Planning Board - Regular Meeting

. . . . ... ... ... ... ... So we're going to prove that we're going to get it. And then we're going to see if we're going to be able to do it. So we're going to see if we're going to be able to do it. The system is not in process. The next meeting, the microphone will be in fast forward. Yes.

But we can. So yeah, I just want to have you.

You want to know what the change is there?

Yeah, it's been a constant.

We've done it.

According to the meetings act, please note the following. All Bernersville Borough Planning Board meetings will be held in person at the meeting hall on the second floor of the Bernersville Municipal Building at 166 Ninebrook Road. Effective February 12, 2026. Planning Board meetings will begin at 7 p.m. Meetings will be live streamed on YouTube with no opportunity for public comment to members of the public wishing to offer comments or ask opinion or ask questions will be required to attend meetings in person. The YouTube live stream access for all meetings is youtube.com at Bernardsville borough slash streams. This link will also be available on the agenda for each meeting, which is posted on the borough website, Bernardsville.gov. and on the Borough Hall Public Bulletin Board at least 48 hours prior to meetings. Notice of these changes has also been emailed to the Burnsville News and the Courier News posted on the Borough website and filed with the Municipal Clerk all in January 22nd, 2026. It is the intention of the Board not to continue any matter past 11 p.m. at any regular or special meeting of the Board unless a motion is passed by the members then present to extend to a later specified cutoff time and same shall be announced at the opening of each meeting. In addition, the board does not intend to begin a new hearing after 10 p.m. nor begin testimony of a new witness after 10.30 p.m. Any hearing conducted by the board is a quasi-judicial proceeding. Any questions or comments must be limited to issues that are relevant to what the board may legally consider in reaching a decision. Decorum appropriate to a judicial hearing must be maintained at all times. Roll call.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DeMarco is absent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I need no explanation. Nothing unusual.

No, the only thing that anyone may question is a lot of what we're hearing the last item 15 and very well stayed for 65 more. That was a technical review committee meeting with borrow and board professionals. So they have not come before the board yet. It's related to 65 Morristown Road, the redevelopment plan there, but they're going to be spending their planning.

Is that the old Audi?

Yes.

Okay. I'll take a motion. Motion approved. Second.

Second was Mr. Morrison. Thank you.

Local.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

You want to go to the server service is going on.

There's the blessing one year session. That period that gives us basically we have two years of the approval. During which time a change in so they were just looking back at it and be vulnerable whatsoever. So they're requesting is an additional year to it, but that's your area to And what was the reason? You know, I don't have their letter in front of me. And another, Steve, I'm going to put this together and I'm going to find it for you.

And I'm going to ask you to speak just a tiny bit louder. My fault. Thank you.

Hopefully, somebody, an advocate would be here to explain it. But I guess they didn't want to. Hold on.

When does it expire?

They sent a request in a couple of months ago. And I think it may have been an email communication. They sent it three months ago, which is smart. We just know now. Because we haven't had meetings. And we Typically, if there's no applications or anything major, anything that can wait like that.

Well, it's been that long since we've had a meeting.

Last meeting was canceled. It's been a bit. Yeah, we didn't have any.

I don't know that we had one when we had to approve the bills. We did.

We did. We had one two meetings ago maybe?

Right.

Yes, and it was forgotten about this request for that last meeting. That was on.

So these guys have COA obligations, affordable housing obligations that are built into this. This is not a. So does that mess up any of our. That's a great question. COA obligations. I mean, I know they're like 10 year batches, you know, whatever. Set the next phase around here.

But this would have been... Did Steve have an opinion on this?

It's only one way or another, but this is a very... This is not uncommon at all for a long-term building.

Well, no, but Chairman's saying there are co-obligations. And there's financing, there was special financing. Some of this was rushed through so they could get that. So this could impact. This isn't a simple extension. It could impact what?

It changes to downtown and been in the works for at least 5 years. And it's just baffling that it hasn't started. There's no news coming from it. And every other project this builder does never gets finished. Beyond the delay.

And it's not about anyone. Yeah, I just think it was abolished.

And you're more than everybody.

Yes. Yeah, it was a 2022.

We just went to the approvals expire to their approval in January. Yeah, this would be the 1st extension.

The revolution says it's their 1st.

Hold on. Oh, you know what? There was a modification of a condition.

It was a condition modification. And there's no one. Did you expect them to come today? No, typically for something like this, they don't. It's not a problem. So the original resolution was approved then? I mean, the most recent approval from this board was done when? They're asking for one year expansion.

That would end in January of 27. So it looks like they have...

So they're already six months over there.

They're really only having... I mean, they're having three years, but it's really six months now.

They're permitted to ask for the extension after the expiration.

Yes. They're permitted to ask, but if there are other factors, they're not entitled to it.

if we were not to extend they would have to just reapply basically right now let's say there was a change

Just for example, say an applicant gets approved. They've been forming a 10-foot setback when they get approved, and the ordinance changes the year later and says you need to remove the buttons. Because of that zoning ordinance change, that doesn't affect them because they already have the protection period built into the extension. So if they don't get the extension in that situation, then it would technically be a violation in the build-up. But as long as they can They have protection period extended. They're protected from trees.

That's what it's protected from. Exactly.

You're talking about the Essex? Yes. I apologize, I'm late.

You know anything about that issue?

Essex? Yes. Is the applicant here? No.

So I had a couple thoughts on it. I just saw it on the agenda. I don't know what you guys talked about before I got in. Quick story about why I'm late. I was jogging through Plainfield, New Jersey, and Ecuador had just beaten Germany. And it was like, I'm like, what's going on? It was like every car was beeping. There were flies flying everywhere. People like spilled out into the streets. It was actually really cool to see. I mean, it was like they just won, you know, like the Super Bowl. They were dancing. Yeah. So I apologize for being late, but it was kind of a, it was an unexpected delay.

What do you know that we don't know?

Well, I just, I don't know anything. I just saw two things caught my eye. One was it looked like their approval was in December of 2023. Wait, 22, I think. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yeah, so wouldn't that mean that there was already expired in December of last year. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Just a second for you. So it's not the approval is the session or your production. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So second thing I have and then solve a note about or maybe I looked it up about, you know, if there has been no changes in the zoning ordinance since then. HAB-Masyn Moyer- You know, so what's the big deal. One thing I would note is there has been a relatively large change in the zoning ordinance, which is the affordable housing obligation has gone from 15% to 20% since then. So, and I forget, I wasn't, I mean, I was on the planning board. I mean, the board of adjustment when this application started and then it got kicked over to you guys. I can't remember how the affordable housing was addressed. I think they were just going to make a payment in lieu. At the very least, the affordable housing obligation has gone up somewhat. I'm guessing that's at least one or two units. That was one thing I wanted to mention. I tried to look up what the standard of like our discretion is, like, what do we sort of like, what do we consider? And it seems kind of like open-ended and sort of, is it reasonable or not? There's two different subsections in the statute.

One is just general good cause, basically. Like I was trying to say before we walk in, these are, this is a relatively common request from a lot of developers. Yeah. You got to think, is there financing or maybe there's an issue with the building permits or maybe something like that. in the work itself that they discovered that they need to regrade and redress certain things. That's one standard. The other standard under a different subsection is that basically the developer has to prove to you reasonable satisfaction that they applied for a problem, they pursued all the rules, but they were held up by an outside agent. So typically you see them with like a highway related project, DOT drives them to be. Yeah. So that's what I said. It's a very common question because you're Yeah, outside agency. Right.

Did they give us any information?

Honestly, I don't see really any basis.

That's something without being, without any information. That's what I don't know.

I agree. I mean, I'm shocked that they're not here to like explain why they're asking for an extension. Yeah.

They may have sent another communication. The only thing I'm seeing, and I know they talked to Kelly from my office. I think you guys would have imagined that she started a meeting or said, um, She was the one who drafted this and spoke with them. And I guess she was satisfied. It's an inside baseball backstory. When I first saw the extension request, I wanted to go draft the resolution. Then I found out Kelly had already started working. I wanted to reach out to their attorney to understand why they were requesting it too, because the email was very vague as to when it was being requested, if at all, like they were indicating why. So-

Well, let's do a hypothetical. We know that the zoning ordinance has changed. We know that their protection's already expired. It sounds like it hasn't. No, it has.

I thought you said it's from the date that...

They have two years from the date of the approval, but I think that this one, they initially got it in January. That's what we're doing. Yeah, this is something that we've discussed.

And even this application says that five or six months already expired because they're asking for an extension to January 2027. Yeah. So right now, the margin would be a modification of the solution.

If that happens and there's an approval after the expiration, claiming that we can still approve that, what is associated with doing such an approval? That's right. So it is expired. Yes. Typically, you would have to ask for an extension before an expiration. Yes. If we're a year, six months, a year and a half past expiration and we approve, What are the potential risks of such approval?

There's always no risk. Arguably, somebody could say that you didn't have an adequate basis to grant the approval, but it's such a low margin you need to reach.

But we don't have any basis because they haven't given us any information and they didn't show up.

I think it's the co-based stuff, the affordable housing. Now, they were part of the prior round. So the new round is the one that's definitely impactful.

Yeah, but it's for any, it's for any, it's just a change overall. Yeah, I know. Whether it's third round, fourth round. So that's the big deal.

I mean, there are 30, 29 units in this, so 30, I think there are four, five, at least five. There's five. There's five units.

So it would be at least six or seven. Yeah, I mean, if it is 33 units, then yeah, it's seven.

So it's two units.

So, like, my feeling is, and it's a shame that they're not here, give up a film explanation and have this discussion about it. Like one, I think, reasonable thing that the board could do if they were here, we would say, well, you know, would you be willing to, you know, add a couple, you know, add four more housing units to the approval? We can discuss whether that makes sense. Because I assume that's the case, too. Like an applicant could, as a condition to the extension, could make a change or something like that or could say, yes, we'll agree to add more housing units. But given that they're not here, I don't know. You know, it's like, I think our choices are to deny it or approve it. Could we push it off to them?

And ask for more information? And it's already been noticed. I mean, if it's...

I would say, if you guys aren't comfortable with granting it today, we'll just take care of it next month. We can reach out to them. It's a very low order to clear, but at the same time, they should They should have taught us why. And maybe they didn't. We just started the communication. I don't know if I'll see anything, you know, explaining what they're asking for.

But the parties are asking for, it is true, the resolution, they're asking for an extension until January of next year. That's it. Yes. And of course, they won't be able to get shovels in the ground in January anyway. So there'll be another one after this.

Whatever. Do we know what other governmental approvals they were required to get? I mean, it's not on a state highway. It's not on a, like, I don't know if they needed any other major. Now, my guess is they just haven't been ready to move forward for financial reasons.

That's definitely for financial reasons.

Yeah. Perfect.

Yeah, it's speculation. No, no, I know. Yeah.

But yeah, I'll take it where it's okay. It doesn't, they're already over. It's not like, oh my gosh, they might expire while we're in recess. They're already over it. So to me, doing what you suggested, carrying it without further notice to the next meeting, having them get their ducks in a row, explain it, have us address this. There's no harm, no foul doing that because they're already in recess.

Okay. Easy.

We don't need to, we need to vote to do that. Okay. The resolutions for adoption, so these are prior resolutions. One we just took care of. But the lot line adjustment for the Anderson Hill Road property. That was at our last meeting or the meeting? Last meeting. Okay. We passed a resolution. Was there any other refinements that we should know about? I was trying to find recommendations to resolution.

But I noticed that they were not incorporated in the draft. That's what's going to work. What draft do you mean? I stated the draft June 18th, 26th. We had one due. June 11th, 26th is where I wrote my comments. We sent a new one June 24th. I did not see that.

Did you book in Boston?

Yeah, I booked this off of Boston. Today? Yeah. Yeah. That's the one that's all six, 18, 26. So 24 didn't make it. That's six, 18, 26 is not about. Apparently there's six, 24, 26.

We all read the wrong one then.

You want us to read your recommended?

Does somebody have the 624? We can read it.

I have 625. That was today. I mean, this is, I don't know if we ever did. 614. Can you see if it changes? Yeah, sure.

I can pass it on to everybody. Then I bought it for the latest one.

I bought it for the latest one. I bought it for the latest one.

I bought it for the latest one.

I bought it for the latest one.

I bought it for the latest one.

This one hasn't been won. Who did you send your changes to? That was sent to...

Somebody in their office. Teresa? Yeah.

It was just the respite.

Yeah, it still references Bob Berkeley as the engineer, the author of the letter.

So. All right.

Well, I hate to hold it out. I mean, I mean, how stuff's going to be changed?

Yeah, I think the department will change it a lot right now. We'll realize a lot more concessioning.

Yeah, we did the board's part of a lot of changes or if you'd rather just have it.

We could just push this too. There's no.

Yeah. Is there any brush on this? I love it all.

Thanks. They were trying to replace the deck.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, yeah.

The thing is, we don't have a meeting. Until month. So, yeah. Has the applicant agreed to the language of the question said yesterday?

He said that there are many children over and she had her knees. That's what we said. But I assume that Hershey was shot at CJ CJs, I guess.

I know they saw that version. Well, there's all mark up this one. And I'll do it soon. And then, you know,

Council needs to see it.

We can't vote on something. Yeah. Their council is, if you remember, the applicant's daughter. It's still their council. Yeah.

We can't. Wait, when's our next meeting? July 23rd. And this is just to put a deck on the background.

No, no, no. They needed it for setbacks and stuff.

Because they stress that it's about, like, how they enter the house. They go into the house after the death, right? Yes.

Ironically, the reason that a lot of adjustments were made to a site or a site variance, they are the same. That's still the site variance. So they still need the variance.

Yeah, because they were looking at what to buy based on the weight and how big. So I'm sure they...

Okay, so, so you're going to incorporate the changes to the lawyer. So this one will be pushed also. Okay, so we're up to the discussion of the recreation space.

You're right. I give up.

Nobody likes Google. I'm still a firm believer. It provides value to the town to take the old version, remove all the chapters that are unnecessary, keep the three chapters we thought were important. We can accept all the changes that we've already made. So it's a cleaner document and I can send it in a different format. So it's easier for everyone to edit.

Yeah. I mean, quite honestly, like I had the best of intentions to go through the whole thing and it was kind of daunting and then I got busy and I'm like, and then on top of that, it was like my experience of the last 18 months is that nobody looks at it anyway because it's not adopted, but like, right. Like, so what happens from like the council's perspective is let's say it's like Claremont Field is going right now. We need a new playground. Like nobody looked at the recreational master plan. It was like, the baseball folks were like hey you know can we get a you know can we fix the little uh bathroom there so it's like you get these like kind of ad hoc requests from you know totally logical reasonable requests but they sort of come from all over the place like baseball has a request and then like the football team wants like a place to store their equipment on and so And no one's looking at like an actual master plan. It's just, they come in and the rec committee sort of looks at it and goes, yeah, this seems reasonable. And then it gets kicked to the council. So I do agree that like a simplified version of it would be nice. And hopefully maybe then people would actually look at it and say, you know, is this consistent with the master plan when we make changes?

Well, the key is it's publicizing it and it is the rec committee and it is for recreation. It's supposed to be shepherding it and, using it as keeping things on the rails. The other thing it did say, which is a little daunting, is before you start any one of these parks, do a plan for the park. It's like, no, don't just put a shed in and feel like it. But coming back to the fundamentals, I think it's dauntingly large today, stripping away the segregating, right? Because we're just partitioning it away, right? And saving it in some mechanism, at least for which to be decided on. But focusing on the heart of the matter, which are the chapters you indicated. Is everyone okay with that? Yes, approach. So that's okay. So do what you said. You've already rearranged it. Anyway, it's just a little messy because, you know, the arms connect to the foot.

We're going to use a machete.

Now, when you say something, I mean, Google Docs, but what in your mind is easier?

Right now, it's a bloody mess. I don't know.

And let them stress bloody.

Correct. So I will accept the deletion and the movement of the non-necessary chapters. The rearrangement, let's say. Then we're down to, I think, 90 pages.

A big hunk of it, though. 700, Jen and I.

It's just talking about how the surveys and what they've done in the past. I will take each chapter and I'll split it up, save it as a PDF and a reference. plug it back into a Word document, and then we're just dealing with the meat of it. I plugged in the Excel spreadsheet that we've already talked about in previous meetings, so that's updated, that's in there.

There was also a Word document, I think.

I took it out of the Word document, created a new table, plugged it into the Google Doc, Word Doc.

And so the method you would use then, so you pick a chapter then, right? Say, okay, chapter two, we're going to work on chapter two. What do you envision that process being? Send it out. You said put a PDF, but then put it in Word. And then are you sending Word out to people and then getting it back? There is a capability in Word where you can take multiple copies of a Word document, I think, and merge them.

Yes. I haven't used it. It's a black line, but I'm sure we can find it.

I can't remember if we talked about this or not, but once you do that, let's say we get it from 700 pages to 90 pages, can we put it into AI and say, you know, Summarize this document in 20 pages. See what AI did. Have them, you know, chat.

We still have to read the 90 pages and go back over and read the 20 because AI sometimes adds things you didn't. It decides that, you know, suddenly you need a waterfall at the park or something. It's pretty good.

Yeah, I mean, if you want it, you can compare it. But my feeling is, like, even a 90-page document, it's going to be, I'm not sure how, like, the rec committee is actually going to reference it. But if it's, like, down to, like, a little summary.

Here's the Rose Bowl. Maybe, yeah. But what we could use it for is to find inconsistencies. You could plug it in and say, tell me what's inconsistent. Oh, you said figure 3.7, but it's really 2.4. You know, it's like, it might pick up.

Also, table contents, all that stuff, because it can work and automatically do that at the end. And if we just send out one document, everyone redlines it how they want, then we can plug that into AI and have it just create a final. Yeah, we're in a good place.

So we're coming back to the mechanics of it again. So you've got one chapter, it's in a Word document, and we're doing...

I will send an email. Here are the three chapters that we're going to stick with. Everyone edit it as they see fit. We'll put a deadline when we want the edits. Send them to me or Denise. We'll take AI, combine all of them, and then we have our final document and we'll call it a day.

There's a lot of the mundane stuff that I know I just did.

Once you do that, once we combine all the... Yeah, someone do a final edit.

Yeah, or maybe early adopters that are just cleaning up the debris that's there first. I think we want to kind of get it tidied up and then look at the... I've been doing that.

Yeah, I know. All right. I was going to try to go in like a surgeon once I understand that everybody's on the same page. I didn't want to put in that time.

You've got quite a bit of time. Thank you. No problem.

All right. So as part of creating the word for review, people have done a bit of dusting and nooks and crannies and things like that. Okay. Good.

And then would we then, once we're all happy with it, kick it back to the rec committee for them to like kind of do a one favor?

Well, I think we all agree on chapters one through three. We probably should let them know that's what we're intending to do. So there won't be a surprise. So that I understand doing this first, but that would be a logical next step.

I know the... I think where I saw this, maybe it was an email or something like that. The environmental committee wanted to take a look at it too at some point. So, and I don't know. Well, this email was recent. They were like, and it was from Rob. He was like, can we see the, you know, what's going on with the rec master plan? Are we going to have a chance to look at it?

He wasn't set up.

Maybe he thinks we were early on.

Maybe he thinks people like Bernie added it. This is a barely... Yeah.

So this is a major problem. When I get it, can I send it for a little picture? Okay.

Well, I think you're just in the heads of it. Just what we're doing here. And when you get, when we get a copy, that's all the ingredients in the right spots and, and we'll copy them into. Okay.

Is he going to be able to read it? and edit it and comment as well?

If you email it to him in order, he can track changes out. Okay. Okay.

He's actually, he's really on top of things. He's got really good ideas and he's very thoughtful about what he does. So he would be an asset. Yeah. Okay.

So the key decision was, a key one was made here, but then the next phase is Is you getting ready to release your Word document.

You need to find a way to take the PDF and close it up and keep the old chapters. You need a new student.

An intern. They don't have access to the PDF either, though. Okay, no visitors. Let's see, no board reviews, no visitors, no public hearings. So really, we just have the executive session that's left.

There's no one here.

Can we just close out? We'll shut down and And whoever wants to stay can stay. But go ahead.

Anything before we go into executive session, is there anything you want to say? Yes. I have a resolution. I need to read down the record just to go into executive. So this would be a resolution you guys would be acting upon. It would be a motion to enter a second session without a resolution. Okay. So planning board for a referral. Whereas NJSA 10.4-12, the Public Meetings Act permits the exclusion of the public He didn't serve services. And whereas it is necessary to play where we're still this is us. And it's not only the ball and so that is what it is and we're going to solve for us by a second or at all he said that this may be a lot. Now there are 4 years old, but many were over so some sense that it is the assaults. Well, it's all excluded from the discussion of your actors, that's about 7 hours. Number 2. The general nature of the subject matter is to be discussed for a matter that's falling within the attorney's bond of privilege, specifically pending litigation entitled, in the first case, Aaron D. Duff, the planning board of the borough of Burnsville and equity properties LLC, under document number SOM-L-000542-B5. And in case number two, Aaron D. Duff, the borough of Burnsville, the planning board of the borough of Burnsville, former enterprises LLC, and AR at Burnsville LLC, on the document SOM-L-001701-G5. Number three, it is anticipated that the deliberations conducted in closed sessions may be disclosed to the public upon the determination of the Planning Board of the Borough of Lermontsville that the public interest will no longer be served by such confidentiality. And number four, this resolution can take back the .

So resolution. Second. I'll call for your motion. Motion to approve. Second.

Roll call or voice phone call?

Roll call.

Roll call or voice phone call?

Hold on.

Before we do that, does anybody, nobody had any kind of phone call from either of these states or anywhere?

Ms. Geller? Yes. Mr. Giglio? Yes. Mr. Brang? Yes. Mr. Mallion? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. Mr. Sato? Yes. Mr. Treanor? Yes. And Mr. Bell piano. Yeah. The motion carries. Hold on while we turn down the streaming.

Stop recording. Stop streaming.