BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer
The Ocean Township council has introduced an ordinance that would change the zoning on property slated for development as the Ocean Gate Commons shopping center.
The rezoning plan calls for a “village square” development district that would include retail, office and residential uses and keep at least one-fourth of the 31-acre wooded tract as open space. It would also limit the size of any one store to 30,000 square feet.
The zoning change proposal came as a welcome surprise to residents who had been fighting Ceruzzi Holdings’ application before the Planning Board to build a 198,000-square-foot shopping mall with Stop & Shop as the anchor store.
The move by the council changes the size and configuration of the development allowable on the 31-acre parcel on the northeast corner of Deal Road and Route 35 owned by Ceruzzi.
Residents were not the only people surprised by the move. Elizabeth Parlett, spokeswoman for the developer, said they were totally surprised and disappointed.
“Right now they [Ceruzzi and Stop & Shop] are trying to get a handle on what is going on with respect to the ordinance and the township’s feelings. They are shocked because we’ve been working in good faith with the township and the neighbors.”
According to Councilman Chris Siciliano, if the rezoning ordinance is approved after the public hearing on May 25, it would become effective just before the next scheduled Planning Board hearing on June 16.
Siciliano said the current application would have to be canceled.
“They will have to redraw their plans and come back before the Planning Board,” he said.
According to the ordinance, the official zoning map would be changed to remove the commercial development option and would change the underlying zoning from a combination of office/retail to a community mixed-use district.
The new zoning would encourage a variety of uses, with storefronts at a pedestrian scale, a residential component, plazas, and open spaces for public gatherings and interaction. The parking areas would include landscaping and seating areas, decorative lighting and pathways to create a streetscape.
Ceruzzi’s application has been working its way through the Planning Board process since last year. The developer has proposed a 198,000-square-foot shopping center that would contain an 80,000-square-foot supermarket with an additional number of shops and two freestanding structures, possibly a bank and a restaurant.
Members of the Concerned Citizens Committee have been very vocal about their opposition to the plan. They have attended all of the Planning Board hearings and have brought the matter up at every council meeting.
At the last meeting in April, Mayor William Larkin told residents, “It is not a done deal.”
He said the council was looking into what could be done, but any zoning changes would have to conform to the master plan.
In a prepared statement after the rezoning ordinance was introduced, the Concerned Citizens Committee said the mayor and council took a courageous step that restores the mixed land use that the master plan intended.
“For two years, the citizenry fought hard to stop the overdevelopment of that property, especially the section adjacent to the new library that abuts Logan Road,” the statement reads. “The public outcry that began in March 2003 when plans were made available to voters and led to overflow crowds that packed town hall and the Ocean Township auditorium has been heard by our elected officials loudly and clearly.
“To their credit, by taking cues from the voters and responding to the extensive public dialogue, the mayor and council are moving in the right direction to restore public faith in municipal government.”
“We are deeply gratified that the voters have spoken and our elected officials have opened their ears,” said Bob Ades, spokesman for the Concerned Citizens Committee.
The Township Council had voted to hire a planner, at a cost of $4,500, to examine the rezoning study and prepare alternate zoning ordinances.
Siciliano said the township council had been working with the independent planner, Marc Shuster of Moorestown, for three months.
“We were trying to come up with a happy medium,” he said.
“This is an attempt to have a real village square on that site. It would be a mixed community use.
“We reduced the size of the anchor store to 30,000 [square] feet, and the others to 20,000 and no more than 10,000,” Siciliano said.
He added that “It would be more of a high-end boutique-type with little shops.”
The proposed ordinance allows for a maximum building coverage of 14 percent with a maximum building height of 35 feet and a maximum of 40 percent of the total square footage on the second story.
Siciliano said that having two-story buildings shrinks the size of the whole shopping center by 40 percent.
“There will be less impervious surface, better drainage, and far more buffers along Deal Road. It can be set farther back. It’s all about site design,” he said.
Siciliano said he didn’t have anything against Stop & Shop. In fact, he had never been in a Stop & Shop until two weeks ago when he was in Connecticut.
“I found it to be a nice supermarket with good prices. We’re not denying him [Ceruzzi] the right to build there. We have actually approved up to 225,000 square feet with the two-story design, provided they can meet the parking variance,” he said.
“We wanted to cover all of our bases and make sure that we weren’t denying the owner the right to build on the site.”
But he said 25 percent of the site has to be open space, and Ceruzzi will still have to come up with the traffic improvements.
Wayside residents Harriet and Sandy Cook were at the meeting.
“We were very surprised and elated that the council has decided to downsize the project. It looks like the residents have a small victory.”
Cook said the couple have lived in Ocean Township for 28 years.
“We moved in because there were corn fields with a country feel and also easy access to shopping, great schools, good local services, and 10 minutes from the beach.”
She added that many residents are long-term residents in Ocean and have seen the town and traffic grow beyond what it can handle.
“We are all for change, but it must be contained. The traffic is growing worse every day.”
Siciliano said that some people at the meeting would like the town to purchase the property and leave it as open space. But, Siciliano said, the open space tax referendum was defeated.
“It was defeated by a narrow margin, which told us that people were concerned about what was going to happen with that property.”
At the time, the property was selling in the $15 million range. He said the township investigated grant money.
“You can get up to $400,000 a year, but they would be matching grants with about $1.3 million in carrying costs on a 20-year bond at 4 percent. If we only got $400,000 a year, we would have a tax levy of $900,000 per year to meet the carrying costs. In addition, there is no guarantee that the state would not reduce the grant program if money is tight.”
It would not be fair to put that burden on the taxpayers, he said.

