Ramsey shoots down planned Wawa after 3-year fight

The planning board said the proposed Wawa would be too cramped to be safe.

RAMSEY -- Residents won a three-and-a-half year fight Wednesday to stop a Wawa from coming to Ramsey.

The borough planning board voted after a three-hour meeting to reject a plan to build a Wawa with a 5,000-square-foot convenience store and eight fuel pumps.

Members of the board said the location was too cramped for Wawa's proposal on Route 17 north, where sporting goods shop Cury's was once located.

"I believe the current plan is too big for the property," said board member Carl Weber.

Andy Del Vecchio, the attorney for developers V-Boys Ramsey Holdings, said in his closing statement that his clients had more than addressed resident concerns by adding a 25-foot buffer and three rows of 14-foot-high plants in between the planned Wawa and the Bear Cove over-55 condominium complex to the north of the property.

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A group of 53 residents hired attorney Robert Inglima to fight the proposed Wawa. Richard Krim, one of the organizers of the group, known as Concerned Residents of Ramsey, said he had nothing personal against Wawa.

"We just realized that it would be a bad thing for Ramsey," he said.

Inglima argued the planned Wawa would generate too much traffic and would be too cramped for trucks to safely circulate through its parking lot.

Del Vecchio declined to comment on what his clients would do next. V-Boys applied in 2013 to build the Wawa.

Planning board chairman Rudolph Iorio said the three-and-a-half years of meetings, with 80 hours of testimony, encompassed the longest application the planning board had ever handled.