Most everything postponed until next month

Only three members of the ZBA were present at the July 25th meeting, this - along with the summer schedule of only holding 1 ZBA meeting/month in July and August -- basically stalled all projects/decisions until next month. Each applicant is given a choice of going ahead with a decision during the meeting (basically all members present to vote yes), or waiting until 5 members are available. Since this was not communicated before the meeting, those attending the meeting - engineers, property owners, architects - have to wait another 4 weeks to move to the next step.

Public Hearings

33 Middlebush Road - replacing a concrete block building in the same footprint, but because the existing building doesn't have the required set-backs, a new building at the same exact location, requires variances. A neighbor, who recalled when planning permission was provided for another project about 5 years ago, was asking about some of the details -- and was directed to the planning board for this questions (the details of when/how etc were not provided). A ZBA board member asked that the garage bay be removed so that truck traffic on Middlebush road would not be a concern. The Public Hearing was adjourned to August 22.

Fox Hill Road - a homeowner wishing to install an in-ground pool has requested that the original setback variance of 13 feet be expanded to 23 feet because of concern of amount of space between the patio and the pool. Of course this required the motion to be republished and the process to start over - and even though the set-back is near town undeveloped property a ZBA member suggested that because it is such a "large variance" they might want to think about what would be acceptable. Public Hearing adjourned to August 22.

Adjourned Public Hearing

Roberts and Spook Hill Road - the applicant wants to install a 6 foot fence, where 4 foot is allowed. The property is undergoing extensive renovations and the board seems completely caught up in the amount of activity, debris, materials that are around the property before they will consider the fence request. As the spokesperson for the property owner suggested, in a very professional and quiet manner, that a fence would help mitigate these concerns and while they are working to comply with all the requests of the board -- including moving a portable toilet to another area of the property on a weekly basis (because the cleaning company needs to get access to it on Tuesday days to clean it) their actions never seem to be enough and are slowing down their efforts to get the property renovated. This point didn't seem to sway the board and they adjourned the hearing to August 22 with a promise of the building inspector to visit the site to confirm that the "debris" noted is actually building materials/tools being used for the renovation.

Discussions

All Angels Hill Road - a request for a 24 foot variance (where a 25 foot set-back is required) to install a 12'x24' shed to be aligned with their patio (that the applicant says got a similar variance in the past). A site visit is scheduled for August 19th with a Public Hearing scheduled for August 22nd.

Smith Crossing Road on a 4.7 acre site, the architect representing the applicant, presented plans to add an accessory apartment to the current house - requesting a variance of 568 feet (over the 1,000 sf maximum)... and variances for setbacks for existing pool/deck and a variance to the left property line for 5 feet.

The Board would like to see drawings that show both the old and new layout and seemed enthralled with the details of the interior layout - pointing out that code requires that the accessory apartment be able to be returned to a one family house with ownership changes. The Architect pointed out that the septic capacity is based on# of bedrooms - not # of bathrooms, laundry etc. A site visit is scheduled for August 19th with a Public Hearing on August 22nd.