board May 22, 2025, 6:30 p.m. Please stand and address the flag. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to theublic stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. In accordance with the open public meetings act, it is hereby announced and shall be entered into the minutes of this meeting that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the following. Posted on the bulletin board of the office of the township clerk.
Posted on the bulletin boards within the municipal complex. Printed in the home news tribune and cranberry press on December 27, 2024. Posted on the Monroe Township website and sent to those individuals who have requested personal
notice. Laura, call the role. Mr. Rothman, Miss Bratzky here. Mr. Manesh Patel here. Miss Damiani, Mr. Slavichek here. Mr. Weiner here. Dr. Kenzie, Councilwoman Cohen, yes. Mayor's
representative, Mr. Patel, Chairman Gaffrey here. Okay. Laura circulated the uh the minutes I believe at the end of last week. Um I assume everybody's had a chance to take a look at it. Uh do we have a motion to accept the minutes? I
move to adopt the minutes. A second. Second. Okay. All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. Okay, the minutes are adopted and we're going to go right into the uh the applications. The first one is PB1267-25
uh solar photovolatic volta system voltc system arrays and associated improvements to be constructed at the following locations and and and council please come forward. And just to note, this is a courtesy
review. There's not going to be a vote on this. Um, members of the board, uh, chairman, uh, board professionals, good evening. My name is Rob Simon. I'm with the firm of Herald Law. I'm here on behalf of the Monroe Township School District and HP Solar here to proudly
present a uh courtesy review project, a solar project with regard to installations at various uh school district facilities, Monroe Township High School, Monroe Township Middle School, Applegarth Elementary, Woodland
Elementary, Barklaybrook Elementary, Oakree Elementary, Administration Building and Transportation building. And as you'll hear from our our witness, uh these installations vary in type. Um many of them are just uh roof
installations. There is uh one canopy installation and two uh ground mount installations. As the chairman appropriately stated, this is a courtesy uh review application where um we are required by the municipal lanes law to
seek review and recommendation of the planning board in conjunction with the u municipal master plan is set forth in section uh 31A of the municipal annuous law and is also pared in your ordinance at section 175-14
uh G. Uh the master plan um that you have actually is replete with references to encouraging uh energy efficient design and sustainable business practices and to incorporate solar panels into future
projects and to promote the use of renewable uh sources and becoming a sustainable town with renewable energy from solar sources. So uh with that the uh the school district has entered into a solar energy services agreement with
hes solar to construct the solar system project at the various locations that I identified solar energy facilities or structures to consider as inherently beneficial uses under the munus law and as accessory uses to the uh school
district buildings. Um, and this project is also part of New Jersey's uh energy savings improvement program or the ESIP program that allows government entities such as school districts to make energy related improvements to their facilities
to not only reduce energy usage and generate corresponding energy savings, but also use the same as to help afford equipment upgrades to government facilities, including at public schools. So, that's what's doing here tonight. Uh the way we're going to proceed is we just really have one witness, uh Rob
Michelle from Gladstone Design, the project civil engineer, who's going to walk through the various uh projects. Also available this evening, although I think she's she may be running a few minutes late, is Susan Brody, the chief operations officer of Hes Solar. And we also have Jerry Tig on behalf of the
Monroe Township School District if there's any questions. So with that, like to present Mr. Michella. Just have to turn it on. So Rob, I I even though it's a courtesy review. Yeah. When I swear I'm in that way, we'll keep everybody happy. Do you swear the testimony you're going to provide is the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth? I do. If you could just state your name, spell your last name, and give us your address for the record. For the record, my name is Robert Moshello. That's spelled M O S C H E L L O. My business address is 265 Main Street, Gladstone, New Jersey. And and just give us your credentials, too.
I'm a licensed professional engineer in the state of New Jersey. I received my license in 2004. I got my BS in civil engineering in 1998 from NGIT. I've appeared before over 100 boards in the state of New Jersey as an expert witness in the field of civil engineering for both land development, um, commercial, residential, and my office has actually
worked on over a gigawatt worth of solar throughout the state of New Jersey over the last 10 years. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. So, I have just a couple of exhibits I'm going to go through this evening for the board. Um, we had submitted a package of different plans for the individual schools. I just have um some aerials of each of those
I'm going to put up here on the easel. M do you want do you want these how do you want these marked or I mean we've we've submitted plans for for each one of these facilities. It's up to you if you want these if if they're different. Why don't we just call them exhibit A1 A2? I'll just mark them for the record
just so they have Rob just identify which school district corresponds to the exhibit. So I'll go through each of them. So this is exhibit A1. It's entitled Aerial Exhibit. It's for um the Monroe Township High School and we'll it's dated May 22nd, 2025. And what we're looking at here is
the high school layout. So when you look at the plan, Paradineville Road is on the um the west side here, the municipal building. We're right across the street from the high school and this is schoolhouse road on the bottom of the plan here on the south side of the plan. And basically what you're looking at is for this particular project, this one's
going to be a solar canopy system over the existing parking lots on this on the um on the school campus. So we're looking at um six different solar canopies that we're proposing here. Um generally speaking, um they're um actually a little larger than your typical solar canopies, which might just
be over one row of parking. These going to have um over multiple rows of parking because of the layout of the um of the high school. Um, they're going to vary anywhere from from 22 feet up to 28 ft in height. Because of the span that we're doing here, we want to have a 14t clear span underneath the panels for
emergency service vehicles and the like. So, this way we have this way we're doing a double row of panels over the parking. So, we can have going to be a little bit higher than your typical um parking lot, which might be in the 20 to 22t range. These be between 22 and 28 depending on the width of them. Um, we're looking at basically on this
layout here, it's almost a 3 and 1/2 megawatt system. um for the uh for the school. It it the final design may vary a little bit in size depending on final foundation layouts and and and um and the like based on how we we deal with some of the on ground improvements. But
the basic layout is as you see here with the panels um and we'll have um conduits will be run back to the school building for power. We are going to have to take down um the polemounted lights that are in the parking lot now and we'll replace those with lighting underneath the solar panels. it'll make sure it complies with
your ordinances for lighting levels, but we do have to take those down. Um, and there are a couple trees along Schoolhouse Road um that will actually be impacted by this as well, and they'll have to come down also because of shading purposes and the constructibility of the uh of the panels on the I'll say the souththeast side of
the uh of the facility. Um, so that's the high school that we have. I'll go on to the next one. Ju, just a quick question. How many uh parking spots are going to be eliminated? Um the way we have it designed right now, we're not proposing the elimination of any spaces. We do have to work out the foundations to make
sure that they land on the striping or actually behind in the islands. Um the idea is to make sure that we really we don't take out any parking just because of you know it's a school and I'm sure every space is important. Um so we make sure we don't do that. But yeah, the idea is to set the foundations where
they're either in an island or lined up with the striping so that this way you don't lose a parking space. Um overall the impervious coverage impact on this is negligible. Most of this is an impervious spaces already. So um it's it's really going to be ne negligible impact from a storm water perspective for imperous coverage
because of the foundations and and under the municipal land use law the solar panels are excluded from any type of impervious calculation any that's correct. So the next one that I'm going to go to is the Applegarth Elementary School. So so this is going to be A2. Mr. Michelle
A2 for the record. It's A2 for the record. Also dated 52225. Um so this is this is a section of the Applegarth Elementary School property. We are proposing a groundmounted system for the elementary school. Um this one is actually going to
be approximately um 700 kilowatts or 7 megawatts in size. um is a ground mount system. So, this is going to be um set up with um two panels um I'll call in um landscape actually portrait, I'm sorry, that that are laid
out in five rows. Um they'll be supported by a pile driven column that'll be driven into the ground. Um in terms of imperous coverage for this because we're using pile driven post to support it, it's it's almost negligible. It's about 30 40 square foot of
impervious coverage for the pile itself for the foundation. But the panels themselves, as Mr. Simon pointed out are not impervious under the munipal annuous law. The height of this system is typically anywhere between 7 and 9 ft based on the angle of the panels as they're supported. You want to have a you need to have about 2 and 1 half 3 ft
of clearance on the trailing on the front edge and about 8 to 9 ft of clearance on the back edge. Um it is going to be fenced in. It'll have a 7 foot high fence around it um to separate the system um from any uh activities that go on um on the property itself.
um this and that's basically there'll be a conduit run from the system back into the school for for power purposes. There's no removal of any trees or vegetation or impact any of the um parking or anything on the site since it's in a sits in a grass field area. Talk about lighting. Yeah, there's no lighting proposed for this. There's no
there's no impact to that in any in any way, shape or form. The next one we have is for the Oak Tree Elementary School A3. be 0 A3. Yes, dated 52225. For the
record, this is an even smaller system than the one you just saw a moment ago. Um, for ground mounted, again, this is going to be in the field area to the west of the existing ball field. So, we're not going to be impacting the ball field that's there. Now, um, this system is actually less than
0.2 megawws. So it's it's it's it's really small in terms of size, but again, same parameters, same height, f 7 to nine feet, same fence around it, conduit being run back to the building. Again, no no impact to lighting, landscaping, or anything on the property other than the area we're taking up for
the uh for the panels itself. And then the last board I have here, we'll call this A4 for the record. And this is entitled rooftop solar layout plans dated 5222. Um, and this basically shows the
four different um facilities where they're doing panels on the roofs of the buildings. Um, there's no parking lot or or ground mounted proposed here. One is for the uh Monroe Township Middle School. The other one is for the Barkley Brook Elementary School. Then you have the Woodland Elementary School and then you have the administration and
transportation building as well. So some of these roofs are flat, some of them have peaks to them. Um, in any event, they're all going to be on the roof. So they should they would typically for the flat roofs, they will not be visible from from the ground level. The peaked roof, of course, you'll see the panels on that one, but there's no proposed
removal of any trees, vegetation, um, parking spaces, or things of that nature with these with these plans. That concludes my uh my direct presentation. Thank you. So, open it up for any questions for Mr. Michello with regard to any of the projects.
Do any of our professionals have any questions? I don't. Thank you, C. Uh, thank you. U chairman, um, what determines the the size of the arrays at each location? like you had a very small one at Oak Tree and a much
larger one at uh across the street at Applegarth. I'll say it typically has to do with the power consumption of the schools and the buildings. Um but maybe Miss Brody might be able to answer that question a little more detail because they dealt with that with when the RFP was put out for the uh powers for the power determination for each of the
schools. And and will the will the energy generated from these solar panels are these going to power the school? Yeah, these are what we call net zero uh installations. So we can't generate more power than what the school uses in a given year. So it basically goes back it
basically goes back into the grid and makes the meter spin backwards. So if they're using a certain amount of power during the day, if the panels are generating more power than the school is using, well, that power goes back into the electrical grid and the meter goes in reverse. So at the end of the year, they're supposed to basically have a net
zero um impact to the electric bills for for the uh for the school. So essentially they're sized to handle all the power that the school they're usually sized to be slightly less than the full amount. You don't size them to 100% because you have fluctuations. So typically in the 90% range, but Miss
Brody may be able to answer that a little bit more accurately because they do the electrical calculations as part of the power purchase agreement they put together. Okay. I have some other questions regarding the the panels that are on the roofs of the schools and transportation. Um, how will you get
access to those panels if if there's a problem? And I'm I'm assuming it's the electric company or that has to come out and maintain these. Uh, how will they get it in there during school or even in the middle of the night? Would they come out for it's it's actually HESP who's responsible for the maintenance since
they're installing the the system. So, they would have they would have an agreement with the school district to access the system and be able to maintain it. So, they would have to work with them to get to the uh the various facilities. And will there be ground mounted equipment for the uh roof uh panels? Um the roof panel the roof
panels typically no. Um for the ground for the um the parking lot and for the ground mount systems, there will be a small utility pad um closer to the building that they'll need for a transformer and things of that nature. On the on the parking lot ones, they typically put the inverters on the um on
the on the support system itself. And then there's one there's usually a transformer close to the building. Okay. Um I have I have more questions on the uh uh the parking lot mounted solar. So with regard to the high school, uh you said site lighting is all going to be
removed. Um so a concern is is the site lighting um outside of these areas where there was a polemounted light that that covered the area that's beyond these uh these solar panels. So, you you're going to be providing a a um a site plan of
sort that shows all the lighting levels. How how will that be accomplished? Well, let me let me just back up on that for one moment. The only lighting that we're going to remove on the high school will be the lights that are underneath the that are in the islands where the panels
are going. If anywhere outside of the panels, those lights are going to remain. So, we're not changing those. So, it's only going to be where we're putting the panels in is where we're going to install lights under the panels. So, so there'll still be ample light beyond these solar panels from the existing light cuz it appeared that some
of the lighting you were removing may impact some of the sidewalk areas closer to the school, like across the aisle from the school. Correct. If we're going to be removing a light pole that's let's say in this row of of parking here underneath the panels, we're going to make sure that we provide enough
adequate lighting to reach the same level that that pole reached under existing conditions because yeah, you're right. If the poles are a certain height, they do have that throw and we want to cover that. So, if we have to put a light on the end of the panel to angle that way, we will do that and we're going to look at that as part of the final design we do for the for the
building permit. Thank you. The other thing on the high school, um, the access aisles, you have like the entrance coming in off a schoolhouse, but you have the solar panels overhanging that drive aisle. So, my concern is school buses, fire equipment coming in or out
of there. Um, it's really on the egress side where the panels overhang the drive aisles. And then also the the one at the top of the page, uh the drive aisle there, uh to your left, I'm sorry, upper
left. Um that one's over that main drive aisle. So again, just a concern with the drive aisles if fire equipment's going to be able to get, you know, through there and school buses. Yeah. They're they're designed to have a minimum of 14t clear. And because of the size of
these these these um panels were double we're double um spanning. They're typically between 14 and and 18 foot clear on the bottom side. So your 14 is your max for for traveling on road. So we we So I know it's here for a courtesy review, but I would just ask that you know you do you run that by our fire
department. We would be happy to do that. Typically for these projects, we'll run it always by the municipal fire department as as well as and I was um holding off for a second uh your question about accessing the the roofs for the panels. We we um coordinate that
with the fire company as well. In terms of access, so they don't come out for maintenance in the middle of the night or or or whenever they come out for maintenance. If the school's open, you know, how are they getting access? Is there a a ladder on the side of the building to get up or is it inside or
It's something that's usually worked out on on a building by building bas. Okay. And coordinate with fire. Okay. Yeah. And I say if there's a couple panels where we we make we'll make some adjustments when we go into final structural design. If we have to shift them over a little bit just for ease of
clearance around some of these corners, we we'll be happy to do that. Okay, great. Um so we'll go to the uh Apple Guard School, the ground mounted one. You're you're removing a cricket field. Um so that's this is on A2 and some recreation areas out there. It looks
like um you know school expansion, you know, why would this be going out in the field where um instead of on the building? I'll have to defer to to Miss Brody on that one because they had this the RFP had listed where to where to put these facilities on the property. So, it
it is going over a field and there was looks like there's an old not an old but some um softball fencing there as well. Yeah, I know this came through the board of ed. So, they have no plans to expand or put a building. You can have, you know, um, Mr. Take, you know, respond to that question if you wish.
Thank you. Anybody from the board? I actually have two questions. Mic. Hopefully not. Maybe we can have the appropriate person. There you go. The appropriate person. Let's see.
There you go. Okay, there we go. If if if it's not for you, then maybe we can get the appropriate person. So the first question is uh just to make sure we understand you've used a conclusive term a few times before in referencing net zero. Can you explain what's meant by
that? Is it going to be zero cost now for electricity for the school district because of this or is there going to be a net zero change from what the cost is now? Or does it mean something else? When I ter when I refer to net zero from an electrical standpoint, and I'll Miss Brody talk about it from a a cost
standpoint, but net zero from an electrical standpoint is you're not you're you're gener you're generating almost enough electricity where you're not um putting it back into the grid. So that's net zero. You're not using more than you're taking, you're not using less than you're taking. Basically supposed to balance out your power
generation over the 12 months. And that's why they say net zero in terms of use. So the power uses is is what's netting at zero. But as far as the cost to the district and the for electricity as a uh between what it would cost for
electrical power conventional as exists now versus what the costs are going to be by implementing this system uh the savings that's really I'll I'll wait till we hear that
and my other question was has this been uh reviewed and evaluated ated by the police department of public safety because my concern that comes up to me is particularly by the high school where these are elevated above parking
areas is obviously there's the potential for obscuring vision for security purposes in a great majority of the parking area and we're talking about a school where there are students not everyone drives even some that do as well as employees
and so forth and my concern concern is particularly activities that happen later in the day in offseason, winter, fall when the sun sets earlier. Uh how is that impacting uh the visual ability for security to
make sure that it remains as safe as it is now? Um, so does part of the plan include any type of cameras to in be integrated in underneath the panels or what what what is the the I guess the perspective on that for safety for
security as well as if our police department and school security have chimed in. I I will say to one part of that and I'll defer to the other part to Miss Brody is these are typically a little bit higher than your typical panels you might see. Typically, you'll have a panel that'll just be over a
portion of the parking lot, but because this one's spanning, go back to the high school because this is spanning multiple parking spaces, you have a higher um clearance underneath. So, that that actually helps in terms of visibility under the panel. So, from ground from ground level, but what about like say
from above? If there's I I don't know where they are, what, but if school security has cameras and they're elevated at the top of the building or higher up, they may not be able to angle to get underneath. and then they're being obscured. Usually what we see when we do installations like this is we
usually this HS will work with the schools and their security and we've done these on other facilities where they have to put new cameras in underneath the canopies to to make up for maybe what they might have had on the building. So that's something that Hespel Hes could talk about a little bit in more detail, but we usually as to whether there are going to be cameras
and and I guess my other question is is whether or not this has been reviewed by the public safety department in the town. Yeah, we'll we'll check on that. I don't believe this has yet, but we can certainly like we did with the fire department, we can also go to them too and review it with them as well. It's a typical when when we before we get
building permits, we talk to the police department, we talk to the fire department just to make sure that there they have no issues with existing versus proposing. No, I I understand that and and I realize this is a courtesy review, but concerns of safety, whether it's a courtesy review or an actioned
application, it's the same concerns and appropriate comment. Absolutely. often if this were an application where the board is taking action that either it would be reviewed or that may very well sometimes be a condition of approval to get that. So that's why I'm just asking if this has been done yet. Has it been
evaluated from that standpoint or not? Absolutely. Thank you. Excuse me. Are these panels going up on uh stansions or or are they just one big one? And how much room do you leave
between each uh parking spot? So the way they're designed typically is there's columns that support them. The columns are typically spaced anywhere between um 27 to 36 ft. They try to keep them even
with the width of parking spaces. Parking space typically 9 foot wide. So you'll have you know 27T for three or 36 for four parking spaces. So you you have a panel, I'm sorry, a panel, a column every so many number of spaces and then that column goes up and then there's a
steel structure on top that supports all the solar panels. So you if you're looking at it from underneath, you would just see columns that would be supporting it, you know, x amount of feet apart from each other and then spanning the width of the um the parking lot. So you're not going to How much
room do you leave for when the cars pull into their parking? Typically the where we locate them is at the either at the head of the parking space at the very top by the curb or in the island behind it so that you're not it's not impacting anybody opening up a door. It's not going to be in a in a in a place where
you pull into the space and the column is right here when I open my door. We it's not designed that way. Chairman, I just got three more questions. Um, regarding the apple and the oak tree with the ground arrays, um, buffering for the glare from these, uh,
panels, uh, like to see some buff buffering from the road, if there's glare heading towards Applegarth Road or the residence, usually when they're ground mounted like this and you're on a pretty flat site, um, glare usually isn't an issue because of the way the sun's coming down. Even when it's
setting in the evening, it's usually minimal. Um, it's when you have it's when you're from a further distance away and you're up on a higher elevation looking down at the facility, you'll you'll get some glare. And if you're going to get it, it's only going to be for a few minutes in in in the morning or the evening hours at most. But in this case, because everything is
relatively flat here, glare usually isn't an issue. So, it shouldn't be an issue. Yeah. Okay. Uh, next thing there's uh you're going to be providing access roads to get to those panels on Oak Tree and Applegard. There's no roads proposed because typ the only typical maintenance for these is once it's built
um the typical maintenance is mowing the lawn to keep the p to keep the grass height down to a reasonable limit so it doesn't start growing up to the to the bottom of the panels. That's why they're about 2 and 1/2 ft high off the ground to start. Um and then if they need to access them for um maintenance that they'll bring they'll bring a truck and drive on the grass to get there. But
they don't usually they only they don't usually go out unless there's a problem. And they'll access through the school lot or will they be putting a new driveway? No, they'll access through the school lot on the grass. Yeah. There's no reason to put any stabilized turf or or pavement or anything like that. The last question is the fence that's provided around there. Um typically
we're 6 foot high fence uh in that zoning. Um you have a 7ft fence. What's the reasoning to go? 7 foot fencing is because of the electrical code. It requires 7 foot around around the panels because of the voltage involved. So 7 foot is the fence height that's required around the panels. And that that would
be for the panels. It would be for any other equipment that's on the ground. If there was a trans the transformer pad close to the building, it would also be 7 foot as well. So the the electrical code dictates that height. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah. The estimated life of the systems. Uh this one I
believe is 25 years, but but Miss Brody can confirm the contract amount, but they're typically 25 years for the panels. And then circling back with uh our engineers comments um for the access roads, do you take consideration for uh fire apparatus for with access roads? Um
typically for these smaller systems, typically not because you're going to be close to the main road that's there already. So if they have to get there, it just would be a hose to get to if there's a fire or something. They wouldn't want because you're so close to the road on these, you wouldn't want to drive a fire truck right up to the
facility. Um, so we we don't usually do that for these small systems. On the bigger systems, you'll see where you're you're in a field or on a landfill where they're 10, 15, 20 megawatts, you'll have access roads to get to various parts of of of the facility. But for here, you don't have that. And the electrical equipment is usually next to
the building um itself. So it could be if it could be serviced from that way from a fire truck access. Thank you. Anyone else? How much uh uh how much degradation is it in the panels?
Uh you mean in terms of the uh overall efficiency efficiency wise? Uh it depends on the panel but I think you usually see a couple percent from when you start to when you percentage points from when you start out to when you get to the the end of the life of the panel and then each panel will have its own
inverter or is it like grouping? What they do is it's it's a grouping. So depending on um how the electrical engineers calculations, they'll group a certain number of panels together to an inverter and then that inverter will get rung strung back to the transformer. Okay. So there's multiple inverters for
the as I said for the parking lot system. Those are typically going to be mounted probably on the poles up at the top and they're small now. They're a lot of them are the size of of personal computers, you know, that you'll see in terms of a box that'll be on there with a fan um which is really which is quiet in terms of any noise generation. Um,
and they'll string those together till they get back to the electrical room where the transformer would be. For the ground mount ones, for the smaller systems, they might even they might only have one or two. So, they might just put it back by the by the electrical system that hasn't by the electrical room. That'll be worked out by electrical engineer when they do the final
calculations. Yeah. Yeah. So, the the the reason I bring that point up is that if you have a a lot of inverters, if if they're going down, I don't know how frequently they they would go down or if there's issues, then you'd have to keep going back and forth to service them or repair them. So, I I don't somebody
typically with these systems, they they don't really have much problems. Um, usually you'll get um what happens a lot of times is you'll get a panel or two will get damaged um and they'll come out and replace them at an appropriate time. If you lose two or three panels, it it's not really an issue at early on. If you have damage to multiple panels, it
knocks out certain circuits and you got to come out and do the maintenance sooner because you lose power gener lose power generation. Um, but generally speaking, um, it's all monitored remote. They have, uh, you know, digital monitoring of the system so they know how much it's generating and they can and they'll come out and check it if there if there's an issue and they
usually replace it pretty quickly. What's the threshold? What would be the threshold that they would come out like? Is it certain amount of panels, certain amount of production? I I don't know. I mean, I don't know that. Depends on how it's being generated. So, Susan could be answer that one. Uh, yes. Okay. I'll get another witness to answer that. Okay. Or
try to. So, okay. Anyone else? Mr. There's no other questions, then we'll have Mr. Pony, come on up. Yeah. So, Peter, if you say good evening, if I could just swear you in quickly, if you could raise your right hand for me. Do you swear the testimony you're going to provide is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth?
I do. If you could state your name, spell your last name and give us your address for the record, please. Yes. Susan Brody, B R O D I E. My address is One Field Crest Drive, Muny, New York 10952. And M. Brody, just describe what your position and responsibilities are with
regard to HP Solar. I'm the chief operations officer at HP Solar. So basically everything at HS solar is my responsibility. And you're familiar with with this solar presentation with regard to the various schools, correct? Yes, I am. Um so there were a bunch of
questions that were uh asked. Um Mr. Michello answered some. I answered a few, but I just I took some notes. So um there was a comment about access to the roof for the panels and I talked about coordination with the fire company. Can you just maybe elaborate on that? Yeah.
So each individual site will be assessed as to what the school accommodation is to reach the roof. Many schools have direct internal access to the roof and if the school will let then that will be the access to the roof. Sometimes we
have um you know a situation where we have to put a ladder up against the side of the building to access the roof in which case we do that but usually we don't. Usually we access the roof from inside the building. That's not for people doing construction. The construction workers will always access
by a lift at the side. We don't want construction crews walking through a school ever. But I'm saying for maintenance or for issues when, you know, if if there was a reason, an emergency situation where we needed to access the roof to, you know, deal with a problem, then we would usually access
the roof from from the inside the building. Once construction was finished, we would remove the lift and remove the ladder and there would be normal roof access. And a related question I think that was asked regarding uh security about coordination as to any existing or proposed security
cameras and and coordinating with the police department and any public safety. Right. So when once the design is finalized and the board of education approves the design um we then present we then go down to the building department and we work with zoning with
the building department with the fire department and if if requested with the police department we it's not it's not a common request to involve the police department but we'll be very happy to do that. you know, we want everybody working together and you know, we want
the schools to be as secure as possible. Um, so we're happy to work with whoever whoever you suggest and whoever the school requests. So that will be terrific. Um, whenever can I just address the camera? So if there are
security cameras now located on the buildings, what we do when we install the canopies is we do a study of what the cameras are covering and then we often install cameras that will, you
know, increase the security. So that where we'll wherever we would block something, we would certainly make sure a camera provided a view of that um of that area and we can also add more cameras to provide more view if if
required and that's in coordination with public safety and this yes and and and the school security. Mr. Chairman, may I Okay. I just I want to I was the one who asked the question earlier about the security. My concern is again here
because this is more of a a courtesy review an advisory not uh an actionable review is will the uh school district in connection with this uh project. I know you mentioned the study. Will a study
actually be done? Because my my concern is that although solar energy is great and it's it's going to be green and environmentally friendly and everything else, it still has to balance with
safety of the students as well as the other visitors and employees of the schools. [Music] and just hearing well it'll be okay and will work. I I'd like to know that
there's going to be some type of formal study done to be presented work with public safety work with the school district to make sure that safety is not going to be sacrificed in balancing for the solar
panels. Absolutely. That's always part of every project. Once we have the design, we meet with the board of ed. We go through each site. We walk the site with sometimes the principles join. Some usually it's the um buildings and
maintenance crew that walk us through, show us what all the safety features are presently, make sure we're going to accommodate and take into account everything and make sure everything is done so that everything that was covered before is either enhanced or maintained.
Yeah. I would just like to make sure that the police department as public safety as well as any school security because those are going to be the entities that are going to have the
best perspective and expertise on working with you to make sure that happens. as opposed to other members perhaped officials but not necessarily security experts or principles again who
are educators and administrators and experts in those fields and I want to make sure and you haven't really said it. I want to make sure that we're going to be working with school security and with the police department. We will work with school security and with the police
department. Absolutely. Okay. Sorry if I wasn't clear. No, no. I just I want to I want to hear it and feel comfortable with that. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Um I agree. There was a question about how you know how the money works in
terms of there was a com Mr. Michello I think did a good job explaining about net zero in terms of power in and power out but in terms of the cost savings for the school district just maybe give a general overview of that. Right. So so um thanks Mr. Michelle, but I think the
net zero that he was referring to is not about money. It's about power to the grid. So, we look to we try to design a system so that it provides as much power as the school needs um without
overproviding power. So, we look to get someplace you know in the 90% range. I think on these schools we actually were able to achieve about 98 to 99%. So what that means is that they will be provided with 99% of the energy
will be coming from solar and um they will be using very little of the utility energy and as far as the money goes there will be savings on every kilowatt hour that they use in solar. And when we
um actually put together the RFP response, we um estimate with with with you know a high level of certainty that the savings to the school will be almost $400,000 a year and about over $6 million for the 15-year contract life.
And and that's including the cost of any lease of the 30-year lease or whatever the lease is. There's no lease payment. So there's no lease payment. No, there's the only requirement that the school has to, you know, the the only um obligation that
they have to HUSP solar is to buy the power that is provided by the solar system. And by buying that power from solar as opposed to from off the grid is going to be, as you said, approximately a $400,000 a year savings. Correct.
Across all the schools. Oh, sure. Yes. Yeah. How many of these things have you done? Very many. Very many. You know, we built just Yeah. Yeah. No, I I would say we
built probably about 600 projects across New Jersey. Most of those are for boards of education and municipalities. By projects, I mean sites, each school building. And then we have installations in Massachusetts, in Maryland, in DC, in
Connecticut, and New York as well. Will you provide some um sites in your submission so that we could call and say, "How's it going? What do you think?" Sure, that would be great. We're actually building not far from here
right now. We are almost starting construction on a landfill project for the Howell Township. So, and that's going to be a very large project. will actually be our largest project which is going to be providing the township of how with the very large lease payment
because they can't benefit the use of the power the way that the schools can. So they're leasing us the landfill. We're building a we're building a large project there that will feed the grid. So that's good for everybody. The grid will benefit more energy and the township is going to benefit a large
lease payment on a landfill where they could never make any money. So, we'll be happy to give you references. Lots of them are local. You can drive by and see how the canopies look. Um, we'll we'll we can send you references for some ground mounts, some rooftops, and canopies so you can see what all the
systems look like. Thank you. That's a good idea. And Susan, I think there was also a question, although uh Mr. Michello, I think, answered it about the lifespan of the panels, and I believe he said 25 years, right? So the the contract with the school is for 15 years because that's New Jersey state law that
the school can't go out for more than 15 years on a service contract. Most schools do look to extend the contract, which they're allowed to, I think, up to three times. They're allowed to ask for up to three 5-year extensions on a
service contract. So um but the contract that we have with the board of education clearly calls for their right to exit the contract after after 15 years one in one of three ways. Either they can ask
us to remove all the systems at our own cost or they can ask to extend the contract or they can ask us to buy out the systems so that they can benefit free electricity because they they'll just you know they won't have to pay us
for it if they own the systems and they would have the right to buy those systems at fair market value which we would think today that in 15 years the fair market value on 15year-old solar systems will be you know very affordable for boards of educ The life expectancy of a solar panel is
about 40 years. The 25 years that Mr. Michella was referencing is that they're warrantied for 25 years, but we expect them to outlive the warranty. So, the systems will be good for a long time. I I think that covered the questions
that we asked to defer to Miss Broaddy. Sure. Anybody else on the board wish to So does that 40-year cover the degradation is the 2% or whatever we mentioned is up to the 40 years or is it I never like to correct any of my reps
but the degradation is really about a half of a percent a year a half a percent a half of a percent per year so over the life of the of the um system it does degrade by several percentage points but it will take the systems from
providing 99% of the power to 97 or 96% of the power required by the schools and that would continue past the 15 years too. Thank you. Okay, so I think that unless
there's any other questions that concludes our our presentation. Um again um we do believe that the project is consistent with the master plan. There's, you know, many references to um support for solar projects such as such
as this one. Um and um we are proud to be part of uh you know helping the school district and saving it a boatload of money. Thank you. Um is there anybody else from the board that have any comments? Anybody from the public wish to be heard?
Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. You take them. Yep. Okay, Mr. Saxs, you're up. Thank you. Um, let me just announce the application. and it's PB1263-24303 Spotsport Englishtown Road
LLC. Good evening, uh, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, board professionals, Lawrence Saxs on behalf of the applicant, uh, John Marulo. Uh, this property is located at 302 Spotswood, Englishtown Road, uh, known as block 152, lot one. Uh we're here
this evening for a minor site plan. Um essentially what we're what we would like to do is we're looking to re redelineate an existing parking lot uh for a retail building uh that's been there for quite some time and there are
some associated site improvements with that. Uh many of you may recall that the building was a florist at one point. Uh it's been vacant for quite some time. Uh my client did a number of interior renovations to the building. Uh also uh
put a new facade up. Um however, the uh parking lot uh was deemed and and was in need of uh of repair and some uh attention and that's what we're here for tonight with respect to this minor site plan. Um we presently don't have a
tenant for this building. Uh, so I can't really respond to a lot of the questions regarding operations for an for a potential tenant, but what I can tell the board is that the property is located in a neighborhood commercial zone. Uh, any tenant that goes in there
will be a tenant who is permitted uh, in that neighborhood commercial zone. Uh, if they're not, they'll have to come back in front of the zoning board for a use variance, I would assume. Uh, but any tenant will comply with uh, with the requirements of the NC zone. And in
terms of parking, and my my uh expert witness will get into this, uh we looked at the parking requirements using the strictest standards for general retail use. Uh and based upon that, we have adequate parking. We don't need a parking variance. Uh there are a number
of uh pre-existing nonconformities uh with respect to this property. Uh they're for minimum lot area, minimum lot frontage, minimum lot width, minimum lot depth, uh minimum front yard setback, minimum sideyard setback, minimum combined sideyard setback,
minimum rear yard setback, uh maximum gross floor area, maximum building coverage, maximum lot coverage, and minimum buffer with requirements. However, we're not aggravating any of them. They're all pre-existing uh nonconformities. uh we're not expanding
the building. So, we are really are simply here for a minor site plan. Um we'll we'll we'll address some of the, you know, some of the nonconformities, but we're here for uh really for a minor site plan. I do have one witness, uh Miss Laura Tatton, who will um uh
provide uh detail as to uh what's involved here. She's a licensed professional engineer and also a licensed planner. Uh so, Mr. Vinol, if you want to swear her in, that would be fine. Happy to. Do you swear the testimony you're going to provide is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. If you could state your name, spell your last name, and give us your address for the record, please.
Yes. Lauraai Tatin, Tas and Tom, O Ten, Crest Engineering Associates, Milstone Township, New Jersey, 100 Reich Drive. And And you've been before this board several times before. And you've been approved each time as both an engineer and a planner. My planning license is uh
1983 and a good 86. I'm good standing. And my license is 83. Thank you. You're accepted. Thank you. I can verify. Yes. I just wanted to put it on the record. Okay. Thank you. Uh Miss Totten, if you can briefly describe the site,
what's being proposed and uh and and then eventually we'll get into some of the recommendations from uh staff. Yes. Uh the site is known as lot one, block 152. As noted, it's uh too Can you pull the microphone over? Sorry. Guess I
wasn't using my planning board voice. That's what I tell my colleagues at work when I can't hear them. Uh now you sound like you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. It's uh as mentioned, it's 302 Spotswood Englishtown Road. Um
it's adjacent to Harrison Street on the I guess that would be the west side. There's a single family barber shop to the right, another street, and then behind it is the uh building where the district number one used to be until
they built their new home on uh this corner of Texas Road and one of those other roads with double names that I can't think of. Sorry. Uh it is a 8,247 ft lot uh which is less than a/4
acre in a 40 acre zone. As noted, it has a 1,440 ft building which is smaller than some of the houses in Monroe Township footprint-wise. Uh and most of the surface is paved. There's a little bit
of grass along the the eastern edge of the property, but other than that, it's pretty much paved uh pro parking lot to parking lot. I mean, sorry, property line to property line. So, it's around 97.7% coverage right now. The uh two
items that do not uh need variances are the building coverage uh 17.7 and the F at.18 which uh meet the requirements. So that shows you it's not too intense of a use for this this lot
has existing utilities, no flood planes, no wetlands. The neighborhood commercial zone is where it is located. It was confirmed that some years ago the split zone was removed. Um it used to be half residential and half
commercial and now it's all commercial. Um there are as mentioned a slew of bulk variances just about every bulk variance you can imagine um that are required exist and are required to accommodate the uh the
property on this site. Uh so as noted and Miss Totten these plans were submitted as part of the application for submission. Yes they were as noted uh the intent is to organize this. So in the middle uh dominating the property is
the rectangle that it has the building. There is a depressed curb about a little less than 1/2 from the right side of the property to allow access to the parking area that goes all the way around the site. Harrison Street on uh on the left
has no delineation between Harrison Street and the parking lot. Uh so what we're proposing to do and this took a lot of thought and work with the year professionals is to restrict this circulation to one way through the site.
Right now you can actually turn from Spotswood gravel sorry Spotswood Englishtown Road right into the site. Oop. Come on. I guess my battery went out. Um right into the site. I'm going to go up because I do better pointing.
uh right into the site from right in there which is a very close to the road and not really a safe condition. So, we are proposing to remove the pavement in that area and in a big bigger chunk of
uh green where should you approve this, we would submit a landscape plan to show you what kind of shrubs we can um and perhaps trees depending on the site triangle issues we can plant in that to bring a little bit of green to this
corner. And if you've looked at the planning letter, there's a picture of the front of the building and you're you can see it looks somewhat bare. So, this would be a nice uh aesthetic feature to the corner. So, additionally, it needs
nine part 10 parking spaces, one handicap accessible space, um and and a place to put our trash containers. So, that was uh a kind of a challenge. So, what we did was we utilized parallel
parking across the back um and a parallel space with a dumpster enclosure or trash trash enclosure located a foot off of the right property line which is a variance, but due to the size of the property, there's not that many good
spots and it is going to enclose the trash enclosures which uh there's no no enclosure for trash cans there now. So this will help make the site look neater and cleaner I believe. So and our
parking spaces are 8 foot wide where I mean the the parallel 8t wide where 9 ft is required because we need the room for a 20ft aisle which is a little under size two but for oneway traffic you can
negotiate for oneway traffic. we do uh the the most the most difficult thing was trying to get a handicap space close to the front doors uh that worked and so we ended up providing a space right in front and then leaving it and then you
have to back out of it. If you pull in you have to back out. So you pull in and then how do you back out? Well, you have to go around and so we are striping off a space to allow this handicap space which is sized for van accessibility to
work and next to it a parking space. And of course parking's not allowed in the front yard. But we're trying to maximize the parking on this site site. So that's why we're also only providing 18 ft deep 9- foot wide spaces for the standard
spaces particularly across where they were they will back out onto Harrison which is not something that you normally want but Harrison is a very small street uh and we're trying to maximize parking and there are other areas in this area
of Monroe where these small streets where people back out onto these small side streets. So I don't think that safety is is a terrible issue here. Um so and we are making safety better by taking the pavement away from this one
corner and allowing and not allowing vehicles to come in. I had thought of that at one point for this space. It's just too close to Spotswood Englishtown Road. Um so with that being said we are reducing the impervious cover on the
site by a little bit. Uh we are improving the circulation even though we need variances for parking lot parking space size aisle size as well as parking in the front yard. and we
don't really have a spot for loading. But this is a very small building 1440 square ft. So the type of business that could comfortably work in this building will not be large either and they will get you know UPS and that size trucks as
a most part and those can park in one of the parking spaces. One of the requests from the planning letter is to provide an EV space. I didn't even think about this. This is great because when you provide an EV space, you get two spaces for the price of one. So now we have 11
spaces if we designate space 10 as an EV make ready space. And we're over by one. Of course, practically we're not, but we are in purposes of counting parking spaces. So, we were proposed to make number 10 a make ready um because it's
close to the building to allow uh electricity uh and I I think they make uh EV charging stations you can mount on the wall which would be good for this spot. Um see I think I covered just look
at my notes to make sure that I covered everything. talked about the trash and oh, so access for the trash uh removal. That's not easy either. Uh it's a small site. We only have 20 foot
aisles. So, what we would propose is there's a lot of um residential along here. The people will just be putting their trash cans out and the and the uh they'll be picked up by the public system. This would be
private haulers, but we propose to do the same thing. It'll be organized. The uh owner will know when they're coming. We'll put them out and they'll be taken away and it's trash cans, not a dumpster. So, uh maybe large ones, but
on wheels that can be rolled down to the corner. So, that's what we would propose for uh trash removal. Middle Sex County Planning Board. Middle Sex County owns the road. Uh so we will should you approve this, we'll go before
that board and abide by the requirements they have for whatever requirements they have for curbon sidewalk. There already is curbon sidewalk here. Generally speaking these days, I believe this right away that's shown is going to be sufficient because they usually just say
put the rightway 3 ft behind the existing sidewalk these days. Um, oh, I forgot to say that there is no curb on Harrison. So, we're going to put depressed curb to delineate the edge of the property and the end of the parking
spaces so that everybody will know where it is. Um, and and connect it into the uh well, the existing curve comes up. So, we're going to put in a nice smooth curve curve down to uh the main road.
Let's see. I think that's there is an existing sight triangle easement if you looked at the existing conditions plan that crosses right through the middle of the property. That site triangle is dedicated to Middle Sex County. And one
of our goals would be to that's an oldfashioned sight triangle where they just said go up 100 ft up the road and 300 feet up this way and connect the dots. Now you use the ASHTTO requirements which are shown on here
where you come up 14 ft off the traveled way and you go down 350 or so depending on the the speed. So as you can see from this dark line the the line of sight is not even in the property at all. So I
believe that we will not have a difficult time uh with uh Middle Sex County and changing over that that particular easement. See Miss Tatton just to summarize a couple things before I just want to ask you a couple planning questions but but in terms of the
engineering on this so so really the highlights of this site right now this is there's really no delineation of parking on this site. Correct. Okay. So we're obviously going to provide clear delineation of parking. Uh we're eliminating that parking area that
exists uh at the corner of Harrison and Spotswood Englishtown Road. Uh and in fact, if that was in the site triangle, uh that's being eliminated. So certainly we're that that's an improvement. We're adding some green space in that area. So we're reducing the impervious coverage.
You're putting one-way circulation here, which obviously is much more organized, and we're providing a dumpster enclosure and a procedure for trash pickup. Uh so is that more or less a summary of of the improvements that we're proposing here? Very succinct. Okay. And in terms of uh
planning, uh I know you you covered mo really right. We needed a we needed variances as pre-existing nonconformities for just about everything based on the size of this site. We're not aggravating any of them. Uh the one variance that we are triggering though, I guess, is the uh
the trash enclosure. Um, yes. However, we don't have a trash enclosure there now. Correct. So, what we're doing is we're providing a trash enclosure in your professional opinion as a planner in the licensed in the state of New Jersey. Um, does that benefit outweigh
any detriments to the surrounding area zone plan, zoning ordinance, master plan? Uh, and does it fit within what your parameters of what would be a C2 flexible C2 variance? Yes. Yes. This is partially hardship and C2 and we've uh
taken a lot of pains to come up with a creative solution to maximize the parking while still providing reasonable parking space sizes and clean up the site and organize it. So I think the benefits of all of that outweigh any
detriments to all of the variances both for the parking the buffers uh which were called out because it's next to residential zone and um the bulk variances uh outweigh all those detriments which in my opinion I believe
you can grant these variances without any detriment to the public good and welfare and it promotes sound planning as one of the requirements under a C2. Yes, it does promote sound planning. And just lastly, in terms of parking, uh so we have 10 parking spaces. If we put the
EV charger in, we pick up an an additional uh parking an additional credit. Um I know you looked at uh the most stringent requirements, which would be general retail, which would be one per 150 square ft. Yes. So if we have
less than 1500 square feet, we only need 10 parking spaces. So we don't require a parking variance. Correct. Okay. Um, Mr. Chairman, I don't have anything further. Certainly, Miss Tatton's available for any board questions. Hopefully, we've covered uh the staff reports, but
certainly we're she's available for any questioning. Thank you. [Music] I just All right. Thank you, Mr. Ton. Um, couple of things I want to start with. Um, firstly, easier questions.
There's no signage that was proposed with this application. I'm assuming because you don't have a tenant, you're not proposing. So, to clarify on record, that will be part of a zoning permit application when you have a tenant. Okay. Yes. Um couple of times we've heard tonight
saying that most of these are pre-existing nonconformities. But I do want to clarify I mean the parking is being proposed the uh parking size uh parking location you know that's why the uh buffer and everything that's required
is a variance. Those are not pre-existing nonconformities. That's correct. Just the bulks. Most of the bulks. Most of the bulk. Yes. Um and in that also I think your impervious coverage technically is a new variance even though you've gone down from 100%
to a 97.7%. Right. Okay. Yes I we would agree with that. All right. Um I know we wanted to just clarify it's 97.7% and not 95% as we saw somewhere else in the site plan. Yes. I think the
notes were old uh and hadn't been and we clarified it by more careful calculation. I did not calculate how much it goes down by though. Okay. Um, we also made a request on how will the lighting around this parking lot be
provided? Will it be building mounted or are we doing something for lighting? I think it would be building mounted and I I think along Spotswood there might be a utility pole with some lighting. But should you approve this, we would clarify the lighting. Okay. And uh yeah,
should the board approve this, I would request that you know a lighting plan with the illumination standards be provided. Um now going back to the couple of things um you did talk about um
the was that the sight triangle deed known as the exception deed along the sidewalk and portion. Yes. Okay. And that's what you're going to get clarified from the county and removed possibly. Okay. um the dumpster enclosure uh because the
uh detail had a 10x 12 but the site plan says it's going to be 8 by9 I want to yes we had a larger one okay but then when we rearranged everything I made it smaller and neglected to revise the detail okay and that would be sufficient
for any type of business in your mind that would come in this 1440 square foot building yes Okay. Um now going back to um again the testimony was made that um the site has uh several of these
nonconformities uh because of the you know the building placement as well as you know the parking that's being provided. Um we also heard the testimony that you know most of the uses would be what's permitted in the neighborhood commercial
zone. Um given that you know uh the the impervious coverage is not met and parking is just about fitting um wouldn't it be uh one of the asks of the board so as to
say that to look at the type of uses that would restrict even you know requiring that much of parking and the reason I'm saying that is because at some point I believe um you know discussion was that this might be a by
appointment um hair care salon or something like that which I think has more um lesser standards. I think it's per chair one space or two space. Um so keeping that in mind is that more of a
uh more of a better ask than you know providing as much parking on the site and increasing the impervious coverage and all. Again, I I I understand all these are permitted, but again, the site is small. So, shouldn't the uses also be
something that's, you know, would more fittingly fit on the site? The only thing I can respond to that is that I think the size of the building will generate what can go in there. I mean, a 1440 ft building is a rather small building for any commercial business,
quite frankly. So, that I think the market will drive what use goes in there. Uh but what what I think I said at the outset uh and I'll repeat it again is that um obviously you'll have a tenency review in Monroe Township. So whatever business comes in here, you
know, we'll certainly provide a floor plan if it's necessary. Uh if it is a salon, we'll show you how many chairs would be there. Uh if it's another use, obviously we got to make sure that we have enough parking. So, you know, we'll we'll obviously comply with what the
what the standards are with respect to parking for any type of use. I don't know if I could envision if I could restrict it to a use right now because I don't know what what uses I could restrict. But I will tell you this, it's going to be a neighborhood commercial use and that's going to be driven by the
fact that it's such a small building. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Champion. Mark. Thank you, Mr. chairman. Uh they went through my May 9th, 2025 review letter and I believe
you agreed on the record to meet all the comments. Yeah, I don't uh as we discussed I think we did. Yeah, I think the only issue Mark and I think we we covered it is uh and I think uh the revised plan showed it. We're going to put a depressed curb on on Harrison. Um you know, we'll deal with the county on
on whatever other improvements are required. Yeah, but I think we can comply with everything that's in your argument. So, the one thing on Harrison, um the ordinance requires the curb end sidewalk. So, if you're uh looking for relief on the sidewalk, uh you're agreeable to provide the contribution
for the sidewalk on Harrison, then we're going to have to Yes. Thank you. Um there's uh you've reduced some of the impervious, but frankly just looking at it here tonight, um there's an area next to the handicap spot between the
handicap spot and spots with Englishtown Road. That pavement, can that be uh expanded to be uh part of the landscaped area? I think it'll uh help guide someone pulling out of that parking stall to not want to back up a little bit and pull forward and make a sharp
left onto Spots with English Town Road over the curb. We could look at that. Um I would like to talk with my landscape architect to make sure that something would grow there, but I'm I think we could. I Yeah, I mean I understand the point
about delineation. So, yeah. And yeah, it's an area it's just asphalt and, you know, it's not a walkway, it's not a parking area, it's not an aisle. So, uh um it looks like a good area to expand uh some of that landscape area and reduce the impervious. Um as far as the
plan, I I've met with uh Laurel and I on this a couple of times. We went through the plan. Um we made some revisions. It's my second review letter. Um, so it's it's certainly been reduced from the first review letter and it's a much better plan than uh when we first sat
down. My comment. Any questions from the board? Yeah, just a couple of quick things. Excuse me. Sure. First, I'd just like to say in general, it's always nice to see an application where where the applicant is reviving a property and
improving it. And in here we see reworking of the parking and and and circulation and so forth. And that's always a good a good starting point. So, um I appreciate that. I I do had a couple I do have a couple of questions.
One first for our attorney just to clarify. I want to make sure because if they don't need a parking variance, the spaces are sufficient. And I think there was comments somewhere crossed before about variances for the other items, but would those be waivers
or variances just for the board. U items uh the uh size of the spaces and things of that nature. Typically the size of the spaces varies. Is it okay? That's what I wanted to make sure. Um and um the other question I had was for the
applicant with regard to loading. I know uh there were two things Miss Totten had said earlier during the course of her testimony that this is not too intense of a use for the lot, but yet we don't know what the use is going to be that what it's zoned for. Um and putting that
in conjunction with loading again the typical a box truck, a UPS truck, is the applicant going to I mean we don't know what the tenant is going to be. I just don't want to envision an 18-wheeler pulling in there
to to to to for for the sake of loading an unknown tenant which could be a permissible tenant usewise. Yeah. Let let me respond. We we would agree we could agree and we will agree uh that uh no tractor trailer deliveries quite frankly. I don't think a tractor trailer could navigate that site even. It's we
just wouldn't want to see someone try. Right. Right. But we could agree not or like waiting in the street and blocking traffic things of that nature. I mean, it's not the the build that that size building will not generate tractor trailer deliveries, but we certainly have have no problem with the restriction on that. I would imagine the
deliveries are going to be box truck, UPS, uh, and a and a van, whatever use we we end up having there. Um, and I don't think we require a loading zone for that. Uh, certainly if there's going to be deliveries, we'll also agree that they would be off hours uh, so that
there would be no conflict with parking. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Minor comment. Um, since I live in the Mil Lake area, I am very happy. It's been, it's got to be more than a decade since that florist
went out of business, and it's just been an abandoned building. And I've noticed they've cleaned it up, which is very good. Now, about a rumor. Apparently, I'm not on Facebook, but my wife is on Facebook. Taco Bell. Yeah. Okay. Let's
make sure. I don't want to I like Taco Bell, but that's not the place for it. No. No. I No. Plus, they need a drive-thru, and I don't have enough room for a drive-through. Um, but I think it'll be very good for a whatever the
service organization, um, whether it's not a florist, but a barber shop, hairdress, whatever the supply is that they're looking at, that would be very welcomed. and I think it would add to it. Uh the only other item
just to mention Harrison Avenue leads to um is it the Woodcliff wood Woodland uh school. So whatever also be concerned is there will be kids running up and down there not necessarily looking at traffic. So, another concern. Other than
that, I'm glad to see it'll be not be an unused building. Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. Just just uh Mr. Rothman's comment, there will be a tenency review. Uh so, the zoning officer will review the uses that would be proposed when they do have a tenant
and as well as the parking requirements. So, um and it needs to be a permitted use in the uh in that zone. Okay. Thank you. Yes. So, I had a sort of a follow-up question to that. So, that Harrison goes up into Mil Lake. Not Mil
Lake, uh, yeah, the school. So, that parking spot one, it's a parallel. So, how do you back up? Do you have to go on the road to back up into that spot or there's a car in parking lot two and you want to park in one, do you have to back
up from Harrison or Well, no. It's a one-way circulation. So, uh, well, yeah, if there's a car in two, you still have to back up into the second spot, right? Well, there's enough Laura, is there enough room for a vehicle without having to back up to to
navigate out of that spot? Well, with a parallel space, you do have to pull up a little past it and then back into it. So, it's possible that they might come up to the edge of the curb, the proposed curb that we're proposing to get into
the space. Is it possible? I don't know if this is even possible to that fourth spot. Move it further back or you need that. I don't know. That's you need more of a So, the reason why it's a little bit off
the property line is because you do need to maneuver back and forth a little bit. We do have the ability to remove one space if that's a super concern, right?
And still meet the parking requirement. I'd prefer not to lose any parking. We don't have to on a on a site like this. But um one one thing I may add, Mr. Patel, is um the parallel parking spaces are about 20 Oh, yeah. 23 feet, right?
or 22 correct 23 ft. So they're a little longer than a typical 9 by8 space. Okay. Yeah. That that extra 2 ft makes a difference. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?
Mrs. Tax, any other witnesses? I have no other witnesses, Mr. Chairman. Uh certainly uh if any member of the public wants to comment, that would be fine. I'm going to open up to the public. If anyone wants to be heard, they can come forward. Come up. And before you start, I'm just going to
swear you in quickly. So if you make any comments in addition to any questions you might have. So if you could just raise your right hand for me. Do you swear any testimony you provide is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. If you could state your name, spell your last name, and give us your address, please. Yeah. My name is Ranatada Parades. P A Y. Could you speak
into the M? Thank you. My name is Ranata Paradesh. Last name P A R A D Y S Z. And I'm actually owner of the house next to the property, 300 Spaz Englishtown Road. And I own the house
and the small hair salon. So, I've got the question because I could see that the dumpster it's going to be right here. Yes. I don't know if that's good idea because that's actually it's my backyard. So, I don't want to swimming
and smell that. You know, if there's any any other place that we can actually put the dumpster somewhere else. Well, I don't know if we Well, I don't Lauraai, is there any accommodation we
can make? I mean, that's really the the only space that we could put it in without losing any parking. I will tell you this, it will be a dumpster enclosure, so it'll it'll be enclosed. Um, you know, we will ensure that uh any trash that's put in there, any recycling
that's put in there will have there'll be a lid on top of the enclosure. Okay. So, it will not be open. It will not be open to the air. Yeah. But still I don't know if that's a good idea. And then you know winter time it's different. But you know summertime when it's really really
hot the smell it's actually and then there is other activities like mice rats. So I don't know if I would like to have that just close to my pool. And then another question um if there is
a hair salon the township allows to next like next building another hair salon because that would be a problem too because I know that you don't still have a tenants right. Mhm. Yeah. But that's for me will be a problem if another hair someone will be
that close to me. So just say I I don't know of any that's that's just a market uh you know the market will drive whether or not doesn't have any requirements. No there's no there's no space requirement. I mean frequently you'll see a bunch of gas stations all across intersections from
each other. It's just yeah I can I can appreciate that but unfortunately there's no regulation that stops two of the same business type going in next to each other. I I I've been advised by my client that they'll it will not be a hair salon. Okay. So, okay. And please,
if you can find some other place for the um for the garbage that will be um that that is um I could see where that would be an ongoing problem. If there's something that could be done or in a follow-up review where we could find
another location so um she doesn't wake up each morning to uh smell what was dropped before. That'd be great. Mr. Chairman, I'd asked the applicant, can the dumpster be moved to against the building on that side? It'd still be on that side, but it'd be further away from
the property line. We could look at that. Um, it then the space would need to move as well. Um, and maybe in in this circulation if we put the parking space in front and the dumpster behind.
Yeah. I I I would be happy to work with uh Mr. Resmoitz to see if we can move it away. You're welcome. That would be great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
just a followup with regard to the trash enclosure. I realize there's been no tenant and we've had no testimony basically about operations, but do we know who is going to be responsible for arranging for trash pickup? Is that going to be a tenant or the landlord?
It's going to be the property owner. It's going to be the property owner. So, would the property owner be willing to kind of maybe consent to some type of schedule of like once a week, twice a week? How when is trash going to be picked up? And
then if it's going to be even a laid to a tenant, then it's going to have to be a condition and a lease to make sure. So at least the member of the public knows, all right, they're coming so many times a week. It's not going to be random. Uh if we can No, it won't it won't be random because I, as I've indicated at
the outset, we'll make sure that that occurs, you know, during off- peak hours, you know, when the business is not being operated. Um the property owner will be responsible for the trash removal. Um, and I think in terms of tenency review, having dealt with Monroe, you
know, they're going to when whenever whatever prospective tenant comes in, we're going to have to provide a detail as to how that's going to operate. So, so it's there's obviously oversight from the municipality as well, too. Thank you. Um, just going back to the dumpster
again, is it is it going to be a dumpster or is it going to be garbage cans? I heard dumpster. I heard garbage cans. I heard it got smaller. Doesn't fit a dumpster. What? We keep I I know it's a habit because almost every site plan has a dumpster enclosure, but it is
an enclosure and it will contain trash cans that can be moved by a person to pull out and um can also investigate how big the cans are, maybe adjust the size to fit the cans. So it'll be typical to
the similar to the residential garbage cans, the big green cans that they wheel out and and the tenant or the owner will be wheeling them out weekly as the garbage gets picked up. Correct. Okay. And and also I know that in the beginning of a new project like this,
you don't always know how often. So maybe you start out once a week and if it turns out that the trash needs to be picked up twice a week or maybe it's the recycling is much more and the recycling gets picked up twice a week. Uh so it's it's a
until it makes sense. Okay. So just you know so the so the residents aware it's not a site that's going to have a large any kind of dumpster where a garbage truck's got to pull in there in the middle of the night and dump it or anything. It's similar to the residential garbage pickup. Um, so that
helps, you know, with a smaller dumpster and, you know, I'm sure we can, uh, move it away from the property line, you know, to accommodate the neighbor and, uh, you know, I can work with the applicants engineer on that through, uh, compliance resolution compliance review.
I'm comfortable with that. What's that? Your chair squeaking. I'm sorry. Is that your chair squeaking? That is probably my chair squeaking. Keep recording my Okay. Okay. Anybody else from the public wish to be heard?
Hearing none. Uh, is there a motion to close the public portion? So move. Second. Second. Second. Public portions closed on this application. Is there any further discussion from the board? Um, as I as I understand this
application, there's a number of conditions that have been discussed here. One is contribution for payment of the sidewalk on Harrison Street. Another I heard was um no hair salon. Well, I Yeah, there we're not planning on
putting a hair salon in, but can we put that in on our motion as a condition? Well, I I don't know if I want to restrict free trade, so to speak. Um, but my client has indicated that he has not had any discussions with a hair salon. But to Mr. Vinola's point, yes,
if we get a hair salon there, I don't think there's we can The answer is no hair salon unless we get a hair salon. Correct. Okay. That's not what we're seeking. Just wanted to make sure you had that right. So, so the application then is is
really limited to what we've discussed here in terms of the variances plus uh um contribution and payment. Yes. Towards the sidewalk. Yes. And that you're going to look into whether it's feasible to move the dumpster. Yeah. We Yeah. Let's dump, right? Trash enclosure
instead of dumpster. But yes, we're going to look to see if we can put that against the building with parking space number five. And I think there was also the adding pvious coverage next to the ADA spot in the front of the building. Okay. Yeah. So, does anybody want to
articulate that into a motion? Um well I will as soon as I ask Mark or Miss Apta uh which would be better a preliminary or a final at this point. Chairman, this is a minor site plan. So there is no preliminary or end final.
It's a minor. So it's all done in one boat. That takes away my options. Okay. I uh I'll move to approve this application. Second. Second. Any discussion? Second. Mr. Rothman, yes. Miss Brosky, yes. Mr.
Patel, yes. Mr. Slavichek, yes. Mr. Weiner, yes. Councilwoman Cohen, yes. Chairman Gaffrey, yes. Okay, it's approved. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Preliminary, but Okay, when you not attorney, don't know. I would so
uh moving along on the agenda under memorial memorialization there's no resolutions to be adopted. I'll do that too. Uh is there anybody from the public that wish to be heard on any other topic by the way? Hearing none. Is there a
motion to close the public portion? Second. Okay. Public portion. Uh any discussion items invitation? Hearing none. And I'm now I see no correspondence. So we move on to is there a motion to adjurnn?
Is there a second? All in favor please. There we go. Um, my pharmaceutical