CITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK PLANNING BOARD JANUARY 11, 2021 MINUTES Meeting Location Remote Teleconferencing City Hall, Third Floor 78 Bayard Street 7:00 PM I. ROLL CALL Jeff Crum (Chairperson) Manuel Castaneda (Vice Chairperson) X George Chedid X John Petrolino X Robert Cartica X Diana Lopez X Ryan Berger (Class I) Chris Stellatella (Class II) X Suzanne Sicora-Ludwig (Class III) X Matthew Ferguson (Alternate #1) X Yelitssa Checo (Alternate #2) II. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT Dan Dominguez (Director, Department of Planning, Community and Economic Development, and Board Secretary): Please be advised that the notice requirements of the Open Public Meeting Act have been complied with and satisfied, and that the annual notice which gives sufficient notice of the time, place, and conduct of all public meetings of the Planning Board of the City of New Brunswick has been filed with the city clerk and placed on an appropriate bulletin board and posted in the back vestibule of City Hall, visible to the public through the windows and the lobby of City Hall New Brunswick, New Jersey, and has been transmitted to the official newspaper for the City of New Brunswick, namely the Home News Tribute and Star-Ledger. Additionally, a special meeting notice of the time, place, and manner of conducting this meeting has been made by the board secretary as required by law. It is also posted in the back vestibule at City Hall visible to the public through the windows and the lobby of City Hall New Brunswick, New Jersey, and has been transmitted to the official newspaper of the City of New Brunswick, namely the Home News Tribune and Star-Ledger. New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy, has issued executive orders limiting the size of public gatherings of individuals until further notice. Furthermore, the CDC has issued guidelines to limit gatherings of groups. The City Planning Board attempts to meet on a regular schedule and will meet the guidelines of the Open Public Meeting Act by utilizing teleconferencing systems. Public participation at public meetings has been revised, and the public may participate through a conference call or video system. The public is encouraged to call into the conference call system through the phone numbers and access codes transmitted in the above notice to the Home News Tribune and Star- Ledger and posted in the back vestibule of City Hall visible to the public through the windows. Board professionals will also be available on the conference call and video during this meeting as well. All parties on the conference call will have the opportunity to hear the Planning Board meeting. During the potions of 1 | P a g e the meeting that are not open for public comment, all callers from the public will be muted, and the board will not be able to hear any public comment through the conference call system. During the public comment periods, I will first read public comments issued to the board. Then those on the call-in lines who have an interest in addressing the board will be first organized by last name and called up on to speak. After all organized members of the public speak, the process will happen again until all the public has had an opportunity to speak once and for no more than five minutes in any given public meeting position. A timer will chime at the completion of each five-minute period, and I'll notify that your time is expired. Public meeting assistance access for the call-in number should call the Planning Department at (732) 745- 5050. III. SALUTE TO THE FLAG IV. PUBLIC HEARINGS A. HARDENBERG STREET REDEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATES LLC / 24 HARDENBERG STREET / BLOCK 51, LOTS 5, 6, 27, 28, 29, 29.02, 31, 31.01 (PB2020-12) Preliminary and final major site plan application to construct a parking garage structure with approximately 975 spaces, a central utility plant and a loading dock and area to serve the proposed Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey Cancer Pavilion. No variances are requested. The site is located in the Healthcare Research Pavilion Redevelopment Plan area. (Charles B. Liebling, Esq.) Suzanne Sicora-Ludwig (Acting Board Chairperson):And before I turn it over to Mr. Liebling, I just want to go through the process of this meeting. Tonight, the applicant will give the board and any interested members of the public the benefit of the entire application presentation. Once the presentation is complete, the public will have an opportunity to comment on this application only, each person, one time only, for no longer than five minutes. If you have comments unrelated to this application, you will have an opportunity to address the board later in the evening before we move to adjourn. And with that, the floor is yours, Mr. Liebling. Charles Liebling (Applicant’s Attorney): Thank you, Madam Chair. Aravind Aithal (Board Attorney): Mr. Liebling, before we start - this is Aravind Aithal, the board attorney - I just wanted to confirm. Mr. Chedid, are you with us this evening? Maroun Chedid: Yes, I am. Mr. Aithal: And, Mr. Chedid, I believe that you'd indicated that in a prior application that there was an employment relationship that previously existed between a family member and Rutgers University; is that correct? Maroun Chedid: I'm sorry. Could you repeat? Mr. Aithal: This is George Chedid, correct? Maroun Chedid: Are you talking to George Chedid or to Maroun Chedid? Mr. Aithal: Yes. George Chedid (Board Member): Hi, Arvind. This is George Chedid. I'm sorry about that. Mr. Aithal: George. I'm sorry. If I may, George, you'd indicated in the past that you've had an - your family member had an employment relationship with Rutgers University; is that correct? 2 | P a g e George Chedid: Right. That's correct. Mr. Aithal: Okay. Rutgers University is not an applicant in this matter. But there is a proposal that a portion of the building will actually be touching upon a previously approved portion. I would respectfully ask, unless you feel strongly otherwise, that you recuse yourself this evening. George Chedid: Yes. I would like to recuse myself. Mr. Aithal: (Indiscernible) Mr. Liebling: No. Thank you for taking care of that. It was important, Counselor. Yeah. As the chairperson stated, I'm Charles Liebling, Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf of New Brunswick on behalf of Hardenberg Street Redevelopment Associates. This garage application before you is to satisfy the 624-space parking requirement for the adjacent Cancer Pavilion that the board recently approved. And the remainder of the spaces in the building - in the garage would be used for public parking. The application is fully conforming with the healthcare and research pavilion redevelopment plan, and you'll be hearing from our civil engineer, our architect, and our traffic engineer establishing that further. As was the case with the recent application for the Cancer Pavilion, the board's review of the site plan application is for the sole purpose of determining its conformance with the redevelopment plan, and after you hear the testimony of our witnesses, I'm confident you'll be able to reach that conclusion. Those witnesses are: Chris Roche, our civil engineer from Langan; our architect from Tim Haahs & Associates, Todd Helmer; and our traffic engineer, also from Langan, Dan Disario. With that, unless the chair or counsel have any questions, I'd like to bring up Chris Roche. Ms. Sicora-Ludwig: No. Please bring him up. Mr. Liebling: Okay. All right. He's virtually brought up. Chris, can - can Chris (indiscernible), please. Mr. Dominguez: I need to swear him in. Mr. Roche, can you please state your name and spell your name for the record. Christian Roche (Applicant’s Engineer): Sure. It's Christian Roche, R-o-c-h-e. Christian Roche, Sworn Mr. Dominguez: The floor is yours. Mr. Liebling: Thank you. Mr. Roche, before we go any further, what is your role in this project that's the subject of the application? Mr. Roche: I am the civil engineer of record for the application. Mr. Liebling: Okay. And could you - you've testified before this board on other occasions, correct? Mr. Roche: I've testified before this board on many, many occasions previously. Mr. Liebling: Okay. Do you still hold your New Jersey professional engineering license? Mr. Roche: I do. Mr. Liebling: Okay. Madam Chair, in lieu of going through the qualifications of Mr. Roche, I'd like to suggest that given his prior appearances, he be accepted as an expert in the field of civil engineering. 3 | P a g e Ms. Sicora-Ludwig: Of course, so accepted. Mr. Liebling: Okay. Thank you. Okay. The Chris is yours and the screens. Mr. Roche: Great. Mr. Dominguez, would you mind pulling up Exhibit A1. Mr. Dominguez: Sorry. Sure. Give me one second. I'll pull it up. Mr. Roche: Take your time. Mr. Dominguez: Is the screen sharing? There is it. Okay. Mr. Roche: Thank you. The project site we're going to talk about tonight is comprised of eight properties identified as Block 51, lots 5, 6, 27, 28, 29, 29.02, 31, and 31.01 on the City of New Brunswick tax map. The area is approximately 1.45 acres. It's bound by Hardenberg Street to the east, residential uses to the north, Division Street to the west, and existing Lincoln Annex School to the south. The site is currently occupied primarily by residential, some of which are utilized by RWJ Barnabas Health office space currently. As Mr. Liebling mentioned, all eight properties are within the healthcare and research pavilion redevelopment plan, and we're not seeking any variances from that redevelopment plan here tonight.