YMCA Pool Addition Gets OK From Zoning Board

The Madison Area YMCA's variance application to construct a 13,363 square foot addition which will house an eight-lane, 25-yard pool was approved by a 5-0 vote at the Zoning Board's meeting Thursday night.

The application needed a five vote supermajority because a D, or use, variance was required. That variance was for non-conforming use–the YMCA sits in the R-2 single family residential zone. The site also needed other variances, including front yard setback, as the zone requires a 60-foot setback and the application is asking for a 30.9-foot setback.

Normally seven board members sit for hearings, but both Joe Santoro and Michael Lami left after hearing four residential cases and before the YMCA hearing continued. Therefore, to get the supermajority, all five members remaining needed to vote in favor of the application, which they did.

Those members were Chairman Russell Stern, Dan Cochran, Ron Poeter, John Ciulla and Nancy Northrup. It was the third hearing held on the application. The first was on March 16 and the second was on April 29.

The biggest difference between Thursday's testimony and what was presented previously had to do with the proposed new parking lot that would run parallel north and south along the addition. Original plans showed the new parking lot would run all the way through to Keep Street, creating a second entranceway from the road to the YMCA.

However, new plans shown Thursday by architect Paul Fox indicate that the parking lot would actually by rounded off and will not connect to Keep Street. The entranceways will remain where they currently are, on the west side of the property running from Kings Road to Keep Street.

The new plans also showed the water retaining basin had been moved back from Keep Street. At the April 29 meeting, Fox indicated he could look at doing that after Brian Dwyer of 42 Keep Street expressed some concerns about the basin. Both the parking lot and basin proposals can be seen in the photos attached to this story.

Both changes were alluded to at at the April 29 meeting, when YMCA attorney Tom Malman said there was the possibility of a framework for a plan revision that could satisfy attorney Michael Rubin, who is representing client Ann Julie Mele, owner of 47 Keep Street, at the two previous meetings.

Rubin was not present at Thursday's meeting.

Dwyer again expressed his concern over the addition that would be directly across the street from his property, citing the soccer field that would be displaced by the project, saying it was ruining the open space in the borough that he said is scarce.

All five members on the board were in favor of the plan in their comments, with Stern saying it was a very detailed proposal that would properly accommodate the deviations from code.

Northrup said she felt the scale of the YMCA in general was a concern to her, but that she still supported the addition application.