Montgomery planners call for new redevelopment area

"Texaco corner" at Route 206 and 518 would be declared an area in need of redevelopment

By: Jake Uitti
   MONTGOMERY — In an ongoing effort to revamp the "Texaco corner," the township Planning Board passed a resolution Monday recommending that the northwest corner of the Route 518-206 intersection be declared an area of redevelopment.
   The issue of the site’s redevelopment will next go to the Township Committee, according to Planning Board Chairman Steven Sacks-Wilner.
   "This corner is at the heart of our commercial area," Mr. Sacks-Wilner said. "It’s extremely important that it be developed in a way that will make the citizens of Montgomery proud. The actions we took (Monday) evening will help ensure that."
   In July, the Township Committee directed the Planning Board to evaluate whether the Texaco corner, which is located next to Tiger’s Tale Restaurant, met the criteria to be declared an area in need of redevelopment.
   The property, since it stopped functioning as a gas station, had been owned by Motiva Enterprises LLC, but was sold in April to Daibes Gas 20 LLC, an Edgewater company.
   In other business Monday, the Planning Board gave final approval for a Yardville Bank branch to be built in Blawenburg at the corner of Routes 518 and 601.
   The bank is part of a larger development that had already received approval earlier in the year, Mr. Sacks-Wilner explained.
   That original approval for Blawenburg Village Square, to include four buildings with retail facilities on the ground floor and residencies on the second floor, would have kept an existing blue house as part of the development. The house would have been converted into offices.
   With Monday’s action, the blue house will now be demolished and a one-story bank building equipped with a 24-hour ATM and indoor lighting will be constructed in its place.
   The decision met with some public concern, however, with two residents saying customers’ car headlights at the all-night ATM would shine into their windows.
   In order to meet the residents’ concerns, representatives from Yardville Bank said they would put in a 5-foot stone wall on one side of the property and a 6-foot fence on another side, along with substantial landscaping, to protect the bank’s neighbors from the headlights.