The Planning Board hearing on the Carton Brewing application for adding uses to its buildings on First Avenue continues Thursday evening at 7 p.m., and it is anticipated the professionals for the applicant will be answering the myriad of questions that have been brought up by planning board members and local residents.
Representatives of the applicant will present a traffic study report requested by the planning board at the first hearing. Available now on the borough website under Planning Board agenda for the September 3 meeting, the traffic study, done during a two-hour period on August 22, shows no appreciable increase in traffic will be generated by either the small restaurant nor the three third story apartments planned for the complex. The borough engineer had indicated at the first meeting that all the uses of the building under current law would require 81 parking spaces, where approximately 20 on-site spaces are available. The study also show parking use under an agreement with a neighboring law office, as well as on-street availability and parking at the municipal lot a block away.
While all members of the planning board are reviewing all the information, asking many questions and calling for more clarification on a number of issues, planning board member Martin Hawley, in questioning several aspects at the onset of the hearing noted “We’ve been through this before,” making references to variance applications Carton Brewery has made in several different years since first constructing the building with variances needed at that point.
The applicant will also have to respond to questions from local residents who have complained about noise coming from what has been designed for and used as a ‘tasting room’ for the brewery.
Neighbors have complained about loud music and late night occupancy and activity from another business in the area. So intense, that one new resident at the meeting indicated that after she made the decision to purchase one of the new million dollar homes near the building, she made several attempts to get out of the purchase because of the noise and her shock the borough would permit such activity adjacent to a residential area.
Professionals for the applicant, both of whom testified during the first meeting, will also doubtlessly face additional questions from local resident Mark Fisher. Fisher has gained a well-earned reputation for researching all applications, visiting sights, familiarizing himself with each application and asking questions many of which cannot be answered by professionals without further study.
Fisher, like Hawley, is also familiar with past history on a number of projects in the borough in the past, and at the last meeting reminded residents that Police Chief Jerry Vasto at one point had sought a traffic light on the corner with First Avenue, prompting the new requirement for a traffic study which the planners had not previously required.
Fisher also suggested a parallel traffic study also be performed with its cost funded by the applicant, a suggestion not immediately followed by the planning board. He called for no vote on the application until the results of the traffic study to be presented at Thursday’s meeting are received and reviewed.
There are numerous other areas the applicant has to address, many brought up during their initial presentation.
The plan shows that the ground floor area of the main building is being increased, which in turn requires additional parking. Current legislation requires that when the ground floor area ratio of an existing structure in increased, a deficiency in the required number of off-street parking spaces requires the application to make a $25,000 fee to the parking fund for each deficient parking space.
The borough also has stipulations on where off-street parking is greater than the 20 spaces available on-site can be located. Current codes indicate they must be in the same zone, must be shown on the approved site plan and public parking lots cannot be used for needed residential parking requirements.
The applicant also plans to introduce modifications to the roof private areas allocated for each of the apartments, with steps leading from their third-floor apartments to their private use sections on the roof, or third level of the building. Drawings of the changes made from the last meeting are also included on the planning board web page.
