SONIC plans now in the hands of Zoning Board

BRICK TOWNSHIP — Whether a controversial SONIC restaurant eventually gets built on Brick Boulevard will be decided by the Board of Adjustment.

Planning Board members voted unanimously at the Aug. 27 board meeting to transfer the application to the Zoning Board, Township Planner Michael Fowler said.

Planning Board Attorney Joseph Coronato told board members that after researching the matter, he had decided the application was not in the Planning Board's jurisdiction, Fowler said.

Brick Boulevard Real Estates is proposing to build a 1,536-square-foot SONIC on the 1.35-acre tract in the northwest corner of Brick Boulevard and Molly Lane.

The restaurant is a permitted use in the B-3 Highway Development zone, which calls for a minimum lot area of two acres, according to Fowler's report on the project.

Residents from the Pavilion, a 200- home senior citizen community located near the site, are worried about the project bringing more traffic and noise into the area.

The restaurant would include a driveup window service area, an outdoor covered seating area, and three drive-up service canopies. SONIC also features outdoor speakers and carhops who rollerskate to customers' cars to deliver orders.

The objectors hired attorney Ronald Gasioruwski to represent them. Gasioruwski has said all along that the application belonged before the Board of Adjustment, not the Planning Board.

The reason for the transfer was a question about whether the property, which was once part of a Planed Unit Development (PUD) approved in the mid- 1980s, was properly subdivided.

Coronato determined it had never been formally subdivided, Fowler said.