##VIDEO ID:nWEk6D9Nv7Y## the September 4th 2024 regular planning board meetings call to order at 6:33 this is to advise that the notice of time date location to the extent known agenda of the subject meeting was prominently posted in the public place reserve for such or similar announcements on August 27 2024 transmitted to the times the Princeton packet and West Windsor Plainsboro news on August 27 2024 and filed with the Township Clerk on August 27 2024 Cindy please call the rooll Mr Patel Mr laa yes Mr shakel Mr panco Mr Bag yes Miss Bari Miss appet councilman Whitfield yes mayor morat yes Vice chairman hberman here chairman C here we have a quorum thank you um I will I don't think there's anything else uh public comments for us um so I'll turn over to the public to speak for three minutes each non-agenda non- pending items please step up to the microphone state your name and address for the record you'll okay seeing none okay next item on the agenda minutes from August 21st 2024 for those uh any any amendments changes uh other than typos okay I'll entertain a uh I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from August 21st 2024 do I have a so move move by the mayor second second second by Rob all in favor say I I I uh thank you okay one exstension and Anis isain also oh yeah no no moove the okay one exstension for one exstension for Anis and the rest are all eyes okay thank you okay next up on the agenda is the second draft presentation of the Baran City Planning and Zoning study David you're you're up that is me uh can everybody hear me okay okay if at some point you can't just wave yell and I'll stick my mouth close to micophone uh good evening everybody it's nice to see you again my name is David Noak I'm a planner with burches Associates uh we've been working with the township for about at least seven years or so at this point and tonight we will be continuing our discussion about Baran City so thank you again for coming out um just as a little bit of a rewind you might remember back in April it was April 17th of this year I presented some preliminary findings regarding the Baran City neighborhood and specifically how the zoning doesn't quite match up there and based on that analysis based on uh a lot of the comments we received we've come up with another presentation with some preliminary recommendations and I really want to stress that preliminary recommendation we actually even put it on the cover page so this is ideas these are thoughts these are suggestions based on what we've seen with the analysis and what we've seen based on comments nothing is written in stone yet this is still a ongoing process so I don't want you to think that everything is set in stone um planning is often a balance of competing different opinions and ideas and it's our job as planners as board members and as the public to navigate how we go about balancing that but there was at least one type of overriding philosophy that went into these recommendations and that was a quote that we received back in April which is big on charm small on space I wish I could pay credit for it but I can't it was a resident that philosophy helped guide a lot of the recommendations that we put into this presentation so with that being said just a quick itinerary of what I'm going to discuss uh I just want to provide a brief background on what a master plan is and what this process is so that way we're all the same page about what step we're on then I'll do a very very brief initial analysis recap that was uh essentially recapping our presentation back in April and then I'll discuss some preliminary zoning and design recommendations based on analysis and then based on those comments that we received back in April so very briefly what is a master plan a master plan is a comprehensive long-term strategic document which is intended to guide the growth development of a community I often call it a road map it's a road mapap of where a community is and where it wishes to be in the future in the world of planning we have typically three types of roles not always the same for every municipality but for West witer it adds up here we have on the bottom left the screen the planning board that's this group here that's the group that's responsible for coming up and developing and adopting that Master Plan next we have on the top mayor and Council that's the group that actually adopts development regulations and those development regulations ideally should be based on that blueprint that road map identified and developed in the master plan and then on the bottom right you have the zoning board which is a board that amongst other duties has the responsibility of granting variances or denying variances uh those are deviations from the development regulations that mayor and Council come up which are based on the guidelines from the planning board so the planning board is the entity that's responsible for adopting a master plan so if there was a master plan hearing tonight we were adopting a a study that would be an appendix to our L's plan about Baran City say if we adopted that tonight how would your life change tomorrow it wouldn't um that's just the guideline document so nothing would change until the mayor and Council would have to adopt or prepare a development regulation that would then get referred back to the planning board and then back to the council for adoption so when a master plan is adopted by a plany board and nothing's being adopted tonight but when a master plan is adopted by a plany board regulatory nothing changes so back in April we did an analysis of the entire Baran City neighborhood I will just briefly refresh everybody's memories on what that was and what that entailed this presentation is online so I won't go into all the details but for the most part Baran city is located in the R-1 1 a district that district is really designed for lot sizes of one and 2/3 acre well none of the residential lots within Baran City meet that minimum lot size criteria uh you can also see that the majority of properties Residential Properties in Baran City also though conform with the lot Frontage requirements lot width requirements lot depth requirements front yard rear yard sidey yard F floor area ratio which we'll discuss in a little bit as well and Improvement covers standards so right now you have a zoning District that encapsulates Baran City that does not reflect the development pattern of Baran City David yes how do we get there in terms of the history of Zing Wester Township How could a z cre these lots have not changed size how did we get to this point where these lots are all non-conforming how in the history of Planning and Zoning in West have short answer I have no clue uh I don't know the history of thaton District I don't know why David wasn't born yet no just bced my mind there could be a a a uh such a disc plan yes where all the uh properties are non it's such a disconnect and it's something that's been than no it's been something that's brought up in your master planning documents even before us there's been this disconnect um I don't know the Genesis of it but that's what we have right now it's this disconnect between what the zoning regulations expect versus what's realistically and what's actually there um we also have some non-residential uses in Baran City we analyze those as well and for the most part again a lot of non-conformities with the existing zoning there in addition to just looking at the R-1 a as an entirety we also analyze what I call the sub neighborhoods because when you walk up and down the streets of Baran City you do get different flavors of different types of development pattern so we split up Baran City into these different sub neighborhoods and we did an analysis of what the average lot sizes lot frontages lot widths depths front yards rear yards side yards floor area ratios and Improvement coverage where and again I won't go into all this this is on the website I believe the prior presentation say might be on the website still um if there's other questions about this I can always answer them but essentially we broke down this analysis based on these sub neighborhoods just to get a better feel of what those disconnects are on a street by Street basis So based on that and based on the comments we received back in April we came up with a number of recommendations regarding zoning so this is what our existing zoning map looks like right you can see those thick white lines are the boundaries of our zoning districts we can see there's a yellow line there if I did not have my glasses I would not be able to see that but we have a yellow line that roughly identifies the boundary that we studied for Baran City and you can see the majority of it is located in the R1 a and you can see what those existing sand are again that lot area requirement of one and two3 Acres of 726 feet just does not line up with any of the Lots there so our preliminary recommendation is this to break down Baran City into these sub zones which are more reflective of those streets and what we did is that we looked at each of those sub neighborhoods or their sub zones and we analyze what are the smallest Lots what are the average lot sizes what are the largest Lots what's the distribution of lot sizes and we based our recommendations on that existing development pattern as well as some of the feedback we heard one of the recommendations or one of the concerns that we heard back in April are oversized Lots you know lots that get combined together which would allow for th of a property that's really not consistent with the remaining development pattern in the area so one of the ideas that we disc discussed at that meeting was potentially developing a maximum lot size so what we established for each of these sub zones would be a minimum and a maximum lot size those lot sizes are designed to encapsulate a significant range of properties there now it's going to be impossible to get every property into conformance it's just not how zoning can possibly work unfortunately but what this does is that these lot sizes both minimum and maximum are designed to better reflect the existing development pattern of those streets and how big those lots presently are one of the things that we dealt with in developing a maximum lot size is well how do we actually enforce that how do we catch that this gets into a little bit more nuts and bolts but if you're a property owner and you buy two lots together you can theoretically combine those lots together without having to go for approval from the township for you know for a subdivision it is done through deed one of the recommendations that we're thinking about is that a building permit cannot issue for any oversized lot created after the effective date of the ordinance so if you have a lot that's oversized and you want a building permit you would actually need a diance for that what do these recommendations do well here we see a an analysis of the existing lot size and their conformance with the r1a district and as you can see none of the Lots in these sub neighborhoods to these sub zones are conforming to the current lot size standards of the r1a district with this scale that we're proposing you can see we get a lot more Conformity um Alexander the mixed use area would still be mostly non-conforming Scott Avenue uh North would be mostly nonconforming but you see we're bringing things from 100% nonconformity in that case down to 53.3% in the other ones we're getting a lot more comping we're getting a lot more representative of the existing development pattern there very similar to lot width again we took it sub neighborhood by sub neighborhood and we tried to encapsulate that range of smallest average lot and largest lot widths didn't include it in here we also analyze cor tiles as well and again proposing minimum lot widths and maximum lot widths and what those ranges do is that you can see takes his level of non-conformity which at its best is 66.7% but for our more residential neighborhoods as the best we have right now is 93.1% and it knocks the conformance down or knocking levels and nonconformity down significantly so we can see that by adjusting the lot width requirements and establishing a minimum and maximum lot width we can get these properties in baring City to a greater degree of conformity we also looked at front yards so front yards ranged somewhat significantly um you can see on you know Lily Street and monomer Street smallest front yard that we estimated was about four feet and the largest was 48.9 feet there's significant range so what we are proposing is to adjust the minimum front yard setback to better reflect that but we want to allow some acknowledgement of the existing development pattern there so again we can see this existing levels of Conformity or non-conformity compared to what's proposed one of the other ideas that I'm suggesting that we consider is front yard averaging right so establishing front yard language that says that a building constructed on a existing plaed lot in single ownership need not be set back any further than the average of the existing setback on each of the abing Lots now what does that mean essentially if you have a front yard uh setback requirement of say 30 feet for Lily Street and you have a vacant lot there or a lot where the house was removed and on one side you have a house that's maybe 10 feet away from the front yard lot line and the other one that's 20 feet what this provision would allow you to do is average those two out to get an average set out at 15 ft now why would we do that one of the goals that we try to get with a front yard setback is a uniform streetcape something that's aesthetically pleasing when you're driving down the road and you see the houses lined up as opposed to having one house set significantly back further from the rest of the houses so this would allow for some flexibility in developing a more uniform Street Frontage we also looked at sidey yard analysis and again very similar prod process looked at those smallest sidey yards the average the largest and came up with ideas for how we can adjust the sidey yard set max to better reflect the development pattern there and we can see the levels of non-conformity which anywhere from around 38% to uppers of 93.3% or for Alexander that makes the use area 100% doesn't reduce it that much but we're getting closer getting a little bit better getting a little bit more um reflective of are closer to existing development patterns there we didn't want to reduce the side yard setback too much because one of the concerns that we heard was in that April meeting we didn't necessarily want houses being built immediately J in other houses next we have recommendations regarding floor area ratio now what is floor area ratio floor area ratio or F is a mechanis that municipalities employ to manage the scale and bulk and intensity of a building the way you regulate f is that you take the total floor area of a dwelling or a building minus certain areas garage space mechanical space if there's a uh storage space where the roof is less than seven feet height you don't need to count that or the ceiling height rather you take that floor area and you divide it by the lot area and that gives you an idea of what you're allowed to build there we analyzed and this one I go into a little more detail we analyzed the ratios of floor area ratios along each of those sub neighborhoods those sub zones and we identified what would be the smallest what would be the largest we even broke this one into quartiles and then medians and averages because I wanted to see the total scale of numbers about how we can potentially look at floor area differently now these are just numbers they're ratios that doesn't really a lot to so we also looked at just floor areas in general right and we can see on each of those sub neighborhoods what those floor areas look like when we break it out to the smallest the first quartile median average third qu quartile and largest and then I wanted to break it down even more I wanted to see throughout barant City what do floor areas what do heal sizes look like based on lot size and this was very interesting to me because sometimes it can deviate wildly usually you would expect on a smaller lot you're G to have a smaller house and a larger lot you're gonna have a larger house well the smallest one of the smallest houses was 666 square feet that was on a lot greater than 27,500 feet meanwhile we also had a dwelling that was about 1100 square feet on a lot size that was just less than 5,000 square feet so it does it does differentiate it does vary a little bit but again we we wanted to see what these house sizes look like based on lot sizes and based on that we looked at a different way to look at F because again one of the main pieces of feedback we've heard in that ail meeting was people worried about Lots being combined together and houses overpowering their neighbors so what we were considering was developing a sliding scale for f so utilizing a sliding scale to encourage dwellings which are more compatible to the Lots in the existing development pattern and the formula that we came up with was a th000 square feet plus 5% of the lot area well what does that mean we have a table there in the right that would show you a before and after so for example on a lot size of 5,000 sare F feet right now the existing R d1a District would allow you a house of only 650 sare feet about the size of an apartment this would allow for a house size of about 1,250 Square F feet but as you go up in lot size that return on your house Size Doesn't increase as exponentially so if you look at a lot size of say 30,000 square feet right now you would be allowed an a floor area of 3,900 square feet with this slotting scale you would get a house size a maximum house size of 2,500 feet that would be allowed so again what we want to do is that we want to allow for some flexibility for property owners that want to improve their dwelling mod Modz your dwelling but also at the same time not necessarily come up with house sizes that are going to be overpowering and overwhelm the local area and this sliding scale is one idea that we have to address that one of sorry wrong I got two computers one of the other ideas we can do is also think about whether or not it makes sense to establish a maximum dwelling size we did a very similar type of analysis of improvement coverage Improvement coverage is essentially anything the ground that you're changing it's your house it's your patio it's your driveway your garage everything we looked at Improvement coverages based on all these sub neighborhoods these sub zones we analyzed percentages we analyzed square feet we analyzed it by lot size as well and again if I'm going through this quickly this will be on the website so you don't need to furiously write down these numbers and based on that we also came up with a similar recommendation of uh thinking about a sliding scale which again is going to allow for increased flexibility for smaller lot sizes and on larger lot sizes not allow for as much overpowering development one of the other concerns that was brought up during the meeting in April was building Heights and whether it made sense to look at decreasing building Heights because again we're we're getting houses that might be a little bit too tall too large for this rounding area right now the way we measure Building height is the vertical distance between the average level of grade along the all exterior Foundation walls of a building which gr you me remain substantially unchanged which means you can't build up your property and then build the house on top we get a higher house and uh you look at the highest parit or cornis level in the case of a flat roof or the mean level between the e in the highest bridge point in the case of a pitch roof and again right now we would allow for 35 ft so if you have a pitched roof if you think about the E which is the bottom and the peak that midpoint between the two is allowed to be 35 feet above the ground if we're looking for smaller house sizers or shorter houses in the area one of the recommendations we would have is to consider a a house size of 28t one of the other things that was discussed was accessory dwelling units now what is an accessory dwelling unit it is a smaller independent residential dwelling located on the same lot on a as a standalone or a single family dwelling uh it's often called Brandy flat an accessory apartment uh the the phrase I always hear is mother daughter could be located within the existing dwelling it could be located in the garage uh it's essentially a smaller accessory living space that is is somehow related to the principal dwelling right now we're not recommending anything on this the reason being is there was legislation in the state that's been introduced and right now there's not a lot of movement on it uh there's been multiple bills introduced I think the latest was back in May so we're still waiting to see what happens with that now the state can either move instantaneously or they can move like a glacier one or the other right now we'd like to just keep an eye on this though because what we don't want to do is create a an ordinance that would allow for accessory dwelling units or consider accessory dwelling units and have the state come out with something supersede what we did and we have to rewrite everything so we're kind of in a wait and see pattern to see what the state does with this could you expand that thought and and give an idea what the state of New Jersey wants to impose upon municipalities with adus so it would be essentially uh making accessor dwelling units permitted in every residential zone for every single family dwelling so it would supersede local zoning which is not an unusual thing a couple years ago the state came out with a evse which stands for electric vehicle service equipment slm ready ordinance that superseded local ordinances and allows or requires for essentially electric vehicle parking in certain applications they'll often do these things where you supersede local Z loing this would be one of them so if the state was to adopt the legislation it would make these uses automatically permitted in your neighborhood and as well as every other residential Zone in West Windsor depending on which draft of the legislation you look at you see different regulations uh it seems to be for the most part um you'll be allowed to establish an accessory dwelling unit in an existing garage or an ex dwelling without any type of variance um it would supersede state parking requirements so say if you have a garage that's used for parking and you decide to convert that into an accessory dwelling in it typically the state requires you to have a certain number of parking spaces on your site the draft legislation would supersede that uh it would prohibit municipalities from linking accessory dwelling units to the principal dwelling through familial relationship so sometimes when people want an accessory dwelling unit they just want it for a family member uh you know mom is getting old or the kids are coming back from college and often times if somebody gets an approval for that it might be conditioned on that relationship that would not be allowed in most of the accessory dwelling unit legislation I've seen so again we're still waiting to see what happens and again the state can move either very quickly or they can move very slowly hey David does it make sense to have I I know that the state will supersede us but does it make sense to have some kind of ordinance that we would like prior to the state coming out with what they want not necessarily because the state legislation would dictate your ordinance so what I would assume would happen would be much like the evsc Make Ready ordinance the state adopts the legislation and then the Department of community fairs DCA comes out with a model ordinance that you the municipality basically have to adopt and there's some parts of that ordinance you can change and then some parts that are really set in stone so there's really not much you can do to get a jump on it because we don't know if the DCA is going to come out with that type of model ordinance again I suspect they're going to but it's more of a wait and see every okay yeah excuse me I apologize the rag has been killing me the legislation got heing in committees has the legislation got committees I think it's been mostly in sub so far yeah so I don't think it's gotten too much moving but the affordable housing legislation also was moving slowly affili so that's that's why it's pick your poison um sometimes the state moves very quickly like the when they adopted the affortable housing legislation other times like the state plan they're now running five months late so what are the other things that was discussed at the meeting are residential design standards um so when an addition or a new dwelling is installed with the barrian city are there ways to make it more in line with the surrounding development pattern there are a couple ideas on how to do that right so if the community wanted to adopt these design standards to implement in their zoning ordinance these would be certain goals that we would want to accomplish right so one of the goals would be having those additions at the rear of the building to minimize their visibility from the street um often times in front of the zoning board when we see a floor area ratio variant in Baran City those that add to the front of the dwelling really change the impact and design of it when they add it to the back or to the side and back um it helps preserve that Frontage and often times are able to make that addition kind of blend into the house better uh we would want to encourage additions to utilize similar finish materials as the original structure uh have Windows used double hang sash or uh hang them in pairs uh have the size and the mass of a building relation and be in relationship to open space um making sure that Windows door openings porches and balconies be Vis will be compatible with that existing structure and for buildings that are being renovated or rehabed or for additions utilizing Windows Doors and Architectural treatments that are compatible with the existing original architectural style of the building similar with facade improvements encouraging facade improvements that are compatible with the original architectural style of the building uh having some sort of visual compatibility and relationship to the building and the place in which it's in U side and rear building elevations having and receiving architectural treatments comparables to the front to side so often times we'll see a beautiful design for a front of a house looks great then they show you what the design for the side and the rear looks like and it's just siding and nothing else um we want to make sure that any type of those nicer architectural treatments that you put on the front facade get carried over to the side and the rear and that's related to blank walls as well uh and then also looking at the relationship of materials and texture and color of the faade on the roof making sure it's compatible with the materials in the building itself as well there's also certain design centers that you can incorporate for roofs making sure that they're compatible with the building uh prohibiting flat roofs except on Lower CER roofs um having roof forms Echo those in the original structure uh looking at how you can limit Dormers and secondary roof sometimes when a house is designed and it's too tall and they're looking for ways to break up to the side they'll throw a roof above a roof doesn't really make that much sense architecturally uh looking at the placement of Dormers as well so these recommendations have been largely geared towards Residential Properties here because the majority of your community is residential but we do have some non-residential and vacant PL here and I wanted to focus on really the non-residential properties being the art center Brothers Pizza and the former shoe repair place which is a mixed use building in the corner there and whether or not we want to establish those pre-existing non-conforming uses so those uses that were once legally there now are no longer permitted by zoning allowing those to continue um you know is there interest in increasing the allowable floor area ratio for nonprofit organizations like the West Winter Art Center to flow for the full utilization of the Princeton Junction Firehouse right now their f is built out so if they want to expand to the non-utilized portion of that building they would need approval from the zoning board uh reviewing signage regulations including providing murals and artistic opportunities for that building and then one of the other major issues with the West Windor Art Center is that parking is limited um one of the ways to balance that is look at existing impervious coverage in the area if you look at the map there's a lot of parking in the area and sometimes that parking is not utilized During certain hours one of the recommendations would be to permit for the satisfaction of parking requirements on another lot within 20,000 ft of that site subject to certain lease agreements so allowing for flexibility in parking standards where if we have existing parking areas that are underutilized during off hours why not utilize those for other uses so these are again the preliminary recommendations and obviously next we'll hear from you questions comments and everything but these are what we're looking at as the next steps in this process so ultimately what I'm going to do or hopefully what we're going to do is prepare an appendix to the 2020 land plan element the master plan we did something very similar with Dutch neck this will be another appendix to that just focusing on Barian City should that be adopted The Next Step would be to draft an ordinance to implement the recommendations in that plan that ordinance would then be introduced by the pwn Council it would be preferred back to the planning board after the first reading and then it would be brought back to the township Council for adoption should they choose to adopt it and then after that it would be effective 20 days after signature but right now we're not even up to that first step which is a preparation of the plan they're still talking about these initial recommendations after that after we get some feedback from you then we'll begin preparing that appendix again wrong computer and that is the list of preliminary recommendations so Mr TR leave it up to you uh questions from the board from public whatever works best for you guys um I'd like to hear from the public unless the board board has some relevant actually does the board have any relevant questions for David before we hear from the public yeah sure better yeah one of the homes has been recently renovated uh reconstructed I should say just want to ask you about um your impression of that structure and what it looks like and how contextual that is with the Baran city that you see now and what you expect could be down the road I don't see that was that Rec I would think within the last year if you're talking about on Harris it wasn't fire it wasn't a fire no started uh demolition Hermits oh thank you I appreciate that I saw some plywood that looked like it was actually burned that's why I assumed it was a fire so maybe it was just the plywood they chose Wass maybe that's it's either mold or staged firewood I I think that one was discussed at the April meeting and I think a lot of that was uh some concern about that house being a little overtime so as we have these conversations that I would like to bring that up from time to time just see how that kind of fits into you know what's being proposed and what's the expectations of people that live there good anybody else yeah may I yes please okay um I've got a visual uh Susan can you help me out yeah Sam I got two these go this way this goes this way and Sam is for you guys so uh as Susan distributes these um so I grew up in Bethesda Maryland um and uh last October I had the occasion to go back to Bethesda Maryland on the uh occasion of my 50th High School reunion and being a Planning and Zoning guy I just want to get a sense of what the community was like what the community is like so what I'm showing you on these sheets is a residential street in Bethesda Maryland with three houses on it uh part of a longer Street and um uh caveat here the comments I'm making are not about any of the bulk regulations that we've just gone over the the comments I want to make is about the character of what you're looking at um so what's happening in in Bethesda is that a lot of the property is of more value than the house that's upon it if you look at the three houses that I'm I'm showing tonight one is a mcmansion one is a modern thing and then the one on the far right is a one-story brick Rambler that's of the original neighborhood so um my concern with Barian City and I really want to play off the the thought big on charm is I'm worried that the charm could be endangered by um tear downs and rebuilds uh I'm concerned that a rebuild in berian City can follow every regulation that we want and make for bulk variances and setbacks and F and all that yet uh according to the uh design regulations that have been been suggested tonight they address roofs they address uh uh s materials they address additions yet they do not even touch this category of a rebuild on a lot uh that could be rebuilt so I'm just putting this out tonight as a warning that what I've seen in Bethesda could happen in our community um we've driving around West Winter you've already seen uh uh houses much much larger than berian City that are totally out of character with the surrounding area so um this is the major concern I bring to this review tonight and for Barian City that uh we keep big on charm and my question to you the residents of berian city is uh as we go through this process of Planning and Zoning study is that is that a an issue of yours as residents of the community beyond the uh bulk regulations AB by that okay I'm done okay than thank you Curtis hey hey hey David I have a question obviously this no homeowners association of Varian City development but is there is there is it allowed to to have aesthetic or it's yeah I know we can use the terms you know fit in with the neighborhood and um contextual Contex yeah architectural and are they strong enough but that yeah they're not they're very they're kind of general terms and not very specific as far as like if there's a homeowner association okay it's got to be no more than you know X number of feet and it's got to look like you know a certain kind of siding or brick or is there anything we can do if the residents kind of like weigh in on that is there anything we can do to like um you know put us condition type of structure yeah it's actually funny that you mentioned that because I was working on some affordable housing monitoring stuff today and reaching reading through homeowners association documents which are it's it's exciting as it sounds um but you are yeah essentially that you brought up one of the challenges for these design standards right is okay we can say it should be compatible but how do you actually regulate that and outside of a design Review Committee from an HOA the way to do that would be to come up with specific standards that would get incorporated into your zoning ORD what that means is much like a set you know front yard set back or a height regulation those standards would be incorporated in your zoning ordinance and would be reviewed with zoning permits as well as with variance applications right so if somebody wants to say build a modern home um and the township and the community decides that we want to codify those design standards is yes they could actually have to go in front of the zoning board for varant for that uh we looked at different ways to regulate this and for single family and residential neighborhoods it's a little tough because it's either in your zoning ordinance or you can have maybe a good design booklet but that doesn't have any enforceable we behind it right you can talk about what you want in your master plan and if there's a barrance you can wait against that but if somebody comes in with a performing application and they want to build you know home there yeah so here's some of the things I'm thinking of very detailed specific construction design so in other words like this modern house from Curtis example one of one of the details could be has to have a peak roof with a certain degree of angle yes you know that would eliminate the flat roof modern design just one thing it it can't it can have uh um I'm thinking of the that ridiculous house across from the church St David's Church it can't have it can't it can't have any balconies I will have to look up can't be it can't be of orange color you know I'm just sorry if I'm offending anybody um I love oh that's your house Rob I'm sorry it's a very nice house very large um I don't know I'm just coming I'm just this is off top of my head things that very specific without a homeowners association but specific design standards you know you know maybe brick is allowed maybe maybe it's not maybe it's you know it's got to be repurposed wood um certain degree of angle um on the peaked roofs it can it can only have a maximum of two Peaks it can't have the 12 that are on that that other house yes yeah that would that's what you would have to do in zoning Willams you would have to get to a certain level of specificity that whoever is reviewing these applications will also be able to understand disect as well and I think a lot of those recommendations you brought up about the pitch of the roof building materials that's all stuff that I everybody understands um so I think that's going to be very important to incorporate should we choose to do so incorporate those standards Within right and I see the difficulty in coming up with those standards that you know would be challenging but you know if there's like 20 of those kind of design standards maybe there's at least seven that prevents that that oneoff design that nobody wants that's that's what I'm thinking okay so that's something that could be put into the ordinance that would prevent to tear down and an oversized structure with um unlikable architectural design that is one of the tools that a municipality can p to do that okay that's one of the tools what are the other ones uh other tools would be some of those bulk that we already discussed so for example floor area ratio right um that's a tool where you can control not necessarily the look of a house but the bulk of a house height regulations these are all different pieces of puzzle that you put together to determine what development can look like and there's a lot of different ways to approach it and there's a lot of different tools on a municipality can include like design zoning standards like floor area ratio like height like setback so a lot of ways we can shape how development looks it's just finding that right mix there you can accomplish that original goal that we had in our 2020 master plan which we again to to to maintain the character of the neighborhood but allow for homeowners to come up with you know improvements to their dwellings to need modern expectations it's that Crux of that balancing okay thank you anybody else yeah oh sorry yeah yeah no just want to build up on something that ctis said I mean the whole uh idea of this exercise was to find out what the community wants I mean whatever is the end product of this deliberation whenever it happens is going to affect all your home values one way or the other and I don't want to be philosophically imposing on what I feel are the views um there are a lot of people here but Varan is much bigger than whoever is here so I'm trying to figure out how to judge exactly where most the consensus wants and if you have more people agree to a certain standard it's a lot easier our job I we don't want to do something where 50% this side 50% this side we don't want to be getting between neighbor and neighbor and trying to decide who is right who is wrong um I personally is trying to still understand whether you are more worried about local field or the sizes of the houses coming up I mean I've mentioned to c a couple of times that if size is an issue then zoning board has granted every variance that was in front of them for a requirement which makes the houses bigger in fact zoning board recommended that Council adopts an ordinance to increase the F in berian City thankfully the council refused and that ordinance is ready but was never introduced so I'm just trying to understand exactly what you're looking for just the size look and feel like you said when brick front or this that and so on that will help the gentlemen make their job better when they come for the next round and let let me just add and I I I just want you to understand the comments that I made regarding design standards and um that was based on previous meeting and the resident's input and comment it's not what I want it's as the mayor says it's what you want and that's what I was hearing at the previous meeting is design standards look and feel of of the neighborhood um size restrictions so on and so forth so I don't want you to think I'm imposing um standards for David to put into an ordinance but um just based on comments and feedback we received at the last meeting yeah I mean just one quick comment I know you don't have homeowners association but you do have a a group which meets regularly so if you can figure out a way of just reaching as many of you as possible to gather the input even those who are not there again that makes our job lar good okay anybody anybody else from the board okay um at this time I'll open it up to the public for comments please step up to microphone state your name and address for the record three minutes three minutes hello um I'm Isabelle casden and I'm at 11 Scott Avenue and I think I forgive me for reading from some remarks but I think what I'm about to say will address a lot of the questions especially the last thing about the neighborhood association so when we realized this was coming down the pike uh the Barian City neighborhood association actually had a meeting where we which was noticed to everyone on the email list um and so the process for the neighborhood has been to share this proposal with the residents and get their feedback before the meeting tonight so we did have that meeting of the neighborhood association towards the end of August to discuss some of the basic information and to inform people about how they can get a copy of the planning board proposal if they hadn't already um the group decided to form committee to review the details of the proposal and then evaluate them and make suggestions and determine the questions that we that we had which we did um form that subcommittee and that subcommittee consisted of myself um Susan Abby Kevin ralo DC Fox and um ASA I'm mispronounce her last name aingle um so we had planned for that review subcommittee to meet for the um subcommittee to meet with the neighborhood again but because of vacations and Labor Day um we haven't done that yet so um we're hoping to have another meeting after tonight to get more reactions to the proposal um and we do have an email list that has been updated this year to make sure that everyone in the neighborhood gets notified in order to be informed of of the meetings and we have a Facebook page for the neighborhood as well so we encourage people to sign up for the email list and if there's anyone new here tonight that hasn't notified us yet that they want to be included um we can take their names and add them tonight um so that we can make sure that we're including everyone's feedback um but overall when the subcommittee Met um we are very supportive of many of the proposed zoning recommendations so that the ship sent to the residents concerns at the last planning board meeting which we were very of which we were very appreciative um so we have some questions about the proposals as they pertain to the goals of the residents as well as some responses to items that the proposal left open-ended and finally we have some suggested additions that we hope will further bring the zoning code and design standards in alignment with our goals for preserving the character of the neighborhood um and then we hope we can get more input from residents at our next neighborhood meeting um so that is to say that this doesn't represent the views of the whole neighborhood but it was four of us that met that were sort of appointed by other people that were not the whole neighborhood um but we hope that we can incorporate more views of the neighborhood moving forward um so I don't want to monopolize time but we have a lot of notes that I can go through that came out of that meeting um and I'll try to get through through them quickly um and also State our questions um which I would be happy to provide in terms of the questions we can give that to you as well in writing um so regarding the master plan um we would like to suggest adding the word historic as a descriptor for Baran City in the master plan um and while we're not seeking at this time historic designation um and would not like to be subject to a historic preservation ordinance or zoning the um we felt that the neighborhoods that reminding policy makers and potential residents of the neighborhoods inbuilt historic character is a way of managing expectations for the required scale and design of the homes um regarding the zoning recommendations in terms of the qu qual quantitative standards um the proposed minimum and maximum lot Siz um we really appreciated how the proposal increased the conformance of the existing lot sizes and that they operate on a street by- street basis um with the minimum and maximum lot width we appreciated how the proposal conformed better with the existing lot widths and also appreciated that the minimums operated on a street by- street basis with the front yard minimums uh the proposed front yard minimums are an improvement over current zoning and we appreciate how they conform better with the existing front yard sizes and that the minimums also operate on a streetby street basis regarding the front yard language um which you went through in terms of averaging the setbacks um this language seems like it encourages new properties to take cues from their neighbors and we think this will help new construction conform better to the look and feel of the neighborhood regarding the proposed sidey setbacks one of the concerns with we discussed was given how close some existing houses are to each other in Baran City because of existing non-conforming sidey setbacks we're concerned that adding bulk to these existing houses both backward and upward along the same sidey yard setback has the potential to block a neighbor's view reduce light for neighbors and ultimately negatively impact a neighbor's property values so we're hoping for to get more input from residents for ideas on how to prevent this um and one of the questions we had is if an existing house has a non-conforming sidey setback under the new zoning proposal would they be able to continue that non-conforming sidey with a rear addition in other words would the addition not have to conform with the new sidey minimums either similarly if an existing house had a non-conforming sidey setback under the new zoning proposal would they be able to continue that non-conforming sidey upward with a second floor addition um so in other words can or should additions that go on the back of a house have a different side yard setback than the existing house particularly if the existing house violates the new sidey yard setbacks um another question is there a way to ensure that the zoning board can review all additions that would be along non-conforming side yards so that neighbors affected can have their say um and the final question on sidey guards is should we set a minimum distance between two houses including additions um and any additions that encroach on that minimum distance would need zoning Board review um regarding the rear setback one of the concerns we discussed was that we noted that there was no discussion of a proposal regarding the rear setback um so what is the current rear setback is there a proposed change um another concern or goal we discussed was that we're interested in encouraging garages to be built in the rear of houses or properties so do detached garages count in the rear setback and what are the setbacks for a detached garage regarding the proposed floor area ratio sliding scale um f is probably one of the most important issues for the neighborhood um it looks like the F sliding scale proposal as well as the proposed formula to keep the scale of homes compatible with the existing development pattern is reasonable in relation to the lot sizes in the neighborhood the issue of f will be further discussed particularly as to how it affects multiple Lots um the F proposal also suggested that a maximum dwelling size can be established so we'll have to get input from residents on this issue and hope that we can get more information on what people want proposed maximum improved coverage sliding scale um a concern on this was some of us Baran are concerned that the mic about the mic being too high at 1,000 square feet plus 12% of the lot area particularly when it comes to stormhood um several Street neighborhood so as a question we were hoping we'd be able to provide more information about what the mic numbers would look like in practice considering the maximum dwelling sizes established for each lot area uh regarding the proposed Building height we discussed at our meeting the issue of the new proposed Building height at 28t stray so from the height of the um and uh I think we're in agreement that that would be effective um so then regarding the design standards uh for a we have discussed the basics of the design standards because um attendees felt they would limit extreme changes to the stock character of the neighborhood which was desired um we need to finalize the desires of the residents concerning the standards pertaining to um uh some standards that we make brainstorms pertaining to garages um many houses were built with detached garages and homes with larger lock may have a garage attached on the side set back from the front facade of the house so a question is should we limit the size of a garage uh such as no more two car or by square footage and will this be accomplished with the mic proposals um we're not sure what the appropriate size limit would be but that's something where we would want more input um and then pertaining to a question that was posed by a planning board member um we would also like more information pertaining to tear downs and new construction U the neighborhood in general would Downs or new houses built in the neighborhood um we might suggest that architectural treatments should be compatible with the architectural style of the neighborhood but a big question we had was how do we codify a reasonable definition of a tear down and a new build so that tear down design guidelines and the requirement of a zoning Board review can apply uh a concern we had is that the neighborhood would want any thing that rationally appears to be a tear down to be considered a tear down for purposes of zoning requirements um and the neighborhood would like to close zoning loopholes that would allow true tear downs and new builds to be considered additions we think the following circumstances should rationally count as a tear down in a full new build for example if the foundation of the original home remains but no other walls or architectural elements remain if an owner lets a property fall into irreversible disrepair and there is no option but to tear it down and build something new or if the style of the original house is significantly changed so we had a question of if whether there are any other good def definitions for tear Downs that you might suggest like the percentage of the original structure that has removed or changed or the removal of a certain number of contiguous external walls um and then our other question is if there are any other options to prevent tear Downs um regarding the non-residential recommendations we agree that existing Residential non-residential Properties should be grandfathered in for their current use but there was support for the zones allowable uses to be only for single family residential except for the non-residential properties that are already existing um some of the discussion was that we would like nursing homes group group home schools and daycare centers not to be allowable uses in the zone anymore um we suspect support in favor of increasing the allowable F to enable the Arts Council to use the full Firehouse by expanding into areas of the building that already exist since we have always been so supportive of the Arts Council in the building and at a future date we are willing to discuss signage regulations the neighborhood would like to be notified when signage regulations including murals are being reviewed um we had some other miscellaneous questions um with the movement around the country for houses and neighborhoods um to corporations and investment firms is there any way to um prevent some of those kinds of purchases and does the township or the Zone have any existing rules related to airbnbs um so let me emphasize again that we still have a need for more feedback from the residents on the very specific details of this new zoning and we will definitely plan for another neighborhood meeting to get feedback from those that are interested in sharing their viewpoints and creating as much of a consensus as possible this was where the stood before this date thank you for giving me so much time thank you I I know David is really fast typist but it will help if you email I I was typing curiously um so so so David you'll get a list of the questions and points and concerns yeah yeah that's exactly what I was just talking about some of these I know the answers to some of them are good questions I ever considered so I'll have to do a little research and digging but uh no I really appreciate all I I can I ask one of the regarding the setback if the setback is is non-conforming and they do an extension and the extension lines up with the original setback is that allowed right now okay thank if you maintain that nonconform going back it would be allowed that could also be you can obviously address that via zoning regulations for this community should know we want to um but that would be at least one answer if you do send it back or you be allowed to do that as a right okay and s in that case they don't have to go to the zoning board okay thank you okay good evening uh John Church 11 Princeton Place and a member of the zoning board so I'm very interested in your project here tonight we wait with great anticipation on the zoning board what the final ordinances will will be we have had many many applications in Varian City for f variances as well as some other types and so this is of great importance to us we want to have our job made as made easier if possible because right now it's quite difficult with all the things that are coming before us so anyway please uh go to it and come up with uh some more comprehensive zoning regulations it's badly needed here as we all know uh we don't know as Curtis hman mentioned earlier how this all originated in the first place must goes back to the 1980s probably or even earlier uh it's a strange thing that what we have now just doesn't comport with anything that's reasonable or what's presently there it needs to be fixed and fixed correctly so please go ahead and uh do this study and uh present specific ordinances for proposals and we hope on the zoning board I think that this will come through and make our job easier and uh and we hope to satisfy the community and everyone associated with it so thank you for the time thank you Sam I state name and address for the record please hi I'm Susan conin 98 Harris Road and um I just wanted to touch on um the topic about the neighborhood um getting together to put the time into uh having our neighbors come together and talk about this come up with questions we appreciate the process and the work that you guys have done so far and just to tell you a little bit more about that so we um we have an email list that we can get in touch with people in the neighborhood we use that to um post meeting dates um it's not opinion based it's not a discussion group it's just information so we also and this is a few people who are doing this myself and some other people just to facilitate this process and part of the time goes into securing um locations in town to have meetings getting people out for the meetings um we can only get in touch with people if we can add them to the mailing list and also people um tell their neighbors about things too so if anyone is here tonight in the neighborhood who would like to be on that email list who is not please let us know we'll add you to the list we realize sometimes people we've had some flyers that have gone out in the neighborhood and I think they're confusing I think they might lead residents to believe that Flyers are coming from the township and represent the US and opinions of the township to our knowledge that's not true and um also they're Anonymous Flyers so we really don't know what they're about so anyway we really um are in favor of everybody coming together there's going to be differences of opinion we know that but it's a process that um we want to get through on this and just to um um touch on what Curtis mentioned I don't know about other people here but I get calls I get a few every week um phone calls people and they're companies I suppose cold call callers asking if I want to sell my house and um this is happening with great frequency maybe it's just a sign I need to get rid of my landline I don't know but um so anyway um you know we can see that there's there's there's a change and we understand that the neighborhood is going going to change but I think in this process talking about just trying to Divine or some Community objectives going through this so and I just thank you to um my neighbors who have been putting a lot of effort into this and you know it's um we're going to go get somewhere so thank you so okay and and we did get the um emails from the make sure that our contact information is is current which you know we'll make sure we get back in touch so we're really making an effort just to be facilitators of the exchange of information okay thank you thank you um Paul Madison 40 Montgomery Street um there's a couple things that I had a question about um set back the way that you haveing it is uh if this keeps happening sequentially right I could foresee people's housing going all the way back because you're going ahead and saying right the new build is the average of with the two so if you have is there some way of stopping that yes I I see exactly what you're saying so the idea is to allow for some flexibility but what we don't want to happen is say allow for front yard set back 30 feet but your neighbors are for some reason set back way further so you have to inch further way back we would put in language saying there that it would be the the smaller of the two either that whatever the required front yard set pack is or the average of the two and we can also aish a minimum as well so that way well just let me I understand what you're saying I guess what I'm looking at is sort of like you know 30 down you have multiple um rebuilds yes sequential rebuilds scenario the way you're proposing it right now is that even if you keep taking the minimum of that the two adjacents if you're tearing everything down and rebuilding that front setback keeps going further further back further when you say further back you mean away from the street or close theet away from the street away from the street maybe have a maximum uh away from the street that would be one solution to that yeah I just it's like one of these things that I'm thinking about right yeah language in there and then 50 years from now incremental change this completely represents what the initial intent was of the ordinance yes uh so what we can do is that we'll take look at that I see what you're saying because we want to all L for flexibility but we also don't want to create a scenario where we just keep pushing people back away from the street um especially because that street Frontage is so attractive and varing we can take a look at that sure um the other thing I had a question about well it's it's more really just comment in that it it the proposed FS for the larger Lots seem punitive in terms of you having a larger boock um and I don't maybe you can't get around that but it just seems I I guess what I'm trying to say it seems there's an inequity there um and I that's coming from we are on one of those um not that really makes a huge difference in anything but you know that that proposal is just disproportionately affecting what we could potentially do versus anybody else yes or not anybody else but the smaller Lin and I mean I understand that there has to be some compromise but um I don't know it's something to think about um and then the last thing that I would like to bring up is the residential uh design stands I I read that and I have to say that my hackles raised you know exponential we have been in the neighborhood for more than 20 years and when we moved there one of the things we really liked was that there was no HOA and that it was a real mix of different architectures and the whole idea of there being a what really in my mind is a subjective determination of what fits with the existing design because I mean there there's a huge number of sort of mixed architectures that I mean are incredible I think they're really really nice and you know my neighbor could go ahead and say well I don't like that particular playr of mixed architecture and it doesn't you know someone could say well it doesn't conform to the existing design right and I I I just think that's that seems extreme in in dealing with the neighbor neighborhood because the neighborhood itself is not like every single house is of the same architecture it's not a traed home development so there is a real consistent you know design standard that is established I mean it's a real hodg podge of architecture sizes of houses and yeah I I just think that that's a real problem uh driving up and down the different Tre to Baran City you do see a lot of different AR Styles I I definitely agree with that every street is a little bit different every house sometimes are a little bit different too so that balancing act that we're going to try to achieve with this ordinance is coming up with some certain design standards but at the same time recognizing the architectural flavors there and allowing for that flexibility design and that's G to be a challenge I agree um that's gonna be something that we're going to have to v through an ordinance and work with the community on um but it should not be like a one- siiz fits all solution that you might see in uh you know a newer neighborhood where all the houses look the same and I don't think I wouldn't want that I don't think anybody else would want that I can't speak for everybody else but um it's gonna be the balancing sure I agree and there's just one other thing I just remembered so you have the sliding scale for a lot of these things and one of the things that stood out to me which was kind of a little bit inconsistent was there's no sliding scale for um height that sort of change changing the height from the 35 to the 28 and I mean is if you're really pushing this slide in scale that's dependent on lot size then should it not be consistent in all of those aspects I mean within well we only we only did the sliding scale for percentages right so that would be your floor area ratio and your improving coverage um so those are the only sliding scales that we had because they were already tied to percentage calculation as opposed to everything else which is typically not always but typically a foot setback requirement that being said uh linking a building height to a lot size is something that we can definitely take under consideration because the other thing the other piece of data that was missing is that I don't maybe I I apologize if I missed it but there's no data indicating what is the spread of the house sizes currently in C in terms of floor areas we do have that well not not Flor areas but that's yeah so that's right and so I think it's difficult to properly assess what you know what the existing s of bell curve of that is yes that is data that's a lot more difficult to get unfortunately uh we can come up with rough estimates um but unfortunately it used to be tax dat and now we have to rely on other sources sometimes but tax data would often record what the floor area so we can have that reliably uh we can do more reliable two-dimensional measurements threedimensional with height get a little bit more difficult but it is something that we can look at and there are certain tools that we can utilize to see what those Heights are um and come up with some rough estimates about what the existing Heights of neighborhood are how that would be impacted by a height calculation change and whether or not it makes sense to look at building Heights based on lot sizes okay thank you thank you hi I'm Mary condo I live at six Barian um I have a cou a few like the sparent comments I guess you know it's kind of all over the place but um first I would like to comment on the I guess it would be the shoe the shoe repair house I guess you know that's on the corner of Alexander and Baran I really believe that that should be change to a residential Zone and not a commercial because the shoe repair portion of that is small it's a room and it's a three-story house the rest of it is a three-story house and my concern is it is you know very close to residential and everything else is residential and even even Brothers is fairly residential because they have apartments on top you know and my concern would be that they would tear it down and build something very commercial there and so my my opinion would be to make that particular house commercial you know keep keep brothers and keep the Arts Council or sorry residential keep the Arts Council and brothers commercial but make um the one on the corner um just residential because I think we're allowed to have home home you know businesses out of our you know homes like our home offices and things like that um and then I also wanted to kind of alleviate like some concerns I know that a while ago when we moved in 2008 one of our former neighbors Judith nurse is that what her last name is j yeah they live in she used to live in Ian B's house kerk Judith kerk did a whole study about the houses in Baran and she also did a study about how to appropriately expand them keeping with their FL and so I'm not sure if Judith still has it she has moved out yeah yeah and so that would be very helpful like as as a starting point to begin with the guidelines of how you could codify um different types of additions I also strongly strongly believe you need to codify on what constitutes um reconstruction Remodeling and tear down um because as you know we have a great example on our street of a basically a tear down when it is just a basement and some studs um and we're going to also have a kind of a polar opposite we're going to have a very lovely house with an addition on it on the opposite side of it that conforms to our neighborhood beautifully they said they were going and I'm assuming you all are still they going to use the materials your addition plans are lovely and so it's like a very very I don't know a very very like black and white picture of what could be foreign additions and what maybe is not as cool um and then I guess finally I really want to state that the um the proposed roof Heights is very important because as currently the new house they made it to the maximum of 35 and I would like to share my pictures but I didn't print them off of what it currently looks like in my house now as it is about 15 to 20 feet it's probably about 15 feet away um we no longer have light on our bottom floor when we look out the window um and so if it was capped down seven more feet we would actually have like light we used to have light because the Bungalow there was a story and a half with a sun room on the back and now it's a like a 2,000 square foot rectangle and it's a concern for future people I mean what's done is done and you know their house is their house but for future constructions it's a concern because it's Southern facing like I think they ruined my property value um so that's my concern and do you mind if I just show you real quickly I mean I like it this is what notal that's and conc is so it's just a concern that needs to be addressed and you know we are neighbors and it's important to be neighborly to people and you need to think like not just for yourselves but also for the people living around you thank you thank you hi everyone so my name is Bonnie Chan Jensen and I am the eight Barian Jensen Jen seen yeah yes uh eight Barian so I um thank you for the presentation it was actually very insightful um it's my first um time kind of going through this presentation so thank you so much so I do want to express some concerns about some of the proposals especially that it doesn't consider the adequate needs and considerations of a growing family especially for a family that just moved here who wants to grow and thrive in the community so I do support the small Lots being able to grow um but I when I saw the restriction and Max lock size because of um you know the house that we're currently in I felt that it was very um restrictive on people who are who abide by the current far but is just because of their lot size cannot do um a permit in the future for example if I wanted to do a renovation in my interior bathroom later on I'll have to go through a variance and it would be adding additional um cost and complexity to my family and so um for instance I'm the house that's being built um because we just moved here I'm going to give birth in January and we're planning on you know we're planning on building our family here and in my culture it's very common for us to have multi-generational families uh where you know we're considering baby care and Elderly Care and so for us like we want to be able to um just grow and be able to like be in this house comfortably and so um I know that Renovations are very disruptive and I'm very sorry for all the construction because I know it's very inconvenient but I'm really hoping that this house will be done soon before the baby comes too so we can just move in and get settled um but I really do want you to reconsider the maximum LW size just because to think about the diverse needs of the community and those who rely on a larger lot size to grow their families thank you good evening everyone Susan Abby five Scott Avenue um Sam the shoe repl shoe repair place does that have a variance or is that just it's spend there so long it's just grandfathered oh okay um so that is zoned residential as is actually the Arts counts firehouse and all the other rods yeah I think if um that house is ever sold and somebody wants to tear it down I would imagine they'd probably have to come to the zoning board if they wanted to put a small store or a business of some kind I would think it would automatically be restricted just by the fact that there's no place to park so um you know if it's going to be some small very small thing like the shoe repair place that doesn't get a lot of heavy traffic that would be something that the zoning board is going to take into consideration um but they would have to come to the zoning boards which seems appropriate to me if it is a residential lot um the the parking about the thing about overflow parking for the Arts Council my understanding is that we already have an agreement for that is that correct when they were doing the Arts Council I thought that was one of the factors was that there was an agreement for overflow at the train station um particularly for weekends because um you know nobody's Parking Way at at that Alexander end of the uh Township parking lot on the weekend that's typically uh empty so okay town is not involed they have an agreement with yeah aren we so I mean that that sounds reasonable I thought it already existed I think some people thought it already existed yeah so that wouldn't really be a concern it sounds appropriate especially for weekends and they park down Scott Avenue on the weekends anyway when they have something big so I believe weekends are free at the train station on Wallace Road over there it is they are a lot of people don't know that most people don't know that that you can par for free on the weekends yeah West Winds res and and Consultants ofing West Wind res res checkes oh I don't think they check I would get to take it the issue with the adus um I know that in Baran City and we'll have to I think talk about garages more specifically so many of the houses had garages in the back of course because the lots are so narrow and having a garage in the back and determining what those setbacks are if they do come up with yes you have to allow adus above the garage is a perfect place for it rather than building a house back there at least like with um the one that came to the zoning board the zoning board said make the bottom part a garage door with your space above because they were not able to add onto the house for various reasons I won't go into um I think one thing that should be addressed also is subdivision the issue of subdivisions because we do have houses that have double lots and sometimes the house was centered on the two lots but sometimes it is just built on the one and the other lot is basically free so um you know I think that's something to consider is are we going to allow subdivisions um I assume that goes to the planning board for a subdivision and is there a minimum size that that lot needs to be I think that's something to to come up with as well so that some of those people who do have multiple Lots um they may not want to sell it and have somebody put up a you know 10,000 foot house but they can subdivide it and make some money by selling that extra lot I think that that would be something um it it truly is going to be there's not going to be a one-sized fits-all for this neighborhood I think that's that's just a given and right now pretty much everything has to go to the zoning board so if even only half the stuff has to go to the zoning board that that's a that's a big benefit um f obviously that's something we need to talk about more and get some more feedback on from the residents since we haven't had the real detailed discussion on that and I know um on the committee I mean we went through what about this and what about that what would that mean for this one and that one and it wasn't conclusive because we do want to get feedback from from people with uh multiple Lots um there is no issue on color in our neighborhood we do have a pink house and a purple house so you know I don't think anybody has ever said anything about colors um if you're going to build on an oversized lot is that something you would need a variance for I mean there there's that question I don't know the answer to something to think about I think probably the most important thing um that Izzy brought up was the whole issue of tear Downs Reno you know where is it you know some towns it's as long as you leave the foundation it's it's not even a tear down which is nonsense it if you leave the first floor is if if you take out one wall is is that it if you completely change the whole facade is that you know where do you draw the line on what is such a major renovation that there need to be some kind of rules about it and maybe the rule is just it's strict and you go to the zoning board you know know and I mean the zoning board is pretty lenient assuming that people bring something that that's going to fit into the neighborhood you know we've we've okayed things with you know some pretty good size additions to it including the the house uh that we just had this past month on Baran the little yellow house house in Baran City 700 something square foot house they doubled the size to 1,400 so now it's you know it's going to be huge um 14 well you know and we did allow it to be closer to the house next door with some restrictions about some screening and that kind of thing so um I think that's it you know we have um a lot to hear from the the residents um like I said everybody uh We've encouraged people to get on the mailing list they've all been notified the Facebook page um people showed up we've had meetings at the library and we've gotten feedback already I really want to thank David I think you did such an amazing job with this when you look at the plan when you look at the plan it reflects everything that all of the residents said back in April and I think you know I think you did an amazing job again much you know much more to come and much more feedback for us to get but thank you thank you David no thank you you have talked about defining What fail down Etc is I did asked I from Officer Jason and he said that it's all defined by uniform construction code what is demolition what is new construction what is addition so the uniform construction Cod does Define what you can and can do hi everybody Sam Jensen at aarian so before I jump into it I would just like to apologize for the residents on Baran a for the impact of the construction um very very sorry I understand the disruption and Chaos that can cause for a street especially the size of Baran so really do uh apologize and I would also like to emphasize that my wife and I are very excited to move in and join the community you can dig the mic in your hand maybe I'll pop it up a little so as as I thought about the propos zoning and planning regulations that were reviewed today uh ahead of today's meeting I wanted to get a better understanding from a historical perspective for Barian City and as I read throughout the various sources I came across a document uh that was actually presented uh from with Burgess Associates as a header at a August 2023 West Windsor zoning board meeting and I believe it speaks to the customs and traditions of the original families living in this neighborhood I just wanted to read a quick excerpt so throughout the 1920s and 30s this neighborhood was subdivided into multiple Lots some of which were as small as 5,000 square feet as was the custom during those times families would purchase multiple Lots depending on both their budget as well as their anticipated household size as a result the lot sizes throughout the neighborhood vary greatly in both size and shape and I have a couple copies here if anybody is interested in the core tenants of those who founded this beautiful city were always focused on allowing for a diverse mix of families with larger and smaller families coexisting in the neighborhood this is why I am deeply concerned about the proposed updates to the zoning regulations and believe that it is the opposite of what the intended purpose of the original founders of Baran city were uh aiming for in terms of allowing families to build for not only their current family but growing families whether that's a newlywed couple expecting a kid multi-generational living so maybe somebody wants to have a family an in-law live with them in order to take care of an elder parent and I think that that is really the heart of when I was reading through some of the 2020 land use plan and some of that so that to me stuck struck out very much so fast forward to October 2023 the date of our home in inspection while we were under the purchase process for our home at aarian my wife and I were deeply upset by the results from our inspector which included numerous issues throughout the house not limited to mold throughout the house also significant remediation for that mold and leaks on leaks throughout the house in more locations than I could count on my two hands in the words of our inspector you would be a fool to move forward with the purchase of this house however my wife and I saw the potential in not only the house but also the community and decided to make a significant investment in both the house and the community for our future family we are so grateful for the community and the support that we have received as we progress along with the build process and to my surprise even those residents who have lived in Baran City for decades have been supportive of our plans to build a home that can accommodate our growing family with our baby boy expected this upcoming January it was then that realized that the community of Baran city is much larger than the homes which were built many decades ago but rather the people that live in the community I was also astonished to hear how few people were aware of this proposed zoning regulation being discussed today and it made me realize that this zoning update May potentially be driven by very by few within the community and majority of people being unaware or misunderstanding of the implications and I am happy to see some people I spoke with come today and I hope you support you know voice your opinion as well therefore I implore the board today to consider the following first off I strongly support zoning regulations that would make it easier and more accessible for homes with smaller lot sizes to build bigger residences to acclimate their growing families I see take my neighbor for instance what the most recent variants that they had to do to me is add an unnecessary cost onto their family to go through the variant process and have to you know get all of that together when they just purchased a home and are you know hoping I believe it was to have your uh one of your parents live with you so uh it just adds unnecessary expenses to have to go to a variance so I do support that one one potential uh part I want to voice my opinion however is it the negative impact that this would have on those with larger lot sizes that likely uh you know and these am may have purposely invested in those properties with larger lot sizes in the home purchase knowing that it could accommodate a future growing family or a multi-generational family I would also strongly request that the board remove any type of Maximum lot restrictions and other updates to the zoning that would require those with larger lots to get a variance as I was listening to the discussion at the beginning the goal of this stated planning was to remove barriers to those non-conforming lots so that everybody wouldn't have to go to a variance however it seems that by removing some barriers we're also placing barriers on those larger lot sizes that would essentially be doing what the stated goal was to remove the need for variances and placing undue Financial burdens onto those with larger lot sizes I also would strongly oppose any other type of ma maximum lot width conformance or anything else that would require those homes already in conformance in order to have to go and get a permit or a variance I also want to express my concern for the residential design standards as I was reviewing the homes within Baran City and the years that they were built I noticed that it wasn't all only homes built in the 1920s and 30s and as stated today many of the homes actually do stick out from each other there's a lot of different styles in each of the Decades that homes are built over the past 100 plus years however for whatever reason we're now deciding that this most recent decade of maybe more modern building doesn't fit so that would just be a little bit counterintuitive to the flavor of the neighborhood to have homes from decades from throughout the 20s the 30s the 40s 50s 60s 70s but then all of a sudden we're not saying that homes in the 2020s can build and be included in that community so I know I've been long-winded so I appreciate the uh time today but in in summary I express my concern around the proposed zoning recommendations and you know in discussing with people many people have said to me you know Sam you understand your property is fine you already got your approval why do you care so much and for me while obviously I'm very happy that we were able to have our plans approved really here today on behalf of potentially that future newly LED couple who's considering moving into the township of Baran City and wants to make an investment for not only their family but join that community and you know they might need to make significant renovations to a home that in somebody's words is in irreversible disrepair and in order to make some of those updates and spend that cost you may have to actually make significant Renovations that may not be EXA ly what were uh originally there you know the the outset of a purchase with that I do really thank you and everybody for the time today and apologies for my long-winded speech thank you hi kevino ralo r a n a l l o 106 Harris Road I want to say thank you to to everybody for doing this and thank you Izzy for coming up earlier and saying everything and speaking about everything that we covered um I just have a couple of questions and I'm going to kind of go off script a little bit um from what we were at before so I guess one of the questions is is it possible to bring the map up of Baran City on the the larger screen yes it is thank you uh how is this one work uh uh can you go to the one with the color it might be a little bit easier to see the Define okay that's perfect okay so if you're looking at one of my questions is if you're looking at Harris obviously Harris Springwood parts of Lily are not technically in baring City according to the map right so oh yes yeah West right so I think the last block on the inside would be 114 probably 114 ha right exactly yes the uh so that would be the house that was just torn down and put up uh the house next to that would actually be my aunt's that house that my aunt grew up in her father actually built that house uh and then further on down it goes and then you have Springwood and then it goes to Lily and then parts of Lily are in Baran how would this all affect the areas outside of that so I live on Harris if you're going to re I wouldn't say say restrict but change the zoning on Harris for say a portion of the road the rest of that road there's a lot of double Lots down toward the high school right so then is it is this going to affect that portion as well and if not can we kind of incorporate that into it even though it's not technically within the Baran city map it's they it's on the same street so you'd have essentially zoning two different zonings for one street to me that wouldn't make sense and then same thing with Lily and then Springwood also because it some of those houses back up to houses on Harris uh and obviously on Clarksville and uh 571 as well um so it's a concern that's a concern so the answer the first question um me go back to uh this map so as you mention men the the properties highlighted in colors and also with that yellow outline that's what we're talking about so you know if zoning regulations new ones would be implemented those properties to the south of that going to Springwood and to the high school would remain in that R20 district there so nothing would change for those properties uh whether or not we want to incorporate those in this you know I had worked with planning forward back in 2020 with cat where just to make sure that we were kind of encapsulating what we thought was the historical development pattern of Baran City so that's kind of a larger question um obviously if you link it up to a master plan you can make zoning recommendations but that's where that boundary line was we tried to delineate that to the general historic boundary of Varian city right it' be up to really the board if they wanted to expand that the that study I mean for me obviously as a resident I would recommend it because as it is that one house that went up it I have it somewhere it was just the size of it compared to the houses next to it and now if this is not included you're going to have a similar situation where one side of the street is going to be completely different than the other side of the street and then even more different than the further side because as you make that bend going towards the high school the houses are much it's a different style house so you're G to it's going to be kind of like all over the place uh so I would definitely consider looking into that and seeing if that could be something that could be implemented just so it's you're not driving down a street and all of a sudden you're like whoa mcmansions where am I am I in like you know a big development somewhere um let's see and I know uh the shoe repair repair place was covered and brothers was kind of covered but what would happen if say Brothers the the owners of the property decided to sell somebody came in they're like we no longer want this we're gonna you know maybe get rid of the building take the building down and put something new up what would happen uh and then like the shoe repair as well so if that's mixed use now is is am I mistaken is that what you had said that that was yeah yeah uh yes and no so we would want to one of the recommendations of the ideas would be to in that mixed use like you said that Subs age uh to allow for pre-existing non-conforming uses which existed at the time of the adoption of the ordinance but if one of those pre-existing buildings was to be removed then they're basically losing that status okay they wanted to build a new commercial building they have to go for one stus the zoning board it wouldn't be permitted the idea would be to um allow for those pre-existing structures to continue and allow for them to make some sort of addition or some sort of improvement to it without necessarily needing zoning board approval what those parameters would look like obviously we still have to work on but if they were to be removed and somebody wanted to say build a quick check there or something like that that would require D1 use St have to it would not be permitted by zoning okay that's good uh let's see sorry uh and to speak to new families coming into the neighborhood you know married couples wanting to grow their family and expand the houses and so forth and so forth uh I can kind of speak directly to that so my mother grew up at 110 Harris the house was purchased in the probably the mid-40s uh she end up marrying my father they moved next store to 106 they had a family uh three of us were there three my two brothers and myself my father and my mother we ended up we did end up putting an addition they did convert the second floor the attic to living space and then we added a 20 by 20 addition on the back which was in reason reasonable addition the house is not enormous it in my opinion it fits the lot the way you know it should uh we did speak to the neighbors because back then we would go knock on a neighbor's door and say hey Mr blay do you mind if we do this hey you know Mrs Hall is it cool if we do this let's discuss it and see what's going on uh and that's kind of what we did it was the neighbors were family um you know and then when we were going to sell my grandmother's house I shouldn't have been surprised but I was that almost everybody that came in to try and purchase the house was giving us a lowball offer because they said the lot's not large enough for us to build the house that we want to put on it and my response was well then this is not the lot for you and the real estate agent was kind of surprised they're like do you want to know what an offer is and I'm like no this isn't their house it's a smaller lot it's essentially a starter home now even though my grandparents and my mother and Uncle grew up in that small house and then Along Came this family who unfortunately isn't here tonight I think they had a back of school night and they said we love the house we'd like to make an offer and I said I told the real estate agent let's hear it because they love the house they wanted to move in and they would expand the house with their family and from my understanding now they're currently wanting to put a reasonable addition on the house they're not looking to knock it down they fell in love with the charm just like a few neighbors down the road for me they moved here probably three four years ago they said the same thing we'd love the charm of the neighborhood it wasn't about it was affordable we could knock it down put something larger up on a lot it's the charm of the neighborhood and I think that if we start doing more houses like 114 Harris uh I can't speak to theirs because I haven't seen it complete I've only seen it framed but it's definitely very much different than the neighboring houses um I think 114 is a cautionary tale that we have to look at uh now that was also a flipper so the person that built that does not live there I met the family that lives there they're lovely they're amazing people um and part of me kind of feels a little bit bad because there are like bad feelings about the house but because they're such nice people whatever they're they're great neighbors right as far as I can tell right now um but I think that expanding a house for a growing family is possible without having to have it huge um but we'll discuss all that you know in the in the baring City meeting with with hopefully additional people this time um yeah I think that's it um oh and to speak to the the I guess the the article or the the the letter about the Lots being purchased um just a funny side note I remember going up speaking to my grandmother on Harris and the story was when they moved in Harris was a deadend dirt road a lot of those houses going towards the end didn't exist and she always said those lots were available for like a hundred or $200 at the time when they were there and to this day I'm like why didn't you buy them right so even I right and it was always money was tight I'm like beg borrow and steal at this point right like but like that being said a lot of of those are you know double Lots I believe one is a triple lot and that triple lot house is a prime example of great house Big Lot un assuming you would never even know what that house was um but the double lots and everything that are there now they didn't build huge on it they didn't need to um so I think that's just something that I think we're all going to have to look at and hopefully figure out uh sorry I rambled and thank you once again I appreciate it thank [Music] you hello thank uh Dave Kimmel 11 Scott a 11 Scott Avenue so thank you again to the staff for all the work that you put into this and uh the planning board for working on it uh just want to Echo some of what other people have said and add a few more notes echoing uh what Kevin just said I I think there is the character that the neighborhood is is important and it is a neighborhood of generally smaller houses than any other part of West Windor and generally smaller Lots so I am in favor of and others with of the proposed smaller flary ratio and sliding scale and um it's the size of the house size of the houses are important also not just for the neighborhood but for um more affordability and sustainability and you can also still have a larger house uh it's still possible um want to set the goal as the neighborhood character but um you can always get a variance if if if something doesn't fit for what what the community is set for um but what Kevin said too I can relate to that it's like um it's it's possible to have a growing family and live in a small house and my wife and I also live in a relatively small house and um it's you know new newly wed couple in the neighborhood and that that's possible also um but in terms of some other things residential design standards I think it's also important for incorporating that into the zoning ordinance and I know it's a challenge to and appreciate your work on that um trying to customize it for whatever the neighborhood wants there's a lot of different architectural Styles um but you'll know when something is not of the right of the when something's out of character you you'll know it like some of like what um Curtis was sharing so how do you sort of codify that terms of um I agree with the comments about tear downs and trying to make more sense of that um the mayor mentioned that the uccc has a definition so my request would be you know we're writing ordinances and zoning rules so if the UCC definition doesn't work then let's come up with our new definition that works for West wsor and for this for Baran city um also for growing families uh the accessory dwelling units is a important thing also for older Generations so yeah maybe the state will one day will pass a enact a law that allows it in all zones all throughout the state but who knows when that'll happen so why don't we be creative and innovative really think about it and take a look at it um also I think like part of uh one characteristic of the neighborhood that is attractive is that there is a small amount of commercial and that there's places for people to walk to or destinations you can meet people on your way out there uh the more people that are out the slower the traffic will be so there's more walkability um so I think the the main thing is to if there's any commercial that it should just be appropriate for the neighborhood like I think people I appreciate there there's a restaurant there's an Arts Council um things of that nature I don't know how to how you would Define that or limit that but um you know any other place in westwinter it's a bunch of houses and here we have additional things that we can walk to um so again I thank you for the work and I look forward to seeing the next pieces that come out thanks thank you Jen ping Wang nice Scott Avenue thank you for the tremendous amount of work uh I mean it's really an education for me um just couple observation I think Baran City you said it right it's a Charming neighborhood and I think everybody here would like to maintain the the charm and part of the charm is its variant it's not um all built in certain style so forth there's big variation every time I walk with guests down the road you know put out oh look at this one look at that one and when you talk talk to the elders who a lot of them are no longer around they can tell you a lot of story about why this house is here where is that come from and so forth so um my point is that the characteristic that when we trying to codify it's really very challenging and on the other hand I do respect that is should be some reasonable uh guideline so when you consider the two personally I cherish the fact that this country allow for so much variance and and I would like you to consider to be as non prescript if it's all possible so don't be too specific specific and saying this kind of building material is good this kind of building material is not good this style and so forth but I don't know how to advise you but just be reasonable not go too extreme one way or the other the other things that I would like to just mention I hear about this building height uh I was kind of surprised that it get reduced probably for a particular reason but I think the building High become more critical problem when it's very next to a very narrow to the next neighbor so if you8 feet away from your neighbor it it is a very uh impulsive uh height but if it's further away so the distance to the next whatever building or neighbor I think should be considered not the absolute just one size fit or as one the other thing I wasn't quite clear reading this and I hear a little explanation is the maximum lot size um and I'm not quite sure what do actually mean for uh residents who right now is living in a lot size that is greater than the number that was there and what does that mean um if we want to renovate a kitchen uh does that considered to be required a variant or not so I like a little bit more explanation of what this maximum lot size does thank you of course thank you um we just get to that page what we talked about so what that lot size would do is that a couple things one if somebody wanted to uh acquire a different property or do a lot line adjustment with a neighbor a lot line adjustment is when you your neighbor change what your lot lines are uh if you wanted to acquire additional property and you were over that threshold yes you need a baring if you wanted to renovate the interior of your house um in my vision of this uh no you would not need a barage for that so you would be pre-existing condition if you wanted to renovate your house you wanted to renovate uh you know bedrooms garage you know install a new kitchen that would not trigger a type of variance um what we' be looking for is really new construction that's at least the the thought process I would have in crafting regulation so if somebody wanted to knock down the house and build a new one then I think that would probably trigger variance in that scenario if it was an over lot okay thank you hello uh Christopher dils 4y Baran um I want to start by saying that we we bought in Barian City because we love the houses we love the arure we love the variability we love um generally the whole neighborhood um as we've been living here we've come to love our neighbors as well they're pretty awesome people um I I do have a couple of concerns um mostly being that when we bought the house we had plans for to expand um we do plan on going slightly larger it is modest uh with the proposed changes it now now what we want to be doing Falls larger than what is allowed because we're right around uh uh I don't I don't know that it's worth bringing up um but uh we're right around the center where it starts going from allowing more to allowing less um and now that small addition kind of becomes problematic uh to meet what we're looking to do um and uh the the only other thing I wanted to mention was we had looked at places with HOAs um and we explicitly decided not to buy in a place that had an HOA because we we didn't like the limitations uh it would apply that would apply to the residents um and I I'm a little worried that as we're adding more and more um more limitations to what's being proposed it's feeling closer to an HOA it's not but that's the general feeling that's all thank you um anyone else from the public wish to speak please step up we have we have somebody okay no problem everybody gets a chance to speak uh John Karan k o r a an5 Scott Avenue um I want to thank you for all the work you did um took into consideration all of everything that the residents in the previous meeting came up with thought it was well done um I think one of the things to look at for the neighborhood U is maybe pan back and look at the big picture of the whole Township and you have a a variety diversity of all kinds of houses in the neighborhood but one of the things that Baran city has is compared to all of what's out there it's a uniqueness so that when you look at the design standards that seem to be subjective um there's a a uniqueness um or that there's a diversity within that uniqueness so I don't know if I'm getting too deep into this whole thing but the whole idea that you might have some um just this smattering of design standards throughout the whole Township it does kind of narrow down when you get into this neighborhood so that you really see a few design kinds that seem to pop out whether it's a Dutch Colonial um just a regular Bungalow but there are traditionally height standards throughout the United States for these different types of houses that we've seen specifically in this neighborhood so that when you look at the whole neighborhood as a whole compared to what we have and people could be happy in the larger houses if they want more square footage the uniqueness of being in this particular proximity of all this um train station the different um commercial needs that people have that kind of draws you into this area and it wants to be um condensed trying to keep from getting too condensed like we have that development on the other side of the tracks now um that kind of gives you a feeling of you almost have to preserve make a stand almost that this is what we have we're proud of it and we want to maintain those particular standards so I I just I don't know if I get too far into it but um anyway that's my thoughts on it and uh thanks again for all the work you didk thank you okay anybody else in the planning board I actually have a question for everybody just show who has a basement here has a basement look at that thank you also you should ask who has a it's also that people know that the basement is not considered in the F that was so if you you may have a whole another Flor in your basement that you finished and that's not counted in your that was one of the things um okay anybody from the board I'll uh I'll entertain them go ahead there okay again so again thanks everyone for coming gentleman selected all the input they yeah they go back and uh process the input if you have neighborhood meetings and gather more input just email it to Sam and he will incorporate in that and whenever they are ready with the next step uh we will come back again I mean there's there's no strict timeline or uh any desire outcome whatever the community agrees to that that's what we want to do um regarding timing I mean I know some of you in last meeting said you're in a hurry to do that just want to warn you uh the affordable housing numbers are coming in two months I always keep talking about that and depending on what happens the gentleman will get very busy and that is required by law so we have timelines follow so just want to put that on the table but we will keep processing all the input you keep giving us so just keep emailing Sam whenever you have meetings and gather something more again thank you everybody for coming out tonight um I know there's a lot of different opinions a lot of thoughts but everybody was very respectful and you'd be surprised that the number of meetings that you can show up to where it's not soal so really I appreciate everybody's in thank you I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing second second second by the mayor all in favor say I okay I'm not available okay uh meeting a Jour there's no that would be the second Wednesday thir third Wednesday first saying every other but it's