Ho-Ho-Kus July 13, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • Page 9 Restaurant limitation measure reworked, reintroduced by Jennifer Crusco An ordinance that had drawn the interest of the Ho-Ho-Kus Chamber of Commerce has been withdrawn and reintroduced with amendments. Ordinance 993, which would keep restaurants away from residential zones, replaces Ordinance 987 and is less stringent than its precursor. “As we looked at it, we knew we wanted an effective ordinance, and we wanted to keep restaurants away from residential areas,” Mayor Thomas Randall told Villadom TIMES. The updated measure was introduced by the Ho-Ho-Kus Council late last month, and will now go to the planning board for final discussions before the council considers the ordinance for passage on July 26. A public hearing will take place on July 26 before the council’s vote. The newly-introduced ordinance includes a definition of parking area that would change the regulations for offstreet parking. Specifically, the proposed ordinance states that access drives and aisles would not be included when calculating off-street parking requirements. Off-street parking requirements vary by business type. Currently, Ho-HoKus requires restaurants to provide one square foot of parking space per square foot of gross floor area. This requirement does not include quick service restaurants, which are currently not allowed in the borough. Ordinance 993 does, however, include a passage about quick service restaurants which defines these enterprises as establishments that are “engaged in the sale of a limited line of foods and beverages which are prepared and packaged in paper or other types of disposable containers, and which sale…contemplates the consumption of food while standing or sitting on the premises, in cars (in) the parking lot of said premises, or at some location entirely off the premises.” Current parking requirements for commercial/retail stores call for three square feet of parking space for each foot of gross floor area. In the case of an office, four square feet of parking space must be provided for each square foot of gross floor area. Ordinance 993 would effectively relax the current requirement by removing ingresses and egresses from the parking space calculation. The amended ordinance still proposes the amendment to the permitted conditional uses so that a restaurant “shall not be located on a lot that is contiguous or adjacent to a single family residential zone.” However, Ho-Ho-Kus Borough Attorney David Bole noted that this is now the only condition being proposed. Bole pointed out that two other conditions that had been included in Ordinance 987 have been removed. The deleted items included provisions that a restaurant “be located on a minimum lot area of not less than 10,000 square feet and shall be computed within 110 feet of the front street lot line” and that “a restaurant shall be located on a lot that contains the minimum amount of offstreet parking space required by borough requirements.” Several interested parties attended the May public council session, anticipating a public hearing and possible adoption of Ordinance 987. At that meeting, Mayor Thomas Randall announced that the hearing had been postponed to allow the planning board to finish its review of the proposal. The planning board and HoHo-Kus Borough Engineer David Hals subsequently worked on the ordinance, which has now been reintroduced in its current form. At a prior discussion, Mayor Randall said the intent of the ordinance is to keep the traffic, outdoor noise, and activity associated with restaurants away from local homes. The ordinance was drafted by planner Ed Sneickus of Burgis Associates, and was recommended by the borough’s planning board.