The second phase of The Mint will rise to six stories and the building will be extended to accommodate another 16 units, among other changes approved by the Planning Board on Tuesday night.

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Almost two hours of testimony and questions on Tuesday night concluded with a unanimous 9-0 vote at approximately 11:20 p.m. but not without reservations. At issue for some board members, and one member of the public who spoke, was parking.

“I’m really unhappy with the parking but I think I’ll vote yes,” Commissioner William Cladek said. Commissioner Chris Brown voted yes but said parking will eventually be something that the board will have to address.

Dornoch II Urban Renewal, LLC, the partnership behind The Mint, returned to the Planning Board on Tuesday night seeking approval for an amended preliminary and final major site plan and amended minor subdivision. Testifying on behalf of Dornoch II were architect Chuck Chappell of Minno & Wasko, site engineer Sean Savage and planner Joel Schwartz, who also helped to develop Park Square and is involved in the proposed Bridgeview project.

The original application received approval in 2015 for 208 units with 198 garage parking spaces across two buildings but the project will increase to 224 units which requires  a new variance. The first phase of the project, the south building, consisted of 116 units and was completed in 2020.

One of the significant changes is to eliminate underground parking to create a more efficient building, Savage said. As a result, the building goes from five stories to six, with the redevelopment agreement modified to allow for that. The Redevelopment Agency approved a third amendment to the redevelopment agreement with Dornoch II during its meeting last week following an executive session of approximately 15 minutes.

The building was simply “picked up out of the ground,” Chappell said. With the proposed two levels of parking above ground, a double height level of the ground-floor retail and lobby spaces retains the character of the building. There still would be a basement level for utilities and storage. The two levels of parking will provide 105 spaces: 52 on the ground floor accessible via Monroe Street, with a second floor of 53 parking spaces accessed via Poplar Street.

Overall retail space will be reduced from 2,073 square feet to 1,860. One 1,270-square-foot space would be at the corner of Poplar and Main and another 600 square feet at Main and Monroe.

The north building was to begin construction after the south building was completed and now is proposed as 108 units with 105 garage spaces, instead of the originally approved 92 units with 79 garage spaces and 25 compact spaces. An additional 16 units would come by extending back of the north building into Block 318.01, Lot 2, abutting The Gramercy. Previously, that was proposed as a 26-space parking lot.

Schwartz laid out the four areas of relief sought by Dornoch II, including rear and side setbacks, but the one that garnered the most attention was parking. He explained that there are two kinds of parking requirements in the redevelopment plan: 1.25 spaces per unit overall, of which 1.0 must be on site and the other 0.25 can be provided on the street, parking lots, or Payment In Lieu Of Parking (PILOP) agreements.

Across the two buildings, there are 245 spaces provided where 309 spaces are required (280 at 1.25 per unit + 29 for 1 per 200 square feet of retail), according to the preliminary and final major site plan:

• 105 in the north building
• 113 in the south building
• 11 on the Monroe Street extension
• 14 on Main Street
• 2 on Poplar Street

The redevelopment agreement includes a contribution for 65 spaces via a PILOP to reach the total spaces required.

The project conforms to the overall 1.25 requirement, with 309 spaces required and 310 provided across both buildings. The relief sought is on the 1.0 spaces per unit. When the north building was proposed as 208 units in 2015, relief was granted based on the perspective that about 5% of units didn’t have a dedicated parking space, Schwartz said. This latest version halves that deficit to 2.5% — with 224 units and 218 spaces, a deficit of 6 spaces.

In the original approval in 2015, the board accepted as reasonable Schwartz’s contention that some 5% to 10% of households would not have a vehicle. “I believe that over time, people will own less vehicles, not more,” he said. Following that logic, Schwartz said building design has to decide how best to use internal space in the building: parking or retail? He contends that it’s in the interest of the city and downtown to have a marginal increase in retail space and a marginal decrease in parking.

It’s also better for the city and quality of life downtown, he said, for as much of on-site parking to be invisible — mainly inside of buildings. “To do that, it costs a lot more money to build a parking deck,” he said, and instead incentivizes to build as much on-site parking that’s invisible to passersby.

The south building has 113 spaces for 116 units with all parking spaces leased, according to Robert Giannone, development manager for Dornoch II. An agreement allows up to 50 additional spaces for tenants to be placed in the parking deck on Lewis Street. There have been less than five such spaces rented on top of the 113 on site, he said.

Ten of the spaces in the north building will be offered as electric charging stations. If there are no electric vehicles in the building, Giannone said the spaces probably would be rented to regular vehicles.

Jennifer Lack of Main Street has lived directly across the street from the proposed north building since 2013. She raised concerns about flooding and downtown’s parking deficit. “I don’t think it sets a good precedent,” Lack said, suggesting that a green roof on the north building would have been more beneficial to the city but obviously would cost more.

Lack said her building does not have parking but does have four tenants that all have cars. She often moves her car around because of parking regulations and the parking deck already has a waiting list. She suggested cutting back to the original 92 units proposed with 105 parking spaces. “I’m for change but responsible change,” she said.

“I realize that parking is an issue but Rahway really is a transit-oriented zone, people are using public transit to get around an urban village like this,” Giannone said. “It’s part of the vision of downtown to reduce cars.”

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