HAZLET Plans for a four-story Holiday Inn Express off of Route 35 were presented to the township’s Land Use Board.
The attorney for Gode Hotels LLC company, Jeffrey Gale from Gale and Laughlin, presented the company’s application for its preliminary and final site plan approval, as well as its requests for a use variance and several bulk variances, on Aug. 17, at the board’s monthly meeting at the municipal building.
Calisto Bertin, owner of Bertin Engineering Associates Inc. and assigned site planner, explained the construction plans and variances requests for the new hotel.
According to Bertin, the company wants to build a four-story hotel with 93 rooms and 138 parking spaces.
The site where the company wants to build the hotel currently contains a two-story Holiday Inn hotel that has 121 rooms and 162 parking spaces, according to Bertin. The existing hotel will remain at the site.
The property is a 6.9 acre site and is located at the intersection of Miller Avenue and the Route 35 southbound jug handle immediately prior to Miller Avenue, according to Bertin.
“The property in question is a single lot owned by the applicant. It is slightly more than six acres, and currently developed with a Holiday Inn Hotel. The minimum lot size required in this zone is three acres, making the property twice the size of a conforming lot in terms of lot area. The pending application is to divide the property into two lots, each being three acres or more, and to build a second Holiday Inn on the vacant three acre parcel at the rear of the existing lot,” Gale said.
The company seeks bulk variances for the combined Lot A and Lot B for a number of parking spaces, 300 spaces provided where 360 spaces are required, according to the application.
The hotel company has requested a use variance to be permitted to build a hotel in a zone that does not include hotels as one of the permitted uses. The applicant has also requested several bulk variances, variations to the required standards set forth in the zoning ordinance, including front, rear or sideline setbacks, and road frontage, according to Gale.
“Many of these bulk variances are pre-existing conditions that deal with the existing hotel and hotel parking. The pending application proposes that all of the access roadways and parking spaces will be shared between the two hotels, so that both hotels will have access to all means of ingress and egress, as well as all of the parking spaces within both lots,” Gale said.
Currently on the property there is also a six foot fence that runs behind residential homes along Miler Avenue, according to Bertin.
On March 21, 1985 the Planning Board approved for a fence to built, to provide a buffer zone between the applicant’s property and the residents’ backyards. It required that the a 20 foot buffer zone be provided before someone gets to the fence, however the residents’ backyards are about 15 feet into the applicant’s property, according to Gale.
Gale said that the applicant is not looking to take the residents’ backyards and will leave it up to the board to figure out the best solution.
Before Bertin presented the plans, Gale asked one of expert witnesses Yomesh Patel, a hotel owner, to explained the importance of hotel franchising.
Patel said that he has been involved in the hotel industry for 20 years and that he was not the owner for the application.
In order for the new hotel to get branded as a Holiday Inn Express it must be at least four-stories to be considered, according to Patel.
By having the new hotel branded as a Holiday Inn Express, Patel explained the “This would attract the right kind of client base to the Holiday Inn..”
Once the new hotel is built the current Holiday Inn will probably be rebranded into a Quality Inn hotel, according to Patel.
No official decision was made by the board regarding the hotel company’s proposed plan or requested variances to build the new hotel.
The board’s next meeting will take place at 7:30 p.m., on Sept.7, at the municipal building located at 1766 Union Ave.
For more information visit www.hazlettwp.org/landuseboard or call 732-264-1700.
Contact Vashti Harris at [email protected].