Car Dealerships on Rt. 33 Found 'Incompatible' with Planning Goals

Manalapan Township Planner Richard Cramer presented his new amendment to the land use plan element to the Master Plan at the Planning Board meeting last week, ultimately concluding that car dealerships were appropriate on some areas of the Rt. 9 corridor, but not on the Rt. 33 corridor at all.

After the Reexamination Report was adopted at the last meeting of 2011, Cramer was asked to look at the zones on Rt. 33 and Rt. 9 and deem what uses are suitable for these zones - including the possibility of automobile dealerships. Cramer said that both highways have been the focus for economic development opportunities in the township for decades.

The courtroom of the was filled to the brim as township residents anxiously awaited Cramer’s report. Residents abutting the CMX building property vehemently opposed the prospect of a car dealership at that location and have voiced their dissension at public hearings on the , if approved by the Planning Board.

The was a small victory for the opposition in December, as they hoped Cramer would find more suitable locations for car dealerships within the township, besides their backyard.

Cramer, to the dismay of the public on Thursday, did not find the zones on the Rt. 33 corridor to be suitable for automobile agencies. Cramer reviewed six zones, three of which are on Rt. 33 (the Special Economic Development zones: SED-5, SED-20, and SED 2/W) and three of which were on Rt. 9 (the Office Park/ Office Professional zones: OP, OP-3, and OP-10); only two zones were deemed appropriate for car dealerships by Cramer and they were the OP-3 and OP-10 zones.

The zones are distinguished by the minimum lot area requirements: OP requires a minimum of a half-acre for development, OP-3 requires a minimum of 3 acres for development, OP-10 requires a minimum of 10 acres for development, SED-5 requires a minimum of 5 acres for development, SED-20 requires a minimum of 20 acres for development, and SED-20/W requires a minimum of 20 acres for development, but also allows warehouse development.

Six criteria were established by Cramer to deem an area suitable for car dealership suitability:

1. Vehicular access to the facility from a major state transportation corridor
2. Public visual access to the sales agency facility as seen from the transportation corridor
3. A lot for the sales agency that is developable; has sufficient area and dimensions to accommodate the construction of a building for the sales operations, the repair facilities for motor vehicles, and can meet the requirements for yards of buffering and which can also provide an outdoor area for the display and storage of the motor vehicles that are held on site
4. Minimum lot size of three acres
5. Lot has to have frontage that was directly on and could provide vehicular access from the imperial highway serving the transportation corridor
6. Compatibility with the planning and development goals of the township

The OP zone was determined to be too small to contain a car dealership, according to Cramer. The OP-3 and OP-10 zones meet all six criteria and have multiple lots that would be suitable for car dealerships and should be considered as potential sites, Cramer’s Technical Report said.

“We (T&M Associates) suggested that with respect to the Rt. 9 corridor that the proliferation of automobiles sales agencies could be controlled through the zone plan by having a minimum spatial requirement between automobile sales agencies,” Cramer said. “The objective of the town being to ensure that there is a varied economic phase predicting activity and sufficient land allocated for different uses along the Rt. 9 corridor.”

In regards to the SED zones on Rt. 33, Cramer said that none of the three zones he surveyed are appropriate for car dealerships. “The state highway classification for Rt. 33 is somewhat more restrictive than what is permitted on Rt. 9,” Cramer said, explaining that the eastern section of the highway is a limited access freeway where no direct access is allowed to the highway.

Additionally, the township has applied an overlay district to the entire corridor of Rt. 33 which requires berms to be established on all the properties fronting on the highway and that they be landscaped to screen the view of the site from the highway. The parking and loading areas must be screened from public view from Rt. 33.

“While the SED district that we looked at had multiple lots that would meet the minimum lot size criteria for motor vehicle sales agency development and they have highway frontage and access, with the exception that the segment that is subject to state access level 1, our planning conclusion was that the nature of an automobiles sales agency which requires a high degree of visibility from the highway corridor conflicts with the goal of the township in establishing the green belt requirements and the view screen from Rt. 33,” Cramer explained. Thus, Cramer said that any sales agency development in the SED zones is incompatible with the planning goals of the township on Rt. 33.

The purpose of the presentation of the report to the Planning Board is for the Board to determine if Cramer did what was asked of him. Under the Municipal Land Use Law, the public is not allowed to commit on the report unless it has been posted ten days prior to the meeting, once that occurs than the public can testify on the report at a public hearing. The public hearing on the Amendment to the Land Use Plan Element for the SED Special Economic Development Districts and the OP Office Districts will be held at the next Planning Board Meeting on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. in the courtroom of the .
 

To see what other uses Cramer found appropriate for the six zones he surveyed, click on the PDF beneath the photograph at the top of the article.