LAKEWOOD PLANNING BOARD ALLOWS NEWLINES ENGINEERING TO QUIETLY SNEAK IN RESTAURANT AND RENTAL HALL WITH INSUFFICIENT PARKING AND NO PUBLIC NOTICE

NewLines Engineering has just "pulled a new line," managing to get a restaurant and banquet hall approved with no public notice and a deficiency of at least 42 parking spaces!

Back on March 1, 2022, the Lakewood Planning Board granted preliminary and final major site plan approval for construction of a new six-story office building, a maintenance building, and 2 pad sites with basement storage - along with 701 off-street parking spaces - at the northwest corner of the intersection of Sims Avenue and Pine Street.

Attorney Adam Pfeffer told the Board that this will be the largest building in the Cedarbridge Corporate Park, and the main tenant will be NewLines Engineering. 

Shuie (Josh) Schmuckler elaborated that the maintenance building would only be used for storage of NewLines's many survey, HVAC, and plumbing vehicles and equipment. Mr. Schmuckler testified that the building would not be rentable to outside parties other than the tenants of the office building, in the event that NewLines relocates or no longer needs the space.

Mr. Schmuckler added that the pad site would be rented but only for "a low traffic use."

The Board's resolution of approval states:

The applicant shall comply with all representations made before the Planning Board, by the applicant and/or its attorney and its expert(s). If the resolution does not embody any stipulations that were made by the applicant or its witnesses and/or experts during the hearing or by the board in approving the motion, those stipulations shall nevertheless be applicable. It shall be the responsibility of the applicant to comply with all stipulations and conditions made at the hearing... Applicant shall resubmit this entire proposal for re-approval should there be any material deviation from the terms and conditions of this resolution or the documents submitted as part of this application, all of which are made a part hereof and shall be binding on the applicant.

The Planning Board has a written policy of accepting certain requests under "correspondence."

The Board's written policy states "correspondence" is acceptable for "miniscule, insignificant changes" which could really be approved administratively by the Board's professionals but the Board reviews such requests anyways to ensure that their professionals are carrying out the original intent of the board.

Typically, when submitting land use board applications, developers are required by the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Law to mail legal notices to the neighbors stating "the date, time and place of the hearing, [and] the nature of the matters to be considered."

As explained by the New Jersey Appellate Division in the landmark 1996 case of Perlmart vs. Lacey Twp Planning Board, the purpose of the notice is to ensure the public is properly apprised "so they may make an informed determination as to whether they should participate in the hearing or at least look more closely at the plans on file."

However, when the Board receives and approves "correspondence," the Board does not require public notice to the neighbors. (Remember: This is because "correspondence" is supposedly acceptable only for "miniscule, insignificant changes."

The building is now under construction.

NewLines now submitted "correspondence" to the Board indicating that the pad site is now proposed to include a restaurant with an order and pickup drive thru and additional banquet hall.

To accommodate the drive-thru, the building size and square footage increased, and the total parking spaces have gone down to 685.

Board Member David Helmreich said "I think it’s a great idea. I like it. But I don’t think this is what correspondence was designed to do. Where do we draw the line? No one was noticed and the footprint is growing bigger."

Mr. Schmuckler responded "there are no neighbors to notice."

Board Chairman Moshe Neiman also waived away the issue and offered a motion to approve. Board Member Yechiel Herzel offered a second to the motion. The Board approved the request.

Curious minds wonder if NewLines specifically snuck the banquet hall under correspondence with no public notice to avoid all the litigation that Tovia Rosenberg got in attempting to sneak a banquet hall into his hotel project.

Additionally, curious minds point out that there are quite a number of property owners within 200 feet who should have gotten notice.

Moreover, it appears that they played some tricks with the parking calculations.

The Township requires a stricter number of parking spaces for a restaurant - 1 space per 50 square feet of patron space. Banquet halls are only permitted in the Cedarbridge Corporate Campus as part of a hotel. Such uses require 1 parking space per 1 person of the banquet hall capacity.

Even assuming that we can ignore the fact that the banquet hall is not a permitted use, and pretending we can count parking for the banquet hall as for a restaurant, the 4,255 sq footage of the main patron spaces would require 86 parking spaces.

The amended site plan only provides 44 parking spaces for what would be required for retail and office space.

If indeed the restaurant is a retail shopping center, they also didn't provide parking for the basement as the Township's ordinances require for retail shopping centers.

So... while they claim to be providing sufficient parking spaces, they are in fact deficient by 42 spaces.

This is probably why the MLUL requires notice to the public for land use applications - so the neighbors can bring these issues to the Board's attention prior to them giving their stamp of approval.

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