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MILLSTONE — A company that has been in business in South Brunswick for over 40 years will be relocating to the township.
At its Jan. 14 meeting, the Planning Board unanimously granted preliminary and final approval to a plan for a 11,250- square-foot office/warehouse building on Burnt Tavern Road. The 1.79-acre site will be the new home of the Shupper Brickle Equipment Company.
Kenneth Pape, attorney for the applicant, Svedova Properties, said the president of the company, Andrew Litecky, designed the building. The business fabricates and markets cranes.
Pape said the property in the Business Park zone was previously subdivided into three lots, which include two commercial lots and one lot for the township’s Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) obligation. In the initial site plan, the developer had the driveway on one lot. Township Engineer Matt Shafai did not think that was the best location for the driveway due to visibility and the possibility of headlights shining onto a residential property across the street. Shafai suggested the driveway be moved further south on the adjacent lot. Pape said that Gary Mangino, an employee of the subdivision’s owner, Key Investments, was present at the meeting to consent that his company would allow the creation of the driveway on the adjacent lot. When the other lot is developed there would be a common driveway.
The applicant’s engineer, Peter Strong of Crest Engineering, Millstone, said the lot would have a shorter setback due to wetlands on the back of the property. The front portion of the building would contain
the office, while the warehouse would be in the rear. The parking area would be along Burnt Tavern Road, and existing vegetation would be maintained along with additional plantings to screen the headlights from adjoining properties, according to Strong. Vice Chairman Chris Pepe observed that the current vegetation at the site is "sort of scrubby" and "needs help." Strong replied that the developer has proposed planting evergreens along the front of the parking spaces and the existing vegetation to provide better screening.
Strong said the site requires 20 parking spaces, but would have 21. Township Planner Richard Coppola pointed out that the company is a manufacturing operation, which requires more parking spaces than a warehouse and said the plan was eight spaces short. Litecky said his business would not require additional spaces, and the board decided to allow the smaller amount. However, the board said if the building is sold to another manufacturing operation, the new owner would have to come before the board.
Litecky said he has 16 full-time employees that work flexible schedules from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Seven of the employees work in the office and five are on the road nearly all the time. Most of the company’s business is done by phone, fax or internet, he said.
The warehouse would include a small repair and a small fabrication area, he said. Litecky said tractor-trailers would come to the facility two or three times a week, and UPS and similar companies would make daily deliveries and pickups. There would not be any public traffic, he said.
Members of the Melendez family, who live across the street, expressed concern about the traffic, noise and headlights the facility would create. Litecky said he wants to be a good neighbor, and would put up signs indicating that employees must back into the parking spaces to avoid their headlights going across the street. Litecky said his business does not generate a great deal of noise. He said the biotech firm that he shares a wall with in the South Brunswick location has never complained about noise. Litecky said he would also require any delivery trucks to enter the site via nearby Route 537 and Interstate I-195. Pape said he would discuss the possibility of additional landscaping to help provide a buffer for the Melendez family.