HOWELL – Members of the Howell Zoning Board of Adjustment have approved an application that will bring a towing business to Oak Glen Road near Route 547.
The applicant, Mobile Tech Security Systems, LLC, and the owners, MRW Properties, LLC, and Oak Glen 641, LLC, were seeking site plan approval and a use variance in order to construct a 4,000-square-foot building with 1,600 square feet of mezzanine offices on 14 acres at 641 Oak Glen Road. The building will house a towing business.
Mobile Tech Security Systems was represented by attorney Todd Cohen, engineer Michael Geller and planner James Higgins at the Jan. 8 zoning board meeting.
Geller described the property that is in the Agriculture Rural Estate (ARE-6) zone. He said it has 300 feet of frontage on Oak Glen Road and is 1,950 feet in depth, essentially a deep narrow property.
He said the first floor of the building would have a small waiting area for customers and a storage area for the company’s towing vehicles. Geller said the 1,600 square feet of mezzanine space will have offices to support the business.
The board’s chairman, Wendell Nanson, asked Geller if the proposed business would include an area for damaged vehicles.
Geller said a rear parking area for damaged vehicles will have its own fenced-in space within the entire fenced-in compound.
Nanson asked if the applicant would have a problem using concrete instead of asphalt in the area where the damaged vehicles would be stored, saying, “Diesel fuels, gasoline, motor oils, they eat right through asphalt.”
The chairman said he had environmental concerns regarding contaminants.
“My concern is infiltrating oils, gases, diesel fuel … because right behind you is a very environmentally sensitive area,” Nanson said.
The owner of Mobile Tech Security Systems, Chayim Goodman, agreed to make the entire area in question concrete.
Geller went on to describe the business, saying, “The towing business is known as All The Way Towing and it has been in business for about 12-plus years. Their current site (is at the intersection of) Lakewood-Farmingdale Road and County Line Road in Lakewood.
“They will relocate to this facility in Howell. They have contracts with the New Jersey State Police and they are on the Howell Police Department towing list. Currently the business owner is the applicant and there are one or two other employees,” Geller said.
“Vehicles are towed to and parked at the site. Typically, 70 percent of the vehicles that are towed are (at the business) for less than three days. Sometimes (a vehicle) may stay for a week to 10 days depending on the nature of the damage to the vehicle and the need for inspection by insurance companies,” he said.
According to the testimony, an average of five vehicles a day will be towed to the site. No vehicles will be sold, no repairs will be conducted and no fuel will be stored at the Oak Glen Road facility.
Nanson asked Goodman, the business’s owner, if large vehicles such as tractor-trailers will be towed to the location on Oak Glen Road.
Goodman responded, saying, “(Howell) has basically two categories, one is standard and the other is called heavy. Heavy is where you see huge tow trucks that tow tractor-trailers and such. We have not applied for that yet, we are not equipped yet to do that, so we are not talking about any tractor-trailers. We are just going to be dealing with cars and the like, sometimes maybe a box truck or a van type of vehicle.”
Following the applicant’s presentation, board members unanimously approved the construction of the building and the operation of the towing business. No one from the public commented on the application.
