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Council briefed on planned adaptive reuse at 810 North Second Avenue; redevelopment agreement to follow
Summary
Borough staff and developers presented plans to convert a small former lab at 810 North Second Avenue into four residential units, describing site constraints, parking, and next procedural steps; council members expressed general support and noted neighbors' concerns about construction management and parking.
Borough staff on Monday reviewed a redevelopment proposal for 810 North Second Avenue and said the developer will seek a formal redevelopment agreement with the borough before filing a site plan with the planning board.
The project would adaptively reuse an existing small lab building and create four residential units with four on-site parking spaces, ADA-compliant parking and covered bicycle storage. "The footprint of the building isn't changing 1 iota. The height is the same," Staff member Terry said, summarizing the design. Terry and staff said the team held a neighborhood meeting and received mostly construction-management and parking-related feedback.
The redevelopment plan adopted last year makes a redevelopment agreement a procedural precondition for the applicant to appear before the planning board. "Their next move is to go to the planning board... They can't do that unless there's an agreement in place with the borough," Terry said. Staff said a draft agreement exists and would be circulated to council after the meeting.
Council members asked whether the units would include any affordable housing. "They couldn't make it work," Terry said, explaining the developer had examined adding a fifth unit but said construction and parking constraints and rising costs made additional units infeasible. Staff noted the borough's ordinance requires off-street parking at one space per unit and that the project's four spaces matched that minimum requirement.
Councilmember Matt, who attended the neighbor meeting, said the neighborhood meeting "went really well" and described neighbors as generally comfortable with the proposal. Several council members and staff discussed landscaping, limited front-yard width along the sidewalk and the potential for modest green or energy-efficiency measures; staff said they could encourage such features and consider including agreed steps in the redevelopment agreement.
Staff described site-specific constraints including an existing retaining wall that sits on a neighboring property and an area where impervious pavement would be reduced as part of cleanup. On occupancy and market, staff said the developer expects the units to appeal to commuters using bicycles or scooters to reach nearby transit to New York or Philadelphia.
No formal council vote or adoption took place on the redevelopment agreement at the meeting; staff recommended authorization to prepare a resolution for council consideration to authorize execution of the redevelopment agreement and proceed to planning-board review.
