good evening and welcome to the April 21st 2025 meeting of the city of summit zoning board of adjustment my name is Miriam Zan and I'm the vice chair of the zoning board please rise and join us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge algiance to the flag
of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you in accordance with New Jersey statute 104-10 adequate notice of this meeting
has been provided to newspaper record and has been posted here in city hall this meeting is a judicial proceeding any questions or comments must be limited to the issues that are relevant to what the board may legally consider in reaching a decision and decorum appropriate to a judicial hearing must
be maintained at all times for the benefit of the interested public this meeting is being livereamed on the city's YouTube page and also broadcast on Summit's government channel which is Comcast channel 34 and Verizon channel 30 a transcript of this meeting is also
being taken using the video and audio so we need all speakers to utilize one of the microphones in the room please note that the fire exits are to my right your left and at the back of the room where you entered the city has a listening system to assist the hearing impaired if
anyone needs hearing assistance please obtain the system at the deis and return it thereafter miss Kotiga please call the role of the members mr kieran here mr malay here mr nelson is excused mr steiner here mr yuko here miss Chief
here mr feskins is excused mr changuli Mr nearing here chairman Lois is excused vice Chair Zon here andy Ball is this zoning board's attorney mr ball advises the board
members on matters of law and is the key interface with an applicant's attorney mr ball does not vote on the applications nicole Kotiga is a city employee and is acting as a zoning board secretary our board secretary works with applicants on preparing their
applications planning our agendas and keeping our meeting minutes the board secretary also does not vote on the applications also present are our experts who are hired annually by the board to provide input to the board tonight we have Mr carl O'Brien from
Kier Engineering and also present is Mr tom Barren from Burgess Associates our board planner these experts are seated at the table to the right of the board the public's left they do not vote on the applications our board consists of seven regular members and up to four
alternates all members can participate in the hearings tonight but a maximum of seven can vote most applications require a simple majority to be approved before we enter executive session to vote on the application you will be advised how many votes are required each case will
begin with the applicants or their attorney giving an overview of the application process to date and the variances that are required we then hear from any additional expert witnesses the applicant may have to help explain the application and why the variances are needed the board experts followed by
board members may ask questions of the applicant their attorney and the expert witnesses due to recent cases running excessively long we strongly encourage applicants and their experts to give brief and concise testimony so that we can get to as many cases as possible in a given
evening once the board members and the board professionals have completed their questioning the public will have an opportunity to ask questions this is not the time to tell us what you think about this case that opportunity comes at the end of the hearing please be careful as to how you phrase your questions they
should not be proceeded with a statement about the case but should be a direct question to the witness also before you ask your questions please clearly state your name spell your last name and provide your address it is important that our court reporter be able to keep
a clear and accurate public record after all witnesses have been heard members of the audience have their second opportunity to speak and at that time you may express your opinion positive or negative about the application then the public hearing is closed and we then enter into executive session where the
board members discuss the case and vote you will be able to listen to our executive session but you will not normally be able to participate in our discussion i ask that each applicant and or their attorney if present come up and give a brief synopsis of their anticipated testimony tonight including
the number of witnesses and whether or not they can finish finish their presentation within 30 minutes um before we do that should we do our our motion to carry uh Beacon yes um so we had
a a hearing our last at our last hearing we did not finish the case of uh the application for Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation and Summit and um do we have a motion to carry this to June 5th
so moved do we what do we have to say about notice is that it's without notice um the applicants did confirm separately that they're waving the time frame to act as well and it just to be clear it is a special meeting that we're going to
be holding on June 5th um and still at 7:30 start time i'll second it thank you Mr kuran yes mr malay yes mr steiner yes mr yuko yes miss Chief yes mr nearing yes vice Chair
is on yes okay so um I think we'll do we need to go over whether they're 30 minutes already have an order yeah i think maybe we should just um looking at what are the way our agenda's
laid out let's start with 15 Greenbryer tonight um so do we have Lee and Christian Starker here we're changing the agenda did you want to have everybody address the agenda first or do you want us to just go ahead i'm sorry i think we could
just go ahead thank you be efficient good evening Miss Vice Chairwoman and members of the board samantha Alfonso of Alfonso and Weber here on behalf of the Starker family for 15 Green Buyer Drive
that's block 5104 lot 10 the Starkers purchased their home in 2021 and uh started their their true renovation and addition last June um is that
right last June and uh it's near completion the only thing uh they need approval for is for steep slope disturbance to do a small patio uh to the side let me pull my exhibit up so you
can see it this is a rendered landscape plan that was filed it'll be exhibit A1 and as you can see the existing home uh is cited is sit sitting to the right to the east of the property um and the
starkers are looking to put a patio to the west side um with some landscaping like a nice garden area it will include walls uh the maximum 3.8 8 ft in height uh just to level out some of that area
it is includes 2400 total square foot footage of steep slope disturbance over 15% um where about 28.4% of the lot is impacted by steep slopes over
15% okay uh in the interest of time unless the I would ask if the board has any questions of me first then perhaps we can ask uh the starkers the applicants to be sworn in to give testimony absolutely all right
thank you you're both testifying if you could raise your right hand do you swear from the testimony you're about to give in this matter the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes yes and one at a time please state your name spell your last name christina Starker S T A R K E R
and then Lee Starker S T A R K E R thank you thank you now you own the property and as I mentioned but if you could confirm you purchased it in 2021 yes and you started with an addition and
improvements around last spring uh yeah mid to late spring but now uh you're looking to do the patio is that right yes and uh now you understand that that requires variance approval for steep slope disturbance
that's right okay and you're going to be doing a lot of plantings as well yeah yes um what brought you to Summit so I basically grew up in Summit i moved
here when I was in third grade um graduated from Summit High in 1999 and then went off to college medical school training came back to the Summit area to be in practice at Overlook in Morristown in 2016
thank you okay and now you're you're living close to where you grew up right around the circle Oakidge Greenbryer Circle i grew up at 236 Oakidge very close um and did you have a chance to
speak with your neighbors uh now about this application yes and did they seem favorable yes everybody seemed quite positive for it um and you engaged experts to assist you with this application we did
okay last question uh you had a chance to review the administrative reports of the board's professionals and agencies we did and subject to comments by your experts would you agree to be bound by those reports and comments yes
great okay that's all I have for them all right do we have any questions from our experts sure tom the planner um just to ask a few stated questions so I see your I
guess the western plan that you have on the screens now um shows the orientation of the property the house located in the bottom right or I believe it's the easterly corner of the lot can you help us understand what drove your decisions as far as where to place the patio how
big to make it and what you're doing to mitate any impacts to neighbors that was a lot i can No it's it's okay i think I think we might be able to get it um so I think if you look at the lot and you look at the westerly side of the lot um I don't Do we have that rendition of
what it currently looks like um we we can but let's stay with this for now well the the westerly side of the lot currently is predominantly a a small wooded area or moderateiz wooded area and when we looked at um with our civil engineering expert when we looked at the
actual lot itself what area would have the the least impact to the lot itself as well as the surrounding neighbors that area was the area of choice in terms of the minimalistic impact to the overall site to accomplish the goal of the patio and just by looking at the plan it
appears that you're doing a fair amount of landscaping in that area is that accurate could you maybe talk about what's going in yeah so we're trying to make this as um basically just as nice as possible knowing that we're going to
have to do some landscaping to that area and want to make sure that it's nice to look at but also um appropriate when it comes to the different um foliage that is placed in terms of the nativeness of all of it so and he has a landscape designer here to who can will testify as
well to the specifics so someone will be offering a justification yes yep um but thank you because it it might be helpful to have the starters discuss a little bit more about the neighbors and and that you know we can have the engineer discuss it but your two
neighbor your neighbor to the rear and the neighbor to your east they're pretty close compared to the other neighbor on the west right yes and that neighbor has their driveway right next to the property line yes so so it's kind of far
away from this area that neighbor yes this is the furthest from all neighbors really and we'll the engineer can talk about the exact uh setback but it's over 30 ft so question so you have a you have a landscape designer and an engineer to
test okay i apologize that's my fault okay any questions from No any questions any for board okay do you want to have your next witness yes thank you you guys
Thank you thank you do you want to stand up here can you get your Okay I will get your I got it yep do you swear affirm the testimony you're about to give in this matter the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i
do and please state your name spell your last name peter Cororsen spelled K O R Z N thank you and I know you've appeared before us a number of times including recently any changes to your credentials since the last time you appeared before the board no the licenses are current and good standing all right any questions or would you like to accept
them back once again accept witness this is your is that separate okay awesome okay so the first plan I'll bring up is the boundary and topographic survey this is sheet two of three and you can see
the house on the east side of the site with the driveway uh to the uh south of the house and to the north is lawn and then to the west is a wooded area which includes most of the mature trees on the site at the left rear corner of the
house is a screen porch that leads to a elevated patio and there's some walkways or steps that go down to grade from that uh
patio uh the topography slopes downward from Green Brier Drive and you can see by the shading or solid hatching that there's significant steep slopes there's actually uh specifically 7
7,639 square feet of steep slopes on site and um the uh surrounding neighborhood is all residential all contained in the R15 zone i should mention that the lot area is 27,910 square feet so these steep slopes
represent almost 30% of the lot area and you could see the um large separation on the west side of the house it's actually 83.9 ft from the house to the property line there was a question about why the
patio was put on the west side of the house and if you look there is a gap in the shading or non-sleep steep slopes and that's why we took advantage of that area um however it's still not flat enough to create a usable area so you'll
see that on the next plan okay this is the grading and soil erosion control plan sheet one of three this actually shows two things one of them is the phase one improvements which you've already heard about um and that's circled by a bold dash line and
that includes the rear twotory addition to the house uh also a deck replacement and there was some storm water management for that part of the project and that's labeled storm water recharge system number
one uh to the west of the house is where the new improvements are proposed and they're comprised or composed of a patio replacement which is that elevated patio and also an ACT grade patio below
that and that's larger uh we've kept the existing steps that lead down from the patio next to the porch down to the actra patio we've also kept the pathway that leads down to the north from the um above grade or
elevated patio uh to accomplish the usable area we've had to do some regrading and you could see that with some of the bold lines with the contour labels and um it creates a nice area it takes advantage
of the non-slope steep slope area uh however there are some steep slopes that um couldn't be avoided there are you know the disturbance couldn't be avoided um and there's actually three areas one of them is to the south of the at grade
patio um and that's due to a boulder wall that's going in with some regrading that's the top level or uh level closest to the road uh in the center is the actual uh at grade patio area itself with some walls and there's some steps
that lead down to grade near the existing swing set and the third and final area of uh steep slope disturbance is all due to the storm water management system which is labeled uh storm water recharge system number two and that is
the same type of a chamber that was used for the phase one improvements however it's a series of three instead of one single chamber um as far as drainage goes with the new proposal we're in proposing to install two yard inlets a downgradient
of the ATR grade patio they will collect runoff from the patio itself the new steps that lead down to that area and the existing stone steps that's a total of 1,15 square ft of tributary area that gets picked up by
that system that all gets conveyed to the underground storm water chamber system again that's labeled stormwater system number two um uh there are some trees as you can see by the X's on the plan that are proposed
to be removed uh the plan indicates 11 trees to be removed but it's actually 10 because there is one 27in tree that's uh the southernmost tree that's labeled with an X um at the boulder wall near the road and that's already been taken
down so there's only 10 trees that are proposed to be removed and thank you for reminding me of that that was because it was dead right that's my understanding yes yep so um with this new plan you have 2,100 square ft of steep slope
disturbance uh the old plan or phase one had 300 so you combine the two you have a total of uh 2,400 square ft of steep slope disturbance so that is the variance and you can see that in the um zoning data table in the upper right of
the plan um if there weren't any questions I can move forward to the engineers review letter this is the memo prepared by Marie Rafé dated March 21st 2025
and I think reading through this the only items that really specifically need to be addressed are 7A 7B 7 C and 7D i'll just go through those individually um
7A has a question about the uh calculation provided on sheet number three of the plan set for stormwater system number two and that um indicates that there's only one chamber that's a typo there's
actually three chambers so what's shown on the plan is accurate um item number 7B there's a question about the square footage of tributary area that goes to system number two and it is 1,5 square
ft um inadvertently the existing stone steps from the elevated patio were not included uh so as shown on sheet three the tributary area is less than what it should be um however the with the,5
square foot accurate area uh the system does have sufficient capacity per city standards uh item 7 C it's there's a question about how the system will collect runoff from the tributary
surfaces and um as I explained there's two yard inlets propo proposed they're about 8 feet from the um lower boulder wall bottom of steps and they are probably 20 ft apart uh they collect
runoff as I mentioned from the acrade patio the steps leading down to the uh swing set area any um existing stone steps all of that gets collected and uh conveyed to the chamber system uh item number 7D there's a
recommendation to add a water quality feature to the U drainage system uh it's an excellent idea right now we have proposed just solid bottoms in these yard inlets uh so what we'd like to do is add sumps which will collect debris
and also have them open below that with a stone uh bottom so that'll allow some infiltration before it gets to the chamber system um I think the rest of these are are just uh statements of fact and
understanding and as you heard the applicant has agreed to the to all of these and I don't believe there's anything in the planning memo that is uh engineering related that I saw there was a question about the uh
approved grading permit i know you went through that a bit but uh they actually haven't installed that yet right no I was actually out there doing the uh soil test last week and the um addition is substantially complete but uh we still
have to they still have to install the storm water management system that's typically the last thing that goes in so it's just it's it's supposed to go in actually soon yes and it will but it's in the soil testing yes it's in it's at
the lab right now yep mhm so I'm open for questions at this time any questions from our experts not from engineering so I think just from a a commentary standpoint I think it was your testimony
that there's steep slopes impacting essentially most of the rear yard and side no matter where you put this you can disturb some of that yeah um especially the rear yard is probably it's probably more difficult back there um which kind of took advantage of a
pocket um on the west side um the forester had a city forester had a comment about whether or not the regrading in the front yard could be pushed further into the lot sort of along the line of the front required front yard setback line is that
something that was to try to fix to save that tree that doesn't actually exist anymore we did look at it we realize that tree is gone so is that the only Did you speak to him directly as far as the reason i did not speak to him directly
i believe our our landscape architect so he can testify about that i would just like to mention that um if that was pushed back it kind of defeats the purpose of creating the flat usable area on the west side so I I just had a followup question on
that because I I'm not sure what Mr lenson meant but it sounded like his commentary was more than just that one tree in front he he said it's um does not appear necessary to remove trees or regrade land in the front yard um so is is that really more than just that one
tree or are we not sure does the did your landscape designer speak to Mr lson the landscape designer will speak to that thank you any other questions i do have some uh in fact I need some clarification regarding your uh erosion control
uh drawing number one of three mhm uh first of all you're referring to two revisions i two two what two revisions you have two revisions on it yes one and two yes right could you show me where these
revisions are yeah actually this is just a this plan was carried forward from the original phase one um part of the project which was a non-variance application so we didn't they didn't even have to come here for the for sure so yeah so the the original date is
the first plan for the addition none of the what we're talking about tonight was proposed and then the first revision also was for that part of the project for the phase one portion just the addition okay and that included the 300 already approved yes correct okay so
revision one approved the 300 yes okay and second if we go to the other side of the uh where the patch uh patches are uh I see here that you're indicating the area
uh 2 [Music] uh 2100 and you're referring to the patio uh the upper patio and the lower one right could you tell me the u area
of each the area of the two patios so um the rear patio without the deck is 223 square ft and the side patio the new patio with
the walk-in steps is 1,5 square ft the upper one the No the upper one without the deck is 223 square feet and that's very close to the uh to the road
to the to the uh Yeah green Brier Drive no no no this this is the rear deck rear I'm sorry the rear patio next to the deck this is Show but it's it looks This is the smaller one
right so let's see see that this one okay yeah so that's the um smaller one that's the That's the smaller patio and it is Oh what was the square foot yes 300 300
and um Oh I lost it let's see 200 223 square feet what What's really the purpose of the upper one you walk out from a screen porch onto the patio
if you look at If you look so right here is um the screen porch that I mentioned at the left rear of the house that I just outlined in green and then you walk out to the north of what I'm talking about
uh if we're looking at the uh uh left bottom corner this is the area I'm talking to okay see yeah that's the accurate patio yeah so that's that's not elevated that's the whole purpose of that is to create a usable outside area that's a 97
elevation isn't it that's where they're looking to regrade it's about It's about 95.86 86 at the upper level and 95.54 so it's uh it's an excavation area here um because the contour show it's it is
an excavation area at the upper side but it's also a fill area at the bottom of it at the other side so if you look at the center of it it's pretty much accurate so that's not really that does not serve as a uh entry point or exit
not for the porch no the elevated patio is for the porch exit i don't see where that's that's the one that I just outlined can Okay so I'll I'll draw it as you're looking at it this This is the screen porch
so that's part of the house but it's a screen porch so you walk out the doors is this triangle right here that's that's where you walk out to the back and you can see where it says modified patio right here okay that's where you walk out that's all elevated right this
is within the 300 approved previously approved area i'm talking about this area here that's not a patio that cross that's Yeah that diagonal hatching is steep slope disturbance okay what for to
create a flat usable area for the lot uh so if you can if you see the background contours they're actually even though that's not a steep slope area and that's one of the reasons why we tried to take advantage of that it is steep it's too steep to really but it's not usable so why are we
disturbing it for nonusable purposes because the property is encumbered by steep slopes and there really is no flat usable area outside of the house on site but we're creating enough uh patio area and uh is it going to be used for any
purpose the elevated patio is small and it's attached to the house and it's it's not connected with the ground three daughters are here and that's who really wants to use it i'm sorry right it's really for their kids and their family to have a safe level space to use so we
can up there closer to the road sorry maybe I can help so that this is all on the back side of the house currently it's the back left of the house it's a screened in patio that steps out to an already pre-existing elevated
um patio that's quite small mhm um that said we wanted to utilize the only aerial area that we felt was appropriate on the property to the west of the property which allowed us the capability of putting in a patio where we could
have a fire pit and actually use the property for recreational purposes as you can see with all the steep slope there really isn't a great location short of the front yard that has any real degree of flatness to it that's
truly usable so to your point we don't want to have the kids running out in the front yard close to the street so by having this off to the side sorry down here right so this area is closer to the road except it is uh uh
it's below the road level there's no it's it's it's below the road level it's it's well within the setback of the 35 ft that the the town requires and it's actually just adjacent the majority of it is just adjacent to the actual
dwelling 60 ft it looks like to me right from the street the actual patio area where we're expecting them to play yeah I could I could get my hard copy to scale it but I just want to point out we're not required to have a patio 35 ft 15 ft is the minimum required section
there's no patio here right this I'm not talking about the patio this is not about the patio just just uh I think if I'm following you correctly we're talking about this area right here that has nothing to do with the patio um we have had comments from the environmental
commission saying you know why do we have to remove all of the old trees the shade trees so right here you have like two shade trees being removed and we're flattening this steep slope here and it does not seem to be associated with the patio at all it just seems to be an
extra area of excavation is that exactly what I was referring to so thank you and I also suspect that's kind of what John Lson was trying to get at too with the no need to regrate the front yard comment
yeah I didn't I didn't speak with Mr linson but I I just want to point out that that area is actually the play area that's that's what the target of the whole project is with the patio you know it's to provide a play area along with the patio and the swing set and to
flatten that out as much as possible the swing set is already there right is the swing set is in a different location than right here this it's right behind it's down it's as it's So is it being moved no it is not
so yeah I agree i mean I don't I don't I agree like I don't understand either here's the patio here's the swing set what is this that's to be a graded out area for playing for the kids to run around on in addition to the swing set and the patio which because the rest of the yard is actually quite steep and sloped and they don't have capability
really running on it it's just a it's going to be a flat grassy area that's exactly right okay well I mean we're going to obviously try to incorporate a lot of you know and I think Steve will comment to this in terms of the landscaping to try to make it as lush as we can and reinstitute a lot of the
native trees and even shade trees and things like that to make sure that we're fulfilling our requirement for the community so there's two parts is the patio and the and the area the flattened area this this application and then the area where the groundwater system is that looks
like that's being also flattened that wasn't part of Right right here this right this is part of this one too that's part of sleep steep slope disturbance there too right anything that's cross-hatched exactly right um well I have a question you know since we're talking about all the steep slopes
and the I know there was a choice of there's a lot of space here um so this could be a place for the patio but when I was at the property today one of the things that I noticed was you know on the lower level in the back you have
like a triple sliding door and there are or maybe I think it was sliding door anyway there's in the in the picture there are three pavers that kind of go nowhere so you walk out onto three pavers and then the grass and there's a huge area over there that's been
disturbed right for the construction um it also to me looks like a given that it's also been already disturbed but the flow of it coming out of the house um did you consider that area for a patio i mean it looks like you wouldn't have as
much steep slope disturbance and it there's an exit from the house to it so it seems kind of like a good location drop down from there right in back of the driveway there's a I'm not Yeah I'm not talking about the driveway even even to the west of the driveway you could
see the shading it just drops straight off from there the whole backyard if you if you took the driveway the back of the driveway and basically extended it all the way to the left to the west that's like a uniform steep slope just about the whole thing all the way to the back property
what I'm seeing here is an 89 foot elevation when you walk out on the pavers and if you go almost you know out to your dotted line where improvements have been made that's 83 feet so that's
a 6 foot grade over you know a very long distance versus over here where you have the patio you have like 96 you know I I think you have as much if not more steepness in this area as you do here yeah
when you walk out those double doors and and you're you're you're correct it is a short distance you can see that 10 foot minimum dimension to the storm water management system it goes a little bit further than that but that's such a small area that really can't be used for playing or anything like that
um can I actually can I have a couple minutes to see if maybe we can push it back i think it we only need a few feet to push it to the 35 ft push push what to can I take five minutes for us that would be helpful for me anyway thank you
is that okay madam Chair yeah i I mean I'm sort of torn about five minutes versus starting another case and pushing this one to the end then I just cuz in the interest of getting keeping things moving to say then that we're looking to push it to
the 35 ft it looks like it's only three more feet what can you show us exactly i don't know what you're looking to push i'm sorry i'm not following what you're looking to push the 35 ft i understand is the mic here i understand the board
is looking to have us push the boulder wall in the front yard back a few feet to comply with John Linson's comments of requesting it to be 35 minimum in the front yard and the applicant has said that he's
he's willing to accept that and and revise the plans accordingly so where approximately would that be because I think I might be viewing it differently than you are where the 35t line is okay looks like more than a few feet if you Yeah it is more than a few feet if you look at that plan you could
see uh there's a boxed out area it says steep slope disturbance new area 2100 square ft right there right in the middle of that box you'll see a dash line that's the 35 ft setback right there right here so that's quite that's
quite a bit of it it's got 15 20 feet right 15 20 feet yeah yeah this line okay yeah yeah that that would eliminate most of that steep slope in the front yard it would it would and then the tree that is this tree that says 27 in you
you had referenced 2 that's the one that's gone that's removed um Okay yeah the 35 that'd make me feel a lot better i don't can't speak for everybody but Okay any other questions from the board should we move to the landscaper then so
have they agreed to move it back is that what's happening here that's what I'm hearing yes or are we taking a fivem minute recess to let them talk about it i think they agreed to move it back is that correct quite a bit is that a condition they're willing to accept can we have five
minutes please i apologize yeah um keep it going i think um so it's a motion to what do we do we don't need a motion just move on to yeah you want to just push it to you know do
the next matter on and bring you back after that one okay that's all right so we'll temporarily pause this one and then we will move to uh 47 Oakland is that right thank you
[Applause] you want a I set mine just give me one second ready ready yes thank you Madam Chairwoman members of the board james Weber of Alonso and Weber on behalf of the applicants Jennifer Zaka and Hector
Rosenbrance uh living at 47 Oakland Place this is an application to add an addition to the existing one-story addition that exists at the property that will create 314
square ft more of floor area it will extend the onetory addition which is around 5 ft off the uh side lot line up to accommodate that addition and that requires a setback variance they're
not increasing it except by going up vertically there's also a building coverage associated with the 45 ft of a cantalievered uh portion of that second story so nominal but there is again a
wrinkle with this 1895 home so right away I was there going "Ah this is a very nice application." But it turns out that in 2005 this board had granted a variance that allowed for the uh lot coverage to
be at 43.9 or 47 47.9 the proposal turned out to have not accommodated that and as a result the discussion was how did that come to be in 2021 during the
pandemic the uh Jennifer Zaka and Hector Jennifer and Hector uh contacted I think it was the BA landscape services to put in a patio when they did they asked Jennifer asked
and said "We need a permit." And the contractor said "No you do not." As a result the patio was installed without benefit of municipal approval as a result at the original hearing there weren't enough board members and
we took the adjournment to two today but that allowed Jennifer and Hector to speak to their experts they spoke to the landscape architect and they spoke to the engineer and they said "Can you reduce the amount of lot coverage?" So the amount of lot coverage is actually
going to be less now than what is existing but still doesn't get you all the way back to 47.9 uh it's I believe aroundund I think 86 square feet over
and of that uh amount 46 of course is the overhang so you're talking about 140 square ft over what was uh previously permitted by this board there should be distributed to the Can I have a seat
madam chair yes thanks there should be distributed the let's see if I can bring it up comments from the email and there we go see if that comes up and so I brought
up for the board and this was intended by us to have been presented to you previously with the revised landscape plan and the revised engineering plans through our oversight we did not include this and
so it should be showing up let's see if I can There we go and so you have here the exchange of emails one's from Jennifer to Pamela thanks i'll review this with my husband this evening could you please
update the proposal and then she goes on and also hyphen you've confirmed that no permits are required for the hardscaping the patio and Pamela Da responds the lilac in is in place of the
chameleia by the garage i'll check that on the website thank you for reminding me to change that on the drawing no permits are required for this project okay great i'll sign anything you need confirm that with the deposit would be
the same thank you now Jennifer and Hector understand even though their express request to say "Do we need a permit?" was responded in the negative they understand that they as the property owners are ultimately responsible and they took that
responsibility seriously and that's why they've directed the engineer and the landscape architect to respond appropriately and revise the plans because this is a small lot 8,500 square ft and it's narrow and and
remember the lot coverage is also due to the fact that when you look at the uh the the let me get that the plan that's been prepared oops wrong one
that when we look at the landscape plan that's been revised you'll see that the area that's been removed is on the right hand side they've narrowed the driveway but the driveway itself contributes to that
entire lot coverage because you have a detached garage at the rear of the property and as a result all of the pavement for the driveway to extend to the rear is what contributes to the lot coverage in terms of the house itself
you have an uh 1895 home it's on one of the two smallest lots in on Oakland Place the uh uh some of the homes next to it are 17,000 square ft in terms of lot area and it's not going to be the
biggest nor the smallest on that street it's going to fit and they are keeping that front facade of this 1895 home consistent and the rear construction that's been designed by Steve Hawkstein
is one that's going to improve the back of the house since you have a one-story addition for an 1895 Queen Anne uh there's a deficiency there and so you're going to have an attractive addition to the rear of the property that uh is
going to enhance the beauty of the property the functionality and it's 314 square ft unless the board has any questions of me I'll call Jennifer and Hector then we'll have uh Andrew Clark we have uh Steve
Hawkstein and then we have the landscape architect Ed Clark and Mr weber we discussed that email uh chain we'll consider that marked as A1 thank you Mr wall um are there any questions from the
experts or from the board mr weber no okay we'll move to your next witness if I could have Hector and Jennifer come up all right and if you could each raise your right hand do you swear from the testimony you're about to give in this matter to the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth i do and one of time please state your name spell your last name jennifer Zaka E O CCA hector Rose r O S E K R ans thank you
all right jennifer and Hector jennifer where are you from uh born and raised in Summit here where are your children you have four children don't you yes they're home with my parents who also live here they live on Ashland all right so you've lived in Summit your entire life
hector how about you i'm uh I'm from Oakland but Oak Oakland California all right little further away and uh you brought an application with regard to the property before this board to improve your property by adding a second story addition is that correct
that's correct yes and you own the property in question yes we do okay what's the purpose of the application that you've brought before the board the purpose of the application is to is to approve a variance that'll allow us to expand this second second floor of
the house uh as as you mentioned our house has a lot of verticality there's a beautiful first floor um the second floor where all all the bedrooms are and we like to be on the same floor as our kids is uh tight there's uh there's the two of us there's four four kids and we just like to have a bit more room there
to uh you know to have an an extra bedroom for the kids as as they grow and just uh just a bit more space for us to grow into and you're going to be keeping the front porch and the uh ex uh it looks like it was the original door on the front yeah the original the original
door we want to keep the whole front facade the bay windows the stain the stained glass plastic the front we love the we love the house it's uh you know I grew up grew up in an old house something that's really always mattered mattered to me um but uh yeah we just want a little bit more room to kind of
expand and uh and fit our family into and that foyer actually has a coat room and the kids uh going to school room as well and what else yeah there's a let's say we have we have a swim bags we have a cross no not cross bag softball bags um all the kids stuff stuff for school
and whatever else happens to be uh you know se seasonally it varies a bit but now I've touched upon the fact that uh the patio was built without a permit and uh you've recognized and but the board will need to hear that even though uh
DBA landscaping said you didn't need a permit you understand you're ultimately responsible for that so we do it would be appropriate for you to address the board with regard to that yeah absolutely and the first thing I'll say is we made a mistake and I ap I apologize for that i know my wife feels
feels the the same way um we're very much by the book we want to do things the right way and uh yeah we realized we we we made made a mistake there and you know it's really important for us that we rect rectify that that you know that we get back to back to what you guys are
are comfortable with for the lot lot coverage for the house um I think that the plan that we've we've come up with is great um I like I like taking a bit area out of the rest of the driveway gives us more space for landscaping al along the side um but yeah that's that's
that that that's where we're at we absolutely recognize that this is our our responsibility that we made the mistake by taking the uh the landscapers word for it you've also uh proposed to upgrade your uh uh grounds you're adding the landscaping you're going to repair or
repave the driveway as well yeah we definitely want to repave the driveway it feels feels like it's like it's due for that and there's a few other projects i don't know if there's anything you want to landscaping speak to landscaping just kind of general improvements we have done a bit of landscaping on the front front end of
the house um but I think there's some more we'd like we'd like to do especially along the side and you've read the uh the reports of the staff with regard to the application yes we have yes and are you agreeing to be bound by those comments subject to the comments of your experts yes we are
and have you spoken to your neighbors yes and uh without repeating what they said did you come away with a sense of how they felt toward the application yeah we uh we walked around and people were very supportive i have nothing fair uh further madame
Chairwoman any questions from our experts any questions from the board i have one um the fire pit I It had a cover on it is it a gas fire pit no okay so it's not plumbed or anything like
that it's just a wood okay all right thank you then I would ask that uh uh Steve Hawkstein be called to this band to be sworn in to give testimony in this matter oh actually I do have one more question i'm so sorry i have one question before
we uh There's a generator in the front yard it's not screened how did it get there was that before your occupancy no let me uh answer that if you don't mind m Steiner I do mind i'd like to hear from
them all right very good so we uh it was I think following the power outage that we had was it the hurricane the generator oh um so it was following the power outage that we had i think it was which hurricane was that irene i think it was Irene we talked to Arjent we
talked talked to Arjent who does basically all work about getting getting a a generator uh I know we got per permits for that um honestly asking why it was in the front my understanding of that whole process was that it was going to go in the back and we showed up and it put in the front but they talked when
we got the permits they asked us to put it in there we actually wanted it in the back we wanted in the back that's what it was and they asked us to put it in the front so then we had to put landscaping around it ju just to clarify I I think they are permitted in the front yard so long as they meet the front yard setback requirement i believe
I'm looking trying to confirm that but I believe that's Aren't they supposed to be screened they do have to be screened so the question it's it's not point so the question might be are you proposing to screen the generator that's in a conforming location in the front yard um that is that was not in our proposal if
you guys want us to do it I'm happy to do it i I just looked back to Mr clark the landscape architect and he nodded it can be done perfect but this was a point too the the other question I have for you is uh as I was standing looking into your backyard because it didn't want
your fence uh there seems to be a an attachment to the house there i don't know if it's a shed or if it's a recycling bin or uh or what it is but that's additional is that included in your calculations that's the free the freestanding shed shed there it's a our
kids our kids bikes go in there um but it's a it's a it's for our kids bikes and scooters and stuff and it's a freestanding you know I think we got on Amazon it's a plastic thing it's like a garbage shed that we It was a garbage shed for a little while it's on the It sits on the on the driveway itself um so
I don't think that's is that additional coverage not if it's sitting on the driveway and it's a temporary structure ordinarily very temporary sir well oh it's just like a little plastic garbage bin yeah it's not it's not at all thanks to the house i'm not sure we're talking
about the same thing it's directly right past your fence on the left side on the left side yeah that is that's right if that's what it is that's what it is um just one point um I'm all in favor of of playground swing sets but I think that
swing set is only about six feet off the property line and I think it's supposed to be 15 as a setback so it's existing i don't know if we want to add that v like a variance for the location of it just to well just to I know the ordinance
clarify that in 2019 that had to be 15 ft i'm not sure if that was a requirement prior to that it may have only been four i I don't know off the top of my head point being that if the landscape the swing set was there prior to 2013 it may have been in a conforming
location and by virtue of the ordinance change it may now be nonconforming i I just We certainly would uh appreciate the amendment to uh have it treated as a variance so it can remain in that location regardless of it
predated the ordinance or uh was otherwise pre-existing i mean it backs up to someone else's garage so I don't think the location is um impacting a neighbor particularly in terms of the setback but it probably is something
that should be just put on do you know how long it's been there yeah we installed it we installed it but I don't remember when 2021 would be maybe 2020 and the distance from the property line was 6 feet probably about six feet
approximately six feet sounds about right yeah that sounds about right okay just to be clear this the shielding of the generators is not really an option as a requirement yep understand they understand they
agreed to that as a condition of this application as well okay i have a quick question when did you say you purchased the house uh 2019 august i think it actually closed in July or maybe even June but yeah we summer of 2019
so the what was when was the heart it was just doesn't matter it was it was in 2021 i know because it was right after we had a baby any other questions okay we'll move on to the landscaper if I could have Mr
steve Hawkstein sworn in to give testimony in this matter mhm do you swore from the testimony you're about to give in this matters the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes please state your name spell your last name um Steven Hawkstein s E Ven
last name H O C S T E I N thank you and once again I know you've appeared before us a number of times including recently any changes to your credentials since the last time you were here i imagine the board would like to accept you back once again yes mr oxine are you familiar with the
application that's currently pending before the board yes and how did you achieve that familiarity um I designed the addition out of the house and you're familiar with the city of Summit and its development regulations ordinance yes
and can you describe for the board uh the proposal that you have uh that's before the board sure could you grab the mic yeah can you use the microphone that's right there there's one right here just use the little switch to turn it on
and you can grab it okay sorry okay um so what we're proposing is a small addition on the back of the house um the uh
uh second floor currently has I'm sorry the second floor currently has two children's bedrooms and one hall bathroom um we are not proposing any changes on the first floor and what we'd like to do is add another bedroom to
have a total of three bedrooms and then uh we'll have two bathrooms for the children to share on on the second floor um we are so there'll be a total of four bedrooms though that includes the primary Four bedrooms on the second floor total right what we're Our our
intention is not to touch the primary bedroom in the front and the primary bath and you're not touching the front of the house at all no not at all okay um the uh the addition is going over the the rear of the house and currently
the rear elevation actually I my personal opinion is it's it's not very attractive it has this tiny little gable sticking out and what we want to do is is balance out the back of the house and we think we're making it more attractive by doing this at the same time we're making the second uh second floor more
functional unfortunately because of the existing setback on the side of the house we're extending a non-conforming setback and that's at the five feet correct on the on the on the left side of the house now you're showing a hatching if you will or a gray area dark
gray on the top of the uh structure what's the material that's proposed um we want to match everything that's there it's going to be cedar shingles and trim that uh our goal is to make it so that you wouldn't even know the addition was done and so when you say cedar is it going to be natural cedar um I believe
there's natural cedar on the house so we're going to match it do Jennifer and Hector know that you're going to have natural grade cedar that you're going to be taking care of on your house our intention is not to remove any of the existing sighting we're just going to seamlessly add on and paint it to
match and I indicated that the amount of the addition is 314 square ft correct and that the increase in building coverage is due to the overhang at the back yes there's a small little can lever at the back there's no change to the building on the ground it just the
way uh summit defines uh building coverage to include uh canal levers and uh I have nothing further madam chairwoman any questions from our experts no just that u in our review memo I had
questioned the F calculation i believe I caught up with Mr hawkman's office and confirmed that the calculation is in fact accurate um and I would just note that um HPC reviewed this and and agreed with Mr hawk's conclusion about architectural consistency
thank you questions from the board i think it's a great addition and a good a good application of questions sorry sorry thank you then I would ask that Andrew Clark be called to the stand to give testimony oh
you know what i'm so uh I'm remiss i never asked if there was public here that wanted to ask questions too right is there any public here for this case so that we know if we should be asking the public for question or comments no okay
do you swear affirm the testimony you're about to give in this matter the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please state your name spell your last name andrew Clark c L A R K E thank you and once again appeared before us a number of times including recently any changes to your credentials since the last time you were here not since last
month no i imagine we'll accept you back once again thank you mr clark you're familiar with the application pending before the board i am and how did you achieve that familiarity um I was um retained to
conduct the survey and prepare the grading plan for this project so I did both of those things and then with regard to the storm water management you were able to uh review the 2005 application I believe that had previously been appro uh approved by
this board yes and and and there were wasn't the complete document but I saw some pieces relevant pieces of the permitting that was carried out after that application um that indicated the drywall that I've
shown on the plan and do you think that you'll be able to tie into that drywall with the uh additional improvements yes that was one of the comments and suggestions in the engineering review um given the size of the of the drywall
system uh it it would appear that we could manage the entire roof area even though I'm not sure why it was sized so large in that 2007 permitting package um because it was sized to accommodate the whole house but only appeared to be
tying in the rear roof leaders so we can accommodate the entire roof area with that we of course will need to verify its location and condition and um make sure that what was installed matches what was on the plan um and that would
be something we would do as a course of construction madam Chairwoman the uh Jennifer and Hector had agreed that they had read the staff comments and would be subject to any of those recommendations set forth in those staff comments and that would include I think if the board
were to approve the application a specific call out to having the existing system uh reviewed identified and make sure it has that capacity in in the event that it does need to be enlarged or cleaned or whatever needs to be taken
uh to un to uh honor the uh statements that have been made by Mr clark right and if need be it could be augmented if we find that the the installed size was a little less than what that plan had depicted we could we could uh modify that so that it has the
capacity i have nothing further c can I just confirm the lot coverage that we are down to i believe you noted 46.1% in your letter Mr weber and I'd just like to get that that's right that's where we're at now is 46.1%
great that was my question also so with the addition of the candle lever is that being increased or are you taking away so there are a couple of things that that got done i I do try to um detail as
best I can and break it down when into the appropriate um categories on the coverage calculations below the site data chart um but the canal lever is included um in in the building coverage calculations and accordingly of course
it carries into the lot coverage calculations so the so the the the gains that we made from the original um application were um to the right side of the driveway as you get to the to the back end of the um dwelling and and
leading up to the garage there was an area between the fence and the uh proposed curb line that I'm showing at 11 ft that was paved and so we're bringing that back i think it was actually shown the way I have it
depicted now on the 2007 plans that I reviewed so it was supposed to be that way originally and that's what we're going to get to with this uh proposal got it you do spell it out on your plan so thanks for confirming um just looking at your uh plan there's a tax map up in
the top right hand corner could you just talk about how this particular lot compares to other lots on that block of Oakland Place yeah so it's it's as Mr weber had indicated it's uh specifically along Oakland in in this block um where
one of the smallest lots the other small lot for this um stretch of Oakland is directly across the street from us both our lot and that lot are 50 ft wide where the remaining lots are 65 or 100 or 70 75 ft wide so they're they're all
um substantially larger in lot area than than our property so what was the final lot coverage number i didn't quite catch it 46.1 so it's accurate on this plan as written in his own table on the plan right
correct correct with the latest revised plan that was April 1st 2025 not a joke and Mr b do you agree with that or have you not verified that or Mr clark i would agree with Mr clark if he's done the I mean there is a a a calculation
that he shows below it so Okay ass he's done that correctly i think it's fair and is everything else I didn't compare everything exactly is everything else in your report check line up with his as far as you know i I have no further questions i'll go in terms of the variances comments real
quick um I have a question Tom the because I know that in summit we count like uh gravel as impervious right like in a driveway the the this is not showing up on the survey here but if
you're facing the garage to the left of the garage there's a seating area like a gravel seating area with some stones around it does that how does that get counted in summit my understanding yeah my understanding um and I worked through
this a lot with Christa because there was a change to the ordinance with regards to the stone and my understanding has always been and in working through that when it when the rules changed that pearavevel pathways and sitting areas weren't actually
considered as impervious coverage it's any of the like driveway areas where you have traveled and vehicular movement on them are considered impervious coverage so I I I haven't counted that area that
you just described for that reason okay i can't say how yeah i think it came down to a matter of how the definition you know in the definitions and and the specific wording um is not compacted right and and and I think that's there
I've run into this in a couple of towns some it sort of came along later um some towns did it for two reasons one is that over time the stone gets compacted and becomes much more like pavement and and non-imperous surfaces and then the
second reason is that sometimes in in other towns they put stone driveways in and suddenly it would become paved and so at some point they said "Well if that's how it's going to be then we'll just call it all you know coverage." Um I'm not saying that's what drove
Summit's reasoning but I think it has more to do with the compaction effect that does take place over time can you um tell us a little bit about the landscape question is to our attorney is is it impervious or is it not i'm scrolling to the definitions as
we speak okay well while we look for that can we uh And how and the quick question is how much if it is does that add well I'm not sure about the area you're describing i think you're describing something along the side of
the of the garage right mhm it has like a side on the playet side right behind the house um yeah i'm the one the area that I'm talking about was next to the garage between the garage and the swing set and
there is a table and some chairs there there's a lot of stuff back there um yeah I I didn't even delineate it on the survey um yeah I mean especially with the boulders I would have expected it to be on the survey because that's something that
typically would be there um but do you have an answer i love I love the law so I I have it in front of me um lot coverage includes building area it includes parking areas loading areas driveways and other areas for vehicular
use regardless of the surface material um also includes all patios swimming pools and fountains regardless of the surface material and then any impervious surface so under that I think if this is just for seating it's not for vehicular
use it's not technically a patio it probably would not fall into those definitions of lot coverage sounds like a patio if it has seating and a table on it that's what a patio is isn't it well yeah but I think the idea is that when the rain falls what happens with the
rain and and so when it goes into this praavevel area typically it's not it's not running off like it does from pavement or even brick pavers there's a lot here and I want to make sure that we're if we're going to that we're accurate depending on what the subbase material is would determine if this is
actually going to perk or not i haven't seen it i haven't seen a detail of what's there anything so the feed gravel may be on top just what's underneath right i guess that's why I asked the question what What's the percentage if we count it
we're going I spoke to Jennifer and Hector they're going to remove it okay um can you tell us a little bit the landscaping i don't know if that if you were going to cover that but there's some Where is this we have Ed Clark the landscape architect got the right name i
got an E on the end you have an E at the end that's right oh okay yeah all right never mind all right we'll save it um any other questions yeah um on the construction official uh comments uh I
read here there's a discrepancy between engineer survey and architect plan i I couldn't find it uh well there was a slightly different number for the left sideyard setback from um what the architect has showed based on a previous
survey and and my survey shows a slightly different number it's you know it's like a couple inches different result now what's that is it resolved between Well I mean I'm not going to get in a fight with the other surveyor it's uh you know I I I do my survey and I
report what I find and and if there's a little bit of difference sometimes you know there's different measurements where you measure on the side of the house is different sometimes sometimes the siding changes uh any number of things so I'm kind of standing by my
numbers um which is what I have for the application and for the site data here because it says uh discrepancy between survey and architect plans right because one because the architect had developed the plan prior to me completing the survey and then didn't update his
numbers to my survey so he was he was based on the survey that he was starting from which was the previous survey guess maybe it could be noted for further uh uh it should be noted somewhere right for the Arctic to know and where was the
discrepancy the on the left side of the dwelling the existing setback on the left side so I h I have it at 4.8 and I think it was 5.1 on the on the previous survey so what is our request asking for updated it's still a variance and I
believe the 4.8 8 is in there as as it's tabulated in my site data chart okay and when you look at the house the there's 5.1 at the front of the house and then it goes to 4.8 right
and it may be the foundation is at 5.1 and and I measure to the siding there's the number of reasons why those numbers vary a little bit so the we'll just recognize in our resolution that the actual setback it goes down to 4.8% 8% I
think sorry 4.8 F feet a because that's my survey that's on record and B because it's more conservative in terms of uh the variance correct i would agree thank you now with regard to the second story and one of the points that the architect has made is that under the UCCC uniform
construction code you need a certain setback in order for fire safety so the second story addition may itself be moved back 02 in in order to allow penistration all right um so that's it for this
witness or there if there are any more questions that's it for this witness okay um any other Ed Clark if there's any questions with regard to the landscape plan i think I did see someone had a question i think I just wanted to know a little bit about what was going on in the back because by that swing set
because it's kind of tight the area i would ask that Mr ed Clark be called to the stand to be sworn in to give testimony in this matter all right i'll ask you to raise your right hand do you swear or swear from the testimony you're about to give
in this matter is the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes and please state your name spell your last name my name is Edward Clark cl A R K no E and once again you you have also appeared before us a number of times including recently any changes to your credentials since the last time you were
here i imagine we'll accept you back yes same question you're familiar with the application and how did you achieve that familiarity through site visits um and u you know working with the team on developing the
current layout I have nothing further um any questions from the experts no just I mean the applicants accepted the condition to screen the generator in front that's
correct question I'm looking had two versions of this one dated March Well they're both dated March 29th 2024 one is signed by John Linson is there any difference between the two
in terms of the staff i mean apparently Mr linson signed the one that we were given tonight he approved the landscape he what he approved the landscape plan that's that's him signing off on it okay so he signed off on
it which over quite literally signed off on it which comes off his other comments well his comment was he approved the plan his comment was he approves the plan so that's he wanted a plan he wanted this so this is an acceptable
Mr l this is a year old i don't know that we made any changes this plan is a year old no this plan should be March 29th 2024 the tree the tree plant thing is the same i think the only changes minor
change this is the one I'm looking at that I received which is that's the one we got with the plan you received the second filing of the application okay and that's the fifth revision i missed the top i'm doing the
bottom okay so the plans that have been uh presented are dated revised 27205 okay with regard to the chairwoman's question about how we fitting everything in the back property line um along along the back property line
where the swings are there's one pear tree being removed 6-in caliper pair mr linds and I share a hatred of paired trees for obvious reasons and it's being replaced with an evergreen tree a cryptoaria which is a evergreen tree
fast growing and narrow so narrow yeah all right cryptora cryptoia what is that uh it's it's an evergreen tree it's narrow in habit and very fast growing there's an existing crypto area in the rear corner of the property
i just want to make sure that what it was wasn't going to encroach on that play area there because it is so close and then uh with respect to the generator and the screening of the generator in the front yard so I see you
have um screened it from two sides but it's not screened on the driveway side because it's close to the driveway um typically would there be some kind of fence or swinging or something i mean I know my neighbors have some something similar when they put theirs in they had
to screen it on all the sides that people could see it from is there I can't I can't tell from this drawing but I was there there is there isn't a constructed screen proposed there are clearances around the generator um I don't know that we could get a constructed screen in that space between
the edge of pavement and the generator but we did screen it from from the other side and from the front okay thank you any other questions
no um okay so and we don't have any public here to have questions or comments is that the last Are you the last witness Mr clerk or is there someone else that was the last witness Madam Chairwoman um do you have any closing statements or nothing further i
would submit the application to the approval of the board we've discussed the conditions and Jennifer and Hector are willing to if the board approves the application be subject to those conditions mr ball can you go over what the conditions are absolutely so we have
three uh first is compliance with those conditions noted in the board engineers memorandum second that the applicants will screen the generator in the front yard in accordance with the requirements of the city ordinance and third that the applicants will remove the gravel area with seating uh don't know how else to
describe that one and then we're going to add the variance for the playground location right which is not a condition but it's an added we recognized that request to include the swing set area approximately 6 ft from the property line also just confirming the 4.8 ft is
the setback for the home what about for the um existing um dry well to make sure that he said because they don't know whether that's already included in our uh board engineers report that they have to inspect and confirm that it's an operating condition
and they will replace and they will make make sure that it's very and if it's not that doesn't mean to be a condition correct because that's already incorporated into our general compliance with the board engineers memorandum there was also the representation with
regard to the cedar shapes i that's a representation they're bound by the representations that are made under oath correct um so we'll start executive session and also just to confirm of course that there is a D4 variance for area ratio
involved so five votes are required to approve the application thank you who would like to kick off executive session here any comments thoughts i'm in favor of this application i think
it's a it's a good idea to uh increase the uh the volume of uh uh living space in it uh preserving the uh the same appearance and uh facade is a good idea
too i don't see any uh any impact bad impact on uh neighbors or so I do support this i agree with Lyman completely and uh I think it's a great great effort to oh
sorry I agree with completely and think it's a great effort to comply with the you know the character of the house as it is now so I'm completely in favor of it anyone else i agree i think a lot of I think there was a lot of um adjustments made and I
think it's all you know you've been working with us on I agree think it's going to be it's a good it's it's a good end I think it came to a good conclusion I to support this I think it's a very thoughtful plan um coming back with the
reductions that you did um understanding it's a narrow lot to begin with so I thought it was very thoughtful Yes I agree i think that um you know and the thing that I would be maybe concerned about would be like the massing but I don't see that as an issue
especially considering that the addition is going sort of towards the middle of the property not the side of the property where you know where you're extending it so it's really not going to have an impact on the neighbors um you know appreciate the the work to sort of uh take away a little bit of the
driveway and and you know remove that gravel area in question which will actually um make your yard probably a little bit you know bigger right for the kids to play right by the swing set so that's not a bad thing too but um yeah the I I think it was very thoughtful and
um appreciate the you know the changes you made to try to get closer as we continue to do uh we've taken a request to not quite follow our rules and made it better uh and that what we'll get is a much uh
a much improved plan from what we originally had uh a couple of months ago and I appreciate everybody working with it and the chair would allow I think we could uh move this forward so is that a motion so moved second
okay Mr kieran yes mr malay yes mr steiner yes mr yuko yes miss Chief yes mr nearing yes vice Chair yes thank you Madam Chair thank you um are we going to go back to Green
Bryer now so have a good night um we'll move back to uh Green Bryer now 15 Green Bryer thank you for the opportunity to take a few minutes uh while you started another application
so um do you have We had a chance we had a chance to talk about it and the Starkers have agreed to push the wall all the way back to the 35 ft setback unfortunately that does not allow them to save any other trees but it does allow them to reduce a lot of the steep
slope coverage um I have Peter here to talk about that further peter Cor is in the civil engineer yeah I don't have the exact area but uh just by looking at this I would say it's probably we'll probably be end up
removing 3/4 of that uh southerntherly steep slope disturbance can you estimate the square footage reduced in sleep slope disturbance oh let's see we got that's the previously approved for phase
one yeah so um 2100 hard to say i mean I' I'd say probably in the neighborhood of say maybe 300 square feet we're going to cut back um do our experts have any comments on
that as far as the calculation or just on the Well just to re reiterate excuse me a few points um the applicants provided testimony about why they've located the patio where it is um you know of course the board can formulate its own opinion but they've offered that the one
variance that's uh required has to do with the steep slope disturbance which is being reduced by virtue of uh reducing the grading and moving that front boulder wall further into the property to comply with the uh front yard setback which is the location of
the wall and the grading in that location is not a variance by itself but does impact the steep slope uh disturbance by approximately 300 square feet so that'll be reduced as far as the variance that's being requested i think it does make sense that the patio being located in the sideyard has screening
which they're proposing so in front of that boulder wall where it drops down there'll be some amount of landscaping as was shown on the plan beyond that I just had one further question about um the lighting that's being installed there's some look like landscape lights being installed around the patio yes no
details can you just confirm if I can have Steve Simon Fay the landscape designer he is prepared to speak on the landscape lighting good evening all right I'll swear you in my name is Steve Simon Fay if you could raise your
right hand sure do you swear from testimony you're about to give in this matter the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please state your name spell your last name steve Simon Fay s I M O N F A Y thank you and can you just briefly describe your background and experience for the board uh been a landscape contractor for the
last 35 years uh I've appeared in front of this board Chadam both Chadams Miller are you licensed as a landscape architect or no no okay any questions from the board
accept all right go ahead okay uh Steve we're showing your rendered landscape plan okay right and I think they wanted to hear about the buffering particularly in front of and behind the boulder wall okay all right so yeah
uh I met with John Lson last week and we talked about the buffering and he told me he would like to see it that beefed up a little bit so I went in uh added some more things to the plan
and I looked at the comments about asking for more native things so we have about uh nine species of plants here uh and uh eight of those are all native so I fulfill think that we've uh fulfilled
that so primarily you have giant arborites on top of the wall uh to provide the screening you have giant arbories on the side also and then enhanced by some holl on the lower portion and some holl in the corner and
then we have hydrangeas uh in front of the wall as you're looking up from the patio and then a mixture of different perennials native perennials and you had a chance to make sure that this plan complies with the new shade
tree ordinance is that right yes I did and specifically a few of those um are shade trees that you're proposing now yes we have three river birches and there's a there's a couple and the holl are on that list as well yes yes
the holl are on on that list also replacement list as well as the giant replacement list and the loboid is all local that will conform with any of your regul Any questions from marketing
experts just like the typical landscape very small right i I have a question with the now we're going to have that 35 foot setback what will how will that impact what we're seeing there well basically everything will just be shrink back well everything but I mean there's some plants that look like they might I
mean what will everything go back or will lose nothing that'll be modified okay might have to take out one or two arbor yeah that's what I was thinking okay something like that um you do want to primarily everything on the top of the wall probably be very similar to
what's there things that will be on the patio side facing down will probably be modified and I actually have a question which might go back now to the engineer if we're pushing the setback back to 35 feet and we're kind of guessing what the steep slope number is the 35 foot that's
precise do we need a do we need a precise number on the steep slope change or so I will ask them to as a condition of the application if we're going to approve it that in the interim between now and the resolution they'll need to get me the confirmed number of
the steep slope disturbance so that we can get the final percentage there we have the estimates we we all know what we're talking about with the 35 ft setback uh but of course on the resolution we want an exact figure thank you okay do that so um as far as one
question as the engineer when we do move the wall back would the shift be so that the north side of the wall is on the 35T setback or would it be the south i wanted to ask that too good question it
would be preferable to have it have it on the north side just because it is a boulder wall it has a little bit of depth to it and it would provide uh a little bit more usable area since we do have some landscaping on the bottom of it of the wall if the board doesn't mind so you would prefer it which way i I
would the the south side of the wall or the low side would be at the 35t rear of the wall the rear of the wall be on the 35 foot line if you're in the street looking at the house the rear of the wall so so it wouldn't technically be 35T it
would probably be 34T not 35T which is why you guys So then would the setback actually then be less than 35 ft yes well again setback's not necessarily the requirement you know or the variance that they're seeking right so the
variance they're seeking is for the steep slope so that's true it does relate to the slope because there is some portion of steep slope in that area so by virtue of moving it back it minimizes that sliver of slope but the location of the wall is not restricting
the need for the ground so um I have a question for Mr simon Fay i not you know all the landscaping on the side around the wall is you know looks definitely sufficient um I did notice that looking out into sort of the
backyard neighbors along along here there's uh you know the back bottom of the property there's not a tremendous amount of screening and now you have a patio that's going to be used a lot is there any um plan to add additional screening back here there's already
quite a bit of things there that the house right the one let's see there's two houses there's one that's behind the house and one that's behind the swing set the play area and that one the screening is pretty light through there like you can see through the fence in the house and I feel like that could
use more screening with the patio there i'd be happy to add more screening if the board felt that was necessary it's so steep so let's see first but I appreciate it's not the steep slope area it doesn't have any crossage for steep
slope over there it's just a regular um I don't know this area well I mean nothing was nothing was flowered today but when I was looking through here these are Yeah this was all obviously today it's all like looks like
sea it's just it's an leaf yes right so maybe maybe there maybe there could be a couple of evergreen kind of shrubs excuse me exhibit now oh yeah suppose it is like that as A2 is that on A2
so what's the height of this ret uh retain retaining wall here okay the retaining wall that's in the front why do you think I have it next to me the retaining wall has a height so what is the average or the maximum height
approximately three and a half ft tall nothing more nothing more than three and a half okay thanks i have I have two questions before we go into something else can we just confirm I know we started to talk about the the front and the rear of the
wall and where it's going to be placed what do we want to see do we want to see the front of the wall start at the 35 ft mark are we okay with the rear of the wall being at the 35 ft mark i feel like the 35 ft now is arbitrary a little bit yeah
it like our planner has said it's not a variance that's required for it we're using that as kind of an area to just get an approximate reduction maybe maybe a question for the applicant is when you guys are outside thinking this through you're now moving that boulder wall
closer to the patio says you have kids running back and forth and through it just like I'm not sure what space there is now between that but um 15t it was about 15 to 17 ft um and so we
felt that with that with some of the areas on the the side would be sufficient yeah I'm fine with it I guess it's the back edge of the wall you want to have on that 35 foot line I'm fine with that personally so one question about this i
mean is it possible to eliminate disturbing all of the steep slopes in this area i mean do these two trees need to be removed is it hold on is you know we're we're putting a wall here i understand that
but um you know to the the comments made by the environmental commission about the like existing shade trees and trying to preserve them and I can see where some of these clearly have to go because they're in the construction area you
know there's a patio on top of it you're not going to preserve the tree i'm just wondering about these two trees right here whether those could be preserved by not doing that in this little area uh disturbing the steep slopes because it almost doesn't at this point it almost
doesn't look like it makes sense to disturb the steep slope in that small space and it would sort of it would um Steve to create any flat usable area we need to remove those two trees right we've already pushed it back another
15t we're we're really crunching the amount of space for them to use now right yeah I mean we worked around as many of the trees We're we concentrated on saving that 42 in tree so we've changed the plans considerably to save
those we save we change the plan to save the back buffer which tree is being saved 42 in oak which is Can you I'm sorry can you tell us where that is right adjacent to the
house next to the existing stairs oh over here even though John L wanted recommend taking that up any other questions if I could um did you have a chance to review the environmental groups i did comments and
your thoughts well I mean we we've tried to incorporate as you can see by our our plan we incorporated uh I believe eight out of the nine plants are native no
that's not what I'm talking about i'm talking about the shade trees i'm talking Yeah so unfortunately in order to accomplish with a small to get a small lawn in there
uh we had to take down quite a few trees and then we taken them out but well you're replacing them with arbor arborite no there was more than enough is there Is there places to put shade covering trees that will grow hopefully
over time to uh create the canopy that they're talking about so or are and are we doing that we are open to that but we're not doing it right now well right now uh we have It's not in the plan it is in the plan excuse me can I just
finish the shade tree in the plant we have three river birches in the plan and the holl are on the appendix A which lists the trade trees that are permitted and required to be replacements for shade trees if you'd like some shade
trees we're open to doing shade trees they are they're willing to do more but they already are providing 11 that are on the list of shade trees in the ordinance so they they could do
more shade trees if needed but they are providing 11 that are listed as shade trees not including our providing which is also listed on there but and they're removing how
many 10 plus the one that was not fairing well but these are large trees that are being removed yeah i think we all want you not to take any of the trees out and then put more shade trees in but we're not going to do that
open to that sir we would be happy to do that to do more to do more this is just the right the minimum they can have but this complies it's just mature
new plantings um any other questions so are we asking for a particular commission here for our shade trees and will you listen to the rest of our board members i was going to ask the same question that you had some but yes I was going to ask the same thing that you asked so yes
I agree i think we should we should have more i mean there's a significant these are large trees that are being taken down um and yeah I think we need so the new shade tree ordinance I think uh Mr ball
kind of covers that and requires a specific number right it requires one to one for those trees is it one for one for that size because I think for 12 inches or bigger I
believe so we are doing that if if the board was like any more than 11 um I I think it sounds like the applicants are willing to do more i think they just want to know how many and what type um we could offer an amount but I they
are off they are already putting 11 in this plan and that complies with the ordinance which yes complies with the ordinance I don't see any reason ask what the ordinance requires I've just asked our attorney to confirm the one for one if that's what the
ordinance requires I think that's enough the um now is that the one that just it's just passed or about because there's one that was like very close what is the date of that there's a revision uh this is from July of 2024
yeah so uh anything with a DBH of 12 in or greater the tree replacement criteria is to replant one tree with a minimum tree caliber of 2 to 2 and 1/2 in for each tree removed and so you're in compliance with that
requirement of the city code yes but that we will to clarify that requirement is for anybody removing any trees regardless of steep slope that's just if you remove a tree on your property you have to replace a tree this is a different situation because we do have
all of these sleep steep slopes being disturbed and I you know this area right here I still feel like those trees should be like they seem like they should be able to stay so in personally I'd like to see a couple more in if we're if we're taking these
out to get a a flat yard of of this area of this magnitude then I think a couple other shade trees would be um So just to be specific here you're you're talking about the area where two shade trees are being removed now is it acceptable are you asking for two additional shade
trees beyond what's currently proposed to be planted on the property yes is that agree to that okay okay um and I think we there is no public here
for this case as well is that correct no public for comments okay so I have a question so the little red dot that's where the lighting's going to go little red circle right is any additional sort of
disturbance I mean because obviously you have to put the um the electrical lines on you know dig them under the ground you know to go to code is there going to be any additional disturbance that has not already been discussed to get all the lighting no here
no I think any other questions okay So um if that was your last witness you have any closing comments i do not thank you there are any other questions
any other questions before we go to executive session seeing none um do we want to go over the conditions and the variances and then um so three conditions I have noted first is compliance with those conditions in
the board engineers memorandum second is that the applicant shall revise their plans to shift the proposed retaining wall back so at the rear of the wall is at the 35 foot setback line uh and the applicant shall submit revised plans to the board engineer for review and approval and the third condition is that
the applicants will supplement the landscaping plan to add two additional shade trees to the property u here we do only have one variance steep slope it's a C variance so four votes are required to approve does anyone want to start executive
session here with comments yes I'll go ahead uh I think that they uh they done a lot to bring this closer to uh what we are looking for and I appreciate their accommodation and uh we're glad
they took the five minutes and waited for the other case to finish and uh that we uh we have a a again an improved application that uh will be nice for the neighborhood uh will not det be a detriment to anything uh will not uh
cause any issues there'll be no negative effects uh and the uh the neighborhood will look nicer their neighbors are protected with uh some screening so all of the right things have been done and I can uh certainly uh support this
application uh I do support this application as well but I would like to add one condition that the uh the first plan the uh the drawing 103 should be revised to reflect that
yes I I believe that that's caught in the comments and we're happy to do that i think revised engineering plans are going to be submitted yes thank you that's it i just add um considering the the steep slope that you have on the property I
think there's only so much you could do without disturbing steep slope and make it usable so I I think you ended up with a very I think thoughtful design and appreciate the accommodations and listening to the board um I can support this i can support the plan as as described i
think it's a good plan it'll make a nice addition to the neighborhood thank you can I make a motion to approve just to keep it moving yes second thank you Mr kieran yes mr malay yes mr steiner
yes mr yugo yes miss Chief yes mr nearing yes vice Chair yes thank you and Miss Alfonso just a reminder as soon as you get those revised numbers if you could get those steep slope figures to me um we need that in advance of the resolution
thank you thank you and then next up is 32 Tumbli that's the Alonszo or actually should we take a break do we want to take a five minute break here before we start the next one if that's good
with probably I'm just sorry the civics kids didn't get to stay i know she fell asleep on she's good i'm so sorry that's what they said there weber on behalf of the applicants Mike and Jill Johnson at
3234 we still don't know why there's a break in the post office addresses uh we've done a background and we still don't have an answer so we're going as 32 TWAMBI this is A1 if I can Madam
Chairwoman uh this has previously not been submitted to the board although the board had the elevations on the plans that were prepared by Steve Powolski uh which showed this this is an up uh a closeup of that uh
perspective what's going on is that you have an existing split level home that is going to be uh renovated uh in order to produce a more colonial style uh property this is met with the uh uh
approval of HPC environmental commission uh and uh overall will be a benefit to the community with regard to the variances you have a building coverage variance where they're increasing the building coverage I think by 17 square
feet total over what's existing and that really comes with regard to the open front porch open front porch contributes an increase of 130 square ft likewise there will be an increase in
the lot coverage of 215 square ft as part of this application not only are they adding the second story over the one-story edition and converting this from a split level into a colonial style home they're also adding a pool at the
back of the property and that pool is going to obviously increase the amount of coverage and so you have the increase in coverage of a total of 215 square ft because Mr clark has gone and has removed other imperous surfaces
throughout the property in order to bring the total increase over existing to 215 square ft uh there's a floor area ratio variance associated with this uh 190
square feet of that F is devoted to uh the front of the existing house has the old kind of cavern cave opening where your front door was set back under an open roof area and as a result that's
going to be enclosed and as a result when that's enclosed you have an increase in the floor area ratio plus of course the uh uh second story uh of over the level because you're dealing with a existing structure there's an u
inefficiency in working with that structure and that's reflected in the 27.6% uh F where 25% is permitted so that comes uh to around 396
square ft over what's permitted we also have a steep slope disturbance in the back property uh this property sits at the bottom of a hill and as a result what's being proposed is to put a pool and to take advantage of that steep
slope in the back put a pool there have a patio and uh create an enjoyable outdoor space unless the board has any questions of me I would ask that Mike and Jill Johnson be called to the stand to be sworn in to give testimony in this matter
yes I have a question uh what's the percentage of demolition that's going to take place for this renovation it'll be interior everything will be interior we're
actually eliminating an existing area i think we'll we'll have to answer that once the experts are actually sworn in but uh we'll have that information okay okay mike Phil if you can come up
i'm going to go back up to the to the stand here and in the meantime if you could each raise your right hand do you swear from the testimony you're about to give in this matter the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes and one at a time please state your name spell your
last name jill Johnson j O H N S O N and Mike Johnson j O H N S O N thank you and you're the owners of the property at 32ley that's right yes and uh how long have you lived there uh we bought the
property in 2018 and you live there with your two children we have two children a boy and a girl 11 and three and what you're proposing is uh something that you've been looking at uh since you bought the property yeah I think we so we we've always liked the
location um it's very close to the elementary school our daughter um went through Wilson kindergarten and then is now in fifth grade at Franklin um we're looking forward to our son also attending Franklin as he goes through Wilson probably and then Franklin as
well um also just the location of it being walkable to town as well some of the other you know attractions nearby generally sits uh but one of the things we've always thought was you know the location is great there's a lot of
potential for improvement um over the years and some of these things like adopting a colonial style and getting more use out of the backyard which the space is there but because of the you know it's uphill um it makes it a little challenging to use the space at times have you had a chance to uh review the
staff comments those are the reports that the experts that the board has provides to the board and that you've received copies we have and uh do you find the recommendations in there acceptable subject to the comments of your experts we do and have you had a
chance to talk to your neighbors we have and um Oh go ahead i we didn't come across any objections and if anything actually our upill neighbor is here in support which is Jerry
i have nothing further uh Madam Chairwoman have any questions from our experts or our board members for these the applicants no okay so I believe we do have some member of the I have one quick question
please can you just explain the um why you want to put a pool in yeah so um we all love to be in the water my daughter is on the swim team at the Y and a pretty avid swimmer um we just got back from Florida where we can be in the
water and uh I just think it'd be nice for the kids to have something to do and get them off the screens and you know get them outside as much as possible thank you i have a question in all the drawings it's very hard to find the pool
uh let me bring up uh that was something that the uh uh landscape art uh expert also said you know I'm just having trouble reading it so what he went ahead and did was this so that just helps to show where
the lawn is where the retaining wall is where the pool is and the patio is shown in that yellow so is that going to be That's an exhibit that is a new exhibit A2 then yes thank you
so this is an excerpt from the landscape plan but it shows mainly the landscaping that's being proposed there is no amount of landscaping going in the front i think most of the landscaping is to the rear of the property we'll hear from a bit on the drawing
clearly okay well I had the same problem when I was reading it and we will be hearing from the landscaper after correct yes okay so um at at this moment I think we'll take public comment um change it out of order if there's any members of the public who would like to
comment we'll hear that now and I'll just note for the record that you know obviously the whole application hasn't been presented yet but I understand this is a request of the applicants to hear this public comment out of order correct thank you appreciate it it's Thank you yeah my name is Jared yeah do you swore affirm the testimony you're about to
give in this matter the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth please state your name spell your last name my name is Jared White Whit T i think you live at 17 Ramsey Drive and we share a rear lot line they they may share a rear lot line with some other folks but I think in in
bulk the most of their lot line is shared with mine and most of my your lot line is shared with theirs i've reviewed the application in all respects and I fully support what they're trying to do so um and I had some consultants as well review it for me so I'm pretty informed
about it and I and I support it thank you thank you just to confirm I assume we have no questions for this member of the public thank you thank you okay thank you if I uh could call Andrew
Clark to the stand to be sworn into testimony in this matter um I we'll just do it again do you swear from the testimony about to give in this matter truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do and please state your name spell your last name andrew Clark c L A R K E and I'll note for the record
you were sworn and accepted as an expert engineer in the prior application and will accept you back again now my license status has not changed in the past few minutes and of course the regular question you're familiar with this application
and how did you achieve that familiarity and if I can board members the reason I do that is so that the board understands this is not a net opinion but that this is an opinion based on studies and facts so that uh the opinion that you're hearing from the expert is fully
informed yes and in most circumstances I would have the answer I had previously in this case there's one difference in that I did not conduct the survey but I did visit the property uh several times to
review the survey and the site conditions and I prepared the lot grading plan which is in the submission package uh the variance plan dated November 13 2024 with regard to the storm water
management and I wasn't sure as to how much capacity that you're putting in because when I look at the amount of increase in lot coverage it came up to around 215 square ft right so by
summit's ordinance we're not even technically required to provide storm water management in that regard um since 300 square ft is of new impervious coverage as the threshold But as um is is my habit at this point
um with applications like this especially when we're dealing with steep slopes and we're dealing with the types of improvements we are on a property like this um I always try to make the a strong effort to bring the storm water as a as
a positive component of the application so accordingly um we're actually proposing a drywall in the front yard that's going to handle the entire roof area and the patio area from the pool in the back so we're managing a total of
about 3,800 square ft um of imperous surface between the roof area and the patio um with as you point out a relatively minor increase in uh actual impervious coverage so we're going way above and beyond because we want to make
sure that the end of this this is a is a good project that's making a a substantial improvement in terms of storm water and this was a discussion that you had with Mike and Jill and they were all uh enthusiastic about that yes yes
and why don't you describe the steep slope disturbance in the back of the property sure well the steep slope disturbance there's a little bit in the front um because of actually the drywall that we're installing but in in the in the big picture the steep the it's a 15,000 foot lot and uh as depicted on
the plan the total existing steep slope areas on the property is about 5,400 square ft so that's it's about 36% of the lot is steep slopes and it's considerable um especially when you consider that the impervious surfaces
amount to about the same amount a little over 5,000 square feet so you know you have actually pockets of this site that are not steep slopes and in terms of the disturbance we're proposing to disturb 3,000 square ft of that 5400 so a little
more than half 55% of the steep slope area we're slating for u potential disturbance i say potential disturbance because like in the front we have the dry well we're installing and and I've um placed the the limited disturbance as
you can see with the silt fence limit there uh recognizing that there's activity that happens around that that construction effort so in order to not run a foul of the regulations once we're in construction I'm going to u make my
limited disturbance in the steep slope condition a little more conservative than I than I would ordinarily um and that designation is a line with X's on it correct yeah that's that's what I use for the silt fence limit which is labeled over here but not on that side
and then and then we have that limit running up the right quarter into the backyard there's a little stone row in the back that we meet up and and that's to allow for the construction of this area in the back with the pool and the wall that's um got to affect the grade
change because once you get behind that pool area it slopes right up pretty quickly up to um up to Ramsay in the back i have nothing further there were a couple of questions I'll touch on in the engineering review um
that pertain to the storm water primarily um no issue with the sizing there was a question about um the way we're collecting the water around the the pool and the patio i know it's a little tough to distinguish with all the other features there but the
pool and the patio are this rectangle in the back and then at the back at the base of the wall we're going to slope slightly down away from the the pool edge to the bottom of the wall and have um an infiltration drain sort of a more passive stone trench with a perforated
pipe in the bottom that's going to go along the back and then we're going to place an inlet in this uh what'll be sort of a lawn area to the right of the pool and then pick up uh another inlet on the left side of the pool and then I'm putting one for good measure in the
front just because this side along even though the whole lot is steep along the side of the house is actually pretty flat um along this left side so I want to make sure we have the ability to capture anything that's getting out there and so the few comments were um
why why are the inlets where they are positioned rather than closer to the patio and in part that's just to allow a little bit of grading to bring and steer the water into that inlet versus being closer i'd also point out that this is a
10 scale plan which is sort of much bigger in scale than than what I typically would present or that you guys might see on a regular basis usually have 20 scale plans or 30 scale plans so it's it's it's actually not that far away from the patio is the bottom line
with that it's you know it's probably about 8 ft away from the patio and this is a little bit left less on the left side and then the other comment that relates to the storm water was to introduce I think it was on an earlier application to some water quality features so I haven't actually detailed
the inlet yet but I do have a detail that incorporates as was discussed before a sump so you have you know a separation between where the pipe goes out of the of the drain and the bottom of it and in in my detail I actually have the pipe comes up from the bottom
and you can actually put a little cap on the top that helps filter out the debris when you do have flows and then an open bottom with u stone or you know it's usually a stone bottom that allows some infiltration directly in the bottom for
very small storms so we will incorporate an water quality feature with the inlet in the plan and I there was another question about the fence but I think that's more of a detail issue the
fence the fence comes over from the corner of the house to enclose the backyard and the pool and there's a there's a existing about 3-ft wall on the left side so the fence is going to come over to the wall and then you know jump up and continue at the top of the
wall i don't think it's really going to be an issue but it was a question that was raised in there in the review i don't know if I missed anything uh in the review that needs comment uh just where the angles are for your your uh your pipe in the
back where you have a change of direction oh at the two angles right at the either end of the infiltration drain yeah of course yeah yeah i'll add that on too what we're talking about is wherever there's a change in direction for easy access in case you have to maintain the pipe in any way you have a
clean out there so that you can get in snake out the pipe if you have to and if you could just explain that the the fence a little bit more detail there's a there's a change in grade there correct that's right so so
along the side of the house it's pretty level and then there's a about a 3-ft wall on this left side that's existing and so the grade comes up about 3 ft and then it slopes up from there so where the fence comes out it's basically going to come off the house and come to the
face of that existing wall and then we'll have to have another post that's up above that okay so they'll there may be a little gap in that fence but and they'll have to you know I'm not I'm not a fence contractor but I think they'll have some sort of angle piece on there
to catch the bottom grade of concrete right right exactly there was also a point about the generator oh right yeah and we had some discussion about that so well the the the generator the generator is in a
conforming location where the existing location is back farther but uh it's a little hard to see but we're removing sort of an 8ft section of the house at the back that's uh part of the demolition that Mr malay had asked about
the existing um portion it's indicated on my plan with a dash line and I do have it labeled but we're taking off that 8ft uh section in the back and right now the generator sits next to it and there was a previous application for that generator because it
was there was a change in the ordinance and at the time uh you couldn't be that far into the sideyard setback with a generator but since then the ordinance has changed so that it's 10t
setback um versus I think it was uh 12 feet had to be the setback 15 well it was 15 and you were allowed to encroach three feet into it and we were the the generator was encroaching a little more than that into the sideyard so it was non-conforming in that regard so now
we're moving it forward since we're taking that 8 ft off we're moving it forward but it is now in a conforming location because the ordinance has changed and it's at least 10 ft it's about 11 and 1/2 ft off the line so it's in a conforming location and it's got the window separation that's required
for generators as well and I thought you were asking about the pool equipment because that was the other question that we did discuss um and was raised in in the uh review where the pool equipment was i failed to indicate that on the plan we did have
some discussion and there are two uh locations that would be conforming locations for the pool equipment either on the right side of the house at towards the back there's like an existing brick wall and we could fit the equipment in there or another discussion
and we'll have to talk a little more with the pool contractor could go on the upside of the um curved part of the wall that's in a conforming location at least 15 ft off the line one of those two spots is where it's going to go and it will be properly screened um as as would
be necessary if I can recall Mike and Jill uh you spoke to your pool contractor and he's uh affirmed that it will be in a compliant uh position yeah I think he was reviewing maybe additional spots as well but regardless it will be so it will comply
do you have any questions Tom just a few quick ones thank you um just to clarify the AC units and generator will be screened yes fencing um I believe he's indicated that the proposal will not require the
removal of tree any trees is that accurate i believe that's correct i'm pretty sure that's correct we do have the landscaper here and um I didn't conduct the survey but I'm pretty sure there are no trees being removed thank you and um few observations so a lot of
times when we have the we'll call the leveling out of yards and summit it's often the walls often facing the neighbor in this case is facing the interior of the lot so the impact of the six foot wall is actually to the house and not the neighbor down that's correct so so versus the neighbor who spoke
earlier we're going to be sort of down and sunken into the yard versus the opposite which is often the case as you point out and so the high point of the property is obviously is in the back and it slopes downward that's correct it all slopes towards the street right and and just uh again obser from an observation
standpoint the pool um area I think is about 600 square feet which represents about 4% of the lot area yeah I think that's right yeah so you're over on coverage by about 5% and 4% of that is the pool is my point that's right that's
right and also the the front porch which somebody deemed an aesthetic enhancement is 300 square feet so that's 2% right and and doesn't carry quite the same massing unenclosed right correct
yeah and we did some work to remove and and try to balance that coverage and keep the increase as minimal as we could in this plan so you know there was a there's an existing walk that goes all the way up the side we're eliminating that since it's uh little utilized and
we're just going to where the doorway is um by the brick wall and same thing on the left side there was a walk wrapping all the way around but it's not really necessary um you know you don't need a walkway to access the air conditioners for the occasional servicing so we've
eliminated what we could from the plan um and kept that increase as as low as we could we saw that landscape rendering who was going to be commenting on did you say Yeah there's a landscape designer that's here y Thank you you
also pointed out uh Mr barren that there's also a variance i didn't mention with regard to the minimum roof pitch okay so we have the architect here and he'll address that
okay questions from the board i have a question regarding the six foot wall is it a re retaining wall what type of material do you have any cross-section yeah I I don't know that we've fully discussed exactly what type
of material and construction it's going to be it's probably going to be a segmented block wall type of construction um and it'll have to be fully designed because it's 6 foot high wall so it's going to have to be uh engineered and designed and require building permit so all that will have to
be provided but it hasn't been developed yet okay uh the other thing when I'm looking at the architectural drawings I see some footings that do not seem to be the original footings of the house they
are deeper than uh Could you elaborate on that well I think the architect's probably better situated to respond to that sure thank you i'm sorry I didn't hear the question uh the question about uh uh regarding the uh the footing and
deep uh uh footing they they are shown on the uh architectural drawings i could not understand them i need some clarification so I refer to the architect very good mr mlette um any else have a question i have one
um the existing there are four existing drains on the property um where do they discharge good question uh I'm I'm take a look um you know a lot of
times these um property drains you know lawn drains things of that nature suffer from deferred maintenance let's call it um and and it becomes very difficult to know exactly where they're coming out if I'm guessing which I probably shouldn't
do but I think some of them probably discharge towards the front of the property somewhere that'd be more of a older um more conventional way of handling it someone would say "Oh well we got some water collecting here let's put a drain in and then we'll just daylight it down here somewhere." So it
could be that there's some pipes popping out towards towards the roadway somewhere right and that when I was walking through that was one of the things that I was wondering about so would you say that your proposed um storm water management is an improvement
on that since you're handling the water on the property it will be a great improvement over that especially with the inclusion of this substantial dry well and you know we're removing we're pl because of all those reasons and the work that's being done we're just
planning to remove those old drains thank you you're welcome i I have one question um you said you're moving the existing walk on the right hand side of the house how how do you get to the backyard if you're by foot
well I mean you you just walk up the lawn you're just going to walk out in the grass yeah but I think a lot of the pool activity in the backyard is going to happen from within the house so you're not going to have You do want to walk to the backyard that would just
I mean I mean we discussed it and whether or not there'd be a need for a connecting walk and and they really felt like lawn area would be fine um for the amount of traffic that that might make its way that way okay seeing no other questions do we
want to move on to the next witness i would ask that Steve Kowalsski be called to the stand to give testimony in this matter do you swear affirm the testimony you're about to give in this matter is the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth please state your name spell your
last name steven Kowalsski k A L SKI thank you and can you briefly describe your background and experience for the board i'm a licensed architect for the last 20 years in New York New Jersey Florida Virginia and I've appeared before this board although not recently numerous times my office for 5 years was
just down the street on Tulum Street any questions or would you like to accept his credentials we'll accept you're familiar with the application and how did you achieve that familiarity i am myself and my team can you please
speak into the microphone on the table i am familiar with the application myself and my team have been working with the Johnson's for quite some time on exploring numerous options and coming up with a plan that they're excited
about we'll be home with You heard me uh uh re uh refer to the roof pitch variance i did and uh can you describe uh the roof pitch that is being referred to and how
that will appear from the front of the property as well as from the rear i did and what screen would you like the f the first page you were on with the this section is is great so the existing house which you can see on the left it's a little hard to read but the entirety
of the house is non-conforming 100% of it has a pitch of four on 12 or three and a half whereas the code requires six what we're proposing on the right if we can pan over mhm where's see the full
screen is the front-facing roofs will now have an eight pitch so from the street we will it will be conforming the rear of the house we're keeping the existing pitch partly to not exacerbate the F variance because if we went with
the steeper pitch throughout we'd be adding unnecessary second floor space and then what about the roof pitch at the rear this is the existing pitch to remain and that's what does not uh meet the 6 over
12 right it's less than four and then Mr malay had a question with regard to the footings yes it's on page A100 i can or actually if you could go to that Jim and zoom out a little so we can see
the demo plan on the left it's a little hard to understand but being a split on the right screen for you yeah this is perfect and then we can go back to the previous page but this is the demo plan on A100 you can see that the garage is in the front so that's a full level down
and there's existing full basement under the kitchen so the section that you were referring to Mr malay was seeing the foundation this is a full story down from the first floor so we're not changing that that's existing to remain
that's the only part that's exist uh remaining or what well this this was part of your remain what what's what's going to be removed yes so here on again on page A 100 drawing number one demolition ba base basement plan this
portion roughly 300 ft will be removed thank you nothing further uh madam chairwoman any questions from our experts i'll note that the HBC reviewed um the application and commented that they
thought the architecture was a net benefit for the neighborhood as far as you know being in in keeping with the character of Summit um as far as my own comments um again I know the front porch could
you comment about the architectural style and how it you said it already we thought that it was we're trying to hide the fact that this is a split level so making the left side feel like more like a traditional
center hall colonial we thought helped with how drastic this is now uh that it feels like a split level and it did add some curb appeal this was the older rendering the one you showed at the beginning of the the uh presentation an
updated closeup just we thought it was a welcoming feel that helped with enhancing the character of the house and the neighborhood all right thank you and and part of the variance relief being saw is related to the front porch and I think the the visuals sort of
indicate that it's an attractive feature i mean that's my you know as far as you know on the one hand it increases the coverage of the lot but on the other hand there was it was a choice that you guys made for you know function so that they can spend time out front absolutely enhances the architecture of and it also
it addresses another portion of Summit's code where today this would absolutely not be allowed to have the garage so close to the street so it also lessens that impact of the garage being so far forward from the house which is not allowed by today's summit code the
building otherwise complies with setbacks it does well it doesn't existing but that removal from the back now makes it comply the it's existing non-conforming in the rear yard by taking off that 8 foot bump out now the rear yard is conforming so brings it
into conformity and then finally the the maximum building height I think is 30 ft where 35 ft allowed right we're well below the maximum that's all just to follow up with one question and is it your opinion that the site can accommodate the proposed increase in
floor area ratio it is thank you questions from the board i just have a um one question the windows above the porch are those um what you call egress no regular they're regular windows they're not case and
they're and they're simulated divided are they They're not like No we we always try to talk clients out of uh snapping buttons thank you just had a question um understand what you're trying to
accomplish and I think you've done a nice job with it were there any versions where you didn't have to have the increase in building coverage not building coverage we tried some other alternatives where there was less F by going over the existing going over
here but we thought that even made the split level less attractive where we're trying to make this a benefit to the neighborhood not just the clients but none of them where we where we didn't have a building
coverage variance and Mr weber pointed it out if we can go to A101 let me know when to stop uh next page yeah so if we look at the existing demo plan we have this big indent here
and so we did attempt and maybe I'm going to misspeak we we did try to add left and right and keep that keep that middle open but we I couldn't find an attractive version that looked intentional and not that we were keeping
an unusual 1960s floor plan thank you any other questions how much of that contributes to the 190 square feet and that's the first
level and second level combined oh F no building coverage 190 so yes it would be 190 times two no other questions and just I'm sorry along that that number it coincidentally is similar to we're taking off roughly
300 or 320 off the back times one i would ask that Jeff Higenbotham be called to the stand to be sworn in to give testimony in this matter and Could you please raise your right hand do you swear from the testimony you're about to give in this matter the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do please state your
name spell your last name jeff Higenbotham hi G I N B O T H A M thank you and can you briefly describe your background and experience for the board yeah I have a degree in landscape architecture i've been a licensed landscape architect in New Jersey for 25
years and I have appeared uh in front of summit uh Milbour and Chattam Township a lot of local any questions or will we accept them back accept and if we can I'm not this was uh in response to the
comments of John Linson where he was looking for a landscape plan and as a result uh this should probably be marked as an exhibit and we are A3 all right so A1 was the perspective
close-up perspective two was the uh highlighted uh pool backyard so everyone can see where the pool and the lawn was and then here's the landscape plan itself would you describe the landscape plan for the board
sure um you know again you've you've heard from Andrew and Steven who did kind of the heavy lifting in terms of the design on this project and I was happy to join the team to just provide the last piece which was uh just some perimeter planting uh because the the
only direct visual impact uh of this project is to the adjacent rear neighbors i was focusing right now on uh just privacy screening in order to give the Johnson's you know privacy to their pool area and also to limit views from
the neighbors to see the uh you know the impact of the new project and I thought that the landscaping was to the rear you also have landscaping in the front of the house there is a bit of um shrub planting evergreen shrub
planting and uh so holly and boxwood at the front just to mitigate a little bit of the front view of the front porch and I believe the board had a question uh specifically with regard to the landscape plan but I forgotten what
the question was it was for the last ah trees being removed thank you right there there are no trees being removed if if you have visited the site you might have seen some magnolia along the what appears to be the rear property line that is
they're actually on the neighbors property so they're they're not uh growing on the subject property in just reviewing the plan it looks like there's an existing stone wall located along sort of it meanders along the rear
lot line which may conflict with some of the plantings is the proposal to remove that wall again that uh exists on the neighbor's property the the gentleman who was in attendance earlier um so you know technically that's that's his wall it
will not be removed it won't there's no need to remove it for the to get the planting in what I'm looking at shows it on Yeah the subject line and you can't see it there but if you look at um
either the survey or the plot plan there's some type of wall says loose stone wall on the survey yes it it's um it's not actually as much of a vertical wall as it is a collection
of stone it looks like it looks like a walling wall but it's you know several feet tall i'm not sure it's critical the point is that there seems to be a conflict i guess the question is that there's the landscaping is going to be as proposed
and you'll deal with that area as you need to to accommodate the planting yeah it wouldn't it it wouldn't interfere with any of the planting going in it probably will be cleaned up and dressed um if
it's in disrepair but it won't impact the location of the plant so what you're saying to the board is that you'll adjust the plantings to uh fit within the wall and the property line at the time of planting
um any questions from the board um I just I had one question and I'm not sure if that's for you there's a built-in grill in the back is that I mean and it looks like that whole wall is being removed to accommodate the pool is there going to be a new grill put in
where if so where is that have you settled I'm speaking to Mike uh have you settled on where the grill's going to go we haven't but is that going to be It wouldn't But I think we would like But it'll be like a gas grill that's plumbed and so you'll get all the
permits for that um because it's not on a plan so even engineering didn't review that um but if you're removing that one I'm assuming you're going to want another grill thank you i do do have one question um since the landscaping plan was generated
or caused by Mr lynson's request I has he seen this yet i don't didn't sound like he has i believe that it was we submitted and I'm not sure if Mr nola was able to
get him the landscape plan in time but my we're relying on my memory Mr you go so I'm not certain if he's had a chance to review it but certainly if he hasn't yeah if the board approves the application then I think an appropriate
condition would make it subject to his review and approval okay any any other questions is that your is your last nothing further uh Madam Chairwoman I would submit the application to the approval of the board thank you do we have uh conditions and
variances yes um so I'll just note also for the record there's nobody left in the public in attendance to ask any questions or add any more comments uh so moving on to the conditions we have first compliance with those conditions noted in our board engineers memorandum
second as just discussed the applicant shall submit the landscaping plan to the city forester for review and approval um the variances include a devariance for floor area ratio so five votes are required to approve them okay
who'd like to start i'll start um so there there a couple large variances here um there's a large increase in in F um but I I think that's been satisfactorily explained and I think the property can can can accommodate it uh
without any significant negative impacts large increase in lot coverage most of that if I understood what Mr barren was saying about 80% of that it sounds like was because of the pool does that sound about right to you or 70 right yeah more than that I think 4% of the total water
coverage yeah okay so um you know and I think co coverage by the pool is not certainly not as ownorous as coverage by by a building or some other kind of structure um they they're improving storm water management they're bringing um the rear yard set
back into conformance uh the the roof pitch you know they're making it look nicer in the front and you know they're maintaining the existing non-conformity in the back which I I don't think it's an issue because it's in the back um happy they have a a
have accepted the forcer's recommendation for a landscaping plan which seems attractive i'm a little concerned about the placement of it regarding the wall but you know maybe Mr lson will have comments on that that'll be take away any concern with that regard um having said all that I I could
support the application i'm a little concerned with the u position of following the uh uh the prior bad information that we have and rather than just continuing that uh that
situation I I kind of look at it as kind of go back to some of the other comp other issues that we've had where we need to look at this as if the first numbers were correct and
now we are looking at a significantly larger increase uh in these numbers i'm talking about where you're uh where in your discrepancy of the historical records um we had a chance to and I just have a
feeling that we should go back to the other and would we have would we approve it if we were looking at it from the perspective of the original numbers to what they're asking for today versus the
numbers that for somehow got put in and we don't know how and we're proposing that we just accept it and move on well the um I'm not sure I understand it that way but that's kind of the way I interpret
it and I'll let you try and explain it better than I did we did take the opportunity to go into the archives and what we found was that this was part of a 1951 uh plan development and that the house
was probably built in the 50s we don't know exactly when it was built but certainly we know it was built in the 51 and it's get got the date right on the thing right one of the things it tells you the date it was put into the into the records in 1951 right so agree so we
have a 1951 development and at that period of time you had the 1954 ordinance we have a copy of that 1954 ordinance which did not have any of the standards that you have now for example didn't have lot coverage didn't have floor area ratio
had setbacks had that sort of thing but did not have the uh level that you have now the city's ordinance was really fully adopted in 1968 as you recall and that the current DRRO works off that 1968 standard so the house was
pre-existing non-conforming and as a result these numbers were not made up they were you have a pre-existing non-conforming structure that at the time it was constructed in the 50s pursuant to the 1951 as you point out
was appropriate does that answer your question i I'm sorry i just think we should be looking at the old numbers not the new ones and that could change how we make a decision
can I um can can you clarify really what we're can I ask for clarification on I guess what what is what is the difference in the numbers the the old numbers versus what we are looking for
here is this the more conservative number the if we're looking at the old numbers those are the existing which as far as we can tell and we've looked at some aerial photos have been there since the original we went back to 1991 and
that's what we're seeing so we're seeing a structure that has been there uh throughout we also have the certificates of occupancy for not just this property owner but for the predecessor in title
when you look at the certificates of occupancy let's see if I can find them come on open up there we go so when we look at the zoning permit certificate of occupancy to the Johnson's we see dated 51518 the R15 zone 3004 lot 33 and
we see this certificate verifies i'm looking in the block that's typed this certificate verifies that smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are in place and operative as required the above building or part thereof substantially complies with the zoning ordinance of
the city of Summit and may be occupied for single family dwelling if we look at the next the one prior to that one we see in December 1 2011 32i and this went to Xiao Fang and
Tangmi same certificate same representation signed by Christa Anderson as well so this is the statement by the city of Summit twice certifying that this may be occupied single family dwelling confirming that
it complies but our job is to correct those things that get Hang on hang on are are we we're talking about only the existing building and lot coverage on the site the the proposed numbers of
um 40.3% for lot coverage and 22.1% for building coverage are are correct there's no question about that right those are yes the the existing is confirmed the proposed is confirmed and that's that's where we're modestly
increasing what has been certified by Christa Anderson by the city so any any dispute over what numbers were in the past doesn't change what the correct numbers are now we're addressing the correct numbers now correct the size of the building the coverage all that yes well there's no indication that the
numbers are incorrect it's just that the numbers exceed what's permitted right am I right i'm not actually seeing the discrepancy i mean seeing 38.8% lot coverage where 35% is permitted but is that really a
discrepancy or is that it's just we don't know how it got how it got there they are now asking to go from the lower number which is what it should be understood to the higher number which means we're right now it exists here and they want to go to here but what should
be back here and they're going to here but it doesn't change the house that is a problem but it doesn't change the ultimate result doesn't change what it doesn't change our job to weigh whether what they're asking for regardless of what existed what they're asking for are the percentages
of 40.3% lot coverage and where 35% is permitted correct and not where 38 something exists it really doesn't matter what existed it's what they're asking for it's our job to figure out is that permissible so we should be looking
at the major difference rather than what They're suggesting the minor difference i would argue we don't we look at the difference we have to look at the result they're proposing can the property support the result they're proposing have they satisfy the statuto thank you i have a question for Joe what's the
difference between this and other applications i'm just confused because we always we're always because they always start at what what's the legality is rarely do we have one where it's sitting already ill in in in an
inappropriate number i I think we see that all the time with the setbacks and all kinds of um well I mean I guess it would be good to hear how other members of the board what their opinions are there
on like I said I'm just confused on what how this is I'm think I'm missing something if this one's presented a different way than they normally are presented nope i I think it was just actually spelled out in this memorandum in like
calling out the difference in more spent more time talking about it than normal maybe dramatizing nobody mentions Gordian not generally it's just this is pre-existing non-conforming that's what we usually call it right like leave it
at that and then assess what we're going and we're unsure of where that number came from but what we have are the proposals um are there any other comments from the board thoughts i just were unsure where what number came here from the existing
percentage numbers but we have them here right and they've been certified we have Right we have those correct me if I'm wrong Mr weber but we don't know how it got from the 35% that was permitted where they got the permits in the past
okay to what has been confirmed as 38.8% correct and we're looking for the 40.3 22.1 and 27.6 over the standards established in the current DRR and just to clarify there's
no indication that the house was ever 35% right we don't know it could have always been 38.8% it's kind of assumed because they have a permit but it anything can happen something could have been missed that 38% could have been missed when it was originally permitted
could have been added on to after the fact we don't know but what we have is a request for 40 uh.3 and 22.1 that's what we should be focusing on and when you focus on that the point of indicating that there's an existing building an
existing coverage helps to understand that this in terms of its total application is working with with what's there so when we talk about for example uh the building coverage 18%'s permitted currently 22 it's going to
22.1 and you've heard uh Mr clark indicate they've worked to try and reduce as much as they can on lot coverage they've responded with regard to the building coverage and the F has been explained by the architect we're talking about keeping the roof pitch not
too high and you're including uh the enclosure of the cave at the front entrance all uh certainly capable to allow this board to grant the variances from the current standards as Mr steiner has pointed out you mentioned that 5% of
it is the pool and the and the porch that really means from the 35% we're really looking like 3% undesirable very good i just want to make a comment that those
that's like CFO like that doesn't really mean anything that's just they come in make sure you have the smoke detectors and the carbon monoxide detector i've been there no no no i' I've been there as a realtor and that's I mean that's all they're doing is just making sure so the next owner can move in it's a boiler
it's a boiler plate form that certification has been the subject of litigation and that uh held up in a suit against the city where the city did not allow a certain development and as a result it went in was materazzo and uh
there was a recovery under 42 USC 1983 that certification matters doing much when they I've been there for plenty of them so no because if they get a permit to you know live in the home for building permit co and everything they should be checking everything up
but they don't you cannot then as the city go back after the fact and say you're out of compliance with zoning that we would be stopped from taking that position okay so we've kind of gotten into this gray area of not really being in executive session either
because we're having a conversation here we did open it right so let's kind of resume in the executive session part of this with comments from the board gee I remember your memo what's that i remember your memo from
last year oh sorry um any any comments uh I'm looking here and that's why I asked for the uh demolition part of uh this building uh when we demolish something we can build to the same
uh existing things so the existing are honored because they did not uh demolish them and we're building on the same footprint so really what we're looking here is uh can we
ex accept that little that difference between them uh uh we don't have to go back to the original one so I think we can look at the uh proposed and see if it's
tolerable if this building can take this uh slight increase 22 to 22.1 that's a minor 20 and 27 this little off but the first one is really
the maximum locked operation and that's exactly because of the pool in the porch yeah so I I certainly would support this uh application i don't think I have a problem with it i
um I also I I thank you i I could support this application i have to say that I think the um the house looks great i think it's it's something that will be a compliment to
the neighborhood the um I I don't want to say like statement but it's it's not over massive there it's not too much massing but it's actually the appropriate amount of massing where compared like it's almost like the house was a little bit dwarfed by the lot so I think this is a nice
scale um also having taken a walk around you know the backyard I do feel like this is a much nicer layout with sort of you had a very close wall like into the patio so you're backing it there's already a wall there so you're just
putting the wall in a different place um and it kind of opens it up and makes it a little more functional for you and it looks like it would be very aesthetically attractive um I I am not you know I think the
pre-existing condition is what it is it may be a little hard to get to the root of it but overall I think that the um the property can handle the the changes that are being proposed without having any detriment to the public and
in fact I think that the storm water improvement is significant because you know those drains you're you're on a hill if th though if all that water from your property is now draining down to the street and going down um the road and causing ice in somebody's yard and
in their driveway and the you know the peak of winter you've sort of helped eliminate part of that problem by managing the water on site or as much of it as possible so I see that as a a significant benefit anyone else
well I think it's a big ask from what it should be to what they are asking and I'm not sure I can support this i can support it i agree with Can you speak into the microphone i'm sorry i can support it i
agree with you Vice Chairman that it's I think it's an improvement to the to the neighborhood and improvement to the house and improvement to the aesthetics of Summit um do we have uh with all due respect to Joe I think he's got a good point but I think the property can tolerate
i'll move to approve second okay mr kieran yes mr malay yes mr steiner no mr yuko yes miss Chief yes mr naring yes vice Chair yes thank you
no more Gordian [Laughter] knots find a better word we have a set of minutes right yes sir okay so set of minutes we Yeah we have no resolutions correct and just one set
of m minutes we're still in session sorry so um we have some minutes um so it is the April 7th 2025 minutes um the members that are able to vote are
Mr steiner Miss Chief Mr malay Mr nearing and Vice Chair Zan as amended so second uh yeah voice vote all in favor i opposed
none all right we have a motion to adjurnn let's go home i go to five so move motion so move move to move to second thank you the world seconded it wow