Council votes out fast-food
despite planners’ decision
By sandi carpello
Staff Writer
MILLTOWN — The unyielding opposition of area residents to a proposal for a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant on Ryders Lane was mollified Monday night when the Borough Council voted to change an ordinance regarding permitted uses on the site.
Rejecting a recommendation issued Friday by the borough’s Planning Board — whose members voted 4-3 in a decision stating that the ordinance did not correspond with the borough’s master plan — the mayor and council passed an amendment that prevents fast-food restaurants from being built on a lot if part of that lot is zoned residential. Part of the site in question is in a residential zone, while part is in a commercial zone.
"This is a major step to keep Milltown the great little town it is today," said council President Mike Skarzynski.
With the exception of Councilman Kevin Bosworth, who abstained because of a conflict of interest, the council unanimously approved the ordinance change.
Councilman Gary Walters said that he believed he was acting in the best interest of Milltown residents in voting to change the ordinance.
Residents have been voicing opposition to the Wendy’s since the plans were filed, and many of them spoke to the board when testimony began on the application during a Sept. 3 meeting. The proposed Wendy’s would be built on the site of the Ryders Lane Farm Market at Ryders Lane and Blueberry Drive.
The market’s owner, Joe Broxmeyer, had planned on selling his family’s 50-year-old fruits-and-vegetable market so that a 3,140-square-foot, 90-seat Wendy’s restaurant could be built.
Nearly 500 residents signed a petition opposing the Wendy’s, contesting that building a fast-food restaurant on the site would bring offensive odors, rodents and more traffic.
"The council has done the right thing. You want what’s good for the people," said borough resident Alex Wiener of Moetz Drive. "It is important that the town is heard."
Alan Godber, chairman of the borough’s Environmental Commission, who has been a principal force in the Wendy’s resistance, commended the council’s decision to both assuage the residents’ concerns and to uphold the borough’s small-town character.
"I would like [Milltown] to stay a special little town," Godber said.
However, Wendy’s attorney Henry Kent-Smith, of Saul Ewing in Princeton, denounced the council’s action to impede the proposal in the midst of the application process.
"The land-use process is a process that works," Kent-Smith said during the public portion of the meeting. "Let the process work. Don’t change the rules in the middle of the game."
Kent-Smith said the applicant has worked for months with borough engineers and residents to negotiate a site plan that would conciliate both the needs of the residents and the applicant. In fact, during the Sept. 3 meeting, the applicant agreed to modify the site plan at the request of the board in order to appease some of the residents’ concerns.
Kent-Smith noted that the new ordinance would apply to 36 borough properties and that it will ultimately have a detrimental effect on the borough.
Robert Kennery, a licensed real estate broker who spoke at the meeting, said interrupting the proposal in the middle of the deal is "a violation of the doctrine of fairness."
In spite of that, Planning Board Attorney David Himmelman said the council’s actions are permissible by state law.
If the applicant was still willing to pursue the proposal, it would have to apply to Milltown’s Zoning Board of Adjustment in order to obtain a use variance for the Wendy’s. If the use variance was granted, the applicant could then present its site plan to the zoning board for approval, he said.
Kent-Smith did not wish to comment on the future of the application.
Broxmeyer’s attorney, Evan Pickus, of East Brunswick, told the council that its actions were unfair to Broxmeyer, who has "been a contributing member of this borough for 50 years."
Broxmeyer, who had planned to retire from his farm market business upon the sale of the property, said he is not ready to back down.
"It ain’t over," he said.

