I read with great interest the article concerning the increasing support for expansion of the animal hospital in Millstone. It is interesting to note that the purported support comes from other areas of New Jersey and even other states. What do these folks care about how the expansion of this facility impacts on the lives of the people who live here in Millstone?
The Planning Board had it right when it zoned this tract neighborhood/commercial, which allows for 4,000-square-foot businesses that benefit the surrounding immediate neighborhood. How does a 16,000-square-foot animal hospital benefit Millstone, when a 4,000-square-foot building is sufficient to fulfill the needs of this community? There is not the infrastructure or buffer to protect this neighborhood from the impact of such expansion. Can you imagine how much more waste in the form of feces and urine washed from the cages, the increase in chemicals used for sterilization and X-ray development, liquids and blood from surgeries that will get washed down the drain into our water table? It takes a lot of chemicals to keep a hospital “immaculate.”
I am quite sure that if a variance is granted, the developer who owns the property would then attempt to further develop the site with this precedent in hand. We have been down this road before with the proposed supermarket. This is just one more attempt by the property owner at developing this parcel of land to suit his own needs. The article would like us to believe that the only reason to expand the hospital is to help poor, sick and dying animals; while this may be partially true, I have to believe that profits have a lot to do with this expansion. Just as there was no justification for a supermarket to be built on this site, there isn’t any justification to allow the expansion of this hospital. The residents of this community don’t need the potential problems that would come with this expansion.
I contend that the ratable that we are talking about here is not a good “clean” one as Dr. Stobie stated in the article. Nice try, Dr. Stobie, but I for one am not buying it.
John D. Marr
Millstone