Public was misled about Home Depot plan

Like so many of my neighbors, I moved to South Brunswick for a better quality of life. For many years I found that here, and have been happy here, but this has changed.

The South Brunswick Planning Board voted yes to approve a large Home Depot in town. As a homeowner, I can see why this would be a good idea, but not the accompanying truck circulation plan the Planning Board approved.

The approved plan has the large tractor trucks coming into the second entrance to the mall off Wynwood Drive, then it will follow pedestrian traffic in front of the mall through a driveway (where Pets, Pets, Pets used to be), unload behind the mall, and come out behind Milano’s. This is an unsafe route in that truck traffic and pedestrian traffic must meet together.

The large trucks that presently use the mall come in from the other end behind the mall, avoiding traffic. Several times during the Planning Board meeting, the town engineer stated he was uncomfortable with the present plan. The applicant stated this was the way he wanted to do it, regardless of safety issues the engineer and a Planning Board member brought to their attention. They just did not care.

More frightening is that the Planning Board ignored our own town professionals and sided with the applicant because South Brunswick now is following a new policy — approve any application at any cost, even at the cost to the people it is supposed to served. Mayor Frank Gambatese even went to the length of misleading the public when he was quoted in this paper in February of last year as stating that the store Home Depot was opening at the South Brunswick Square Mall would be a much smaller Village Hardware. Either he deliberately misled the public or was grossly ignorant of the situation and for the mayor of this town to so ill serve the public is inexcusable. Shame on you mayor and Planning Board.

Paul Milazzo

South Brunswick