Montgomery Zoning Board approves Burnt Hill Road group home after disputes over sidewalks, trees and stormwater

The Montgomery Township Zoning Board voted July 23 to approve a proposed six-person group home at 148 Burnt Hill Road, granting multiple bulk variances and design waivers while attaching conditions for stormwater controls, landscaping and lighting.

Attorney Peter Flannery presented the application on behalf of Burnt Hill Road Group Home Inc., describing the project as a 4,320–4,320/5,185-square-foot single‑story residential dwelling designed to serve people with developmental disabilities and to meet part of the township's affordable‑housing objectives under NJSA 40-55-66.1 (Mount Laurel). Architect Kyle Van Dyke and engineer/planner James Kamalek testified to the building layout, ADA- and HUD‑required features (including Hoyer ceiling lifts and widened corridors), and site improvements.

The board's professional reports and applicant testimony identified a long list of relief requested: preexisting nonconformities for lot area, frontage, depth and width and new requests for reduced front/side/rear setbacks, increased building coverage and increased lot coverage, plus waivers for tree replacement and sidewalks. Kamalek said the 1‑acre parcel sits in the PPE zone surrounded on three sides by municipal parkland and includes mapped Croton hydric soils and a nearby stream corridor that the applicant is not developing inside, but that nevertheless constrain placement of the building and drive the need for C1 and C2 variance findings.

A central point of contention was impervious coverage and stormwater. Kamalek testified the project would increase building coverage to just over 11% and the overall impervious footprint to about 23.9%, but that engineered stormwater measures (including pervious pavement and BMPs) would reduce runoff below current conditions. He also said the applicant's design reduces motor-vehicle pavement from about 4,446 square feet to roughly 3,670 square feet.

Sidewalks and the cost/threshold consequences of adding them proved decisive in board debate. The applicant requested an exception from the ordinance's sidewalk requirement, arguing that adding an estimated 180–185 linear feet of sidewalk would push the project's limit of disturbance above 0.5 acres (from ~0.49 acres to >0.5 acres), triggering more stringent stormwater-quality standards and additional design work that could make the HUD‑funded project infeasible. Some members pressed for connectivity to existing park sidewalks; others agreed with the applicant that topography and limited pedestrian demand made a sidewalk impractical. After a straw poll of the seven regular members, the board favored granting the sidewalk exception.

Landscaping also produced a contested technical compromise. The applicant requested a waiver to plant seven replacement trees rather than the 14 the ordinance would normally require; the landscape consultant recommended installing 2.5‑inch‑caliper trees instead of the 5‑inch specimens called for in the ordinance on cost and viability grounds. A poll of the regular members favored the 2.5‑inch caliper exception (5–2).

Conditions imposed in the board's approval include requiring the applicant to implement stormwater measures as described in the engineer's review memos, to provide an as‑built disturbance survey showing the development stayed below critical thresholds, to stripe a no‑parking/fire lane per the fire official's recommendation, and to finalize species and landscape details with board professionals. The applicant agreed to a neutral/light color vinyl siding and downward‑directed dark‑sky lighting; the board delegated final color/trim review to its professionals and required compliance with plan details submitted to the file.

A motion to approve the application "subject to the conditions outlined" passed on roll call. The motion was made from the dais and seconded; the roll call recorded majority support from the regular voting members and the application was approved.

The decision records the board's balancing of neighborhood and environmental impacts with a stated municipal affordable‑housing objective and includes explicit conditions meant to limit impervious impacts and to ensure the site is monitored and restored where appropriate. The approval will be memorialized in a formal resolution with the detailed conditions discussed at the hearing.