Transcript for Piscataway Zoning meeting on June 22 2022
Note: Transcripts are generated by rev.ai and may not be fully accurate. Please listen to the recording (below) if you feel any text is inaccurate.
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Hi Tom, can you hear me? Speaker 2 00:00:10 Hi, Ms. Smith. How are Speaker 1 00:00:13 I'm pretty good. Speaker 0 00:00:16 Joined the meeting. Speaker 2 00:00:26 Ms. Smith, Speaker 3 00:00:27 One Speaker 2 00:00:28 Updated agenda. Speaker 3 00:00:30 Did you get my text message? Yes. Speaker 1 00:00:32 Thank you. I believe so the two items, M and i p t? Speaker 3 00:00:37 Yes. Just use the agenda. I just emailed you though, just in case. Speaker 2 00:00:41 Yeah, because there's, there's, there we have two m and m things. It's the m and m Realty partners at Piscataway is what's on the seat this afternoon, not the at HOS lane. Speaker 1 00:00:55 Okay. Then I, I need another one then. Yeah. I emailed you. Lemme look. Emails. Speaker 3 00:01:00 Yep. Okay. That's the newest, latest and greatest. Speaker 2 00:01:02 Just wanted to make sure. Crazy day Laura. Crazy day. Speaker 1 00:01:08 It sounds like it from all these agendas. It sounds like you guys are going through it. Speaker 3 00:01:13 If you came in my office, right? Oh, not including the phone calls yet. Speaker 1 00:01:19 It's, I see the agenda for the, oh, for the futures to see. We were gonna put those on. Speaker 3 00:01:29 No, I emailed you five minutes ago. The revision date is 6 22 22. Speaker 1 00:01:35 Yeah. Well that's what I got here. But it has at Ho Lane. Speaker 2 00:01:38 Yeah. No, that's the, that say 6 22 on them that have the one has the old at Ho Lane one has the new realty. So it's all good. Speaker 3 00:01:49 Well figure it out. Speaker 2 00:01:51 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:01:51 It's not all good if I don't have it though. Speaker 3 00:01:54 Well, I sent it. Speaker 2 00:01:55 Yeah. The only thing that changed Ms. Smith is the, is the name. Speaker 3 00:02:00 Yeah, it's still Eminem. It's just a different after Eminem. So Speaker 2 00:02:05 It's, so the file number's correct. The address and everything's correct. The variances are correct. It's just Eminem Realty partners at Piscataway as opposed to at Ho Lane. Speaker 3 00:02:26 Okay. All Speaker 1 00:02:27 Okay. Got it all. I got it here. It's Speaker 3 00:02:30 Recording in progress. All right. Madam chair, we're ready to go. Speaker 1 00:02:48 Am I on screen? See? Speaker 3 00:02:51 Don't see him. No. Speaker 1 00:03:00 Okay. There I am. All right. The Piscataway Township planning for in site division meeting will please come to order. Adequate notice of the meeting was provided in the following ways. Notice published in the Courier News notice posted on the bulletin board of the municipal building notice made available through the Township to the Township clerk notice. Enter the courier news and the star ledger. Ms. Buckley, would you please call the roll Speaker 3 00:03:30 Reverend Kinneally? Here. Ms. Corcoran? Speaker 0 00:03:34 Here. Speaker 3 00:03:35 Mr. Foster? Not here. Mr. Adkin Speaker 1 00:03:41 Here. Speaker 3 00:03:43 And Madam chair Speaker 1 00:03:45 Here. Would everyone please look over my shoulder and see their flag? And now salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, our agenda for tonight. Look at it on here. Please have patience with me. Ladies and gentlemen, my technology is not coming up right. Okay. Item number 5 22 PB dash 13 slash 14. B as in Victor, m and m, Realty Partners at Piscataway, L L C with the parties. Are the priorities prepared to go Mr., Dacey Wolfson, Speaker 4 00:04:58 Doug Wolfson, Madam chair and I am here on behalf of Eminem. And with me is Ron Aithal Becker, director of Planning, engineering and Development. Speaker 1 00:05:10 Okay. You may proceed. Speaker 4 00:05:16 Madam chair, do you swear witness in during the Speaker 1 00:05:19 Work session? Yes, we do. Do you have witnesses that you're going Speaker 4 00:05:22 To Mr. Aen Beck would be our, our witness sir. Speaker 1 00:05:25 Ma'am. Okay. I swear. Mr. Barlow, would you swear him in, please? Speaker 4 00:05:29 Sure, Speaker 2 00:05:30 Sir, if you could state your name and spell your last name. Speaker 5 00:05:34 Sure. It's Ronald, last name's Aen. Beck, a u l e n b a c h. Speaker 2 00:05:39 And your professional address, sir? Speaker 5 00:05:42 1260 Stelton Road, Piscataway, New Jersey. Speaker 2 00:05:45 Okay. And you raise your right hand. You swear the testimony you'll give before this will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth help you Speaker 5 00:05:51 God? I do. Speaker 2 00:05:53 Okay. You're you're a witness, Mr. Wilson. Speaker 4 00:05:57 I am not sure frankly, how the board proceeds in a work session. Sure. I assume want us to go through your review letters or tell us about our plan by our plan revision since we originally submitted. Maybe that's a good place to start. Speaker 2 00:06:12 Yeah, if you wanna just give a, a, a quick general overview and then if there are any issues with regards to the staff reports, if you can comply with them all, that's great. Just let us know. You can comply with them. You don't need to go through 'em line by line. If you believe there'll be one or two items that may be an issue. If you just want to identify them. So when you come up for the public hearing, you know, we, we know what to look for. And then Ms. Corcoran or the other review committee board members may just have some questions in that regard. Speaker 4 00:06:51 Well, okay. So I appreciate that, Tom. So the, the way this started out is you may or may not be aware that we had proceeded in front of the zoning board and received approvals for the very project that we are proposing now from the claim board. And you may understand the reason that we did that was that subsequent to our application being approved by the board, the zoning board that is the town, which with your concurrence, meaning the board's concurrence, rezone the property to make the use a permitted use as opposed to a D variance, which was granted by the zoning board. So from our, our standpoint, we decided to come back the, for you as a permitted use rather than have a variance granted, which of course would require any change down the line to go back to the zoning board. So we decided it made more sense for us strategically and long term to come back to the planning board for a, an examination and review by your board as a permitted use. Speaker 4 00:07:53 So we did submit our application to you was deemed complete, but is now pending I think for a July hearing, presuming that we get, you know, through this in a position that everybody is agreeable with. But subsequent to our submitting the plans and certain our variances were identified, we have revised those plans and I believe they've been sent, Ron can correct me if I'm wrong, to eliminate those variances. So without any further ado, Rob, why don't you just at least explain to the board what the variances were that we got rid of so that we are now dealing from a land use and variance standpoint with a variance free application. Speaker 5 00:08:35 Yeah. Thank you Mr. Wilson. Members of the board, Madam chair, thank just one correction revised plans have not been submitted yet. We were simply waiting for this workshop meeting. P S N S, who's the engineer who did the plans, is currently working on the plans. And I'll go over those changes briefly with the board. But just for correction, I don't want anybody to think that we submitted plans and they're looking at, they're being not been submitted yet. So, you know, Madam, Chairman and members of the board, what, what Mr. Wilson has indicated is correct. The plans are the plan that you see on the screen before you is unchanged from what the zoning board had approved. It's for two warehouse buildings. The one closest building B located closest to South Washington is a hundred seventy one six hundred seventy 4,000 square feet. The back building is a hundred eighty one eight hundred eighty four, eight hundred eighty, I'm sorry, 848,000 square feet. Speaker 5 00:09:34 The variances that were identified by staff were as follows. There was five variances located indicated by staff and they're enumerated in the CME review letter and I'll go through them. One had to do with, two of 'em had to do with signage. There's free standing signs out here on South Washington. They have to have a minimum setback. But we're simply gonna eliminate those signs from our proposed site plan application. So that'll take those two variances off the table. We're gonna go in with no monument signs at the current time, just conforming facade signs on the, the front warehouse building. The other one there is a setback required of 25 feet, where 23 feet is proposed and it's located at this CHOKEPOINT closest to South Washington. Again, we're gonna revise this front parking spaces and eliminate some parking spaces in the middle here that will give us the ability to comply with the 25 foot setback. Speaker 5 00:10:27 So that variance will be removed. The other two variances had to do with these, what I'll call satellite parking areas that are located on the southern portion of, of the building. They required variances for, the front parking lot was within 50 feet of a residential zone. The back one had to do with retaining walls that exceeded the height of eight feet. We are currently revising the plans to conform with the new stormwater regulations. This project was approved by both the zoning board and by NJ D E P under the prior stormwater regulations. So we're revising the plans to conform with the new stormwater regulations. What that'll do is these parking lots end up going away come stormwater basins. And what that'll do is eliminate the VARIS for the parking within 50 feet of a residential zone. It'll also eliminate the need for the 13 foot retaining walls, which was a variance in that, what I'll call the southwest corner of the site. Speaker 5 00:11:30 So again, it's our intention members of the board to come in with those five variances. As enumerated and CM use report dated of June 21st. Those five variances will be eliminated. There was one waiver that was mentioned in the CME review with parking in the front yard with, or the front yard setback, which is, is 80 feet. Obviously we have parking within that, that 25 feet. That waiver we still will be applying for because if we eliminate those parking spaces and we eliminate the satellite lot to the south, we'll have no parking for that upper front building. So we're gonna, we'll still have that waiver to contend with. Other than that Madam chair, you know, looking through the letters again, knowing that the plans are gonna be revised again and, and resubmit it. Prior to the planning board, there was really nothing in those letters that we couldn't either, that either go away by virtue of the new plans or we couldn't agree to comply with or respond to on the new plans or via testimony at the hearing. Speaker 2 00:12:39 Mr. Wilson or Mr. Allach, I assume the applicant is also gonna comply with the state's new municipal electric vehicle ordinance? Speaker 5 00:12:49 That's correct. Speaker 2 00:12:50 Okay. And Ms. Corcoran, when do you need the plans in order for this to be heard? At the July 13th meeting. Speaker 6 00:12:58 So we would need them 10 days prior. Okay. Yeah, I mean that's gonna put us at, well July 1st. I mean Ron is that, when do you intend to submit 'em to us? This week. Early next week. Speaker 5 00:13:12 Early next week. I understand, I know that technically July 3rd is obviously a Sunday. The first being the, the Friday before the holiday weekend. Our intention would be to get 'em in early next week so that they could be distributed accordingly. Speaker 6 00:13:25 Perfect. That would be great if I could, there was also one comment in the CME report regarding quote unquote solar ready. Will you also be able to comply with that requirement? Speaker 5 00:13:40 Yeah, yeah. Dawn, our, our, I spoke to the architect and the buildings that are currently designed, they've been doing this on all the buildings, the entire roof structure. They add five pounds for square foot to allow for solar ready on the entire building for both of those buildings. So I'll get architect to make sure that note is added to his plan, but they are solar ready. Speaker 6 00:14:01 Thanks Ron. Great. Speaker 1 00:14:07 Okay. That being the case, we will, you anticipate we're being ready in our July meeting? Speaker 4 00:14:13 We do Madam chair. And again, not to be presumptuous, but of course this plan has already gone through a number of reviews through the town's professionals before it was even received and reviewed and, and ultimately approved by the zoning board by a, I think it was a six one vote. So it's been vetted pretty strongly hopeful that we get to the planning board and hearing that it should go nice and smoothly and you know, everything is going to be, from a various standpoint, completely conforming. And Speaker 1 00:14:47 Do you anticipate having a lot of witnesses? You'll be ready, but your experts and witnesses, Speaker 4 00:14:54 We Speaker 1 00:14:55 Have several items on Speaker 4 00:14:55 Today. Ron will testify more detail than you heard him this evening, but he will, he'll run you through the plan so that the record is complete. I think there are some comments in the engineering letter about traffic. We have a traffic expert who will, you know, explain where everything goes and how the circulation works. And that should be no problem with that. We will have a planner with us, but there are no variances that are being requested. There may be one waiver as, as Ron described, so we'll have a plan, testify about the, the waiver. I'm not sure that we'll need anything else. Ron, do you think we need anything else in terms of affirmative testimony? Speaker 5 00:15:39 No. Cuz even the architectural floor pens and elevations I'll cover in my testimony Speaker 4 00:15:43 And the stormwater has already been reviewed. Speaker 5 00:15:45 Well, the stormwater back up a second. Plans, Speaker 4 00:15:48 Craig, Speaker 5 00:15:49 Craig Harmon from P S N S will be available at the hearing in the event of storm. Cause obviously the plans are being revised. Speaker 4 00:15:55 Right. So that's a possibility there. Madam chair. But presumably that's, you know, the engineers getting together, making sure the math works. So hopefully that'll be taken care of prior to the meeting, but if not, he'll be there to make sure that any answers, any questions you may have. Speaker 1 00:16:13 All right. Mr. Barlow, you I can you, we can get this on for the 13th, correct? Speaker 2 00:16:17 Yeah, I think we can add this on the 13th, but I think anything else will have to go to the August meeting just because we have the other two, we have two redevelopment proposals that we need to get through along with major subdivision. So I think we can handle this as Mr. Wilson indicated, it is a completely conforming application, so hopefully shouldn't be an issue. Speaker 1 00:16:48 Okay then there it is, Mr. Wilson, we'll see you on July 13th. Looking Speaker 4 00:16:53 Forward to Madam chair member Ward. Thanks very much Tommy. We'll see you then. Thanks. Thanks Speaker 2 00:16:57 Everybody. Well Speaker 4 00:16:59 Have a good day. Speaker 1 00:17:02 Okay, the next item, our agenda tonight, today is item number 6 22 PB zero eight I P t Kingsbridge Business Center, urban Renewal. Ms. Jennings? Speaker 7 00:17:14 Yes. Good afternoon. Donna Jennings from the law firm, Lawrence Coleman and Spitzer on behalf of the applicant. Speaker 1 00:17:21 Do you have any witnesses that need to be sworn in? Speaker 7 00:17:23 I do. Chris Roach is there, you can see him on the screen. He's our site engineer. Speaker 2 00:17:29 Okay. Mr. Roach, if you could state your name, spell your last name for us and give us your professional address. Speaker 8 00:17:36 Sure. It's Christian Roach, r o c h e with Langan Engineering. And my address is 9 89 Lennox Drive, suite 1 24, Lawrenceville, New Jersey oh 8 6 48. Speaker 2 00:17:53 Thank you. If you could raise your right hand, you swear the testimony you give before the board will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Speaker 8 00:18:00 I do. Speaker 2 00:18:02 Ms. Jennings, your the floor is yours. Speaker 7 00:18:05 Sure. Are we gonna have the ability to screen share? We wanna show them what we're doing there. Speaker 2 00:18:10 Sure. If you'd like. Speaker 7 00:18:13 Yeah, I think that would just be easier. And we did receive several reports, but we did not receive a report from the board engineer. I don't know if something's come in since, no, nothing Speaker 2 00:18:23 Yet. And you, you should have the 6 22 report of Mr. Hinterstein from the Divisions of Engineering and Planning and Development, the C M E report of 6 20 22 and the Dolan and Dean report of June 15th, 2022. And then the fire commissioner had no comments as of June 6th, 2022. The fire marshal issued a report approving it and D P W issued a no comment report. June 17th, 2022. But Mr. Carley has not issued a report. Speaker 7 00:19:06 Okay. We don't anticipate any issues. This is a, in our opinion, a fully conforming application. Although I know some variances were raised in the C M E report, but we'll get to that. As Chris kind of describes the project for you, it says 40 Kings Bridge Road. And Chris, why don't you walk us through what's happening here. Speaker 8 00:19:26 Sure. So the project's proposed on block 67 0 2, lot 6.02, which is approximately 6.64 acres. It's presently occupied by an office building with around 80,000 square feet of office along with associated parking. And the parking has solar panels over top of it. Currently the project is under a redevelopment plan with 40 Kingsbridge redevelopment area. And as Ms. Jennings stated, we don't think we're seeking any variances from that redevelopment plan in front of the board. In the future, what the applicant is proposing to construct on the property is a warehouse building totaling approximately a hundred thousand square feet, along with 111 parking stalls and 32 loading docks. Access to the property will be provided off of Kingsbridge Road via two access points. And we intend to be fully complying with the state's new stormwater management regulations as well as complying with all of the previous reports that we've gotten. Except for three comments from cme, which we'll go over at the proper time this afternoon. Speaker 7 00:20:30 I think we probably can go right into the CME report. Cause I think most of the things we have no issue with the comments, so why don't we address the few things that were raised that we discussed that we'd like to address. Speaker 8 00:20:42 Okay. I'm gonna bring the, Speaker 8 00:20:45 The planning letter up. This is page 10 of the June 20th letter from c M e. And we'd like to speak about comments 10, 11, and 12, which are all related to the site parking. One comment comment 11 reference to 50 foot front yard parking setback, which we don't believe applies. If you look at the redevelopment plan on page seven in the bulk requirements, it notes that the minimum parking setback is zero. And this is certainly something we can walk with Dawn and CME on offline, but we don't think that will require variance based on what's provided within the redevelopment plan. There was also a comment about the distribution of parking with a maximum allowable distribution of 50% of parking within the front yard. And we again, did not think that would apply based on the language within the redevelopment plan. We think the redevelopment plan supersedes this requirement, so it wouldn't be applicable. I'll note, as Ms. Jenning said, Speaker 7 00:21:41 Kristin, since you have the redevelopment plan there, why don't you to go specifically to page seven where it does say that the redevelopment plan shall supersede the township's existing regulations, including the bulk requirement, general provision and design standards. So this is one of the instances where the redevelopment plan trumps really the ordinance and sometimes the redevelopment plan will indicate that the underlying ordinance will take effect if something's not addressed. But in our opinion, with relation to the parking, this has all been addressed and specifically set forth and say that it shall be superseded. So I think that we are not seeking any variances related to parking here. Speaker 2 00:22:17 Mr. Roche, have you spoken to Mr. I'm blanking on my planner's name. Ron. Oh my god. Ron. Ron, sorry. On Ron's, have you spoken to Ron about what, because I, I looked at, Dawn's indicated that no variances were needed and it may just be something that he missed in the redevelopment plan. So if you wanna reach out to Ron from c m e and, and perhaps like Reiners, sorry about that. And that sounds like something that the two of you could probably clean up in a five minute phone call. Speaker 8 00:22:58 Absolutely, Speaker 6 00:23:00 I agree. And Chris, hi Chris, it's Dawn. I, you know, as Tom said, I did not call those out in my report, so certainly, you know, I don't have to be part of that conversation, but I do agree that that should just be no longer than a five minute conversation. Yeah. Speaker 8 00:23:16 So the other easy part is we've received the other professional comment letters. We have no objection to complying with those comments. Speaker 6 00:23:22 Perfect. Speaker 8 00:23:24 We will be making a resubmission to address some of the comments we did receive. I heard earlier, I I guess we're looking at August at this point for a potential board meeting. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 00:23:33 Yeah. In all fairness to you, putting you on the July meeting is gonna do nothing other than have Donna schedule all of the experts and not get to them based on the agenda. And it's, it's probably not fair to, to any of you. So there's just too much on including two redevelopment plans that have to be presented by the planner. So the August meeting will have no issue getting to you. So Speaker 7 00:24:04 Is that August Speaker 2 00:24:05 Time takes a little bit more time if you're gonna submit revised plans, you're, you're not pressed for getting 'em in in a week or two. Speaker 8 00:24:14 Excellent. Speaker 7 00:24:15 And just to confirm, that's August 10th, the meeting in August? Yes. Speaker 2 00:24:19 Correct. Speaker 7 00:24:26 One quick comment on the June 22nd report from Mr. Hinterstein. He writes in paragraph one, he references the Piscataway Township growth share ordinance. But as we know, the gross share ordinances were kicked out and obviously we'll comply with the state non-residential improvement, non-residential fee. And then he has another comment, number 12 with respect to easements. That was something that was all Speaker 2 00:24:53 Handled. That's been, I I, I agree Ms. Jenns, that, that, I know there's been a number of conversations between yourself, Mr. Baker, Mr. Clarken, I've been involved in some of them. And the redevelopment agreement I think addresses any, any and all of those issues. Speaker 7 00:25:11 Terrific. Speaker 2 00:25:13 Dawn, would you concur? Speaker 7 00:25:16 I do. Okay, great. Okay, so I think that addresses all of the, the reports. Chris, unless you have something else you wanted to walk the board through. Speaker 8 00:25:30 No. In addition to addressing the professional reports, we do have some minor site plan changes coming in with that resubmission package, but I can discuss that with Dawn and the professionals offline. Nothing worth taking everyone's time up this afternoon. Speaker 7 00:25:41 Okay, good. All right. So then we'll, we'll, we'll get slated then for that August 10th agenda. August 10th? Speaker 1 00:25:48 Yes. Speaker 7 00:25:49 Okay. And Chris, you'll make sure you get the, and plenty of time for everybody to have a chance to review. Speaker 8 00:25:58 Absolutely. Speaker 7 00:26:05 Okay. I guess if there's nothing further, we're Speaker 1 00:26:08 Right. Thank you very much. We will see you then. Speaker 7 00:26:11 Great. Thank you so much everybody. Have a great holiday. You Speaker 1 00:26:14 Too. Speaker 7 00:26:16 Bye-bye. Speaker 1 00:26:18 Bye. Likewise Gordon. Have a good holiday. Speaker 7 00:26:22 Thank you Speaker 1 00:26:23 Everyone. Take care. Speaker 2 00:26:25 Stay safe everyone. Speaker 7 00:26:27 You next Byebye Speaker 1 00:26:33 Record.