A company is looking to turn a vacant one-story former medical office on Glen Road into a three-story combined retail and apartment building. The application appeared before the Board of Adjustment at its April 8 meeting.
Glen Road features a mix of B-1 (three-story office) and B-3 (three-story office-retail) uses. Both designations are commercial and allow residential units as a "permitted accessory use." The property, located on Block 147, Lot 19.01, is zoned B-1. Nearby uses include restaurants and cafes in addition to other upper-floor residential units on the other side of the street.
The project needs a use variance to allow the apartments as well as eight other bulk variances. Borough ordinance requires the development to have 25 parking spaces; the current design doesn't include any. A minimum front yard setback of 25 feet is required; the application proposes .3 feet. A 15-foot rear yard setback is required; the project's setback is .3 feet. Fifteen feet is required for the side yard setback; the project has .12 feet on one side and .23 feet on the other.
The lot coverage of the building is 98.6 percent while only 40 percent is permitted. The minimum lot frontage and lot width are both only 30.4 feet while 100 feet is required for both. And the minimum lot depth is 80 feet, as opposed to the required 100 feet.
Most of the questions at the meeting centered around how the applicant plans to remedy the parking problem. Borough ordinance requires two parking spaces for each two-bedroom unit, thus resulting in eight needed spaces for residents. An additional 17 spaces would be required for the commercial use on the first floor based on the size of the space.
However, because the first floor commercial space will be dedicated to a tile warehouse and showroom in which customers come only by appointment, architect Gary Kliesch argued less than the standard number of spaces would be required. Jacob Soloman, who is contracted to purchase the property if the project is approved, estimated that only one or two employees would be present at any given time. Soloman currently owns a similar tile warehouse/showroom in Union City.
Kliesch testified that Boiling Springs Savings Bank had offered to make spaces in the lot right across the street available for rent. He noted spaces would also be available in the Kip Garage. Soloman originally said he would be willing to lease four parking spaces for the residents with the aim of encouraging use of nearby mass transit. However, at the encouragement of the board, he agreed to make the lease of 10 parking spots a condition for the application's approval.
The project's need for a use variance speaks to a concern about a current disjunction between the newly-adopted Master Plan and the borough's current zoning ordinances. One of the Master Plan's land use objectives is to "encourage a mix of quality commercial uses, retail, entertainment, dining and upper story residences in the downtown area." The plan states that it is clear the objective has been for the Park Avenue downtown to contain mixed-use buildings with retail on the first floor and apartments above.
However, the current ordinance says apartments are allowed as an "accessory" use. According to planning board attorney Richard Allen, the word "accessory" ends up creating a problem, since its legal interpretation means the apartments need to constitute less than half of the building. Furthermore, the ordinance indicates the residential units must be "customarily associated with and … subordinate and incidental to" the commercial use, meaning that the apartments are expected to be somehow functionally or financially related to the business use.
Allen said that the current discrepancy results in developers applying for use variances who can nevertheless point to the Master Plan to indicate that what they're applying for is supposed to be permitted.
The new Master Plan recommends the ordinance be changed so that residential units above commercial uses be considered complimentary instead of subordinate. At its March 20 meeting the Planning Board voted to recommend the mayor and council take action to allow upper floor housing in B-1 and B-3 areas. Rose Inguanti, who sits on the council and the planning board, mentioned the recommendation at the mayor and council's March 18 work session but the ordinance hasn't yet been changed.
The project's planner, Paul Bauman, made note of this fact in his testimony regarding the need for variances. He specifically cited the section of the Master Plan that addresses the need for a change in the current zoning ordinances. As far as the bulk variances are concerned, Bauman argued they are nearly all for pre-existing conditions of the current building and could only be fixed by razing the structure and building a new one, something that would be more expensive for the builders and would still require additional variances.
The two co-owners of 28 Glen Rd., the neighboring property, spoke against the application.
Rutherford's Frank Tidona, the owner of the neighboring property at 28 Glen Rd., questioned the presence of a balcony on the upper floors facing towards his property, since the building comes right up to the property line. Kliesch noted that the balconies would be inset so that they wouldn't encroach on Tidona's space and that they would be high enough to look out over his building, not into it.
Tidona also questioned the owner's willingness to maintain parking for the building.
"It seems like pie in the sky that these people are going to address parking in the area," said Tidona.
Vinny Laborim of Orient Way was also skeptical about the parking, noting that he thought the owner's intentions were good but that there would be no way to stop the building's eventual tenants from taking up metered spaces along Glen Road and thereby interfering with nearby businesses.
