Tom Nobile

Staff Writer, @TomNobile

RAMSEY — The Planning Board unanimously rejected a proposed Wawa on Route 17 Wednesday night, believing the project was too large for the property and would create unsafe traffic circulation on site.

For more than 50 neighbors who hired an attorney to oppose the project, the vote was a welcome relief.

"I can't believe it," said Richard Krim, who lives adjacent to the property. "I have such a great appreciation for the integrity of the Planning Board."

Hearings on the project spanned nearly four years, as residents of Bear's Cove — an adjacent condo complex — protested the venture over quality of life issues.

The project called for a 5,000-square-foot gas station and convenience store, with a canopy extending over eight gasoline pumps and 46 parking spaces.

Residents testified to a litany of concerns they feared over the Wawa’s construction, from boisterous truck noise to the possible smell that onsite dumpsters would emit.

In the end, planning board members relied heavily on the advice of the borough’s engineering experts, who said traffic maneuvers around the property would be tight. They recommended Wawa downsize some combination of the building footprint, fueling stations and parking spaces, which would allow trucks and cars to circulate more easily.

Wawa declined to make those revisions.

Board Chairman Rudy Iorio said Wawa’s decision not to make reductions led him to deny the application, calling the project “overintensified” on the 1.77-acre property.

“The proposal for this site is overbuilt,” he said. “This application as proposed is not in the best interest of the borough.”

Other members agreed the traffic scheme could create unsafe conditions.

“The overall site is overdesigned in terms of site circulation and movement. It requires vehicles to make perfect moves, which we know they don’t make," said board member Shawn Kirk.

Wawa made some revisions aimed at minimizing disturbance to residents of Bear's Cove, such as installing lower-intensity lighting for the store's canopy and fortifying the 25-foot buffer between properties with taller trees.

But residents still believed the usage was too great.

"We knew it had to be smaller to be safer," Krim said.

Bear's Cove previously petitioned the borough's zoning board to hear the application, arguing that the plan calls for two separate structures, which aren't permitted in the lot's B-3 commercial zone. The zoning board, however, declined to review the application.

An appeal was later filed with the state Superior Court in Hackensack. A Superior Court judge in February upheld the Zoning Board’s decision, but Bear's Cove since appealed that ruling.

An attorney for the developer said the company will weigh the board's decision and determine a course of action.

Wawa has at least three Bergen County locations: Lodi, Garfield and Hackensack.