4 2 25 WO PB Draft Minutes

1 DRAFT MINUTES TOWNSHIP OF WEST ORANGE PLANNING BOARD MEETING April 2, 2025 7:30 P.M. The Township of West Orange Planning Board held its regular meeting on April 2, 2025 at 7:30 P.M. via virtual ZOOM videoconference. Chairman Bagoff called the meeting to order at approximately 7:30 P.M. He announced that notification of the meeting was given to the Township Clerk, and posted on the Township Bulletin Board, sent to the West Orange Chronicle and the Star Ledger, and posted on the Township’s website calendar. This meeting has been properly noticed to the public in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act. No new matters will start after 10:30 P.M. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE • Chairman Bagoff requested all persons stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. ANNOUNCEMENTS • The next Planning Board special meeting will be held Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 7:00 P.M via Zoom. • The next Planning Board regular meeting will be held Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 7:30 P.M via Zoom. ROLL CALL PRESENT: Dr. Robert Bagoff; Mr. Jerry Guarino; Mr. Ken Alper; Mr. John Cardoza; Mr. Lee Klein; Mayor Susan McCartney; Councilwoman Susan Scarpa; Ms. Lori Kapferer ABSENT: Mr. Christopher Morgan, Sr.; Mr. Peter Smeraldo; Mr. William Wilkes; ALSO PRESENT: Diana P. McGovern, Esq., Planning Board Attorney; Gerry Haizel, Consulting Town Planner; Mr. Phil Scott, Board Engineer; Zayibeth Carballo, Town Engineer Jamilet Baquerizo Vite, Planning Board Secretary SWEARING IN • The Township Professional(s) sworn in. APPLICATIONS

2 • PB-24-14 172-174 Main Street LLC Block: 83 Lot: 1&5.01 Zone: B-1 172-174 Main Street The applicant, 172-174 Main Street, LLC, proposes to construct a 3rd floor addition to an existing 2- story building and convert the building to a mixed-use building. The proposed mixed-use building will contain 2,824-SF of office space on the 1st floor and a total of seven (7) residential units on the 2nd and 3rd floor. Additionally, twenty-six (26) existing on-site parking spaces will also be provided. PRESENTATION • The attorney, Mr. Tyler Zeberl, on behalf of the applicant, stated that the application is adding a single story, converting this 2-story building to a 3-story. • Mr. Zeberl stated Donna Bullock is here to clarify a few points that were raised in the review letters that they received earlier today. • The engineer, Donna Bullock, entered on the record, she was sworn under oath and her credentials were accepted by the board. She testified to the following: • Ms. Bullock had the opportunity to review the review letters they received earlier toddy from the township engineer and planner. • Ms. Bullock referred to a letter dated August 13th, 2024 with an addendum on April 1st, 2025. It is an engineering review and will discuss item 2.17 on age 2 of 3. This letter was provided by Matrix New World. • Within in this item 2.17, they are referring to Items 36 and 37, which are requesting that they show the sanitary sewer laterals on the plan and where their locations are. • They have provided calculations for the existing flows vs the proposed flows and the memo does say there will be an increased to the proposed flows to the sanitary sewer system. • They also noted in the last testimony Ms. Bullock is providing is that they will show those connection points and the existing sewer laterals. They will also provide calculations to show that the lateral they are tying into can handle the increase in the sanitary sewer flows. • Ms. Bullock has had the chance to address the concern raised in the last meeting regarding her initial engineering plan where they had a smaller detail of the site triangle plan. • What Ms. Bullock has done is superimposed the site plan onto a Google Earth aerial and presented it to the board as Exhibit A1. • Exhibit A1 is an aerial display of the site triangle easement plan and it is their site over aerial and has shown the full extents of the

le Earth aerial and presented it to the board as Exhibit A1. • Exhibit A1 is an aerial display of the site triangle easement plan and it is their site over aerial and has shown the full extents of the site triangles that are required for egressing a site. • Ms. Bullock explains that if you are pulling out and want to make a right hand turn, you will be looking left for 390 feet. If you are pulling out to make a left turn, you will be looking towards the right 335 feet and you can see the dash lines are the point of eye observation, setback 14.4 feet from the access point out to the road • Ms. Bullock also explains that looking both directions you can see that the site triangle does clip their corner of their property by 2.2 feet. In front of the property there are some trees that are shown in the aerial view but as you look down the road there is nothing else that appears to be in the way that would block the view up and down the street for exiting this property. • The ingress and egress of the property are pre-existing. The access drive has been there

3 since the development of the property. The point of exit is the same point that has been there in the past. BOARD QUESTIONS • Mr. Klein asked Ms. Bullock why the distance in one direction is 335 and the other direction is 390, why is it not the same in both directions. Ms. Bullock said when you are looking to turn out in one direction, you are looking at the oncoming traffic on the same side of the road. When you are looking to make a left turn, you look right and you are looking across the street down a distance. There is a highway standard book that provides this distance and is based on the speed limit on the street which is 35 miles here. • Mr. Klein asked Ms. Bullock what is the speed the 335 feet is based on? Ms. Bullock said 35 miles per hour. • Mr. Klein asked Ms. Bullock what is the speed the 390 feet is based on? Ms. Bullock said 35 miles per hour. • Mr. Klein asked Ms. Bullock how far are you measuring back, where is the driver’s eye? Ms. Bullock said it is 14.4 feet from the white line where the person would park the closet to the road, where they will then set to look either right or left to pull out. • Ms. Kapferer asked Ms. Bullock if they need to be concern about the on street parking on Main Street due to cars that would be parked within the site triangle, how should they be looking at that. Ms. Bullock said there is parking but there are height restrictions that allow blockage up to a certain height. She doesn’t know the exact height requirement and cannot answer the question at this time. PROFESSIONALS COMMENT • Mr. Scott said with regard to the site triangle if they are looking at the site triangle turning left out of the parking lot you can see that a small amount of the site triangle would eclipse the adjacent properties on Lot 3 and 4. This is a response to the comment that there is nothing in the site triangle, there is a small area that is blocking the site triangle but Mr. Scott doesn’t see that as being a major issue as the site triangle is very long and gives adequate site distance for people exiting out of the property. PUBLIC QUESTIONS • Jamie C. at 11 Edgehill Road asked Ms. Bullock if they were able to find out if there needs to be restriping in the parking lot and if there is restriping would you meet the requirement for having the appropriate amount if parking. Ms. Bullock said they are proposing 22 standard parking stalls

be restriping in the parking lot and if there is restriping would you meet the requirement for having the appropriate amount if parking. Ms. Bullock said they are proposing 22 standard parking stalls but at the last meeting they were asked to eliminate the parking stall that was located to the front east side of the building so there will be ample turn around for people who need to do a K turn to come out. Ms. McGovern added there was a condition that the board suggested that if the matter is approved then a fire official will go look at it and indicate where the stripping will be. • Stanley Shapiro at 12 Edgehill Road asked Ms. Bullock was any consideration given to the obstruction from the site lines from high or large vehicles such as tow trucks that will be parking or double parking on the right side of the property and how that might bear on the site line requirements. Ms. Bullock said they are not required to consider that. When they are looking at the site triangles, they are looking at fixed fixture such as oversized trees, huge mailbox posts and fixtures, retaining walls that might extend out into the site triangle easement. • Stanley Shapiro asked Ms. Bullock if she did any observational testing as to how long, at different times of the day, on average a vehicle trying to exit the parking area that will

4 have to wait for an opening given the traffic patterns during the day on Main Street. Ms. Bullock said he will have to wait for the traffic engineer on what studies he may have performed in that regard. • Jason Hunter at 17 Linwood Way asked Ms. Bullock, can you take a left out of the parking area if there is a double line when coming out. Ms. Bullock said as far as she knows it’s a history of the accessibility on and off the site, yes. Ms. McGovern added the law doesn’t prohibit it. PRESENTATION • The traffic engineer, Patrick Downey, entered on the record, he was sworn under oath and his credentials were accepted by the board. He testified to the following: • Mr. Downey will go through the key finding of the traffic impact of parking assessment prepared by his office on February 18th, 2025. It pertains to both the traffic generation and the parking demands of these particular proposals. • Starting with the traffic impact portion, they looked at the industry standard trip generation rates which are published by the Institute of Transportation Engineer. • Based on their projections for this changing use, there is a net reduction in traffic for this project. The reason being that while a story is being added, floor 2 is being converted from what is presently an office to residential which has a lesser traffic impact. • Even if they put this aside and look at this as a brand-new project, the trip generation would still be nominal. Peak hour trip generation would be 10 trips or less during the week. To put this in perspective, New Jersey DOT would identify 100 peak hour trips as a threshold of what you would consider significant. • Therefore, it is their professional opinion that there will not be a perceptible traffic impact from this project. • In terms of parking, a total of 25 parking spaces are required with a combination of office and residential components of the project. • The proposed parking supply is 25 spaces, in consideration of the extra credit for the permission of EV parking spaces. • Additionally, to add some context throughout the area of the site, there are numerous transits stops and mass transit available. It is a fairly pedestrian conducive environment with good sidewalk connectivity that makes residential and office opportunities. • All factors that produce automobile dependency will be from employees from the office space and for

ucive environment with good sidewalk connectivity that makes residential and office opportunities. • All factors that produce automobile dependency will be from employees from the office space and for residential portion which in turn has the capacity to reduce the trip generation and parking demand. • Regarding the site triangles, when you look at the driveway it has a couple of benefits. The first is it’s an existing condition; it is not being modified in any way. There is also going to be less traffic in the driveway so that is an improvement. • Geometrically, the site is a bit steep so the driver approaching the road from the driveway is actually set pretty high relative to the road. That gives them better visibility and the ability to potentially even see over some potential obstructions or parked vehicles in the area. • Some of these site triangles that were discussed before, those are intersection site distance. Essentially, it's a little bit more than what's actually required for just a safe operation. That minimum is known as stopping site distance, which is only about 250 feet for a design speed of 35 miles per hour. Mr. Downey would say the site triangles shown on the plan are conservative in a number of ways. • Overall, there is little to no traffic impact as a result of this project. Compliant on parking, it's a fairly great project from a traffic perspective.

5 • In connection with the site triangles, the distances come from a book. The industry standard ones are those published by AASHTO. Those are the ones that were referenced before. And as mentioned before, the ones shown on the plan, Mr. Downey would say, are even a little bit conservative compared to what is actually required for safe operation. • The only requirements for putting a site triangle on a plan is referencing the book, and then you place the triangle at the correct distances. You want to make sure it's free of fixed obstructions. • In urban environments, it's essentially an impractical requirement to prohibit parking within them, because it would effectively prohibit parking throughout every urban area, everywhere, where driveways are permitted for not just their use, but every other driveway. And considering the grade of the applicant’s driveway, Mr. Downey would say this driveway is better equipped to handle the presence of parked vehicles than most would be. BOARD QUESTIONS • Mr. Klein asked Mr. Downey the parking requirement of 25 spaces, does that include the residential and office at the same time. Mr. Downey said yes, that is the sum of the 2. • Mr. Klein asked Mr. Downey could explain how the parking spaces will be managed. Mr. Downing said this project provides enough parking to satisfy both of the uses requirements directly added to each other. Mr. Downey also added that he will defer to their site engineer as far as if there's any plan to actually sign or manage those spaces. He is not aware of any interaction of that nature, but given the available parking supply, he doesn't think it's required for a functional operation for this use. • Mr. Klein asked Mr. Downey about visitor parking, people were asking what would happen if somebody's going to come visit somebody in one of these apartments. Is there enough parking for that? Mr. Downey said yes, that visitor parking component's actually built into the parking requirement for residential. Those requirements are set forth by the RSIS, the Residential Site Improvement Standards, and those rates, 1.8 spaces per unit or two spaces per unit, et cetera, they actually have a component built in there that accounts for visitor parking of half a space per unit. PROFESSIONAL QUESTIONS • Mr. Scott asked Mr. Downey to clarify whether or not cars can make the left turn out of that parking lot,

in there that accounts for visitor parking of half a space per unit. PROFESSIONAL QUESTIONS • Mr. Scott asked Mr. Downey to clarify whether or not cars can make the left turn out of that parking lot, being that it is a double line? Mr. Downey said yes, they can both in the existing and proposed conditions. When you have a straight center line, you are permitted to make left turns toward private driveways. It's the opposite case for a public street intersection. So, if you see an intersection with a solid double yellow, it's actually not permitted in that case, but for driveways, it is. PUBLIC QUESTIONS • Stanley Shapiro at 12 Edgehill Road asked Mr. Downey about basing his testimony about the traffic use from a book, from estimates or averages in a book between residential and conservative, not from the actual experience at that site. Mr. Downey said correct, it was based on IT trip generation projections for office and residential uses. • Stanley Shapiro asked Mr. Downey what is going to be the impact of this additional variance that this applicant is seeking. Mr. Downey said first, they compared it to the existing use using the IT numbers. The second component they mentioned is even if they consider the existing use as being completely vacant, the trip generation would still be

6 extremely nominal at a peak generation of 10 trips in a peak hour, whereas DOT would consider significant to be 100. • Stanley Shapiro asked Mr. Downey if there were any studies or surveys conducted to tell what is the actual volume being used right now. Mr. Downey said they did not perform a traffic count for the existing use. • Sophie Buckley at 8 Edge Hill Court asked Mr. Downey in his report, did he use a parking requirement of one space for each 250 square feet of floor area for the first floor. Mr. Downey said yes, that's correct. • Sophie Buckley asked Mr. Downey where did he get that requirement. Mr. Downey said that's within the municipal ordinance. • Sophie Buckley asked Mr. Downey are there any medical offices being proposed on half of the first floor. Mr. Downey said he is not certain the exact breakdown of what would be general versus medical. • Sophie Buckley asked Mr. Downey following the conversation that the medical offices are open on Saturdays, would a variance still be required given that most people don't work on Saturdays and the residents would be home. Mr. Downey said as far as whether the operation on Saturday triggers any variances, none that he is aware of, but he would defer to the others as part of the project team to actually confirm if that triggers the variance. • Sophie Buckley asked Mr. Downey is there any consideration for residents that work from home full-time. Mr. Downey said yes, he believes the calculation that they landed on, not only are they compliant, they are over-parked compared to what is required. Even if all those residents never left, hypothetically, there would be more than sufficient parking. • Sophie Buckley asked Mr. Downey if he is familiar with the site plan review resolution of Essex County and does that regulation discourage vehicles maneuvering out of parking spaces within 20 feet of the right-of-way. Mr. Downey said he is familiar with it but he is not certain of that specific requirement. • Donna R at 14 Edge Hill Road asked Mr. Downey how wide is the entrance and exit to the property, room for two cars or just one car. Mr. Downey said the aisle that goes through the site and all the way to the driveway is 30 feet. The narrowest is wider from there. It is more than enough for two vehicles running each direction. • Donna R asked Mr. Downey what are the assumptions made of. Where do they come from