Toyota rezone in So. Bruns. not moving forward
BY CHRIS MURINO Staff Writer

SOUTH BRUNSWICK - The Township Council decided to decline David Nappa's request to rezone the property of his car dealership from office research to commercial use.

The Planning Board had recommended the rezoning of the property on Nov. 28, but the council decided they just didn't have enough information from the Planning Board and its director, Craig Marshall, to provide an answer.

"A grown-up analysis would be nice," said Councilman Charles Carley. "What would the impact on traffic be, what would the impact on employment be? Give us a reason for the rezoning."

"All I have is two sentences … on why they want to rezone," said Councilman Chris Killmurray.

Nappa owns a Toyota dealership on Route 130 at Route 522 in Dayton. When he bought the property, a Ford dealership was in place, but Ford decided to close that particular site down soon after. Nappa currently uses about 20 percent of the Ford property for a body shop.

"We will have a difficult time trying to find a tenant for the other 80 percent of the building unless it is rezoned," Nappa said. "If we could find a car dealership to put in there, we would. If we can't, the C- 3 [commercial] designation would allow us to do a health club, which is one of the possible prospective tenants. They won't even look at it if it stays office research."

The council expressed its desire to help out Nappa, deciding to look at his application again next week. But Deputy Mayor Carol Barrett, like her colleagues, was concerned with the lack of information from the Planning Board and its director.

"This is not the first time the council has said this," she said. "Craig Marshall has been there long enough. It just shouldn't have to be said all the time."

Another problem was that a letter written by Nappa explaining why he wanted a rezoning was not received by the council members, but only by Mayor Frank Gambatese. Although Nappa spoke to the council, detailing his reasons, this made it more difficult for the council to pass the rezoning.

Although the Nappa rezoning went through the Planning Board, it was not unanimous. Member Barry Nathanson disagreed with the rezoning.

"We all voted to keep it office research," Nathanson said. "There are residents that are around this property."

Nathanson did not believe the rezoning was necessary.

"We don't need to change that part of the zone," Nathanson said.

Two other zoning changes were not discussed by the council and will be revisited at the Jan. 8 work session. They were a rezoning of Cranbury South River Road from light industrial to light industrial/ commercial and a rezoning of a property located at Ridge Road and Route 130, near Indian Fields School from industrial to office research.