With only member Donald Sweeney voting against it, Chimney Rock Self Storage received township zoning board approval on June 11 with a vote of 6-to-1 for a 103,887-square-foot facility on a hillside property on Route 22.
Through several board meetings, the applicant downsized the proposed building from 129,897 square feet and added additional stormwater management features and extensive landscaping to the site to answer board and resident concerns.
The existing former office building on the site is dilapidated, said board member Bruce Bongiorno.
Board member Andrew Fresco said he would have voted against the original proposal, but the applicant’s response to asked changes convinced him to vote in favor.
Sweeney, in supporting his no-vote, said, “The concept is too large.”
In the hearing, he had disputed the number of variances requested by the applicant, even though that number had dropped from 24 to 12. Previously, he had said the project was overdeveloped.
Board president Jeff Foose, who supported the development, said the new building will not be a warehouse and the applicant responded to the board’s concerns about run-off, drainage and landscaping.
The project is a three-story self-storage facility, to be built with one floor below ground. The facility, which will look like an office building, will be set back from Route 22.
The developer’s planner, Paul Ricci, said Route 22 carries 60,000 vehicles a day, and Bridgewater has a 15 to 18% building vacancy rate. Statewide, the vacancy rate is 25.8%, so there is an economic benefit to this application.
He said that of all the uses for the site, self-storage is a “passive use,” with a minimum of daily activity from renters once the spaces are full.
At the end, Ricci said, the applicant exceeded the township’s landscaping requirements to both shield the public view of the facility and to decrease run-off.
In addition, the new size and placement of the application provide more space for more landscaping in the front of the building and in the back along Donahue Road, a residential road.
Prior to these changes, the applicant was short on the number of street trees, landscape trees, landscape shrubs and foundation plantings required by the town.
The additional landscaping meets the town’s requirements with hundreds of trees and shrubs. They originally proposed 61 trees and now increased it to 276, with 238 being evergreens.
The landscaping has also reduced pavement or impervious coverage. It’s a 10% reduction in impervious coverage compared to what exists now, although it’s still over the permitted amount, as where 30.6% is permitted in the zone, 48% is proposed.
One final objection was entered by attorney Rosilind Westlink, representing Arthur’s Self-Storage of Green Brook.
She protested that the variances sought for the site were “self-created” simply by trying to develop the site and not related to actual zoning requirements.
She said there were on-site traffic movement issues that could compromise safety.
In the end, like Sweeney, Westlink concluded the project was too big for the property.
