e e e e e e e good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the zoning Bo of adment of the 19 noce of aded the loal Roll Mr Wy here miss Martins here Mr bent Vaga here miss Scott here Mr Johnson is absent Mr mcneel here Mr Graves is absent M Rick here Mr champy here there being a quorum present this meeting is now declared open and at this time I'll entertain a motion for the approval of the meeting minutes for April the 17th and February the 28th may have a motion in a second all of favor I opposed so moved Mr manguso at this time are there any Communications uh there are no Communications Mr chairman Mr hail would you like to begin sorry at this time our only case this evening is calendar number 3431 excuse me calendar 3430 2936 voxo Road Associates LLC located at 2936 voxal road block 4703 lot 15.01 and it's for the construction of a multif family residence consisting of approximately 36 units now Mr H I apologize thank you Mr chairman and board members is this not sure if it's on it's on it's on okay great uh great to see you all this evening and thank you and the members of the public for coming out yeah we're representing again 2936 foxille Road Associates uh we were here several weeks ago for the commencement of the hearing we had received prior to the last meeting comments from the fire department that raised some concerns regarding the project we did have a meeting with the fire department with our clients and our engineer and architect and uh based what based upon that meeting turn it up too high based upon that meeting we uh suggested that we make certain changes to the building and to the site uh and uh we then did a did a memo back to the fire department as to what we would agree to uh and to address their concerns we did get an email back from the fire department acknowledging that those changes were acceptable and it's among among them are certain walls uh uh dividing areas of the building upgrading the sprinkler system and the like uh so uh we are we we did uh address those concerns I did get and and by the way I do want to mention we did have a meeting uh last week I it was last Wednesday we we opened it up to the community to discuss the project and on an informal basis uh get any feedback uh Bishop Campbell from St Paul's was kind enough to host us and we had a nice Gathering there uh and and I know several of the members that are here this evening were in fact were in fact there and again it was a nice exchange of ideas and thoughts on the project um so uh that's what's transpired I did get word and perhaps Mr uh pulo can address it that apparently the fire department or they the board would like us to actually submit exhibits showing how we're going to address those comments from the fire department uh and we are having those exhibits prepared um and uh we will submit them both to the board and then we'll stop by and see the fire department give them to them and actually rather than just an email get a formal letter acknowledging the receipt of those exhibits and then uh I think with that I'll I'll uh turn it over to uh uh Mr panula to uh address but that's that's what we've heard so far uh and uh again there there's really no issues and concerns anymore with the fire department just memorializing that in in plans again uh not construction plans but updated plans and then getting again a formal letter from uh the fire department uh yes Mr chairman it's Rob panul the board attorney I spoke to Mr Hill quite a bit about this matter in the past week or so uh and with Mr mongus so as the zoning officer and Secretary of this board um I was concerned originally as I think we all were when we saw the original fire department comments and they are now on on a course to address those issues but I think it's very important that the fire department that the applicant takes the time to show the board exactly what's being changed and that the fire department weigh in on that as well as well as cers because there's two Avenues of professional review um I did speak with Mr hail and I acknowledge that they had a meeting so so tonight he's going to look for a short adjournment for the board's benefit and for the public so what I'd like to suggest uh and this is a little bit out of procedure what we normally would do but since the public is here some public is here tonight to hear the testimony um we're going to go a little out of order if anybody from the public tonight I would suggest giving them an opportunity to make a general comment tonight normally what we do is you'll ask questions of the applicants Witnesses and you don't have to but if somebody tonight we want to be fair because this is the second night this is scheduled and we're going to schedule it for the full hearing uh I believe either next week or at the meeting after that I'm not sure if the matter on the 22nd Mr hail is going to go forward or not I know we had one of the case yeah actually that one and we'll uh address that I'll I'll send a letter in but we just that's the Ukrainian Church we just got a drafted edex plans on that today today okay so I we're going to be submitting those to the board within the next day or two but yeah we would be so that opens the spot for next wednes correct so the public would know what what the applicant is going to look to do and I would recommend to the board that we accommodate uh to adjourn it one more week which will be next Wednesday the 29th of May but before we do that under the circumstances and as I said this is a little unique we don't normally do this but I would suggest that we have the authority and the board can hear any member of the public if you want to come up and give your name and address and just offer you know 3 minutes 5 minutes comments of General comments about the application so the board can consider it so the applicant can hear it and consider it before we actually have our full hearing next week so okay and I I do want to also add that Jerry gardano from Hill Crest Paving owner of the property a board probably and members of the public arew this was a construction yard for papao uh for years and then Jerry's uh he and his family bought this property and uh there were I think I might have mentioned several iterations at one time a medical building was approved and that didn't go anywhere we then had a primrose Child Care pandemic hit and a lot of the child care facilities that were approved never got built so but Jerry is here and uh certainly after the meeting if people want to ask ask him some questions too he's here so and additionally too I did I will confirm the board knows there is information in their p packet as Mr hail summarized his professionals have been working with the fire department so those issues have been addressed what he said was accurate but what we want to wait for is to actually see the formalization of that imprint so the board can consider it the public can certainly come into the building department during business hours and see it Andor the exchanges Mr hail referred to it's part of the board's packets tonight the email so if any me Mr champion list you have something to add I would suggest letting the public I do Mr Pence I I would just ask if we can just keep it to a 3 minute minimum because yeah we haven't really started this is very out of character but In fairness to the public and I and the applicant has agreed I talked with Mr hail ahead of time uh we'd like to I think it's important maybe if the board hears some of your comments and general reactions to this application because we can maybe do something about it at this point so and they will have an opportunity to you address it address it again you know when in the meeting next week thank you for your com comments Mr pansula and Mr hail so at this time are there any members of the public that would like to come forward and make comments ma'am just want to state your name and address want to sure sorry I don't love mics um hi my name is Dr Tina Kim my property is 2932 Vox Hall Road um right next door to the current empty lot um so I read about this last month but I'm un fortunately I was out of town and unable to come to the meeting to hear what was happening or the descriptions um so I came tonight to hear about specifically about traffic um box Hall Road is super super congested especially during commuting hours my patients that come in and out of our lot have their own troubles we hear horns being blown all the time by um cars that are going fast and not wanting to stop our people coming in and out um and so I was concerned about I wanted to hear if there was a traffic study that was done to and how traffic was going to be coming in and out of oxol Road especially during um like I said um Rush Hour um also I had read on the letter that came to me about the the side lot and the front lot and the number of parking spots so right now we in my lot currently we do get people who Park and walk away there I have limited number of parking that was approved by you guys and when people Park and walk away I don't want to be the terrible neighbor who calls and has them towed I never you know you never want to be that person right so I'm concerned about if this if the project goes forward what are we going to do about overflow parking where are they going to go they're not allowed to park across the street at the shopping mall um and the next door to that is another Medical Practice are we are we practition is going to be the one responsible for calling to um have the cars that are left and um the other and then I read about the fire issue so I was concerned about that as well because if there's a fire on their lot and they're proposing to be at 1 and A2 ft from property line I'm 5T from property line so that was a little so I wanted to hear what was happening what the plans were and what changes were being done nice would just spell your last name Dr Kim Kim Kim correct thank Dr Kim thank you for your comments and uh I'm sure next week you will hear I think Mr h i me I perhaps I Dr great to see you U perhaps I can just on the um with respect to fire that's why we took it when we received those comments from the fire part that's why we looked at it and wanted to make sure that they had no issues so uh we as we mentioned Jerry and I met with them with our engineer sat down and we've addressed all their concerns but we're going to have actual exhibits showing what we're changing including the upgraded sprinkler system and the like and with respect to traffic yeah we do have a traffic study that was done our traffic engineer will be here next week to testify in detail one of the things when we had our community meeting we pointed out is that I don't to sound like a lawyer too much but in in this Zone there's many permitted uses and among them could be a restaurant a bar um a any other types of uses Car Wash is one and uh or traffic engineer will testify that a a multif family use has much less traffic impact than does a than does those type of commercial businesses so but we'll we'll address that but we appreciate your concerns just one other thing about sorry the other question I would want to hear about is flooding yes um because it's definitely the when we we have high water with um what is it the ra the raway tributary we get water in our basement now and if you're going to be covering a large portion of surface area right next door I suspect that we would get more than double yeah and we currently get 18 to 24 Ines of water in our basement I can only imagine how much worse it would be yep so Dr Kim I can briefly address that also that came up at last week's meeting and our engineer explained that to the the resident that were there last week and we're going to address it again but uh not to sound like an engineer but when you build these new projects there's strict storm water regulations that are dictated not only by the town ordinances but by the D so essentially you can't make it any worse and you'll hear testimony from our engineer that it'll in fact be better by subsurface detention and the like so say my building was built in 2016 and we doubl the amount that was required by the town and we get water yeah well it it's will Mike L of's excellent engineer will be here with us next week to explain that in more detail and anything that we design again is going to be subject to the review and approval of the township engineering department uh and since it's uh it'll have to have the scrutiny of the county because it's County Road and also the D I just want to say I'm I'm happy to have our neighbors for something to be there it's better I think something to be there is better than for it to be empty but I am concerned about what we be there um that's why that's why we're coming before the board also a side note also is um the nature that currently lives there is there going to be something done to prevent that nature from coming and living on my L well there there are standards for construction fencing if if an application gets developed I actually remove 11 groundhogs from my property when we're when we're done one Jerry's here take a few minutes and talk to them okay thank you and Dr Kim and for the Public's benefit in addition to the notice that you received from Mr hail's office if you lived within 200 feet Andor read the publication in the newspaper the town has the plans as they currently exist in addition to that are the the professional reviews on behalf of the township which deals with drainage which deals with some of the other particulars that you're concerned about and should be and but the town does have input uh on all that so that is available for review as well I think what I would say to that is like I said I've been through the process myself and I think what we see on paper versus what actually happens with nature is very different things you know with the town with my property like I said we also had the traffic study and town said it was okay for us to go ahead and have traffic going in both directions and it's scary I'm not like for myself I generally come and go when it's low traffic but I literally am afraid for people driving on that road there's also people walking down the streets and I can only imagine with 36 residences there would be even more people walking down their street um well that that's where the traffic engineer I think that Mr hail will provide and you hear the details when you compare it to a permitted commercial use which has an uncontrollable potentially amount of Ingress and egress uh that really especially when you have a resident IAL use which is permitted I mean they're here on the density part of the of the application Now's the Time to try as best as the professionals can I mean I you do rely on them you're right there's no guarantees uh you try to get anywhere in this area not just in Union in Union County in the state of New Jersey uh I was late tonight trying to get here from the airport you know it's just not on a 5:00 flight so it's just it's it's it's always a work in progress you know I I mean I live in Union as well and to get to my office sometimes on boxhall road it is backed up on boxhall road to pass Lincoln teac from some of that is the projects that are in the works which is you know you try to have the vision and in the other direction if I go down Morris Avenue and come all the way around to mbour it's backed up all the way to Trader Joe's no I understand but some of that is a work in progress and as a result of some of the construction that you see the parkway now is finishing up the Route 22 quarter there is so so much I would submit positive certainly from a l use perspective positive things going on that you can only hope that it's all going to come to fruition someday patience is a virtue um and but look that's why we're having given the opportunity to have you speak and anyone in the public tonight as I said this is a little out of character putting the cart before the horse because we don't have the testimony yet Mr hail summarized he doesn't give testimony you know I don't either we're the lawyers um but I thought it'd be helpful to hear the Public's benefit and it certainly was so thank you thank you thank you are there any other members of the public that would like to make a comment good evening uh Ron Jenkins 885 887 of Valley Street so it's just up the block just uh touching on what Dr Kim commented about uh 36 units did I hear a number of parking spaces that will be part of the you um The Establishment we we didn't when we put our case in we'll we'll uh we'll provide that info but we are not seeking a parking variance there's for the site there's adequate parking under the ordinance I mean but how does that translate into a number of spaces well again we'll have our our site engineer talk about that there 's a thing called the residential site Improvement standards which dictates how many how many spaces you need for the number of units Jerry what the top I have 68 all right 68 parking spaces 68 okay because the concern is obviously the tenants and I don't know how many cars each tenant will have and visitors but I know right now as far as the streets and the parking availability the few streets that you can park on now are jammed as it is as far as folks who live there or any visitors that they may have so I mean I literally had um we're on the corner of Vox Hall and Valley and you know at times a couple people park in my driveway it's it's a large driveway and you know maybe because they couldn't find any place else to park so that is a concern again because there are a few streets right around and they're always jammed with cars already so 68 you know I'm not sure if if that'll do that that'll uh do the job but um it's just a concern that I have and and again and you'll hear us to T case at this time but by having it a residential project with people there that have their parking spaces as opposed to again if it's a restaurant or another type of facility where there's much less control over where people Park and by the way just one other thing for Dr Kim's question uh the good and the bad of it is that the storm water regulations that were in effect when St oh uh when that project was done are much more stringent now under uh particularly in the past year with upgraded D requirements so it's it's the the regs are very tough now and there's no variances that would be imposed for that the applicant is obligated from a state level to comply with those enhanced standards it's a it's a difficult uh process because it's expensive but if the applicant is going to develop they need to comply that's out of the hands of the Town that's governed by the D are there any other members of the public that would like to come forward uh my name is Andrew Bross 965 Valley Street um thank you board for taking time to open this up to everybody I just want to say as a concerned citizen someone who lives in voxhall who has seen the town change over the near last decade I'm against this construction I'm against this this project plan um as my other Town members have said there's great concern over the traffic it is I take my daughter to daycare and I will spend 10 to 15 minutes on nober naav just trying to make a right turn into my home that's time I could be spending with her playing that's time I could be spending cooking dinners for her but I'm stuck in traffic every day this is not just a Monday through Friday issue it's every day of the week whether it's a weekend when people are going to Trader Joe's down the road when people are getting on and off the highway the traffic is so bad I had to soundproof my daughter's bedroom because of cars honking because of the traffic I had to soundproof my office because I need to do work remotely it's a luxury I have but I had to soundproof my office because it's so loud outside because of Horn's honking constantly not a day goes by that I don't watch someone rear end someone on B Street already they say that they want to build a complex for apartments nearly 40 units you want to estimate everyone's going to have one and a half cars there's not enough street parking as it is there's not I lost my car during Hurricane Ida because it was parked in my complex I had nowhere else to put it and we still flooded and I lost a vehicle on terms of flooding I walked I walk my dog every day we had normal rain water normal rain this week East Branch Place mepl uh Franklin Street and westline all had flooding already and I know that want to say that oh this isn't going to impact groundwater but we've I've already seen over the last decade how every year it's getting worse we have regular rain that is causing Street flooding we had an Abrupt storm a month ago and I couldn't bring my daughter to daycare because Valley Street and Franklin Street were flooded I had to take a day off of work because I could not leave because I had I was now the child care for the day because I was flooded in I could not drive my vehicle through the flooding I mentioned having a daughter they're going to they want to propose this but we couldn't get a daycare facility put in that's desperately needed the average price of child care these days is $36,000 each year for a family that's that's according to the US statistics the average household income in vool is $100,000 a year the average per capita income is 36,000 that's according to the US Census and they want to put six luxury apartments the last thing anybody needs is luxury apartments these days we don't need more overpriced housing in the area no one's going to take it because they would rather go spend that for any of the new construction sites that are going on into Milburn that are going on into other towns this lot could be used for better things and not something that's going to consistently that needs to skirt nearly every regulation they want to skirt minimum lot width sidey yards building coverage uh road signs you guys don't want to put up road signs come on it they don't want to have their property give their neighbors some sense of privacy one and 1/2 ft and you're going to have someone staring out their apartment into your yard we've already seen complexes like these come in on Springfield AV and fail and then become an eyesore to the public so what kind of backing do we have to know that this isn't just going to stay an empty lot because they've decided that it's not worth it after their first flooding the public roads on that street already take such a toll that I don't think Union and voxhall can handle consistent construction on that street the amount of potholes that occur on a daily basis just from normal traffic it's it's dangerous it's scary I just I don't see any reason why this should get approved I don't see how this serves a public good and as a citizen it's not something I want in my town uh that's all I have I don't have any questions I don't really want a response from them because they're not members of the community they haven't they say they want to do oh they're going to do traffic studies I already know the traffic is terrible I don't need somebody to tell me that it's not going to get worse I don't need somebody to tell me that putting multiple tons of of concrete and steel on top of a lot isn't going to push out rainwater that that adding you know 60 units uh sorry 40 units we'll call it isn't going to add an extra burden on parking in the area there's so many better things we could put on this lot but allowing a company to come in to put something we don't need that skirts every rules against everything I stand for thank you all for your time oh it's Andrew Bross last name b r o SS thank you are there any other members of the public that would like to comment on this application hi good evening Kim een 327 revier Avenue in Union um I know that it was mentioned that excuse me could you please spell that my last name or R your last name oh yes e a s o n thank you I know it was mentioned that there was a community meeting at St Paul's last week um but that meeting from what I understand was not well attended because most of the members at least in the Vox Hall Community were not aware that this meeting was taking place until at least a half an hour before so we didn't have an opportunity to come out and hear anything that was presented so we came tonight hoping that we'd be able to see some plans and have some discussion but yet again the date of when all this happens keeps getting moved moved and next week I know I'm not available so is there going to be any opportunity prior to next Wednesday to see what the plans look like what these changes are so that we can have some reaction to it I live on Rivier which as most of you know is on the other side of box Hall but I go to the Milburn mall I travel in that area traffic is a concern as Dr Kim and the other resident um have both stated um so that's my one concern for those of us that have been out twice because we were here before and it got postponed it got postponed again tonight is there going to be any opportunity for us to see and hear what is being proposed since potentially we could be impacted and then what are the variances that um have been asked for or requested all those details are on file you could look at the plans and look at all the details during business hours any day of the week next week in including the rest of this week so if I go to the building department mr's team will be able to show all of us the actual what it looks like feels like and all of that stuff AB okay all on and you can offer you know hopefully if you can't make it next week through a neighbor you know make sure that your concerns that's why I thought it was important at least to the board hear your reaction before the evidence came in it's a little different than we normally do but I'm glad that we did it because you know we get to the board gets to hear the uh feedback and and thank you too for the opportunity absolutely so okay Mr manguso I'll be by thank you than you comments are there any other members of the public that would like to comment at this time hearing none okay Mr chairman I just add as the lawyer I mean it wasn't part of the record officially tonight in that Mr hail hasn't even presented the case yet but but it's you heard it so I think it's important and certain more importantly I think Mr hail and his client heard it so you know he'll be prepared to offer his direct testimony through his professionals at the time uh try to convince the board that an approval is worthy right so noted Mr hail would you like to sum up or no again we appreciate the the public coming out this evening if we're disappointed we couldn't proceed but we understand the board's request for uh some details on what we're proposing to address the concerns of the fire company fire department uh and with that said request that the matter be carried to next Wednesday 7:30 this room without the requiring of further notice I don't think we're near close the 120-day time period but if necessary we would stipulate to any appropriate extension so again thank the board and the public and the board Professionals for their time this evening thank you at this time may I have a motion in a second to adjourn tonight's meeting and carry it till next week May 22nd 2024 no further notice the meeting will be held next week at 7:30 in this room so can I have a motion and a second Mr chairman i' like to journ calendar number 3430 boo Road Associates LLC which wants to construct multif Family Residence for 36 units to to next Wednesday which is May 22nd 2024 at 7:30 roll call Mr Wy yes M Martins yes Mr bent Vaga yes Mr Scott Mr mcneel M rickets yes Mr Champion yes thank you very much and we'll see you next week can I have a motion to adjourn all in favor opposed so moved