At his seventh hearing before the Morristown zoning board, a developer for The Learning Experience chain on Wednesday insisted this proposed daycare center differs from a rival’s rejected project, and promised that its community benefits will outweigh any drawbacks.
“This is not a fly-by-night operation,” testified John McDonough, a landscape architect and planner representing the venture for developer Sam Samman.
The applicant, 170 Madison Ave. LLC, seeks approvals to place a 10,000-square-foot Learning Experience franchise on a wooded acre at the busy intersection of Madison Avenue and Normandy Parkway.
A use variance, among other approvals, is needed to allow the commercial enterprise in a residential zone.
Near the end of an occasionally contentious three-and-a-half hour meeting, after residents had tried to poke holes in the project’s storm water management plans, McDonough reminded the board that the state regards childcare as an “inherently beneficial” land use. That puts the onus on the board to prove “substantial detriments.” He insisted there are none.
“We’re not in the middle of a residential development,” said McDonough, striving to differentiate this project from a Rainbow Academy daycare center that got shot down last year, largely over traffic concerns.
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McDonough noted that Rainbow Academy had eyed a residential area on Turtle Road, a local street.
Although The Learning Experience would adjoin the Twombly Court neighborhood, its parcel fronts Madison Avenue, a heavily traveled state road with restaurants and office buildings nearby.
The planner pitched the daycare center as an ideal neighbor for Twombly residents, because of its daytime-only, Monday-Friday operations, its single-story height, and about 20 trees that would be planted to enhance neighbors’ privacy.
As presently zoned, McDonough contended, the site could accommodate four houses that would have a greater impact on neighbors. Board Chairman Cary Lloyd questioned the four-house calculation.
At prior sessions, the public has raised concerns about tricky access to the site, and potential traffic spillover onto local roads. A key element of the daycare proposal is the widening of the Madison/Normandy Parkway intersection.
But state Department of Transportation officials cannot predict when they will start that work, town traffic consultant Tom Phelan told the board on Wednesday.
For much of the evening, residents grilled Matthew Clark, an engineering consultant for the applicant, about plans to use a “Vortex” mechanical piping system to slow the release of rainwater into the town’s storm drains.
Clark said the system complied with town regulations. But things grew testy when a resident asked how much extra runoff would be generated after trees are removed from the forested acre and 65 percent of the site is covered with the daycare building, 31 parking spaces, an interior roadway and a playground.
“You’re evading the question on volume,” Lloyd said. “We’re just asking you to answer a question.”
