Zoning Board

PROPOSED APARTMENT BUILDING – An artist’s rendering of the proposed four-story, 200-unit apartment building proposed for the former K-Mart location in Rutgers Plaza. The October 17 Zoning Board of Adjustment hearing on the Levin Properties application to build 200 apartments in Rutgers Plaza has been postponed until 2025. The township published an online notice, saying that Levin had requested the …

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 …

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. …

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 …

PLANS OUTLINED – Sylvester Elliott, lead pastor at ECG New Jersey, tells the Zoning Board of the church’s plans for the space. A 1,600-square-foot retail space at Veronica Plaza will become a house of worship following a March 21 approval by the Zoning Board of Adjustment. The approval for ECG New Jersey came with conditions, including no more than 49 …

TRYING AGAIN – The owner of Rutgers Plaza on Easton Avenue is once again applying to the Township for approval to raze the former Big Kmart building and construct a 200-unit apartment complex in its place. The Levin Company has resubmitted its plan to turn the former Big Kmart building into a 200-unit apartment building. Plans were submitted to the …

Applications to build a single-family home on Battle Place and for a “financial” subdivision off DeMott Lane were approved December 7 by the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Venkateswar and Padmaja Vakkalagadda applied to the Board to build a single-family home on a corner vacant lot at 76 Battle Place. The lot is undersized, so the couple also had to apply …

MEETING SET – Township Manager Robert Vornlocker said he and several other officials will brainstorm on the best way to ask Somerset County to decertify some County roads for truck traffic. Township officials plan to put their heads together this week and strategize on how to ask Somerset County to decertify some County roads for truck traffic. The idea is …