Written on 01 June 2018.

planning board public meeting minutes 20170620

The following minutes are a summary of the Planning Board meeting of June 20, 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 7:59 p.m. The following members were present: MAYOR KNUDSEN, COUNCILMAN VOIGT, Mr. Torielli, MS. ALTANO, Mr. JOEL, MS. PATIRE, MR. SCHEIBNER, and MS. McWILLIAMS. Also present were: Kendra Lelie, Village Planner; Christopher Rutishauser, Village Engineer; Christopher Martin, Esq., and Board Secretary Michael Cafarelli. Ms. Barto and Ms. Giordano were absent.

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

Committee/Commission/Professional Updates for Non Agenda Topics; Correspondence Received by the Board – MR. CAFARELLI reported two emails from the Board attorney, legal memorandum and Two Forty Associates resolution, and a document from MR. WELLS discussion the stipulations in the Ridgewood/Dayton application.

Two Forty Associates, Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan, 150-174 Chestnut Street, Block 2005, Lot 38: Adoption of Memorializing Resolution of Approval – The resolution was adopted with one correction on page 22.

Ridgewood/Dayton, Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan, 100/152 South Broad Street, Blocks 3707/3905, Lots 5.01/1.01- Pubic Hearing continued from May 2, 2017 without prejudice to the Board – Following is the transcript of this portion of the meeting, prepared by Laura A. Carucci, C.C.R., R.P.R.:

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. The next item will be the Ridgewood/Dayton, Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan, 100/152 S. Broad Street, Blocks 3707/3905, Lots 5.01/1.01, Public Hearing continued from May 2, 2017 without prejudice to the board.

MR. WELLS: Good evening, folks. For the record, my name is Thomas Wells, from the law firm of Wells Jaworski Liebman in Paramus, New Jersey. I've been before you for a long time on this application. In fact. I had my 65th birthday this year, I was in my 50s when this started. This evening I hope we will come to an end of this matter. Where we were at the last hearing was that we had completed all of the testimony that we wanted to present to the board. The board had solicited testimony from MR. JAHR, its expert, from Ms. McManus, it's planning expert, and your engineer, was not present that evening and you wished to question him further.

So I believe what's in order would be his direct testimony, any cross, any questions from anybody, then perhaps any statements that wanted to be made from the public, and then it would be my time for closing argument, and then I think we're done. So, that's where we are now, unless there are questions of me. What MR. KOHUT is handing out to you, you know from the past that it's my practice to try to make it easier, so you have a couple of things in front of you: One is an exhibit list with all of the exhibits. There are two that will be added this evening; one is a copy of our stipulations, which provide no surprises, they're stipulations that we talked to you about at the last hearing, and, in addition, those stipulations that were added at the last hearing. I'll talk about it a little bit more in the closing. There are 21 in number. The other thing that is there is the list of exhibits themselves, and I've added our stipulations as the A‑23, and I've amended, as I have in the past, I've taken the liberty and you certainly don't have to do it, but MR. MARTIN had submitted a legal memorandum to the board that I received a copy of this morning, so I took the liberty of marking that as BD‑7, assuming that would be a board exhibit. If you're not going to put it in the record, I certainly will. So I would like to have those two documents put in the record as A‑23 and BD‑7, if possible.

MR. MARTIN: MR. WELLS, on mine, it's BD‑7, and I think there was one change on the first page that the applicant stipulates that ‑‑
MR. WELLS: Really what happened is in the very first hearing back in September 2016, Mr. Brancheau had raised a variance with respect to stucco on the rear or the lack of stucco on the rear of the retaining wall as it faced the railroad tracks. And although we didn't really feel that was terribly necessary, rather than have a variance for that, we stipulated that it is literally No. 1 on the list, it was stipulated within the first few minutes of the first hearing, so we eliminated that variance. So there is only one variance that remains pending with this application.
MR. MARTIN: Which is the steep slope, right?
MR. WELLS: Yes, which I'll re‑explain. (Updated Stipulations List is marked as exhibit A‑23 in evidence.) (Legal Memorandum prepared by Christopher E. Martin, Esq., is marked as exhibit BD‑7 in evidence.)
MR. WELLS: As you heard testimony, we also dispute, we don't believe it's correctly listed as a variance, but we alternatively explained why we didn't believe it was a variance and then also presented the necessary criteria under (c)(2) to justify the variance, should it be determined to be a variance, but that's the only one that exists.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: I guess we'll proceed with Chris Rutishauser with his testimony to pick up where we left off.

MR. MARTIN: MR. RUTISHAUSER, just for the record, you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Yes, I do.
MR. MARTIN: And you're a Professional Engineer, and you're in fact the Village of Ridgewood Engineer, right?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: That is correct.
MR. MARTIN: Do you stipulate as to MR. RUTISHAUSER as a Professional Engineer?
MR. WELLS: I certainly will.
MR. MARTIN: Thank you.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Good evening, members of the board. I'm going to basically go over the items that I do not believe were addressed at the May 2nd meeting that apparently I was not in attendance at, from my September 6, 2016, review of submitted materials. I see a number of items that I had in my memo have been addressed, a couple of ones may still be up in the air, like the CE, if we can get some clarification on it. I'm starting on the second page of the site plan, the first comment I made is that for S. Broad Street, along the front of the proposed building, is currently a "no stopping or standing" zone. I just want to confirm if the applicant is going to seek any kind of change to that or permit parking?
MR. WELLS: We confirm so.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Excuse me?
MR. WELLS: Yes, we can certainly confirm that.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: So no change is going to be requested?
MR. WELLS: No.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Okay.
MR. WELLS: I think what you're asking is, we haven't requested a change, but you're asking that we agree that we won't in the future.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Yes. I don't know if you would be considering any kind of change in the current parking along the street there.
MR. WELLS: Really, honestly, that is actually a matter for the Mayor and Council to consider as opposed to us. We won't be requesting that of the Mayor and Council, if that's what you need from us.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Okay. Thank you. Another comment I made is the refuse collection area shown on the southwest corner of the site, basically how will the trash with two trash compactor rooms get to the dumpster; is there going to be an on‑site attendant or by a homeowners association? But I don't think you will be having a homeowners association for this site.
MR. WELLS: There was testimony on that at the last hearing by MR. LOVENTHAL.

If the board wants to have it, that testimony repeated, we can, but it was covered at the last hearing.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Maybe we can have it repeated.

MR. WELLS: Okay. Do we want to wait and see if there's anything else?

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Yes.

MR. WELLS: And then we'll cover that.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Then I'll look through the transcripts.
MR. WELLS: Tonight is the night, so we'll be happy to re‑present it.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Then, I guess, MR. LOVENTHAL will also address the under building parking areas, because I made a comment that they do not appear to have any garbage cans, and I asked if ANY were proposed, again who would service them?
MR. WELLS: I don't actually think there was testimony on that, so we'll see if we can get an answer for you on that.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: I made a comment that I was uncertain as to what the vertical clearances were at the entrances to the under building parking area. What was it? And would the village ambulance have adequate clearance to access the lobby areas where the two elevators are or should patients be transported out the front door to an ambulance waiting at S. Broad Street? I also recommended that the under parking area access points have their vertical clearances posted.
MR. WELLS: There was extensive testimony during MR. LAPATKA's presentation back in September, September 20th of last year, on that issue. We also presented a letter from the emergency services people here in Ridgewood indicating that it was not their practice to ever put an ambulance under the building, and we testified that it was not our intention to do that, and that there was evidence presented by several witnesses that it would be totally appropriate for ambulances to service any needs that might be in the building from the rear driveway.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Can you pull the microphone just down closer to your mouth?
MR. WELLS: I'm sorry.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Thank you.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: I just have a question, I don't mean to interrupt, but how many buildings do we presently have that an EMT would respond and say, send a letter stating that they wouldn't make it a practice of going into a garage like this to transport a patient? How many buildings do we even have in Ridgewood that would have that type of scenario occurring?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: There are several.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Those are office building. How many residential?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: Actually a big office building that had a lot of ambulance calls is 1200 E. Ridgewood, because it is medical offices owned by Valley Hospital, and they do have some under the building parking, not through parking, but they do have parking underneath portions of the building.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: How many residential buildings do we have? I mean, this is little bit of an unknown territory. I'm just kind of wondering aloud, because the EMT is sending a letter like that, I would imagine that if they contemplate it as a residential building?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: I think it depends on how it's looked at. This project proposal is relatively open, under building parking. There are parking areas underneath residential buildings that are more like just garages, oftentimes have individual garage doors where a resident can park his car. I believe the Oak Street Apartments have something like that and some of the other garden apartments on South Maple, I believe, have a couple spaces for under the building parking. We do have one office building at Franklin across from the Stop & Shop next to Baumgart's that does have under the building parking, but you are correct, Mayor, there are not many examples in the village.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: It's kind of new territory, I would imagine.

MR. RUTISHAUSER: It's a design style that hasn't found much favor.
MR. WELLS: I can try to pull the section of the transcript and read it to you or MR. LAPATKA, I brought him back this evening because your engineer was testifying, he can try to remind the board. I believe that the key to his testimony, I don't remember the exact distance, he will, the distance was just not very far, and that's why there's not particular concern; the distance from the driveway to the door is not far, well within an acceptable distance to cover with rolling a stretcher or whatever.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: All right. Those were my questions.

MR. RUTISHAUSER: Okay. As regarding soil movement, the applicant has submitted a permit application for a major soil moving permit. I believe that major soil moving permit is a part of this application process.
MR. WELLS: It is. And, again, back at MR. LAPATKA, he did testify about the actual cut and fill and the total amount that would be done.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Regarding the sanitary sewer services, the Village of Ridgewood collection system will service the development. There's a connection fee of $5,000.00 per dwelling unit that would be required to be paid to the village. The project will likely require an NJDEP sewer extension approval. The Village will obviously work with the applicant's professionals in processing that. Given the age of the village's sewer system, we're going to request the applicant provide anticipated flows with peaking times from the development. The flow volumes and peaking times will have to be carefully examined, particularly under wet weather conditions with the available capacity and receding mains from the site all the way down to 30‑inch diameter trunk main. And, again, I refer to my February 2013 memorandum on sewer capacities. I made some minor technical items in the sewer connection in Broad Street. It should be done in accordance with the village standards, and we recommend the connection be made with a manhole rather than a Y. We will recommend the detectable warning tape be utilized in all utility trenches for this in locating them in the future. And that's it.
MR. WELLS: I say we agree with actually everything he suggested.

In passing, I would mention since we have members of the governing body here, even I didn't realize you had a $5,000.00 per unit connection fee, which is outrageous, it's over $200,000.00 in this case and it's essentially to cover administrative cost as opposed to new sewers and so forth, but it is in the ordinance, so I pointed it out to the applicant that it did exist, and he was duly shocked, but it's there, so that's a real boo‑boo.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay.

Dave, did you have any questions for Chris?

MR. SCHEIBNER: Yes. In the stipulations, stipulation No. 12, it indicates that the applicant will replace water main along the front of the property as discussed in the Ridgewood Water report. As an engineer, increasing the size of the main just in front of the property would make an appreciable difference in the flow characteristics?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Not necessarily. I am not familiar with the condition of the water main in that location. That recommendation may have been made based on knowledge I don't have on the existing main's condition. You may have a very deteriorated section that's heavily tuberculated, it's bare cast iron, so a natural recommendation would be if it is bare cast iron, to either line it, if the host pipe will withstand the lining process, or, as the recommendation in the water company report said, replace it. I would assume the replacement line would be minimal a class 52 ductile pipe cement lined.
MR. WELLS: My memory is this was in response to the water report at the time and there was not, to my recommendation, having Andy look back for the report, it was not a question of the capacity of the pipe to be able to handle it, it was simply, quite frankly, because we're there, they let us put a new pipe in the front. And it says, the recommendation by Mr. Calbi, the director of operations for the Ridgewood Water was the water main servicing the site is ‑‑ in fact, he said is undersized and should be replaced by the developer with a new 8‑inch diameter pipe that meets Ridgewood Water standards.
MR. SCHEIBNER: But it doesn't make any distinction how far that replacement pipe needs to go?
MR. WELLS: That's correct.
MR. SCHEIBNER: So if it's connected to a tuberculated 6‑inch cast iron main at one end and at the other end what good is it?
MR. WELLS: Well, there comes a point at which municipal services, municipal water and so forth, not become an appropriate responsibility of the developer. So, what we've agreed to do is replace everything that's directly related to our site but not beyond that. I mean, obviously you could argue that the whole village maybe needs new water pipes.
MR. SCHEIBNER: Would you consider having adequate fire flow at The Dayton your responsibility?
MR. WELLS: Oh, yes. And I think if you would have a situation where there wouldn't be safe water capacity in order to obviously service the building for drinking water or for sprinkler systems, that would be a problem that would have to get addressed, for sure.
MR. SCHEIBNER: So, if in order to have adequate fire flows, if the main has to be replaced all the way to Ridgewood Avenue, would the developer be willing to cover that cost?
MR. WELLS: Well, I understand you're asking the question; no expert has suggested we do that.
MR. LOVENTHAL or MR. LAPATKA, any thoughts on that?
MR. WELLS: I think the question, just so we understand it, if it's doesn't have sufficient capacity in order to allow safe water at our property, would we consider doing ‑‑

A L E X A N D E R J. L A P A T K A, P.E., previously sworn.

MR. LAPATKA: We would have to do something to make sure that we have proper capacity.
MR. WELLS: Yes, because we need that capacity.
MR. MARTIN: That might have been preempted by the state.
MR. WELLS: I don't think it's a matter of state law, but it would certainly be a matter of code, you know, in other words, you have to have appropriate water in the building. So, yes, the answer is yes.
MR. SCHEIBNER: So that stipulation could be amended to state that it would be ‑‑
MR. WELLS: Yes, the record reflects it, she's taking it down right now, but essentially I think I repeated what you said, and that is, if there's a lack of capacity such that there's not enough water in the building, that we would be willing to replace the pipes up to E. Ridgewood Avenue, yes.
MR. SCHEIBNER: Okay. No further questions.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. Jeff?

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: You know, it relates to the stipulation No. 8, and I guess the applicant and Chris can probably answer these, No. 8? Applicant will truck snow from property during large snowstorms,." I don't know what that means. I don't know what a "large" snowstorm is.

MR. WELLS: Well, MR. LOVENTHAL actually explained this, in addition to MR. LAPATKA, but it's a snowstorm such that management determines that it cannot clear the snow, and that's going to happen, almost any snowstorm of any real size is likely to cause that event here, because there's not a lot of on‑site storage for snow on the site. So it's not a particular number of inches, it's whenever management can't get the parking lot clear without moving the snow off‑site, that's what they do.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: So, is that the stipulation, if the parking lot cannot be cleared, then you would truck the snow?

MR. WELLS: Right.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Is that right?

MR. WELLS: Yes.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Would you be able to just say that in a stipulation?

MR. WELLS: Sure. Again it's in the record, but, yes, the parking lot and the driveways, essentially the macadam area that needs to be appropriate.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Okay. Good. No. 15, milling and paving the full width of S. Broad Street.

I'm assuming, Chris, you mentioned this in the meeting that you will be re‑paving the full length of S. Broad Street, so this would be done in conjunction with that. Is that correct?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: Yes, we would probably use our public contract, if it's satisfactory to the applicant, and they would just pay the cost for that section that they stipulated in front of their site.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Okay. No. 19, this relates to the fair share of the sewer line.

Again, if an upgrade is needed, I'm assuming you're going to pay your fair share as agreed upon with the village for the upgrades to the sewer line. Is that what that means? Yes?

MR. WELLS: No. I have to think back about that. But what all this was there was some question about ‑‑ Chris, you can help me, with the sewer line whether it needed to be examined underneath or something and you wanted us to confirm that we would do that, so that we would make sure there was enough capacity for flow.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: That is correct. I'd like to see that there's an adequate capacity for the anticipated flow from the development in the existing line. If there is not, we'll have to investigate what kind of upgrades would be necessary to provide the capacity.
MR. WELLS: And, again, obviously we need the toilets to work, so if it doesn't have the capacity, we're going to do whatever we need to do.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: All right.

MR. MARTIN: Upgrades as necessary for use of the applicant.
MR. WELLS: Well, this is a process that kind of goes on together with the engineer and the professionals. Our engineer believes that there is capacity. I think this was actually in response to a comment not made by Chris but actually by MR. JAHR. But, yes, we'll examine it, and if we need to do something more in order to make it work, we're going to do whatever we need to do. It's got to work.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Got it. And I'm not sure this is part of the stipulations or not, and this was discussed before, but it has to do with the right‑of‑way for New Jersey Transit on your property. Is there a right‑of‑way, do you know?

MR. WELLS: Is there a right‑of‑way?

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: For NJ Transit on your property?

MR. WELLS: On our property? Crossing it?

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Yes, in the back.

MR. WELLS: No, absolutely not.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: There's not?

MR. WELLS: No, and it's their own property where the railroad tracks is, so there's no easement or anything beyond their property.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Okay. So, if they want, they can't get through to the line or the railroad line through your property?

MR. WELLS: No.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: That's it.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. MAYOR KNUDSEN.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: I just want clarification. How many stacked spaces were there?

MR. WELLS: 38.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: I just want to go back to the parking lot for a moment, and it goes to our engineer's comments. Chris, could you just go back to that under building parking area/trash collection and restate the question so that maybe somebody would be kind enough to answer it.

MR. WELLS: Yes. He asked that question and the question with respect to the garbage cans under, and I was going to let one of them answer that question.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Yes, because it relates to this stacked parking, so maybe ‑‑

MR. WELLS: Maybe we can do that now.
MR. LAPATKA or MR. LOVENTHAL, garbage cans underneath.
MR. LAPATKA: I believe I testified previously that we would put trash cans underneath the building in the parking lot along where we would expect the most pedestrian traffic. That probably would be at the entrances to the building underneath. And I also said that maintenance employees would carry the trash refuse from the compactor room in the building to the dumpster.
MR. WELLS: And then MR. LOVENTHAL, he elaborated more substantially in terms of exactly how trash and recycling would be handled, that was at the last hearing but maybe you can just remind them.

S C O T T L O V E N T H A L, previously sworn.

MR. LOVENTHAL: Good evening, members of the board, once again.
MR. WELLS: I haven't said so, but for the record, both of these witnesses were previously sworn.
MR. MARTIN: And remain sworn.
MR. WELLS: You have to tell the truth, Scott.
MR. LOVENTHAL: Yes.
MR. MARTIN: And MR. LAPATKA too.
MR. WELLS: Yes, only lawyers don't get sworn.
MR. LOVENTHAL: At the last meeting, I believe, our civil engineer just indicated, our maintenance staff would be moving our compactors that are under the building, our compactors/disposal containers based on the schedule of the refuse company, will be moving those off and directly to the vehicles they come. They will be moving the refuse containers as the refuse company enters the site, it will be on a normal schedule, and we'll be removing them off and directly to those sanitary rigs, private disposal here. We often find that the trash enclosure is used for overflow. We generally compact the trash under the building, comes down a chute, it's compacted, it's put in 2‑ to 4‑yard containers, and then those containers by on‑site maintenance staff are moved either directly to the refuse vehicles or to the refuse enclosure in the parking area. Second, I indicated that I had spoken with and received communication. While I can't find the letter, I put it on the record last time, I had met with ‑‑ excuse me ‑‑ spoken to your sanitation and your recycling coordinators to ensure this board that we will be meeting all of the obligations with regard to refuse disposal as well as with regard to recycling materials being disposed of in accordance with the village's ordinances.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay.

MR. LOVENTHAL: I could also add that while it's not shown, Al has indicated that we will and do at all of our projects have decorative refuse containers that will be located at the front doors, that will be located at probably about six locations throughout the parking level, so that people can remove their typical vehicular trash and place those right in those containers on a routine basis, and they're checked daily by our maintenance staff and then removed.
MR. MARTIN: To get from the compact room, Scott, to the trucks where the maintenance take them from the compact room to the trucks, what's the route they take?
MR. LOVENTHAL: The route is right through the parking lot under the building, directly under the building to the rear driveway. Those containers are on wheels. They're lightweight. Sometimes one, maybe as many as two maintenance members, and that's all that is necessary, and that's what we do in all of these types of buildings throughout our portfolio.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Mayor, there's tandem parking.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: First I want to ask a different question.

So, going back to the question ‑‑

MR. WELLS: Can I just so I can get it straight. We're still doing questions of your engineer or are we moved on?

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Yes, we are. These were just fill‑ins.

MR. WELLS: All right. So, whatever, I'm lost on where we are.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: I know.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: We're all actually lost.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: We brought up garbage questions, but then there was another question pertaining to parking, so I figured just while he's up talk about that and then get back on track.

MR. WELLS: Again, I would just point out for the record, because I just reviewed it today, because I wanted to talk about it, there's extensive testimony on tandem parking, most of which was by Mr. Disario, and then also testimony by MR. LOVENTHAL and by MR. JAHR, all of which is already in the record, but if you want to renew some of that, we can do that.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: I'll tell you the reason I asked the question, because we had a memo here that indicated there were 25 or 26, and I had some confusion. So I only asked for clarification on that, but we've since corrected it.

MR. MARTIN: I incorrectly put 25 on my legal memorandum and it should be 38.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So I only asked for clarification.

MR. WELLS: Understand.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So I just want to go back to those trash bins into the parking lot, so maybe MR. LAPATKA has to come back up.

I just wanted to know, how wide are the sidewalks nearest to the entrance to the lobby?

MR. LAPATKA: They are 4 feet.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Four feet. And so you're suggesting that a trash bin, a garbage pail, a trash bin would be located somewhere on that 4‑foot width?

MR. LAPATKA: The trash bin would probably be located closer to the doors, the entrance. We try to put it in a path that people will walk through.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Is it 4 feet on that? Is it a 4‑foot width walkway?

MR. LAPATKA: In the rear of the lobby or the front?

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Where you enter the lobby along the perimeter. So, if I'm looking at the sidewalk closest that's in front of what would be essentially the community room, it's traveling north to south along the west part of that room, so how wide is that?

MR. WELLS: What's from space I guess 100 to space 48 along the building, is that what we're trying to figure out?

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Yes. It's running along the parking spaces, so if you were looking at the trash compactor room, it's the sidewalk that begins at the trash compactor room, and it goes all the way down to the end and wraps around the community room, how wide is that? It appears to be 4 feet.

MR. LAPATKA: That's the sidewalk under the building, and that would be 4 feet, and that is not where the trash cans would be put. They would be put to the side of the doors that the people would walk through to get into the lobby.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay. I have no other questions right now.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay.

Melanie, any questions for Chris?

MS. McWILLIAMS: A couple, I think.

Did I miss somewhere in reorienting myself, did we determine the peak flow times for the sanitary sewer system?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: As far as I know, we've not calculated that. We're going to work with the applicant on what their flows are, and we have to see how that peaks. The peak from the site is less important than what the peak is in the main sewer.
MS. McWILLIAMS: I'm not sure if this would be, I think this is for you, but we had determined that the elevator size needed to be changed to accommodate the stretcher, horizontally land stretcher in the last meeting. I think that was on May 2nd. And I'm wondering if there's any reflection of that anywhere, how much a change was made to the plan, if at all?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: The applicant made stipulation No. 21: "All elevators will meet building code requirements for accommodating stretchers."
MR. WELLS: It did not require a change.
MR. LOVENTHAL: There's no change. The dimensions that we show with regard to the elevators are consistent with my testimony and consistent with our conversation, they will accommodate a stretcher in accordance with New Jersey's building codes.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Okay. And ‑‑

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Could I? I don't mean to interrupt, but could you just explain what New Jersey building code is on that? I would like a better understanding of that.

MR. WELLS: Actually not relevant to site plan, but is somebody able to do that?
MR. LOVENTHAL: I had extensive testimony on the record with regard to the code. I wasn't prepared, I'll look for my memo.
MR. WELLS: Typically, building code issues are dealt with the building department, through that process, so it's not normally something we would be prepared to discuss in the site plan review, but if he happens to have it, we'll be happy to do it.
MS. McWILLIAMS: So I have it as the elevator car shall be of such a size and arrangement to accommodate a 24‑inch by 84‑inch ambulance stretcher in a horizontal open position and shall be identified by the international symbol for emergency medical services. "In newly constructed multiple dwellings, when an elevator is installed in any newly constructed multiple dwelling, regardless of height, the elevator shall meet the dimensional requirements listed above."
MR. WELLS: I think that's what you read last time. Can you tell me what you're reading from?
MS. McWILLIAMS: So, I actually will have to go back and pull it specifically up. It was the New Jersey building code, and it's Section 3002.4, so I'll have to find you the specific exact website.
MR. WELLS: You probably don't have to, because what we've said repeatedly is we're going to meet the building code. So if you're correctly ‑‑ I don't have the building code in front of me ‑‑
MS. McWILLIAMS: I was more asking would it require any change to the plan at all and it didn't.
MR. WELLS: No, it didn't.
MR. LOVENTHAL: In the detail that I read from was providing, I had a catalog cut from an elevator that we use routinely that meets code. It's made by Kone. They have an elevator that's used in residential buildings that meets New Jersey's building code as it relates to accommodating stretchers. Those are the elevators that were shown by our architect on the drawing.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Okay. Thank you. My last, it was just a small question, I only thought of it due to recent conversation. We recently in town changed our refuse containers throughout the village to a clear container, for safety reasons, and I'm not sure if that was a village ordinance. Is that something we would ask of any applicant within their facilities? So I don't know if that's a question for the governing body.
MR. WELLS: I'm curious.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Chris?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: We adopted a clear trash container as part of the police department's security initiative. They're the same type of containers that New Jersey Transit uses on their platforms. There is currently no obligation in our ordinances for a private development such as this to employ those. We employ them mostly because we're concerned about areas that may have a concentration of people, in the parks, on E. Ridgewood Avenue. And that's where we did the initial roll down.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Okay.

That's all I have. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Debbie?

MS. PATIRE: Yes. Chris, I just have one question. The current code or ordinance for the building, the sidewalk to the street, because they said it was 4 feet from the sidewalk to the front door, is that the current ordinance is 4 feet?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: There isn't really an ordinance, it just has to meet the ADA standards, and 4 feet is adequate for a wheelchair. Almost as critical, besides width, is the slope so that the wheelchair can easily roll in steep sections, and they show that on the plans.
MS. PATIRE: I just want to understand; the face of the building will be 4 feet from the street, if you're standing there looking at it, so just to make sure we're saying the same thing, it's literally 4 feet from the street?
MR. WELLS: I think I can help here, because what you're doing is, you're talking about the testimony that MR. LAPATKA gave in response to the Mayor's question about the sidewalk behind the building near the trash.
MS. PATIRE: No.
MR. WELLS: You've asked a different question, and the plan shows a 6‑foot sidewalk in front of the building, so even though code would be 4 feet, we have a considerably bigger sidewalk in the front.
MS. PATIRE: So 6 feet in front of the building?
MR. WELLS: Yes. Again, it's not required by the code, but considered desirable to make it nicer.
MS. PATIRE: I was asking that question, because I thought earlier I heard 6 feet.
MR. WELLS: Yes. The sidewalk behind is smaller than the one in the front.
MS. PATIRE: So it's 6 feet from the street?
MR. WELLS: Uh‑huh.
MS. PATIRE: Okay. That's it. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Isabella?

MS. ALTANO: Yes, I have a couple of general comments and then specific ones. I think that anywhere where we say the applicant will provide something, I think whatever is being provided should be submitted for approval, so we can see what it looks like. I am particularly interested in the screening around the rooftop, what is it going to look like as we're going to see it from the streets? And I think it's important that we get a chance or perhaps the Village Engineer to look at it.
MR. WELLS: Can I just ask a question? I'm almost positive, again, that's way back in early September, but the testimony by Mr. Appel was that because of the building and the way it's set up and the rooftops, that you would not be able to see any mechanical from, and it was not going to require additional screening. So there's no screening to be seen.
MS. ALTANO: Okay, because it says screening here.
MR. WELLS: Because essentially the way the roofs are set up and there's flat areas, the roof appears to be pitched from the street, but in reality there are flat areas where the mechanicals go.
MS. ALTANO: I know that, because it says screening.
MR. WELLS: I'm just saying there is no rooftop screening. Normally I would say normally you can't see rooftop screening because of the height, but, in this case, there just isn't any to worry about.
MS. ALTANO: That's fine.

We have 38 stacked parking spaces.

MR. WELLS: Right.
MS. ALTANO: Stacked parking spaces always make me nervous, because to me they indicate the fact that the site is too small for the parking spaces, that's why we go to stacked.
MR. WELLS: That's not the testimony of any of the experts.
MS. ALTANO: No, I understand, but what I'm saying, if you had the extra space ‑‑ I'm not saying this in a negative way, but if you had the extra space on the site, you would place the spots where they should be. Didn't anybody ever consider going underground so you don't have to worry about, just putting the extra spaces underground?
MR. WELLS: Further underground?
MS. ALTANO: Uh‑huh.
MR. WELLS: Well, there are all kinds of practical difficulties with doing that. We did look at different heights for the building, you know, the soil permit and so forth, but I think the reality is, as all the experts have testified, while stacked parking may be in a sense, less desirable, it works in other locations, and because these spaces, as was the testimony was, in all cases are the second space for a person with a single unit, it's just something that people, you know, work with, and nobody's forced to have a tandem space and have that be their only space, you know, it's two spaces for one unit, they're happy to have the second space. Plus, the other, again I'm repeating a lot of testimony that was given, but there are a substantial number of free spaces here that are not assigned, I can't remember the number right now, so that even if they found a little difficulty, they have other places they could park and so forth. It works, essentially.
MR. LOVENTHAL: If I may address that. In addition to the testimony that was provided by our traffic engineer regarding tandem spaces, I provided extensive testimony regarding our experience with tandem spaces, we provide them in all of our buildings ‑‑ not all, many of our new buildings are designed with tandem spaces. I do not agree that they're less desirable, I actually believe they are desirable from a number of circumstances. They provide less impervious surface. They allow control from one unit to have two parking spaces just like they would in a residential driveway. And our residents find those tandem spaces to be desirable. And they have an option whether they choose a tandem space or not. They are both assigned to the same unit, as we've described, so the 19‑pairs of tandem spaces would be assigned to one unit per tandem space. And then that unit has the opportunity to park just like they would in a residential driveway. So I didn't provide any testimony that they're less desirable. I think there's many nice attributes and good attributes with regard to the tandem spaces. And I also provided testimony to indicate in my management experience, we've had absolutely no incidences regarding those tandem spaces as relates to safety.
MS. ALTANO: To that point, MR. LOVENTHAL, how do you designate, dedicate, designate, those stacked parking to the same unit? Are any of those units going to be affordable units? I mean, how do you decide that?
MR. LOVENTHAL: No, we actually provided extensive testimony and in our traffic report we have a chart, that's Table III, which is the parking assignment summary, which provides exactly how we will assign those spaces.
MS. ALTANO: Okay.
MR. LOVENTHAL: The tandem spaces are generally assigned to the units that have greater rents, higher rents, because they're desirable, people want a second space in this instance, and that's exactly how we do that. So those 19‑pairs of tandem spaces are assigned to particular units that haven't been determined yet, they're numbered. Each of those residents are provided either a hanging placard from their rearview mirror a sticker that provides management the opportunity to police those spaces as well, so we know people are parking in their assigned spaces. As Tom alluded to, we have 53 unassigned spaces. Those unassigned spaces, based on the count, are available for both residents and visitors as well. So, the resident that wants to move his car can go to an unassigned space, and that's why there is appropriate parking on the site.
MS. ALTANO: Okay. Thank you.
MR. LOVENTHAL: You're welcome.
MS. ALTANO: I have another question. No. 8: "Applicant will truck snow from property during large snowstorms." Where will the snow ‑‑
MR. LOVENTHAL: We will be contracting with a third party contractor, and generally the snow is removed in large tandem dump trucks, and they're taken too quarries and facilities where rock is processed and the snow can melt in open areas. As we do with a number of our developments, we contract with a third party, and they're on a contract. And when management deems, as COUNCILMAN VOIGT indicated, that the appropriate width of our drive aisles are compromised or all of the parking spaces that are on‑site are compromised, then we move to removing that snow to off‑site locations.
MS. ALTANO: I just want to make sure it's not in the village.
MR. LOVENTHAL: No.
MR. WELLS: And I always thought it was in the front yard of anybody who votes no on the application where I represent the applicant.
MS. ALTANO: Thank you.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: That's a joke, I hope.

MR. WELLS: Yes, that was a joke.
MR. MARTIN: And all snow stays on‑site too, so if they can't keep it on‑site clear, they have to take it off.
MR. LOVENTHAL: We generally find it's usually in late February, when you've have numerous snows in a row. Normally our site is how the dimensions are set up. Under the RSIS, the dimensions are there with regard to locations where snow up to generally 10 to 12 inches of snow where you have no issues at all. It's where you have multiple snow in a row where you lose spaces you can place the snow in the typical places where you can place snow, in the islands, in the grass areas, like where you see in the shopping centers and things of this type.
MS. ALTANO: Noted.

One point, and I know the transformer was located on the site. Since we're talking about site, should that be an indication of what should be done with the transformer, how should the transformer be protected?

MR. LOVENTHAL: I can tell you we have no say, just like any other applicant in this village regarding transformers. We show them on a plan. They will locate them there, then the local utility company, the electric company needs appropriate code clearances around those transformers. So sometimes we have an opportunity for limited screening and plantings. We would do that in coordination with the utility company, not unlike any other location where new transformers that are placed throughout the village.
MS. ALTANO: Chris, is that satisfactory and what happens normally?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Oh, yes. PSE&G is pretty much going to tell them where they're going to get their power feed, and they're going to have to make it look as attractive as possible.
MS. ALTANO: Thank you, MR. LOVENTHAL.
MR. LOVENTHAL: You're welcome.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Mr. Torielli?

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: No questions for Chris.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: I have no questions either.

Does the applicant have any questions?

MR. WELLS: I don't. I do not.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Does the public have any questions for MR. RUTISHAUSER?

(No response.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. We're finished with MR. RUTISHAUSER.

All right. Our next ‑‑ oops, did you have questions for the engineer?

MR. SLOMIN: There are questions related to the topics discussed tonight.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Well, since we did bring the people, is it MR. LOVENTHAL and MR. LAPATKA who you had questions of?

MR. SLOMIN: You know, I didn't track exactly who was speaking when, but it's related to questions and answers tonight, if it's possible to ask questions.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Yes, just state your name for the record.

MR. SLOMIN: It's Dave Slomin, 36 Heights Road.

I expect I'll be getting a lot of snow over by my house.

One of the discussions tonight, questions and answers, was related to the cost of this sewer replacement, so I guess it is engineering.

It seems clear that the application causes a necessitation of off‑site improvements to be required. I think I and many residents, and from what I heard tonight, would argue that these are the direct impact of the development, as they were not necessarily triggered before. If you take a 6‑inch pipe and it hook it up to a 4‑inch pipe at both ends what happens ‑‑

MR. WELLS: Objection. Question.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Can you phrase it as a question? We will have public comment.

MR. SLOMIN: It is an important topic, and I will get to a question at the end. So if you can bear with me to get to what is an important question for the residents of Ridgewood.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: We are going to have public comment later on.

MR. SLOMIN: There is a question.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Go on.

MR. SLOMIN: I guess the first question, I'll bring this up later through public comment, is: What exactly are the costs of this? Do we know the costs? Do you, the board, know the cost? Have you been presented with the costs?

In Ridgewood's ordinances, it is required that you ascertain what the costs are before you can determine how to go forward.

Can you make that move forward knowing all the costs right now at this time?

MR. WELLS: You can answer the question, but he just represented Ridgewood ordinances incorrectly. There is no ordinance that states as the questioner ‑‑

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Chris, he's concerned about the cost. Can you address that.

MR. RUTISHAUSER: At this time, no cost estimate has been done. Any improvements that may be necessary, there's a number of techniques that could be considered, again, depending on the nature of the improvements that will be necessary. You can line the pipe to increase or to reduce the friction. You can burst the pipe and put a larger pipe in. There's a lot of different technologies, most of them are in situ type, so that you have a minimal disturbance of the ground, we would not want to go to a trenching and put in new piping, we'll work with the existing pipes. And, again, until we have a firm handle on the flows, our capacity, and if there is any need for increasing that capacity, we'll address it at that time and also look at the different technologies. It would be unfair to the village or the applicant to stipulate a technology at this time when there could be possibly a lower cost and more efficient one down the road.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. Go ahead.

MR. SLOMIN: Then who is responsible for those costs, if it is down the road?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: I believe that would be something that's going to be stipulated in any either developer's agreement or in any resolution of approval from the board.
MR. WELLS: And as I'm sure you heard a few minutes ago, MR. SLOMIN, in response to the board questions, we indicated if there was any inability to have proper sewer capacity or water capacity and it was deficient, that we would do whatever was necessary in order to work with the village to make that happen. So I think it's been covered.
MR. SLOMIN: And I appreciate that, but just it's my concern.
MR. WELLS: We can't tell in advance what it's going to be.
MR. SLOMIN: And I appreciate you making that offer, but just to be for complete clarity sake, as one who is going to be paying the taxes related to any work that is going to be done ‑‑
MR. WELLS: They're going to pay a lot of taxes here too, so you're not the only taxpayer.
MR. SLOMIN: No, I didn't make that indication I was the only taxpayer.
MR. WELLS: Well, you indicated that you ‑‑
MR. SLOMIN: That I am a taxpayer as well, and it will inure to me to cover any shortfalls, as well as everyone else in Ridgewood, as in public body, not me personally, hopefully. But I just want clarity, you said, and I did note, MR. WELLS said: "We'll do what we can to make it work. It's got to work." I guess the clarity I'm looking for is, when you say "we'll do what we can," what is that? What you can do financially? What you are willing to do fiscally, administratively? Will you commit to making us whole on any improvements?
MR. WELLS: I'm going to object. MR. LOVENTHAL can try, but this has been asked and answered several times.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: It has, but MR. LOVENTHAL came up and I guess he'll just respond so hopefully he can just get the question done.

MR. LOVENTHAL: Yes. I simply can answer, as an applicant we will do what is required in order to bring the appropriate services to our project.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Can I ask a stupid question?

Let's assume that the sewerage system costs $5 million, okay, just ‑‑

MR. WELLS: Well, obviously that is not ‑‑

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: It may cost a fair amount of money, and you agree to, and I'm going to makeup a number, pay 20 percent of that. So you would pay that $1 million, you would agree to pay that $1 million?

MR. WELLS: No. Your hypothetical is not based in reality. In reality, if it started to cost many millions of dollars to do a sewer connection there, probably to the great misfortune of the village, because it would be a serious problem throughout the village, including on this site, and you may not build a building, if it starts to become a stratospheric cost.
MR. LOVENTHAL: Councilman, can I answer the question?
MS. PATIRE: I think what you're hearing from many folks here, just to make sure we're clear, is that we're concerned, as you guys should be concerned, because you need the water to work.

If there is something that is required above and beyond just getting to your property, that's what you said earlier, if there are other things that are required to make sure that everything is properly functioning that is outside your property line, I think what you're considering, from testimony from the board members, etc., from questions, I'm sorry, and from other board members is: Who is covering that cost?

MR. LOVENTHAL: We expect to be treated in the same manner that any applicant that brings an application before this board is treated, and if that includes off‑site obligations in order to service this project, which I believe is what you're referring to ‑‑
MS. PATIRE: That's it exactly.
MR. LOVENTHAL: ‑‑ then we would be working with your engineer to complete that project, that's correct.
MS. PATIRE: And I think that's the question I'm asking, whether it's you or whether it's somebody else ‑‑
MR. LOVENTHAL: If there are ancillary improvements that the village chooses to make in connection with what we would be doing in order to service our property, then of course those costs would not be borne by us. We would be treated like any application that comes before this board with regard to any off‑site obligations in order to bring those services that have been described by your engineer to our project.
MS. PATIRE: Right. So regardless of the cost, because I'm not going to put a number on it, regardless of the cost X, you guys are responsible?
MR. LOVENTHAL: We're responsible for bringing those facilities to our project in order to service the project. If the municipality chooses to make additional upgrades in connection with those improvements, then certainly you're not seeking my ‑‑
MS. PATIRE: I feel like we're going in a circle here.
MR. LOVENTHAL: No, we're not.
MS. PATIRE: I'm going to give it really simple.
MR. WELLS: We've ‑‑
MS. PATIRE: There's three pipes that connect, one of them is on your property, the other one is off your property, and the other one is off your property, right, but we need these three pipes in order to make sure that your toilets flush. Who pays for this pipe and who pays for that pipe?
MR. LOVENTHAL: Well, it's a very difficult scenario. It's probably best served by answering by your engineer.
MS. PATIRE: Right now Chris, who pays for this pipe and that pipe?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: It depends. And one thing I forgot to mention ‑‑
MS. PATIRE: So it depends on?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: It depends also, it's not only just myself as the engineer on behalf of the village, it's also what the DEP is going to require. In the end, they're the one that's regulate our treatment of wastewater. Their standards are the ones we have to adhere to, we, the village, and the applicant also. So while we'll work together to come to a conclusion, the end desire is often the DEP, because we have to adhere to their criteria and standards so that we do not have a loss of sewerage, effluent, product, however you want to characterize it.
MS. PATIRE: So down the street, Sook Pastry, which is my favorite place in Ridgewood, are they going to have to pay for that pipe or are they going to have to pay a share of that pipe improvement?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: They just replaced their sewer lateral.
MS. PATIRE: Pretend.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: You asked, and they just did.
MS. PATIRE: But then another pipe ‑‑
MS. McWILLIAMS: Down the street, down the line at the ‑‑
MS. PATIRE: ‑‑ would be impacted, you know what I'm saying, by this project, how does that work?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Well, this project would release a certain amount of effluent. Unless down the street is also increasing their effluent, we will see what effect this project has in receiving pipe relatively immediately.
MS. PATIRE: So I guess my question is: When in the process does this happen?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: This happens in the design process, in the permitting process with DEP. If this applicant is approved and they move towards construction, that's when flow value would be calculated, pipes would be examined, and as has been stipulated in other resolutions of approval, those conditions are stated therein.
MS. PATIRE: I guess, and, again, to that point, I wonder how you expect someone to make a decision with blindfolds on, not knowing what it really means, because you don't know what it means, you don't know what it's going to cost.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: At this point, we don't know exactly what it means, we don't know exactly what the costs are. Those will be determined as part of the collection system.
MS. PATIRE: Right. Okay. We all say yes and we find out maybe six months down the road from now, it's X cost and it's going to hit the village and the taxpayers of the village. It's a problem.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: It can be, yes.
MS. ALTANO: To that point, I want to say, isn't there a specific rule that has to do from the distance of the building, there's a certain distance, I think it's in the code.
MR. WELLS: Mr. Chairman, can I be heard on this?

We have a problem here, obviously. We all know MR. SLOMIN's feelings and there may be other people that have feelings about this application. We're here before this board for site plan approval. There are certain things that are appropriate to be discussed. We're weighing into things that are not really relevant to site plan. You may be concerned about things, but we're coming up with hypotheticals. What we have is an applicant who has said that they will absolutely meet the code and meet the village responsibilities. That's the testimony. It's been given over and over again. Anything further beyond that is just some kind of ‑‑ I don't know what we're doing, but it's not appropriate to continue with this.

MR. SLOMIN: I'm sorry.
MR. WELLS: You know what, I addressed the Chairman.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Point of order.

Chris, we can discuss things that are concerns that affect this development and make conditions. So we can consider discussing these items as appropriate.

MR. MARTIN: Absolutely.
MR. WELLS: But only if the condition that you're discussing is something that you could appropriately put on a site plan approval, and you certainly can't tell an applicant that it has to pay for every conceivable problem in the future or has to know in advance what the cost will be.
MS. PATIRE: I think it's a question of concern. It's a question of safety just like you talk traffic lights. It's a question or the points here are of safety and are of concern.
MR. WELLS: And most of the testimony with respect to traffic lights and all things was not appropriate and fair either, as I pointed out at the time.
MS. PATIRE: There's still a lot of questions that have not been answered.
MR. WELLS: By all means, ask them, and I'm going to keep making this record real clear as to when this board goes outside of what I believe a court will ultimately conclude you can do.

(Various voices speaking.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Point of order! Quiet!

You're okay asking those questions, he's okay making the objection. He's just doing his job.

Now we'll just get back to MR. SLOMIN's questions towards the engineer.

MR. SLOMIN: Yes. I guess to this, are off‑site improvements a valid discussion and area of questioning related to a site plan?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: They can be, and again I go back to my comment about the DEP.

The DEP governs how the village collects its wastewater. Approximately 15 years ago, the village was under a sewer connection moratorium at the behest of the DEP. Based on that, no restaurant could open up with more than 15 seats, until the village made improvements to its wastewater treatment plant. Those improvements were completed in 2005, cost about $18 million, and at that time the DEP listed its moratorium. What this has in relationship to this discussion is the DEP is going to weigh in on it and they will make their determinations, and if they require upgrades and improvements, it's going to be something that the village will have to address.

MR. SLOMIN: To that, based on this discussion, MR. LOVENTHAL said we will do what's required. MR. WELLS said we will do what we can. My question, as a concerned resident, is: What is required? We don't know the cost, we don't know the amount of work, we don't know how extensive, what we do know is we have never had any development of this scale in our village and we have older systems it is tying into. What I am hearing is we don't know the answers, therefore, we don't know the cost.
MR. WELLS: All right. Let me state an objection to the question.
MR. SLOMIN: How do we get to a state where residents can be comfortable that this development is not going to negatively impact us, when it is these developments that may trigger more.
MR. WELLS: MR. SLOMIN has answered asked this question and it has been answered before.
MR. SLOMIN: It has not.
MR. WELLS: He testified that there's never been a development of this scale before in the village, which is patently incorrect, and he shouldn't be testifying and it's incorrect along the way. We really got to rule this out of order.
MR. SLOMIN: I'm questioning, this is not testifying.
MR. WELLS: Did you say that? Where the factual basis?

CHAIRMAN JOEL: It's getting a little circular now. Keep it tight questions to MR. RUTISHAUSER, and then there's going to be public comment that you're going to have and then you can, you know, expand on certain things.

MS. McWILLIAMS: Where else in the village is there a project of this magnitude with this many toilets and showers, where else in the village does something like that exist?
MR. WELLS: You want an example of a project?
MS. McWILLIAMS: Yes.
MR. WELLS: Valley Hospital or virtually any ‑‑ there's so many places where the water and sewer lines, we can get somebody to do that, it's not relevant again to this matter, not at all relevant, but I think there are many, many examples where the water use and sewer use would be far exceed this project.
MR. SLOMIN: I'm going to sit down, but I would say, please don't take your one end user error in my question to, you know, derail, you know, the entire concern.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Is there anyone else that has any questions of MR. RUTISHAUSER?

MR. FELDSOTT: Yes, the engineer.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: State your name.

MR. FELDSOTT: Ed Feldsott, 67 Heights Road.

And I prefer not to be interrupted by the legal team or the developers.

MR. WELLS: And he doesn't get to say that.
MR. FELDSOTT: My question was ‑‑ I thought that was out of order.
MR. WELLS: You don't get to make the rules up.
MR. FELDSOTT: Anyway, anyway, my question for the engineer, and this is a question I asked last time I came up here a few months ago is: Has the engineer or any of the members been to any of the developments the developers have built to check out the quality of their work? Because my parents just moved in to a 55 and older four seasons ‑‑
MR. WELLS: Objection; testimony.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Just phrase the question.

MR. FELDSOTT: Certainly.

My question is: Have you ever seen any of their other properties?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: I've driven past the one just off the Garden State Parkway that MR. LOVENTHAL had testified was under construction numerable times going to Newark Airport and points south.
MR. FELDSOTT: So you have visited existing properties and you have gotten feedback ‑‑
MR. RUTISHAUSER: That was not ‑‑
MR. FELDSOTT: My question is: Have you visited the existing properties, not ones that are being built, but current properties and gotten feedback from residents of the quality of workmanship that has been done in putting up these units?
MR. WELLS: Objection, way outside the scope of direct.
MR. FELDSOTT: Of course.
MR. MARTIN: It's a simple question.
MR. WELLS: No testimony with respect to any of this by the engineer.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Chris, can you answer that?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: I believe I've been into a couple of developments that MR. LOVENTHAL had presented, one in Fair Lawn. I have not interrogated residents there as to their satisfaction or dissatisfaction regarding the construction.
MR. FELDSOTT: Thank you. That's it.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: Okay.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Anyone else have questions?

All right. Next step is public testimony, this isn't public comment. If someone is going to testify, they're subject to cross examination. Seeing there's not, then we'll move, do we have a motion ‑‑

MR. SLOMIN: I'm sorry?

CHAIRMAN JOEL: That's public testimony. That's different. Public comment is ‑‑

MR. SLOMIN: Is after, okay.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Do we have a motion to open to public comments?

MS. PATIRE: I'll make a motion.

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Second.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Debbie made first motion to open it up, and Joel seconded it.

MR. MARTIN: MR. SLOMIN, do you know why it's public testimony as opposed to comment?

Okay. If there was a person in the audience that was an objector, formally or informally they brought MR. LAPATKA with them or a planner or a traffic expert or something else, that that person can testify or a fact witness that has specific facts as to certain things involved, you would be sworn under oath and considered, not you, but others, that would be public testimony. Public comment is different. Any positions that you might have asserted previously or want to assert now, those are comments.

MR. WELLS: That's helpful. I appreciate that.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: All right. So we had a motion to open the public comment, Debbie made the motion and Joel seconded it. Call the roll call. A yes is a yes to open to public comment right now. (At this point in the proceeding roll call is taken and the motion is passed by a vote of eight in favor, with Ms. Barto and Ms. Giordano are absent.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: All right. So we're in the public comment portion. You can make a line. You'll state your name and address, you'll be sworn in, and our custom has been three minutes to speak, but does the board have any feeling one way or the other? I was thinking enlarging it to maybe five minutes, and then if somebody has to come back, they can come back, but it just makes conciseness for it. Michael will keep the time on that. So just come up, state your name, you'll be sworn in. Once you start speaking, you'll have five minutes to make your statement. And if you have a written statement with you, you can provide that to Michael after you're done so that it's part of the record, and just keep proceeding in a respectful manner on this. Okay. So state your name again and your address.

MR. FELDSOTT: Ed Feldsott, 67 Heights Road. So, before I was supposed to ask questions, I started talking about the Four Seasons 55 and older complex that my parents moved into. We paid a lot of money for these units. They're not low‑end, they're not mid‑end units, they're high‑end units. And my point being is, my brother and I never researched other units this developer built, because this is fairly large developer that built them, and these developers scrimp on everything. In the two years my parents have been there, all kinds of things have gone wrong with these units. They put in the cheapest elevator, they put in the cheapest air conditioners. All I'm saying is, you know, it's our town, it's your town, you need to do your due diligence and check out other units these developers have put in. You know, if you guys have done great work, which you may be ‑‑
MR. WELLS: They do.
MR. FELDSOTT: No, I mean then that's a different story, but I have to say, based upon what I have experienced, I don't trust anyone, anyone, no developer, no one. I like to research things and make sure I am getting what I paid for, which is why I also additionally want to say all the promises I'm assuming that were made here today will be in a contractual agreement so if they are breached for any reason, the town has recourse.
MR. WELLS: There's a resolution and also a developer's agreement, yes.
MR. FELDSOTT: So any breach ‑‑
MR. WELLS: There's a "contract," as you put it.
MR. FELDSOTT: Good. That's a very good answer.

I am hoping that you do your research, visit other units, and, as you say, they will find that you do amazing work, high quality work, and you'll be very pleased with it, but should you do your research and find out the workmanship is shoddy, you really need to take that into account. That's it.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. Thank you.

State your name and address.

MR. GLAZER: Dana Glazer, 61 Clinton Avenue. I'm just a resident here, and my biggest concern is: What are the costs that are going to be on my shoulders and the other residents' shoulders? And I'm unclear as to what those costs are going to be. And I'm wondering if there's going to be some sort of a ceiling, so that if it should exceed whatever those costs are expected to be, that there will be some remedy for that? So, is that something that has been considered? Where is that at?
MR. WELLS: I'll give a very general answer. Again, we're here for site plan. This particular project will also be a very large taxpayer in the community. The economics of this type of use were examined extensively by this board and the Mayor and Council during any zoning process, but in terms of where we are right now in a site plan review, other than the kinds of discussion that we had so far about issues such as a direct off‑site effect, as opposed to a remote off‑site effect, no, you cannot. There's no way to set a dollar limit on what it would cost someone else. It's not an appropriate inquiry. There's nothing about this project that would make it appear that it would create any kind of an additional burden on the taxpayers. In fact, what we learned during the zoning process is that this is a net positive for the village in terms of, they get more taxes in than they spend, but that's not relevant. And the fact that I'm even talking about that is not really appropriate at this matter. So I'm trying to answer your question. So, no, it's not an appropriate inquiry at this point, in my view.
MR. GLAZER: These are not appropriate questions? Is that correct? I'm asking the Planning Board.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Well, it's not a question, you can make comments. He was kind enough to respond to you. You can just keep going and make comments, it's public comment.

MR. GLAZER: Okay. I see. Well, I'm very concerned about this, and I appreciate your response, but I don't think that it makes me feel any better. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay.

MR. SLOMIN: Dave Slomin, 36 Heights Road, Ridgewood.

I guess to echo what MR. GLAZER just voiced and elements of the prefaced questions I asked before, I have grave concerns representing the citizens group RCRD, Ridgewood Citizens for Reasonable Development, regarding off‑site improvements and the costs and clear determination which, in my readings of the village ordinance or code or documents, is my understanding that there has to be a greater determinations made than I've seen so far, and I'm gravely uncomfortable with saying, while I respect we'll do what's required or we'll do what we can, those are very broad terms, and when you try to "require" or "can" into a contract or an agreement, you have to then specify what that is, what is required. Well, the code might only say you have to do this or this, when this really is impacted by the development. That's what I as a resident would like to know, and I would like to ask you as a Planning Board to represent us and ask that you have that answer before you consider any type of affirmative votes on this. We have old systems in this town. I believe this application will cause an impact on our municipal systems and cause the need for costly off‑site improvements, just as other applicants are impacting traffic in other locations. My understanding is some of the other applicants are actually making some accommodations to work with the village or make it work for the village. I would hope that the developers here would work with us to do the same. Ridgewood is a town of great civil service, great concern and care for the town. Citizens Park, one of our biggest parks in town was donated by residents. We all do our part and I believe you guys could, if this goes ahead, we are pro development, pro reasonable development, we would like to ask that you do your part, which may be a little more than you think you're willing to do now, to make this work for all of us, just like the folks who developed the Citizens Parks did the right thing. It's really all about doing the right thing. You as a board, I need to ask you to please make sure you know what you're getting into. If you're going to consider any type of affirmative vote, know what it's going to cost, know the extent. I've heard that we're not going to know that until later. I think we need to know more. If not, get a commitment that it will be covered with more clarity than required or can do. On some other elements, one of the things discussed tonight was trash. I guess this is for the developers, MR. WELLS too. In New Jersey, there is a law that enables owners of multifamily residential properties to seek either reimbursement for or have the town be required to pick up trash. In your agreement, will the developers commit and will your Planning Board require that the developers commit to not seeking future reimbursement for trash pickup on these sites and not to ask the town to pick up? I don't know if I open that up or just keep going.

MR. WELLS: It's a statement, keep going.
MR. SLOMIN: Okay.

Regarding parking: For the last 17 years, I've lived in a tandem parking driveway. It is not a luxury item. I would say, if I was a higher paying tenant at a luxury complex, I would be frustrated and insulted if that's what I was given. It's the same thing you could argue that sitting in traffic on the George Washington Bridge is a plus, because it gives you more one‑on‑one family time together. You know, it's not a benefit. It's much easier to pull in and not have to move one car to get to the other. It's turning, you know, a negative into a positive. It's great salesmanship; it's not a benefit for the residents, it's not a benefit for Ridgewood. I think it's a force fit. I want to get around the force fit, so this development, all developments can truly be reasonable as if this was properly master planned from the beginning. And I guess one other point I have ‑‑ trash, tandem, off‑site costs. You guys, I applaud you for volunteering for the Planning Board at a very difficult time in Ridgewood. I don't think I would have been allowed to do it, but God knows I didn't do it. But I am involved and I am concerned, along with a lot other residents involved in RCRD, and I would just like to say: Please don't feel that you have to be forced to vote to any affirmative votes, if you don't feel your questions are answered, your questions about off‑site improvements and costs ‑‑

MR. CAFARELLI: Time is up.
MR. SLOMIN: ‑‑ are fully answered. You do have the power to vote no, if it's not ready yet.

Thank you.

MR. MARTIN: There's no issue on garbage collection. It's going to be taken care of by the developer.
MR. WELLS: Right.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Let me ask a question on that. It's an interesting point and one that we actually had a situation where we are, if you'll remind me because I'm sure Chris is laughing now, we've been going back and forth a number of years as to whether or not the village's obligation was to reimburse the development for, I believe it was leaf collection?

Could we expand on that, because I think it was a valid question. Until it was just said, it escaped me.

MR. RUTISHAUSER: You are correct, Mayor, we have a number of condominium complexes that are governed by the condominium act which allows a condominium association to seek reimbursement from the host municipality for snowplowing services, leaf collection, and street lighting. We do have several condos in the village that do get reimbursed. The reimbursement for snowplowing is what it would cost to village to plow, not what it would cost them to plow. And we have developed a formula, which, unfortunately for those developments, is a much lower rate than what they pay, because we base ours on plowing municipal streets, that's our formula. So some of the complexes get in the winter, average winter just a few hundred dollars, the one you may be thinking of, that made a backdated claim, has gotten a little bit more.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Right, because I know we've been kind of working on that for a while together.

MR. RUTISHAUSER: Yes.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So I guess the question is ‑‑

MR. RUTISHAUSER: I don't know if this development would qualify under the condo act, and that's something I will certainly defer to our board attorney.
MR. MARTIN: I don't believe so. It's a multifamily development housing.
MR. WELLS: Doesn't ‑‑
MR. MARTIN: There's a few land use regulations in this community that may overlap, but in terms of what governs a type of ownership entity, it's different in multifamily and residential housing. But, again, maybe I'm wrong. I sat through all these hearings, but I believe that there's no issue that there's going to be collection of any kind of refuse by the applicant, right, that could be put into a resolution.
MR. WELLS: MR. LOVENTHAL gave the testimony and there was other testimony, everything is going to be done by private contractors, so there's no question.
MR. MARTIN: At the expense of the applicant.
MR. WELLS: Yes.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: With no reimbursement by the village, correct?

MR. MARTIN: MR. LOVENTHAL.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: You want that as a stipulation, I would say.

MR. LOVENTHAL: The Municipal Services Act, Chris was referring to the Condo Act, my experience is regarding the Municipal Services Act is that certainly we're not entitled to snow removal, it's a private parking lot, like any other parking lot, we're not entitled to leaf pickup. We're a private property like any other. My experience in the past regarding sanitation has been however all of the multifamily rental communities are treated in a particular community is how we would expect to be treated. So if you are providing trash pickup currently at your multifamily rental communities, we would be entitled to that service. We're a different building in the sense that we will be removing trash from common containers, as opposed to small residential containers that would be brought to the curb. We have no intentions of doing that. So, from my expectation, we would not be looking for any reimbursement from the village as it relates to that service either.
MR. MARTIN: Trash and recycling, right?
MR. LOVENTHAL: Right, trash and recycling is, if the village, my understanding of the Municipal Services Act, if the village is providing service to other like/kind rental communities, residential rental communities, then an arrangement can be made in the form of a separate agreement under the Municipal Services Act as it relates to those services. We're not seeking that, but, again, I'm not aware, mayor, you may be as to whether the village is currently providing either a reimbursement for trash or is actually picking up the trash at any of your other rental communities, I'm just not aware of it.
MR. MARTIN: I don't believe so.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: No, that's not the case.

MR. MARTIN: Chris, is that correct?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: No.
MR. WELLS: No.
MR. LOVENTHAL: So then we would not be looking for that same service, and we would be continuing as I described to remove the trash from a private trash hauler at no cost to the village.
MR. MARTIN: And the recycling?
MR. LOVENTHAL: Yes, and the recycling, yes.
MR. MARTIN: MR. SLOMIN, are you okay with that answer?
MR. SLOMIN: Can I come up?
MR. MARTIN: Sure. I invited you, why not?
MR. SLOMIN: I guess I would, just as with some other items, ask as our representatives, there's a question here, I'm not sure it's been answered with full clarity, and I know in my experience we've had towns where they did pickup, try and take it away, force payment upon us, and we said no, you can't do that. And they ended up ‑‑ actually they didn't, they just kind of went back to picking it up, it was never resolved, legally they just didn't want to go there and make a fight over it. It's a question mark in New Jersey, and it is handled oftentimes in the courts with legal filings, with a complex saying you, the municipality, here's not only the precedent in your community but the precedence in the state, and there's arguments made where municipalities are forced into either reimburse or to pickup. Sometimes it has to do with, however you pickup, maybe you pickup some multi‑families and put it in cans, others put it in dumpsters, then a complex could buy 100 cans and put it out on the street on trash day, which would be a negative impact to the community to get it for free, until they force the hand of the community to say all right, all right, we'll give you a dumpster for free. This is how it works and dot your I's, cross your T's in anything that you do, and that's why I was asking for a commitment, if they're indeed not seeking that, if that could be part of the resolution saying not only now but we're not going to do it five years from now. That's all I'm asking. Thank you.
MS. McWILLIAMS: You may not know, but who does like even just up the street at Cameron Commons or the Oak Street Apartments, is that a private collection, because there is a dumpster in the back?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: I'd have to check. Our sanitation people do pickup some dumpsters. Matter of fact, we've had employees injured when they pickup dumpsters, so it is a dangerous task, with other places that have private carters handle their trash.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: I have a question for Chris Martin. Chris, as it relates to the off‑site improvements and us not knowing what that amount is, what's the law as it relates to us being able to say yes or no to a development, without knowing what that number is?

MR. MARTIN: It's always difficult, it really is, and we've gone through this, you've had probative questions on other applications as well. But, in terms of that, the developer must agree, in my opinion, and I believe they have, that if there is a need for water service, for example, to be appropriate for not only potable water but also for fire safety, that they will do the necessary improvements to get to make sure that the site is properly protected and there's sufficient water supply, and if there's any additional improvements that are pro rata share related, they're going to have to pay that. And at the end of the day, the Village Engineer and other professionals are going to be the ones that say the nexus is based upon this, and, if there's a disagreement, they can go to court and address the issue at that point. But they would have to put the money in escrow, do the same thing for traffic lights and traffic signal improvements, you can do the same thing for schools.
MR. WELLS: Let me just comment in a general way, tell you what we're not arguing but so someone keeps this in mind. A few minutes ago, MR. SLOMIN made the comment that you have to be careful, because people want it to be free. It's not free. This particular applicant, as anybody who owns this, will pay a great deal of taxes to the village for municipal services, like everybody else. That said, so that they are at the right to an expectation, as any other taxpayer in the community that certain things will be provided for them in the community. That said, this particular applicant has said we're not trying to put any additional burden on the community, certainly not to do with anything to do with the direct approval and construction of this project. So we talked about water and sewer, you know we've talked about traffic in the past. In reality, even though I huffed and puffed and told you why you were not entitled to lots of off‑site improvements, at MR. JAHR's request we make about $80,000.00 worth of off‑site improvements that are not pro rata share, we just did them because we wanted to be helpful in the general area because we want it to work well. This applicant is telling you they want to be fair and reason reasonable and work in the community, but I think it's important that we also realize that they're going to be a very large taxpayer in this community, just like everybody else is a taxpayer.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: So I just want to kind of follow‑up on that. What happens if the costs are really prohibitive; in other words, if we have to fix something that is really, really expensive, what does that mean for us as a village? I mean, does it end up being something that we may not be able to do?

MR. WELLS: Well, that's not dissimilar to everything the governing body has to deal with if a prohibitive cost comes about, in my experience when I work with villages, big costs get bonded and so forth. But that's not what we're talking about here; in other words, you certainly you wouldn't suggest, for example, if you need new sewer pipes at the other end of town and it was going to cost $2 million, that this particular applicant would do that, somebody might suggest. It wouldn't be reasonable to suggest, it wouldn't be legal to suggest. What is be reasonable is things that they directly cause and things that they maybe indirectly affect, then they would be asked to do a pro rata share, and we've done that and more any time anybody has asked us.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: I understand. This relates to, and I don't want to seem too harsh, is that is relates to a need created by an applicant that wasn't there before. Okay. And if we have to do an expensive upgrade to something, and if we don't do that upgrade and you go on the sewer system and the sewer system all of a sudden pops, there's stuff all over, that makes it really difficult ‑‑ it creates a problem. So the concern we have, and I think it has been voiced over and over again, is that there is a risk, and that risk may be minimal, but we want to be protected against that risk, and I don't know how we do that.

MR. WELLS: I suggest that you have done that. You obviously finalized the resolution on another multifamily application earlier this evening where I'm happy, I happen to represent the client, and we went through a process, took a couple of months until we finished the resolution to make sure that, as one of the questioners talked about, is there a contract? Yes, there's a contract. And not only is there a resolution, but there will also be a developer's agreement. So it's to make sure that everybody is being fair. What I can represent, and I have no problem representing, that this particular applicant is a very high quality developer. That's the reputation everywhere they do it. And one of the reasons where you can be very comfortable they're not going to build the kind of units that people are concerned about, is they want to rent them for a lot of money. These are high‑end units so that's not ‑‑

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Oh ‑‑

MR. WELLS: We understand our responsibility to pay for the cost that we directly cause. And if we indirectly cause them and you need to do an improvement in the general area, we're going to pay our fair share, but we can't be told that we have to pay for everything that goes on in the village forever because we're building in the village.
MS. PATIRE: I don't think anyone is saying that.
MR. WELLS: I'm exaggerating. I'm trying to say there's got to speed the process.
MS. PATIRE: I'm not going to pay for something on Route 17. I was saying all things connect. I was giving the example with pipes, they all connect to something. I think what COUNCILMAN VOIGT is saying and, Chris, maybe some clarity or some guidance to your point, you're saying it's difficult, I feel like we're being presented with an opportunity here to vote on something, you kind of got one eye closed, right, because there's things that we just don't know. And I guess my question is, and, again, Chris has testified and I know what everyone is saying, how do you weigh the risk and reward, yes, for a taxpayer, absolutely, they're entitled to A, B, C and D, just like any other taxpayer in the village. They're a taxpayer, but there could be, I'm not saying there is, there could be problems caused because of this application that no one knows about or it may cost us a boatload of money or it may cost us nothing.
MR. WELLS: Two comments, lots of professionals, engineers and so forth have told you no, there are no problems, they checked the water, checked ‑‑
MS. PATIRE: I ‑‑
MR. WELLS: But some things that we don't know, what we have said repeatedly is we will cover any direct costs that are related to something, if something pops up. Do we expect them? No.
MS. PATIRE: A running issue and MR. SLOMIN said this earlier, bringing to your property, again I keep going back to the simple example, what happens to the three links of the pipe that you need to connect ‑‑
MR. WELLS: If it's remote to our property and related to a municipal service that generally services the area, then the only appropriate thing to do, if there's going to be a municipal improvement, would be to then tag us with our pro rata share. So, if we're causing 20 percent of that problem, you can do that, or it's a general municipal matter.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: So you say you'll pay for your fair share. What happens if we can't, we can't pay for our fair share?

MR. WELLS: Well, that's a problem. Like any municipality ‑‑

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: What do we do?

MR. WELLS: You raise taxes or you bond. I mean, that's what municipalities are responsible to do is to provide basic municipal services for its taxpayers. That's your job.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: But what happens if we don't want to raise taxes or we don't want to bond?

MR. WELLS: You shouldn't be in office, you're not doing your job. That's the job. You're supposed to provide municipal services for the taxpayers.
MR. LOVENTHAL: COUNCILMAN VOIGT, could I just provide some clarity? We expect to do nothing more than is required by the Municipal Land Use Law. I'm just trying to clarify, because this does come up, and the reality is, from the developer's perspective, if that unusual scenario plays out where there is some multimillion dollar improvement that the municipality simply chooses not to make or cannot make, then the reality exists that our project may be in jeopardy, so that's where there is a negotiation. It's that simple. So, for the off‑site, the unlikely scenario that some significant multimillion dollar improvement is necessary, that's where negotiation takes place. Once we complete our studies with the engineering department, those things will be flushed out in the developer's agreement, and ultimately if the municipality chooses not to, well, then we can't build the project. So the reality is that that's where you have cooperation between the property owner, the developer, and the municipality in order to make sure that it doesn't place a significant burden on the village and that there's a fair share and actual nexus attributed to the developer.
MR. MARTIN: So going back to the decision‑making process of this board, Debbie's questions are excellent, but the board has to make a decision on the evidence presented before it, coupled with the legal standards. There's a nice gentleman in the audience with a green shirt, MR. SLOMIN, the position that the use in context, I agree; however, we've gone through this before, the board has to deal with the ordinance as to the uses is allowable as you sit here today. What is the evidence? We have the Village Engineer who knows the area, addresses the issues, goes through the evidence, and at this point can't say that there's any problem with this development surcharging and causing a catastrophic break of any pipes. If there was, that would be an issue before the board right now, but the maybe, could have, should have, that's where I come in and try to lock the applicant down and say, listen, MR. WELLS just represented as an agent of his applicant, of his client, that if there's a direct link with something, they're paying 100 percent; if there's an indirect activity or relationship off‑tract, they're paying a pro rata share. That is what the men in black would do, if they wore the black robes and say, planning board, you had the evidence, you had your own professionals, you had their professionals, this is all the testimony, this is how you can make a decision. Direct problem, they pay; indirect problem, they pay a pro rata share, and that's it.
MS. ALTANO: Also, I think there's another step to make it right, which are the specifications, which go under the first sections of the specifications of always go under attorney review, and this is a way of making things even better, looking at what is right, the percentages.
MR. WELLS: Are you talking about building specifications?
MS. ALTANO: Yes.
MR. WELLS: That's building code.
MS. ALTANO: No, no, not actually code, but sections, the legal, the legal section 1, 2 and 3 are legal.
MR. WELLS: But typically reviewed by your construction code official, and he may seek the guidance once and a while of the village attorney, but, for the most part, your construction code official, that's within his jurisdiction.
MR. MARTIN: With the engineer too, those three.
MR. WELLS: Yes, but in terms of building specs?
MR. MARTIN: But if somebody designed something improperly, there is a recourse for the village.
MS. ALTANO: So there is an additional road to make it right, that's what I was trying to say.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Anyone else from the public to make a statement?

(No response.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: All right. I guess the next would be if you want to make a closing statement.

MR. WELLS: I do.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Are we finished with traffic?

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Yes, we had that at the last meeting. Chris was the only one left.

MS. McWILLIAMS: I thought I was midway from hearing an answer on the garbage collection and how to lock that down when Jeff asked his question. I just want to make sure everybody was fine with that answer as far as protecting ourselves from being sought at any other point. And you had I heard what you said.
MR. LOVENTHAL: I do want to be clear, I indicated that we would comply with the Municipal Services Act, and the Municipal Services Act provides that, at least as it relates to rental communities, if the village is presently collecting trash at other complexes in a like/kind, that we are not going to be treated any differently. That's what the law says, and I plan on complying with the law. I do not believe that I will be looking for reimbursement, because there are no like/kind communities. I will be at my expense be collecting trash as my own cost. I did not agree to be barred in perpetuity from negotiating with the municipality under the Municipal Services Act.
MS. McWILLIAMS: So when she had said before, you wouldn't be asking for that now or in the future, that's not ‑‑
MR. LOVENTHAL: I didn't say in the future, I said that I believe I'm going to comply with the Municipal Services Act. Today I will not be seeking any reimbursement, because I am going to be collecting trash privately, through not through trash cans, and we weren't clear, it wasn't clear as to whether any of your rental communities are being provided that service.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Again, because you're not of a like/kind to any of the rental communities?
MR. LOVENTHAL: That's the Municipal Services Act, so I'm not barring any further negotiation in the future. Should the village at some point choose to collect sanitation from all rental communities, I'm not suggesting that I should be barred from that in the future. I'm paying taxes, just like anybody else.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Or seeking reimbursement retroactively or otherwise.
MR. LOVENTHAL: It may be seeking, that's correct. That's the Municipal Services Act. I plan on complying with the law.
MS. McWILLIAMS: I just feel like this is very open‑ended. There's so much going on up here I'm having a conversation by myself. I'll wait until they're all done, and then we can wait to go ahead.
MS. PATIRE: The good news is there's nothing quite the size of The Dayton that's in Ridgewood ‑‑
MR. LOVENTHAL: Yeah, I don't ‑‑

COURT REPORTER: I can't hear three people talking at once. I'm sorry.

MR. WELLS: Let me just try to reach clarity on this. The point is simply this. We want to be treated fairly. We want to be very fair in meeting expenses that are caused by us. If this municipality should decide that it wants to provide garbage services to other rental properties, it would be unfair to this taxpayer, just like everybody else, and put them at an unfair competitive advantage to say that they don't have the right to do that. So that all Scott is suggesting is if the municipality starts to do garbage pickup at all rental properties, then we want to right to ask to be treated like everybody else.
MS. McWILLIAMS: And my question had been trying to find out if we do, what units do we collect at, where do we collect at currently, and is that standard or are we reimbursing in other areas? I would like to know that going in, so that if something either settled ahead of time, and it's not a surprise, you know, to the taxpayers or to any of us up here.
MR. WELLS: Well, to be legal again, what we're saying is, we will comply with the law.
MS. McWILLIAMS: I understand.
MR. WELLS: And that is actually our only legal requirement. What we're doing here is trying to explain ‑‑
MS. McWILLIAMS: So would you also agree that the law can be somewhat ambiguous. So when he's saying that like/kind, let's be clear what like/kind, because he said there is no like/kind facility, nothing of this kind in Ridgewood; half an hour, hour ago, you said there is, you said there are many like/kind facilities in Ridgewood, so I'm making ‑‑
MR. WELLS: No, you're really distorting things. What I said half an hour ago was that there were other users that needed water or sewer that it was stated that this was by far the largest that had ever been in the village, and that's not true.
MR. MARTIN: I think you said Valley Hospital.
MR. WELLS: Well, I used that as an example, but I'm sure there are others as well.

We've asked and answered this as well as we can. This is the best I can tell you.

MS. PATIRE: So, Chris, can we ask, are there like/kind apartment complexes, rentals in the village where we pick up trash and they're responsible for their trash ‑‑
MS. McWILLIAMS: Or being reimbursed for it.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: I'd have to make those inquiries. A similar size, a similar place, I don't know if it's exact size and the number of units would be the Oak Street Apartments. I have to find out how many units and also whether we service their trash and recycling or they have a carter. I can get that information for the next board meeting.
MS. PATIRE: When you say a "carter," I don't know what that means.
MR. WELLS: I mean a collection company.
MS. PATIRE: Okay.
MR. WELLS: Mr. Chairman, you asked me about a closing. I've said all along that I want to be very complete, make this application, to make our record, as I put it, bullet proof, so it will probably take me a half hour to do the closing, so if you want to take your break and then I'll come back.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. We'll take a ten‑minute break.

(A short recess is held.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Michael, call the roll.

(At this point in the proceeding roll call is taken with MAYOR KNUDSEN, COUNCILMAN VOIGT, VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI, MS. McWILLIAMS, MR. SCHEIBNER, CHAIRMAN JOEL, MS. ALTANO, and MS. PATIRE present, with Ms. Barto and Giordano absent.) CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. We're back on the record.

MR. WELLS, You can proceed with your closing statement.
MR. WELLS: Good. We haven't lost anybody. First, before I begin, let me say what I always like to say to boards when I get a chance to do it, right now everybody is still paying attention, and that is that I do this for a living, which means that he's got to pay me to come here, and, therefore, I particularly appreciate people who do this as volunteers, because this isn't all that much fun. I know sometimes it gets kind of argumentative, and I participate in that because that's my job, but I do want to say, as some people in the public said to you, I appreciate what you do. I know this isn't all that much fun and it gets a little tedious sometimes, so I don't want to leave tonight without saying that to you. It is pleasant to get to the end of this process. I told you on the first hearing that this was a very simple site plan application, and, in reality, it is. This is a permitted use. It's largely conforming. It has one very minor variance that probably is the variance, and it has one design exemption, and I'll go through those and the evidence that you've heard about those. But it's very largely conforming: The impervious area, the FAR, the height, the setback, the amenity areas, both the interior and the exterior, the parking, all of the key elements that you worry about in terms of what we call "bulk variances" that you're going to hear about on other applications on another night, probably from me or somebody like me, they don't exist here. So what we have is a pretty straightforward application. I want to remind you of the particulars, because a lot of time has passed. It is a 93‑unit project. It includes 15 one‑bedroom market rate units, 64 two‑bedrooms, and that's the end of the market rate units, that's 79 units. We propose to build 14 affordable units, 2 one‑bedrooms, 9 two‑bedrooms and the three bedrooms, the three of them are all affordable housing. And I won't spend a lot of time, although it is important that you understand that in addition to everything else that we're doing here, and you've heard us say over and over again that we really think this is a great project for the Village of Ridgewood, it is also meeting an affordable housing obligation, and that's important legally and it's important because it's a good thing to do. The history of the application began with an extensive process before this board and the Mayor and Council to rezone the property. That went from 2011 all the way to 2015, and then didn't actually became a final ordinance until March of 2016. We've been in front of you on this matter, as I indicated, for almost a year. We filed this application on June 10th of 2016. So 10 days or so past one year. There have been five hearings: September 6th last year, September 20th, February 7th, May 2nd, and then tonight, June 20th, 2017.

You've heard from nine different witnesses. Again, simple site plan but an awful lot of witnesses. Larry Appel was the architect. Alexander Lapatka was our site engineer, and he was back tonight answering some questions. Art Bernard was our planner, who happens to have a unique additional set of skills and knowledge because he's the former head of COAH, so he was able to help educate the board a little bit to the affordable housing aspects, in addition to providing planning testimony to support our one variance. Dan Disario testified only a couple of months ago, our traffic engineer. And Scott Loventhal, who's the principal of this particular application, the principal of the developer, and as I've said, that night one of the most extraordinarily hands‑on developers that I've ever had the privilege of working with, and who his project, cares about it, and knows every aspect of it. In addition, you've had testimony from four of your own experts: Blais Brancheau, who is no longer with the village, actually gave a report and gave testimony a number of months ago. Elizabeth McManus, who is the new planner who is not here this evening, she sent a substitute, but she also produced a report and then gave actual testimony at the last hearing. John Jahr, several reports, I think three in number, and then also testified substantially last time. And then Chris Rutishauser, who testified as your civil engineer. So that's nine witnesses, lots of evidence. There's also been a lot of stipulations. We came in this evening with 21. I don't know what the count is. Andy, you can tell us? He'll tell me in a minute.

MR. KOHUT: More than 21.
MR. WELLS: We added a few tonight. What are stipulations? We're clarifying things. Often specifically related to requests that you've made, it's our way of agreeing in advance to certain conditions, so as to make it clear that we want to conform with it. Site plan legal review: I put into evidence at the last hearing what is your A‑21, the memorandum that Chris and his firm prepared with respect to another application that was heard before you. As it turns out, it's in evidence again this evening or a slight variation on it with respect to the responsibilities that a board has when it reviews a site plan. I think it's a particularly good piece of legal work, and, therefore, it's handy for me to use it to reinforce what I believe are your responsibilities here, before I go through the evidence that you have. In the memorandum, it states in its very beginning when it talks about site plan approval: "In reviewing an application for site plan approval, the Planning Board's authority is limited to determining whether the development plans conforms with the zoning ordinance and the applicable provisions of the site plan," and that particular principle comes from a Supreme Court case here in New Jersey.

It goes on to say: "The objective of site plan review is to ensure that the site will be used in accordance with the provisions of the site plan ordinance, which are designed to effectuate the provisions of the Municipal Land Use Law. These provisions of the MLUL," that's the Municipal Land Use Law, "relate to on‑site considerations. "When a site plan is being considered by a Planning Board and use being considered, the use is always a permitted use or wouldn't be in front of the Planning Board. Therefore, in most cases, the board must grant site plan approval, and, where appropriate, grant waivers or exceptions from ordinance provisions," again citing the applicable New Jersey case law. The memo goes on to point out that your own bylaws at 7.7 say that: "The board's decision must be based on evidence. Specifically, each case shall be decided strictly on the basis of the facts produced at the hearing, viewed in light of the statutory and ordinance requirements." Again, New Jersey case law, Supreme Court case, which I won't cite the case but that's in the material that you have makes that abundantly clear. Finally I want to just tell you one other thing that comes out of this memo, and, again, citing the Allen v. Hobo (phonetic) case, Chris points out to us: "Where there is conflicting testimony or evidence, the board must decide which facts are true, and may accept or reject the testimony of a witness." That's a good place for me to start reviewing evidence for you, because there is no conflicting testimony. You have a very clean record here. I told you there were nine witnesses; five of them were presented by the applicant, the other four were presented by the village, paid for by the applicant but they were the village's witnesses that you produced.

There is no evidence in this record that says that there is any problem with the site plan that would justify a denial. Now, let's start with the one variance that we have. I'll make sure that you understand I did say at the outset that there was another variance that was included initially, and that was the back wall of the retaining wall, where the railroad tracks didn't have stucco on it. We put the stucco on it; the variance went away. The only variance that remains on this application is with respect to the steep slope. You know, you've heard with respect to the other applications that you already approved, same here, they got a pile of dirt on the property. Mr. Bernard did a good job of talking to us about that, and he said ‑‑ I think it's important, because you may recollect, it's so long ago, that I argued with Mr. Brancheau as to whether this was a variance, but there comes a point when you do this kind of work where it's not productive to keep arguing whether it's a variance or not, it's easier just to argue in the alternative. But the testimony you heard from Mr. Bernard was with respect to the variance, he says: "So, I mean, the first exception, which is Section B(1)," he's referring to your ordinance, "you get an exception from the steep slope ordinance for redevelopment within the limits of impervious surfaces that were in effect and the way I'm reading the ordinance is that they were in effect at the time the ordinance was adopted."

"And that's what the applicant is doing, is redeveloping the property within the limits of the existing impervious surfaces. In fact, the applicant is reducing the impervious surfaces by 10,900 square feet. And the second way I think we can get an exception from ordinance is B(3), which gives an exception when the new disturbance necessary provides an environmental benefit and is used as an example of the remediation of the contaminated site." Now, in this case, the environmental benefit is stabilizing the slope. So I think there's a very clear record that there wasn't even a variance. But, if there was a variance, and I won't take you through it as tediously, but there are positive and negative criteria, we've heard about that here in the course of this hearing, you've heard about that certainly other times variances have been presented to you, and Mr. Bernard went through the positive and negative criteria one by one, it goes on for a number of pages, and then he concludes:

"So, in summary, I find that this proposal has a variety of benefits, so I conclude that there are benefits associated with the variance, but it's really what the applicant is doing is complying with the spirit of your steep slope ordinance. I find the proposal advances the multiple purposes of the Municipal Land Use Law, and that the variance relief does not create a substantial detriment to either the public good or the zone plan." Significantly, neither of the planners that were presented by the village and gave testimony contradict that. Nobody indicates that that's not correct. So that's the one variance that this board has to consider that I've now very tediously gone through and reminded you of the legal justification for why we don't believe that is a matter of any moment in this application. The second matter that comes up is the tandem parking. That's not actually even a variance, so it doesn't even require that kind of benefits/detriments thing, it's just a matter, it's called an exception to the site plan. Even that, may or may not really exist, because the village ordinances say absolutely nothing about tandem parking, they're silent on it; however, there is an ordinance that talks about other parking areas and implies that there would only be one car in a space. Contrary to that, RSIS, which actually dictates to the parking on our site, because it's a state law that prevails, makes it clear that the tandem parking can be appropriate. Again, that is in the record but I don't want to spend a lot of time arguing with you whether or not there is a deviation, rather, I want to point you to the fact there was extensive testimony by Mr. Disario about the tandem parking, it goes on for about six pages; there was also testimony by MR. LAPATKA; and there was testimony by MR. LOVENTHAL; and basically what they testified to over and over again is, it works. MR. LOVENTHAL indicated to you that he actually has had the experience of people actually prefer it. I won't go that far, but I will tell you that your own expert, MR. JAHR, concluded very significantly that it was maybe not perfect but it was fine. This is his testimony: "Tandem parking is not my favorite kind of parking; however, I don't see it operating very differently than what their traffic engineer testified. It's very similar to what works in my single family house and most others. "Do I try to have it? Yes, I do think the applicant probably tried not to have it. I think that's so too. It does appear to me that it will work, just like any other spaces, it's just an inconvenience for the people that have to, you know, be behind one another. So I do think, I don't see a safety issue, because it's going to operate like other parking spaces in the area. I see an inconvenience, but I do not think there's a safety problem"...It goes on from there, but the key thing, the thing that you need to know legally is, it's safe. It's not a problem. It doesn't create anything.

There was additional questioning by MR. SCHEIBNER, which I think was helpful, and he pointed out that it might create a problem at the end of the row. MR. JAHR responded to that:

"Well, I see it operating just like any other parking space at the end of an aisle, so I don't. I don't see, I don't see that it being very different from any other parking spaces at the end of the aisle. It's always nice not to have a space at the end of the aisle and to have some, you know, where you stripe it off or that's where they put like a green island or something. I'm sure you've see that in commercial lots a lot, but not really an option here in this case." The reason I'm giving you MR. JAHR's testimony is because, again, he's your expert, and I wanted to make it clear to you that there really is no evidence in this record that supports coming to a conclusion that there's a problem with the tandem parking that would justify not approving this site for an application. So let me conclude a little bit where I started, and then I'm going to go back to the very thoughtful analysis that you have before you from your own board attorney. He tells us, very significantly: "Since this use is permitted, the Planning Board does not have the authority to deny a site plan based upon its view that a permitted use is inconsistent with the principles of sound zoning." And then he goes on to quote the case that he's citing and quotes the court in particular. I'll tell you what the case is, because I'm going to quote it. It's Wawa Food Market v. The Planning Board. It's a 1998 Appellate Division case.

And the courts concluded: "While site plan review gives a board wide discretion to ensure compliance with the objectives and requirements of a site plan, it was never intended to include the legislative or quasi‑judicial power to prohibit a permitted use." So why did I end with that? Well, the reason I ended with that is because I began with that months and months ago, and, that is to point out that what is before this board is not zoning, it's not about whether or not you think 35 units per acre should be on this property or all of the things that went into that decision. The only thing that is before this board, despite the fact that we've gone in all kinds of other places, is whether this site plan, basically the development of the site itself, has been done in a fair and reasonable manner.

And with respect to that, you have a code, and your code has many different requirements in it. We talked about it. Impervious area, height, setbacks, all of the rest of those things. And it conforms to those. So the only things, the only things that don't conform with the code where we don't follow exactly what you say must be done are with respect to the steep slope, a pile of dirt in the back of the property and the tandem parking. And the evidence that's been presented with respect to those two things is overwhelmingly in support of allowing those two changes. Now, why do I say this so emphatically? I'm saying this because while we appreciate a deliberative process, this process has been long and it's gone on for a very long time, for probably some very good reasons and probably some reasons that aren't all that helpful. Bottom line is, it's over at this point in time. We've been presented a full and thorough case for why this site plan should be approved by this board, and I would humbly and respectfully request that you now approve the site plan, the variance, and the exception that's required. And, in addition, because I don't want to leave it unsaid, we also made application for a soil moving permit, and I would request that you also approve the soil moving permit, and that is all I have to say.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Thank you, MR. WELLS.

Do we have a motion to formally close the hearing?

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: So moved.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Joel made the first, is there a second to the motion?

MS. PATIRE: I second it.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: I second it.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Jeff second.

All in favor? (Whereupon, all Board Members respond in the affirmative.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Anyone opposed?

(No response.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: All right. So the hearing is closed right now and now we're going to move into board deliberations. Dave, we'll start with you.

MR. SCHEIBNER: You always start with me.
MR. WELLS: That's what happens when you're on the end.
MR. SCHEIBNER: Yeah. In large part, I agree with the closing statement, that it's A fairly simple application in that it's largely conforming. I don't personally see any issue with the steep slope. However, I am still not convinced that the stacked parking is appropriate in all the instances that are shown in this plan. There are places where there's stacked parking where a vehicle can back out in both directions, but there are at least six places where the first vehicle has to back out in the direction that the second vehicle has to back out. And this creates a problem unless there happens to be other open spaces in that general area. And these six spaces are against a wall, so not only can they not back out, but they can only back out in one direction, but they also have to watch out for a wall. The illustration of the private driveway, single lane driveway, is very familiar to me. I have a single lane driveway. I have four cars that park in it. And it's on a very busy street. But we cope, but we are able to back out in either direction, and that is fundamentally my problem with the stacked parking in this particular design. I think that stacked parking is like a design crutch, and I think when you resort to it as extensively as it's done in this particular design, I think you haven't designed enough. I think that's all I have to say.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay.

Jeff.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: So, you know, I think in essence I'm okay based on the law with the application as it is. A couple of things I just want to make sure are addressed, and I'm hoping, I'm assuming, that could be in the resolution. The stipulations that have been outlined and specifically as they relate to the developer's responsibilities as per our ordinance 190‑55, I think that's going to be the ordinance. Yes, I think that's it. Those things need to be put in there and fairly clearly. The one concern I have, and, you know, it was probably one in a thousand, one in 2,000 chance of happening, very low, is the issue of any kind of very expensive modification we have to endure with the infrastructure as it relates to this. I understand that the developer has agreed that if that occurs, then we sit down at the table again and we figure out what to do. And that's probably one of my major concerns. I don't want our residents to have this to be put on their shoulders, and I think we just need to make sure that doesn't occur, if that situation arises. So that's it.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay.

MAYOR KNUDSEN.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So, first, thank you for being here for like, what is it, like a decade, century.

MR. WELLS: Six and a half years.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: It seems like such a long time.

MR. WELLS: Since I was in my 50s.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay. So I actually share the concerns regarding the tandem or stacked parking. The application, as a whole, is a good application. There's a very big challenge with this creating an inadequate circulation with the stacked vehicles, you know, it causes a deficiency and it's a self‑imposed problem. It's a self‑imposed condition. Ultimately, the vehicular traffic problem is on‑site, and I don't think that just because the experience of someone may or may not be that other tenants somewhere else prefer tandem parking, I don't think that's a good explanation or reason for me to say, well, maybe some may or may not. I absolutely share Jeff's concern that the backing out, while waiting for someone else to get out, hoping that no other cars are coming, maybe praying that there's an empty space, causes a host of problems. And, again, I think that this is a self‑created situation, and I'm not happy with the stacked or tandem or stacked parking. It's obstructive parking, and it violates 190.90C of the village code. That's all I have.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay.

Melanie.

MS. McWILLIAMS: I feel like a lot of us feel like we've been here for a long time, whether or not we've sat up here or sat out there, some in our 50s, some in our 20s and 30s. No big deal. But I'll say I share some of the similar concerns with my fellow board members with these applications, finding ways of meeting the ordinance requirements but only barely, ordinarily, or by a different explanation than what I think the ordinance was set out to do. This tandem parking creates an issue that I see as being something that while it may not seem like a tenant created big problem, could in fact become a regular issue. I agree with some of Jeff's concerns about, you know, our obligation to the residents that we represent up here and making sure that what we approve and what we say yes to does not create a burden for the taxpayers. We answer to them. We don't sit up here to answer to a potential of being in a court or anything else, we answer to the residents. And when I look at this, I have a few concerns with certain aspects of it, and, you know, one of the No. 1 issues within our town is the parking. And I have to look at this and say that it doesn't fit what I feel the ordinance laid out for it.

That's all I have.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay.

Debbie.

MS. PATIRE: Yes. I think everyone has been relatively consistent up here. I do think it is a relatively conforming site plan application that fits within the ordinance that we have in the village. There are a few things that I question with regards to the developer. I'm doing some research online over the past few months, and, also, I was the person who asked the question about other complexes, so I actually did do some other research and I did go to a few complexes and I did poll people on their experience, and I had mixed results. But I do have those concerns that my other board members have as well.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Isabella.

MS. ALTANO: While I share the tandem and stacked parking issues with my fellow board members, it's one of the things I mentioned in the beginning of the meeting, we already have a problem in the village with parking, and so we should try to come in with projects that try to resolve parking issues. I have a problem with circulation. It's very important to me, and I know it's very important to the village residents we represent as board members. I have a problem, though, with the fact that there's a hierarchy now created within the parking lot where certain units will be located better parking spots. I guess I'm a bit of a socialist when I say that; I want everyone to be treated equally. And I think the application is wonderful. I think you addressed a lot of the things, everything within, you know, the realm of what's to be done; however, I still feel that the parking, it seems like an afterthought, and I would like that resolved in a positive way. That would actually give your project a feather in the hat, because it's a wonderful project. This particular area truly needs that development; however, we have to make sure that everything within that development is done in a way that satisfies all the requirements and all the needs of the community and mostly those individuals who are going to inhabit those units. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Joel.

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: I'll keep my comments pretty brief. Before I volunteered to be on the Planning Board, I spent about six years on the Zoning Board, all kinds of different applications, many of them requested many variances, sometimes 10 variances, bulk variance, height, setbacks, things like that. Some nights they would talk about (c)(1) and (c)(2) relief and all of those kinds of fun things. This isn't that kind of application. I feel we got off‑track with some of what we're talking about. So much of what this applicant has proposed is as of right of ordinance. Whether we like the ordinance or not, that's our ordinance. I think if you stick with the letter of the law, they're complying, and the steep slope is a nonissue. I don't think the parking is ideal but, I think it is compliant, I'm in favor of the application.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. I'm going to echo what Joel just said. I mean, it's an extensive application that was filed, a lot of witnesses, we heard a lot of testimony. The application conforms with the zoning ordinance and the site plan ordinance also. We heard from the experts. We received a lot of information on this matter. There's been a lot of back and forth. There's been stipulations, stipulating certain things to provide for certain protections to make it a winning plan for the village and for the developer too. I think a lot of thought went into that. And as for the variance, I don't see that as a big variance, the steep slope. It's actually improving a condition that was man‑made. I'm not crazy about the stacked parking, and, you know, I am with the rest of the board on that concern, but it's also balanced against that it does conform and meet the code with respect to that. And for the soil moving, that's been addressed. I'm favorable to the plan. All right. So we've heard from everyone, and I guess, at this point, if anyone wants to make a motion with respect to this application they're free to do so or if they want to engage in more discussion.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: You know, my point is that I think that this board has been pretty loud and pretty clear about this tandem parking, stacked parking, whatever you want to call it, and it is a design exception and it is a significant design exception. So the idea that it hasn't been addressed is astonishing, because, as I said, it's been a topic of almost every single meeting, it's been raised every single time, and actually what I almost foresee is that people who don't want to be maneuvering in and out of these parking spaces might actually take up street parking in the absence of having to kind of get in and then get out and move here and move there. I see it as a problem, and a very serious circulation issue, and serious enough that I could never support this application with this type of parking lot in it.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. Is there any other comment or motion with respect to the application?

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: I question the mayor. In the beginning you said you're surprised that the dual parking hadn't been addressed. Do you mean revised by the applicant? Because I think we had testimony, MR. JAHR spoke about it, we definitely spent some time speaking about it. I just want to understand.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: By the applicant, yes. I mean by the applicant. The applicant has heard this board loud and clear about the tandem parking, about the stacked parking, and that there's been no effort made to remedy the situation. And there's no doubt, you know, maybe cherry picking some of our traffic expert's comments makes it sound one way, but there's no doubt it was an issue all along. And, quite frankly, I overall like the application, but it's an issue. It's been an issue from the get‑go.

And I do see somebody, you know, somebody decides I have to move in and out of these spaces all day, somebody is going to just drive out and take a street space, and then just park their car in the street all day and then maybe put their car back at night. That's just the way that is.

MR. MARTIN: Just before the board is going to take any further action, as you know, there's the steep slope disturbance variance, and MR. WELLS spoke about it, the applicant presented witnesses about it, the village witnesses and experts spoke, I think everyone has addressed the steep slope on this board in terms of their comments just now. The retaining wall facing issue is moot, because the stipulation shows that they will take care of the facing on that with stucco. The last element is the stacked parking and tandem parking, however you want to phrase it. That boils all the way back down to what most of the board members just commented upon, that this is basically a site plan issue or a permitted use, and no one's defined that yet. I should have put that in my little tome, but just for the record, site plan means: "A development plan of one or more lots, which shows the existing and proposed conditions of a lot, including but not necessarily limited to topography, vegetation, drainage, floodplains, marshes, waterways. Second: "The location of all existing and proposed buildings, drives, parking spaces, walkways, means of ingress and egress, drainage, utility services, landscaping, screening." And, lastly, No. 3: "Any other information that may be reasonably required in order to make an informed determination pursuant to an ordinance requirement review and approval of site plans by the Planning Board."

And the case is Estate of Neuberger v. Middletown Township 215 NJ Super 375, and that's an Appellate Division 1987 case. Bottom line is: When you deal with bulk variances that address things that are conservation easements, other things like that, you have a steep slope disturbance, that's a variance. When you are addressing exceptions to site plans, it's like similar to a variance but it's used as an exception. And that's the issue we're here about in terms of the stacked parking issue. To be fair, MR. WELLS has I believe stated in his closing that that may not even be an exception issue, the way he reads the ordinance. You've been supplied with the ordinance in my legal memorandum. It's the board's determination as to whether it applies and whether they need an exception for it.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Then I guess the question is if ‑‑ I read it. I mean, I've been reading it, the question, because it is a good application, but there's this one issue that's yet unresolved. I mean, does somebody want to go back and re‑think the parking? You know, I don't know. I know, you know, I also spent years on the Board of Adjustment, and when we get to this point where there seems to be concerns, there's always the opportunity for somebody to go back and revisit those issues.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Any comment from the applicant on it?

MR. WELLS: I don't think so.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: No.

Any other comments from board members or a motion be made?

MS. ALTANO: Can we approved with this, you know, pending additional ‑‑
MS. McWILLIAMS: Like voting or waiting to hear what they come back with.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Well, I mean, there's going to be a motion for a no vote, there can be a motion for a yes vote, there can be a motion for a yes vote with conditions, all different things.

MR. MARTIN: Conditional approval is right in your Ordinance 194‑9. Granting an approval may require reasonable conditions designed to further the intent and purpose of the Municipal Land Use Law.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Can the people who have the tandem parking, can it be single parking. The tandem parking is allocated to one apartment each. Is that right?

MR. WELLS: That's right.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Can you put that other car out in the lot? You have extra spaces out there, can that ‑‑

MR. WELLS: Yes, they could.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: ‑‑ be a stipulation?

MR. WELLS: Yes, it can be a stipulation. It's already been testified to, yes, they can park in the free spaces, if they want to.

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: But if we require them from those two spaces, you can have one space there, you can use it and have persons park outside.

MR. WELLS: Let me tell you why that's not a very practical thing. Some people might do that, but if everybody ‑‑

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Speak in the mic.

MR. WELLS: I am sorry. If everybody did that, what would happen is you would not have any free spaces open and available for guests and so forth. So that's not a good solution. So, no, there's not going to be a change in this application. I think I made the legal position clear. We believe that if you deny this application because of this, this is not a variance, this is a completely different standard, your counsel has not explained that to you, but he may at some point, and this is a very minor matter, and all of the evidence in this record indicates that this is not a problem, despite some of you having a feeling different from the expert testimony you heard. If you deny it for this reason, I believe you will be overturned, so I think that would be foolish. I think this is a very fundamentally good application, and I do not believe this is an issue in which this board can deny. That's my legal opinion. You can defer to your counsel for his legal opinion and your own opinions, I guess.
MR. MARTIN: And I gave the opinions and I stand by them.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So, I mean, I see it as two choices, to either deny it, which I'm happy to do, or to approve it with the stipulation that all tandem parking be removed, and that all parking spaces are unobstructed and accessible with the appropriate circulation and proper access. So, I mean, that's the two options, I mean, that I'm willing to go with it, I don't know about anybody else.

MR. WELLS: Can I be heard? The legal issue here is reasonable conditions. The applicant will not stipulate to that, and I do not believe that is a reasonable condition that this board can place on this application, so I think you have only two choices, which is to approve it or deny it.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: We still have the choice to approve it with the ‑‑

MR. WELLS: No, I don't believe legally you have that choice.
MR. MARTIN: I believe you have the ability to request conditions. MR. WELLS has made it clear that he won't stipulate to them.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay. This is the motion and the stipulation, I would be asking questions.

MR. MARTIN: Section 190.
MR. SCHEIBNER: Can I give an a position on this, because my objection mostly is to the tandem spaces at the end of an aisle. There are four tandem spaces that have back out spaces in both directions. I have absolutely no objection to them. You know, this is a situation I live with on a daily basis, but I don't think you need the tandem spaces at the end of an aisle. They are not acceptable.
MS. McWILLIAMS: I think the concern is that based on what our ordinance states, the parking required can't be met. If you require this much parking, it doesn't fit here. If you're not willing to move it and move it elsewhere, it doesn't fit with the number of units you suggested. So if you're asking ‑‑ I'm understanding the concern is either vote with the stipulations or, you know, but the suggestion really is, you can't fit the parking you need with the number of units that are there, so what way can this be fixed?
MR. WELLS: There are two different issues that have been raised. The one that was raised at this end of the dais was whether or not we could eliminate the aisles, and if you want to give us five minutes, we will look at that issue. That's a distinct issue. However, that does not take away all tandem parking. There's a possibility that it could be eliminated where it also is an end out. Also, I would point out that the experts all testified that that created no particular problem or safety concern as well, but we'd be happy to look at that particular one, if you'd like us to, if you want to give us time to look at that.
MR. MARTIN: Well, the Chair can answer that question.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Do you want five minutes?

MAYOR KNUDSEN: You know what, I understand specifically where you're looking at, because I see similar situations that occur when two cars have to back out and so I see it as being problematic with a number of these tandem spaces.

MR. SCHEIBNER: Well, I would say a minimum of six.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Six or just 12 spaces?

MR. SCHEIBNER: Six spaces. Three situations where it gets against the wall.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: And I see ‑‑ well, I mean, do we just want to take a break? I mean, that's fine.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Well, we can't really deliberate off the record.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: No, I mean ‑‑

CHAIRMAN JOEL: You can gather your thoughts, and I guess you'll gather your thoughts and give us some input.

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Give them five minutes.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Yes. We'll take five.

(A short recess is held.)

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Let's go back on the record.

Michael, call the roll.

(At this point in the proceeding roll call is taken with MAYOR KNUDSEN, Councilman Voigt, VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI, MS. McWILLIAMS, MR. SCHEIBNER, CHAIRMAN JOEL, MS. ALTANO, and MS. PATIRE are present, with Ms. Barto and Ms. Giordano absent.)

MR. WELLS: MR. LAPATKA, could you go up by the board over there, just so you can be my pointer. You know, miracles can happen. So what we've done is try to adjust the site plan so as to accommodate the concern about tandem parking, and we have come up with a suggestion.

Right now, this site has extraordinarily wide access, an extraordinarily wide one‑way access road around the building. In most areas it's 24 feet, some areas it's even more than that.

Under the village code, it's only required that the driveway in a one‑way drive be 12 feet for this type of project. Some places it is allowed to be as low as 10 feet, but it's supposed to be 12 feet here. So, what we propose, with the concurrence, and I'll let them speak for themselves, of your traffic engineer and your civil engineer, is that we add 15 parking spaces, essentially parallel parking spaces, around the perimeter of the property, and this is where Al can point to you where they would be.

MR. LAPATKA: Along the rear driveway and the northerly driveway.
MR. WELLS: With the 15 parking spaces that we add there, together with the four additional that we already have on the site, if you'll recollect the requirement for this site is 83 spaces and we've provided 87, that four added to the 15 comes to 19, which not coincidentally but happily is the exact same number of tandem parking spaces that are now proposed at the site. What we would do then is obviously the area is still there, they would be marked, blind off and they would become essentially storage areas, so the tenants could use the back of their driveway for storage, they probably do it whether we mark it off or not. But we would eliminate the tandem parking, we would add 15 more spaces that are legal under your code. Honestly, we don't think it's as desirable as what was previously approved, so I'm not going to tell you that we like this plan, we like the other plan better, but we've heard the concerns expressed by board members with respect to it. So that's the change that we propose to make.
MR. LAPATKA, am I missing any part of this?
MR. LAPATKA: No.

The only thing is, the driveway, while being required to be 12‑feet wide, would be 16.

MR. WELLS: Right, even with the parallel parking.
MR. LAPATKA: We would have an 8‑foot wide parallel spot and a 16‑foot wide driveway alongside it or a 9‑foot spot and a 15‑foot wide driveway.
MR. MARTIN: You're required 12?
MR. LAPATKA: Yes.
MR. MARTIN: Minimum.
MR. WELLS: Right. So, in order to perfect this stipulation, what I would do is to add to it in addition to what I've just said that we would make the modification on the plan to add the 15 spaces in consultation with and with the approval of both of your engineers. Let them sign off on it.
MR. MARTIN: Can we hear from MR. JAHR. You remain sworn. Can you help us out and just let us know your thoughts on that proposal?
MR. JAHR: Sure. J O H N J A H R, PTP, TSOS, Previously sworn.
MR. JAHR: The proposal that they're putting forth seems to be an acceptable one. It meets the intent of the ordinance and it eliminates all of the tandem parking spaces, which I think none of us are all that keen on. So I think that this is a good solution to remove the tandem parking, while still maintaining the requirement of the number of spaces required for the overall plan. So, the circulation will still be safe and efficient around the outside of the site, where they're proposing to add the parallel spaces. The site already provides for a loading zone, so I would think that this should be a workable plan addressing the board's clear concerns regarding the tandem parking and my concerns as well.
MR. MARTIN: MR. RUTISHAUSER, you're still under oath. What are your thoughts to that?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: It's a very good solution to eliminate the need for the tandem parking, configuration to achieve the number of spaces the site needs according to our code.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: I'm sorry?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: It's a very good solution to eliminate tandem parking, while still having the space count that the site needs in accordance with our code.
MR. MARTIN: How many spaces were outside prior to this, MR. JAHR?
MR. JAHR: The site had a surplus of four spaces prior to this change, and it had a large size ‑‑ the circulation road around the outside of the building was extra-large size.
MR. WELLS: I can help you a little bit.

There was a 14 car parking lot all the way to the one end of the site, and then there were additional, I think 7 or 8 cars that were not underneath the building prior to this.

MR. LAPATKA: There were a total of 27 cars not underneath the building.
MR. WELLS: Okay, 27 all total, not under the building now. We would be adding an additional 15 not under the building.
MR. MARTIN: There's room for that outside, another 15? : Yes.
MR. LOVENTHAL: Can I have one item that I think is important for the board's consideration and something that I indicated during my testimony and that was: The number of spaces that will be assigned would not change. I still have the opportunity to assign the same number of spaces to the units, so the residents will still be afforded the same number of spaces. The spaces that will be moved outside the building are categorized to be unassigned, that's called "free spaces" that anyone can park in whether they have a visitor or an additional car. So, in this instance I think we've not changed my marketing intent as it relates to providing enough covered parking for our residents in order to achieve the luxury nature of the project. We would still have the same number of assigned spaces underneath the building. We would only have our 27 plus our 15 outside, which is ‑‑ excuse me ‑‑ 42, and we were proposing 53 unassigned, so we still will have under the building 11 spaces that will be unassigned and available as additional spaces and also available for visitors, if they so choose.
MR. MARTIN: While completely eliminating the tandem.
MR. LOVENTHAL: While completely eliminating the tandem spaces, that's correct. And I think what's important to know as well is that those unassigned spaces that will be around the perimeter that will be parallel will be the last spaces that would be used, so, in all likelihood, most of those spaces are going to be visitors and are going to be the last place that someone will park, because they are certainly going to choose to park in a covered space first. Thus, I think again, in the spirit of what we're trying to achieve here, providing for what will just be the overflow spaces that will not ‑‑ that mayor made a point regarding having a concern that that tandem space might lead to someone leaving their car on the street, now they're going to have spaces right in our driveway and not be parking on the street.
MR. WELLS: And there won't be tandem, so...

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So just a quick question. Can you just show me where the parallel parking will be again?

MR. LAPATKA: Along the drive on the westerly side, along the northerly driveway, and from Broad, and actually there's an opportunity for a couple of spaces.
MR. WELLS: Well, that's a loading area there, Al.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Just to be clear, does that impact at all the radius for the, I guess the largest truck going in would be a fire truck, would that be ‑‑

MR. LAPATKA: We're not going to parallel park all the way to the corner, so we've taken that into consideration. We're going to pull back the first space quite a bit, so that trucks can swing wide.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay.

MR. MARTIN: It would have to meet fire approval anyhow.
MR. WELLS: Yes, leave it to the approval of your two engineers to make sure on own plans is what is proposed.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Any further comments from board members?

MS. PATIRE: Can I just ask a question?

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Go ahead.

MS. PATIRE: So, MR. LOVENTHAL, you're going to build in the tandem parking spaces, say if a family moves in, a storage unit in the back that will be locked?
MR. LOVENTHAL: I haven't concluded yet, only because we're considering this tonight. In many complexes, we do where we only have a single space and sometimes also when we have tandem spaces, we do create what we have "cold storage," beach chairs, things along those lines.

So that would give us the opportunity, but it will afford us the opportunity to consider some additional cold storage for some of these units, yes.

MS. PATIRE: Okay. Thank you.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Can I ask a question of Chris.

And it's a turning radius also, but when you turn into like a street, you know, so you pull in, you know, if I'm coming off of Linwood Avenue and I say I'm making, so in a sense ‑‑ I'm just trying to put a couple things together. If I'm say I'm coming down Linwood Avenue and I'm going to make a right‑hand turn into Walgreens, say I'm coming from Broad and I'm going to make the right‑hand turn into this driveway here. How far in will a car have to be for it to be out of the way?

I mean, in a street it would be 50 feet, I would think, because of double yellow lines, all the rest of it. This isn't going to be that far back?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: Okay. I'm going to step back from your question just quick. There could be two cars in the way. First they eliminated a one‑way circulation, so at the entrance, you're not going to have a car waiting to pull out.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Right.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: So there isn't that head‑on conflict there. That's eliminated. With the entrance, there is a turning radius, and, as MR. LAPATKA said, he'll set the space back far enough. Once he produces that drawing, we'll check with our standard templates, a fire ladder truck and a large truck, to see how the turn radiuses lay out on the plan, and if any of the proposed spaces would be in a conflict zone.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Okay.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: And, as MR. LAPATKA said, he's going to look at that first, I'll confirm how his layout is with the turning templates, and that's where the spaces would be striped.
MS. McWILLIAMS: Okay.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: I have one more question.

What happened to the fire lane? How does that work with the parking?

MR. WELLS: It's still there.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: But I guess ‑‑

MR. RUTISHAUSER: There's still an unobstructed ‑‑
MR. WELLS: Sixteen feet.
MR. RUTISHAUSER: ‑‑ 16‑feet lane. That's wider than a standard roadway lane width, so there's ample room for an engine or a ladder truck to get around.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So it doesn't need that designated fire lane?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: A designated fire lane is not necessary, as long as the complete circulation is available, and that is on this plan. It's a nice thing to have, can help the fire department, but these lanes are still pretty close to building, and my experience with the fire operations is not to put your apparatus that close in a collapse zone.
MS. ALTANO: We want to make sure that no one parks in that area, and so you're saying it's not going to be marked on the ground?
MR. RUTISHAUSER: The parking spaces are going to be striped.
MS. ALTANO: But the fire lane?
MR. LOVENTHAL: The curb along the building, though, there will be a no parking zone. We'll be signing it and striping it along the entire perimeter of the building, if that's the question. You're talking up against the building? That is a no parking zone with the signage. I mean, that was always proposed that way.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: No, I'm talking about there's this designated fire lane, and it says "No parking fire lane," and presumably that's where fire trucks go and other apparatus when there's an emergency.

So, if in the event of an emergency, where is the fire lane then?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: I believe as MR. LOVENTHAL said, that's the curb section closest to the building. That would be striped 4 or 5 feet out for a fire lane.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: And that meets fire code or you would have to check?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: We'd have to check with Lt. Young, fire official.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Okay. So, in other words, that the parallel parking as defined just now would be hinging on whether or not that fire lane is required there?

MR. RUTISHAUSER: Well, the parallel parking would be on one side of the curb of the access lanes circulating around the building, and on the inside would be the striped lane. I have the code with me, let me see if I can find something on fire lanes. Chapter 151 of the village code covers fire zones, and they show a no parking fire zone that would be typically against the building, it's shown as a 5‑foot wide striped section. And there's further information in the code as to the signage, striping has to be yellow, fire official's involvement and so forth.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: So we would just make a stipulation in all of this that it's up to fire code as well?

MR. WELLS: Yes. Exactly. We, quite frankly, would put a "No parking fire zone" along there anyway.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: All right. I can't see the fire zone on that, but it's on paper, so I like it.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Anyone else, comment, question, any motion?

MR. SCHEIBNER: I make a motion that we accept the application.
MR. MARTIN: As amended?
MR. SCHEIBNER: As amended.

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Without the tandem parking.

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: With a stipulation that we could review a final engineering site plan at some point, not asking for fully engineered site plans tonight.

MR. WELLS: Right. We're going to run it by your engineers too, but they obviously can come back, but we're going to be in the resolution process for a little while anyway.
MR. MARTIN: To the satisfaction of the village and traffic engineers.
MR. WELLS: Right.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: So we have a motion made by Dave. I guess you agree with how Joel tagged on.

MR. SCHEIBNER: I agree with his amendment.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: So Joel seconded it. So it's a motion to approve the application with modifications that were set forth in the record, subject to a final plan.

MR. MARTIN: At the approval of the Village Engineer and the Traffic Engineer for the village.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Michael, call the roll.

MR. CAFARELLI: MAYOR KNUDSEN?

MAYOR KNUDSEN: Yes.

MR. CAFARELLI: COUNCILMAN VOIGT?

COUNCILMAN VOIGT: Yes.

MR. CAFARELLI: MR. SCHEIBNER?
MR. SCHEIBNER: Yes.
MR. CAFARELLI: Mr. Torielli?

VICE CHAIRMAN TORIELLI: Yes.

MR. CAFARELLI: MS. McWILLIAMS?
MS. McWILLIAMS: No.
MR. CAFARELLI: CHAIRMAN JOEL?

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Yes.

MR. CAFARELLI: MS. ALTANO?
MS. ALTANO: Yes.
MR. CAFARELLI: MS. PATIRE?
MS. PATIRE: Yes.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. It's an approval subject to those conditions that were set forth.

MR. WELLS: I said at the outset I wanted to thank you for all for all you do, because this is a board of volunteers. I thank you also for your action this evening and look forward to getting it finished up.

CHAIRMAN JOEL: Okay. Thank you.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you.

Approval of Minutes: The minutes for May 23, 2016 were approved as written.

Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael Cafarelli

Board Secretary

Date approved: May 15, 2018

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