July 31, 2024 Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

34 (Pages 130 to 133) Page 130 1 MR. APPEL: Not to go from building to 2 building. 3 MR. WILKES: Right. 4 MR. APPEL: That's normally not done 5 -- 6 MR. WILKES: Right. 7 MR. APPEL: -- but that's an ownership 8 issue. 9 MR. WILKES: Okay. Now, how is 10 storage going to be done for the tenants; do you 11 have any areas of excess storage? 12 MR. APPEL: We do. In the garage, 13 we've carved out any place that we don't need for 14 parking, we've created storage. We've also carved 15 out some limited storage areas and there are some 16 nooks and crannies that we can try and exploit in 17 the future if residents need that space. 18 MR. WILKES: So all residents will 19 have access to that, will have an option to have 20 that? 21 MR. APPEL: My guess is it'll either 22 be a for-purchase or some other -- or first come 23 first serve; I don't know how they'll divvy those 24 up. 25 MR. WILKES: Can you show me on -- can Page 131 1 you show me where that's going to be located at? 2 MR. APPEL: So as a for-instance in 3 here, there's -- you see -- you have like these 4 little kind of spots in here every so often? 5 MR. WILKES: Yes. 6 MR. APPEL: Those are where we have 7 ability to put either a mechanical closet or storage 8 room and then, as I showed on one of the earlier 9 slides, where a parking stall, let's say, has 22 or 10 24 feet in depth where we only need, let's say, 18 11 feet, we can put a little bit of storage container 12 at the foot of the garage door. 13 MR. WILKES: Okay. Will there be 14 separate mailrooms for all of these areas too? 15 MR. APPEL: Each building will have a 16 separate mailroom and separate package room, 17 correct? 18 MR. WILKES: Okay. 19 MR. APPEL: There's no pods on the -- 20 on the, you know, there's no pods around the site or 21 stuff like that; they're in the buildings. 22 MR. WILKES: Okay. That's all my 23 questions right now. 24 CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Thank you. Mr. 25 Alper. Page 132 1 MR. ALPER: Thank you. A lot of mine 2 were stolen as well. On the exposed foundation, on 3 the requirement in the ordinance on the exposed 4 foundation, what's the reason for the no more than 5 50 percent requirement? Is that aesthetic or is it 6 something else? 7 MR. APPEL: I'm going to say, 8 originally, that tied into that there were 9 provisions in the code so that the basement would 10 not be considered a story, but, you know, 11 notwithstanding, we don't

MR. APPEL: I'm going to say, 8 originally, that tied into that there were 9 provisions in the code so that the basement would 10 not be considered a story, but, you know, 11 notwithstanding, we don't need to address that 12 portion of the building code because of the way the 13 podium is, we're permitted to have that as a story, 14 so it didn't matter. So it's -- I think that's 15 where that provision came up, and in a perfect 16 world, I would like to grade up, but to do that, I 17 think would be so disturbing to other issues, it's 18 just, you know, it's like be careful what you wish 19 for -- 20 MR. ALPER: Right. 21 MR. APPEL: -- it would end up having 22 retaining walls and more mechanical ventilation and 23 that would end up having sloped entries to -- to the 24 garages and... 25 MR. ALPER: Can we go to the -- I Page 133 1 think the very first rendering is probably a good 2 one for that, that shows the garage area. 3 MR. APPEL: So -- 4 MR. ALPER: Yeah, I think that one is 5 probably the best. I know that this is very 6 subjective, but to my eye, especially the louvers 7 where you can see the cars and more of the grade 8 cover on the bottom, it's much more of a -- like a 9 city look that I think -- as opposed to, like, you 10 know, a suburban township, in fact, a rural part of 11 a suburban township, and I don't know, you know, to 12 what extent that's really, you know, my place to 13 say, but it's -- it just looks a little bit out of 14 place with aesthetics, I think, more than anything 15 else, to my eye, and I don't know if that's because 16 of the proposed foundation or if it's just this 17 artistic treatment of it or if it's something else. 18 MR. APPEL: So I'll explain a little 19 bit of the, you know, the -- these trees are -- are 20 small, so as these trees mature and get larger, 21 there's going to be more screening and buffering. 22 What we wanted to do is the buildings tend to get 23 dirty and get tired looking when you have 24 light-colored or not durable, so we thought that the 25 dark-colored brick down low in the buildings would