Franklin Lakes August 17, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 9 Board expects revised plans for surgical center by Frank J. McMahon At its next meeting, the Franklin Lakes Planning Board expects to review new plans for the Tice Road surgical center proposed by Tice Road Properties. The developer wants to build a 16,000 square foot medical office and ambulatory surgical center on two lots at the end of Tice Road. The developer and Sabra Realty Associates, an adjacent property owner that objects to the application, have been in private negotiations since the planning board’s last public hearing in July. Those negotiations have apparently led to the change in plans. The public board meetings on this application have been carried while the negotiations between the developer and Sabra Realty Associates continued. Christopher Minks, the attorney for Tice Road Properties, has granted the planning board a time extension for making a decision on his client’s application until Aug. 18. That extension is expected to be extended again if the public hearing resumes at the Aug. 17 meeting of the board as scheduled. At the last public meeting on this application, the board again began to hear testimony following the elimination of the previous record. The prior testimony had been stricken from the record due to a dispute between the board and Harold Cook, the attorney for Sabra Realty Associates. That dispute concerned the propriety of a closed session the board held at its public meeting on April 6. Cook claimed the closed session violated the state’s open public meetings law and the dispute ultimately resulted in the recusal of Planning Board Attorney John Spizziri, Planning Board Chairman Frank Conte, and board member Joseph Medici. Those who have been recused may not participate in the public hearing on this matter. Spizziri and Conte recused themselves because they are named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by Cook about the application and Medici because his personal relationship with Cook could be perceived as a conflict of interest. Christopher Martin, a Parsippany attorney, was appointed by the board to replace Spizziri as the board’s attorney for the surgical center public hearing. Superior Court Judge Menelaos Toskos declined to stop the application from continuing before the planning board, but he did not dismiss Cook’s lawsuit, which is still pending in Superior Court. In 2010, the borough changed the zoning of the subject property from I-2 industrial to RB retail business. That became the focal point of the objection by Sabra Realty Associates. Cook and Spizziri disagreed about the jurisdiction of the board to hear the application. Spizziri claimed that the medical office/surgical center was a permitted use in the retail business zone, but Cook argued that the matter should be before the board of adjustment because a surgical center is not a specifically permitted use in the retail business zone and, according to the borough’s zoning ordinance, any use that is not specifically permitted is prohibited. Spizziri also argued that the surgical center’s operating rooms would be an accessory to the medical office use and that both are permitted uses under the generic term of “offices” in the zoning ordinance. Cook countered that the applicant had not submitted any architectural plans, so the number of proposed operating rooms is not known. He explained that surgical centers require less parking than medical offices and, if there will be more medical office space in the building than operating rooms, there will be a serious deficiency in the parking space provided and that could negatively impact his client’s property. According to James Heuer, the manag- ing member of Tice Road Properties, his original plan was to demolish all existing improvements on two lots at the end of Tice Road, consolidate the two lots into one, and build a 16,000 square foot two-story split level commercial building on the resulting lot with associated parking for a medical office/ambulatory surgical center. The center would have access from Tice Road and from Franklin Avenue. Heuer recently told the board that his concept was based on the plan for the borough’s downtown business district that was developed by Joseph Burgis, who was previously the borough’s professional planner, and that he intended to meet the intent of that plan to connect Tice Road to Franklin Avenue. Raising the torch for Special Olympics Franklin Lakes PBA Local #150 members, Dr Michael Golz, and police recruits from the Bergen County Police Academy recently participated in the 2011 annual Law Enforcement Torch Run to raise money for the Special Olympics.