The Montclair Zoning Board of Adjustment had a relatively light agenda for its January 23 meeting, its first meeting of 2019, and only six members were in attendance. Half of the meeting was devoted to a rather complex application regarding Competitive Signs, an Orange Road business in the township’s southeast corner. The proprietor, J.C. Aviles, wants to add a second floor to his business and clean up the surrounding acreage.
Aviles appeared with architect Paul Sionas and planner Peter Steck, who presented plans for Competitive Signs’ location at 451½ Orange Road. The plans are to add a second floor to the existing building for Aviles to have an office and a showroom for his business, freeing the first floor for the work area. Steck said it was his opinion that the property, due to its irregular shape and the presence of a culvert channel running along it, was suitable for Aviles’ business despite its location in a residential zone and the adjacent resident zones of at least two of the three bordering towns. The property’s shape almost resembles a broken arrow, and its location straddles Montclair and Glen Ridge – half of the building and a third of the lot are in Montclair, while the four-corner point separating Montclair, Glen Ridge, Orange and East Orange is in the middle of Orange Road in front of the property.
Sionas’ plan calls for a second story for Aviles’ business and a repaving of the decrepit asphalt lot in front. The lot would feature three striped parking spaces along the southern property line with a fourth space nestled along the culvert. A single lane would lead to the existing garage where commercial vehicles are brought in to receive an application of decal signage. The building would be bumped out at the first-floor level in the front to allow for a new staircase and extra room for vehicles receiving sign decals. Also, a new wooden fence would be installed along the southern property line to replace the existing chain link fence. As for Competitive Signs’ own signage, two wall-mountain business signs would be installed on the new façade and a freestanding sign would be placed in a small landscaped island immediately in front of Orange Road. Steck didn’t think the expansion of Aviles’ business, which has been at 451½ Orange Road since 2007, would be an intrusion on the neighborhood, since customers are handled by appointment only.
Steck made it clear to board members that the tight dimensions of the lot and its trapezoidal shape would require numerous variances to make the plan work. Aside from a variance to allow expansion of an existing commercial enterprise in a residential neighborhood, Aviles is seeking at least eight other variances, which include a variance for a building width that, at 63.92 feet, is greater than 65 percent of the lot width; a variance for a side yard setback of less than 6 feet for one side and less than 10 feet for the other (they are 3.9 feet and 4.8 feet, respectively); a variance allowing front air-conditioning units (which would be shielded from view with a fence); and a variance for the aforementioned two wall-mounted signs in a residential district. Three of these eight additional variances are needed from Glen Ridge for the Glen Ridge portion of the property, including one for the freestanding sign up front.
Zoning Board Chair William Harrison agreed that the expanded business would not cause a detriment to the neighborhood, though he cautioned Aviles, Sionas and Steck that if Glen Ridge’s zoning board objected to the plan, they would have to go back to the Montclair board. He did not, however, expect Glen Ridge to have a problem with the plan, and board member Jerry Simon commended Sionas and Steck on making the best use of a difficult lot. The board unanimously approved the plan.
The meeting had begun with a unique application concerning a duplex house at 61½ Forest Street. Mirielle Vickers (whose late husband Charles was a pillar in the community with his involvement with a food pantry and a soup kitchen to help the poor) is looking to move, but she decided she needed to add a third-story bathroom to make her half of the duplex house more marketable. Architect Michael Marvin presented a plan that would house the bathroom in a dormer in the rear of the structure. The line of the existing roof would be extended rearward, with a new low-slope roof with single-ply-membrane construction. New vinyl siding would match the adjacent siding on the opposite side of the duplex, where the other unit is located. A variance is needed to permit construction of the new extension due to the lack of a setback. The top floor of the duplex is an attic floor, and thus it is considered a 2½-story structure.
Board member John McCullough noted that the dormer would make one side of the duplex look different on the back, and he asked how the neighbor in the other unit felt. Jeffrey Baptiste, the project manager, replied that he had spoken with the neighbor, and he reported that the neighbor plans to mimic what Mrs. Vickers is having done on her side of the building, with new siding and new materials on his half of the roof. “He’ll do what he has to do,” Baptiste said.
The board approved this application as well, understanding that Mrs. Vickers was pursuing this project in the interest in making her home more marketable. McCullough said it was unique for an applicant to add an amenity to the home so that it would be attractive to someone else.
Also, homeowner Cynthia Beldner appeared before the board to request a variance for a side-yard setback of 1.9 feet for a new detached garage at her property on 348 North Fullerton Avenue to replace an existing one with the same setback measurement. She did not want to relocate the garage to be in compliance with setback rules to avoid compromising an elm tree on the property. Chair Harrison asked Beldner why she couldn’t have the garage straightened to run parallel to the property line, and Karen Robinson, Beldner’s architect, explained that this was because straightening it would make it more difficult to bring a car into the garage from the driveway.
Board member Thomas Reynolds asked if Beldner would reconsider moving the garage back another foot without compromising the tree in the back, and Chair Harrison said it should either be moved back and made parallel to the property line to where the current rear wall of the garage is to get the 2.9-foot setback required, sparing the tree, or the angle should be shifted to get that extra foot. With Beldner accepting such a choice, the board approved it, although board member John Caulfield recused himself from the vote.