Westwood Planning Board Takes Up Daycare Proposal Once Again

Members of the Westwood Planning Board picked up where they left off with Greentree Developers, LLC Thursday night and the proposal to place a Rainbow Academy Daycare Center at the corner of Kinderkamack Road and Green Avenue.

An abandoned car dealership currently sits on the site. The plan would use much of the existing building, as well as the parking lot on the other side of Green Avenue. A pick-up and drop-off area, comprised of four parking spaces, would be placed on Green.

Attorney Nancy Saccente first called on Rainbow Academy President and CEO Guy Falzareno to talk about the operation of the center. He addressed several of the .

Expected hours of operation would be between 6:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Staff to student ratios would be one greater than the state required levels. Maximum capacity for the facility would be 180, but Falzarano stated that this would likely never be the case, given work schedules.

Noise levels, he explained, was not an issue in any of the other 10 facilities Rainbow Academy operates in New Jersey. This facility would be slightly smaller than those others, coming in under 10,000 square feet. The playground would use a type of synthetic grass and cushioning that would be layered over the existing asphalt, and a sample was passed around to the board members. The plan includes 38 parking spaces.

A concern expressed often in the previous meeting was traffic, in particular during drop-off and pick-up times. Falzarano said that the average drop-off was five to 10 minutes.

Board Member William Martin expressed multiple concerns about both traffic flow and the abuse of designated spaces, and called for a traffic study for Green Avenue, Kinderkamack Road and the apartments at the end of Green Avenue. Other board members and Mayor John Birkner Jr. concurred.

Birkner also suggested a raised "speed table" for the crosswalk, to give it greater visibility.

The topic will be taken up again at the April 28 Planning Board meeting.