C-Town may move to former Foodtown site
BY TOM CAIAZZA
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY Staff 126 Main St., formerly Foodtown and Harris Hardware, is the proposed site of C-Town, a supermarket chain. A special planning board meeting will be held on June 19 to hear testimony for the approval of the site.

MATAWAN - The Unified Planning and Zoning Board tabled an application that would allow C-Town Supermarkets to open a store in downtown Matawan called Main Street Market.

The application, which has been scheduled to be heard at a special meeting on June 19, hinged on whether a mixed-use variance stands if the applicant fails to act on it. The applicant was told by the board to publish new legal notices announcing it was seeking certain variances just in case they are needed later on.

The 126 Main St. site has been vacant for more than a year, after a wholesale/retail bakery that was slated to fill the spot never materialized.

The White Plains, N.Y.-based supermarket chain, which has 200 locations in five states including New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was denied approval on April 11 by Zoning Officer Paul E. Reinhold III because the store did not comply with the proper zoning specifications for the site.

The site is the former home of a Foodtown and was later a hardware store. The site was approved for wholesale/retail purposes to accommodate a bakery, and some discrepancy exists as to whether the variance defaults back to that of a grocery permit because the bakery never opened.

The application was tabled due to a discrepancy regarding the amount of parking a wholesale/retail bakery requires as opposed to a grocery store.

Attorney Louis Granata, who represented the applicant at the hearing, filed a notice asking for the board to hear testimony on a site plan that would make known the use and dimensions of the proposed application.

Planning Board Attorney Mike Irene said that Granata's notice was insufficient because it failed to ask for a use variance for parking because the site is zoned for the wholesale/retail bakery.

"This is purely a procedural issue at this point," Irene said after the meeting.

Irene said the board's professionals said that parking might require a variance and that the applicant should notice for it accordingly.

Granata disputed this claim.

"I'm a permitted use," Granata said. "Nothing is changing. I don't believe there are any variances required."

Granata said that C-Town was not notified that a variance was needed, and that the resolution that changed the zoning has expired due to a lack of use and should revert back to the way it was under the Foodtown and hardware store.

Irene said that the site plan for C-Town may be different from what was approved for Foodtown years earlier, and that what may be required for the Foodtown may not apply to the C-Town, depending on its use, square footage, and other factors.

"It was a procedural review of the notice," Irene said.

Irene told Granata that he would have to file another notice, including the application for a use variance to make sure that no problems arise later on. Irene said that if the application is approved, and later in the process, even a few years down the line, the notice is found to be insufficient, it could be detrimental to the process.

Granata said that the application doesn't have to reapprove existing conditions. He agreed to refile the notice to comply with the board's request, a process that would take several weeks.

Irene suggested that the notice ask for relief from this variance and include "catch-all" language that essentially covers all minor variances that may come up, but did not send up flags this early in the application.

Borough Council candidate Joseph Mullaney, the father of Council President Meghan Mullaney and a local business owner, has endorsed the supermarket chain's interest in Matawan, and said that the delay in completion of the Main Street Market will likely cost the company thousands of dollars.