BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer
A hearing on The Village at Manal-apan commercial development application has been scheduled for the Manalapan Planning Board’s May 12 meeting at 8 p.m. in the municipal building.
Manalapan Retail Realty Partners LLC is seeking preliminary major site plan approval to permit the construction of commercial and other associated site improvements on a 134-acre property at Route 33 and Millhurst Road.
The project before the Planning Board would consist of a bank, a supermarket, a department store and approximately 61 retail stores, shops, restaurants and cafes, according to a legal notice published by the applicant. The retail stores and shops include, but are not limited to, such businesses as a day spa, a book store, a women’s boutique, a men’s clothing store, a jewelry store, children’s apparel, home furnishings and gift shops. All of these uses are permitted in the Village Commercial and Route 33 overlay zones which comprise the property.
Manalapan Retail Realty Partners has proposed additional buildings on the Route 33 tract, including a hotel, an entertainment complex, retail stores with apartments above the stores and a tennis facility. Some of those proposals would require zoning changes.
The Planning Board hearing to be held on May 12 is on the application for what is already permitted on the site.
The applicant will seek a series of variances, waivers, permits, and/or exceptions from Manalapan’s development regulations and the Municipal Land Use Law.
The applicant will seek a height of 54.9 feet for one commercial structure, where a 50-foot maximum height is allowed.
A township regulation requires no paving within 12.5 feet of any existing tree with an 18-inch diameter or greater. The applicant proposes to have a distance of 6 feet between trees of 18 inches or greater in diameter near the southernmost access drive on Millhurst Road.
Also sought by the applicant is a design waiver from a regulation which requires a sufficient number of trees within the parking area such that 35 percent of the parking area is shaded. The applicant is requesting to reduce that amount to 24 percent of the parking lot area to be shaded.
Where a minimum of one shade tree is required for every 1,000 square feet of nonresidential development, because the open space area is primarily wetlands, flood plains or wooded areas, the applicant proposes less than one tree per 1,000 square feet of nonresidential development.
The applicant also wants to have Detention Basin A within the Route 33 right of way, where the requirement is to have all detention basins set back 35 feet from the Route 33 right of way.
Additionally, where the requirement is to have a minimum 35-foot wide landscaped open space strip along the frontage adjacent to the Route 33 right of way, which includes a berm, the applicant wants to have Detention Basin A and Retention Basin B within the open space strip without a berm.