all right folks let's start so uh good evening this is the planning board work session for March 26 2025 in accordance with the open public meetings act PL 1975 chapter 231 adequate notice of this um Workshop session uh Workshop meeting of the planning board of the township of
Franklin has been provided um if everyone could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all all right take a roll call there Christine and then I'll tell everybody what we're going to do tonight councilman andaron here Theodore Chase here Robert Lort here Shaw Keller
here Jennifer ragn now here Mah Rafi Charles Brown here Robert Thomas Rebecca hbert and Mark Dancy here and chairman orini here so um let me uh let me take a few
minutes to let everybody know what's uh what's actually going to happen tonight so this is a work session of the planning board um it's not a public hearing uh however I will open to the public um and and I will give specific Direction at that time as to um you know
what the uh what what the uh the breath of what uh questions will take so this has been a a fairly long and involved process to um reimagine what the business and industry Zone could look like not only for warehouses but other
uses but principally warehouses seem to be the biggest concern uh there have been two uh public meetings with Dave Roberts led by Dave Roberts and Mark Healey Dave Roberts is our consultant um Mark is our our director of planning um
so at this point the public will actually knows more than the planning board um so tonight this is really for the planning board to get um acquainted um with the um output of those meetings and with the um specifics of the of the
ordin that that Mark has drafted um and to ask questions uh what will happen after that is there will be a public a public hearing on a master plan because we have to adopt the master plan Amendment uh for this so that will be a public hearing then it'll go to council they'll introduce it they'll refer it
back to us we we say yes we've heard it we agree with it um and then they'll do their their their second reading and final passage so uh that's where we are in the process and Mark I'll turn it over to you um take it away all right so I'm going to uh this worked a few
minutes ago so I'm going to try it again we're going to bring in uh Dave Roberts virtually it's 2025 we can do these things now we hope maybe no that's the center there he is
all right wow awesome so he can't see you but we can see uh so as the chairman said this is Dave Roberts from Bright viw engineering um through the consultant team that was brought in to help us on this um I don't really need to give much more of an
introduction than than frankly what the chair already did uh I'll just re reiterate just the one thing that the chairman said which is um this is not the end of the road um there's going to be at least two more hearings one before the planning board and one before the council and the ordinance um but with
that I'm going to turn it over to Dave um well let me just summarize what the presentation will be um so um at the last community meeting Dave presented the concepts of um how light industrial and
Warehouse development uh would be permitted under this proposal um and it it was basically separated into light industrial medium and high intensity uses I'll leave it to Dave to describe that um what the material
that's being presented to the planning board conceptually is exactly the same as what was presented at the last community meeting as far as the square footage uh the the loading docks those things again the dve will get into the specifics um what's what's new is
there's been more in a way meat put on the bones um Dave has prepared the master plan reex reexamination document which describes that explains the reasons for it and puts you know language that needs to be in those type documents you know in the form of a
master plan reexamination report that's what the planning board uh at a future public hearing would consider for adoption and then similarly um there's a draft ordinance that has been um sent to you same concept it's again the same
overall Concepts but in ordinance form with a lot more meat put on the bones but again the overall framework is exactly the same as what was presented uh about a month ago to the to the larger public uh with that I'm going to turn it over to
Dave good evening everyone um my name is as Mark mentioned is Dave Roberts I'm the director of planning for bright viw engineering um probably about I'd say almost two years ago um in 2023 uh we were engaged by the township
to conduct really a parallel uh analysis of both traffic in the bi Zone and then land use recommendations with the ultimate objective of generating a a re-examination report Master Plan update
that would prepare or that would provide and propose um specific recommendations uh that the township could consider um for dealing with this uh this uh tremendous amount of development pressure that you've been under um for
for this period of time um I worked with a uh group of traffic experts at Bright View led by John jar um also with Allison Serrano and and Joe Fishinger um effectively just to give you my purpose tonight uh with uh the the
understanding that you've had the draft uh re-exam report um uh had hopefully had a chance to look through it um there's a lot more detail in in the document itself then I'll I'll have time to get into tonight but my purpose really is to give the board kind of an
overview a summary of uh what's been happening over the last couple of years uh and uh some of the thinking behind the uh proposal that we have for you um in 2023 um the uh traffic work started and
actually uh we have uh summarized a lot of the working back and forth with the township uh Gathering up all the information on all the development applications that uh this board has certainly been on the front line regarding over the many many
applications that have come through the board uh and cut had come before the township um and the traffic analysis really um took a three-prong approach one was to analyze there was 14 originally 14 intersections within the
bi Zone that the township had identified as being um intersections that were of concern um that were already experiencing issues uh during the the process uh and analyzing those 14 intersections which took place place in
uh uh in the fall of 2023 uh right in between the start of school and before it was completed before the the holiday season traffic issues uh would would normally be experienced uh so pretty much September October of 2023 is when
that data Gathering took place uh on those 14 intersections um there was uh the the data was gathered uh analyzed modeled by our traffic um staff and uh in in in early
2024 um the board I'm sure is uh recalls that then you then created a a steering committee um to then uh guide the the planning effort um with the idea that we would start with the traffic analysis and then use that to inform the land use
part of the of the effort and what I'd like to do is is uh share uh 10 slides with you that that will kind of walk you through uh how that that process took place um I am going to start that sharing right
now so hopefully you can see uh the slide uh behind me thank you Mark um I I wanted to first uh Begin by acknowledging the uh members of the ad hoc steering committee that the board appointed um and it just um it it just
uh from from our point of view from the the consultant's point of view acknowledge the service that they provided to the township uh with the the meetings that uh they attended with the input that they provided um in many cases um really just taking a lot of
their own personal time to look at the data to ask questions um in some cases uh to cause us to even um take a second look at a number of things um so I wanted to I show them uh here on this on
the first slide and I wanted just to just uh give them um some some acknowledgement this this evening uh publicly for the uh before the board and to thank the board for appointing them uh for this project um what you'll see is that really what I want to try to do
right now is to give a a little bit of a summary of a public input that we received and as Mark mentioned before uh a lot of this is if not all of it is really U has already been provided to the public in summary um the traffic study summary and then the the master
plan recommendations which are really uh really what are detailed in your draft reexamination Master Plan update document that you've uh been provided um the this is a slide I actually added
some data or some general information to this slide because uh my sense is that even though you as board members have been um immersed in this for a number of years now um that may that I know I was
not aware of the magnitude of what you've been dealing with until we started to just provide some of these um these statistics for the background in the reexamination report but as you'll see in the lower leand corner of this
slide and just to give you some um some background as to what you're looking at um this is a uh this is the parcel data from uh the Township's U GIS system um showing the all the different
applications uh there's 37 in total um that were uh as as of October 4th of 2023 when the traffic study was done and uh and our traffic folks kind of summarized uh what the what what types of applications and what the status of
them was um and the the the large photograph to the right shows the entire Township or at least the most of the township as part of a satellite image and the uh the what you'll see is in the
lower right hand portion of that map is the southern portion of the business industrial district and the upper left hand the sort of the northern um uh tip of the township is the larger Northern
business an industrial Zone um and all of the that the the coloring the hatching that you see um as you see in the center on the right whatever is shown in White in shaded in white has already been constructed and is occupied
and these are specifically Warehouse type applications type of development whatever is shaded in green has been approved and is under construction um whatever is shown in Orange is are applications that are basically in the
pipeline so they have not been acted upon and then there's one or two um sites or Properties or Parcels that are shaded in red and those uh applications were applications that were were received but denied um and between
2018 and October 18th of 2023 so right in the middle of that was uh the uh p pandemic the the years of the pandemic 20 and 21 predominantly you had 37 applications totaling
7,793 641 ft of warehouse space and of that total about 2.6 million square fet um had been built and occupied um at that point in time so um the the reason for bringing that up is in addition to
just providing you a sort of visual in terms of just how many sites were involved have been involved in these in this period of time especially in the upper left corner where we we Zoom we kind of zoomed in on that Northern business and Industrial Zone to see just
you know how many Parcels were involved how many acres how how much acreage was involved in all of that um specifically Warehouse development um I thought it was significant and it also gives an idea of of why the 14 intersections most
of them are in that Northern section which um is the closest to Interstate 287 which is key because access to Interstate 287 is is obviously one of the drivers for the pressure that the township has been under for this type of
development especially as is was has been sort of accelerated and um uh sped up by the uh pressure for online e-commerce um that started before the pandemic and then just just got um and just exploded during the pandemic and
it's continued since um the public in terms of the public input uh summary um you can see there's there's a couple of main themes that ran through it and this uh was not only just uh comments that we took uh in the in the notes from the
meeting but emails that were received from or by the Township from the public since then and um the had created a uh specific dedicated page for this study for this uh joint traffic and land and
land use effort and provided all the uh the documents that were generated during the course of this process um and then had a had the ability to be able to receive those emails which he then shared with me uh and I shared with the
rest of the bre view team and then uh these are these kind of reflect a summary of the themes that those comments represented um and there there the first one talks about the fact that in the first community meeting there were two additional intersections that
were raised as concerns by the public that we ended up adding to the analysis and that that was done um probably during the summer of uh of 2024 and then they they added some they
they they calculated a a factor sort of a corrective Factor factor to account for the the additional trips that would be generated during when school was in session to try to um make those that make that data comparable um and so we did analyze those two additional
intersections making it a total of 16 that were part of the traffic study and then uh another theme that came out of it was it wasn't just the the issues that were going on with um for example making left turns during the either the
am Peak or the p.m peak hour at at at certain intersections where um the the the level of service or the the the time that people were waiting to be able to make that turning movement um had reached the point of failure um at
several of those intersections U it was more it was also a a broader concern about the quality of life in that that affected uh residential areas that were surrounding this business industrial Zone at the northern portion of of the
township U and that they that we should be cons concerned about and try to consider as much as we could the impact of noise air pollution and and other Associated impacts especially uh of truck traffic a large
truck traffic um and then the uh other theme that came out of these meetings is that uh if we're going to permit these types of uses that that uh generate a lot of truck traffic that we should we should direct them away from as far away from the residential areas as
possible and also as close to the interchanges with Interstate 287 as possible um and that whatever regulations we would come up with um the the concern a lot of the public concern had to do with how is it going to be enforced um how is it going to be
administered and you know it we can put uh these regulations on the books but you know is it really going to be effective so those were really the four themes that kind of ran through those comments um the as far as the traffic study um there were as I I I already
summarized the first point which is that we studied a total of 16 intersections and and really the the most important thing to remember about the traffic study is that we uh they analyzed the existing conditions which would be which would account for any of the warehouses that were built and occupied those trips
are already on the roads they're already passing through a lot of those intersections um so they were accounted with traffic counts um that were gathered through meters and cameras and other um techniques but then the U the idea was
while looking into the future what additional impacts will be generated by the applications that were uh already approved and under construction those trips are not on the roads yet but we had the U the information from all of those site plan applications that the
township provided our team team so the they were able to generate um trip estimates from each of those applications and added that in to the that the daily traffic and into those intersections in addition to making the
normal assumptions that I'm sure you've always heard you've heard about from traffic experts at your meetings as far as uh the anticipated sort of ambient growth the growth that's going to be taking place around the area no matter
what um so the those trips were added and then to give a worst case scenario we actually included the trips that from the applications that were in the pipeline that were not acted upon because they they involved specific sites in that business and Industrial
zone so if they were all approved based on the the um the applications that had been submitted how much additional traffic would we would the township be looking at in in kind of that last sort of almost a full buildout uh mode and
that's what the that's what went into the traffic study which is in the appendix or in the appendices of the draft report that you were provided um and and suffice it to say that there were uh probably I would say off the top about U maybe a half a dozen at uh
intersections where there if the if there wasn't a a failing turning movement based on today's traffic there would be under the other two scenarios and uh generally there there wasn't much difference between the the the partial
buildout which would have been the applications that had been approved that yet not have not yet have been built and the full buildout which would have been all of the sites assumably being uh improved with warehouses um the only
difference really was that the uh the waiting time just got worse so there's clearly um intersection issues um that are that are going to get worse as the as these sites develop um and that was
the main uh the main purpose of that that that traffic study was to give us that kind of information and and there are recommendations as part of that traffic study as to some things that can be done to mitigate uh some of those issues over time despite what happens
with the land use applications um and so um what that got us into um what do we do about land use um we know we have these applications that have already been approved that are likely to be built um we are going to
have some amount of applications that are already in the pipeline that will someone some may be approved some may be denied um that's to be determined but we know there's going to there there's going to be additional development on those parcels and then we have uh the a
reasonable expectation that this trend even uh even on sites that are already developed now with some some other type of development um that it's it potentially could continue and likely will continue and I think that's what's significant is that a number of the
sites of those 37 were on were properties that had been previously developed with some other type of use like an office building or a hotel and and and of course you as board members are are much more familiar with the details of the ones that have already
come through the board but certainly there's there's a the potential for that to continue so the the really the objective is how do we get our arms around this and try to get in front of it so that we can minimize the the any additional future impacts on the road
network but especially control the heavy truck traffic which is what uh most folks are worried about uh and and dealing with now and U are afraid of uh in terms of additional traffic in the future one of the things that um that
came up in in our interactions with the steering committee and with with the public is uh surely would not be any surprise to a group of experienced board members like yourselves but it's kind of like well why are we doing the study we've already prohibited all the all
additional warehouses so uh why why should we make any changes and I think the the typical answer that we would would give which would would be be the the the Frank answer is that this idea of prohibiting all of uh all types of
warehouses no matter what they are is is probably and almost definitely not legally sustainable um and that we needed to be able to uh we and and also what it does is it kind of It kind of Paints the
entire um land use sector with the same brush when in in fact fact in reality uh there are many types of of Warehouse type uses that have a a fairly benign impact on traffic especially traditional
storage warehouses which is what most zoning ordinances um were were anticipating before all of this um e-commerce kind of differentiated these warehouses into so many different types some of them which
have extraordinary impacts um large chip generation factors uh things like parcel hubs and fulfillment centers for example The socalled Last Mile facilities where uh they the goods are taken off of larger trucks and put into Vans and
smaller vehicles to to go out into the for final delivery and those generate a tremendous amount of trips um and there are but there are number of types in between that are uh that are comparable if not less impactful than other
permitted uses in the business industrial zone so how do we how do we differentiate between them how do we try to parse parse them out so that we're keeping out the ones that uh would have the biggest impact and uh only permitting those that um would have the
Lesser impact and as uh if we're going to allow those uh those types of uses how do we keep them away from residential areas uh so that's really how we started out with the land use um part of this and um this slide that I've
got up here kind of uh kind of points out those points that I that I just made really what was what would be the framework that we would use um and that leads us to this idea of not trying to and this uh this came out of of really
um a exchange of ideas um between uh uh us as consultants and your and your staff which is really on the front line dealing with uh these sites and these applications on a daily basis trying to to figure out a way how they can use a
framework which would be understandable uh that would be uh predictable for them and for potential uh property owners and applicants and the traditional approach of trying to um uh zone out or uh uh try
to get into the various types of warehouses uh which is what a lot of other towns have tried to do um we it really got to a point where it would have been really difficult to be able to distinguish these warehouses and as the board knows you get most of
your applications are on spec so um they have a a a site they get a they figure out what their their building coverage and their floor are ratio is they show you a you know a a square or rectangle on the property with parking and that's
pretty much uh all they all they know because they don't know who their end user is going to be um so what we tried to do with this approach is differentiate between low medium and high intensity uses and this gives you
these these three different categories um give established square footage maximums and they also are based on loading docks um the number of loading docks per thousand square ft of warehouse space or floor space and
they're they're based on the the uh information The Institute of Traffic Engineers data on trip generation so even though the you don't get uh from these numbers you don't get um a a relationship or a link to traffic
impacts these numbers are uh are are are related and connected to the trip information the traffic information for different types of warehouses and that's where the to be honest the the low intensity light
industrial um the the 150,000 square feet or less means that they are their their numbers of of of truck trips are less um and then the other controlling factor is the uh
loading dock per per ,000 sare ft in this case uh if we're low it's one loading dock per 10,000 square ft and just to to kind of explain that a little better if anything less than 10,000 square ft would mean more loading Ducks
it's it's kind of counterintuitive um so you wanted to have you want to make sure you don't have any more than one loading dock per 10,000 square ft if you end up with one loading dock per 20,000 Square ft that's fine but anything less than
than 10,000 square F feet means too many loading docks too many trucks so the the more loading docks that are that are within the facility the more truck trips they potentially could generate and uh we also got into um High dock versus low
dock uh the reason for that is that some of these types of warehouses that if you see a warehouse that has a large number of low dock type facilities that means they're they're they're they're they're talking about smaller Vans they they don't have the the high dock that where
the tractor trailer truck backs up and the dock has to be about 48 in off the ground for it to line up with the bed of the truck you're talking about smaller vehicles and that's that's when you you have to get concerned about um it it
turning into a high trip generation type use so that's why we use the high Dock and low dock controlling factors um and then with medium intens what we determined was that that anything over 400,000 sare ft would have
an undesirable uh impact in terms of trip generation uh so we capped it basically at 400,000 square ft and then the um anything over 400,000 square ft and you
you have a number of existing facilities that are that are considerably more than 400,000 ft those would not be permitted at all they would be consider high intensity uses um and then the to go along with that we wanted to as we said
before uh push the the medium intensity uses the bigger warehouses or the the ones with the more loading docks closer to I 287 and so we looked at U what's the what's a reasonable proximity that
we could use as a standard and we agreed on one mile U there are some there are some factors in the literature which um suggests that it could be as much as 2 miles from an interchange with an interstate highway or a major arterial
however in Franklin's case um when we we measured a one mile a basically a a a road mile so driving distance between a parcel and uh one of the two interchanges that are that are approximate to the business and
Industrial Zone um we found that we we were creeping down close to residential areas um so we we one mile keeps the medium intensity uses away from the residential areas and closer to uh those
inter those interchanges with I 287 um and we feel that that's because it's specific to Franklin Township and it's based on you know measuring road miles we feel it's a defensible standard um and then there are a couple of
additional um kind of standards that we wanted to add and and one of the things that I didn't mention um in in the slide prior to that is and I'll I'll just scroll back U the only only the low as I mentioned the high-intensity um light
industrial uses would not be permitted and by the way that would mean not just warehouses but any light industrial use that would would meet these characteristics would even a a manufacturing facility wouldn't matter but the the square footages and loading docks would
apply um the low intensity and medium intensity where we would be suggesting that they would be permitted would only be as conditional uses um in the business and Industrial Zone and the conditions are what we'll get into um as
we move along this evening and those are intended to really protect uh quality of life for um the surrounding areas um so getting down into the those conditions and master plan re-exam what we're
recommending for a low intensity light industrial use um for conditional use standards so all of these as the board knows um these conditional use standards would all have to be met uh in order for
the any particular application to be eligible or to qualify for the planning board to Grant a conditional use permit and and in conjunction with site plan approval which would be associated with that and I we'll kind of walk through this one at a time because I think
they're they're all really important um the first one is that the the on any parcel um and uh in Mark's ordinance um he goes through all the different schedules for permitted uses for hey bulk and and uh and other Set uh uh bulk
requirements um for the business and Industrial Zone um but for all uh for any parcel the total floor area would be limited to three a maximum of 0.362 and you might ask well where did
that number come from well the basically what what that translates to generally is if you remember the 150,000 sqt maximum for low intensity warehouse for example um you would need a parcel of
almost 10 acres for 150,000 ft um for the 400 ,000 s ft so if you if you kind of you know easy math um you double that to a 300,000 Square ft foot where you know facility which would have to be
within a mile of a interchange with 287 because that would be in a medium intensity category um you would need almost 20 acres for that amount of square feet and for 400 you know so for 400,000 square ft you're you now look
close to 15 to 20 acres and up so the the bigger the warehouse the bigger the parcel um and as as you saw in that map uh the the number of parcels that are available that are of that size are shrinking rapidly um and then the second
part the second conditional use standard is that the uh they they have to have direct access uh on a minor collector or higher order Street um via an interior access road or a non-residential street so the idea is get them on a minor at
the minimum a minor collector and uh for example uh most of the minor collectors in this in the business industrial zone or County Roads so you're talking about roads that that run through from one part of town to another um and they're
minor and major collectors or higher um and part of the objective there is to keep the trucks off of residential streets um as they're making their way from their there the site in question to I 287 the third one is no Frontage is
permitted on an Scenic roadway and and I should I should you know back up a step and say that these uh these order streets minor collectors major collectors and so and so on are identified and mapped u in your U circulation plan element um so they're
known um so that when when you as a board uh if you're getting an application and you're applying these conditions um that that this it should be self-evident as to whether the site complies with that condition either there's an access road that connects to
a minor or major collector or you there's a direct access to one without uh passing along a residential street to get there um so that that's a something that's definable and something that it would be would be reviewed by your board
professionals as part of that application review to make sure complies um and then same thing in like way a like manner your Scenic roadways are also identified in the master plan um so for example Western Canal Road uh at
least in in part if not the entire length is identifi identified as a Scenic roadway uh so that limits the number of sites um in terms of where they can be located as well um the the fourth standard is um that a minimum
vegetated buffer is required per schedule six except then this is a condition not a bulk standard that the minimum buffer width shall be 100 ft along a residential Zone boundary so in in and that presumably would only happen
um in the majority of cases um in a low intensity area so the as we said before you're pushing the medium intensity uses within a mile of Interstate 295 that leaves the southern portion of the business and Industrial Zone for the low
lower intensity uses and that's where you're more likely to come uh up again with a site that might uh come up against a residential Zone boundary so there's actually um and you'll see in uh likewise in number five there's an additional standard for building
setbacks as well so you're keeping buildings a minimum of 200 feet away from that residential Zone boundary line and half of that um at least 100 ft of that has to be a vegetated buffer so you're providing both distance and a
a a double uh a double buffer uh in those situations and then uh the last two that are suggested here on the slide really just have to do with visual impact and that's um you know as when they are preparing the site plan and
they are you know typically uh well some warehouses have loading uh facilities on both sides most have um loading facilities along one at least one side um those loading and service areas cannot they have to be faced away from
public streets and away from residential Zone uh boundary lines so that gives you a flavor for um the the types of conditions that were that are being recommended the diff the main difference between the two the low and the medium
as you can see in the first uh first item um under medium intensity is that the site the the site and the use must be located within one mile of an interchange with Interstate 287 measured along a truck route identified in the
master plan circulation Minal so you know whether that truck route ever gets defined or not um is as a question for probably for the future or for another day um but um the the township has provided a map map uh which I I'll show
you in a moment where um that that boundary line is actually shown and and this is it um if you can see the blue line and I'll try I don't know if you'll be able to see my mouse pointer or not but uh within this business
industrial Zone which is a very large portion of the township the two interchanges uh with two I 287 Western Canal Road and easn Avenue Davidson Avenue um have that one M boundary
around them is a one mile as we before a one road mile distance so you can see that how much it's uh the area is condensed around those interchanges the whole rest of the Business Industrial Zone would only be uh the only use that
would be allowable would be a low intensity use as a conditional use in those areas and just as a note um those numbers that you see in red um are the the numbers corresponding to a spreadsheet that that Mark has of all the different Warehouse applications and
where they're located so you can see the number of of the applications that are within that blue boundary and the number of of applications that are outside those that that blue boundary already and I think one of the things that's important to for the board to to point
out to the board is that because a lot of these applications um were were speculative that means that as the these these developers try to look for tenants
um when they come in for their um their zoning permit for their tenant uh once these app once these uh this ordinance that's based on this master plan re-exam is in place the township your staff will
have more definitive standards to apply to them so if they got an approval for a spec warehouse and they're they come back with uh loading the number of loading doors that are higher than the order permits or uh higher than what they were approved for if they showed
the number of loading doors then you've got basically a second bite at the Apple which is important and that's one of the reasons why the staff was U really concerned about uh being comfortable that they could work with these regulations and apply them it's not just
the applications that you haven't seen yet that haven't been submitted and wouldn't be able to be submitted until these or these standards are are put in place because right now all warehouses are are are prohibited it's the
applications that you have seen but that were intentionally vague uh because tent the developer wasn't sure what the end type of warehouses would be and I think the other point that's important to make
is that in in this process that um from what we were the best we were able to determine the township doesn't yet have one of the types of warehouses that would be the the most impactful on the road Network and that would be a use
such as a parcel Hub uh or a uh fulfillment center um and so by and and I think what we're suggesting is that those two specific types of warehouses would be called out in the ordinance as prohibited um so that
effectively you've you've at least um have a uh a defense against that the of the applications that you have and the ones that you may you're likely to get in the future um the what this will do
is minimize the size of the warehouses because that has a correlation to the amount of truck trips that would be generated so there's a there's a um a logic to the standards that is uh supported by the data especially the
traffic study that under that underpins this land use analysis and then then I'll the other thing note I would make is that uh Mark has told me that uh through their through the Township's GIS um uh technicians they've been able to
measure this um this one mile boundary with a lot more specificity so they they actually have uh GIS data now uh supporting that that one mile uh road that one road mile distance from the
from the uh interchanges so there that's really to guard against um applicants trying to um get uh crafty with what side of that line they their site might be on it'll be it's very specific in
your GIS system which is a really uh really effective tool for the township to have um and I believe that that's the last slide I have um and uh so I think at this point I I'll turn it back over to Mark and we can start uh perhaps answer questions and start a
discussion yes so really it's question for Mike um do you want to have questions of Dave now or do you want me to go through the ordinance no let's let's stop and and let the board ask questions Dave I I actually have a few and and would start us off so so Dave I
know you can see me as is mikini chair um so I really I really have three questions um the first is um in your experience um if you if you have a lot
of failing intersections a rated level of service a or or or on their way to it um have you ever seen that sort of dissuade um applications or applicants from coming in um you they obviously
always have a traffic expert um uh to to to some degree or another um I'm just wondering if if an application would be self-limiting uh because somebody says oh you know there's 16 other warehouses and I'm 17 can I get on
the road um so um have you ever seen that well it typically I guess the short answer would be no not in that context because uh as I'm sure your board uh attorney has told you um many times that you you can only deal with the
application that's in front of you and there that traffic study that the applicant's going to do is going to be based on whatever intersection um their trips their trip distribution pattern shows the trips going to and it's it whereas the traffic
study that breit view did was really a Zone wide study so the the applicant is only really um responsible for the impact of their trips um so if the but I
and I I know that we what we've suggested is that some of these intersections are are on their way if they're if they're not already failing they're on their way to failing but the the there's going to be a difference between our analysis and the traffic study that the applicant uh professional
does they're only going to they're going to have to uh pay for whatever if if they if their trips generate an impact that requires an improvement to the intersection in in question and it's
purely their their applications impact then they will they'll have to pay for that traffic Improvement and sometimes it's a signal and what we've what we've determined is that many of these intersections are are already signaled but there are signal improvements that
could be done to them to improve their performance um so that'll have to be an analyzed on a case-by casee basis um the I think the one thing that the steering committee appreciated about the the manner in which the township designed
this study having both traffic and land use components is that the the traffic study is now an appendic see of the Master Plan update so at some point in time in the future when you adopt this this this re-exam and Master Plan update
the traffic stud is going to be on the record as an part of the appendices so uh you will have uh a greater knowledge base upon which to ask some of these questions to Future applicants But ultimately they're only they're going to keep back they're going to come back and say that they're only responsible for
improving an intersection if they're directly responsible for causing that and I think that the the Trick's going to be you know at if especially if it's a left turn which is is really where all the the failing earn movements are um
you know what can be done to to to cover their margin of impact between what's what's there now and what they would that what they would cause most of the time you're going to hear traffic Consultants say well it's a b now it'll it'll be a c with our traffic but it
still operates at a satisfactory level um we' we what we've shown is that you know there's there's a point where it's it's either already at F or it's going to be at F and I think that that just it just frames your discussion with that applicant a little maybe a little
differently yeah um but but ultimately they can only pay for what their part of it is no I get that and and um I think the more data we have into your point you know if this if this traffic study is going to be incorporated as part of the master plan it gives us another line of defense um and certainly the board in
the past has not been shy about banning turning movements in certain directions where we don't like them so that's another uh control my my next two and and last two questions really kind of go to the master plan Amendment so um you mentioned spec warehouses which almost
all if not all of the ones that this board has approved some maybe the zoning board has approved are are spec um I have heard and I think it might be Piscataway but I'm not 100% just certain but I know I've heard that there have been towns that have um the band spec
warehouses if you come in for a warehouse application uh you know you have to have a use um not not necessarily a tenant but you can't say oh you know it it could be you know any one of the flavors right that you pointed out um and I was wondering uh if
that's a direction the board can go um in terms of of really um you know I I don't I I mean I think your definitions give us more specificity when it comes to the applications that come in that
they're coming for this but um you know what do you think about specifically calling out spec warehouses now I have no idea how defensible that is legally I did hear it I believe from an attorney uh who represents Piscataway I'm not I'm not certain where I heard it but I know
I heard it that they have banned spec whereare hous and so I I I just want to know what you think about that as a possible strategy yeah I heard I heard about that during our um uh steering committee and um and Community meetings and I I would say that basically what B
scataway has done is maybe a little bit uh it's a it's on a different order from what Franklin has done when Franklin banned all warehouses right um there there was a lot of litigation that came out of that
um and I suspect that by Banning spec warehouses that Piscataway is going to get some measure of litigation as well um because they you know you get into those those two terms that um your board attorney has has uh has probably
mentioned to you many many many times arbitrary and capricious and really only a court of law can determine um whether what Piscataway did was arbitrary and compl are not or at least arbitrary um in that they've banned spec warehouses
you know and they're forcing applicants to be more specific now I I certainly understand the the the rationale behind it but I would say it's it it's probably a u it's probably debatable from a legal standpoint as to whether that is
defensible ultimately but I I can tell you that I have not run into it in my experience in other towns can I provide a little bit of input cuz I I was asked this question before too and
um I don't know I I I I I like the approach that's in this report better I think it gives us more control over the type you know if you if you're leaving it to spec you're not saying what type you want and what type
you don't want you're still then leaving it on to a caseby case basis yeah you know here I think in this approach we're saying we're putting limits on the size we're putting limits on the the the ratio of the high and low docks we're and when and then also as again to the ordinance we're basically saying no
fulfillment centers no postal hubs we're we're we're we're setting the standards and putting it out there to the development Community we will we will accept this and not accept that right and I I think that's just more direct it's I think it's more direct and gives
us better control than just in way almost kicks it down the road by saying no spe and and and Bob Lort just told me it wasn't PCAT it was Hillsboro uh maybe Hillsboro didn't have this type of specific language in their ordinance and so decided to kind of um take a take a
sledgehammer to it and say no no spec warehouses I mean I don't know I'm not an attorney but if I were attorney for a Township I'd say it's more arbitrary and capricious that you come in and tell me you're building anything you want than me telling you that you know uh please please come in and Define what you're building but that's that's an argument
for another day but I agree with you um and it's probably more legally defensible I don't know how I'm just throwing that out there for the board's consideration um because everything comes in is spec you never know what you're going to get you know what you're not going to get I mean you know what you're not going to get a fulfillment center right when it's 75,000 foot
Warehouse um but you you still don't know exactly what you're going to get um last question I have uh for Dave um is is does the master plan language um actively encourage Redevelopment of parcel
U with with Antiquated or inactive uses and obviously um you I don't probably don't need to describe what I'm talking about in terms of the area around World's Fair Atrium and and there where a few have come in uh a few are coming in and and knocking down um um extent
uses that are no longer um active uh but um do we actively encourage that kind of development where we're not breaking new ground um the the short answer Mr chairman is that we don't have specific language in the draft that um
specifically encourages uh Redevelopment versus um of development um I think the the approach is really bit more about um regulating the intensity of use with the understanding that it there's a fairly high probability that future sites will
be previously developed Parcels because there's really just very few um undeveloped Parcels left and we did kind of come to that uh realization when we kind of analyzed the the maps that I showed you earlier and realized we tried to find other vacant Parcels that
weren't already spoken for and it seems like every single one is in is at least uh in the in the offing for like somebody's interested in it for this type of use so uh we didn't specifically call it out and say we the master plan
recommends preference for previously developed sites but suspect that that you know again with this this type of approach um it really wouldn't matter um if it it was previously developed or undeveloped it's still going to have to fit the categories okay well thank you
very much I'll let the rest of the board uh ask any questions they want and I just wanted Dave to thank you for uh for everything everything you've done in terms of of this engagement with the township um I appreciate that we're seeing um the tip of the iceberg um that there is a very large
Titanic sized Iceberg beneath all of this um and a lot of work that that you and the staff have done so thank you very much you're welcome thank you anybody else on the board with questions Ty see Ted I have actually quite
a a bunch of comments on the ordinance but uh for really a question um I look looking at the the T s about the existing or under
construction uh warehouses and comparing them with the proposed standards for defining light intensity and medium intensity use and I noticed that for
instance there's only one Warehouse there that uh meets the standard for um loading uh loading docks
per 10 really per 10,000 square fet of the balas uh little Warehouse on Western Canal Road and similarly among the medium
intensity well there are a lot of existing warehouses that meet the overall size requirements and the proximity to uh I
287 but they are tripped up by this U loading docks per 10,000 square fet uh uh requirement that they don't meet that uh so practically all existing
warehouses fail to meet this particular uh or fail to meet at what would otherwise be the level they would be described by U the standard for
uh number of loading docks for the size of the property and I just sort of wondered uh first of all are those how did those 5,000 and
10,000 U numbers get picked is there anything particularly uh particular evidence behind them uh because they don't seem to fit the existing
warehouses uh and therefore uh could some enterprising attorney attack the whole ordin on the basis that these standards which the existing warehouses
don't meet are therefore arbitrary and capricious yeah I think that's a that's a great question Mr Chase I think that that uh there was a uh the original numbers for the square footage per loading dock come from the um Institute
of traffic Transportation Engineers um uh study on high Cube warehousing and all the there's a variety of different types of those kind of warehouses that where they they really um kind of broke it down um into heavy truck traffic uh
regular traffic total traffic Etc and um the the initial numbers that I came up with that were based on that data um then I uh Mark chested it against uh that in that table of all the existing applications because with the we were
really the the steering committee and and both us as consultants and the and this and the township uh professionals were very concerned about how uh these standards would you know would stack up with the existing applications that have
already come through and um we adjusted those numbers in fact we adjusted them I guess you could say upward in in terms of um the majority of of warehouses that that fell in that uh that that warehouse
rate ratio I'm sorry the the loading dock ratio uh was a little bit higher in terms in terms of Greater numbs of numbers of loading docks than what the initial it numbers uh were projecting for uh for example transload type uh facilities which are have a lower
traffic impact and then and then standard warehouses which the data comes from I guess it's the it land use group 150 which is basically a standard warehouse so we looked at all of those numbers and then we adjusted them to some extent to allow addition you know
more loading docks than would have ordinarily been the case to to match up against what Mark was seeing when he was looking at the square footages and loading dock ratios of the existing applications now part of that um answer
uh comes from the fact that some of these uh warehouses would not meet the medium intensity criteria because they're they're they're more than a mile away from Interstate 29 uh 295 um but uh what
we what what yeah and I but I think overall um in Mark's Mark in Mark's analysis of all the different applications he he summarized it by saying about a third uh would would be able to meet the conditions about a third would be able to meet them if they
made some changes to their applications and about a third would not be allowed you know would not meet the conditions and would not be permitted under under the under these proposed standards so it's kind of a uh a onethird one3 one3 distribution and uh so what you would anticipate is that if there's an
application that's currently not approved and they're um they're looking at these standards if they have an opportunity to modify their application so that they do conform um they'll have an opportunity to do that and and that doesn't seem to be um at least not that
we've heard yet that does not seem to be a problem as far as uh that that that result so I think the the the it's kind of a long-winded answer to your question but really it it's it all kind of drills back down to the Institute of
Transportation Engineers uh data on various types of high Cube warehouses um that relate to the number of loading doors um both High uh high high uh doors and low doors um and making an adjustment to um account for what the
township has experienced in terms of these applications that show the number of doors show the square footage um some of them may have to make adjustments if they're going to be able to comply yeah I'll just just add one more thing which is U the reason why that
analysis was done um frankly came from the steering committee because the steering you know we were talking about these different concepts and they want to understand well how does this relate to these different Warehouse applications that we've seen um so that's you know so that's why that
analysis was done and then they've described that again basically the 1/3 the 13d and then there was that middle thirdd where you know as Dave said if they made some modifications so there might be I'll make this up there might have been one that was 165,000 Square fet well if they lopped off 15,000
square feet then they would comply or maybe they had a few extra loading docks they'd knock off five more loading docks then they would comply that that was generally where that middle third and we kind of thought that that was generally acceptable generally you
know if we found that all of them were readed all of not a single of those warehouses were permitted well that'd be that probably wouldn't be very good ORD would be too strict and if all of them were permitted then we're not addressing the concerns that have been raised so um
that's all I wanted to add but in in that V Mark and I was just telling this to Peter everybody realizes that zone end zoning standards change over time um and so I mean as long as you're
tailoring it in a defensible way um yeah I mean so I mean the example I gave Peter was rol right um nobody wanted Atrium South a few people on this board will remember that um and the Davidson
Avenue Extension which would have run through what is now summer C run so that whole over was on overlay Zone done for senior citizen Village right so and everybody liked that at the time because you know it was necessary it was needed the population was aging and and didn't
put any kids in the school so it was great right um so so these things change over time and I think that as long I mean if you have a bunch of where and so nobody came in and said oh you know I'm an office developer and I have no place to put an office you there were plenty of places to put an office in Franklin
so there's plenty of places to put warehouses even based on this it's just the type that we want and I think that's probably eminently defensible any yeah the other thing I'll add is that um we do give a a provide an
explanation in the ma in the uh planning document in the re-exam uh Master Plan update as to where those number you know what what was the basis for those numbers um so that there's it's not a number we just came out of you know we just sort of came up with something off
the top of our head it was based on institutional data okay good anybody else have any any question I Ted if you want to hold your ordinance questions to when Marco's over the ordinance part if you want to take the anything that you have that now that
you wanted to tailor to the master plan and the one you just asked was tailer to that so that's fine yeah the one other uh comment that I have and is really about presentation uh the um and it applies to both the re
examination report and the ordinance and both refer to limits as loading docks per 5,000 or per 10,000 square ft uh but the numbers that are in the tables Under The Heading of loading
docks loading dock to area ratio are actually square feet per loading dock and this is extremely confusing [Applause] oh yeah sorry he's uh he's he's my assistant that was not me drinking out
of uh my water cup I I forgot he was here he was typing you able to see I can't believe you were able to see him now he's a he's a White Shepherd he's a pretty big guy sorry about that should have turn my should have turned my mic off well if if I Contin
continue and take for instance the onx proposal and I'm not picking that because it's controversial but because it proposes 10 loading docks which makes the math easy to explain 10 loading docks for
9139 Square ft the number in the next column of the table is 9131 and this is obviously square feet or rather thousands of square feet per loading dock the inverse of the label at
the top of the column now there are some I thought about this a good deal and uh the actual number of for loading docks per square foot would be
0.00 01095 or if stated as docks per th Square ft uh 01095 and you probably didn't want to State such small numbers in the requirements stating the ratio as square
feet per loading dock would yield a more comprehensible number uh say 9131 Square fet per dock or 91 91309 thousands of squ feet per dock but
this has the problem that your limit is now a lower limit you want a number greater than 10,000 of square fet per dock for a complying building for light use uh I'm not sure which is the best
way of stating the desired number but at least make the column heading accurately describe the numbers in the column but it it it then does have a bearing on just how do we want to State
the requirements understood yeah I do I would say we in the in the re-exam report which is you know a broader document obviously than the ordinance um we we have a we have footnotes uh explaining the ratio uh because you're
absolutely right it almost is almost counterintuitive um because you say you don't want the uh ratio to exceed U one one per 10,000 for example which makes it sound like you want it to be less than 10,000 when it's the
opposite so um we did explain that in the re exam report it's probably harder to do in an ordinance because um it's in a you know it's usually in a schedule or a table or whatever so yeah I I don't know if you could use languages the greater or the lesser of
it uh whatever but so you know something like that I have to give credit to Ted though he's the one person on this board I I I can state it with a fact who would um pick up that level of detail and um that's why I trust that everybody everybody has their Specialties and uh
um Charles uh yeah thank you thank you Dave I was on the committee and I think your you and your team uh did a fantastic job so so thank you thank you um I have a question you know looking at this now with fresh eyes in terms of how we
Define intensity uh two ways we're looking at it one being square footage the other being the ratio of loading docks um one of the big concerns from the public however has been um hours of operation hours of operation could very
well be listed as an intensity factor along with those other three that would help account for even you may have uh less loading docks if you're working around the clock you can generate more traffic so I think it's something that
perhaps has been overlooked I don't know if that's a conditional use or what but just something to consider no yeah I appreciate that there was uh during the uh I believe it was the steering committee Mo I'm sorry the
community meeting um probably the first one there was some uh concern about the fact that many of these operations um do a lot of their um their back and forth with trucks at night because it's easier
for them to get in and out because there's less traffic on the roads um and the question really came back in terms of you know um maybe there's less traffic on the roads but we still have to hear the trucks we have to experience them you know driving through our
neighborhoods Etc um and so it it's it that we I guess the short answer is we didn't get into the hours operation because we were trying to measure intensity but um typically these types of uses do operate on a you know a
24/7 um clock because some of the logistics that they use are relying on the trucks getting in and out when there's when there's really very little impediment on the road in terms of other traffic yeah but the leverage we have at
this point now is to somehow mitigate that risk right because there's a strong correlation between the hours of operation the impact of noise the impact on the environment so on and so forth so this is the opportune time to you know
consider that as a factor now um as opposed to much later point taken thanks yeah I age with Charles in the sense that if we can put that in the in the master plan or or or in in the
ordinance or a little bit of both um that helps the Board I mean the planning board does have discretion right if you let's just say for example um that a warehouse were to about a residential use then I'm and I'm not going to exite
any specific examples Pastor pending but if if it were then that is a a risk that the developer now accepts and what I would say to that developer is okay you know 10 11 o' you're done um you know that's that's when your security lights
go on no lights no no camera no action you you know no trucks can go in those are your hours of operation don't like it you know hit the road um I think the board has that discretion for sure but to your point Charles I think that if we
can codify it in some way that like for example you do have things in in this talk about enhanced buffering of residential uses and things it should also be that kind of thing as well yeah my my thought would be that we have to
look into it um whether it's a land use ordinance thing or if it's a separate ordinance um so if it's a separate ordinance it could be in the form of a recommendation that's in the master plan I think we also want to think of the pros and cons so as Dave just mentioned
you know businesses do like to have a 24-hour um you know business cycle and part of that some of that is not always bad in that if they if it's a warehouse that's miles from a residential and just
off 287 isn't that maybe a good thing that they're operating getting their trucks in and out when everybody when people aren't on the roads during the day you know what are the real impacts I would think the real impacts are if it's a warehouse that's next to a residential Zone yep that's what we're speaking so
what's the best exactly so that's so that's what I'm so that's the type of thing where I say let's look into it you know you know so we can look into that and see what the what might be the best way to do it whether it's a land use ordinance or some other ordinance yeah but let's let's not just look into it
and not come back with a solution right well this is the purpose of this is a work session I we're working it we're working it out live it's for you to do exactly what you just did which is bring up the concern and I don't think we necessarily have an answer right now but you're going to have another hearing so
so yeah I mean at that here's here's my suggestion I think we need to put it in the standards where you specify in the ordinance where it AB buts a residential Zone you talk about inhance buffering you talk about various other um uh site Improvement standards that's where
probably this should go where you if you about a residential uh res if you abut a residential use uh your hours are constrained if you abut a residential use your your noise uh shall not be greater than you know so many decb at any one time you know there there have
to be reasonable restrictions and and if the developer knows this upfront it's not arbitrary and capricious and they can make the decision whether that site suits their use or not Peter what do you any reaction well before Peter reacts the great thing is since we're working
this Peter is that we have the power of GIS to predetermine right now which of those property has a likelihood of being prox imate to residential uses so we can already identify the parcels so it's not like we're going on a hunt here we could easily do that in no time and just
identify those Parcels now well then yeah just want to make a quick comment chairman um we recently passed a noise ordinance that eliminated the decel level measurement because it was very cumbersome to do yeah uh by the offices so we have
some some protection using that maybe we have to um merge uh those standards into this I'm not sure how you do that but because the officer has the um Liberty to issue summons if in his opinion it is
noisy yeah that addresses noise but I'm sure there's a lighting and hours of operation you want to add and and RAM if you can put it in both places all the better so yeah I'm up now s that's okay I'm not sure the question is anymore no certainly you can you can have
limitations but the question is how you want to how you want to codify that and what you want to consider if you want to consider uh places where you will but residential zones or places where you up residential uses those are two different things because as you know you can have a non-conforming residential use in a zone that doesn't permitted and then do
you want that property to be something that's going to drive your planning goals um you know so those are things that Mark and Dave would need to take into consideration when trying to look at that and see what you have and and what the impact of those hours of you know operation really in you know places
where you impact the residential uses would be yeah we believe in both Mark and Dave like you said to look into it we just want to you know State the importance of it now yeah and the other issue too the other concern would be
um the applicability in terms of existing versus future warehouses too because the way that zoning works it's it's applicable in a way moving forward so I don't know if we put it in the ordinance if there's an existing Warehouse
operating 247 I don't think that would apply to them moving forward I believe I'd have to look at see Peter kind of like this but I believe retro you're not going to be able to shut down their operations essentially right right but we want to
prevent the same mistakes going forward and you know to that point that that wehous own Veronica I think it's LG the one on the other side of the road um there's a house there and they actually put up a sound wall and everything is the one that sold them the property so that's a pre-existing
non-conforming use I do believe um and and and you know and it has to be because it's a bi Zone you got house there so they did that because they didn't want to like I guess sell their house they want to sell the property um the warehouse was built there's a sound
wall I remember the application cuz this can put a sound all the way down Churchill and they're like no it's really just for the house blah blah blah so anyway I would say with a pre-existing you got to go with his zone right so if it it is like to you say preexist maybe probably can't enforce
that but at least what is an an r in front of it uh that should the question is going to be what you want sorry question is going to be what you want the master plan in your ordinance to say what you want what type of Regulation you want so the question is what type of
residential use do you want to try to protect with an hours of operation regulation and that's something that I think Mork and Dave can look at and take into consideration the things that you guys have pointed out tonight yeah yeah I mean the simple answer is that where would apply it would be if I would think
it' be for those properties that had join residential zones um right it's more of some of the other things about where that goes and what the language is that would have to be worked out that's what we trust you mark thank you all
right I go ahead D well I just wanted to comment that a noise ordinance I think would apply to existing warehouses uh in a way that uh a
restriction in this ordinance would not apply to an existing warehouse and that's why I bring that up because what is the most effective way to you know to address this issue if you can get somebody out there with a noise
meter yeah and and again again as the councilman said there is a noise ordinance I personally did I was I'm aware of it I personally didn't work on it so I I don't know exactly what that says that's again that's another thing we have to look at any uh Rebecca go ahead please um it's more of just a procedural
clarification for myself but the say we're able to amend it update the plan do these standards then apply to Applications pending or is it kind of like the previous ordinance where if you got in before they don't
apply so I I'll grab that so a great question yeah so what what New Jersey has is the time of application rule so if someone files a complete application they're entitled to the zoning that exists at the time of their application got I just wanted to make sure we were dealing with the same situation yep we are so thank you you got it now that's
been the case for quite some years but I can remember I think the league of municipalities had a fit when that the developers sneak to that that in because before that uh an application could come
before the board and you could change the zoning uh well certainly after that was filed yeah no I I can understand why that might not be regarded as fair but um at any rate yeah um if there are no
other questions for Dave I think Mark um do you want to go through the ordinance and its particulars um Dave could you un share sure we'll learn more about that and you want to hit the highlights Mark of you know that you you particularly
would want to point out the board's understanding sorry I had a little mouse issue there okay okay let's see all right you know what I can just do this you won't be able to see it Dave
apologize all right so um this is this is the draft ordinance just so um the board understands what they're seeing here um that what I highlighted in yellow are is changes new language and changes um so the first section I'm not
going to get into the details because Dave really gave you the overview um we want to Define what those uses are in the ordinance um so this is the light uh high-intensity low intensity medium intensity Light Industry uses and it's
those same uh parameters that Dave outlined and that's in the master plan um if you remember Dave was talking about high uh loading dock and low loading dock so we have definitions of those um since we do mention fulfillment centers and postal hubs as being um not
permitted uh we Define those uses um and we also Define Warehouse because that's used in the definition of these Light Industry uses so we want to make it clear what a what a warehouse is I had the comment there that our
warehous is a use under uh light industrial use because the present ordinance has excluded them from yeah that's that's that's a good question so uh basically what we're doing here and this is one of the um
things that we were wrestling with is you sometimes it can be somewhat hard to differentiate between um there's a spectrum of you warehousing to light manufacturing yeah um and light manufacturing is already defined in our ordinance and what this basically does
is it Blends them together you know so they're collectively referred to as Light Industry so the definition says Warehouse or light manufacturing facility and again both of those terms are defined and then it basically categorizes those based on their size
and their loading dock ratios um okay so this next section this is the use schedule so this is the section of the ordinance that spells out the different zoning uh districts in the town and indicates what uses are permitted in each of those zones so
you'll see here with with my cursor uh it's indicating low intensity Light Industry and medium intensity Light Industry as conditional uses um this accessory uh uses section this is really just an editorial change um based on the
change in terminology again referencing those Light Industry and or light intensity and medium intensity uses uh these this is the section of the ordinance this is would be new section 11250 these are the the conditional use
standards that Dave went over in detail this pretty much verba it's verbatim um in ordinance formats and the language might be a little different but the the um substance is exactly the same that they've presented for the Light Industry and the medium or low intensity and the
medium intensity uses uh the one thing I'll point out is that um right on this first uh section here for the medium intensity said use must be located within one road mile of an interchange with 287 and it
references uh attachment 32 which is in draft form this do this um drawing that you saw before this is going to be more formalized with our GIS Department based you know computerized mapping so it's 100% accurate this is
pretty accurate uh I did this map myself but uh again it'll be done with GIS so it'll be you know really definitive and again the purpose is that everybody knows what one road mile is and nobody can come up with some cute definition of what that might means we're going to tell everybody what that means uh this
next section is the buffering requirements this is schedule six um all of this crossout in doing this ordinance uh I I realized there's actually section in our ordinance um that conflicts and is actually has a much lower lesser
buffering requirement of only 15 ft so that's coming out so we don't want that and instead it says uh refer to the buffering requirements of the respective zone so here here we're talking about the bi zone so if this is a development in bi Zone you go to that section of
schedule six that talks about the biis Zone buffering requirements so again this is um again the changes are highlighted in yellow uh this paragraph here is uh really just clarifying making it again more clear a lot of this is
based on our experience um so I think as we go through this you'll probably recognize a lot of these things things that we've dealt with on these applications so this is making it abundantly clear what cannot be in a buffer um this paragraph here is is getting into the specifics of the
quantity uh how much uh how because we want to make sure that you know the density of the buffer if you will so we not only do we want it to be 100t wide we want want it to be planted um with with trees of certain sizes and mixes and of a certain minimum
quantity um this is talking about uh Native Plant use of native plantings uh use of drip irrigation systems because we want obviously want to make sure that that buffer um lives uh this section here um it seems
like a small change but this is saying uh so we have an ordinance that says you have to have one tree for every 2,000 sare fet of pavement number one we're doubling that so it's going to be one tree for every 1,000 square fet of pavement so not only we doubling it um we're also making it clear that that's
exclusive of the buffering so you can't just use all those plants you're going to put on the exterior this is planting within the interior um I had a quick comment on that sure so you have a three-foot tree uh in those can we make it a little taller I think you know we have heard
from other residents the um the warehouse is putting trees very small bushes kind of in of trees somewhere it's a three-foot tree somewhere that's shrubs shrubs are 3 feet trees have to be six feet uh if they're Evergreens and
the decidous need to be 2 and a half inch calipers I've seen applications in which the applicant lifts service Berry species under trees were members of the
environmental Commission said those are bushes um this is this again a lot of this is making it clear all land that's not covered by building sidewalks Etc have to be landscaped uh and this is talking about uh the use of nursery nursery grown plant materials um and
then lastly this section talks about the buffer the normal buffer in the bi zone is 50 so if it's a office building some other type permitted use it's 50 but if you're going to be uh a light industrial or Medi light IND light
intensity or medium intensity that goes up to 100 and that's referring to those conditional use standards uh these are the design standards so the at the planning board suggestion a few years ago um we put in
these design standards um and this is going to um improve them in several ways again based on our experience with these applications so this is the section here B that's talked where I talked about the increasing the amount of uh
trees uh this is this C is talking about the location of loading docks it also makes clear that not only we trying to protect uh Residential Properties but there sometimes are uses that maybe a little bit more sensitive that are permitted in our industrial Zone like
hotels schools places of worship Child Care Centers those are permitted and if they're located next to those uses they should also take a little bit more care uh in screening those loading docks and service areas um architectural elements um board
members and public have made comments we had a standard in there um we've but we've increased it made it made it more clear of what we want to see a mixture of styles textures um minimizing blank facades and walls um
encouraging use of green Walls and awnings and s and things of that nature um again these are things that the the planning board has commented on over the over the years as well as the zoning board I have a question about that the
sentence that you've taken out at the beginning of d uh referred specifically to uh the sides of the building facing adjoining roadways and
more uh so if you've taken that out out then it would seem that all of these requirements would apply to all sides of a building and do we really care if two warehouses next to each other have two
blank walls facing each the other Warehouse uh might this be better limited to facing streets and facing residential zones it's a good point I again I took
the par the sentence out in its entirety only because it you know the new language was I think um more comprehensive I think what I would suggest is I I know what you're saying and I think perhaps language saying I don't think there's any harm in
in encouraging good design on all four sides why not encourage it but I think it should say but you know essentially along the lines of but particularly facing the streets and particularly facing Residential Properties I think some l like that I don't see any reason
why we can't encourage it generally though exactly because you don't know just because you have a use that's a permitted use in the zone that might not be you know appropriate to have it have some architectural detail facing it that use could change in the future and you
would then subject them to that same blank wall so I mean it's a good design goal and it frankly if they're building the building they should take it into consideration uh e is similar to what we discussed before about loading docks and service area same thing mechanical equipment
should try to screen those if they're adjoining not only residences but those other uh more sensitive uses um J uh is speaks to minimizing conflicts between cars trucks bicyclists and
pedestrians um designing uh the interior circulation in a more sensitive way having crosswalks across driveways Etc uh again the board has discussed these type issues uh on these applications so we wanted to put it in there uh could I
comment on F even though you're not making changes I guess I'm going to suggest a change something that comes up when the environmental commission is uh dis discussing a site plan
application is that there should be not only bicycle Park in which perhaps means a bicycle rack but also what they call a a facility for simple repairs of
bicycles now I'm not a bicyclist I don't know exactly what is meant I'm sure our vice chair does a bicycle repair station yeah very inexpensive thank so I mean we could put
that in at this point might as well okay all right we'll do um so Jay uh again so that's that's um talking about the interplay between uh driveways walkways um and and having um safe um uh
pedestrian and bicycle Passage through the site Charles do you have any comments on that cuz I know this is your did I word it did I word it right you you did well as as always okay um traffic the applicant sh prare
traff traffic control plan um so this is we want to see on the site plan where your equipment storage areas are going to be where you're going to put your stock piles uh hours of construction operations you know put that on the plan so not only the board can see it but the board's engineer can review it and and
comment on it uh next comment is or next design standard talks about truck routing so we want them to tell us how they're going to Route trucks how they're going to inform um you know the the the truck
drivers how to take the appropriate uh routes uh are they going to put signage again these are all things that we've discussed over the years a gate management plan so if they're going to have Gates um you know we want to know that we want to make sure they incorporate that into their site plan so
they can add we want to know how that's going to operate and we want to make sure that there's going to be adequate queuing on site and is really a very kind of a similar standard basically saying you know you have to design it so you don't have queueing on out on out onto the
roadway as with Amazon uh o talks about um driveways internal drive aisles and curb Cuts have to be designed in a way that allow adequate widths and turning R radi to allow truck tractor trailers to complete turning maneuvers while remaining within
their designated travel Lanes I have a small comment here and I don't know the exact details but I know that we've sometimes heard about two different sizes of tractor trailers and I just don't remember the
specific designations but you might want to get the definitions and put in whichever one you want to be specific uh what what I would s that's a good suggestion what I would suggest is uh I'd like to talk to our um Darren Mazy
our engineer yeah and find out if yeah if he would like it to be in there specifically or if he would prefer that it not because then he he would have the ability on on a based on that particular use what turning what type of truck they should be using and what turning radi
they should be using yeah I just don't I don't know what his opinion would be but I'll ask them yeah well I know we've had applications where there simply wasn't room for the long a turning radius that would accommodate the longest tractor trailer
or it could be the when there were two loading docks facing each other uh that there really wasn't room for the longest uh type to get into position perpendicular to the building but yeah
discussing it with Darren would be the best point okay we'll do uh peace speaks about uh a number of different sustainability measures that that are encouraged use of green roofs use of cool pavement permeable pavement um use
of Green Building design green storm water infrastructure bios swes systemns rain Gardens Etc uh encouraging those things in site plan applications the environmental commission will love this uh Q uh so this gets to again some
of the things we've already been discussed tonight when an applicant is next to a residential Zone they have to have a noise uh impact study prepared by an appropriate professional uh and that'll be required as part of their application um and then lastly R um we
want them to provide with their application a narrative statement demonstrating compliance with this um and you know this is recommended for two reasons I mean that the one reason is you know it makes the application more complete um for the
board's review but I think it also puts the applicant on notice that you need to answer these questions up front and and I think it makes them pay attention to these standards up front um and then you'll see later on in the ordinance we actually put that as a
checklist item on their development checklist so it won't even be deemed complete they won't be able to go before you before you unless they give us this narrative statement uh the this next section is the these are the what we call the bulk standards so these are recommending some
modifications to the building setbacks this is just ordinate this is not when it's NE next to a residential Zone this is just overall um 25 feet sidey yard 50 foot rear um I don't think this really has any practical real impact because most
applications end up complying with this anyway just to get driveways around the site but um T is kind of a ridiculously low setback well I I think it could reduce the size of warehouses it may it may typically I
think the B9 Warehouse was really running up against uh these limitations yeah so it's it's either way these are 25 foot side set back 50ft rear is uh exceedingly
reasonable so uh we took the uh opportunity to modify that um but then this this includes uh driveway access around the building this is this is just a setback for buildings yeah so the so the buildings have to be 25 ft yeah if that
if that answers and then and then the footnote again we just we want want to cross reference we want to make sure when somebody's making an application but if you're next to a residential Zone if you're a low intensity or medium intensity use look at those conditional use standards because there are bigger
setback requirements and and mark that that is where I think um you can refer to the hours of operation lighting and such not that Charles and I were referring to because you're referring specifically to AB budding residential uses in that section so when you and Dave go back and look at
this that might be a place to put it uh similar change here this is really minor but this is again that reference this is the floor area ratio Dave talked about the different floor area ratio under the conditional use standard so that's making sure that people are
aware um the change to the parking we didn't really feel the need to change the parking requirement um but we did put a clarification in there um typically warehouses do have a small office component as long as that office component is less than 10 10% of the
overall square footage um they don't have to separately spell out a office requirement in a in a warehouse CU if it's only 5 or 10% of the warehouse it's part of the overall it's an accessory use to the overall Warehouse yeah some sometimes applicants
say will say well what if we subdivide this and we have four or five uh users each one with an office i' say then the parking would go up I don't think it'll happen
but it is a if it did happen that would put the uh parking requirement up somewhat but actually our tendency has been for the warehouses to come in with more parking than we think is necessary I I I I I
really and I did this for two reasons one is frankly this is the way that I've been interpreting it anyway if it's only a you know 5% of the warehouse 8% I don't separately spell out the office and I also know that this board doesn't
necessarily want to encourage more parking that is necessary so um that's you know the two main reasons for that this Mark I I do think you know selfishly we want to encourage the use of their charging stations for the
general public um I don't know you know they have better higher graded uh EV charging stations at some of these facilities but they're marked you know employees only because it's private property but if there could be a situation where there's a variance or an
ask for that that those parking spaces be open up to the public uh that would be great yeah it's tough that's a tough one but you know some liability yeah and you know but um I me maybe you're going to get to
this Market if so I'll wait but um do you talk about banking spaces or well that's already in the ordinance all right cool yeah all right um yeah and that and that's yes um this this section here is real minor
again this is the um talking about the 50t current already you're not allowed to have parking um within the front yard um again this is a clarification because sometimes we get an apping going well the dryve vial is not the parking lot so
that could be in the front yard so no no portion of the parking lot whether it's cars parking or the drive a for the parking lot can be in the 50ft setback that's no portion of a parking area that's the reason for that um so markk I
have just a comment recently there was a hearing uh at the uh state capital um the EMS Personnel I believe they brought up a question or a concern that there are not enough signage uh in the in the
warehouses in terms of exit um uh entrance no idling and U you know one way whatever um is there something going to be in the ordinance to have all those signage proper signage uh um in in the
property well it depends on what the signage is I mean if it's if it's if it's I heard you say idling that that's that that is already required uh I believe there's some additional language regarding that if it's about things like
um putting the building number and having exit signs and things like that those are those are building code issues yeah emergency entrance uh you know the fire fire prevention folks yeah firefighters yeah that typically is not something that you would have in a
zoning ordinance that's that would be in the uniform construction code oh yeah I wanted to bring up about anti-idling signs I think we've regularly suggested from the environmental commission uh
every fourth one at every fourth loading dock plus one at the office and one at the entrance into the property inform them several times over not to leave their truck idling so
um that's what something I look into um because the art ordinance it it does address that um and then it mentions these um it cites the two State Standards so let me see what those State Standards say um for example if it might
already be in there every 4th it might not if it's not then I would say let's put it in you know if it's every fourth you know comply with this but no less than one for every four loading docks and what was the other
what was the other well just one at the office if if the driver goes into the office he sees it and one at the entrance to the property and I think the uh when we've brought this up in s plan review applicants of General been
agreeable to yeah every fourth loading dock which y okay ures that any position is within two slots of a sign I'll I'll we we'll add that in because again a lot of the as you see the the main theme
with this is incorporating things that the board has been trying to encourage all along um but basically codifying it uh and then lastly this last change here uh oops not the last this last
one this is this is the change to the um application checklist I had mentioned um where we require the narrative statement addressing compliance with the conditional use standards um I also threw a thing in there about if they are
asking for a waiver there's 62 different application things that you have to submit if you're making a site plan and if you want to waiver or if you're claiming that any one of them is not applicable I'm recommending that they need to provide a narrative statement explaining that um so again that's so
that's basically the ordinance again as I said this is substantively it's what David presented again not not only at the prior community meeting what he presented to you a few minutes ago it's in a master plan this puts you know again puts it in
ordinance format and puts uh some more meat to it as you normally would in an ordinance that's all I have very yes great job anybody uh have any any comments on
what Mark has said or any questions they may have thought of for Dave since he's still online and hopefully his dog is satiated um um Mark what's the Cadence uh going forward so um we're going to have a
hearing for the m plan yes um yes and that will be roughly when roughly I would say rough what's it's I would hope it would be by the end of April we have to look at our board schedule yeah um as far as
your applications that you have um we may if the board would would um want to discuss it perhaps have a special meeting again yeah I mean let's see what happens in terms of uh how April unfolds but I mean we
could potentially think of uh you know the last Wednesday in April for like a work session type master plan hearing the only thing is I am my well I know Easter is like what um 18th or something like that um I don't know if anybody's
got plans or whatever so let's just see how April unfolds in my experience there's a you know you have a bunch of applications and for some reason or another then all of a sudden we we're told it's cancelled so we instead of canceling it we can always shoehorn a
thing in there um and then the ordinance itself the ordinance the ordinance itself um you as you know the the planning board doesn't adopt the plan would be to put this in you know it would be it would go with the the master
plan I'm sorry it would go it would go to the council in the form of a recommendation yeah um what I would recommend is again the board has made a few comments today um we'll take a shot at um putting some language that we hope satisfies your comments you'll get that
revised draft at the hearing yeah and we can talk about it that point that sounds good then it can go again that then it can go to the council yeah as your recommended ordinance to them and then they'll they take it from there in terms of introducing it and then having a hearing on the ordinance okay sounds
good um it's 9:23 um I do want to open it up to the public even though we're not required to because a work session hearing but um I figure it's probably good if there's any specific comments um to hear them now so that they can be incorporated going forward um similar to
what the planning board made um and and we have roughly a a half hour left in our meeting time to do that um and I really if there's people who would like to say something I'd like you to make it specific to what has been talked about tonight um not general not I saw an 18
wheeler push over a stop sign I I don't want a warehouse I I I you know anything like that just specific comments either to the master plan or to the ordinance um that you feel um might might make a difference so with that I'll move to open to the public second all in favor
and please come up state your name address uh I don't think you'll have to be sworn in unless you're presenting anything so if it's just opinion then that you might have to push a switch there
uh no we do we need it for the record well the minutes in rare instances batteries can be needed too pictures vce Dom you don't have a EV charger Christine
yeah it works good evening nor Roberts Benjamin Street Somerset I have one personal comment which I hold for the end and some observations and questions on things that were not I believe touched
the point tonight uh the first is traffic enforcement and whether or not the police and Somerset have the capability to enforce the continual flow of large vehicles that are flowing through the town um specific just a
specific instance well can can you keep your comments to what was presented tonight in terms this is not the purview of the planning board um and can you keep it to either the master plan what was presented the content there the ordinance the content there um personal anecdotes we don't need um just like
really specific to the we really want to try to get the ordinance and the master plan comments in and not not just anecdotes thanks all right well for first question is what the I have heard much about traffic I don't hear anything about traffic enforcement by police I do
not hear anything as far as the traffic I'll try this again we're not the police we can't enforce it there something you can take to counil sheep is right there um and and so yeah can you again not the planning but I'm going to that's a second time I'm not going to do the
third time so sir and just to make it clear sir again just so you understand what board you're in front of you're in front of the plan plan board planning board has nothing to do with the police department so if your comments about the police department as the chairman said may want to go to the township Council on
that okay as far as the warehouses that we're discussing what is what is being done with regard to Fire Control on the warehouses that as far as these regulations that are being
drawn up uh Mr Rini made reference to having warehouses that are on spec as far as the contents of the warehouses and fires in the warehouses and toxic fumes that may be
released by fires in the warehouse how is that being addressed with construction code I mean the fire the fire John house fire official reviews every application makes his recommendations um and that's how that's addressed yeah some sometimes there are
questions of hazardous materials and there are State designations of hazardous materials and it may require some further specialization of the building
if there are hazardous materials but that should be covered more as Mike says by by the state laws and by the uh fire prevention officer John house yeah
and I'll just clarify as well again just to piggyback it it's not a land that's not a zoning issue it's building code so when the construct when the when the warehouse gets built it has to be built in a certain way um and then on a continuous basis twice a year we have a
whole department the department of fire prevention that goes in all the different commercial facilities throughout the town twice a year to make sure to observe what is in the building and to make sure they're compliant in terms of their fire suppression their exit signs things of
all of that nature so there are controls in place in terms of the building code and Fire Prevention to make sure that those users are doing what they need to do all right well then the only personal comment is that when I look at this seal and it says Town Township of
Franklin I get the feeling that it's Township of warehouses and it's just very disarten yeah and I mean like we said at the outset uh it is state law state planning law that you can't you have to
allow for every type of use in your land use element um for example we don't specifically uh call out certain types of it used to be we never called out tattoo parlors or things like that or um adult film adult uh stores right because
you call them out and but truthfully you could you could have them because they are a permitted use and we don't ban them in the zone because we don't want to call attention and say oh you know we banned them so please come and sue us um but truthfully you have to allow for
every type of land use um and so and even if you're a fully built out town which which we are not um you would still have to allow for that type of land use because maybe things would change in the future and you know you would have like you have on Davidson and
World's Fair um empty Office Buildings that you'd like to repurpose into a rable use um but yeah unfortunately um of the ban was temporary to get the township to work through this uh we are working through it as you see here
tonight and and then we will U be able to um better prescribe where warehouses can and can't go I think you'll be pleased with the end result um unfortunately I think everybody in this room and everybody sitting on this Di would say uh you know wish we had done
this sooner the cats dog house horses out of the barn or whatever animal and structure you want to make an analogy to but um at the at the end of the day um it it is at least an attempt to control what's going forward thank I
asent Paul Willi chairman of the environmental Commission what I want to get just a bit we've been talking about the requirement for solar cell Readiness and we've been considering in the commission can we lower the the Readiness from 100,000
square feet maybe to 50,000 square feet it still saves the people money and it helps the environment that's what's the state law isn't there a state statute that the state requires it for all buildings of over all warehouses of over 100,000
square ft and I think it's in here somewhere it just says that all these buildings should be sold already look back devel say well I don't know attend going to be what's yeah but
you do require some El no what you're doing yeah no we we always do um I can I can say I I I do I know the board does um look at the uh environmental Commission report and and and like the ones we just had um in back of um
Veronica the 275k warehouses um I asked them specifically are are you going to be solar ready uh and because they're spec right they'll always say the tenant it's up to the 10 and that's fine I mean if you if if it's legally defensible to
lower it to 50 to lower it to 10 I mean I I think I have solar panels on my roof I'm pretty sure it's less than that so I would i' would be I'd be happy to make it whatever is legally defensible it's already in this ordinance I mean it's
not even a new item I all newly constructed buildings shall be solar ready so let me just say that if we do next time we do hear somebody say well the state law says you can refer them back to our ordinance that says they
have to do it even if they're 98,000 ft which doesn't mean put them on it means that they the roof needs to support it yes and and and and so they yeah yeah wiing Jan Jan BR Bryant Court um and
thank you all um and I I attended previous meetings I I prefer the old ordinance and I'm glad that there was an explanation that the reason why they're doing this is because um of the um legality of however um was it Mr the person who's on
there Dave Roberts Roberts hi Mr Roberts so one of the things you mentioned that um in this new ordinance that warehouses um that warehouses can't be a conditional use because it's not legally sustainable but you've said that the
high intensity use could be banned so I'm wondering why that you could do that but why the other ordinance wasn't sustainable no I that's a great question um well first of all the the the original ordinance just banned
warehouses totally no matter what kind of Warehouse whatever it was totally it was just totally banned and um there was reasons for doing that it was uh the township was um almost seemed to be under siege with the applications um and
you know I think what we tried to do was um allow the use but regulate its intent so it's really not a ban on warehouses it's a ban on higher intensity um light industrial uses that may and probably
will mostly be warehouses but don't necessarily have to be so I think that that's that and we tried to base it on a foundation that um was based on on analysis of traffic data so acknowledging the fact that there's
traffic issues and they're getting worse um to kind of build the the the legal foundation for then uh keeping out the types of warehouses that are known to be and shown to be in the data extremely high intensity and regulating the
remaining types of warehouses so that um based on location they would be permitted or not permitted based on their size and so on so it's just it's just a it's it's it's not a total ban anymore it's a um a layered approach
where the only um uses that are are are continuing to be prohibited would be the ones that are the ones that are the high have the highest impact and from what we know are have not yet located in Franklin but um so that we we want to
make we want to try to protect the Township from them coming in without without uh prohibiting warehouses across the board okay thank you and sure the um as far as um you mentioned you know Franklin like all these w
houses are in Franklin you know you know when you point it to the map where you have that picture of the map I just you know Frank there's there's a lot it's really located really in the ward 2 the 25 warehouses that were built and there's other Wards there's another Ward that has had a few warehouses but it's
really just that top portion because like you said you know with the 287 um being so close by but that traffic jam that you said you know and you mentioned um all these are fated um traffic spots and um an f-rated one I looked up what
f-rated meant was it's like in a constant traffic jam and in W two where all these warehouses are located you know we have four senior resident communities we have other you know single family homes we have residential communities that are just young adults
we have a few schools located so all these warehouses are in board too where our shopping's at and everything's at and really like the lower part of that map which is like the other half um you know they don't have all that so I I just think you know there's 15,000
people that live in war to and I think you really need to be alerted to that amount of people that are affected I'm just wondering if we know that off the traffic is at you know an F right now and there's still 11 12 more warehouses
that need to be approved or seen why would we even want to put this kind of thing into place that we would want to have more warehouses if we're at an F right now you know we're we testified in Trenton last week got assembly man Joe Danielson and it was all about just
emergency Personnel getting to places it was based on Franklin and just the warehouse sprawl that's going on and we had Emergency Services testifying how hard it is with traffic to get to people so we're just we're putting people's lives at stake right now and I'm not
just talking about diesel fume I'm talking about an ambulance getting to you know a school for a child who's like suffering a head injury or something like that so I'm I'm just I'm kind of astonished when when I read the resolution today I'm wondering what's going on here you know we we we're we're
at an f and there's more warehouses to be built and now we're going to get rid of that other ordinance and we're going to have a new ordinance in place that's going to allow warehouses and we're at F right now you know I I'm just I please
explain it it is hard um to to explain but the I think the the one part of that answer is I think we you members of the board had uh touched on it earlier this evening um that to to prohibit a blanket
proh prohibition of a use um is is not a an easy thing to defend in court um to start with and then the other thing to keep in mind is that um warehouses are not the only permitted use in or at least warehouses are not the only potential use in the business industrial
Zone it has there's a lot of other uses all of which have their own um trip generation characteristics some that generate more traffic than warehouses might and some that generate less perhaps um and the road network is um a
separate uh part of the Township's infrastructure that a private property owner may not necessarily be uh responsible for in some cases it might be the county and some cases it might be the township or the state that are responsib responsible for those
intersections and uh and and modifying them if if they need to be modified so the the there's really two separate uh you know issues going on one is trying to control the land use and get a better handle on it and direct it where
it makes the most sense and keep and direct it away from residential areas and the other part of it is the road Network the condition that the road network is in and to to to the extent that that improvements are needed um how that how that is handled and who's responsible
whether it's the township the county or the state like Mr earlier where he said about um like there's another concept borrow and I think that before doing this and possibly putting our war I
into worse it is now that maybe we need to find out how we have no speculative warehouses built in um Franklin Township if there's another Township that's actually doing that right now and if you look at those they've been very
successful you know in some of their warehouse you know not warehouses not built there are warehouses and I I've always said that I believe in warehouses it's just you know when it comes to it's it's ruining our Our Lives um and endangering us but I think really we
should be looking at seeing what Hillsboro Township does and how they're able to not have speculative warehous and I'm surprised no one has like looked into that yet so so yeah I mean that that is one of the reasons I brought it up and I think as Mark said I think I
think what this ordinance and this m 10 Amendment try to do uh is prevent speculative warehouses by very specifically defining a light and a medium use and saying what that
should be um and then and then prohibiting the the high intensity use now the other Crut of your question though Jan that I kind of like is is um you know the old the old example I give to most people is um people people
say well there's four gas stations on a corner um if I'm gas station number four um and the planning board says to me I don't want to you you're you're denied because we have three but it's zone for a gas station well you'll be
sued and you'll lose um and so the way to do that is through zoning so this after for here is a unique opportunity to actually Zone and I I mean to your point I'm and I'm pretty sure that the
ordinance does this but maybe just to clarify for Dave or more um and I'm going to paraphrase your question a little bit so hopefully I get it I get it right but where where there is a a closer proximity than say oh you
know you're out the end of Davidson Avenue Atrium Drive you're World's Fair you're not encountering any residents but to your point there there's places where it's closer to residences um does the ordinance or the master plan Amendment um while you can't Zone things
into inutility and and you know you're not necessarily going to say oh now we're going to make this in R 40 Zone um does it does it sort of direct the lighter uses closer to the residential de where where there is residences and maybe the more medium uses elsewhere um
so that that actually might have been somewhat of of Jan's question other than the overall you disappointment with warehouses in general but since we can't Zone things into inutility let's let's talk about how to prescribe them um and and I just wondered if you parse the bi
Zone in any way and when comes to close I know you do with the design standards where it comes closer to residences but you do for the uses um do you parse it in any well I think that's the overall structure of the ordinance the overall structure of the ordinance is those that
well number one those higher intensity uses above 400,000 square F feet and have the and have the higher loading dock ratios and fulfillment centers and postal hubs are specifically prohibited right period Then you have the medium
densities which is the um 150,000 to 400,000 and and then again there's that certain ratio those are only permitted within one road mile of 287 so that's those medium intensity again directed away from the residential zones closer
to 287 and are supposed to be on roads that and are required to be only on roads that are those minor colle minor collectors and above so keep them on the more major roads um and then only those lighter intensity uh ones with which up to 150,000 so those are you know smaller
warehouses with lower loading dock ratios are permitted you know in the rest of the bi Zone but then because some of those might be in proximity to residential we put those those again additional uh conditional use standards
and design standards larger buffers larger building setbacks noise study etc etc those were so that's those are on top of those conditional use standards that push them away from the residential zones and to
Dave's earlier Point like the floor area ratio also controls some of that right because you'll need a large enough parcel of land which may not be in proximity to residen yeah and and I just like to reiterate again I my initial you know I'll leave it to Peter to if he
wants to P about the legality of saying you know no spec warehouses I just I I just don't think it's I think this ordinance is just gets at the issue much more directly because if you're saying no spec Warehouse what if somebody comes in
and says well we know exactly what our user is going to be it's going to be a fulfillment center and it's going to be 500,000 square fet and it's going to be next to a residential Zone yeah what does that do maybe if you add that into the ordinance that there's no spec warehouses in addition to you know this
maybe you combine the both and then you have have the best thing but I think we but by putting these standards in we're we're we're we're forcing the developer to to kind of make a decision of what kind of Warehouse they're going to be um
if they come in and they are on their plan they're 159 149,000 Square F feet and they have that certain loading dock ratio that's what it's going to be they're not going to come in with a building permit and change it I mean they don't change it now I mean if they could if this if an
applicant comes in for a building permit and they change the look of the building we deny it you know let alone the loaning dock ratio so you know I'm not so sure if it's you know XYZ company versus ABC company it's going to be a
warehouse of that size of that loading dock ratio um and I I guess and I'll speak as well because this question was brought up at the community meeting of why are we doing this and it's a it's a very good question I'll just speak from my own perspective as a Township planner
I used the word a blank slate right now it's a blank slate somebody comes in wants to build a warehouse there's no standards so what do they do they they can go to the zoning board and there's nothing in the order that the master plan that says what we want and what we
don't want you know this is after a year and a half long process two Community meetings steering committee with you know I think four or five meetings of the steering committee to to develop this you know I think these are this is uh a an open Community
um public Le process that has has helped develop these standards um and we're basically telling the development Community this is what's acceptable this is what's not it not only directs the applications in terms of you know telling them you know if
they want if they want you know to be a permitted use go to the planning board you have to buy by these standards even if we have use variances or or conditional use standards now they have to go to the zoning board we have the master plan that talks about why we
wanted these TP types of warehouses directed to these different areas and and the applicant has to to justify why they're doing something that's contrary to the master plan you know that so that that that gives the community I think a lot more Direction a lot more power or
control over this issue then frankly you know putting their heads in the sand and and not addressing it um that that's my opinion I just I just want to add really quickly because we do keep bringing it up I I double checked Hillsboro since
January is actively being sued for that ordinance yeah and so I just I feel like to Mark's Point like this is a very tangible practical realistic way to get our results without ending up where we were in the first place with our other ordinance well and the only other thing I would add is you have a land use
ordinance you don't have a land user ordinance like we don't focus in on who's coming in to occupy a particular property with a particular use we regulate what the uses we think would be permitted and what the conditions for those uses are um to make you know uh
individual specific decisions based upon who the applicant is and what their use is going to be I think is is something that you don't want to get involved in one one quick question along that same line if if Peter maybe you can clarify cuz I understand that what appears to be like a contradiction right from the
public standpoint in one sense we're saying we have banned these types of warehouses fulfillment centers so on and so forth a spec Warehouse is a type of uh Warehouse facility it may not categorically be listed but when you
have spec warehouses they become a category by themselves so why you can't say we're Banning spec in addition to fulfillment so on and so forth that's the first question and then why you can't say geographically because War 2 is inundated with warehouses already we
have reached a threshold where more warehouses will decimate the community from a health and environmental standpoint can't you have a geographic restriction based upon the the safety and the welfare of the people in that Ward you have zone-based uh regulations
you don't have w-based regulations so it's just a question of and and I'll defer to the planner to some extent it's you decide where you think particular ular uses are appropriate within particular zones so you would have to look at those zones and decide whether or not you want to rezone those areas of
your municipality um and that's a much more Global uh you know issue than what uh regulations you might want for uses within those particular zones um moving back to spec spec I don't see spec as a use spec is whether or not you know who
the user is going to be of a particular facility so under that theory if you don't know who's going to occupy U you know an office building is it a spec office building then do you not get to build it because you don't know who's going to occupy it it's still going to occupy be occupied for a particular use
with particular parameters and the parameters are what are important not necessarily who the user is so given the regulations that U Mr Roberts and Mr Healey have created uh in trying to Define your Warehouse uses and create low high and and medium intensity uh
uses I think allow you to have a greater understanding of what type of Warehouse may or may not ultimately be there rather than knowing whether or not the user is a particular entity yeah yeah and that that always confused me too to be honest I mean spec is not a um an
empty box I mean it's spec means you don't know the end user right whether it's it's going to be like Peter said this office or this company or that but it's still going to be offices um but I think I
think you know the benefit of of of the kind of work that has gone into this master plan and this ordinance is whenever you get a chance to dictate to the developer this is a good thing um it's defensible um and it's it's specific
enough um that they have to meet all these conditions to to have a conforming um application that they can actually deem complete and submitted and then when it gets to the board we actually have a lot more control because we have all the traffic counts that are actually
going to become part of the master plan which which I didn't realize which is great so if somebody comes up and says oh you know it's level to C and you know our traffic is it's not going to matter it's still going to be level C uh and Dave's report shows it's level F now then then we're going to have some words
with that applicant so um you know I think I think to the extent that we it's not legally defensible to have a a a ban on any any use oh that's just like planning law unfortunately it wasn't a
ban they had to go to the zoning board so it wasn't really a ban they just had to go to the Zone board and it's really been working so far I mean warehouses have been approved yeah because they were deemed complete um it's actually you're ain't correct we've we've had plenty of warehouses applications since that moratorium they go to the zoning
board not based on on whether there's a there's a moratorium plenty of come to the planning board they go to the zoning board based on whether they require use variance or not yeah well let me yeah let me let me clarify we've had two applications to the zoning board one's been
approved it was about a quar mile from 287 and it was about 880,000 Square fet so the board for the reasons probably that we're discussing no permitted it we have another one another application
that's currently pending before the board um and that one is um it's larger it's on Davidson Avenue North of 287 and again about a quarter mile from from The Interchange um I'm not going to comment
on that because it's it's an ongoing application but you know but those two have been you know again closer to 287 and within this you know under this plan they would be um uh I don't know if they
comply with all the conditional use standards because it but bottom line is in a large sense they where this ordinance would be encouraging warehouses because they're in close proximity we could get another application toor we could get another application tomorrow for a 500,000 foot
Warehouse next to a residential zone for a ful for a fulfillment center I think it's a lot better to have an ordinance in place that addresses that and a master plan that addresses that so that again so we're directing them by the ordinance to you know to the locations
that we want them and if they choose to go to the zoning board we have something in the master plan that speaks to where we want them to go and why we want them to go there and they have a much higher hurdle than our master plan right now which is basically silent on it yeah no I mean developers love a vacuum and then
they'll will fill it um and so that's not what you want if you can help that okay um meter's road is considered a connector or or according to the um your document um
and I'm just wondering with the um I at the last meeting we discussed um rerouting traffic and which way traffic was going to go through and I think that's what Norma was trying to say and I was wondering from that last meeting was that ever decided how traffic was going
to be routed and in addition to that comment um just so you know there's supposedly there's not supposed to be any trucks on Schoolhouse Road um in front of where we live and on meter's road however if a truck is making a delivery they're allowed to go wherever
they want so it's really hard to enforce a rule like that because you know how are you going to stop a truck where they're not supposed to be because they could just tell you oh well I'm making a delivery I mean that would just tax our police force and what not so I'm just wondering with this plan we had spoken
about at your last meeting um traffic well I I'll I'll let Dave speak to the the the routing and the master plan but the metler road's a Scenic Road and and one of the conditional use standards is that these uses are not permitted on a Scenic
Road yes and right and I think um the the what we had uh talked about at the last community meeting was trying to show uh potential truck routes uh in the circulation plan element and as as you recall uh Jen there was a lot of concern
about that especially if we're trying to figure out how to get trucks from the southern portion of the bi Zone down by Veronica up up trans transfer through the township to get to the um 287 interchanges and and there's almost no
way um to be able to do that without passing pass some through somebody's um neighborhood even on the higher order streets like uh minor collectors and major collectors and so on so we basically we uh I think based on the
feedback from that meeting we took out the actual proposed truck routes and left that to a for the the township and the county to to work out the other thing that came out that came up at that meeting was a suggestion about weight
limits um because there are certain roads that potentially um should not have trucks on them based on the the weight capacity of the roadway uh that's also uh because I and I checked with our um our traffic folks that's also
controlled by the county as well so what the master plan recommends uh with regard to the circulation element is that um that there should be uh truck routes and um and Road uh con constraints based on weight limits at
some point if possible and that the the township work with the county to try to figure out the best uh routes uh for that without us trying to sort of um put it in a a a plan without the County's
input so that's the reason why um it it doesn't appear in the in the ver current version of the the Master Plan update and Jan U give just given the time this will be your last uh last question again we'll have a whole another hearing
probably like you heard the end of April so um we'll certainly hear hear from more then no I also I also want to point out Mark um you know can you um State um for the record of the um website the or the
mailbox or whatever if people do have have questions um after tonight um that they may think of um that would be good so that they could do [Music] it we got the zoom call to work and we
can't but we can't get the microphones thank you yeah uh this mahes mucha 36 brand courot Canal Walk I think it's all Canal Walk only yeah I have one suggestion uh one
in this new master plan that you are trying to adopt uh we have seen and I think we brought it as a seag we brought it to the court also that B9 lied in their application by not disclosing that they are actually
allowing a truck traffic of 900,000 Square ft Warehouse not at 220,000 Square ft which is B9 Warehouse they're giving the full access to a land logged
660,000 Square ft Horse Farm warehouse application where they given in writing binding to the that warehouse that we they can pass all the trucks through B9
which basically creates a 900,000 Square ft TR Warehouse traffic on the B9 property and into the school House Road because a Horse Farm Road and that sort
of so you're talking about a specific application that I do believe is in litigation so we can't talk about that no we are not I'm making a the suggestion I wanted to make in your master plan amendment is that a
warehouse must give a declaration that what they have applied for is the only use of this warehouse and its property not only the warehouse but also the property that they are using and they are using that property
the Declaration should be given that what we have said and we have no other undertaking and no other liability to any surrounding warehouses or anything like that some sort of a language is required in your
amendment I think you know I know what he's talking about but at the same time we just had an application on Veronica where first of all I'll say the other application is in a Zone where warehouses were never permitted I'll
just leave it at that it's a zoning board application and frankly I don't know where that is um if they're moving forward or not but I believe what he's talking about is basically having one Warehouse gain access to the road through another
Warehouse site and we just had an example on Veronica where that was actually perceived by the board for a good reason as a good thing because they were consolidating and not and minimizing the number of curb Cuts yeah
um so I'll just say that because in that Con in that particular context it actually made for good for better site design yeah so in another context it might not be a good idea yeah but to to to your point that applicant would have
to reveal um everything about their use so like even if a warehouse were to come in let's call it Warehouse a um and and do x uh and Warehouse B comes in and says well we're going to we're going to leverage something on Warehouse a to you
know like you're saying they would have to tell us that um they would have to be part of the application it would have to be part whether it's um parking or whether it's access or a driveway or any type of shared uh easement
um would all have to be revealed in that application so I don't think they would need a separate declaration because they would be required in the application to disclose that yeah they'd have to come in later and explain it to you or or later they would have to come back in and explain to you that they were
providing that access yeah I understand that point that you're right and as you said we are not going to discuss B9 but B9 did not do that part okay they were aware of it and so when that application is being considered or reconsidered that
point should be taken into account that application cannot be considered as complete but again it is a legal case right now so you don't want to take it for that one I'll just say du duly noted
um this uh young lady would be the last uh speaker the night and then then we have to close and again um I'm going to have Mark give you the um mailbox um for and how to communicate cuz who knows you might think of something after this
meeting uh and of course we will have another hearing please hi um uh Wendy PK from canel Walk Boulevard I just Tred to understand you have the low and medium intensity warehouses but says a low intensity goes
in and then next year another low intensity right next to it next year another low intensity right next to it so in effect you've got mediums now in in an area that's not one mile from an intersection but near the residences
where it was not intended to be you know in effect how is there an overall plan that says no you cannot do this good good good good question um Mark Dave wants to take that I can't that came up
in a meeting that we had yeah well I mean I think generally I would say that that we can't necessarily it's a it is on a site by site basis so you know if if one application comes in one year and
then two years later we get an application next door for another one I don't know we are controlling it in and and um controlling issue in a lot of different ways in terms of again everything we've discussed tonight in terms of it's overall location all of
that stuff they've talked about the F uh and the and the lot areas that would be required um to even develop these uses you I think all of these things are going to um put limits on not just the location
but also the intensity of the warehouses um but I don't think we can necessarily I don't know anywhere we control if yeah ABC company owns that site gets an approval for a warehouse two years later XYZ wants to build a warehouse on their site yeah you know I
think it's as long as they meet those standards I think it's similar to the question that you know I was wrestling with when Jan was up which is you you can't really can't really parse the zone and say kind of like you're saying like oh you know maybe there's a part of the
Zone where you could have two low intensity uses um but not three next to each other it's tough but it it does make the low and medium kind mov when I I think practically you will be limited because
of the and I think people don't appreciate because maybe this first time a lot of people have seen the actual standards the floor area ratio like like Dave was saying of of whatever it is 362 uh for for one of them would require
like 150,000 sqt Warehouse to have a 10 Acre Site that amount of land um around these Parcels is diminishing and maybe some some way the only way somebody could acquire It Is by merging two Parcels
right um so that floor area ratio and and the loading docks you know one for 10,000 or 5,000 is a really good way to control it um more so than anything you could do because it's an actually um a physical thing that you can you can measure and and
and it's it's so there's no way to put an overall there's no way to do like an overlay and say I'm going have light intensity here I'm medium intensity here I'm Banning High intens for the reasons I think the question is is there any way to say we're going to permit this but
after it gets to 5 million no more yeah I I don't think there's really mechanism to do that no you do it through the way you're doing it which is basically you look at the parcels and you say if I do 362 I don't see a 10 acre parcel that anybody can build on right if I if I might Mr chairman I
think the the steering committee um at I believe it was their last meeting prior to the uh uh second community meeting um we were talking about the standards and one of the concerns that they raised was how do we keep someone from double dipping and I think it's it's uh it's
related to uh Wendy's question in that um you know who's to say uh you could you know you you could build a warehouse that's uh that's 149,000 Square ft um and then subdivide the parcel and come in the following year with another
149,000 ft Warehouse to to keep under the 15 ,000 ft and that's one of the reasons why we chose to do it's kind of the it's kind of the same thing only in the other direction where instead of merging properties your you're subdividing properties and that's why
the F standard and and uh it's been you know addressed I think the everyone did a great job of describing why we went in that direction it it forces the uh whether it's all driven by square footage um because the
floor floor area is based on the ratio of the total square footage of the building to the total square footage of the parcel so that that point uh 362 f is what drives the size of the parcel up in order for it to be compliant and it
it's also a condition of a conditional use so it's not something that you can try to come in and and get a a bulk variance for it's it's a it's an F standard so there's a uh already a a a d a D5 standard in the in the m b law for
it that kicks it kicks it to the zoning board if you don't need it um but also it's a condition of the it's one of the conditions of the conditional use standard so it just makes it that much more um you know it makes it much harder to overcome in terms of trying to get
relief and that's that was the whole idea was to keep the the partiel sizes in in proportion to the size of the buildings okay logic keep in mind that's Warehouse Row is you feel like the could get away with it if well thank you um
make a motion to close the public second all in favor I'll let Mark know um let everybody know how to get in touch sure so uh if you go to our website um I'll go to the main page so Franklin WP
nj.org this is our homepage go to the Committees there'll be a drop down man that'll pop up and then under planning board you'll see bi study so first um you know basically all the materials um throughout the process
have been put up on the website as we've gone along including the um the notes from all the meetings and and the videos from the different meetings that we've had are all on there and then at the bottom there's a comment section you can click on there um so that's what Dave
spoke about before um the emails um come to me and then I forward them to Dave um and then you know and throughout the process we've you know brought those as Dave did tonight you know brought some of those comments to your attention and we brought them to the steering
committee's attention um you know when we felt they were you know uh valid comments for for for for consideration um so that's so that's uh that's basically it thanks Mark so uh thanks
everybody um you know definitely the planning board should Avail themselves of these resources as well um for those of you who are new to the planning board I can tell you um that there was a day that uh these type of work sessions were regular and there were three meetings
none of them were cancelled we were here till 12 and 1:00 in the morning with applications on the 1st and third and and then on the fourth we were probably here to at least this time doing other stuff um so times have changed a lot you guys have got it easy and I've got War Stories to Tell so with that that um
motion to close second all in favor our next meeting is next week regular meeting regular