##VIDEO ID:bfm5kwZMoJU## okay we're good okay very good good evening um this is a regular meeting of the Princeton Zoning Board of the of adjustment being held electronically bya zoom on November 11 on November 13 2024 at 7:30 p.m. pursuant to section 13 of the open public meeting act adequate notice of the time and place of this meeting has been given by prominently posting the sunshine notice of the Princeton's Zing Board of adjustment uh such notice has been placed on the official bulletin board at the Princeton Municipal complex and by transmitting a copy of of of the notice to the Princeton packet town topics the times Trentonian and by filing a copy with the clerk of Princeton on November 8th 2024 and has been posted to the municipal website www Princeton nj.gov meting pursuant to the extension of the ongoing state of emergency by executive order number 292 in accordance with the emergency remote public meeting protocol for local public bodies to conduct public meeting a public meeting without a physical attendance by members of the public no notice that during this extension of the state of emergency all regular and special meetings of the Princeton Zoning Board of adjustment will be held electronically via Zoom was transmitted to the Princeton packet town topics the times and was filed with a clerk of Princeton on the 24th day of April 2020 such notices have been placed on the official bulletin board at the municipal complex and on the Princeton website and ought to be maintained through throughout the year and by transmitting a copy of same to the Princeton packet town topics the times Trentonian Comcast media and by filing a copy thereof with the clerk of Princeton notices have been placed on all window doors of the municipal complex okay Bia can you call the role please miss Chen here miss Coulson here Mr Floy here Mrs dver here Mr Tenon bomb here Mr Stein George you're muted um I'm here Miss Donna yes chman Cohen here thank you okay before we begin if there's anyone in the audience who who's here for U 12 to 16 Witherspoon um let me get the case number z 24471 uh that will be carried until a future meeting it won't be heard this evening okay be noticed to yeah it be noticed it'll be noticed again yes okay so we have uh four res four resolutions to deal with our first is case numb 22- 33648 Paro um the the resolutions are in your packet um if anybody has any questions or comments if not if someone would like to make a motion I will move to approve thank you we have a second I'll second thank you any comments questions before we vote okay Claudia can you call the rooll please miss Coulson yes Mr Floyd yes Mr tenom yes Mrs Stein yes Miss Donna yes Gman Cohen yes thank you okay our next resolution is case number Z24 d512 15 Stony Brook Lane block 4901 lot 13 in the r2t zone once again the resolutions and your packet questions comments or motions I will move to approve thank you George we have a second I'll second thank you Don okay Claudia can you call the roll if there are no comments on the motion excuse me um okay call the roll Miss Coulson yes Mr Floy yes Mr Tenon bomb yes Mr Stein yes Miss Donna yes chairman Cohen yes thank you you're welcome our third case is uh case number Z24 46866 Lee Avenue block uh 690 6906 lot 17 Again the resolutions are in your packet questions comments or motion I moved to approve is that Donna was that that you no that was me oh you sorry okay we have a second I'll second thank you any questions on the motion if not Claudia can you call the roll Miss Coulson yes Mr Floyd yes Mr tenom yes Mr Stein yes Miss Donna yes chairman Cohen yes thank you okay our last resolution is case Z24 Dash 522 169 John Street Block 17 excuse me 17. 03 lot 95 in the r4b zoom same as before the packet the resolutions in your packet questions comments or motion I'll um move to approve thank you second anyone all second Stein thank you questions on the motion okay Claudia can you call the rooll Miss gson yes Mr Floy yes Mr tenom yes Mr Stein yes Miss Donna yes chairman Cohen yes thank you okay all right as I said earlier our first case scheduled for this e this evening 12 to 16 with a spoon case z 24471 will not be heard this evening it will be carried so our next case is case number Z24 d538 7 Park Place block 28.01.2013 LLY Properties LLC is the owner of seven Park Place eileene bitterly is the applicant um she is Seeking a floor area ratio pursuant to njs 40 col 55 d-7 D4 to permit expansion of the attic and the construction of two attic Dormers um variance relief is also requested under the C1 to permit insulation of two air conditioning condensers basement entry en closure and setback and height to setback ratio variances for the two dmer um subjects located in the r4b zone in the former Princeton burrow um the subject lot is non-complying with regard to the required 100 foot lot depth the existing is 75 ft uh it's non compliant with the required 6,000 foot lot area existing 3,374 Square fet the existing house is non-compliant with the smaller sidey yard setback requirement of eight the existing 4 foot1 uh it's non with a 20ft combined sidey yard setback the existing is 11' 4 in it's not compliant with the 35 ft rear yard setback the existing is 18.6 feet and it's non-compliant with the uh required 3:1 height to setback um and impervious coverage is also non-compliant requirement 61 a half and the existing is 79% um the applicant is proposing to demolish the existing front to rear gable roof and replace it with a Gambrell roof the existing attic contains two Dormers that will be demolished and two larger Dormers will be added the height of the building will be increased but still comply with the 35- foot height requirement um the expanded attic will be used as a master suite the attic Dormer expansion requires a f variance pursuant to uh njs 40 col 55-70 D4 um required f is 55.1 existing is 58.1% and the proposed is 63. 36% um this requires five affirmative votes of the board um the applicant should uh show that the site can accommodate the problems associated uh with the four area that's larger than permitted by ordinance um excuse me um in the expansion of the Dormers and the proposed construction of the Gambrell roof will require height to setback ratio variances and setback variances um the applicant also requests requires setback variances for the two air conditioning condensers the covered basement entry in the rear and the height to setback variance for the expanded Gamal roof as well as a setback of uh the existing gamra roof are subsumed into the height to setback variances and the setback VAR is for the proposed Dormers the required height to setac on Eastern elevation is 3 to one the existing is I mean the proposed excuse me will be 7.83 to1 uh the Western elevation requirements 3 to1 the proposed will be 3.75 to one um the Dormer setback in the well the sidey yard setback on the smaller sidey yard requirements eight the exist proposed will be 4 feet 10 and the combined side yard setback of the Dormer and the expanded roof requirements 20 proposed will be 13 feet 2 in the air conditioning setback requirement is 3 feet the proposed is 2 feet 2 in and the uh covered basement entry uh smaller side yard requirements eight proposed to 6 fe3 in and the covered basement entry rear yard setback requirements 35 and the proposed is 18 fe6 in applicant has requested consideration under the cun criteria that's a brief Office of the application if you have any questions I'd be glad to try to answer them I I have one question um I don't know this would if this would be better answered by the applicant but the it appears that this home shares parking with the corner home on bander I believe uh yes that is the case and the applicant can address that you recall we did see the Venter home uh yes several years ago and there was I believe an easement for a parking space but I think the applicant can can speak to that um better than I can okay thank you thank you okay um just before we start the presentation was this House reviewed by the historic commission uh no it was not okay is that a is that a uh in this area is that voluntary uh it's it's in a suggested District it's eligible for consideration as a potential historic designation um if the board wishes it to be reviewed by the HBC they could refer to the HBC if I if I might just speak Uh Kevin Moore with Mr Mo excuse me one sec let let uh Mr Bridger finish and then we'll start uh it was by the HBC yes sir okay Mr Moore please speak yes we had originally submitted to the HPC the HPC is now not doing uh courtesy reviews of projects that are in potential of historic districts okay all right okay um yes Michael is were you aware of that Derek yes I was aware that the HBC did not review the case oh okay but that okay I mean the board could still refute I don't think it's been outlawed the board could still ask the HBC to review the case it hasn't been publicly reud so okay thank you you're welcome okay um Mr Moore uh you'll be representing this case yes I will be I'm uh for the record again Kevin Moore with the firm of Stevenson Lee and I represent the applicant this evening Miss viene bitterly do you have any Witnesses I don't see any I do I do I have one uh I have my architect Mr Jason Vio who is with me uh here and will take over my seat and if you'll let when that time comes we have a PowerPoint and if you'll let Kevin Moore I'm coming into Stevens and Lead but I'm also on my separate L laptop is Kevin Moore to share my screen for Mr Vio testimony I also have um Mr Alex dockerty uh with uh J John mcdunn and Associates who is our planner but I just like to do a brief introduction um just to sort of set the stage if you will uh the uh applicant is requesting the floor area ratio variance with which Mr Bridger alluded to and the bulk variances before the board this evening to convert what's essentially an Antiquated multi-person rental property into her own home as her architect Mr Vio will demonstrate in his testimony this evening Miss bitterly will be enhancing the exterior appearance and quality of her home she will also be changing the interior of her home from an Antiquated multi-person rental property to her modern single family residents this will involve among other things um a reduction in the number number of small rooms to fewer larger rooms including a reduction from six bedrooms to four bedrooms uh M sple also actually and Mr Vio will get into this be reducing the height of the present building uh and the amount of impervious coverage on our property it's also important to emphasize what Miss bly's renovation does not entail it does not include any changes to the footprint of the house and it does not include any changes to the exterior dimensions of the first and second floors of the house um before we start our presentation this evening I just like to make one point with respect to the F variance and that is that the purpose of a Flor area limitation in your ordinance is to limit the intensity of development and in this application Miss bitly is actually reducing the intensity of the development of her property by reducing the number of bedrooms and occupants of the house as well as decreasing the amount of impervious surfaces and with that I'd like to call my first witness uh Mr Jason Vio aren't we supposed to be seeing anybody's everyone's face or only applicants well well we can see them they just very small so oh I see yeah Mr dockerty we're I see you now on a separate screen are you going be on that screen Mr dockerty is on a separate screen and we are the Miss bitterly Mr and I are here I see I didn't I was just looking at the name and I didn't see um Mr who who are we swearing in first Mr doerty yes all right Mr do if you if you could unmute yourself you swear or affirm your testimony this evening will be truthful yes thank you yeah I believe so Mr doery can you give your educate Mr Mr could you give your Ed wait Kevin I think I had just asked you who do you want to swear in first so let swear that's okay I will now swear Mr Vio Mr Vio do you swear affirm your testimony this evening will be truthful yes thank you Mr Vio can you give your education licenses and professional experience for the board sure I'm graduate of Drexel University Bachelor of architecture I hold licenses in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania and I am the principal owner of fet Vic Architects I would offer Mr Vio as an expert in the field of architecture we'll accept that thank you Mr Vio can you start your testimony and begin with the description of the existing uh conditions sure um I'll start with the exterior conditions uh the current existing conditions are consistent with a vernacular style commonly seen throughout town a straightforward rectangular shaped practical design with Gable sty roofs Stone base and horizontal siding the home currently contains three Dormers two gable style Dormers and one smaller style shed dor the shed dorm appears to be an add-on and is not consistent with the style of the rest of the home the current home also contains plenty of glazing located in all four sides of the dwelling around the outside of the home there is an abundance of hardscaping of multiple different materials brick concrete and wood on the outside is also located an existing Bill Cod door that provides a secondary access to the basement uh now I'll move into the proposed changes and I'd like to start with the interior um I'll provide a brief walk through through the proposed changes starting with the outside then the floor plans and finally the exterior elevations on the outside or site changes will be the following removing much existing hardscaping and returning it to a grass lawn through the removal of these materials we will be reducing the current imperious coverage by approximately 493 sare ft or 132% bringing the total imperious coverage down to 65.8 from 79.0 where 61.5 is the maximum provided by the ordinance on the outside we're also proposing a small roof structure to create an enclosure and place of the bill Cod door to give Miss Bley a more safe and convenient weatherproof access to her basement than the existing means of access currently jumping inside there will be interior renovations to both the first and second floors the nature of these Renovations is ret return the home to a single family use from a rental use which is current which is currently used as through the renovations on these two floors there will be a reduction of one room on the first floor and one bedroom on the second floor moving up to the attic there will be both interior and exterior Renovations done to this floor the nature of the improvements on this floor will be to turn a current two-bedroom space into a primary Suite space complete with bedroom bathroom closet and sitting room we will also be increasing the usable space up on the attic level by approximately 196 sare ft while still staying completely within the existing footprint to accommodate the added space and improve functionality of the existing space two shed Dormers are being proposed flanking both the right and left side the existing roof framing is not in good condition with multiple members being both notched and damaged part of the proposed attic work is to remove the existing roof completely and build a new roof to current framing practices and code standards the existing structure currently stands a little over the require a 35t height requirement at approximately 36 ft the new roof will provide the dong height of approximately 341 complying with the 35t height ordinance with these improvements in place the home will now contain four bedrooms and three and a half baths which is two bedrooms less and two less overall rooms of the current rental property turning to the outside and regarding the elevations of the dwelling for the most part the majority of the outside will remain the same other than new siding and roofing the front porch and all four sides will be existing to remain the existing front porch will be the existing front porch will receive new columns round tapered in style matching existing columns and a new roof which will be standing seam metal in place of the current shingle roof the four sides of the dwelling will receive new horizontal siding the new sighting will be Hardy plank from James Hardy with proposed with the proposed work there will be also new windows and window locations it is also to be noted that the overall amount of exterior glazing has been reduced through the improvements providing more privacy to most to both Miss Bly and her neighbors the bulk of the exterior work will be at the attic level and the new roof structure the attic level will be formed within the new roof which is designed as a gambell style roof the new roof will also contain two new shed Dormers that will flank the left and right sides the new roof and dorms will stay within the current footprint of the home not exceeding the current boundaries the style of new roof will be in line with a Dutch colonial style home the Dutch colonial style is one of the many styles seen around town along with the vernacular style American 4 Square in Greek Revival some notable Dutch colonial style homes in town would be 292 Witherspoon Street 294 Witherspoon Street and 168 John Street all these previously mentioned homes can be found at at the office of historic preservation on the municipality of Princeton's website all these previously mentioned homes have Gambrell style roofs much in line with the proposed roof the Dutch colonial style is a contributing style to the town fabric as are the other styles the proposed design of this house complements both the immediate neighborhood as well as the overall Town fabric the nature and draging force behind all the improvements depicted on the drawings and listed here in my testimony is to turn the current rental property into a single family home while also creating a forever home for Miss ble thank you Mr Vio Mr boo that completes Mr Boo's direct testimony he's available for questions from the board and it's professional Mr Moore is this part of your uh PowerPoint presentation these slides we just saw and do you want Mark yeah the the whole I I think the easiest thing Miss Casey to do would be to Mark the entire powerpint presentation because it includes um Mr Boo's uh drawings which which are the drawings that were submitted and then a series of photographs uh that Mr Docker has taken do list the whole thing is Powerpoint exhibit A1 sure okay thank you can you explain what those four drawings are across the bottom of this page those are just uh reference plans to note which elevation you're looking at you know the sides are numbered one through four the front is number one the side the right side is number two the rear side is is number three and the right side or left side is label number four so they correspond to the elevation so on this sheet you're seeing elevation three and four which is the rear and left side even any other questions again I'm not quite the four drawings across the bottom of this page yeah there they the the four the four drawings across the bottom are the four the four floors first second third and roof and they're just showing you which elevation they're just there to note which elevation you're looking at they're just a reference plan okay thank you yeah they're just those same drawings are on other sheets that are larger scale all right thank you okay board members any other questions of the applicant of the attorney right now the architect excuse me yeah I I just have one um so the home the height of the home will be reduced not increased correct through my field measurements uh from the inside measurements I got that the peak of the existing roof the gable roof is is over 35 fet and what will the and the new height will be 34 3410 okay and I I guess it was a question because Derek's memo had noted that you were um raising the height of the home no we are not raising the height you know it was um okay they didn't submit existing plans um they did submit photos so I don't know if it would help to see a photo of the existing house to visualize that roof okay I can actually do that with the hold on a second thank you we do have some photos of the these are surrounding that's a good one right there there you go the yellow arrow is the existing house and in that photo you can see that the top Ridge is clearly higher than her clearly higher than the the the 2in difference you Eng photo okay that's that's rich okay are there any further questions for Mr via yeah I umum I assume that the I mean I I walked by the home today and and as was portrayed in the pictures you you distributed to us um it looks like it's been pretty well stripped down um so was this done before you realized that there was zoning that had to be complied with it was uh and I can speak for Mr Vio here and if I get it wrong he can correct me but uh it's what we call exploratory demolition we did obtain a demolition permit and to continue the rest of the design of the home uh we needed to uh strip it down to the degree that we did okay thanks any other questions of the architect or the attorney at this point um yes Dave Michael Floy what did this house have um previously have a air conditioner condenser and if so where was it located yes you how do I do you to speak oh okay well you have to be for I'd like to to answer that question I'd like to uh have Miss e bitterly the applicant sworn by Miss Casey sure um Miss bitterly do you swear or affirm your testimony this evening will be truthful yes and Miss bitly are you the applicant and does you uh The Entity that you control own the home yes thank you okay Miss V you can answer the question about the air conditioner condenser now the two existing condensers are currently located in the back of the house so in the in the small backyard okay I didn't completely walk around the backyard itself but I did go in the backyard where whereabouts is it on the right rear uh the left rear if you're looking right now at rear elevation three the two condensers would be well we're moving yeah I'm trying to get it see it's not really very well there they are I can see them yeah they're down there to the left right next to the bump out the bump out that is the back entrance now but is going to just be Pantry it's hard to see but there's two little like white things down there through the leaves okay and I I guess you you just chose not to put it back in well the way it's designed that's my now that's my back door so I can't get out of the house in the back with the condenser there so I thought I would put it on the side and then Shield it with a fence so that it wouldn't be visible to the street or to the neighbor's property okay thank you you're welcome any other questions I have a question but I think I'm GNA wait until we get a little further along to to hear some of the other testimony and comments um so if there are no other questions of the architect or the attorney or the owner Mr Moore would you like to move on yes I would like to call my third and Final witness uh Mr Alex dockerty and he's here remotely so if we could have him admitted I'm here Mr Dockery oh you need to be sworn by Miss Casey no actually I already did that initially tesy so he sworn all right Mr Dockery could you give your education licenses and professional experience for the board please certainly I'm a licensed professional planner aicp as well as state licensed PP um my education Rucker bline with a Masters in City and Regional planning a concentration development and Redevelopment the certification of public policy I've actually appeared before this board about a year ago I was just in front of the planning board for the uh mall and the shopping center I'm sorry with the sign package about a week ago um I'm in M we'll accept you as a expert witnessing thank you very much um Mr doery could you please uh provide to the board the planning justifications for the variances that we are seeing certainly um I think when we really look look at this application uh counselor I think you your opening statement uh really hit it on ah head here uh we're here before the zoning board um one because it's a uh U you know a residential single family uh application but for purposes of the variance um before this board um the big one here is the uh D4 the f um you know not to BL the board um I think you hit it right on the head here um the intent of the F variants really when we look at this you know we do have an undersized lot at the be mindful I think um when we talk about this application collectively in a holistic approach you know the structure is there um a lot of these variances we have on the table as the um zoning officer outlined in his report fa third report in his opening remarks there's there's quite a few variances here much of which are existing conditions really associated with the the undersized nature of the property but for purposes of this F variance here um and activating you know the the Upper Floor attic space if you will I think it really is important to note when we talk about the criteria for the F and the intent of the f um really to be mindful of the massing scale and the intensity of of um you know sites and and buildings in particular whether residential or or otherwise um this project here when we talk about the f as you mentioned we have two reductions in a uh in the bedrooms and we are lowering that roof profile bringing this uh property and in in my professional opinion into a less uh intense manner um not just by way of the internal operations or guts of the of the building but also when we talk about you know from a rental to a uh um a single family owner occupied or a single family in general owner occupied this this when we talk about reductions of the rooms we can certainly um see this as a reduction in the overall requirements as as well as um you know the the demand on the property from you know the the pedestrians the residents that would otherwise live there um vehicles that may be associated with the increased bedrooms in that regards um but when we talk about the f um it really comes down to the Randol Town u center case versus Randolph Township and and when we talk about that is can this site associate The increased f um without any uh you know additional problems or or Associated negative effects with that um so when we talk about increasing that that attic space to a livable space and can the site accommodate that additional livable space in my professional opinion I think the architect really outlined it well with reduction in the bedroom counts lowering the profile of the building um I I I I find it on good authority from professional standpoint that we are certainly um less uh um intensifying the the property and the property can certainly commodate The increased f um again we are lowering that profile of the building whether two Ines um we are lowering that we are um as far as moving the the the uh um property into more of a compliance standpoint we're talking about uh reduction of that um that 13.2% of the impervious coverage here as well um I know we have a few new variances on the table when we talk about um just moments ago the AC location and some interrelated SE relief here for this f um I would like to point out as we talk about the uh the air conditioning and and handlers outside the condensers um it's required to be at 3 ft setep back we're at 2.2 we're talking about 8 in um over the perm setback we are within uh I think important to know the property boundary um but we're talking about 8 in which um as as believe the applicant just testified to you know screening it and shielding that um you know the 8 Ines I don't believe even if you were to see them would be measurable or perceivable from the public eye um you know we do have a lot of variances on the table again a lot of these are pre-existing and certainly associated with the the undersized nature of the property for purposes of of the undersized nature the lot area required is six ,000 we're at 3,374 so substantially under siiz um the building footprint again it it's it's there it's existing we're really trying to modify the interior bring this property um to a a more riched character the the neighborhood has a vast um array of different housing uh Styles and types and scales and Mings and I think that exhibit packet you have counselor in front of you really outlines that that variety if you will um so for purpose of of the application a lot of the relief I inter related SE relief here I I would really like to pose as a hardship is if we had the additional a lot area um you know nearly almost double the size I would hope to think that most of these variances would would otherwise not notexist be non-existent so when we talk about the uh AC Handler again it's a very small lot uh we're 8 in uh seeking that relief again that's certainly uh hooked into um the undersized nature and as the applicant mentioned um reorganizing the guts of the house internally having that door there certainly the air conditioners had to be moved um I think everyone here uh from U you know the applicants team is mindful of the of the neighborhood of the tight fit here um and respectful of that as we as we jumped on the earlier on we talked about the the shared driveway access uh when we talk about that fa again that less intense use here um I think certainly when we look at that we can certainly see this this certainly is not going to uh um exacerbate the conditions associated with the site I think we alleviate that um when we talk about the overall design of the house um I certainly think it is compatible it adds value to the site which is felt throughout the neighborhood and and you know from a planning standpoint you know really hooking on to this F the importance of the f um it is an undersized lot we are mindful of that and to you know to balance that we we are you know again reducing ucing the bedroom count lowering that that building profile and bringing this this property and what I believe the architect was was was hinting at a more historic Rich representation of the community uh collectively um with that I mean I can go through all the existing variances I know um they're they're listed but we do have quite a few on paper but when we look at this and we step back um we're not we're not asking to create these variances they exist and I think it's important to know what variances we can we certainly yeah the the board The Way Princeton handles things we only need to provide proofs for the variances that were actually creating a new the uh not for the existing condition variances so just the ones that are the exacerbations so the F and then the Dormer setback variances certainly so we have that dmer stepback variance the Eastern elevation again this is outlined thoroughly in in the ozonian officers report the it's a ratio of 3 to1 we're at 7.8 uh to one we have the Dormer height setback Western elevation 3 to1 we're at 3.7 the dmer setback on the smaller uh sidey yard is 8 ft we're at 410 the Dormer combined side yard setback is required to be at 20 feet we at 13.2 again I mentioned the air uh air conditioner condensers the setep back is 3 feet we're at 2.8 a deviation of 8 in the covered basement entry for the smaller yard is 8 feet the proposed is uh um the required is eight the proposed is 6.3 the covered basement entry in the rear yard setback is 35 ft and the proposed is uh 18.6 all of which when we talk about these setbacks they're certainly um we looking at their measurements these would certainly be associated with that C1 hardship here and and the existing uh building footprint associated with the the structure again the the the application before the board is really internal work and and lowering that roof profile and making the best use of of what otherwise would be an existing structure and in my opinion um bringing that structure into a less intensive uh um stpoint with the reduction of those bedrooms um for for full of which I would say that the criteria for the D4 relief for f for the site to accommodate the additional FL ratio is certainly met um by the reduction that bedroom and lowering that building profile and and otherwise approval would be warranted an applicable um C1 relief for a lot of the setbacks related to design of the building and I think when we look at this application it brings with it many poses uh advancements of the the missible land use law particularly um purpose eye for desirable visual environment um as this will certainly give the property a new Fresh look that will be complimentary to the the community neighborhood and certainly purpose a on protecting of the community the overall welfare and when we talk about that again this is a small site in the in an existing neighborhood with that reduction in the bedroom counts I think overall protects the general the welfare of the community we're not trying to put as many rooms in here as possible in fact very few applications are coming before boards with room reduction so with that I would like to um you know emphasize that this application brings with it many puses while respecting its limitations and in the criteria for D4 would be met and approval would be warranted um Mr do you also just talk about the negative criterias uh both with respect to the D4 and with respect to the C variances certainly for for the negative criteria and I do apologize for glossing over that um a lot of the negative criteria we talk about um the the setback release associated with that C1 um the building exists the footprint exists um a lot of what we're talking about here would otherwise be absorbed um and I think when we talk about the setbacks here and and and and the various Design Elements associated with with the setbacks um having that less int intensive use here by way of bedroom reduction certainly helps mitigate any concerns from a negative uh impact uh a negative standpoint here uh that would be otherwise detrimental and and when we talk about the overall project itself um this is a residential dwelling it's permitted in the residential Zone and we are being mindful when we talk about that that D4 um criteria here again it really is can the site accommodate the additional F and in otherwise with that reduction I would say it certainly can accommodate the additional F thank you uh Mr uh chairman that concludes Mr docker's direct testimony uh he's obviously here to answer any questions that the board it's or the public may have okay Mr just for just for the board's clarification could either of your Witnesses describe the approximate age of that house I believe it was built in 1901 so 123 years 1901 thank you okay um I'd like to see if the board any of the board members have a question but I'd like to ask a question now and then um you you talked in the initial presentation Mr Moore and then I believe uh the architect as well as the planner talked about the reduction in intensity and you talked about that in regard to changing six bedrooms to four bedrooms but intensity of the development in my opinion also has to do with the bulk of the building just the physical size of it and that intensity is increased with the two large dormers on the I recogn ize you lower the roof line by 2 in which is slower but not visually you won't notice that from the street but the I'm sorry it's more than 35 feet currently the two inches the the 35 foot is requirement we're going to 3410 the existing is over 35 ft okay but the issue is that you're lowering yes okay so I'm I stand corrected but the visual intensity of this structure with the with the lower even with the lower roof and the two very large Dormers make this look like a three-story house and the bulk of the house as viewed from the street and the neighboring properties in my opinion increases the intensity of development visually on the property um which concerns me now I you know I'd like to know um I guess can you accomplish the same thing you're going to try what you're trying to accomplish here uh within the existing confines of that third floor without putting these dormers on I'm concerned about the Dormers I think they have a a visual impact on the neighboring properties and on the appearance this house also sits up the first level of this house is also up a number of steps from the street which is different than the adjacent houses may I respond please uh so there there there's a couple points here I want to hit um one is you know the way the existing Gable sits the only usable space is right down the middle uh the existing Dormers really don't provide any extra space especially because the two side walls of the dorm are not a full height they actually sit down so they're it's a bit of a head knocker when you walk in there um two the new Dormers being proposed on the Gambrell sty roof actually sit back can you actually go to the elevations real quick sorry all my plans they actually sit back a little ways and they don't come all the way out to the front face it's the best elev y that's good and that was actually a design effort to try to leviate what you're just speaking about so they don't they don't come all the way to the front face of the building and it feels like it's larger in scale so we actually set them back on purpose to try to alleviate that you know when you take into account the house to the left and the house to the right you know when you're standing on down the street a little bit looking you don't even see the Dormers you know you see the profile of the gamar roof as it goes up to the ridge so that was done with intent to try to mitigate the overall size of and scale of the building and and the to try to get the the primary Suite that Miss Bly is looking for for usable space the existing roof and existing doorm don't don't sue if I may just jump in um and to piggy back off of that you know when we talk about the scale and size and the intensity of this um we are certainly not the biggest property I'm sorry the biggest structure uh in the in the immediate neighborhood um and you know for the the size and scale I think it's important uh when we talk about that that we are not asking for a D6 or or height variance in fact we are lowering that and and we are staying within the confines of that existing building footprint these these Dormers AR certainly protruding past that um elevation of those exterior walls um so when we look at this um you know from from an intensity stand Point uh I I I certainly would not argue that this is the most intense or visually intense uh um property in in the immediate neighborhood i i u I'm not gonna take issue with that I just think in context with the adjacent homes I think this this visually will be much larger so that that's what concerns me um okay I guess that was the only question I had board members any yeah go ahead uh so I I just want to confirm we we're we're saying that it's being lowered and uh that it is over uh 35 ft on the drawings it says it's it's it's about 36 is that accurate as the existing height so it's it's being lowered uh one foot two in is that correct yes yeah based off one 2 in that's correct I I have a few questions please what what is the square footage of that of what your proposed attic space is to to make a master bedroom we'll have that answer for you in a minute I'm sorry we'll have that answer for you in one second sure okay and um secondly as a rental property how many units are being rented Miss B I'm sorry it was it was a single family house rental but how many occupants how many occupants is that what he has he has units asking because the where I was going with the question is in effect are you reducing a um what would be called you know affordable housing units if there were several units uh available in this area reducing that to a single use a single you know not affordable well actually it was being rented to Princeton University students so it's not really a family affordable housing yeah right okay all right but back to the square footage of the the attic space yeah so the the raw space existing is 592 the raw space proposed is 788 but then there's calculations that you go through that Princeton has to reduce that right um if you were to essentially um angle the roof somewhat more sharply reducing that um um f for the um for the attic um my guess is that you could reduce the visual impact somewhat by redesigning the roof um I defer to The Architects on the panel as to whether that's a reasonable uh perception and and and possibility there there there's a there's a couple points there as well so one is you know the overall style and look uh was Miss Bly you know we're looking for a Dutch colonial style roof and when it comes to a gamb brell you know from a structural standpoint you know it it it kind of has the steeper pitch on the edges and it shallows out to pitch to The Ridge so to to I'd have to start really looking at structure to be able to make that steeper but then you start to lose the look of that gambell we get back into the same problem we had before where we start to lose use lose usable space yes you would use that's the whole point to lose some of that space in favor of diminishing the overall outside bulk look this is the point uh I'm trying to sort of deal with the point that raised by chairman Cohen again to go back to the point I had earlier those Dormers are set back you know a third of the of the of the depth of the house so when you take into the existing houses and vegetation and everything along the street you won't really see them till you get right on top of the house so I mean it was done with intent to try to accommodate you know what you're looking for to reduce the overall size massing of it well okay George any other comments oh that was all okay I think the I think just one other comment I think the gamra roof uh inherently in increases the the uh the mass of the roof um I recognize you held it back U but the gamarel portion of the roof I believe put the front elevation back up on your screen um front elevation I think you have to go up one sheet okay the Gambrell roof comes all the way out to the front facade I recognize the Dormers don't but when you look at the the uh the pitch of the roof at the front it it creates in my opinion a lot a lot of Mass from that that was it and it was it was with that that was all I had board members any other comments okay um Mr Moore the architect the planner the owner do you have any additional comments or would you like to say anything else well i' just like to say that if the lot as sort of follow on Mr ducker's testimony if this lot were not undersized not withstanding the size of the house we wouldn't even need to be before the board we would not require the variances and I think that um Mr Vio has shown that and maybe we needed a perspective rendering but that the there's really not that you're not going to see that massing you're concerned about from the street so those would be my concluding comments okay um all right board members if there are no other questions and Mr the more you're done with your presentation we'll open this up to the would you like to say anything let's say before we open it up to the public for comments no I think we've again I think this allows it takes what's basically an Antiquated house and makes it into a home that's currently livable and there are as I think we showed in the planner slides a lot of other houses with more mass in the same neighborhood and gers yeah and gambell style roofs okay and if we need to go through those slides again for the board I can do that well let's let's get public comment then we'll see what well board members would you like to see those again now or should we wait until we get the uh public comment first and then we can discuss it all right let's let's uh let's open this up nobody wants to hear it right now we can do that later but let's open it up to the public uh Claudia has anyone indicated they' like to speak on be behalf of this application um do you want to tell them to raise their hand yes if anybody does want to speak they have to indicate saying by uh saying raising your hand which is should be on the bottom of your screen can you stop sharing your screen please yes thank [Music] you so is there anyone Claudia yes one second please okay hello um is it should I speak or yeah Mr Hyde we if you're comfortable could you give us your address please yes 16 Parkplace um and 19 Madison Street both are in say that again 16 Parkplace two Madison Street and 19 Madison Street I have three addresses in the immediate vicinity and Sir if you would swear or firm that any testimony you may give this evening will be truthful I do yes thank you please Mr Hyde continue okay um I mainly have questions I I had prepared comments under three minutes in length but I think it would be better if I just asked questions in particular because the the discussion uh prompted uh some additional questions um I'll try to keep it brief um am I allowed to ask questions or just offer my um yes you you can ask question question so I wanted to go back to one of the questions that a board member um asked about it was the permitting for the demolition uh I mean I walk by the site multiple times every day uh there was a red sticker on the door um I I've renovated properties in the area already um they almost all properties of this vintage have asbest wrap around the pipes um I never saw any environmental companies I never saw any workers with personal protective equipment I just saw a very rapid demolition I called the construction Department to inquire whether or not the permits were done in the correct order um but I was unable to get any answers so I wanted to ask the applicant uh if there were any issues getting permitting ahead of the demolition as required yeah you can answer that I mean you'd have to ask my Builder it was we went to the town the construction official at the time has since retired he knew exactly what was going on it was all done with his approval we did get permits and and then work stopped was there a permit yes why was there a red why was there Mr Mr Ox yes um who is testifying at this point I assume it's you Mr Hyde at the moment then we'll swear you in and then you'll be able to comment too Mr I'm sorry that's the problem well the the response was that there was an exploratory permit and then a subsequent demolition that was fuzzy to me forgive me as a person but I I wanted to make sure that there there was some kind of violation posted on the door I wanted to know the nature of it and my primary concern is was there Frable as bestus that was improperly handled uh because in the other two properties I own nearby both of them had it and it's very common in homes of this vintage so I was concerned for the workers and the neighbors I can't answer that I don't know I don't know anything about ASB bestus we're not aware of any in the in the house and um Miss bitterly did obtain the permits for the demolition so we're not aware of any uh and there are no open notices of viol with respect to the property so okay I'll I'll move on to the next question but I you know I was just curing on the the question asked earlier by one of the board members forgive me I can't remember which one I'm looking at a telephone here so um okay so a lot has been said about the um converting it from a what you're calling a rental unit into a single family home um and the interior plans um show show that type of a modification um my question and I guess this is for the board is once the variances are granted for if they're granted for f and impermeable surface and setbacks and so forth would the applicant at a later date be able to go back and make it back into a rental um with larger square footage is that allowable is there anything preventing that um since that seems to be a major portion of the um of the um rationale here we would certainly agree to a condition that it could not be and those run with the land so then neither we nor anyone else subsequently could ever uh convert it back to a rental Mr Mo when you say when you say that though are you saying that would be a de restriction or are you saying as a condition of these variances that it can never resolution uh under the law is binding on all subsequent owners of the property as well as on us as you know well it is except I just question the the ability of the board to permanently prevent the property from being rented in the futureal I will just say if I can um um when they want to rent out their house when yeah the the from a from a pro owner occupy versus rental um I think when we talk about the less intensity it really does um really reflect the the amount of bedrooms because that would be otherwise the yield and and and and density if you will for for a lack of better terms I know density is really hooked to unit counts um but when we talk about density the the actual amount of bodies would be Associated living in there typically you know you have two to a room um so the reduction of two rooms would otherwise be a reduction um you know at a minimum of two and individuals you know or or potentially for individuals so from a less intensity the rental aspect though when we talk about the character of the neighborhood and and and and and that we don't have that revolving door we have somebody um who who when we talk about you know residential family occupancies this as we heard was a a essentially a dorm room uh for college kids uh at the nearby universities but um well you know from from an intensity standpoint it's not so much the owner occupied versus non owner occupied it's it's familiarity with the neighborhood respect for the neighborhood in that regards and the bedroom count for um the overall intensity of that smaller property from a four bedroom um which would otherwise be a six-bedroom and we miss Bley was allowed to have up to 13 college students in there so this is substant people so this is a substantial reduction uh regardless intensity right just just let's just take a step back again so the question was asked and Mr Moore you advised the applicant is willing to agree to restriction on the variants to prevent what future rental or to prevent not rental because you could rent you know if Miss bitterly you know left for a year or something on vac want to be able to rent it to uh but we we could agree to a restriction on the intensity of the rental Derek is that something then that the town could monitor isn't that kind of difficult it's very difficult yeah why would one they should be the same time rules the gentleman asking the question is trying to make sure that bu rep you're not packing more people so Perhaps Perhaps what we're talking about is a restriction on the variance that provides that the applicant can't no well Derek ordinarily wouldn't the applicant need variances to quote add more bedrooms or would this all be considered internal yeah yeah no I think but they're not required I mean it zoning deals with the outside if you added a unit that would require variance but if you added bedrooms you know I probably wouldn't even see the application you could reconfigure the house the interior of the house without any zoning approval so I guess Mr Moore that's my concern I understand your client is willing to agree to some type of restriction the concern though is one from if if I how are we gonna enforce that so I if if they're pulling a building permit whether it be electrical structural wouldn't that be otherwise reviewed by the zoning officer before it goes to building no okay I mean I don't review if somebody has a large bedroom and they convert it to two bedrooms it's not something that requires zoning approval if you had another unit then you know part it would require zoning it would require variance isn't the largest on the street what's stopping any other homeowner froment appr yeah I don't is your client making a comment or she asking you something she was just asking me something okay it's I thought okay um so in response to Mr Height's question it sounds as if the answer is yes yeah we could potentially but I mean my client's not putting all of this money frankly and hir an architect and redesigning this house to go make rental property her intent is to it's the intent is for her to live here as well as reducing bedrooms yeah and we are reducing the number of bedrooms I if if a condition were to be imposed it just impose it on the number of bedrooms because in your town code um section t10b d342 oxby standards Part D is to prevent more than two persons from occupying a single bedroom so there were to be that chip code we have two codes that's not the burrow you're in the bur I do apologize I was working on occupancy but the the the point though I think that Mr Bridger made is that it's not up to us about what they do on the inside we're talking about the outside so Mr Hyde raises a good question and it's a hypothetical question it's not really Zone in question I did have one final question which was um I pardon me it was my most important question in terms of to me um should should I state that now or yes please have I worn out my welcome okay um so my thank you my number one concern um you know you're probably aware that this is very close to Harry's Brook it's very close it's at the bottom of a hill it's very close to at least one underground spring um I'm very focused on storm water management I know that the town is as well you know there's all the discussion about the new utility being formed and of course we're seeing things like what happened with hurricane Ida and what happened in Asheville North Carolina these codes were made at a time before the really scary stuff started happening and now it's happening all the time so I'm really really um focused on impermeable surfaces I've never attended one of these meetings before um but after seeing what happened at 11 Madison I'm probably going to attend all of them um but um there in this in this application they're talking about needing um an impermeable surface Varian versus let me finish let me finish but they're showing that the reducing it by tearing up the concrete slab in the back thereby going from 79 to 61 uh or you know 79 to 65 when the limit is 61 but they're kind of selling it saying we're reducing impermeable surface my question is is it legitimate to include the concrete slab in the back in the existing conditions in imp permeable surface or not it's not a structure it's a slab the slab was in the 2019 19 survey but I don't know if that slab was correctly permitted in the first place I don't know if that slab is legal in the first place right so the question is is does anybody know if the concrete slab in the back was permitted and legal in the first place because if it's not it should be removed under any circumstances and not included in the existing conditions well the impervious coverage should have been in the application should have taken should have taken into account that slab if it exists now but what if the slab what if this hypothetically what if the slab I'm just making this up was put in the year before she bought the property illegally well let's let's deal with if the slab is the slab currently exists now and it should be reflected in the impervious coverage that's the first thing if the impervious coverage is under including that slab that's one thing whether it was put in Legally or illegally we don't know but if it's currently there uh I guess we could check with the building office to see if they ever permitted that but if they're under the allowable impervious coverage with that slab then it shouldn't really be an issue because they could theoretically go back in and and get that approved but it's it's over the impermeable coverage with or without the slab but they're saying they're showing that they're reducing inable coverage in extoling the benefits of the plan when maybe the slab shouldn't have been there in the first place and honestly that's totally a hypothetical without any support in the record he has the burden of proof I really think we should cut this off I think it's nonsense well I mean we'll we'll cut it off in a minute Mr Moore but the issue is it's very simple at this point in my opinion if it's reflected in the impervious covers calculations then the whether it's there legally or illegally and I'm not saying one way or the other that can be dealt with later I mean if it's but isn't the new structure in excess of the the the the limit so if I may jump in here there's two coverages there's a building coverage and there's an impervious coverage the building coverage exist we're not expanding the building coverage we're trying to reduce the lock coverage and for purposes of whether was permitted or not this neighborhood is a tight packed neighborhood if somebody was pouring concrete the the township professionals I'm sure would have would have gotten that call and that's would have been flagged um and and I and I will concur a counselor statement that these are hypotheticals and and the impervious coverage for that slab is calculated in here we reducing that impervious coverage by 13% we can't do anything about the building coverage the building Footprints existed as we just testified to for over 100 years yeah and if I if I add we're adding no additional new coverage so all the coverage on the lot right now is existing we're removing we're removing existing impervious to you know for the betterment of storm water because you know we take that concern as well you know we try to do green methods you know Carbon Footprints we look at all that stuff we don't want to burden the the the the existing stor management through the town by adding more coverage which we're not so we're doing our own due diligence trying to remove impervious coverage to bring that down you know in effect to help out with stor watert thank you for your respon just just to clarify two things the applicant then does not need a variance for impervious coverage we do no don't wait a second not exacer all wait a second there is no building coverage there's only impervious coverage if you add 400 sare feet of net new impervious coverage you need to perform storm water management they're reducing the impervious coverage it is a reduction in the impervious coverage I looked through the records I found no approvals for anything on this property ever um they didn't get permits and not I'm not talking about the current owner I'm talking about as long as we have records I did look on the gis the site appears to be the same for the last to 2015 there was a concrete structure in the backyard of patio so it's not a variance when it's reduced um and it's not a variance in this case Eric so they're reducing it to 65.8% the Max and the zone is 61.5% yes ma'am but they don't need a variance they don't need a variance they're reducing the existing impervious coverage okay okay okay thank you Mr Hyde thank you okay uh Claudia has anyone else indicated they would like to speak yes Mr O A yes Mr O we're just going to um first if you're comfortable could you give us your uh address please uh we are at six Park Place all righty and I'm going to swear you in and ask you to swear or affirm that any testimony you give this evening will be truthful yes it willful thank you do you mind uh projecting the slide I sent to you this morning uh you can share your screen sir H you can share your screen oh okay am I able to share yes sir okay did it come up yes yes it did okay uh so this is the way we see it from the street I listed three concerns first one is along the lines of what uh chairman Cohen pointed the what we see from the variance requirements is that this is not really a dorm enlargement it's a redesigning of a new third floor converting it pretty much from an attic to a third floor and two enlarge Dormers are difficult even to see even from the side those enlarged Dormers Define the roof line and I think Mr Hyde indicated that there was a case on Madison Street less than a year ago there was a flat roof and the board rejected plat roof it became dorms so what we see on the right side of the slide is a basically a flat roof convert in elliptical shape now you could call it what ever you want to call it but Point number two it is in harmonious both with Park Place as well as Madison we walked around looked at the existing buildings if you focus on the left side of this building alone what you see is Dormers you don't see flat roofs you don't see almost a flat elliptical roof either so I'm pretty much now um saying the same thing that chairman Cen said uh it is changing the look of the original design it's becoming a something that you don't even see in two streets nearby Parkplace and medison third point is that I check the regulations there's no reg regulation that says a one family house cannot be used as a rental house to students to another single family uh you can do whatever you want once you own that house provide that you don't break the law and municipality doesn't have any anything against that for the Last 5 Years this house was used as a dormatory it was purchased from a single family very quiet uh exactly what's being promised right now that single family decided to sell it and move out of country move out of the state and shortly after that we started seeing uh undergraduate students from Princeton University with almost no control and their behavior I'm a university Professor here myself if anything like that happens on campus at least we could call the campus police they would come ask them to keep quiet ask him not to give parties after hours uh these students and two of them were my own students from my department they behave because but I object to the relevance of I the the earlier testimony was relevant Mo Mr Mo testimony is not relevant so I can he can he finish please well I was trying to stop him from finishing because he's saying irrelevant things I think it I think it's relevant because it disturbs the harmony residential atmosphere of a uh residential area in a place called Princeton well Mr Mr O are you saying your concern is that if the proposed design for the house is approved with the variances that in the future if it's again used as rental there'll be even more students living there yes yes okay presently uh somebody mentioned 13 I checked with the municipality and all these problems were happening during The Last 5 Years I found out that you can have as many as 13 students living in the old house well excuse me for interrupting you but this is they're proposing a single family house now and that's what we have before us if if at some point this changes and to a rental or they're going to subdivide it in create Apartments it would require I believe Mr Burger another application I don't think it happened when a single family moved out and sold it to the present owner there was but right now right now the the application before us is to is converting this house into back into a single family so I think I think we should really focus on that but Mr Coen I think that Mr Hyde also asked the same question are you saying that if you approve this present proposal proposal it cannot be converted to a rental home for students unless Mr Burger can you comment on that I I believe that the the form of ownership or rental is one thing it's the idea of of creating a multif family I guess um in it could be rented as a to a family of either related or unrelated people um tomorrow can it cannot be rended to students no it can oh it can be oh yeah can be that's what that's the point I'm trying to make in the number three concern that potentially now we are converting this house if the proposal is approved to potentially a larger space to be a dor space well I I would just say that m b is not going spending the kind of money she's spending to turn this into a rental property she's not upgrading a house to this extent students couldn't afford the rent uh I know that argument does not convince me uh can we can we convert our house the street to a dormitory yes oh wait a minute wait a minute exchange we're having at this point I don't think is helpful uh I don't think a dormatory correct me from wrong Derek but I don't think dormitories would what what we would understand to be a dormatory would be allowed in a single family residential zone so I I understand Mr Ox you're concerned that essentially that was your perception of it that it had so many students living there it was not uh students living as a quiet shall we say uh unrelated family of people that it was very noisy and to you it seemed similar to a dormatory but um I'm correcting that d right I I will then I will then ask you to check the number of complaints that the municipality received Police Department fire department uh the C report and fix may I respond please yes so but let let Mr axi finish and then you can respond thank you so the point I'm trying to make that we suffered for the last 5 years and I don't see if this could happen or not happen again that possibility is finite and it's a concern to us that's what I'm trying to express one question did you take the photo that's here in your slide yes I did okay um I'm assuming you would like this to be an exhibit so I would suggest we call it objector exhibit oh yeah what you can I don't know what the rules are but oh that's fine that's fine we'll we'll we'll consider that as as your exhibit I if I may real quick I I'll make this short and sweet uh Mr OA we definitely appreciate you bringing these concerns uh up I'd like to address your three that you have here in the slide uh number one uh the the flat roof the shallow pitch on the roof is a 4 on 12 Which is far from being considered a flat roof uh the two enlarge Dormers uh they're actually you know set back off the front of the house to try them blend them in with the rest of the neighborhood um number two the in harest architectural design versus the rest of the buildings at Park BL there are other houses on Parkplace that contain a Gambrell style roof the Dutch colonial style is one of the known Styles inside of Princeton inside of the Town fabric so we're actually you know harmonizing with the accepted Styles uh number three large dormatory uh Miss Bley is trying to turn this back into a single family home let alone you know her forever home uh we're reducing the the number of bedrooms and you know this this will not be considered a large dormatory you know she she's reverting it back to from what it was and if I might in your expert opinion as an architect did you feel there's a uniform style of architecture in this neighborhood no there's there's a couple different styles throughout the street in the neighborhood so the basic style is a diversity correct correct thank you okay um I don't see them in the picture that I took this morning they're a little further down maybe he should look at his own house yeah that's true okay um Claudia um is it Mr axay do you have anything else no that this all okay thank you Claudia has can you take your slide down please um Claudia has anyone else indicated they'd like to speak on behalf of this application no I don't see any more hands oh wait one second wait one second somebody El just all can can we take this slide down that's on now not the applicant slide so Mr axay can you take your slide down please okay just a minute actually I'll close the slide yeah thank you it's gone wow got bigger um you still see I don't see any other hands okay is there anyone else who wants to speak yeah our our planner wanted to just uh provide a comment well wait one second I just want to make see if we have any other public comment there was a hand but uh it disappear it was uh Mr Delgado one second somebody else he is back one second is he there now can you stop sharing your screen please I don't know who's sharing the screen it's not us I think it might be Mr axay no I think it is because it says you're viewing at the top Mr a are you still there can you take your screen down I think he's there yeah he's there no I think I think he is I can see him Mr Delgado can you show put your camera on Mr axay you're muted can you take your screen down please Mr axay can you take your screen down should be there okay thank you sorry okay um Claudia did someone else wish to speak Mr Delgado he's trying to connect okay Mr Delgado are you there I don't see him well it says he's trying to connect the audio but we can't see him but if he connects the audio we can tell them that see I see it's trying to connect well we'll give it a minute more and then we're going to have to uh move on here if we might uh our planner did have a response to several of the comments if he could speak let's just let's just finish up because I want to get I want to get out of the public portion of the hearing and then then he can speak thank you you're welcome give it another few seconds something's happening oh now I see his name and address but I don't see him for the last 45 seconds his name and it says connecting to audio has been on this bottom of the screen but what what would be wrong with hearing the other comments while we're sitting here all right I just we can do that if that's what you'd like fine all right um Mr doy did you want to say something yes um I I did and for purposes of um I just wanted to uh bring some clarity when we talk about the context of the neighborhood um and I do have an exhibit packet it is when we talk about this the idea of a three-story building um so Mr docker what are we looking at now this is just Google Maps I have Google uh um Google Maps up but I have is this an is this an exibit Mr Moore these photos are in the exhibit these these properties um I can show the exhibit packet and zoom in if need um I I can enter this is applicant A2 okay and can you describe me what what do you want this to be called then this is just the existing conditions of the neighborhood and did you existing conditions okay and did you uh Mr Docker you said you got these from Google Map I'm on Google Maps these are the same photos I have in my exhibit packet they're same exact I just wanted to bring a little bit more of a closer perspective from we talk about the scale and massing here um we are um uh in in the um the Zone The r4b Zone and we're on that Fringe Zone if you will the CB uh B Zone but for purposes of that zone They really start um at pretty much at the intersection here of of Parkplace and um vaner Avenue and it kind of goes all the way in the back but for the intersection here which is our immedia neighborhood this this is certainly has that three-story feel to it scale and massing the adjacent neighbor as well here um and then when we kind of go down Park a which is where the property is is certainly located um here uh the existing condition is the Google before the re uh renovation and demolition started but when we talk about six park with the Dormers and the size the scale and the massing the architectural designs the uh the complexity of this neighborhood is is certainly different it's Unique there's a lot going on here architecturally and Visually scale and massing but by no means are is this property the big house on the Block size and in the perception of three story multiple structures here in our immediate neighborhood have that appearance of the three story and they are multif family rentals on on that um you know when we talk about the three story appearance here this is essentially our our neighbor that this is the property in question here that I'm circling our neighbor adjacent on Park AV again has that perception of three stories with you know um so for purposes of fitting in with the neighborhood and the character here it is a variety of of architectural Styles and certainly multiple properties have made the efficient use of that Upper Floor um and and by virtue of design appear to have that third floor and that's really what I wanted to share here if I may just to add some commentary Mr can you bring that we're getting an echo here somebody's yeah we're fixing it apologies sorry about that I just want to add a supplementary comment to Mr Do's testimony um you know going with neighborhood Fabric and consistency of style you know of the four Styles I mentioned ear my testimony a lot of these houses do blend into that style except one um you know there is you know six Park is a departure from that style and and you know it is a different you know Harmony Al together uh but the piggy back on top of Mr do style there are houses on this street that do have a hulking three-story presence and you know our ours is not one of them okay thank you okay Mr Moore is that it I think I see Mr Delgado now are public comments still open correct yes it is okay Mr Delgado could you unmute yourself there you go there you go Mr okay I think I be unmuted finally hello yes Mr dogado I'm just going to I lost the audio on on this but I have we can hear you now can you hear us Mr Delgado can you hear us guess not [Music] neighbor Mr delato can you hear us Mr Delgado um no I cannot hear you I'm sorry and I've lost the audio for a while and I do not hear any I have not heard anything in the last several minutes I do want to wish um tell the board that I am concerned about the a um massive visual appearance of the project um I think more than that I I'm very concerned about the far and by a increas inreasing the far the um basically the third floor is available for use car can we listen allow more people to be in this house um I would not agree with the characterization of this as a dormatory and in a dormatory you'd have some control over the over the occupants on loud law large parties going into with the we hours of the night this testimony what are what are we doing right I'm concerned that there could be more of that there are 14 of us spending time listening waiting understand Stephen but what you're hearing I gather from Mr Delgado are his concerns so he's not he's not sworn in that's correct but I mean we usually swear people in because somewhere in their comments there may be factual information they want to convey but what I understood Mr the to say is he's concerned he's concerned about the appearance of the proposed house and it sounds like he's done with his comments anyway so um okay so we're going to I I guess well we have no way of knowing if he's finished but we're going to assume he's finished because he's not talking right Claudia has anyone else indicated they want to speak there are no more hands okay okay um talking because he was interrupted well he's muted now okay so I mean we can't we we've got to wrap this up yeah good idea so Mr Delgado if you can hear me we're going to close the public portion of the hearing and move on before you close we just do want to clarify since there's all this concern that the only occupant of this house is going to be Miss bitter fine before we go into executive session Mr Moore we'll give you an opportunity to make a closing statement all righty thank you okay all right um we're going to close the public portion of the hearing now and uh move on to Executive session but before we do that uh we'll allow the attorney and the applicant to make a closing statement thank you Mr chairman I would just like to say that not withstanding what's been uh said here today this is a vast improvement over what exists Miss bitterly is using this as a single family house home with the amount of money that she is putting into these Renovations she's certainly not going to rent it out to to a bunch of college kids and I think that both our planner and our architect have shown that the size of the Dormer on the third floor is well within the neighborhood scheme and the standard of review here is for the F variants is whether the property supports uh any problems associated with the F variants and I think we've made that argument so I thank you very much for your time and me okay thank you okay board members we're going to go into executive session to discuss this and Steve yes before we go in executive session I I do have one question for the applicant sure Micha I could um and it it sort of relates a little bit to people's concern about ball but whatever I looking at the plans there are both master bedrooms on third floor and the second floor and and you have clearly represented that the third floor is being expanded because the owner wants to live there um I just want to confirm that that's again true and the fact that there is a master bedroom one the second floor she's not going to use that this bitly yeah okay so both of those rooms were labeled as Master mainly because they're on Suite they have the bathroom inside yes the room and that gives more flexibility for use I do have an 84 year old mother who spends a lot of time with me and I have an young adult daughter who now has graduated and moved to Hoboken but likes to come home to Princeton okay so those are my other occupants and they're not full-time it's just me and my dog that's it and there is no way I'm renting anything out while I live in that house but I do not feel that I should be under any other constraints than any homeowner in Prin as to what you do with your house so anybody on the street could decide to move out and rent their house to people it's their prerogative and I'm not planning to do that I'm planning to live in it and I'm putting a lot of effort into a well-thought out design that I do not feel is overbearing or bulky or whatever compared to a lot of the other houses um I'm trying trying to be pretty or or or um thoughtful to my neighbors the two on either side of me which apparently have no issues with it because they're not present and and objecting and I think that the main reason from the obors tonight is all about the rental well I'm doing away with the rental it's quite obvious and the capacity that a rental is allowed to hold does have a direct correlation to the number of bedrooms and now I'm reducing that by a third so so yes I still have rooms one room one of those bedrooms is going to be my office this is not a large house so it it it it baffles me that I'm hearing how bulky it is it's it's a very modest house especially in in comparison to all these large dwellings that are on the street whether duplexes or not those are large houses that stand taller and much wider than this house so I don't know what else to say but it's it's a house literally it's my dream house designed by me for me the end is that it Mrs bitterly that's it okay thank you um Mr Moore anything else no Mr chairman okay board members do you want to ask any questions of the applicant or any of his Witnesses right [Music] now okay so let's talk amongst ourselves theoretically and uh try to come to some conclusion here comments please yes sure um so the the way that I'm looking at the interior um alterations it's it's just under 200 square feet that are being added um and a reduction in bedrooms a lot of that square footage seems to be going into um larger bathrooms it's it's not going into bigger bedrooms so it it seems to me that it is actually a less intensive use in terms of the number of occupants that would be in that house if if that's what the the neighbors are concerned about I understand that the appearance the visual appearance and and um bulk to some is a is another matter but um I I can I can support this uh you know based on um that amount of additional square footage thank you I agree I agree I when I look at it it seems to be adding to the neighborhood not distracting from it it's we're not looking to build neighborhoods that all look alike these are as as are different and I I think this is a nice design and it looks good and there you know you have to take the owner for her word and I do and it is a modest house Castle so I I uh support it to you yes George I'd like to make a comment initially I was concerned about the the bulkiness of the adding the the shallow angle of of the roof but frankly the U description of other the pictures of other buildings on that street um I do do not see it that as a problem I don't don't see it as overwhelming anything on that street compared with what's already there and so I I definitely approve this I I'm I am in agreement with that as well it doesn't seem I mean it does seem like it's easy to be suspicious of people because of things that have happened in the neighborhood or what maybe could happen but I don't think that's really our place and I I I would be ready to I'm ready to move to approve this I would second that if the motion were to happen now and defer to other board members for their comments right if anyone else wants to comment Michael it looked like you wanted to say something maybe oh thank you Le um yeah I agree I was not hung up or finding any unacceptable bulkiness I do you know go back judging the far on intensity of use not any perceived bulkiness and I think the use is being deintensified um I I don't have a problem with the Dormers they don't extend farther than the footprint of of the rest of the building um and um those are my comments and it was never a dormatory as zoning code defines dormatory um so I think that's really irrelevant okay um I stand by my earlier comments um if someone if there are no other board comments if someone would like to make a motion I think Eve already did um well I I will say that I I am making a motion now to approve this I will second it now all right and the who who second did it 10 and B 10 um so for both you Eve and Haron uh your your motion and your second is that the uh variances other than the F would be based on um hardship the size of the lot and the the dimensions as as stated yeah as it okay okay thank you and who and Harin seconded okay y if there are no no additional comments on the motion Claudia can you call a roll Miss Chen yes Miss Coulson yes Mr Floy yes Mr Shriver yes Mr Tenon yes Mr Stein yes chairman Cohen no thank you I believe the motion passed yes okay thank you Mr chairman members of the board very much okay have a good even thank you you too okay um would you guys like to you people would you like take a break for a couple of minutes before we go on yes yes okay so it is um it is 9:23 uh how about five minutes okay 9:28 we'll be back in service thank you Mr Tara who do you need uh move over I'm sorry do you need anybody from the um who's your witness or yes so I will have uh Melissa Freeman steel Melissa Melissa let me find her hold on uh I found her okay we have Benjamin Grace Benjamin Grace James kaser John Hansen so everybody moved over now I believe so and I'm actually just scrolling through the attendees real quick just to make sure that we have everybody so probably also want to bring over Joshua zinder Kio such one second oh I'm sorry C no no to Josh and put me back yeah you you can put him back in the attendees oh okay you don't need Josh no I well we always need him just for different things right okay so who else do I need to move over we have everybody thanks I thought yep yep and like I said we could just move Josh back to the the attendees okay you got it thank you sure do that's hey Steve are you in Princeton I am I am I'm cold in my office wife got got home from the meeting at the Jewish Center about an hour ago oh did she yeah my wife went for a few minutes after her earlier engagement were there a lot of people there do you know there were and then there were they said 48 people on Zoom wow yeah so it was nice it was I think it was a very good evening at least when I was there I wonder if it was recorded and I wonder if it was if I would ever find the time to watch it okay it is 9:28 um I believe with the exception of harlon and Bernice we're back we'll give him a minute more there's Harlen and we'll give Bernice another minute okay neither Bernice or her cat are back haven't seen the cat in a while um all right let's uh let's start again and um well let's wait I just rather the wait till she give her a little another minute okay let's see okay thanks Bernice we were waiting for you all right but we lost Eve of there she is okay we are back in session um our next case is Z24 d634 543 Riverside Drive block 592 lot two in the OR R5 tzone um Karen do we have all the proper documentation yes the noticing is in order and the board has jurisdiction tonight thank you uh Derek can you read us your memo please yes sir thank you um Melissa Nancy Friedman steel and Michael David steel are the owners or the applicants for 543 Riverside Drive I'm seeking C1 and C2 variances to permit the construction of a motorcourt garage in exception to the required lot width uh for the motor court and front yard setback for the proposed garage driveway width and minimum length of a side facing wall property is located in the r5t zone in the former Princeton Township um well it's Princeton but it's in the former Princeton Township Code um the property is not complying with respect to the required 15 foot sidey yard the existing 148 the applicant is performing alterations in additions to the existing house the first floor scope of work includes the addition of a motorc court garage to the front facade and a rear addition which will provide a new location for a larger kitchen and great room a new portion of basement is being added under the proposed rear addition the existing front entry garage is being converted into a guest room um second floor is being altered and expanded on the southern elevation with two two new Dormers which will enlarge two existing bedrooms the applicant is widening existing driveway to provide access to the new motor Court in exception to the maximum 22 foot permitted driveway width the proposed Motor Court encroaches into the propos prevailing front yard setback um and the motor Court addition does not comply with the minimum length of a side facing wall uh the following variances are required section 10B 25.2 minimum lot width for a motor CT is 125 ft the existing lot width and proposed is 100 feet um section 10B 22.1 prevailing front yard setback uh the prevailing is 56 feet the proposed setback is 50 um again section 10B 255 or excuse me 252c 2C um the minimum required length of a wall um if a wall goes more than 40 feet it must either go in or out by two feet and it must have a minimum wall length of 8 feet and the proposed is 4.4 or two and then there's finally um the maximum driveway width in accordance with 10B 25.2 i3d the maximum width is 22 and the proposed is 35 and uh that's a neighborhood character ordinance as is the minimum um wall length of 8 feet and also the motor Court um lot withth uh motor courts were all part of neighborhood character so most of those are related to that neighborhood character um which enabled motor courts to be constructed when they previously were not allowed to um so now we have uh everything's they requesting consideration under this both the C1 and the C2 if you have any questions I try to answer them this is this is considered a motor court because the side facing garage and the drive in front of it is all considered Motor Court as opposed to driveway well it's Motor Court is relates to the orientation of the garage to front inward to a court in front of the house so um if if it was a side facing garage otherwi it was part of the building would have to be set back 8 ft from the front facade just as front-facing garages have a setback of 16 feet the code does allow the garage to extend from the front of the house under the motor court but it does require that lot width of 125 feet and uh and and the others are just setback variants for the 50 okay all right thank you yes sir okay um who will be representing this case I will kick it off so thank you chair Cohen members of the board for purposes of the record Anthony Taro a f gr Drinker bid on Reef on we have the applicants eliss Freedman steel and Michael steel so just thank you Mr Bridger for that thorough review your October 17th memo and this application I just wanted to provide some additional contexts before presenting our first witness so the subject property here is a 0.61 acre parcel situated in the R5 tzone the existing improvements on the property include a twostory single family home pave driveway uh the the property has Street Frontage along Riverside Drive and is located approximately 105 feet from the intersection of Riverside Drive Prospect daav and so as Mr bridg just alluded to we're here tonight requesting bulk variant relief to renovate and enlarge the existing residents uh as well as construct other ancillary site improvements with the intention of making the property the applicants forever home for their young family in fact this project presents an opportunity for the applicants who will be the next Generation hopefully to move into and grow at this property and so what I mean by that is that the existing home was built by the applicant's grandparents in the 60s and her dad grew up with property so remains with the family in trust but has been unoccupied for more than four years and the applicate applicants here are proposing to revitalize the property in a manner that will accommodate their family while retaining much of the existing structure and so here tonight to provide some testimony and support of the application we have the applicant Melissa Freeman steel we have Benjamin Grace of joshu vinder architecture to obiously Prov our architectural testimony then we have James CER and John Henson of a akf who will be providing our engineering and planning testimony respectively and so all of our Witnesses tonight are appearing independently and should have their own scream so just as a matter of housekeeping I'm sure if the board would prefer that we have all of our Witnesses sworn in at one time or separately as they present I think K F I think we can do them together okay um so we have Mr Grace Mr Kaiser Mr Hansen and the applicants of Miss fredman and Mr steel did I miss anybody no no all right that's um and so I ask all of you do you swear or affirm that your testimony this evening will be truthful I do I do I do thank you thank you and so with that I would just ask whe there's any questions of Me by any of the board members I will just ask to uh present our first witness receed all right I see um Freeman how are you and could you just uh uh introduce yourself again just to the board sure hi I'm Melissa fredman steel this is my husband Mike steel I'm here also sitting with my parents Barry fredman and my M over there so I can't everybody all at once but I wanted everyone to know that they're um here with us today great and so could you just uh give the benefit or the board benefit of of explaining a little bit more as to what you want to accomplish by this project sure thank you uh and thank you members of the board for hearing our this evening we would really love to move to Princeton and specifically 543 Riverside Drive because this home as was mentioned was built in the 1960s by my grandparents an and Joe Friedman and it's the home that my father and Aunt grew up in so in a sense I also grew up in this home frequently spending time with my grandparents throughout my childhood and up until my grandmother's passing in 2020 my parents my siblings and their families my aunt and uncle all live in in the Riverside and Little Brook neighborhoods and we would like for our daughters who are four and one and a half to be able to live in that uh area as well we've spent the last few years thinking about how we could make my grandparents house our forever home and in order to do so the major issue that we keep running into is that the existing garage can't comfortably accommodate two cars it never has and the best design we've been able to come up with with the team at Joshua zinder architecture and design would require several variances we would much rather renovate this home than tear it down or and build something from scratch or look for another house in the area to move to we're excited about the possibility of this renovation becoming a reality and joining the Riverside Community and we've proactively gone and met the neighbors to introduce ourselves and also talk about our plans we appreciate in advance your consideration of our requests for the necessary variances today thank you you you're welcome well thank you that's all we had unless there's any questions board members any questions of the applicant okay continue please great that said I would like to call Ben oh there we go see and I'll tell you what just uh could you just introduce yourself for purposes of the record sure my name is Benjamin Grace and and um could you just give the board the benefit of some of your credentials and qualifications yes I have a master of architecture degree from sarcus University earned in 2010 uh I've been a registered architect in the state of New Jersey since 2016 uh I've been a sen I'm a senior associate at j-z and I have worked here in Princeton at j-z since 2013 uh while here I have prepared or presented numerous presentations to boards and organizations including most recent we'll accept you as qualified as a professional okay thank you right just explain to the board your involvement with this application so I am the project architect uh involved with the with with the project overseeing the design of the additions all right and you've personally design uh prepared the architectural plan sheets that have been submitted for the application that is correct and could you provide just an overview of that design and whether we sure I'm going I'm going to share a a slide presentation uh as I do that sure Mr tadar would you like this marked as an exhibit yes please so this is the what we'll be pulling up is this is the uh uh PDF exhibit that we provided to the board in advance of the hearing um unless you think that Miss Casey I would suggest we just mark this as one exhibit oh that's that's fine do you know how many slides you have 50 50 okay thank you we'll make that exhibit A1 A1 thank you shall I proceed yes please okay so I'll I'll do my best to to reference the the slide numbers as I as I go through the presentation but they're visible at the bottom left of the screen here so this is page one here you just see an existing picture of the uh the front facade of the building uh of 543 Riverside Drive so here at slide two slides two through five I'm just going to provide a bit of context we're here in the Riverside Neighborhood of Princeton uh the subject property lies uh south of Route 27 and north of Prospect Avenue on the east side of Riverside Drive there are uh five properties on this side of uh the of the Street on this block and the subject property is the second property North from Prospect Avenue uh this is within the as been stated the r5t zone of the former Township here you see a map view uh and here is a an AAL view you can see here that the um the properties on the street address are not perp or the front facades are not perpendicular to Riverside Drive the the the houses are really perpendicular to the side doot lines and address Riverside Drive at an angle um and here is a is a uh bird's eye view of the same property here on uh page six are some existing images of the property the existing structure is a twostory woodf Fram single family house with a basement four bedroom 2 and a half bath originally constructed in 1964 uh there was a on story addition containing a great room uh and a rear deck added to the house approximately in 1988 uh here the images on the screen you can see on the top left the the front of the house again you can see how prominent the garage is in that this uh front view of the house uh the top right you can see a rear view of the the later addition of the great room and the deck in front of it uh the lower right is a a wider view of the rear of the existing house and uh on the bottom left is just a view of the southeast uh elevation um of the property so here uh slide seven is an architectural site plan just to orient you Orient you that this view has been rotated you can see uh at the bottom right of the of the drawing the where the north Arrow which is directed to the top left of the page so we see the existing building the existing uh driveway leading up to the building there is a small paved area to the right of the driveway leading up to the front door there is also an existing patio at grade at the rear and an existing elevated deck at the back of the property and we have highlighted there's a a dash doline identifying the setbacks uh the front the 56 foot uh mean prevailing front yard set pack is identified uh also just as reference the 25 foot uh which is the base zoning setback uh for the r5t zone and the 15 foot yard uh side yard setbacks on either side and a 15ot rear yard setback at the top so I'd like to say that the reason we are presenting to you today as Melissa introduced is is the garage um all four of the variances that we are requesting are related to uh the issue of the garage um here you can see the location of the existing Garage in plan at the bottom left of the building so the existing width interior width of the garage is just over 19 feet it's narrower than you would design a two-car garage today and a two-car garage is a necessary component of the the house for for this family if you were designing a a garage ideally it would be 22 feet minimum width uh or you know if for families loading and unloading children from Vehicles you really want that to be Dimension to be closer to 24 ft so the existing garage is significantly narrower than desired and not really practical for a family who will be unloading and loading children from Cars I'd also like to point out uh the existing non-conformance of the current uh location of the garage with respect to the neighborhood residential the current neighborhood residential design standards uh if I pop up the the uh excerpt from the municipal code here with the the diagram from the code you can see that the requirement for a front facing front entry garage facing the street is that it be set back 16 ft from the P principal structures facade well the existing condition is that the uh garage actually protrudes 7 feet in front of the primary facade of the building so and looking to provide a wider garage design we evaluated a few Concepts uh one would be to expand the existing Garage in place now there are constraints in place that really prevent that from being a feasable solution in this example expanding to the West would mean that we were encroaching into the sidey guard setback we'd also be AB buding against uh a sewer easement and we would be expanding a non-conforming condition so this solution was deemed to be not feasible similarly for expanding it inward to the lot into the house we would still be expanding ending a non-conforming conditioning making a gar front-facing garage more prominent on the streetcape and also it will require significant structural modifications to the existing house and found and basement and foundation so the concept we are presenting we have submitted for and are presenting to you tonight is to build a new uh motorcourt garage Edition which orients the garage toward the interior of the lot and locates the garage uh in front of the principal facade of the building as you can see at the bottom right of the screen here and so Ben I just want to stop you there just real quick um I want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly and just the board's edification the new garage Edition that we're proposing uh would comply with the bulk standards and uh eliminate an existing non-conformity is that correct so I will identify for you the the the non-conformity um well it would eliminate the non-conformity of the location of the garage in front of the principal facade for a uh for a street facing garage entry yes all right thank you and here you can see the uh resulting proposed architectural site plan with the garage addition at the front of the building uh we do show that the bottom left portion of the garage is encroaching beyond that 56 foot mean prevailing front yard step back uh I'm focusing on primarily on the garage Edition here because that's where the source of these four variants requests there is as was described previously there is a kitchen addition at the rear of the prop at the rear of the building as well with an expanded new elevated deck there is also an expansion of the second floor it's not shown on this plan I'll show you in the the later images of the FL points so I I do want to highlight uh the in the one of the primary variance requests which is uh the lot width for a motorcourt garage so the applicability identifies a 125 ft uh minimum lot width for a M cart garage and we were are requesting a a variance from that that uh width requirement as the subject lot is 100 feet wide I do want to point out that all the other we are complying with all the other design Provisions for a motorart garage in this application and I'll identify them briefly here uh must be it can may be located in the foremost portion of the dwelling is where we are locating it that complies uh the garage shall be oriented towards the interior of the lot and not the street or the side of the property again we will I'll comply with that the garage shall be limited to parking for three vehicles we are only proposing a two-car garage so that complies the garage shall be no higher than a one story a maximum of 25 ft measured to the roof Peak and or the height of the principal structure whichever is less we comply the the garage structure is only one story 15 ft approximately to the peak uh and it is shorter than the existing structure the garage shall not contain habitable space above and we comply with that is it's only a garage structure no habitable space above uh and the bottom of the roof Eve shall be no greater than 12 feet above the average finish grade and we comply there as well it is 10 feet above grade approximately from there I did want to identify that our office did a survey of properties in the Riverside Neighborhood so Prim east of Harrison Street and south of TW Route 27 uh and we identified at least 12 other properties in this area which we felt met the definition of a motorart garage on lots that are less than 125 ft in width including the immediate neighbor at 551 Riverside Drive so again I want to emphasize these are not just motorc Court garages but these are motorc Court garages on Lots less than 12 5 ft in width and the intent here is just to identify that so the poity of these uh motorc Court garages is that this is not an uncommon condition in this part of the municipality for what we are requesting uh so here on p on slide 22 I'm just show I'm going to briefly walk you through the proposed plans this is the or existing and proposed plans I should say this is the existing basement uh with the dash line indicating at the right or left of indicating the existing garage and uh the dash line at the top ex the existing uh great room structure Above This is the proposed basement floor plan with the addition at the rear of the property uh which is will be a family room at the basement level and a stair from grade down exterior stair from grade down and here you can see the footprint of the proposed uh new garage at the front of the property above here is the existing first floor plan and the proposed first floor plan with the garage addition at the front uh the existing garage will be converted into interior living space uh and actually the the the portion of the garage the portion of the structure which is the garage doors will be cut back to align Prim with the primary facade of the building and you you can also see the addition at the rear of the building which is for the new kitchen and expands the existing great room here I would also like to point out for your reference the wall length that has identified in the uh the variance request for for wall length uh the this space between the existing primary facade and the uh garage sidewall uh is 4T 5 inch long now the the uh residential design standards require a minimum wall length of 8 feet there um the reason for the reduced length is to limit the degree to which the garage encroaches beyond the mean prevailing front yard setback the client I think would prefer to comply with that 8ot requirement and have the garage uh extend further beyond the front setback but we felt uh that was more prudent to limit the extent to which the garage extended into the setback then to try to avoid the variance for wall length at this area also show you the existing second floor plan here and the proposed second floor plan which you can see the extension of the the bedrooms one and two marked on this plan with the Dormers out to the right of the plan here we see the proposed front elevation I've showed on the this elevation the height to setback ratio line or plane coming from the right side and showing that the proposed Dormers uh so the bulk of the building complies with the uh height to setback ratio line and that the proposed Dormers which protrude beyond that plane are compliant uh with the what is permitted by the ordinance 2552 L3 and you can see the garage at the bottom right uh the new entry at the center here and the uh converted portion from converted garage is now has a uh Gable and uh Dormer and extension from the the new living space this is the uh side elevation from the Northwest uh here you can see the garage doors from the motor Court garage you can see the side of what was previously the garage which has can cut back so you have an asymmetrical roof line here uh and you can see the addition the back of the property this is the rear elevation and at the left you see the existing great room and at the right the kitchen the one-story kitchen kitchen addition uh which mimics and mirrors the appearance of the existing great room and again this is the side elevation to the southeast where you see the at the left the garage and in the middle you see the two new Dormers of the expanded second floor uh just briefly the proposed building materials the primary building materials will be uh horizontal uh uh fiber cement clabber siding which would be located on the side and rear facades uh fiber cement board and Baton siding which will be located on the front facade in the garage and then Country ledg Stone uh which will be located at the ground floor uh the front facade around the ground floor and the garage and also has a base material at the side elevations and I just want to show you this is the view existing view from the head of the driveway looking towards the front of the building and this is what the proposed view would look like and i' just like to summarize a couple key benefits we feel are are are represented in this approach um to providing this new garage one is that applicant had the opportunity to either maintain the existing property and adapt it to their needs or to demolish the the structure entirely and build an entire new structure to suit their needs and I think the the applicants are proposing an approach where they maintain the existing building and propose smaller targeted additions which allow for the ReUse of much of the existing structure and this is a very sustainable approach it's one of the core T tenets of sustainable design is reusing existing construction reducing resource use and carbon emissions embodied within resource consumption and transportation we feel there is also a benefit to the streetcape of removing a forward-facing non-conforming garage um or and by not enlarging that non-conformity by creating a Motorcar garage which is oriented inward the surface oriented towards the street is returned to the primary facade and the large expanse of garage doors is now directed inward rather than towards the street and finally this allows for a family to join a Comm commity and adapt the residents full of their family history to suit their growing family needs so that's concludes my plan Testimony Anthony no thank you any questions from the board happy to call our next witness board members any questions of this of the architect okay nice yeah yeah I have a question Steve oh go ahead Mark yeah um early on you you pointed out um or or if you expanded the existing garage and you mentioned it would be coming close to a easement do do you have a either a drawing that shows the eement or could you at least tell me tell me how the easement would be from an exp expanded garage uh I and it may be better for my uh engineer to address this but there is a 20 foot sewer easement that straddles the property line to the Northwest property so 10 feet of it is on this property and 10 feet of it is on the neighboring property that all falls within the 15 foot side yard setback yeah I understand it would uh violate the setback but um yeah how how far would an expanded garage be from that e uh if to achieve the desired width of the garage it would be right up against the easement it would not extend into the easement but it would be right up against the easement okay thanks that's great so with that I would ask triangle see ifers okay please continue oh here we go uh could you just unmute yourself please yep fantastic and can you just introduce yourself to the board hi my name is James geyser I received my Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from drexell University in 2018 I'm a licensed professional engineer in New Jersey in good standing and I have six plus years of of working in New Jersey as a design engineer preparing site plans sub Visions land use grading drainage stormw management utilities and soil version set control we'll accept you as an expert in your field thank you you're welcome and um did you prepare the plans or did your office prepar the plans in connection with this application yes all right you have knowledge of those points correct yep all right and would you be able to uh first explain the existing conditions of the property yes and uh do you want me to share my screen and go into the presentation or do you just want an overview that'd be great so we'll pull back up exhibit A1 and what sheet is this just so we I believe it's just one of the pages that yeah this is uh slide 37 or sheet 37 and the existing conditions on the next sheet will be uh sheet 38 fantastic you go ahead and and discuss those with the board all right uh the subject property is known as lot two within block 5902 of the tax maps it is located with the within the R5 residential Zone uh it has a lot area of 26720 Ft or 0.61 Acres uh the property is a narrow property and long it has a lot width of 100 ft and a depth of 26.0 Ft uh the property is a single family residential use and is surrounded by other single family residential uses uh the existing site improvements include a twostory frame dwelling located centrally on the subject property with an Associated slate patio and deck located towards the rear of the existing structure it also has the existing pave drive and brick paver walk located at the front of the existing structure uh there is a shed located at the rear of the existing property the lot is located along Riverside Drive and the existing driveway ties into the existing front entry garage and as I previously stated the uh pave Drive ties into the existing front entry garage uh the property has existing tree cover buffering the front and side yards and as I also previously stated the property is narrow and long with a lot width of 100 uh this is an existing non-conforming condition where the required minimum width is uh lot width is 125 ft uh the that's that's for if there's a motor core correct uh that's a it's the Zone the zoning requirement just make sure thank you uh there are are also existing non-conforming side yard setbacks in multiple locations of uh the existing structure on both sides uh the worst case is 14.63% down where the easan is but I just want to help address uh Mr Floyd's question just to show him where that easen is yes it's located right here all right thank you and I now I will go into the proposed site improvements so the applicant is proposing a 622 ft building Edition 707 ft garage Edition and a 363 ft deck Edition due to the lot uh size and shape the buildable areas for this property are in the front or rear yards uh the building Edition and deck Edition will be located or are proposed to be located at the rear of the existing structure and the motorcourt style garage Edition is proposed to be located at the front of the existing structure the existing driveway is proposed to be expanded to allow for access to the proposed GR gar and to allow for the adequate maneuverability of vehicles to serve the property and also prevent them from backing onto the public Street the existing garage is proposed to be converted into loable space as I previously mentioned the existing garage is proposed to be converted to livable space uh the proposed garage sidey yard setback is 15.8 6 ft where 15 ft is the required minimum setback so the proposed garage Edition will comply with that however the existing house still has the substandard sidey yard setback of 14.6 63 feet uh located at the Northeast portion that I previously indicated uh the L the applicant is working with a landscape architect to provide a landscape design that will provide an appropriate buffer between the proposed garage Edition and the neighbor to the South the nearest corner of the proposed garage is located 50 feet away from the front property line where 56 feet is the required front yard setback a variance is requested for this encroachment uh the the proposed garage Edition also proposes one wall with a length of 4.42 feet where the ordinance requires a wall length to be a minimum of 8T this is located at the northeast corner of the proposed garage Edition a variance is requested for this condition as well if the minimum of 8 feet was met the for the proposed wall we would be encroaching further into the front yard setback and we would be increasing the impervious coverage of the site for a motorc court garage uh there's a requirement for 125 ft for lot width the existing lot has a lot width of 100 feet and therefore a variance is requested for this condition as well uh the proposed driveway width is 45.9 fet where 22 feet is the maximum allow driveway width within the first 75 ft of the front yard and therefore variance is requested for this condition uh we determined the driveway withd using the municipal ordinances of um Dimension D provided in figure 23 on um slide 43 and that was 45.1 n uh the and to reiterate the driveway is being designed to allow for adequate maneuverability of the site and to prevent vehicles from backing out onto the public Street as a result so can you just clarify there uh because it was previously identified in the in the zoning memo that the driveway width was 35 feet but we're looking at it again based off the ordinance it would be a maximum of 45 19 ft correct yes all right so we just out of an abundance of caution and transparency we just wanted to note that is that correct yes right thanks um as a result of the improvements the proposed impervious coverage is 28.7% where 29% is the allowable and therefore complies with the ordinance uh the proposed floor area ratio is 19.8% where 20% is the allowable and therefore complies with the ordinance as well the proposed change in perious coverage uh exceeds 400 square ft and therefore is required to comply with the Princeton municipality small small project stormw waterer management ordinance requirement uh the applicant has designated area on the property for the storm water management and will submit the design and compliance statements to the municipal engineer for the review and approval of the design as a condition of approval should the board vote to uh approve the variances requested great and that will conclude my engineering testimony thank you any questions for this witness board members any questions of the engineer no please proceed all right and with that I would like to introduce our last uh witness for this evening just make sure I see oh Mr Hansen can you just introduce yourself to the board and make sure that everybody sees your Square absolutely can you hear me it's John Hansen JN hnen I can give you a little background on my experience been in the business for 32 years uh graduated from Virginia Tech in 1992 licensed professional engineer and a licensed planner in New Jersey both in good standing and tonight I'll be uh testifying as a professional planner I've been involved in hundreds of cases and uh actually testified in Princeton but it's probably been about 20 years since I was here we'll accept you as an expert please thank you very much you're welcome so I um Mr Grace and Mr Kaiser I think did an excellent job of laying out you know the existing and the proposed conditions so I think within the lateness of the hour let me just get down to a couple of slides here and and kind of get down to the planning testimony and you're going to be pulling back up exhibit A1 correct yeah can you see that yes excellent okay so you know this is our planning slides we're calling them and what you see in front of you here is um basically the zoning map it shows the r5t district and everything around our lot which is generally the center of this exhibit is also in uh the same district so that's the point to show that the neighborhood is um the zoning around this area is pretty well solidified uh the next exhibit is the tax map and I'll just zoom in on that a little bit we're lot two which is right in this area here and I think the thing to take away from here is just to reiterate from what Mr Grace and Mr Kaiser said you know it's a long and narrow lot it's not the similar from the other Lots in the neighborhood but it is have does have that unique shape and it also has that uniqueness where the intersection with the right of way is at an angle and so that's that's important part of the testimony this next exhibit is really meant to show um you know from a overall standpoint in the neighborhood where Mr Grace had said they had done some um inspections of the properties around here and what was Motor Court um type properties in the area so the subject property is the one that has the ellipse around it and then these other ones in red here are motorcourt type properties so it's not inconsistent with the neighborhood it's consistent and three of these properties the two on Prospect Avenue and the one on Evergreen Circle are motor core properties with a 100 foot minimum lot width so they uh both they all function they're consistent with what we're proposing and you can see they're not out of character on to the next slide so what this is is a street view driving up Riverside the blue ellipse is the subject property so you'd be looking North at the subject property and the purpose there is just to show there's existing Cyprus White Pines of different varying levels to really provide you know it's almost a screen and a buffer um from the traveling public so you don't even see the building in that location the next one will be traveling the other way down Riverside to the left and behind the blue ellipse would be the property as well and so you really from a screening standpoint um you don't really see the property um the home until you really get right to the the narrow um driveway where you're where you're facing and looking right at the house and that's what this shows so this is a snapshot if you're standing right in front looking right at it I think the thing to take away here is what Mr Grace said you know the real prominent piece of this is the two-car garage and in general um you know in my experience that's not the most desirable look you know certainly functional but um a more desirable look would be something that incorporates um less than the garage doors from the from the public view so um we said that the lot is unique in shape um we also talked about the existing side yard setbacks that they're less than the 15 ft that's required we looked at the existing trees and the shrubs and obviously this is um is buffered nicely so I don't need to talk really more about the the building and and the layout of the property I think Mr Grace and Mr Kaiser did that very well the FL variances again are um the minimum lot width so this is 100 ft um and it's compliant with the bulk standard of the ordinance but when you actually go to use it as a motor Court that's when the 25 ft kicks in so we do request relief from that because we are going to that motorc condition uh the prevailing front yard setback which is calculated by the municipal engineer has been confirmed in this case is 56 ft we're proposing a front yard setback of 50 fet so we're 6 feet exceedence in that situation the minimum length of the side facing wall and that's on the south side of the wall I'm sorry south side of the the property that's 8 ft and we're proposing 4.42 feet and then again the driveway which Mr Kaiser just spoke of the maximum driveway widths 22 ft and we're proposing 4519 and that's measured if you're looking at the home so the distance would be parallel to the home and consistent with the profile of the driveway going into garages so I think there's elements of a C1 and a C2 case here and just refresh the board you know the C1 is considered the hardship case and the hardship runs with the property and um the posit has a positive and a negative criteria that we must show and the board must find in order to grant that variance the positive criteria in the hardship case is that if it's due to the unique shape uh of the lot or the lawfully existing structures thereon and whether that creates a practical difficulty in compliance with uh your project and the negative criteria is that we must show and the board must find that there's no substantial detriment to the Zone plan the zoning ordinance or the public good and really the key uh word there is substantial you know every variance request has some impairment but whether or not it rises to the level of substantial is really what the board should find the C2 criteria we call the flexible C or the benefits versus the Dem detriments type variance the positive criteria in that case is that we show that at least one purpose of the municipal land use law would be Advanced if uh the board granted relief for this project the negative criteria in the C2 case is the same three prongs that I just mentioned so with here with this case when I look at the um the lot width variance you know I really think that's a C1 type case and that's really due to the shape and the narrowness of a lot you know we're not able to expand it on either of the sides it's already slightly non-conforming so any expansion on that would increase the non-conformity um so um we can't purchase any property from either of the Lots on the sides because they're also would render them non-conforming so it's a it's a hardship type case the driveway width and the wall length and the front yard uh deviation I believe those would into a C2 type criteria and in this case you know there's there's two criteria that I think um special reasons that would be Advanced purpose a and purpose I and so purpose a which is really established by the courts as as really the u a very important purpose and that's to encourage Municipal action to guide the appropriate use or development of all lands in the state in a manner which will promote the public health safety morals and general welfare and I think here what the focus is is that the the configuration of the proposed driveway and the combination really provide a circulation that allows vehicles to more easily maneuver on the site pull out head first onto the public road instead of backing out onto the public road and that's a clear safety concern so that's Advanced and I think the with respect to the front yard deviation in general when you are eliminating the garage doors in my opinion that face the the public View and creating a really aesthetic architectural uh element in the front without the garage doors facing the street I think that creates a a creative U desirable and visual environment and that's purpose ey and again with the discussion of the wall and and the length of the wall I think that you know in order to create this design and make it functional the architect was faced with either extending the wall on the south of the building and making it a more mass continuous Mass I think you took the right approach by creating that 4.2 articulation 4.2 foot articulation in there I think that's a better solution I think it's a uh a more creative solution and gives um a little bit better aesthetic look if you're looking at the property from the uh from the sub and I still you know and it still works it promotes a a functional garage for the applicant so I think in you know in summary believe that this these variances are really minimal in nature I think the Architects done an excellent job at accommodating the applicant and doing so in a way that doesn't provide any uh impacts to the neighbors I think there's no substantial detriment uh to the to the Zone plan the zoning ordinance or the public good in this case and I think there's actually some enhancements and you know one of the enhancements I I think is safety but also with headlights I think in this case um especially to the property to the South I think that side entry Motor Court type garage really uh limits the impact to that neighbor so uh I think you know in summary I think it's been designed to be sensitive to the neighbors I think it's consistent with the development throughout the community um and I think it meets the positive in the negative CR criteria and uh I hope the board grants the relief I think it's warranted and at that I'll leave it open to any questions thank you Mr Hansen any questions board members any questions of the planner is there a slide that shows the new proposed driveway because it it seems awfully large and it occupies an awful large portion of the front setback of the property yeah I can uh give me one second and I'll share that can you see that yeah so so the the 45 ft that we took if you can follow my cursor is all the way across the front here so the actual driveway that as it enters the doors of the garage is consistent with a normal type Drive you would see which is 21.25 but because it's a motor Court um and because it's facing the way that it's facing you actually conservatively you would calculate this as 45 ft but it's not the similar to any of the other motor courts so when you're back up here the 45 ft just allows you to be able to maneuver in this area back up and then drive head on out into the road and Mr Hansen if you could just scroll up a few more pages I just want to keep going stop there I note that the existing pavement it's consistent in terms of width right we would just be Paving the entire yeah that's correct and that's a great point we're not changing the width of the access Drive coming in so that's all staying the same it's really you can follow my cursor it's moving in a southernly Direction so it's pavers now would still be a hard surface it would be the asphalt pavement um but it's consistent with you know really the length of the imperious surface that you see now in front of the Dome so so you don't think any of that can be removed even that that part that's kind of juts out to the left that's where your where your cursor is well it could it be removed yes um I don't know that it's warranted I think that you know does provide another little back area and another you know piece of impervious for the for the client um but if and we could also ask our engineer to provide some testimony in on that but it really for safety so that way they could pull onto Riverside uh front rather than backing end for better Ingress and egress as well as circulation yeah I would say it provides more or allows for addition maneuverability of the pave drive and it's still underneath the imperious coverage limit they don't have adequate space to pull in and out so that they can do head-on into Riverside by just going you know just kind of straight parallel back they do I mean you know this this here would be enough room this adds just an extra level of of man manuverability okay that's that's my question but is it necessary seems might be excessive you know I if if if if the board has concerns about it maybe we take a a quick recess and ask the client um what they feel about that but you the only other thing I would offer is that um you know you do have a substantial amount of evergreen trees here so uh that's what you're going to see when you look at Rivers side from Riverside and I think given that I think um you know the the potential uh and your concern for too much impervious coverage really mitigated well and if I just so that I'm clear that cutout that we're talking about now that's ex that's an existing condition correct that's correct correct all right and through the other testimony was profer that what we're trying to do is limit the amount of disturbance here we're trying to limit the amount of disturbance and I think it's important to know that this has been designed sensitive to the impervious coverage we're still under the maximum so we comply all right well the only thing is that um that little turnaround when the driver highve way in effect came straight out gave you the ability to turn around or at least a little more maneuvering space now it's really offset from the motor Court the you know the 21 foot in front of the garage and the 24 foot behind it so it really to even get into it if you back out of the garage you've really got a lot of go through a lot of contortions to get in there so it doesn't really serve a purpose anymore I agree I see the same thing you'd be you'd be backing out halfway down the driveway before you can turn around if you're using that little tail yeah it's a minor item but you know it's it appears to go to the property line it gives you a little more space to create a buffer in there between you and the neighbor property you know in the pavement sure call I I agree too I I was going to ask about that existing bump out whether it was necessary and also when the planner goes through um I'm not debating it but you know the purpose uh being met is is safety on the width um of of the the asphalt serving the motor Court I mean you know I'll make up up a number 50% of the driveways in Princeton that means someone can argue that they should be allowed to go head headlights first out of their driveway and expand their areas you know um backing out of a driveway is safe enough um I would say and um so I didn't really accept that purpose being met of safety I agree Michael and I'm not looking for a response I'm just putting that any other questions okay um if of the board members have any other questions of the applicant or the applicant's witnesses or the attorney we can uh Mr todera you can sum up and we'll go in we'll go open this up to the public yes so thank you so that concludes our initial proper U we've identified the four variants that we need the what we believe to be a worthwhile opportunity to bring a new young family into the community uh we we've satisfied both the positive and the negative criteria for granting the assault variance relief well we're we're not going anywhere we're here for any questions or any potential comments that might come up during public comment session with that just thank the board for its time okay I think one we'll open it to the public in a second but if you want to talk with your client about the possibility of eliminating that small piece of driveway uh just think about that right now all right so certainly raise that with them um we watch okay all right um we'll go into we'll open this up to the public Claudia has anyone indicated they'd like to speak I think I see a name I don't recognize yes there you go okay please identify yourself okay good evening everyone I I apologize it's 10:30 and I know you're all exhausted as I am been anxiously awaiting for this my name is sylvana nazaro Clark I um was born and raised in the house next door 562 Prospect Avenue and Melissa I've never officially met you I remember your parents and I remember the horrible time when your grandmother passed my father called me my my father is now uh 101 he's been living um we had have had the home for over 60 years and I want to congratulate you um and your family for this exciting new Step that you're taking and I really I come first um to definitely represent the nazaro family um for good wishes but also and definitely support for what you're doing by the way how much time do I have was Clark actually I don't want to limit it but let's keep it to a minimum okay I'm trying yes yeah Miss Clark uh I'm not sure that you're G to be offering any testimony it sounds more like your your thoughts at this point but we'll just swear you in in case you do that's fine so you swear or firm your testimony this evening will be truthful yes absolutely than you very much thank you if you would focus on on your yes I will I move on I wanted to I did want to start with that because it's very important this is an emotional thing because it's a family concern my father could not be here tonight he's he's excited about this opportunity but he's also very upset in terms of what it poses to his property um so I consulted today and by the way I did not I was not aware of this we never received notice unfortunately I don't know what happened um but um I do we do I do we do want to work with the family and make it work for them but also in consideration of the neighbors and I think and and um and speaking to um I was frantically trying to sort out what what exactly this is about and for and what it what it would do for our family and our property and the neighborhood and so I spoke to um a friend Chris tar many of you might know him he's a a local lawyer and um well he couldn't be with us tonight he did bring up this point of a neighborhood character ordinance and I thought I thought about it and you know these points that are given tonight and I listened to this whole piece about the car um the motor court and the config and and how many homes in the area have it the concern I have is the configuration of it and I think by the way there's a whole team of people here done a ton of homework and I'm coming with a very um you know brief but um to the point testimonial that the problem with the motor cord is in addition to the narrowness of the property um is is the configuration of it where it it is located in front of the home and what it does um to my my father's uh our our family's home um the the concern is and I I'd like to just um like I apologize I know there's a Time limitation here but and everyone's tired but when we go back to exhibit one um 1 a A1 excuse me I'm tired um and I scroll down um and I look at page um six seven and eight um what's not shown here is the view from my from our home on the right side and um the the the far the bottom left corner of page six um that would extend out and down to the left of there is my father's patio and so the the worry that I that we have is um and also you can see straight ahead on that same photo of that uh that beautiful Maple red maple tree so I appreciate Melissa the the the intention to um create some more landscape um but I we do have a concern about um the shadow that that addition creates on my father's his garden and his his patio that he loves to go to every day the shadow um and also obscuring the property views and um property itself um in addition um it's it's a very very long narrow property and we ask that the the that you consider the design um you know I wondered about the point that was given about from 19t wide to 24t wide that's that's five feet and I know I I if I heard correctly it hits the eastment it doesn't cross the eastment whereas um in the other direction the uh the motor um Court to me poses a whole different configuration that does um you know it does have a negative impact on on our our existing property and again I just want to go back to the point of this comes from a spirit of truly support but I really um with these incredibly talented people is there any other configuration that you can come up with so I think this one is it does have negatives um and as it relates to again as I go back to that point of um the uh the character um the ordinance that I the neighborhood ordinance character ordinance I'm tired excuse me well is that uh is that it is that your question you're done um I I'm probably not done but I think you guys would want me to no no no I want you to make sure you you spoke yeah I think that's the the key thing and and I and I will say um that we haven't had a whole lot of time time to process this you know we received a letter from Melissa and last week and I just literally looked at the plans today because I didn't even know when this meeting was happening and so I just would love for a chance to engage with some more some other possibilities okay okay um because I don't know that um this is the best configuration and if we just look scroll down on that exhibit just toer that point um which I heard Mr I believe Hansen was talking about the car motor court next door on the other side it's it's literally if you look at it as a puzzle piece on page seven the way that the homes are configured the motor Court literally would be directly in front of um our my father's um sight line to the road as well as creating Shadow onto his his uh his porch and his his uh his garden that he loves to keep okay could you bring up um to the applicant can you bring up the proposed site plan that uh shows the new garage also shows I guess the Landscaping that currently exists there sure we could have our our professional and while one of our professionals is pulling that up I apologize if I missed it uh Miss Clark did do you stay do you I don't need your address specifically do you live at the property um I live at on Lawrenceville Road I have a home on in uh in Princeton and I currently am living on on um on a Lawrenceville Road in Princeton Miss Clark you're appearing tonight on behalf of your father is that he's sleeping right now there's no way that he can and he's but he's maybe not sleeping but he couldn't represent himself okay so I'm a trustee of his estate and I'm speaking on his behalf and I just as a point of order uh Miss Casey I I know we don't strictly apply the rules of evidence and land use board hearings yeah but I just want to just know I concerned about um somebody speaking on behalf of of a neighbor I know it's daughter but um I just want that to weigh into any a truste of his estate I know as the trustee of the estate it doesn't necessarily mean that you have the okay well my father's 101 so I could I wish for people to understand that he couldn't be here at 10:30 at night and he couldn't articulate his it would be a very different conversation if he was trying to articulate his concerns well Mr Mr Taro so your concern is what that M Clark isn't authorized to make these statements tonight on behalf of her father I'm not sure no that if she can I I mean and and I just want that to we into the board's consideration process that's all and I wanted to just note for the record we didn't want to interrupt Miss Clark in the middle of uh her time and and we're happy that she's participating tonight but I just wanted to note that cons for the record yeah I I do think that I I I would love to know um how the the committee would feel about the neighborhood I I want to know more about this neighborhood of character ordinance and how this applies Eric would you like to comment on that please sure um in 2018 the town enacted uh a series of ordinances to address the design of single family homes and the large you know about the placement of garages um so as you heard earlier the front-facing garage that exists there now uh is non-complying if it was built today it would have to be set back 16 feet from the front facade um a side entry garage would need to be 8 feet back from the nearest front facade um or the nearest facade and uh this proposed garage Edition um needs a variance it requires 125 foot lot width and the width is only 100 feet and it it needs to meet the front yard setback which in this case is prevailing setback which is the average property within 500 feet um me either direction of the property and um it requires a variance you can see it seems to meet at the end closest to your property but the diagonal uh orientation of the the road with the Lots uh it doesn't meet the uh as it diagonally slices through the garage um they also instituted at the same time the 22 foot garage uh driveway width excuse me um so um it was designed uh in response to tear downs and uh garage Centric designs thank you sure thank you what I'm trying to I'm trying to open my drawings here what I'm trying to figure out is I'm looking at an aerial photograph I have uh Google Earth up on my other screen thank you and I see a very large stand of trees um in front of the as you face the ex the proposed house from the street at the right hand corner of it and I'm wondering it appears that that's all on your property I mean you the applicant's property and I'm trying to see I think I made so how much of that is going to stay and how much do that that buffer looks like it's how much of that is going to stay and how much of it is going to come out uh only two trees or two trees on the south property line side are proposed to be removed the majority of the landcaping or existing tree cover is proposed to remain okay because it's not well let's see I'm looking at the I'm looking at sheet three of six and I see the the tree at the corner the right hand corner of the house in the front coming out and then one a little further forward I see the cluster of Hedges that are on the adjacent property uh that are closer to the street and then I don't see anything that's of that stand of trees or that that those that growth let's say which is going to remain and that appears to be directly opposite of the patio area I believe that uh Miss I'm sorry I forgot your name Miss Clark syvan Clark Clark is talking about I guess I guess that might be it and the red maple tree is that going to be removed as well removed okay so that's the concern is that is the the question of the configuration of this expansion and how it impacts the my our property um so so that that's the concern um I just it it just and I Wonder we talked about and in the presentation I heard that there was a five foot because I I can appreciate what Melissa was saying that the garage was too narrow so an expansion of five feet um does that cross the Eastman it's up to the easement correct well is but apart from the easement it also I'm just summarizing the testimony it also would you Anthony would you like me to speak yeah yeah so expanding in that direction has has multiple raises multiple concerns one is that it would extend into the sidey yard setback on that side so it would be imposing itself into the sideb back uh the setback of the opposite neighbors against the opposite neighbors's property and would also cause that extension to increase in existing non-conformity which is counter to those neighborhood residential zoning standards that uh Mr Bridger just described it probably would also produce a a variance against the height to setback ratio from the lot line on the left side of the lot okay and it would put the it would put the addition up against that uh easement which is something you'd like to avoid and then what just can you just clarify as well that this proposed garage Edition is set back 15 feet from lot one from the setback along this uh uh lot one property bound yeah so the the although there is an existing non-conformity and that non-conformity is 3 to 4 Ines depending where on the facade you are uh despite there's an existing non-conformity on that side into the setback all the proposed of the proposed Edition volume is in uh is within conforms to the 15ot setback I'll say it is stepped back so that it doesn't it doesn't align with the existing non-conforming wall line so so the the non-conformity is for the existing residence in the rear of the existing structure is that correct the existing yeah the existing side BL uh side walls that you see there are vary between two to four inches over the over the 15 foot okay so so so this proposed Garage in terms of of the sidey yard setback that could be built without any variances we we correct uh without the side that's right the only the only it's just the front mean prevailing front yard setback that is the variance request for the garage and I would like to address that actually great Mr Bridger described how how that is calculated it is uh structures within 500 feet um of the lot both directions on the same side of the street in the same zoning District uh and so in this circumstance it only applies that calculation will only apply to all the structures on this block which there are five of them now this the Miss Clark's uh property where she grew up actually addresses Prospect Avenue as the front yard so that does not contribute to the mean prevailing front step back on top of that you're supposed to knock out the high and low so that you get the mean that leads only two structures on this road which are used in calculating the mean prevailing Front St back if I'm if I'm interpreting that correctly and Mr Bridger and Mr bitman would have to attest to that but um that our mean prevailing front setback is based on two properties and also there are two structures that don't directly perpendicularly address the street you're measuring to the closest point to the street so I think I certainly understand why the significance of the mean prevailing front setback as a um as a a bulk uh regulation but here I think you know we have to understand it's only two properties that are really contributing to that it's not like we have a um a line of you know 15 16 houses that are all set back aligning with one another directly addressing the street so I think that has to carry some significance in the requests for the uh variance with respect to that setback I did also just want to respond uh to the comment about shading this property is actually north of north northwest of the the property there's not going to be any additional shading caused by the addition uh nor nor should it be robbing you of any shade provided from the maple tree because the solar exposure is coming from a different direction and and the and the third comment I just wanted to make is that uh even in seeking solutions for the garage to be located Elsewhere on the property the appan is still looking to expand the livable area up their of of the structure and were the garage not to be located where we have proposed it it's very likely we would be looking to expand the footprint of the structure in that location uh and that would be as of right it wouldn't be uh with a variance so I just wanted to identify that okay I just again thank you for your responses and I appreciate this time I just think overall this word of intensity came up earlier tonight tonight I do think it's beautiful but there is definitely a a stronger intensity that it poses to the neighbors the immediate neighbors the Litman and us um the nazaro so I want just thank you for your time and I do wish your family the best and um I I would love for a a mutually um kind of uh you know happy decision on both sides but it's right now it's it doesn't it doesn't it the the proposal is very intense from a neighbor's perspective I have a Qui how tall is the chain link fence between the two properties are you asking you that no I'm asking anybody no I was I mean I see there is a chain link fence how tall is it is it four feet or six feet or uh I don't know I don't know I'm not sure if we have a number on that that I could see it doesn't matter there is a chain link fence though that's part of the view from yeah feet right but what happens is what's what it's going to be obstructing is the um from the from my my father's porch when he we look out he looks out he can see the road and you can see the greenery of the street that's going to be that's going to be obstructed by the garage that'll be just a white a long white wall coming straight on and it's right you know close to the property so understand concern yeah what what if the existing what if the proposed garage and I can I can understand what the applicant is saying about the location of the garage and and the overall function of the house but what if the and the garage again uh as the architect said uh or someone said is not going to cause any Shadows on your father's property um what if there was just some planting behind the proposed garage planting that your father would look at when he's out on his patio that would so he wouldn't be looking directly at the wall there'd be some planting there to sort of break it up and then some green you know what I think that's really you know what I here's the problem it's 10:30 at night and I what I'm saying is is that we would really love a chance to um to respond to this more thoughtfully and give some ideas and you know I'm you know happy to explore looking at some experts but I'm not an expert and I'm just and I and there's a team of really talented experts here tonight and I know that they've looked at different things and I appreciate the the thought around Greenery but my dad's not here to um Mr taro's point right I am part owner of the house and that I am a trustee of his estate and however with that said he is extremely upset about this and so I I don't I don't know what would would work for him and what but I would really would love for this to be postponed so we can have some time to talk to MSA and hear these ideas and and find maybe come up with something that's maybe the truth would be great a great solution Mr cone but I I think it's late and I would really love the chance to to let this percolate um and let my dad dad's voice be heard through this in a more um reasonable time okay I can let me make a comment and then I'll ask the other board members if they'd like to I obviously the applicant notice the neighbors and your you know your father may have gotten he should have gotten a notice and I recognize that his age and everything else and I respect that but the notice was sent what 10 days ago something like that um I think I think it's really in my opinion it would be up to the applicant to decide what they would like to do at this point if they'd like to engage with you to talk about Alternatives or they'd like to basically move forward with the proposal that they have I think that's their decision so that's my opinion board members do you have anything you'd like to add I think you're right and and so if I I mean we already presented we're we're here and and um applicants still want to proceed I have I have a question please Micha and it's it's related to that you know early in the presentation the applicant said they they met with many neighbors or met with neighbors how many neighbors did you meet with sure if I may on um October 31st we went and knocked on the doors of five neighbors uh Mr nazzaro's House the L on the other side the neighbors the haers beyond the Litman as well as the two across the street neighbors that day we were able to speak face Toof face to the cross the street diagonal neighbors who were supportive of our plan though they weren't able to attend tonight um I spoke on the phone with um Sandra one of Mr nazar's other daughters on um I believe it was the first of November because um the letter that when we knocked on the do if folks weren't home then we left a letter um in the mailbox so um Mr nazaro let his uh family know about our letter and Sandra one of his other daughters gave me a call we had a chat um either on the 30 same night the 31st or the 1 I can't remember um but I could check my phone records to tell you was for sure one of those two days um we did mention that there was this meeting on this date and that they would everyone would receive official notice but we wanted for them to hear from us first we've since had also a phone conversation with the the neighbors um on the other side of the property who are also supportive of our plan um and you know if if I if I could because sure sorry what I think I'm hearing you say is you actually spoke to two different neighbors uh two additional Neighbors in addition to the Naros okay three okay thank you that was simply my question okay and it's just above and beyond what we needed to do because like I said we noticed for this application we just oh I understand that but you she she put on the record in the beginning that he spoke to neighbors I just wanted to understand how many understood I'm I'm glad you went above and beyond but that that was not the basis of my question it was based on testimony already given and just miss Clark the um the applican said she spoke to um would it be your sister yes and she's also a co- trustee and sander expressed a concern about this and if it could be postponed and and and apparent and my other sister Lily spoke to Mr Taro and and also asked if it could be postponed and apparently it could not be so that's why I'm coming tonight again I'm not trying to be difficult Melissa please know that I just want you to know that my dad's extremely upset and and and for good reason you know this whole question of neighborhood character ordinance while it's a lovely design it does impact the view from the spot from our home if it happened the Litman side I'm sure Michael would be here tonight you know what I mean it's like the exact location of where my dad sits every day is right where that wall is and it it totally changes things so you know I think this question of the this what Chris tar had told me about this neighborhood character ordinance is a question that I would like to have the board discuss and because it's the configuration it's not just the existence of the motor cord it's the configuration of it and that's that's can I I just interject here I think we we note the concern I'm not sure if there's anyone else from the public who wants to speak on this but we're talking about a concerns of a of a neighbor who's not here now we're talking about advice from Council who's not here I think the the the point is taken that's not very nice Taro just just so that I can understand Miss Clark's indicated she's also part owner of the home is it your position that that doesn't give her status either to come here tonight and and provide comments I didn't know until she was until just now and like I said I mean we've we've been fine with the comments um I just think it needs to be taken in into totality away my credibility in other words like it's just of just my perspective my points I mean I'm just trying to State a concern that's I I think a fairly valid concern if anybody any one of you were living next door you'd probably be concerned too and and there's just been a a short window to to Hash it out may may I speak at some point well let let's M Clark finish and then you can speak okay we'll we'll we'll wait uh for Miss Clark to finish and then we'll address that I mean Michael I mean I was going I thought she was finished we're okay okay Mr tadar do you want to speak and then I'll speak yeah no that's we were just gonna wait and see if there's anything else so um P Please Mr sh okay my my feeling is as I said before um yeah again to be fair to the applicant notice they've properly noticed and obviously now we know that they reached out to various neighbors including Miss Navaro not not Miss Clark but um and uh so I think they had the neighbors had adequate time to prepare for this meeting and to be fair to the applicant and the applicant's team which is not inexpensive at this point um I think it's up to them to decide if they would like to continue the hearing and then unless the board has concern and would ask that it be continued I think it would be up to the applicant so anybody on the board like to add to that yes it's up to the applicant you're right we've heard the concerns let's move on and we talk about what Stephen finish that I said well we've we've heard the concerns but let's let's move on and get into all right so you don't you you you're you're concurring with what I said absolutely AB yes and I you know adequate noticing was given and you know okay we're already over the 11 o'clock time limit it's now 11:02 so um board can we continue this can we try to get through this tonight yes okay yes if that's okay with everybody all right so Miss Clark are you you're done with your comments um just that would you like to see a photo of the view from my dad's property I don't think anyone see it but I can show it to you or my sister Ken just make it quick please okay she the board will obviously it's the board's prerogative I'm just gonna object just for protection Mr tadar on what basis are you objecting well if they're gonna be submitting things they're supposed to be submitted two days in advance that's that's oh okay all did you take this photo Miss CL um my sister took it this is from our property from this this is from the patio of my dad's property um looking over um over to that side so um the tree would come down that red the the red maple tree and it would be um you know from what the description is it come out further and so that is quite a change and that fence is your fence uh yes the years ago um the the the existing fence basically fell down so we replaced it okay was falling apart okay um thank you so uh maybe we can take that down yeah I just miss Casey is there an exhibit that we want to mark that as or how do we want to um uh Miss Clark you just testified your sister is that a current photo yes oh and would you like that to be an exhibit then for the board tonight what that means is that it's it's put into the record of this here okay um if it's helpful absolutely let me just um how do I do I just share it again oh no you take a picture of it or anything do you want it for I didn't I just shared my screen got it okay fine okay okay perfect thank you we will make objector exhibit okay okay so um so we've heard your testimony um so I'll ask Claudia Claudia is there anyone else in the audience who'd like to speak on behalf of this there are no more hands okay so hearing none we'll close the public portion of the hearing uh Mr tedo you can sum up first of all um do you or your and your client wish to continue yes we've already completed our initial presentation um we've heard from the public opened and closed um and so yes we'd like to continue okay all right so would you like to sum up before we go into executive session um yes but I'll tell you what just briefly like I Believe Miss Freeman still has her hand up she's been waiting who who does oh missan yes I just I saw the hand there oh the applicant right okay please finish up please thank you sorry I just wanted to address syana and the family's concerns we definitely want to be neighborly we'd love to be a part of the the community we don't want to start on a bad foot so I I want to just acknowledge you know having an elderly relative my grandmothers lived till 92 and 97 I you know I understand what what it's like to have um cherished members of your family as they age and wanting to keep them happy and comfortable so Our intention is of course not to upset your father we would be happy to put plantings in that area that he could look at and have a nice view of in addition to in the picture that you just showed the plantings that you guys have on your property um so we're certainly not trying to upset anybody we've been working with um Ben and Jay-Z and D for over two years now on coming up with a plan that will work given the dimensions of the property given our needs as a family so we've really tried to look at every possible option um we did as I mentioned uh Reach Out initially on October 3 first it wasn't until yesterday that your two sisters um shared the concerns that you have with uh with us so I just wanted to mention that we've just heard this um you know and only had 24 hours or so to process the concerns as well so we definitely want to be accommodating but we also want to move forward with the plans that we've been working on for the last two years um so I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned that okay thank you very much Mr Taro you finished uh yes so again that concludes our presentation uh we have the four variances um none of which uh were triggered by the actual garage Edition that's not encroaching into the setback the existing setback is on the a separate side of the property for the existing home we believe that it it the entire project as a whole satisfies the positive and negative criteria warning the grant of the the salt variance relief we thank the board for its its time and consideration this evening and uh we're we're looking very forward to uh proceeding with actual construction okay thank you very much all right board members we are going into executive session um let's discuss this any concerns um we'll start from there George my question I guess my thoughts on is we seem to be balancing the needs of one family versus another I believe the you know the concept of plantings to restore or and maybe even enhance the view from the neighboring patio is a solution and and it's hard for me to try to understand why one family would have more sway than another and I don't know that that's really part of the zoning function on our part you know it really it's like neighbors might be able to work it out you know no I I agree with you I understand what you're saying so in effect I'm saying I support this this um this application okay thank you but I would I maybe like to add a condition that the applicants have agreed to which is that they um I'm not sure exactly how to put it in a way that's an acceptable legal form but that they do engage in plantings to restore um uh you know the greenery view from the neighboring Port okay all right well we'll discuss that with the Freedman in a minute okay any other comments from the board yeah I I would support this as well and when I look at the part of the uh uh garage Edition that is uh poking into the um front yard prevailing setback it's actually the part that's along the nazaro property is coming right up to the setback it's the other Corner that you wouldn't be able to see from uh uh that patio portion that is projecting Beyond it um and then uh so I I I don't have that same concern about the garage Edition um and uh I would suggest that they look at um I know that they're not exceeding the impervious coverage but getting rid of that extra it's a lot of of of of driveway that you're looking at get getting rid of that um little turnaround that seems to serve no purpose um with the new layout okay and I support the planting recommendation as well thank you any other comments from the board I agree with Bernice who agrees with George okay I agree with Bernice okay my um my thoughts are the motor court is a permitted use in this Zone but it was written that you have to have 125 width but you know even if this lot had 125 width you know the and it it was placed it it would still impact the neighbor uh based on the testimony but the big thing would be the the front front yard setback you know um so I would not eliminate them wanting a motorcourt design um just because of that so um I guess I'm leaning towards part of me is leaning towards not voting one way or the other on this um but it it is a permitted use even though it's not a wide lot so I can support it thank you okay anyone else okay I would um look it's never an enjoyable thing watching neighbors um having conflict um and ideally I it would have been nice in retrospect had there had been better communication within timely manner to have addressed this um unfortunately that's not the facts that were presented with um had there not been this conflict it would have been a no-brainer for me and it and and that's probably the way that I'm leaning the way that everybody else is it would just be nice if there was a way to kind of um um just I don't know do what's possible to accommodate um um Miss Clark and their concerns um but otherwise I think that everything else in the application's fine so I'm kind of in agreement with I think everybody else on this one okay I would like to add that I um I support this application um I think eliminating that turnaround that little backend area would be I'd like to see that come out that's up to the applicant and I think the I think the idea of considering some sort of landscaping behind the garage to to at least try to mitigate some of the concerns of the neighbor would be um I would suggest that you consider that I want to know what you think about about that Mr Mrs fredman may I speak now yes you can okay yes as I as I thought I mentioned um we're happy to do plantings in that area to try to beautify it make the view as nice as possible for the neros okay thank you all right so um does someone like to make a motion at this point unless there any if there are any other comments from the board or would someone like to make a motion yeah I I would like to move approval with the condition that um as you mentioned that Landscaping U be installed to uh mitigate the the uh visual impact of the new construction and I just question Miss Casey is that in proper legal [Music] form well as a the wording is fine I guess the question between neighbors uh who decides what's the adequate buffering or what kind of plantings or how tall they are so can we can we leave that up Karen can we leave that up to I hate to say Derek and our engineering department to review that I don't want to put any more burden on them they're already overworked but is that something Derek that you think you could moderate yeah I'm sure with between the arborist and uh Dan Weissman we can look at a plan I don't know I'm not sure exactly what is going to uh Shield it or buffer it but we're happy to look at it whatever the applicant wants to plantings grow yes they do that is true and also also I mean one thing that we haven't nobody's talked about but the there's a very large tree that's going to be lost there so to have that be seriously considered in terms of planting I mean well they have replacement trees that's a good point Eve but there probably be one required definitely for the Red Maple and uh anything over eight inches at chest height as uh in diameter is like a very tall tree and that that's um you know that I I speak for the trees I'm not happy about that and and also you know the turnar around I just will Echo what others have said it's and for me that bump out it's not a matter of Aesthetics it's it's just more impervious coverage and and we know that that you know the less of that the better it's especially if it's unnecessary I second George is uh oh what do we call that motion motion wait is just for clarification is removal of that bump out area is that a condition of your motion George or is this just a expression of the board's preference i' would like to make it as a condition that the the applicant uh consult with the um Town Administration about a landscaping plan to mitigate the impact visual impact of the new construction and I would like I guess to add that um maybe Steve you can help me with this the language about the uh the um the turnaround and the the the impervious coverage well I guess we could say the turnaround needs to be eliminated and the and the driveway continued um from the motor Court to the street in a consistent line I I would accept that as a friendly in Amendment so please add that to it so Karen do you think you have enough to put something together I do can you just read those I'm sorry I just want to make sure that we're clear for the applicants to consider can you just read back those conditions well my understanding is that it would be uh one condition is the removal of the turnaround area uh so that the driver will be a continuous line to the street and the applicant will add uh landscape Landscaping additional Landscaping to buffer um Mr Nero's view of the garage met work with the uh subject to the review and approval of uh our zoning officer and the arborist uh with respect to the the adequacy of the Landscaping yes okay and I just be so that's so we have a motion we have a second we have a Karen you understand what needs to go on I'm just going to ask one last question of the applicant and then we'll vote are you comfortable with the terms of this motion thank you I was just gonna I don't want to interrupt but I was gonna the same thing I wanted to get that clarification I can't agree on okay can can I just ask a clarification on the condition the the clar the clarification I'd like is that the condition you're that you're suggesting in the motion is that we Rec we reduce the impervious coverage by more than what's required is that correct because we are currently in compliance with the impervious coverage so your your condition is to reduce it further we're asking by eliminating that bump out that's it we're just asking for the bump out to be eliminated which I don't think functionally hurts the the overall circulation at all right it right it doesn't it it does allow for additional parking on the driveway but I understand if that's a problem you know we want we want to move forward so we will we we want I just want to fully understand what we're agreeing to it's because we I thought we were in compliance with the impervious coverage so I'm I just want to make sure that you're requesting that we go even below the the limit I guess in order to get the approval is that is that well I mean we're not we're not we're not forcing you to do it we just it's the opinion of the board it would enhance the overall scheme of the property and you're you know again considering you're asking for variances we're we're we're trying to come to a some sort of medium sure say um they they are also over in the um the driveway width and I think part of our reaction to seeing all that pavement is it's it's a and even though you're within the impervious coverage you're achieving it by with but with a a visually um enormous amount of pavement and so we are granting the additional width but asking can you take get rid of that tail um okay so I think for me a lot of it is about that's a lot of pavement to look at okay I understand thank you for the clarification if if that's what it will take for the the zoning board to Grant the variances then we will agree to that that's that's what it's going to take to corrup the vote us to come to a consensus and vote okay we're not we're not holding you out to dry here okay so we have an ordinance we have a we have a motion we have a second Karen you who's the second St yep yeah and um okay so I think we're ready to vote Claudia can you call a roll please 10 yes Miss Coulson yes Mr Floyd yes Mr Shriver yes Mr Tenon Bal yes Mr Stein yes Sherman Cohen yes thank you okay well I think this will work out well for everybody but good luck thank you everyone okay very much appreciated have a great night and you too okay um that's we're done for tonight have all have a good Thanksgiving and we'll see you on December 11th have a good one everyone thank you thanks good night night night that was interesting