The service station would include a convenience store with a drive-through window and a car wash
Township zoners will consider next week whether to permit the redevelopment of the site of a former service station on the corner of Spruce Street and Princeton Avenue into a new service station that includes a convenience store and car wash.
By: Lea Kahn
The Zoning Board of Adjustment will hold a public hearing on Motiva Enterprises LLC’s application for a use variance when it meets at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The meeting will be in the Lower Level Conference Room at the municipal building.
A use variance is needed because Motiva Enterprises LLC wants to combine the gas station, convenience store and car wash on the same lot. Service stations may not be combined with any other use on the same lot under the township’s Land Use Ordinance.
The one-acre parcel is in the Highway Commercial zone. Service stations are permitted as conditional uses in the Highway Commercial zone, if certain standards are met. Convenience stores and car washes are permitted uses in the Highway Commercial zone.
Motiva Enterprises LLC wants to demolish the abandoned gasoline service station. The applicant proposes to construct eight fuel pumps on four islands, covered by a 24-foot by 103-foot canopy.
The applicant also wants to build a 3,379-square-foot convenience store with a drive-through window, plus a 1,126-square-foot car wash on the site, according to the application.
In addition to the use variance, the applicant may need a variance because the township’s Land Use Ordinance does not permit more than one principal building on a lot. The applicant is seeking two buildings the convenience store and the car wash.
Also, the applicant may need a variance because service stations are not permitted within 500 feet of a public building or institution or a hospital. The site is next door to the Mercer County Agricultural Extension Service on Spruce Street and the Children First Medical Care facility on Princeton Avenue.
If the Zoning Board of Adjustment grants the use variance application, Motiva Enterprises LLC will have to return to the board with a site plan. An application for site plan approval has not been submitted.