Borough residents oppose shopping center

The proposal includes plans to build an Acme supermarket and at least two other stores on a 10-acre vacant site along Route 130 South in Bordentown Township.

By: William Wichert
   BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP — During last week’s Planning Board meeting, Chairman Matthias DiMattia pointed out an error in a document submitted by the developer of a proposed shopping center on Route 130 at Dunns Mill Road.
   The name of the neighboring municipality listed on the document should have read Fieldsboro, not "Fieldshore," Mr. DiMattia said.
   If this observation wasn’t enough, residents of the borough made sure that the representatives and the township Planning Board knew exactly where their homes were and how they felt about the idea to build a shopping center nearby.
   "It all sounds very wonderful, unless you’re directly across the street from it," said Audrey Weinhofer of Washington Street, one of about 20 Fieldsboro residents who visited the Planning Board meeting on May 12 in opposition to the proposed shopping center.
   The proposal made by Mount Laurel-based Freedman Cohen Development LLC includes plans to build an Acme supermarket and at least two other stores on a 10-acre vacant site along Route 130 South between Dunns Mill Road and Rising Sun Road.
   The township Planning Board members reviewed the developer’s traffic analysis of the proposed site and asked it to redesign the facades of the buildings, but they ultimately agreed to postpone any decision on the project until their June 9 meeting.
   For their part, Ms. Weinhofer and other residents from the neighborhood surrounding the proposed site questioned the developer’s representatives about the project’s effect on air quality, noise pollution and traffic as well as their intention to seek several variances, or zoning changes, including two that would allow the developer to provide almost 200 fewer trees than what the current zoning law requires.
   Sharon Callahan, also of Washington Street in Fieldsboro, said she worried that the hundreds of cars to come in and out of the shopping center could potentially harm children in the area.
   "You’re taking your 30 extra pieces of silver and your tax ratables, and not protecting our children. I’m talking about public safety. I’m talking about lives here," said Ms. Callahan. "You have been bad neighbors to the people in Fieldsboro. Build this Acme on the other side of the highway!"
   Township Committeeman Mark Roselli, who also sits on the Planning Board, used the word "baseless" in response to Ms. Callahan’s accusations that the township was not protecting the children in Fieldsboro.
   "That’s an area of this township that’s been designed as a commercial zone. It’s unfortunate that it abuts Fieldsboro, but maybe Fieldsboro should have had a commercial zone along (Route) 130," said Mr. Roselli. "Don’t start accusing the people of this board of killing (your) children, because it’s not true."
   But Fieldsboro does not have any properties along Route 130, said Borough Mayor Buddy Tyler in a phone interview on Monday.
   Mayor Tyler, who attended the Planning Board meeting with some of the borough’s professional consultants, said he could not address his municipality’s concerns, because of a predetermined time limit for the meeting set by the board.
   According to the Planning Board agenda, all meetings should begin at 7:30 p.m. and no new matter will be brought forward after 11 p.m., at which time the board must vote on extending the meeting. Last week, the board closed the developer’s portion at 11 p.m. and then approved a 15-minute extension for public comment.
   Mayor Tyler said by phone that the same situation occurred when he came to the previous board meeting in April, but the board members told him last week that they will set aside time at the June 9 meeting for the mayor and his professional consultants to comment on the proposal.
   One of his chief problems with the proposed project is that the developer is seeking the board’s permission to skirt some of the zoning guidelines set by township officials when they first took a look at that area of the municipality, he said.
   "To deviate so drastically with so many different variances, seems to me on the surface to be very poor planning," said Mayor Tyler. " I don’t see reasonableness here prevailing."
   Aside from the variances granting the developer the ability to build almost 200 fewer trees than what is required, Freedman Cohen Development LLC also is seeking a variance to allow a 10-foot buffer area on the Dunns Mill Road side, instead of the required 50 feet, and a 26-foot setback on Rising Sun Road, instead of the required 75 feet, officials said.
   Mr. Roselli, however, said at the meeting that such variances are not unusual in the township. "Many applicants do not have enough trees on their site," he said.
   Mayor Tyler said he would have liked to have seen more discussion about the project’s effect on Bordentown Regional High School, a few miles down Dunns Mill Road, instead of a topic that Mr. Roselli and other board members spent more than a half-hour analyzing at the meeting: the color of the supermarket and other buildings.
   The developer’s representatives presented their designs and samples of the brick to be used, but board member Barbara Forkel said they didn’t match the Colonial Williamsburg look that the board was looking for.
   "The more things are monochrome like that, the more of a warehouse feel it has," said Ms. Forkel. "And we’re so trying to get away from that."
   Mr. Roselli suggested that the developer look at Miller Field, where the Milwaukee Brewers play and where the building is colored with the right type of green. He said that’s the green the board wants for the shopping center roofs.
   To Mayor Tyler, the color of the buildings is only a fine point of a very large project. "But the color of the green …I could care less," he said.