Billboards Again the Focus of Planning Board Meeting

On the agenda for Thursday night's planning board meeting were six applications to put billboards and other signs throughout the town. And while the board only heard three of them, it was the one which they did not have the authority to decide on that raised the most questions.

New Jersey Transit brought before the board a presentation showing their plans to put a billboard on their Route 9 property. And while the billboard question is nothing new to the board members, because it was coming from a state entity, they could only give suggestions rather than approving or denying a site plan. 

The biggest questions from the presentation focused on the plan's proposed height of 60 feet while township ordinance calls for a maximum height of 45 feet. After much discussion there was finally agreement that the transportation company would comply with the local ordinance. 

As far as the design of the proposed billboard, representatives from New Jersey Transit said it would measure the "industry standard" of 14 feet high by 48 feet wide.

Councilman Robert Nicastro, who also serves on the planning board, asked that the height also match what the other signs in town measure. "I know that New Jersey Transit is a good neighbor, maybe they would consider at least complying to what we've already approved so that we have uniformity in our town," he said. 

Board Attorney Ronald Cucchiaro agreed with the councilman's assessment, especially in light of the other applications that were on the agenda for the night. "Yours will be quite out of the prevailing scheme that we have along the corridor," he said. 

After taking a recess the applicants had originally agreed to lower their sign to 50 feet. Board Chairman Vincent Tantillo said that would not be agreeable to the board and eventually the height was dropped to the recommended 45 feet. 

The applicant also agreed to leave the billboard as a non-digital display after questions were raised as to whether it would have and LCD display in the future. Should they decide to go with the digital display, the applicants did agree that they would go before the planning board at that time to update them on the changes. 

By the time the meeting was done New Jersey Transit agreed to follow the suggestions made by the board as they continue the planning and execution of the project.