Howell Planners Unanimously Reject Monmouth Commerce Center

HOWELL, NJ — The Howell Township Planning Board voted unanimously to deny approval for the Monmouth Commerce Center Thursday night, prompting cheers and applause from residents who stayed into the early hours of Friday to learn the outcome.

The project proposed for Randolph Road and Oak Glen Road, which has been the subject of testimony and community debate for nearly a year, consists of nine warehouse buildings totaling 1.24 million square feet, parking for 706 vehicles, 142 trailer parking spaces, and 234 loading spaces. The property is owned by Lawrence Katz and Felix Pflaster.

Paul Dorato, Nicholas Huszar, Police Chief Andrew J. Kudrick Jr., John Leggio, Robert Nicastro, Paul Schneider, Robert Seaman, Brian Tannenhaus and Deputy Mayor Evelyn O’Donnell all voted to deny the approval when the vote was finally taken in the early hours of Friday, after four hours of public comment. Though some residents left before the hearing ended, there were still more than 50 people waiting when the vote was taken.

Meryl Gonchar Sills, the attorney for the applicant, told the board the Monmouth Commerce Center proposal had met the requirements set out in the zoning of the piece of property, which is zoned for economic development.

"We're not here for a use variance," she said. "We've done with this property what the township told us we could do with this property."

There were several design waivers sought for the project, including one regarding a buffer area at the front of the property to protect older trees. The project would have resulted in an estimated 30,000 trees being cleared from the parcel.

Nicastro said he was voting to deny because the project testimony raised significant questions about the safety of ingress and egress, getting traffic onto and off of the site.

O'Donnell said she found certain pieces of the testimony "unbelievable."

One of the main points of contention with the application is the effect on traffic. Residents are concerned about the prospect of tractor-trailers traveling along Randolph Road and Lakewood-Farmingdale Road/Route 547, where traffic already is a serious problem.

The board's professionals repeatedly questioned the project's engineers about the issues of tractor-trailers getting into and out of the site, because of the wide turning radius they used. Randolph Road is two lanes, and though improvements were proposed the concern remained about the impact of those tractor-trailers having to make turns that would have carried them into an oncoming lane.

Ronald Cucchiaro, the board attorney, said traffic in and of itself was not a reason to deny an approval, however the safety of ingress and egress is grounds for a denial.

Janet Coakley, who lives on Oak Glen Road, said she remembered when the zoning for the site was put into the master plan more than 20 years ago, and said she raised concerns at the time.

Warehouses are permitted on the site, but Coakley said at the time it was envisioned they might be self-storage units or something less intensive.

"It was clear that this was not what the township anticipated," Coakley said. "You expect development but you don't expect something like this."

Gonchar said the applicant isn't unsympathetic to the concerns of the residents. But her remark that followed angered the group: "We all live in New Jersey, we all have to live with development. Deal with it."

"We’re incapable of supporting it," said Susan Springer, who lives on Old Tavern Road, as she shared video she took of traffic during rush hour on Lakewood-Farmingdale Road on an evening in December. "If it was direct access off Route 195, it would be one thing."

Frank Gasior, a retired New Jersey State trooper, said he grew up in Carteret and saw the impacts of a warehouse project about half the size that was built in neighboring Woodbridge.

"The trucks destroyed the local roads," Gasior said, and the New Jersey Turnpike exchange had to be completely redone. "Trucks sat (idling) and there was a gigantic cloud of diesel smoke for miles. It really ruined that section of our town."

It wasn't only the residents who raised concerns about the traffic impacts. James Winkowski, the planning board's traffic engineer, said he was unwilling to give an opinion on the project because the applicant had not submitted concept plans for a traffic signal at Randolph Road and Lakewood-Farmingdale Road.

Gonchar said Monmouth County officials have indicated they would have required a traffic signal at that intersection as a condition of approval, though Winkowski said Howell officials have received no evidence supporting her statement from the county.

"My biggest concern is the access points on Randolph," Winkowski said. He said the Monmouth Commerce Center experts testified to what they believe will be improvements in traffic flow if the signal is installed, even with the tractor-trailers added to the mix. "I just don't think the traffic study is accurate," he said. "They haven't convinced me that the traffic signal is adequate."

When Winkowski questioned why the concept plans have not been shared with the planning board for review, Gonchar said they had not been submitted to the county yet.

Winkowski said the town had requested a copy of them in one of its followup reports, and Gonchar said the applicant didn't understand the town was seeking them up front. She asked the board to grant a delay so they could present concept plans for the traffic signal.

The board declined to delay any longer.

"We've heard all the testimony," Nicastro said. "If anything changes with the traffic light you will be submitting a whole new plan anyway."

"This whole project revolves around the traffic issues," another board member said. "We sit up here and listened to the testimony. And then we talk in circles."

Gonchar insisted the applicant had met the requirements set out in the zoning of the piece of property, which is zoned for economic development.

"We believe we have met the requirements for approval," she said.

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