Tuesday, November 27, 2012
The "long, arduous road" from inception to Design Review Board to Monday night's vote lasted more than three years.
The Wyckoff Planning Board voted unanimously Monday to allow Inserra Supermarkets to go ahead with its plan to build a massive grocery store on an abandoned Greenwood Avenue commercial site, in spite of some board members' lingering concerns regarding a potential increase in traffic on township roads. "Redevelopment of this site is what I think is needed," said Wyckoff Planning Board Member Scott Fisher. "It will bring jobs to the community and the surrounding area [and] it will beautify the area." Each of the planning board's nine members voted in support of the application, which asked the land use board to consider requested variances for issues such as lot depth requirement, buffer width, parking stall size, sign regulations and …
Monday, November 26, 2012
The applicant, Inserra Supermarkets, wants to build a 62,000 square-foot ShopRite in a now-abandoned lot at Greenwood and Wyckoff avenues
After more than 2 years, the ShopRite application now before the Wyckoff Planning Board appears to be approaching its conclusion. The fate of a proposed 62,000 square-foot supermarket could be decided at a special meeting scheduled for Monday, Nov. 26, at 7 p.m. if Chairman Richard Bonsignore puts the application up for a vote as is expected. The public has twice been given the opportunity to speak up regarding the project, and has been generally favorable to the application. A common concern amongst commentors, however, has been over a potential increase in traffic in the township should the supermarket get built. The Inserra application is opposed by two law teams: Price, Meese, Shulman & D'Arminio representing Stop & Shop and Robert J…
41.01081
-74.166795
Stop & Shop
327 Franklin Ave, Wyckoff, NJ
/articles/fate-of-proposed-shoprite-may-be-decided-monday
19939
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41.010492
-74.167755
Wyckoff Memorial Town Hall
340 Franklin Ave, Wyckoff, NJ
/articles/fate-of-proposed-shoprite-may-be-decided-monday
47922
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Majority of Wyckoff residents speaking at Monday night planning board session say Inserra Supermarkets is a good fit for the township
Wyckoff residents spoke up Monday night, voicing mostly their approval over the application before the township planning board to build a 64,000-square-foot ShopRite supermarket in the shadow of the Boulder Run Stop & Shop. Amid eight residents calling for an up-vote in the long-debated land use application, four residents expressed tepid concern and only one resident stood firmly against the plan, in what is likely to be the final of two open public forums before the Wyckoff Planning Board's scheduled vote on the application in November. "I right now have a tough time getting through town — my concern is the traffic," said Wyckoff resident Dennis Putis. "Wyckoff was once known as a town of churches — I don't want to see Wyckoff become …
Monday, September 24, 2012
Final public comment session is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m.
Township residents will be given their final opportunity to speak broadly to the Wyckoff Planning Board Monday evening regarding the Inserra application to build a 64,000-square-foot ShopRite supermarket adjacent to Boulder Run. The public has had the chance to question witnesses and experts directly throughout the span of the 2-year application, but only one other opportunity to make general comments and directly address the land use board, attorneys and experts. The Monday, Sept. 24, meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., but anyone expecting to get a seat should arrive early — a meeting setup for identical purposes earlier this year was packed to standing-room-only capacity. At the April meeting, residents overwhelmingly — though …
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Township's planner expressed no major opposition to application that would raze former A&P site and construct a new 65,000-square-foot supermarket in Stop & Shop's backyard
Testimony by the Wyckoff Planning Board's expert planner Monday night largely supported the application to develop of a 65,000-square-foot supermarket in the footprint of the former A&P shopping center off Greenwood Avenue. At a special planning board meeting in Memorial Town Hall, Michael Kauker provided testimony arguing that land use documentation — including Wyckoff re-examination reports of 2005 and 2010 and the township's Master Plan — did not preclude, or did in fact support, redevelopment of the A&P site. He dismissed concern over a variance requested by the applicant regarding a 20-foot deficiency in a buffer strip where the proposed building borders Boulder Run property, and spoke only briefly about "observation, criticism and …
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Berge Tombalakian said he found Inserra's traffic report acceptable, did not believe Sunday traffic counts were a major issue.
Wyckoff Planning Board’s new traffic engineering expert, Berge Tombalakian, provided testimony at a special meeting Monday night on the Inserra Supermarkets’ application to build a ShopRite in town. Tombalakian, who replaced previous board traffic expert Gary Dean in May, got up to speed with the application by reading transcripts of previous hearings sans comments from Dean. While Tombalakian reported a few minimal points of difference with Inserra’s traffic report, he said he generally found it to be sensible. “The report follows a methodology that is reasonable and an approach that is commonly used in the industry,” Tombalakian said. “I didn’t have any objections with the approach.” He said he did not view the study’s Sunday traffic …
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Wyckoff's mayor recused himself from the hearing because of a potential conflict of interest caused by his new position with the Northwest Bergen Utilities Authority.
Wyckoff Mayor Christopher DePhillips "reluctantly" recused himself from Inserra Supermarkets' application to build a new ShopRite due to a possible conflict of interest. James Jaworski, the attorney representing Inserra Supermarkets for the application before the Wyckoff Planning Board, raised the issue during the board's meeting Wednesday. DePhillips was recently appointed commissioner of the Northwest Bergen Utilities Authority, which has a sewer easement on both the site of the proposed ShopRite and the neighboring Boulder Run property. DePhillips, who has sat on the planning board as a committeeman and mayor for 18 of the 24 months the application has been heard, said he did not believe there was an actual conflict of interest, but he …
Friday, May 11, 2012
The owners of Boulder Run worked with the township to make a compromise when they previously applied for their expansion.
Developer Bryan Hekemian explained some of the details behind a compromise made between Wyckoff and Munico Associates, the company which owns Boulder Run, which led to the expansion of Boulder Run and brought 16 affordable housing units to the township during a meeting of the Wyckoff Planning Board Wednesday night. Hekemian is objecting to Inserra Supermarkets' plan to build a new 62,000-square-foot ShopRite at the site of the former A&P on Wyckoff and Greenwood Avenues. He had previously testified that the affordable housing units, built during Boulder Run's expansion between 2008 and 2010, were a financial loss, but did not give any specifics. While pro-Inserra attorney John Lamb cross-examined Hekemian Wednesday, the developer explained…
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Berge Tombalakian of Boswell Engineering will replace Gary Dean, who was removed last month due to a conflict of interest.
The Wyckoff Planning Board voted unanimously to instate Berge Tombalakian as its new traffic engineering expert for Inserra Supermarkets' application to build a new ShopRite in the township. Tombalakian, who was not at the meeting Wednesday, will replace Gary Dean. The board voted to remove Dean from the position last month when it was revealed that he was involved in another Inserra application in New Milford, creating a conflict of interest. Peter Ten Kate, the board's engineer and a colleague of Tombalakian at Boswell Engineering, said the traffic expert had not heard any testimony or read any transcripts that would taint his objectivity. Tombalakian will have to catch up by reading transcripts of the hearings — minus any comments by …
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Approximately 61 percent of speakers supported the Inserra application
Vocal Wyckoff residents overwhelmingly — though not unanimously — threw their support behind a proposal to build a ShopRite here during an open forum that took place Monday night after nearly two years of expert testimony and legal argument before the township planning board. Of the more than 100 attendees at the planning board meeting only 18 went to the microphone during the public comment session, but of those 18 Wyckoff residents, 11 spoke in support of the Inserra application, five spoke against the application, and two said their reasons for speaking were not to voice a pure up or down vote for the plan. That figures to be about 61 percent in support of the Inserra Supermarket application that proposes to build a 62,000 square …
41.010492
-74.167755
Wyckoff Memorial Town Hall
340 Franklin Ave, Wyckoff, NJ
/articles/wyckoff-planning-board-public-comment-session
47922
/locations/6874634
Meg Johnson
2:16 pm on Sunday, March 24, 2013
Here's the thing... I LOVE Stop & Shop! But i can't afford it! I am a nurse and work very hard for my money... now the politicians felt free to again put their hand in my wallet and are taking nearly $500 A MONTH OUT OF MY PAYCHECK! The trip to Fairlawn to Shoprite is a pain, but economically worth my time. I will still go to Stop and Shop as I love their Nature's Promise line. But I will do most… more ›