good evening and welcome to the public hearing of the LI Livingston Zoning Board of Adjustment today is I don't know what date is today is April 22nd 2025 if you're an applicant for a D or use variance you should be aware that such a variance can only be granted after
showing that special reasons for the grant of that variance exists and that variance can be granted without substantial detriment to the zoning board of the township of Livingston you should also be aware that in order to be granted such a variance you will require affirmative vote of five members of the seven member board of adjustment other
variances require a majority of four members to grant that variance if you're an applicant for any variance and your variance is denied by this board you have a right to appeal to the superior court of the state of New Jersey within 45 days of notice of decision and that court may overturn the decision of this
board if you are objected to any type of variance that has been granted you too may appeal to superior court of the state of New Jersey within 45 days and notice the decision if you do file an appeal I ask that you please provide a copy of your complaint to the planning administrator Jackie Hollis pursuant to
requirements of the Open Public Meeting Act also known as the Sunshine Law adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the Star Ledger and West Essex Tribune and a copy is also posted on the Bullen board of the municipal building in addition to having notice posted notice of this meeting was placed on the township's website members of the
public will have an opportunity to ask questions or to make statements regarding each application at the appropriate time when the time comes if you would like to address the board please come to the front and use a microphone so we make sure your comments or questions are part of the record we
will now call the role okay mr horn here mr shaw here mr sherman here miss Yuan here mr weissman here miss Khan is here mr beer here um and Miss Hollis from the plan the
planning administrator is here as well as Miss Madri the planning coordinator and our board attorney um Mr wel you'd like to call the first applicant please block 4500 Lot 14 41 Manor Road application number
2025-8-V 41 I'm sorry 14 Waterfall Drive LLC applicant seeks approval to construct a new single family home in violation of the following section 170-99 CC4 habitable floor area ratio 30% allowed 35.3% proposed 5.3% variance
requested i'm sorry before we get started um if anyone's here for 24 Bryant Drive application number 2025-14-V that has been adjourned until June 24th there will be no further notice of that application mr
bada from Sils and Gross and I represent the applicant 14 waterfall drive LLC this is an application for a D4 variance of being a habitable floor area ratio that's triggered by the proposed improvement the applicant tonight is here seeking to demolish all existing
improvements on the lot and propose a new single family home one that will trigger a ratio variance however all bulk standards are being met so that the site can accommodate the proposed improvement itself the reason for the triggering of this variance relief is due to the fact that the site itself is
under size tonight I will have two witnesses my first witness will be Mr jose Carbelloo who will walk us through the architectural plans that he had drafted and then afterwards our planner Nick Graviano will wrap it up and discuss why he believes that the statutory requirements for positive and
negative criteria are met for this ratio variance so if I may like to call my first witness uh Mr carbella okay why don't we have you get you sworn in do you swear for and tell the truth for the zoning board tonight i do okay can you please state and spell your name
for the record absolutely jose Carbayo last name C A R B A L L O okay and we can have Mr carbio's uh qualifications on briefly yes abs absolutely uh I've been an architect uh
in in New Jersey since 1986 uh I've been in front of this board several times uh I've been in front of every board in Hudson County probably about 50% of the boards in Bergen County um Atlantic City Patterson Jersey City you know is your license still in good standing yes it is
perfect does the board accept him as a expert in architecture does anyone board have any questions or objections regarding this witness there being no objections the witness is accepted as expert in architecture thank you so much uh Jose have you had an opportunity to visit the subject site uh
yes I have and did you take in consideration the site constraints when drafting your proposed plans uh yes we have absolutely and did you also take in consideration those bulk measurements uh yes we did great why don't you walk us through what we're proposing here tonight absolutely so um uh the property
is located at 41 Manor uh road uh it is a single family home uh the property is an irregularly shaped uh lot uh it's only about 66 foot wide u on the front and it's got two uh irregular size um
depth lines uh one is 115 the other one is 135 or something like that um oops so the uh the zoning tables on the front of the uh the first page and as you can see the only variance that we have
tonight that we're here for tonight uh is a habitable floor error ratio um everything else is within the confines of what's called the building envelope which is the building actually falls uh within uh all of the setback lines of the property uh as you can see on the
site plan that's on the screen right now um the uh the virus that we're seeking tonight is five points more than the 30% that's permitted uh and that is um something that is necessary for this house to to be uh of adequate size uh
and basically livable so um so house is a two-story house and it has a basement uh basement as you can see it's got the it's got a recreck room an office mechanical area an exercise room uh it it's just a a typical basement is uh below grade um so that it
is a basement uh first floor uh as you can see it basically has your for your entry or your foyer it's got a living room dining room um it's got a guest room just so that um you can get intergenerational living within the
house uh it's got a good size family um family room adjacent to the kitchen I guess just for the family to be able to um interact with each other uh the garage obviously we're not counting that as part of the area for the first I guess like 400 square ft so that that's
part of it uh as you can see on the second floor has got four bedrooms none of the bedrooms are uh exceedingly large so that uh that's one of the reasons we're asking for uh this uh floor area ratio variance is just to make sure that
the house uh is adequate to live in uh you can see the bedrooms the largest bedroom is the what's called the primary bedroom which is bedroom number one excuse me and this is 15 by 17 not large by any stretch of the imagination all
the other uh bedrooms uh they're 10 x 12 x 12 so that they're all adequate size bedrooms um so again um we're we're just over 500 I'm sorry 400 square ft uh in extra area uh it would mean that we
would have to take 5T off the entire building uh if we took 5T off for example if you're looking at the second floor all the bedrooms would actually be very small uh so that's why we need that that extra uh floor area uh the elevations of the building um
again we have uh no variances which includes no height variances as you can see is um it's a uh very uh nice nicely designed house uh with peaks and that so it's uh it just fits the neighborhood um
you know as far as the look and as far as some of the sizes of the other houses that have been uh built in the area uh this is the um main entrance of the building which is the front uh with the garage doors uh again as you can see the rear of the building uh it's designed
the same way uh and the sides you know obviously are designed as well uh just to maintain the design concept throughout all four uh sides of the property uh so um again and the height at 30 ft uh complies with the uh the
height requirements so we do not have any variances on the floor area ratio and I've explained why we need that extra area uh and um I I I think that this fits the site uh the site and the neighborhood uh so um any questions from
anybody i just have two questions for you number one the attic itself it's accessible how the the attic is accessible through a pull down hatch uh the height of the uh the attic is it's 8 feet but that's only 8 feet for a while
because as you can see uh you know the 8t is about here uh what we have um you know the structure of the building and it's probably for about 8 foot wide uh that it maintains that height so it's basically not a habitable uh attic okay
and what building uh materials are we proposing for this so so the buildings are all uh what's called GFRC or or um you know your James Hardy board uh on the exterior as you can see it's all uh shakes uh so that we maintain the look of the neighborhood terrific i have no
further questions for this witness does anyone in the board have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness no questions all right i like to call my last witness Mr nick Raviano who is my
planner okay mr graviano do you swear front and tell truth for the zoning board tonight i do okay can we please state and spell your name for the record yes my first name is Nicholas with an H last name Graviano g R A V is in Victor i A N O
i'm a planner and partner with Graviano and Gillis Architects and Planners you have you want to grab those qualifications on briefly yes hold a bachelor's degree from Ruckers University master's degree in city and regional planning from Ruckers University law degree from the Temple
University School of Law i've been qualified by this board and over 100 other municipalities in the state of New Jersey my PP is still valid and I also hold the AICP certification is this board accepted as an expert in planning does any board have any questions or objections regarding this
witness there being no objections the witnesses accept as expert in planning professional planning thank you always a pleasure being here mr graviano did you have an opportunity to visit the subject site yes I've been on this site on two separate occasions the most recent uh before the hearing tonight this evening
and in your professional opinion do you believe that the site can accommodate the proposed variance relief uh certainly uh the applicant is before the board this evening uh requesting uh D4 F relief for a specific piece of property known as block 4500 lot 15 that's a
street address of 41 Manor Road um upon looking at the neighborhood and and analyzing the uh square footage data of the surrounding neighborhood this is certainly in keeping with the neighborhood pattern numerous houses within the neighborhood over the 3,000
foot mark that the applicant's proposing this evening i would like to note that the applicant uh as you heard in the architectural testimony is below uh the maximum habitable floor area number um so it's certainly a reasonably designed dwelling in the context of the lot this
is a slightly undersized lot 9105 where 9375 is required um I would also like to note that the building height is 4 and 1/2 ft less than what the ordinance allows the applicant is meeting all the sideyard setbacks is meeting the off-
streetet parking requirements so when we look at the D4 F varants uh request the applicant must demonstrate that the site can accommodate the proposed use given the uh requested relief in F uh certainly all the setbacks are being met
uh there's no substantial impairment to the zone plan or zoning ordinance or through the public good and the neighbors uh this proposal certainly advances purpose a of the municipal land use law promotion of the public health safety morals and general welfare that's done through building a new house built
to current uh code standards as well as going through the grading review of the municipalities engineer and providing the storm water uh management mechanisms that are customary for new single family dwellings additionally this advances purpose G sufficient space and
appropriate location for a variety of residential uses to meet the needs of New Jersey citizens and then lastly as you heard as you saw through the impeccably design plans it certainly promotes a desirable visual environment through creative de development techniques and good civic design and arrangement
i have no further questions for this witness does anyone on the board have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness oh hi i have a question for Mr kabayo do you have the square footage of the
basement readily available the square footage of the basement is approximately just look it up here so the basement is uh 1581 square ft 1581 you said 1581 yes
all right thank you you're welcome any any other questions does anybody in the public want to make any statements regarding this application no statements is there anything you want to say Mr pada okay does anybody want to make a
statement on the board i guess the only thing I want to just say or ask um would you accept a condition of approval that the attic won't be used can't be used as living space absolutely okay excellent does anyone want to make a motion oh go ahead i was going to say no
i I appreciate it is an undersized lot and you do try to keep the house modest to build something that people would want in the current day and age but still stay as best as you can uh within kind of the size of the lot so I appreciate that that's why we wanted to make sure that
was below would anybody like to make a motion i'll make a motion to approve with the condition of approval for the attic i'll second the motion to approve okay mr sherman yes mr horn yes mr shaw
yes miss Yuan yes mr weissman yes miss Kotes yes mr beer yes motion passes good evening thank you okay I'm ready same thing okay next application 18 Browning Drive
application number 2025-5-V jesse and Dana Good applicant seeks approval for a second car garage edition and two-story edition at the rear with second edition over existing one-story portion in violation of the following sections 170-98c2 front yard setback 50 ft
required 46.25 ft proposed 3.7 ft 75 ft variance requested 170-98 CC C3 left sideyard setback 10 ft required 8.7 feet proposed 1.25 ft variance requested 170-87 L1C corner lot setback 40T
required 27.1 proposed existing 12.9 ft variance requested sounds like a lot welcome aboard thank you i assume you are Jesse and Dana yes yes okay raise your right hand do you swear from tell the truth for the zoning board
tonight yes okay and uh you are the uh owners of the uh property 18 Browning Drive is that correct yes okay okay tell us what you got well we um have been living in the house since 2013 um we now have two daughters an
8-year-old and a 10-year-old every day they get bigger and the house feels smaller um so what we're looking to do is go above the existing living room and uh dining room and put on a primary suite increase the size of our kitchen and dining room and then turn a onecar
garage into a two-car garage uh the problem is the configuration of the structure on the property as it was originally built it's already non-conforming as it's outside of the lines so two of you listed all the um variances it sounded like a lot two of
them are just on the right corner where it No you don't have you see just on the right corner over there where it just goes beyond it goes 1.25 25 ft in that back right and it's literally just on the corner and in the front it's already
past the 40 foot so it's just on that front corner again to create the twocar garage keeping the same line of the building uh we do not change the sight lines the lines of sight from either street from the corner um it's going to improve aesthetic aesthetically the
neighborhood and is in line with every other building that's happened on our block anywhere near us every single like one of the houses we had to notify um as had work done we're still we're still on the uh the original property i think I got it all
okay anybody have any questions for this witness on the board hi hi um and it was really more a question I was going to ask for the architect uh but that's you I guess tonight I He he is here and I can call in to bullpin if we need him well here
here's the question and I I don't when we don't get into designing or negotiating but so it's council could correct me if I'm overstepping it's more of a yes no question i see that the on the right side of the house where you're you're encroaching to 8.75
correct but I see that that car I I see that that it's 24.5 plus 6 so it's it's 30.5 ft long so so my question for the architect is couldn't the architect have what what material detriment would have
to you as as the owner if it sort of went on an angle i actually have understand it if we're why we're here one of the other one of the other hardships um if you have with our kids is our foyer which were collects every single shoe and jacket and that was for and mud a mud room and storage if you
look at the second plan back there there is past the second car and the two cars are not even as wide as our two cars are we're trying to keep it as thin as possible but that does provide the mud room and a little storage in the back there for us oh I see oh the store oh right so the part in that I'm asking
about would be this that storage correct you're looking for that storage that' be like a little mud room area correct right okay but I think the mud room you'd be okay yeah okay so so really your hardship is that the the way the house is situated on the lot right and and the the left side the
house is square you probably wouldn't have this problem 100% right okay and even the left side like that's the main side it goes above the existing right and and you would agree with me that you looked into your options
and because of the alignment of the home that any addition would result in the exact a variation of the same variances you're asking for today yes okay
did anybody else of the board anybody else on the board have any questions does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public want to make a statement regarding this application does anybody in the board
want to make a statement does anybody want to make a motion i'll make a motion to approve the application yeah I'll second it mr mr horn yes mr sherman yes
mr shaw yes miss Yuan yes mr weissman yes miss Khan votes yes mr beer yes motion passes congratulations good luck okay six Balding Drive application number
2025-13-V six Balding Drive LLC applicant seeks approval to construct a new single family home in violation of the following sections 170-99 C2 front yard setback 40 ft required 36.46 46 proposed existing 3.54 variance
requested 170-87 CC4 habitable floor area ratio 30% allowed 35.99% proposed 5.99% variance requested okay for the for the record uh board member Sha has recused himself as he
resides within the 200 foot zone so um just so the applicant is aware we are down to six uh voting members on this mr pazada
yes we like to proceed forward i understand that we referative just figured you should know thank you i do appreciate the heads up i do all good whenever you're ready all right terrific sorry about that no worries uh good evening again again my name is
Matthew Fad i'm with the law firm Sales Cummus and Gross and I represent the applicants expalding drive LLC in connection with this variance application here tonight for you uh what the applicant is looking to do here tonight is they are looking to demolish the existing improvements and propose a new single family home that single
family home itself will trigger a devariance relief for habitable floor area ratio but I want to double down the fact that although it's causing a variance it's also eliminating two variances we're going to be eliminating the existing sideyard and sideyard aggregate as well you'll also see if you
look at the zoning review letter that there is a established setback uh that we could not meet that definition because we in order to meet established setback standards you need three homes on each side left and to the right since we could not satisfy that that is why we have a quote unquote existing
nonconformity for the front yard setback but again I just want to reiterate that it is because we couldn't meet the totality of that definition and I also want to just reiterate that it is an existing condition that's there today uh with that being said I do have three professionals here tonight uh my first
will be Tom Sterns who is our engineer followed by our architect Aean and then our planner Nick uh if I may I'd like to have called my first witness Mr tom Sterns okay sterns do you swear for intel truth for the zoning board tonight i do okay can you please state and spell
your name for the record sure thomas G sterns III S A R Ns 144 Jewel Street Garfield New Jersey okay and can we have Mr concerns disqualifications on sure i'm a licensed engineer in the state of New Jersey licensed land surveyor been
practicing engineering and surveying for uh since 1998 uh been accepted as an expert in engineering before many boards in the state bergen County Hutake Essex um hometown of Garfield i'm there every
month does this board accept him as a professional in both surveying as well as engineering um one question what school uh University University of Delaware for civil and NGIT for surveying gotcha okay um does anyone on this board have any
questions objections regarding this witness for either of his qualifications there be no objection the wet is has accepted as expert in engineering and in land surveying thank you terrific tom did you have an opportunity to visit the
subject site i did yes and to conduct both the surveying and civil for the site uh yes why don't you walk us through what we're proposing here today but before going into what we're proposing why don't you first walk us through the existing conditions sure thank you
so this is uh to clarify this is my site plan dated December 16th 2024 we are scroll down in the middle here we're lot 17 block 4203 this is 8 Spalding Drive we are on the norly side of
Spalding to the east of Spear Drive so the uh subject property has a 2 and a half story dwelling located uh 5.92 off the easterly sideline uh 16.46 off the westerly has a front yard
of 3639 and a rear yard of 4361 the topography on the site uh the front right corner starts degrading at approximately 85 elevation and as we get
to the rear uh left rear corner is 97 so you have a 13 approximately a 13t grade change across diagonally across the lot uh so we're removing that existing dwelling and our proposal is to
construct a new dwelling um which is located on this location here on my site plan detail so we have a two-story dwelling approximately uh it's 2,9 square ft footprint so we have our
uh driveway on the right side a uh driveway slope of approximately 12% coming up into the garage we have a two-car garage at that location uh our sideyard setbacks are 11 ft on the right
and we have 1272 on the left so uh as Mr priscado was talking about the front yard setback we took the average of the setbacks on the uh three houses to the right and to the left and we came up with a uh average setback at
3625 so the proposed dwelling we're providing is 36.56 we're um where 40 fees required but we do have that we're meeting that average front setback and that's one of our variances we're requesting uh as far
as the rest of the grading goes it is we do have that steep area in the back so just to uh have an open uh accessible area with a patio in the back we're providing a retaining wall which is more than uh at least 5 foot off the westerly
sideline and approximately 15 ft off the rear line and that'll give a uh a level area with a p a flat patio outside the back door of the building um that wall is approximately 4 foot high at the max so
um um that's that's standard um just go through the uh the zone chart so uh required lot area is
9375 we're at 8928 that's an existing nonconformity lot depth lot width 75 ft we're at 7615 that's permissible lot uh depth 125 is required we have an existing nonconformity of
119.69 uh the front yard again as I said 40 is required the setback we established was 3625 and we're providing 3646 that's a variance we're asking for um 11t sideyard again rear yard 3515
where 35 is required aggregate sideyard 23.72 where 2285 is required uh and then our habital floor area uh 30 3220 is required we're at 3214 so we comply with
that but the uh the ratio due to the fact that our lot is undersized uh our ratio is 35.99 where 30 is required so that's a variance required there as well uh building height we're compliant we're at
33.09 where 35 is required um let me see i think that sums it up uh as far as storm water goes we have our uh we have an existing inlet storm inlet in the front of the property uh we're under a uh 1,000 square foot of of new
improvement uh so we're a minor development in the town so what we're doing is we're piping our existing uh our new roof to that catch basin in the front so uh it'll improve water runoff from the site what currently runs off onto the site onto other properties in
the street so So just to confirm this will be an improvement for the existing storm water conditions it will yes thank you i have no further questions for this witness does anyone in the board have any qu questions for this witness does anybody in the public have
any questions for this witness none terrific oh yes please come up come please please come up to the mic and we like to know your name and everything else so we're all friends
name is Sheldon Derek i live on Belmont Drive within the 200 foot area and I heard heard the subject was brought up but I didn't hear it in detail um the slope the area has slopage i'm down slope so I'm wondering wanted to know if
storm water and groundwater which is extremely important it's a lot of groundwater and high table water will they take into consideration is there mitigation for that so groundwater uh will be uh there is an existing basement in the dwelling uh but
we will do percolation tests and um soil soil boring tests for the new building so at that point we'll determine if there is groundwater uh in the in the area of the building and if there is we will uh remedy it with uh uh a perimeter
drain and some pumps and we can we could uh direct that sump pump right to that inlet which is located in front of our property so it won't be uh running across uh other properties or across the street and Mr sterns isn't it true that if we were to move forward with the building permit pursuant to the
municipality's engineering memo we would have to submit a drainage permit application that's correct yes okay so just to confirm that we would a have to pass the test for the municipal engineer that we satisfy any storm water concerns and b is it also true that the existing conditions today would be improved by
the proposed development that is correct yes thank you did that did that adequately answer your question sir yes thank you for your consideration of course thank you you're welcome okay i think any other questions nope that's it terrific i'd like to call my
next witness my architect Aean Cedra do you swear for and tell the truth for the zoning board tonight i do okay okay can you please uh state and spell your name for the record um I am in Cedra last name is Cedra s E D R A okay and if we have Mr cedra's
qualifications sure um I have a bachelor degree in architecture i'm a licensed architect in the state of New Jersey since 2016 i'm licensed in Tennessee New York and Pennsylvania and I testified in front of this board and many boards in New Jersey
and my license still in a good st good good standing terrific does this board accept him as an expert in architecture does anyone in the uh board have any questions or objections regarding this witness there being no objections the witness is accepted as expert in architecture thank you uh Aean did you have an opportunity to visit the subject
site yes I have and did you also have an opportunity to review this municipality zoning code yes I did did you take both into consideration when drafting the proposed improvement yes I did terrific why don't you walk us through what you have proposed sure uh the first sheet here uh shows the first floor and the basement um the first floor consists of
the living uh spaces in the house we also have a guest uh bedroom with its own bathroom and closet uh we have twocar garage um and the area for the first floor is 1,574 square ft uh the garage area is
445 square ft to the left of that we have the basement uh the basement is one big open space uh also we have a mechanical room and a bedroom with its own egress access we have a bathroom in
the basement the area for the basement is 1,574 the next sheet here on the left you see the the second floor plan we have uh four bedrooms with its own bath bathroom and closets we have a laundry room we have
twotory entry foyer um the area for the second floor is 1,640 um the total floor area ratio is 35.99 which is 3,214 we are below the habitable uh
floor area which is 3220 um we have a two-story foyer on the second floor which is the the square footage is counted twice but the foyer itself is only used from the first floor uh the area for this open foyer is 54
square ft um there is an uh access pull down stair on the second floor to access the attic um and um if you look to the left the left is the the exterior of the I'm
sorry the right is the exterior of the house it's a colonial style home um we have a a stone base at the bottom um and um on the first floor we're going to have James Hardy horizontal lab siding
on the second floor we'll have uh James Hardy board and Bbettton um we have um casement windows uh standing seam metal roof above the porch area and the garage and then um asphalt shingle roofs on the
main house on the top um the rest of the elevations kind like matches the character that that that I described it's only we're going to use um horizontal siding throughout
the the two sides and the back um the the attic height from the attic floor to the underside of the ridge is 7
foot8 with the collar tie being at 5t from the attic floor uh lastly the building height is 33 feet 1 in which it meets the it's under the the code requirement which our code
calls for 35 we're 33.1 again just to confirm the attic itself is not habitable yeah it's not happen correct terrific i have no further questions for this witness does anyone in the board have any questions for this witness
you guys have questions they're writing down the questions one second got it anybody on this side okay stand by one second yeah i uh Well just one thing for clarity I guess um on this the uh zoning
map um it's got on the zoning map it says existing lot contains 8,594 square feet and then you have a survey with 694 oh so sorry uh 8,694 and then it's got
the 8,9 28 i know the survey matches this but then under the general notes on the right oh the general notes all right okay understood yeah so we're going to go with the
8,928 square feet that's the correct number that's a drafting error on the general okay sorry about that and then I have a question so the balcony right top that's not considered
living space right now yeah it's just open balcony so would that would be a condition that that balcony would not be finished as closed okay and we come and check these things you know we drive around and we check does anybody else on the board have any
questions what was the attic height um 78 7 foot8 from the attic floor to the underside of the ridge beam and the basement square footage
according to the plan is 1574 feet square feet right correct okay Does anybody else on the board have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness i think this witness is questioned out
all right my last witness Mr nick Graviano for planning okay mr graviano you've been sworn in before you're still under I'm going to say you're still under oath because I can say that we already got your qualifications and have you checked your email no I have not but I Okay but you're willing to you willing
to tell this board that you still think you're qualified uh still hold your qualification as a professional planner little hot but otherwise okay yes okay we don't turn on the air conditioning the building until until May 15th we can accept you as an expert in
professional planning okay so this application the applicant's actually actually requesting relief for the floor area ratio variance and for the front yard setback variance this is a specific piece of property known as block 4203
lot 17 6 Spalding Drive um the applicant is requesting the C variance relief for the front yard setback whereas 40 ft is required by ordinance 36.39 is existing 36.46 is proposed as you heard in the
engineering and surveying testimony the established average is 36.25 so the applicant is certainly in keeping with that established average that variance could certainly be granted under the C2 criteria uh in in that it relates to a specific
piece of property and that advances purpose of zoning I uh promotion of a desirable visual environment and creative development techniques and good civic design and arrangement that variance can be granted without substantial impairment to the zone planner zoning ordinance which contemplates this type of relief uh
being requested by the applicants uh moving on the applicant is requesting the D4 F variance uh 30% is required the applicant is at 35.99% uh this is an undersized lot it's roughly 4.8% unders sized however the
applicant is meeting the habitable floor area number whereas 3220 is permitted and 3214 is proposed as you saw in the architectural plans it's certainly a modest house uh not uh going beyond the limits that could be accommodated by uh
the proposed lot additionally you heard the engineering testimony which indicated that the storm water management system proposed will be an improvement to what exists in the current condition today so this board can uh provide the F relief uh with
respect to the pos positive criteria advancing purposes A G and I of the municipal land use law without substantial impairment to the zone plan or zoning ordinance i have no further questions for this witness does anybody in the board have any questions for this
witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public want to make any statements regarding this application he left
yeah um my summation okay anybody I guess same condition about the attic not being living space or the balcony or the balcony exactly anybody want to make a statement on the board
does anybody in the board want to make a motion i'll make a motion to approve i'll second miss a second with the addition of the balcony and the attic miss Yuan
yes mr weissman yes mr horn yes mr shaw oh he's not here sorry never mind okay he's recused mr sherman yes miss Khan votes yes mr beer yes okay thank you so much
do you want to go to six or go to morning it's still You're good we're done yeah we're just on No we're on the next one okay appeal of zoning officer's decision
64 hillside Avenue application number 2025-28-appeal Yim Sun and Schwan Xi applicant challenges the habitable floor area and habitable floor area ratio calculation of the zoning officer the basement is being considered a first floor all yours good evening my name is
Matthew Patada with the law firm SS Cummus and Gross and I represent the applicants that are here tonight uh it's a two-prong step i guess the first step would be uh the zoning challenge to the interpretation and then subject to this board's determination regarding whether or not a basement the first floor is a
basement or if it's not and it's deemed the first floor we'll make the contingency as to whether or not we have a h floor area ratio and a hab floor area variance uh but nevertheless I don't want to get the cop before the horse the first item is the zoning interpretation
great go ahead all right first and foremost good evening Marty very well thank you so the purpose of our attendance here right now is to discuss the zoning denial letter that we are in receipt of that denial letter is dated October 4th
of 2024 in that letter itself they had an opportunity to review the proposed plans and when reviewing the proposed plans they specifically interpret the basement as a first floor because of that interpretation it triggered a slew of other variances related to both the
ratio and also the habitable floor area itself however when drafting the plans we were very conscientious of this municipality zoning uh definition specifically basement itself and when you look at the definition for basement it specifically states a basement is an
area partially or completely below grade with either more than half of its floor to ceiling height above the finish grade of the adjoining ground on all sides or the ceiling of the space more than 4 feet above the finish grade of the adjoining ground at any point in this
case you'll see on the proposed plans themselves from the civil perspective that approximately 54% is above and then when you take in consideration both what is partial or more than half floor to ceiling that raises up to a level of 78.5% so considering the fact that it's
more than half we took the position that this should be interpreted as a basement but for the dimminimous area itself that is completely uh above grade with that being said I have two professionals that I want to uh testify tonight in regard interpretation the first is my engineer
Mr tom Sterns who will go through the grading calculations and then subsequently to that for the interpretation itself on the definition will be Mr graviano for planning so if I may call my first witness I'd like to call Mr tom Sterns all right Mr sterns you swear and tell truth for the zoning board tonight i do okay and we got your
name uh for the record before and you're uh remaining to testify tonight and your capacity as an engineer and surveyor correct i think it's still in good standing all right you haven't checked your email but we're going to have some correct okay uh chairman it's all yours terrific uh Mr
stern can you please walk us through the proposed improvement in the grading calculations sure so um let's start with the uh with the existing site so this is uh 64 Hillside this is
lot 39.01 uh block 3901 lot 76 uh we have a square footage of 23877 on this lot so it's it's got an average width of 7 uh 6.5 ft and approximately uh depth on the north
side is 313 depth on the south side is 319 uh so this property is a um has several sloping and level areas uh so it it has a 45 foot uh grade change from
the front of the property to the rear um initially it rises up and then uh somewhat of a level open area behind the house the existing house which is located toward the front of the property at this where this uh proposed driveway is going and then um it flattens out
somewhat and then in the rear we have a more sloped area so the proposal is to uh remove the existing dwelling and propose uh we're proposing a new uh driveway garage and and
two-story dwelling um so uh that's the whole crux of this uh application is that one of these stories uh in our opinion is in the basement um we're it's considered a basement level so it's uh two story with one of them being a
basement so the uh the building including the garage is approximately 145 feet uh toward the rear which is toward the west of the property um the building is approximately 50 ft wide it consists of
a um if you look at this um design on the front right uh so we have our garage entryway on the right we have an open patio area on the left um we have our living space upper living space in this
location and on the left side there's a um there's a covered walkway and we have an open area um that's for outdoor outdoor living basically that's adjacent to that basement level um so I'll just go
through so the I'll go to the zone chart next so as far as zoning goes we have our um 15,000 square feets required we're at 2388877 lot width 100's required we're uh existing nonconformity at
76.5 front yard setback 50 is required um so we're setting this new house at 105 and it does trigger a maximum variance for uh setback so there is a minimum and maximum i believe it's 40
and 60 so we are uh exceeding that maximum so we're asking for a variance for the uh proposed front setback uh rear 40 is required we're at 57 sideyard left 10 ft's required we're at 15 6 and
1/2 sideyard right 10's required again we're at 10 1 and a2 um so aggregate sideyard 22 is required uh 30% we're at 34% uh habitable floor area so we meet the
um the square footage for habitable floor area so 3520 is required we're at 34.97 um I'm sorry wait a second okay yeah yeah sure all right so this
number's has to be revised but um so the the whole crux of it is that our basement uh we consider the basement a basement level the low the first level a basement level and the way we did this was by um doing
calculations that are shown on this sheet so basically the uh the change in the depth of the basement was considered at six foot intervals around the entire perimeter of the building and um when we put all those numbers
together we come up with this chart so we considered the front the right the rear and the left side uh all four sides average give us uh 54% in the ground where 50% is
required so there's another uh definition or criteria of basement uh the basement has to meet um the partial it's got to it's got to be partially in the ground also so the calculation for partially in the ground
is 79% where 50% is required so we exceed the partial and the uh and the average grade calculation for the basement and the ground well we're going to let Matt finish with
his witnesses and then we can have the Livingston witness appear are there any questions for this witness anyone on the board yes one at a time peter line up so if I could just so I understand the the first chart that you put up first
uh this one uh I'm sorry you just go to the first page oh the first page yeah yeah sure yeah so uh sorry is the the Oh on my copy it's grayed out the first flag at the
beginning of the property that you have gray did you gray that out because that's the part that's above grade uh you're talking about this on the right side or the left side i'm sorry it's It's the flag so starting from the beginning of the property no it's I'm sorry on the left side the left side oh
the left side right yeah oh so the grade out area is the new driveway so that's just the new driveway that's just the new driveway can you walk us through I think this is the easiest map to do sure so we understand and and just so we're clear it slopes up from front to back so
the bottom of this picture to the back yes right can you can you indicate to the board right where the property comes or or starts to go under ground like what's above grade and what's so yeah and that's that's actually at the garage
level so the garage level which is this location here at the back of that grade area so at the back point that out again please uh see right here that's the garage so that's where the the um it begins to go underground and
that's elevation 358 that garage elevation 3 okay so so it's all flat and and just to be clear the the building staying the the structure staying flat but that's where the slope of the land starts to go up correct at the beginning so right at
that green line we'll call it an inch underground at that green line correct okay i just want to know visually what we're looking and then in the back if you look I could zoom in here yeah how far under is that yeah so the back this back contour is uh 370
and then we have 371 372 so 372 is our um maximum underground point which is um which is going to be 14 14 ft in the ground at that location
so we have 358 minus the uh the 372 gives us 14 feet in the ground at that right rear corner of the building okay and my I could finish my question the uh uh because you didn't you put the total square feet with with the what
you're calling the the basement floor but uh if you were I I don't see it maybe I missed it the the calculation of square feet if we adopted your um if we adopted your interpretation and I'm
curious is is that square footage that I'm referring to in uh is it carving out that front part that's underground is it carving out more of that I'm I'm sorry that's above ground is it carving out more that's a little I'm trying to get an understanding yeah sure so the square
footage of the basement is uh approx approximately 5190 square ft that doesn't include the garage and it doesn't include that open courtyard area uh for habitable floor area so so just
maybe if I maybe I can't answer the board member's question the what you're seeing in terms of the variances on your sheet versus what
they're putting onto their plans the applicant is stating that the basement area under their position is excluded so that so the the overall numbers go
down and therefore they're within the standards right but if you count the basement then the numbers as shown on our agenda are the ones that then become
applicable so what so it and I think your question may be do you end up excluding the whole basement or a portion of the basement and it's it like the old joke about a pizza pie once it's a pizza it's a pizza so
it's a if it's if it's excluded it's excluded if it's not excluded it's not excluded is that well I guess that maybe it's a question for that we want I want to ask council because just to give a hypothetical just so I understand it right let's say you had a flat property
that's flat the whole time and then it it jumps up at the very end 10 feet uh high and you built the whole building and the last you know few little a few little feet were under the uh uh you
know was in the ground because the child council are you saying that that you would exclude that entire basement no what I'm what I'm saying is that based on the particular application of the zoning ordinance and eventually you're going to hear from the zoning
officer you're going to hear from him okay and he can give more uh clarity on that but basically uh there there there is a certain magic number that has to certain percentage that has to be met
okay for it to be considered a basement and that's where this is all or none per floor not based upon rule it's an all or none is it's it's one basement so if if is it is it a basement or is it not a
basement does it count in or doesn't account in it's an either or there's no half measures so if it if it qualifies as a basement under the ordinance then it's out if it doesn't qualify as a basement
under the ordinance it's in the question is that all you get to decide is is it uh under the standard for under the town ordinance for being considered a basement under the standard in the town
ordinance which you're going to hear more about there's more to come okay all right you go then I'll go i'm on page three of I think the architectural so that has the layout of the basement first floor
z2 uh right side uh is that Z3 yeah Z2 sorry oh Z2 okay okay so there's obviously a walkway up to the house and I go up three steps if I read this correctly to get to that landing i go around and then I go up another step to
get to the front door is that correct yes so I go four steps up to get in the front door of this house and when I walk in the house it's then a level area i don't step back down again correct right okay second question how do I There's You have this
gallery and art gallery how is that accessed can I access that from the interior of the house uh that's from the interior of the house yeah from the upper I guess from the rear we have um so that says there's a courtyard so I'm
trying to figure out how I access it am I accessing it from the interior or the exterior of the home uh I believe from the from the interior it is from the the back we have that back covered stair well there's a courtyard there too right the court there's a hallway see the
hallway to the art gallery hallway/art gallery okay how do I access that hallway that's from the back from the rear steps from above from the rear steps that is from the interior of the home that is correct the second floor of the home or the first floor of the home uh the the first floor which is the that
courtyard so around that area there's a courtyard that is outdoor space is that correct yes correct yes there's a wall there's a wall from that so that hallway or gallery is covered walkway or hallway and I can access the courtyard it looks like from
if I'm reading this correctly right in front of the powder room if I may well no I'm trying to understand what is interior exterior space as to whether I consider it in my view it's a basement or not right but how the layout is
what no it goes back to the courtyard one second what what what I was saying is that for the specific layout of the interior itself Mr graviano could testify to that right my question really isn't about the interior it's really about the exterior spaces sure right so there's a courtyard
there okay right that is an exterior space that is outdoors this courtyard that is correct yes similarly this large courtyard in the middle i if I read this plan correctly you step
up one step from either the dining room or the kitchen to enter that courtyard which is outdoor space correct the middle courtyard the large one okay those are my questions thank you okay sure okay I got a couple of questions um and
like his kind of float between the two um going just to that lower level on page Z2 just because I'm going to go back to your calculations in a second but am I correct that on um Sorry uh
yeah the uh the downstairs area on the left side on Z2 there's no steps or anything on this whole lower level that it's all one level correct from the home theater all the way back to the foyer the only steps are from the garage up to
whatever into the into that level and the whole level's flat that's correct yes so can you help me understand on your calculations why you have ceiling heights that go from 9 8t 9 ft 10 feet
12 feet yes so uh let me go to that page the total floor height like why would the floor height change at all if it's flat so those uh 9 foot floor heights uh they are regarding the the garage so the
garage has a different floor height but what about you got floor heights like 12 feet 9 feet 8 feet 10 feet so on show two then okay so on the right side the 9 foot ones initially are the uh the
garage the garage height and then they go to then they go to 12 um you're going up three feet with two steps from the garage to the house so here's the right side here
um so we have uh so here's our garage floor at 9 ft at this location and then we come back we step up and we have um before it goes to 12t there is another there's another area at this
location so this area is 10 foot i believe this is the this is the hallway the gallery hallway has a lower height than the other areas not according to
the you you still have on well you do have the left and right mixed up on the plants but the the what would be the what you're calling the that would be what you're calling the uh right side which is really the left side of the house so the
right side you you have 9 foot 12 foot 10 foot i mean I I don't get how eight foot still I I I still don't get how there's multiple heights if I may um Mr graviano will be testifying to the architectural
plants itself and that will include the testimony of the elevations so he can address that breakdown okay and then and if you would like I I'll call him up to answer your questions because I feel your questions are more like a package deal right well the only other one I have and I mean I could say it and then if he wants to answer that one too um I
mean it just looks like on the plans where you're showing the building coverage that you're including the garage as part of the basement instead of the garage being the garage um I mean that area shouldn't be part of the basement either if what you're calling the basement because it's a garage it's
you can't can't be both things and the square footage obviously of the garage is more than 450 so there is habitable floor area that's added from the garage back into the house as well it's not just garages not not included back to Peter's original
question about the garage square footage was was that a question to me or Well it was a question but I'll if you want Nick to answer it you can yeah I'd like to have Mr gra answer if I may yes let's get him involved yes all right mr graviano why don't we swear you in
you swear for Until Truth tonight to the zoning board i do all right and we have Mr graviano is is he going to be testifying in his capacity as a architect or planner he was an architectural firm this will be in terms of design and zoning context
okay so still was planner was a planner okay he's done this before and he'll do it again we can accept him terrific and your license still in good standing yes terrific cuz you're looking at your phone can you please walk us through a the question Mr sherman just asked and
then also b what the elevations are in the interior for that basement floor mr mr sherman poses a very valid question regarding regarding those floor heights but it's a little bit easier to understand when it's broken down the
garage is at 9 feet height of the ceiling height the gallery which is the walkway from the rear courtyard to the front of the house that is a 10-ft ceiling height the bulk of the living space on that basement level is at 12 ft in height so
that creates the variation in the ceiling heights of the proposed dwelling i guess when you're looking at your plans though on the what you have labeled as right which is that side of the hallway which is really the left
side of the house why then does it like when you're going down I know it's every three whatever you said every six feet or whatever it was that was measured when you're going down just that one side of the house why would the why would it change it should be pretty much that even thing almost from front to
back because there's nothing on that whole side of the house except for the 90% of it's the hallway i understand your question and these are conceptual plans they obviously need to be vetted a little bit more in the construction phase however this is a
twopart application the first part is the interpretation of whether or not this should be included as a basement we haven't gotten to that point yet which you've heard the engineering testimony that's gone through the math the math shows that it does meet the ordinance definition of basement i'm going to dig
in that to that a little bit deeper and and I don't want to say that your question at this point's irrelevant but I think when we dig deeper into picking apart that definition of basement and looking at what's include excluded from the floor area ratio calculations you're going to see that the applicant's
proposal meets the the town's definition of basement i want to add a little question following Mr sherman's question um basically um I agree with um Mr sherman the um whether the left side or the
right side when we look at the table at the very last uh row it's an average right of all the numbers and uh um the question actually asks if why the ceiling height changes that actually
whether you take out some lines that may actually change your final average number so I that's my question just I want to add to Mr sherman's question that's certainly a valid analysis
however I would like to note that the basement definition has two different criteria that the applicant can meet to meet that definition of basement and what these intervals are are really irrelevant because it's clear that the applicant will meet that
definition the definition the definition of basement in its second part uh requires that the applicant have four feet above grade at any point and it's obvious that the applicant does so it's clear that
that part of the definition is met and I'm not saying that there's issues with the heights and the the grades and everything but when you look at that one prong of the definition of basement it's clear the applicant meets it and it excludes this living space
from being part of the calculation for the F the habitable floor area and the habitable habitable floor area ratio are there any questions for this witness from the board i think right
yes that's true mr graviano have you had an opportunity to review the zoning code yes I have have you had an opportunity to review the zoning code as it relates for definition for how floor area floor ratio and basement yes I have uh have
you also had an opportunity to review the zoning denial dated October 2024 yes I have uh can you please walk through your analysis certainly so the the crux of the applicant's first part of their application is appeal of
the zoning officer's decision that the basement living space is not basement living space it actually is first floor space and should be included in the habitable floor area and the habitable floor area ratio calculation so when when examining this
you must look at the definition of basement in the municipality's land use code basement is defined as an area partially or completely below grade comma with either more than half of its
floor to ceiling height above the finished grade of the adjoining ground on all sides or with the ceiling of the space more than 4 feet above the finished grade of the adjoining ground at any
point so an applicant can satisfy that definition of basement through two different tests the first one being with either more than half of its floor to ceiling height above the finish grade of the adjoining ground on all sides which
you heard Mr stern's testimony that this proposal meets that part of the definition and and this is the second part of the definition which there is no question that the applicant meets this part or with the ceiling of the space more than
4 feet above the finished grade on the adjoining ground at any point so this applicant's proposal obviously has the ceiling of the space more than 4 feet above the finished grade at any point so clearly meets that
second part of the basement test so therefore as per Livingston's zoning code the applicant's proposed space is a basement furthermore when you look at the habitable floor area ratio calculation
in any residential building any basement cellar or attic including walkout basements and the first 450 square ft of any garage space shall not be included in the calculation of the habitable floor area so the applicant meets the
definition of basement therefore that habitable space in the basement should not be calculated towards the habitable floor area ratio requirements i have no further questions for this witness i I have one question i guess
just I know we're going to hear from Marty but just to throw it back at you the second part of that definition where you say that four feet at any point you're saying that any point like just as long as you have one point
that's above four feet or is it any po any point you go around that house you have to at least hit four feet anywhere around the entire perimeter not just one spot all spots no the definition clearly states at any point yeah any point yeah
any at any point you pick it doesn't say at all points it says at any point so any point could be one singular point yeah and and that that also ties into the first part of the definition which says an area partially or completely
below grade which is the first part of that definition which applies to either scenario so whether you're meeting more than half of its floor to ceiling height at the finish grade of of the adjoining ground or if you're
meeting the four feet above finish grade at any point the area can be completely or partially below grade so the only question about that though is so you are you saying that you could have a house on a lot that kind of going back to what
Peter said that you could have a house on a lot and you could have one small wall that is partially submerged by a foot of dirt or two feet of dirt and you're going to classify that whole floor as a basement because all the rest
of it is above four feet as per definition yes that's the way the definition is constructed i um still have a question i still going back to that table on the left side if
we take out the garage area basically on front um zone area four if we take out the first six point and then on um um block five if you take up the first
again six points will that change any of your calculation at the bottom where that's the number that we use to you to to define uh to meet the criteria of the basement Okay it it may change the
calculation however it doesn't change the fact that there's a finished um there's in the definition there's a more than half and then right here you have a 54% I understand but if we take out the garage area you know a garage is a
garage you know if that table does not contain the 12 points that we use it be more conservative it'll be more conservative um is there any way you could show us that table you know I I just want to add that the showing of
that table is not necessary to meet the prong of this definition because it's clear that the applicant has met the finish grade above the joint has met the or with the ceiling of the space
more than four feet above the finished grade of the adjoining ground at any point the applicant doesn't have to meet both parts of that definition the applicant only needs to meet one part of that definition because there is an or in there i understand i just want to see
that table we we felt we felt we met both of those definitions but based on your questioning even if we didn't meet that first part we meet that second part so that first part is is irrelevant we meet that second part of that definition of basement but real quick I hear your
your answer but again since you present to us a table right and then we're all looking at the table and we want to you know why are we looking at the table there is a reason right and then we all see it but then my question is again if
we take out the garage what's the table will be it may help the case it may not we we don't know but I'm just asking is there any way I could see that table yeah we can answer that question thank you uh and the question is very simple and I understand it's straightforward right it's if we include the garage or
exclude the garage how does it change the math uh Mr sterns can you answer that question for us yes so it'll make it more conservative the the percentage will go up if you exclude the garage so currently the garage is included it'll
be more conservative if you exclude it the number will be higher than the number the percentage will be higher yes thank you uh well one more thing i just want to go back to that whole second part of the sentence
um I I don't know i just take issue with your interpretation because it doesn't say at any one point it says at any point which to me means any point around what you're considering the basement area it would be
at pick a point around the whole thing it's got to be four feet not any one point not just pick a point and just because the one point's four feet doesn't say any one point it says any point i I get why some of you may be struggling with this because you know
this is based on a very intricate design which is not commonly seen but I I think what is being overlooked is that the first part of that definition is an area partially or completely below grade so that area
that's partially below grade that has the ceiling of the space more than 4T above the finished grade at any point satisfies that part of partially below grade and Mr graviano wouldn't you say there's a reasonleness to that
definition of partial yes because if you took it at all points you know that would be you you know that gets into a complete it's not a partial you could have a partial at any point but it's but it's if you're going
to take the second part of the definition it could be partially obviously if you have four feet above grade that's partially submerged so but that would be that anywhere around the perimeter would have to at least have 4 feet of above grade and that's partially
submerged so it still answers the same first part of the definition it's not fully submerged but but you couldn't be fully submerged if you want the four feet i I think the way you're looking at it the definition would read and instead
of or here it's clearly or giving an applicant two possible scenarios to meet this basement definition okay um I think we should hear from Marty um if that's okay but I'm also looking at this from another perspective
i guess I'm looking at this on like a grander scheme and not really I mean we've never seen anything like this before ever i've been on the board six years and I've never seen anything like this before so what that means two of us okay so I think that like we're all sort
of struggling with this concept because to me it's also like what kind of Pandora's box does this open right um and where do we go from here so I'm thinking about this on a much larger scale um I also think that looking at an
8,500 square foot living space that's a lot of space um I mean you can't say that it's not that's a lot of space um and I think we have to me the way I'm looking at it I'm not an engineer an architect so I'm looking at it differently i'm looking at it um can is
this the right thing to do so I would really like to hear from Marty and hear what he has to say and then maybe we can put all this together and talk about it because I don't really get this i think nobody really gets this so let's hear what he has to say and then we can just maybe take it to the next point is that
okay absolutely okay um yes so uh do you s you you were dumb Mr graviano right yes yes i knew you would say that uh do you swear from tell truth for the zoning board tonight all right
can we please have your state and spell your name for the record sure martin Chilanzio c H I A R O L A N Z io all right yeah just identify your I'm the zoning officer for the township of
Livingston for the past 19 and a half years okay um and just to that effect um we've never seen a house like this the design is very unique um I've been a carpenter for all my life
and I had a hard time deciphering levels and what I would be looking at to build it so it is a unique building um with that being said uh I think I our problem is although the numbers work I understand your numbers
um for the definition but typically a basement is under the first floor in this case the basement's bigger than the first floor and as to what Miss Khan was saying this is a unique thing and what are we going to do are we going to have
people then be able to build a basement much larger than the piece that's sticking up out of the ground although most of this is out of the ground so that's why we questioned it and we added it to our calculation it is a unique thing and we want I wanted the board to weigh in on it and have a decision
because right now this isn't your typical first floor basement you have your first floor and you have your basement um and that's where we were coming from even with the numbers and uh we don't want to open up a Pandora's box and then
have people start building out these huge basements and putting you know a house that you know just meets the coverages and setbacks and things like that and that's why we're here so I understand the numbers i get it but that's that's my issue and I didn't want
to be the one to say yes this works and then have to listen to all the rest of the neighbors and listen to the next application and everybody coming down the pike i figure let's nip this in the butt let's get it before the board we'll hear your side we'll hear this side and we'll decide and that's why we're here i
mean I like the house i think it on the property it'll it'll fit it's not going to you know it's kind of big on the side but you know from the front it would look good but um and that was my my thinking on it so um if I can
uh you've heard uh testimony from Mr sterns Mr graviano about the particular ordinance in question correct do you agree that that is the ordinance that is applicable to the board tonight yes okay
so this the and the way that Mr sterns and Mr graviano stated the ordinance not their opinion mhm but the way they stated the ordinance that that is uh the correct wording to your knowledge mhm yes all
right and also I'm sorry chair my own question here feel free this is a little bit of a gonna use a uh legal word so that we can uh bill heavily for it um due to this uh
conundrum um the the one of the questions asked by the board members and I forget who it was I don't think we got really ended up getting clarity on this the
garage is the garage to you as a zoning officer in this set of circumstances under this reading of the ordinance is the garage in or out the first 450 square ft of the
garage is out anything over that is in okay and um All right so So everything after the garage is the point of contention so to
speak is it in or is it out correct it's in after the garage right so the so just so the board's aware your interpretation is that everything is
in and the garage regard my question to you is regardless if the rest of the basement is in or out the garage has its own separate calculation correct there's an exception for the first 450 ft of a
garage not to be included in the number and the habitable for area i actually have a question Marty um reading the definition which was repeated numerous times um or were the ceiling of the space more
than 4 feet above grade wouldn't it be less than four feet above grade to have the issue because if it's 12 feet above grade it's out of ground yeah that definition's always been a challenge to interpret but uh because I don't get it
well typically it's easy there it's either a basement or it isn't in this case it's not easy and with the basement being larger than the first floor that's my problem do we do we just say that you know a typical basement is under the
first floor or smaller than the first floor not larger than the first floor so this even though it meets the definition it's not a typical basement to me i'm sorry Marty but would you say that
because of the sight's unique slopage that it experiences from the front to the rear because you're going from what what we'll what we'll term as
zero and it slopes up to the back and I can't read it from here but you you get approximately 14 ft 14t from the garage to the back of the house over how many um over over 150 ft over 150 ft now I
didn't go to engineering school but that's that's a significant slope would you agree on that and it's and that is somewhat unusual in the township yes to have those type of slopes because it's it's
not known as a steep slope community we we we've had those type of slopes before but on a individual lot we we've had those type of slopes before but typically the houses are side to side not front to back so you might you might have that cut into the bank right that's
it wouldn't it wouldn't be so deep it would just be the width of the house right so this is really the first time you're seeing where the house is in essence going into that significant of a grade right that much
and it's exacerbated by the length of the house being so long yes and then the the fact like you said the the the basement's bigger than the first floor it's not to me a basement it's an extension of the basement but I don't know the other question though whoop
sorry the other question Marty is is it also exacerbated at the fact that they pushed the house back another 100 ft beyond the the allowable setback which means that you're now more into the slope and out of the flat area and out of the I can't
say cuz I don't know the topography of of if the angle is the same angle all the way up or the same slope all the way up or if it goes higher i would say not necessarily if I could u well it's 45 ft from the front street to the back so it
um if you bring it forward actually there's a steeper slope in the front so you would start lower and you would uh you know we have a steeper driveway to get up to that level so if you brought it forward it would be in the ground even more I believe but you also
right you testified that there was the part where the house is now and then behind the house it flattens out and then it then goes back up it flattens out to 10 10% right i understand but it's it would be less of a less of a grade right well if you pulled it forward Yeah you'd be in the ground more
no would be you'd be be in the ground more if you pulled it forward why i I don't understand that no because the initial the initial because you'd have to meet the initial grade so the initial grade is a steeper slope so if you pull forward you'd have to drop the house more
the the grade lines look like they get closer as you go to the back that would indicate a but also in the front though the front has a uh so behind the house is the is the more less sloping area if I want to put it that way to the and then the last probably 40 or last 50t is
is uh very sloping so um but you'd have to have your driveway your garage work so you'd have to drop your garage at that front location if you pulled it forward why couldn't the garage be exactly where the
garage is now cuz your driveway where the house is your driveway would be too steep then it's what it is today isn't it like I walked I walked it tonight and that first you know you have u actually your driveway is cut into two divided by two
walls and then your house is up several steps so when you come out of the back it's it's quite a bit higher than the road just from a a depth standpoint the initial depth of it so we Marty touched on the basement
being larger than the house and that to me is a little bit of a sticking point um even if you I'm not suggesting this or anything but even if you were to double it I mean it seems tremendous to me um and I I'm not quite sure I understand
why the basement needs to be so large i mean is there a reason in designing why the basement had to be so large i mean clearly it's so you have more living space i guess that's a rhetorical question um but it just seems I'm trying to square this again like no one has seen this so we're all
trying to figure it out at the same time um I'm just not understanding some of the numbers understood uh if I may interject from hearing the comments of the board and also the comments of Marty as well i think one of the main concerns is
exactly what you just brought up Miss Khan is the question of the basement size right because the basement's larger than the first floor and because of that that is Marty's issue there is not an issue per se with the definition of satisfying it but rather that size so
with that being said we would agree as a concession to this board that we will make the basement floor plan the same size as the first floor plan if that were to be acceptable to this board i wasn't suggesting that you do that i
was just saying that it was very large i have a knack for picking up what's putting down um one other question um I I mean the other thing that makes this a couple of things that make this unique
is number one having an entry uh that would be in the basement to the house having all the living things like kitchen dining room all those things on the on the what you call the basement of a house so I understand having a second kitchen in a basement but not the
primary kitchen and then now you also have this outdoor courtyard so now you have this outdoor space so adding this outdoor space to me means that now that outdoor space is now great so you now put ground
in the middle of this thing so that's actually now grade level the other sides are now retaining walls so I mean if if this is what makes it complicated if if it's it's it's an open area in the middle it's now ground level it's all open with windows it's this
this is not a the basement it's surrounded in the middle like by other walls it's you know even the back wall where the steps are it's a retaining wall holding back the the 12 the the 14t of dirt i mean it's not a no courtyard different story maybe but
I mean you you're adding this open area in the middle of the of a plan can can I ask a related question to that so walk me through on this level i'm not calling it what it anything
yet windows so if I read this correctly there's the front door so that's exit outside there's a window in this area by the living room into the courtyard there's several windows there's a window opposite the
staircase i'm guessing some sort of doors from the dining area into the courtyard again doors or something from the kitchen into the courtyard um window from the family room into the courtyard are those the There's no on
the right side of the house on Z2 is there any windows there's a light well I think is what it says behind the staircase uh I'll touch on that sure this scenario while it looks different than what you
see in many of the typical houses this is no different than a walkout basement now walkout basements are at grade for full wall height where there's windows on the basement wall out to the yard this applicant just chose a design where
there's an enclosed external space within the dwelling it's a very common scenario in in other parts of the country and in other parts of the world but it's no different than a walkout basement your view um
I grew up in a house that had a little courtyard in the middle it was 5 feet by five feet this is not This is outdoor space this courtyard I can't You don't have measurements of it but I'm guessing it's got to be 50 feet long can I get
the measurements for the It's 50 52 and 1/2 ft long pretty good there huh um by what about 50 20 25 okay so it's a thousand square feet or something like that if I do math in my head a little more than a thousand yeah okay that's a
pretty large outdoor space so that's where I struggle to view this as a basement in all honesty go ahead okay I'm just going to make a comment and then you guys chime in i think this has been going on a long time but you hear what we're saying you've heard from almost every single member on the board so my suggestion and we can ask the
chair and we can and is to go back take our comments fix it make it smaller or make it do what you need to do in order to sort of come back and have like pres make a presentation to us based on our comments because I think we can go round and round and round for two hours but we
have to you know sort of tie this up but unless you have anything else you want to say I unless anybody else on the board has anything else they want to say you've heard our comments and um I think that We should I'll just I'll just chime in that I'm I'm troubled too i can't I
understand what you said i appreciate what you said and the engineering behind it and everything else um but I'm just with all these there's so much going on here i'm having trouble and we didn't even talk about how far back the house is which is a whole another
if you know I think that just becomes war i'll just say I'll say it now i think that becomes walls to the neighbors um and I I have a concern about the positioning of the new house but we didn't have testimony really to that or anything else but um that's kind of where I'm seeing things but please I
think Miss Khan has an excellent recommendation and we're going to be on entertain that we are going to ask for a recess and carry this to the next hearing so we can have our opportunity to go back to the drawing board taking consideration the comments of this board the only thing I would ask before we uh
request the adjournment and you move on to the next application is that are there any other comments that this board would want to say so we can take that into consideration so that we really do get complete bite of the apple i only have one other thing to say um just in regard to what Nick said yes I I
understand the definition of walkout basement but and you know and having that where there's windows and doors but here if you were going to do that then you're you're walking into a a yard so if you're going to do that with a courtyard then the courtyard then is a
yard because then it's not a walk out so then the other my only other point is the art hallway which I mean I'm glad it says art hallway on here and maybe that's what it will be but in my opinion the art hallway being a hallway is sole
purpose in this whole drawing is to be a giant long retaining wall down that whole side to hold back the dirt on that one side to be able to have the courtyard and call this a basement and I'll just leave it at that anybody else on the board have any
comment please Peter yeah um first it's a question for our council cuz I this is a legal interpretation so it's not it's different than a variance so we have to make that legal determination as So first can we can we go in clo at some
other point in time joe can we go in close session to get your legal advice um no not really um so let me let me let me say this if if I can't to piggy back off of Mr weissman's uh question the
board at this point has not yet rendered its decision on the interpretation of the ordinance um there's been some significant commentary about
the building which quite honestly I think is t is related to the issue of the interpretation of the ordinance in this particular set of circumstances as Mr patada and also Mr aviano uh know
from her legal experience there's questions of fact and questions of law right uh and I think what you've heard a lot tonight is a question of fact but really that fact is uh reflective of what the question of law is
um because there quite honestly could be interpretation that by making the courtyard and what you've effectively made is a first floor
arguably some guy could say that we've got 90,000 attorneys out there somebody's going to come up with some opinion about that but going to Mr weissman's question about um my uh opinion all I would say is this you
sit as a quasi judicial board you have uh an ordinance which is being presented to you for your decision and interpretation uh you've heard from uh the zoning officer that the ordinance in question
is the ordinance to eventually be discussed and it's your um responsibility at not tonight but at some point in the future to do two things number one is to ultimately
render a decision on that open question and number two to then uh based on the result of that answer determine what if any variances are left over uh for for for the applicant but it sounds to me
like the applicant's going to go back and take another look and see what is uh to be presented which may change the nature of the question to the
board because I think as you've heard from Marty this really isn't obviously Marty knows what he's doing he's been doing it for 19 years i mean he he or he likes to tell us he does uh but he he knows what he's he knows what he's doing
so he's in in you've heard his testimony his testimony was this was so unusual I presented it to you and I think everybody agrees with that so uh at this point I think
the going back to Mr weissman's question this is something where by virtue of perhaps a change in the presentation may ultimately change your determination about whether or not this
applies that's it i'm done i mean everybody's looking at me like I got more i don't got more that's it that was great i just want to say one more thing and then I'll be done so I think that this is also like I said earlier we're deciding precedent so we have to be really careful about what we
do because when we do something you know every application we look at in a in a vacuum like in a silo when we really try and look at you know each one separately but there there is there are precedents so we have to be sure that when we make this decision we make the right decision
because if we do this it's going to affect everything so sort of keep that in mind and also the everything but I think that to me that's a really important part if I could just say one thing just to clarify I know there's question about
the size of the open space in the in the lower level that open space wasn't included in the basement calculation just so everyone knows i don't know if you know or not understood thank you sure uh yeah so to the extent it comes back
in some form where it's relevant for the interpretation obviously you might change it entirely and it's irrelevant but um I I would like and I don't know if Mr pado do you have a Mr graviano do you have a law degree i said you went to Temple Law yes so you do so that might
be most relevant to you so my questions would be I don't know if it's for the rest of the board when we say an area partially or completely so that indicates that it it could be you're not going to take my analysis of just cut it right where it's above ground and below
ground because it's already indicating that an area could be uh both above ground and underground but I don't know that that word area in the statute necessarily means the
entire almost 5,000 square ft so if you're coming back what I'd like to see is whatever case law and I'm sure it's it's pretty much the standard definition throughout New Jersey what case law there is on the definition of area so we understand that it would include uh the
entire 5,000 square ft as opposed to some other portion thereof and rather than me doing the research you're appealing to us i' I'd like you to to come back to with that and then the other question to Todd's excellent question is what is grade we sort of
have a sense of what grade is but I think he brought up an excellent point that if somebody were to regrade a property and put a retain like at the very back especially a property like this if you were to grade the whole thing flat and put I know it's every four feet but put retaining walls you
could regrade a property I think so I'd want to know what is the definition of grade because we're making you're asking us for a legal interpretation i'd like some more feedback on what you think the law is on those two terms area and grade
now you didn't do that on the mic so you want to say that on the mic so the client gets to hear that yes that's absolutely acceptable okay um Jackie when is the availability for them to come back and actually I apologize can we adjourn it for two cycles because I think we're going to need more time than just a couple weeks
i don't think this I don't I think you might need to yeah I think Jackie is saying 2027 mr chairman the next available hearing date will be July 22nd july 22nd terrific excellent lots of time okay all right ajourn to July 22nd
and no further notice no further notice is required thank you so much everyone have a great night open the public do you want do you want to do that now hold on okay council was in my ear for a second
20 seconds all right take care you want to take a break okay 15 Sparrow Drive application number 2025-16-V Bala Ratha Krishnan applicant seeks approval to construct a new single family home in violation of the following sections
170-98c2 front yard setback 50 ft required 47.5 ft proposed 2.5 ft variance requested 170-87 cc3 habitable floor area ratio 21% allowed 24.3% proposed 3.3% variance requested
so uh sir let's uh have your name for the record smart Bala Ratakrishna uh R A T H A K R I S H N A N okay and you're the property owner is that correct yes okay and so you have the architect Cedra and Mr graviano for
you tonight yes okay uh and we're going to start off with Mr uh Cedra right yes okay uh we do it again right hand do you swear and tell truth for the zoning board tonight i do okay and let's uh
have your name on the record please sure i'm in Cedra uh last name is Cedra SA okay and uh qualified as an architect yes okay and we can accept him as that
um I will walk you through the plans for this house this is a single family house um uh we are proposing all the living spaces at the first floor with twocar garage uh side
loaded and uh we have also a guest uh bedroom at the first floor we have a covered pa patio at the back um the size of the livable area at the first floor is 1,627 the garage area is 502
the to the left of that we have the basement uh the basement consists of one big open space it's going to be used for recreation and uh we have a guest uh we have another bedroom uh in the basement with its own bathroom and closet we have
a small media room and mechanical room and also this is a walkout basement uh with stairs at the rear um the the basement uh area is
1,627 uh the second sheet uh AO2 um on the left we have the second floor consists of four bedrooms uh with uh their own bathrooms and closets and also we have a laundry room
we have a twotory foyer the area for the twotory is 100 square ft and this 100 square ft at the second floor is uh counted but it's not used it's only used at the first
floor um the second floor area is uh 1,820 um we have a floor area ratio of 3,499 and um that's 24% 24.3%
um so we're applying for a 3.3% variance um on the right side is the area diagram um I just want to mention there is a small discrepancy
or or um drafting error rather uh the garage says 502 square feet not counted uh that's not correct actually the area that's not counted is 450 so we have 52 square ft if you do the numbers and you
add this 52 square ft to the first floor and the second floor it will give you the 3,499 um the exterior of the building um actually we have a rendering which is uh wasn't part of this filing so I can
mark it with A1 mark it is A1 this is an exterior rendering yes go ahead so the exterior of the boat this is a colonial style home we have uh um we have a stone at the first floor
full height stone walls we have uh hardy shingles at the second floor uh dark roofs white windows uh we have also all the windows their casement um and
uh the rest of the house matches the um the rest of the house uh we're going to use uh 6 in lap siding on the two sides and the back uh we have a balcony as well at the back the family room is only one story family room it's not two
story just a singlestory um family room um regarding the second floor we have a pull downstairs so the attic is only accessible through pull down stair the this the height in the attic from
the attic floor to the lowest to the highest ridge is 5'8 and as you see the roofs they're hip roofs so there is no windows around the attic whatsoever just a roof space that's all
yeah go ahead so just walk me through the family room again because it's a little confusing looking at this so from the second story the roof slopes what's the height of that family room the the plate starts
at 13 ft and goes up so the family room roof plate is 13 ft and start thereafter start to go up until it meets meets the second floor ceiling okay okay thank you you're welcome
does anybody else on the board have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness please come forward i'm Joe Deo from Eight Sparrow uh diagonally across the street um I just did the math from what you were saying i
think there was another number there it's it's about 5100 square feet this house is the uh using the basement now the basement does have a slider it has 9 foot ceilings so it is as you said it's living space recreational space it's got bathrooms down there and whatnot the house that's going up right next door to
me brand new it's going to have six bedrooms it's going to have six bathrooms is only about 3,500 ft this house is huge and the two houses next to it it is the house that's existing right now i don't know if you walk the property one second this is just for a question if you want to make a statement
okay you can make statement later so please ask a question my question is why do you need to move the house up 2 and 1/2 ft and have a variance when the house is already 5100 ft if you brought it back two and a half feet what would that do to the square footage well we're
matching the average front on the neighboring houses so that's allowed by code is it but isn't the variance 2 and 1/2 ft did it come up 2 and 1/2 ft but you the our code does allow for an averaging
of lots on houses on either side um that's what uh the architect has done so we took an average so the idea I believe is that you don't start have staggering houses all over the place so we don't have a variance or we do have a variance we do have a variance but part of the
the code our our code allows for averaging when all the houses are further than the required setback all right so maybe this is a question for you the house that's next to that house is diagonal on a corner where where did
you say that house started where was the front door the Because the house is much smaller and it's on an angle so I'm not really sure of how you got that average well we we measure the the front yard of even if the house is diagonal we measure
the front yard as the at the shortest dimension so we take that number and we use it okay i mean I'll take your word for it but I I mean I live across the street i'm very proud what number What number is that house that's on the diagonal is
that 17 that should be 17 yeah i don't know so so yeah number 17 the the the front yard set back is 40 ft.62 ft so that's kind of skewing things a little bit that's skewing the
numbers i mean that's my only question you know I know there's a variance of 2 and 1/2 ft and I just was questioning for a house so big why do you need that variance okay thank you thank you anybody else in the public have any
questions for this witness please come on forward it's an open mic tonight hi my name my name is Jung Yang who I live just across the street 10 barrel drive i have a question because I saw
the um documentation saying that um the owner needs the uh that huge size for the for the for the house because he has kids growing up you know all we all of us have kids even Joe raised like three
kids in his house so I want to know how many kids do you have that's not uh how many children or people that live in a house is It's not allowed not a valid not a valid question one person can live in a huge house it's it's it's
allowed so number of people but still it's a R3 zone you know yeah so it's kind of you know the house is kind of huge for this so if you want to make a statement about the size of the house we'll do that later if you have a
specific question for the architect Yes or for the planner when it's his turn please ask that question another another question second one um so and why do you want to put like forward the house because I saw the you um the the
the code is like 50 feet the front line is like 50 ft to the street right now and the proposal said it going to be 70 uh no 47.5 ft so why would you want to put forward the
house that's my question yeah all right yeah do you want do you want Wait a minute you want Okay just I was going to say it'll be addressed in planning testimony okay so the So the I think you heard before the answer about why
uh how they calculated the frontages of the house so your question is why are they placing the house where they're placing it and what uh the planner is saying is that his testimony is going to respond to that but he hasn't had an
opportunity yet to speak so um he now knows to respond to your question as part of his testimony when he's done with his testimony if you still have your question you can come back up and say "He didn't answer my
question can you answer my question?" Sure okay sure thank you no worries okay thank you anybody else on the board have any questions for this witness i think you're off the hook i have a question oh you're not off the hook yeah
um I I understand that um uh with the averaging uh we're at 4750 but that's so close to 50 ft and then you see lot um three has 51 lot four has 49 again we're not trying to
design for applicants but wouldn't it be nice that you just put it at 50 ft and get rid of one variance and then you won't lose your your uh rare yard um you don't want trigger any other new thing oh yeah that's my question
this morning i think I think this is the operative thing okay Mr graviano you swear for to tell truth for the zoning board tonight i do all right and you're going to be testifying at Cassie as a planner correct yes yes sir okay qualifications
i I normally wouldn't jump in but there's questions that are appropriate for me answering them at this juncture um based on some of the the neighbors concerns I would like to put on record that it is within the Livingston code
for the applicant to uh exercise the right to utilize a front yard averaging a average the letter of the law is not really a variance although the board has interpreted it that way however the applicant will push back the house to 2.5 ft to eliminate the front yard
setback variance so the the applicant is no longer requesting for the front yard setback variance additionally I'd like to note that the applicant's building height is at 30.72 ft whereas 35 ft is permitted so not only is the applicant proposing a
dwelling which is shorter in height than what's permitted by ordinance but the applicant now is pushing back the house losing 2.5 ft which is his right to address the concerns of both the board and the neighbors so Mr so Mr graviano
you would agree with me as a condition of approval that amended plans will be submitted to reflect the new uh distance yes the house will be shifted back 2.5 ft thank you um everyone understood that
then good okay thank you very much for taking into account the neighbors okay so that that that leaves the um that leaves the habitable floor area ratio variance as the only re relief that the applicant's requesting this
evening um I would like to note that the applicant is improving the minimum sideyard setback condition uh 9.21 ft exists that's a non-conforming scenario the minimum sideyard setback will be increased to 10 ft uh where additionally
the aggregate sideyard setback of 30 feet is requirement is required the applicants providing 43.83 ft so obviously there'll be excess uh sideyards to the neighboring dwellings uh this by no means is an excessive
dwelling uh the applicant is below the habitable floor area amount uh at 3500 square ft uh the applicant's lot is 14,400 square feet so is uh 600 square f feet short which which triggers uh some
habitable floor area ratio relief i think given the fact that the applicant is meeting all the sideyard setbacks will be providing storm water management systems um is within the habitable floor area uh account and is uh roughly 4 feet
under the height limit there's certainly no substantial impairment to the surrounding neighbors additionally this proposal advances purposes a of the municipal land use law promotion of the general health safety morals and welfare that's done through uh eliminating some
of the existing non-conformities on the site and providing a dwelling which is now built to current uh construction code standards additionally it helps advance purpose G to provide sufficient space and appropriate location for a variety of residential uses to meet the
needs of New Jersey citizens and lastly the applicant promotes a desirable visual environment through creative development techniques and good civic design and arrangements you saw Mr cedra's house it's a beautiful combination of higherend building materials which I think is a stark improvement over what exists with the
house today and there's no substantial impairment to the zone planner zoning ordinance with granting the F variance thank you does anyone have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness i think we're good does anybody
in the public want to make a statement i think we're good does anybody I did have one question sorry about that the whole attic thing so do you have anything uh since since Nick jumped in so um the attic height
the attic height is 5'8 from the attic floor to the underside of the ridge beam 5'8 and the building height is 30 foot 8 and 3/4 which is almost like 4 feet and got to get the short family members to bring
stuff up here does anybody on the board want to make any uh statements does anybody in the board want to make a motion i make a motion to approve subject to the condition of adjusting the plan to meet the 50 foot
thus only requiring the one variance i'll second okay mr horn mr horn miss Yuan yes mr shaw yes mr sherman yes mr weissman yes miss Khan votes yes mr beer yes
thank you board thank you and thank you for the accommodation once again okay um block 3901 lot 94.02 O2 29 Norman Court application number 2025-21-V Eddie Kemlman applicant seeks
approval to install an ingground pool in violation of the following sections 170-96a8f swimming pool setback rear 20 ft required 11.5 ft proposed 8.5 ft variance requested uh just just for the record Mr weissman
has recused himself from the deis because he's within the 200 foot zone uh so you have uh just six well you have a C variance but it's six board members okay oh wait Mike
thank you Gregory Misera Bannon Roy McDonald in Verona on behalf of the applicant Eddie Kimmelman um as uh Miss Khan had stated this is um an application for one variance with the with regard to a proposed setback of
11.5 ft in the rear yard um on uh Norman Court the required setback is 20 feet i just have Mr kemlman to briefly testify and then I have Mr paul Gdansky the engineer just to again give brief testimony as to uh the configuration of
the property and um and what is proposed so first my first witness is Eddie Kemlman all right Mr keelman uh do you swear affirm tell truth for the zoning board tonight yes okay Mr keelman um just uh state and spell your name for the record just bring the mic closer um
Eddie ED camelman ke m Okay your witness Mr kellman you the owner of 29 Norman Court in Livingston is that correct yes and how long have you owned the property uh f six years okay and who do you live in the property with my wife and two kids uh how old are
your children 15 and 11 and your children are at the age where they would benefit greatly from a pool in the rear yard is that not true that is true okay and you can you briefly describe for the board the u configuration of your property and the um the size of the rear
yard well it's a culde-sac block and uh the size probably have it on paper over there i'm sorry i don't know well just generally um uh Mr gdansancy will give more uh complete testimony but just generally tell the board uh about the restrictions in the size of your rear
yard yeah it's not too big of a of a yard and uh I mean making the smallest pool possible for the family and you've contracted with u um the pool boss to design a pool yes and going through that design you just said you picked out uh probably the smallest design that they
had available yes okay um did you consider other configurations for a pool other than that was shown in your application uh no okay and because this is the only one that essentially fit is that correct correct okay i have nothing further does anyone on the board have any
questions for this witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness i believe my questions will be for the witness okay i'll certify to come back so it might be relevant for Is he
allowed he's a member of the public yeah i've had this before yeah no just so everybody just so everybody's looking at me strangely okay so so once a board member recuses themsself they've removed themselves from the deis so they're not part of the
decision-making therefore they become a member of the public because they're a member of the public they would have all the all the rights and uh opportunities that a member of the public has to observe and to ask questions
i think the only reason you're getting a look is because we've never done that before this way well I just And that's just letting you know that was and I'm just Yeah I'm just telling you that's what it is okay we're good all right Miss Mer are you going to
call uh my next witness is Paul Gdansky who's a professional engineer the state of New Jersey okay m badansky do you swear for tell truth for this zoning board tonight i do mr can you state and spell your name for the record sure it's Paul P A L Gansky GD an SKI oh that that
was a lot quicker than I could g D an S KI got it uh and uh qualifications as you're a professional engineer in the state of New Jersey yes I've practiced I've been practicing for over 25 years now and I'm
my license is current i've appeared before a number of boards throughout Jersey and what's the benefit of your education please i have a master's degree in civil engineering uh from what school from NJIT okay and as have you ever appeared in front of this board before no I've not appeared before this
board but I've appeared before others okay um have have you ever been rejected as an expert in engineering by any board no okay mr chairman I ask that you accept Mr kansky as an expert in engineering does anyone on the board have any questions or objections regarding this witness
there being no objection the witness accept as expert in engineering thank you mr gdansky can you um you uh drew the plan dated 101624 that was part of the application um the uh blocks as pool plan soil erosion sediment control for Kemlman is
that correct yes that's correct can you briefly describe for the board u the culde-sac at Norman Court and u the shape of the property please sure so the property is is um kind of narrowed because the cul culde-sac sticks into
the front of the in front of the lot so it pushes the house back thereby creating very little room in the backyard to do anything so we designed we designed that the pool and patio with very minimal patio and at the smallest
pool basically we can do and with this configuration and with the only there's only about 35 ft from the back of the deck to the rear property line we end up needing a variance of 11.5 from to 11.5 to the pool okay um in your opinion u
the you had mentioned the uh the culdesac the culdesac is um somewhat of a narrow culdesac is that correct it's a little Yes it's a little narrow okay and the uh there are no front yard setback um violations is that correct
not as far as I know no but the but there is um a hardship with regard to the rear yard because the house sits on the culde-sac is that your opinion correct so it's your opinion that um the uh rear yard is u unusual in shape as it
sits on this property yes also it's diagonal so it also create kind of limits the amount of room in the backyard okay and have you had the opportunity to to uh look at the uh general shape of the property directly to the rear of this property on the tax map yes okay and how
would you describe um that property much larger smaller or about the same size as this property as the subject property you talking about the property in the property that that borders the rear yard i think it's it's bigger it's much bigger correct okay and that um that
portion on on the back of the subject property says woodboard fence is that correct yes and what is behind that woodboard fence on the adjoining property there's there's a large amount of trees and screening nobody you really can't see in the backyard at all okay
and that's really a side a side rear of that uh bordering property is that correct okay um I don't have any further questions if uh Mr gdanski does anybody on the board have any qu Yes I do so um
I appreciate the design very nice and pretty but what if in did you consider instead of a kidneyshaped pool kind of going angle like this more of a rectangular pool that would more run the length that
thus wouldn't go as close to the rear yard i mean due to the grading also this is that pool shape kind of helps with the great the way the lots graded as well so that's why we chose that to kind of build these little small retaining walls also kind of level it out so talk
to me a little bit about because it's for of the grading what is the slope in the back and is it sloping towards the neighbor it's sloping to the neighbor towards the I believe that's the south yes
the south would be the right as we're looking at the map would be the right the right side it flops to the right yes I'm sorry so I still don't fully understand though why a rectangular pool going lengthwise thus
reducing the need for the set back to the fence was not possible well because right now you have the the pool the kidney shape kind of comes out like an angle like this closer towards had the pool been turned and shifted or done as a rectangle would you have been
able to either eliminate the needs for the variance or lessen the distance between the pool and the rear neighbor the um I don't know that we would be able we would de defin we may be able to lessen the pool but lessen the variance but we
may we would still I believe we would still need a variance I believe um Mr mr horn that there also is a U minimum setback from the elevated deck to a pool i'm not sure what it is in in the township but there there is a
certain distance that the pool has to be from the elevated deck for safety reasons don't want people jumping agree no agree don't want people jumping into pool i totally get that but again you have a pool going like this understood cool going like this but there is also right there what I'm suggesting is that
the pool itself cannot be moved closer to the house 100% agree with that but it would be more the different shape or orientation of the pool fully agree it could not be closer to the house okay um I believe that can be done but it it's our position that the there is u because
of the significant buffer in the rear yard to the property um that sits to the east because that is really this the property that sits to to the east um does not front on the street directly behind Norman Court but fronts on a
difference but fronts um to to the south so it's really a side of the rear yard of a lot that is almost twice as big as our lot so there would be no um no interference no noise issue
um you know it's certainly a a far distance away from the dwelling on the property to the rear if you look at the tax map so I appreciate your concern but I think aesthetically um that if the variance were granted um
you know you know that that it would be a nicer looking pool um it would have some some pizzazz to it absolutely not necessary but certainly an improvement over the rectangular pool and there's no adverse impact in our opinion um on the
neighbor in the rear because there really is no neighbor in the rear you know from a from a dwelling standpoint um you heard Mr gdansi say that there's you know a tremendous buffer um and there there's nothing back there
is there not a home behind this house the home is No the home is is on the lot behind the house but not near this rear portion okay it's it's almost a full lot away if you measured the lots is what I'm suggesting okay thank you does
anybody else have any questions for this witness does anybody in the public have any questions for this witness peter Weissman WIS man i live at 142 Hillside Avenue uh we are the property
on the other side of that wooden board fence that uh council is referring to um and I'll just stick to the questions now i disagree with some of the assessments but that will be for the when I come up again are there going to be is there any plans for additional groundwater storm
water management given this we're we're under the thousand square foot threshold if it's required we we'd have no problem putting it in uh and what do you plan to do about the wooden fence which is getting dilapidated is that coming down with a new fence is it going to be repaired or
it staying as is some of the some of the fence is going to be new so I'd have to ask the owner if he's if he's changing the rear fence i know the sides is going to be new um if if that is the owner's fence he will be happy to put in a new fence
board on board that obviously uh would face your problem okay uh what about I saw one of the other plans online are the there's I believe four evergreen trees on the applicant's property uh are those and
then one of the plans that looked like they were umbrellas so yeah you're talking about this plan here yeah so are those umbrellas are those the trees there is umbrella there's like an umbrella in the patio area and then there's trees shown like figure are
those trees like where the cursor is right now yes they Yes those are trees so he's going to be do doing some planting there but are those are those evergreen trees remaining all the evergreen trees he's not taking I don't
think as far as I recall do not believe he's hold no trees are being removed okay so all those evergreens in the back are remaining okay and what what percent of the back what percent of the backyard is represented
by this pool it is 7.2% okay and how'd you calculate that i'm just curious the pool surface divided by the rear yard area going around the around the back um and then just I'm not a I'm
not a pool expert but my neighbor on the other side has a pool and telling me sometimes pools leak one of the re one of the reasons for a setback what can you tell me like what happens like when a pool does leak or get damaged and overflows so I have a sense of Well usually I mean if it leaks obviously
they're going to it it would drain and then he would repair it but it would go in it would be absorbed into the ground it wouldn't like bubble out it's not going to bubble out it's going to be absorbed by if it goes onto you know the neighbor's property or how that what happens yeah what do you mean if the
pool overflows no no if it breaks and suddenly the water starts pouring out underground i'm just asking my neighbors i've never heard of that happening i'm not trying to be Has your neighbor suggested what happens no she had she had referred me to
somebody else that it did happen to so that's why cuz she just built it by the same company by the way by the pool boss and she's very happy sounds like a good reputable company yeah obviously if it to completely collapses the water is going to go over people's property that's that's possible
with anybody's pool okay that's all the questions thank you does anybody else in the public have any questions okay um does anyone in the public want to make um any
statements yeah yeah come forward uh I don't I don't think I need to restate my name so well first of all I I hate being in this situation because I don't like to have a Sorry Peter you got to swear you do you swear for tell truth for the zoning board tonight yes okay uh
first of all I don't like having any conflicts with my neighbors i'm in good terms with all my neighbors um except I think will be now this neighbor um and I don't mind pools i don't like my neighbor on the other side has a pool it enhances the value it could enhance the
attractiveness i don't I'm not against pools actually it's usually better people build pools it it's creates better neighborhood it's etc adds value would add value to my house uh in this case I I I disagree with council that it's going to add value my
concern is for several reasons uh that we're going to lose value and it's going to be a detriment um first it's really close we're talking the reason 20 seat 20 ft is already when you talk about pools you're concerned about sight and
noise so you can see only 11 ft is about it it's it's less than here to the wall i mean it's it's pretty it's it's pretty close 20 ft is already pretty close but we allow it um 11.5 is really close um
so in terms of sight and noise next to a pool that's very inconvenient for a neighbor um and the in terms of the house to explain to to council I'd stated "Oh it doesn't matter because it's a big property let me describe let
me describe the uh the back of the property." Uh the back of my property um I have a 30 foot uh setback from the back of my house most of that is a double retaining wall
meaning four feet and then another four feet and then in front of that is large abberites so that so my usable backyard space is 20 25 feet from the rear of my house to the back so that pretty much I've got a patio in the back that's it you know maybe it's like three feet of
grass going from my that's my backyard so some then it sort of veers out and then my main backyard area uh is this is the sideyard so the side slback it's the back this is the rear corner back and
side of my house uh so in terms of play states play spaces etc you know that's where the swing set is that's when the kids were younger that I was standing within about 20 ft off that fence you know to play if you want to have a catch throw a Frisbee and maybe you're
talking I know from throwing a ball enough maybe it's 60 feet maybe you got 60 70 feet of lawn space there so that's all you got so the recreational area for now my property and it is a larger property in terms of square feet but that's because it's got a lot of
unusable space it's got the whole front lawn unusable it goes It's a flag property goes to the street the usable backyard space is pretty small it's on the side and it's right on the other side of this fence um there is a nice buffer of some trees on his side trees
on my side which is great i just And again I'd like I'd like there to be a pool my neighbor to be happy it's just I feel like this is really going to be like practically in our backyard it just seems like it seems like it's a problem um
uh have some more so because of that I think and I think I think my property look I wish it would go up but I think this is going to be a negative for my property um I'm also concerned that's why I asked the question about the water right now there is and if you look on the the plan
I think they even show about the 10 foot water easement because water flows from this property into my backyard into my front yard all the way out to Hillside Avenue there's like I guess underground water so that area which I'm talking about that main part it gets pretty uh
it doesn't flood but I say gets pretty swampy so when it rains it's uh it's pretty mushy can't go out there for a few days so I'm a little concerned about that that now with the pool displacing all that ground and the water coming from that direction to mine I'm also
concerned about will become a little more unusable with flooding um and and then I just want to point out I and I can appreciate that it's if you could call it undersized i don't view it as underside i just want the the board to understand this is this was a part of
the hillside development so all these houses no they're they weren't put in a zone there's no pre-existing condition they were built this way and then the zoning board sorry the zoning ordinance came and it's undersized or not every every property in this is exactly the right size it was approved by the
planning board as a special zoning district so each house on the property is precisely proper size because that's what was approved by the town to build these houses um I don't have a solution i'd like my neighbor to have a pool i
think the yard probably is too and you know I agree it's that is probably the smallest pool i'd like my neighbor to have a pool um it is a small it's a small property that's what it was it was zoned as a source property it was approved it's not my my analogy is I
can't put a tennis court i'd love to have a tennis court in my backyard i can't because it it just doesn't fit so again and I I'm open to any solutions here but I just I feel like this is going to hurt my property and use and enjoyment of anybody that's in the the
back space i'm thinking for myself and then future future occupants thank you thank you does anybody else in this public want to make a statement does anybody in the board want to make a statement or ask any questions
at this point i got a question or or two um is there on any of these plans the the setback drawn that you could see what the where the setback line is so I measured the setback from the deck to the property line it's about 35 ft so no
matter what pool we choose we would need a variance and normally you want to be at least five or six feet away from the deck and then if you do a 12 foot you know 12 foot pool you know you're still going to need a variance so no matter what pool we choose we would need the
variance to alleviate some of the concern about the noise may we we could plant some additional arborite if the board would like what's the on the other plan the color drawing yep what's this rectangle thing that's like
in the middle of the Which rectangle the dotted the dotted trapezoidal thing in the middle of the pool what's Yeah that that might be the setbacks that's probably what it is i didn't draw that that's done by pool
boss but it looks like it's the setbacks no I just I mean I kind of what um Mr horn said before i I don't also understand why even if you wanted the roundest shape why it just couldn't follow the same angle as the the deck
but once again if we did it would still need a variance we'd still be back to this board for a similar There's a variance and then there's a smaller variance i mean there's there's you know you're asking for the moon you know and then there's you know
there's I understand but there's it's not like this or or nothing yeah yeah i mean I'm sure that we could try Mike mike I get yelled at the guy in the back i'm sure that we could try to
reconfigure the pool um I would like to be able to not have to come back to the board um one because your agenda is I mean we couldn't be back until somebody said 2026 which I know was physicious but um
if we could agree on an appropriate setback perhaps and then redesign the pool now with regard to um Mr uh Weissman's concerns about um the the coverage that was in your engineer's review letter that before we got a
building permit we would have to satisfy the engineer with regard to storm water runoff etc so that would you know that's a given in in any application um if we could agree on maybe split the difference on on the
setback right now we're looking for eight feet you know if we move it back four feet m Miss Mer can you uh do me a favor because we kind of had this discussion about these the infamous dotted lines maybe
it's maybe it's getting late and I'm getting conspiratorial but um can't be said you know uh do we is there a way we can see what the distance is from that rear yard yes there's a to to to to that
infamous there is a survey dotted line there is a first No I can't I don't have the Yeah but the dotted line is not well first sight surveying though that was submitted with the application has the elevated deck and then it has the
um it h Oh I'm sorry there are the uh the contours for the for the setback on there right that's the topo doesn't have the setbacks right no which is part of the problem because it's hard to make any kind of decisions without really knowing the the pool boss
prepared this drawing i have I can't attest to what the dotted line is regardless of what it is I don't even care about the dotted line i you know the dotted line might be just that that's like the angle following the deck i don't know yeah I don't know but there's nothing on here that I mean I
know you're saying you need a variance of x amount of feet there's nothing on the drawing that shows that the edge of this pool was x amount of feet from the rear yard yeah on the on the other plan on my plan there is yeah there is right because that's what it says 11.5 from
the rear yard right and then additionally like I said that I measured the the distance from the deck to the rear property line it's 35 ft so we would need at least five or six feet
of patio from the deck and then if we wanted to do a a 12 foot pool if we want to go with the rectangle so that that's about 17 18 feet or maybe rotate it where where is it to the edge of the oval of the part closest
to the deck on the left side it's right here no no the other all the way down to the left where are you saying yeah right yeah along that i mean that's a lot but this isn't all right we we Okay we're going to call We're going to call timeout here all right the zoning
board's job is not to redesign pools y okay so our job is not to say we don't like kidneys i love kidney bean soup but we're not gonna have kidneys we want rectangles we don't want rectangles any of that all we deal with are the are the
setbacks right so right now I think we've heard that M mera on behalf of his clients indicated I hear that there are some concerns raised by the board some concerns raised by the public about the distance uh about that that variance uh
level and I think what we heard from Mr sarah is that perhaps he would uh his client would agree to a lesser variance uh and then it would be up to him and
his client to then take it back to the drawing board to live within that variance and I'm sure somebody named Pulp Boss probably has the skill and expertise to change kidneys into uh you know lentils whatever the case
may be i could do it too so uh so the so the question to let me let me pose this question to the board if Miss Mera and I don't want to put words into your mouth but I'm going to do it anyway uh if we we have a 8.5
variance if we reduce that in half to a 4.25 variance I'll check with my my engineering colleagues they're sure that 4.25 25 is half of 8.5 okay um and that
would re what Mr miser is offering is to reduce the variance require him to go back to the drawing board uh make it uh condition of approval to meet all engineering requirements to ensure the safety of the pool that it meets all of
those uh standards under uh the the building code and obviously you're going to have to get permits uh it's an ingground pool so you're still you're going to have to get um you know um excavation and so forth so
with that in mind Miss Mera is it your um and the trees uh that your uh client is now asking for an amendment of the variance to 4.25 that is correct okay knowing that they're going to have to
live within that that standard and we we we are not proposing at this juncture to change the size of the pool or the shape but to change the location of the pool um so that we we only need a 4.5 ft
variant yes and there and not cause any other variances absolutely and additional screening yeah i think you said that the fence would be you you said that the fence would be taken care of sorry yes you put
a new Oh yeah yeah that was questioning no no put a new board on board fence in the rear and six feet I think is the standard yeah be careful with that our fence be careful with the fencing make sure you get it right okay um and but you had
talked about some additional trees possibly did you say that um understand certainly would would um if we can plant a couple arborites right yeah please go yes none of the trees are coming down no big very
big trees like it's a natural fence I would say right we can plant more no problem yeah that would be um in the voids in the voids in the void right we will do that okay right this way you just because you are a little closer we want to make sure that it keeps privacy
for everybody correct i thought you were going to say that arborite green giant arborite the number and the type six foot six foot six foot arbor green
six foot arborite arborite um at least probably can fit at least three if not if not we'll go to the engineer and say we can't fit three is that I mean at least I think I I I don't like to play you should be able to fit three okay you
could definitely you can definitely fit at least three in between the trees that are okay shown on the plan okay yes okay thank you Jackie um outside of your Yes no it's right it
has nothing to do with this pool correct any property correct right good question because the easement is along one side we're doing it along the other right okay are there any other statements
questions or comments you good everyone good okay would anyone like to make a motion hello need a little help here i'll make a motion to approve
um with the modified rear yard setback at 4.25 25 instead of 8.5 and a minimum of three 6 foot herbivites
greenies along the backyard and repairs to any fencing that's needed we're actually replacing the fence replacing the fence okay I guess I'll second it okay Mr beer yes miss Khan votes yes mr
horn yes mr shaw yes mr sherman yes miss Yuan yes and Mr weissman oh I'm sorry you can't Oh my god you can't do this really kill you
i'm just reading down the list thank you thank you last application okay block 4203 lot 18 Forest Balding Drive application number
2025-17-V Alexis JGS LLC applicant speak seeks approval to construct a new single family home in violation of the following sections 170-99 C2 front yard setback 40 ft required 35 ft proposed 5 ft variance requested
170-99 C2 aggregate sideyard 30% required 20 29.6 proposed point4% variance requested 170-99 C4 rear yard setback 35 ft required 31.75 ft proposed 3.25 ft
variance requested 170-87 CC4 habitable floor rat floor area ratio 30% allowed 37.8% proposed 7.8% variance requested for the record Mr shaw has recused himself as he's within the 200 foot
distance bless you so uh sir can we have you got to hit the green button hit the green button you got to hit Oh there you go okay okay please have your name uh my name is Ji Hang Su j I H A N G last name Sue SEO
and are you the property owner yes okay and you have uh one uh witness uh being presented for you tonight uh yeah Robert okay why don't we get you sworn in do you swear affirm tell the truth for the zoning board tonight i do okay can you
please state and spell your name for the record robert Emmer Jr last name is E Mer T okay and briefly uh speaking on architecture yes I'm an qualifications i
am a registered architect in the state of New Jersey um I presented before this board on numerous times as well as Milbour Englewood and several other locations and my license is in good standing and
can we just have your education uh graduated with a bachelor of architecture from the University of Kansas in 1983 thank you does anyone board have any questions or objections regarding this witness
there being no objections the witness is accepted as expert in architecture okay it's all yours all right well first off thank you for sticking around for this long evening we're actually nailed down to the chairs
it's been very long all right so uh Peter my client has purchased the property for Spalding um drive and it's currently a one-story
house uh in not in great location and it's in an area you know Peter's a resident of Livingston and it's in an area of Livingston that's you know I could say this about most of Livingston it's going under dramatic uh changes and
stuff houses across the street are new uh the one across the street down in the corner is new one next door is going to be built new um so it's so what Peter is proposing is to build remove the old
house build a new one and do it in a manner which is in keeping with the surrounding neighborhood you know what's what's going on in the neighborhood and in the town as a whole um and so what he's doing as I said is um you
know we're taking down the house uh sort of flipping the orientation currently the driveway is on the right we're putting it on the left and the garage is on the left uh and the reason we're doing that is the orientation of the lot we want to gather
on the right side we want to collect the south sun get the east sun and the south sun as it wraps around so that side of the house we're really going to open up lots of windows and um you know take advantage of the natural light
um and in order to do this what we're proposing is a you know a twostory um house four bedrooms two bathrooms um laundry room on the second floor as you can see from
looking at the plans and I can show you them if you if you wish but um you know they're nice size rooms but you know 11 by 11 11 by 12 bedrooms things you know it's not like they're they're huge spaces so it's four bedrooms upstairs
and then we come down to the main level uh we're doing um a twocar garage which is slightly over the 450 so some of that is factoring into the floor area ratio um you know kitchen guest guest bedroom
slash you know office uh on the first floor um so the lot is slightly undersized you know it's it's let me just find my numbers here
all right so it's in an R4 zone which requires the 9,375 square ft and the existing lot is 8,198 square ft so it's it's undersized for this zone by about
8.75% um so and the minimum lot width is undersized and the minimum lot depth is undersized so overall the lot is undersized and it's slightly um you know it tapers in as it goes back from the width at the front um so it's a slight
irregular um irregular shaped lot all right so to summarize we're asking for four variances the front yard sideyard aggregate rear yard and habitable floor
area ratio so the starting with the front yard 40 ft is required and we are proposing 35 ft which requires a 5-ft variance and as you can see on this drawing you know and
on your drawing this is the established setback front setback um that the engineer um coron engineering prepared showing the average front setback at 34.8 now there was was some conversation on a
previous project you know but my my understanding and Jackie can correct me if I'm wrong but as far as an established setback I'm showing this to show you what the established setback is but the the
ordinance requires it to be taken to 200 feet to either side we don't have because we're one one block away from the corner here at Spear we don't have the 200 feet on that side so we're not um automatically granted this front yard established
setback we So that's why we have to ask for it as a variance you know if we had the 200 feet and we had it we wouldn't be asking for that one so again the average setback established by the engineer is 34.8
so you know looking and looking at the adjacent houses you know we we said "All right so we will we're looking to set it at 35 ft." Um because number one I thought it was in keeping with the other houses slightly forward of the other houses not
dramatically so but it also um helped with the rear yard because you can see on the you know the diagonal line going through the pink line going through at the back uh back here that's the rear yard setback line and so we're trying to
minimize that keep the separation from the neighbor there at the rear and so as you can see when you look at it it just clips through a couple of triangular sections the majority of the house the vast majority of the house is you know
in front of that rear yard set line but there's just a couple little triangles that leaked over um for that so that's you know how we positioned the house and established the front yard setback and the rear yard setback where we're asking
for the rear yard the greatest um you know the largest triangle which is to the left side is the 3.1 uh 3.25 ft um aggregate setback is fairly dimminimous
it's you know 30% required we're at 29% 29.6 again the entire house fits within the setback except for this little corner there's a little corner back here
because we're at the 12 feet there the 10 feet there but there's just one little corner in that rear section that um is over for it's it only comes through the house about three or four feet and then the rest of the house is
in compliance with the you know sideyard combined um and then the last one is the habitable floor area ratio so we are underneath the square footage requirement for the uh property um but
we are over on the habitable floor area ratio again as I mentioned before the lot is undersized by about uh um 8 you know 8.75 is what I said um and we were asking for a
7 8% variance a little bit as it comes from the garage um and then the remainder is the main house so that's a summary of my presentation does anybody have any questions for this
witness well I have a couple of questions but one question I have is the aggregate sideyard why couldn't you just make get why can't we just get rid of that variance you're asking sideyard yes because you're Yes why can't we just get rid of that
well it would require because the the second floor the second floor is not impacted by it because it you know I'll just show you we're talking about this little bit right back here so on the first floor I'll I'll get to but so on
the second floor there's nothing built there um we left that open to get some window area but also to stay under the um the four square footage i mean all right in order to do
that let me see i'd have to because I don't think again the house the rooms are not oversized i mean it's got a small living room in the front which is not impacted by what you're asking or the dining room so I if we try
that I think I would leave those rooms and then we would just slide the family room wall in so you just think I I was just trying to think of how much so it's point4T so it's five inches or something like that
we'd probably six inches so um that's something we could entertain i mean I just to eliminate one of the one of the variances i think that might not be a hard thing to do i mean um it's
easy for me to say right but no I mean it just you know it just straight lines are nice in construction you know less less joints less potential for leakage because I'm going to have to pull in the foundation wall but to answer your question could
we do that yes we could so I mean and I I would leave it up to Peter to say yes or no to that since it's his house but but we can accommodate that and then what's the square footage of the basement do you have is it a finished basement yeah I do it's the
same as the first floor um is it on here i Oh it's on here i'm sorry oh 1528 okay I see 1528 okay thank you and just for clarity the going back to the established front yard setback map
the house to the left which is on right that that house faces Spear Drive correct that's the side of the house that's the 30 point correct six not the not the front correct that he factored in yes
but it's still I mean it does face the street but but it is it is the side of the house yes definitely the fronts here and then obviously looking at that too the the number four really is the bump out of the that side of the street too
like as you come around the corner it that house also the front of the front lot sticks out further than the others and then it cur then the street kind of curves back as it goes down Spalding right right so I mean it would just be out further just be more pronounced as
you when you Well I mean the streets out further you know so the relationship to the curb to the house should should be similar does anybody else have any questions for this witness is anybody in the public i don't think
there's anybody in the public besides our reporter back there um so I'd like to hear from other people in the board um you guys had a little conversation about moving the family
room in a little bit does that help everybody a little bit yes again I think there's a lot of variances on this now and as Lori rightly said right i think bringing in reducing what are the variances would go a long way
so that that's agreeable if we vote yes on this agreeable we can we can All right that'll be that'll be that'll be a condition if we pass it then to right yes it'll be right on the the the setback line the 30% line um the attic
what's the height of the attic you were gonna ask that i I looked because I I didn't I haven't actually measured it's It's around somewhere between six and seven feet i don't have There's no There's It's pull down stair there's no
no stair going up there um you know it's not intended for living space since we don't have a known number and would would the applicant would you be acceptable to a condition of approval
that that can't be considered to be used as living space in the future yes yes yeah i mean we're going to I mean the way atticts work nowadays I mean you have to put about 16 inches of insulation in them to to comply with the
energy code so um but also we are going to have two mechanical systems and one serving the bedroom level is going to go up there so we're going to have duck work snaking through that attic to serve the bedrooms for heating and cooling too so but but yes that condition is fine
great we just we just like to tuck that one away um does anybody else have any comments or questions for this witness or anybody or the application does anybody want to make a motion i'll make a motion to approve with the
conditions for the attics and then get rid getting rid of the uh sideyard um aggregate firing i don't think so i'll second that jackie we don't need to see the plans right as
long as they comply yes okay second by Mr horn yes sir um Okay Mr yes wait okay i missed you on yes mr horn yes mr shaw oh he left sorry Mr
sherman yes mr weissman yes miss Khan votes yes mr beer yes okay thank you thank you okay meeting is adjourned