EATONTOWN — After months of testimony, the borough Planning Board has ruled in favor of a hotly debated expansion project at the Circle BMW dealership on Route 36.
The board voted 6-2 in favor of the plan to construct a four-story car wash and storage facility at the site.
Board members Michael Napolitan and Edmund Fitterer Jr. voted against the plan. Councilwoman and board member Jennifer Piazza was not on hand for the May 23 meeting.
In addition to the site plan, the board also granted five variances for the application that deal with landscaping, signage and lot coverage .
The project drew opposition from residents of the adjacent Parker Village section of the borough who feared the new building would have a negative impact on their property values and quality of life.
“I have mixed feelings about it,” Parker Village resident Eleanor Belle said following the board’s vote. “I knew [dealership owner Thomas DeFelice] was going to get it approved.”
Under the approved plan, the 90,667- square-foot, four-story facility will be constructed at the rear of the dealership property.
Located on Parker Road, Parker Village shares a common boundary line with the dealership. The new building is expected to be constructed near that boundary.
Although the board voted in favor of the plan, the approval is contingent upon a series of conditions, including a future agreement between the dealership and the Parker Village Homeowners Association.
The agreement will address concerns raised by residents regarding how the new structure will be lighted and the depth of the buffer separating the two properties.
Residents objected to the height of the light poles that would be located on the roof of the storage facility, as well as in a secondary parking lot behind the building.
Initially, the lights proposed for the roof were to be 15 feet high, while those in the secondary parking lot would stand at 30 feet.
A letter from the borough’s lighting expert, however, called for the lights to be lower.
The dealership’s attorney, John Giunco, assured the board that his client would adhere to the lighting expert’s recommendation, but did not provide a revised plan outlining those changes during the May 22 meeting, something that the homeowners and their attorney, Bruce Freeman, strongly objected to.
In addition to the lighting, Freeman said his clients want the amount of vegetation along the boundary separating the dealership and Parker Village to be increased.
But Giunco said his client would only agree to put new plantings on the dealership’s side of the boundary line.
The dealership and Parker Village are separated by a roughly 150-foot buffer, 100 feet of which falls on the village’s property. The remaining 50 feet are situated on the dealership property.
The boundary includes several trees and Freeman asked the board to require the dealership to add vegetation as a condition of the approval.
Giunco objected to Freeman’s request.
“We agree that the area that is going to be installed as a buffer will meet the ordinance. We are not agreeing to add supplemental planting on the Parker Village property or anything on their property,” he said.
“We are agreeing that their 100-foot [buffer] is in place just as the ordinance requires, but on our 50 feet it will meet the standards of the ordinance in terms of the landscaping,” Giunco said.
Freeman also took issue with the fact that the borough’s Shade Tree Commission had not yet reviewed the new plan.
“You don’t have a Shade Tree report,” Freeman said. “There should be a Shade Tree report, an Environmental Commission report on this, and that should govern what transpires in terms of a condition on this application.”
In an effort to break the stalemate, board member Mayor Gerald Tarantolo suggested that the board vote on the application with the understanding that the two parties meet to discuss the lighting and buffer issues at a later date.
In addition to the applicant and a representative of Parker Village, the meeting would also include members from the Shade Tree Commission.
Because the board approved the application, the two parties are now obligated to meet in order to work out an agreement.
If an agreement can’t be reached, the project’s application will be denied.
“If those conditions are not satisfied, then my client cannot build the project,” Giunco said .
At least one resident objected to the deal, however.
Stan Sehjong, of Parker Village, chided the board for moving forward without the full board having read a report from the Shade Tree Commission regarding the buffer.
“You want to approve something that the Shade Tree Commission has made no ruling on. It’s incomplete information that you have,” Sehjong said.
“You should table it until those reports have been rendered and both sides have reviewed them,” he added.
The approved project is the second of two plans submitted to the board.
Aprevious plan, which called for the construction of a below-ground, two-story car wash and storage facility drew sharp criticism from residents because it would have fallen within the dealership’s 50-foot buffer and required a variance for rear-yard setback.
Of particular concern to residents was a proposed driveway that would allow dealership employees to exit from the rear of the site onto Parker Road.
Residents said they feared that the driveway would promote speeding on Parker Road by employees and customers test-driving new vehicles.
While the driveway remains in the approved plan, the dealership said customers and employees would only be able to make a right turn onto Parker Road when exiting the dealership to take a test drive, ensuring that test drives would not be made past Parker Village.
“We did change the plan. Hopefully it’s not aworse plan, because they wound up getting a higher building,” Belle said.
“They only wanted to get a two-story building, but they ended up getting a fourstory building,” she said.
“But hopefully it’s better.”
Contact Daniel Howley at [email protected].