The Board of Adjustment will continue a public hearing on April 6 concerning Main Towing’s request for zoning variances to expand its operations into two residential lots on busy Union Turnpike.
The company, which provides tow truck services to many municipalities including North Bergen, was the focus of a contentious Board of Adjustment meeting on Feb. 16 when neighbors opposed their application.
According to Board of Adjustment Attorney John Dineen, in June 2010 the township sued John Appello of Main Towing in Superior Court after learning he had allegedly expanded his business to two residential lots without obtaining zoning variances. Dineen said Main Towing had refused to stop operating.
“Traffic is not as bad as people are complaining about it.” — Sonya Velasquez
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Appello and his attorney, J. Alvaro Alonso, asked the courts to allow Appello to continue operating on the lots until the board made a decision, but the request was denied. Alonso and Appello claim that Appello went to former Construction Code Official Brian Ribarro for a demolition permit for two houses that once stood on the lots. Appello was also given verbal consent to expand his business without coming in front of the board, they said.
The board does not approve demolition permits, only zoning variances. Appello’s commercial business is operating in a residential zone. His original location had been granted a non-conforming use variance because he was in business before the town’s current zoning was put into place, but the two additional lots are zoned residential.
When residents around Main Towing grew upset with what they saw as an expansion, Zoning board member John Bender, who also lives nearby, signed a formal complaint with the township.
At the hearing, Bender was asked to recuse himself for that reason. He said he has a signed affidavit by Ribarro stating Ribarro “did not give them permission for anything other than taking down the houses.”
Appello said that now all of his nearly 40 trucks are back on his business’s original lot.
“The more trucks you pull out, the more there’s a stop and go,” he said.
Trucks idling?
Appello said when his business expanded, his neighbors were happy because fewer vehicles had to be moved to get to certain pieces of equipment. He said he had larger vehicles that were rarely used parked in the back and busier vehicles parked where they could be easily accessed. Now that he’s back on his first lot, he said, sometimes they have to move 10 vehicles to get to just one.
He also said he built fences on the rear of his property for neighbors facing his business.
“My one neighbor said ‘If you do what I just asked you to do, you’ll never hear from me again,’ ” Appello said.
During his testimony, Appello said that his trucks did not idle, although he also said that four of his new diesel technology vehicles “burn so clean they can idle indefinitely.”
Alonso argued that granting the variances for the two lots would allow the trucks to be off the road, which would please Appello’s neighbors. Approval would bring his combined lot size to 33,259 square feet.
Questions of expansion
At the recent meeting, Township Planner Jill Hortmann asked Appello how much his business has grown over the last 25 years.
“My point is that as you expand, you need more land,” said Hortmann. “It’s always a self imposed hardship, that these trucks are on the street as you expand your tow trucks and flat beds, it’s because you need more property. To say ‘I need these lots’…it’s not legal to increase what you need to do … because you have expanded beyond the lots that you own.”
Appello said his trucks had designated parking spaces, but many residents during the public portion said that his large vehicles routinely blocked the sidewalk, even when his business was operating on the two other lots.
Jose Giro, a resident who lives behind the business, said that he finds it “very hard to believe” that Appello had no idea the two lots were non-conforming and that he would need a variance. He also asked why an attorney involved in the purchase didn’t point this out to him.
“It’s a 24-hour-a-day business,” said Dennis Cernek, another neighbor. “Which means at 2:30 a.m. trucks are being started with alarms going off. And the fact is that my property value has gone downhill, being that the economy is already bad enough.”
During Cernek’s testimony, Appello said “you’re not keeping your word,” to which Cernek replied, “I never got to pick what fence I wanted.”
Park problems
Giro asked if Appello had legally installed a security camera in 43rd Street Park, which abuts the property and allegedly overlooks the Main Towing location.
“This is not a telephone pole; it’s a steel pole holding up a camera and lighting for his location. That’s all it is,” said Giro. “What if a kid runs around and cracks his head on it, who pays?”
Eric Brescher, who said he would soon be moving to the neighborhood, questioned how diesel engines could be running on a regular basis right next to a park.
“He’s saying he’s not idling trucks, but [he also said] we can run these things all day long and not have a problem with the EPA,” said Brescher. “EPA [employees] wouldn’t live next to a truck idling all day.”
Main Towing employee Robert Heiser said that trucks usually only idle for two minutes before leaving.
Sidewalk woes
“There are always trucks,” said Sonya Bhate. “They are occasionally idling around the park. I have a two-and-a-half year old son and we walk around the sidewalk onto the street to the park. There’s no walking on the sidewalk because their trucks are constantly there.”
Bhate said that the constant moving of Main Towing vehicles causes traffic to back up onto Union Turnpike, while Board Chairperson Anthony Vainieri said that traffic wasn’t due to this single business but congestion throughout Hudson County.
“Traffic has always been an issue,” said Sonya Velasquez, an employee. “Traffic is not as bad as people are complaining about it.”
Ramon Solomon said that he had lived nearby for 25 years and never had a problem with Main Towing, saying that Appello has always been a good neighbor and plows their snow for them.
“They have always cleaned the streets, [but] they have thrown the snow on the sidewalk of the cemetery making it impossible for the rest of us to walk up the hill,” said Gil Oscar. “When they are moving all of the trucks around we have to stop for them to move the trucks. I have a problem with the business. We don’t want this business around in our neighborhood, stopping traffic all the time and we don’t have anybody taking care of this.”
The next hearing, which will include testimony from Appello’s traffic consultant, is scheduled for April 6 at 7 p.m.
Tricia Tirella may be reached at TriciaT@hudsonreporter.com.