Zoning board not happy with Wawa's request for delay Vigilant residents and business owners show up en masse BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer BRICK TOWNSHIP - The two men nodded at each other, smiled and took their seats. "Nice shirt," one man said. "I like it," the other replied. "It's one of my best shirts." And most of the roughly 200 people who showed up at the April 30 Board of Adjustment meeting sported T-shirts just like it. "Stand Strong! No 24-hour Super Wawa on Mantoloking Road. Save our community" was printed on the back of the gun-metal gray shirts. Residents and business owners alongMantoloking Road attended, even though they had heard that Wawa planned to ask for a postponement on the controversial application for a "super" convenience store and gas station. Attorney John P. Kellenberger told board Chairman John Rentschler that Wawa wanted to revise its plans. "Wawa is considering some alterations to the site plan," he said. "At this time, we will request a postponement. We will follow up with the board in June." "That's going to be kind of a problem," Rentschler told Kellenberger. "There's a lot of people in this audience that will not be re-noticed. This board is a busy board.We can't just say at the end of May we'll schedule a meeting in June. "Chances are, at the end of May, she'll be booked up forAugust or September," Rentschler said, and pointed to board secretary Christine Papa. Both Rentschler and Board Attorney Kenneth Fitzsimmons tried to pin Kellenberger down to a specific date for the next meeting. "Your client is not putting you in a good position to have a favorable decision by the board," Fitzsimmons said. Wawa would know by the end of May when it would be ready to proceed again, Kellenberger at first told Rentschler. "If you give us a date at the end ofMay, I don't think we will be able to accommodate you with a special meeting in June," Rentschler said. "There are no special meetings in July or August. If you go with a regular meeting, I can tell you you will be put on last." That could leaveWawa with as little as 15 minutes to present its application, Rentschler said. "I'm very, very aggravated because of what's happened tonight," he said. "The repercussions here are not just to Wawa, it's to everybody as a whole. I can't guarantee you a full board if we don't know what date it is." State land-use law requires a zoning board to arrive at a decision 120 days after the application is presented, Fitzsimmons said. "If you don't, the applicant can move to seek an automatic approval," he said. "In order to guard against that, the board will ask the applicant for a waiver of time. We want to guard against the automatic approval." The zoning board has three choices: schedule the meeting according toWawa's time schedule, arbitrarily set a date, or dismiss the application without prejudice, Fitzsimmons said. "If we don't get a substantial [time] waiver, this board could be backed into a corner," he said. "And we are not going to allow that." "You can't go before a judge and say, "Judge, I have a case but I don't know when I can try it,'" Rentschler told Kellenberger. The board and Kellenberger finally settled on July 16 as a tentative date for the next meeting. Board member Dominic Brando voted against the decision to postpone the meeting. "This is something I feel we should hear now," he said, and the audience applauded. Wawa attorney Timothy Prime and engineer Jeffrey Spalt outlined the plans at the March 26 boardmeeting.Wawa wants to build a 5,589-squarefoot convenience store, 16 gasoline pumps covered by a canopy, 59 parking spaces and three 20,000-gallon, underground gasoline-storage tanks. Residents and business owners say that Mantoloking Road is no place for a Wawa of the proposed size, and that it would cause traffic-safety problems and hurt existing gas stations and other businesses. They banded together earlier this year and hired Toms River attorney Edward F. Liston Jr. and a professional engineer to fight the application. The 3.4-acre site is a permitted use in the B2 general business zone.Wawa is asking for a number of variances for the project. The B2 zone prohibits the use of a gas station within 1,000 feet of an existing church and within 2,000 feet of an existing gas station. The Osbornville Presbyterian Church is less than 1,000 feet from the proposed store. Joe's Service Center, founded almost 50 years ago, is directly across the street. Wawa is asking for a number of other variances, including a 25-foot residential buffer instead of the required 75 feet; the use of 79.4 square feet for a freestanding sign, where 50 square feet is allowed, and a design waiver for the driveway setbacks on Mantoloking and Church roads. The Mantoloking Road businesses involved in the fight include Joe's Service Center, Mike and Sons Repair Shop, Eagle Gas, Brick Town Sunoco, 7-Eleven, the Fat Cat Bakery, Surfside Collision and the Little Rascals Academy.