LAKEWOOD: At last night's monthly meeting of Lakewood Township's Zoning Board of Adjustments, 2 new retail shopping centers received use variances. The developers will need to return to the board at a future hearing with a full site plan application.
1. New Hampshire Investments LLC received a use variance to build up to a 44,677 sq ft retail shopping center at 752 Cross St (corner of Prospect St). As of now,
224 parking spaces are proposed. The applicant will need county approval for this application. Due to the traffic congestion in the area, the board strongly urged the applicant to go above and beyond whatever site improvements the county requires and to provide an excessive amount of parking spaces.
2. Orange Pool Holdings LLC received a use variance to build up to a 17,280 sq ft mixed use office/retail building on Prospect St near The Center. At time of site plan approval, the applicant will need to show architectural's to the board showing exactly how much retail space and how much office space there will be, and that will determine what the parking requirements will be.
3. There was an application filed by Brook Burnside to construct 34 single family homes off Brook Rd, behind the Red Oaks neighborhood, where only 22 homes could be built by-right. This area allows single family homes on 15,000 sq ft lots, and the applicant wants to build on 10,000 sq ft lots. Many neighbors came to the meeting to oppose the application. The applicant requested to table the application to next month's hearing.
What incentive does the developer have to go "above and beyond" the county requirements for parking? Also, additional parking won't help with traffic congestion
ReplyDeleteWhen will the zoning board (and the developers!) learn? NO VARIANCES. Its bad enough when they build within the crazy zoning rules that were established on the master plan.
ReplyDeleteThe traffic on Cross and Prospect can already be insane at times, why they would grant any variances there defies any logic (assuming that we are dealing with ethical people). Aside for allowing them to further destroy that part of town, are they also going to grant them tax abatement's?
ReplyDelete