JACKSON – An attorney who represents an objector had his opportunity to cross-examine a businessman who wants to establish a truck parts recycling operation in Jackson during the Dec. 5 meeting of the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
The public hearing on an application filed by A&A Truck Parts is expected to resume at the board’s Dec. 19 meeting at the municipal building.
A&A Truck Parts is seeking a use variance from the board to operate a recycling center. Recycling is not a permitted use in the Commercial Office/Light Industrial zone on Wright-Debow Road. Previous testimony has indicated trucks will be brought to the site, broken down in a building and their parts resold.
Attorney Ron Gasiorowski represents resident Charles Baker, an objector to the application. The application was approved by the zoning board several years ago, but Baker took the issue to court and won when a court ruled the board’s resolution describing details of the approval was insufficient. The case was remanded back to the board for reconsideration.
Attorney Ray Shea, planner Ian Borden and A&A Truck Parts owner John O’Connell attended the Dec. 5 meeting.
Borden described several minor changes to the application, including the addition of an ingress driveway on the eastern side of the parcel and flipping the layout of the building in order to relocate a scale to where vehicles will enter the site. Borden said the changes created green space and will accommodate the planting of about 70 new evergreen trees.
Gasiorowski asked O’Connell about the open space surrounding the proposed building.
“With regard to that area, (do) you intend to fill that area with the items you will be selling or recycling? Meaning, you will be storing school buses, tanks, trucks, cars, whatever else they can bring you, on the site,” he said.
O’Connell said he did not believe the entire open space area would be filled.
Gasiorowski asked if the professionals who represent O’Connell could design a plan that could show how much of the open space is intended to be filled.
“Probably less than half the open space,” O’Connell said.
Gasiorowski said all of the open space is filled at the Freehold Township facility O’Connell owns.
“That is totally filled? That is a much smaller area,” O’Connell said.
When looking at the site plan, Borden said he described the storage during a previous meeting.
Gasiorowski asked how much equipment or what type of equipment would be stored on site.
Borden said trucks and trailers would be on-site.
“Typically those trucks are trucks that carry the containers to and from different sites, to pick up materials to bring back (to the site),” he said.
Gasiorowski asked O’Connell if there would be any new equipment on the proposed Jackson site that is not used at his other properties.
O’Connell said the company expects to purchase new 60-foot-tall cranes.
Gasiorowski asked if the company would transport materials between its locations.
O’Connell said that would occur and there was some discussion regarding that situation.
The A&A Truck Parts public hearing was continued to the board’s Dec. 19 meeting.