At the end of the regular Township Committee meeting, Deluca said developers JMF Properties -- who are building a three-story, 20-apartment, multi-retail building on the site -- had decided not to seek approval of the dumpster structure that would have included three dumpsters for existing shops such as Village Coffee and Mt Fuji. Sushi.
Instead, Deluca said they will seek approval to house several outdoor dumpsters behind the new building, a request set to go before the Planning Board next week.
"It will be on their property, this will be considered by the Planning Bosrd," the mayor said. "The downside is this will only be for their dumpster. But that dumpster issue is now off the table."
The board had spent the past two meetings reviewing the request from JMF Properties, whose building will include a 120-seat restaurant to be run by Maplewood residents Tom and Jennifer Carlin who operate a similar eatery in Gladstone.
JMF had requested that the dumpster space be added for the restaurant to the site plan, which currently does not allow it. Initially, it was thought to be an enclosed structure to house one dumpster.
But at a Maplewood Village Alliance (MVA) meeting in November it was revealed the structure would house nine dumpsters, with two or three of them for existing businesses Village Coffee and Mt. Fuji whose dumpsters are currently behind their buildings and not enclosed.
The dumpsters would have been housed in a structure that would take up at least two existing parking spaces in the Village Coffee lot near the pedestrian tunnel to Memorial Park.
But now a new request to approve a smaller structure behind the post office site will be considered. The Planning Board meeting is set for Feb. 14 at 8 p.m., in Town Hall.
Planning Board needs to tell them to put it inside the building as originally agreed to. The original agreement by the TC and the developer was that the building would be presentable on all four sides. Looking from the train platform as I do every day, twice a day, we will see the crappy metal corrugated roof of the dumpster bunker. And the olfactory welcome to Maplewood will be just lovely.... "L’arôme de la Dumpster" - Is that the special "Wellness" aromatherapy that JMF referred to when he "sold" the idea of this building to the town?
ReplyDeleteAs usual, the developer and the town present a problem so egregious that it has to be refused. Then the developer/town/mayor Deluca push forward a solution that is a compromise. And since the first submittal is so egregious, the revised one seems like a breath of fresh air (ha) and gets accepted while all decision makers lose sight of the original intent. This is a typical Mayor Vic Deluca strategy....and he makes sure that he comes out looking like the ...well...the Victor, and smelling like a rose.