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| The Erdner Warehouse — a vestige of the past with its inspirational quotes leading into Woodstown. The Pilesgrove Warehouses are an example of an ever-growing issue plaguing the Garden State — they comply with zoning ordinances that were written long before the sprawl of warehouses. |
First and foremost, what I wrote was entirely my opinion. I post news here, and though what I was writing about was "news" in the sense that it happened (the warehouses are being built), I wrote about it through the lens of my own anger about what's to come because of the warehouses.
To be fair, however, I took some shots at our elected officials. Though I don't feel they are immune from criticism or accountability as public figures and elected officials — there are a few things that need to be clarified. (*Also, a disclaimer, that since I was discussing politics, absolutely nothing I wrote was meant to have been taken or should have been taken personally.)
According to Carey Marie Italiano, a Pilesgrove resident with a background in law and business administration, the township committee was essentially out of options.
"It is illegal for Pilesgrove to say a commercial contractor cannot build a commercial structure on their commercial property," Italiano wrote in a Facebook post responding to my comments about the warehouses. "[T]he warehouse developers asked for a Pilot program to be in place and Pilesgrove said 'Nah!'"
I wrote that Pilesgrove officials "sold out" the township to warehouse developers, and that's where I was incorrect — I regret the error and I take it back, because Italiano is right. It's more complicated than that.
According to one example cited in a report from The Press of Atlantic City, Pittsgrove township residents rallied against a proposed 962,500-square-foot warehouse at state Route 56 and Salem County Route 638, last May (2023)
Residents expressed concerns about the overflow of traffic and its impact on local infrastructure, sound, emissions, etc.
The planning board's solicitor, however, said, "the warehouse was a permitted use in the zone and the board couldn’t "'turn down a permitted use due to traffic concerns,'" according to the report.
The problem isn't Pilesgrove or the township officials or the many other municipalities that have tried in earnest to stop the spread of warehouses. The problem appears to be a broader systemic issue that warehouse developers are taking advantage of throughout the entire state — outdated laws.
"A lot of towns have been caught soft-footed, on unstable ground, with the boom of warehouses," said Ed Potosnack, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, in a report on NJ101.5.
Current zoning laws in most N.J. municipalities were written at a time when the likelihood of a warehouse being built in a small town was minimal. With the boom in online retail, especially exacerbated by the rise of Amazon Prime and the convenience of delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic, warehouses are a new norm and they are spreading at a record pace across the state. Even if rural land is zoned for light industrial use, the applications for warehouses are proposed in such a way that the projects fit the requirements.
Another example, in Harrison Township (Gloucester County), the township committee attempted to veto a $2.1 million industrial complex in late 2022, but the veto was reversed by the Gloucester County Superior Court the following year, according to ALM Globest.
There's also little the state itself can do because N.J. is a home-rule state, giving broad autonomy to municipalities in their zoning and planning.
In 2022, the N.J. State Planning Commission (SPC) urged municipalities to revise their zoning ordinances to protect against "poorly sited and scaled" warehouse projects.
The solution is likely even more complicated than that — but, updating and revising existing zoning and planning laws is the best place to start.
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Sources:
Reach Jim Cook at WoodstownCrier@gmail.com
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