One less neighbor in Warehouseville

Who says you can’t fight city hall? In a vote that was stunning not only for its outcome but its speed, the South Brunswick Planning Board denied an application to build a 1.8 million-square-foot warehouse complex on Davidsons Mill and Cranbury-South River roads last week.

The 4-4 decision showed that now and then, an informed and passionate group of residents can lobby for change in the town they live in. Over the last year, members of the Eastern Villages Association have tenaciously opposed the traffic, flooding and downturn in their quality of life they say has been caused by the warehouse boom in the once rural section of town east of the New Jersey Turnpike. At last week’s hearing, they put those organizational skills to work with a series of exhibits, testimony and information packets they handed out to the board.

At the hearing, EVA member Jean Dvorak essentially did the same job as the developer’s engineer, with one major exception — one was paid to fight for his cause, while the other’s only incentive was to preserve the neighborhood.

To the South Brunswick Planning Board’s credit, they heard these residents out and voted with their guts, not out of fear of a developer’s lawsuit. But you better believe the township hasn’t heard the last of the developer.

This application was, after all, basically no different than others that have been approved by the board in recent years. The project required a variance for crossing the limit in impervious coverage, but was in the proper zone and, if anything, would only contribute to a flooding problem that was created before them.

So what changed? The EVA and other residents convinced South Brunswick officials that maybe the planners of this warehouse district didn’t have all of the answers; that decisions being made might carry unforeseen environmental impacts; that it might be worth it to step back and take a closer look at the situation.

And that’s what the Township Council and Mayor Frank Gambatese are apparently doing. These officials are now considering the creation of an inclusive and fully funded task force to study the traffic, environmental and other aspects of the warehouse boom. With all that has been said and done since the VanDyke farm application brought this issue to the fore, it will be money well spent. And better yet, it’s a sign that democracy is very much alive and well in South Brunswick.