Planning Board - Regular Meeting

We are on the record, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, thank you. Sorry for the delay. In accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act, please note the following. All Bernardsville Borough Planning Board meetings will be held in person in the meeting hall on the second floor of the Bernardsville Municipal Building at 166 Minebrook Road. Effective February 12th, Planning Board meetings will begin at 7 p.m. Meetings will be live streamed on YouTube with no opportunity for public comment on YouTube. Members of the public wishing to offer comments or ask questions will be required to attend meetings in person. The YouTube live stream access for all meetings is bernardsvilleborough.com. This link will also be available on the agenda for each meeting, which is posted on the borough website, which is bernardsville.gov. on the Borough Hall Public Bulletin Board at least 48 hours prior to meetings. Notice of these changes has also been emailed to the Berners-Lill News and the Courier News posted on the Borough website and filed with a municipal clerk all in January 22nd, 2026. 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 the 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 1030 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. Ms. Geller is absent. Mr. Gileo? Here. Mr. Graham?

Here.

Mr. Malia? Here. Mr. Morrison? Here.

Okay, so we had three of the four meeting minutes that were posted on the Dropbox, right? February 26th, March 26th, and June 25th. Did anyone find any omissions or comments? Sherry normally is the one who scours them. All right. So accept the motion to accept the meeting minutes for February, March, and June.

Mr. Chairman, if it's not too much trouble, if we could do each one separately.

Yes, because we have different members that are eligible.

Gotcha. Okay. No motion. I'll move to approve the meeting minutes from February 26th. Second. Second. Do you need a roll call? No. All in favor, aye.

And you could just note extensions where necessary.

They have to be eligible to say aye. OK. All right. That was a yes. We said aye. All right. March 26th.

I'll move to pass the meeting minutes from March 26th. Second.

All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? And finally, June. I'll move to pass the meeting minutes from June 25th.

I'm sorry, my apologies. Was Board Member Morrison able, qualified to second the March 26th?

No, he was not. Thank you for touching that.

Back up. If we could just have someone else second.

Someone else second the March minutes? I'll second it.

It may have to be you, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

All in favor of the March minutes? Aye. Aye. Yeah, right. The rest are . OK, no opposed. OK, now we can come back to June.

I'll move to approve the June 25th meeting minutes.

Somebody has a very good attendance record.

Yeah. Who's, you got a second? I'll second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No.

Okay.

Okay, great. Communications, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection application land use authorization or permit for 125 Claremont. Rossi's build it where is that the one by the field where is that 120 125 Claremont It would make sense because you know there was land was adjusted But I don't know I know it's not 55

It's the one right next to the bearded dragon. Yeah, it's on the left of the bearded dragon. Where the old, what is that old? Gerolemans.

Gerolemans. Oh, okay. So it's further up. It's west, or north, I guess, of the... So it's where the Gerolemans was. Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. So for us, they haven't come before us for anything. They may have come to the zoning or... Well, you know where Claremont Tavern is, right? Yes. And you know where the Bearded Dragon, next to the Claremont Tavern, and then next to that was a famous five and dime, you know, like a variety store, candy store, Gerolimons. It's in a lot of the historic Bernardsville paintings or drawings and so forth. They, they notoriously had a Class C liquor license, which is pretty amazing. I actually had a pretty, I think the liquor license is more valuable than their property almost, so. Anyway, now the coffee was sort of a, is it still active?

But they've been doing work on it. The guy, I think it's the same guy who owns the Bearded Dragon, owns that property, and he's just been slowly fixing it up and renovating it.

But as far as I know, he doesn't have any immediate plans to do anything, which seems like a waste.

It's a nice building, but it's sort of just, he's taking his time.

Well, yeah. Okay. There's a long story behind the Bearded Dragon, which is incredibly successful. It's amazing. No visitors, so nothing for that. There is, the only new business is approval of bills. And I only had one question. Steve, the bills from you guys for AR at Bernardsville, that's, I know it's a while back, right? So it's June and July bills. Is that the suits from, is that a result of Aaron's suits?

Yes, the latest.

The latest episode of the saga is related to his claims, right?

And public, no need for executive because it's public information. In the courthouse, the motions for dismissal will be argued tomorrow before the judge.

So we'll see another bill. Okay.

Did anyone else have any questions? If they're successful, you won't see any more thereafter perhaps. But then again, we'll see.

Just your reference since you're near the Essex building is the, on Claremont, the lot that was for building that, right? That's the Essex building. Panifico Pugliese is the old Walters site. And 114 Claremont, that must make, whatever, that may be, no, what is that? 114, oh, that's the, is that the house on the other side of? Oh, 114 is the property near the triangle at the five corners. Now there's one where that was dropped. And I forget what Tower of Abbas was. Okay.

That was the subdivision Anderson Hill Road and St. AC. Well, yeah, Anderson and C but then the other side street, the dead end that goes there, yeah.

Where we argued about the front rocks. Exactly, yes. Yeah, that was interesting. We try to be as helpful as possible, but they still pay. Anything, anyone have any comments on this? No. Okay, then I'm gonna take a motion. which will reference the sum total, the grand total. So I'll move to pay the bills, the order of $15,948.45. Second. Roll call. Mr. Valiant, do you have a second?

I do. No, thank you. Mr. Graham? Yes. Mr. Gilliam? Yes.

Okay, no resolutions, no public hearings. ASASO's not here, but discussion of the open space master plan. Does anyone have any info to contribute on it? No, he's kind of the leader of the club, so. So board reviews, pending applications, is incomplete, but it's 80, it's essentially more Bernadette Center. And it's related to parking, right? Parking compliance, I think? Parking numbers?

Yeah, partially. It's related to that. So there is an outstanding punch list from their last application. Oh, okay. And they never completed compliance. And part of the reason is because... things were, some things with the parking were done differently. And part of it was at the request of fire. They wanted, I believe, smaller islands or no islands in one particular spot for apparatus turnaround.

Right. And then that sort of tracked back to maintaining the parking lot and like snow plowing and things like that were used as part of the justification. Yeah. But it affected the total parking counts anyway, whatever.

Yes, that as well. Yes. And then there are a couple of other things. Apparently where Chipotle is now used to be Burger King. Yes. And Burger King was not permitted to have outdoor seating.

I know we discussed it as part of the approval process for it, that the outdoor patio area was discussed, but if they want to, they should pull the, I'm sure it was captured in the resolution, the outdoor patio.

It's been a little while. I think it's 2019-ish. Yeah.

Right now? Okay. But it wasn't unforeseen, and there were even discussions of grading and whether it be steps and stuff.

Yeah, I think they probably need to come back, too.

Yeah, there may have been some limitation, but somehow I think they were a little... I don't know.

Once it's deemed complete and we get it over to us, then we can... We'll go back to where we were in 2019 and move forward from there.

So, at least pull what's what we consciously. Memorialized.

Okay.

Um, and then that's just a piece of the big pie. That's all. It was just 1 of the many. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Um, I just received another application. It's not on here because I just received all the. Pieces yesterday, um, for. floating solar in the quarry pond.

Okay. The presentation that was made to the... Did they make them to us too, or was it to the council?

It definitely was to the council. I don't remember if she was...

I don't think it was to us. It wouldn't have been to us. Right, because the application was to the council.

And they have an interesting name. Schnibbles.

Schnibbles?

Schnibbles. Schnibbles Solar. Those are the anchors.

It's a schnibble, and they attach the floating solar panel to it.

I had a dog bite almost that night. There may be one aspect. Probably TMI, right?

In the context of affordable housing and all that stuff. Because I don't think in the council we asked them about reflectivity of the solar. Because I don't know which way it's aimed. But sometimes you can get a situation where the reflection is pretty intense.

I thought they were flat.

They are, but sometimes the sun's going. And then the water. Just to cover the point. We don't have them. So we have Business of Visitors. Do you have anything you wish to discuss with us?

No, I'm just kidding. It's in essentially editorial review, basically it was a very large document folder and we've kind of segregated it into sections. Part of it is

The whole methodology that was used to create the plan, there are segments of that. And that's sort of been peeled off to be kind of archived, because it wouldn't really make sense to have all that information in the actual master plan. And then we've looked at the master plan, the residual segments, which are itemized by park and so forth. And it's been in process for so long that the world has changed in some cases. As an example, the property on Claremont next to Peter's track that they bought the house and started using it. And there were all these plans for it, but then it's demolished and greenfields and all sorts of other things. So some of the stuff, the good news is sometimes it's progressed and it's like, okay, check that box. It's done. But in other cases, decisions were made that that affected the intent that far back.

I would say at some point, yes.

I think it's being updated before it was finished is what it is. It's more, it's at least an inventory, you know, an inventory and some assessment of opportunity, you know, opportunities and some visions for each of the parks.

Well, yeah, it's been an ongoing agenda item, so probably the best thing, I guess, is to check with Denise to make sure.

Actually, Denise can give them, the public can have access to, can they have access to the work in progress?

On the work in progress? I don't know.

I think there is technically a approved recreational master plan. The original. Yeah, the original. That's on the website.

Yeah, it's on the website. This was an update. But the work in progress isn't, right. Substantively. Slicing and dicing.

I don't think we're making any changes to it substantively. Isn't that an older plan? Yes. Does it take into account, for example, the newer park, Kirkpatrick Park, that we purchased? The old one did.

The old one did, but it was Disneyland. And so people looked at it and said, no, no, no, there's a more low-key, more conservative plan for it than Woodstock. The other thing is that, although it's hard to follow, every one of the entries said, when you want to do anything to one of these parks, do a plan. Don't wing it. So that's sort of the caveat in each of the sections for the park.

Yeah, we'd like to get through it. Did you have anything else? No. Okay.

It's kind of the last agenda item and any executive session required and not required, perhaps next meeting based upon what transpires tomorrow. Okay.

There was one that we you teed up, but for whatever purpose time, maybe we actually didn't cover it at some point, but you know, you can always give us the surface might have been to give you an update about this particular motion, which

still is to be argued and the court may not decide tomorrow. It may be a reserved decision given the magnitude of the motions. Right.

The implications. Okay. Anything else? No. We're adjourned. That could be the winner. We're close.