Planning Board Minutes - March 21, 2017

The following minutes are a summary of the Planning Board meeting of March 21, 2017. Interested parties may request an audio recording of the meeting from the Board Secretary for a fee.

Call to Order & Statement of Compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act: Mr. Joel called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. Following members were present: Mr. Joel, MAYOR KNUDSEN, Joel Torielli, Councilman Jeff Voigt, Isabella Altano, Melanie McWilliams, David Scheibner, Carrie Giordano, and Debbie Patire. Also present were Christopher Martin, Esq., Board Attorney; Village Engineer Chris Rutishauser; and Board Secretary Michael Cafarelli. Ms. Barto was not present.

Public Comments on Topics not Pending Before the Board – No one came forward

Correspondence received by the Board – Mr. Cafarelli reported a letter from Stickel, Koenig, and Drill, LLC stating they hired Ms. Katie Razin and that she will not work on any Valley Hospital cases.

KS Broad Street, Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan, 76 & 80 Chestnut Street and 25-27 Franklin Avenue, Block 2005, Lots 11,12,13,14,15 – Public Hearing continued from January 17, 2017 - Following is the transcript of this portion of the meeting, prepared by Laura A. Carucci, C.C.R., R.P.R.:
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  The next item will be No. 5, KS Broad Street, preliminary and final major site plan, 76 and 80 Chestnut Street and 25 27 Franklin Avenue, Block 2005, Lots 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
This is a public hearing continued from January 17th, 2017, and the attorney is Jason Tuvel.
And we had hearings on this on October 4th and January 17th. We've heard testimony from Dave Nicholson, the architect, and the engineer, Dan Bush. And I guess next is traffic?
MR. TUVEL: That's correct, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Jason Tuvel from Prime Law appearing for the applicant. Just to kind of summarize from where we were at the last meeting, as the Chairman noted correctly, we had two witnesses come here. Our architect who actually testified twice, discussed some of the revisions at the last meeting that were not that substantial. We went over those. And then our site engineer testified for the remainder of the meeting. We concluded with that. Tonight I plan on putting our traffic engineer, Eric Keller, up for discussion, just to, again, just a very brief overview. We agreed, based    I'll talk about the traffic, your traffic consultant's letter when our traffic engineer testifies, but in terms of just your village planning report that we received, as well as your village engineer's report that we received, we agreed to comply with all of the items set forth in those letters, including the two violations that Mr. Brancheau noted. We agree to have one less space required for the retail, and also we agreed to have no structure over 30 inches in height above the center line placed within 25 feet of the intersection. So that removed those two items, but again, we agreed to comply with the rest of the report in terms of some of the technical items that were suggested. Unless there's any questions for me from a procedural standpoint, Mr. Chairman, let's get started and I'll call my first witness.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Yes, you have the floor.
MR. TUVEL: So the first witness that I'd like to call    oh, one more thing that I wanted to mention, just for the record. There was an interested party or a neighbor that appeared at the last meeting that was a representative of one of the adjacent parcels that kind of backs up to the site. We've come to an agreement in principal that we will put up a bollard and a chain link between the two properties with that property owner. So I just wanted to put that on the record as I said I would. Okay?  All right. So the first witness, Mr. Chairman, that I'd like to call is Eric Keller from Bowman Engineering. He has not yet testified in this matter, so we need to swear him in and qualify him for the record.
MR. MARTIN:  Eric, do you have a card?
MR. KELLER:  I do.
MR. MARTIN:  Erik, raise your right hand. 
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 
MR. KELLER:  I do.
E R I C  K E L L E R,     
54 Horse Hill Road, Cedar Knolls, New Jersey, having been duly sworn, testifies as follows:
MR. MARTIN:  State your full name and your business address for the record.
MR. KELLER:  Eric    I turned that down.
I probably don't even need it, but...Eric Keller, Bowman Consulting Group, 54 Horse Hill Road, Cedar Knolls, New Jersey.
MR. TUVEL:  Okay.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  MR. TUVEL, you want to qualify him.
MR. TUVEL:  Sure.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. TUVEL:
Q. MR. KELLER, for the record, can you give the board the benefit of your educational background, licenses held, and whether they're current? And your experience testifying before similar planning, zoning boards in the State of New Jersey?
A. Certainly. I have a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Rensselaer Polytech Institute. I attended a master's program at the University of Maryland. I have been a licensed professional engineer in the State of New Jersey since 1987. I'm also licensed in New York and Pennsylvania. I have testified before this Planning Board several years ago. I have testified throughout Bergen County and other parts of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania for my 35 plus year career. I've also been qualified as an expert in Superior Court in Middlesex, Union and Mercer Counties.
Q. And this is all as to traffic engineering, correct?
A. Correct.
MR. TUVEL: Mr. Chairman? 
MR. MARTIN: As a professional engineer you've been accepted. Traffic, anything in terms of traffic that he's going to    besides testifying, we don't know anything about the traffic. What have you done in terms of    do you have any special certifications or anything in terms of traffic. 
THE WITNESS:  I do not. I    my area of expertise in civil engineering, which is a broad area, is in traffic and transportation engineering and planning. I have worked on projects throughout the state. I've worked at Paramus Park Mall. We've had numerous projects in Hackensack, residential and commercial.
BY MR. TUVEL:
Q. Do you also work for other planning and zoning boards in the state as a traffic consultant?
A. I do. Currently I'm providing traffic services to Township of Montville, Township of West Orange. I've appeared    I've been the board consultant in Fairfield Township, in Essex County, as well as numerous other towns throughout mostly northern New Jersey.
MR. MARTIN: With that, he's accepted as a traffic engineer for this application. 
Thank you.
MR. TUVEL: Thanks, Chris.
THE WITNESS:  Thank you.
BY MR. TUVEL:
Q. Okay.  So, MR. KELLER, in connection with this application, just so we can just go through some of the foundational questions, you visited the site and the surrounding area?
A. Yes.  Yes.
Q. And you reviewed all the plans that have been submitted in connection with this application?
A. That's correct. I've been part of the design team both with Maser on the site plans and with SBLM on the architecture.
Q. Okay.  And you've either reviewed the transcripts or attended the meetings, correct?
A. I have reviewed the transcripts of the prior two hearings, yes.
Q. Okay.  And you've also reviewed the Ridgewood downtown zoning impacts analysis as to its traffic discussions; is that accurate?
A. That is correct.
Q. Okay.  And you prepared a traffic impact report and assessment in connection with this application, did you not?
A. That's correct.
Q. Okay.  So let's start by, I guess, giving the board just an overview of the site from just a traffic perspective. 
A. Certainly. As you've heard before, and I'll go through this fairly quickly, but to give it a    you know, my perspective as a traffic consultant, site has frontage on Franklin Avenue, which is obviously a county road. It has two westbound travel lanes along the site; frontage one which is a left turn lane only onto North Broad Street, one which is a through lane which also provides right turns into the subject site, and one eastbound travel lane. There is no parking permitted on the north side, on our side of Franklin Avenue. There is some on street parking on the south side, the opposite side, of Franklin Avenue. Chestnut Street provides one lane in each direction, which is the eastern frontage of the site. There is no parking permitted on either side of that street. Both of those parking prohibitions on Franklin and on Chestnut are codified in the Village Code under Section 265 65. Franklin Avenue, from a traffic perspective, is classified as an urban principal arterial. And that's not my classification of that, that's what's published by the state and by the county as to its function, which means that its purpose is to carry traffic through not only the Village, but to communities to the east and to the west. There is obviously a grade separated crossing where Franklin Avenue passes underneath the Main/Bergen Line immediately to the west of this site. Chestnut Street is a local street, extending north up to Douglas Place, the intersection of Franklin and North Broad is a signalized intersection. It's a three phase signal. What that means is that there is a lead indication, you get a green ball and green arrow for westbound traffic which allows the left turns onto North Broad with no opposing traffic. And then you have a green phase for Franklin Avenue in both directions, and then you have a green indication for the    for North Broad and for the site driveway. That signal today is under Village jurisdiction, and I understand that the Village and the county are working together to make some improvements to that traffic signal. The intersection of Franklin and Chestnut is stop sign controlled, stop signs on Chestnut, so that traffic must yield to the through traffic on Franklin. And there are one lane approaches at each of those, one lane approaches on each leg of that intersection. The traffic counts that we based our analyses on were taken on February 2nd of 2016. Those were taken during the morning, 7:00 to 9:00, and evening p.m., 4:00 to 6:00 timeframes, which are the commuter hours which are when traffic is at its highest. There was also counts that were done on a Saturday. So we looked at both a.m./p.m., as well as a Saturday midday condition. And we did that for this particular project because of the retail component of that    of this mixed use development. Obviously, there is train service across the street through the Ridgewood Train Station which provides service to Hoboken and to Manhattan on the Main and Bergen Lines, which has fairly convenient service. 
Looking at the schedule as of today, there are 14 trains going to either Hoboken or Midtown in the morning peak hour or peak period and 15 trains returning in the evening, as well. In addition, there is extensive bus service providing both local bus service to Paterson, Paramus, Hackensack, as well as service into New York City both at    through the Port Authority bus terminal in Midtown and the bus terminal at the George Washington Bridge. As you're all aware, the site has been in the past an auto dealership, has a large surface parking lot. You had a service station which is now, when I was out there on Friday was    a landscape business was parking their vehicles there. And along Chestnut there is a former residence and another commercial building. The other adjoining uses going up Chestnut on our side of the street are all commercial uses. There is not a well defined curb cut system along Franklin. There is a number of curb cuts. They're fairly wide. So there is the ability to move in and out of the site without a lot of control today. And in the past on Chestnut as well there's some curb cuts for those existing properties. So that's kind of the framework. We look at the existing conditions, the existing traffic conditions to establish a baseline, where are we today with traffic with operations?  Where have we been? And, you know, the counts were done after the facility closed, so there is no traffic associated with the prior use that's contained in our analysis. We then do, as traffic engineers, is we look into the future and say what is going to occur going down the road when we anticipate this project to be built and occupied.
BY MR. TUVEL:
Q. So just for the record and for the board's edification, I'm sure they know this, but the no build condition is the existing condition at the site; correct? Considering all the traffic and the built condition is with the project fully constructed; is that accurate? When you use those terms?
A. Yes. The no build is what we're going to have in the future. What's there today, we apply a growth factor because there's general traffic growth that we don't know exactly. There's growth in neighboring towns. Traffic increases. Presumably it increases. We use published growth rates from the DOT for that. What we also included in our study was there are three other development projects that have been on    in the process for a number of years. All three of those projects, Chestnut, Dayton and the redevelopment of The Enclave, are all part of our no build. Those are projects and the traffic associated with them are assumed to be on the network on    at this intersection that we analyzed in the future, in our no build conditions. 
So we then look at what the operational characteristics of the studied intersections are under no build conditions. And then we add the traffic that will be generated by this site to come up with our build, and we compare the operational characteristics of the intersections under build to what they are under no build to see what the incremental impact is of this proposed development.
MS. PATIRE:  I'm sorry.  Can you just repeat that.
So you took into account the other projects or you did not? 
THE WITNESS:  We did.
MS. PATIRE:  You did. 
THE WITNESS:  Yes.
MS. PATIRE:  Okay.  That's what I thought you said.
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
Chestnut Village, Dayton, and the redevelopment of The Enclave site.
MS. PATIRE:  Okay.
THE WITNESS:  So what we found under no build conditions, this is without our project, the project that's before you tonight, that the signalized intersection of Franklin and North Broad will operate at Level of Service C or better during the a.m. peak hour, Level of Service D or better during the p.m. and Saturday, except for the northbound left turn from North Broad Street. You're coming from East Ridgewood coming up to Franklin, you want to make the left to go onto    underneath the railroad tracks, that left turn, under no build conditions, will operate at Level of Service E. Now, let me take a step back, because I always do this. I've been doing this a long time. And levels of service are something that I deal with all the time. Levels of service range from an A, which is the best, which means that there's minimal delays, there's minimal queuing, to Level of Service F, which means that there's extreme congestion, that there's difficulty in maneuvering through the intersection. So in a downtown setting as we have here in Ridgewood, a Level of Service D is an acceptable level of service. A Level of Service E under certain circumstances could be considered acceptable. In this particular case it is one movement that occurs on a    during the Saturday midday period is when that left turn does not operate at as good a level of service as it should. 
Now, some of that operational, I'll talk a little bit about this in a minute, is that that signal today is pre timed.  And what that means is that whether there's two cars, no cars, or 20 cars, you get the same amount of green time on each approach no matter what. I sat out there on Friday afternoon and there's nobody in the left turn lane waiting to go down towards East Ridgewood Avenue, but you still get the green arrow. There's no cars coming up North Broad, yet they still have a green light because the signal is not demand responsive. It is just this is what it does every hour of the day, every day of the week. So it's not an efficient signal. That's not how we design signals today. And that's the way it is now. I don't need to tell any of you that. You drive through there on a regular basis. But that's what it is from a traffic perspective. It is not what we call demand responsive. So our application before this board this evening comprises 5500 square feet of retail space and 66 residential units, apartments. You know, the zoning would also permit a 24,000 square foot commercial building, which would require 96 parking spaces, which could be accommodated on the site. And I do that, not because that's the intent or that's their plan, but to put it into context of what the development could be on this site, what you have had in the past with an auto dealership, and how much traffic could be generated by something that had just commercial space. Table I of our report, and our report is    was originally prepared May 31st of last year. And it was revised to July 5th of last year. And Table I in that report presents the trip generation. And this is what traffic engineers, how we calculate how much traffic is anticipated to be generated by the various land uses. The data that we use is published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. The Trip Generation Manual is now up to the 9th Edition. I don't want to tell you the edition that I used when I first started in this business. It was a long time ago. This is a compilation of data from across the country. It's been validated in this state. It's an accepted document in New Jersey. And what we find, those calculations show that the proposed redevelopment will generate 56 trips in the morning, 23 in and 33 out; 52 trips in the p.m. peak hour, 32 in and 20 out; and 127 trips, 65 in and 62 out. Now, for our retail component, it's a fairly small retail center, but we took the conservative approach and used the trip generation for a shopping center, which is on the higher side because we wanted to take a conservative approach when we looked at how    what the impact would be of this project. We did apply, for the residential use, a 20 percent mass transit reduction. That's conservative, again, for a downtown setting with the train and bus service that is available in this community. It's consistent with what the census data says for Ridgewood and for Bergen County as a whole. And you have to, you know, recognize the fact that there is convenient mass transit adjacent to this site. For retail, there's two components.  You have traffic that is destined to this facility, and there's traffic that's already on the street that says, oh, there's a store that I want to go to, I'm going to stop as I'm driving by the site. That's called pass by. That's an accepted principal in traffic engineering that we have included in our analyses.
(MR. RUTISHAUSER is now present at the hearing at 8:17 p.m.)
THE WITNESS:(Continued) if we looked at a larger retail facility, were that 24,000 square foot retail would generate 40 more trips during the p.m. peak hour and 88 more trips during the Saturday peak hour above what we analyzed. Just   and I'm only giving that to you to put this into context of where this project is versus an all commercial project that could be built. The morning peak hour, retail is not a big generator in the morning, so it's a little bit higher, but not significantly so. So once we calculate how much traffic is generated by the development, we have to assign it to the streets. How is it going to get in and out of this site? The way the parking and access are laid out, we have a driveway that aligns with the traffic signal at North Broad. And we have a two way driveway at Chestnut. Each driveway is equally accessible internally, so there's not a preference to one or the other if I'm parked on site. We assigned that traffic based on the traffic flows in the area and based on some origin destination information that was contained in the downtown impact study, so we put it to the various driveways. And then we looked at how do those driveways work with the additional traffic.
BY MR. TUVEL:
Q. Erik, so    just to get to the level of service of the driveway, which is, I think, is where you're going   
A. Yes.
Q.    just tell the board, based on the analysis that you conducted, I guess under the build condition, what the levels of service are at those specific driveways. 
A. Sure.  At the Chestnut driveway, site driveway at Chestnut Street, that intersection will operate at a Level of Service A, which means very little delay.
Q. And that's during the a.m.?
A. A.m., p.m. and Saturday peak hours.
Q. Okay.  And what about the Franklin Avenue driveway?
A. The Franklin Avenue driveway, our driveway will operate at Level of Service C during the a.m., p.m. and Saturday peak hours. The other approaches do not change level of service, so those that are Level of Service C today stay at C. Those at D stay at D. The northbound left on    from North Broad to westbound Franklin stays at Level of Service E. So there is no impact at either driveway or on the streets from this project.
Q. Okay. So from    so just to summarize your testimony on traffic, the site driveways will operate at appropriate levels of service during all of the appropriate or the relevant peak hour times?
A. Yes.
Q.  All right.  All the sight distances and sight triangles at the driveways, were they safe and designed appropriately?
A. Yes, they are.
Q. All right.  And the intersections, although that deals with off site which we're not obligated to review, we did review it, and all the intersections off site will also operate appropriately and efficiently; is that correct?
A. They will, except for the northbound left which operates at Level of Service E today.
Q. But there's no change?
A. But there's no change in the operation of that left turn from where it is today to with this project in place.
Q. And there's no excessive queuing or anything like that in terms of our site driveways based on the design of this project?
A. No.  Based on the levels of service for our driveways, there would be minimal queueing on our site driveways, and they    that traffic generated by this site will be processed through the driveways efficiently and safely.
Q. All right. So let's move on to parking. 
A. Okay.
Q. Based on the ordinance requirement for parking, do we meet that requirement?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. Can you just explain that briefly?
A. Certainly.  There's two components. The retail component requires 22 parking spaces and it's 5500 square feet of space divided by one space for every 250 square feet. So we have 22 spaces for that. The Village standard for parking for the residential mirror the RSIS, the Residential Site Improvement Standards, require 128 parking spaces. So combined, that's 150 spaces required. We are providing 150 spaces. So we comply with the Village and the RSIS standards at    the RSIS as it relates to the residential.
Q. All right. And we agreed to designate, I believe it was, based on the village planner's report, 22 spaces for the retail; is that correct?
A. Correct. We'll revise the plan to show 22 reserved spaces.
Q. Of the 150?
A. Of the 150, leaving the 128 for the residential uses.
Q. Okay.  In terms of ADA parking, does the current site plan comply with all of the ADA codes?
A. Yes, it does.
Q. In terms of the parking space size, does the parking space size comply with the ordinance?
A. Yes, it does, 9 by 18.
Q. Okay. So do you have any concerns regarding the parking as it's laid out at this property?
A. No. It's an efficient, well laid out plan that provides more than adequate parking for this proposed development.
Q. And would you even say that, since we comply with the RSIS standard for residential, even conservative approach to parking?
A. I think for this particular site, given its location, given the mass transit opportunities, that using the standard RSIS rates which apply throughout the entire state, I think are more than sufficient for this project, and that the parking demand for the residential is really likely to be less than those RSIS standards.
Q. Have you also reviewed the site plan for emergency access vehicles?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. And in your professional opinion, can this site accommodate emergency access vehicles?
A. Yes, it can. I've reviewed the information from Maser and from the architect. There is sufficient clearance. There's 14    through the archways there's 14 feet of clearance. By state law, vehicles are not allowed to exceed 13 feet, 6 inches. I understand from the transcripts that your fire truck can pass underneath the railroad trestle, which means that it's less than 11 feet in height. Delivery trucks, single unit trucks are generally anywhere from 10 to 11 feet in height, so they can get in. The aisles, the rate    turning radii are more than sufficient to accommodate the types of vehicles that are expected and planned for this development to travel through this site, through each driveway, enter and exit the site.
Q. Okay. So delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles are all efficient. The loading area, is that, in your opinion, designed appropriately?
A. It is. It's 40 feet in length. It's 12 feet wide, which is a more than adequate size for this type of development. I mean, we're talking about 5,500 square feet of retail. You're not talking about big trucks. You're talking about UPS, FedEx, box trucks, the occasional single unit truck which is 30 feet in length. Move in, move out for these types of units, you're not going to get    moving companies are not going to use a larger vehicle. They're going to use a single unit truck. I mean, there's more than enough space in that size truck to move somebody into even the largest apartment in this project. 
Q. And you reviewed the drive aisle widths and site circulation and that's all safe   
A. Yes. The drive aisles meet ordinance requirements. And we have full circulation. 
I mean, there's drive aisles on either side. There's full circulation. This is, in my opinion, a well laid out plan, very efficient, and will be more than adequate to meet the needs of the employees, the residents, visitors and patrons of the commercial space.
Q. Okay. Have you reviewed the report from the board's traffic consultant, Shropshire Associates, dated January 17th, 2017?
A. I have. 
MR. TUVEL: Chris, before we keep going, I just wanted to mark    I think we're up to A 20.  This was the Ridgewood downtown    I know it's part of all the governmental records, but I figured we'd just put it in the file. This is the report that MR. KELLER noted in his testimony earlier, so I just wanted to mark it for the record as A 20.
MR. MARTIN:  A 20.
MR. TUVEL: That's where we're up to. I'll just pass up a copy of it.
(Whereupon, Report of Shropshire Associates, dated January 17th, 2017 is received and marked as Exhibit A 20 for identification.)
MR. TUVEL:  I'll just give it to Mike.
BY MR. TUVEL:
Q. So getting back to the Shropshire Associates' letter, Eric, you reviewed it? 
A. Yes.
Q. Just going through it, is there anything that you have an issue with or you'd like to discuss or can we comply with most or all of the comments?
A. I think we can comply with all of them. I just want to make a note, there's some    two or so comments about the signalized intersection. My understanding, the Village and the county are working on upgrading the signal. Obviously as part of that design, the signal head placement, because our traffic is coming out underneath the building, the placement of those signals will need to consider that they don't necessarily have that same visibility for a standard overhead mast mounted signal. But there's plenty of design options that can be implemented that will provide the necessary visibility of those signals as somebody from our site leaving will be able to see that traffic signal in accordance with the applicable design criteria.
Q. Okay.  So just going through the report, under access, is there anything that you'd like to discuss or are those "will comply"?
A. Those are all will comply.
Q. Okay  And that's referring to page 2 of 5 of the Shropshire report   
A. Correct.
Q.    dated January 17th, 2017. Okay. Moving to page 3 of the same report, the circulation discussion; same thing, are there any items there that you'd like to discuss or are they all sufficiently accommodated by our plans or we can comply?
A. We can comply.
Q. All right. Parking, on the same page of the report?
A. I think I've covered that in testimony that have been    just number    I do want to touch on number four. The bollards, we think, are placed appropriately. It's no different than if there was a parked car next to that one parking space by the loading area, but, I mean if we need to make an adjustment to that we can work with the board's professionals to make those adjustments. And the same with building columns, you know, we can comply with that.
Q. All right. And 6 and 7 as well?
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.  And that was on page    that was   
A. Page 4.
Q.    page 3 and 4?
A. Correct.
Q. On page 4, referring to the traffic comments, just if you could go through those. If there's anything that you'd like to discuss?
A. Let me just touch on number three for a moment.
Q. And that's number three on page 5, correct?
A. Correct. This talks about pass by. If we reduced the pass by percentage, it's not going on a    on a weekday a.m./p.m. peak hour, isn't going to make a significant    actually there is no pass by in the morning. It's only in the afternoon. It does not make a significant change. We felt comfortable with the higher pass by rates because of the location of this site and the size of this site. It's in a downtown area. There's a lot of pedestrian traffic. There's the ability to, you know, go to multiple stores from one location. But even if we did reduce it, it does not materially change the amount of traffic. And if we    it'd be slightly higher, then that traffic would not change the level of service. We had Level of Service C on our driveway. It's still going to be at Level of Service C. So there is no change to that. 
MR. TUVEL:  One thing that I wanted to mention, which I did mention at the last meeting in connection with this report and Mr. Bush's testimony, and I think this is because Shropshire Associates was not present at the first meeting. The trash enclosure is on the inside of the building, there's no exterior trash enclosure. So in connection with comment number 3 on page 3, we testified at the first and second meeting that the trash would be handled in the interior.  So I just wanted to put that on the record. 
BY MR. TUVEL:
Q. All right. Erik, I'm sorry. Keep going. 
A. No.  That's    oh, the last thing I just wanted to touch on. They had reviewed our May 31st report, which was more retail. We had a shared parking analysis that we did in that. While there will be shared parking opportunities with this because we have a retail use and a residential use, we're not discussing it anymore because we meet your parking standards for the individual uses when we add them together. But from a practical standpoint, there will still be shared parking, but it's not really a component of our project or of my testimony.
MR. TUVEL:  Does the board have any questions for MR. KELLER? 
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. We'll start with Dave. Do you have any questions? 
MR. SCHEIBNER:  You said that your analysis didn't include any statistics from the prior use of the site; is that correct. 
THE WITNESS: That's correct. We did not take    it    the use has been vacant. When the counts were done there was no or very little use on the property, so we did not, you know, compare it to what could be there if the space was reoccupied.
MR. SCHEIBNER:  Now, I was a little bit confused when you were talking about the left turn from North Broad Street westbound on Franklin going underneath the trestle. You said you expected more delay at that    for the traffic in that situation or not? 
THE WITNESS:  The northbound    the left turn from North Broad to Franklin   
MR. SCHEIBNER:  Right.
THE WITNESS:     to go underneath the railroad is at Level of Service E today. It will be a Level of Service E under the no build. And it will be a Level of Service E under the build. It does not change the level of service. There's a nominal amount    
MR. SCHEIBNER:  It's already bad.
THE WITNESS: Yes. And really it's bad because the signal is not responsive to the traffic demand.
MR. SCHEIBNER: I see. Now, but there will be    will the new traffic coming out of this site, that will be    some of it will be straight through traffic, which is something we don't really see much of now, correct? 
THE WITNESS: Correct. There will be some. But the volumes that come out of the site are fairly small, so    and, you know, when you look at the traffic patterns, you know, we don't see a lot of traffic that's going to be destined to go straight across onto North Broad. There's a heavier left turn movement. But it does not materially change    it doesn't change the level of service on North Broad, even though there's some cars that will come out.
MR. SCHEIBNER:  On Chestnut Street, the driveway on Chestnut Street, it's coming out in an area where, in my experience, there's frequently traffic backing up at    those stop signs at Franklin. It's    it backs up when somebody is waiting to make a left turn onto Franklin Avenue from Chestnut Street.
THE WITNESS:  Right.
MR. SCHEIBNER:  It can seem like an awfully long time in my experience, but I could    I could imagine that the queue at that stop sign has actually blocked the driveway, itself. Have you made any analysis of that? 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT: You didn't look at this, based on your report, you didn't look at this intersection because you said off site intersections you don't have to look at, but to Dave's point    I'm sorry if I'm stealing your thunder here, you didn't    the Chestnut Street driveway you only looked at it going northbound, you didn't look at it going southbound and what happens to the Franklin intersection. So that's probably the bigger concern is what happens when that traffic decides to go south on Chestnut Street. And by the way, that level of service at that particular intersection at peak hours is a Level E. And that was verified by Chestnut Village. So that is a problematic intersection that I'm not sure what kind    I think we probably need to kind of think a little more about what to do there. So...
THE WITNESS:  Well, Councilman, you make a very good point. And let me    let me touch on that. Obviously, there's operational difficulties at that intersection today because it's stop sign controlled. It has heavy movements on Franklin. And what we did in our analysis was to be conservative, but    and look at where people want to go, assuming that there aren't those constraints. If that    if Chestnut Street southbound, as it comes to Franklin, if that backs up and the residents and the customers to this facility see that, and they'll be able    even though the parking area is screened, they'll still be able to see it or they'll see the cars waiting there, they have the option to come out at the traffic signal. And we have    at a Level of Service C we have more than enough capacity that if somebody says, you know what, I want to get, you know, over to East Ridgewood Avenue. I'm not going to go out Chestnut at that particular time.  I'm going to use the traffic signal where I have a controlled movement and I get a certain amount of green time. So that's the answer, is that we have the option, which obviously Chestnut Village, doesn't. They're up Chestnut and they have to come down the street and they're going to come down. So we have the ability for our residents and customers to go out through the signal and be able to get out that way and go on to where they want to go. 
MR. SCHEIBNER:  Now, pedestrian traffic from the site, if they want to go west they actually have to cross Franklin Street to go under the tracks on the    on the south side of Franklin, correct? 
There's no pedestrian walkway on the north side of Franklin under the track? 
THE WITNESS: No, there's not. No, there is not. So    and I know this was a topic of discussion at a prior meeting. So a resident comes out of the building, the lobby is on Chestnut Street, they're going to come out    if they're going to the train station or going to North Broad, they're going to come down, they're going to go along the frontage of the site, or at least I would, so I can cross the street at a traffic signal where there's pedestrian push buttons and there's pedestrian indications. And I'm going to cross at that location. Same with the retail stores, the doors that enter onto the street, they can go to    down to that signal and cross at that location. 
MS. PATIRE: I'm going to challenge that. I don't think that that's what's going to happen, if you walk    if you go to downtown Ridgewood on a Saturday morning, there are people walking in between, running to the bagel store, running back and forth. If you're in a rush to make your train you're not going to walk down and cross the road. You're not going to do that.
MR. TUVEL: If we put    we can put a crosswalk on both   on both sides   
MS. PATIRE: I'm going to challenge that. 
Because if you drive down to Ridgewood on a Saturday morning to go get bagels, everyone in Ridgewood is trying to get    if you're trying to get a train, it's not going to happen.
MR. TUVEL: So I think that just came up at the last meeting, and I think it's a pretty simple fix. There was concern about the fact that we had a crosswalk on one side of the intersection of Franklin and Chestnut. We can have one on the other side, as well from the    again, they're off tract improvements, but if the board feels that they're necessary we can do that. That's an easy fix based on the comments from the board that's not    that's not a    
THE WITNESS: I mean, there were discussions, based on those prior discussions we removed that crosswalk saying, well, if they want to cross they can cross at the signal or they can cross on the east side of Chestnut. If the board feels that it's appropriate to have a crosswalk on all four corners of Chestnut and Franklin, which is what's there today, then we can make the necessary adjustments so that it's a little bit more perpendicular, because right now it's skewed, which means that it's a greater crossing distance for the pedestrians, but we can leave that, you know   
MR. TUVEL: I think that's something we can easily fix on the plans working with your engineering staff. 
MS. PATIRE: The other thing I want to piggyback on my fellow board members, did you look at the cars coming out on    what do you call it    Franklin, going up Broad to East Ridgewood, what the impact on that traffic would be on that intersection of East Ridgewood and Franklin, if you're going to come out onto Franklin.
THE WITNESS:  You mean East Ridgewood and North Broad. 
MS. PATIRE:  I'm sorry, North Broad, and go straight, did you look at the impact on cars going through that intersection. 
THE WITNESS: We did not because the amount of traffic that we have shown going that way is nominal. 
MS. PATIRE: Would you define "nominal". 
THE WITNESS: No more than on    the highest volume is on Saturday, we have 13 trips in two directions that are going up and down North Broad.
MS. PATIRE:  So those are your total daily in and out. In fact; 29 going out, right, in a.m. peak hours. Of those 29 in a.m. peak hours, how many of them do you believe are going straight? 
THE WITNESS: Leaving the site in the a.m.? 
MS. PATIRE:  Yes.
THE WITNESS:  Three. 
MS. PATIRE: Three are going straight on to that intersection. 
THE WITNESS: Correct.
MS. PATIRE: And the other ones are going left or right.
THE WITNESS: Correct. Or they're going out Chestnut. 
MS. PATIRE: Going out Chestnut and going out the right. So you're saying    you're    but I'm trying to find out the impact on East Ridgewood Avenue and Broad Street.
THE WITNESS: We're sending three vehicles southbound on North Broad to East Ridgewood.
MS. PATIRE: All right.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: David, did you have any other questions?
MR. SCHEIBNER: I don't have any further questions.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. COUNCILMAN VOIGT?
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  I do. You said February 2, 2016, is when you did the analysis during the weekday, but what day was that?  What weekday was that? 
MR. TUVEL:  No, that was based on the analysis that the Village did.
THE WITNESS:  Those were the traffic counts that were taken.  
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  By the Village? 
THE WITNESS:  And those were done by the Village, yes.
MR. TUVEL:  We used the Village's counts in all the peak periods.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Okay.  And then on the day of the Saturday, you don't have the date, you just have it done on a Saturday. Do you know that date?
THE WITNESS:  Give me a second.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Sure.
MR. TUVEL:  Yes, that's why I submitted that report into the record, so we had it. 
That was    we based it based on the Village's assessment.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Okay. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  Is that the Village Council reports that you took that from, from the studies. 
MR. TUVEL:  Yes.
THE WITNESS:  The Ridgewood Downtown Zoning Impacts Analysis, dated March 2016, which has been marked as Exhibit A 20. 
February 2nd was a Tuesday, and the Saturday counts were done on Saturday, January 30th. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Thank you. 
You mentioned that there was enough height for emergency access vehicles   
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:     to get in, and does that includes the ladder truck for the fire department?  I'm not even sure what height that is.
MR. TUVEL:  Yes. I believe we talked about this several times, not only in MR. KELLER's testimony, but in the architect's testimony. 
But there's actually a state standard for these types of clearances that contemplate the highest fire truck with ladders, so we meet that state standard.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Got it. 
In case an ambulance needs to go into the site, I mean is there a place where they can access the front door that generally will be   
THE WITNESS:  Yes, there's access from the parking lot into the residential lobby and there's also access into the retail stores.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Okay.  You mentioned that we're looking at updating the light on the corner of Broad and Franklin, and the county is doing that    we're doing that as well, right?
Can I ask Chris a question if it's possible? I know we're looking at that intersection, and my understanding is that much of the cost is going to be borne by the county in assessing, you know, also putting a light in there; is that correct? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: That's how I understand it. I think the key thing that's going to be needed to be considered in any design is what occurs on this property in terms of the development and whether any special accommodations as the traffic consultant just referred to regarding height, placement of the lights, for coming out of the proposed building. That's something that has to be considered. There's also additional things that have to be considered, whether the exiting driveway across from North Broad Street should have activators for the signal or whether cars should just queue for the normal cycle. Again, that's something that's a design discussion, you know, to see which we want to do, which the county wants to do, working obviously with the applicant. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  And it's my understanding that the developer is going to    they're willing to pay their fair share of any kind of upgrades to that particular intersection, if there are extra costs that are involved.
MR. TUVEL:  If there is a legal obligation, we would have to.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Yes. Okay. The sidewalks that are    that are on Franklin that kind of are on    or the south side of your building, they're in    they're in a state of disrepair right now. I'm assuming that all the sidewalks are going to be upgraded by the developer, yes? 
MR. TUVEL:  Correct. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Okay.
MR. TUVEL:  Yes, I think we covered that in site testimony, but just to reiterate. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Got it. 
You have here in your report, this is the May 31st report, you've got    you've got some reports in the back, it's Appendix 1, Capacity Analysis, and you've got multi modal results. It says pedestrian level of service scores. Can you help me to understand what those are? It's page    I'm not even sure what the number is on this is, T   T 4? Do you have that in front of you.
THE WITNESS:  Yes, I do. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT: What is that. 
THE WITNESS: The    that's something that comes out of the software when we run the analysis. There was no pedestrian information put in, so those levels of service for pedestrians really are not relevant. But from observations that I made on Friday during the p.m. peak hour, there was a fair amount of pedestrian traffic from the train station across North Broad and then continuing down Franklin, staying on the south side. There was very little traffic coming across.  Now, that's part of the signal design, you    when you design a signal with a pedestrian push button, you give that certain amount of time for pedestrians to cross. So it's all part of what goes into the signal design.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Okay. And then just one last question as well. The sidewalks that are on Chestnut that are by your building, they're also in a    they're in a state of, kind of, disrepair as well. You guys are willing to pay for that? 
MR. TUVEL:  Right.  Whatever is adjacent to the property line.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Yes.
MR. TUVEL:  Yes, I believe we covered that as well. But, yes. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  All right.  Good.
Thank you very much.
MR. TUVEL:  Sure.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Okay.  MAYOR KNUDSEN? 
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  Well, I just have a couple of questions about Table II.
THE WITNESS:  Okay. Let me just get to that. Okay.
MR. TUVEL:  See, you think I'm the only one that looks at this. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  All right.  So     
THE WITNESS:  Mayor, I'm sorry, this is the July 5th report or is it the May 31st? 
It should be on the front? 
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  July 5th.  July 5th. 
THE WITNESS:  July 5th?  Okay. 
I just want to make sure I'm looking at the right table.
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  So just so everybody understands a little bit better, we have a Level of Service A.  What is the range, the numerical range, for Service A? 
THE WITNESS:  Okay. 
MR. TUVEL:  Okay.  So let's just make sure we all know what we're talking about here. 
The numerical range is the   
THE WITNESS:  Right.
MR. TUVEL:     how long you wait? 
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
MR. TUVEL:  Okay.
THE WITNESS:  So a Level of Service A is anything less    now, it's a little bit different for signalized intersections versus unsignalized intersections. So for a signalized intersection, actually for both, it's less than 10. Ten seconds is the Level of Service A. From 10 to 20 for a signalized intersection is Level of Service B. From 20 to 35 it is Level of Service C. And these are seconds of delay. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  Right.   
THE WITNESS:  But from 35 to 55 is Level of Service D. From 55 to 80 is Level of Service E. Anything over 80 seconds is a Level of Service F. For unsignalized intersections the range is, I think anything over a level of service    anything over 50 seconds of delay is a Level of Service E, if it's an unsignalized intersection. And that's just a reflection of the fact that it's not a defined movement. You don't have controlled movements. So those are the ranges.
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  Okay. Now, this is based on the 2021 build  
THE WITNESS:  Correct.
MAYOR KNUDSEN:    and the    without the signalized intersection with the modified timing, so it will be the signalized intersection as it exists today.
THE WITNESS:  Correct. That's    Table II is the signal that is there right now.
MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay. So this is projected on your 2021; what is that north    northbound North Broad left currently?  What is that numerical delay right now? 
THE WITNESS: The    for the Saturday, the northbound left under 2021 no build conditions is 64.1 seconds of delay, it's still a Level of Service E. So there is a slight increase in the average delay for that approach, but really it's not a measurable or noticeable difference, you know, at that level. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN: In seconds. 
THE WITNESS:  It's 5.9, 6.9, 7.3 seconds.
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  It would feel like an eternity to someone who wants to get somewhere.
THE WITNESS:  Well, I mean, today you're waiting    I mean, theoretically    and it's an average, depending    I mean, if you drive up and it happens to be a green light, there's light delay. If you pull up just as that signal turns red, you're going to sit there. So the calculation today is    on a Saturday is 64 seconds.
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  Okay.  And then if we were looking at the overall on that same Table II, that 26.2, what is it today overall? 
THE WITNESS:  24.7. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN: So is the biggest difference on that 7 seconds or is there anything that would be significantly higher. 
THE WITNESS: No, it's really that one. See, the thing is once you get into a Level of Service E, you can add one car and it could go up by 3 seconds. It gets very sensitive to the    to even small changes in traffic volumes. And if you think about this, you know, you're looking at a signal, I don't recall what the cycle length is, how long it takes from one point, you know, a green on Franklin Avenue westbound until it comes back to that. It's fairly quick. It's probably, you know, 70 seconds or so. You're talking, you know, that    you're talking about adding one car    not even one car a cycle. So it's a very small amount.
MAYOR KNUDSEN: So then going back to an issue that was raised earlier when you were suggesting that someone heading east out of that parking lot onto Chestnut, that they would    they would see this traffic here, my colleague pointed out that you said they would just see that and just go the other way.
THE WITNESS:  Right.
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  But now that's where they have to go under the building, correct? So there's walls there; is that... 
THE WITNESS:  Well, let me    let me use Exhibit A 19. This was marked at the last meeting. You know, if somebody's parked in the back, they come down to the drive aisles along the east side of the site and they come up here and they go, oh, there's a couple of cars waiting.  I'm just going to go this way (indicating) and go out here to the signal. So, you know, they would be able to see a car    one or two cars or they may choose to wait, you know, to wait. People will learn how to access this site. And you have a great opportunity with having a traffic signal there.
MAYOR KNUDSEN: Yes. That wasn't my question.
THE WITNESS:  Oh.
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  My question is that's where they have to pass underneath the building?  Is that    maybe I'm wrong? Maybe I'm... 
THE WITNESS:  Well, they pass under the building both at Chestnut and at Franklin.
MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay. Right. So fine. So when they pass under the building isn't that like their line of sight isn't necessarily    they're not really able to see what the traffic condition is past that. How would that even be visible? 
THE WITNESS:  Well, I mean, you have a sidewalk on this side of the building (indicating).  You can see the cars if there's cars queued, which probably won't. I mean , if they see cars    you know, if there's nobody here and they see cars on the street, because they know that there's no parked cars, they can say, oh, you know, maybe I'll go out this way (indicating).  If it happens.  It may not. 
MR. TUVEL:  I think the point is all the levels of service at the driveways, because that's what you were just asking about the driveways  
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  Uh    huh.
MR. TUVEL:     were all    I believe it's    I don't want to misstate it. What were the levels of service at the driveways? 
THE WITNESS:  At the signal at North Broad it's Level of Service C.
MR. TUVEL:  And at Chestnut?
THE WITNESS:  Level of Service A.
MR. TUVEL:  Right. 
So you're dealing with levels of service that are more than adequate where if you add additional cars, I believe was the testimony, there's   
THE WITNESS:  Capacity available.
MR. TUVEL:  Correct. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  Okay. I'll hold the rest of my questions for now.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Okay.  Carrie, do you have any questions? 
MS. GIORDANO:  You know I'm just curious, can you accommodate a school bus? Like, if a bus had to take children if they were going to be redistricted and rezoned? 
THE WITNESS:  If for some reason a school bus would enter private property, which is not likely   
MS. GIORDANO: Or where would they pick up then? Where would you recommend the bus stopping. 
THE WITNESS: Well, the Board of Education will determine, you know, where they pick up.  I don't know, you know, these    today these children would go to Ridge. I don't know that they would bus them. I don't know what the Board of Education's policy   
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  They used to actually not    up until maybe about ten years ago they did bus in that neighborhood.
MR. TUVEL: But I think the question is the site can accommodate a school bus, if it can accommodate a fire truck, correct? 
THE WITNESS:  Correct. 
MS. GIORDANO: Okay. And you have, just in your professional opinion like where they would stop, do you have a    I'm just curious.
THE WITNESS: Most likely they'd stop    I mean, they would    they would stop on Franklin.  I mean, if it were a bus, but that's up to the Board of Education. I don't know where they would stop. 
MS. GIORDANO: Okay.
THE WITNESS:  And, obviously, when a bus stops, everybody's got to stop. That's the law.
MS. GIORDANO: Right. I guess you    are you still talking about the pedestrian island or has that gone away? 
THE WITNESS:  No. That    we're    the east side of Chestnut will have the refuge island in the middle in the crosswalk. What we were talking about was there seems to be some people on the board would like to have the crosswalk on the west side of Chestnut   
MS. GIORDANO:  Right.
THE WITNESS:    put back in.
MS. GIORDANO:  Right.
THE WITNESS:  That's on Exhibit A 19, the one over here (indicating).
MS. GIORDANO:  Okay. 
So you're agreeable to put that one back in, but you still are in favor of the pedestrian island. 
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
MS. GIORDANO:  Okay.  And how wide was that.
MR. TUVEL:  Why don't you bring out your scale so you can give us the exact amount. 
THE WITNESS:  It's 5 feet wide.  
MS. GIORDANO: Okay. And does that    if there's parking there? Is this going to be where there's still no parking still by the corner or will that   
THE WITNESS:  The island is right at the corner where there is no parking. 
MS. GIORDANO:  So it won't extend to where there is parking. 
THE WITNESS:  No. 
MS. GIORDANO:  So you won't lose any parking.
THE WITNESS:  No, it's just    no. It does not affect parking. 
MS. GIORDANO:  Okay. And then did you    just in your, you know, expertise did you ponder at all a light, a traffic light at Chestnut and Franklin or you didn't?
THE WITNESS:  No, we did not.
MS. GIORDANO:  Okay. 
And did you look at all at the intersection of Franklin and Oak; was that in your   
MR. TUVEL: No, the    I mean, this comes up a lot at the planning board meetings, but when the use is permitted in the zone, the zone    the use is presumed to not have an impact on off site traffic.  Off site traffic is not to be considered as part of the board's analysis. And there's a lot of case law on that. However, what we did do, just to go    we went a little bit beyond that, just to be conservative, we did look at the intersection adjacent to the property. But we did not have to do that. That's not something that was required.
MS. GIORDANO: Right. So you didn't look at it at all? 
MR. MARTIN:  There could be an impact at times that they are required to take a look at, and although we can't deny an application   
MS. GIORDANO:  Right.
MR. MARTIN:     you can require conditions. 
MS. GIORDANO:  Right. Okay. That's it for now. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Melanie? 
MS. McWILLIAMS: I think the last time when we had spoken there had been some issue with a loading zone and handicap parking spaces, is that something that's been remedied? 
Like a loading zone or where trucks would unload, blocking handicapped spots. I'm trying to find where in my notes it is, but it's so far back.
THE WITNESS: No. The loading zone and the handicapped parking spaces are separated from each other. The handicapped parking spaces are beneath the building at the rear of the building. 
MS. McWILLIAMS: Maybe in the    I'm sorry. Maybe it was the trash pickup? Is that    is that still    or was something being looked into being remedied? You don't see an issue with that? Okay. I forget   
THE WITNESS:  No, I don't    I don't see an issue with that, no.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Okay. At the intersection of Broad and Franklin there where you state a Level of Service E where people make the left, and you're suggesting that an A    or an E, I'm sorry, on a Saturday. How close are we to that on a weekday? Because I mean concerned about adding any more cars into that intersection. And if you're saying people coming out onto Chestnut from the second    that driveway along Chestnut, if they see traffic then they'll just turn around and reroute back out to the signalized exit.
THE WITNESS:  The    and this is in Table II of our report   
MS. McWILLIAMS: Uh huh.
THE WITNESS:     the northbound left turn under build conditions is Level of Service D during the p.m. peak hour. You know, when I was out there on Friday there were    there was no point at which the North Broad Street approach did not clear all the vehicles that were approaching from that direction. And that's   
MS. McWILLIAMS:  So there was no delay or impediment. 
THE WITNESS:  Well, there were    obviously when the light turns red you get a    a line of cars and it goes back some distance, but all of those cars cleared out during each green cycle, at least from my observations on Friday. 
MS. McWILLIAMS:  It's not in    that's not in any report, that's just your own... 
THE WITNESS:  That    that was a visual, and that validates the results of our analysis, which show a Level of Service D.
MS. McWILLIAMS:  I was actually there Friday also and waited, you know, a couple of light signals on more than one occasion. I mean, I    any of us have to get through there, you know, several times a day, back and forth to schools and dance companies that are on that same street. And my observation is that I could sit there for a couple of light cycles. I could sit at the    where Franklin and Chestnut meet and back up and sit there for minutes on end, any day, any time, any day. Right now you could probably manage it. So I'm actually    I'm not sure how, looking back here, you know, I don't know what formula anybody used, but about how many car lengths, how many car would it imagine it would take to back up to your driveway from that intersection    
THE WITNESS:  On   
MS. McWILLIAMS:     because   
THE WITNESS:  On Chestnut? 
MS. McWILLIAMS:  Yeah.  Yes, right, from Chestnut. Again, I'm sorry. I'm sure there's probably data measuring it. 
THE WITNESS:  So from the stop bar on Chestnut to our driveway is 125 feet, so that's six or seven cars. And to put   
MS. McWILLIAMS:  I thought    my observation, our observations, I would guess not too many people sitting up here would argue with the fact that it wouldn't be difficult to sit in a queue of six or seven cars for a good amount of time trying to get through there.
MS. GIORDANO:  Well, there's a dance school down the street. 
MS. McWILLIAMS:  Yes. 
MS. PATIRE:  And that's like a massive suburban, you know, big cars. And they just    they leave en masse, you know, it's just    they have that gap so when children were there that's when you would sit through that cycle. It's a really hard turn to make so...
MS. McWILLIAMS:  You also have the YMCA and, you know, I mean I understand there's formulas for determining which way people are most likely to go, but I think, you know, when you get frustrated drivers and people that have now rerouted coming out of one driveway to go out another driveway and then they're sitting in that driveway and going right means they're going to be sitting in something that quickly becomes a one lane of traffic because of the bike lanes, you end up with much more frustrated drivers. I'm just    I'm wondering if any of that has been factored in and if    when you're assuming people may reroute, which my observation tells me they will do with some regularity because that backs up all the time, you'll have people rerouting in there, retail people coming in. And it    I mean I think a lot of that will also depend on the type of retail space that's going in there. We don't know that yet. And we have no way of knowing if it could be a Starbucks where somebody wants to pop in and get a coffee in the morning, and then they're stuck, they can't get out.
MR. TUVEL:  Look, we did this    I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm sorry. And I apologize in advance. But we did this analysis based on the industry standards that have been accepted by your professionals and by the county with respect to the traffic impacts on this intersection, which we did not have to look at but we did, and this site driveways, based on the fact that, I know a lot of testimony went into the Master Plan and the ordinance that created this site.  So our analysis has shown through our testimony and has been accepted as industry practice from the experts that have been involved and the governmental agencies here that we're going to either operate at an acceptable level of service or we're not going to exacerbate anything that's existing out there in terms of the level of service. So we did do our due diligence here in terms of    we actually relied on the Village's own counts and own observations with respect to it. So I -- we can just agree to disagree and that's okay. But I just have to say for the record that we took this all into consideration, all of the industry standards have been addressed. And we're at appropriate levels of service here. 
MS. McWILLIAMS:  I don't    I don't think I'd feel right if I didn't have this on the record   
MR. TUVEL:  That's okay.
MS. McWILLIAMS:     from me saying that I    I can't    you know, just living here, I totally understand exactly what you're saying, but I can't    I can't not put it on the record that I can't   
MR. TUVEL:  I'm not disrespecting your opinions.
MS. McWILLIAMS:  Right.  So that's    I'm just putting it out there, and I wonder, you know, is there a way to meet in the middle to how    to address this and what sort of do we do when and if this    this comes to fruition and it presents a problem, and I mean that's   
MR. TUVEL:  Well, I think what came up in some of the review letters was also the fact that the signal timing was going to get worked on. 
MS. McWILLIAMS:  Right.
MR. TUVEL:  So there are things that I guess are in the works on the municipal and county perspective that are dependent    and we didn't factors that into the analysis, so the conditions would actually probably improve under that. So there are things that I'm assuming are going to be addressed by your own professionals and by the county's professionals.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Andrew, do you have a comment? 
Specifically on this, regarding that signal and the analysis that was done to the signal. 
MR. MARTIN:  Could you raise your right hand.  Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 
MR. FERANDA:  I do.
A N D R E W  F E R A N D A, PE, PTOE, CME, Having been duly sworn, testifies as follows: 
MR. TUVEL:  Chris, just swear in both professionals, just so we have it on record.
MR. MARTIN:  Yes, I was just about to do that.
MR. TUVEL:  Oh, I didn't think we did, sorry.  I don't think we swore him in.
MR. MARTIN:  I swore him. 
MR. RUTISHAUSER, if you raise your right hand to be sworn in, please. Swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Yes, I do.
C H R I S T O P H E R  R U T I S H A U S E R, having been duly sworn, testifies as follows:
MR. MARTIN:  And you accept   
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Yes.
MR. MARTIN:     Chris as the Village engineer and   
MR. TUVEL:  Yes.  And your traffic consultant. 
MR. MARTIN:     and the traffic engineer. 
MR. TUVEL:  Correct. 
MR. MARTIN:  All right. Thank you.  
Go ahead.
MR. FERANDA: Let me state, traffic signals aren't magic, but    and my recommendation will be strongly that there be actuation at this location. Right now the signal is pre timed. And it cycles through. And the reason you're experiencing some of these longer queues is because it's taking time no matter how many vehicles are waiting, it's cycling through. With the actuation, and actuation means either loop detectors or video detection. And my recommendation would be video detection because that's the way the signal's are going these days. That would allow the signal to be a smart signal, understand the traffic there and adapt to the traffic. Their analysis shows right now, and what you're feeling is 11 to 12 vehicles queuing in the westbound direction. That's right in the analysis. But with the smart signal that has actuation, it actually gives a range of time that you can start from, say, 5 seconds if there's no vehicles, up to say a half a minute to allow that approach to get some more time. And each cycle through could be a little different depending on the vehicles that are actually depicted on that approach. And that would go similarly for the northbound or    yes, the northbound left turn on North Broad. It could be allowed more time if there were vehicles in that lane waiting to make the turn. And, again, with that actuation, I really don't have a concern with the additional traffic because it would be more efficiently used within that cycle each time the signal goes to give green to each of the approaches.
MS. McWILLIAMS:  Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Okay. 
MS. McWILLIAMS: Thank you. That's all I have.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Debbie? 
MS. PATIRE:  Yes.  Question: With regards to levels of service and anything in your experience, I think you said rural New Jersey if I remember correctly.
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
MS. PATIRE:  Is there anything like this that's been done in Summit, Westfield, Montclair, et cetera, that you worked on where their levels of service either improved or made worse with something like this that you have seen. 
THE WITNESS: Sure. We've done a lot of projects and now I'm drawing a blank where    we've done projects in Morristown. We've done projects, just recently did one in Maplewood. And, you know, transit oriented development, you know, the traffic    one of the, you know, we've done one in Bloomfield. We've done many, many projects like this near train stations. And, you know, the amount of traffic really, when you look at it within the context of the streets, is not a significant impact. Most of them are replacing something that was already there. And as MR. SCHEIBNER said, you know, they didn't account for that, that there was traffic there in the past and could be if somebody decided to use that. So, you know, traffic signal timing modifications are something that traffic engineers do on a regular basis, you know, so I   
MS. PATIRE:  Again, I'm just curious if you've seen it either been better or worse, you know.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Would there be a way to implement it    I don't know who this is a question for really, but would there be    for Chris probably, would there be a way to implement it ahead of time to see if we saw improvement in general, just to sort of see, you know, what we really would be looking at, you know, would be a question for you. 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: The current signal does not lend itself to using actuators, it's antiquated is the nicest term that could be used to describe it. 
MS. McWILLIAMS: What's the cost to upgrade that signal? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Again, depending what features you want to add, it could run anywhere to $200 to $400,000.00. 
MS. McWILLIAMS:  And we're talking about, I would imagine, the top of that tier for the top of that scale would be   
MR. FERANDA:  The price range is correct. 
MS. McWILLIAMS:  So about    in the upper ranges of that? 
MR. FERANDA:  Probably in the upper ranges, 300 to 400,000 wouldn't be unreasonable.
MS. McWILLIAMS:  And that would be? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: That's the project as COUNCILMAN VOIGT mentioned, we are working with the county on. The council has let a contract for the survey by a land surveyor, and then we'll approach the county on the design of that. 
MS. GIORDANO: Melanie, just keep in mind the westbound coming east if horrific already too. So, you know, there's an issue there. 
MS. McWILLIAMS: Yes. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN: I actually have another question. So when we did those reports that you relied on, there was a significant push to get it done quickly because there were ordinances that had to be addressed, and so when that push happened to get them done so quickly, we did them in February, but our peak time actually in Central Business District where there's the maximum activity is not necessarily in late January or early February. So my question for you is given that the nature of a central business district and the more the weather warms up, the more likely the traffic increases. How much does that change those numbers? Right, we're looking at 74 and we could be theoretically be looking at another 10 seconds added to that?  How does that necessarily change those numbers? 
THE WITNESS:  Well, I think the one thing when you talk about a downtown and the level of activity is, you know, when we do a traffic study we look at a single hour, because that's what we do at    we take the worst hour and look at it. When you're looking at activity in a downtown, you're not looking at one hour, you're looking at, you know, people are going there, they're traveling through because they still have to go shopping or they're, you know, taking their kids to some sporting events or to dance or something like that. But in the warmer weather you have people there for a longer period of time. It doesn't necessarily all translate that in that one hour that we've studied that the numbers go up. I had compared, because we've been working with Onyx on The Enclave project for four years. We've done our own counts there. We've compared those counts to the ones that were done, and the counts are comparable. I don't believe our counts were done in January. I don't recall. But I think when you're looking at that level of activity in a downtown, you're looking at a broader range, not necessarily one hour. But if you look at Table III in our report, that northbound left, and this is what MR. FERANDA and Chris talked about, is a demand responsive and actuated signal, that northbound left changes to a Level of Service D with 38 seconds of delay. So it cuts it, not quite in half, but close. So it's a significant improvement. So there is additional capacity at that location on a Saturday. You know, the weekday conditions will improve also where you're coming from Wilsey Square and you're trying to come east underneath the railroad tracks and you get hung up, which I did see on Friday. If you have a demand responsive signal, it's going to give more green time to that so that can be alleviated. So there is additional capacity, more efficient use of capacity that I believe will take care of those issues with the    with the traffic volumes.
MAYOR KNUDSEN: Just out of curiosity, don't you think that's a pretty big    a significant difference on your southbound side driveway left or right on non signalized to signalized intersection    well, they both modified timing, but that's a pretty big change from   
THE WITNESS:  Well   
MAYOR KNUDSEN:    22.5 to 47? Don't you think that's pretty significant.
THE WITNESS: And that could be adjusted, you know, when you look at traffic signals and, you know, my client doesn't want to hear this, but our approach of any of those four inter    of four lanes is the least trafficked. So    but if you look at the overall level of service, we've gone from 26.2 to 18.9 on a Saturday. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN: Uh huh.
THE WITNESS:  But those signal    the green time is variable. You give a range. 
So maybe it's not 40.7, we give it a couple more seconds and it improves. But we're looking at the overall approach. And I can stand here all night and tell you what I think I would do as a design professional. It's going to be the county's decision and the county, the state, they care about their road first and then they care about other things second, so what we tried to do was optimize it. I mean   
MR. TUVEL:  But isn't it common to design signals and intersections that operate at Levels of Service C or D; isn't that very common? 
THE WITNESS:  Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's where that signal is today. And it could be    it could be better, but, yeah, a Level of Service D in this type of a downtown environment is an acceptable level of service. 
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Melanie? 
MS. McWILLIAMS: She stole my question.
MAYOR KNUDSEN: I'm sorry.
MS. McWILLIAMS: When would you do it? I mean if you had it    if this is    you know, you were    when would you choose? You used the study. So when would you on your own have chosen to do the study? Like what month, what day, what? What, because...
THE WITNESS: Really alls I would want to make sure is that school is in session. 
You know, I've done a lot of traffic studies. I mean, it depends on the use. But in this type of an environment, yeah, there is some variation, but we've gone back, I have    my office is in Hanover Township, and we have done counts at multiple times at the same location over various years, different months. And it really all washes out. It doesn't really matter. If I'm working for Paramus Park Mall or one of the other regional malls, we like to do it in December, not that we're designing it for December, because you don't design, as a traffic engineer for the worst case, because it happens for a limited period of time and you know you're going to have to accept some level of additional congestion at certain points in the year. We picked a typical time. And really, you know, in New Jersey there's not a lot of variation. Yeah, if you go down the shore, yeah, there's variation. But I don't think we would see more than 5 percent variation. And it could be less, more. And it doesn't change the level of service significantly.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Debbie, are you done? 
MS. PATIRE:  Yes. 
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Isabella? 
MS. ALTANO: Yes. I'm just a little concerned, only because we still don't know who is going to occupy those retail spaces. So we have a job here to determine how much traffic is going to be generated by the retail spaces. We can do a trip analysis. However, I don't know if there's going to be a pizza place where people are going to take out pizza or they're going to go in and out, in and out, and perhaps there should be a dedicated parking spot that says 15 minute pick up area. How would you    if we don't know what that impact of traffic is going to be, and I'm    this concerns me.  We can do all the studies we want, but we still have that basic component that's unknown. 
THE WITNESS: Well   
MS. ALTANO: How do you plan to accommodate that, you know, think about that fact that is unknown right now and it's going to bring a lot more    it could potentially generate a lot more traffic.
THE WITNESS: Well, MS. ALTANO, that's a very good question, and that's why, in our calculations, we used a shopping center for the trip generation for that space. I don't normally use shopping center land use category for a retail space of this amount, but because I didn't know what the uses could be, I took the more conservative approach. The shopping center   
MR. TUVEL: You didn't know who the tenant would be.
THE WITNESS: I didn't know who the tenant would be, right. So I used a shopping center. Shopping center has a higher trip rate than some of the other retail uses that we have opportunities to use in the trip generation. So it is conservative. I think it covers the breadth of uses that can go in there. And most likely. The traffic is going to be less than what I've calculated. As far as parking, you know, we've set aside 22 spaces for retail. The management of this facility, when they get tenants, if they have    feel that there is a need to set aside a space for, you know, short duration parking, they have that ability. But, you know, that's something that can't be determined at this point. But there is flexibility to be able to do that. 
MR. TUVEL:  How is this    in these mixed use type of developments, unlike a single tenant site, where you come in with your single tenant and you know who they are ahead of time, the tenants are usually not determined when the site gets approved. And that's why we do these studies where we incorporate    and when he says land use code, he means the ITE, the Institute of Transportation Engineers land use code for determining the trips.  And that's why he used shopping center. 
THE WITNESS:  Correct.
MR. TUVEL: It's the most conservative approach, that encompasses all sorts of retail activities that have been suggested. Correct? 
THE WITNESS: That's correct. 
MR. TUVEL:  Yes. I mean it's very, very common practice to not have the tenants at this time. And also just remember, tenants change, too, so when you approve a site you approve it for the use that's going there, not the specific tenant. 
MS. ALTANO:  Okay. Will there be an additional study    traffic study done once you know exactly who the tenants are? 
MR. TUVEL: No, because that's why we do it this way to incorporate the wide range of the types of retail tenants that could be here. I think that was the testimony, that that's how it occurs. If, typically, like I said, you get approved for a use and you don't return back to the board for any purpose unless for some reason you deviate from the approval or you deviate from the ordinance to some degree. But here what we're doing is we're getting the use approved that's within a certain category, and we have retail on the bottom and residential up top. And that's how we ran the analysis. That's how it's typically done for these downtown type projects.
MR. MARTIN: MS. ALTANO, once in a while you have to look back at six months if there's approval    
MS. ALTANO: Yes.
MR. MARTIN:    we can look back and find out if there's some adjustment that needs to be done at the different intersections.
MS. ALTANO: Right. That's what I'm looking for. Yes.
MR. MARTIN: Well, that, if necessary, that's something to discuss with the board.
MS. ALTANO: Thank you. 
MR. TUVEL: Sure.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Joel.
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI:  No questions at this time.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Yes, I have no questions either. 
Andrew, would you like to ask questions? 
MR. FERANDA:  Sure. And Dave addressed specifically some of the comments in the traffic review letter, but obviously some comments have come up from the board's questions, so I'm going to go through the points that I heard as testimony was provided. The columns underneath the deck where there are parking spaces, some of them come into parking areas. I wasn't here for the engineering testimony, but is there a thought to protect those columns so they will be   
MR. TUVEL: Yes. We saw that in your letter, it might have been your letter or Chris' letter, but that's fine. We can protect the columns.
MR. FERANDA: Okay.
MR. TUVEL:  Our architect can design something to do that.
MR. FERANDA: The loading area, I know you talked about the bollards between the parked space and the loading area. It is very tight. If a truck were to back up and    I don't know how the loading will be done if it's from the rear of the vehicle they're not going to park that close, but if it's from the side of the truck they could park right up against the bollards, which, again, I don't know that there's a whole lot of room for a door to swing open even with the spacing of the bollards. That's something we can work out.
MR. TUVEL: This is something we can work out. If you think that there's a slight adjustment that needs to be made we can work that out with your office. That's fine.
MR. FERANDA: The circulation aisle to the north of the lot is 20 foot wide. The rest of the aisles are 24 foot. I believe that might have been discussed in previous testimony for the site layout.  Do you want to discuss that? 
THE WITNESS: The site plan showed it as one way. We'll add the appropriate signage to support that.
MR. FERANDA: Parking spaces at the Chestnut Avenue entrance, there's two parking spaces that are virtually right at the entrance. And I don't know if the architecture would permit them to see vehicles entering the building. 
Is that something that you've taken into account with what you're going do with those spaces? 
THE WITNESS: Yes, we have. That's part of the design and one of the suggestions was to make them employee only, which we  
MR. FERANDA: Which would be lower turnover.
THE WITNESS: Right. We could do that.
MR. FERANDA: There is an easement on site that currently exists, and I believe again this might have been discussed, I wasn't here. But there is an access to the rear of some of those buildings, the easement. I believe in the beginning of the testimony tonight you talked about the bollards, and a chain for the neighboring property because maybe they didn't want access going through their property    
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MR. FERANDA: But has that been addressed? 
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MR. TUVEL: Yes. That easement has been addressed between the private property owners.  One of the owners, a representative of one of the owners had come to the last meeting and that's why I stipulated that in addition to what we had previously done before even coming to the board, we agreed to put bollards and a chain so that they can have protection there if they want it.
MR. FERANDA: There was a question about the site traffic, and how did you know whether to turn left or right or through. That's not part of the existing distribution of traffic, because there's nothing on site, as you had mentioned. Can you go over a little bit about your origin and destination analysis and how you determined where the vehicles are coming    where they're coming from or where they're going to? 
THE WITNESS:  There was two components to that; one is the traffic flows on the existing streets adjacent to the site, and then there was also    and I'm trying to find it in the downtown traffic study, Table 11, which is on page 22, has the generalized distribution to the cardinal directives. So we took that, tweaked it a little bit for this particular site based on what we saw on the streets, and then assigned it to the two driveways.
MR. FERANDA: So the residential traffic will follow mostly the existing patterns on the roadways is   
THE WITNESS: Correct. Correct.
MR. FERANDA:  And that's how the left turns and right turns on your distribution of site traffic, that's in your report? 
THE WITNESS: Correct.
MR. FERANDA: Okay. 
The pedestrian crossing at Franklin and North Broad, I think there was discussion, I'm not sure if that's where they were    you were talking about having the pedestrian crosswalks on both sides? 
THE WITNESS: No. That was at Chestnut.
MR. FERANDA: I'm sorry.
THE WITNESS: At Franklin and North Broad we're going to keep    the crosswalks that are there stay, and then obviously there'll be some    I mean, they have ped heads, pedestrian indications, walk, don't walk, and push buttons today. And that would be incorporated into any signal upgrade that occurs.
MR. FERANDA: My recommendation would be not have it on the west side of the intersection because of the left turns from North Broad, because that would conflict crossing pedestrians with the left turn movement which is a heavy movement.
THE WITNESS: Yes. There's no sidewalk on the west side of our site driveway, and also that part of Franklin or Garber Square dips down so you get into grade issues when you get over to the railroad side, so it's not an appropriate location    you don't want people crossing there, besides for the reasons you've noted.
MR. FERANDA: There was a question about Chestnut and Franklin it's a stop controlled intersection. Going back to the Village, the study that was done for the Village, there is some analysis that's in there, even though it's not necessarily an analysis of this project, but in the Village report it shows some four levels of services of those side street, the stop controlled approached. I think it's a valid point that there's probably queuing during the peak periods.  And during those peak periods the queuing probably backs up past the driveway. And if that occurs, then you're not likely to really experience, based on the levels of service on the road and based on the levels    and based on the volumes on the road and based on the volumes coming from your driveway, it would indicate a Level of Service A, but you're not likely to get that due to the queuing that will be, in effect, congested and gridlocked. And I understand you said that vehicles would probably use the signal, and I agree with that. My thought, just to follow up on what the board was requesting, is maybe provide some additional information about the queueing for that approach, just to see where the queues do back up. 
Again, the board should recognize that the peak periods that are analyzed are the three highest hours of the weekday and weekend. It's a Saturday, the highest peak period, peak hour of the weekend they use, and then it's two peak periods, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Those are really representative of the three highest hours over that week. So when the analysis is done, it's conservative in that there's other hours throughout the week where this could work, function much better, but as traffic engineers, we have to do this as part of our modeling, observe and look at those peak periods. My guess is when you look at this based on your analysis that was done for the Village, there's Levels of Service Es and Fs. That means there's queuing on that approach. And my guess is it will pass if, you know, five, six vehicles back up past that driveway    during those hours it will pass the driveway and they will have to use the signal. And that's where it's really important that that signal get done and be done appropriately even if it's at the higher end where there's actuation, and there's appropriate distribution of the green time to allow, during those periods, the residents to not feel trapped in their own development.
MR. MARTIN:  And the proportion of the property related to this project, not the other projects, that would be a consideration for this operation, correct? 
MR. FERANDA: Correct. And there's a method for doing fair shares and that's based on the number of trips that would be added to the intersection based on the total    over the total volume at the intersection. So if there's ten trips added by this site or if there's 50 trips added by this site and there's 200 trips that go through the intersection, it would take the 50 over the 200 and that would be their fair share contribution. Now, I'm just picking numbers. It could be 30 and 1000, whatever that number is, that would be how fair share contribution is done for an off site improvement. This signal being immediately adjacent and very important to the operation of the site would be one that I would recommend the fair share contribution towards, especially since there's not too much that could be done at Chestnut and Franklin, it's a stop controlled intersections, unless you add another lane or a traffic signal, which that's a whole 'nother animal. A study would have to be done to see if it's even warranted, and that would be based on volumes. That's a whole 'nother study and analysis. But because that one signal is so important to the operation of this site, I think a fair share contribution towards the higher end signal would be appropriate.
MS. McWILLIAMS:  How would we weigh that if we don't even know what actual amounts of traffic would be added into that intersection from the    from that    from the signalized exit, if    right, what you're saying is there's probably going to be more back up than we originally    than    than sort of, there's going to be more of a backup, so many more people are going to reroute to the signalized intersections. 
So how would we end up determining appropriate fair share if we're    they're going with lower numbers and you're saying it's actually going to be a higher number; how do we do that? 
MR. FERANDA:  The road map is getting the queue analysis, seeing what happens in the peak periods.  If it's blocked then worst case, to protect the residents, would be to send all the traffic to the signal. Now I don't know if that would be appropriate because during that peak hour    and this would be something that they would find during the analysis, the queue is not going to pass the driveway for the whole 60 minutes of the hour. But they will be able to determine how many    how many spaces there are for vehicles to get out onto Chestnut and based on that information, you can assign the traffic to the signal or to that driveway during the peak periods.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Do you have any further questions? 
MR. FERANDA: I just had one other point. The seasonal variation that you were talking about, usually it doesn't vary as much for the vehicles unless there's things that people drive to in the area. It will vary more for pedestrians, obviously, whether it gets better it's going to be more people crossing the street. Their analysis, as they suggested, didn't necessarily take into account pedestrians, so I don't know that it would change the analysis as they did it without the pedestrian volumes in there. But I could agree that there    likely during the better months of the year, better weather months of the year, there will be more pedestrian use. Pedestrians obviously have the right of way when you're in a pedestrian crosswalk. That's the law in New Jersey. So that will slow things up at the unsignalized intersection. At the signalized intersection there will be    there has to be    any upgrades, it has to be Americans With Disabilities Act compliant. So it would be push buttons, handicapped ramps, and all the pedestrian provisions to allow that to function properly. If there is this large grouping of pedestrians in better weather months, there could be signage of something to point them to use the signal, but that is the safest way to cross pedestrians across a roadway.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  I have a question for the    our traffic engineer. You mentioned fair share when you talked about traffic. You talked about car traffic. But isn't it also applicable to pedestrian traffic when you're looking at the fair share. In other words, if people are crossing that intersection, based on the fact that they have that development there, that is also a way to look at this. It's not just the traffic. It's car traffic. It's pedestrian traffic as well. And I think the law says that. So we have to be really careful about whether we say, you know, car traffic or foot traffic in doing the analysis.
MR. TUVEL:  I'm sorry, can I just say this, COUNCILMAN VOIGT, to that? 
If we have a legal obligation to upgrade the signal and to provide a pro rata share based on whatever legal factors have to be considered, we have to    we have to comply with that.
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  No, I completely understand. But I just don't want it on record that we're only looking at car traffic. We're looking at all kinds of traffic that goes   
MR. TUVEL:  Whatever the    whatever the industry standard requires. 
COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Okay. Good. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Any further questions of MR. KELLER? 
Chris? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Just a couple. 
With the analysis that's been discussed tonight on the Chestnut Street intersection with Franklin adjacent to your project, and the proposal that we are going to upgrade the light at North Broad Street, if it's necessary to better integrate the lights on Franklin, the additional light on Oak Street, would the developer cover some of those costs to integrate the Oak Street light with the new light at Broad Street? 
MR. TUVEL:  There has to be a legal basis to do it. 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: There may be, as COUNCILMAN VOIGT says, because of the pedestrian crossing, you know, we have a heavy crossing issue at Chestnut Street.  
MR. TUVEL: I can't give an answer to that right now because I don't know if there's a legal basis for us to agree to something like that. 
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  And then the other direction I will extend that to is also consideration of integrating the light at    an upgraded light at North Broad with the West Ridgewood Avenue Garber Square signal.
MR. TUVEL:  We can't just upgrade every light that's in the town. There's a   
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Well, I'm looking    I'm looking particularly at platooning and providing sufficient gaps in the traffic movement to accommodate the pedestrian movements in that corner.
MR. TUVEL: As I    like I said, as a condition of approval if there are off tract improvements that are necessary and legally required, we'll have our experts look into them and work with you and the traffic consultants if they're required.
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Okay. 
One other question is on the   
MR. MARTIN:  That's where I was going, it's not just a legal issue. It's an expert issue, too.  
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Well, that's why my experience is based on the issues we've had on Franklin Avenue corridor including some very, very bad pedestrian accidents. Those are a driving force in any efforts I would seek to have to mitigate the conditions, which is necessary integrating the lights to create platooning effect, to create a gapping effect. We have done    we have done light gapping in other locations in the Village and it has worked successfully to assist pedestrians. 
MR. TUVEL:  Yes.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: So we know it works. We know it's something that can be considered.
MR. TUVEL: And then, Chris, because the reason I say that is we have to make sure there's a rational nexus if there's any improvement or pro rata share that we're doing. 
So that's why I don't know to stipulate to something that I don't know if that rational nexus exists. 
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Okay. Fair enough. 
One other question is on the site exit to Chestnut Street; was there any consideration to a no left turn? 
THE WITNESS:  No.
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Do you know how many    I don't recall how many turns you anticipate coming out there   
MR. TUVEL:  What's the    I'm sorry.
MR. RUTISHAUSER:    making the left to head north.
MR. TUVEL:  I'm sorry.  Could you just repeat that one more time? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  For the exit off onto Chestnut Street, was there any consideration of putting no left turn   
MR. TUVEL:  Out of the site? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Out of the site to head north on Chestnut Street.
MR. TUVEL: I just want to make sure I understood what you were saying. 
Go ahead.
THE WITNESS: We did not. The amount    we did not send a lot of traffic that way. From looking at the street network and knowing the area, I mean there is some people that would want to go that way to head east over towards 17, instead of going down to Ridgewood, depending on their, you know, if they're headed north on 17. But it's not a lot of traffic that's headed out that way. 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: If circumstances warrant it, should this project be approved, would your    would the Applicant have any qualms about the implementation of a no left turn ordinance or limitation. 
MR. TUVEL: I'd have to check with the client on that.
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Okay.  Thank you. 
Nothing further, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. Thank you. Kendra? 
MS. LELIE:  One question. 
You mentioned that there is not going to be a crosswalk currently across Franklin near the train station, right, because there's not a sidewalk that goes beyond that area? 
THE WITNESS:  On the west side of the intersection   
MS. LELIE:  On the west side.
THE WITNESS:     there will not be. We're keeping the one on the east side which exists today.
MS. LELIE:  There's a proposed    and I'm sorry, I know you may have gone through this, but there's a proposed outdoor recreation area that's required by the ordinance situated on that west side of the building.
MR. TUVEL:  Yes.
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
MS. LELIE:  So if there's not any access to that, what's the purpose of that area? 
THE WITNESS:  That wasn't the question that MR. FERANDA asked me, was getting across Franklin Avenue. With that there, you know, I guess we should put a crosswalk across our site driveway to get from the east side to that outdoor space. It's an internal   
MR. TUVEL:  Amenity area? 
THE WITNESS: It's internal to the site, it's an outdoor amenity for the residents there. 
It's not public space. 
MS. LELIE: I guess, it's just a    just a recommendation, maybe there needs to be some consideration of a different spot for that outdoor recreation area. 
It just seems like a very odd location, especially if it's hard to get to. So that's just generally across the board. 
MS. PATIRE:  I have one more question.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Sure. 
MS. PATIRE:  And, Chris, maybe you remember, so coming out onto Franklin, we talked about this at our last meeting which was, I guess, late, because those streets don't align, the analogy I gave last time, so as we're talking about the new light at that corner, is there a way, because when you go straight if there's another car coming out, that is dangerous    is there a way you can go right turn only or left turn only and not go straight at that light? As you head towards East Ridgewood Avenue. 
MR. TUVEL:  I think that's    that would have to be   
MR. RUTISHAUSER: The design for that intersection and the upgrading, that's something we would look at. For example, leading left turn so that a vehicle making a left turn from westbound direction of Franklin would go first in the intersection to clear those cars out of that queue before the eastbound direction on Franklin were to get the green light. We may  
MS. PATIRE:  So are we saying the same thing though? Like if I'm coming out of the    if I'm going out and I would go right, left, or straight, right? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Okay.
MS. PATIRE:  Is that a single queuing lane to leave the property onto Franklin Avenue? 
THE WITNESS:  Yes.
MS. PATIRE:  It's a single queue?
THE WITNESS:  Yes.
MS. PATIRE:  Right? 
THE WITNESS:  Yes. 
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  Yes. 
MS. PATIRE:  Because you're talking opposite   
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  I was mentioning my traffic was   
MS. PATIRE:     because you're saying a left would go through   
MR. RUTISHAUSER:     on Franklin.
MS. PATIRE:    from North Broad?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Franklin has the primary    is the primary route there. 
The exiting traffic from this site is to be a secondary or tertiary consideration in the traffic hierarchy of how the intersection is going to work. 
MS. PATIRE: So it's a separate light? So I'll be red? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Well, if you're exiting the development today as it is proposed, you will probably have a longer red cycle if we don't have actuators. If we have actuators, they'll change the cycle to let those cars out because more often than not it won't be much exiting traffic from the facility and the intersection    well, excuse me, the lights will govern the intersection for the primary traffic volumes.
MS. PATIRE:  But I guess my question is would those lights coming out of the site, as well as making a left and going underneath the train tracks, those light will never be green at the same time? 
MR. RUTISHAUSER: We have to take a careful look at that. We may not want them green at the same time if we anticipate a significant exiting volume from this site that will conflict with the northbound Broad Street left turn under the trestle.
MS. PATIRE: Yes. That's what I'm talking about.
MR. RUTISHAUSER:  That    that   
MS. PATIRE: So that's what we were talking about at that last January meeting it's just dangerous because the roads don't line up. 
MR. TUVEL: Yes, we're probably not going to design it here, but I'm assuming that there's going to be a lot of input   
MS. PATIRE: Yeah.
MR. TUVEL:    from every one of the signal features, what features that signal has.
MS. PATIRE: It's just something for the traffic consultants. 
MR. TUVEL: Yes, I think that's something that   
MS. PATIRE: It's for them and there's a situation right up the street where that happens very often   
MR. TUVEL: Yes, those types of   
MS. PATIRE:    people are blocking the street and the kids are crossing, so it's not    it's not ideal.
MR. TUVEL: Yes. Those types of improvements are usually conditions of approval that the experts work on after the fact with the county, with your municipal engineer, but those are factors that we can take into account.
MS. PATIRE:  Okay. I just wanted to    I remembered that last question. Thank you.
MR. TUVEL:  Yes. No, it's good. 
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: All right. Now we're going to open it up to the public. Does anyone from the public want to ask questions of the traffic engineer? (No response.) 
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  I guess they're all with you. All right. No public questions. 
MR. TUVEL:  Mr. Chairman, could we take a little break? 
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Yes. I was thinking it might be better to close it out because we have a new planner that was just appointed, so maybe it would probably be better for her to review some of the tapes and things like that and because I guess you're coming back on the 18th, April 18th? 
MR. TUVEL: Well, could we just take a break so I can talk    ask my client about timing also    
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Yes, okay.
MR. TUVEL:     that why we could just   
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  All right.  We'll take a break. How long did you need? 
MR. TUVEL:  Ten minutes.
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Okay. A 10 minute break.
MR. TUVEL:  Thank you.
(Whereupon, a brief recess is taken.)
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Come to order. It's 10 after 10. 
Michael, call the roll.
MR. CAFARELLI: MAYOR KNUDSEN?
(No response.)
MR. CAFARELLI:  MAYOR KNUDSEN? I'm calling the roll. 
MAYOR KNUDSEN:  I'm here. 
MR. CAFARELLI:  COUNCILMAN VOIGT?
COUNCILMAN VOIGT:  Here.
MR. CAFARELLI:  Mr. Torielli?
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI:  Here.
MR. CAFARELLI:  MS. McWILLIAMS?
MS. McWILLIAMS:  Here. 
MR. CAFARELLI:  MR. SCHEIBNER?
MR. SCHEIBNER:  Here.
MR. CAFARELLI:  Mr. Joel? 
CHAIRMAN JOEL:  Here.
MR. CAFARELLI:  MS. ALTANO?
MS. ALTANO:  Here.
MR. CAFARELLI:  MS. PATIRE? 
MS. PATIRE:  Here. 
MR. CAFARELLI:  And, MS. GIORDANO?
MS. GIORDANO:  Here. 
CHAIRMAN JOEL: I guess this application, we're going to adjourn now and carry it to April 18, 2017, without further notice and with the consent of the applicant? 
MR. TUVEL: Yes. So we'll extend the time through April 18th, but as of right now I believe that will be our last extension. We hope to get a vote that night on the 18th. Mr. Chairman, I would just ask that you just announce the date, time and place of the meeting and that no further notice would be required. 
MR. MARTIN: No prejudice to the board as well.
MR. TUVEL: Right. But the extension is only good through the 18th. We've extended several times.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. So it's carried to April 18, 2017, here at the Village Hall courtroom, 7:30 p.m.
MR. TUVEL:  No further notice.
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Could I just, Jason, just two quick questions? 
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Sure.
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Okay. One, in the beginning you mentioned the egress to that adjacent site. I know you guys are going to put up fencing and bollards.
MR. TUVEL: Right. So that was    okay. So we haven't formally adjourned yet, so we're still on the record.
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Right.
MR. TUVEL: We'll do it again in a second. 
Right, so that was    so one of the property owners is here, only one of them.
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: I understand.
MR. TUVEL: What's that? 
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: I understand. I'm just asking for you to document it on the site plan, on an actual drawing, not just   
MR. TUVEL: Oh, as a condition of approval we could indicate on a plan   
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Perfect.
MR. TUVEL:    where that    that's fine, yes. No big deal. 
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: All right. That was one. The other question is we had some back and forth with the architect last time about the towers on the end of the building. He was going to come back with some more specific information about the slopes of the roofs.
MR. TUVEL: Oh, I thought we had addressed all that, when he had looked at the adjacent, but I'll check the transcript   
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Please do.
MR. TUVEL:    and if I need to supplement that, I will bring him back.
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI:  Thank you.
MR. TUVEL: Thanks for pointing that out.
VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: All right. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Thank you. All right. So we're officially adjourned on this application until April 18th, 2017, Village Hall courtroom, 7:30 p.m. 
MR. TUVEL: No further notice to the public.
MR. MARTIN: And no prejudice to the board. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: Correct. 
MR. TUVEL: Right.
CHAIRMAN JOEL: No further notice. Thank you.
MR. TUVEL:  Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of the board.
MR. MARTIN: Thank you.  
(Whereupon, this matter will be continuing at a future date. Time noted: 10:11 p.m.)

Adoption of Minutes: The minutes from February 2, 2016 and February 16, 2016 were approved as written.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:15 p.m.
      

Michael Cafarelli

Board Secretary

Date Approved: February 20, 2018