Borough says owner deviated from plans that got the nod.
By: Leon Tovey
JAMESBURG The owner of the Jamesburg Service Center said he doesn’t know when the conversion of the gas station’s garage to a convenience store will be completed.
Denis Kjersgaard said Monday that work on the building, which began in March, is "90 percent finished" but that he is working to address the concerns of the Land Use Board, which refused to grant final site plan approval for the project at its Nov. 4 meeting.
Borough Zoning Officer Bernie Long said Tuesday that the board is worried about changes in parking and traffic patterns around the station, which is located at the corner of Gatzmer Avenue and Half Acre Road.
"The board wants to make sure these changes are safe for the public," Mr. Long said. "There are some problems with the ingress and egress on the property and with how the parking is designed."
Mr. Long is also a freelance photographer for The Cranbury Press.
An Oct. 26 site plan review prepared by Borough Engineer Alan Dittenhofer found the station’s proposed entrance and exit to be too narrow and its proposed parking spaces to be too narrow and too close to neighboring properties.
The review also raised concerns about a lack of sidewalks and adequate storm water drainage at the station and observed that the building violated setback rules for the general business zone. Buildings in the zone must be at least 15 feet from the property line.
The building at the station is less than one foot from the property line.
After reading the review, the Land Use Board informed Mr. Kjersgaard at the November meeting that he would need to apply for bulk variances for the parking and property line issues before it could grant site plan approval.
Mr. Kjersgaard received zoning and building permits for the conversion before beginning work last spring.
However, Mr. Long said work on the property deviated from the plan he approved most glaringly in regards to parking at the station. On Aug. 5 he and Borough Engineer Alan Dittenhofer issued a stop-work order for the project and requested that Mr. Kjersgaard submit a site plan to the Land Use Board.
Mr. Kjersgaard said Monday that work on the station hadn’t deviated from the plan and he complained that the borough had not been clear about what it wanted.
"When we originally tried to get feedback from the town, they gave us the go ahead," Mr. Kjersgaard said. "And now, six months later, they put us on hold. I don’t know what the board wants."
Mario Apuzzo, who served as Mr. Kjersgaard’s attorney at the Nov. 4 meeting, said Monday that Mr. Kjersgaard, who owns several other convenience store/gas stations in New Jersey, had been blindsided by the board’s Nov. 4 decision.
"Mr. Kjersgaard spent $250,000 on these renovations and then was told he was deviating from the plan," Mr. Apuzzo said. "The engineer’s analysis made no mention of a use variance. We’re trying to comply with what the board wants, but this could end up in court."
Mr. Long, countered that the whole problem could have been avoided if the construction hadn’t deviated from the plan he originally approved.
"If they’d stuck to the plan they submitted, things would have been fine," he said. "But we want things done right. (Mr. Kjersgaard) is just going to have to have his engineers sit with the board and come to an agreement."
The Jamesburg Service Center is one of only two gas stations in the borough. Every Wednesday the station becomes a popular target for motorists seeking cheap gas, during its "Wild Wednesday" sale.

