Residents press council on warehouse growth, traffic impacts and ordinance status

At the April 22 Franklin Township Council meeting, several residents used the public-comment period to press the council and municipal staff for details about commercial warehouse development, heavy truck traffic and the status of related ordinances and traffic mitigations.

Michael Bridal, a Canal Walk resident, told the council he had counted “about 50 tandem dump trucks a day” using Schoolhouse Road to reach a nearby construction site and said repeated calls to the police traffic division produced delayed or unclear responses. Bridal asked specifically about planned traffic cameras and the geographic boundaries of a posted 4-ton truck limit on sections of Schoolhouse Road.

Norman Roberts, who attended a planning-board session, said a traffic consultant’s study reported “a large number of failing intersections” and that the consultant suggested some truck rerouting. Roberts asked the council how the planned warehouse ordinance — discussed in planning-board recommendations — would integrate the traffic study. “Before we adopt a new warehouse ordinance … we have to have an answer as to how the traffic study integrates with this ordinance,” Roberts said.

Jan Brandt and Debbie Stewart also addressed warehouses. Brandt cited figures provided to her by a local contact: “6,443,567 square feet of warehouses in Franklin Township have been built or are in the process of being built; 749,000 have been approved but haven't been built yet; and over a million have completed applications,” she said, and quoted the traffic consultant’s conclusion that completed applications could push many intersections to an F level.

Township counsel and the township manager responded in the public record that there is not currently an ordinance before the council adopting the planning board’s recommendations. Counsel said the council previously adopted a 500-foot buffer ordinance and later adopted an ordinance prohibiting warehouses as a permitted use; both measures led to consolidated lawsuits that remain pending and have affected the flow of applications. Counsel explained that planning-board reports are recommendations and that any ordinance must be introduced and adopted in the council chamber for public notice and hearings.

On the matter of truck enforcement, the township manager said weight-restriction signs on Schoolhouse Road predate current construction and that state law permits trucks to use a road to make local deliveries; he said the contractor hauling fill to a project at 31 Schoolhouse Road agreed as a courtesy to reroute some loads but that trucks legally may continue deliveries. The manager also said some traffic cameras have been mounted on utility poles and that PSE&G had granted permission for most installations, with one remaining pole awaiting utility permissions and power connections.

Council members said they would continue to rely on planning, engineering and police staff to coordinate responses and reiterated that draft ordinances are not the same as formal council actions.

No new ordinance was introduced or adopted at the meeting; council members and staff encouraged residents to monitor public materials from the planning board and to raise specific questions at hearings when a formal ordinance is introduced.