the May Franklin Township Planning Board meeting. Like to call the meeting to order. Please all rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the following posted on the council website posted on a bulletin board within the municipal building printed in South Jersey Times and the Sentinel. Okay. Roll call, please. Mr. Brandt
here. Mr. Clark, Mr. Doyle. Mr. Kelly. Mr. Malise here. Mr. Sweet here. Mr. Branson, Mr. Cahoo, Mayor Bruno here, Mr. Cavalion here, and
chairman. [Music] All right. First on tonight's agenda is a is a resolution for PB24-10, Scottinski, minor subdivision on Stanton
Avenue. Is there a motion to approve? I make a motion to approve uh PB 2410. Second, Chrissy. Roll call. Mr. Brandt. Yes. Mr. Mady. Yes. Mr. Sweet. Yes. Mayor Bruno. Yes. Mr.
Travel. Yes. All right. First on tonight's agenda is PB25-1 Patriot Homes Minor Subdivision on Grand Avenue. Mr. Chair, members of the board for the record. My name is Dale Taylor. a
licensed attorney in the state of New Jersey. I represent behalf of city as chairs acknowledge uh this is a minor subation. Uh it's the own variance. It's
one variance. It's a what I'll call the minus variance. Uh the reason the new lots required 150 ft width uh for lot 16001 which is this lot. Uh what we're selling is
um 147.90 OP 16 147.89 less than two. M Mr. Taylor, have you ever appeared in front of Franklin Township Planning Wood before? Okay. Do we need to swear him in or no? No, attorneys aren't swearing. Oh, okay.
My bad. They should. They get to say whatever they want and their clients go to jail. It is I'm the chairman of the county bar says they should teach it. So I always tell them attorneys don't get sworn in, they get
sworn out. Yeah. So that's what it is there. But then we have a design basically. Um there's no pavement uh anywhere along this road. And so there was a a design requested because we're not
sidewalk sidewalk. Yeah. Because it'll be the sidewalk in nowhere and that can be a safety problem. People get on the sidewalks come and they get off and back down. And that's basically uh that's basically it. Um my clients um are well
known. They build a wonderful house. A lot of clients have purchased some property property here. Uh, and I think it would be a good benefit uh to the municipality. Uh, and I know you have another application here. So, I'll be
happy to answer any questions. So, do you want to go to your review letter? I see your planner. Yes, I'm the board planner. Okay. So, uh, we did get his letter uh on April 21st. Um, he indicated what I just indicated on that
two things about the master plan. Uh, could you clarify whether the building footprint shown on the subject or the construction of homes and and that's correct. You basically have sorry basically have the uh layout where the
houses are and the access uh for the driveway the way it's on there now. Uh and then um uh footprints but uh we're requiring um
something else that we won't submit any outstanding uh documents Chris engineering report. Sure. Uh so they've already agreed to all the engineering comments which were just uh asking for clarification and a little bit of additional documents on the subdivision draft D documents. Um three
coordinate values uh and verification of the wetlands delineation and potential flood hazard delineation that we as long as they provide that eventually absolutely no problems there. Uh planning part this is two variances both of them for insufficient lot frontage of 150 ft. They're a little just under
They're just over 2 ft in width on each one. But otherwise, I think each lot the area here, 6.09 and 6.71 acres. So, they're very narrow but very deep lots. There there's no no buildability issues here in terms of either property having a problem with the lack of frontage making them unbuildable or causing any
detriment to the neighbors in my opinion. Um I I will ask a few additional questions since we have the chair of the Gloucester County um land use law uh of the bar association. Um now in cases where there's an
insufficient lot area or lot frontage, it is an appropriate question to ask whether there have been attempts to acquire additional land. Have you have you tried to purchase a foot on either side from any of the neighbors? No, we didn't because it was so so dimminimous that we'd rather ask for the variance. Okay. I I'm fine with that. I figured
I'd ask the question anyway since we since we got Is that in your ordinance and some council? It's not in the ordinance. No. Okay. Some of them require the tax one and I think it's a horrible thing to put in there. I agree. I wouldn't want to see that in the ordinance. There is case law that suggests it's an appropriate question to
ask, but I don't I don't think it should be an absolute requirement that you have to inquire with your neighbors whether you can buy two feet of land from them. I thought that that was more for under size lots than it was for more for density than frontage where you actually went. It's anything involving either
insision area or ins you know I'm short um um it was an acre required and I have 3/4 of an acre. Can I buy a quarter acre off of here? But with with only a foot I would think that that would be I agree this is dimminimous. The actual the case behind it is an interesting one. It's a
from Lacy Township of a bunch of paper lots where they had the newspaper lots that were all, you know, like 2,000 square feet in the zoning there required a minimum like an acre and a half. And in the the minutes from the actual zoning board hearing, the the two neighbors are arguing with each other over trying to sell each other the property so that one can get a buildable lot and they never come to a conclusion.
So, nobody got to build anything there and it's still vacant to this day. And that case is from the 70s. Wow. Anyway, interesting stuff. But these are diminishment exceptions. I I see no no problem with And one of the problems is if you need let's say two or 5 ft and you ask your neighbor and your neighbor
will say I'll give you two or 5 ft and 100 ft for the building. And so you know then you got to say well that's unreasonable and it gets it's a sticky request. Uh Mr. Taylor I I had a question. I don't know if you can answer it. It's probably more appropriate for
your client but was this lot not subject to uh a subdivision approval in very recent history? The property next to it was that my property had a both were from the town.
Yeah. Yeah. Just state your name and address. Mike Miller, 119 Peach Street Drive. Raise your right hand where the testimony you're about to give. Yes. Okay. Now you can. So this lot Yes. was subdivision of used to be a town
property got bought at the same auction that I bought my property. We did a line delineation change. So she only had a 100 foot frontage here and I we shifted this line this way to give her 150 ft here which at the time I was going to
build left this at 295. Since then I bought a property on stand that I'm building on that just got the resolution tonight which left this one 5 ft short and that's why 2 and 1/2 ft short. But yes, this property here is the one you just saw. Not. So this this variance you're asking for at night was
essentially created by the prior subdivision, right? But that also left the neighboring lot more conforming than it was previously. So ultimately at the end of the day, we're in better shape. The whole property. Yeah. Thank you.
Question, Mr. Miller. Uh the property to the east, does it have an existing home? Yeah. And your plans with that? I don't He doesn't own this property. Oh, this property here. I don't There is
no homes on the property currently. No. Okay. All right. There's never been a home there. The township owned for however long. Okay. Otherwise, I've got nothing else to report here. It's minimum lot frontage variances for both for otherwise conforming lots that have more than
sufficient space to support a single family home and whatever septic systems they need on each lot. Okay. And the the variances in my opinion are the minimum. It's less than 2% of the requirement for each one.
The um Chris the the D approvals that you reference in your review letter am I correct? They've already been received. That's my understanding. approved. What was Ed's comments here? I thought I saw I'm on the environment. I thought I saw the the approval come
through. All notifications to the neighbors were made for the variance. Okay. Okay. Make a motion we open the public then. Yes. Motion to open to public. Second. All in favor? I who open? I
open. I was calling for a second. Sorry. Just wait a second. Anyone from the public? Do it. Seeing none, is there a motion to close open public portion? Motion to close. Second. All in favor? I. Okay.
Um I guess that's it. Any comments from the board? No, I think it's a very minor. Augmentation 1152 CO2 anything
year that was the minimum. Is there a second on this motion? I second. Roll call, please. Mr. Grant. Yes. Mr. Mady, yes. Mr.
Suede, yes. Mayor Bruno, yes. Mr. Cavalo, yes. Congratulations. Thank you very much. I hope we're just going to the last time I was here with regard
to some changes to I just want the parking lot. I would be remiss if I didn't say you have a wonderful secretary here. Well, thank you. Pleasure to work with you. I don't have a representation. You really really have a great person here and I I've been a lot
of places for 25 years in this practice. I can't say that. But she's wonderful. You're on the You should have said this before your application. We would have approved you in half the time. They would say, "Oh, you're sucking up, right?" No, but I'm serious about
it. Thank you very much. All right. Second on tonight's agenda is SP25-3 Sahara Sands Kohmill Road final site plan application. [Music]
Thank you. Have a good night. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Um, to briefly introduce myself, my name is Peter Chenius. I am an attorney at the law firm of Pilot Cairo and my office represents the
African Sahara doing business at Sahara Sanders Franklin Incorporated. I want to take this time very briefly to compliment your very fantastic board secretary. be going to be your question.
I mean there um going to want to raise tomorrow. Uh this relates to the property located at block uh 6103 lots 29 10 and 11. Uh this is essentially a preliminary final major
site plan application relative to an active mining site 6103 exists both in Franklin Township and road township. Um it's technically the application is again preliminary final cycle essentially a mining permanent renewal
application because right now we're dealing with a permitted use and in fact there's absolutely no expansion or changes to the site whatsoever. So again essentially this is we're looking for our mining. Peter I have to stop you for a quick second. Can
you please state your blocks and lots in Franklin only? Oh, I I thought I did. I'm sorry. You did, but there may be a discrepancy. Yeah, cuz the application we have three I had one lots block 6103
lots 29 10 and that's what the application our paperwork says lot three not lot two. Yeah, I could there could be a typo. I also seem to remember there's a typo on your typo. So it's a typo. It is indeed lot two.
I took from the engineer and I seem to remember the application from four or five years ago. The last time you renewed there was also you had expanded to add one property. I think that was lot three but might very well be that there's lot two. Either way, long as we verify that
eventually everything else and I would and I could just say that Mr. Jacobs who was actually the engineer from 5 years ago clarify that a little bit better than I can. Um, so either way you're not expanding the operation. It's just a matter of verifying the numbers on the
tax map. Yeah, we're not nothing is being expanded. The use is not expanding again. Sorry for the interruption. Please continue. No problem. You'd rather be clarified to clear the record. Um and the other thing I did want to mention
prior to bringing up Mr. Jason is just a quick um as I'm sure you know this does cross over to two separate townships, Monroe and Franklin. Monroe is exclusively where the active extraction is taking place. No extraction is taking
place in Franklin um on this site. that is what happens on Franklin is more related to uh processing which is something that uh the applicant representative who's also here as well as for James could testify to if the board has any questions but beyond that I think the only other thing that I
think for is actually access access to this building address um so again uh just just very quickly there's there's no variance um and we're looking hopefully for relatively quick and speedy application we expect without further ado I'll bring
up our engineer Mr. Jacobs um this morning and then over swear please. Yes. Will you swear the testimony he's about to give tonight? Yes, I do. Bruce Jacobs Bruce Jacobs
that professional engineering and I was here 5 years ago. Uh Mr. Jacobs because it's been some time. Let me just briefly go over your credentials um and now I'm a licensed professional
engineer and planner. I've been with that consulting group for 30 almost 38 years. I've been a planning board engineer in township. I've been doing competitions mining and other side
positions for very long time and I've been all over the state and your license is both as an engineering and planning stand. Yes, they are with that we would submit him as an expert in fields of professional engineering and planning
unless of course we accept that. Thank you. All right. As you as has been briefly stated, uh the property is located on the north side of Post Road and inside
of Blue Road, Blue Bell Road and Bruce Mike and if you can just very briefly for the record discuss what this is, what you're describing when you say this. Okay, this is a 256 acre parcel.
uh specifically the what are you referencing the overall business was the senior I believe yes it was and to clarify it is locked in not okay part of
town has been stated before ess trucks come into the site um load and lay and exit the site on both road which is a county road. Um all the processing is done in in
Franklin Township in this in that section of the of the mining site. The extraction is is occurring uh from the easterly section of the site which is in the mon which is
in this is where all the mining has been going on for five years. Andreas, very quickly, um, while they're not being actively mined at this time, there are some reserves.
Yeah, there's some reserves, but Guess we need to address the engineering comments. We would be seeking waiverss like we did once before from uh engineering comments from 700. In fact, we're having a small
scale. This is in a detail site coming out site. So this is an appropriate skill for the development discuss practice movements when they're in control mode and uh load
up and then exit out. I believe all the uh performance maintenance and restoration guarantees have been posted to account and I would ask for a waiver project utilities on the
site extend into where the equipment is that they load and unload that's and we have County Planning Board approval. Again, the only reason we're here is
for the money. I believe all the other agencies have been received for to the extent that they have it. So, you're not holding a Pineland certificate of filing yet? Uh, I do not
believe. Actually, let's bring up uh Mr. James Bre. He's a representative of the applicant that testified as Jake. Before you answer that question, briefly introduce yourself to discuss your role with the applicant. Thank you for having
us. Materials relatively new. We've been here for a year and a half now. Um, but I mean the site. So I we haven't received a pretty good planning message yet. No, we have not.
So we moved back and forth with the planning committee for eight months now. Sorry. [Music] Well, we anticipate receiving certificions in a month and a half ago.
[Music] An additional outside source of approval. New Jersey D water allocation permit. I saw something that you did not state you had one. Did you apply for one? Do you What are allocation permit? We have
all of our Okay. We have all the but it wasn't included in your packet. I don't think uh it was not. We can certainly forward that. I don't know if our engineer needs to see it. If you have it, we'd like to see it. I think what we had was was a little dated. I forget the
exact date. I don't have the whole they expire every 5 years if I'm correct. So if it's after five years, we need we need to see the new date of expiration. [Music] And again to the extent that has expired, we would certainly agree as a
commission to get I just had a quick question. Not it's kind of somewhat unrelated to the application, but what's the time frame? And I know that's based on, you know, economic conditions, but theoretically, how much longer will that site be mined
for before it's reclaimed? Do you know we have our estimates are anywhere from 5 to 10 years. Okay. How fast you can go fairly fast wise. So a wide range but five years.
Yeah. But I mean assuming you don't acquire any additional property that's really not that long of a time. So the township would could see that reclaimed, you know, in the near f Well, I mean 10 years, maybe not the near future, but um essentially the Franklin Township side,
you're saying may have some additional resources left, but it's primarily already been mined. So primarily done with some left. I don't know what the quantity will be, but there's more so. Okay. Thank you.
That's it on your presentation. Yes, of course. We reserve the right to respond any comment. Sure. Any additional questions? Okay. Uh we'll go to engineering report, Chris. Okay, great. Uh yeah, there's not much to say here. This is I guess
they'll be back every 5 years unless they're done in 5 years and they don't want to renew their permit. your your code at 253-82C for resource extraction has a list of submission requirements. There's really no other specific requirements in terms of performance measures that they have to meet. It's it's it's almost as
if this is just a check-in with the board to allow you to ask questions to get an update on the operations and know what's going on and make sure that they're renewing all their state permits. It's not not something that they that there's a um I guess there's really no performance measures in your code is the best way I can put that. So, it's really the
checklist of providing all the documentation. Most of it they've provided and they say they're going to provide the rest and it's just checking off that they're getting all their state permits and verifying that they get approval from neighboring town which is Monroe. Uh I guess Monroe is a little bit different system. I'm the planning board planner in Monroe. They didn't have to go to Monroe's planning board. They got some sort of administrative
approval there. But um anyway, the one area I do need to point out that they do not need to provide, although you can try and provide it if you want, but I'll tell you, good luck is getting uh an approval from the Township Architectural and Landscape Advisory Board. My understanding is they have not met in 10 to 15 years if there is one. And if
anybody in town is actually on that board, they don't realize it. So, I think we can scratch that one off the list. Thank you, Chris. That was actually the one I was not recalling in my head. So, I'm actually very glad to hear I was struggling
So, is there a motion now to go into open public? I make a motion open to the public. Second. All in favor? I want 4448. Is that microphone working in the back? It's not.
It's on. Unless she shut it off. She may have was working. Yes, Nora. Anyway, she just kind of [Music] uh they're my neighbors. I came
basically just in case anybody else was going to come and be able to breathe because five years, give or take, 30 years. They've been outstanding neighbors. We do the sweep the streets like three times a week. Street sweepers
going up and down the men that work in the pit. There's been a few times I've gone over there because I'm stuck and I don't have the muscle. They'll come over at lunch and help. They've helped other neighbors on either side of us. They're good
neighbors to have. The trucks are as well as in the expected for truck drivers, but the pit boys are very strict. If somebody gives me a hard time, that truck is gone. And we've had some over the years that, you know,
stand up thing in the driveway and other stuff like that. But there's they do the best they can with the trucks. Now, uh, Donna Firstcraft who was on blue,
uh, she called me about it and she has a complaint about trucks that are cutting the corner going from Kohl's mail to Nala, uh, which they are not supposed to do. your signs up to say they're not supposed to do. But I wanted to bring
that to your attention so that maybe you could talk to the police cuz you know that that little stretch of street you know half of it's Monroe, half of it's Franklin and I don't think anybody pays much attention to it either either
township but you know Donna lives there you know all by herself at the very end of the township line and she's feeling relatively neglected. So if somebody could do something to, you know, mind the truck, maybe the two police chiefs,
Monroe and Franklin, could get together and sneak up and coast. Coastal, right? Pardon? You're talking about is it a four ton road? Yeah, it's to my knowledge the little piece that goes between Koh's Mill and Mal is restricted
to the dump trucks. They're supposed to go up. It's got a four ton. I don't really got that's the only problem that anybody has related to me is about the trucks and of course the pit boys can't do anything about that they can't even
see other than that I have one question for that the uh Franklin side are you said there's still some materials left for the cracker box is there any plan to mine that role
How do you feel? Where is it? At the moment, there's not um like I said, there's there's not a ton of reserves left and they're in hardly to to get places for for a barge or dredge. So, no.
Yeah. So, a lot of that a lot of that is mine. So, I'm saying Oh yeah. So and there's there's no expectation of 30
seconds this way. That is not an expectation of ours. You can test. Well, the reason I'm asking is that if you are done mining here, I was wondering whether or not you can begin
the back deviation. If you if you're done mining, I know you can't. Well, these are really tall cliffs. Yeah. And they they presented danger,
particularly with the stupid kids that come in and sneak in the pit. You know, granted, they're not supposed to be there at all. But if they do get in, they find they explode on the edge of the pit. The walls keep collapsing down
in them. I mean, we pulled kids out of here. One, there like six or seven of them. And one of them couldn't even swim and they were swimming across cuz somebody else drowned it and they wound up in the mud cave, you know, where the overflow comes out and pull them out the
rope. So I'm just thinking if you are done buying the wall, you could do the bank remediation, you know, and turn it down and get if if we're not required to, I don't we would ask that that we don't reclaim
just for the in the future if it were to try to get some of the materials, but it's a it's a discussion that we could have some. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. If they if they can expedite this now in particular there's some idle time out there on the
idle time around. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Are there any more comments from the public? Anything back here? Seeing none, is there a motion to close open public portion for this application? Is there a
second? Okay. All in favor? I Okay. Uh board comments from the members, please. Seems pretty straightforward. Yeah. Okay. We'll see you back in five years, I guess. I
So we have a motion on uh the application which is SP 25. I'll second. Okay. A motion in a second. Can we have a roll call, please? Mr. Brandt? Yes. Mr. Mady? Yes. Mr. Sweet? Yes. Mayor Bruno? Yes. Mr.
Salone? Yes. Congratulations. But before you leave, I have a question. I've been on this board a few years. Somewhere's around three years ago, you appeared in front of the board. I'll address this to James for a floating solar array. Does that ring a bell? Yeah. I I
I'd like to know what happened. Did you build it? Did you not build it? So, and I'm intimately familiar with that as well. Um, we have all of our appropriate approvals with the exception of the Board of Public Utilities. It's still there. Once we've received the BPU approvals, then we intend preo construction. Yes. So, you intend to
build it? Yes. within Franklin's portion. I don't remember the exact layout of it. I believe some of it is in within Franklin, a bit is in I mean, you came in front of this board asking us, so it must be in Franklin and not Monroe. Yeah. Yeah, it is. So, this
is another one. It's been tied up with the state, but our intention is So, with Norah's question about the bank cutting down, would that interfere with the solar array? It's I don't think so. It's It's not yet.
[Music] They already came in front of the board and received all approvals. I think I was the zoning board, not it wasn't the planning. Oh, wasn't it? Okay. All right. My bad. The floating is is removable, but um you have to stake it
down. So, the intent be to stake it down in Franklin Township. and what what Peter said is accurate at the moment. Well, thank you for your time this evening. [Music]
Okay. Uh moving on with the meeting. Uh I guess it's what? Communications. No. None. None. Okay. All right. I lost the agenda. All right. Is there any
correspondence? No. Okay. Uh, is there a motion to approve the minutes from April 15th, 2025? Make a motion. Uh, is that an all in favor? All in favor? I I Jackie, is there a reason to
go into close session? No. Anybody have anything? Yeah, I was think. No, no reason for close session. Okay. Any closing comments from the board members? Is there a motion to adjourn this evening's meeting? I make the motion.
Second. All in favor? I want closing comment. Chris is not as nice as Yeah, there you go.