Uh, I'd like to call to order the April 29th, 2025 Obridge Township Planning Board special meeting. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of America and to the republic for
which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with justice for all. Daniel, could we have a roll call, please? Yep. Mr. Dama here. Mr. Lenning is absent. Mr. Agopian here. Miss Cannon
here. Mr. Brena here. Mr. Petty here. Miss Mella is absent. Mr. McGisac here. Mr. Brennan here. Mr. Ferrara here. And Chairman Lowry here. Mr. Chairman, if I may, um, as we do now, we're going to swear in the boards
of professionals. Oh, sorry. Uh, we're going to swear in the boards of professionals. Uh, would you all please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're going to give this evening is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. I do. Thank you. Okay, next we have the uh minutes of
April 24th. Uh that's only last week. Um do we have any uh comments, additions, deletions, questions? Okay, seeing none, I'd like to uh have a motion to move that along.
Move it. Second. Mr. Depal? Yes. Mr. Lenning? Absent. Mr. Agopian. Yes. Miss Canon. Yes. Mr. Rener. Yes, Mr. Petty. Yes, Mr. McGisac. Yes, Mr. Brennan. Yes, Mr. Ferrar. Yes. And Chairman Lowour. Yes. Okay. Next, we
have application 13-2022P MBM at Oldbridge SPE Phase 1 LLC, amended general development plan. Uh, represented by Ireina Elgart. Hi, good evening.
Ireina Elgart from Wearten Law Firm. on behalf of the applicant. Good evening everybody and thank you for your time. I know this is a special meeting, so hopefully we'll be efficient and and quick. Um so we're here for an amended preliminary and final site plan. Um many
of you likely know the project, but just to give you a little history, there's a um approved GDP. Um the prior site plan dates back to 2005, and obviously there's been a few changes since then. Um so we are here for the amended uh
site plan. Uh there was some between now and uh 2005 there was some litigation that ensued. Um there was a developers agreement in 2018. Originally the unit count was 1386. Um and as a result of the
developers agreement uh the unit count for this development went down to 1312. Um and that included 138 affordable units. Um, so before we uh filed our amended site plan, we had conversations with the
board's professionals um in order to update the housing types and reconfigure some of the buildings um and we worked with the board's professionals and there was a new uh resoning that was affected
um which was the apartment apartment family zone AF1. Um, so this application, while there's 256 single family units, this application doesn't relate to those. Um, this site plan is
strictly for the 1,056 that we're looking and it's consistent uh consisting of 918 market rate units and 138 affordable units, which is consistent with with the original site plan. Uh 44 of the units
have already been built and the developer has agreed to uh a contribution to the township's recreation fund. Uh about three it's $3,000 per unit for the remaining 890 market rate units uh at the time that
the cos are issued. Um and we understand that there's going to be amended developers agreement. So it'll be addressed there as well as probably a few other items um that will come about from the developers agreement. So this plan reflects changes to the types of
units, the composition and the configuration. Um Mr. Alen back, Ron Alen back, who's the director of engineering and planning at Edgewood Properties, who's an affiliate with of the applicant, um he's going to go through the prior site plan approval and
let you know what the current proposal is. Um then we're going to have Matt Seckler who's going to be doing the traffic. Uh he's with Stonefield and he's going to discuss the uh relatively inconsequential changes that we're making to the road network. Um and also
the circulation as well. And there are a few minor uh variances and design waiverss that we're going to be seeking, but otherwise the plan complies with the AF1 zone. Um, and for that you'll hear from Christine Capone from the Capone
Consulting Group and she'll explain the reasons for each one of these uh deviations and the minor impact. Um, I'm going to defer for the moment to Miss Sant because I know that she might want to inform the board with
additional history or any any additional items before I call ours. Sure. Um so board members this application was filed towards the end of 2021 and I believed we did our first
review a draft review uh in the beginning of 2022 and um the memos were not issued because there was a lot of catch up which Rakkesh and I had to do. I think Rakkesh was more familiar with the project or the GDP than I was at that
time. And um I just want to refresh the board's me uh memory as well as I know there are a few new board members. So I want to give them a little background. Oaks one development was part of a general development plan which was written almost 30 years ago. There were
there was a commercial compon component there was uh a residential comp component. What you have seen so far is the non-residential component which was which is Regency center and which is almost uh constructed now. There is a
phase two of uh the non-residential component which is uh still pending. Then there was the single family homes which was so originally this whole thing was one project and then slowly uh developers came in. So there was
Khavnanian then was Edgewood properties and Regency Center. Regency Center took over the non-residential development. Havnanian built the single family homes. So uh they had an approval for 256 single family homes and most of which
are developed or are under construction. I think phase D is under construction. The last phase is under construction. The roadway network for the entire GDP was actually the phase one that was
built prior. So what you see there Aster Circle, Schummeister road, uh Portaluca was all built prior to coming in front of the boards and then came Regency, Havnian was in the picture uh already when Regency came in. When Edgewood
Properties came in and I took over and I started reviewing it, a I noticed that the building type was a little outdated because most of these GDPs were written 30 years back. The uh housing style was
different at that time. I believe it was the quadruplexes because that's what we heard at the last meeting too when we were hearing vision old bridge 4. Uh same thing with Edgewood. Most of the development was quadruplexes and town houses, but there was a different mix of
buildings. I don't think that building type fits in well with the architectural style that you see now within Oldbridge or even outside. The other uh issue that I had was when I first looked at it, I
thought, "Oh my god, they're asking for too many three-bedroom uh units." whereas the original had a lot more two-bedroom units than threebedrooms. So I started analyzing and uh you know in
working with the developer his team we just came to a common consensus that probably it's a good idea to rewrite the ordinance work with them add additional recreational amenities on the property.
We negotiated with them to have an um offsite recreational contribution which they agreed to. They added um pickle ball courts, basketball ball courts, a dog park. Upon review they changed the
building style. So originally uh what was allowed was just threestory. Uh if it was apartments it was threetory but most of them are like garden style. We wanted like a boulevard like feeling along Schummeister road closer to
Regency Center. So now what you will notice is the buildings the apartment buildings that are planned or designed closer to the non-residential uh component are all four stories and they will actually give you a feel or a
grand entrance. The clubhouse is centrally located so that when you drive on Shoemeister and come at the intersection of Aster Circle, the clubhouse is your focal point. It's right in the center. It is uh reachable
to most of the residents. The other important factor was the true inclusion of affordable units and with all our projects. Ever since I have taken over, I have argued with developers that I I
really need to see true in inclusionary developments. I don't want affordable units to be concentrated in one location. And the uh developers team has worked with me to truly integrate those units. So you will see affordable units
within multif family uh apartment buildings. You will see affordable units within the town houses. And then there is also a third type which is the stacked townhouse which looks almost from the outside like a townhouse but in essentially there are two apartments one
over the other. But we have worked a lot on this ordinance. It took us almost 2 years in negotiation and working together to get what you are seeing today. Uh so I'm here to answer any specific questions related to the GDP.
Rakkesh is here. I have confirmed that Aster Circle and Schummeister has title 39. Uh because there has been concerns over speeding. Uh the council has heard those concerns in the past too that this area because the central portion is not
developed, the non-residential is developed and single family home is developed. There's quite a bit of speeding. So uh the developer has worked with us to add and work on putting in some traffic calming measures as well.
So I think I I appreciate it. Thank you. So I think uh no I was bragging about all the work I have done so far as you should and we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. So, um, without any further
ado, I'm going to ask if, um, Ron Alen back could be sworn in. Hi. Do you swear or affirm your testimony this evening is going to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Can you just state and spell your record name for the record? Sure. It's Ronald A. Sorry. Sorry. It's Ronald Olenbach. A
len bac. As indicated, I'm the director of engineering, planning, and development for Edgewood Properties, affiliate of for this project. Thank you. Um, if you could take the time to go through the prior site plan and you
know what we're proposing now compared to the prior site plan so that the board can be a little more familiar with what was approved. Yeah. Um, M. Madam Chairman, if it's appropriate, uh, I'd like to start off with an aerial photograph, um, which I believe will be entitled, uh, exhibit A1. It's an
existing aerial prepared by EP Design Services with a date of 31625. Um, again, I'm sorry, boy. I'm going to I don't know if it's appropriate to point to the point to the left or right, but I'm going to choose my left to make it easier. So, this is an aerial that was taken via drone uh
this past March. So, as Vina indicated, you could see as you come off of Route 9 into Schmeister, the the left-hand side or southern portion of the commercial development is pretty much fully developed. You see the the large retail box in the back, the smaller pads and everything that's out front. I'm sure
everybody's familiar with that. And then there's this property line that you cross over as you come down Shmemeister where you enter into what would be the project that's before you tonight. You continue down, you get to Aster Circle. Aster circle goes around the entire development and then along the perimeter
of the north northwest of the project is the 256 town houses that Venus spoke about that's not part of this subject application. Uh you can see from the aerial photograph a lot of the major roads Shawmeister Aster Circle Portaluca a portion of White Oak um Portal Luca as
it extends down into and connects back into Shawmeister uh they've all been constructed already and obviously they're being utilized. Um there's no traffic on on White Oak, but Aster Circle and then as it leads into the single family. So all the storm water basins, all the things that were
originally approved and permitted through the D have been constructed uh for the site. So all the detention basins that you see on here in various locations are all constructed for storm water. uh we were fortunate enough to have our engineer work with uh the engineering staff and township
professionals to look at how we could you know really tie in and develop the site without any impact on the environmental constraints in there and the plan that I'm about to show you in a few minutes it resulted in approximately 108,000 square foot less impervious and
the way that was achieved as as Vina had indicated by going with a townhouse style building you're able to introduce garages and driveways as opposed to surface parking lots. Uh when you go into some of the multif family buildings, again, there's garages uh in some of those buildings. So again, you take some of the parking off the street.
We have freestanding garages. Again, the same concept. You take um the parking off the street so you can minimize the amount of asphalt that you're having on a site. And through all that and through some creative uh drainage that our engineer came up with, we're able to comply with the ordinance and and have a
plan that I believe and I don't want to speak for ERRI, but they're comfortable with from a stormwater standpoint. Uh if Daniel, if you could bring up exhibit A2, um Mr. Chairman, A2 is entitled development phase plan prepared by Matrix Engineering and is dated May
31st, 2017. Um, I know it's difficult to see on here, but as you come off of Showmeister, as Vina indicated, with the exception of the single families, everything within the development itself, the 1300, I'm sorry, 1,56 units, was a mixture of either quad buildings
or eightplexes. So, they had a series of four-unit buildings and a series of 8-unit buildings throughout the entire development. So, you had these these neighborhoods or pockets of eight-unit developments or four unit buildings, all surface parking. There was no garages. So every one of these units needed to
have parking spaces available uh and that created a lot more disturbance uh on the site itself. So you can see within the circle itself you have x amount of town houses or sorry quads in there and as you spill over into these other areas you know we had a lot of
sight constraints on this project by way of D with flood hazard and and D. So we had to work within the confines. uh we got creative and we're able to work within all of the D constraints as far as the buffers, the averaging. We didn't have to touch any of that. We didn't
have to go back to D for any additional permitting. Uh and Stonefield Engineering was able to get very creative with coming up with ideas and ways to get this thing to work. Um that led us to the plan I'm going to bring before you tonight, which is in exhibit A3. It's entitled overall site plan
prepared by Stonefield Engineering data April 16, 2025. Again, as you start at the bottom of the page, this is where you come from the commercial section. Uh I'm sorry, over here on the left hand side, you come through to from the commercial section. You come into on the upper pink side is multifamilies and on
the the lower purple side is multifamilies. So, as being indicated, when you come in, you have these four fourstory buildings that uh align on either side of the road. So, you get that grand effect of coming in. And you know, we've worked very diligently with your professional staff and we're going
to continue to work with them on the architectural style to make sure that these are attractive buildings. We've built these buildings before in other towns. So, we have experience with that. And then behind them are what we call threetory, what we refer to as three-story walkup buildings. They're just 24 unit buildings, three stories.
Uh, and those are are multifamilies. There's a total of 384 multifamilies located in this front section. Um, as I indicated, you have these four 43 unit buildings. The rest are 24-unit buildings. Another thing that we were able to bring into the plan
was there's a series of standalone garages in the in the development itself for the multifamilies. Obviously, the 24 unit walk-ups, as I refer to, don't have garages. They just rely on surface parking. We're able to do because we had the availability of room. We were able
to pop in in various series uh 8-unit garage buildings. And as landlords and owners of a lot of thousands of apartment units, they become very valuable to tenants to rent them out to individual tenants who want to have the security of having their car inside a garage rather than just in a surface
lot. So, we have a variety of those um garages through those garages are rented and they're rented to the first available tenant that takes it. They're not locked into a unit. They're not earmarked for anybody in particular. they come if you if they're available and you rent the apartment and you want a garage and you're willing to pay the
additional fee for the garage, then a garage is yours. Um there is a restriction in the lease that tells the tenants they can't use it for storage. It's intended for a car. Uh and that's what it's intended for. As the owner and the responsible party of this, by way of
background, Edgewood Properties owns thousands of apartments. Uh we've never sold one of our income inducing properties. So, we own and maintain everything we we build. So, we have our own landscape division, we have our own um site division, and we have our own residential renting division. So,
they'll stay on top of this. We'll be out there maintaining landscaping, maintaining the roads. All the garbage is private pickup. Uh, and we'll get into that a little bit more, but as you work your way through the development, you get into these pockets or neighborhoods, if you will. Um, I will tell you under the prior plan that you
saw on exhibit A2, there was a total of 197 buildings between the 4-unit and the 8-unit buildings, uh, we cut that down, including the standalone garages, which are 10 of them, to 134 buildings. So, we're able to reduce the overall number of buildings by 60. And the way you do
that is when you get creative with these buildings in back in here, we're able to introduce four, five, six, seven, and eight unit townhouse buildings. So you end up with a townhouse building that's more comp more compact because the units are all in a row. You don't have that spacing requirement that you had when you only had four units or eight units.
Now the buildings have to be 35 ft apart and they start spreading out throughout the site. So you're able to uh you know increase your development uh within that area without increasing the the overall development disturbance area. Um and that continues through um through all
these little pods of all town houses in several areas like in this area where I'm pointing to which is off of White Oak and Shawmeister. We have these a variety of 8 and 12 unit stacked unit and as Vina indicated that's simply from the outside and this was something that uh I will give Vina credit because she
fought very hard for this was to get a building that was going to contain affordable units but from the outside looked like a townhouse. So when you're driving down the street, you're not going to know that, you know, it's an affordable unit, per se. It, you know, it looks like a townhouse. It's got the same twotory appeal and view of a
townhouse. It's just when you walk in the door, you walk in a single door just like a townhouse, except in this unit, you go to the left to get into the lower unit and you continue straight to go to the upper unit. And so they're stacked. So there's one apartment, if you will, sorry, one apartment above the other. But again, from the outside, uh, it
gives a view of these town houses. There's 60 of them spread throughout the site. So again, there's a variety of number of units per building, but they're spread. There's some over in this area here. There's more over in this area here. There's another building over in this area here. Um, and so we able to, again, as Vina indicated
earlier when she did her uh opening statement was one of Vina's concerns was to spread the affordables throughout the development. And that led us into the townhouse section. Uh this is something that we push back very hard as a developer because it's not something we normally do which is put affordable
units in a townhouse building. Uh Vina was able to convince us that on two of the buildings located off of Aster Circle we have again the same type of concept where it's a stacked townhouse affordable within other townhouse units.
So, it's a it's a seven town houses, but there's total of nine units in the building, which is one of the variances that u Miss Kafone is going to speak about later because the ordinance when it was written uh contemplated eight, no more than eight units in the building. This one has nine because again, Vina wanted to try to spread out the
affordables. So, we're able to introduce this. So, again, from the outside, looks like a townhouse. It's in line with the other town houses except when you walk through the front door, either go left for the unit downstairs or you go straight to go to the door for the stairs to the upstairs unit. And that was gave us the ability to introduce some affordables into the townhouse
section as well. So now we have affordables in the multis. We have affordables in what we call the stacked which again is the townhouse look. And then we have affordables in the townhouse building itself. The ordinance was written and written for 48 quads. There's 44 of them are built. Uh as you
may be aware of that 44 that's built there's 28 market and there 16 affordables that are currently built and occupied. There's one more quad that's going to be built. Uh, and that was only the only re reason we did that was because it's across the street from the other quad. So, it kind of fits in. So, there will be a 12th building or another
four-unit quad located in the very southwest corner of the the circle itself. Um, in conjunction with the ordinance, there's a total of 60 stacked town houses. There is 564 three-bedroom townous spread out throughout the site.
And as indicated earlier, there's 384 multifamilies. Uh, as I indicated uh earlier, I started talking about uh trash removal. Again, this will all be private pickup. So, all the town houses, all the stacked units will have curbside pickup. So, it'll have your traditional uh garbage cans. They bring out to the
curb and they're picked up uh at the curbside. The multifamilies, what we've done, and we've we've done this in most of our newer developments, is we have a conveniently located trash compactor area. And for those of you who may be familiar, years ago, we came in and built apartment complexes. there was a
dumpster in every parking lot and that's served for every building or every couple buildings. What we found as the owners and trying to maintain it, it becomes very cumbersome and a nuisance for us to maintain because the residents don't take care of it and now we got to take care of 10 areas instead of one. So, what we've done on our newer
developments is introduce this compactor area where we have a compactor for recycling, a compactor for regular trash. There's a large what we call bulk item drop off area. So, if somebody's moving out, that's one of our issues that we have. people moved out, they leave the couches out by the curb, they leave beds. Uh we do now have a bulk
area pickup they can bring it to or we'll bring it over there for them and then we schedule to have that picked up. So typically there's an area that's fenced in that has a 30 yard roll off in it. Um the residents can come over, they drop off the large bulk or we'll make arrangements to go pick it up for them,
bring it over there, and when that's full, we can just empty it out. Um there's stairwell around the compactor. It's also ADA accessible. Um it's simple. The compactor works. You throw the trash in the hopper. It's all mechanically uh operated. So, the tenant
or the resident doesn't have to operate anything. He throws it in. When the hopper gets full, it automatically compacts. There's safety measures involved. Also, one of the things that we're allowed to do, not allowed, but one of the things we we do is we put cameras in these areas. So, we have cameras throughout the site, but we're able to put cameras by the compact areas
so we can monitor it from our main office in Piscataway as to what's going on with the trash. If it looks like it's getting unsightly, if it looks like it needs to be picked up, we can monitor it from there. Because on this site, as Vina indicated earlier, when you come down Showmeister and you get the intersection of Showmeister and Aster
Circle, that's where the clubhouse is. That's where our leasing office is going to be. So, obviously, the leasing people are far removed from the compactor area. So, except for jumping in a golf cart or their car to go over there and take a look at it, they're able to look at the cameras and send somebody for maintenance over there if something needs to be picked up or cleaned. Um
there's a hose bib over there so things can be washed down. Again, we take a lot of pride in our complexes of making sure that uh it's neat and clean. Uh as it relates to the clubhouse, one of the big changes we're able to do here was the clubhouse is centrally located for the entire development. The original plans
that were approved contemplated a clubhouse approximately 6,800 ft for the entire development. The clubhouse that we're proposing on this application is just over 11,000 square feet. It's almost double the size of what was there before. And when we looked at it, we figured the clubhouse is not big enough
for all these units. Um, and I know there's an existing developers agreement that talks about occupancy and who has the rights and first come, first serve, but we felt it necessary to build a bigger clubhouse to accommodate more residents. One of the other things that we've run into on a lot of developments
recently is package rooms. It's not something that we contemplated 10 years ago. Nobody thought about what was going to happen with the Amazons of the world and the and the UPS's. So, every one of our clubouses now has a package room so that when residents get large uh packages, they have them dropped off the
clubhouse. They get a notice on their phone, then go to the clubhouse. It's a separate entrance from the outside so they can go pick up their packages and they're not left out uh either in the lobby of their building or on the curbside or outside their town houses. So, we do accommodate that. Uh we've also struggled with the postal delivery.
Uh the post post office is getting more and more strict on where they want the mail delivered. They want less and less stops for efficiency. So um years ago we used to just throw what I refer to as 16 unit gang gang mailboxes in in the little parking lot area and if you had
48 units you throw three of them in and you're done. Um that doesn't always happen anymore. So now you got to work closely with the post office. A lot of times they want to use a centrallylo area. So for the town houses you have a mailbox on the side of your unit. You can go get your mail. But for the multifamilies, we found that the post
office wants to have one stop. They want to make one drop off. So they go to the clubhouse, they have the package/mail room. They're able to drop off the mail for the residents. It can accommodate up to 400 residents there. Uh which is more than enough for the multifamilies as well as additional package room, if you
will, or areas for the Amazon boxes of the world. Um and this is monitored by our leasing staff. So the leasing staff is there. So you can imagine what it's like come Christmas time when people are getting their Amazon packages. they have to stay on top of it because the room fills up quickly. Um, so again, that's something that you have to add to the
clubhouse which makes the clubhouse get bigger. We've added a cabana outside, uh, a 2,000 foot cabana. We've added a 2,000 foot maintenance building outside where they're going to have all your pool equipment inside, a place to store all your chairs, all your outdoor um, amenities that you're going to have. As
Vina indicated, the prior plan had tennis courts on it. We got away from the tennis courts because we're finding nobody's using them and we converted that to pickle ball courts because that's the latest craze. Uh so we're providing the pickle ball courts there. We have a lot of outdoor amenities uh in and around the clubhouse area. Uh something that this board had approved
on the prior application was um a lengthy, if you will, um walking trail throughout the site. A combination of sidewalks and wood chip trails that go through the uh uh environmentally constrained areas. that's going to continue uh through what was already
built. I know that under phase 1E, which was, you know, what they did originally. Um there was a lot of these uh wood chip trails and everything constructed in order to maintain and keep with the D permitting. Again, we're just adding to it. Uh as Vina indicated, we added a dog park, we added a basketball court, uh we
added a tot lot. Um and these are all things that we're finding that our residents um are desiring at our complexes, and we got to try to keep up with the competition, so to speak. So we know what residents want um and give them availability. The basketball court, we understand their sensitivity to that.
It's open only during the daylight. So it's locked down at night so we don't have to worry about lighting it or people bouncing their basketballs out there at 10 o'clock at night to disturb the residents. The basketball court, the dog park are located in the multif family section. Uh so again, we try to put it away from the clubhouse. There
are six tots spread out through the entire development. So again, that was something that township staff put into the ordinance to allow us to put tot lots in various locations. There are what I refer to as pocket parks. Again, similar to what the the board previously approved throughout the entire
developments. I know in the prior developer agreement, there's a a statement in there about the pocket parts needing to be uh built before the 50% or at the 50% CO mark for the entire development. Um, Vina and Resh, what I'd
like to do is I know we have to do an amended developers agreement, but um, I think we need to talk about that because the pocket parks, for example, if I have a pocket park that's located in this townhouse section, but those town houses are not under construction. The way the current developers agreement reads, I
have to go build that pocket park at 50%. I have to go in there and build all the infrastructure, the roads, and everything to get to a pocket park. I think we could work out something where we do it on a phasing basis as that those individual areas are getting built. So I'm not going in there and building something and then I'm not
doing building any units for 12 months or 18 months. So thank you. [Music] Um trying to think if I if I touched on everything that um uh the other thing too uh Resh I'd like
to work with your office on the roof drain uh leader comment because in some areas there's no storm sore around so it just makes it problematic to try to do roof leaders uh but we where feasible we'd like we'd work with your office to do that if not then we have to rely on splash blocks if there's areas we are going to institute do based on your
staff's recommendations, some rain gardens, some low areas. So, we could always have the roof run off because it's clean water run off into those areas there and work with your landscape division to make sure we uh have that down. But, I don't want to just say blanket globally that will tie in all the roof leaders if that's okay with
you. Yeah, that's fine. The other comment that was in the in the letter Resh was about whether or not we have designated parking spaces for deliveries, Door Dash, Amazon. I think I answered about the package room, but it's not our intention to have uh any specific there is overflow parking, you
know, in those areas um so that somebody comes in. We don't typically number our spaces or assign spaces to residents. We find that it's just become um a real headache for us as as the owner because you start getting arguments about why is cash space there and Venus space here
and you start getting so we just want yeah leave it leave it as um as an open parking lot so there is overflow there so anybody comes from Amazon or Door Dash or something I mean Door Dash is just going to park in a drive and run in um but there is no designated parking spaces for those types of deliveries.
Yeah, our our sorry our concern was really more about the multif family units and how how deliveries particularly like Amazon and that kind of delivery would work. Quick deliveries like you know Door Dash or god forbid the actual restaurant. Uh don't get me started on my daughter's
Door Dash bill. Uh the you know we were more concerned about the the packaging deliveries more than anything else. I food deliveries, things like that that they can stop where they need to stop and and deliver. But yeah, and again, they'll be directed to the clubhouse uh for those big packages. And you said the
mailboxes at the town houses would have each would have their own mailbox. Is that is that Well, it still has to be worked out with the post office. It depends on what day of the week it is because sometimes they'll they're okay. You can get the post office to agree to that. I Yeah, I think it depends on what day of the week and what what post office you deal with. We've had other success in other towns where they've
allowed that. Other ones allow for the eight unit g like an eight-unit gang box in front of an eight-unit townhouse. Uh I've had a I've had a town down in Tom's River or post office down Tom's River where they want it one location for all 400 units which becomes problematic. I mean now you have to have almost a separate parking lot just for your
mailboxes. But um when we start those conversations as we move forward certainly would keep your your office invited to the meeting so that you could weigh in on what the post office either says or doesn't say. I don't know what your experience has been between yours and Venus in Obridge uh with what they've done, but certainly it's
something we have to walk work with them on. All right. Thank you. Okay. And um you've reviewed all the other review letters, correct? Um and is there any other comments that you have with regard that you need to address? No, I believe
unless Resh tells me otherwise, I I reviewed ERRI's review memorandum dated at March 25th, 2025. I think I've covered just about everything that required testimony. Um, other than that, it's it's either either a statement or we agree to comply with your letter.
Okay. Yeah, I've been following along and it looks like you did provide most of the testimony that we requested. Um, just a couple and I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, since if this is the right time, let me know. Yes, go ahead. Uh, just a couple quick questions uh for this witness.
Um, with regard to the conditions of uh or the milestones, I mean, I'm sure you've seen the existing uh developers agreement. Um, is it your testimony that unless
modified, you know, by this application, all the the milestones and everything that were already agreed to are being carried forward? We believe for the I'm going to answer if that's okay. We we believe that we can comply with them at this point, but there might be a few
that we need to revisit and that will be subject to the developers agreement. We don't I can't tell you at this point which of the milestones, but I, you know, I think that we've are going to be able to, but just in case, you know, we'll we'll work with staff if that's okay with the board. Um,
as long as it's, you know, minor changes. I was going to say it really depends on it depends on the pocket parts, for example. The pocket parts, that kind of stuff is understandable. Yeah. you know, the the logistics when it becomes a problem in that regard, then that's where we're going to need to amend the developers agreement. I think we can and certainly that's up to the
board. But I think minor things like that I think we could work with the a lot of the milestones came straight from the resolution of approval from from the prior, you know, from the GDP and the and and the preliminary and final site plans. The all those milestones were taken straight from that approval. So that's why I'm saying I guess in essence
what I'm saying is this is an amended site plan approval. Any conditions that are not modified by this amended approval carry forward I guess is is is the correct is the legal way of looking at it I guess. Um yeah I I think just to add to that RA I think there's like
Ireina said I think there's things we need to look at because I know there was milestones in there about the commercial coming on board. Obviously the commercials you guys aren't going to be all right. There's I'm mind there's milestones in there for when the clubhouse had to come on. Those types of things we're okay with. They just need to be they might have to the language might need to be tweaked because we're
five or 10 years further ahead and things have happened. The single families are built, the commercials built, those types of things. The mile milestones that I'm concerned with are those milestones when the clubhouse gets built. Uh when White Oak Lane gets extended, there was a there one of the the conditions and milestones in the in
that approval were that White Oak Lane has to be extended out in order to get your last 180 84 I believe. It's funny how numbers burn in your mind forever. Last 184 units uh prior to getting those last 184 you actually need to have white
white oak lane extended all the way out. Yeah. I think there was like four steps. Yeah. Like for so many units you had to do emergency road, then you had to do curbs, then you had to do sidewalks. That last one was the one that was sort of it was like an option like if if you don't do that last stretch, then you
can't have those last units. Now, we do have the new the White House developer who's developing that one stretch of widow plane for you guys as well. So, I guess I don't see any issues with any any of those. The clubhouse we're going to build up front, so I don't see any issues with any of those. Okay. I also
believe that uh the last 184 units were tied with u the phase two of the commercial component as well. And um I vaguely remember because Regency Center
had uh they had met with us almost 2 years ago um showing interest in developing the phase 2 but I think that needs to be developed for you to build all the 1056 uh units. So I think that remains
unchanged. I believe we would want to see the commercial uh development being built. Yeah. The only the only downside to that is we don't control it and so it's that's hard sometimes when somebody else is building original developers agreement anyways right okay I mean
that's that's I guess that that was one of my my questions is um is Brunetti out of the deal altogether no he's 50/50 partner with well and I apologize I don't mean I don't mean that they're out of the deal but but there's nothing that's solely their responsibility you guys are basically sharing that
responsibility today I mean I remember when u the township attorney and I were discussing how the developers agreement would be amended. We were debating whether the original redevelopers agre the developers agreement remains in place and then you have like addendums.
Yeah. For individual because you have now hadian you have regency and we have Edgewood. So we still have to come up with a way. Um but I definitely know that the original would have to be amended because even the housing type
has changed like very basic things have changed. Um I I I I mean there's a lot of work still to be done and I know uh Rakkesh when I will have to come up with uh the agreement work with you guys and
uh that would be one of the condition of approval should the board uh act favorably tonight that the developer has to enter into a developer amended developers agreement prior to getting final signatures on the signed plans.
I do have one one other last question and I apologize. Uh get my pointer out so I can point uh just to uh again just to get it on the record. Um all the these roads were all public roads that were built, right?
The and and obviously the cake theian single family are all public roads. All the roads that you're you're constructing are all going to be private owned roads, right, that you're going to be maintaining. Yeah, it was it was my understanding to your point. Showmeister, Aster, Portaluca, White Oak
were all going to be and it's single families were all going to be township owned and maintained and all the individual streets, parking areas would be privately maintained by us. Just wanted to get that on the record. Along with the stormwater management system, too, right? That's correct.
Okay. Any of you I know Map is watching at home, so I just want to make sure I got that. Yeah, have her drive down here. Yeah. Uh, any other questions from our professionals? No, not at this time. I don't think you guys have any questions. No, I just want to comment on the landscape. They've done a rather extensive land, sorry, a
rather extensive landscaping uh plan. And um most of my comments were were basically for the multif family areas. I thought maybe we could u increase some of the the tree planting and shrub planting is between some of the buildings just to break them up a little bit. and it's gonna kind of fall into
those um rain guards that we that you spoke about earlier. So, the idea is to sort of create some woodland areas in there in between the buildings just and also some um you know some more buffering in the parking areas just the screen headlights and and noise and
they've agreed to work all those issues. would you agree to work with us on fine-tuning the landscape plan during compliance stage? Yes, we would. Traffic engineer, do you have any comments?
There we go. Okay. Um those just a few things uh we talked today um with uh Stonefield and Tom Miller from the fire department because there were some concerns about uh for the traffic calming measures on the roadways to address some of the speed concerns that
people have raised and you know some of the potential measures could be like uh speed humps, raise uh crosswalks, raise intersections. Wanted to see if the fire department was agreeable to that. I think they're hesitant to go and Matt
can clarify if I'm I'm on the right path here. He was and Reena. I think the uh I think they want to stay away from anything that creates a difference in elevation, a bump of any kind. I think they're talking more about maybe rumble strips
or something like that to uh address it. And of course, you know, some of the issues may go, this was part of the discussion, some of the issues may go away. Right now you have wide open roads because you don't have development. As the area starts to develop, you'll have more houses. Uh there is a possibility
of a speed limit reduction. I think it's 35 miles an hour, but that would be something that the township engineer would need to uh you know address. Yeah, I can address that. Go ahead. So, and I was I was going to wait until we had Mr. Seckler up here to to give that
testimony. Do Do you want to wait until then so we can talk about that all as a inclusive thing? Yeah, we probably should wait for come up because he can he can handle all traffic at once. Okay. Uh any uh comments or questions to my right? My
left are all the buildings are they going to be integrated with the um affordable are the affordable going to be integrated into all the different buildings or they you're not having a separate building just for affordable?
No. One of the things that Vina was insistent about was making sure the affordables are spread out throughout the development center. Some of the town houses, some of the stacked, some of the multifamilies. Okay. Thank you. No, there's no 100%, you know, set aside building over here or something like that. Okay, Barbara, just to chime in,
there are a couple of variances that are required and those variances are triggered only because of the integration of affordable units. So for example, I'll just I don't remember remember the ordinance word to word but
for example if the ordinance said that the townhouse building can have only x amount of units later on when I reviewed it and asked them to integrate there were two new units added because the affordable units are stacked units but from outside they look like townhouse
units but they are all integrated and that is the reason why those variances were required. Okay thank you. Um, chairman, I just have a request. Since um Ron is testifying, I think it's the right time for Mr. Lavalo to ask any questions
because he has done review of the landscape and the tree ordinance. I agree, Mr. Lavalo. [Music] He's coming over. Is this on? Got it. All right. Is Gary Lavalo, Lova,
LL, Township Conservation Officer. All right. Just um talking about the trees, I had a report that was issued in March 24 uh with quite a few items in there. I just want to know uh if it's going to be complied with. Are there any
issues with the uh report? Uh no, we had a conversation uh with Mr. Lava office and there's nothing in here we can agree to comply with and submit to him. One of the things he asked for was uh an approximate estimation of clearing which we sent over to the town yesterday. Uh
substantially lot less area than we thought it was going to be, but again we agreed to work with his office to make sure we could address all of his concerns. Yeah, the map was sent to me with a total uh a tree clearing of 69.5 acres,
which is substantially less than I had uh thought it was. Uh and uh the only other uh question I had was that on the environmental impact statement, uh it it um was curious that it just says no significant plant or wildlife
systems will be damaged or destroyed due this development. And I think that just under 21,000 trees is significant damage. Uh so I just wanted to make sure that that uh that that was uh that in that environmental impact statement it
should have been a little more uh inclusive of the vegetation that's there because we're talking about pretty much an oak pine forest that's out there throughout the site and I think it's a little bit uh more than nonsignificant. uh understood and we apologize for that
and as part of any condition of approval we submit for resolution compliance, we'll be happy to submit a revised report to make sure it includes uh something that's related to the shade tree. Okay, Mr. Chairman, I'm good with that, Mr. Chair. One one thing. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. I apologize. Uh on
staying on the tree topic, we the township does have or has enacted that the new shade tree ordinance. Um, just wanted to make sure that it's acknowledged by the applicant that that the Sha tree ordinance does apply to this application because it's an amended uh site plan application. Well, I guess
that microphone, sorry. I think that might become a legal issue in terms of the township. That's why I'm glad I'm not a lawyer and an engineer. So, we'll see. If we're required to, we will. If it legally applies, you agree that it that you'll comply? Yes. And
then I'll let all the The lawyers fight it out. Me, too. Uh, so are you finished, Mr. Alam? I am concluded, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Thank you. Oh, any questions from the board or Yeah, I have another Oh. Um, I
I drove back in there a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago, and there's I guess it's the detention area. There's a big water area. Is that going to be it looks sort of seedy and is that going to be upgraded and and landscaping put
around it or uh there is landscaping proposed I'm not sure which detention basin you're referring to if it's in the residential section or commercial section but if it's in a residential section um if it wasn't landscaped already some of the stuff that we're doing we'll be adding landscaping uh I know there are some um what I'll call
ponds out there we can take a look at and if becomes a nuisance we may have to introduce a fountain or something out there to to airate it to help make sure there's not any kind of mosquito breeding or something like that. But it's something that certainly we work with both Nicole and Reesh on if there's an issue out there. I mean, again, it's something that we would be concerned about because we're going to have
hopefully have residents out there. Okay. Okay. Before we let you go, Ron, we got to open it up to the public. Does anybody from the public like to speak? Seeing no hands. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
I'd like to call uh Matt Seckler from Stonefield who's our traffic engineer. Um if you'd be sworn in. Good evening. Do you swear affirm the testimony you're going to give this evening is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, I do. Thank you. Can you just uh state and spell your name for the record? Certainly. My name is
Matthew Seckler. That's S E C K L E R with Stonefield Engineering Design. Address is 92 Park Avenue in Rutherford, New Jersey. Can you uh let the board know your uh educational background and your experience? Certainly. I have a bachelor
of science in civil engineering from Union College in Skenct New York. Have a masters in city regional planning from Ruckers University. Licensed professional engineer in the state. Also recognized a professional traffic operations engineer by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Been practicing the field for over 15 years
and have been accepted before this board and over 150 other boards in the state. And you were before this board very recently, right? Uh recently, a year or so ago. Yeah, about a year ago. Some of the warehouses down. We're accepted. Thank you. Y thank you. So, Mr. Seckler,
if you could advise the board um what we're proposing with this new redevelop with this new site plan um and the circulation that has already been installed. Absolutely. Uh and again, we did prepare a traffic assessment report.
It was dated April 16th, 2025. There were a few iterations of that report, but the most recent one was the April 16th one. Uh just to again uh remind the board that this development or or you know the portion development we're spoke talking about was originally part of a
much larger development which was the reason why Schulmeister Road in Route 9 was reconstructed. I think it finished about 3 four years ago. So the traffic that this site would generate along with the single family houses that are built, the retail development, all that was
part of uh an NJ dot uh application that again was that um resulted in the reconstruction of the showmeister intersection and the minor improvements that were made to the old mill road. I think you used to have like a full jug handle there. Now you kind of would just have ability to make a right and
continue on to White Oak Lane if you're coming southbound on Route 9. Uh but that all of that all the traffic associated with this development and those other portions of the development um were accounted for in that NJ DOT access permit. And this is one of these applications that is nice because now
the improvements already built. So we're not waiting and saying okay you know when is the DOT going to approve this versus all the traffic we're adding to the roadway. DOT improvements are in place. Now we're adding some of the traffic. Now, in terms of the traffic levels that we're adding, um, as was
indicated by the applicant, as well as, uh, as Ven indicated, we're not changing the number of units that were always contemplated on this site. Um, in fact, the DOT application, uh, going back to 2001 actually contemplated even more units. I think they were at 1500 units
when they did their analysis to the Department of Transportation. Clearly, we're below that and were equal to number of units that were that were contemplated as part of the GDP plan. There is a slight change when you go to the book values for how much traffic a townhouse generates versus how much
traffic a forplex or an 8plex would generate just because uh they see car ownership levels a little bit higher on a townhouse. You may own, you know, may have a little bit larger of a family in a townhouse than you may have in some of the original um um apartment units that
were contemplated on this site. and it results in about a 5% increase in traffic when you're comparing townhouse development versus standard um you know kind of apartment garden apartment style apartments. So we did account for that in our traffic assessment report. We indicated again that very slight
increase just because the unit mix has changed, but really 50 trips is a dimminimous amount of of uh increased traffic over um you know this area of roadway and concerning the Schmeister road intersection was uh developed and redesigned for levels of traffic that
far outweigh what we're seeing even out there today um in 2025. Um, in fact, the Schulmeister intersection was designed assuming that Route 9 would carry about 104,000 vehicles per day. Right now, it's carrying about between 80 and 90,000 vehicles per day. So, again, that
design has been, you know, was future futurep proofed in a way uh to account for not only our traffic, but again, additional growth on Route 9 uh as you know, that corridor may get busier and busier. Um so overall again um you know this application minor uh in terms of
changes from a traffic standpoint compared to what was previously approved. You did hear some discussions about um you know concerns that were mentioned at the council meeting about speeds in this area. Again I've driven this area. I've driven around. You know you have areas where there are stop signs but the roads on either side
aren't built yet. So people are kind of ignoring the stop signs because they know there's no traffic coming. Obviously, as we de develop this site, um create the extended roads, you'll start seeing slower and slower speeds, but again, we are committed in working with your emergency services engineering
staff and the board traffic engineer and coming up with various items in our traffic calming toolbox to help keep traffic slow. Some items, you know, I know the fire official did not like the idea of, let's say, speed bumps or speed humps, but at intersections, you can use kind of textured materials. So you kind
of have a mix of rumble strip but also like a high visibility. So if pedestrians are crossing the area, cars kind of tend to slow down when they hit these kind of um um textured intersections. And it's it's found to work quite well in a lot of um residential developments such as this. So again, we're happy to work with the
board's professionals and the township staff to make sure we have the proper um traffic coming here, but we agree that there is a current issue. We don't think it's going to um continue to be an issue in the future, but we are looking to find, you know, geometric solutions to
help reduce those speeds through this neighborhood. Um, additionally, again, I think there was um some, you know, discussions in the fire official level as well as the engineering level in terms of things like showing sight distance on plans, additional signage, striping on the
roadway network. we're in full agreement with complying with all of those comments uh and addressing the comments uh that meets your uh professionals um standards. So again, in terms of traffic from this site, I know I don't know how many people on this board approved this project originally, but again, very very
little traffic changes compared to what was previously approved. And again, we have the benefit of Showmeister being open and that Showmeister intersection has been basically overdesigned to account for this development along with other growth on the Route 9 corridor.
Um I one other one question with regard to um one of the waiverss that we're seeking with regard to the parking spaces. Um yeah, there's a waiver um in the plan. It does require parking space to be 10 by 20. We are proposing parking
spaces 9 by8. That is standard per the RSIS, the New Jersey residential site Improvement Standards. They uh require a maximum of 9 by8. So we are requesting a waiver. It is basically industry standard uh that residential developments are designed at a 9 by18
standard and otherwise you've reviewed ERRI's letter of March 25th 2025. Correct. And um as well as the April 24th, 2025 letter from the fire official. Do you have any additional comments? No. And again, we did speak with the fire
official uh earlier this morning. Uh there's some slight modifications to some areas to allow for easier access for fire vehicles to turn around and exit um some of the dead-end areas uh within the site. Um but we are in full compliance and will uh uh agree to
comply with all the outstanding comments. I don't have any further questions of the board of professionals. Okay. I guess Mr. Tetro, this is your forte. Yeah, I think I think Matt covered most things there. Uh we did
talk this morning with the the fire official and you know he kind of summarized our discussions about you know their desire to not use any kind of a elevation difference for a speed calming measure and uh you know rumble strips the textures. I think we're good there.
Um some of the roads I had had a comment about um you know speed limit is 35 which might be reduced. I think in some places some of these roads are the geometry is even probably less than designed for. It could be you know less
than that. You might need based on that some warning signs some advisory speed plays just to advise what the real design speed is of the road just so uh you know uh drivers are aware that they may have to slow down below the posted speed limit just because if you have a 100 foot radius that's good for probably
less than 25 that's less than 25 miles an hour. those kind of things. Uh the only other thing that I saw in going through uh the recent uh you you did you mentioned you you updated the traffic um
report and and nothing I don't think's really changed that much. The only thing that I'll note in there that had mentioned and you you just brought up that you know uh Route 9 Shmeister Road had been part of a DOT access permit. Now, the traffic report does indicate an
increase in traffic on this latest design. Not significant, but an increase. I was just wondering if uh based on that you might need to just go back to the DOT and just clarify that with them and see if there's a you know they would issue a letter of no interest
or something like that that the you know the increase is as you say insignificant and that they really not are going to not going to be interested in imposing uh more changes or anything like that on on on uh Route 9. Yeah. And again, we have no
issue. And again, just to kind of provide a little background, that um permit again was not filed by our department and by our office, but in reviewing it again, it did contemplate 1500 units for this development at the time. So, we're not going to be even close to that number. And I believe the
Regency Center had a much larger office and retail buildout than what actually is being built at this point. So, you know, I can either provide you with the permit and those numbers or the DOT the permit and those numbers and then they'll write back the hope assuming they'll write back the letter saying that we're still within the permit.
Yeah, I think it's just, you know, and I would expect and I've been in your shoes before where where you know insignificant traffic increase. I've gone to them and said, look, can you issue a letter of no interest and they've usually been, you know, very reasonable once once things are explained to them and the history is explained to them. So, just to have that
letter of no interest would be would be good. Sure. Okay. my Okay, Rkesh. Yeah. My only um recommendation or we do have a concern regarding the uh traffic cominging on on Aster Circle and it's kind of hard to gauge at this point, right? Like right
now we have people complaining. They're all a single family unit. So really they're they're complaining about themselves speeding on that road. Um and and I imagine that the um I do agree that the speed speeding on that road should decrease once you actually get more build out because right now
it's an open especially when you go down Shmeeister there's nothing there after you pass Regency center it's very tempting to to to sort of get a little heavy on the accelerator. Same thing on Aster Circle because it's got the bends and there's not a whole lot of people once you get more units it should um
calm people down a little bit. Uh but that being said, I I think the time to evaluate that may be in the future once that buildout has happened. Um would the applicant be amunable to if the board deems it appropriate uh amunable to uh
evaluating the speed and and also the traffic basically traffic safety along Aster Circle and Schulmeister road um at let's say around 75% completion of your units. I'm seeing a nod behind me. So, I'm just I saw the nod, too. Thanks, Ron. Um, so,
Mr. Chairman, that that would be that would be our recommendation that should the board act favorably, that that would be a condition the the applicant work with the township's uh engineer, township professionals to to evaluate the traffic safety on on the public roads uh at 75% completion. Very good.
Thank you. Uh, Vain, do you have any comments? Okay. Okay. Anybody on my left questions? Just I'll be more than happy to lower the speed limits. It's a council person. Don't worry. More than happy. Uh any Go
ahead. So, you're saying that Route 9 right now is between 80 and 90,000 cars per day? Per day. And you think that that's an a smooth flow? Oh, I'm saying the this intersection was designed the show
intersection was designed By no means is Route 9 a smooth flow. Considering the Schulmeister intersection is probably the only one that's been reconstructed in the last 25 years, that one is not the one that would hold up any traffic. It's Pine, which is the first intersection that's signalized coming
south on Nine. Route 9. That's where it starts and then it goes entire Route 9. I don't know if you drive it, but Route Nine is a mess. Yeah. Right. It's a mess. I um charging stations. You going to put
any charging stations up at these by the parking lots, by the units, anywhere? You know, the state wants us to go to EV by 2035. Yeah, we're required by law to put put a certain percentage in and we we end up as developers end up putting in
additional ones because our residents require it. You don't have to kneel. I'm not that bad. Uh yeah, we will we will be putting in and we'll show them on our site plan for the the professionals to approve the location, right? And and then what about schools? Are we going to allow buses to
come in there for schools? Our schools are jammed up as it is. The board of education is cutting back on our funds. Schools are jammed up as as it is. What are we going to do about that? So, our site can accommodate school buses. Uh we have not met with the fire I'm sorry, school board yet to determine
locations. Typically, it ends up being at the clubhouse or in the multif family areas where they'll have a stop to pick up, but we haven't sat down with them yet and figured out where they're going to be stopping or picking up uh the children at. Okay. Thank you, Miss Petty.
Um Ed, go ahead. I'm not sure this is a question for traffic, but maybe more of a legal one. Um the um the road as it stands right now, Schummeister road as you testified, is is about three years old, would you say? Right. No. Um the township is at
some point going to take over that those roadways. Most of them anyway, the main roadways. Um and this is the point that I don't understand. We'll be bonded. I'm sure there'll be a bond in place until they're turned over to the town. Will it
be turned over in sections or all at one time? And when does that sunset end with the uh with the bonding? How long? Um well, I'll defer to Resh on the bonding. I mean, bonds are posted and I think they're there forever until you get off
the bonds. I mean, that's town's protection to have uh the hold over to developer to build the roads in accordance with the plans. Uh I'm not sure if I don't recall Resh if you remember if it was one bond for all the roads or if it's broken into sections. The the bonding on this development has
been done in phases as the developers are are you know coming in. So Kovian posted the bond for their four u sections separately. Uh the original developer the Brunetti organization posted their bonds for building the the public roadways and asked to circle and
showmeister and those roads. So there's a bond for those roads right now. But I got to believe I missed I missed the early part of the question. So I apologize. Yeah, I believe it's going to be a little while yet because we have if we're successful and get get a board approval, all of our connection points
have to be bought into that those main roads. So as we enter from the multif family section, the townhouse section, the stack, as we enter these, we have to modify a road um you know to to tie our our development in and that's going to take some construction and stuff. So obviously the town is not going to want
to accept the road and then have us dig it up when they have a nice fresh road. So um again as Resh said as we go through the phases I know that when um it was originally developed a lot of the some of the streets going into the developments were accounted for but some
of them have moved under this proposed development. So I think as we go through the development and we work with the engineers office through a phasing to come over and again if we if it ends up being turned over in phases or if it has to wait till the end because they want to wait till all the construction is done so they get a nice new road at the end of the day as opposed to bits and
pieces that may have to be done worked at with Nicole's office and Resha's office. Yeah Mr. Chairman I I can respond just to timing wise the bonds stay the initial performance bonds stay in place until the township releases them. So until the township accepts the roads, say everything meets the standard
township standards and they release the bonds. So they remain in place until that happens and then there will likely be a maintenance bond. Yes. Then usually a two-year maintenance bond after that, right? Are there any any other bonds that will be like for parks or the tot park or anything like that? Is there any
other bonds that we're we will be responsible for? They're theirs. Yeah. If I if I may, Mr. Chairman, there historically there used to be under before the MLUL was amended, all you know, quote unquote public improvements needed to be bonded. Uh, and public
improvements didn't mean that necessarily they were going to be owned by the public. They would necessarily be accessed or used by the public. So, it would include public parks even if they were still going to be privately owned. The MLUL has the municipal land use law has been amended a couple years ago to remove or modify that requirement. So
only the bonding now goes to the actual public improvements meaning the improvements are going to be transferred over to the public or uh to the township or some other public entity of public access to it. So it's it doesn't in no longer includes those private improvements that you know uh that was
otherwise going to be included in that. So, uh, yes, there will be, but it won't include everything like some of the the private parks that would it might have three years ago would would have or actually more than that whenever it was. And so, the theory is that he would be the ones maintaining it. So, still it's
not going to be the responsibility of the of the town to maintain it. But also, just for Mr. Ferrar's benefit, um, as we talked about earlier, but this developers agreement, there is protection for the town. Um because there's obviously going to be things in the developers agreement that talk about
I can only go so far with my development before I have to bring these pocket parks or all these other improvements on on board. So it's not like I can wait till the end and because they're not bonded I never do them. There's protection in the developers agreement that allows the township protection to say no you got to build 50 units then
you got to do this and you get another 50 units you're going to do that and that's what the town gets as protection because we don't have that bonding out there for everything that the board attorney spoke of. So there is protection from the town through the developers agreement and cos I mean there's a lot of things that the township has leverage if you will over
us to make sure we get things done as we say tonight and through our testimony through our letters. Mr. Chairman I I do have one other question for for Are you finished? Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Well, staying on the
bonding topic, uh we do um obviously have a concern regarding the existing roadways with Schulmeister and Aster being public roadways that right now the you know you have 250 some odd single family homes that are accessing and then as your units come online there'll be more folks accessing them. Um the
condition of the roadways currently uh isn't great um because of the construction traffic and and like you said the township is not uh in the position to entertain accepting those roadways. Mr. Although Mr. Brunetti or
Mr. Prima is called several times every few months it's almost like clockwork to to request that we take the roads. The township's not going to be taking the roads until the construction is done. Um would you be amunable to some sort of agreement in the or some
sort of condition the developers agreement that would require you guys to make sure you maintain the safety of those roadways? Again, that's one of the reasons why I was asking you know who's who the parties are cuz right now the Brunetti organization is responsible for Schulmeister and Aster and I want to make sure that it's Brunetti and
Edgewood or or whomever anybody but the town uh until until the township actually agrees to take the roadways. No, again we would agree to to work with your office and and Nicole's office that if there is issues out there, we can go out there and repair them. Even if it's a temporary base situation where it's a
you make the road drivable until such time we get to the point where we have to either mill an overlay or whatever we do at the end to before acceptance. We had some base failures out there because of all the construction traffic obviously and so you had especially in the winter time there were some some really bad potholes with you know
holding water and you had ice and it became a kind of a dangerous condition. So Mr. Mr. Primar did get out there and fix them, but it was, you know, at I won't say begrudgingly because that's kind of harsh, but it took some convincing. Yeah. No, absolutely. You could you can call our office and we'll
get make sure we get right on it. Perfect. Okay. Mr. Seckler, are you finished? I think I am, but Okay. Uh, let me just any good. Go ahead, Joe. No, I was just going to say the public. Oh, I would say
yes. Uh, we have to open up to the public again. Anybody from the public seeing no hands? Close the public portion. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I'd like to call Christine Caffone as our next witness. Um, she's our planner and she's with
Kafone Consulting Group. If somebody could swear her in. Yes. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're going to give this evening is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. And could you please just state and spell your name for the record? Um, of course. Good evening, chairman
and members of the board. For the record, Christine Nazaro Kafone. Business address is 52 Reckless Place, Red Bank, uh, New Jersey 07701. I'm testifying this evening as a licensed professional planner. I have been qualified here in Old Bridge, uh,
mostly before the zoning board, but before the planning board as well. I've been testifying for 29 years in the state of New Jersey. So, I've been qualified here and about 450 or so other boards throughout New Jersey. I teach planning and zoning courses for the Rucker Center for Government Services. My licenses are current and valid. I am
also a court-appointed affordable housing special adjudicator. I had dozens of towns in the last round and again dozens of towns in the fourth round as well. So, I'm very familiar with the affordable housing landscape in New Jersey. You're accepted. Thank you, Chairman. Could you could you just spell your last name, please? Yes. It's
Nazaro. N A Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z A R O and then caffone is C O F O N E. Missu has had the misfortune of taking my testimony on many occasions, so she is familiar with the the pace at which I usually go, so
I'll try to slow it down for her tonight. Um this is what I would consider a substantially conforming application. You see on the screens, uh I don't know that if they're marked, but they're part of the record. uh is a fairly large development. To have a large development of this scale with
over a thousand units and request only one variance is significant to me that shows substantial conformance. The only variance that we're seeking is to increase the number in these two buildings along Astra circle. And when I say these two buildings, it's terrible
testimony, right? If we're it's building 83 and 84 on the western portion of the development along Astra circle. So, in these these two buildings, referring to uh the exhibit showing the one in the blue color, the one in the purple, those buildings are only allowed to have eight
units in them. We actually have nine units in them. And as Vina indicated in her earlier comments, as she indicates in her March 25th, 2025 review letter, the reason we're asking for the additional units is so that we can integrate the buildings. It's a little hard to see, but you can see in the
lighter tone color in both building 83 and 84, the affordable units are going to sit in the center of those buildings. So, and chairwoman asked earlier, are you going to be integrating there? That makes it much easier to see. So, you can see it's sort of in like a half te that the affordable unit is placed pretty
much in the center of those uh individual string of buildings. So I think you know for as far as planning goes and as far as integration I think that it's certainly a better zoning alternative. So statutoily I think the board can grant that variance under the
C2 section of the statute where even in the absence of any hardship if the board finds that one or more purposes of the municipal land use law would be advanced you can grant the relief under the C2 promoting the general welfare I think is advanced and certainly m an in efficient use of the land statutoily in order to
invoke the C2 section of the statute we would only have to advance one of the purposes of the municipal land use law but I can comfortably tell you that I think criteria A and criteria M are both advanced. As a special master in the last round, they called the term special adjudicator. In this round, I can tell
you that it is always the goal to integrate the units if you can do that so that you don't have the affordables concentrated. So unequivocally I can tell you that I believe we meet our burden of proof with respect back to the positive criteria and the negative criteria of and the test with the
variance is you don't have to find that there's no detriment just that there there's a benefit and the benefits would outweigh any detriment. The detriment can't be substantial. So here I see no detriment. I don't think um you can see from the from the plan that there are jogs and offsets in those buildings.
You're not going to have a monolithic wall. there's no um there's no planning detriment to having the eight versus nine units and certainly the benefit of that integration would outweigh any detriment. Um so on wholesale when you look at this project there are a number
of benefits. This has been a long-term um project in your affordable housing landscape going back to the second round. So this project certainly implements your affordable housing plan. We my office Kafone consulting group prepared a community impact statement in conjunction with this application. It
was submitted with part of the application and the um and Mr. Reading prepared a fiscal impact statement which our community impact references. This project runs a substantial positive fiscal impact um at the municipal level. So I think that that's also something
the board can recognize. Um, we have already indicated that we would work with your professionals to address any issues with our landscaping plan and it was testified earlier that there will be substantial contributions to your recreation um plan, your recreation fund
here uh in conjunction with this application. So when you look at all the benefits of this application, I find that the sta the standard for the variance would be um met in my opinion and no substantial detriment to the p the public good or the zone plan would result from that single variance. In
addition to that variance, we are seeking a number of design waiverss and the standard for design waiverss is a little bit different. The standard that you have to find when you have a design waiver is is it the minimum required to meet the intent of the ordinance? Uh, and there's just again on a project of this size, I would tell you that I
believe there's just really a handful of design waiverss. Those design waiverss are identified in your professional review letter dated March 25th. If you have it in front of you, it starts on page six. Um, so I I believe we are going to provide um work with you to
provide a land disturbance plan. So that's the first waiver identified on page six. The next um waiver that's required is for providing at least two shrubs and one shade or ornamental tree um for each 1500 square ft of area of
development. So we are providing substantial plantings and we are matching exactly the trees that were provided in conjunction with the prior approval for this site. Previously, um there were uh the previous tree quantity was
3,437 and that's what the applicant is proposing. As far as the shrubs, we're actually increasing the shrubs on site by almost 1,000 plantings. Previously approved shrubs were 1,275 and we're now proposing 2,216 plantings, shrub plantings. So
that's a substantial number of plantings and as indicated um that the prior testimony through Mr. all in back the director of engineering. The applicant is willing to accept a condition of approval that we work with your professionals to improve the landscaping plan where we can, but I think that it's substantially consistent with prior
iterations of this plan and improved in many instances where we've increased it the shrubs by about a thousand. Mr. Seckler has also testified already about the third waiver variant or the third waiver which was identified which is the size of the parking stall being 9 by8
versus 10 by 20. uh he stated that it meets the RSIs certainly um by having wider parking stalls you just have more pavement and I don't see any real planning benefit to do that. So that's that's that that waiver. The next waiver
that we required occurs in only one portion of our site. It's for a planting bed having a minimum of 5 ft. We need a waiver. This is in the multif family section here and it's adjacent to garage number four and building I believe
that's building number six. So there is a a strip in that area that has only I believe four feet where five is required. Um you scale so it's in this area again for the record referring to
um building six adjacent to garage number four. I'm not sure that that's shown on this plan, but those are the numbers shown on the site plan. And we do have a a waiver for a strip in that area. And I think um certainly you can see that this is a more compact nature.
Could you could you stretch that out and have more disturbance there? You probably could, but I think it's a better efficient layout to have it um and grant that waiver for that. The next waiver that we're asking for is for light fixtures being spaced at a minimum distance approximately equal to four
times the height of the given fixtures. And this equates to the required spacing of 72 linear feet for the lighting fixtures which are 18 ft in height. Um, and we're proposing a shortage proposed spacing of 21.8 ft. So, as you can imagine, particularly in the multif
family, 72 linear feet would be a very long stretch to not have lighting. So, we believe that the lighting that we're proposing is a more safe and efficient layout and to go 72 linear feet in a residential development um could even potentially be unsafe. That's a long way
to go. Um and you would have to have a I think a much less efficient layout of your lighting plan. the other var waiver that we're seeking. You can address the uh the next waiver as well as the lighting variance that's
on page five on number one. It's the same. It's raised. So that's the last waiver and it's for the maximum intensity of illumination at the at property lines of 1.0 foot candle. So in talking with our engineer where this
happens is it happen and it's not at the property lines they're internal they're internal connections where our internal roadways are at public rights way on the m on the public streets. So where this happens is when we have a connection between an internal roadway and then a
public rightaway where we're exceeding the minimum requirements of the lighting. So we have to balance the requirements in the ordinance to meet those are considered intersections. So anywhere through and throughout and it's only internal to our community. Anytime
where we have one of our internal residential streets linking up to one of these public streets that creates an intersection. So what's happening is we're violating we're meeting the minimum lighting requirements for the intersection but we're not meeting the
the um the at the property lines essentially is what's happening. So it and all those exceedences occur in a public right away and they're internal to our development. So that's that's the extent to the relief. So again from a planning point of view with the the
relief for the lighting um and the integration or the exceedence of the 8 to9 units and those handful of waiverss for um that that I previously mentioned. I'm hopeful that the board agrees with me that this is a substantially compliant plan that implements your
affordable housing plan. going back to the second uh round and can do so in such a way that it will have no substantial detriment to the zone plan or the public good. Thank you. Um I don't have any further questions if the board professionals or
the Okay. U professionals I don't have any questions. Okay. Thank you Rish. I don't have any questions. Mr. Chairman, Tim. Um, again, with with some of the the waiver, I guess it's waiver um four that that kind of limits what
you put in in that little planting area, but I think uh what we're going to do is is, you know, maximize other areas and and put expand where it's probably more appropriate. And I'm looking at this uh section two for the number of trees. I I actually did a quick count of the of the
uh shade trees and I'm coming out with 3,437 trees. So I don't think you need a waiver on that. Okay, that's that that's what we're proposing for trees. Yes, 3,437. No, that's trees. Previously approved trees is
3,437. On this list, I have previously approved shrubs is 1,275. Proposed shrub quality quantity is 2216. So, if that's not accurate, let me know. But that's that's what you handed me. So, if that's not accurate, please come
up here and straighten us out. But what I have here is previously approved trees 3,437, previously approved shrubs 1,275, and proposed shrub quantity of 2216, which is the increase of about a thousand.
It's those box. Okay. Oh, yes. The waiver is for shrubs. Thank you. Okay, M Tim, are you finished? That's correct. Yeah, for the shrubs, the trees are good, so I don't need a waiver on that. Just wanted to clarify that. Mr. Tetro, you do you have any comments or questions? Well, I the only thing I had
seen this goes back uh a while uh there was I think there had been a request for a waiver for 4ft sidewalks. Um there was an item a while back u just point out and you know I I don't know the specifics there. Um, if
there are 4ft sidewalks, there would have to be uh for ADA, I know there's occasionally a 5-ft pass by area that has to be provided per proag standards. So, would have to be compliant with that. So, we're complying with that. We
we are not requesting that waiver. And the only other thing that I saw was um and I kind of mentioned this a little bit about the radi. I know it looks like RSIS requires a 100 foot minimum radi for roads. Um I'm not sure I and the plans the last version I had didn't have
any radi so I couldn't tell if there was anything less than 100 foot. If there is anything less than 100 foot uh that might require waiver from RSIS. I don't I'm not you know and maybe nothing is under 100 foot but there were no there were no radi on the plans when I looked at them.
Yeah we we don't believe we have it. We'll make sure the plans reflect the radi, but we don't believe we have any that are under 100 ft. Okay, good enough. That's it. Thanks. Okay. Uh, questions from my right, anybody from my left? Um, go
ahead, Barbara. As far as the architecturals, are there what would have already approved the architecturals of the building? Um, no. As Vina indicated, um, the architecturals were outdated. uh what
was previously approved. Uh I think even the quads that we end up building out there are substantially different than what was originally approved because they were bought into for my words nobody else's 21st century. Um they were upgraded through Venus and Nicole's comments. Um again we've been working
closely with Vena's office and Nicole on the architecturals and we agree to continue working with them on the architectural styles uh for both for all the buildings um for all the exterior. All right. To answer your question, it will not be what was approved for sure.
It will what? It will not be what was approved for sure. Oh, okay. Will it be nice? Okay, thank you. I'm going to open up to the public if you're finished. Any
questions? See no hands. Close the public. Next witness, please. Um That's all for our presentation. So, thank you very much for having us here
tonight. Um, we appreciate your time. Oh, the monument sign. The monument sign. I don't see any dimensions on it. Oh, do you want to put that up? I think it's sheet 72. I don't see
exactly that's all your trees. Yeah, it's pretty You're correct. It's It's not shown on there and it's not the scale of course. Um we've built the sign before. Uh I'm pretty sure the top of the sign, not the not the pill. Um I'm sorry, Daniel, can
you bring up ex Oh, it's up there. Um the main sign itself, I believe we're going to mark it a four uh sign location EP design services dated April 29th to 2025. Yeah, I'm sorry, Vina. believe the top
of this sign here is at six feet and this is 6 and 1/2 ft. I'll I'll verify that for you. I should be fine. Uh but would you work with our office during compliance plans and provide us all the details? It looks pretty. Absolutely. Rakkesh and I agree that it looks
pretty. Uh I just need the dimensions. Understood. And I guess it will be externally illuminated, right? I see the lights. Yeah, it's correct. Well, I shouldn't say that. There's external lights on the pillars. uh because there's landscaping down here. This is actually like a halo lighting.
It's behind the light itself. Um so it's not down lit, it's not up lit, it's a halo type effect. And we could show your office actual pictures because this is a sign that we use on most of our developments now. It's our new prototype. So we could show you actual pictures what it looks like both daytime and nighttime. So you
get a visual. That's okay. Uh I I I have one question, maybe two. I'm not sure. Uh detention retention basins, they're going to be maintained by yourself, right? Between us and Kha, they're all privately owned and maintained. Townships out of it.
Correct. Okay. Unless they want them. No, no, thank you. Think about it. Okay, we have to open to the public for any last comments. See no hands. close the public.
Unless you have a sum summation, I can summarize what the application will be. You can go ahead. Fine. Um, so members of the board, a vote uh a motion in favor of granting the application would be a motion to approve the amended uh uh general development plan and amended
preliminary and final site plan and subdivision application pending before the board for this property based on the testimony that was provided. uh the conditions on in addition to the standard conditions um including compliance with the board's uh review
reports which the testimony has been that they would be uh compliant with it is that they would work with the board professionals uh with regard to addressing and amending the required uh milestones that are in the existing developers agreement including in
entering into an amended developers agreement with the township. uh that they will u work with the board professionals on finalizing the landscape plan. Um once again they excuse me um they will um uh comply
with Mr. Laval's report as well with regard to the landscaping and and shade tree protections. Um if if uh the new township's shade tree ordinance is legally required to be compliant complied with by the applicant, the applicant will agree to
comply with that and that will be addressed during uh resolution compliance review as well as in with regard to negotiating the developers agreement. Um the they will uh the applicant will work with the township to address uh the township's concern over
the existing traffic concerns and speeding within the existing roadways including to um at 75% completion. Uh work with the township uh professionals with regard to re-evaluation of the speed and traffic safety now that the development is moving forward to see if
those uh still exist and what measures need to be put in place to address uh address those concerns. Um the applicant agreed uh to update the DOT with regard to any increase in the traffic demand on the intersection to
obtain a no interest letter um from the DOT with regard to the existing permit. Um the applicant agreed to um maintain and and including and negotiate the act terminology in the developers agreement but to maintain the safety of the
roadways until the townships takes over the uh public roadways. The township will work with the township the applicant will work with the township professionals with regard to finalizing the architectuals for the various buildings and the um applicant
will work with the township's professionals with regard to finalizing the uh signage uh plan and the proposed signage for the site and that is what I thank Thank you. Any final questions from the board
members, professionals, please? Okay. Um um looking for a motion to move this approve this application. I'll move it.
And can we get a second? I'll second. Okay. M Mr. Palama. Yes. Mr. Agopian. Yes. Miss Cannon. Yes. Mr. Rener. No. Mr. Petty. No. Mr. McIac. Yes. Mr. Brennan. Yes.
Mr. Ferrara? Yes. And Chairman Lowour? Yes. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, we uh need a motion to adjurnn. I'll move it. Second. And we got a
second. All in favor? I I Thank you all.