Restaurant Expansion Approved Despite Teaneck Opposition
Teaneck officials and area residents fought the New Milford project, citing flooding and traffic woes.
Despite Teaneck's opposition, the New Milford Zoning Board granted approval for Sanzari's New Bridge Inn to construct a parking lot in place of two residential properties and expand the restaurant by 935 square feet.
Teaneck officials and area residents had fought the expansion, arguing it would increase flooding and traffic in the township. The restaurant is located near Riverview Avenue in Teaneck, an area residents say often floods in heavy rains.
Township Manager William Broughton appeared before the borough's Zoning Board Sept. 11 citing flooding and increased traffic as the town's main concerns. He told the board that because most of the residential houses in the vicinity of the restaurant are located in Teaneck, this is primarily a Teaneck problem.
However, the board voted in favor of granting Sanzari's the variances they were seeking while stipulating that they must provide valet parking on Friday and Saturday evenings, and during all private functions.
Other conditions include that no portion of the parking lot be paved, no customer access to the second level deck and no food service to the corner patio.
Board member Joe Loonam raised concerns that the restaurant would not comply to these conditions because they did not comply to a past condition set by the board--to have valet parking to reduce the amount of traffic parking on the residential street.
Acknowledging the fact that Sanzari's did not fully comply with the valet parking condition, nor did they completely abandon it since they used valet on busy nights, Carmine Alampi, attorney for the applicant, said that his client can only promise to comply going forward.
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zizi
9:21 am on Thursday, October 11, 2012
This is how towns conduct business and keep the tax increases to a minimum. Well done New Milford Zoning Board..... Teaneck should learn a lesson from this.....
JamesTS
9:22 am on Thursday, October 11, 2012
GOOD. I like reading about business being allowed to expand. But ths is in New Milford so it wont help teaneck much. Now no stores will want to expand if our town if they see everyone fighting this business. Sanzari's was a success and nice place. We should be encouraging this. THe area floods anyway. Fix that problem but dont blame the restaurant!
David Bednarcik
8:22 pm on Saturday, October 13, 2012
Why do we need more expansion in this town? We have enough flooding!
bill isecke
12:48 pm on Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Since they did not comply with the previous parking restrictions, why is just a promise to comply in the future good enough. "Fool me once...."
There should be a stiff price for non-compliance in the future that would apply for any further demonstrated violation of conditions.
Daniel M. Rosenblum
8:08 am on Thursday, October 18, 2012
Regardless of which side you're on, this situation shows a limitation in how land use planning is structured. An artificial border -- in this case a municipal border -- blocks consideration of effects of activities in one municipality on a neighboring municipality. Within a municipality, such effects could be dealt with by zoning rules, that is, by what are in principal democratically enacted rules. Between municipalities, though, the only rules are the ones enacted by the next higher body (county or state), and if they fail to act, there may not be much one could do. That next higher body, since it represents so many others, may not care about a squabble between two of its constituent municipalities. The same problem, of course, exists at higher levels too, that is, between counties, between states (think of all the issues of Pennsylvania's coal-burning power plants sending their pollution to NJ), and even between countries (which are dealt with by treaties, supranational organizations like the EU or the OAS, or, in worst cases, wars). Maybe we need to rethink the whole notion of physical borders between government entities at many levels.