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Business Owners Rally Against Proposed WaWa
By Keith Hagarty
 | | --Photo By Keith Hagarty Mayor Stephen Acropolis and members of the governing body speaks with local business owners gathered at Joe's Service Center last Saturday to oppose a proposed WaWa convenience store and gas pumps on Mantoloking Road. |
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Gotta have WaWa? Not so fast, say dozens of local business owners.
Over 50 local business owners, family members and township officials gathered in the garage of Joe's Serve Center at the Liberty gas station on Mantoloking Road last Saturday to protest plans by WaWa to bring an expansive convenience store and gas station right across the street.
The application is scheduled to be heard for the first time at the Township Zoning Board's March 26 meeting in the municipal building on Chambers Bridge Road.
Lisa Wheeler, whose family has owned Joe's Service Center on Mantoloking Road for half a century, said she opposes the WaWa application as both a business owner and a resident.
"My father started this business 50 years ago, but as a resident, I live on this street, I have children who ride their bikes up and down this street," she said. "I'm concerned for the residents. I know a lot of these people on a very personal level. I'm concerned for the safety of our residents, and I'm also concerned that by WaWa coming in, it's going to put a lot of the mom and pop shops out of business on this street, and we're going to have a lot of empty businesses on this road."
Local business owners first became aware of WaWa's intentions to build on the site about a year ago, when the former property owner made them aware of negotiations he had been having with the company, said Wheeler's brother, Jeff Bevacqua, a partner of Joe's Service Center.
"We immediately walked across the street to find out what was going on," said Bevacqua. "We weren't notified, however, of anything officially happening until this past January, when we got a letter from the (Township Zoning) board of adjustment."
While it was still in its early rumor phase, Bevacqua said he and several other area merchants were hoping the application would remain just that.
"We were hoping that it was just going to go away," he said. "Right after we saw the engineers from WaWa over there (at the proposed site), the very next day, a surveyor came out there, and he was there for a week, and then a drilling company came there and they were here for three or four days, so we knew something was going on. We just didn't know when it was going to happen."
As the owner of Mike & Son's Auto Repair at the Eagle gas station, Tony Bertolini believes a WaWa at the proposed location would be a terrible idea, backing Wheeler's suggestion that such a business would cripple several "mom and pop shops" throughout the area.
"I agree with that big time," said Bertolini. "Everybody's a little worried right now."
With several gas pumps planned for the WaWa site, Bertolini said he's concerned about its potentially devastating impact to his business.
"They're going to severely undercut us," he said of the average price of gasoline and fuel. "It's a good area and good people. We do auto repairs, but we do gas too, and if I'm not pumping gas, then there's going to be people I'm going to have to layoff."
Mayor Pledges His Support
Speaking before the room full of business owners, Mayor Stephen Acropolis pledged his opposition to the WaWa project.
"You have our commitment that we're going to do everything we can do to make sure this does not get done," said Acropolis. "Plain and simple, this should not get done."
Acropolis was joined at the rally by fellow members of the township governing body Council President Ruthanne Scaturro and Councilman Anthony Matthews.
When asked by an audience member why the application is going before the Township Zoning Board and not the planning board, Acropolis said the waivers and variances being sought in the zone for the project fall under the jurisdiction of the zoning board.
"We're in a fight here," said Edward F. Liston, the attorney representing the group of business owners fighting the proposed project.
"The important thing we have to recognize is that although the town fathers are on your side, and they realize what a mistake this would be, the applicant has a right to present its case to the board of adjustment," Liston told the assembled business owners. "Hopefully, that will be a unanimous turndown of 7 to 0. However, that's only the first round, and one of the things we have to do, that I have to do with your help, is present a case against the application that the court can hang its hat on in terms of supporting the hopeful denial we're looking for from your board of adjustment."
The three conditional use variances being sought by WaWa include "some of the toughest variances to get under the land use law," according to Liston.
"You have to show special reasons. You have to provide an enhanced quality of proof, and I don't see how they're going to do that here," he said. "They're looking for bulk variance, they're looking to vary a buffer from a residential zone by 66 percent- in other words, they're not going to provide 75 feet, and they're going to provide 25 feet. Their sign size also violates the ordinance, and they also exceed the maximum amount of signs they're allowed to have."
Other variances being sought by WaWa include those for ingress and egress, as well as adjustments to the proximity of drainage basins and the construction of a berm along parking stalls in the right of way.
"They're coming in here with what I would call a very deviant application," said Liston. "It deviates from not only your zoning ordinance, but also deviates from your design standards."
Convincing The Zoning Board Is Key
Liston has been practicing land use law in Ocean County since 1972, and teaches land use law to new planning and zoning board members from various municipalities as part of the New Jersey Planning Organization.
"The board of adjustment can change all of that, it's the zoning board- the board of adjustment adjusts the zoning laws," he said. "If they (WaWa) weren't qualified to put it there without any waivers or variances, or any of those, then they could just come in and build it, and as a planning board, we really wouldn't be able to do anything about it."
The mayor pointed to a recently approved application for the construction of a Sonic Drive-In Restaurant on Brick Boulevard to show the difference between an application before the zoning board of adjustment and the planning board. The Sonic was approved by the planning board.
"The people there (on Brick Boulevard) don't want it, but they're in a little bit of a different situation because it has to go in there, because it's approved for that (zoned) site," he said. "But that's not the case here (with Wawa)."
When an applicant seeks a variance or waiver request from the zoning board, there must be a pressing need, according to the mayor.
"They have to prove a hardship," he said. "They have to prove special reasons why they need it there, and there has to be a hardship. I don't see any hardship, and there's absolutely no reason in my mind why it has to go there."
Acropolis said he's confident the town and county - Mantoloking Road is also Route 528, a county road - will be able to work together to find the best solution.
"I don't want to say the county didn't have a great relationship with the past administration," said Acropolis, "but I think they're going to have a better relationship with this administration."
As a former member of the zoning board, Acropolis wants the public to know they're voices are heard, and encouraged them to not just stop after the board's first round of WaWa public hearings take place on March 26.
"If you get 100 people in a room, it makes a difference," he said. "We have to make sure we get people out to these meetings."
Acropolis added the administration is currently looking into whether they would be allowed to send its professionals, such as the town engineer and planner, to the hearings to speak out against the plans.
Not Right For The Neighborhood
As part-owner of Sandy's Service Center on Mantoloking Road, Allen Goldsmith said his family moved their business to Brick 25 years ago. He has two primary reasons for his opposition to the WaWa project.
"The traffic and the impact to the area," he said. "That road is already all backed up in the summer time from the (Mantoloking) Bridge to up here anyway, and it would only be worse if it (WaWa) goes in."
Goldsmith also expressed concerns about the safety issue of having a 24-hour convenience store in a residential area, fearing it would become a den of juvenile delinquency, loitering and a potential target for late-night crime.
"We live in the kind of community that shuts down at usually like 10 or 11 o'clock," he said. "There's a lot of things that would belong out on a major highway, and this is one of them."
The mayor agreed that traffic and safety issues are a paramount concern with the application.
"I have a little bit of a vested interest because one of the things that I worry about is these roads are cut-through roads," said Acropolis. "So what's going to happen when they put this (WaWa) over here and the people from Waterside and the people from Drum Point Road want to come here and they're doing 50-miles per hour through a neighborhood and possibly hit a kid? If they approve this, then there's going to be heck to pay if that occurs."
Liston cautioned business owners to brace themselves for a long, knockdown, drag out fight with the WaWa application. Even if the board does deny the application, he said, the issue would still be nowhere near finished.
"They are going to put on a good case because unless they're deaf, dumb and blind, they know they're not going to get it in Brick Town. They know they're going to have to go to (Ocean County Superior) court to get it," he said. "That's why it's important that we have to put on- with experts- just as good a case, so when the board, hopefully after listening to my argument by the end of the case, decides to turn it down, the court when it reviews the record has something to rely on, to support and to hopefully affirm what the board decides."
Bevacqua said the support of the township officials means everything.
"I think if the town truly doesn't want it, then we have that kind of support from the town to keep them out," he said. "If they weren't behind us on this, then I think we would probably end up having a WaWa here."
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