Developer Sues Zoning Board To Allow Starbucks In Barnegat

BARNEGAT, NJ — Developers have filed a lawsuit against the Barnegat Zoning Board of Adjustment to ask for the reversal of their denial of a planned Starbucks.

WP Barnegat, LLC, the developer and plaintiff in the lawsuit, were planning to build a Starbucks with a drive-thru at the shopping center at the corner of West Bay Avenue and Sandpiper Road. This shopping center is currently home to AutoZone, Dollar General, Domino's Pizza and an AT&T store.

The site, previously developed by Barnegat Land Associates, is part of the "Town Center Neighborhood Commercial Overlay Zone," which encourages "compact, mixed-use development that provides more efficient traffic and pedestrian circulation and reduces auto dependency to the extent feasible," according to the lawsuit.

The Starbucks would have been a 2,225 square foot building, proposed in place of a previously-approved bank with two drive-thru lanes, according to the lawsuit. It would have a concrete patio for guests to congregate.

The drive-thru in the Starbucks required the developers to apply for a variance, the lawsuit said, as fast food restaurants are allowed in the zone, but fast food drive-thrus are not.

WP Barnegat, LLC, claimed that its plan would not increase traffic in the area because drivers already on the road would pull in for a coffee, instead of increasing vehicles in the area, which the Zoning Board disagreed with.

The drive-thru would be "completely contained" in the shopping center, the developers said, so even at busier times the traffic would not overflow onto the highway.

The developers believed the Starbucks to be an appropriate fit for how the township envisioned the shopping center, according to the lawsuit. It would encourage residents to congregate and interact with one another, the documents said.

But the Zoning Board denied the variance and the site plan approval.

The Board said, according to the lawsuit, that the developer "has not proved any specific/special reasons why the project is particularly suited and would promote the general public [and] has also failed to prove that the project would not impair the intent and purpose of the Zone Plan and Zoning Ordinance." The Zoning Board then found that "said project does not promote the public good, that no special reasons exist and it would substantially impair the intent and purpose of the Zone Plan and Zoning Ordinance."

The lawsuit claims that the Zoning Board's denial was "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable, because it clearly failed to consider the evidence submitted."

"A plain review of the Resolution leads to the inescapable conclusion that none of the Zoning Board’s bare conclusions supporting its denial of the Application contain any reference to or reconciliation with any fact in the record," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit asks for the denial to be reversed and for the application to be granted.