And please join me in salute to the flag. 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, liberty and justice for all. Could we have a roll call, please? Cam I'm sorry. Sunshine announcement first. Yes, chairman. Good evening everyone. Today is Tuesday, May 6th in the year 2025 and this is a Jersey City Planning Board meeting with scheduled 5:30 p.m. start time and in accordance with the open public meetings act. Notice of this meeting has been given to the editor of the bargain record and posted with the city clerk on Friday, May 2nd of this year. This meeting was also posted with the Jersey City Division of City Planning uh department and posted on our web page and all distribution materials have been made available to the board were published and made available to the public. Okay, thanks Cam. Could we have a roll call now, please? Yes. Okay. Vice Chair Dr. Gonzalez here. Here we have seven commissioners. We have four. Test one. No. Yeah, it's on. Okay. It doesn't work. No. Test one. Check. And we're missing a mic here. Okay. And for the record, we've marked evidence B1. Okay. Thank you. Start again. Test one. Check. Testing. Testing. Yeah, sure. I'm just shift. Test one. Okay, we just shift it. Test. All right, Mike, could we swear in the stop, please? Yes. All right. Thank you. Do we have correspondence cam? Yes, chairman. Um under new business item 16, case P2024-0139, address 285 Liberty Avenue. they've requested to carry with preservation of notice to June 10th. We received correspondence today from their attorney, Benjamin Weine. Um, and then item 21 on the agenda under new business, case P2024-0199. Address is 10 exchange place. Uh, they've requested to carry with preservation of notice to June 10th. Also, we received correspondence with their attorney, Linda. And then last item on the agenda, uh item 22 case P 2024-0245 uh address 33 MCAD Avenue. Um their attorney, Benjamin Wine, has requested a carry with preservation of notice to June 10th. And that concludes correspondence. Okay. Thank you, Kim. So, let's get into old business. Item A is case P2025-000061 is a one-year extension for 414 to 432 Hoboken Avenue. Good evening, council. Good evening. Gregory Acidorian from the Dakota Law Firm. On behalf of the applicant, um we submitted a letter on March 28th, 2025 setting forth the basis for the extension request. So, I really rely upon the letter, but I'll just briefly touch upon it. We're looking for two one-year extensions on this matter under NJSA40 colon 55D-52E. Uh, section E states that when a property that was approved has more than 100 uh residential dwelling units this board can provide a reasonable period of time as an extension. And when it what it does, it takes into account the uh number of the dwelling units, the economic conditions, and the comprehensiveness of the development. Uh in this matter, we did previously receive um extensions. But however we're looking for additional two additional one-year extensions because this project uh entails two 28story mixeduse buildings. It's a total of 524 units. There's going to be 7,000 square ft of retail, 29,000 square ft of office, and almost 6,000 square feet of pedestrian plaza. When I was here last year, I received a one-year extension and at that point in time, I had advised that we were trying to get demolition permits, and it took my client nine months to get the demolition permits. Uh, since then, he did get the demolition permits. he demolished the uh structures on the site and found out that there's historic fill on the property, which means it's contaminated. So, my client um is going to have to um remediate the site. He's going to have to dig probably two to five feet in different places to clean it. There's uh there's filled, there's silt, there's gravel, all that has to be removed which obviously is a great cost. Um in addition to that, obviously has to prepare the construction drawings. And when we look at the financial market conditions today, they affect the property. And specifically, you look at the tariffs that are being proposed on again and off again. Um there may or may not be a potential of material shortages. And what this does is it creates a uncertainty with construction cost. And when you have an uncertainty with construction cost, you also have uncertainty with construction lending. Um, so basically we're seeking two additional one-year periods of time to able to address the um, remediation that's been found at the site and also address the other items that I've brought to your attention. Okay. Thank you, council. And that extension that you received previously that was just your first extension. No there was three one years that were granted. It was three different times one year. Okay. But under section E of the statute that I read to you, it doesn't limit um certain projects if they're over 100 residential units or over 150,000 square feet of commercial space. It doesn't limit it to three one-year extensions. It actually says the board, it's within the board's discretion to give a reasonable period of time. Okay. Thank you, council. Any questions? Anybody? Yes. So chairman, we have dealt with this before. I refer to them as the large-scale projects, but Mr. Acidorian is correct. Under that section of the statute, there are parameters with respect to number of units, size, and scale if it's commercial uh and things of that nature. And the statute actually advises the board that it's within their reasonable discretion. I think Mr. Acidorian has laid the uh case for why they're seeking the extensions that they're seeking and uh given that I think the board could extend this more than one year in whatever the board is comfortable with and the manner in which it is a request for two one-year extensions in my opinion based on the representations of council. Uh I I have no issue with that as whether or not it's reasonable. Agreed. I think uh in this circumstance two one-year extensions are reasonable. So um yeah, I have no problem with that. Uh if there's no other questions, let's open it up for public comment. Is anybody here from the public that wants to comment on this application? Sure. Come on up. The whole truth. I do. Kowski Mike K ws ki. Good evening sir. We have three minutes for you. Yes. Uh this is basically a public subsidy. If you consider some variance or favor from the city to developer, it's a public public subsidy. So I request to that board ensures that the local people are hired at any construction site on this project. Okay. There was a human trafficking at the wholesale on construction sites in Jersey City. Like you heard about the Maryland men. Well, he got nine illegal aliens back then 2019, including himself. That's nothing comparing what happens here in Jersey City. So, I request that this will be put in writing and a protocol be in place. All local people are employed on this construction site. I got it. So, first of all, I completely agree with you. Thank you. That this is a problem. Um I This is kind of what I do for a living. I'm a union organizer. So I would love to have you in my truck with me one day and look at this. Um but this is a land use board. We can't tie labor issues to a project. Why not? It's a favor from the city, right? It's not a favor. It's a a legal agreement. It's a discretionary part of the city. Correct. Sure. So, but it's a land use issue. It's not a labor issue. If, believe me, sir, if I could tie labor issues to land use issues, we'd have a very different board here. very different. So, we can't consider labor issues on a land use board. Bottom line, it's it's out of our jurisdiction. I wish we could and if we could, I would. I disagree with you. Okay. Thank you. We're going to agree to disagree then, but thank you. Thank you for your time. Anybody else from public? Seeing no more are public, I move to close. Second. Okay. Motion is made and seconded. Public is closed. Cam, do you have anything you want to add? Uh, yes chairman. So, planning staff asked that all the conditions of the approval granted by the planning board on February 18th of 2020 under case number P19-143 uh remain in effect and are reflected in the resolution of this extension. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you, council. I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion at this time to uh approve case P205-0061 is presented to our board tonight. Second. Okay. Motion is made and seconded for approval. Vice Chair Dr. Gonzalez. Hi. Commissioner Gangadan. Hi. Commissioner Torres. Hi. Commissioner Lipsky. Hi. Commissioner Dr. Desai. Hi. Commissioner Patel. I. And Chairman Langston. I. Motion carries. All in favor with conditions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, council. Let's move on to item B. Case P2025-000055 is a one-year extension request for 477 Ocean Avenue. Good evening, chairman. Good evening commissioners. My name is Gerard Pizzill. I'm an attorney with GOVA Burns. I'm appearing this evening on behalf of the applicant, Ricardo Ramos. Mr. Ramos is the owner of 477 Ocean Avenue. It's block 25101, lot 22 located in the turnkey redevelopment area governed by the provisions of that plan. Uh we're here requesting a our first one-year site plan extension for the approval that board granted under case P21068 which is essentially just a uh rehab with two additions to create a three-story 4unit building. Uh there were two variances that were approved as part deviations I should say is approved as part of that application uh minimum uh or roof roof a pertinent setback and a building coverage variance uh basis for the uh one-year extension. My client had some issues with his architect. Uh she passed away and there were some issues with the family and and releasing plans. So that kind of put him off track a little bit. Um he got jammed up with a little bit of the financing. Uh but I did have a conversation with him this morning. Uh subject to this board granting our extension. He's ready willing, and able to move forward and and start, you know, pulling the permits on this. Um the only thing I would add is we understand that there are conditions from the prior approval and my client agrees that they continue to remain in effect and he's subject to the same. Uh that'll conclude my presentation. Happy to answer any questions you guys may have. Okay. Thank you, councel. Anyone? Any questions? No. Okay. Is there anybody here from the public that wants to comment? Seeing no public, I move to close. Second. All right. Motion is made and seconded. Public is closed. Uh Cam, this is yours too. Planning staff recommends approval. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to make a motion to approve case P 2025-0055 is presented to our board tonight. Second. All right. Motion is made and seconded for approval. Vice Chair Dr. Gonzalez. I. Commissioner Gangadan. I. Commissioner Torres. Hi. Commissioner Lipsky. Hi. Commissioner Dr. Desai I. Commissioner Patel I. And Chairman Lang I. Motion carries. All in favor with conditions. All right. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks council. All right. Let's move on to item C is case P2024-0210 is a preliminary and final major site plan with C variances uh for 2966 Kennedy Boulevard and 69 Cottage Street. Uh this was carried from March 25th with with testimony taken. Good evening council. Yes. Good evening Mr. chairman, commissioners, uh for the record, Charles Harrington of Connell Foley on behalf of the applicant. Uh as you stated, we we were here uh before the board on March 25th, and there was some testimony taken. There were some open issues and um uh with regard to the plans and and uh who was in attendance. So, we we have everybody here tonight. We have checked uh on the on the portal. Uh we believe that everything that we submitted is is available to the board as well as the public. and we'd like to then uh proceed tonight. Um again is just a brief uh recollection or refresher. Uh this is a project that it's uh was it has an approval in place for 35 stories. Um my client in in in short is looking to uh do a new it is a new application uh a new project that incorporates the most recent amendments u that was that were passed by the city council in August of 2024 to increase the the um the building in this instance to 56 stories uh above the 35 that was originally approved but it would include 10% actually it's 11 12% afford affordable units. Uh 63 affordable units. The prior project did not have any affordable units. Um so that's you're I hate to do it. You're on a roll. Um but I do have to check. We only have four commissioners here tonight that were at that March 25th meeting. So uh vice chair, did you have a chance to review the testimony? I reviewed the testimony. Okay. Thank you. And Commissioner Desai, did you review the testimony? Okay. And uh Commissioner Patel, did you read the testimony? Okay. Thank you, Council. I appreciate that. Um so that that is, you know, a big difference here. We were proposing um a a larger project with 542 units with 63 affordable units where none existed before. It would still have the hotel component, still have the same number of parking uh spaces, uh uh restaurant, uh banquet hall. Uh there is an existing foundation there that they started construction. They're five stories up. Uh so there there is an issue with the structural um integrity, if you will, of of what's been built so far. So we do have our structural engineer here to address that. We did submit a structural report uh as part of this uh application. Um and we also have all our other experts here. Um, so what I would like to do is is kind of just start off with our civil engineer just to lay the foundation as to what's there now. Um because as as was discussed at the last meeting, this is a new application. So we can't grandfather in or bootstrap anything that was was approved initially. This is all new. The variance is all new. Uh, but the difference is we do have structure there. Uh, and that is a reality of of the application before the board. So I'm going to ask my civil engineer just to address that. so the board can see that uh they were not present last time and then we'll move back to Mr. Vandermark. Then I have our structural engineer and our planner. I also have our traffic engineer if there's any questions uh uh during the presentation. Okay. Thank you council. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Yes, I do. Sure. My first name is Afton. A F T O N. Last name Savitz. S A V as in violin. It TZ. Good evening, Miss Savitz. Um, I don't believe we've qualified you in the past. Have we? I don't believe we have. Okay. If you could just go through your background a little bit, your education and your licensing. Sure. I earned a bachelor's of science from Bucknell University. I've been practicing in the land development field as a civil engineer for over 12 years. I do have experience in front of many m municipal land and use boards inclusive of also the Hudson County Planning Board. Um and the business address is 92 Park Avenue Rutherford, New Jersey 07070. I am licensed in the state of New Jersey as and it is in good standing. Okay. Thank you. You're qualified. Great. Okay. Uh, Miss Savitz, uh, just for the record, uh, the plans that you're going to refer to are consistent with or they are the plans that are on, uh, the portal. Is that correct? They are correct. Previously submitted to the board. Okay. And if you could for the benefit of the board and the public, if you could take us through the site uh to show what is existing there and if you could advise if if what is there is consistent with what was approved previously in the existing approval. Sure. So this is the cover sheet or sheet one of eight previously submitted to the board the site plan. For the record, the date of it is April 16th 2025. And I'll zoom into the aerial map on the lefth hand side just to refamiliarize the board with where we are. So we are at that that southeast corner of Cottage Street and Kennedy Boulevard. The um on that corner where you see the project site indicated with the outline of the approximate property line. And this is due north as you see it on this aerial map. I will transition to the site plan sheet. It will rotate counterclockwise 90 degrees just for your orientation. So this is the third sheet. This is the site plan, ground floor plan. And what you're seeing here again, Kennedy Boulevard is now on the bottom of the page, though somewhat angled. Cottage Street on the left hand side. What you're seeing in the gray hatch is the building outline as indicative of the ground floor plan. And as council mentioned, construction was pre previously terminated in progress. The site plan that's been submitted to the board is consistent with the ground floor plan to that of the previous application and as in progress today. Okay. Um I think at this point, you know unless the the board has any questions I really just wanted to establish that what is has been built is consistent which which is which the plan that was approved previously and then move on to Mr. Vandermark and he can speak to the as it goes up because that's uh and and the variances that were requesting as part of it. So the only question I had I think you were alluding to or mentioned something about structural integrity and you know from where it was to where it's going. Could you speak to that? That no uh we have our structural engineer to speak to that she was. My apologies. You're going to make her nervous. I can speak to the building footprint but not how it's held up. Okay. So So you're speaking on this plan here. in and out of the driveway. Eddie, is your mic on? Oh, I'm sorry. Thought I hit it. Speaking on this plan here, what I'm seeing now, the I was as I was looking at uh what was presented to me, uh the in and out of the driveway, does that change at all on any of the other struct uh drawings or relative to the previous design? Is that what you're asking? Well, relative to the previous design or can you hear me? No. If you speak through Commissioner Gangadine's microphone while uh Secretary It remains consistent the location of the driveway. Eddie, we do have to get your question out again though because it's not technically on record right now. Okay. The question I was having is that on this drawing now and what was exist what was built is that's what you're showing us right and I just wanted to make sure that the driveway is not going to change or it's just the way it's built now that I'm seeing on the draw it the driveway location will remain the same as originally designed and there was a in and out way for the cars to come in and out um facing like when they come out they're facing the vote. There was no backing out into the street at all. That if I could jump in, that's correct. The the programming of the ground floor that you're looking at now is the same and consistent with what the prior approval was. And we can, you know, Mr. Vandermark can address the uh uh how that how that works during his presentation because it's an elevator system. So, they go up and then uh you pull in, you go up and you come back down and you're facing out and you pull out. Okay. Well, then I I could wait for that, too, but Okay. Any other questions at this point? Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. Go ahead, council. Okay. So, now I'm going to move forward with uh Mr. Vandermark. As the board may recall, he I think he only got got into a few slides last time. So, I'm going to ask him to start at the beginning for the benefit of the members that were here. So, we'll start at the beginning again. Third time is a charm. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. And as he's setting up, what's uh on the screen now was marked as A2 at the last meeting. and nothing's changed on there since we have added one slide um that would be slide uh approximately seven and we have uploaded that onto the portal at least two weeks ahead of time the board has that in front of them as part of the slideshow for the record Mr. Mr. Mark this as A3 the entire slide deck. Yeah. Just to distinguish between the two. Is that easier or just uh referencing the seventh slide which is this slide here in front of you is is that adequate uh so because it's mixed in with the slide deck. Let's mark the entire slide deck as A3. We'll talk about the new sheet when we get to it. We're going through all the slides. I assume we're going through number seven since it's new. We do have a brand new application. So, I do have to at least put on the record the entire project right? I have no issue with going through all the slides. Sometimes we don't. That's why I asked, but some faster than others. I'm here all night, Mr. Harrington. Let's go through all the slides. Sure. you tonight's going to be the truth. I do. Absolutely. That's Anthony C. Vandermark Jr., principal of MVMK Architecture. Good evening, Mr. Vandermark. Uh we've qualified you in the past. We qualified you at the 25th uh the March 25th meeting. Your license is still current tonight. Good evening, Chair. Uh yes still current tonight. Okay. Thank you. You're qualified. Much appreciated. Okay. So before you um as previously stated uh the site is located at the southeast uh corner location of Kennedy Boulevard and Cottage Street. Overall site area is 20,800 square ft which is the equivalent uh just about less than a half an acre. Um project site is roughly 60% greater uh than the base uh average of zone 3 here in the redevelopment plan which is 12,500. So this side area is actually greater than uh what is the base zone uh three uh site area for this type of height in construction. As previously mentioned we have a fivestory constructed uh podium. Um again, the uh this proposal uh is a 56story uh tower uh that will sit on this pre-existing five-story podium. You're looking at here the corner of the intersection of Cottage Street uh and Kennedy Boulevard. Kennedy Boulevard, uh, as everybody knows, is a three-lane highway on both sides at this intersection. And Cottage Street is a oneway, uh, running east to west. It has a a three, uh, three-laneed uh, turn aisles uh, at this intersection. Scale is already uh, in this immediate neighborhood. Directly behind you in this photograph or to the east is part of the Homestead Place uh construction. fivetory podium south looking north. Uh again um pre-constructed and we are adding uh again 51 stories uh to this podium proposal here is a 56story tower. Uh the lower half of the building has a ACM clouding system. Uh and then the top of the tower sets itself back in a couple of feet uh at different locations and comes back up following the same building form uh in a curtain wall system. As part of the application uh will indicate that the mechanicals would be screened up at the roof. But what you're looking at here is the at the intersection or the corner shot of Kennedy Boulevard and Cottage Street. going over the general uh project program. Um lefthand margin and I apologize uh it's the same information that's uh on this current sheet. Uh my eyes are not great so the text is a little bit greater. Okay, starting from the bottom of the page, bottom lefthand corner, project before you has seven different project uses, very unique. Um I think it's a one-of-a-kind project here in Journal Square. We have first floor retail. Um we have parking as part of this application. uh commercial amenity uh and commercial gyms. We have hotel use, a residential use, a large banquet hall uh at floor 54 and then uh a restaurant, one being at one level and one being a duplex level, a restaurant at floors 55 and 56. This application utilizes the base zone 3 uh commercial center zoning. We're also adding in the office bonus uh which is two levels uh four levels of corner lot bonus D and then an additional 20 stories of the MIH which the mandatory inclusionary housing. Um so this provides the the height in which we need in which to achieve uh this 56 stories. Just to remind the board that we are not asking for a height variance in number of feet just in number of stories. 51 is permitted. Uh 56 is being proposed. However, the overall height of this building uh at 600 ft uh 9 in 609 10 in is permitted uh under the redevelopment plan. We have 542 units and that includes 108 studios, 252 onebs, 72 onebedrooms plus den, 72bs, 25bs plus den and 11 threebedrooms which satisfies the uh requirement of the inclusionary uh zoning. Uh again, 53 uh affordable housing units as part of this application. That's included uh in the 542 and that's the equivalent of 11.6%. We have 154 uh hotel rooms that's scattered over six floors, two ground floor retail spaces. This application has 202 uh car parking spaces with 295 bicycle parking spaces plus eight outdoor spaces. Variance is being requested. Our planner, Mr. Bellamy will go into greater depth. Uh we are proposing uh a variance for building height and stories as previously mentioned towerfront setback a side setback abuing a lower density zone setback from adjacent properties at rear lot line. It's a valet system uh as part of this application. There will be no uh tenant and or visitor using the car elevator system. We have a valet station uh upon the ingress and egress of the uh garage opening. So the valet is going to be using the car elevator system to feed the upper garage floors that requires a variance by the way and head in and head out loading uh as part of this application. The building and footprint area the principal roof is at 592 ft 8 in and that's at 55 stories. the actual 56 stories at 609 feet 10 inches as previously mentioned that does not require a height variance in feet. Uh reason why we have a trigger point where we are greater than 10% in footprint area for the residential and uh restaurant amenity space on the roof. Therefore, it counts as a story. So 55 stories went to 56 stories uh due to the size of the rooftop amenity space. Chair, you had previously asked for um a more clear diagram. Um this is that slide seven that was inserted back into the deck. Um what you see here is the property line uh in a phantom uh dotted line around the perimeter here of this graphic. in the yellow uh on the right hand side of this graphic or the footprint uh of the of the building we have uh a six-story portion of the podium uh pretty much uh that runs in line with the uh the preconstructed podium which is in the bottom lefthand corner of the graphic. So the yellow portion is at six stories. The green portion to the east and to the south is at seven stories. The blue portion around the perimeter is at floors 8 through 35. And then the red portion centrally located is the upper part of the tower at floors 36 all the way to 55. As you can see here uh we are providing a 15 ft uh sideyard setback that abuts the lower density zone which is in the yellow and then in the green at the south end of the page uh to the blue part of the podium which is the lower base part of the podium. We are providing a 10-ft step back. Proposed first floor plan is starting in the lower lefthand corner. Let's work from the outside and work our way back in. We have a required 20ft setback from building phase to the curb line on Kennedy Boulevard. Including that 20 foot setback, we have five new street trees uh with a interconnected bioell system that connects each one of these planter boxes. uh these trees and or uh bioell system are all part of the Jersey City forestry standard fully compliant with that. As we work our way uh from the corner and enter Cottage Street, we are providing a passenger drop off uh and pickup zone. Uh this is for uh again uh tenants uh people visiting the building, maybe banquet or restaurant, but this is also for short-term deliveries such as Uber, uh Amazon and so forth. um this uh passenger drop off uh to the lefthand side because the direction of traffic is is working right to left. This is all uh at grade level. It has to be ADA compliant. Somebody gets out of the car. Uh this is all at sidewalk line. As requested previously uh uh in previous testimony is that we wanted to know what the sidewalk widths were on Cottage Street. Well, they they vary. Um I'm here to give them to you. So at the corner or the left or most part of Cottage Street before you hit the intersection, we're at 22 feet 10 in to the curb line that is reduced down to 17t8 which is at the grade level part of the passenger pickup and drop off zone. That zone tapers just due to the property line and the shape of Cottage Street. So, you work your way backwards between uh grading uh 88 compliant sidewalk and then back up to 26 feet um before you hit the driveway. Okay. We're providing a 32T 7 in uh driveway width uh followed by a uh quote unquote curb cut at 39 ft 4 in which is a depressed curb. All the way to the right which would be the northern uh eastern portion of the property uh we have an underground electrical transformer vault. Um all the concrete around the perimeter of the building will be charcoal gray. Working your way inward here now uh top right hand corner uh is one of the retail spaces at 1,74 square ft. Adjacent to that is the commercial elevator. That's a requirement of the redevelopment plan. Centrally located uh highlighted in the hatched area. We are providing a uh ingress and egress uh portion of the valet system. So, if you're coming down uh Cottage Street from the east, you're going to be pulling into the upper loop uh where the valet will be uh greeting you, taking the car. So, the innermost or the centrally located part of the car elevator system will be the up uh or the in. And then the second elevator system will be the out. So, you get done parking the car, the valet takes the car from the upper parking garage, takes it down, and then you egress out on the interface or the inner lane. This way the two cars are not crossing each other as they enter uh the driveway. This design has been previously be approved by city engineering and we also have uh county approval for uh the intersection at Kennedy Boulevard. Centrally located is a four uh elevator system that that services both the restaurants uh banquet hall and the uh residential tenants. We have two elevators for the hotel use. At the bottom righth hand corner, we are proposing a hotel lobby, retail cafe at 4,857. So, a lot of uses packed into the first floor. Um, but we think it functions uh quite well uh from a from a car standpoint and also from a pedestrian standpoint. Three-dimensional rendering of that corner lobby. Uh we're proposing a 5-ft canal lever projected glass awning that wraps from the cottage street side around the main lobby entry point and all the way down Kennedy uh to the hotel uh entry point. Again, we have ACM panels that kind of split the opening uh at the uh at the lobby location. And then we have AC uh excuse me, and then we have curtain wall that runs right up the center here. Quickly dropping down to the cellar. Uh most of the spaces uh in the cellar facing cottage street are utility and nature sprinkler uh gas meters uh bus room cable room and again the transformer vault. As previously mentioned we have 25 uh car parking spaces uh in the cellar. Taking you back up to the second floor. Uh graphic on the right tells you exactly where we are uh and what slide we're talking about in the building. Grand lobby uh again of considerable height, double height space. Uh we have the cafe lounge lower lefthand corner at 1,727 square feet that's attached to the hotel lobby and the in the hotel uh retail cafe. We have uh different building amenity facing Cottage Street at 2234 which a children's playroom, a workspace or a Wii workspace at 787. And here at the uh proposed second floor, we have a bowling alley at 3,334 square feet. Second rendering again uh entry lobby uh is at the corner here in curtain wall. We have the prismatic uh ACM panels that work their way down Canada Boulevard. Entry canopy again where you actually hit the uh hotel entry. And as you can see, we have stepped or graduating uh balcony systems that are part of the fold of the building design. Street trees are in the foreground with an interconnected bioell. And we have a custom uh low-line gate line uh that matches the building. Floors three graphic on the right. Um three, four, five, and six are all parking uh in nature. 47 car parking spaces. Upper right hand corner in the northeast portion we have bicycle parking. Fourth floor, 45 uh parking spaces with a generator uh venting out to Cottage Street. We do have a setback at Cottage Street. Uh generous setback. Therefore venting is permitted at that location. Level five, 45 uh parking spaces, double height space for the generator uh and the uh plenum intact space. We have some bicycle parking at this level also centrally located and also facing cottage. Level six, uh, 40 car parking spaces and again a boiler room mechanicals facing Cottage Street. Level seven. Now, uh, we're talking about commercial amenities. Lower lefthand corner is the management office. Flowing around clockwise, we have a uh, a gym, a large portion of a commercial gym. at the indoor space is 8,163 square feet, a 625 square foot outdoor area uh for the gym and the combined area that is 8,788 square ft. Upper right hand corner in this plan we have a double height space which is a rock climbing gym uh around the uh commercial uh elevator that's part of the redevelopment plan requirement. bottom right hand corner. Uh we have a commercial doggy daycare which is part of the quote unquote office use. Um we have a 3,963 ft combined space uh for the dog daycare. I'm sorry, Mr. Vandermark, you said the dog daycare is considered office space. It it would if it's considered a commercial amenity, then it is permitted to be uh within the office use. Um yes. Matt, can you jump in here? Is that um I will consult the definitions in our land development ordinance and advise the board accordingly. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I mean, hey we'll we'll go with it for now. All right. Go ahead, Mr. Man. Sure. Uh level seven uh uh amenities uh uh for the building. Um just talked about that. uh floors 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. We're talking about six floors in total of hotel use. Uh what's unique about the eighth floor is that the upper right hand corner uh again is cut out. We had a 21 uh foot high uh rock climbing uh area at this location. So 24 rooms uh at this level and as you work your way up levels 9 through 13, uh you're looking at 26 rooms per floor. Okay, six floors in total, 154 hotel rooms as part of this application. Uh residential use um 14 floor uh residential. Each residential floor uh has 15 units per floor. Um each unit size of the studios is at 553. It ranges from 553 to 596. The onebedrooms are at 625 to 684. The onebedrooms plus den are at uh 8:14 to 856. The two bedrooms are at 112 to 1154. Two bedrooms plus den at 1,269. And the three bedrooms to be compliant uh with the um IGO is at 1,248. So again, 15 units per floor. Uh the average uh residential floor levels uh 15 through 31, 33 and 35 are all similar uh at 15 units per floor. The only difference is the bottom right hand corner uh from levels 27 to 35, the three bedrooms become two bedrooms plus a uh flexible uh den space. Level 32, middle of the building centrally located as a residential amenity floor at 12,116 square feet. Levels 36 through 50, which is now uh an inset uh uh part of the tower upper portion of the tower. Now, same 15 units per floor. Uh however, the floor plate is reduced. This floor plate is 1,56 square ft smaller uh than the floor plate directly below it at floor 35. And at the upper floors um we are at a 41 square ft uh difference or deficit of what is permitted in floor area for these levels. Level 51 um we're talking about another residential uh amenity level at 11,64 square feet. So within the building, as you can see, green middle of the building, upper portion of the building at floor 51, residential amenity, we have two ownership penthouse levels at floors 52 and 53. Uh these lucky gentlemen are in attendance this evening. Each one is at 11,690 ft. Level 54. Uh again, this is a banquet hall as being proposed. Um the combined area we have uh a portion of an indoor and some outdoor area facing east 11,524 square feet. Level 55, two restaurants side by side split north and south. We have a combined uh restaurant A, which is the top portion or the northern portion at 6,77 square ft. And then the bottom portion is a duplex restaurant restaurant B at 8,216 square ft. again outdoor area to the right to the east uh interior area and then you have the uh back of house kitchen and bathrooms uh facing west. Taking you up to the roof, we have uh facing east an interior portion of restaurant B, which is down to the south, we have 1,644 square ft with an outdoor area adjacent to it at 1,895. The residential portion does get a uh an amenity lounge at 1,588 with their own outdoor area at 3,726. The residences also have uh an infinity pool at the northeast corner at 597 ft. Uh and adjacent to that is a 1512 uh square foot pool deck. We do have a mid mechanical level that would be fully screened by preferated panel uh as per the redevelopment plan. Uh again in footprint area uh this is greater than 10% of the overall roof therefore being a story. This has a uh BMU a building maintenance unit centrally located but will be situated behind the screen but we will be part of this application. Um and we all know what they look like. If you look at the journal square towers you can see a blue arm at the top of each one of the buildings. This building will have it hopefully screened from view. Um hopefully we don't see it. Going back to the earlier graphic or graphic number seven as previously mentioned uh we have a a series of variances that Mr. Bellamy and we'll talk about. Uh we did our best uh to increase uh the setbacks uh and these variance requests uh adjacent to the rear yards and adjacent to the lower zones. Mr. Bellamy will get into that. How did we get to this overall height? Lefthand graphic. 265 ft permitted in zone 3, followed by 28 feet in the office bonus, 60 feet for the corner lot bonus D, and another 260 ft taking you to 613 ft of permitted building height. This application before you um would be permitted to have 44 residential floors. This application only has 38 residential floors. The additional six floors uh went back to hotel use. At the base of the building as you can see, we have a hotel commercial amenity, four parking floors which is included in the corner lot bonus D use, another commercial amenity level, and then residential amenity one two, banquet hall, and the two restaurant levels. There's where your additional five floors came from. Going back to the corner, uh, ACM that slowly dissipates as we get to the 35th and 36th floor with a glass curtain wall growing out of the top of this materials here. Composite aluminum panel uh, A which is a darker charcoal color which is on the horizontal of the proposed application. We have the prismatic white which is the uh, main field of the screening element at the base of the building. uh mullions and railings. Uh again, windows would be a charcoal gray uh louvers and charcoal gray uh preferated metal at the top. Uh and maybe some of the mechanical areas on Cottage Street and the glazing elements directly below it. Southern facing view again 35 stories of the ACM that slowly starts to dissipate and then the upper portion of the building will be in curtain wall. Hatched area again simulates the ACM. Standard floor to floor heights here as part of this application are at 9 foot8 floor to floor with an 8 in slab. We have 9 foot clear to the principal room areas. The hotel rooms uh are also at 9'8 with an 8 in slab giving you 9 ft uh at the principal areas of the hotel rooms. Twodimensional west elevation with a graphic uh of the proposed hotel signage. eastern elevation. Uh and as you're going to see in the last rendering that present this evening, the the building form or the pedals of the building base uh split open and we have canolver balconies that run up from the podium which is at the sixth floor all the way up to the roof which is at the 55th floor. Graphic in front of you shows uh a rendering of facing excuse me east facing west. Uh two pedals open up dissipate left and right centrally located can lever balconies. As the building heights increase it kind of the building uh can lever balconies accentuate the cap of this building. Uh in closing um the shadow patterns uh based on the permitted height um and what we're proposing um we are within uh the building height as far as number of feet the volume is slightly different um but but dimminimus uh in the grand scheme of building form in the shadows that it casts. So you know obviously in the morning we're casting into JFK Boulevard. it's swinging around to directly across the street to Cottage Street uh in the middle of the day and then the long elevation or uh at the end of the day we'll be you know casting a long shadow down Cotton Street and pretty much over uh you know the tops of the pre-existing low-rise structures in between our structure being proposed and the Homestead Place uh uh construction. This concludes my uh testimony for the evening. All right. Thank you, Mr. Vandermark. Um, uh, Chairman Langston, I have an update to you on your question. Sure. Yeah, certainly. So, according to Jersey City's land development ordinance and offices defined as a place for the transaction of business, where reports are prepared, records are kept and services rendered, but where no retail sales are offered and where no manufacturing, assembly or fabricating takes place. So the crux of this definition is essentially distinguishes between three categories of commerce here where you have sale of goods retail um manufacturing or fabricating which would be your industrial or light industrial and um the sale of services of which offer office would cover um in my professional opinion I would characterize pet daycare as a service being offered um um and just to be clear. Um, office retail, and hotel are all allowed uses in the office bonus. Um, and so, um, it would appear that a pet daycare is an allowed use. Okay, it's official. I've heard everything in this room now. All right. Um, thanks. Um, thanks, Matt. Mr. Vandermark, if we could go down to the bottom and work our way up. I do have a few questions here. Sure. Um, let's start with the loading. Yes. You know, how does this operate? How are those trucks maneuvering into that spot on Cottage Street? and and we do have a traffic engineer to go over um this testimony, but what I see as this truck coming uh you know driving east to west on Cottage Street in the left side of obviously of the street, it's going to pull directly uh in front uh or forward uh of the loading bay. It's going to back into the loading bay um here. um you know unload and then pull out forward back on Takotta Street on the left side of the street itself. If I could just interject um is this on um yeah it it's a little distinguishable from the other application on Cottage Street that this board uh reviewed at the last meeting where they had concerns about the the loading and that this portion of Cottage Street is is a a oneway from east to west. Uh, so that I think that's a a big difference here and that's why they're you're we're going to pull up and then and back in and pull out frontwards. That's currently currently a oneway. You're right. Um, okay. So, let's go over the valet system. Where is where is the valet going to be stationed? Where are going to queue up? Because I would assume in a we have a building with that many units, we're gonna have one more car entering at the same time and a busy restaurant on a Friday night. There's an event space. Everybody kind of gets there at the same time for an event. So, how are we going to handle that queuing? And again, I will defer the majority of this testimony to the traffic engineer. Okay. But as as just to located in plan, we do have a small valet office located here. Um where we'll have uh you know multiple valet attendants located in this office. Um cars will be pulling in into the outer loop. We have left room for three cars to queue within this area. Okay. on the on the on the inbound. Um valet collects the car at this location, pulls it up in the car elevator, and the cars keep continue to keep moving forward until it gets to the location in front of the car elevator uh to be picked up by the valet attendant and then uh brought up into the parking garage or down into the cellar. Meanwhile, uh somebody uh is leaving um and again uh they will be uh basically queued next to the uh next to this ramp in the exit door uh from the main lobby. Car will pull out u and this person will either be in the gray area in the center or they'll be located here right outside the door. They will then get into their car and egress here uh directly out of the garage. So, we're anticipating uh a little queue uh limited queue on the on the egress uh portion uh of the garage just because you know somebody gets in their car that they're typically not sitting around at that location very long and they're just pulling out. So, how many cars can queue up going in? Going in, uh internally we have room for three cars. That does not include the driveway apron. We wouldn't be uh we wouldn't be asking anybody to be queuing on the driveway apron uh you know to be in conflict with pedestrians that are walking across this. As part of this application, we do have a linear LED strip uh in the sidewalk itself. Um we have a change in pattern uh at the driveway apron uh to alert pedestrians that it is a driveway. And then we have a another uh warning indicator light at eye level. So, we have two indicator lights uh to indicate this this is an active driveway. Um Mr. Vandermark, how many what's the capacity on the banquet center? The banquet center's capacity, the occupant load uh as it currently stands is at 368 people. Okay. So, 368 people. What's the capacity on the restaurant? 356 and 280. 356 280 are there. But I I apologize chair is that those are kind of intermingled. So you would say um 356 would be uh you know the maximum because it would be both restaurants combined. Okay. So 368 on the banquet hall, 356 on the restaurant combined. Correct. Are there spots set aside in the garage for those spaces? There would be. Now, I don't have the exact number. Um, I think I will defer to the traffic engineer in ownership on that. So, I'll I'll hold testimony on that. Okay. Matt, is there anything in the redevelopment plan that calls for set aides for a banquet hall or a restaurant? There are no parking requirements in the Journal Square 2060 redevelopment plans for any uses. Even banquet halls. Even banquet halls. Okay. So, we have room for three cars to queue up for the valet internal to the building. Is there parking on both sides of cottage there? Yes. Okay. So, there's parking on both sides. How wide is cottage approximate? I'm not going to hold you there. 60 feet right away. Okay. Yeah. Now, Mr. Vandermark, obviously, you've been in front of this board before. You know, I'm a big advocate for bike lanes. Do we assume that people are going to be riding their bikes to a banquet hall in a restaurant on a Friday night? Absolutely. I love that answer, you know. I love that answer. We've left eight outdoors and and roughly 295 bicycle parking spaces on the inside. Okay. So, we don't think they're going to queue up on Cottage Street at all with cars. I don't think so. Okay. Okay. So going So, let's see. Going up the building. I I want to get to I I want to see where the calculations come from for the bonuses. So, I know you showed it. Um, but I do want to zero in and just try and understand where the bonuses are coming into play how many floors they're allowed, how much space they're allowed, and right you know, let's let's go a little slower through that if we could. Absolutely. So left-hand graphic um shows you how we actually uh achieved uh this overall height right um base zoning of the redevelopment plan for zone 3 commercial center has a uh permissible 265 ft tall 25 stories that's at the lower portion that is the baseline of of that zoning The two additional office floors um are permitted to be 14 ft high each. So two in total would be uh 28 ft uh in addition to the 265. On top of that, this site is Repeat that Mr. Vandermark. Yeah, sure. Um uh the two uh office uh bonus floors uh permitted in zone 3 each could be uh 14 ft high floor to floor with an overall height uh uh of 28 ft in total. So 265 plus the 28 ft um of two floors for the office bonus that takes you to this magic number of 293 ft before you hit the corner lot bonus. This project is permitted uh under the corner lot bonus D uh an additional four stories and 60 feet on top of uh the office bonus and the baseline permitted zone 3 height. So you add 60 ft on to 293. On top of that, uh we have the 20 stories permissible 260 ft of the MIH the mandatory inclusionary uh zoning. Um and that uh is taken from a 13 ft uh floor height of 20 stories takes you to 260 linear feet. So when you add up 260 the 60, the 28, and the 265 to the upper portion of the amenity we're permitted 613 feet from grade. Does the redevelopment plan actually calculate it in feet? The redevelopment plan does not calculate all these different bonuses together. They're kind of isolated separately in the redevelopment plan that you have to you grab the maximum height from all these different bonuses uh and then you add them together to give you this 613 ft. There's nothing that tells you you should calculate it differently and Mr. Bellamy will get into this. um that these individual pieces get combined in together to give you an overall height. And the bonus floors do not have a height limit. Uh but I believe the exercise we did referred to the maximum floor to ceilings. That that's correct. And and what they do in the residential uh portion of the of the MIH, they they they they give you a you know they give you a a maximum uh you know floor to ceiling height. Um and and that's what we used uh as part of this calculation. Who did that exercise? I did. So you can go through the actual calculation based on the plan, the redevelopment plan and break it. I understand the total you've given. Yes. I understand that you've totaled this out and you say it's compliant with the plan. Correct. But obviously you've just stated that you had to go through the plan to calculate and convert the feet. If I understood your testimony that is correct because the plan doesn't give you these four components and then give you a grand overall height. That's not the way the redevelopment plan uh provides the information to you, right? You know, you you you have a residential maximum uh floor to ceiling height. Um and then you have the red redevelopment plan is specific about the 60 feet. It's specific about the 28 feet. It's specific about the 20065 ft uh for the baseline zone 3. So the the MIH or the the height of the uh residential floors uh is taken really from uh the LDO um I think for floor to floor height. I don't want to speak out of turn on that, but I think that's where the calculation comes from. Yeah, we we backed into the height because of the the maximum permitted Florida to ceiling for the residential unit. Matt, do you concur with the calculation? Um so um you know staff did review um the applicant's calculations and it should be noted that the in the 20 uh accommodation stories accounted for in the mandatory inclusionary housing. Um there was not an accommodation stated in feet. Um nor had staff developed a standard for converting stories to feet in terms of calculating maximum height. Um it's perhaps something that in good zoning practice should be more specific but um staff did not see anything in the plan that ran count contrary to the applicant's calculations. Okay understood. Okay. Um, anybody else any questions? We're going to have a traffic report later on to study. Yeah. Traffic engineer will be available tonight. Yeah. And but you did mention the um in and out on Cottage Street with the um the cars and then the loading doc um in the um report that was given to us from JFK um transportation report that we have here. Um in the driveway they request um a more uh 2B request is that be not as confusing that it be more signage or uh ways of showing that that is a driveway and cars are coming in and out loading. It even recommends that um the valet help the trucks go in and out. Okay. Um have you seen that? Do you uh propose anything to make that more clearer. We since then or is that this came out later on and they're still not satisfied with what she's uh proposing? We have seen the the the letter report and we don't have any objections to to their comments and and working with them to address their recommendations. Okay. Yep. And the truck then when the truck goes into that space, it's going to back out of that space. No, he he would he would pull forward. And we again, we we have our traffic engineer that can can uh testify to that uh those maneuvers. He can't either. How's it pull forward? How's how's it able to turn around inside that space? He backs in. Yeah, he's going to back in. He's he's going to pass the opening and then back in and then come out nose out to have full view. Um and council stop me if this isn't the proper time. Is the valet 24 hours? Yes. Okay. Okay. Anybody else for Mr. Vandermark? All right. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. Okay. Uh then my next witness is going to be our structural engineer, Mr. Christie. Mike, do you do you need this? You want to do one more witness before break? Okay. Yeah. Good evening everyone. Do you swear any testimony you give tonight is going to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. For the record, your name? Richard N. Christie. C H R I S T I E. Mr. Christie. Good evening. Um, I think we've qualified you in the past. I'm not positive because structural engineers don't usually appear at these I I love that though. I love hearing that testimony. Um, if you could just go through your background your education, uh, your licensing where you've presented before. Um, I graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1985. I've been a practicing structural engineer ever since. Uh, founded my own business Christy Engineering, in 1992. involved in the design of new buildings, adaptive reuse of existing structures, including vertical and horizontal additions um, licensed in the state of New Jersey since 1991. Okay. And do you typically deal with something of this height and this this is the tallest structure we've done. We've done plenty of high-rise buildings. We did a 25story high-rise on Johnston. We recently completed another 25story uh concrete building in Yoners, New York. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're qualified. Thank you. And uh Mr. Christie, uh for the benefit of the board, did you complete a report uh a structural report for the purposes? I did and I believe it's been submitted. So, and uh Mr. Lampia, it's on the on the portal. Is there I don't think there's any need to mark it as an exhibit. Is that correct? It's on the portal. It hasn't been updated since that. I think it's March 25th. Yeah, this this report is dated April 14th, 2025 that's on the portal. There should be a report on there. Um you may be looking at letters. Yeah there's an earlier letter, but there's a full report that was updated later. Um okay. I haven't looked at the report. I'm looking at the letter from October 2nd, 2024. I'm a little little behind, I guess. There's so the report was updated between you're talking engineering plans and structural engine. It's a structural report dated April 14th, 2025 from Christy Engineering. Yeah, that's the one I have. April 5 14. Yeah. 2025. It's identified as other. We didn't identify it as structural engineer report. Yeah, this is not a um a standardized document category. Um it's it was requested specifically um by the chairman at in previous testimony and the applicant was happy to furnish the report but it's not part of our standard list of required documents and so there was no category on the um on the Tyler system. Okay. So, which one is it? What's the uh other? There's a few others. That's a default category when there's no no specific list. 4247. It's dated April 14th. 414. It might have been uploaded on the 17th. I don't recall that one. Let's try this, right? This one. That one. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Christie. If you could just give us testimony on it, I'll I'll think I'm here to speak on the structural stability that's outlined in that report and how we, you know originally designed a reinforced concrete building of 35 stories. Five stories of that are up along with foundation. um how do we carry that additional 20 stories which is going to increase all of the gravity loads on the columns live load dead load um more challenging is the lateral system because now it's a taller building it's subject to more wind load it's subject to more seismic load um so that report outlines how we are uh reinforcing the column system that's already there u through column jackets and capitals needed. Um, and we're introducing a much more vigorous shear wall system that runs up the entire length of the building, incorporating outrigger trusses, and uh, uh, being able to carry those loads provides lateral stability for the building down to the foundation. Uh luckily the foundation itself is on bedrock, a very strong bedrock. But we do have to also increase uh to do footing extensions on the existing footings that have been poured and a series of um actually a lot of rock anchors to reinforce the capacity of those footings and provide uh that stability for the gravity and lateral loads. So okay. So I don't know how deeply we we want to get into that report, but I think, you know, we do have examples in there of, you know particular columns and the shear walls additional shear walls that are being added in there. So I can say that nobody on nobody on this board is an engineer. So if we saw it in the report we probably wouldn't know what we were looking at. So if you could, you know go into a little bit of detail for us. So you're talking about new rock an new rock anchors. new rock anchors that will be installed down at foundation level around the perimeter of mat footings and some of the other footings that will provide additional capacity. Okay. So where and also also against overturning of the building itself. Okay. So where exactly are they placed? Did is there more digging that has to be done? Is there's not much digging per se that has to be done, but some of the slab on grade or quite a lot of it would have to be removed to access those footing locations and to be able to install them and tie them back into the foundations that have been done so far along with the extensions. Okay. So, they basically tie the columns in layman's terms, tie the columns to the bedrock. Correct. Correct. Okay. So how far below grade is the bedrock? The bedrock is not very far below below the bottom of the foundation level right now. So not very far for you might be different from what yeah you know 3 to 5 to 8 feet something like that. I concur then that's not very far. Yeah. Okay. There's no there's no chasms that we're dealing with in this location. And it's a very very sound bedrock. Okay. Um so then let's go through the you're beefing up the shear walls, right? On the ground level as well as going up the building on the ground level spec, you know, that's where uh there's we're we're adding additional shear walls. And we do have to carry those shear walls all the way up. Okay. and also including a an outrigger trust system at the 32nd floor so that they're not separate shear walls that are operating, you know differently. They're tied together at that level. Okay. So, are the shear walls, the existing shear walls at the ground level? They're being beefed up as well. They're being beefed up. Yeah. We've got, for instance, 18in shear walls that uh are not not thick enough that would have to be bolstered to 24. Okay. So the difference between the 18 and the 24 is made up with just concrete or is it steel added to steel? Yeah it's steel added reinforcing steel added um tied into the existing shear wall. Correct. Right. So does that existing shear wall have to be partially demoed to tie into it? Well, it it not partially demoed, but it has to be machined so that it's rough and surface so that we can bond the additional concrete to it. Okay. And how is some of that work has already has already begun as far as for the you know the existing shear walls that need to be reinforced. Okay. How many how many existing shear walls would need to be reinforced? I was looking at the report. I don't think it got into How much had to actually be done? I I don't have a count of exactly how many but it is in our report that we submitted which which share walls are being reinforced and where share walls are being added. Okay. Can we find it in the in the report? Yeah, I think it's page nine. An additional 23 with 234 ton rock anchors. Yeah, we've got rock anchors. We're showing the outrigger trusses and page 10 nine and 10 seem to speak to it. So, an additional 23 at 234 ton rock right? Location of additional share walls is shown on uh page 10 of the report. Yep. On the eastern side. Correct. So there's approximately four major, you know locations where shear walls are being added. So Mr. Christie, I I did high-rise construction for 22 years now. My experience in the field, my expertise is in sprinkler fitting. So I know which way Tidy is. I know which way Lucy is. That's basically it. All right. So it's not a lot, but it's you know, it's a little more technical than that, but um you know, I've seen highrises get built for years and it's it's something that I take for granted at this point. I know exactly what's going to happen every day on a highrise. I know one way to pour sheer walls. I know what you're going to say. So this is not the way that I know. And I I'm fascinated by it. And I, you know I'm trying to understand how this is going to be as strong and as stable as a shear wall that's poured as the building goes up. So, I know how those shear walls and the transfer beams and everything on the transition floors transfer weight. Right. This is as much as you know any Yeah. It would be bonded. It's going to be reinforced. There's going to be reinforcing that's going into what's been done already. The same with the columns too. The column jacketing. Sure. Yeah. And I would have the same instinct that I would want a single monolithic pore. We do have that but now we're adding to the sides of that and then bonding it in with reinforcing with you know roughening the slabs with using u u you know methods of trying to u you know make it act as much as a monolithic thing as possible. I wouldn't want to see it halfway poured and then another um you know we would never want to see that. Sure. Yeah. but to have some kind of a odd diagonal or horizontal joint. But we can do this. Okay. Um and the the cure time that's already started on that existing concrete doesn't affect the new concrete in how it how it bonds to each other. Of course, the new concrete is going to want to cure itself. The concrete will always shrink. Sure. So you know, again, I'm not a structural engineer. I'm trying to understand how this works and I want to make sure that it works safely. So do I. I think everybody in this room does. Um so would the illustration on page 11 help? Because it talks about the coupling beam jacket with the wall jack and the uh reinforced concrete jacket. Correct. And how high does that go up? Well, it's you know that that is floor to floor in the existing sections. So so that is you know essentially the first five stories that have been poured already but it's not being done as a single fivetory pour. It would be level by level and that would also address some of the shrinkage issues too that that could occur. So, so my concern with, you know bonding a new shear wall to the existing shear wall and the the cure time that is already started in the existing concrete versus the new concrete and there's, you know concrete, as far as I understand concrete never stops curing. Correct. Well, the when you're it's it it's correct to to some degree u but most of that is happening very early in the life of the concrete. So in early 28 to 56 days is when you know you're coming you know 56 days you're coming up to your 95 96% design strength. Okay. Most of the shrinkage has already occurred. Okay. So, is it and I again I've never seen something like this and that's why I'm having we've trouble wrapping my head around it. Projects similar things where we've had um incomplete pores on columns and and shear walls um where there's void spaces, hollow spaces. Sure, the building's already under construction. They strip forms. We see that kind of a problem. It's but those are corrected relatively soon manner but they're corrected soon right so as that form is stripped off and one of these lovely ladies or gentlemen goes oh my god right something happens here right and that's corrected instantly within that cure time that we're talking out normally. Yeah, sure. It depends when these conditions are discovered, when forms are stripped, when shores forms forms are stripped within to remove shores and find these kinds of problems and then direct these very very similar methods of of reinforcing through jacketing or thickening. Okay. But Mr. Christie, that's obviously a corrective procedure. It's not a best practice in terms of your design from the beginning. My best practice of course would be one monolithic element, right? You know instead of relying on trying to bolster it this way, but this is what we have right now. We've got a fivetory structure and it's still relatively new. Sure. It's not like it's been there for 15, 20 years and we're reinforce it. Believe me, I'm not saying that at all. understand the the relative age of it but you know, according to your own testimony, it's probably at 96 95% strength right now. Correct. It's I don't know when these were poured, but I I think it's past that time. Definitely be over 90% strength at this point. Okay. Um Okay. So in your experience that bonding process on the shear walls below adding new shear walls rein we're reinforcing columns as well that are taking some of that loading at least the uh the vertical elements of the shear walls above. Okay. So that will support the lateral movement. Correct. As you go up the building, that will support the base load lateral movement. And as we go up the building above the five stories that are there now it's all back to monolithic construction. Okay. So there's there's no concern with that transition. Um not of not of our plans are followed. We did prepare a full set of of uh construction drawings documenting what needs to be done. Okay. So, and I don't know if this is founded or unfounded, but as you pour that building monolithically going up after the fifth story now, well, now you're dealing with one structure that's been built in the same manner at the same time. So, does that 51 stories now on top of that original five have a different strength have a different movement compared to something else that was poured monolithically from the bottom. And my concern is you're thinking that there's a hinging or something that Yes, that's and that would be a concern that we would have too that we would want to make sure it does not happen. Okay. So the plan that you have in place considers that and you can say that that won't happen under this condition if it's that is correct. Built properly. Correct. By skilled craftsmen. But yes, craftsmen craftsmen. Okay. Okay. Very good. Um skilled skilled crafts persons. Yes. Yes. Um so okay. So as we go up the building now we're pouring this monolithically. What other changes happen above that floor? are bound as much as possible to the original column layout that we have to avoid all kinds of transfers and making making efficient use of what we have. We do have to add in additional shear walls above that to so that we do have um enough resistance to the lateral loading that we you know we have all the way up the building really. Of course, it's greater at the base, but um we still have to have enough of a rigid structure to uh contend with that. So again, we were, you know, probably the biggest change from what we had before to what we have now is the addition of sheer walls and the addition of outrigger trusses to make them all act as one with the core. Okay. So where are the outrigger trusses? So they're on the 32nd floor of the building and that's what it's kind of midway up and tying everything together. Okay. So, I I love it. I'm getting an education tonight. So, what how does an outrigger trust work? What does it do? Why is it located where it is? Well it's it's really a a horizontal brace that's grabbing two separate elements and as much as possible having them work tandemly. That's probably the best explanation. Understood. So, so what does that brace against? That breaks that's bracing against from the from the core of the building out to the shear walls between between basically between shear wall systems. Okay. So, there's new shear walls on the on the upper floors on the upper floors towards the exterior. That is correct. Yeah. And they're poured from the ground going up or they're poured just on those floors? They're Well, they they're from the ground going up. Okay. So, same shear walls that carry up the building. That is correct. And do they stop at that floor? Do they continue going up? They continue going up. We still need that. We need every everything we can get. Sure. And is there any difference in the bracing at the top of the building compared to uh No, not as much. We're really relying at the top of the building on the uh on the on the slabs, the concrete slabs tying it together. Okay. So that 32nd floor really handles the lateral movement of the tower. It's doing a lot of work. Okay. Okay. It's Yeah, it's helping with drift control and uh Yeah. Gotcha. We need it. Yeah. Okay. Um, so again, I I don't know if it's in the report or not, but the original memo that I saw from October talks about not being able to provide the setbacks that would make this an as of right project. Correct. Yeah, we were looking at um and I I don't remember exactly what the proposed setbacks were on the upper levels, but um it did not provide enough really footprint for those additional shear walls that we need going up the building. Okay. So those shear walls just can't be I mean if they were they were pushed back now they're just bifurcating the space and there's you know there's there's and they're not working as well either because we really need um I'm trying to we need more distance between the ends of the shear walls. You know that's I'm trying to think of a good analogy. It's like you're standing with your feet together and someone pushes you and you get knocked over. But if your feet are farther apart, you have more stability. So that's that makes sense. Part of the reason that we we're looking at Yeah. So th those shear walls carry the weight away from the core of the building. So if you bring those shear walls in together, I understand what you're saying. There's more there's more overturning that we have to deal with. So it's not that it adds more stress to the core of the building. It's just not relieving the stress on the lower part of the building. Well, it's still it's it's carried all the way down to the lower part of the building obviously but um it's it's just having um more more we need that distance between those shear walls, that maximum distance as much as possible, even on those upper levels to provide that lateral stability. So if we're bringing things in tighter together, there's more there there's more overturning. There's more reaction. There's more, you know uplift and downward load that we would have to contend with. And carrying that down through the building is makes it more difficult. So that's why we we were lobbying for having those shear walls out as far as we could. Okay. Um so I think my my last, believe it or not, my last question for you. Um, and I don't know if you know, you know, you're not a planner. I I don't want to put you on the spot as a planner or as an architect. I'm not an architect either. Neither am I. So, if if this building was built with the stepbacks that maybe were presented to you when you did the original design on it, I'm not sure. But is is the system that you've designed and proposed is it specific to this building because that base is existing already. It's part of it. Okay. Because we we are tied into what's there already obviously. Yeah. And of course as you know to try to get the most structural stability we could we like to take advantage of whatever space we have. Okay. So with a building of this size with the base plate that you know spacewise that you're provided with. Do you I is it your opinion that this really is the only way to build a building of that height? I I don't think I could say the only way, but in my view, it's the better way of doing it to avoid the issue of of drift. Sure. Uh there's some very slender highrises in New York City that experience all kinds of problems because of drift that's occurring that they never thought would happen, but now elevators are getting jammed and yeah there's all kinds of issues with fenistration. So okay. So, it it wouldn't be best practice to provide setbacks on a building this height. Yes. on on a base that's as wide as it is currently from our standpoint as structural engineers. Yes, it would not be best practice. Okay, understood. Um, thank you. That's it for me. Anybody else? Yeah, I have a couple of questions. Um and I want to pick it back off his last question then. So if um we move forward with this, if we don't move forward with this uh adding the extra floors, okay, we still have the sheer walls for the setbacks that were proposed on the structure. We still we still have the shear walls for the 35story design. Nothing's been removed. Okay. Okay. So would be not it hasn't been removed that it wouldn't be able to have the setbacks. That's correct. So going back to the sheer walls um you said they are right now 18 in thick. Well, there were some that were designed as 18 in thick that worked just fine for the 35tory version, but are you want to add six inches to it? We want to add six inches. Right. Correct. That's true. Because you want a 24, you said because Yeah. Correct. Okay. So, if we add 20 6 in to it and you you want to bond it to the existing sheer wall with with what we're looking at steel. So we're not going to demo jackhammer the wall and get to the rebars that are existent inside the shear wall. No we're we're we're going to jackhammer it just to roughen the surface so that we get a good bond with the new concrete. Okay. Yeah. and the floors as you pour from let's say on the first floor sheer wall that you're going to bond to it. I guess you would open up the floor above so the concrete pore would be tied into provide provide cores so that we could we could do that so that we could provide a full height of concrete the full height without having without having a void spot later. A void spot. Yes. Yeah. Right. So would you open up the whole floor or it's just certain sections just how do you know that it's not a void that how do we know there aren't voids in that floor that it it went all the way? Oh well that's that's going to be uh done with sufficient amount of amount of openings to provide that concrete pour and cleanouts. Okay. At the bottom we'll know the volume of concrete that was poured. Of course, we'll inspect it afterwards when forms are stripped. If there's a problem, we come up with a fix. Okay. Now, the um sheer walls, uh the rebar inside of a sheer wall, some of them are one inches thick or it can be Yeah, they can be very thick. It could be even thicker than one inch. Thicker than that would be a number eight bar. We can have thicker than number eight bar. I don't remember exactly what sizes we were specifying on this one, but we had usually it's bundled. It's a how would a number eight bar or let's say a number a 1in thick bar, let's go with just a 1in thick bar inside of a 6 in wall. Mhm. Um that's not a normal practice then to put it in that little bit of concrete. Yeah. I I I I don't specifically um have on hand the size of the rebar that we're putting into those those thickening thickened areas, but you're right. It has to have it has to have a certain amount of cover. We have to make sure that it is protection around the right around the uh rebar right? And don't forget that there's also bar there's horizontal bar that's tying back into the wall. And the same when we're doing the column jacketing there's horizontal bar that gets bonded that gets drilled and grouted into the existing. So, it's all tying back in. They're tying back in with a bonding element, correct? Not with a not tied into the rebar itself, right? Okay. This exterior, this is an exterior wall, too. Um, basically, most of our shear walls are interior walls. Okay. Okay. So there's no um we see a lot sometimes with concrete and rebar um as years go by. Yeah. That they start to blow the concrete, right? Because of the because of elements and stuff like that. The elements, moisture starts getting in, starts corrosion of the steel, it starts popping off the concrete cover. So we have a better chance of that happening on a 6-in wall. Yeah. But that that's that's an interior element too. Okay. Yeah. Is this um so it's not subjected to you know constant rain leakage over the years. Is it the minimum six inches to make it to make this work or you want to do more than six inches? Either e six is a minimum or more. Okay. Be six or more. Yeah. Okay. And um that will be for the first five floors going up. And that rebar is going to go through the floor for the next level. Yes. Going up. So those will be tied together. Correct. On the 6 in side only on on on all on everything on the on the combined the full thickness of the shear wall. So the existing ones that are there would have bar that's extending up beyond the highest floor level and then there'd be anything that we're putting into that thickened area both on the walls and on the columns that are being jacketed would go above the highest floor so that it could bond with the bar for the next pour. Uh is it normal practice on a sheer wall to use the um same one inch or whatever size bar whatever it is but on the horizontal and vertical the vertical is the more critical it's taking the load but there's a certain amount of horizontal that has to be size to brace that that vertical steel. Okay. So um so it's not feasible to make it more. We lose space, right? You lose you lose space in and bas inside the building inside the building to make it a wider sheer wall. Yeah. But it's holded we're holding 20 floors of concrete which more than what was 20 more floors than what it was designed for. So we do we need every bit of what we're designing with a bonding agent that we're going to be use that you propose to use correct on all the columns. Not all of them. In fact, there's there's um uh there there's some that don't require it because we're redirecting loads into other other areas by thickening some of the slabs. Okay. And there was not every single one, but one of the reports read um it felt it was pro uh problematic because if you had the setbacks, it takes the integrity of the inside columns and it's not um strong enough to hold. There was there was there was a and I think that was from some time ago when we were looking at if we had to pull columns back and they were no longer aligned right? So we had some concerns about that. What with whatever setback was being discussed at the time, we just said "Well, this means we're going to have to relocate columns at that and have some kind of a transfer." use your um your your agency was against that of anything like that. Yeah. Because we as structural engineers, we always wanted our way. We just we want columns to just come straight on the ground without any kind of without any kind of transfer because anytime you're shifting a column over, you have to introduce a thickened beam or a thickened slab that is adding weight to the building and it's just at another hinge point. but where things can happen. So that's that's part of the reason we were lobbying against that at the time time at the time. Yeah. But now we you know we feel like we have a design there. There's a lot of uh continuity with the columns and with the shear walls and Okay. So just uh just to end this question and the last part is just you don't remember the horizontal parts of the 6-in wall that you're going to be putting up with rebar. It's you're not sure what the thickness the thickness of that rebar is. Yeah. So there's there's there's code minimums for ACI, American Concrete Institute has minimum um uh horizontal bar and spacing and you know we're following that or whatever is required to to give the stability that we're looking for at a minimum or at a well we're going I I'm sure with this building we're well above minimum but you know well above minimum you think so minimum is like a number three bar at 18 inches on center where we we much more robust than that. Okay. All right. Um that's all I have. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Hey, just a follow-up question uh for Mr. Christie. Uh and I I don't recall if you mentioned it. You did do a wind study. Uh we did. Oh, yeah. We we we did a wind tunnel test to uh get more accurate loads of what more accurate uh scheme of what's going to happen with wind. So we can design it for that wind load instead of just using code prescribed loads. And could you tell the board, you know, your conclusions of the wind study? Any adverse results? Uh I I wouldn't say adverse results. Uh it's still it's a lot of wind to contend with. There's a lot of lateral loading from from that wind study. Um I think we we did have a a little bit of economy from from what the code minimums were. or not I'm not gonna say code minimum code prescribed without doing a wind tunnel test. Okay. And just just the last just for the record I mean in your professional opinion with the measures that you're proposing uh as part of this construction. It's it's your opinion that it would support the proposed building? Absolutely. Okay. Yes. Nothing further. And just to add on to Mr. Harrington's question I apologize. Uh, and that's if it's constructed as you designed and as you recommend. Yes. Okay. Okay. Nobody else. All right. Thank you, Mr. Christie. We appreciate your time. Uh, let's take a break. Mike 10 minutes. Okay. We'll be back in 10 everybody. And once again, we're in an open application. No discussions from anybody. Everybody, can we have everybody here? Cam, before we get back to it, can you go over the carried items again? I know there's, you know, maybe new people in the room that are here for something later on on the agenda. I don't want them to sit here all night if if their items carried. Yes, Chairman. So, under new business item 16, address 285 Liberty Avenue case P2024-0139. They've requested a carry with preservation of notice to June 10th. Um, and then we have item 21, case P2024-0199, address 10, exchange place they've requested to carry with preservation of notice to June 10th. That's a minor site plan with C variances. And then the last item on the agenda, item 22, case P20, uh 24-0245. It's uh address 33 Mikadoo Avenue, a conditional use, and they've requested a carry with preservation of notice to June 10th. Those are all the requests to carry. Okay. Thanks Cam. Council, who's your next witness? Okay, I have uh two witnesses left. My my thought is to bring up the traffic engineer. Um, and I'll defer to the board if you just want to ask questions that you have of her. Uh, or she can briefly explain how the circulation works within the garage and then turn to Mr. Bellamy. Let's go to circulation and then questions and then Mr. Bellamy. Okay, we could. Thank you. testimony, the whole truth. I do. Sure. Uh Justine Fox. That's J U S T I N E. Last name F Ox. Miss Fox. Good evening. Good evening. I don't think we've qualified you either. No, you have not. Okay. So many new faces tonight. I love it. Um so if you could just go through your your background, your education, your licensing. Sure. Um, I have a bachelor's in science in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Maryland. I have over eight years of experience within the industry with the majority of that time as a traffic engineer at Stonefield Engineering. Um, I am a licensed professional engineer in the state of New Jersey. My license is current and in good standing. Okay. Miss Fox um, do you current or do you normally work in an environment? Is this an urban environment? Is it more suburban? Um, I work all over New Jersey. Most urban would typically be Jersey City, Hoboka and Newark. Um, I've worked on high-rise residential residents such as this before. Okay, perfect. You're qualified. Thank you. Justine, do you want to plug in your computer for reference to the Sure. I'm just going to pull up the architecture plan. I do believe this has been submitted to the board, but just to reference this as I'm going through. Yeah. I think I'm good. Thank Punch it. Slam it. Hold on. No, it's back. It's back. There we go. There we go. All right. So, Miss Fox, you were here earlier uh and heard some of the questions of the board. Is that correct? Correct. So, if you could just uh address the circulation um within the site of the parking and the loading and maybe address uh you know some of the questions you heard from uh earlier. Sure. Um so, just to reference our site, we are at the southeasterly corner of the intersection of Cottage Street and JFK Boulevard. Um, as previously mentioned Cottage Street is a one-way street in the westbound direction. So, that is moving from the right side of the page to the left side of the page. Um, Cottage Street does provide one lane and there's parking provided only on the southerntherly side of the road. I believe earlier it might have been mentioned that's both sides, but within the site vicinity, there is only parking on the southerntherly side. So that's the bottom of Cottage Street on the page shown um above. For our site, we are proposing two sort of access points. The one being on the left, that's the passenger pickup and drop off location and then the on the right is our access to our parking um levels of the proposed development. Should be noted that the parking is not required for this development. However, we are providing 202 parking spaces across multiple parking garage levels within the building and that is the same amount of parking spaces that were previously approved by this board um as part of the prior application. So, the amount of parking spaces has not changed. So, when you're looking at our ingress and egress into those into those parking um elevators, the way this would work, a car would use that left and left out driveway on Cottage Street and pull into the garage area. From there, it's all valet. The valet operators would actually take your keys, your car into the car elevator. no visitors to the building or residents would be driving into that car elevator. I've actually um done observations at a very similar system in Jersey City. Um it was a few blocks away from Grove Street, so similar to how this is a few blocks away from Journal Square Path Station. Um and we were there during that weekday uh peak hour. It was about 5:00 p.m. You'd expect to see a lot of residents coming in. um bringing their cars back home. We're there for about an hour. We saw at most I think three cars leave and uh two cars come in. So, we really don't anticipate that many residents would be using this garage for their daily commuting purposes. Miss Fox, the site that you saw downtown in Jersey City did it have a banquet hall and a restaurant attached to it inside it? It was not specific. It was a public parking garage, so residents could use it, but anyone visiting downtown Jersey City could also use that parking garage. Okay. And so I'm sure people were heading to restaurants or other uses. So how many residents how many residential units were it? It was a public parking garage in a building. In a residential building. Correct. So how many units in that building? It had I'll go by parking spaces. Um, it had a pretty similar amount of parking spaces around 220 and that was over multiple floors of parking as well. Okay. But you don't know how many residential units that building had. I do not. But in terms of the operations here, you're really maxing out based on the number of parking spaces the building provides, not necessarily units. You know, you can have a thousand units, but if you only have 100 parking spaces, right? So it was a very comparable size to the 202 parking spaces provided here. Okay. And that was a valet system as well. Correct. With elevators or elevators. Okay. Same number of elevators too. Um yes. And at the time they only had they were only operating with one. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But here we have the two elevators. So your cars coming in and out would always be two different elevators. Um, from the time that it a vehicle pulled in, handed their keys off, the valet got in, pulled into that elevator, the doors closed and we heard that elevator click and go up. It was less than 90 seconds. So I've heard a lot of questions about queuing and concerns about that, but really, these systems are a lot quicker than you would think. Um, you know, a car can be a car parking can be accommodated, you know, less than 2 minutes. When you look at our trip generation anticipated for this building, we did the trip generation analysis. Uh referring to IT, that's the Institute of Transportation Engineers trip generation manual. Um I have a question that before you keep Sure. Uh so you're saying you saw the guy come in, give the keys to somebody, 90 seconds, cars in the elevator, it's going up, correct? How long did it take the next car to do the same thing? Uh we never saw two cars at the same time. Okay. So basically if it's empty, I come in, I get first choice takes 90 seconds right? What happens when I'm the third car? Uh I think that this could be managed with the amount of valet operators you have because the situation in this in this aspect here, you're comparing now an orange to an apple. I think because what you're seeing here is once you get to the third car, they're going to be out in the street where there's cars parked on both sides of the street and nowhere to go. So, hold on. Let me get to my trip generation analysis. Okay. Based on our analysis um our peak trips in is were anticipated to be 71 vehicles into the development. So, that includes cars both who might be coming into park as well as any drop off or deliveries. So really at most say all of those 71 cars were using that parking garage. That would be about a little more than one car a minute. Considering that a car can be um a customer can be served in about a minute and a half. We would never really anticipate that you're having three or four cars lined up. In addition, the um the distance between the entry of that of that elevator and the sidewalk was about 70 ft. So that is a little more than three cars long. And then the cottage street does only have parking on one side of the street. There is no parking on the northerly side. So you would never have any interactions with someone parked on that northerly side. Uh in addition that the passenger pickup drop off area is providing an additional space for vehicles. So that 71 uh vehicles we anticipate coming in that includes someone calling an Uber getting in and out. That one vehicle that pulls into the passenger pickup space um does actually count as two trips. The way traffic engineering trips are measured it's kind of in and out. So that vehicle pulling in an Uber, say to the pickup that's one trip. And as it leaves that's a second trip out of the development. Miss Fox, if if we could go back, Eddie, I don't mean to cut off your your question. You just mentioned about Cottage Street not having parking on the north side of the street correct? Correct. You're not considering using that for queuing, though, are you? No, it was just brought up that there was parking, and I wanted to clarify that. Okay. I just want to make sure that that's for queuing. How how is the parking divided between hotel and residents and the offices? Um that makes is it like first come first serve or anybody? I I believe that the parking is kind of a mix for all uses. Uh I mean obviously a resident uh if if you want to uh lease a parking space that you're going to have the right to to go in there and there's then uh the remaining spaces would be allocated to to the other uses. So there's no allocation? Not unless I think you know if you're a tenant and you you contract to to have a space on a daily basis then I'd imagine you you know you're the plan is to provide that that person always has a space available with a cap on that Mr. Harrington I I don't recall off the top of my head I I know we I think we had talked about that in one of the prior approvals we had an allocation but I I don't know it off the top of my head. Okay. But it's it's proposed as a public garage. Correct. Yeah. You Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. So, you know, somebody coming to the restaurant, somebody coming to the banquet hall, somebody coming to the office space, somebody coming to the hotel, somebody coming in as a resident somebody that just wants to use the PATH train. Anybody could park in there, but spots are going to be set aside for residents first. I think we have an allocation there. Yeah, some spots would be allocated for the residents. Okay. How many total spots? 202. 202. Yep. 202. Okay. So, you might set I'm not going to hold you till half for residents. No, I'm getting a no from my client. We haven't allocated anything. Okay. So I'm told 40 would be allocated for residents, uh 50 for the hotel and and the balance for the uh banquet hall and and um retail and other users. Okay. So the rest of it public essentially correct? Okay. And according to my math, that's 112. Correct? Yes. Okay. I apologize, Miss Fox. Okay. Before we before we move on, I just want to for the record, uh, it was stated in early testimony before the architect or someone did state that there was parking on both sides of Carter Street. Right. I I want to clarify that. So, let's parking is only Let's be clear. parking only on the southerntherly side along the section of I know the section of Cottage Street, but I wasn't sure if the next block over, right? You know, you know what part does it have it? You know, I mean, it does have two sides now, but for the record, uh, Cott Street only has one side. Yes. Um, in this Okay. between Summit and JFK Boulevard. Um so the other thing I'd want to address about the parking layout that was in the um report was the was how the ingress and ingress into the car elevators um are set up. So they are set up in a way that's a little unintuitive to a driver with your egress on the left and as you're exiting you are driving on quote the opposite side of the road. However, for this layout um that's actually a benefit. Your cars would not be crossing paths. Um, so your cars can exit the the driveway without interfering with anyone coming turning into the development and along with that delivery space that minimizes the interaction between um users of this driveway. So I I can't believe I didn't see that before. So the the entrance is on the left correct? That was pulling into the garage or to the valet, I should say. The entrance. that was brought up earlier with um and we'll have signage Wellmarked and the valet directing people in. Where where is that signage going to be? It's just on the building. Is it in the street? So, as people pull in off of Cottage Street, right now you have parking on the side the um south side of Cottage. Yeah. You would follow the drive aisles shown on the plan there. So you're well the driver coming in isn't isn't familiar with the plan, right? But so I'm trying to get it from that perspective. You would see like valley entrance here and it's really a benefit because you're not crossing understood. Yeah. Until someone crosses. I've been driving for a number of years now. Right. And my first instinct isn't go to the left. Even if I see a sign that says go to the left it's really confused easier at my age. I get confused easier at my age now. So you know, as I'm coming up to this entrance to a valet and it's telling me to stay to the left, if you follow uh on the plan here, you're as you're traveling westbound, it's a left in leftout driveway. So, you're turning left into the development. It's just that the understood, right? Again, I'm taking it from the perspective of a driver, the middle-aged man driving down the street. Now, thank you. So, now I'm turning into this garage. Ballet garage. How am I going to know to stay to the left? The arrow on the curb. There is a light there. There is a light there. And you can make a left turn or you can go Yeah, but not into the garage. Yeah, I think it'll be clear that the entrance would be here from since you are approaching it from that westbound direction, you are seeing the ingress first, you would see that that is the location to pull in with signage. Um, so where is the signage going to be? And I I'm okay. To be honest, I'm looking at the apron. You're looking I'm looking at the curb cut. That's, you know, the average driver is looking for the curb cut. That's how they know where to pull in. They're looking for the gap in the cars because every spot is taken on that side of the street, of course. So they're looking for that gap in the cars. They're going to go, "Okay, I pull in here." Now, they're making a left turn. And where is the sign that tells them as they're turning, "Oh my god stay to the left." And that that's one of the comments from the Jersey City traffic department to they they acknowledge that this is a better um configuration uh for safety purposes, but we should provide for additional uh signage. So, okay, I'd submit that's something we can work with them as to what they think is appropriate. Like we can have ideas, but we think ultimately they, you know, they do it all the time. They they probably have, you know, the better ideas, if you will. But that is a comment that that we we would want to address further with them. Okay. Staff's happy to recommend that as a condition of this approval. Chair, will there be 247 attendance? Vidia, can you Yeah. Get on that mic again, please. Mike today. Will there be 247 attendance? Yes. Okay. And there's someone going to be out someone's going to be out there also directing people. Correct. Okay. And as you're pulling in, I think the arrows shown on the ground in front of you from driving would help uh a driver understand where they should be following the road into I get I get really confused and I feel like I'm the average person when I drive. I get very confused. I'm embarrassed to say that in front of you guys. Um yeah, I know it's terrible. Um okay anybody else any questions? Um I guess if um the city of Jersey City's Department of Infrastructure, Division of Transportation and Planning um driveway number two, it says driveway B section B and it recognizes that this operation benefit of the configuration of entering into the exit lanes. It may still be confusing and unfamiliar to the site of entering into a driveway going on the left side. Um so and that's the chairman Ling is saying chairman is not your age. You're not the only one. The department of infrastructure feels the same way you do. But that that's the the same comment I was referring to in the next sentence. They recommend the applicant install very visible signage indicating the proper lane usage. So So are we going to get to see the signage? Did they did they prepare signage already or that's not prepared yet? No, we we would agree to work with the board to make sure the signage is what they're looking for. Sorry. Work with the divisions to make sure the signage is prepared when the application comes to to us, right? Uh Commissioner Torres. So, in and this is pretty routine for projects in that there might be some small details that um the board acknowledges that might be a small deficiency in how the project works and functions. And um and of course it's always the board's discretion as to how they address this but in the past the board has um simply requested that as a condition of approval, the applicants work with city staff to remedy the condition. Um it's the it's ultimately the board's discretion though. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But I've been on this board a little bit that to say that um when we came to signage, we wanted to see the signage and this is on my portal. So that means this was already known. Uh and that's you're right. A couple of months ago maybe you guys they knew this already. So, nobody thought about what kind of signage they're going to present cuz it seems like this is a big concern to the Department of Infrastructure. That is confusing. And the idea is that one day when everything is developed there, there's going to be a lot of foot traffic on Cott Street. That is the whole purpose of our of these plans that we've been looking at for the last years. you know, as things get developed there is to have foot traffic coming from north into Jono Square. Uh so yeah, I I mean we don't have a signage tonight, but okay. I I do you know in the past it has many comment letters. we agree as a condition of approval to address those and that's something that that we we you know we would continue to okay to to agree to address and that's uh um you know I I think they acknowledge that this is a better better condition a safer condition on a one-way street going left in and left out. Okay, anybody else any questions? Miss Fox, was that your testimony? Uh, I Yeah. Do you have anything else? Um, I was going to just briefly acknowledge the pickup drop off area has been uh extended to accommodate the increase in residential units. Okay, that's all. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. And I'll move out Mr. Bellamy at this time. testimony tonight. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, I do. Sure. Samuel Bellamy. Last name B E L L A M Y. Mr. Bellamy. Good evening. Uh, we've qualified you before. Uh, your license is current. Good evening. Yes it is current and in good standing. And for the record, Sam Bellamy with the firm Dresnner Robin as a professional planner. Okay. Thank you, sir. You're qualified. Okay. Mr. Bellamy, you were present during all the testimony provided tonight. Yes, that's correct. Okay. So, if you could then give the board the benefit of your uh opinions and reasoning regarding the requested variances. Yes, we'll do. So, I'll get into my introduction. Mr. Van Mark is going to um plug in his computer and pull up uh the setback screen as I talk through the deviations. Um so, this property is located in zone 3. Uh as part of this project, we are utilizing the office space bonus, the corner D bonus of the zone 3 uh zone and as well as the mandatory uh mandatory affordable housing requirements which adds the provision of 20 additional stories here uh based on a gross floor floor area per unit uh calculation. Um the office space bonus encourages um obviously office space development to maintain Journal Square as a mixeduse employment center. The corner D bonus applies to three properties within the redevelopment plan area. The subject property, the property diagonal across the street on the northwest side of um Kennedy and Cottage, and then the the White Castle site a couple blocks up. So, it's it's very uh uh prescriptive uh bonus for certain corner properties within zone 3 and it encourages larger buildings and additional commercial floor area. Um, I will say as part of that bonus, there also is a parking requirement related to the additional floor area you're getting. So, um, not only does it allow for additional height and stories, it also recognizes I think those sites can accommodate parking and that's built into that provision and bonus provision of of the redevelopment plan. Um, Mr. Bell, let me let me and I I usually don't stop you when you testimony. So there is a parking requirement here for corner D bonus lots. There's a parking requirement of uh let me see uh one uh one space per thousand square ft of commercial floor area that's added on by those four bonus floors. Okay. I I was under the impression that there was um so there's no generalized parking requirement. there was the there's a parking requirement needed to satisfy um this specific bonus condition and it's related specifically to the ability to use the corner D bonus and it's related to the commercial facilities added um okay so it's covering the what office space no um so there are and I don't have the plan with me correct my I believe four stories that corner bonus D permits in height allowed. And so therefore that bonus was designed to facilitate um the inclusion of both public parking and commercial facilities to enhance um the overall need for both commercial facilities and parking in the journal square redevelopment plan area. The parking is not necessarily about um and the intent of the bonus isn't about meeting on-site needs for parking, but generalized neighborhood parking needs. Okay. But what's the what's the number? I calculated about 64 spaces based on the about a 16,000 square foot floor plate which is being utilized for the the hotel use bonus floors. Okay. So that's supposed to cover the hotel space is what we're saying or that's just a general number for the area, right? It's it's provided in relation to the hotel space but it's not required to be connected to the hotel space. Okay. Okay. Understood. All right. I apologize, Mr. Go ahead. No problem. It is a unique condition and as I said, it only applies to to three properties. I think this is the first one going forward with it. So, um All right. And then finally, the mandatory affordable housing requirements. Uh the the purpose for this is to provide ample opportunities for mixed income housing and the creation of affordable housing. Um so obviously as this project is coming back to the board as a new application, it it's it's now um subject to those mandatory affordable housing uh requirements and is providing that um as as part of this project. Um overall I think that the deviations can be kind of categorized into three categories. One is related to the height. The second is related to the tower and the base setback and stepback requirements. And then finally, the loading and and parking uh deviations that were um asking for that have been brought up in prior testimony. I think overall there are a number of deviations requested but really this this project is directly in line with the intent of the zoning requirements and advances the purposes of the redevelopment plan and the master plan. Um you know, this plan's a redevelopment plan. It was adopted in 2010. So we're about 15 years along in this plan. lot has changed. Uh it's gone through several amendment processes part of which are adding those bonuses in as development has sprung up. So I think as the the plan has advanced, it's recognized the the need for the additional height and recognized additional sites that are appropriate for it. I think this project really is a staple of what the plan calls for and advances the the goals of the redevelopment plan. Um obviously uh this project is a through and through mixeduse development provides retail use, hotel uses commercial retail services, dog daycare banquet, restaurant uses and residential. So I think throughout this plan is really embodies what the redevelopment plan is calling for at this certain location within the core of the journal square area. Um moving into the the direct deviation relief. Um this this planning board does have the ability to uh grant these deviations uh one by reason of an exceptional situation um brought on by pre-existing structures. I think in this case we have the foundation that's already in place that was um a part of a prior approval. Then obviously now that the plan's coming back with the with the amendment to the plan to add in the mandatory affordable housing. So, I think this is an exceptional practical difficulty um to kind of work with w within that structure and that foundation that's built. I think that really relates directly to the base deviations that I'll talk about through my testimony. Um not so much the the overight height of the building, but I think where our base is is and where those deviations apply. I think that's tied into the kind of existing foundation that's on the property. Um, I would lean more heavily to the what I would call the uh flexible standard of the plan where the benefits of the deviations and overall project would outweigh the detriments. I think that's really, you know, how this project's been designed from the start and continues to move forward. Um, has been designed to really recognize what the plan calls for and kind of respect those those zoning requirements allowing for light air and open space and advancing the overall redevelopment plan. Um so we are asking for several deviations related to the tower and the base requirements. Um here we do have compliant front yard uh setbacks providing the 20 mandatory required 20 foot uh sidewalk along Kennedy and then a 15t required um sidewalk along Cottage Street which actually extends beyond that in certain situations as Cottage Street widens from a 33 foot uh right ofway to a 60oot right ofway as you approach the corner with Kennedy Boulevard. Um, for the base of the building, we are requesting a deviation where a five- foot setback of the base is required from lower density zones. Here to the east of the property, um plan right is zone four, which is a lower density zone of the plan. So, it calls for a 5ft setback. Um, looking at the intent of that, I I think it's kind of the recognized that's lower scale development that would be next door and potentially add for, you know, maybe windows along a a side wall that would allow for kind of visual attractive appearance where you have lower scale buildings. I think what we designed to do is to build it to the property line to remove any um essentially wasted space between the proposed de development and any future development uh currently there while still respecting um overall light and air on the on the upper floors. Um so so that is one deviation requesting zone 4 allows for a maximum of four to six stories. The base here is is six stories I think approximately 65 ft. So essentially, if new development next door were to pop up, the idea is to build it um directly on the property line budding our property and then have it in consistent street scale uh street wall as you walk down Cottage Street. So I think that's in line with what the redevelopment plan envisions. Um although we are requesting that deviation for the lower density zone setback. Um, moving on from from the base, that's that's the only setback requirement uh deviation we're asking for for the base. Moving into the the tower setback requirements, um there's a require required uh 30 foot minimum setback from lower density zone. So again, the east side of the the building, we're proposing 10 ft, which increases to uh I think 15 to 20 ft um as you go back to the rear corner of the property. Um so about uh half of what's required. Um there's also a requirement of 30 foot setback um from a rear uh property line. So here to the south of the property you have rear property lines abuing essentially the um southeast corner of of the proposed building. Um there again we're proposing about a 10 to 15 foot uh setback for the the tower of the building. Um and then finally uh we have um for front yard tower setback we're proposing 8 feet uh 2 in from Kennedy Boulevard and then a minimum of 3'5 in from Cottage Street where a minimum of 15 is required. Again as I mentioned Cottage Street does widen in front of the property to a 60oot rightway and then Kennedy um is a is a big thoroughfare which has a varying right ofway width. Um, so those are really the the setback step back deviations we're asking for. Um, overall the plan does call for a minimum 10- foot sideyard uh step back for towers of the building. So we're meeting that requirement or exceeding that requirement in some spots. It's really the unique situation where we're adjacent to lower density zones. Um, but as Mr. Vandermark kind of walked through the design of the floor plates. Um, this building has been designed to center the core of the building, the the elevators, the stairs the hallways into the center of the tower. What that does is allow for an active um facade on all sides of the building with residential units facing out. So, as this property is um essentially a standalone zone 3 property adjacent to lower scale zones, I think it's going to be a highly visual uh visual uh building when it when viewing from all directions. So, having that core in the center of the building and active uses on its sides, I think is a direct design benefit um that we're proposing and it would outweigh any detriments from the stepback relief that we're asking for here. Um um moving into some of the height deviations we're asking for. Um starting with the minimum non- wrench residential ground floor to ceiling height. Uh we do have a double height ceiling uh floor and some portions of the first floor level along the Kennedy frontage and at the corner and then you have essentially a mezzanine level above that. So where that mezzanine level occurs, the uh floor to ceiling height drops to uh let me see here. I lost it. Um uh 9 ft 10 in is the minimum for ceiling height there. Um and then we also have a maximum residential floor to ceiling height. Uh that goes to 18t 8 in and that occurs on the 52nd and 53rd and those are the penthouse residential floors. Um generally as you approach the uh upper portions of the building there's usually a design intent to have essentially a cap on the building. So you have those penthouse floors and then that carries over to the uh the restaurant and the banquet floors which have the same floor to ceiling heights and access the cap to this uh tower development here. Um and then and then moving into the uh really the big I would say the big deviation ask here is the 56 stories where 51 stories are proposed. Um so Mr. Vandermark did walk through the breakdown of of how we got to um the number of stories and as well as the feet. I would say there there really isn't a feat cap in this redevelopment plan. So I wouldn't say we're compliant with the number of feet um requirement because essentially there is no requirement. What we did is back into what we think is the contemplated building height in feet and that's where we got to to the 613 ft um contemplated overall height that were consistent with um in terms of number of stories. As I said, the mandatory affordable housing requirement allows for an additional 20 stories um based on a floor area calculation. What this project is doing is adding 21 stories, 20 of which are residential floors, including one residential amenity floor. The 21st floor is really um some of that back and forth between what was previously uh in the redevelopment plan to what is currently and we realized the uh the amenity enclosed amenity space is now above uh what's permitted which is a 10% cap. that resident that amenity floor area is broken between both residential and the the restaurant use. So it it kind of carries over um the the general mixeduse nature of the building. Uh in addition as Mr. Vandermark pointed out, we do have a mechanical above above that enclosed amenity space area which is permitted at 20% of the roof area. So overall, I think um what's proposed is centered on the building and really uh is in line with with the cap. Um but it is an additional story, which is why we're asking for, you know, a 56 story um in this case. Um the additional five stories, as I mentioned, it really stems from the addition of the 20 residential stories. Um but generally where we were able to pick up the additional height is through the various uh bonuses of the redevelopment plan. So the corner D bonus, the office space bonus, we are able to pick up additional height from those bonuses, essentially apply that to the uh to add in additional hotel floors. Um and and that's that's where we're getting to the additional fivetory S. Um but generally we think it's in line with what the plan contemplates in overall feat. Uh and in addition, the design of the building was kind of um intended to mask that with the curves and angles. And Mr. Vandermark really spoke more elegantly about the the overall design, but I think what that does is kind of mass the overall number of stories within the building. So generally I don't see any substantial detriment with the additional fivetory ass that we're proposing here. Um wrapping up with the uh with the parking and loading deviations. Uh so as mentioned we're proposing a a backin head design where head-in head out designs required. Um, I think the design of the ground floor was was really um intended to minimize the level of garage and loading space and maximize the amount of active uh space for the residential lobby, the hotel lobby, and the retail uses. So, at this prominent corner location, I think that is an appropriate design. And um as our traffic engineer testified to, I think what we're proposing with the queuing space allows for adequate queuing to access the garage. And the redevelopment plan does contemplate both valet parking uh and automate automatic uh garages within the plan. Uh um finally we are asking for a maximum driveway width deviation that's at 32 feet 7 in where a maximum of 18 ft is permitted. Um that consolidates both the parking garage entrance and the loading space. It allows for two-way uh access into the garage as well. the loading zone I think was minimized again to um focus in an area um and then allowing for the active uses at the corner. And then finally, we are proposing a street uh street drop off lane as shown that will accommodate um everyday deliveries um ride share uh uses as well as um you know just typical uh stopping in um deliveries on the street there. So I think that's appropriate uh for the space. Again, that the cottage street does widen here, so I think it it won't interfere with the overall uh access to the site. Um, wrapping up I I do think the overall benefits here would outweigh the detriments. Again, I think this this project really does embody the mixeduse nature of the plan and is specific to the site. Um, given some of the unique um circumstances at play, uh, the project does advance the purposes of the municipal land use law. I think it will guide the appropriate use and development of the site. Again all permitted uses within plan consistent with purpose A. It is at appropriate density on the property. Um near the Journal Squared Station, near the core of Journal Square, consistent with purpose E. uh certainly provide sufficient space and appropriate location for the mixed mixed uses on on the for the project consistent with purpose G and would promote a desirable visual environment um through this uh tower in the base development consistent with purpose I. Um, finally, I think it's also consistent with purpose J which is to um conserve energy re resources and natural resources as part of, you know, maintaining the existing foundation on the site and building off of that, accommodating for the uh the mandatory affordable housing here. Um, finally, I I I I don't see any substantial detriment to the general welfare here. Again, I think the the building's been designed to provide for adequate light, air, and open space. Um centering the tower on the base providing active frontages on all sides. Um, I think this design really embodies what the what the tower and the base requirements uh call for. Um, although it does not meet the prescriptive requirements here. And then finally, I don't see any substantial impairment to intended purpose of the zone planner zoning ordinance. I think throughout my testimony, you heard how it advances the objectives of the redevelopment plan. So, I won't go into listing all of them but it really does um reflect what this redevelopment plan calls for. Um, with that, that would conclude my direct testimony. I know it's lengthier than than normal, but I I think this this project warrants it. Um, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. All right. Thank you, Mr. Bellamy. Um let's start with the elephant in the room. So, there's already a base that's constructed. So, you're considering that a hardship as far as the stepbacks go. I think it directly relates to the base setback requirement, the five foot. And then you heard testimony from our structural engineer, but as you go up the building, I would really rely more heavily on the the flexible standard the benefits outweighing the detriments. Um, but you did hear the the testimony of the benefits of kind of proposing the the footprint that we are on the upper floors but then at the end of your testimony you're considering that base already being constructed a benefit because of the environmental concerns of demolition, demolition reconstruction. Correct. I I think I think it advances that that general purpose of the municipal land use law. Um, but again, that's one of many that that I did uh mention in my testimony but I think there are elements there that advances that direct purpose, some foundation, huh? Um, okay. So, if if we could just go back to the the setback from the low density zone. So, five foots required, correct? For the base. Yes, correct. For the base. Um, so zero's provided and once again your reasoning for that is just to maximize space. I wouldn't say maximize space. I think what it does is allow for a consistent development for if that adjacent site were to be redeveloped. I think providing a a 5-ft space and then a, you know, a blank wall, I think you essentially have a dead space there, um that likely fills up with trash as it goes on. Of course, I think there are benefits of providing a complete streetscape. Um, I really trying to look into what the intent of that 5 foot requirement. Like I said, it it might be to have a more active wall on that side knowing that the adjacent development might be a lower scale. But here I think we kept it at six stories which w is what the zone four can go up to. So I think our intent and and our hope is that adjacent redevelopment builds up to that property line and then you have a complete active street wall along Cottage Street. You're not advocating that it shouldn't be a 5-ft setback according to the red. No, that's that's what that's what the redevelopment calls for. But you're not saying that that was a mistake, are you? No. No. So that was intentional. Yeah. And I, like I said, I think it's to allow for that. It was intentional next to the lower density zone. That's correct. Correct. Correct. And it's still a lower density zone. There's Yeah. Unless the property gets reszoned, it's zone four, lower density capped at six stories. Okay. So, we're putting it right on the property line because maybe in the future it may be reszoned. I think that's one thought process. That's the benefit of what we're proposing versus what the plan calls for. Okay. And you know, I do agree that having that 5 foot in there next to a neighboring property, yeah, it's a spot that garbage is going to collect, but now you're putting this project on the property line. So now that garbage is still going to collect, but now it's your neighbor's problem. Yeah, that's not the applicant's problem. That's a valid point. Okay. Yeah, with the with the current development that's on the property, it's a I think a three-story, you know, and it's occupied, right? As far as I know. Okay. Do you think they know that that's the int. It's not the intent, but that's the effect of building rights to the property line is now all that garbage is their problem. So, I don't know if they're here tonight. I hope they're here tonight. But, you know, that's that's the effect of putting that right up to the property line. Yeah. And I think these are real problems anytime you have, you know, a redevelopment plan such as this journal square one which, you know, it's an aggressive plan. It's aggressive and it gets developed, you know, over 50 years could be these sure the lifespan of these projects. So it is a but in the meantime that threestory house next door now has no setback from this property. The the house itself has a setback on its own property. They have their own that they Yeah. We're not proposing an additional Yes. foot as required. They have their own that they're required to provide. Yeah. They have windows. So I think by building code they they have to have Sure. But this application is also required to provide that setback and is choosing to ask for the variance. Correct. Based on hopefully I shouldn't say hopefully but hopefully in the future that that property is bought and developed into something larger and it's no longer a low density zone. I think it still remains a low density zone, but it would be able to obviously connect to our building. Um, so yeah that's that's the I think the design benefit of what we're proposing, but obviously as you mentioned, there are you know, certain impacts from what's currently there. Um, from a light and air open space, you know, shadows cast. I think 5t doesn't make it or break it here. Not at that point. No, I agree. And especially when you have now a 56story building. I mean, shadows are going to be cast, but I think that's what we see it as the benefit of providing a complete street wall. Um and that's generally consistent with urban design practices. I think of having attached buildings, but a three-story house that has I don't know what their setback is from. It's probably Yeah. 3T. Okay. So you're talking a difference of 3 feet versus 8 ft between a three-story house and a 56story building. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, that entire row is threetory houses until Yeah, until you get to the homestead homestead place uh new constructions. Agreed. It's probably a run of 10 to 15 homes, I would say. Okay. And um and I'm sorry I completely missed the case for not providing the stepbacks off Kennedy and Cottage if you could just go over those one more time for me. Yeah. So there's a 15 foot um front front yard step back required for the tower. That applies to the property line, not the base of the building. Yes. Um, so let me just get the exact dimensions here. Um, I'd just like to correct an error on the record with regards to the sideyard requirements in zone 4. Sure. Um, so for zone 4, which as Mr. Belly mentioned um, allows generally multif family construction up to six stories. Um, the sideyard regulation where the adjacent building is greater than four stories or where the adjacent building is built on the lot line, sideyards are not permitted within 10 ft of ride of way except for required by fire or building code to accommodate adjacent windows. Um, and so as that reads, I think if and this is if obviously it's not reflecting current condition. Um just if um if that property would be redeveloped, it would likely be redeveloped on the lot line the adjacent property. Um just to clarify, I think you mentioned a three-foot sideyard. I was referencing what's there currently, but I Oh, you're referencing current conditions. I agree with your point. Yes, I misunderstood your context there. I thought you framed it as a requirement. Yeah, but under under current conditions is what I'm referring to right now. And until that condition is reszoned or that property is bought that condition still exists. Yeah. I mean, not reszoned, but redeveloped. Redeveloped. Um, but yes, and that is right. And I think you know, but in that I'm sorry, in that low density zone, how high can you go right there? Six stories. Okay. Which is the height I believe is the height of the base. Is that correct? Okay. So if it was four stories to six stories, they could build on the on the lot line. Correct. Okay. Understood. All right. Thank you. Um Oh, sorry. We're on the front yard. That's all right. Front yard uh front yard setback. So, we're proposing 8 ft uh 2 in um from Kennedy Boulevard. That's the minimum. Um it's not an exact straight line um parallel to it, so it it does widen in some spots. And then we're proposing a minimum of 3 feet 5 in from from Cottage Street. Um I think generally we're just trying to center um not center the mass but move the mass towards the corner where you have greater right ofway widths um provide a greater step back from the neighbors from the lower density zones and center that to the property to the corner. So I think you know from the architectural standpoint the design um kind of works with what's being proposed. The tower extending up from from the base I think the mix again the mix of the facade materials the curves and the angles I think is it's is proposed to help um mitigate those uh deficient uh setbacks. So, you're essentially saying you're moving the building to further towards the cottage and Kennedy side to provide light and air to the lower density zone. Yeah. To to increase. That's where we're proposing the massing to extend from. Obviously we're still short on this, but you're not providing the setback, right? Correct. That goes up six stories next to the threetory house next door. That is the low density zone. So, you're moving the tower but leaving the base exactly where it is and have it on the property line. Yeah, that's what's being proposed. Correct. Okay. Okay. Anybody else? Any questions for Mr. Bellamy? I just wanted a clarification on something there too. Um, so if there is no setback, I I don't know if I I thought I saw it the other the other day. Um, not this is our last just want to be clear on something that if maybe you pick your brain if you know it. Um, as it goes up, the structural engineer was talking about the wave of the building, the movement of the building and stuff like that. Would that have any effect on the base going to the property line to any other building that would be alongside of it there? I I don't want to speak for a structural standpoint because I'm sure I thought that was brought up on one of the notes that I had looked at. Um is there as it goes up the building, is there any infringement on the properties next door or any of that like over the property line? Yeah. No. No. Okay. Um can can uh before we vote, can I ask that to the uh structural engineer that question? Oh, we're not even close to voting yet, Eddie. Okay. I wish. It's a lot of people that's here to speak tonight. So, let's let's finish up with Mr. Bellamy and then Okay. Anybody else for Mr. Bellamy? No. Okay. Thank you, sir. Eddie, do you want to get a question off to Mr. Christie? Yes, I think we should. I would like to understand it. That's a uh Rich. Yeah. We'll bring them up. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Question is regarding drift over property lines over over the property lines. If there is if it was brought closer to the next property line of anything that was being developed next to it, would that have an effect on that property on those infringement on those properties? And it is a normal thing that we design for when we we do drift calculations to determine what the maximum drift would be under a wind uh wind load or maximum wind load, maximum seismic load. And we do keep it within the property line with a with a clearance so that there's no so it wouldn't be a structural problem. It wouldn't be a structural problem for those people that have the property next door to that property. Correct. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Thank you, Mr. Christie. Council, are we there? We're there. That that completes my presentation. I I believe the board's heard enough. I don't think I want to re reiterate everything. Chuck, I have a question. Uh, this commercial building and everything, do you have any affordable units? Yes that's that's the uh point of this application. The prior approval had none. This one will have 63 affordable units. 63. Yeah. 11 point 63 63. 11.6%. And uh what's the AMI? It's 80 or it's 50 there. It'll excuse me. It'll be a mix under the O. So you'll have a mix of uh very low income up to 30% AMI. Okay. A mix of uh 50% up to uh of up to 50% AMI AMI and then uh some that are up to 80% AMI. And they're required to have a mix of unit types as well. So it's not all studios. You're maxed out at 20% studios and ones. And then the rest have to be a mix of twos and threes. a minimum of 30% twos and and uh 20% threes. Not one of those pen houses though, right? That would be a nice one. That would be nice. And obviously council, you know, I usually bring this up later, but those affordable units number one, they're built to the same standard as the rest of the market rate units in the building. There's only one entrance and exit to the building. That doesn't they don't have a separate entrance? No absolutely. They they would be built to the same standard. That's a requirement under the ICO. Sure. And uh they have to be mixed throughout the building. There is no they're not designated to this apartment in this corner all the way up. No, their location is throughout the building. Yes. It's mixed. Yeah. Yeah. years ago, I saw one I forget the actually no, I remember the building. I just won't say it, but that one unit with the wonky column that came down that was the affordable unit going all the way up the building. So, okay, good. That's not the case. Okay. Uh, anybody else any questions before we do public? No. All right, let's open it up for public comment. If anybody's here from the public that wants to comment, please come on up. We'll swear you in. We'll give you three minutes. Truth. Truth. Yes. Your home address, please. Uh Chris Capers, Ward F. Last name C A P E R S. Good evening, sir. We have three minutes for you. All right. You put your hand down. All right. Good evening, council. Um like I said, my name is Chris Capers resident of Jersey City over 30 years member of the Labors Local 3. Um I'm I'm in favor of the project. Um, like I said, this project transforms a sleepy intersection of Kennedy the boulevard into a busering center of community and commerce near Mass Transit in line with the goals of Journal Square 2060 redevelopment plan. So, I'm proud to support it uh because it promises 63 affordable housing units. You know what I mean? I think that's warranted right now in Jersey City. Also, uh we desperately need guaranteed job opportunities for my brothers and sisters that's here right now at Local 3. So, please vote yes. And uh thank you for your time. All right. Thank you brother. Good evening. Tonight, the whole truth. Yes. Laura Whitaw. L A U R A W H I T E L A W. My address is 525 Davis Avenue in Harrison, New Jersey. Good evening, sister. We have three minutes for you. My name is Laura and I am a member of the International Union of North America. I would like to express my support for the development of 2966 Kennedy Boulevard. This project brings much neededed housing, retail restaurant options, um, and jobs to Journal Square. 2966 Kennedy Boulevard with its mixeduse design, attractive exterior, and guaranteed union and guaranteed union construction jobs for all you local three members is a type of development that benefits all of Jersey City. Please vote yes. Thank you and have a good night. Thank you. And you you mentioned guarantee union jobs. Is that for all unions or is that just the laborers? It's okay to say you don't know. I don't know. Okay. Thank you. It's going to be the truth. The whole truth. I do. Maybe. Sure. It's uh David Johnson uh 31 Raleigh Road uh South Brunswick, New Jersey. Good evening sir. We have three minutes for you. Thank you, chair. Um so, uh I'm here uh as part of Labour's Eastern Region Organizing Fund. Uh we support the uh variance for the Imperial Towers. Um Luna Local 3 represents uh 2,500 members um in northern New Jersey. And I'm happy to say we reached an agreement with uh Euro and Sunny Kumar uh for to perform uh uh work on the Imperial Towers project. Um this is an I mean uh work for our skilled uh union members uh many of them here in the audience today and uh as a res as a result we are uh here supporting the variance of the uh the project and hopefully some of the the workers uh as my brother before me said uh making union wages can afford to live in the Imperial Towers as well. Thank you. Okay. Thank you brother. We appreciate it. tonight. I do. Manm Singh Vasv Mi T S I A N G H V A S D E V 225 St. Paul's Avenue Jersey City. Good evening. We have three minutes. Good evening. It's an exciting project. We need one as a landmark in our ward where I reside. It's about two blocks from my place. It's something exciting where we don't need to travel far for different kind of restaurants. Nice accessibility to parking around. You know how Jersey City is now with parking, especially Newark Avenue Cottage and Van Winkl. It's crazy. Thank you, Sunny, for the parking. It's a public parking and closer to Journal Square. It's an easy commute. Thank you so much. Please vote yes and let's do it. Thank you. Thank you. Give me the truth, the whole truth. the truth. Nice to Yes. Spell your name against your home address. Okay. My name Ununice. I'm consulting Dublin human rights. I am I live in Spell your name for me. Prince Bren Eunice. Uh you live in your last name for me. Sorry. Spell it. Y O U N E S. Prince B R I N C. Thank you. Good evening sir. We have three minutes for you. Okay. Okay. I am living 19 reserv. I have on my house already 72 carage front this building there already this in house already leave it for my granddaughter granddaughter every time you come in you see building coming up you see I love this already coming small Manhattan city small Manhattan I love this area and I love this already I love Thank you honey I love this already coming big building already because my daughter my granddaughter coming leave in cottage soon thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I do. Sure. My first name is Dario D- A R I O. Last name Gutier G- U T I E R R E Z. Um so I I don't Oh, 36 Magnolia Avenue. Um good evening, sir. We have three minutes for you. Thank you. Uh, I I don't know the developer, so I'm not going to thank him like everybody else. But uh uh you know but yeah no I you know a few months ago I guess last year right uh this board um you know approved a resoning that you know would hopefully create affordable housing in this part of uh Journal Square. Um you know I I live on Magnolia Avenue. I don't live too far away. Um you know I I think so one thing that's that you know I've noticed in uh meetings that we've had community meetings with developers um you know they they want to create affordable housing um under this new plan but one thing that they're sort of concerned about is um financing right so without a sort of a proven example of a building being built under these rules um they're you know the the the lenders are kind of wary about doing it right um here you have a project that's already five stories out of the ground you know um it could be, you know, in a year and a half, it could be topped off. It could start leasing, right? Um, you know having that example of a proven development under these rules, um, will accelerate the process, um, you know, of other projects coming with mixed income uh, housing and, you know, coming in under these rules. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think, um, this is a project that has solid benefits, concrete benefits in itself of 63, uh, affordable units. I think also I, you know, I'm a believer that market rate uh, housing is also, uh, in short supply. So, you know I think that's great. And I think just the the general effect of promoting um you know um uh the construction of of more of these mixed income um you know buildings and and affordable housing is is great. So, you know, I I know that there's a lot here, but uh you know these variances, I think the benefits outweigh the detriments like the the planner said. Um you know, I I hope that you will consider uh approving those variances and uh thank you to all of you. Thank you. We appreciate it. testimony you give tonight is going to be the truth. The whole truth with the truth. I do. Uh Anupam WHMA uh I own 36 Vipa Avenue. Good evening. Sorry. We have three minutes. Thank you. Uh so this the neighborhood is changing and buildings are coming. It's looking better beautiful and more buildings like that is bringing a vibrant community and all the changes to the neighborhood. On top of that, this building especially brings more affordable units more uh and it as well as it brings more uh work to the people and all those community different kind of works and all that stuff. So I would support this. I would encourage more buildings with more affordable units. Uh please go ahead and approve this. Okay. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. Thank you. Good evening, sir. If you could just uh acknowledge that you are you know, that you're sworn in and are still under oath. Yes. K L O W SKI for the record. Okay. Thank you. We have three minutes. I'd like to ask you uh Mr. chairman to ask me sorry what I'm sorry go ahead ask you to allow me uh more time unlimited just as equally as Mr. Harry sorry three minutes because I I have 5 seconds per every item I don't know how many items you have make it impossible for me to inform you and you to make an informed decision so I'm going to give you the courtesy of resetting your timer thank you to three minutes and it'll be three minutes sir Mr. Kumar was twice convicted fraudster prior to going into construction business. Okay. Then he committed many frauds. On the top of it, he he hires illegal aliens, human trafficking, crosses state lines, not paying taxes, not paying insurance, not paying workers compensation on illegal alies because they could not. Now, uh no public notice have been placed at the construction site. is a city policy which is illegal. It violates due process under center for the 14th amendment. I'm going to just go over the titles. Uh number of OSHA violations on other construction sites Mr. Kumar has open sir comments related to this project. You can't talk about other projects. Yeah, but he can he can sir. You cannot talk about other projects. Limit your comments to this project. Let me let me continue please. He brags about bribing Mr. Foolup. I mean, how bad can it go? Again, sir your comments have to be related to this project. Well, bribering bribing mayor of the city is related to this project isn't it? Sir, enough. Move on to comments related to the project. Okay. He has no means of finishing this project because he has many losses coming up from these frauds. Sir, do you have any comments related to the project or are you just going to badmouth the applicant? Let me talk. Now, at this construction site, Mr. Kumar illegally took over Cottage Street for his private use. So he demonstrated that he has no no consideration for for us. So how can be he how Mr. Kumar be considered to be allowed to proceed with this project? Now also uh I allege that there is money laundering involved in this project because there's no way Mr. Kumar can sir this is a land use board. I'm sorry. We This is a land use board. We are here to talk about site plan applications and variances under the law. Yes. We are not here to talk about allegations of money laundering. So, if you could please talk about the project. I understand you don't like the applicant. I' I've got that. And you think I don't like any fraudster. And you think he's a fraudster. And you think he's all sorts of bad things. Correct. Got it. Was twice convicted already. Got it. Yes. Okay. So, let me uh with regard to this uh project well on the Cottage Street site he provides a 5 ft of clearance for the sidewalk in order to accommodate the drop off. This drop off is too close to irregular intersection. There's there are two lanes there and people from this uh uh drop off point they'll be crossing into the blind spot of people coming from south side of Canada Boulevard going towards north right at an angle so they won't see them and they'll be crossing the other line on Cottage Street because there are two lanes there right right so that's that should never be approved and on top of it why we should allow our public space to be used for his priv private use because he extending on the on on both sides extending sidewalk into the public street right according to what I saw on those drawings the yellow line which you see on the drawing which was shown right that's the original so he extends the curb towards Cottage Street and then cuts out of this the the drop off place. Another thing. Thank you, sir. That was your three minutes. Go ahead, Miss Burke. Come on up. Good evening, commissioners. Good evening. You get tonight's going to be the truth, the home truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, I do. Charlene Burke. D H A R L E N E B U R K E 56 Duncan Avenue. Miss Burke, good evening. We have three minutes for you. Good evening. So, I have a few comments to make about the project. Um the first thing with the sheathing that's all glass. Can we make it bird friendly design? That's a really big concern especially in migratory times like we're experiencing right now and in the fall. And buildings like this. There's many bird strikes that have really led to the demise of many endangered and certainly uh unique birds and we're right in the flyway. Second question, stoves. I'm curious about these things. They were talking about energy efficient. I'd like to know their stoves electric or gas. Their heating, is it electric? Water. Is everything efficient? Faucets and showers. We're talking a hotel here. And I, as a resident of Jersey City, am continually concerned about our water depletion of our reservoir. We are not unlimited. And we build these buildings that use have lots of tenants, take lots of showers. You know, when you're in a hotel, you don't care about the water bill. It's built in, right? You want to take three showers a day, you can take it. So, I have concerns about this. And as a resident, if I'm, you know, put on restrictions because of buildings like this, I have a concern that we're approving them. All right. For their usage. Another thing um, connect to infrastructure. I want to know if our infrastructure has been improved or upgraded for by the MUA along the boulevard or along Cottage Street or are we connecting to 50y old 100year-old sewers water lines exactly what are we connecting to? I'm sorry we have a lot of problems. Sip Avenue was closed for months because of damage to our water system and the sink holes it created. Do we want to create more of that or do we think of this in advance of putting in this kind of a building that draws on these kind of uh resources and infrastructure? And then lastly, I appreciated all the questions about the parking and the 90 seconds it takes for that for that very young um you know person to grab those keys and get in that elevator. How long does it take them to come back to get the car, the next car? 5 minutes, 10 minutes after he parks it on some other level and then what is he running up the stairs or is the elevator coming back up again? I mean, they were giving the very optimistic timelines of how it takes three cars to get into those elevators. But we all know in just in elevators even we as people have to wait for an elevator come come back down to get into it to go to another floor. So thank you Miss Burke. That was your three minutes. We appreciate it. We'll get all your questions answered though. Thank you. Council, can you address uh I have four questions for Miss Burke. We'll get to you in one second ma'am. Uh count Mr. Harrington. Come on up. Okay. While they're fresh in our minds, let's get these questions answered. Sure. I'll I'll see if I can address what I I have down in my notes. Uh unless you see um bird friendly glass low efficiency fixtures, uh heating, is it electric, stoves, electric, gas? Uh that kind of thing. MUA connections, are they old infrastructure? And how long does it take for a middle-aged valet to get back to the ground floor after he drops the car off? Got it. So, um, and as far as the bird friendly glass, uh we we can't commit to that for the entire building. I mean, that's that's uh, a whole another gorilla that you you'd have to address. But, you know, my architect advised me that, uh, he just went to a seminar on a on a similar issue. And then most of the bird strikes are at lower levels. and we have a lot of solid material at the lower levels. Um so, you know, it's unfortunate it happens, but we can't commit to that. Um the stoves, uh it's all electric, I've been advised. So, um that's uh consistent with what they're looking for and that the the water would be lowflow systems. Um uh the infrastructure, you know, they're they have connections there. I know they're working with the MUA. Um, I don't, you know, I'd have to, you know, bring up another somebody else to to address any further, but I know that, you know, the the MUA has already signed off, you know, on on on the connections, uh parking with the valet. It's it's not going to be one person, you know, it's going to be multiple valet. So, it's it's not going to be one middle-aged or one, you know, 20-year-old running up and down. Uh, it's it's going to be multiple people. That's so it's not you know they will be you know one goes in the next guy gets the other just like any typical valet that you've gone to. Okay. Thank you council. And I don't did is there an executive order in place to ban lowflow showerheads at this point? I thought I saw that on the news. I don't I don't know. I mean I could It's an adventure. Every day is an adventure here. Well, let's let's strike that executive order. All right. We'll try. Um, well, let's get it built before it goes into effect. You never know. All right. Anybody else from public? Please come on up. No, I can't. I can't stop. I do. Natalie Leone. N A T A L I E Lemon. L I M as in monkey. O N is in Nancy. 55 Wales Avenue. Um, good evening. We have three minutes for you. Thank you. Um I um was very inspired by Mrs. Burke's comments and I just want to say that in terms of when we're we're looking at several um significant variances, I think it's entirely reasonable to ask for something back from a developer such as bird safe glass with especially within um the average strike zone. Um and I know that there are organizations in our city that are currently undergoing some studies and taking data to see uh just how much um this is occurring in Jersey City and it's will be published soon because it's undergoing it's happening right now. But uh I think it's an entirely reasonable ask as long as as well as to ask for energy efficient appliances and things of that nature. Um I also represent the Hudson County Tree Allies. I wasn't sure um what the plans were for street trees for this project. I don't think it was really discussed although it might have been there. Um there is an obligation for all new developments to provide street trees and that need the the pits and other things need to be according to forestry standards that's 9 ft long. Um so we definitely another thing you know the least the community can get in return for such density and profitability is street trees which benefit everyone including the people who will be living in this building. And then finally I just want to say regarding the valet thing there was the mention of a 20-year-old a middle-aged person or whatever. There also was the issue of how many elevators because it doesn't really matter. So, and I I also I just I think that the the um when someone said that they had been watching the the traffic and how many cars, I think that that was probably a good day. So, it is a consideration to think about how long it will take for each car to be valeted up and um for the next person to be able to get up and down, things of that nature. Just don't want to be dismissive of that point. But um variances for the bird safe bill, the bird safe glass, we we really should do that. Um think there's going to be a massive amount of profitability in this project and I think that they can manage it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Please come on up. Sure. Yes, I do. for the recommendation. Um, Michael Vego VA, 76 Goateier Avenue. Um, good evening. We have three minutes for you sir. I just wanted to wanted to second concerns about street trees. I think it's a very worthwhile thing for the neighborhood. Um, given the lack of green space around Journal Square, but I also wanted to revisit the bird strikes. My, um, my wife runs Jersey City Birds a bird a birding nonprofit in Jersey City. So, I've heard a lot about this. Um, you don't have to commit to the entire building. Bird strikes only tend to happen in the first 100 feet. So, I was wondering, can you commit to bird proof class in the first 10 stories? Because that's really where bird strikes occur. They generally, migrating birds generally don't fly that high. The vast majority of bird strikes are on the lower floor. So, that seems like a reasonable ask. Interesting. And I do I want to just ask you a question about it, but anything else? That's all for your comment. Okay. Where is this data going to be available on the bird strikes when it, you know when the studies are done? Because we hear about this in waves. Um, you know, sometimes public comment they'll we'll have a few meetings in a row where public comment will address bird strikes and then it's six months and we don't hear about bird strikes again. And then, you know, maybe a couple come back and it's it's on and off for us. Well, I think that depends on who comes to the meetings, but the course, you know, the statistics change course, but we generally approve big buildings every meeting here. So, you know, it's I'm just I'd like to know what the data is myself. Sure. I mean, I we can I could I could find that out and bring it to you or you could look that up. But I think Well, that's my question. Where is it going to be available when it's where can I look? There was mention of mention study being done. Are you familiar with that or you're not familiar with that? That was not mentioned by me, but many have have been done. I mean, I recommend Google for a start. Okay. I mean, but also my wife's a burning nonprofit. She can I can get that information from her. And what's the name of the nonprofit if you don't mind? Uh, Jersey City Birds. Jersey City Birds. Okay. Excellent. Bird watchers in the city because we do have a lot of wildlife and green spaces and she wants to call attention to that. Um but I would say that just because you don't hear about the concerns every week, I understand. No, I believe me, I understand. Um I I'm just looking for some kind of study that I can read about. No, of course. Of course. But you the information is out there. This is just something that I've heard mentioned. I know is a concern for all of the highrises that are going up. Sure. And it's been applied inconsistently because the city doesn't have any ordinance about it yet. Of course. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Anybody else from the public? Please come on up. I do. Uh, Robert Fu, 414 Fairmount Avenue. Uh uh, spelled F as in Frank U. And I just want to follow up about Good evening, sir. We have three minutes for you. Okay. Um, just want to follow up about the bird strike issue. Um standards. There are standards that exist as to um best practices to prevent bird strikes. Um the architect, you know, will know where to look this up. The city of Newark and the city of New York um have uh bird friendly glass requirements in their in their building codes. So, the standards are out there and and can be easily looked up. Thanks. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. Thank you. Anybody else from public? Seeing no more public, I move to close the public. Okay. Motion made and seconded to close public. Uh council, can you address the street trees for us? I know there wasn't a lot of testimony on that. Uh yes. Um we actually were compliant with the street trees and um actually in addition to that on on the Kennedy Boulevard side we're actually doing bioells. Yes. So you know, we're going above and beyond um what you would normally see and that really, you know, dresses it up um along Kennedy Boulevard. And then just again you know, we're not dismissive of of the bird strikes, but the we can't commit to that. And then and I note that, you know, on the first like seven seven stories or so, we've got a lot of um panels, aluminum panels uh uh on the building. That's where the parking is. Um we also have a lot of spandrel panels. Um, so those, you know, are not your clear glass. So, um, while we can't commit to it, we think that, you know we hope that, you know, it doesn't happen as often as as it would otherwise. Okay. Thank you, council. Mike, are you okay? Okay. Matt, do you uh do you want to give testimony? Um, yeah, certainly. Thank you, chairman. Um, you know, I think as council mentioned in their opening statement um, it's worth reiterating that this is not an amendment to the previous approval on this site, but it is a brand new application that, um, comes with some implications um, with regards to how the board should evaluate the variance requests. So I guess first and foremost every variance it's like it's brand new and the board has to look in the existing context of what's before them today with regards to what the applicant presented and the information um the board has had the chance to weigh and decide whether for each variance request do the benefits outweigh the detriments. These are all C variances and so that is the standard. Um and obviously in the previous iteration of this project some of these variances were granted and in the context in which they're asked for now some of them the implications are similar to last time and you know um but for example with regards to height um obviously going from 31 stories to 35 versus 51 to 56 that's a different context. with regards to the set um the setbacks in the massing of the building um you're extending those variances in the tower the base variance farther up and so you know weighing the delta and those impacts is important um and furthermore I believe um you know and the structural engineer you know stressed that um some of the you know structural context that weighed the applicant's decision to apply for some of these tower and the base variances. Um they weigh that a lot of it is really independent of the existing base there. Um but um it should be clear that um under you know um New Jersey planning law um context and generally how you evaluate what is um you know I've heard the word hardship thrown about um the existing structure on there is um what we call a self-imposed hardship therefore cannot be used as a justification for variance and so you have to look at the benefits and the detriments of the proposed varian variant of that and you can't lean on oh well they can't do anything else because the existing structure there and so it's about do the variances provide what baron and fit do the variances provide what are the potential detriments do the do the benefits outweigh the detriment and with that I leave the board to ponder their decision um staff in their report dated January 31st 2020 uh five. This is was a long time coming this project. Um did mention that um should the board choose to approve this project that staff recommends um six different conditions within the memo. Um is the applicant willing to agree to those conditions? Yes, the applicant would agree to those in the event of an approval. Um furthermore, staff would like to recommend a further condition to work with um traffic staff to address any potential um driver ambiguity as to the proper usage of the um of the drive aisle and you know putting in whether it's any sort of um you know raised guiding curbs and signage and like to make sure um things are as unambiguous as possible and that would be acceptable too. I think it's probably covered by uh condition number two, but um it's certainly acceptable as a separate condition as well. Thank you, chairman. Okay, thank you, Matt. Um, so before we entertain a motion does anybody need to deliberate on record and we just want to go right to motion? Deliberate or pontificate? Let's go to motion. Motion. Okay. Okay. So, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. I'd like to at this time make a motion to approve case P2024-0210 as presented to the board tonight with the six conditions and uh the addition of the work with traffic staff with the drive aisle. Second. Okay, we have a motion to approve and a second. Vice Chair Dr. Gonzalez. So, this this uh was a very interesting um presentation. Uh the you know, our job I've been on the board for a long time and you know, you have some of these are easy, some of these are a little harder, some of those some of these are easy to deny. Uh this one this one was a little tough because there was um a as as Matt said, we have to weigh as testimony is going on in our mind whether or not um the variances are justified and if the presentation is satisfying to to me um and to each of us, we have to do that individually. Um and as you can see, we we vote. We don't, you know, pontificate and then vote together all at the same time. We we we each have our own this is a beautiful thing about this board and we all live here. Uh, and we love when when the public comes out. Um, but having said all that and I don't want to I can talk a lot about this project and Mr. Evander Mark and his artist, you know he's architecturally artistic all the time. It was it's a wonderfully uh presented project. Um I think that each variance that was presented although not totally all dimminimists um do are justified and uh they're they do outweigh the detriment. Um in my opinion I really believe that um we don't care about the applicants past um we we should we we just don't. Um, so you know, having said all that, I think at the end of the day, um, and the and the final analysis after the presentation, um, I, uh, I'm going to vote I, uh, and, uh, and good luck. Continue to work with your neighbors obviously, and and, um, carry on. I vote I, Commissioner Lipsky. So, I looked up the International Bird Strike Committee, and I see nothing. uh from them in terms of buildings so much as they talk about airports and aerod drones. But that being said, because I do respect that opinion um, when I see people like Dario and Michael and Prince come out, um, guys who I know work in the neighborhood Dario lives in the Hilltop, but he's been very active in the Journal Square Civic Association, who's a board member and he's raising his beautiful family in that area to come out and support this for um, building and for um affordable housing. That strikes me. Um then when I see guys, you know, and the brothers and sisters from Leona Local 3, uh who had a big rat on Kennedy Boulevard last year. But I think that speaks to you, Sunonny in the sense that um what Mr. Christy had said, you know, in terms of I could design it, but I would need, you know you would need the right people. I think engaging and turning people like Paul Raldan and Ray Pino around took a lot on your part and I think it speaks to your character. So, uh, and I think you're going to get the right group of people to execute Mr. Christiey's plan and Mr. Vandermark's plan. And um, so, um, I live in the area. I think Mr. Vandermark's uh work is uh stupendous and so u I look forward to bowling. I look forward to eating in restaurants. I don't look forward to the traffic. I'm a little skeptical about that, but I think Mr. Beverly made the case and Chuck Harrington did. I vote I commissioner Dr. Desai. Well, everybody knows I'm a fan of affordable housing and parking. So they have both the things here. It's my area. India square and journal square. So I live here for 40 years and I can see the changes in general square and India square with this uh this thing will have 500 apartments. We'll have a a hotel. There is no hotel in general square where we can stay. The tourists could stay. They they have this hotel 154 rooms and of course this elegant community on India Square and General Square. Everybody will be happy to have this project and of course for me I say the planner has done the best thing to have such a nice uh building coming up on Journal Square. People will be happy. I'm happy and I'm going to vote. I Commissioner Patel I. Commissioner Gangadan. So I want to thank the public for coming out this evening and um for your comments. Uh this project is really a one-stop project and it's an all-inclusive meaning hotel, banquet hall, residential, commercial spaces. Um, I think this will be the second project in Journal Square, if I'm not mistaken, chair, that will have affordable units. So, yes, as far as I'm aware, 701 Newark was the first, which we're setting the standard here for, and I'm very happy about that. Um, what convinced me here this evening is based upon the recommendation of the structural engineer Christie your report I'm pretty satisfied with that and um with the added load enforcement and with skill workers that's key to this project skill workers um but based on the variances my opinion is that it's not detriment to the project very unique building, very different, and it will be a great addition to Journal Square. I vote I Commissioner Torres. This project is um it's been a lot of reading, a lot of reading over the weekend on this project. A lot of going back and forth. Couple of It's been a lot. There's been a lot. I'm sitting down and um there's a few things that I want to point out. One is the the traffic study. I think when we need when we get a traffic study, we need a traffic study of the area that we're studying. Um this hotel is going to have convention halls. This hotel is going to have a banquet. This hotel and they're not only on Friday nights. Conventions come during the day. During a weekday, we all live in Jersey City. I have to drive Kennedy Boulevard every day. There's gonna be traffic. So traffic studies should be done in the area that the study is being looked at. That is number one on that. I I uh would like it to be clear for now on as we move forward with other projects called affordable housing. I spent my childhood in downtown Jersey City and I grew up with some people getting arrested for affordable housing in downtown Jersey City so people didn't have to move out. Um, so I do like the affordable housing part of this project. Finally getting to talk with the labor force that's in the room today. It's a plus. It is a plus. But this project has one gap that's not movable. I started in the construction business pouring concrete. That's what I did. Poured a lot of concrete, a lot of walls, saw a lot of rebar, walked a lot of rebar, and I still do it to this day. I am not convinced that we could put 20 stories on top of a piece of property and just because we're going to say it's a hardship is not a hardship. There's a building there. So, you want to clean the environment? Let's not knock the building down. We'll save the environment. Well, then just build 35 stories. We'll save the environment. 20 stories on top of a building. That three letters from Christy Engineering are not 100% convincing that it could be done safely. They say it's going to be done safely. Maybe we could connect it this way. They said it could be done safely. Maybe we could build the wall this way. 6 in thick with 1 in rebar. And I'm giving you the minimum size rebar, one inch rebar. You go to the islands, you go anywhere, you ever see 20 years from now, I our vote has to be for a building that's going to last a 100red years, not what it's going to look like 10 years from now. What's it going to be like? What is those walls going to be like that are holding up 55 stories and it has a 6 in bonded wall attached to it. It has anchors attached to a foundation of bedrock. I'm sorry. I'm I'm going to stop on that one. I think there was one more thing I wanted to say before I move on. Let me double check. I hope they still agree with the thing. But um I love affordable housing. I'm going to say that one more time. I cannot vote for this project. There's no way. There's no way I can vote for this project because somebody wants to get a little greedy when they came up with 20 more that you could build 65 affordable housing units. We'll put 20 more floors up. If you really want to do it and you're really concerned, knock the building down and start all over again. That's the way I look at it. And I vote no. and Chairman Langston. So, brothers, sisters, thank you for coming down. Sunny, you got a good group here. All right, you need skilled labor to build this building. You got a good group here. Okay, that being said, um I I completely 110% agree with Commissioner Torres here. I I I think there's there's too many whatifs here. Um I think there's too many uses crammed into this building. Can you to the mic, please. Sure. I think there's too many uses crammed into the building. I I I still don't know if the floor calculation, how many floors are allowed, how many stories are allowed. I I mean, um I don't know if I agree with that calculation. I know there's the foot calculation versus the stories calculation. I I think there's there's a a an issue with the floor calculation. Um and I I think the parking is a disaster waiting to happen. I I think this valet system for the number of spots that we're talking about is not going to work. Um you know, we're talking about a banquet hall here. the I I know a lot of us have been to the Liberty House for fundraisers. Think about everyone getting to the Liberty House at the same time. All right, fundraiser starts at 7:00. We're all going at 6:30. What does that park what is that that road going up to the Liberty House look like at 6:30, guys? That's going to be Cottage Street with two elevators taking cars up and down into a valet garage. I Mr. Vandermark, I God, I hope everybody rides their bike there because this is not going to work the way it's proposed. Um and the the thing I'm wrestling with the most and and I know Mr. Christy has the report and I think the best case scenario here is that he's right. But God, what if he isn't? I What what if, you know, just the slightest thing goes wrong here? I think we're cutting it too close. It it's just it's it's not it's not clear-cut enough for me that we can put 21 stories on top of here. The affordable housing, yeah love it. Love it. But at what cost? And I, you know, I I haven't I haven't felt this way about a project in so long where where I'm really I'm I'm really I'm just I'm not okay with this. And I've, you know, I've been wrestling with the affordable housing aspect. It's so much affordable housing that we need in Journal Square. And uh it's just it's not right. I can't sleep at night and vote for this project the way it's proposed with this height and building on that base. I just I think the case for the variances aren't there. It's not a hardship. It It's not a hardship that we're building 56 stories on a base that cannot handle it in my opinion. So, my vote is no and that that's all I can say about it. So, thank everybody for coming down tonight. Motion carries 52. Thank you. All right, Mike, you need a break? I need a break. It's 9:41. 9:41. All right. I know. Poor you need a break. Do you need five? Mike, Mike needs a break. Yeah, absolutely. He needs a break. Okay, let's get back on track. We'll come to one journal square in one second, but um I want to get to item nine under new business uh review and discussion of uh certified artist um Mi Zen uh and Brian Chameleio. Formal action may be taken. camp. The artist certification board deemed them um certified artists under category 1, two, three, four, and five. And city planning staff agrees with their analysis and we recommend you approve them to be uh entered into the lottery for the artist housing. Um staff recommends approval. Okay. Thank you Cam. Any questions? Anybody? No. Audience? Yeah, I'm gonna Is there anybody here from public that wants to comment on artist certifications? No public. I move to close the public. Second. Okay. Motion is made and seconded. Public is closed. Cam, we have your recommendation. I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to approve as presented the review and discussion of a certified artist Mindsay Zen and Brian Camello Camellio. Um, and forward to city council for formal adoption. Second. Okay. Motion is made and seconded for approval. Vice Chair Dr. Gonzalez. Hi Commissioner Gongadan. Hi, Commissioner Torres. Hi, Commissioner Lipsky. Hi Commissioner Dr. Desai. Commissioner Patel, I and Chairman Langston. I motion carries. All in favor? Thank you. Let's move on to item E is case P204-0127, preliminary and final major site plan with variances uh for one Journal Square Plaza, also known as 2965 Kennedy Boulevard. Testimony was taken at our March 25th meeting for this. Okay. Thank you. Uh for the record Charles Harrington of Connell Foley on behalf of the applicant. And just to clarify, this is for preliminary only uh not not preliminary and final. That was uh uh set forth at the last uh meeting as well. But um at the last meeting uh I guess before going uh chairman, you pointed out that there are different commissioners at the last meeting. So we can confirm that everybody read the transcript. Agreed. So um it's the same people from the last meeting. We had, let me bring up the email real quick. I don't remember what that was. Okay. So, we had myself, Commissioner Torres, Commissioner Gangadan Commissioner Lipsky. Doc, did you have a chance to read the transcript? I did. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Dr. Desside, did you have a chance to read the transcript? Yes. You read the transcript? Okay. Yes. Commissioner Patel. Okay. Thank you. Wave call. Okay. Thank you. So, at the last meeting, there were concerns about the uh proposed loading design and um we were asked to go back and take another look to try to solve that. And we have a proposed solution to present to the board tonight. And uh with that, I'm going to hand it off to Mr. Rodriguez who is the architect of record and was sworn in at the last well qualified at the last meeting as well. Okay. Thank you. Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth. I do. Juan Rodriguez, Juan N R O D R I G- U Z. Mr. Rodriguez, your license is current inmate. Yes. Okay. Thank you. You're qualified. Good evening, everyone. Um so just for the board's benefit, uh, you know, we're still looking at essentially the same project that you saw last time two 28 story towers, 657 units. Uh, we had 81 parking spaces in the previous application. We still have those same 81 spaces. Um just for your reference uh pulled up here on the screen is the seller plan that we showed you last time uh in the previous plan. You know, we we got some feedback about the the the loading uh operations and how that would kind of interfere with the with the traffic flow along Cottage Street. Uh, you know, we we we heard your comments and we've adjusted the ground floor loading area so that um you know the the external loading has been removed and now truck turning and maneuvering is happening fully inside of the garage. Um so you'll see here this is a plan that has been submitted um and uploaded for your review. Uh this is a a diagram showing u essentially a 30-foot uh box truck which would be the typical truck that would be used for loading operations in the building. A garbage truck is actually a little bit smaller. So this works for both loading of of the building but also for uh garbage removal. Uh but essentially a truck would you know move west uh on Cottage Street. they could head into the garage and they have uh two striped off areas on either side of the garage door for their maneuvering. Um as part of this application, sorry, as part of this change, we've also uh removed two variances that we had before. Uh we had a variance for a 40 foot u loading birth where previously 35 ft was proposed but now we've been able to provide the full 40t for uh you know the truck space here on the left side. Um and we also uh previously had a variance for the head in and head out uh operations and now we've removed that because the truck will be able to you know head into the garage and head out um as required by the redevelopment plan. Um this this also uh you know it required us to just kind of reconfigure some of the internal mechanics of the garage. Uh we've uh adjusted the the internal uh car ramp connecting the internal parking levels. Um this also uh triggered us to to to be able to keep the same parking count. We added eight tandem spaces which previously we had no tandem spaces. Uh so that's essentially the the the depth of the changes. There were no other changes and you're looking at the same project uh that was testified to in the the previous hearing. Excellent. Thank you, sir. I knew you guys could do it. Perfect. That was it. Yeah. Perfect. Nailed it. All right. Uh any questions? Anybody? Okay. Anything else, council? No, that's all. Okay. Is there anybody here from public that wants to comment? Please come on up. K U L O W SK K I for the record. Good evening, sir. We have three minutes for you and let's keep it on topic. I'll be allowed more than 3 minutes. Negative. Okay. It for the record violates due process and the 14th amendment. Okay your clock is running now. Okay. Now the problem is with this case and and across the street that you allow so-called traffic study to be introduced and this traffic study does not address the one across the street or even on cut street down the down towards uh Summit Avenue. So you have the all these traffic strategies are frauds because they do not calculate what actually is there. This does not address the guy across the street 296 uh the previous uh case. Now the picture presented last time of uh the rendering of this uh building did not show three journal square which will be right next right next to it and will be obstructing view. So that's why I think it's kind of fraudulent upon you by Mr. Harrington to present this way. So any rendering would have to provide actual view of buildings that are already there existing now three 380 bicycles where they going to where where you going to put them on the street? That's a lot, right? Are are you looking for a bicycle traffic study now? No, but it should be included right in the traffic study. Both cars and bicycles, correct? I think it's a great idea. Yeah, because a 380 that's a lot of bicycles. I do own I have two bicycles. Okay. Okay. So, but I only ride one at a time. Well now public notice have not been placed at this construction site. I say this is a due process violation on the 14th amendment. The time and again it's a policy of the city of Jersey City and this board not to force developer to place an actual ad that they are we applying for variance or whatever with the city and you have a right to know and this is the time of the board meeting and so on. only the only large city in American that does this like total clandestine operation. Now what kind of public notice the 3 days this uh uh agenda was placed on the internet last week right like few days few days in advance and only on the internet. So how how do people have to know that there is board meeting regarding this? Nobody in this neighborhood at the cutter street at Kennedy ever heard about this uh project and this variance that we now dealing with. Thank you sir. That was your time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I I I have more but you're not allowing me. Well that's not outside of your three minutes. So anybody else from public? Seeing any more public, I move to close. Second. Okay. Motion is made and seconded. Public is closed. Um, I'm going to stand in for Tanya today. Um, she has a memo that she authored dated January uh 24th, 2025. I've reviewed the application materials as well as sort of staff memo. Um, this is a preliminary uh site plan uh with C variances. Uh there are two recommended staff conditions. Uh one just uh reiterates the fact that they uh come back for um planning board approval no later than 3 years after uh after this preliminary approval. And at the time of final approval, the applicant shall submit a new and current traffic impact assessment uh when potential other approved buildings are may be built. Uh storm water management report and street tree proposal. Um has the applicant uh is applicant in agreement and would be able to comply with those conditions? Uh yes. Um I believe that uh comments that were made at the previous hearing um were clearly heard and addressed uh with this this new uh loading area. Staff recommends approval. All right. Thank you, Matt. Mr. Chair I'd like to make a motion to approve case P2024-0127 is presented to our board tonight. Second. Okay. Motion made and seconded for approval. Vice Chair Dr. Gonzalez. I like it. Um I Commissioner Gangadan. Hi, Commissioner Torres. I like the project. I started my career on that first two buildings and I see that it's still giving back to the trades and people working there. you know, making it a bigger thing, making it better and changing. With change, things get better. So, with that, I vote I Commissioner Lipsky. Yeah. I love it when professionals go and make it easy and we can get these things done in five minutes. So, I vote I Commissioner Dr. Desai I, Commissioner Patel, I. And Chairman L. I. Thank you for accommodating us and great job. Thank you for hearing us. All right. Thank you everyone. Motion carries. All in favor. Okay. We'll be back in a few months to put 20 more stories on it, though. Love it. I love it. We'll give you all the time in the world. Um, next year. Guys, can I borrow five minutes from everybody? I'd like to offer five minutes. Council, can you make it happen? Yes. Yes. U, I have two witnesses. Uh I would what I suggest is that I begin uh give you my name tell you I have two witnesses uh at least it'll be an old business at the at for next time around and and we can it problem and resolves my problem. Fantastic idea. Okay. So let's uh call item 10 is case P2024-0178 as the review and discussion of Fatt Broadway redevelopment plan amendment. Uh zoning requirements for zone 3. Formal action may be taken. My name is Eugene Powellino from the law firm of Genova Burns. I'm here for uh the applicant. The applicant is listed in the avenue uh and Westside uh West Broadway West Broadway Corbin LLC. U we have a site plan uh excuse me a redevelopment plan amendment. an amendment. You've recently passed the site the re the redevelopment plan I think in September. We were ready in September, but uh the planning division thought that we needed to add some things and and we did that. Um so with that, I have two witnesses that I would present and give you a preliminary statement and I understand that we'll adjourn at this point. Is that right? I would appreciate it if we did council. I don't feel like we do our best work at this hour. Night after what we've been through tonight. So I understand. I was I was sitting here. I I heard what you went through at the next meeting. Yeah I know. Um Kim, can we guarantee the applicant first at the next meeting under old business unless there's an extension in front of it? I know we have Okay. Yep. And council is saying he has two witnesses, right? May 22. I can hear I can present my witnesses today, but I s I suspect that you would all prefer that it be done on another day, but I don't want to be lower down in the agenda. So, I I think what we're more comfortable saying is that we'll we'll take a look at the agenda, which we don't necessarily have, but it's already been mostly like mostly called for already because we're moving things two meetings out. Uh but we will list it. There's no problem with notice here because it's a refund plan amendment. So, we will list it. Um and we'll leave it up to the the the chairman. Okay. Not we call it. You left it as list it as old businesses. It'll be under old business with testimony taken be commenced. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, council. May 27th. So, we're going to carry to 27. Yes. 27. Day after carry Oh, God. It is. Okay. No, Memorial Day is the weekend before. No. 20 something. 21st. Yeah. I'm going away that weekend. Memorial Day is May 21st. It's not the 21st. The 23rd is the Friday. Saturday 24th, Sunday 25th. 26th is Memorial Day. 27th. We're going to see Mr. Palino again. I appreciate that. And I don't like to call it old business when you're up here. Okay. To be clear, Memorial Day is May 26 2025 according to my iPhone. Thank you. It's on the last Monday of Okay. So we're going to carry that 27th. Our next meeting is May 27th and we'll carry this application to old business. We're going to carry this application to old business May 27th, our next regularly scheduled meeting. Thank you council. Okay. So, we need to renotice. This is an application for an amendment. We're going to preserve your notice tonight. Um, so you're fine. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, uh Cam, should we start calling the rest of the applicants? Yes. Pretty much everybody in the room still. So, Mr. Burke, you'd be the next on the agenda. Mr. Burke beat me here tonight. Well, I have to give Cameron credit because he said he didn't think we would make it tonight and he was right. So close. Um, but anyway, um, Jim Burke representing the applicant. um as soon as we can be heard at whatever meeting in the future. I am going to be away that one week, but I'd rather have u Steven Joseph or someone from his firm take it over. I don't want I don't want the client to be delayed. If if we're going to be on the 10th, that's fine. But if we're not, then I I I'll punt this another lawyer just to so the client doesn't lose an extra 10 or 12 days. Appreciate that, Cam. June 10th. June 10th. Oh, okay. I'm back. Okay. Thank you, council. Thank you. And that is case P2024-0158. Just for the record, we'll carry um any kind of time for the board to decide to that date. Okay. Thank you, council. We appreciate you. All right. So, let's go down our list. Um James who's next? Case P2024-0147 301 Westside A. Good evening everybody. James McCann from the law firm of Connell Foley on behalf of the applicant in P2024-0147. Applicant consents to carry Cam. Okay. This would go June 10th with preservation. Applicant agrees to June 10th. Okay. And is that your last one on here? Yeah, it's the only one I have today. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time, everybody. Okay. So, let's bring up uh Mr. Joseph. You have uh a bunch in front of us. Let's start with P23-024 uh 772 to 788 Westside Avenue. Yeah. Uh the the only thing I'd say about this one is that this is a little bit of a special case. It's been carried uh actually since December. It says January on here since December because we had a renotice and we were going to be heard at the last meeting that meeting that we were scheduled at, but we had a last minute recusal from uh former council woman. So, anything the board could do about that one in particular, we'd appreciate. But I hear there's a big thing on June 10th. June 24th is I heard that rumor, too. The only thing we could do. June 24th is your best. June 24th is the best. Okay. All right. Thank you. So, we're going to carry that to June 24th. The third meeting after uh you have Neptune AB as well. I have uh yes, I have Neptune. That's a P2024-0207. Um Cam. Oh, that would also be June 24th. Everything else is June 24th. All right. Uh, so also P2024-0173, that's 359 Johnston. Okay. So, we're going to carry that. Also P2024 uh-0165, that's 221223 Nunda. Nunda we're going to carry to June 24th. K and uh P 2024-0227209 holiday. Mhm. New Mexico holiday holiday. Okay. So, we're going to carry to June 24th as well. Thank you, council. And that's all with preservation of notice. With preservation of notice, with consent uh to tolling the board's time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. Uh Tom on behalf from Connell Foley. Uh, I have P20 uh P20 20240185. Um, I request that it be carried with preservation of notice to June 24th. June 24th. Okay. Thank you. Council will carry to June 24th. Thank you Mr. Harrington. I have a P2024-0208 158 Vanwagon. I have it as number 20 on my agenda. I'm not sure if that's the most recent. Uh I have it as 19 19. Okay. So I'd ask that that be carried with preservation of notice and we consent to an extension of any time. That's it. Okay. So we're going to carry that to June 24th. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, council. Thanks. And that closes us out. Can we have memorialization resolutions, please? Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to memorialize the following resolution. I have one applicant is VRL PLP Services LLC for preliminary and final major subdivision approval Harborside Place block 11603 lot 19.01 Jersey City New Jersey case number on that was P2024-0180 and that'll be my last I need a second second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Cam roll call please. Vice Chair Dr. Gonzalez. Commissioner Gangadan. Hi. Commissioner Torres. Hi. Commissioner Lipsky I. Commissioner Dr. Desai. Commission Dr. Desai. Hi. Commissioner Patel. Hi. And chairman Lson. Hi. Motion carries. All in favor to me tomorrow this resolution. Great. Thank you. Uh executive session. Anybody? No. Okay. Motion to adjurnn from somebody. Motion to adjourn. Thank you guys. Have a good night. I appreciate you guys.