##VIDEO ID:C57IOnwe0SU## good evening everyone welcome to the Tuesday night Township of L pacon planning board meeting November 26 2024 would everybody please join me in a moment of silence F followed by the uh oath of allegiance to the flag please pledge allegiance United States of America the rep it stands Nation God indivisible liberty and justice adequate notice of this meeting has been provided indicating the time and place of the meeting in accordance with chapter 231 of the Public's public laws of 1975 by advertising notice in the Star Ledger in the express time and by posting a copy on the bulletin board in the municipal building roll call yes members coil here Coy here George Melendez here PLO here here Vice chairwoman Deo here chairman Samson here all right for the old business um the approval of the minute for uh from the September 25th meeting everybody get a copy of those get in the email everybody get a copy anybody have any questions comments nothing all right would somebody like to make a motion to approve the minutes motion second all in favor i i n Okay so business we have uh Bridge Acquisitions 80 Striker road block 99 lot six needs a 19mon uh extension let the record collect that member George arrived at sir you have the floor thank you uh good evening members of the board board professionals my name is Tim Arch I'm attorney license in the state of New Jersey I'm here representing uh Bridge Acquisitions um this is a simple uh uh extension request um you've probably seen these a number of times on the board uh approvals uh when you get approvals at the at this board level there are lots of Outside Agency approvals that you have to pursue as well and sometimes there can be some delays in getting those Outside Agency approvals and so it's uh common to come back and ask for extensions of those uh of those time periods um I did provide a letter uh that I think all the board members have that's dated September 30th uh that sort of outlines all the steps that we've been going through since we received our approvals back in um 2022 um the largest delay was uh because of Warren County or because of negotiations with Warren County it took 19 months from the time that we actually applied to the time that we actually got our approval from uh Warren County and as you may realize that um there's sort of a compounding effect of those delays so if you're still waiting on an approval from one agency it can hold up approval from other agencies and and it kind of has a Snowball Effect um in any event uh we uh we believe that we uh meet all the criterias under the ml uh to uh to get those extensions especially because of the the delay in Warren County um I do have potentially uh a couple Witnesses if the board feels it necessary uh to ask any uh further questions or needs any any elaboration on anything that I indicated in my letter um but I know it's close to Thanksgiving I know that we're the only anything on the agenda tonight and so uh I'll certainly leave it up to the board if uh if there needs to be anything beyond uh what was submitted in the letter um so I'll turn it over to the board if there's any questions what I took from the letter is that it was mostly Highlands is that your the biggest uh it's a combination of things I can tell you that the biggest single Delay from the period of time of of filing to the time that we actually got an approval was Warren County but these are all going concurrently and they all have effects on one anothers as well so yeah there is there is um a delay as indicated in the letter for Highlands as well um take your pick I mean it's essentially there's lots of different outside agencies that that um have to be coordinated okay I have I have some questions I'm looking at this timeline from the Warren County planning board I see an incompleteness letter and two disapprovals um why was it disapproved uh I can certainly turn that over to uh to Mr scinet he's our uh he's our engineer from Dynamic um what I can tell you just in general is that um much like with a planning board completeness determinations when you initially file uh they do a review they issue an incompleteness letter um if you file from there as well they can issue a uh additional disapproval letter and ask for resubmissions of additional information and additional materials one of the things I will say with Warren County was there was there was significant out uh off-site contributions that they were looking for and I think that also sort of played a part in their initial analysis of this um and uh if you'll find at the uh one of the things that they added on or that was an additional uh condition of the approval was a developers agreement that had multiple offsite um uh contributions uh offsite um construction that had to be done for things completely unrelated to our essentially to our project related in the sense that that uh the county felt as though there would be an impact and so therefore they're allowed to get off-site contributions but um not anything that was on our site particular I don't know if that answers your question or if uh or if Mr SCA if you want Mr scapus to come up and give anything any more detailed I have a question here because you're saying that Warren County held that up but I was looking here at all the different submissions and their approval was like within two to three weeks or their their incompleteness their disapprove is everything was like pretty fast I don't see where they held anything correct it's not that Warren it's not that Warren County's approval held up those other approvals that we got beforehand but there's all sorts of things that have to occur after Warren County gives their approval and those things cannot happen until we get that we're still not at the point where we can put a shovel in the ground uh so there's still other uh additional things that have to be done uh before we can get to the point where we can actually pull a permit but those some of those aspects can't be done concurrently with the county because they're dependent on having that that County there's a lot of contractual Provisions that are uh essentially you need to have final approval from certain outside agencies before you can really uh purs pursue those at all um and so it again it's a snowballing effect it's a compounding effect I just don't see where the County held it up I think they responded pretty fast that's just what I see come on out like I said Mr scapin it's from Dynamic engineering I think he can uh he can add some more I can clarify and for the record Brett scinet Dynamic engineering consultant so is the engineer of record on the plans I believe he does need to be well our attorney is not here so oh okay but you were sworn I was sworn and my and my licenses are still current uh so go ahead okay so uh Mr AR is correct there are different agencies I I'll take s conservation for example it's an easy one and if you look it's one of the easiest ones and one of the quickest ones that we uh were able to get an approval for but if you look at the dates we filed every agency pretty much simultaneously there really wasn't a large gap at all between all of them now you can look at further down the line you can look at njd ptwa okay and you can see how in that one for example though it was filed a little bit later and it took a little while for that one to come in that's one of those that is dependent however on us not only getting site plan approval but then we have to go through once we get site plan approval we need to go through then the sign off process for a tww application that can't happen till we get site plan approval all right so technically that application can get filed to the DDP for them to approve it until we've gone through local uh approval process whereas soil conservation District the county Highlands we can start that simultaneously with filing with the town which is generally what we did when it came to the county however uh and I've been working for 30 years I've made dozens of applications to Warren County in various different capacities and you file the first time and they did exactly what they did here the disapproval letter is not a really a disapproval it's written that way legal speak sorry Mr Arch but it's it's an incompleteness letter and we can go back to those letters they're basically saying look we need additional information just as he said and it's and it's they're saying we're not going to complete our review and you're done until you send us this additional information and if you look at the dates in which they issu their their uh disapproval letter we incompleteness we generally filed right away um yeah it there might be a couple month a month or two span but that was a result of addressing their comments addressing their concerns that were in their in that letter that they issued and so we need to get back to with more information and ultimately that led to honestly once we got to the beginning the around 20203 in in the um Mid 2023 that's where we really started to hit I'll say major delay then with the county because that's when we were getting in the thick of discussions about what was going in the developers agreement in the outside um offsite improvements for example there's work that to be done at the intersection of Striker and uh striker9 519 right so Striker and 519 the discussion as to what was going to happen with the intersection on number one finding out where the RightWay was whose responsibility was going to be to do it how the money was going to be put up because we know that across the street from our project money was put up by that developer to do just what we're talking about the intersection improvements so there was discussion about how that money was going to be used then there was further discussion about what we could do about the canal since we're up against the canal and what we can do to cross get that pathway safer to go from one side of Striker to the other so it was talking about what we could do for the design of a pedestrian Crossing then they said well wait a minute further down further interior to your site to the I'll call it to the east along the canal there was uh an Old Bridge so there's an old connection and a pathway that actually if you continue along the canal it leads back out to 519 so further there there they know there's a connect there is a crossing and they said well you know we want another we want a a up to date we want you to build AC Crossing there and we talked about wait a minute is that our really RAR responsibility it's off our site and ultimately it came down to putting up money for a brand new pedestrian bridge that money that was put up already by my client uh in order to facilitate the construction of that so there was a lot of back and forth and then ultimately the language between lawyers as far as what was written in the agreement itself so there was a lot going on there between the county and if you look in that period of time all important issues oh no AB oh oh absolutely but takes time and and ultimately going back and forth between my client the the the you know we're dealing with engineering myself and Engineering they're writing up the comment but then ultimately it's got to go up to chain of command in the county as well so can you look in when that was occurring that's where you see there were some larger gaps in time and response from the county because ultimately we filed information then we waited for them a month or two maybe three months before them to get back to us with comments on the developers agreement so ultimately that's what led to 19 months of from the time we filed to the time we got our approval this why the green witch development that's supposed to contacted me and said that there's supposed to be this traffic study so what you're alluding to is county is and all these warehouses coming up and now they're trying to like figure out what's happening all together cuz green witch did green witch development did contact me and trying to figure out when Philipsburg put up their warehouses cubes is going up in Alpha so it's like going on well the the county absolutely the county did their job the county did their research they they reviewed it that's why they took study basic uh partially but obviously there's the offsite stuff as well so it's a combination of all that so yeah so so the green Wich development is the offsite development is hindering your development over here uh no no no the the offsite well when you say the offsite the the offsite is basically again the county saying we know there there's to your point they know that there was other stuff going on and you're you're part of that of the work that of the you're part of the development that's happening in the area we want to make sure that what's going on at that intersection you know is right so across the street put up an amount of money uh we want you to put up essentially the balance and you know ultimately the county is going to do a design and it's going to be paid for out of the funds uh from my client from across the street I have a question yep and it's in two parts so please listen y um you're asking for 19 month and extension okay extension from when and how long a period is that and why the thing is threw me for a loop year and seven months what is the seven months about most people go six months a year some seven just doesn't quite fit a mold of something to me so so I can answer yeah so I can answer that so the ml there's actually two types of extensions in the municipal land use law one is a mandatory uh extension for one year uh and that's on the basis of their's uh your pursuing your Outside Agency approvals and you can't get permits until you get those Outside Agency approvals there's a there's a separate provision in the ml that allows the board in their discretion to Grant beyond that one year actually up to I believe five years before you then have to Reen notice um and that one year by the way extension can can be applied for three separate times on three separate occasions so it's up to three years the reason that we're asking for the 19 is is is simply we took what we what was the largest Outside Agency delay which was when we filed Warren County to when we got our approval from Warren County and that was 19 months so that's why we asked for the 19-month extension because that's what we can point to directly to say this was when we filed this was how long it took to get that uh approval and so we think that it's reasonable and justifiable to say that's the that's the time that it took for that a lot of people I will say a lot of applicants will come up and will say we need two years we need three years uh in your discretion please give us again up to five years without without potentially notice we wanted to couch this in in the timeline that we so that we could show that to I understand you still haven't told me to date that it started from the 19th um in your in your you know discussion I think it's December 29th correct yeah so yeah it's the end of this year correct it's the end of this year that it would be the other question I have is uh why are you not moving forward on everything else you know when I do projects I don't stagnate on one little thing I move on five different things all right so that all all things are moving all right and the statement you made was nothing moved because War County didn't move okay so have you been waiting for and this is part of my discussion this decision have you been waiting for one person to make a move and stagnating on everybody else well you can see it's a yes or no question I don't want to see i' like the har Y no no we weren't no we certainly weren't stagnating on everything else obviously we we tried to file as many things and pursue as many things concurrently as we can like I said though until you solidify approvals from certain outside agencies there are certain other steps that you can't take and that's what I meant by the it has a compounding effect because at the end of the day any delay at one point is going to is going to start to to build up on the other side anybody else have any questions I have some comments to ask um so was there anything in the developers agreement that the Board needs to see or about has that been I because I don't think the board has gotten a um an approved developers agreement or at least I don't think our seen it uh so I uh I don't believe well there's nothing in the county developers agreement that affects the uh that affects the the township or the township there's a separate Township developers agreement right uh uh so I believe there will be a copy of that executive developers agreement that will be provided but nothing uh pertaining to that agreement is anything that affects the Township's approval or the Township's uh developers approval okay all right um so you didn't have to update any plans or anything like that for by the way I'm Marie r with um coler's engineering I'm filling in for Adam so I'm not Adam but [Music] um did something different U with respect to the plans as we went through the county comments and addressed those um the final set that Adam got is he issued us a comment email in May yes that basically said you're good I'm fine with the plans uh there's just a few things such as you know the developers agreement bonds precon there was a few other couple other things that needed to be provided and that you know when were this closed to be able to get in the door but as far as the plans are concerned they were up to date with respect to the county coms okay the ones that he approved okay so um and there was some things that we were looking over um the you know the the incompleteness letter from Warren County um you know along the way just looking at the history of it it looked like maybe there was some changes that would have been made to some of the storm water or um Downstream dams is there anything that was that was changed on that that needs to come back and for us to review no you you've reviewed it all already okay all right um all right so the downstream Check Dat Dam everything's okay we've seen all of that we've seen all that okay nothing changed after that nothing changed um none of the storm water facilities changed anything on the plans all that all that yep you were and everything that again everything that went to the county ultimately came to you and you were you're you're that final okay by Adam that the plans were good contains everything that the county had okay so if we were to put a stipulation in that on any approval should the board approve this um would you be okay with submitting revised plans should there be any revised plans because of any of the approvals that you had yeah yeah uh there's no revised plans so again we're I I I'm just making sure I'm checking all the boxes here be fine because I think that I think that's already a condition of the of the ultimate Township approval thato to it anyway so yes we would certainly agree to I we would have to I mean we already have agreed to it I actually do have one question and it might be more of an internal question than a question to these guys but um as ordinances change um for example with the the ms4 application for Tree Management if this project isn't going to begin as they start will they have to comply with the changes to the ordinance for trees and tree replacement that's a good point and I think that we just thep change the storm water regulations is that going to have well it's not so much to have anything to do with um the D's regulations what the applicant is seeking tonight is simply an extension of the approvals that were granted by this board against from zoning changes not necessarily all regulation changes this is an ordinance change that I'm asking about zoning changes okay I so what this applicant has actually obtained in the past was both preliminary and separately final uh safe plan approval with variance relief to actually do a project that is a use what the application is tonight is to say yes the zoning and the land use regulations that they were approved under are not going to change for them okay so they're still protected okay but so again my question is more internal than to them if our ordinance for free replacement changes and it has an impact on them because they're they're they've already been previously approved do they then have to comply going forward as they start the construction I don't I'm not sure I'm clear on how that actually to be honest with you I'm not sure either what this normally does is protect them from zone changes okay and this is not a Zone their approval uh remains no matter what whether or not there's a zone change and whether or not they're able to get a building permit is a completely different issue only thing that the application is before the board tonight is to say that they're further protected from zone changes okay they can still regardless of whether or not the board says yes or no if there's not an intervening zone change they can still apply for their building permits and move ahead as long as they comply with the uh otherwise otherwise comply with uh local work dut and and ordinances aren't necessarily zoning ordin okay that was the clarification we needed thank you what why do you feel you need 19 months okay what why not a year why not six months I mean what what what meat and potatoes is telling you that you need to go 19 months well not that we don't want to be back here in front of you if we need to ask for a further extension so obviously uh the 19 months again I thought is Justified under under the time it took for the application and the to get the approval uh so I thought that that was a reasonable time period to put forth what you're asking is how long until we can get a shovel in the ground um we'd like to say that we can get a shovel in the ground hopefully within the next six months but I I can't guarantee that and if it if it was only six months or if it was only a year and we'd have to come back uh before this board and we would be in the same essentially situation we would just be updating you with more information uh one thing I can say is that under the ml the um non-discretionary time is is the year uh the discretionary time is the amount of period is the period of time after after the fact um we have every intention to not use the entire 19 months if we can help it but you probably know as well as I do there's there's unforeseen things that can come up that can cause additional delays uh we would you know I I I would not be doing my job if I didn't ask for what I thought was a reasonable amount of time and again the reasonable amount of time in the ml is based on what the time of any sort of action for getting those Outside Agency approvals is it's not based on how much future time uh you feel is necessary to complete the project so that's why we chose that amount of time I don't disagree with what council just said I don't disagree with what council just said okay is there any legal reason that we shouldn't or you we shouldn't uh Grant this uh legally I don't think that there is a reason I think that you're going to have to open up public for public comment but uh the applicant is well within their rights to actually seek this extension I think they put forth a reasonable basis uh for the extension again the extension is not an extension of an approval the approval does not expire the extension simply allows the developer to rely on the approval not to be changed or be thwarted by a zone change in the future that's all it does and short of his Z change they're still allowed to proceed and they can come in after the 19 ones and ask for another could right yeah nothing uh prohibits them from doing that or they could start work they could okay everybody satisfied so um open it up for public comments [Laughter] okay all right so the vote so the vote are we going to put a condition on the approval that we receive the offsite is that what we talked about the um developers agreement Dev developers agreement with the county we we haven't seen the final approval of that the the finalized version of the developers agreement with the county we have we saw drafted it but I don't know it's not executed what I will say is that that is we would have to provide that prior to getting building permits anyway that that is a condition of the county approval that your building department would have or your zoning department would have to check off as being completed before we could even apply for permit so it's already a condition that we have to provide that before we can pull any building permits so I mean if that if that wants to be reiterated here tonight I don't think there's there's any harm in doing that but it's already a condition that we have we can't hide the Cy developers GR it doesn't work that way okay and Colliers has the latest revision they've approved the latest revision there's no surprises there's no that's my understanding according to Mr wisuki is that uh is that the final revision had been okayed um but obviously we will we we will certainly be in contact with kers going forward as well and they they can certainly request any additional any additional plan or anything else that that needs to be provided okay I have one more question for your thing here Jam okay it's legal okay um do you feel that you will slow down if we go within 19 months as as your as your development starts do you feel that you won't push as hard to accomplish the same thing as if you had 6 months or 12 months or anything do you feel that you will slow down things uh what do we want to swear another we can swear Mr Jeff malan I can tell you we are going full speed ahead and securing this extension if we secure this extension is going to put the project into light speed quite frankly because we're coming up against this deadline it is not going to be it is not going to act as a delaying Force it's going to be a the kick in the butt that the that the project actually needs at this point that's what I didn't want I didn't want it to slow down the nothing no it will have the exact opposite I can I can guarantee you that I just want to make sure that the record's clear they're not getting an extension of an approval correct okay their approval still stands already there right what they're applying for is an extension to prevent them from being subject to a zone change which actually already occurred right okay but they have an approval in place so there was a zone change that's still under litigation as far as I know but they're simply seeking to have the approval that they've receiv be exempt from any type of zone change just changes yes but it doesn't it has no effect on the actual approval itself is there is there is there any point that you know that this thing can go on for five six seven years that it would change anything uh theoretically yes but zoning everything would change so much if we gave him so many years time span and and things Chang does it affect our Township in a way that the Z gives them a Grace and takes everybody else out that would be a conversation that we would have 19 months from now I think that's what I'm saying yeah and I agree with James I mean you know what you're saying I I do agree but I'm trying to protect the whole town not just one conom so and I will say that's part of the reason we're asking 19 we're not asking for 3 years four years 5 years um I I can tell you that I've been in front of boards where I'm this is the third time coming up and saying we need another year and Boards will deny because if you come up a bunch of different times they you know the boards have that have that ability to to reign in and control it so in 19 months you you'll absolutely if we if we have not done what we are saying that we are do you'll have a chance to hold our feet to the fire okay thank you okay would somebody like to make a motion um to Grant a 19-month extension to bridge Acquisitions would somebody like to make that motion I'll make the motion a second MERS Cole yes boy I guess yesz yes Le no Lees no nice chair Deo yes chairman Samson [Music] yes thank you very much everybody have a wonderful thank you thank you why you like oh can I forget you yes oh I do something wrong yes I'm sorry and a personal thank you to you well you're very welcome thank you g what did I do wrong she's so mad at me time next time look I was buying a car you know how long it takes to get through in the finance guy I'm pretty impressed I made it here only 3 minutes late I'm like I got to go I got plan I get an