I am the Waterford Township Planning Board Planner and a resident of the Township. The Insurance Auto Auction application (IAA) dominated our agenda for nearly a year, with all meetings taking place on Zoom because of COVID 19 bullsh%t. The applicant presented an expert for every facet of the proposal including air quality, noise, groundwater contamination, traffic engineering, wetlands, T&E, etc. The early meetings were completely consumed by hours of testimony from all of their experts.
The proposal was to store 5,000 or more accident-damaged, fire-damaged or flood-damaged vehicles on paved and unpaved surfaces throughout the upland portions of the property. Deliveries to the site would be made directly from accident scenes. An interested person could bid on those vehicles and have the vehicle picked up. Some of IAA's vehicles are drivable and some are badly damaged and are suited for parts salvaging by the buyer. IAA made it very clear that no parts removal would be performed on the site. Some vehicles can be viewed on IAA's current website, are actually sold with a biohazard warning, ostensibly because of blood or other materials left behind from a person who may have been severely injured in the vehicle.
Because everyone was new to Zoom, we had many glitches including exceeding attendee capacity on the very first meeting. The meeting had to be canceled because the public was unintentionally denied participation. Then, a few meetings in, we were booted off because the Township failed to pay a monthly renewal fee. The fee was paid after about 10 minutes of dead air but the meeting had to canceled anyway because people who had logged in and then kicked off would not have known to log back in. After that everyone became fairly adept with Zoom and we were able to eventually hear all of the public comment..
Pinelands did in fact issue an Inconsistent Certificate of Filing which allows an applicant to move forward at the local level. The inconsistency was an easily resolvable adjustment in some of the applicant's stormwater management design elements. The Pinelands Commission voiced no objections but the Pinelands Preservation Alliance certainly did and had someone in attendance at every meeting.
The application was ultimately denied by our Board and IAA did not appeal.
6abc.com
www.bamberlakeautorecycling.com
42freeway.com
