Station owner still wants parking lot

Restaurant partners to seek legal advice and ‘wait and see’ what planners say

By: Cynthia Williamson
   LAMBERTVILLE — A proposal by Lambertville Station owners to construct a parking lot on land adjacent to the Delaware and Raritan Canal may not be dead in the water yet.
   Following an informal discussion Aug. 1 with members of the city Planning Board, Station partner Dan Whitaker is cautiously optimistic the old Ferrellgas site still could be redeveloped for parking.
   Mr. Whitaker said he’s going to "sit back and wait and see."
   "As I told my partners, the board was very understanding of my situation," he said. "I’m going to kind of wait and get legal advice and see where the board’s going to take this."
   The board discussed various ways it could help Mr. Whitaker but advised him it could not specifically address his case until it reviewed parking issues in Lambertville as a whole, which the board is proposing to do at its next regular meeting Sept. 5.
   Mr. Whitaker said he also has been encouraged by an outpouring of support from the community for the Station’s plans to build a parking lot on the 1-acre parcel south of the Bridge Street restaurant and hotel.
   "I have had a lot of response from people in the community about it, and they all said they’d come out and lend support on this thing," he said. "The fact that everybody I spoke to agreed with what we’re doing definitely made me feel good."
   Not everyone agrees developing the land for parking would be beneficial to the community.
   Some have asserted the additional parking would advance the Station’s desire to expand the business. Though it has no applications pending, plans formerly submitted to the city Planning Board were met with controversy due to the size of the expansion project.
   Residents Matthew Larkin, Douglas Gravier and Aram Dadian, in particular, want to protect the natural resources of the area that includes state parkland and the Delaware River waterfront.
   The trio filed a lawsuit in Flemington state Superior Court and won a judgment in May, overturning a use variance for the parking lot that had been granted by the city Board of Adjustment last year.
   Privately owned parking is not a permitted use in the residential-conservation district, which allows for single-family houses and municipal uses, such as a parking lot, offices or a community center.
   Operating as Swan Creek Holding Co., Station owners Michael Dougherty, Skip and Rose DiMarco and Mr. Whitaker filed a new application with the zoning board but withdrew it after a hearing last month because members were divided over whether they had the authority to rule on an application that already had been decided by the court.
   A majority of the members agreed with the board’s attorney, who advised them the application was different from two previous ones filed by the Station owners and deemed it was within the board’s jurisdiction to consider the application.
   "The (planning) board now understands my predicament, and I feel very strongly they are going to look at it," Mr. Whitaker said. "The only fair thing for me to do is sit back and wait and see what they’re going to do with it."
   If his plans to build parking don’t pan out, Mr. Whitaker isn’t certain what he’ll do with the land.
   "I could sell it to the city or I could make a single-family house back there," he said. "There aren’t a lot of options left for us."
   Ferrellgas had operated a propane storage facility at the site since the ’40s and sold it to the Station owners in 1999 for $150,000. Mr. Whitaker said the parking would be for his own patrons and public use.
   Meanwhile, Mr. Whitaker said he will "keep plugging at it," recalling the hurdles he and his partners faced 19 years ago when they purchased the former train station that had sat idle and fallen into a state of disrepair.
   "Everybody thought we were crazy for spending so much money in Lambertville," he said. "It did look discouraging many times especially back then when Lambertville was what it was."
   But Mr. Whitaker said he’s an optimist who doesn’t surrender to a situation until all his options are exhausted.
   "You take that hurdle and jump over the next," he said. "You take each as it comes."