Board wants more info on deli-grocery plan

BY CLARE MARIE CELANO Staff Writer

The Freehold Borough Planning Board is hearing testimony on an applicant’s plan to place a deli and grocery on the first floor of this building on Spring Street and to leave an apartment on the second floor. This building is next door to the headquarters of the Freehold First Aid and Emergency Squad. CLARE MARIE CELANO The Freehold Borough Planning Board is hearing testimony on an applicant’s plan to place a deli and grocery on the first floor of this building on Spring Street and to leave an apartment on the second floor. This building is next door to the headquarters of the Freehold First Aid and Emergency Squad. CLARE MARIE CELANO FREEHOLD — No decision has been made on an applicant’s plan to open a combination deli and grocery store on Spring Street in Freehold Borough.

Testimony on the application continued at the April 14 meeting of the Planning Board. Following several hours of testimony, the hearing was continued until May 12.

Issues of traffic circulation and the need for an easement on property that belongs to the Freehold First Aid and Emergency Squad, which has its headquarters next door to the proposed deli, dominated the conversation during the April 14 hearing.

The applicant, Mohammad Mian, of Howell, wants to take a building that now houses apartments on several floors and convert the first floor to a deli and grocery store, while leaving the apartments above the store.

The proposed deli would be in a B-2 business zone and is a permitted use in Freehold Borough’s redevelopment district.

Concerns have been raised about access to the bathroom for individuals who have a handicap, and there were also issues with the entrance to the building. The stairway to the apartment on the second floor is inside the building. An issue also remains with the number of parking spaces the applicant wants to provide for the business.

Mian testified that he believes 95 percent of his customers will walk to the store. The building is across Spring Street from the Spring Terrace apartment complex.

Board chairwoman Danielle Sims asked Mian how he determined that most of his customers will arrive at the store by foot.

Mian said he monitored the area for several days and examined vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the area of the property, which he said he has owned for four years.

Mian said he has been in the grocery business for 30 years and said he currently operates a deli and grocery in Lakewood. He said his opinion about how customers would reach his store in Freehold was based on his experience in the business.

The board’s engineer, William Wentzien, said he received the revised plans for the application a day earlier and said he did not have time to review them.

Attorney Vincent Halleran, representing the applicant, said the plan now proposes 11 parking spaces, an increase from eight parking spaces initially proposed. The borough code requires 12 spaces for this application, so a waiver for one space is being requested.

Halleran said the parking plans could change based on cooperation or lack thereof from the first aid squad, which owns adjacent property that the applicant would like to use for parking.

According to a report by Wentzien, “The submitted application proposed one-way traffic entering from Spring Street and exiting onto an adjacent paved cartway on the neighboring property.” Wentzien recommended that the applicant’s plan “be amended to indicate more of the surrounding circulation area to provide an overall review of the effect of the proposed exit movements from the site onto the adjacent circulation.

“The adjacent lot is owned by the Freehold First Aid Squad and it appears that the adjacent paved cartway does not serve the first aid squad, but circulates back to the rear of the subject property into a parking area which connects onto Main Street,” Wentzien’s report states.

According to the testimony, the deli and grocery on Spring Street would be open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Wentzien said the board needs additional information about the plan.

It is expected that a resident of the first aid squad will testify when the public hearing on Mian’s application resumes at the board’s May 12 meeting.