{"id":22496,"date":"2023-07-20T05:19:21","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T09:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=22496"},"modified":"2023-07-20T05:19:21","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T09:19:21","slug":"proposed-brick-car-wash-raises-early-concerns-from-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2023\/07\/proposed-brick-car-wash-raises-early-concerns-from-neighbors\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed Brick Car Wash Raises Early Concerns From Neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A rendering of the proposed \u2018express\u2019 car wash at 1905 Route 88, Brick Township. (Planning Documents\/Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

A hearing on the potential approval of a car was facility along a busy portion of Route 88 in Brick Township got underway Wednesday night before the borough\u2019s Board of Adjustment (often known as the zoning board), with neighboring residents hinting concerns after some early testimony was offered.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A rendering of the proposed \u2018express\u2019 car wash at 1905 Route 88, Brick Township. (Planning Documents\/Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

The proposed \u201cUrban Express\u201d car wash would be located at Route 88 and Kenneth Place, or 1905 Route 88, which is currently half-developed with a strip mall. The other half of the parcel, located closest to Kenneth Place, is undeveloped and wooded. It is located roughly across the street from the new Wawa at 1902 Route 88, which has been the subject of complaints over traffic safety<\/a> on the oft-congested state highway. The car wash, like the strip mall, would back up to residential properties on Kieser Boulevard.<\/p>\n

Testimony on what will almost certainly be the primary controversy surrounding the project \u2013 traffic safety and access \u2013 was not discussed in detail Wednesday night. Traffic engineers representing both the applicant, JAC Operating LLC, a Red Bank-based company, as well as the township, will testify at a future meeting. Wednesday\u2019s meeting featured testimony from Mark Whittaker, the project engineer.<\/p>\n

The attorney representing JAC, Jason R. Tuvel, said the facility would be largely automated and open seven days per week from either 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. It would allow enough space for 11 cars to \u201cstack\u201d while waiting to be washed, and between one and two employees would be on site during the hours of operation. Access to the site would be through the adjacent strip mall rather than local streets or a separate entrance on Route 88.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need to have access to any of the residential side streets abutting the property,\u201d Tuvel said.<\/p>\n

Whittaker, during his testimony, said the car wash would include 11 spaces for self-vacuums on the left side of the building, and the strip mall\u2019s entrance would be widened to 24-feet to accommodate the extra traffic. The project received a \u201cletter of no interest\u201d from the state Department of Transportation since no additional curb cuts or turns were being added to the state highway.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A rendering of the proposed \u2018express\u2019 car wash at 1905 Route 88, Brick Township. (Planning Documents\/Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"A<\/a>

A rendering of the proposed \u2018express\u2019 car wash at 1905 Route 88, Brick Township. (Planning Documents\/Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe have access from the west,\u201d said Whittaker. \u201cThat property has two full-movement driveways.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bypass lane will also be added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re proposing access through our neighbor on the highway to promote better access from the state highway and to avoid generating extra traffic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Township officials and board members indicated they were unhappy with the applicant\u2019s plans to avoid placing sidewalks and curbs around the facility, as required by the township\u2019s land use ordinance. Tuvel, however, said since the property will not create any new driveways or access points, there is no need to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we should be penalized with having to have additional sidewalks,\u201d he said. \u201cWe could develop this property on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Developing the property with its own access and egress points, however, would likely lead the state to rescind its \u201cno interest\u201d letter, said board attorney Anne Marie Rizzuto.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DOT is not interested because you\u2019re not doing anything on Route 88,\u201d said Rizzuto. \u201cIf that changes, they will withdraw that and they will tell you what they require in terms of sidewalks and curbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The curbing issue was unresolved by the end of the meeting.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A rendering of the proposed \u2018express\u2019 car wash at 1905 Route 88, Brick Township. (Planning Documents\/Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"A<\/a>

A rendering of the proposed \u2018express\u2019 car wash at 1905 Route 88, Brick Township. (Planning Documents\/Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

About a dozen neighbors were present for the hearing, with Board Chairman David Chadwick offering a chance for the public to ask questions of the engineer following his testimony. One of the residents, Kevin Maloney, shared concerns that the queue lanes which will allow 11 cars to stack \u2013 five in one lane and six in the next \u2013 would not be enough, especially judging by the activity seen at another car was several hundred feet up the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir queue line is much bigger than 11 cars when they are busy,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is the plan for when you get very busy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Whittaker replied that the proposed facility is an \u201cexpress\u201d car wash that automates orders and payments, allowing cars to circulate quickly through the wash area.<\/p>\n

Most of the other residents indicated they had concerns over traffic, flood issues and buffer areas, which will be covered at a future meeting. Some asked about the noise of the vacuum cleaners, which Tuvel said is governed by both state and local noise laws, and one resident asked, if approved, the \u201cUrban Express\u201d name could be changed to reflect Brick Township as a Shore community rather than an urban area.<\/p>\n

The hearing will continue at a special meeting scheduled for Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. The meeting will be fully dedicated to the car wash case.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hearing on the potential approval of a car was facility along a busy portion of Route 88 in Brick Township got underway Wednesday night before the borough\u2019s Board of Adjustment (often known as the zoning board), with neighboring residents hinting concerns after some early testimony was offered. The proposed \u201cUrban Express\u201d car wash would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,1649],"tags":[24,1901,4484,625],"class_list":["post-22496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-local-business","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-car-wash","tag-featured","tag-route-88"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/IMG_8873-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-5QQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}