January 17 2024 meeting of the West Windsor planning board is called to order um Yep this to to advise that notice of the time date location and the extent known agenda of the subject meeting was prominently hosted in the public place reserved for such or similar announcement on January 5 2024 and transmitted to the times the Princeton packet and West Windsor and uh Plainsboro news on January 5 2024 and file with the Township Clerk on January 5 2024 the first order of business is going to be um seating of new members um Martin has already been sworn in congratulations thank you sir if congratulations is the right word but uh thank you we'll see how you feel after correct correct and then sue um if you could stand raise your right hand and just read your the O of office government the United States and in this state under the authority of the people I further so congratulations welcome back and let's do this by a ro Mr bratel yes Mr L councilman Whitfield yes mayor marate 15 years 15 years now exactly thank you everybody for um well I don't know if I should say thank you but I'm the chair again uh 16th year here on the planning board so thank second by Rob Mr Patel Mr Lao I'm sorry are there any other nominations mayor marate yes Mr hogerman yes and chairman car yes honored honored to serve thank you very much great thanks Mike and Curtis for your service you've been wonderful yeah I guess so um I'll entertain a motion councilman Whitfield yes mayor morate yes Vice chairman hberman yes chairman C yes motion carries congratulations to Lisa uh I'll entertain a motion for selection of recording secretary Cindy zura hope I got that right hello move by S um Sue second by Curtis please call the Ro Mr Patel yeah Mr Lao yes Miss applicate councilman Whitfield yes mayor marate yes Vice chairman hberman yes chairman cart yes congratulations Cindy thank you another year um next order business resolution adopting planning board procedural guidelines 2024 pb2 2024 r-0 one Jerry you wanna anything you need to enumerate on that oh and Sam do you want to say anything Sam the only thing we did is we're changing the number of times the board meets um rather than the first four Wednesdays of the month so will be the first and third Wednesdays of the month for this year unless there's unless there's a need for a special me correct um any any discussion or I'll entertain a motion to adopt resolution planning board procedure guidelines 2024 PB 2024 r-01 do I have a motion so moved moveed by the mayor second second by Sue all in favor say I I motion carries um okay next order business consent agenda a through L planning uh these are different um meeting notices authorizations for uh Vice chair and chair to approve bills Fire Marshal plane board so on and so forth is there anybody look through these if I may answer that all also there's a whole series of appointments um and they start with uh actually D and go uh through K so basically all professionals um are on the consent agender as a plan board engineer planning board attorney environment engineer traffic engineer the planner Burgess Associates planning board noise and air engineer um unless somebody wants to specifically talk to one I don't want to talk I just want to point out that this noise and air engineer is the first time we are appointing second time we appointed yeah but last year Midway through we started yeah yeah yeah did we did we ever use them remember the warehous oh yeah yeah yeah point out that um Martina Bley I think you all know she's been an associate in my office for about five years or so she became a partner as of January 1 and um do I hear a motion unless we W to select one of the Mr L Miss appoc councilman Whitfield yes approv um ni next item on the agenda is liaison reports environmental commission okay affordable housing Comm Jord is not here so we'll table that um what you yeah um okay so next alleng to the University's um the portion on Fitz Rand what was it called again Sam the university pres no it's not the Lakeside campus open up for the public to talk on come up to microphone say your name uh address agenda non- pending items so if anybody wants to talk about something that we're not going to discuss tonight or something that we want to talk about but it can't be a pending application and Scott Avenue just wanted to say hello again make a come to somebody from the board tries to come to the the meeting stay on top of things and stay engaged um and just as a general comment you know safety is always very important for people that are walking and biking around town things that we you know support for safety thank you um Market Fair Southend improvements 14 this was actually handled by edme I was uh not in town that day um but uh there was a a large fake and Dave you want to describe yeah sign waiver relief for an edvs to occupy a space on what would probably be just best described as the south wester facade space previously occupied by a sports business that went out of business East Mountain Sports thank you also received um approval for a new entrance into the mall itself so it'll be an entrance into the restaurant as well as an entrance into the mall there were various facade improvements access and uh several signs which were approved uh and granted wave of relief for that approval I thank you thank you so resolution PB 23-9 and I have um I have a number of I don't even think I need to get into them none of Themis oh Lisa will do it okay with Jerry's Corrections that he'll hand in l mayor morat yes so next up on the agenda we're going to talk about uh Dutch neck Planning and Zoning study it's a continuation the heing so I'm still sworn in for the board otherwise this would have been a very uncomfortable meeting for me um three we had edited and revised that document B at the November 8th 2023 I know I discussed this last time but just as a very brief overview again of what is a master plan a master plan is a comprehensive long-term strategic development guide guide a master plan is typically divided into a bunch of different chapters or what we call Elements and over the past several years we've been working on updating several of those chapters I won't go through each one but if anybody was meeting we had actually adopted a conservation plan element forceable development regulation that can only really the mayor and Council has the power to Zone again to recap from last time we're doing this because this is reiterated and refined later by your 2008 reexamination report your 2018 reex amination report and the 2020 land use plan and essentially all those documents recognize that this is a unique area of West Windsor and the zoning that currently handles and encompasses that area doesn't really match up or reflect the existing development pattern in that area so this document is intended to serve as a guideline or a blueprint for futures uh in that area it's impossible to do so but this at least gets properties more in compliance so that way if a home owner does want to add an addition they do want to improve their house they might not need a variance or if they do the extent to which if it's required isn't as aggressive because we made several edits of the document based upon the edits but I will touch upon some of the substantial ones regard to the proposed r2b district and that was Dutch neck and we had previously evaluating the propriety of whether or not we should have fre dwelling units there um however after from the Ford and hearing from the uh public we have removed that recommendation uh what we've done D I'm sorry regarding this point I just want to bring to the attention a letter from davidu regarding adus yes so I thought it was a good segue into that letter because you just mentioned it but since you said it we we'll address it right now um essentially we were on the same page but we don't want this in this District at this time um this is good information to have but it won't be relevant PN okay that was a recommendation we made in other proposed districts of that zone as well that means if you have an old property there they already had an accessory dwelling unit this would say that any accessory dwelling unit or accessory apartment whatever you want to call it that was in existence use that are unattached from the primary residence in this Zone uh I believe there is yes uh on the right side of the road or right side has no problem with attached and and you'd agree recommendation to allow adus future adus as a permitted we took use that is correct yes okay thank you Mr Don you for well drafted letter speaking of the r2b district uh we did provide text that simply just suggested that the list of perit permitted in that District uh in this plan okay the road there you have an odd intersection and you also have speed limits that are changing there um that recommendation doesn't necessarily result in a physical Improvement and Michael proba get on my case um as Shakespeare said though what is in a name I think that was Shakespeare he did right but the November 8th meeting we also heard a number of comments regarding the lack of buffering uh between residential and non-residential uses specifically uh referencing Windsor Chapel as well so we do make a recommendation to encourage additional buffering between residential and non-resident recommendation that the Dutch neck District mirror those uses which are already primarily permitted in the R2 district and the R2 20 District Two family uh it had been converted into a one family so we corrected that that we made plus some minor um informatical errors uh we updated this document to refer to as the 2024 study now um we do have new board members congratulations so I'll have to add your name to the document um that would be another change I would have to make um but those are the minor changes that we made I'm sorry the major changes that we made but if anybody um so if you referred to a page number says let me know if you're looking at the redline version a compliment to us in the second paragraph which I always love seeing um um so there's number historic elements in it or houses or places but it's not delegated as a historic area which was generally smaller Lots um would it historic preservation historic committees uh Historic Site designation that was all discussed and there's no recommendation at that time to implement any type of order putting hairs but when we talk about historic district think about KES down there or if something gets knocked down very spe just for historic preservation purposes so that's the reason why this historic did not incapsulate the entirety of Dutch neck um because it wasn't based necessarily on historic preservation those proposed districts were based on lot Arrangement and lot size so we focus that core Dutch that H where we have the smallest houses they are also the oldest home for example the r2b district those 1737 I think it is it's I believe documented in uh section 14 which is the historic preservation plan element of that plan and it's uh special pointing out uh you know there's uh so uh there's another recommendation that I was a little intrigued by um as the um uh no objection if the board was so inclined to include those within this um there is a number of reasons for that part of the of activity was he wanted to be closer to the street because that's where life was two houses the you you basically laid out real no difference right it's conforming in the other the other zone or it those lots are conforming to the R20 I double check their Zone their areas I believe they are conforming to the R20 District at least in terms of the lot size so whether whe they in one District or the other right well they yeah did say they could self divide but they would have to meet the lot width which they might not still um there would be slight changes in what we recommended for coverages okay and setbacks um but in terms a specific lot size uh that would not change okay so okay um where where there's the bullet points for the proposed Dutch neck Hamlet District uh two bullet points in particular I want to have amplification pleas uh consider allowing for greater design to be done ordinance correct when we talk about design flexibility some of the examples we give for front yard setbacks um that would be additional design flexible and then brought back to the planning board for referral and then brought back for adoption and and establishing such ordinance um uh I'm going to guess part of the intent and we've done this a lot of times is revising uh creating revising uh the uh both standards so we have less on a lot that's 6,000 square feet and you have a the zoning stands that are designed for that District might not necessarily reflect your front yard side yard rear yard sack back because it's your lots too small uh by the time you figure out what your building envelope is which is where you take your front your side your rear yard what you can build in between sometimes you don't get anything that's possible to develop so we we can't remove the need but at least it makes that proc that we actually have the address yeah people are uh going to know addresses as look at this document more than you know looking at trying to find na page find where the prop is we can add um block and lot information as well that might be helpful what I'll have to do I mean it's definitely you'd have to probably go to a landscape I was about to say we'll have to go to a landscape but we'll figure that out whatever I think I think would be more uh user friendly to have an address on this it's funny I was referring to when I was preppering for tonight I was referring to this table and I it was getting frustrated that I only included the ID and the address so I would agree thank you anybody else yeah no no I agree I mean addresses are easy to figure out most people know those exactly your page 18 I think can can you uh is there anything um Mr Dan's uh letter that needs to be changed or or is there any anything there that needs to be looked at changed discussed I think a lot of these match up with what is already permitted in the2 District yeah for the sale and processing of agricultural products we actually established that is a permitted You Right to Farm Act here right State stat in the state statute um Community residences uh typically certain group homes are already established as permitted uses personent to the municipal land use law so we would carry that over as we would not need that use in those zoning districts either uh but that would be reflective of the accessory dwelling unit language okay thank you uh open space clusters uh that allows for one acre lots based on the how many Lots the township where that's permitted is allows developers first prepare and then rep so often times when people hear that phrase open space cluster development they think that means more houses more houses it just means small if we were were to remove my opinion is if we were to remove that the developer will figure out a way how to get 10 one acre lots on that space so I have no problem with leaving it uh sometimes they will try to do that through a share driveway so we've seen those applications and know sometimes those designs work and sometimes they don't out of those in all of our residential districts as a conditional use outside of this District area okay the only and uh when it comes to transmission lines antennas and Aerials the only thing I would pause with not profit or semi-of um buildings will install an antenna um for additional income so I've seen that with you know firehouses occasionally well s you we'll talk tonight not so much about what I in among our group since this is a planning process and later on there will be ordinances enacted based upon some of these these recommendations what are the recourses for us as a group if we want to continue to impact the development in community in a way that that we we would like to see it go is is this the last chance we're going to get is this our only fight at the Apple or an influence in what happens well I can answer that if the board to approve the study tonight with whatever changes they agreed to happen is that David and I would have to write the ordinance gendis for an introduction at a council meeting then it will be sent to this body the planning board where we'll go into extreme detail about setbacks uses conditional uses the public will have an opportunity to when they have a public hearing when the public would have another opportunity to comment at the township council meeting okay yep so you would have two hypothetically this document was ad stay into that specific site and and its plans as a group we would like to somehow impact and how the community develops and what it looks like um I know in my plan that I submitted to you the people you know I had one vision of it what I'm going to represent right now is a second Vision which is West Windsor Chapel area was thing to start pretty much whatever they want to do the other thing that that concerned me was following the the the December you guys blocked Us in and we have no room to grow be concerned about go for and smaller homes or smaller lots and I think what we would like to talk about is for any future construction and regate it and and structure in such a man and aesthetically the same as what we have now size is 12,000 Square F feet the question the first question was can you establish a maximum loss price I think so yes yeah okay so so that you know if we have a property for instance the West witer Property which is I think seven acres are sidewalks deeper yards that would act small town V and we would like that that you would recommend it um VI page I think it's page 35 wasn't it that could be 123,000 the the existing Medan about whether you can put a l a maximum for for any of these new erors um minimum lock width 75 ft the average is 73 fine um3 ft you'd almost have every new property going in if it would to match what was already there so can that be changed we could increase that rear yard what we don't necessarily want to do though is because that's a mean and a median if we look at some of the you got to be careful with that because you got to do the calculation on what size house goes there otherwise what will happen is you'll have a very narrow house with a big deep yard so I have the mean and the median but I'd like to see what the minute value is and what the maximum value is because what we don't those Corner properties right next to the church their rear setbacks are going to be five feet Maybe by memory 7 Fe okay necessarily those all not conforming but we can certainly take a look at those rear setbacks and property that involves new construction then we would have bulk standards that would be applied just to those properties yeah we we do make that recommendation uh in certain regards right so for example I think with the floor area ratio um we're saying hey if you're maintaining your dwelling you can increase that by a certain percentage if you're knocking down and building something new you're stuck at that smaller percentage so yeah we can we've implemented some of that in this already just to do exactly what you're you're uh looking to restrict against which is those houses that do make improvements but if you knock it down then you're going back to scratch okay so so if I'm hearing this right you you can use bulk standards to sort of dry would happen on any new area develop can we do that we try to it's a balancing a we try to craft these to but my explanation or my request and for me when I looked at your plan one of the things that struck me was that this West meets and and South way it's like 700 feet you know and I just I felt like going That's desirable I I think it's desirable I also still don't understand and we don't understand why we have have a r2b reading it it looked like that was designated as a separate district for the purposes of looking at adus and for having different setbacks but the setbacks weren't that off of what the standard would be for the rest of Adu issue there uh the question is why still have it why why do we have to have yep uh so the setbacks specifically sidey setbacks uh probably remain the same the main mean value and the existing meeting value around 73,000 sizes uh granted the housing there is older but they are zoning near Dutch neck intersection there um essentially what you are doing is that you um that's why those properties were not included small houses right which are lovely houses but you get those small I look I guess this is creates the potential for um a it doesn't reflect what's there but B it would also um generate the anything other than what would you generally place it up on the well that's a good that's a very good question it depends on what they want to do so hypothetically say if one of those properties wants to add an addition and it's completely conforming so any property under within 200 feet would get notice of that applic vision and and knock down the houses and build a new house or a couple houses there then there would likely be an application in front of this board for a subdivision um if it is a major subdivision I.E over a certain number of houses I think it's two in this ordinance and they're putting in additional improvements there would be 200 foot notice from the entirety of that boundary so depending on where you live uh there might be notice requirements for what they're going is that is that um we know from property that point that was were slaves and and other available and go on a Marketplace what would be and I'm not sure we can answer that here but I'm going to ask you what what would be the uh I guess the Historical Society or Andor the Township's position on that is that something that would would even come into consideration even though it's no longer I mean whoever was there got moved to a different location is that something that because there's for us that's a big now now where everybody's become aware of it it's a bigger part of the community it's important yes if it was if they wanted if let's say the school district wanted to auction off the Dutch neck school because they were building a bigger one somewhere else and that property came in for residential is that they have to do what's called a phase one environmental assessment that's every developer would have to do that during that phase one it would come up was if one Cemetery or currently be one that would trigger potentially a phase two um environmental reservation board or something sh yes sh those remains were because they did a fantastic job doing all that history and that research located to Cedar Hill Cemetery um on page 36 under the redline version you talked about uh traffic coming you know somebody gets hurt there I don't know whether this force that through or whether we need to submit a detailed traffic study or something else whatever I'm in on that there was a traffic traving on that road there's some talk that the new standard will allow you to change that but that speed came higher than that and they did bu emailed somebody from your neighborhood who has jurisdiction to put let's say we want to put involved also in that the county would have to agree to put a stop sign on their side no they would just take a look at they they would do the study and then we have to get agreement from the county to the truth of the matter is people are not paying attention and if you are trying to go the other way if you're trying to cross Village so I don't have a copy those signatures if if the you guys can make copies and submit it to you I'll then submit I'll send a letter over to you yeah I mean signatures are not necessary I live mile from there and my kids attended Dutch neck for 12 years so I would still I would address her apology if you going to have a historic district with an aesthetic appeal and and any of these things can be placed right outside of the area but that's why I took out the antennas a celf tower in the middle of D hway theer Tower Church Ste if there a screening yeah large American flags that when we've had um telecom companies come before the restrict them to going on to ex electrial stanions or some other to have a brand new back to the permanent and conditional you I think I probably had a misunderstanding of open space thank you explanation course he said they have no plans of selling uh and school district has no plan that conversation has not I mean in fact I wish nobody gets ideas based on this discussion that they can do something with the church I mean that's my fear so nothing is I can't predict the future but absolutely nothing is planned I understand that we we're here today doing something that basically is going to set the pattern for the next 20 years yes so it's just due diligence now Absolut absolutely I'm here I don't think anything is happening thank you my name is Matt Wargo um just a couple yeah um but the stop sign we put in signs and then we so people are just driving whatever speed they want but if you look at the town of cranberry nobody drives past 20 or 30 in that town and it's because they live there we never any enforcement there how many of them were from West wi sir and roughly 70 75% are your neighbor and I've never seen in 12 two one or two three days of school but find out from the chief okay yeah right um so that's that's basically what I wanted to share just to add from what David said thanks thank you wish to speak Linda can you spell your last name okay 20 haor Drive Princeton Junction um I am council president no there should be no confusion if they received the use variants to put the non-conforming use in and then they want to knock it down and rebuild it to the exact same square footage they have there is a section of the code lot and the house burns down um they do not footage then they just apply for a permit does this to to say what accessory uh Apartments as per as a permitted use okay uh it is not recommended that accessory apartment time is is bothering me because it sounds like we're opening a door it's not you know it's a moment in time when this is approved I don't know Strong's statement um that at this time shows up on page one it shows up on page 29 um it shows up in page 32 33 yeah unless the board has any objection I can certainly and if the board if the board has no objection we can certainly take some of the problems with um people are parking there and some of them are going the residence's backyard and through two houses there which is rather unbelievable but it did occur so um I was wondering to be a regular currence I didn't necessarily mean the infractions I meant that if if the school was to continue to utilize winter reiterate again what I said at um we do these studies which and it's too late now for the Dutch next study but for other studies that will come up in time is is for our professionals to have at least one meeting the residents in that area I mean it can be public meeting but somehow that there could be some contct so that you know the people living in that area can take a look at a draft and see you they like it there's and make some comments so so that we don't have extended work through the issues I think it's more um hi I'm Cynthia Yoder and I did swear in last time or meetings ago um I just had a thought about the the traffic and the you said the state had a certain requirement in terms of the speed being 80% or whatever um does that 80% thing apply to a curve traffic engineer okay but as a general rule um it's 85% but that has been uh boogaboo for us because we have done various studies around town and been unsuccessful in reducing the speed limit okay because you often see like reduced speeds around a curve so I thought maybe I don't know I mean there is a sign going toward the 25 M hour speed zone that says 25 M per hour speed zone ahead and it doesn't seem to do anything to to Matt Matt wargo's point I mean the township did make some changes at that intersection based on recommendation from someone I don't have the name now but we did do stop sign yeah I mean if you send me message I can send you the whole uh Dave Kimmel South Mill is that right um Road East to South Mill I think yeah yeah it seems like that the purpose of that is to move cars more quickly through that area just wondering if that curve is even necessary straight up Crossroads like well be before the bypass went through Princeton Oaks that was the main way and most of the traffic kind of did a snake through town to go traffic analysis done of that intersection and submit a report to the county I just want to make sure I want to give everybody an opportunity to have their say and uh have their input and I I just want to add too I've been doing this for about 12 years now and um this is probably one of the most polite and thoughtful groups that no I just wanted to compliment everybody here that that's uh okay so at this time no more public com so moved moved by the mayor second second um all in favor say I okay um okay let's discuss okay okay sorry I thought everybody was disussed um's gonna talk to Sam for a moment but um do you have any questions for David anybody on board okay David do you have questions that the public had um specifically Mr danu um issues where we've IE traffic study to be done so on and so forth is there anything that