Starting anew on warehouse application

A newly constituted Planning Board devoted solely to Diamond Chip Realty’s (DCR) application to build two warehouses at 33 Demarest Road voted to restart the application process at its May 1 meeting.

The board’s membership changed after a judge ruled that eight members were disqualified from hearing DCR’s application because they joined the Facebook page of Sparta Responsible Development, a nonprofit organization that opposes the application.

The decision renders moot five hearings of testimony on the proposed project, which dates to 2022, and means that DCR’s application, as amended, will result in new testimony.

Anand Dash, president of Sparta Responsible Development, is appearing before the Planning Board as an objector in his individual capacity and as a township resident because he contends that the project “does not conform to the township ordinances.”

“The reality is that there was going to be new testimony on this matter because we never got through anything more than about four witnesses for the applicant and no witnesses for Mr. Dash and no witnesses from the public, just questions,” Planning Board attorney Tom Collins advised members of the board before their vote.

“Starting anew, although it sounds like it will take a lot more time, it might actually take less time because we’ll focus on what is the application as amended presently before the Planning Board.”

After the board’s unanimous vote to start anew, project architect Richard Saunderson testified about the current plans for the project.

“The prior design consisted of two buildings, the smaller of which was adjacent to the rail-serving building. The two buildings consisted of approximately 506,000 square feet and 373,000 square feet for a total of just over 880,000 square feet,” Saunderson said.

“The building closer to the street actually was a double-loaded building and the building on the rail side was a single-loaded building in terms of the dock doors. The previous scheme had dock doors facing the street, which was noted by the Planning Board as a request to change. Furthermore, the previous scheme had storage in the front yard,” which was noted as something we should reconsider.

He continued, “The current scheme is a smaller total square footage. It’s approximately 698,000 square feet. The larger building is adjacent to not one but four rail sidings, which are used for storage of rail cars. The smaller building is what we would consider a flex warehouse building.

“The larger building, designed as a storage warehouse, is approximately 45 feet in height and the adjustments to the plan, in response to the board’s prior comments, were to actually make this more of a campus-like setting. That’s the general overall description of the changes.”

In addition to reducing the overall size of the buildings, Saunderson testified that the new design eliminates front-yard storage, moves the dock doors (reduced in number) to an inner courtyard between the two buildings, and has the smaller building closer to Demarest Road and the larger building further back.

After Saunderson’s presentation, he took questions from the board and members of the public, many of which dealt with fire safety, visibility of buildings from Demarest Road and the possible effects the project could have on the water aquifer.

The hearing will continue at 7 p.m. June 5. Saunderson is expected to return then to answer questions from Dash’s attorney as well as questions from the public.

The board hearing the DCR application consists of chairman pro tem Ken Laury (also on Zoning Board); vice chairman pro tem Mike Sylvester; Joan Furman, a designee of the mayor; Bryan Zimmermann; Ernie Reigstad; and Zoning Board members Michael Jozefczyk and Michael Leondi as alternates.

Dorrie Fox, secretary of the Planning Board, said the DCR application will be heard on the first Wednesday of the month by those board members of the board.

The regular Planning Board will meet on the third Wednesday of the month.