A three-and-a-half year fight to stop a Wawa from coming to Route 17 in Ramsey may come to a close.
RAMSEY -- A three-and-a-half year fight to stop a Wawa from coming to Route 17 in Ramsey may end Wednesday night.
Attorneys for the developer, a group of residents and the owners of a service station, who all oppose the Wawa, will summarize their cases at a planning board meeting at 8 p.m.
Afterward, the planning board may vote on whether the project should go forward. The developer plans to build a 5,000 square-foot convenience store with a 16-pump gas station.
Residents of the nearby Bear Cove 55-and-over condominium community say the Wawa will cause traffic problems.
"If you've got 200 cars coming in and out at a busy time and you've only got 50 feet to turn, you've got a traffic issue," said Richard Krim, a Bear Cove resident and one of the organizers of Concerned Residents of Ramsey Borough, a group of about 50 Bear Cove residents that hired a lawyer to oppose the Wawa application.
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The Wawa will be located right next to Bear Cove. Residents fear the noise and activity will hurt their quality of life, Krim said.
CoreMark Group of Wyckoff is developing the Wawa through a limited liability corporation called V-Boys Ramsey Holdings. A company official did not return a call seeking comment.
The developer has made minor concessions through the long planning board fight, Krim said. For example, they have turned the proposed building to move the flow of garbage and delivery trucks away from nearby homes, though Krim said this moves the bright canopy lights above the gas station closer.
The developer has a right to build something at the former site of Cury's Sport Shop, Krim said. But it has to be a smaller business that generates less traffic, he said.
If the vote goes against Bear Cove and the other opponents, Exxon Mobile of Ramsey, Krim said it's still possible for the Wawa plan to be defeated. First, the state Department of Transportation needs to give the builder an access permit, which Krim called "a heck of a hurdle," given what he said were the site's traffic issues.
Second, Concerned Residents of Ramsey is also fighting the developer in court by challenging whether a gas station is even a permitted use at the site.
Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.