August 20, 2014 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 7 Wyckoff Planning board’s decision affirmed by Superior Court by John Koster A Superior Court judge has upheld the Wyckoff Planning Board’s decision to grant approval for construction of a new Inserra ShopRite supermarket at the former loca- tion of the A&P supermarket. “The court finds that the planning board did not act arbitrarily, capriciously, or unrea- sonably in approving applicant Inserra’s application or granting it variance relief,” wrote Judge William C. Meehan. “Neither is a reversal of the planning board’s deci- sion warranted based upon plaintiffs’ other allegations of jurisdictional and procedural defects in the application or of the planning board members’ allegedly improper bias in favor of Inserra and against plaintiffs.” The judge also found that the plaintiffs appeared to have acted improperly when they attempted to link then-Mayor Kevin Rooney to the application hearing when Rooney, a member of the planning board in his role as mayor and part-owner of an adjacent property, had properly recused himself. The plaintiffs -- the landowners of Boul- der Run and the management of the compet- ing Stop & Shop supermarket -- appealed the Wyckoff Planning Board’s decision to grant a number of variances to the appli- cant, and took the case to Superior Court. The Wyckoff hearings, which went on for two years, were widely seen as a stall tactic by many of the township residents who spoke at two public comment sessions. Opinions from residents not financially involved on either side showed that about 80 percent of the private Wyckoff citizens favored the ShopRite plan, 10 percent were opposed, and 10 percent would have pre- ferred a smaller store, but were not opposed to a new supermarket. The old A&P parking lot which will serve as the Inserra ShopRite location has been vacant for a dozen years, though the nearby office of the Division of Motor Vehicles closed several years ago to make room for an oblique expansion of the building on the site. The Superior Court categorically rejected the assertions that the plaintiffs made in appealing the variances by the Wyckoff Planning Board. Judge Meehan noted that 38 public meetings had been held from July 2010 to November 2012 before the Wyckoff Planning Board voted 8-0 to approve the application subject to certain conditions. Stop & Shop filed a verified complaint on April 1, 2013. The court ruled that the plan- ning board of the Township of Wyckoff had properly considered the application. Judge Meehan, however, granted permission for a re-filing when an alleged conflict of inter- est between the Wyckoff Planning Board’s traffic engineer, Gary Dean, was raised. (continued on page 27)