July 19, 2023 Regular Meeting Minutes

Mr. Welsh described the existing landscape stating that there is a little bit of lawn and some trees along Prospect Ave. to the east side and along Eagle Rock Ave to the South side. There are about 20 trees interior to the parking lot, they worked with the owner to plant some trees along the edge of Prospect Ave last fall, in which they planted about 15 new shade trees along the edge there and they were planted with the thought of moving forward. In the large open parking lot there are 20 trees, a total of 28 trees along the perimeter that includes the newly planted one’s last fall as well as some along the corner of Eagle Rock Ave and Prospect Ave and some existing going down the side of Eagle Rock Ave as well. Part of our planting plan last fall they did add some grasses and shrubs at the corner. They are going to remove trees from the parking lot to work with the new parking layout. All the trees along the perimeter are going to be protected and each will have barriers to protect them during construction. The engineer suggested to possibly remove the trees located in the corner because they were considered invasive, but the architect thought they were in decent shape, decent health and they checked with the Township forester Walter Kipp and they have an e-mail from him suggesting that he thinks they should be saved as well. The overall landscape will have shade trees along the perimeter and throughout the parking lot. The trees will provide shade to the parking lot, which will help cool the urban heat island effect. The trees are also there to visually direct people where to go; there will be a line of trees in front of buildings A&B to make a nice driving experience and also direct the cars to move along there as well. In all they are planting 151 shade trees; the shade trees that will be planted are currently calling for about 2 1/2-inch caliper planting size and they'll grow to be much larger trees over time. 27 Evergreen trees, 11 ornamental trees which would be smaller trees something that might flower like a red bud service berry, and then there's a couple of river birches in there as well. They will plant trees along Prospect Ave. to finish that tree line they started. The trees that they are going to be planting are four different main types of shade trees; zelkova, honey locusts, hackberry and lindens. There will be lawn along the

sh that tree line they started. The trees that they are going to be planting are four different main types of shade trees; zelkova, honey locusts, hackberry and lindens. There will be lawn along the streetscape along Prospect Ave. The understory planting will be both deciduous and evergreen, so that there's something there in all different seasons. There's also going to be some herbaceous plantings; those are going to be seasonal highlight planting areas, so whether it's mum beds in the fall or begonias and marigolds in the spring, all different flowers that could happen in those small spaces to really highlight the entry spaces along the Prospect Ave. as well as along the Eagle Rock Ave. entry. The paving throughout the front of buildings A, B, C and D are going to be a nicer paving. They are going to do a travertine paver in a couple of different ways in front of the building and in between some of the buildings and some of the areas where you might want to pause and sit for a little bit longer. In front of the building there's going to be two types of paving in there; it's going to be a herring bone pattern for the most part in the pedestrian areas with a square travertine paver. It is just a little bit darker around the edges; it will signify that is the pedestrian zone and, just to break it up a little, there's going to be some of those square edge pavers showing where the different lines are within the building where the different stores are. When you get into more of the area between building A and B, it's a place where people are going to linger a little bit longer. When restaurants open up there will be a courtyard and they will use an ashlar paving 14