The firehouse on Railroad Avenue was filled with residents eager to hear the applications before the Eagleswood Land Use Board last Tuesday night.
On the agenda were New Jersey Natural Gas and Kline Brothers Landscaping. Homeowners close to the applicants shared their experiences and concerns before the board voted. NJNG’s application was partially heard and will continue at the Nov. 9 meeting. Kline Brothers’ application was bifurcated, or split in two parts, with the site plan heard first and the use variance request to be heard next month.
Represented by attorney Donna Jennings, NJNG came seeking a temporary use variance for its continued use of a lot on Dock Road as a materials storage yard for equipment and construction vehicles. The lot is about a half-mile from the east end, where the LBI Reinforcement Project is underway to supply Long Beach Island with natural gas in the event of another weather event on the scale of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Also kept at the storage yard are 12-inch steel pipe, rubber-tire backhoes, small dump trucks, a loader, fenced spots for sand and gravel, a frac tank for drinking water and a small generator for brief periods when lighting is needed, according to the testimony of planner and engineer Michael Intile of CREST Engineering Associates. The site plan includes a small pump station and a dock, four parking spaces, and 6-foot privacy fencing on the north and south sides.
A storage yard is not a permitted use in the C-1 marine commercial zone. But the site is located conveniently near the work area, is available, and is the right size to suit the need. The use variance would expire after the NJNG work is complete, targeting an end date of May 2023.
The 12-inch steel gas distribution main is being laid under Dock Road in conjunction with the under-bay pipelaying project. The targeted end date for the water work is May 2022; the Dock Road work will continue another year.
According to Intile’s testimony, the storage yard is also where NJNG personnel park for transport to the job site, and is sometimes used as a staging area for receiving and moving quantities of silt; occasional pipe deliveries are trucked in. Intermittent welding takes place. A handful of workers may come and go from the site, but the yard will not be manned around the clock.
Board attorney Terry Brady said a temporary use variance is rather unique in the world of land use law (because use variances usually run with the land) and would need a so-called sunset provision. NJNG would need to come back for an amended use variance if an extension is required. Dock Road, a county road, will be analyzed to determine if it can withstand the weight of the trucks associated with the project. Board member Deb Murphy said cranes and other large vehicles and equipment regularly go up and down the road.
A public utility installation “has the flavor, if not the texture, of being an inherently beneficial use,” Brady said. As such, the application presumptively satisfies the particular suitability and positive criteria, according to NJNG planner Christine Nazzaro-Cofone. In her professional opinion, the application would satisfy the burden of proof either way, with no identified potential detriments.
The cross-bay pipeline does not directly benefit the residents of Eagleswood Township, board member Gerry Holman pointed out, yet Dock Roaders bear the impacts on their road. “Inherently beneficial” need not only benefit the residents of the community where the use is located, Nazzaro-Cofone said. The two agreed to disagree.
Jennings said they would return with additional information and a county witness to provide testimony on the road’s weight limit.
Dock Road resident Christopher Mathis and his wife Sheila bought their home in April 2014 “when Dock Road was quiet,” he said. They got their certificate of occupancy in November 2016. No one told them what to expect. The pipeline work started in late 2018.
Now they said they live with the noise of generators running, backup alarms, flashing lights, diesel trucks idling for hours, unloading of steel pipes (not quiet), welding, pressure tests, loud talking, much of it at wee morning hours.
“On the water, you can hear everything.”
They have never complained, Mathis said. But three years is enough: “There is no peace. None.”
Between two houses is not a reasonable place to have a construction storage yard, he said.
NJNG told him the bay-crossing is expected to be finished by March 2022, he said, but the residents want time limits set in stone.
Neighbor Rocco Saraullo objected outright to the variance and called the yard activities a “general disruption to their lives.” Generators run until they’re out of fuel, he testified. The roads cannot support the weight of the operations. The activity shakes their house. Shielded metal arc welding takes place and “insufficient management oversight” is an ongoing problem.
Residents of West Creek should not have to suffer at the hands of the utility giant, Saraullo said.
Representing Kline Brothers Landscaping’s John and Josh Kline were attorney Katie Shackleton and engineer Robert Sive.
Their objective was to amend the site plan to clean up compliance on a 2007 resolution. In 2019, the Kline brothers bought the property knowingly without a certificate of occupancy but were not aware of the multitude of violations they inherited, Shackleton said.
The 13-acre site – located between Forge Road, Railroad Avenue, Bartlett Avenue and Route 9 – has a 1,500-square-foot office building and a 3,500-square-foot maintenance building. Proposed is a 12,000 square-foot pole barn for use as a cold storage warehouse, open-topped storage bins for landscaping materials and closed storage boxes, plus all the needed parking stalls.
The site is used for storing vehicles, pool equipment and landscape materials such as river rock, trap rock, limestone, decorative stone, topsoil, and sand, but they do most of their work out of their Manahawkin location, the brothers explained. Up to a few times per day trucks might grab a load of material to take back to Manahawkin.
The Klines requested a waiver for curbing and sidewalks on Railroad and Forge because they’re inconsistent in that area, and they can create flooding and drainage problems.
They don’t let their trucks idle, because “we don’t waste gas,” Josh Kline said. “We have people cleaning all the time. We like everything perfectly in order, like eating off the floor. That’s how I like my yards.”
Neighbor Jeni Hammer said the crew arrives earlier than 7 a.m., they slam tailgates, and the reverse beeping is incessant. She asked for the storage bins to be moved a little farther from the adjacent houses and noise-muffling concrete barriers. John Kline said he welcomes calls or texts from the neighbors so he can promptly address any problems.
The site plan was unanimously approved.
— Victoria Ford
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NJNG Presses for Continued Use of Eagleswood Property in Cross-Bay Project - The SandPaper
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