Board OKs tree service biz in residential zone
Residents voice traffic concerns at recent meeting
BY MICHAEL ACKER Staff Writer

OLD BRIDGE - The owner of an Old Bridge tree service business has won approval to operate his business in a residential zone despite a number of concerns that were raised during a hearing on the application.

The business, General Green Inc., Hawkins Road, is owned by Steven Pielli and it provides firewood, insecticide spraying and landscaping services. Pielli applied for a use variance after zoning officers shut it down because it was operating in a residential zone. The business owner was seeking relief in order to legitimize his use of the property.

No fines were issued to his business, Pielli said. He said zoning officials politely told him he would have to remove his trucks until he received approval from the zoning board.

The Old Bridge zoning board approved Pielli's application after residents from Old Bridge, Manalapan and Marlboro voiced their opposition to his request on June 19.

While some people who spoke were in favor of the applicant, some residents of the area said truck traffic generated by the business has had a negative impact on their quality of life and on traffic safety in the area.

Hawkins Road has only one point of access, from Union Hill Road in Marlboro. The street runs through Marlboro and Manalapan and into a corner of Old Bridge.

Manalapan Mayor Michelle Roth spoke during the meeting and said the use the business owner was seeking is not protected under the Right to Farm Act. She said a residential zone is not the place where the zoning board should allow such a use.

"This is not in keeping with your master plan," Roth said.

It was later noted that Pielli's property is already approved as a farm.

The Manalapan mayor said she has no objection to people who run businesses, but not at their neighbors' expense. The business will have an adverse impact on more than 100 homeowners who live nearby, she added.

"These are people just like all of you who live in residential [properties], who bought in a residential zone, who do not expect to have a tree service operating in their backyard," Roth said.

Attorney Jonathan M. Heilbrunn represented the applicant and asked questions of Pielli's planner, James W. Higgins, during testimony given before the board June 19. The board also heard testimony from the applicant at its meeting June 5.

Heilbrunn noted that a tree service business such as this is not permitted in any zone in Old Bridge, yet he said it provides an important service to the public and to area municipalities that is beneficial to the town.

Higgins said the applicant is seeking to continue his farm use on the 6-acre property and said there is no significant negative impact in this use of the site. He added the applicant was seeking a variance in order to keep three trucks associated with the business in the rear of the property, where the vehicles would be out of sight from the road.

Heilbrunn noted that if the business grows, the maximum number of trucks for the site would be six.

Higgins contended that the three trucks currently used by the business would leave in the morning and return in the evening with few, if any, trips back to the Hawkins Road location.

However, residents who live nearby later expressed skepticism about that assertion and said they have seen the trucks go in and out of the site during the day.

Higgins also testified that school buses that service Hawkins Road have adequate room in order to drive on the opposite side of the road when a truck is there. He said while the Old Bridge portion of Hawkins Road is tight, it is navigable for a school bus. "There is adequate width for Pielli's vehicles to go down and school buses to go up," Higgins said.

Higgins said the business is centrally located near the towns it serves. He said the only materials that would be stored on the site are firewood the applicant sells, which he is permitted to do according to the Right to Farm Act.

"The impact on the neighborhood is minimal," Higgins said.

Hawkins Road resident Thomas Peterson said the character of the road he grew up on has changed over the 47 years he has lived there. He said the truck traffic on the road makes it hazardous for his children to ride their bicycles and said loud vibrations from the trucks can be felt from his home. He said he was opposed to adding commercial traffic on Hawkins Road.

Board Chairman Kiran Desai said zoning board members had visited the site and said they would make a decision after testimony was presented to them to determine whether the application met the burden of proof to satisfy the use variance under case law and statutory law. The board members later voted to approve the use variance Pielli sought to keep the business on his Hawkins Road property.

Pielli told Greater Media Newspapers he has been operating the business for 18 years. He noted that although the mailing address of the business is in Englishtown, it is in Old Bridge and he does not have anywhere else to store the trucks.

He commended the zoning board for the decision.

"I felt that the zoning board did a great job and they did exactly what was right," Pielli said.

Pielli said he owns a home elsewhere on Hawkins Road where his children reside and said his truck drivers are courteous to all pedestrians. He noted that the landscaping and tree service business is only part of what is done on the farm.

"People were arguing stuff that wasn't even involved," Pielli said of critics of his business. "The way that night went, it seems like it is a lot worse than it was."