MONTCLAIR, NJ - The Montclair Planning Board met on January 23 to finalize its recommendations for the Township Council regarding redevelopment of the Lackawanna Plaza property. But it also returned to its main business – hearing applications – and the application the board members considered on this night was a redo of an historic house on North Fullerton Avenue just a few doors up from Bloomfield Avenue.

Regarding the Lackawanna Plaza project, the board completed a final report to the council, saying that the redevelopment plan as proposed by developer David Placek is inconsistent with the master plan and proposes that one of Placek’s proposed buildings by eliminated from the project. In discussing the report before voting on it, board member Anthony Ianuale proposed adding a provision in the report that would ask the council to require a supermarket with a minimum of 50,000 square feet as a way of ensuring the store’s viability. The board, however, felt that advising the council to require an average number of square feet based on a statewide standard of supermarket square footage was preferable.

Board member Jacob Neiman said he did not think he could endorse the report without substantial changes. He felt that the project was not substantially inconsistent with the master plan because the master plan seeks to balance community benefits with the zoning. He felt that the project provides immense community benefits by offering a supermarket, 375 new housing units for people “to call Montclair ‘home’”, and a new and vibrant addition to Montclair Center, and he said that the report did not adequately convey that. He also disagreed with the finding that there was little connectivity with the areas around the project, arguing that it provided more connectivity than an empty mini-mall would.

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The board ended up approving the report to be sent of the council, with Ianuale voting no when the report failed to include a 50,000-sqaure-foot minimum while insisting that that was his only objection. Nieman was the only other board member to vote no.

For the application, architect Paul Sionas guided the Planning Board through his plans for the property at North Fullerton Avenue. The applicant plans to renovate the main house at 25 North Fullerton Avenue – built in 1892 – on the property by reducing the office space from 2,500 square feet to 2,173 square feet and enlarging the existing apartment on the second floor. The apartment would have three bedrooms and takes up both the second and third floor of the house – one bedroom on the second floor, two bedrooms on the third. Not only would the house be renovated on the outside, with the second floor extended over previous additions of the first floor, but the existing nine-car garage in the rear would be connected to the original house – and the garage would have a new second floor with 3-bedroom apartments.

The garage would be significantly reconfigured at the ground level. Sionas explained that nine spaces would still be provided in the garage, but one space in the center of the garage would be replaced by a new space at the western end of the garage and be designated as a handicapped space. The current western wall of the garage would be demolished to make room for an electric-vehicle charger to be shared between the handicapped space and the space immediately next to it. The former center space will be used as a first-floor foyer where the stairs to the second-floor apartments above the garage are to be located. Also, the garage doors would have a consistent barn-like style to recall the building’s historic use as a stable.**BULLSEYE

In addition, Sionas said, there would be bicycle parking, as well as a new brick walk would connect the front walk to the two apartments above the garage. Among the improvements planned for the original 1892 house are painted siding and trim boards, new trees for the front yard, new wall-mounted lighting fixtures to illuminate walkways and parking areas, and a shed roof dormer on the house’s northern elevation. A new recycling and refuse enclosure will also be added near the northeastern corner of the property, with a small lawn and pervious paving along the northern edge of the property.

Chairman Wynn seemed to be puzzled by how the garage would be connected to the house, and Sionas explained that a terrace would connect the house and the garage. Chairman Wynn also disliked the lack of landscaping along the property line with the Chase bank branch, although there are plantings planned along the eastern edge of the property on either side of the recycling/trash enclosure near the northeast corner of the property.

Engineer William Stimmel testified to the board on the variances sought for the project and also explained the elimination of non-conforming conditions to bring the project in line with code. One such non-conforming condition was parking for less office space than there was available, but with the reduction of office space, Stimmel said that the eight parking spaces on site would now conform to conditions. When board attorney Arthur Neiss noted that three of those spaces would be for residential, not office, use, Stimmel cited the rule that the off-street parking “shall be equal that required either for the residential or non-residential use” of an office/residential structure, whichever is greater, so there will be nine spaces available for office space based on the available street parking **STANDARD

Among the variances are a variance for the 2½ stories and the proposed dormer on the third floor extending the half-story – two stories are the maximum for such a structure – and a side yard setback of 2.56 feet when a side yard setback of 20 feet is required. Another variance is needed for 78 percent impervious is needed when the maximum allowed is 70 percent, although the impervious coverage proposed is in fact a reduction from the existing condition of 82 percent. Also, a waiver is required for the driveway, which is approximately nine feet wide, as code requires it to be double that width.

Stimmel said that the variances were worth granting because it encourages redevelopment of space that forwards goals of the master plan including new housing, rehabilitation of the old housing unit, elimination of non-conforming uses, and promotes desirable civic design and the conservation of an historic structure.

The board recommended that the project go to a committee of the Historic Preservation Commission to review some of the finer points of the plan, which could send it back to the Planning Board. In the meantime, the board unanimously approved the application as is, with the variances and the waiver, on conditions specified by the board. Among those conditions are that there be lattice work on the south wall of the garage for vines, additional landscaping, the garage being for office tenants and residents only, the entrances to apartment units 2 and 3 be “delineated in a more attractive fashion show,” and that there be a seepage pit for garage rainwater runoff with roof leaders to connect to the drainage system, as well as additional lighting for the recycling/trash enclosure.