Development

ENGINEER’S TESTIMONY – Jackie L. Giordano, the project’s engineer, testifies at the September 5 Zoning Board meeting. The Zoning Board of Adjustment recently approved a 51,000-square-foot warehouse at Weston Canal Road and Cottontail Lane. The warehouse application was the first such application heard by a township land use board since the Township Council banned warehouses in early 2023. The six …

TALKING TRAFFIC – Karl Pehnke, the Levin Properties’ traffic engineer, testifies at the August 1 Zoning Board of Adjustment hearing. The owner of the Rutgers Plaza shopping center is studying whether a traffic light at the plaza’s John F. Kennedy Boulevard entrance would help mitigate traffic that might be generated by a planned 200-unit apartment building on the site. Levin …

ARTIST’S RENDERING – This 18-unit apartment building is planned for several lots located across Hamilton Street from Sophie’s Bistro. Autumn leaves will bring yet another applications for a Hamilton Street-based apartment building to the Planning Board. The Board on October 6 is scheduled to hear the application of Hamilton Street Management, which wants to build a three-story mixed-use building at …

TRUSTEE TESTIFIES – Severina Edward, a church Trustee, told the Planning Board the Church felt it needed the larger building to accommodate future growth. A Booker Street congregation that has been trying to get a new church approved for more than seven years will have to wait a little bit longer. The Planning Board on July 10 made it clear …

STUDY DESCRIBED – Dave Roberts, a planner with Bright View Engineering, discusses the results of the company’s traffic study at the Master Plan Community Meeting on June 27. Traffic conditions at eleven of 14 key intersections in the township’s Business and Industry Zone are bad and will get worse when all currently approved warehouse projects are operational, an engineering consultant …

ARCHITECT SPEAKS – David Minno, the architect for the proposed 200-unit apartment building in Rutgers Plaza, testifies before the Zoning Board of Adjustment. The Rutgers Plaza retail center will get a complete facelift with the approval of a proposed 200-unit apartment building in the former K-Mart space, the Zoning Board of Adjustment was told during a contentious June 20 hearing. …

APARTMENTS APPROVED – An artist’s rendering of the 5-story, mixed-use Hamilton Street building approved by the Planning Board on June 19. A 120-unit apartment building and affordable day care center targeted for a tract in the Hamilton Street Business District was approved June 19 by the Township Planning Board. The Board vote was unanimous, although there was some reticence expressed …

STREET WOES – Township Councilman James Vassanella said that he’s noticed that since Covid, overall conditions on the Easton Avenue corridor have declined. Some short-term “fixes” to Easton Avenue traffic issues my be put in place before major reconstruction work is set to begin later this decade. That was the upshot from a May 20 forum on safety issues with …

TRYING TO MAKE HIS CASE – Sidney Singer, vice president of leasing for Levin Properties, testifies before the Zoning Board on April 4. Township residents packed the Council Chamber on April 4 for the first of what promises to be several Zoning Board of Adjustment hearings on a proposal to convert the former K-Mart building in Rutgers Plaza into a …

PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT – An artist’s rendering of the proposed 4-story, 200-apartment building targeted for the former K-Mart building in Rutgers Plaza. The developer of a proposed 4-story apartment building targeted for Rutgers Plaza was told by the township Historic Preservation Advisory Commission to “soften up” their building’s styling at the April 2 Commission meeting. Representatives from Levin Properties appeared before …