March 10, 2010 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • Page 5 Mahwah Parents’ group files appeal in Pilot case by Frank J. McMahon The attorney for Parents for Safety LLC has filed an appeal in Superior Court of the Mahwah Zoning Board of Adjustment’s approval of the Pilot Corporation’s expansion and renovation plans for its Route 17 property. Parents for Safety is a non-profit organization created by parents of children who attend the schools on Ridge Road. Attorney Ira Weiner advised that, while his appeal contains some of the same arguments that are in the appeal previously filed by Pak’s Fast Service, Inc, owner of the Valero service station north of the Pilot site, the parents’ lawsuit emphasizes that the board’s interpretation that the project proposed by Pilot was a service station was legally erroneous. According to the new suit, the board should have applied the proofs for a use variance and not a conditional use variance. The appeal also claims that the board failed to properly consider the expert testimony presented in opposition to Pilot’s plan and disregarded it, and states the board did not consider that the Pilot design contains serious safety concerns that are substantially detrimental to the public good. In addition, the appeal claims the Pilot site plan design required a subdivision, but one was not part of the application. As a result, the additional variances that were required were not granted. The appeal also claims that the board ignored the hazmat testimony that the proposed plan would present a substantial risk to the nearby high school and other schools along Ridge Road and was, therefore, substantially detrimental to the public good. The appeal claims the board’s approval of the Pilot plan was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable and it seeks a reversal of the board’s approval. Wiener said he will argue in court that the Pilot site is incompatible next to a school and it should not be there. The council, he said, supported this viewpoint, but the board ignored it. He was referring to the township ordinance that was adopted during Pilot’s previous application before the planning board which prohibits service stations within 500 feet of a school property. The separate appeal filed in Superior Court by Kevin Moore, the attorney for Pak’s Fast Service, Inc., has been assigned to Superior Court Judge Joseph S. Conte. The Pak’s suit claims the board’s acceptance of Pilot’s lay and expert witnesses and its rejection of Pak’s expert witnesses was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable, and the board’s resolution of approval failed to set forth adequate findings of fact and conclusions of law as required by state law. Pak’s also claims in its lawsuit that the zoning board applied the wrong standard in deciding whether there were special reasons to support the grant of the D-3 variance, which allows the conditional use notwithstanding the deviation from one or more conditions imposed by the zoning ordinance, in this case the proximity to the school property. Pak’s further claims the board applied the wrong legal standard in deciding whether it could grant the D-3 variance without substantial detriment to the public good and without substantially impairing the intent and purpose of the township’s master plan. The Pilot plan that was approved by the zoning board includes a cleanup of any soil contamination on the site, the demolition of the complete site and its reconstruction into a fueling service station with a six station truck diesel fueling area and a 12 station car fueling area, each with overhead canopies, and the construction of a new 4,282 square foot convenience store on the site. The plan eliminates 90 percent of the existing truck spaces on the property and all overnight truck parking, and permits the local police department to enforce the state’s law restricting the idling of trucks. The Pilot plan also includes the closure of the Ridge Road access to the site and the installation of an eight-foot high pool-size chain link fence with landscaping along the Ridge Road side of the Pilot property in order to separate the Pilot site from the school property. The zoning board approved the plan by Pilot to change the use of its site from a truck stop to a service station, even though a township ordinance that was adopted just prior to the Pilot application being submitted to the zoning board does not permit service stations within 500 feet of a school property, based on its conclusion that the site continued to be appropriate for the conditional use allowed by the township’s zoning ordinance. Active imagination Ron Melamed of Mahwah made this creation of a tree that he imagined. In honor of the holiday Tu B’Shvat (the Jewish Arbor Day), Ron and his Kitah Gimmel (fifth grade) classmates did a guided meditation during which each imagined that he or she were a tree. Then the students were given materials to create what that tree would look like. The combined creations will be made into a mural to decorate Temple Israel of Ridgewood’s religious school.