Shadow of M Station hangs over South & DeHart project before Morristown zoning board

Representatives of a proposed downtown apartment complex urged the zoning board on Tuesday to look past strict interpretations of zoning laws to approve “one of the most ambitious projects ever done in Morristown.”

Paradoxically, project Planner Michael Tobia told skeptical board members that the project at 23-27 South St. deserves multiple variances because it strives to preserve the site’s ground-floor businesses — unlike the controversial M Station office redevelopment “where a multitude of tenants were kicked to the curb.”

The project’s attorney, Frank Vitolo, also represents M Station.

During a three-hour special meeting via Zoom, Tobia said it would be easier and cheaper to demolish the existing businesses at the corner of South and DeHart streets and start from scratch, with new ground-level retailers who might pay twice as much rent.

But owner Joseph Milelli’s plan to layer 26 apartments above the 23 South Boutique — while keeping the boutique, J.C. Reiss Optician, Pure Pita, the Laboratory Hair Studio and the Laundromat bar as tenants–amounts to “saving the neighborhood and not gentrifying the site.”

Vitolo echoed Tobia’s portrayal of Milelli’s plan as noble — but differed with his expert’s characterization of M Station.

M Station’s team worked hard, with town officials, attempting to relocate about a dozen popular restaurants and shops displaced from the former Midtown Shopping Center on Morris Street, the lawyer said.

Milelli’s proposal, Vitolo asserted, would save some of the town’s “most loved” small businesses at a time when the pandemic is ravaging them.

“What I want to tell you is…this is one of the most ambitious projects ever done in Morristown. And I’m not talking about the scale, the size, the height. It’s ambitious because it’s trying to save that retail, and no one’s ever done that before,” Vitolo said.

When board Chairman James Bednarz suggested these businesses would return if an entirely new structure were erected–as Starbucks did at a nearby location years ago–Vitolo disagreed strongly.

“Starbucks, Panera, McDonald’s, Burger King, they’ll come back, all day long, because they can afford those rents. You know who’ll never come back? The moms and pops. Never… You want bland chain stores all over Morristown? Keep kicking out all these tenants.”

‘IT’S OVERWHELMING’

Despite modifications made in response to board members’ concerns, the project still needs numerous variances for density, parking, buffers and setbacks, and height.

“We’re not addressing one issue here, we are addressing many issues…when you add them up, it’s overwhelming what you are asking against the zoning code,” said Bednarz, the board chairman.

“You’re cutting at the very core of zoning ordinances” and at the town’s zoning master plan, he said.

The property, former home of Scotti’s Record Shop, sits on a sliver of an acre and is zoned for four stories. Milelli proposes adding four floors over the street-level businesses. Here, the math gets tricky.

The enhanced structure would stand five-, six- or seven stories tall, depending on whether you count the basement-level Laundromat bar and a rooftop terrace. Its uppermost point would exceed the allowable height by five feet or by 19 feet — again, depending on who is doing the calculating.

Questions also remain about parking: Will 40 spaces reserved in the nearby DeHart Street garage be enough?

If Milelli were forced to abide by the parcel’s zoning, he only could build 10 apartments, Tobia said. That would be an “underutilization” of the tract, against the town’s wishes of maximizing residential development near downtown businesses, the consultant said.

“It’s plainly impossible to build something meaningful on this site without variances. It’s too complicated a code,” Tobia said, citing 330 pages of Morristown zoning laws.

Plans have been scaled down from 30 units to 26, with three penthouses and the rooftop terrace recessed so they hardly would be visible from the street, Tobia said.

He compared the project’s architecture and density to The Lofts, 40 Park, and The Metropolitan, neighboring upscale housing complexes.

But those buildings were not constrained by zoning ordinances: As redevelopment projects, they had special rules intended to remedy “blighted” properties, noted board Planner Greer Patras.

The 23-27 South application is not a redevelopment project. It sits across DeHart Street, an area purposely zoned for lower buildings with less density, Bednarz said. That’s the code the board is charged with upholding, he said.

‘GO BEYOND THE ACADEMIC’

Eight board members logged into Tuesday’s virtual meeting; five votes are required to approve the project. At least three members–Bednarz, Barbara McNally and Steve Pylypchuk–expressed reservations when polled by Vitolo.

Taken separately, each variance appears manageable, McNally said. But taken together, “it’s more than I can accept at this point.”

Likewise, Pylypchuk found aspects to like, including a revision that would place four affordable housing units on site.

Yet he, too, voiced concerns about the sheer volume of variances — three “D” variances, and a dozen “C” variances and waivers, by his count.

Pylypchuk participated in the lengthy session from the hospital, where his wife gave birth to their second child, a daughter, over the weekend.

Vitolo, who has pitched many of Morristown’s largest developments, argued the bigger picture could be lost if these hearings “devolve…to an academic exercise” where members get “caught up in numbers and facts and figures.”

“Sometimes, you know, things go beyond the academic, and when we really look at the heart of what this town is, what it’s been, (the applicant is) trying to do the right thing here,” Vitolo said.

More testimony is scheduled for Jan. 13, 2021. That’s if the town council appoints two people to replace board members who are stepping down — and if the new members have time to review hours of Zoom sessions, to get up to speed.