ZBA Hearing - February 12, 2025

that why don't you state your name one more time kyle kyle dowdy d-o-w-d-y do you swear or affirm

to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I do. Please proceed, counsel.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What is your profession? I'm a project manager for a civil engineering and

landscape architecture firm. And how long have you been employed by Rogera Plant? 11 and a half

years. And did you prepare the zoning plan and landscape plan for this site? I did. And in

preparing the zoning plan, did you review the provisions of section 147011 of the zoning code?

I did. And what did you do to determine the caliper of the heritage trees on the site?

We had an arborist within our company go out. He inspected the trees personally, took photographs,

measurements at the required height. He identified the trees as red oaks and eastern white pines

and that they were in healthy condition. What's the caliper? There was a total of 80 inches.

And given the proposed development, is there any way to develop the site and not remove the heritage trees?

There was no way that we could install a parking lot to serve the required function without removing these trees.

And what's the caliper of the proposed replacement trees?

We have a total of 80 and a half inches.

And do the replacement trees meet the Planning Commission requirements?

They do.

In addition to the replacement of heritage trees, are there other shrubs and plantings proposed?

We do have them, yes.

And would you explain them to the board?

We have a variety. We have honeysuckles, boxwoods, switchgrass, as the shrubs and grasses included. We also have phloxes, cardinal flowers, quite a wide range.

And explain to the board how stormwater runoff will be addressed.

Stormwater management itself is not required due to the size of this development, but we are

intending to mitigate any runoff capturing it at the entrance to the driveway with a

trench drain and sump box size to handle the 100-year design storm. And has a tree replacement

and maintenance plan been developed to ensure that the replacement trees and other landscaping will

survive? Merakee currently has an existing landscape maintenance plan for their facilities. This will be

added on in addition to their current agreement for maintenance. And how are the replacement

trees chosen? The replacement trees were chosen to fill an economic or ecological

niche that doesn't currently exist in this neighborhood. This neighborhood has a lot

of large trees. So we looked at using some that were in the more smaller to midsize to provide

that lower level canopy. They were also chosen via the required planting list by the Planning

Commission. And will the removal and replacement of the heritage trees cause any environmental harm?

We do expect a small increase to the heat island effect. We are including more asphalt than the

square footage of the house that's there currently, but the trees and the future growth will mitigate

that. And will the tree removal and replacement cause any congestion in the public roads?

There will not be, no.

Will the tree removal and replacement

overcrowd the land?

No.

And will the proposed removal and replacement

impair light and air to the neighboring properties?

It will not.

It will actually increase the available light

to neighboring properties.

And will the removal of the tree and replacement

burden any public facilities?

It will not.

Will the tree removal and replacement

injure adjacent conforming properties?

It will not.

and will the removal replacement endanger public health it will not and is the removal replacing

consistent with a comprehensive plan for the city it is all right i have no further questions for

all right i have no further questions for this witness your next witness please shelby lynch

this witness your next witness please shelby lynch she's virtual okay

she's virtual okay could we bring her on

they will be promoted to panelists to come back in shortly sir thank you

hi could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer

yep i'm shelby lynch that's s-h-e-l-b-y lynch l-y-n-c-h

do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth

yes please proceed counsel and what's your profession i am a project manager at a traffic

engineering consulting firm traffic planning and design as a copy of your cv on the screen and is

it reasonably accurate in terms of your background and experience? Yes. And what's, she's a traffic

engineer, transportation engineer. And what study did your firm undertake from our key?

We performed a transportation impact study for the proposed parking lot at 2931 East Mountain

Area Avenue. As part of that, we evaluated the intersections of 2 Avenue and East Mountain

Area Avenue, East Mountain Area Avenue in the existing parking lot access, and East Mountain

area avenue in the proposed parking lot access and we evaluated the weekday a.m. and weekday

p.m. peak hours traffic operations based on traffic counts that we conducted on thursday

december 12 2024 and as a copy of the report impact study which is exhibit eight up on the

screen yes and you do follow industry standards for information gathering analysis and completing

the tis yes we did the tis was prepared in accordance with pendants policies and procedures

for transportation impact studies.

And what does that entail?

So there's specific requirements related to data collection and analysis.

So for data collection, we're required to perform turning movement counts

at the study area intersections, which I mentioned previously.

And those counts are required to be done on a typical weekday,

both during the weekday morning and afternoon peak periods.

And then based on those counts, we determine the peak one-hour count

during each of those two peak periods.

And then we analyze and evaluate the impacts

of the proposed development on those intersections.

And will PennDOT be required to approve the TIS?

Yes.

And will PennDOT be required to approve

the driveway access design?

Yes.

And do you have any conclusions regarding,

to share regarding the impact

of the proposed parking lot on traffic in the area?

Based on our traffic study,

the proposed parking lot is anticipated

to result in no discernible changes to the operations of the surrounding roadways.

And what impact will the construction of the parking lot have on Mount Airy Avenue?

The parking lot constructed adjacent to the existing facility will reduce the number of

patients required to park across the street and then cross the street to access the facility.

And how will right turn in and right turn out be enforced?

the current site plan indicates signage will be used to enforce that but that will need to

be coordinated with PennDOT and the streets department will the parking lot have any

negative impact on the nearby school the parking lot is not anticipated to add additional traffic

to the roadway network so from traffic operations perspective it will not impact the school

and will the parking lot improve conditions for vans dropping off and picking up patients at the

facility? From a traffic perspective, relocating the van drop-offs from on-street to off-street

is expected to reduce any disruptions to the flow of traffic caused by the current on-street

pickup and drop-off situation. And will the parking lot have any negative impact on the

patients, especially the vulnerable population served by Maverick Key as they access the facility?

Not from a traffic operations perspective. Accommodating on-site parking and pickup and

drop-offs will reduce the number of patients required to cross East Mount Area Avenue to

access the existing site. And what does it mean to show that the parking lot will meet the site

distance requirements for the parking lot access points? The driveway site distance is the maximum

length of roadway along which a driver at a driveway location can continuously see another

vehicle approaching. So the recommended safe site distances depend on the speed of the roadway and

roadway geometry. So we measure the existing site distances in the field and then compare that to

the required site distances. And will the parking lot provide any benefits?

The proposed parking lot is anticipated to provide a benefit to Meraki by allowing

existing patients to park on-site and be picked up and dropped off on-site as opposed to

existing patients to park on-site and be picked up and dropped off on-site as opposed to

across the street or on street. Is there any negative impact to the parking lot?

From a traffic operations perspective, the proposed parking lot will have no

discernible impact to the surrounding roadway. Are there any measurable traffic accidents on

Mount Airy Avenue? Based on PennDOT crash data from the past five years, there were three

reportable crashes at two and Mount Airy, which falls below the threshold of five crashes

in a 12-month period. Along the site frontage, there were no reportable crashes.

I have no further questions for this one. Questions from the board?

Yes, I have a question. So the new parking lot, is there an entrance on that side or

where the folks have to go to the front entrance

to enter the building?

The intent is to add on to the existing entrance

from Mount Airy Avenue to extend the ramp

into this parking lot so that patients

could directly access the front door

without having to go to Mount Airy Avenue itself.

Okay.

Thank you.

Other questions?

Question.

are there um handicapped spaces or markers in front of the building on that side of the street

currently no in the front of the building they're not currently on the street and um you said you

will be removing three heritage trees is there a particular number of trees that will be replaced

it or a combination it's a total of 21 trees uh we have some oaks to go back in to replace some

that are going out they're obviously going to be smaller now but they will grow to that size

And then we have redbuds, dogwoods, and arborvites to go in.

Okay.

And my last question is, and I can hardly see you on the diagram because it's so small,

but is there any lighting proposed for the parking lot?

There is lighting on the building, and we are working to develop a lighting plan.

We do expect there to be some for, there are requirements still to illuminate these parking

lots.

We don't have them nailed down where they're going to be located, but there will be.

Okay.

Thank you.

is there is a stop sign um uh planned for for the for this intersection or no

yes there will be a stop bar and the stop sign on the parking lot side of the the property line

um along with a right turnout only sign okay good but just a stop sign at the parking lot not a not

a stop sign on the street no correct it's very close to the intersection mr johns the

intersection at Chu and Mount Airy Avenue

is a signalized intersection. It's very

close to that.

Question. Do you have to

provide dry vials

and that kind of thing? Is that going to

limit the number of spaces you can

have or how did you determine how many

spaces? Shelby's available to talk

to those issues.

Shelby, our engineer.

Shelby, did you

hear the question? Yeah, I believe

hear you asked about the parking lot which yeah do you yeah do you have to provide like well i can

answer that yeah you have to provide like drive aisles and correct yeah so the drive aisle width

is 18 i believe at a minimum um and that extends the entire length so there is room we also do

have a bump out in the rear to allow cars to back out okay to provide full movement and then

you're gonna have a couple of handicapped spaces they have to be larger correct so we have two

handicap spaces if you see there's a dashed area in the parking lot kind of right in the middle

that is an unloading space and also to function as a pull-in space for the buses to make a full

turnaround but that is i think it's 21 feet wide so it's far larger than what we would typically

see in an ada space but yes we do have that area that i'm pointing to you said you were replacing

the three heritage trees with 21 other trees correct this is i know enough about this to

maybe be a little dangerous but um i understand you have to have landscaping in parking lots

correct so did you have to do trees as opposed to maybe shrubs or could you use something else

We're actually there is a requirement to do it's four shrubs for every 20 feet along the parking lot and then one tree for every 20 feet.

OK, so there are required ratios for how many linear feet that the parking lot is, as well as the area.

We do meet all of those as required by the code, actually more so because we had to meet that 80 inches.

So we have more than what the code would require.

Because on the heritage trees, we have to replace the 80 inches with 80 inches.

of trees doesn't say how many trees but we have to replace the trees

it doesn't say how many trees but we have to replace the trees and then we have the shrubs

and then we have the shrubs and other requirements as well

and other requirements as well gotcha so okay that's why we have 21 trees for the 80 inches

and then all the other plantings and then that does that then limit the number of spaces you

can have like oh are you is this yes we would like to have had more spaces it would have only been

one space maybe um okay um so it's not a lot that we would have been adding on if we were to remove

some of the trees we are adding ah all right that makes sense okay thank you questions from our

attorney hillary emerson actually bill can i ask one more question sure for the existing parking

lot do you all have to share that parking lot with any other businesses

the existing parking lot that's across the street at 28 to 32 um it is entirely merrikey owned um

we do not have any um security or um badging signing in and signing out of the parking lot

so it is frequently used by the community but it is entirely owned by merrikey okay and then

the germantown lot that you referred to as the germantown lot that would be the new parking lot

no no the germantown lot is um a current space on germantown avenue that has eight current spaces