Public Will Have to Keep Waiting to Speak in Ongoing ShopRite Application

Grab your erasers, Wyckoff.

Remember when on the township's ShopRite application?

Not happening.

It's likely you'll have to wait until March before the board opens the mic for local voices, officials said at a special planning board meeting Monday night.

At a Jan. 11 planning board meeting, representatives for Inserra Supermarkets, the company that hopes to build a 62,042-square-foot supermarket in Wyckoff, said they had three experts to present before wrapping up their presentation to the board. 

Inserra attorney James Jaworski had expected to call engineer Andrew Missey, traffic engineer and planner before the board ahead of the Feb. 8 meeting.

The board only heard from one of the experts Monday night.

The  meeting — which lasted just over two hours — focused entirely on Missey and his explanation of the applicant's site plan revisions.

"We have tried to accommodate some of the concerns articulated by the board, the objectors and by the Shade Tree Commission," Jaworski said of the changes. 

Areas affected by the applicant's changes included slight changes to some of the landscaping, property buffering, and a slight rearrangement of the parking area. 

Missey, an engineer with Lapatka Associates of Paramus, detailed the revision to the board and was cross-examined at length by Robert Inglima, attorney for Munico Associates, the owner of Boulder Run. 

When the board meets next on Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m. planners are scheduled to hear testimony in the before getting to Jaworski's two remaining experts. 

Robert Inglima, attorney Gail Price, the Wyckoff Planning Board, and the public would all have the opportunity to ask questions of the witnesses, so it's uncertain how long the process would take.

The Planning Board may not even get to the final expert at its next meeting, Mayor Chris DePhillips supposed late Monday.

"I frankly don't know how much is going to get done on the eighth," DePhillips said. "Perhaps the presentation of one witness and maybe the cross... but that's about it."

Planning Board Chairman Richard Bonsignore declined to speculate on a future date for public comment.

A second regular planning board meeting next month is scheduled for Feb. 27.