landscaping you know stays significantly away from this uh there there's a large grass area between this this uh emergency axis route and the proposed uh screening six and 6 to 8ot trees why such a large area of just grass uh we so in addition to the fire and emergency access this actually functions as a a drainage s on the property today so you have some drainage that's coming away from the building but also kept away from that Eastern residential property line where we want to capture that internal to the site so you can vaguely make out on A3 some of the drainage structures that are picking up that that runoff so you're maintaining those structures and that's still the low Point that's correct um who's given the testimony on steep slopes and the variants for that that would be me okay and then also soil movement yes soil movement application yep so uh the steep slopes I don't want to interrupt I just read that question yeah I don't want to change gears from review but I just want to know that you to sit down until you have I can briefly talk about those good time for you to talk about yeah so I previously provided the testimony on the steep slopes nothing changes with regard to those three variances which are if you want to lump them into one but of the three categories 15 to 20% 20 to 25 and greater 25 those numbers calculate out originally uh consistent with this plan which is 82 is originally submitted and that's largely because majority of our disturbance is around that office building where you had manmade created slopes through the construction of that facility it's not natural man-made slopes that we're disturbing with with the application from a major soil moving permit uh application we did submit that I we saw a letter back from the town engineer addressed to the board uh some fees and some additional operational things that we can all agree to comply with um the rough cut to fill as we had submitted is about 13,500 cubic yards dirt moving on the site it's about an import of just over 7,000 cubic yards for the property and the route uh I would anticipate a majority of the deliveries are coming from 28780 Corridor to Smith road to Jefferson to the site just by virtue of of where the dirt's coming there were some open items as a contractor would come on board that we would certainly fill out and coordinate with with the town engineer for the exact route operations what do you anticipate for the Deep foundation for these uh sound walls so I I think you might be alluding to a comment within your report where we have a drain pipe through the area so there are going to be a couple areas where um the sound wall will be structurally designed so we'll make sure that those shop drawings and design details make its way to your office as well as the town engineer for review uh but in some of those instances you'll have to work through a type of hunch design over the the drainage pipe or any other element that's in you know in that workable zone of that wall all right Mr M I don't recall from the previous meeting back in September or October but are you planning any solar panels on the roof not at this time okay thank you we have our EV car charging spaces yes by law I guess right by law yeah Mr yes thank you one more sorry all right so I think Miss SMI a little dis before as firefighters change hands all right they forget to go in the the South entrance and they go in the north entrance and the fire is in the eastern part of the building and they're driving in and they see that wall there yeah is there at least going to be an access door there for him to run through or her to run through and just at least get hook to the fire hydrant or they going to have to turn all way back around and go all back around again so what uh this was some of the initial coordination we had done with the Fire subcode official hence a lot of the mechanisms for signing uh the fire access point to this building and making sure that that's directed to this this area if it were to get around here it would have a mechanism to turn around you would be able to get to this corner but if it had to get to the rear yard we wanted to make sure that it was signed you know accordingly from Jefferson Road so it knew where to turn in and remember that the fireman and only because fire prevention is one of my departments and the fire districts are under my they they visit these sites so they know where the access are and things they'll they'll visit the site and become familiar and they know where the lights are and where the hookups are good thank you all right any other questions by members of the board I had a question what are the new variances that are being proposed from the prior so really the only change in variance is the front yard so it's the 60 ft versus the required 100t and that is in lie of now not needing the residential buffer variant either for parking or a structure uh and technically since we have to move this existing sign you're only allowed one freestanding sign on the property two were previously approved we're just moving this relocating it in kind to be with at that 20 foot required setback at the driveway and and Mr Cali did you notice for the front yard variance no the original notice stance the notice was carried these were amendments post filing so this is subject to lav pmart we think this stands the test notice is not required but this is a new variance that's being created by a new condition correct who plan supplements post hearing and the new fence and yes yes as my as my teammates are reminding me the the wall so a few were no change a few were eliminated and two new ones and to be hyper technical the sign Ben might be right I think in an abundance of caution we would seek a variance for the secondary freestanding sign to the extent it is relocated even though it's been relocated outside of the setback in approved condition and what was the the site that you stated that why you don't need to reot Cas Mar okay you can continue today I don't know if you'll be able to finish the application to I don't think we're finishing tonight no this our first of I'll be four Witnesses okay okay I was going to ask you sometimes they put out the notice saying and any other oh that's always in there that's the Appel divisions approved catchall that's been in our first notice that's still in there that you know what they refer to in our parland is the shotgun blast catch all and in all you know other variant of relief and approval that may be required during the course of the public hearing that that stands the test as well so actually another question came up out of that discussion and maybe you're not the right expert I don't know are you going to have an architect testify we will yeah you might not see him tonight gon but but our architect is here and we'll be up because I'm curious why the building has to be as big as it is and you can't eliminate both the front yard and rear yard variants talking about shrinking the structure size is what you're saying exactly okay I'm curious about what you know is there a magic equation to the building I think there is from from from a utility standpoint in the market I think there is definitely a sweet spot of number of usable square footage for this type of use um our architect testified more to that but but there certainly is a market demand for this size of a box if you will as opposed to Alternative sides okay well I mean with all due respect Mr Cali I mean I I really appreciate appreciate your your knowledge of the law I I'll I'll wait for an expert to tell me that thanks you got it all right and I'm not sure if this is you or going to be somebody else but what's that wall going to look like our our architect's going to talk about that but the color of that wall is anticipated to be compatible with you know the building color schemes and you'll see that on the elevations okay Mr do you have any idea is this going to be a refrigerated Warehouse or drrive Warehouse uh I don't know that at this time is refrigerator then you will have tractor trailers who's running the tractor trailer non-stop I don't think if it's loading at the time more concern is the sound Our concern is major concern is the neighborhoods over there m so if it's a refrigeration Warehouse it's definitely not a a cold storage facility whatsoever that's I'm saying because if the tractor trailer comes they just standing there and running it yeah the engine keeps running it's I don't how well is your sound barrier wall he our acoustical Engineers run all the models so he'll be able to talk through about that a little bit with the trucks the trips sitting in the dock in that attenuation piece thanks all right we're done up here so I'm going to ask if there are any members of the public who have questions of this witness on this testimony if you can come up here and uh identify yourself and your location and uh residents and sure ask your question sure uh good evening uh my name is David doery d o c k r y I'm from the law firm of Becker and poov I am legal counsel for the M of Rook Home Owners Association which is the rear uh yard uh neighbor um I just have just a a minor question um as to the fire subc code uh memo I think we're looking at the January 25th there is a handwritten notation at the end of the employee parking lot that to my understanding looks like they are requiring a portion of that to actually be paved um and could you just clarify what the status is and what the resolution of that particular corner is yeah that that comment is generally pertaining if I'm back on A3 Southeastern corner of the building so we have provided a mechanism for the fire Tru to to turn around on the Eastern side of the building there was a request and we do have some excess parking where 78 parking spaces are uh required 99 or proposed where there was a mechanism uh that was requested if the truck needed to turn around right in that location via kurn or maneuverability we will work something in this in this space due to our you know our access of par parking at the corner so would you extend the asphalt surface beyond the the back of the building we would not um we are we're going to hold any type of building or pavement surface at that 150 line okay and at the end of the parking lot will there be some sort of ballards that the trucks can knock down or you know signal that that's really only emergency access at that point that's an element that we're looking to incorporate the signage that directs the the fire apparatus to this not only this access point but from that point forward it would be emergency vehicles only all right thank you um as your testimony getting back to the orientation of the building it's my understanding and if you could just clarify if if there was to be a rotation hypothetically with the truck loading Baye in the front um and I'm sorry to put you through this uh when you were considering that uh if you were to put the employee parking in the back let's say we're just turning this um right exactly uh what would be the variance required then in the rear set back we would still be in a very similar position if if we if we took this plan and turned it in kind and we position the truck and trailer operation then the building then the required parking spaces we're still looking at an encroachment for the limit of the parking uh for the basically the front of the building facing that Eastern property line that was very similar to what we had previously proposed from a distance perspective would that still be further away from the property line than the current office building um I think subjective to how many parking spaces we propose I think it would be a slight improvement from the 61.9 Ft that's that's currently there that's correct yep okay and as far as the buffering um and Landscaping uh to the rear uh is there any plan to prioritize this maybe getting uh ahead of the the game here but to prioritize that buffering um in the initial phase of construction so as to provide buffering during the the raising and whether practically possible kind of minimize construction noise and activity from M Brook I'm I'm I'm sure that's something that can certainly be considered in the construction sequence particularly since where these evergreens are being installed is actually already behind uh the current existing back a curb of some of that parking so if it has the opportunity in the season is is supportive of that it's not middle of July I think that's something that could certainly go in as an earlier phase okay and I don't know if you will be testifying about this later if it's already even testified to but I did see a comment um in one of the planning memos about lighting height um I think currently it was specified at 25 ft um and possibility of lowering that has that been considered or will someone else yeah that that was um so it's 25 ft everywhere there was a a comment to lower in some of the employee uh parking areas and that was something that we were agreeing to okay um great questions I thanks any other members of the public have questions on this testimony at this time hearing and seeing none is there oh as they would say in the game shows come on down if you could identify yourself it's Merl Doner SS cumson gross representing man USA which is the owner of the property um to the left as you look at the diagram which is A3 um we will say that the we like this design that has the loading away from our headquarters building I have one question though um how is the parking calculated uh since it appears to be based on employment and as I understand that this is a SPEC Building unless you have the numbers of employees already we're just concerned if there's overflow is a very short a very narrow setback to our property and that would be a likely place so just if someone can explain how they reach that number yeah so we have conservatively from an industry perspective assumed 80 to 100 employees in this building uh that like I said is is relatively conservative because the parking as you've alluded to is a function of number of employees number of managers and then uh Associated components of those managers if you break that down assuming 80 to 100 and we'll start with the 100 that requires 78 parking spaces we're at 99 with the latest plan so conservatively parked from a building of this size even if it were to be two tenants across the board okay that's what there's no square footage parking no it's it's a function of employees managers for the code but actually I think what it said was if I read it it was managers and I'm not sure what that definition is and then visitor parking based on the number of managers and then um employees so that includes Warehouse employees as well as office employees or is everyone in the office a manager that was having a hard time figuring out you understand yeah it's it's an interesting calculation because it's one space for every two employees one space for every manager and one visitor space for every 10 managers so we've kind of worked through some some scenarios to make sure that the 99 parking spaces is well above and beyond you know what we had anticipate 80 to 100 employees whether you break that out as you know a majority employees with a few managers or even in this calculation which would be more conservative 30 managers so we actually you know we're a little bit more conservative on that tabulation as well how many spaces would you be and I know you're getting credit for 103 with the EV but the um if you were to have to lose some of the spaces uh to accommodate the fire code what are we how many are you talking about Los four to five in that area so maybe 95 spaces all right is there a a backup I mean I assume you don't want to cap that number employees so what's the ball that would would truck parking become if the number actually once you have people there is higher MH um so they're not north parking lot where's the alternative well I think with our approval and Mr C can correct me if I'm wrong if we're going to say there's a 100 employees as this building takes tency if that employee requirement were to go up uh through either of those tenants coming in that would be an item that would have to be relook that from a zoning perspective you understand I we like this layout but that was the only concern that we saw because it is an unusual calculation but you aired on the conservative side at all turns in your calculation is that right that's correct thank you thank you any other members of the public have questions in this testimony at this time I suspect Mr C what do you anticipate getting done tonight can I ask one more question sure I don't remember from September the hours of operation is that a eight hour day operation or is it multiple shifts think it's at this point as there are no tenants I think it's anticipated that this building might run around the clock which the code permits so it's likely to be shift workers Around the Clock if that's the case then the 100 workers you're projecting wouldn't all be there at the same time that's right that's exactly right there' be there'd be different shifts so it'll be fewer at each shift yeah you'll have voids in the spaces some are coming and going there will always be spaces that that's and and and we understand Miss godar's concern as a neighbor and the code was applied conservatively but you know and I know you understand Mr and the board does if this didn't work for the applicant it's not working for the board either the interests are sort of aligned in that respect because if this parking doesn't work it's bad for us too it's a big problem for us too so this was again conservatively estimated in the field and you're right you're going to have empty spaces people are leaving the next showing up okay thank you what do you anticipate doing tonight we're going to finish Mr chairman let our acoustic expert I think might be a decent amount of time on on board questions and maybe public questions our acoustic expert is going to be our next witness after Mr Crowder concludes um I don't really have you know high hopes that we're going to get much beyond that but if we did we'd expect a brief recall of our traffic engineer at that point and we might very well conclude I think the board's pleasure to conclude testimony by 10 10:30 is that right you go if you go beyond 10:00 you have to send off a pizza that's right that order I'm in yeah is there a desire by members of the board to take a break motion for a break all right we're going to break at this moment so order I I'll make pieza phone call Mr chairman the planning board meeting for uh February 5th 2024 D would you call the r Please Mr dich Mr diero here Mr McGrath here Mr mey Mr meth president Mr napalitano here Mr Shaw here M Smith here chairman D here all right that's how I do it yeah Council thank you Mr chairman members so our second witness for the evening Norm Dy of Russell acoustic we'll get Mr Dy sworn in qualified and then we're we up to the races [Music] window if you raise your right hand you swear affirm that the testimony that you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do okay and please state your name spell your last name for the record and provide your business address I'm Norman Dy D TTI and I'm principal with Russell Acoustics in forkid River I know you've testified before this board previously Norm years ago but for the benefit of the board and the record your background credentials qualifications and Licensing if you would briefly uh yes I've been in this room many times I probably starting back almost 40 years ago i' done multiple projects in parsipany last one I remember was in this room uh for ups and and their sound barrier that sort of thing so I'm a Consulting acoustical engineer I practiced as such for 52 years uh clients and I bachelor's degree uh in engineering hearing from Stevens a masters from NJIT I have a dozen postgraduate courses and Acoustics um I taught for 10 years at the OSHA training institute in Illinois where I developed their Advanced noise control course I taught uh industrial noise control for B&K instruments they're a worldwide in acoustical instrumentation manufacturer uh projects include warehouses uh conference rooms uh schools churches and synagogues shopping centers uh private homes um the list goes on I've been doing this for 52 years frankly it starts to blur together after a while your license current in a good standing and then then go back to what you're going to say yes yeah okay uh no actions against me um and I should mention too I'm also just reappointed uh by the governor I'm a member of the state noise control Council that writes the regulations for the state of New Jersey thank you and and wrote the model noise ordinance which you adopted a number of years ago Mr chair I don't see any questions on the uh wait I'm I'm sorry did you did say he's professional you're a professional engineer correct yes okay thank you and technically a planner also board certified by The Institute of noisy control Engineers by exam they'll be testifying here tonight in this capacity as an engineer with an expert in acoustic engineering and design understood yeah I'm just asking about the professional license than thank you fair enough Council you're with thank you Mr chair so Norm before we cut you loose just a few things to confirm you're familiar with the property the surrounding area the intended use and the plans that are on file with the board yes okay and you've had an opportunity to prepare an analysis and render some conclusions and proposed implementations based upon acoustic impact from this site with the abing neighbors in mind is that right correct so if you would Norm take us through the benefit of your analysis your proposed development and your conclusions you've drawn from it we were retained to look at the sound issues and in particular the uh residential area nearby and uh I went through a number of iterations and the study we had discussions uh there changes made to the building based on my comments and that's how we wound up with the uh current configuration I'll show you what we did so obviously we can't go out there and measure the operation because it doesn't exist which is not an unusual situation and we're going to start by marking these Norms sequentially um count A4 up to yes I believe so Norm so we're going to mark that first exhibit as A4 with today's date is it have a title on there Norm for the record well what it this is a uh or describe it for the record sure it is a sound level contour map and this particular one descriptions trailer tractor tractor trailers into and out of loading dock area 16t sound barrier first for listener thank you what we're describing here so what we do is take the take a cad file of the project and surrounding areas um and use that along with in uh information on the trucks and their sound levels uh distances ground cover buildings and are Heights all those factors go into it and they're put into a commercial system called sound plan um and from that we can do calculations based based on specifically it is an ISO standard ISO 961 13-2 which describes uh the propagation of sound Outdoors interacting with this the sound sources uh buildings foliage ground cover all those things factor into it it's an in ISO it's an international standard used for this purpose and that's what the sound plan uh program implements so all those factors went in there into the model and we initially looked at as you aware earlier building and if we didn't do something about it there would be a problem by by problem I mean the following there is a state noise regulation nj7 colon 29 which sets limits to keep it somewhat simple uh sets limits for daytime 7:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. and night time 10: p.m. to 7: a.m. on sound levels out or within a receiving property in other words a site can make as much noise as it wants on its own site it's what goes to the neighbors that counts uh the limit daytime is 65 65 DBA 50 at night and it is a performance standard so as was mentioned earlier they have to meet it and what happens if they don't meet it well if there's a complaint then they they a noise control officer is the proper term can come out uh when called and take the necessary measurements and if they're over they can get a notice of violation out of the thing they have time to Abate that they don't they can get another one and after a short period of time if they don't remedy it uh it can get very nasty there's fines are significant I don't remember the exact number because it changed recently it it's at least $2,000 a day so it it mounts up there um so the regulation has some teeth in it excuse me um now you are one of the I'll few a lot of towns throughout the state have not adopted their own noise ordinance or if they have them it's something that they cooked up themselves and the state regulation says municipality can have its own uh ordinance if it is approved by njde the only thing njde will approve is something called the model noise ordinance for the purposes of this application it and the state ordin state regulation are the same you you originally had a noise ordinance of some sort and it was disapproved by the state it was subsequent you submitted another one a number of years later and it it is proved if you go on to the appropriate uh D site where they list the status of uh municipalities that have submitted ordinances recip shows up as approved your your uh and thing you only thing that the D will approve is the model no ordinance which has the same limits so in complying with the state limits we're also complying with parpy limits we have that is background so after experimenting what when we do I heard a question earlier about how do we determine the Wall height the width and all that stuff I know where I want to put a wall to be the most effective the question is how long should it be and how high should it be so as we go through an iterative process looking at different heights and positions of sort we can see for example you can see on this one at the at the top here the sound wall is this blue L-shaped drawing here um you can notice here that the sound is I I use the term oozing it wraps around the edges of the barrier that's that's typical and that's one reason why you can't just say well if Mr napalitano is a noise source and I want to block it I just take it over just so I just block you sound's going to come around the corner ooze around there so it often has to extend further than just a quick look like someone who doesn't understand this might assume I only need to block The Edge and good so we have to extend it far enough so that when it oozes around it doesn't get the apartments uh likewise on height I could build it real long but a 4ot high sound or 6ot high or 8ft high sound barrier is not tall enough to to stop the noise even if the Sound Source is low like it really is on a tractor trailer or Truck moving around in in a lot it's the it's the engine noise that really makes the sound um I might just block it but it has to be tall enough so that again it's just as it sound oozes around the sides it's going to ooze up over the top so you can say well somebody's 8 feet high or so it only has to be 9 ft high and we're good no that's not true another variable is an say I heard from uh another one of you folks the question I think it might have been the the engineer about height and I love that question so the height of the receiver or listener relative to the Sound Source height and the barrier all and the distances relative distances between them all figure into it so you just can't look and say well I'll put a barrier here and make it X feet tall and it'll solve the noise problem so here for these apartments when I looked at them it's very obvious they have second floor levels up there to deal with when you go higher up you lose some effectiveness of a barrier you normally address what I call head height a listener when a compliance person goes out there especially at night because we have to meet standard at night too um they're standing in the backyard they have a sound level they're holding the thing up they take a measurement and I use that is nominally about 5 1/2 ft tall um that's a height and we designed for that so that that's effective but now we have the second floor and we're up around 15 ft above grade and so it's possible that you could actually standing up on the second floor be able to look directly at the trucks because the barrier isn't is n tall enough and if you do that then the the effectiveness of the barrier falls off very quickly as you get closer and closer to peeking over the edge so we concluded that in design so we really designed this not for the first floor but the second floor because that's the more critical measure so we'll mark this one now Norm okay A5 with today's date I imagine it has a a similar but maybe different title that we can give it for the record [Music] than the Red Line This Is by Department Norm what can we call A5 just differentiate that's okay s it's it again is a sound level contour map the uh description here tractor Trail is in and out of the loading dock area as as we said before 16 ft sound barrier as we said before second floor listener that's the difference between than everything else is the same on these two except the height of the receiver okay the red line so you know more about what you're looking at here and here is the 50 DBA contour line so closer into that as it gets from the red into yellow and other hot kind of colors those are above 50 in the uh the truck area here we're looking at levels around 80 DBA beyond the red line as we start getting into the greens those are sound levels that are below 50 the nighttime limit again when it all comes down to it usually for a warehouse we just designed for the nighttime operation the 50 DBA limit so if you look at the ground floor level then over by the homes the resulting sound levels are down around depending on where you are uh 40 to 45 DBA on the first floor it's much closer to the 40 than it is the 45 you have more shielding from the barrier the barrier is what's stopping the sound propagation so in both cases both out both elevations we meet the uh the nighttime criteria by five or more DBA uh about the barriers we always ask what what's it made out of and the simple answer can be met all sorts of stuff you stop sound propagation with mass so you have to have something solid can't can't make a sound barrier out of chicken wire has to be solid on paper two two layers of 3/4 inch plywood would do the job acoustically I have yet to find a board that would approve two layers of 3/4 inch plywood uh but that just give you a sense of how massive or not all that massive it has to be to provide the necessary sound attenuation once you start adding more sometimes it happens somebody says okay you're going to make this this thing out of 4 in of concrete let's say well if that works then 8 in of concrete or 12 in of concrete got to be even better right and the answer is no because it's the dimensions of once the barrier is solid enough and has the necessary Dimensions height and length to do its job making the barrier more massive does not help the Acoustics at all you say well gee Norm the sound barriers along the highway these big massive things and I guess it's might be considered an editorial opinion but that's the way New Jersey likes to build them last time I checked State's cost per mile of a sound barrier was twice the national average but anyway so what we're using here that's an old m is a commercial product we built them out of Timbers so state of Connecticut builds most of its sound barriers out of wood New Jersey has built them out of wood now the wood obviously you want it to be pressure treated the joints have to be dealt with so they use a tongue and groove or shiplap joint so you don't get gaps in there there's other things that are done to but they're a lot of them built out of wood they're built out of metal panels masonry port in place tilt up concrete all sorts of things you can build them out of they just have to have enough Mass in this case uh some people wonder about using like a landscape fence you know the white 6ot 8ot high fence well aside from the height issue there's just not enough Mass there those things are really pretty lightweight they're Hollow these the ones I've experienced so what's the answer here what we're proposing using is for a particular reason is a product called from ail sound wall it is if you look at in cross-section it's about 4 in thick but it's Hollow it's a PVC moderately heavy and these have these are tongue and groove and they stack up like they were stacking tongue and Grove boards up in this in the particular one here it's called the uh the model is the silent protector sounds like The Lone Ranger um it's Hollow as I mentioned and the one one side has a whole bunch of slits cut in it and then inside of it is a mineral wall filling and that acts as an absorber so you have the mass stopping the transmission of sound you have the absorber that absorb sound and what absorption does is prevents reflection so we have on the inside of the barrier here we have a reflective surface think of it I'm sorry an absorptive surface the other side is a smooth surface they also make the version of product that's smooth on both sides why do we call for that because we wanted to add absorption into this called the sack kind of thing here to cut down on the sound bouncing around inside because when it bounces around on the inside it's bouncing off the walls of the warehouse and sort and raises the sound level over here a bit so putting it in we could we could make it work without that but it's better at a minor cost increment to use the absorptive type that goes on the inside not the outside and we when we do all that and that's all in the model and the calculations then projected levels are well under the uh sound level limits that we have to deal with day and night for both first and second floor um I think that's it so you said a lot norm and we'll turn you over to the board in a minute but just to sort of summarize the conclusion you've designed this to successfully meet the more stringent nighttime standards of 50 dbel levels at the measurement point and this complies with the state regs and in parallel the municipal regulations in total yes and at both the first floor and second floor level right okay Mr chair members of the board ah Mr deiro Norm I had a question for you but your drawing answers the question for me that's good if the applicant had rotated the building 90° counterclockwise like I recommended all that dark green which is much lower sound would be facing the residents not withing well you you all of that would be facing okay Emily drive and you wouldn't need any sound barrier the building would do the whole job for us I'd have to see exactly where the trucks drive around up here soon as you the you poke R the red is where the trucks drive you're red all the noise well it's red because that's where the trucks driving that's right that's right if you root the rotate the building 90 deges counterclockwise so the trucks are facing Jefferson Road and all that green is facing the residence on Emily Drive okay there would you would not need your sound barrier the building does it for you at a much lower rate of of noise would you agree that I would potentially agree to I need I've not looked at that scenario I've not modeled that scenario at all your building shows it what build look at it this way the red is where the trucks are making all the noise do you agree to that that's where that's where the trucks that's where they are that's where they're making all the noise that we're concerned about that's the sound Source that's right if you now on the other end of the building is green what does that interpret for you that's a this this is a sound level does green mean the sound level over in this area is projected to be 35 30 to 35 okay so if they had rotated the building the way I suggested 90° counterclockwise then the regant be getting a sound level of 35 with no sound barrier if I may if you look at the entrance here s and trucks operating up here you can picture this now rotated now look at how the sound when there's no impediment to it comes down this far before it hits 50 so I think it's POS I don't know because I haven't modeled it but you would have on each side of the building you would have fingers of sound coming down again rotate this thing 90° you'd have sound coming down this side and this side whether that would be an issue or not I don't know but it's not intuitively obvious that rotating the building and not having to do anything else uh and and having or not having sound issues I I don't know I can't say because they didn't model it there may be other reasons why it can't be modeled your building your diagram shows the red is the noisy trucks right on the other side of the building from that red is green and green means you're not getting the sound I don't care which drawing you look at the same answer if you can picture the building this way notice what's coming down along this side of the building here and you have the same thing on this side of the building up the top here now what that runs into but but the residents are on the green so on you've tilt it over do you know where the residents are yes sir I do the residents will be fully protected on Emily [Music] drive it is not obvious to me that that would work it may be better it may be terrific but it's still there's a the state looking at this there's still a possibility Pro a finite possibility that you would still have sound coming along both Sid slides it would be green over a big part of this but it could also be in the red on the ends of that this is the scenario that was laid out this is and it works it clearly works it's a good 5 DBA under and I might say I did not go out there and measure sound but I've been doing this for a few years and I think it's probable that the Ambient sound level is above 50 if it was 60 it wouldn't surprise me but in all fairness that's not regulated by the state that's not sound that gets existing sound in an area cannot be held against a project this regulation applies the sound that a project makes not the other Ambient sound I did I did a project on a warehouse in South Jersey about 2 years ago and in that instance we set up some environmental sound monitors around the area there's no con an empty field we set up monitors and measured over 3 days the existing sound levels at the hearing somebody got up and said in effect you know this is going to be terrible I'm going to hear all these trucks etc etc and it turned out that in his at his back property line facing the uh the project um is one of the locations where we had taken measurements and I said sir we measured at that location the Ambient sound levels right now with no construction 90% of the time existing sounds out there are above what the site itself is allowed to emit so ambient sounds are a factor you're this close to Jefferson sword I'm just saying I don't think the existing sound now with no construction there no warehouse and trucks is uh down below below 50 DBA now just doesn't make any sense but it will be as you designed it from this project yes now it may be if it was 55 or 60 out there ambient we're not going to suck up all the sound we can't do that physics doesn't work that way but we're not going to contribute a significant or even in that situation A measurable increase to the S Mr meth um just one quick question did you model uh what the sound level would be the residences without the sound wall I'm just curious just in the beginning I did I think I think I said that without doing something about it here then it would be over how much over I'm just curious I'm just curious how effective the sound wall is 10 to 15 DBA louder okay thank you other members of the board of questions on this testimony Mr kiano do you have yeah thanks for the testimony it's um interesting so the I see a model maybe 150 ft to the north of the property those yes so the Emily Place properties extend pretty far northward is that up this way yeah so if you extend it your model what kind of effect does it does the sound decb diminish over the distance or they is it is it because it's just open air are they experiencing the same um noise levels as at the property line here I'm trying to get understand what those other properties you know kind of diagonally to the north are experiencing as you as distance increases the sound level decreases you're spreading out the energy over a bigger area um So within a few thousand feet the there are other effects that can further reduce it but they're really not doing much within one or 2,000 ft well I think these properties I I don't know if it's 1,000 foot but they continue to go north yeah so you the decree you're going to get less sound because you're going further away from it because and the big factor is distance not any fancy What's called excess attenuation due to molecular relaxation of the air molecules there's a bunch of things that go into it I say but they're you can ignore them below a few thousand feet and and just could you I wonder to sure what what locations you had the 40 and 45 uh DB what's the deciel reading at the nearest Homes at at their bedroom window let's say second floor let's see it would be it would be one of these two up here on on the North End of the row of homes here about let's see there's 45 around 45 okay you have look at that's about 45 45 how does that relate to someone who's sleeping and waking them up is that something that the state's 50 Criterion um is was chose you go read go all the way back and look at the history of the noise regulation and their justification on some of the level on the two levels that came up with uh 65 is based on a normal conversational level two people standing normal distance apart talking in a normal voice obviously I have a mik you're there and you're probably raising your B but that's a sense of what is 65 it's considered normal conversational level the 50 is based on sleep disturbance and that's based on an outside noise level of 50 to make it quiet enough inside that there's not sleep disturbance coincidentally uh 50 is the level that HUD us Housing and Urban Development uses as its noise criteria when you do noise studies that's one of the things we do developer wants to put well there's one up uh where are we relative to 80 okay um yeah I think I'm in the right direction no the one out just out uh 80 a little bit uh there's a residential development going up there we did a HUD study there and in some areas closer to the intersection of of 287 and 80 they had some noise issues where the background noise was above 50 so they have to do things HUD says they have to do things in the way of Windows and other improvements to lower the interior sound level so 50 is uh and we're under that so by those CR outside this would me but that's how it's they measure again they don't have a building they can go measure although I have had HUD come back and say okay you did this and that prove it that we have we met the desired Target interior level which I believe is it 30 35 something like that so we actually set up monitors inside some of the units to measure to show that the sound was in fact low enough by the hood standard but it's based on outside because that's what you can measure okay and then just a more lay person question you had mentioned the UPS site which is right down the road on on Jefferson um I I remember that application that that wall height was 30 ft or so 30 maybe 32 something like to that realm yes that was considerably higher wall That's essentially twice the height of this one why is this wall now only need to be 16 ft versus that other location because of the geometry and the distances as you get if you can picture a wall right across here and there's sound over there and I'm the listener receiver over here all everything else being equal as I get closer to the wall and I'm also getting closer to the source so you say well gee I'm closer to the source it ought to be louder but I'm also more in the shadow it's called the shadow zone of the wall so it's more effective so you can actually when you have a wall involved you as you get closer to it it gets quieter so here the distances are different than they were for precipitating um yeah we are for UPS thank you other members of the board of questions Mr napalitano thank you this uh amazing uh Graphics there I really appreciate them just set of curiosity uh what if the um your wall was uh angled in how much difference that make wouldn't matter at all no it's the look at the source the top of the wall and then the receiver so if you start angling around you maybe positioning things a little closer to one side than the other by a few feet but it's not suddenly some magic thing happens because of the bend that we're reflecting the sound back and cancelling and all that okay stuff other members no actually one more one one last question okay Gordon okay this is probably a no-brainer and it's probably already there the sound you modeled for the trucks that included the backup cameras right or not the backup cameras the backup beepers right not directly the back number one is over the road tractor trailers very few of them actually have backup alarms number two is the backup alarms are comparable to the sound levels that we're using for the truck itself okay that's all I need enough thanks so for these models we were looking particularly at the spillover for the Residential Properties I'm sorry say it again I said for these models you're looking particularly at the spillover sound for the Residential Properties right yes you can see the what's called calculation area where you see color stuff we didn't we didn't do calculations for levels across Jefferson Road or those other things the closest residential receivers to my knowledge are these homes right down in here are there separate requirements for the commercial uses on either daytime 65 and this meets those two yes the 65 I mentioned is the dashed Red Line let's see if I can find one here uh it's great across the top here the sound comes past here you can see a dash red line that that highlights the 65 okay I I found that with commercial um usually what happens we we do the calculation for it but everybody pretty much ignores it because when you have two commercial operations next to each other okay so I'm making over 65 at your property but there's a good chance you're making over 65 at my property too and uh you know if you if you get me I'm going to get you so everybody just lets it lie all right it for members of the board the members of the public who have questions this witness at this testimony at this time hi again uh David doy uh AER and poop on behalf of mosbrook uh Mr Dy thank you for your testimony it was it was very very informative however I just have a a procedural question to the board attorney were these exhibits submitted prior to tonight's hearing they were not no they were not and they were entered into the record tonight okay um and will there be a written report submitted subsequent to tonight's testimony based on Mr D's testimony or just oral presentation tonight at the pleasure of the board of the board and their experts recommend a written submission Mr Dy can certainly prare one but to dat it's been um just a live expert testimony I you're heard tonight okay thank you um with regards to the I believe it's called the AIL sound wall That's the manufacturer yes that's the manufacturer what is the uh life expectancy of of that product I would say 30 plus [Music] years um is that based on your knowledge of the product and review of technical specs or is that they're they're brochure literature tech specs same place we get the acoustical data from okay um just to clarify earlier you said that you did not measure the actual ambient decibel levels correct okay so your graphics are based merely on Purely on modeling measuring the graphics are model you wouldn't put the ambient in there because number one you don't have enough points to generate contour map we if we did half a dozen points around the community this each one of these models has I think the number is around 5,900 points in it so it's not practical to measure that many points and most significantly when it comes to compliance the ambient doesn't matter this is what the 50 is what the site is limited to putting out even when the ambient is higher you get to the point where you can't measure a site because the ambient is too [Music] high in in in well let me let me just ask you a question I apologize I'm not an acoustic uh engineer I'm not a lawyer fair enough um when can you describe it all as far as character of sound aesthetically uh uh an engine humming at you know for let's say you're at mbrook and an engine is humming at 50 DB versus the beeping of the trucks at 50 DB does your modeling my first question is uh was your modeling based purely on decibel level or also was there any analysis of the character of sound well the the character of sound if you look at the different frequencies that make up a sound that's in there we we talk about the results in terms of DBA because that's the principal metric that the state and the town noise regulation used there's actually they there's a frequency breakdown in there so when we do the modeling we're not just saying well the truck makes xdv at 50 ft and let's go from there which really the model is saying okay it makes this much sound at this frequency this much sound at this frequency and so on across the Spectrum the total of all that in the in the case of uh the 50 line is 50 but the breakdown is still in there so if we have a Sound Source two sound sources each one makes 50 DBA at some reference distance they can sound different they're made up one could be low frequency sound at 50 and the other could be high frequency sound at 50 they sound different but they have the same DBA the the state regulation the town ordinance is based on the overall sound not not I like this sound I don't like that sound would it be your professional opinion that it's aesthetically more pleasing to listen to the low Rumble of a semi-truck at 50 DB versus a truck backing up and a high frequency BP noise at 50 DB uh no I don't I don't think i' have a preference myself I should maybe preface that by saying my my ex likes Italian opera and I like classic country but but but you see but but I mean just just to hammer home my point is that it's it's aesthetically different listening to One frequency of sound versus another I think it's much more than just the frequency of the sound or characteristic like I that's very Council and Mr chairman I don't think the witness can answer this aesthetically pleasing is going into a lot of subjectivity all the testimony has been wholly objective mathematical and statistical and we're talking about geometry and points of measurement um and Mr doy said it several times now how frequency is measured it's measured in terms of decibal levels doesn't matter what the sound is we're measuring in terms of how loud the Boom is and he says it complies and he has no preference personally I the subjectivity of the beep beep versus a humming of an engine makes a difference and Mr D already indicated he doesn't have a preference of one over the other so I don't know where we're going with more questions of the same l I'll I'll I'll reserve it for later comments thank you right are there other other members of the public who have questions on this witness at this [Music] time and saying none I guess you have enough time to present one more witness if the board's okay with that we'll be very brief consensus of the board it sounds like we would probably uh I thought it was real quick but I think [Music] uh I'm getting a lot of blank stairs here 10:15 should be the we will we we will end at 10:15 that's fair enough thank you very much we're going to be like I said less than 5 minutes on Direct with Mr harter's recall on traffic engineering it's merely a confirmation that his conclusions are the same and no change based on plan design okay so um you're previously sworn and qualified as a civil engineer with an expertise in traffic engineering design John hard from Atlantic design Atlantic traffic your licenses remain current and in good standing yes sir and you're away you're still under oath yes C is that okay could you just spell your last name again for the record h a r t e r thank you thank you so John you're familiar with the modified design that's been submitted to the board sliding the structure yes and the associated parking areas um you previously prepared a traffic assessment you previously testified in connection with this case the September 18th 2023 hearing has your analysis or conclusions changed at all based upon this redesign I no uh we're we still have the same access points proposed along Jefferson Road uh the southern access point being a passenger car driveway and the northern access point being a truck uh driveway with limited Passenger cars along that that um aisle and the building area is still the same uh so the trip generation has also been maintain and the as far as circulation goes both for the passenger vehicles the trucks and even the fire emergency vehicle which Mr Crowder testified at length that'll remain suitable and appropriate into this current design yes it will and um I know we're here Prosecuting the structure relocation completely out of the buffer and in conformance with that that residential bumper setback now as opposed to the rotation design which was discussed the limited base initial public hearing from a traffic design standpoint is this the better alternative than if we rotated the structure for the loading area to be front facing towards Jefferson Road right I I do think this is a better layout um for uh two reasons trucks would make a right turn so if they're coming and exiting um to and from the south uh trucks would enter on the our current plan as we were proposing it as a 90° tget if they if we did have loading in the front they would those Vehicles approaching from the the South for example would have to make 180° turn and the second less desirable case is that we would have the truck trailer storage a row along the front of the property which would also be an impediment a bit to sight lines as those those Vehicles come in which you don't have in our current plan thank you John Mr chairman that's all I have of Mr harder I have questions of the traffic engineer at this [Music] time just can you give some testimony since last time you came youve they revised the U turning movements and the truck circulation and the uh emergency vehicle circulation can you just give a little testimony on um um how how the layout complies with I think the question was asked earli about if an emergency vehicle fire TR uh erently goes into the um was that the norly uh Drive aisle with a loading dock or how does he navigate back out uh I know you have a template here but right I I would rely on Ben's testimony for that our office did not run truck turning templates we do in many cases I thought that we were going to do it with you okay um now that would have been bowler in this case we do that in some cases if we're doing intersections design but could not for this simp um it appears that he has uh a large striped area for for the for for the uh fire truck I guess I can get his testimony at some point on uh if that actually complies and if the fire department saw this this turning down um I guess the other one was just um uh the adjoining property own owner to the I guess to the South had some questions on parking and the parking count based on employees and I don't want to put you on the spot can you offer any testimony on the parking count based on it and Warehouse typical Warehouse use sure uh when uh M gar brought that up I did look up it online uh we we looked at two land uses for our development which which is uh it land use uh 150 which is warehousing pretty standard traditional warehousing and then it l use 110 General light industrial and when I run the size of of the building 106,000 and change Square ft uh the the highest uh Peak uh parking demand I found was was low 70 72 cars parked so I I find that that is very consistent with the supply that you Mr Crowder has in the plan which was with 99 um actual spaces which translates to Greater spaces with EV credit so um the it research supports the Township's parking requirement which we we actually should say the supply will provide it um and is close to what the township requirement okay thank you any other members of the board have questions in this witness at this this testimony hearing and seeing none are there members of the public who have questions on this witness on this testimony oh yes please I can just ask John still representing if you could use a microphone so um so if it's 72 um what we we I think somebody we had raised a question about um shifts so if you have shifts you could have the same full um a shift can be a full shift for each of of two or more shifts correct well I'm not I'm not so the way it would look at it is square foot square footage is how I right so if if it if you're using a variable that's employees it would look at total employees that wouldn't do it by ship so throughout a day there were 100 employees they that's how I'm not clear on how the township that's the question then that if before I think there was a discussion that if you had shifts each of them might only be 50 people not 100 people but there's no reason why you wouldn't have two full shifts if you have 100 employees you could have at least the warehouse employees the full number on each so you're saying it wouldn't look at the fact that there could be overlap when one shift comes in and another goes out you have enough for the each shift but there are issues when the shifts change if I I did not run it based the employees looked at right but for the time being at least the township looks at it by number of employees correct okay so I didn't that okay thank sorry any other members of the public have questions on this testimony at this time any further questions from the board hearing and seeing none Council what's your uh I don't think we're getting to another witness Mr chairman we'd be going to architecture next with uh 10:15 stop time I don't think we get there in in 9 minutes or so so they're going to present the lighting and things like that as well we're going to go through the floor plan the elevations the rendering the wall signage um the copy of it uh and then wall mounted lighting yes yeah Mr Crowder testified to the exterior um three standings lighting um already but architecture is probably going to be you know 15 20 minutes on direct and then whatever the cross examination is so I all right when would you like the next hearing to be um we said February 20 February 26 February 26 yes please all right uh we've got a notice question that our attorney has brought up here and Mr CI the front yard setback variance was not contemplated at the initial notice and it wasn't generated by the board so I would expect that the applicant Reen notice that's fine 226 that's fine thank you all right so we have a motion to carry this case to February 26 is that it yes all right I have a motion to that effect move got a motion do I have a second second all in favor I any opposed all right this is notice to the public that's here for this case we are carrying this case to February 26th 7:30 p.m. there will be a new notice that's generated so your neighbors May wonder what they're getting in the mail um but uh at that time we anticipate that we will come to a conclusion that's our plan Mr chairman all right folks thank you very much for your time have a good week all right motion to adjourn so move all in favor now I out of courtesy to everybody we leave we do not have conversations in here