##VIDEO ID:I2pJPbZbz-s## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e to the 2025 reorganization meeting of the city of zoning Board of J my name is Joseph Steiner and I was the chair of the board in 2024 please rise and join us in a pledge of allegiance Alle to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for [Music] all thank you in accordance with New Jersey statute 10 col 40-10 adequate notice of this special meeting has been provided to a newspaper of record and has been posted here at City Hall for the benefit of the interested public this meeting is being live streamed on the city's YouTube page and is also being broadcast on suit governmental channels which are Comcast channel 34 and Verizon channel 30 at this time I would like to ask mayor Fagan to swear in the members of the board who are who were reappointed to terms last evening and that's Scott lus Tom Yuko Allison Cho Jay fkins Paul Chan Gully and we're asking you to please come down to the podium along with our newest member who was appointed to a four-year term in James near mayor Fagan thank you little like Animal House I state your name would you like I think this is all right I'm GNA stand over here okay and you all will repeat after me and you'll say your name when I say state your name not state your name I state your name do solemnly swear sweare that I will support the Constitution of the United States I will support the con of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constition of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and I bear true faith and Allegiance and aliance to the same to the same and to the governments established the governments established in the united states in the United States and in this state and in this state under the authority of the people the authority of the people I do solemnly swear I do Solly swear that I will Faithfully fa impartially impartially and justly and justly perform all the duties perform all the duties as a member of the zoning board as a member of the zoning board according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help thank you for your service guys thank [Applause] you thank you mayor um a thank you to uh Bob palowski who was last year's uh council lezon at an announcement that Claire to newly installed as a council person last night will be our Council liazon for the upcoming year uh at this point so that we are legal Miss julos would you please call the role sure Mr Steiner here Mr lyit here Mr Yuko here Mr Nelson here miss Zan here Mr Kieran here Mr Malay is excused Miss Cho here Mr feskin here Mr Chuli here Mr Nan here you have a quorum you may proceed okay before we elect the chair for 2025 we have three resolutions that we need to act on these are for the professionals who will serve the board in 2025 Miss zulos would you present those resolutions sure so our first professional appointment is for our board engineer we have Collier's engineering and representing cers would be Miss Murray rafay do we have a motion to approve this resolution some moved second okay Mr Steiner yes Mr lyit yes Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Miss Zan yes Mr Kieran yes Miss chfo yes okay so our next resolution will be for the professional appointment of board planner we have Burgess Associates and representing Burgess we have Mr Ed sikis do we have a motion sub moved second okay I'm sorry who was the second okay Mr Steiner yes Mr lyit yes Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Miss Zan yes Mr Kieran yes Miss chfo yes okay and then for our final professional appointment we have board attorney it's uh that's Davidson Eastman Pon our representative is typically Andy Ball but tonight we have Mr zinsky did I do well filling in okay close enough how do you say it cinski okay that was close do we have a motion so move okay second is I'm going to take Allison Mr Steiner yes Mr lyit yes Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Miss Don yes Mr Mr Kieran yes Miss Cho yes okay okay at this point we will um consider uh nominations for chair for 2025 I would like to nominate Scott lits to be chair for 2025 I've served with Scott for a few years now I'm not sure how many it is maybe four or five and I've always found it be very thoughtful and insightful and over the last year so he's had the opportunity to chair several of our meetings and has done a very good job and so I think he'd be a good chair for 2025 don't want to go any further without thanking Joe for for being chair also this kept us very stable and kept the ship running but I nominate Scott for 2025 I'll second that okay okay is there a roll call please yes Mr Steiner yes Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Miss Zan yes Mr Kieran yes Miss chfo yes Mr fkins yes the motion carries it's all yours Scott it's all yours thank you very much Stephanie should we do Vice chair sure yes okay nominations for for a vice chair would be very very very happy to nominate Miriam on uh and having been chair last year there were a lot of different issues and she always did everything she could do to make sure she knew everything that had to be known about those issues and presented very very cogent uh uh Concepts and decisions that she had made that uh U our board uh did normally agree with and uh has been a very good candidate I believe and will be a very good candidate for vice chair second okay Mr Steiner yes chairman lits yes Mr Yugo yes Mr Nelson yes Mr Kieran yes Miss Cho yes Mr feskin yes the motion carries and I believe there's one other election that we have to do and that is our believe it or not we have to elect our secretary even though she's a city employee but it's also very appropriate because she's what keeps this thing running uh and I would move Stephanie suio as secretary thank you second second I'm sorry I missed okay we're second all those in favor I anyone opposed you do a perfect thank you all I can do something you're R your money for the night great uh first of all I'd like to thank mayor Fagen for wearing Us in really appreciate her presence and being here uh and I certainly want to Echo Tom's sentiments and thank Joe Steiner for being an excellent chairman in 2024 uh we are grateful to be led by him and we continue to be grateful for his service into 2025 as a member of this board so please join me in giving Mr Steiner [Applause] okay so I will start off with our standard Preamble I'm sorry that some of this was already said by Joe but just to be safe I'll reread through it uh good evening and welcome to the January 8th 2025 meeting of the city of summit Zoning Board of adjustment my name is Scott logits and I am the chair of the Zoning Board of adjustment uh we've already done the Pledge of Allegiance so in accordance with New Jersey St New Jersey statute 10-4 10 4-10 adequate notice of the special meeting has been provided to a newspaper of record it's been posted here in City Hall this meeting is a Judicial proceeding any questions or comments must be limited to the issues that are relevant to what the board May board May legally consider in reaching a decision and decorum appropriate to a Judicial hearing must be maintained at all times for the benefit of the interested public this meeting is being live streamed on the city's YouTube channel and also broadcast on summit's government Channel which is Comcast channel 34 and Verizon channel 30 a trans transcript of this meeting is also being taken using video and audio so anyone who speaks please use a microphone uh so we can record it properly please note that there are fire exits are to my right your left and at the back of the room where you entered the city has a listening system to assist the hearing impaired anyone needs hearing assistance please obtain the system at the DAT and return it thereafter um Stephanie do you want to do a roll call again or not necessary okay um as we mentioned before Andy ball is the zoning board's attorney he has a conflict but he may show up later um Mr ball advises the board members on matters of Law and is the key interface with the applicant's attorney Mr ball does not vote on the applications um and we have Mr Zach the zinski you said it better than I ever could thank you uh in Andy's place and I'm sure he will do an admirable job an admirable job uh Stephanie sulos is a city employee and is the zoning board secretary as we pointed out earlier uh congratulations to your reappointment Miss suos works with applicants on preparing their applications planning our agendas and keeping our meeting minutes mulos also does not vote on these applications uh also present are experts who are hired annually as you just saw uh to the board to provide input tonight we have Marie RAF from cers engineering and we also have Ed snikes from Burgess Associates and he's our board planner these experts are seated here at the table to the right of the board Public's left they also do not vote on the applications our board consists of seven regular members and up to four alternates all members can participate in the hearings tonight but only a maximum of seven can vote most applications require a simple majority to be approved uh before we enter executive session to vote on the application you will be advised on how many votes are required for that partic particular application each case will begin with the applicant's attorney giving an overview of the application process to date and the variances that are required we then hear from any additional expert witnesses that the applicant may have to help explain the application and why the variances are needed the board members may ask questions of the applicant their attorney and their expert Witnesses once the board members and the board professionals have completed their questioning the public will have an opportunity to ask questions ask questions only this is not the time to tell us uh your opinion or what you think about the case that opportunity will come at the end of the hearing please be careful as to how you phrase your questions they should not be proceeded with a statement about the case which should be a direct question to the witness also before you ask ask your questions please clearly state your name spell your last name and provide your address is important that a court reporter be able to keep a clear and accurate public record after all Witnesses have been heard members of the audience have a second opportunity to speak in that time you may be able to express your opinion positive or negative about the application then the public hearing is closed and we will enter into executive session while board members will discuss the case and vote you'll be able to listen to our executive session but will not be able to participate in our discussion all right uh and with that we can begin with our first case six Garden Road sure you want to take attendance for the other yeah that's fine we get set up perfect the others are okay uh do we have representatives from 260 Oakridge Avenue yes we're here great and then finally do we have representatives for 573 Springfield Avenue great I see you Sam thanks please microphone oh come come address the board my apologies if if it was possible to see if anyone in in the audience was here with interest in that application perhaps we could discuss while the other applications start is it looks like there is would you mind speaking in the hallway while the other applications start okay thank you thank you Sam appreciate that just looking where to plug in it used to be there yeah it should be a little do this there's an extra Outlet right in front of the podium I think you found it reason excellent okay ready M Ros we ready all right can we swear you in do you swear from testimony you're about to give trip yes great would you would you like to give a little overview of your case before uh we yes let your expert testify so um my husband Michael uh tonight but uh my husband and I bought our house at six Garden Road in Summit in 2013 uh we live with our two children our daughter is uh 11 years old our son is s years old uh we've lived in the house for 11 years and you know as they're gotten bigger we're feeling constrained in the house and um you know we consider looking for a bigger place but we quickly realized that we didn't want to move uh we love our c Back Street this is where you know our kids learn how to ride a bike uh we love our neighbors um both of our kids best friends live on the street and some of our closest friends are our neighbors so we just love it you know this is home this is where we want to stay and so we're here to ask for four approvals uh in order to uh reconfigure the second floor of the house you know for a better functionality and to beautify the exterior the house great thank you do you have any other expert Witnesses in addition to Mr Rosen tonight no just myself and Mr Rosen Mr Rosen you are well known to this board um are your credentials in good standing yes all right would we accept this expert witness great thank you okay um to start the picture that you can see is the house uh Michael and isumi shidi at six Garden Road and the house was built in 1954 it's a very plain house sort of a sort of a Cape Cod um it's a little bit there are some things that are awkward about it it looks very pleasant on the outside but quite simple uh what we wanted to do is to improve the appearance on the outside um and then uh I'm just I'm going to be moving some of these photos around a little bit just so that you can see so improve the front facade by taking off the little Portico and making a porch across the front we will continue the roof line where the very high Dormers are on the left side bring that continue that roof down to uh cover the new front porch that front porch leads to one of the variances uh for building coverage um it also contributes to lot coverage um and I'm going to go through the four variances but I just wanted to show you quickly what we're planning to do here so on the next photo here this shows the back of the house and uh you can see the room on the left that is actually not heated or cooled it's um sort of somewhere between a porch and a room but it's uh right now it it looks sort of added on sort of tack on the roof line is very different than the rest of the house so we wanted to raise that roof line up to be um similar to the main the pitch of the main roof line which you can see on the side of the house here um in doing that it adds a little bit of attic space not um not much that's going to be usable but there is some Attic in there as the roof line goes higher and we're doing an addition a small addition in the back over here just to to increase the size of the primary closet uh going back to the front um going to that this photo we're going to be as we're improving the appearance of the front of the house we're also going to be adding some floor area I'm just going to go back and forth and I'll I'll come back to this photo a few times during the presentation but the proposed is to have the house much more um a sort of a richer materials nicer materials um better proportions you can see that the roof line uh on the main body of the house is extended down right now the height of the house is 24.1 Ft on average and it's a little bit taller than that a little over 30 ft um from the very lowest point to the highest point as you could see at the back of the house the garage is down below so the height is not changed we are raising the roof line a little bit on the right side over here um and we're adding this Dormer across the front in order to get more living space on the second floor but everything is directly above what's uh what's already there with the exception of the um the this Dormer in the center which is a new bedroom right now the house has three bedrooms and we want to expand it uh to four so in doing this we need uh four variances and I'm going to get to those in just a second what I'm showing you now is a little bit of a highlighted area for the project narrative which you have as part of the um part of the application and the main point that I wanted to get is the first highlighted part which says that the lot area is 10,242 ft it then goes on to describe what I just mentioned the what the project consists of of the new front porch the second floor alterations for an enlarged primary Suite uh and a new bedroom and bathroom so the variances that we need there are four of them rear yard setback which is currently 30.4 ft and it will stay at 30.4 FT again in looking at the photo of the back of the house as you saw it's the part that we're going to fully enclose and heat and cool which has the low pitch roof and that roof will go up that's the only piece that requires the setback is the changed roof configuration um the second one oh just to mention why that's an issue the rear yard setback is because as the property is under size it's in the R15 zone so the expectation would be about 15,000 square ft this is 2/3 of that at just over 10,000 the lot width is supposed to be 90 ft it's actually 88 so that's pretty good that's pretty close um and it means that our sidey yard setback is compliant on the right side on the left side and the combined is the same uh so that means that it's the the shortage of square footage on the lot is because the rear yard is the the the lot is shallow instead of being about 150 or a little bit more feet deep it's it's much less than that um so some of the items like this rear yard setback is short because the property is not as deep the the house even with the new porch will be compliant on the front yard setback but it's basically the existing configuration of the lot and the house that's legally existing there that causes some of these variances uh particularly this rear yard setback second one lot coverage the existing is 43.1 and the proposed as it says here is 43.7 however since we have since we submitted the um application in that time we've talked a little bit more and we would like to reduce that to keep it as exactly the same and that may be a resolu part of the resolution as a condition of approval that we keep it at 43.1 the way we're going to do that I'm coming back to the photos um is that at the back of the house it's a little hard to see but off on on this side on the left of the picture there's a little retaining wall you can sort of see the steps here there's a railroad tire retaining wall which goes across um the driveway the driveway comes in from the front obviously but then Loops all the way around in the back and there's a mixture of of driveway and uh sort of unpaved area it's sort of broken pavement and and gravel rather than have that go as it currently is all the way right up to the base of the wall we want to have a 12 in or larger buffer there that we can plant which will look a little bit nicer um I'll come back to the uh some of the things that we are not doing in the rear yard based on the um the comments from the planner um so going back to this so we'd like if that's okay we'd like to have a condition of approval that we will have it either at stay at 43.1 or less than that for uh going forward and and the reason I say or a little bit less is because it may turn out that you can't get a car right against a retaining ball anyway so there may be even a little bit more space that we would uh that we'd like to not have as paved back there um the third one is building coverage currently it's 18.6 the proposed is 19.5 and you can see just on the square footage off to the right we're adding just under 100 square fet it's 95 Square ft and most of that is in the front porch and and there's another uh little Landing that's a little more than 12 in high so that that counts so that's building coverage again that's higher than the allowable 18% then we get the floor area ratio and this is where the house has um has uh is limited by the size of the property the existing is 27.3 we want to add 3% to that and that takes place mostly in those Dormers across the front and there's a little bit in the back of a closet a part of a closet and some attic space over the uh over the family room now that 30.3 uh may seem like a larger number than what um what you might expect but keep in mind that the property is under size by by about a third if it was a conforming um 15,000 squ foot property we would not need any of these variances front yard is currently okay side yards are okay the rear yard I'm assuming that if if the property extended farther to the back then we would be able to accommodate a larger rear yard than the 30.4 Ft that's on here the uh lot coverage instead of 43.1 would be 29.5 which is well under the the 35 % that's uh normally permitted building coverage instead of being 19.5 would be 13.3 well under the 18% and and it's if you want to think of it just whatever the number we have if you took a third off then that's what it would be on a conforming lot and similarly floor area ratio instead of 30.3 would be 20.7 which is um lower than the allowable 25% any any questions on that I threw out a lot of numbers I just want to make sure that everybody's um if not comfortable with them at least understanding it at this point um I mentioned that the the height is conforming and unchanged height is measured in a number of ways all of them are fully conforming none of those statistics are changing with this um and then just to go on a little a little bit more through through the project narrative um and again this is identical to what you have I've just highlighted a few things so that I know sort of what what points to make uh the rear yard setback I've already discussed most of it uh the other comments are down here in the third uh paragraph the addition is not a full story it's a gabled roof with a steeper pitch than the existing roof designed to be more visually consistent with the rest of the design of the rest of the house uh the existing rear yard is well screened with a fence and Landscaping along the rear property line the other thing to mention is that often a rear yard setback is important if there's another house looking sort of looking back at this house that's not the case here the this the the sh Shadow's house is positioned so that looking straight back it's between houses so the houses that are on uh that are on Pine grve are farther to the left and the Corner House on uh Linda Lane is diagonally farther away and to the right and it shows up in the planner report where with where there's an aerial photo and I have a copy of that and I can show that a little bit later if if necessary um lot coverage building coverage and floor area ratio uh this this covers what some of what I've just said and again at the end here if the lot area was conforming at 15,000 square ft the proposed project would be well within compliance for all of these statistics now we have to have um there's C variances for uh the rear yard setback for building coverage and lot coverage but it's a d variance requiring five votes in favor for the floor area ratio we also have to show the positive criteria and the absence of any negative criteria so I'm just going to mention some of those now so the positive thing the main one is that it maintains essentially the same silhouette we're not making it any wider any taller we're bringing it a little bit farther forward but since every variance is sort of a b a balance between individual property uh rights or desires and Community interests it was important for us not to come closer to the toward the front than what's allowed uh we did not want to go higher we could go this house could be 10 feet higher um which would be a more significant change to the feeling on the neighborhood uh along the street um so we didn't do those things we just changed sort of the appearance of the house and all of these go to the main reason for most variances which is the promotion of a desirable visual environment in in the language of the uh Municipal land use couple of other things Energy Efficiency of course uh storm water attention there um the storm water management drawings are in your package I can go through it if you want but the main point is that we're at 43.1% on lot coverage 35% is allowed we have to make up we have to capture the water for that difference and we've done more than that so the situation is greatly improved for in terms of storm water management um that may not affect the neighbors directly adjacent but it certainly affects somebody somewhere downhill or Downstream um from this property and as it mentions in terms of the positive all the other both standards uh comply for the negative criteria this can certainly be done without uh substantial detriment to the public good and without subst substantially impairing the intent and purpose of the Zone plan and the zoning ordin and I'm just going to read the next couple things just to get them in and then I want to come back to this the design has no adverse effect on the adjoining properties the neighborhood or the city of summit there's no change to the use of the property and no damage to the character of the neighborhood such as to constitute a substantial uh detriment to the public good um there is no detriment to the neighborhood character utility or value the granting of these variances causes no impairment to the Zone plan and the ordinance and the proposed additions do not significantly change the perception of the overall size of the house or the density of the neighborhood and of course there's no it doesn't add to any unwelcome noise like Clare or oders or anything else okay so what I'd like to do is to show you why um why this causes no impairment to the Zone plan and what I have is uh um the zoning map and I'm going to hand one out we're going to mark one in evidence and then I'm going to hand one to each of you because what I want to show is how this is appropriately zoned for the kind of house that ought to be on this property even though the lot is small is significantly smaller than it would normally be have enough back there guys have enough with such a big board I hope I have enough I think I do so what I want to show is something that you're probably somewhat familiar with um but it's interesting to see it so in the in on this map on the far right side is Route 24 in the lower left is sort of uh towards uh Governor Livingston you want to know that's you have one I have one okay um we had an extra okay good uh and so what I want to point out is this this big Zone give me a second here this big Zone which is in yellow on the left side so in the lower left corner as I mentioned is sort of towards Route 78 and and Berkeley Heights so over all the way up toward Governor Livingston then it comes all the way down it goes across um goes across Mountain Avenue it continues on and it goes all the way down to sharing plow and coming across Oakridge Avenue it comes all the way across to the hospital and in these other areas it comes all the way uh around here um across Springfield Avenue across beakman across the railroad tracks and extends all the way into over here which is Kemp play school and so this is the biggest Zone in Summit not the zone for the biggest house houses but the biggest geographic area it takes up a lot of almost all of the west side of summit the center of downtown is in this area and there are a lot of different zones as the the as the you can see sort of the history of summit in how things were developed and so on so I'm going to I'm going to come in a little bit because right in here is the property so I'm just coming in the property is down here I'm going to come in even a little bit closer so we can see this and what I want to show you is that there's an R6 neighborhood which assumes 6,000 square ft there's this r10 which assumes 10 and there's this finger that goes off that's between Blackburn Road and Blackburn place that's r10 and even though Garden Road which is where this property is is right here and they could have easily taken all of these houses on on Pine grov and some of the other ones which are not big enough to be in fully in the r-15 all of those could have been in the r10 zone but they didn't there are a few houses that are much older uh in this area let me get even a little closer that are much older and they're really more in the r six but the property here on um on Garden Road was considered in the R15 Zone and in the same way uh there have been a number of cases along Plymouth Road and and others where the properties are more like 10,000 sare ft but but I think and this my opinion because I wasn't on the um task force that updated the latest master plan but I think that the idea was that there would be houses of a similar size within this Zone and that that one might expect four bedroom houses a house with a family room those kinds of things twocc car garage which you might not fully expect in some of the other zones uh probably not in R six maybe in R r10 but the houses that would have four bedrooms and up are in the R15 and the the biggest houses are sort of the older ones from 1900 1920s which are uh called the north side but it's sort of the Northeast um where it's in the r25 r43 zones anyway the point on this is that although almost all of these houses on other properties rather on Garden Road are about the same size they were put in the r-15 zone because of the assumption that houses might be more appropriately sort of R15 houses so that's I'm I think that that's one of the one of the main reasons why doing what we're doing and having a floary ratio of 30.3 which may seem like a high number compared to the 25 again if it was a fullsize lot it would be 20 uh and change percent but I think that the intent of the ordinance was that slightly bigger houses could be compatible with the neighborhood they could be comp compatible with the The Zone plan and with the intent uh with the intent of zoning which is to have sort of coherent relatively consistent neighborhoods and again we're not going taller we're not going wider and so on um uh let me just uh so in in the renovation of the house it's mostly to change the appearance but we do have these other these other ones uh feel free to stop me if anybody has um would like to discuss or anything have a question about the the I'm not sure about the this um the comparison with the R15 and the r10 because for an the the house is the lot is sized like an r10 essentially right but for r10 you would still have an 18% building coverage and you would still have a 25% F so those it's kind of it would be it's the same variance whether this house is r10 or R15 is that correct yeah for those items yes absolutely but the difference is what zone it's in and then what the expectation would be for what would what would be judged to be sort of compatible with the intent of the ordinance that's the point that I wanted to make I I agree and I know the numbers on the 18% for lot coverage 25% F the the point I'm making is that it was not put in the r10 zone which would have implied that that's that's a different kind of different scale house that might be there um when the pl when the master plan is reviewed a lot of these things keep uh they come up and there are there are reexaminations at times there are major changes this one has not been changed any so that's my the intent is not to say that it should be in this zone or that zone what I'm saying is that the um the master plan and the zoning map indicate that it's supposed to be sort of in the same context as the other houses within the zone and we're not going to the limits of what it would be if it was R15 we're somewhere in the middle between those two so I think that it doesn't impair uh in terms of the negative criteria I'm saying that it doesn't impair the um adversely impact the zoning ordinance or the intent of zoning okay well we can take any more questions from the board but I also want to take questions from our experts and then open it up to the public I can go through the staff comments uh absolutely there's not much there um of of commentary uh the first one mainly um sorry just to start this is the zoning uh the zoning Department Roger dorer his comments um some I won't repeat the the factual things but it says that the purpose of this is this zone is to preserve the Integrity of existing single family areas by maintaining existing development intensity and population density consistent with single family residential neighborhood patterns a compatible relationship between new and expanded houses and traditional neighborhood houses that reflects the best of the neighborhood character particularly in terms of scale sighting design features and orientation on the site is encouraged all of those things i' I've addressed I'm glad to go back through them but I don't want to keep everybody here forever there's a repetition of the uh the zoning statistics and then I'm excuse my scroll as I run through a bunch of things that are not as significant uh on the engineering uh it's mostly a repetition of some of the facts it is it does not seem to bring up much in terms of uh problems but I defer to the engineer on that so could you just clarify um what you plan on doing with the storm water yeah so the storm water we've shown on the storm water management plans which are in the sets that there would be probably a horizontal system but it may be a more vertical one in the front yard midway between two existing trees um sort of centered in the in the front yard we would capture roof water from the house bring it there uh we have the the design is for 292 cubic feet of water um which captures more than the the amount Beyond uh the 35% lot coverage that's allowed it covers more than that is that sufficient yes so your um it it looked to me like you were only capturing P portions of the roof and not the whole roof so you're not going to overload the system or you're just putting it look like it was the back um what is now the porch area that sub room area right plus the front half of the house is that yes because that gave us plenty to that gave us plenty of um surface area to uh put Into the Storm the storm water management system okay and so the remaining roof will be just a a down spout continuing to where it either where it goes it's probably going to be re-rooted because when we look at the back of the house one of the concerns is that this drive this garage is down low we don't want this to be a funnel to capture the water so it may turn out that we capture some of the water uh from this gutter uh above sort of above the garage and bring that around but we'll we see what the best thing is the the key is that we're capturing more water than is uh would normally be required are there any other question do you have any other I have no other questions do you have any questions for let me get to yours certainly it really has to do with your testimony um as it relates to the F variant um in the F criteria it's typically based on a percentage of the lot areas so even though you have an undersized lot that percentage is trying to control essentially the bulk and mass of the structure so instead of looking at it from the standpoint of how it may conform if it was on a conforming lot um in relation to the proposed design can you explain to the board what is it about the proposed design that helps to mitigate the impacts of the additional bulk and mass of the building uh of also the building coverage and the uh lot coverage itself um that's really I think more of what your focus should be more so because this factor is based on the size of the lot in order to not allow overbuilding of homes in relation to the lot size ultimately right so if I can ask you that question yeah and so there are there are a few pieces to this um you mentioned building coverage lot coverage and floor area ratio the floor area ratio is higher but it's a it's a statistic that you can't can't really perceive on some houses unless you have the statistics because it's not as a parent what's behind the house how deep it is and so on what people perceive is the front of the house and maybe a little bit around the sides um in this case there isn't even somebody behind that would perceive this as being uh particularly tall or bulky or anything in the other houses as in the photo in in your report um which I'll get to in a moment um the the adjoining neighbors to the rear are farther back the sidey yards are both conforming the front yard as I've said so the impression from the street is really the difference between the house as it is um viewed from the front and what it's going to be and by keeping the same width keeping the same height and so on it doesn't change the the feeling of the house like like it would if we even if we had less floor area but it was taller if it was taller and by the ordinance it could be up to 10t taller um that would be a more significant impact on the streetcape and the way that the house is perceived in this case what people I think will perceive is a better looking house um the floor area is made up of like the Dormer the Dormer that's on the left the the piece that that comes a little bit forward the Dormer on the right those kinds of things um are what that'll that'll help the appearance of the house uh even on the on the original house it's sort of awkward and kind of like this forehead is Too Tall in here actually these Dormers the window are what about 5T High because it's it's kind of out of proportion and we wanted to bring it back to a more um appropriate scale the other one of the other things that is mentioned in EUR report is that we don't have a patio in the backyard we don't have these various other things just by adding this little sort of shallow front porch it it provides an opportunity for somebody to sit outside under shelter and the kids play in the front yard on this property because the driveway just takes up so much space um and so we wanted to have something where there wouldn't be a need to add something more in the back like in the back right of the property um anyway I think that what people perceive is very different than what the statistic says because people can't determine the floor area unless they can see the whole volume of it and and be able to calculate it so wouldn't you say that some of the proposed roof lines or even the configuration of The Gables um Andor the Dormers are helping to break up the mass of the structure yes and I think that they're act not not even just breaking up but bringing together um I think that the way that the house is now there are elements which at first glance it looks it almost it looks sort of so ordinary that you don't really pay any attention to it but the roof line the eaves are at different heights that the Portico is sort of like almost like a kids drawing of a portico you know sort of a triangle on two sticks and there's there the shutters are mismatched for the windows uh the Dormers don't have a lot of if they're supposed to be the jewelry they're not really very Jewel like um and so the intent is to really improve the appearance of the house and isumi and Mike had told me in the beginning when we started working on it we want to have this house look fantastic we want to be able to come home and and say that's our house this is this is great and honestly I didn't think that they were going to really I didn't know how much they meant that so so our first designs were not as adventurous they weren't as as uh as bold and Mike in particular said you're on the right track but you're not there yet go for it right make it make it beautiful and um and so and and really have it more balanced and so I think that it's really more bringing it together I think that the the the E Line where the gutter is unifying those bringing the Dormers into the right height having something that's uh the Dormer in the center with the peak over the front door having the porch where the porch will not have a railing because we don't want to have that sort of play pen feeling we want to have it so that it it opens up to the yard you could sit there comfortably not feel isolated you had mentioned the front of the building but it also occurs on the side elevation yes because that's also potential impact the yeah you see the corners and right now the the uh even to the neighbors too yes yes certainly uh I mean the sides are relatively Bland um and what you're proposing will improve that yes yeah and and better materials uh more of a roof overhang just stylistically there whole it's just a lot I I think that it's a it's a much nicer much nicer building you mentioned in your testimony that you're going to be reducing some of the uh lot coverage yes where exactly were you looking to do that could you point to the plan you prepared on the exhibit just to kind of give us an idea just so in case the board was to act favorably on this application we have an understanding of where that might um I know you mentioned it I just wanted to get a yeah so this is on B1 and back in here is the driveway there's a retaining wall across the back and on the right side of the driveway the driveway loops around there's a space for a car to park here while others go can go in and out um but you can't drive right up next to a retaining wall it's more than a curb height so so what our plan is is in an L shape that would go across the driveway on on the where there's currently driveway on the downhill side of this retaining wall across and then back toward the house and to have a planted area in there we haven't determined what those plants are it would be a minimum of about a foot where it could have um it it could have perennials and various things like that or it could be more extensive than that but we want to move the car around and see uh what works best the preference would be to have a bigger planting area but not knowing exactly how it all works and where a car how a car Maneuvers around to do that 180 degree turn to get back into the garage it may be we may we we'll have to see on that but what I wanted to commit to as a condition of approval is that 43.1% would be would not be increased at all so if I interrupt for one second so to get the 43.1 how many Square F feet would that have to be as a minimum that you're going to 60 60 that's it so it's one one foot one foot across the back and then uh toward the front 60 ft in length yeah it's it's I'm rounding off it's a little less than that but 55 to 60 square feet is all we need in order to get from 43.7 down to 43.1 okay thank you I just want to know where that might be okay uh questions from the board a question the the um the the porch in the back that's going to become now become the family room there's an exit there that door when you go down I guess it looks like a stair or two what's the and then there's a landing and then what you do walk right on to the grass is there there's no pavement right there's no walkway or anything that's not really an exit there's nothing really happening out there it's just to be able to go out of the house from that side so there's not going to be a side up path there's not be um there's not going to be anything that adds to the launch coverage over there that was mentioned in the planner notes as well along with there's no patio going in in the back right there's a door out there now we just shifted it a little bit we reduced it in size and shifted it a little bit farther to the back there's also another exit out of the side of the living room which we're just taking out so that Landing good and step goes away any other questions I have uh two questions so um for the storm water I just wanted to clarify um you mentioned that you're collecting more storm water than what is required and I'm just trying to follow it on the maybe I'm misreading it on the what is this sheet yeah um anyway the last sheet of the storm water in the construction details it says the storage volume required is 292 Square ft and then it says that your total recharge system capacity is 292 Square ft so that looks to me like you're matching it completely but I'm just so I'm trying to understand where okay what the extra volume you go where it says this is a this is a copy of that can I hand it this to you just so you can see it's identical to what you have and starting at the top it says proposing impervious surface maximum permitted blah blah blah and it gets to a number right so it's that uh that's the then it has sorry then it has the area um I see so you're so what we're providing the tributary area to the recharge system is 1,167 square ft which is greater than what we would be required to have got it then it works through right with assuming 3 in of rain so then uh it works out to the the ACT there isn't a number on here that says what it um so it's really the storage volume proposed as opposed to required because what's required is less so that's the just a little a Nuance right in terms of the uh it would be um 221 Square cubic feet okay and then the second question I had we have 292 yeah yeah if you go to the picture of the back of the house yes um there were many many discharges right that you have uh probably a a 4 in pipe that comes out um back of the house by the garage mhm I'm getting there yeah so by the stairs there is like a 4in pipe P that you can you can see the white pipe there's another smaller pipe maybe a 2in pipe that discharges in the same point you have um a down spout kind of where the the seam of the house is where the where the I guess the P there's nothing there's nothing in here there's one that goes on the far side of the driveway and it kind of discharges the driveway there's one over here yes yeah and and then um I felt like maybe there was one along those retaining wall you had uh there's only there's one drain right in the bottom of the driveway in the center of the driveway um so two things are are you are you going to collect that and and Route some of that to the front of the house cuz I me you're doing all this work on the house and really all the water's funneling down to your garage and even looking at that design it's it's hard to imagine that that one drain at the bottom is is a effective in keeping the water from getting into the garage so I didn't see it on the plans I saw it looked like you were doing the front of the house the the roof leaders but is there any way to sort of reroute some of that so that you get the benefit of you know having a drier backyard and especially like the last two weeks all the ice and right simple answer is yes we would want to do that the um the civil engineer was showing uh was showing the water being taken from the the uh gutters and leaders at the front of the house the key thing is the statistics that you were mentioning I think that we ought to change it in order to have in order to alleviate that problem because that right there looks like a funnel to me yeah and it looks like there's water and actually they have had water in their basement not surprisingly you show anybody a picture like that and you ask where's the water going so I think that we may end up coming back and when we get the building permits have the civil engineer revise the drawings in order to show the same quantity of water being captured to meet that requirement but maybe taking it from other from some of these other gutters and do you know where that drain that's in the center of the bottom of the driveway does that go to a drywell or does that go to the city storm sewer I don't know storm I don't know where it goes when the leaves cover the whole gra yeah other than inside yeah so uh I think that the the the comment is an excellent one and we'll go back to the civil engineer and see if we can get some tweaks to the design because the engineering department in Summit would probably prefer that and maybe the fire department too so they don't have to pump out a basement Yeah It's Tricky with the elevation from the back to the front but if you could if you could work it out I think that would be better for yeah for functionality of your garage Mr Clark might hire you as a civil engineer we get along very well we work on enough things together and he has the expertise um anyway uh any other questions any other concerns that the board members have about any part of this uh application and I wanted to make sure I addressed any of all the planning comments Mr SN um just one other comment Mr chairman if I could um with regard to the C variances that you're proposing are you proposing that as a detriment benefit argument or an argument based on the hardship of some of the pre-existing conditions that you have in property as far as the setbacks it could be interpreted well I would say that the setback is a is a hardship that because of the the configuration of the lot it the um the shallowness of the lot which is the language that's that's used and um the position of this the portion of the house that's legally existing on the property so I would say that for the rear yard setback it's a C1 the other ones to me are are um are c2s where the benefits outweigh any detriments thank you great all right actually I just have one sure back to the picture of the front yard yes um it shows the the um looks like roots in the front yard yes John linsen mentioned that M uh and so John Linson mentioned a variety of trees that need pruning and so on and he also at the end he said he had no objections but he s he suggested adding top soil to those areas because the roots are High um and we will so so these roots are not not going to be impacted when they install the the drainage system he also mentions that it's within 10 ft of the drip line or I I wasn't sure whether he meant in 10 ft into it or within 10 ft of the drip line um but there is a space uh there may be another photo that shows it but there's a space between uh and you can sort of see in this picture there's room for some you can see the roots in the lower left and sort of to the lower right there's space there you can see the branches uh coming from the tree that's sort of in front to the left and there's another one way off on the right um putting in this storm water management system the system itself probably won't have much effect on the trees it's really the way it gets installed and and the and the movement around it and so that has to be done carefully um and with the other comment about the roots those roots by adding top soil that'll be uh alleviated it I mean it's you can't cut the lawn right like that without setting it really high to get around those roads Mr one one more comment it's also about the forest report obviously he approves the application we don't need any conditions but I and this is based on a personal concern I once had a neighbor who waited too long to take care of a dead tree and I just you know I just want to make sure the applicant noted that there comment about a dead tree and and storm damage branches and things that could become a safety hazard so I don't think we need to condition about it but divorcer didn't noted we we'll take care of that yes um there there are a number of I mean there's a dead ash tree ash trees have been so um destroyed by the emerald ash borer and so on and and so that's something that has to be addressed it's going to come down one way or another and it's better to take it down so you know where it lands great thank you uh we'll open it up to to uh questions questions only from the public anyone no all right great uh would the applicant like to make a closing statement uh yes thank you for your time and all right great thank you so much and then we'll open it up to any comments from the public seeing none all right um can we go through conditions sure and then we'll open it up to Executive session so we've got obviously usual compliance with the conditions noted in the board Engineers M random uh the applicant agrees to maintain a lot coverage at the currently existing 43.3% or less uh and then the applicant uh shall submit a stor water civil engineer plan for review and approval with the city engineer regarding the storm water in the back in the back in compliance with letter are we going to maintain two years jurisdiction on the water we can I'm sorry I didn't I didn't hear what that was are we on to maintain the typical twoe jurisdiction on the water sure you have issue with that okay great and uh can you remind the board of uh the type of variances and the number of votes required in the affirmative have uh three Varian sorry four variances uh three of them the Z variances just require a simple majority the D variance in this matter for the fa requires five votes okay great because one of the C Varian is theoretically eliminated by their that is true yeah yes is great um thank you Zach and with that we'll open it up or we'll close session going to debate open it up for any comments the board would like to make I'll start it off that's F thanks J um you know the architect really always does a very thoughtful approach with this on the high level when you see a 30% F it's really important to note that statistics can say one thing and the numbers can say another and what I mean by that is 30% seems large we're talking about 300 squ ft and when you balance that with the aesthetic design and where the mass is truly is the example of the silhouette it is something where I think beautifully is integrated with a very modest request and all of the other conforming things are either improved by reducing the F the lot coverage or just making things more functional I think this is a very thoughtful concern cons um and uh constrained request for that means for that matter I think it's beneficial and I think it outweighs any of the variances that we gr so i' be for it great thanks J Tom yeah Mr chairman yeah I I can support it as well um some of this is driven by the undersized lot and and the shallow backyard um as Mr Rosen pointed out um I and I think the small increase in building coverage does not noticeably impact the neighbors it's I can't imagine there'd be any negative impact f is always a higher standard for approval um I see no negative impacts on the scale of the project it's in line with the neighborhood I agree with Mr rosen's argument that the can accommodate the f um I see no detriment to the public good from the f um it's a very certainly much more attractive house and what's there now I appreciate the applicants interest in making it look as nice as as they're going to make it great presentation from Mr Rosen um I can support it anyone else um yeah I think uh I can also support this I think the one thing that um hasn't been mentioned is that one of the variances is really for an existing condition the rear yard setback so I mean to me that's almost grandfathered in in in a way because you I know we have to approve it but we're really talking about the limits of the house as it already is so you know the fact that it's 30 ft instead of 45 ft it almost doesn't matter to me if it's an R15 what you know what the requirements are because it's the house that's there right we're not going to we're not asking you to take the room down um I did think it was a very thoughtful design um and uh yeah I think if you can work in some of that storm water I think uh it would be really beneficial for all the work you're doing on this house and I I just want to also point out one thing that I I think it's very interesting about your application um different from a lot of the ones we see is that you've been living in this house for 13 years right you didn't just move into Summit and buy a house and and just you know this house you love this house you love this neighborhood and I appreciate that you guys are you know your family's growing and you're trying to make it a place that you can um stay in and you know live in comfortably so it's a little you know it's a little different than a lot of the applications we see so great thank you thank you mayor um I would also concur with my colleagues and add that I felt that Mr rosen's argument about the perception of bulk was um or f as a statistic a little difficult to perceive um but the fact that they're making these improvements without a visible perception of a much larger house was a very compelling and I don't know that we've heard it stated in that U eloquent way before so I was really appreciative of that and um I could certainly support this application so with that I will ask for a motion to approve so moved we have a second second 17 call roll please sure Mr Steiner yes Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Vice chairwoman Zan yes Mr Kieran yes Miss Cho yes chairman Lett yes the motion carries congratulations thank you very much for enduring that long that oh I know that bring my turn heat up do you want mywe want to make the switch Jack it get cold it did right leave the door open it's funny I can th it like a wrap is congratulations deser [Music] my let the record reflect that Mr ball is joining the Das and that missan is recusing herself from this next case 260 Oakridge [Music] Avenue I would love to um so if you're testifying if you please raise your right hand you swear from the testimony you're about to give in this matters the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes yes and one at a time please state your name spell your last name sure Sarah McGrath Bloom b l o [Applause] m Jack bloom last name b l o o m thank you if you could summarize your case for us and tell us how many expert Witnesses you have to night sure um so like I just said my name is Sarah McGrath Bloom this is my husband Jack I grew up in Summit my parents live around the corner on Silver Lake my brother and his family live on rotary and my aunt and uncle live on Green Brier we purchased 260 Oak Ridge with the goal to restore and renovate the home for our growing family bringing it up to current standards while also honoring its original architecture as a classic 1930s Georgian Colonial the house house has not been updated in decades um in fact some of the infrastructure is still original to the 1930s it requires substantial upgrades including heating cooling Plumbing electrical and storm water management um we've actually walked through the plans with our direct neighbors so that's 254 Oak Ridge and 2 oh sorry 256 Oak Ridge and 264 Oak Ridge um who were not only comfortable with the plans but but in favor of the house being upgraded and maintained we have a one-year-old daughter named Claire and we're expecting another baby girl in June and we look forward to having them grow up in Summit um in our neighborhood where I have so many great memories uh happy to answer any questions um in terms of experts we have our architect Jack Kelly here um and our civil engineer Andrew Clark as well that cover the experts cool excellent thank you so much just out of curiosity is anyone from the public here for this case all right excellent uh Mr Kelly is also well known to this board to say the least congratulations on your thank you promotion um and can we assume that your licensure is still in good standing in the state of New Jersey yes great will we accept this expert with all right perfect great Mr Kelly you have the floor okay so I've known the bloomster I think for about two and a half years maybe 3 years we've been looking for houses in Summit because their desire has always been um as Sarah said she grew up here the designers always been to move back here and raise their family here um so we came across 260 oakd last spring I believe March or April and we immediately all agreed on three goals number one we were going to preserve the house there was never any thought of taking the house down and I'll tell you why that was possibility but it's a beautiful 1930s Georgian brick Colonial classic Oakridge Avenue kind of house very well proportioned very nicely designed and if you drive by it you would think oh that's that's your classic oakd Avenue house and from the front it is um but when you open the front door and go in you are in a pre-war 19 1930's house ladies which as Sarah mentioned has not been renovated in 40 years at least so you have some 1980s Renovations and you have some 1930s bathrooms and other things in the house that are still there um it has a tiny kitchen in the front of the house someone actually cut the kitchen in half at some point and put the laundry in in the front of the house so as you look at this house you imagine oh it's a beautiful Center H Colonia this is the living room this is the dining room you come in the forer you see these Grand rooms to the right and to the left but on the right you see the living room on the left you see the laundry room the kitchen is I would venture to say in my experience in working in Summit has to be the smallest Kitchen on o Avenue it actually has to be the smallest Kitchen in this entire neighborhood if it's 10 by 10 I'd be surprised because again they cut it in half and made a laundry room so part of the goal was to preserve the original house bring it up to the 21st century provide the amenities that people expect today especially in this neighborhood on this street put the rooms in the right places so we're going to move the kitchen to the back if lovely piece of property in the back no neighbor wood it in the back sloping down to the reservation put the kitchen in the back put the dining room in the front where you would expect it to be add a family room in the rear because everyone loves a kitchen family room open to each other upgrade the kitchen of course upgrade all of the bathrooms the bathrooms are tiny you really feel like you're in the 1930s they are the smallest bathrooms that that you can they use the smallest amount amount of square feet you can use to make a bathroom even when you enter the front door uh the foyer is Tiny if I'm the guest and Sarah was opening the door there's barely enough room for the two of us to stand in the foyer and take a coat off so we're going to fix the proportions on the inside of the house to match the beauty of the outside of the house and the third I think there alluded to to is that we we're going to uh upgrade the infrastructure some of the heating systems original the boilers may be original a lot of the bathrooms are original Believe It or Not uh the house is not insulated properly the windows are 100 years old um and on and on we're going to replace the wiring we're going to replace all of the plumbing we're going to replace the roofing um so they are making a major commitment to this house because they love Summit so much and they love this neighborhood so much but this house needs a lot of love and it has been neglected I mean the roof leaks the paint is peeling there's mold in the basement I could just keep going so preserve the house bring it up to the 21st century and replace all the 1930s infrastructure Okay so it's located in the RS 15 Zone the lot area is 27,886 Ft so it's almost double the size of a standard R15 lot we're proposing an addition in the rear as I said before for kitchen and family room we're proposing two additions flanking the main facade one on the right one on the left the one on the right is for a library with a master bathroom and closet on the top and the one on the left is for room and a little side entry which in this house you this is what is here now this is the tiny little entry that's there now but we want to make it a functional mudroom so that you don't have to take the car down the hill and in the garage and bring the groceries in then come back up the stairs to the first floor you can just pull the the car into the garage and go into the kitchen so we need four variances so why do we need four variances and you'll see in a second after I explain them that they all piggy back on each other so we're in oage Avenue there is a 25t drop on this property from the street to the reservation 25 ft it's a lot so we have pockets of steep slope on the property it's sloped then it's flat then it's sloped then it's flat and so on and the house actually has was placed when they built it in the steepest part of the Land There is a little bit of a a drop off from Oakridge to the front door you go down three or four steps but where the house occurs there is a six- foot drop from the front of the house to the back of the house so we have a steep slope situation which causes one variance we have a story above grade because of this the basement in the rear of the house is is completely without a doubt above grade as I said before because of the the steepness which you can see on one of these photos this photo from front to back is 6 feet across the depth of the house and Mr Kelly these exhibits match the ones in the boards packets correct although I do have a surprise exhibit for you we love surprises that the planner knows about Stephanie knows about so I'll go through the variances we have four number of stories since the basement is considered a story I this house constitutes a three story structure for the ordinance the existing three stories and the proposed will also be three stories so that's a variance number one that causes variance number two which is Building height average Building height the current height is 34.7 the maximum permitted is 35.0 and our new height uh once we add the additions will be 35.4 that's an average height it is measured around the perimeter of the house you take about 30 points around the house and you come up with an average I would argue that that's imperceptible um it's five inches over the limit you cannot perceive that five inches anywhere the height of the house on oich Avenue will be the same so that's kind of a mathematical technical variance that it's kind of unavoidable all the additions we're adding um do comply with height it's really the original House steep slope as I mentioned I'm going to let Mr Clark focus on the steep slope variance but we do have a steep slope variance because what I said before the house is located in the steepest part of the land and we're manipulating some of the land in the back of the house to make a larger flatter area and then gradually getting back into the natural slope uh and the fourth variance is we have a small overage on floor area ratio what I said before is true each variance piggybacks on the other one because the we have a steep slope we have a story above grade in the back because we have a story of grade above grade in the back we the basement constitutes floor area because the basement constitutes floor area we have a slight overage uh on the F uh the allowable is 25.0 we are going to we are proposing 25.7 so that overage is 189 ft the usual um uh test for floor area ratio you know involves can this property handle the overage uh and I think the answer is yes it's 189 Square ft divided by almost 28,000 Square ft um it's I'm I would say it's Dom Minimus and it's driven by the basement um the basement since I have to count it constitutes 7% of the F 7% of the 25 so is that one third I don't know close to one3 or over one3 of the f is in the basement the house is not in my opinion the house is not too big for this piece of property we are well under the building coverage statistic at we're at 11% versus 18 we are well under the lot coverage threshold um I going to tell you which is 21% versus 35% allow we 5 in Too Tall on an average but again I think that's a technicality all the sidey yards in front yard and the rear yard are well well above what's required I'm just going to go through well I have two other two other areas I want to go through the positive criteria you know why why this why is this a good idea and then I guess maybe we'll address the city official comments we feel that our design is respects the original architecture of the house we are adding two side wings to the house which is perfectly in character of houses from this era if you drive down Oak Avenue there's a house very similar to this two or three doors away which has a Central Mass and two side wings the side wings are smaller they're setb they're less prominent so it's a classic way to do a house we're going to greatly improve Energy Efficiency as I mentioned before we're going to replace the heating and cooling systems we're going to replace all the windows and we're going to replace all the insulation or lack thereof more than I told the blooms that I think once that the house probably has no insulation and they just looked at me like that was crazy but it was the 1930s they didn't worry about it we're going to improve fire safety with new hardwired smoke detectors and proper Eis Windows uh Mr Clark will testify to the uh storm water management where we're going to provide the required storm water management and we are capturing all of the roof water in the storm water system new and old we're removing an existing non-conforming garage there's a onecar garage very close to to the um the corn forths property we're taking that down um so that removes actually a non-conforming structure um and as I said before um in terms of bulk or in terms of other standards we are well under building coverage well under lot coverage should I stop should we move on to the comments or yep yes yes we're gonna have questions from our board experts and then questions from let them ask from the board itself oh it called me yesterday okay and said there had been a question about the attic from who I don't know it who but can I clarify absolutely please the question became when you look at an attic space that's being expanded upon we want to make sure there's a calculation that makes sure it's not going to be considered an attic story and thereby adding an additional story to the three stories that's provided we wanted to make sure so I thought I'd let the architect know that question ahead of time so you can do the calculation all right so we spoke yesterday we did a drawing I brought 12 copies of it I sent it to Stephanie this morning for her file um so I so what you're going to see is uh there's two ways to calculate an an attic uh there's this city of Summit Way which is which Ed just said um uh Summit calls it an attic story and you measure the area of the attic versus divided by the area of the second floor and it has to be a certain percentage has to be 60% or less of the second floor area measured at 5T so you take a measurement at 5T and you get an area and you divide it by the SE second floor the other rule is there's a rule in in the New Jersey uniform construction code where an attic can only be 1/3 of the second floor below measured at 7 feet so you take that other measurement at 7 feet and it has so it has to mean both of those um rules are we going to mark this A1 a yes okay so if it meets both of those rules which it does it is a story okay so concern what might have and these calculations show that four story house great I brought 12 I don't know how many there are there is no there is no um there is an added plan in there but this show in the calculations are second so should we add some kind of condition that someone verify calculations are no not so it's your elevations thank you sir and Mr Kelly it's your testimony that it's uh this roof condition is compliant under both methods of calculation correct it meets the criteria for both both the city of summit's rule definition and the uh state of New Jersey's building code great so it is not a story it is technically known as a habitable attic all right with that we we'll go to Ed and see if you have any further comments on this or anything else from a plan I did look at the calculations and the criteria is it can't be more than 60% so this shows that the overall area is 8 847 squet or 46.6% that's ultimately what I was concerned with for the board great um other than that I think the applicant has addressed this issue okay so great can I may I ask question let's have Ed okay we'll come back ask me a question well we're done we'll have the board ask questions in I just want Ed to get through his question so there's there's a variety of things that are mentioned in the reports about trees I don't know if we want to talk about trees or not if we do Mrs Bloom is in charge of trees well I think we the Forester did ask for a landscaping plan so I think I just want to clarify I think that he said it in his comments that um Mrs Bloom and Mr Linson walked the whole property yes tagged the Trees of which ones were dead which ones were damaged which ones could go which ones should stay and uh there was a permit issued I'm I'm saying this is all true right yeah it is there was a permit issued by Mr linsen and and the blooms have have uh taken the trees down that he said were're okay and we will submit a landscape plan okay yeah so yes so there will be a landscape plan we haven't they haven't invested in that yet but there will be a landscape plan um and we'll file that with the permits great there's some other things uh that someone I think the engineer said something about mechanical equipment we will show that we haven't shown it yet you know air conditioners and such it's not an issue the lot is large there's no there won't be any variances involved in uh we'll either put them on the side of the house by the library or we'll put them behind the library or somewhere but it's not it won't be an issue we'll let our experts ask you some questions and if anything else you feel is not covered in that dialogue then we'll come back the expert uh analysis chairman thank you I just have two questions one regarding Building height you had said that this is really due to the obviously the change in the overall shape of the building and the number of measurements you have to take you're not changing the roof line or the ridge line of the roof are you the the existing Ridge does not change okay I think that's an important point that you could bring up uh as it relates to the building height uh variance that's being noted I know that that doesn't change in application um in addition to that the three-story aspect of the building that really isn't changing it's actually getting somewhat mitigated off the back of the building isn't that true based upon your rear elevation it's sort of you're adding other one and two story elements to the back of the building correct yes I would I would agree with you I mean if you look at this facade as it is it's straight up and down and it's pretty Stark probably except for the wings right that are being added right but we're the we're ALS Alo adding an addition outward from the rear which is two stories yes and has different roof lines so I I didn't make a point of that but I think it actually would help break that this facade up I think those are important for the for you to mention for the board so that they can consider that yeah and there's some undulation to the facade in the back there's a Terrace uh because the house is because the first floor of the house is completely there's one story out of the ground uh they wanted to have some outdoor living space so how do you do that you need a Terrace or a deck uh up at the living area rather than going up and down 14 steps if you want to you know eat outside um so there's some I mean I can go to the rear elevation if you want to look at it but there's some undulation with building Heights and what's what's solid and what's what's not solid I thought that should be touched on thank you great thanks for asking that Marie um you just clarify you're you're putting the HVAC probably in some conforming spot but will it be screened it will be in a conforming spot easily because it's not an issue because the sidey yard is quite large it won't be in the front it will be either on the I would say it's probably be on the right side by the library sorry or behind the library somewhere and it will be properly screened and any other questions I have engine okay great any questions from the board for this Witness just have one question on back to the trees environmental commission also referenced a site visit with the trees are those the three permanent trees that you took down that they're referencing or is that something different so the way they worded it was a little confusing to me but I can just give you an overview of what what went on so we did walk the property with John Linson in July we roped off 11 trees to be taken down our permit was for the 11 trees that we discussed those were approved by the city taken down and to clarify the Three Trees eight of them were damaged by Hurricane Sandy or encroaching or diseased so those were all kind of had to come down immediately um they posed a danger to the house and our neighbors and then three of them were for construction so those were taken down and those will be replaced with a similar species so those three were part of the original walkthrough with Lind yes exactly yeah thanks wel any other questions Mr Steiner yeah the um you you mentioned that there's a big issue on this property with Steve slope and you're saying we're not going to touch any of them during construction because we had a case not too long ago where oh GE well you know the bulldozer happened to hit it and then we were back we are touching all almost all of them so there's a steep slope well Mr Clark testify but yes yes okay I thought you said there wasn't one no no there there's there's absolutely steep slope there's pockets of steep slope as I said it's slop sort of flat then sloped again and flat again I'm sorry I thought you said you were doing everything on the bottom blank well where the addition is in the rear it's flat but um where this addition occurs okay we we'll wait for him to tell us more yes one other question I'll ask myself someone someone mentioned next exterior lighting I forget if it was you or the engineer um it's not it's not won't be an issue we'll we'll submit I mean that we'll have some decorative lighting at the front door and there'll be some decorative lighting probably on that Terrace in the back and or at other doors you're required to have lighting at doors anyway but um I don't think it's an issue for light spillage on the neighbors or neighboring property I remember there's no neighbor in the rear and when we walked the property with John lindson we we kept most of the privacy trees on the side so the screening on the sides he was really com whatever lighting we do on that Terrace it will shine down it's not going to be flood lights that that and we'll we'll as part of the um permit process we'll just submit the fixtures we that we're going that we want to use okay great thank you I have just a couple questions sure maybe one so um I'm looking for the uh rendition for the back for the new for the proposed back I'm sorry for the what the proposed back the rear elevation elevation I'm sorry yeah so we're saying that the height from the ground level of that back to the top of the peak is 35 ft4 whatever that boils out to an inches whatever point4 foot is it's actually average so what would the average what would the height at the actual height be do we know if it weren't if it weren't taking an average just about 40 ft yeah I'm sorry what is that yes ballpark you know I mean I'm I think I have an idea what it is I think you have a dimension on your rear elevation probably close to 40 ft 39 ft6 39 396 so back to this calculation for head SP Headroom in the um attic I never really understood this so a lot of people don't yeah I that's a percentage of the second floor that's what Pro I would guess I I think I know the answer cuz it's Building height would limit how high my ceilings could be well there's also well it's a bit of a puzzle because this ceiling also has to be a certain height to be habitable correct so you can't have a 5-ft ceiling right you have to have a certain area in that space with a certain height so that it can be considered habitable space but it can't be too much of that otherwise it becomes a story yep so it's always a little bit of a uh it's the numbers make it work where in reality we make it work yeah the num the numbers make it work when in reality it's a four story in the back but the numbers say it's not well when we were designing it we were obviously not trying to have a four-story house I guess so we made it work we sized the attic and where the where the slopes of the roof are I mean a lot of that space up there has slopes cutic but yes we made it work thank you Mr Kelly sure Mr Clark you want to go to Mr Clark yes before we do Ed I know there was a question about whether we need any further confirmation of these adct calculations I think the percentages are fairly clearly below any standards but is that sufficient do we need any this is a kind of a diagram that we would require for them to submit in order to understand from an architectural perspective what that clearance space is because we can't estimate what those roof lines yeah actually I apologize we should have submitted it as part of the package because it's fine you're comfortable application compl this removes any doubt you're comfortable with those calculations okay thank you Mr CL there no need further condition okay right do you swear from the testimony you're about to give in this matters the truth the whole nothing but the truth I do please state your name spell your last name Andrew Clark c l a r ke e CL welcome back yes we appeared before us a number of times including recently license is still in good standing since a few weeks ago yes I imagine we'll accept you once again welcome back Mr Clark thank you so I'll make reference to the drawings that were submitted um to explain a couple of things primarily about the the application in general um first thing I'll indicate is on the topographic survey just the description of the existing conditions uh the site slopes from o jab to the back which is the county property as uh Mr Kelly had discussed there's a substantial great change from front to back um there are a few areas of steep slopes that affect the property in the existing condition there's one that's around the driveway as it comes down and just On The Fringe of the driveway uh there's a sort of strip of steep slope that goes from left to right across the drawing um where it sort of slopes down a little bit more steeply as was describ that it levels off a little bit and there's another little sort of finger of steep slopes behind that and then there's an area just to the right of the existing where it slopes down and and all those four areas exceed the 15% as defined in summit's ordinance the total of those areas is about 4200 Square ft which uh a lot of times we like to reference what that is relative to the property it's about 15% of the property um so it's not as bad as some of the applications I've been involved with and that this board has seen but um it's something to contend with and in the course of the construction those areas will be disturbed by and large there's a little section in this most substantial strip in the middle on the left side that probably remain undisturbed but the rest of it is going to get affected by the construction that's proposed there are no um existing storm water management measures that I was able to identify on site so water runs down the driveway and sort of pitches off the back uh by the detached garage that's there and otherwise the roof leaders discharge and um run Overland in the backyard um because the street is up a little bit higher than the first floor It All Slopes down to the to the front of the house the height calculation just wanted to point out because there was some discussion about that is is uh documented on that existing survey for the existing height and then I also have the similar um breakdown for the proposed conditions uh the data points are set there and that I've done an evaluation that shows that the existing condition is a story above grade there's a three-point definition in the ordinance and two of those points um are not met so that existing condition is a story above grade and going to the proposed conditions obviously the addition areas in the rear and on the right side primarily are are um affecting on the right side it's affecting that entire steep slope area there we're going to be redoing the driveway so we're going to reconstruct the driveway in part um because we're doing such a comprehensive renovation to the project to the site that uh it makes sense to bring the driveway up to current standards as well um in addition the existing driveway is encroaching a little bit on the neighboring property as it comes down so we're going to correct that and get that driveway so it's at least 2 ft off of the line as required by ordinates so the area of steep slopes that is the driveway in the area next to it will as a result to be disturbed in the back this this larger area of steep slopes in the middle we're not actually reconfiguring the grades of that particularly uh because sort of matches in and we're going to leave that slope we didn't want to get involved in putting retaining walls and some of the things we sometimes see on these applications so we're going to leave that slope that natural slope but in the course of the construction it's going to be disturbed so we want to recognize that and uh gain some permission to do that um in anticipation of the activity that's going to take place in there with staging soil moving equipment through there and then in the back this little piece in the back we are at at the base of that little slope we are going to level this a little bit to get um sort of a more leveled area behind that that you know the kids can play in it's a little more of a usable yard area on the left side we have this Boulder wall That's wrapping around the one tree that's to kind of give it some room and let that tree remain as it is and and do our grading so that walls you know two two and 1/2t high walls it's pretty modest as as walls go um as we typically do in applications like this we want to bring some strong benefit to the application in general uh not only for the the the application itself but also for the for the homeowners um we did have some discussion about the storm water management and there was one Avenue where we could have a little bit smaller but you know they decided it would be probably better to capture the whole roof not just the back half and sort of put a best foot forward on on managing the storm water movement mov forward so we have a system that's sized appropriately for that we're going to capture the entire roof area because of the way the driveways oriented we also don't want to cause any impacts to the neighbors or even to our own property so we're putting an inlet at the bottom of the driveway there that's also going to feed into that so the result of that is that we end up capturing and managing about 5,000 square ft of imperious surface um If This Were and I like to Benchmark a a permit application if this were just an ordinary permit application we'd be required to manage the increase in impervious coverage in this case that's about 2,000 square ft so 2,000 would be what we would normally be required to manage for a permit we're managing 5,000 so it's two and a half times what the permit requirement would be um that's practical in in the sense that I just described to just manage the storm water on site um for the property itself and also to put a a strong um component to this application for storm water management where it can be clearly recognized as a an improvement um so that's the storm water system it's just to the back right of the dwelling uh drain catches it and all the roof leaders will be routed to that location so we're going to end up disturbing uh the majority of the steep slopes little almost 3700 fet of the 4200 ft but the orientation and the grading of the sites I I don't see any of this as problematic other than as is always the case making sure it's managed properly during construction with soil erosion measures which will be required for this project regardless so there'll be a soil erosion um plan developed with the permitting package that would be reviewed by the district and I I don't think we'll have any trouble um satisfying the requirements and comping with those requirements so if properly managed I don't see this the uh disturbance of the steep slopes as being anything that's going to be troubling or problematic and we're going to eliminate some portions of that and better control the storm water in general so I think for all those reasons um it's a a very good application that that can be supported uh responsibly the other thing I wanted to mention about the height inset is that the the main factor with the height change is that we're pushing out to the back and it's often the case when you have a site that slopes down towards the rear of the dwelling when you go out the back you get lower data points that populate that average in calculation and it's not really too bad uh considering the topography that our average is only a few inches above what the the requirement is of 35 ft a lot of times we get into uh something that's more substantial than the 35 foot um you know you get 37 38 ft and then 39 1/2t is sort of the we mentioned before the highest point to the lowest point we if we were over 40 that would be another variance in itself and we're just under that um so in the rear profile it's going to look a little more significant but as was discussed there's some things breaking that up with the uh architecture itself and also there aren't really too many eyes that are going to see that other than people that are visiting the property or live on the property property so in the front the the height will have no perceptible change um from the street so I think that's an important aspect with any kind of height variance such as this um and that sort of covers the direct testimony if um we want to go through some questions let's start with our experts first Ray you want to um so um I see that I just wanted to point out that on your um water plan it looks like that um that Inlet that's in the driveway you included some kind of something there to that's right keep out some of yeah I try to do that all the time now just uh uh you know and we it's come up on other applications just for for water quality and to minimize any sort of debris and influence uh that would adversely impact the dryw okay so yeah there's a there's a sump at the bottom of that um uh do you have any I noticed that there's a wall that's right garage that's right yeahall are you thinking of any fall protection on that or well we're going to have to look at that because it does get 4 feet and slightly above 4 feet as you get right up by the garage um so it's going to have to be you know designed properly and and we may need to put uh some some sort of you know even a post rail or some kind of fence at the top level I'm not sure if Landscaping will do it completely but we'll have to look at that and certainly will um I think that's all I have Ed no questions okay thank you great thank you questions from the board yeah I have a question Mr Clark the swath of of steep slope where the main portion the 2500 ft I'm struggling to understand how you're proposing to disturb 2,000 ft of that can you just walk me through why getting to that math the reason is it's going to become a substantial construction set and if we attempted to say that you know well we're not changing the the Topography of it we're not changing the grades there so we're not disturbing it what what that would mean is you'd have to put a silk fence here and tell all the contractors you can't go there and that never happens just because it's late let me simplify the what I'm looking for what's the net impact when you're done well the the net impact of this middle section is pretty minor in terms of the grade change it's only a little bit of change up near the patio there otherwise it's then going to be restored and landscaped and you know it's going to so theoretically when this project is 100% complete the net impact of the permanent disturbance is probably 10 15% of the overall steep slopes it's really where the addition is to the right and to that gring by that tree the area to the right the slopes are being effectively eliminated there correct and this little patch in the back again being eliminated in the terms of this strip in the middle and the driveway area they're being temporarily Disturbed and then restored to you know a landscape final condition but in total that disturbance is the bulk of the 4200 ft it's like 3,800 ft right so my question is really getting to the point where you're saying we're disturbing 85% of the space of the steep slope steep SL yes but at the end of the day it goes back to one of the other cases we've heard where we're not doing the what was the analogy Minecrafting it yeah no not doing all get yeah this is pretty different from many of those applications that we've encountered yeah we're not framing with walls and tiers and things like that and we discussed that but the you know the booms didn't want to go that way okay any other questions Wen you going to ask about the van hole in the back I don't think so Mr Steiner I'm sorry um yeah weren't you going to ask about I was going to ask a question about the the manhole in the back of the prop I wasn't going to ask okay would you like to yes I'm not that familiar with it that's why um I know we had another property on the Block and um they had to do I guess the town had to come in and do some repair work that's right right so four or five houses down yeah so is do we know the condition of the the drainage there well we haven't Analyze This section of of that sanitary line of course we're staying far away from it um so our work shouldn't impact that in anyway but uh I mean I I I don't know what the condition is we haven't run a TV Camera through there um for any reason at this point I don't know if the city has independently or if they do that with any sort of maintenance schedule I'm not sure usually usually I found that when there's a problem with the sanitary line it becomes real obvious and you know homeowners call the city immediately my you know sewage is backed up you know and I you know it becomes a problem immediately and gets addressed but I'm not aware of you know any particulars about the condition of that line at this point yeah I would certainly hope that they did some sort of uh study before they replaced that the the sewer in that property kind of a waste of time on that property on that property that you know they did indicate that oh there's a sewer cutting across we'd like an easeman and by the way you know let's check the line you know before you get involved we check the line and that's when they said hey we got to replace this now could that be the case because this is part of the same line right it comes up and then it it comes all the way up um you know starts down here this lot I think is where it cut across it comes all the way up to here and a little bit farther and IT services all those houses cuz all those houses sit down from the road and so they're all sewered in the back I I've honestly seen this a number of cases in different pockets of summit where there's sanitary lines running in the back lines and they're not in easements and you know they're just they're there and then when it comes up piece by piece you know Case by case then it gets addressed you know I've even spoken with Aaron shreer about you know maybe there'd be a good way to attack this as like like a project you know um but you know that's that's a bigger discussion great thank you Mr Clark uh just confirming no questions from the public for this witness not seeing any do you have any concluding remarks that you'd like to make no just like to thank everybody for their time sure so I have two conditions noted first as our usual compliance with those conditions in the board Engineers memorandum second is that the applicant shall submit a landscaping plan to the city Forester for review and approval um we do have both C and D variances on this one a D4 for floor area ratio so five votes are required to approve the application great thank you all right we will go into executive session who would like to start Mr C so um the first thing I think bothered me uh was Building height before I actually listened to the testimony and understood kind of exactly where that Building height is and that's in the rear of the yard there's no one who's it's it's not going to be visible and understanding what you're trying to do with that so that that now makes sense to me um and I think considering the fact that even though the steep slope bran is required um being thoughtful about restoring and not um kind of flattening out the yard um I think is is is a benefit all the all the benefits around storm water management removing a non-conforming structure with the the garage um I think all make a lot of sense so I I can I can support this great yeah I can uh I I agree I can support this application one one of the um reasons why I ask about the height in the back is I have comfort from a different little little bit different background and I worry you guys worry about getting in the house I worry about getting out of the house and uh you know there's no easy access to get out of that house what I would if I were doing a size up for my previous occupation that would be a four-story residential structure 40 fet in the back you got kids on the in the Attic how you get them out so U that being said the fire department did check off on it they're the experts I'm not um anymore but um I can support this application I walked the site this morning and um you know I've driven by that building many times the house many times and never realized uh what was going on there but uh it definitely will improve the neighborhood so I think the positives are are there um there are really no no negatives so I can sort completely support this application can go ahead um I appreciate that your love for the um historic nature of the house and that you want to preserve it um as much as you can and that you did you know um keep a lot of it um intact um the for the um height of the um structure did same thing I you know went through um was concerned it is four stories but the calculations are there I mean it's an attic it's an attic um the one thing I do have an issue with is the preceived um height from the street level it does change you look at the house now it's two stories with the Dormers it looks like three stories but you know your calculations show that's yes it's an attic but that's the only thing that I have um an issue with that you know it went from looking like a tube the back of the house nobody's going to say it um like they said but um but I do appreciate like I said preserving this house too many houses on that block have been knocked down um historic houses which is a real shame and thank you thank you for understanding that Summit is what it is because of our history thank you El Tom yeah just to add a couple things I repeat uh what everybody else has said um the steep slope variance I I appreciate what Mr Clark is saying that some of the seep slope disturbance is really disturbance only in a technical sense because they're kind of put it back we had an application recently I think Mr ster was alluding to it where uh that technical disturbance was not noted and they had to come and ask you know retroactive permission for what they had done so appreciate saying that up front appreciate that you're removing the non-conforming structure of the of the garage and that you're fixing that driveway issue I hadn't even noticed that till it was mentioned tonight that the driveway was uh you know abing the property line and and uh you're making it conforming so I appreciate that uh attractive application I can support it thanks Tom uh I too can support this application uh I believe the the size of this lot can easily accommodate uh these additions uh certainly in the back but especially on the sides which is not always the case in Summit and um I think what Mr Rosen said earlier actually applies here uh echoed by Mr Kelly and that uh the perception of the increase is certainly not a a detriment to the overall neighborhood it's it's also the house is being modernized so we can talk about positive uh criteria with uh safety and Welfare of the family um and I think these requests the the F and the building Hider uh agree with Mr Kelly Dom Minimus in nature um so with that uh Stephanie can we have a roll call please need a motion motion yes can we have a motion to approve so moved second no second thank you okay Mr Steiner yes Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Mr Kieran yes Miss Cho yes Mr feskin yes chairman loid yes the motion carries good luck all right uh we're going to take a five minute break thank you me too e e e e e e e e e [Music] s got everybody back okay we will note for the record that Misan has returned to the days 573 Springfield app here great good evening Mr chairman M of the board Samantha Alo and James Weber my partner hiding of Alonso and Weber on behalf of the applicant um prominent property representative here Charlie um who's ready to give testimony um I know it's late so I'm going to try to okay okay um as you can see what I'm showing on the screens here was submitted with the application plans this is a rendering of the proposed building for the set of these real EST I'm sorry I'm just gonna cut in really quick can you use the handheld because for some reason that Podium mic isn't unless or can you switch it on is this working that is is that better I'll hold it that's fine yeah um thank you okay Sam how many witnesses do you have tonight I have two okay great we can go through as much as you want to and um let's see how we do yeah when would the next hearing be do you want to do that now or do you want to wait well do you want this is a hearty bunch I think we can try and press through okay Mr chairman it's all yours let's see how we do okay thank you so this is uh 573 Springfield Avenue like I said for the s's real estate office they are they do currently have offices in Summit this would uh be moving those current offices to their own location um it's right across from I'm going to show a Google Earth photo which I will submit to Stephanie as exhibit A1 this is an aerial from Google Earth the property is the red dot in the middle I'm going to zoom in a little bit so you can see there's an existing building there since about the 1880s it was converted to offices around the late 70s with an addition that's that big odd Wing in the front um but now it It suffers from severe deferred maintenance especially that Wing area is structurally unsound um so the SES are looking to take it over really uh rein configurated as a residential looking uh office use as comp as contemplated by the orc1 district okay to make this a reality uh several variances are required because it requires a D1 use variance the way the ordinance is written um it does not allow for office use unless you use the existing building because here we can't use the existing building as is but we want to uh adhere to the purpose of the Zone District we're looking to do a project that is designed to look residential but be an office interior um all of the other variances are really subsumed under that and are required because of that um to provide the Center Hall Colonial you need more space um the parking we're proposing 14 actual spaces it is we get a credit for one due to providing an EV space and a handicap space but we're required to provide 20 technically based on the square footage of the office space um and it includes the basement which is existing um but because it's not currently used for office space it technically wouldn't be included in the f um it is included here because it is for part of it at least will be used as assembly space it's only 1.6% over that which is uh per permitted though at 41.6% or 40% is permitted it's about two it comes to about 250 square fet the basement 1,500 square fet over, 1500 square feet of the basement is included in the F so if we didn't include the basement we only count counted the first two floors it would come to the F would come to 32% we also need several C variances um the lot coverage which we want to note 492 Square ft of that coverage is actually on the adjoining Lot 19 but it's part of the easement area and our engineer will show you on his plans exactly what space we're talking about but that really drives uh that coverage number over uh we are increasing the uh building just a small amount uh to provide 88 ramp that's 70 square ft and 200 about for the front porch that's really to provide that residential character uh in Miss raf's report she suggested considering increasing the storm water capacity the applicant is agreeing to do that and has instructed his engineer to increase the capacity there's a variance for parking screening 5T wide is uh required and 5 ft High planting buffer uh in the rear yard subject to the city Forester um we would like to provide that enhanced Landscaping plan to him as a condition of approval our engineer will also be able to speak to some of the landscape he's already added to the plan including oury along the rear technically a landscape buffer of 10 feet on each side is also required same reason a loading space is required because of the commercial use however uh due to the nature of their use and Charlie will discuss this more they really don't need a a loading space they do want to uh improve the sign in the same place and it will look just about the same but have the new prominent property is correct sa's uh name it is within the uh setback it's 12.1 ft where 25 ft is required the trash disposal must be 10 ft from any residential Zone here we're uh proposing to use the existing trash enclosure and Charlie will also discuss that and their private hauler it will be upgraded and buffered and the last the light pole the pre-existing non-conforming light bolt um is approximately 15 ft tall and it's within the 8ot uh setback it is proposing to remain um if anything uh they may want to do a better light and or Shield it but their experts will get into that as well great thank you first what then Charlie oer please if you can raise your right hand do you swear from the testimony you're about to give in this matters the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth I do please state your name spell your last last name Charles opler op ler thank you welcome Mr oper thank you thank you Charlie all right can you please uh tell us a little bit about your position with the company and and what you're trying to do here sure I'm I'm one of the two co-owners of prominent property soube International realy we have 17 offices in Northern and central New Jersey and one in haddenfield um and we run a Residential Brokerage um we are currently in Summit AT 309 um Springfield Avenue and uh we've been looking for a while to relocate as the property where we are currently will be undergoing some changes as we are tened of the UN Unitarian Church um at 309 Springfield thank you and you might have said this you were there you've been there for eight years already yeah we started in November of 2017 in that location okay and you've been looking for a building for a while uh this one uh seemed perfect we've looked at a lot of different spaces in town and um for whatever reason we just couldn't find the right one and uh having something with parking was was important um even though our business has changed like many businesses with work from home postco uh we still thought it was important to have uh a location that has visibility uh because that is uh important to what we do as a an industry and you designed it to look like a residential home in many of our offices you know from town to town um many real estate offices are located in uh residential looking building so we always prefer that if possible versus uh a retail location with no parking so this um when it became available we bid like every other person we got out bid originally the deal fell through and uh they came back to us and fortunately we were able to purchase the property so it just happened to work out that you wanted it to look like a residential uh building and that's what the Zone calls for correct so we we had uh our architect designed something that would look residential uh in nature but work for us as office space inside and uh U really pleased with what he's come up with awesome um can you tell us about how many employees you have and uh the number that are actually on site well we actually actually have three employees we have a manager an administrator and then a marketing person the rest of the people are our agents are real estate agents are independent contractors and as such in the state of New Jersey with license law I can't mandate that they come in or uh come to work uh so they have appointments work from home and many of them come into the office at various times but it's rare that we have a lot of people in the office and actually currently right now at 309 Springfield we have seven parking spots um the church us utilizes the other side of the parking lot for their seven uh and they have seven spaces so there's really a total of 14 spaces there plus there are two apartments that have three parking spaces dedicated on that same property so um with our roster of about 50 real estate agents uh we're operating out of seven parking spots this actually doubles it and we really haven't had an issue with where we are now so this just makes it even easier for us thank you and you you told me about uh how many people usually are there but I think your estimate was usually less than 10 people at any one time 10 12 um we do have uh office meetings um on a you know every two 3 we basis um they're held in the office um the agents have gotten used to either car pooling or making arrangements some can actually walk to the office there and some will be able to walk to the office here uh but they're for an hour they're in the morning generally from 10: to 11:00 um and we've actually had some of our meetings up at Madison at the corporate headquarters of uh uh Realogy which is now anywhere uh real estate at 17 5 Park in Madison it's close and we'll do joint meetings with three or four of our other offices um you know for training and education and even then about you you allow for remote attendance at those meetings we do a lot of our we have a lot of Zoom uh seminars um meetings uh have that component many of our offices now just because of the nature of what it is okay deliveries what types of deliveries do you receive and expect there's not many occasionally we'll get some fedexes or UPS's um certified letters you know transactions still required by law to be certified for notices um unless they're changed that email is an acceptable component in the contract which many attorneys will put in but there's very little activity uh you know as far as deliveries or anything and we're not we're not proposing to change the Ingress and egress what's there is what we're keeping um we're going to clean it up a lot to need a a loading space either no not let anybody's do deliver a house to the office which is not not expected anytime soon no those we we had discussed those lawn signs and stuff like that that actually gets shipped directly you have a company that we utilize a company um that installs our signs that stores our signs so we won't have any storage on site for signs thought that was Prett um you know cuz a lot of times they just look sloppy in the backyard and they get damaged in in the back of offices so we've hired a company to handle that and uh trash can you just describe there is a container um on site currently we'll look to change the doors they they're a little bit warn but um we have a private hauler for all of our offices they'll come once every two weeks remove the trash we don't create a lot of trash you know in the office um by the nature of just just everyday refuge and if you don't have a lot of people in the office on a day-to-day basis you're not doing that our cleaning services come once a week and uh so I don't expect it to be a major issue did you have a chance to review the administrative reports I did and you agree to be bound by those subject to your professionals absolutely and you had experts assist you yeah we had um Tom bjack our architect Rudy Holman um uh is the engineer as the U engineer and um John Barbie as a planner so thank you and we've worked with all three thank you thank you I would thanks Marie Tom do you have any questions for the applicant no okay no great thank you Bo do you have any questions for the applicant I have one I just uh you mentioned that on the daily basis it would be a maximum of 10 to 12 12 people in the office probably and then in the course of the day you may have 8 or 10 in the morning and different group of Agents may come in in the afternoon and then how many come for that you know bonly meeting we've had you know 30 or 40 at times um and then you know um again it's it's uh uh an hour and uh they've always made arrangements where we are now with less parking spaces um so we don't expect it to be much of an issue I had one question Mr chair um just who's going to be testifying to the existing condition of the property well Charlie can I I could answer any questions you might have structural engineer or is it the civil engineer civil engineer just as long as we understand why the existing structure can't be salvaged that was that you made and there was a couple of comments in the reports yeah I think I think Rudy can discuss that more y the architect as well I I couldn't hear that who else is testifying we have an architect not not this evening um we only have Charlie and the engineer I let the architect and planner off the hook um thinking that it would be a late to get to them this evening okay Stephanie it sounds like we might have to propose some alternate dates to wrap up this application okay um unfortunately we have quite a weit um so you said you have at least two to three other people correct that's fine just I think I think we need at least two yeah we have to okay to answer all question the next one that's really feasible where you could get a chance to really be heard would be May 5th can we put our engineer on and have 30 minutes on another agenda um if you wanted to do something like that it it's also actually pretty difficult because we're we are pretty full I mean you could always request a special meeting I mean if you want tonight you could say so that we have it on the record and then you could we could talk okay why don't we go down that road okay yeah okay thank you okay great so you want to present your next witness it it's up to the board um would you like to put I I mean he's here why don't we okay why don't we do that and just to confirm I assume there's no questions from the public for that prior Witness seeing none all right when you're ready if you could raise your right hand do you swear airm the testimony you're about to give in this matters the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes please state your name spell your last name Rudy hman name h o l z m thank you and can you briefly describe your background and experience for the board a licensed professional engineer state of New Jersey about 25 years experience in site plans of Divisions and testified in front of numerous boards in front of new including this compl last year any questions from the board would you like to accept them back once again please we're willing to accept them back all right just make sure you speak to one of the microphones okay so I'll just brief go over the uh the site and and the layout um talk about utilities and then if there's questions I guess we can get into that um the site is known as 573 Springfield Avenue Lot 2 block 1803 um The Proposal is to remove and demolish the existing building and and propose a new building as was discussed um given that building footprint from the architect uh we looked at placing that on the site and basically it's placed at the same location as the existing uh building uh we looked at how to deal with a parking lot parking and circulation uh made sense to leave the existing parking and curb line the existing circulation for a couple of reasons um and maintain that that pattern uh one some of the reasons were there's an existing easement on lot to the left lot three that serves as an erress driveway for both Lots uh lot three to the left I believe now formerly was used as a dentist office uh is also in the orc Zone um and we looked at as as part of the Ingress erress site distance which is adequate um leaving the drivers where they are help us to maintain some of the existing screening to the left and the right of the driveways which EX exist partly on uh the adjacent properties uh those are shrub rows uh of of Evergreens about 6 foot uh in height um and the circulation and driveways are consistent with the neighborhood um and and and leaves the parking lot at the rear of the site where we where we'd rather see uh the parking um so give given all that it's clear that the existing coverage is lock coverage is over the allowable the allowable is 50% which is 7240 Ft uh the existing coverage is 2210 squ ft over that at 9450 Square ft so that's 65.3 the proposal is 67.1% um coverage 9723 Square ft so that that's an increase of 273 Square fet um if there was a way we could remove some of that we would but given given the parking is doesn't meet the actual requirement of 20 based on the square footage of the the the building and the circulation driveways are where they are um desire to have a porch to maintain a residential character um the Ada ramp there is that increase of square footage uh in lock coverage which speaks to one of the variances um bulk variances so and per for perspective there's actually coverage on site from the existing parking lot to the rear of the site um on Lot 19 there's an easement at the rear of of the site and there's um that quantity of of coverage back there in in the blue is 492 square feet so there's more coverage actually back there than amounts to our increase just for a perspective and to accommodate the increase in coverage there is a storm water system proposed uh to meet meet the city requirement of the 3 in on uh the new new coverage will uh will accommodate that with um a dryw or pipe system um and we'll actually increase that to go beyond the actual increase to to pick up and uh a quarter of the building and and increase um the system to accommodate the volume associated with piping and through through the gutter collection system one third of the one one quarter of the building um landscape we Landscaping was talked about a little bit we have a screening of Arbor V in the back intended to basically which helps block um some of the headlights when there's night driving into the parking lot from going into uh Lot 19 where there's an existing uh townhouse complex uh more Landscaping will be added ornamental in in a forthcoming landscape plan that's uh around the building um lighting uh right now there's one light that exists on site on near the right property line that's about a 15t height light with a shoe box style uh light that serves to uh light up the parking lot uh that the plan calls for that to remain um and a new Pole or for the pole to remain with a new fixture um that would be designed by the manufacturer to uh ensure that the the lighting meets uh the city specification for luminance um and uh glare as well as um to meet the 3500k uh temperature uh requirement uh the trash enclosure we looked at you know moving out somewhere else we thought that's the best spot uh to leave leave as is if it goes somewhere in the back it increases coverage uh it doesn't have the access that we we have to this which is adjacent to uh the parking the isway uh and that also speaks to one one of the variances um I know there's a question about existing conditions a little bit the the site itself self is flat um I'm not I'm not going to speak to the actual building condition uh as part of my testimony but uh I could speak to any any questions or concerns about the existing site condition okay go through it thank you increasing the capacity with STM water right yeah that that that will be uh accommodated to uh half a volume equivalent to the 3 in of rainfall for the portion of the building uh collected which is greater than the actual increase in coverage yes and it will probably be a dry well as long as the so find another way correct lot of these will be conditions will provide the updated calculations provide the detail on the gate for the trash enclosure thank you for noting the parking stalls are slightly oversized 9.5 by in by I don't know if that might give us one or extra to squeeze it but understand it's comfortable I I think just to clarify the existing spaces were 9.5 and we redrew them to nine to kind of you did yeah so the proposed are now that the latest submited plans do show the nine N9 foot wide those ones are nine correct yeah so we were able to improve maybe uh some of the circulation by in that rear parking area um we're able to restripe shift everything to the left so that space in the corner to the right the person has a little more room to back out and make somewhat of a a turn out out of that particular space but either way it's still 14 spaces correct right correct do you have any other so yeah so I'll just clarify some of the things um there's um was there an existing roof leader detail that um that should have been shown on there is that something you can add to the plans yeah we we could add that the existing system looks like it's mostly a direct connection um and that's what we would do uh with directly connect the proposed uh system in the drywell and also into the uh existing drainage system site okay so do you know anything about the existing drainage system it looks like most of it's directly connected um into a collection system that connects to the trench drains at the front driveway yeah so they're all going into there okay all right so so by adding in a detention system your seage pit or some perforated pipes you're improving the um the runoff that's going off of the property even if it's going into those City system you're approving it by keeping some of it on site correct we'd be reducing the peak Flow by with the system right are you putting some um any new utilities on site uh there's a proposed generator um but as far as utilities the intention is to maintain the existing Service uh lines from uh the street and uh maintain those and and and connect those to the new building so your generator will have any screens along with any hbac systems that are outside yeah the generator will as part I think the ornamental screening ornamental landscape plan that will be developed um yeah will will provide screening uh of the generator and and and outside utilities yes and none of the uh you're not doing any major green changes on the property it's minor insignificant correct uh the parking lot will be uh Mill and repaved but the curb will will the curb will stay and just be replaced as needed uh in kind um Belgium Block curb um but yeah no grade changes are proposed sight's generally flat and slopes uh towards uh Springfield Avenue has this been um put before the Union County planning board for any changes curb cut I don't they reviewed uh we submitted this plan to Union County we got a few comments back on um uh just sending them our our final drainage plan um and also to provide curb and uh sidewalk details that may need to be uh replaced according to their County standards and I think uh you addressed everything else thank you okay thank you Ed do you have any questions for this wi yes just a few quick ones with regard to the uh overage unlock coverage I didn't catch your testimony with regard how much additional are you adding compared to existing uh 273 273 Square F feet okay thank um how does this building and I'm not sure if this is the right question for you or for the architect how does this building compare in square footage to the existing building that's there do you have those numbers is it increas demand of parking well it so the basement yeah that's what I was going to say it depends and we want it to be kind of an open the want to be kind of an open assembly space okay sometimes for like marketing materials and for their you know weekly whatever two week every two three weeks meeting okay um so because I want to use that space it's count increase in that's really the increase not necessarily an increase in footprint not an increase in footprint there's a small increase in footprint for the porch right the porch is a little bit bigger because there's a bigger front porch and a little in the back but but that's not trigger additional parking contribute to building coverage um as far as trees are concerned we did note in our report about uh the number of trees needed for the number of parking spes I know you're adding evergreen trees and Landscaping is one consideration just to take a look at whether or not you can add any sort of shade tree even if it's a narrow growing variety because of the tightness of the property it's something that obviously will defer to Mr Linson but the ordinance does require one the applicant is willing to do that and there will be a landscape going to have to be approved by joh wison there is only 5T along one side but they are looking possible to do something there okay maybe something off the back of the building uh in that green space that's just an option for you thank you thank you no further questions thanks any questions from the board for this witness just a couple questions um first can you tell me a bit more about the adjacent Drive in the rear yeah based on what I'm seeing um I think the the aerial might might show that the um townhouse building it looks like that's part of the driveway um that accesses garages that I think are at the rear of that particular townhouse building I think those buildings look like they front the other way um so I can't speak to exactly how much that's utilized but that's what it looks like there's garages um to the rear so that pavement on on the rear of our site serves that particular building and the plan is just to leave that unchanged yeah there's there's I didn't see any reason to to change that you know it exists within an easement um and it's behind the usable part that of our site we couldn't really add parking using that anyway that anyway I could see so and then is is it if am I reading this right you're you're bringing front yard side yard and Building height into conformance with the new building yeah there's no side yard variances um or or front correct the front's 30 um and the proposed building maintains that 30 foot front yard setback thank you if I pick it back off you if you were make that rear lot coverage normal surface not the easement what would that reduce your lot coverage ratio too eliminate yeah as a it would as a percentage it would yeah reduce it um um yeah that thats 63.7% I'm sorry yeah it's still be a non-conforming condition for coverage but still an increase over existing the lot yes correct Well's so 9 9450 it no it would reduce us under the existing but not conforming with the requirement is what I like to clarify I have a question I don't know who it's for but when was this building last occupied like you said a dentist was there or real estate that was the dentist was next door but maybe Charlie there were accounts that were there um we purchased the property about a year ago um the mic the initial use were attorneys they sold it to accountants and then we purchased it from accountants so the last use was an accounting use and I would say I think it was April or May that we closed um I mean I know that you're application is to rebuild you know to knock bu them down but are you aware that there's the Third third floor there's like a casement window that's hanging down that's ready to fall to the ground it's it's not there anymore and that that window's been boarded up I went up there Monday and took the window in okay okay just making sure that's when it was the other day I would check it you know every week nothing can get animals can't get in right now no okay and I didn't realize the window was so heavy but but it has been boarded that one window oops any other questions or comments I I mean I just have one comment that's not related to the testimony it's just um as a board while we're sitting here um I would have appreciated to have all of your experts here tonight um I don't really think it's it you know we're we're all sitting here it's late but there is the possibility that we could have gotten through all of this and I did hear some um you know dismay about a May 5th date um but that may 5th date if that's where what happens if we can't get a special meeting would have happened you know if you don't come with your experts we don't have the possibility of saying let's push forward and try to finish this so um I I think I would appreciate I don't know but anybody else in the board if if everybody's here for the next meeting yeah I mean there was no way to get through this without the for sure the planner so that clearly we're going to get to the endite anyway if you didn't bring bring the planner but we prob wouldn't go much later than this anyway so it's probably moot well on that note should we let's just make sure for the sake of the record we're open to the public for any questions from the public either of these Witnesses and seeing none and we should have a vote yeah so carry right from what I'm hearing the applicants would like to consider examining a special meeting as a possibility so in that case what I would recommend we do is we carry it for the purposes of preserving notice until an upcoming meeting by which point we'll have an idea of when availability for a potential special meeting is you know whether that's the next meeting or the following one with the understanding that we don't have the ability to accommodate you on that meeting it will solely be for scheduling purposes thank you so uh when do you think we could have a proposed special meeting dates figured out do you want we think so we'll have it all figured out by the 22nd thank you and I imagine the board would like to then carry it until the 22nd at which point will'll have either a special meeting nailed down or the available May date thank you so we would need a motion to carry and Council I imagine you're waving time frame to act Sam waving the time frame to act yes thank you Mr Steiner yes chairman lyit yes Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Vice chairwoman Zan yes Mr Kieran yes Miss Chico yes the motion carries okay and then we have a little bit of business right we do ourselves there's some resolutions okay great so I'll start with our first resolution it's for 33 Prospect Hill Avenue that's block 351 lot 26 zb- 24-22 63 the applicant was happy life group our eligible voting members are Mr Steiner Mr Yugo Mr Nelson Vice chairwoman Mr Malay and Miss Cho can I have a motion to approve so moved and a second I'll second okay Mr Steiner yes Mr Yugo yes Mr Nelson yes Vice chairwoman Zan yes Miss Cho yes the motion carries the next one we have is 77 West End Avenue that's block 1403 lot 14 zb2 3- 2212 the applicant was James faari the eligible voting members are Mr Yuko Mr Nelson uh Vice chairwoman Zan Mr Malle Miss chfo and Mr Chuli can we have a motion of approval so move second okay Mr Yuko yes Mr Nelson yes Vice chairwoman Zan yes Miss Cho yes Mr chanul yes the motion carries and then finally we have the minutes from December 16th 2024 um which were recently sent out this week um we could do a Voice vote for this but we will exclude Mr nering since he was not present for that meeting um can I have a motion of approval so I moved second second all those in favor I any opposed okay the motion carries great get a motion to adjourn moved question before yeah I just want to make sure I understood what happened tonight with dismissing experts do they actually were they here said go home they said don't even come because we she didn't think there would be enough time so she told them to stay home by the way is this Clos close session no no okay in the interest of having an open dialogue can I motion to have a closed session we could okay I have to tell them to cut the uh sorry I assume this is for the purpose of asking legal advice on procceed whether a legal advice or a planning thing specific about a case okay are we all hold on I'm going to turn that off by you have to find your motion and also it has to be that we um we'll have no other business afterwards because the TV guys are still on right I'm telling them to turn it off okay we motion to go pass that motion in Open Session yes and then have them we have them turn it off we need the motion to go into close session with the indication that there will be no further business conducted after we close out of closed session so moved second and let's get a quick roll call Stephanie on he hasn't responded yet should I go back there and just let's let's do the motion all right e