Officials Say It's Unsafe to Shield Cars From View

Officials are attempting to make parking structures more aesthetically pleasing, but a concern over safety kept the introduction of an ordinance concerning screens on parking decks from receiving a unanimous vote.

In a 3-1 vote Monday, the Bridgewater Township Council approved the introduction of an ordinance recommended by the planning board to require all parking garages have screening that will hide the vehicles inside from view.

But Councilman Allen Kurdyla was unsure why the cars are not considered aesthetically pleasing, and why they need to be shielded.

"I think closing the building actually creates a problem," he said. "I disagree with screening the parking decks."

Council President Matthew Moench said he agreed with Kurdyla about the screening on the garages, but would prefer to see the ordinance move forward, which was why he voted for it.

"I share the same concerns about the screening," he said.

But Bridgewater Township Planner Scarlett Doyle said the screens would be a benefit to the garages.

"If there is structured parking, we can hide the vehicles through architectural elements," she said. "We would not see the lights in the deck or the parked vehicles. It would be aesthetically pleasing."

The ordinance, aside from the screening on parking garages, also discusses banked parking and new standards for the lots, Doyle said.

In the ordinance, Doyle said, developers are required to have banked parking in case additional spots are needed in the future.

"Sometimes an applicant comes before the board and says that a certain level of parking is not necessary," she said. "This ordinance says the developer must have banked parking, but the person can appeal to the land use board [if it is not wanted]."

This requirement, Doyle said, is for currently unnecessary stalls in the event they are needed at a future date.

This and several other ordinances were introduced to bring the township's master plan into conformance with a re-examination report recently adopted by the Bridgewater Township Planning Board.

An amendment to the master plan concerning economic development and changes to be made was approved by the planning board in April, and a full re-examination was conducted in 2005, setting out goals about economic development in the Route 22 corridor.

The goals of the amendment are to protect the quality of life in town, while also increasing tax rateables, enabling flexibility in development and offering building design guidelines, among other determinations.

Another ordinance introduced at the meeting concerns the amount of impervious coverage—artificial structures, like sidewalks—allowed in relation to building sizes, and changes the ratio that was originally set.

According to Doyle, the original ordinance stated that the floor area ratio of an office building can be increased by an amount directly proportional to the decrease in the amount of impervious coverage on the lot.

In other words, Doyle said, an applicant could request to reduce the impervious coverage by 1 percent, and then increase its building size by 1 percent.

"This tightens up the ordinance," she said. "The planning board said that for a 4 percent reduction in impervious land, a developer can get a 1 percent addition in building size. This makes the developer more responsible, in the planning board's view."

Moench said he agreed with that assessment.

"We reward those who decrease impervious coverage," he said, adding that it is often more difficult to decrease the impervious land, making it less likely building sizes could be increased.

A third ordinance introduced—and unanimously approved—at the meeting concerns maximum lot sizes for free-standing offices in the township's limited manufacturing zone, and deletes clauses in the ordinance that call for a maximum lot area of four acres for business uses, and a maximum office floor area of 50,000 square feet.

"Some of these numbers didn't ring true for office buildings on Route 22," Doyle said. "We have a minimum building size, but we didn't think we should set a maximum."

This zone, Doyle said, is on Route 22, and the change should help increase opportunities there.

"We hadn't originally evaluated what this would do to mini warehouses on Route 22," she said. "What is being done here is trying to stimulate work on the Route 22 corridor."

The ordinance also adds additional permitted uses to the zone, namely medical and dental offices, and medical-support centers with such uses as wellness centers, out-patient rehabilitation and others.

A final ordinance that made changes to the master plan, Doyle said, is one that simply makes it consistent with other ordinances concerning car dealerships. It discusses, she said, the dealership's right to be expanded and rebuilt if destroyed.

The ordinance had previously stated that new car, truck, farm machinery, construction equipment and recreational vehicle sales were conditional uses in the highway interchange commercial zone, which is located at or adjacent to intersections of major regional highways.

The new amendment to the ordinance, Doyle said, allows those that already exist in the zone to be expanded, or rebuilt if destroyed.

"This is not for new businesses, just ones that are already there in the Route 22 corridor," she said. "The provision is now consistent with past ordinances."

The final two ordinances introduced simply rewrite language to make them less confusing. The first states that in the commercial nursing home zone, all primary access, save for emergency vehicles, is off Route 22.

The second states that a section of the ordinance about building setbacks for non-residential zones on Route 202 would be moved to its own new section of the ordinance. The language remains the same, stating that the buildings must be set back 200 feet from the highway.

All six ordinances were approved, and public hearings for each will be held Sept. 2.

Doyle said these ordinances are all being introduced in accordance with changes found on a routine examination of the township's master plan.

"This is all from the economic development aspect of the plan," she said.