Heritage Bay Residents Raise Concerns Over New Shopping Center Plans

Dozens of Heritage Bay residents packed the Tuesday night to hear testimony and express concerns as the Barnegat Township Planning Board addressed an initial application for a new retail center on West Bay Avenue.

Heritage Bay builders Mignatti Companies hopes to build a 35,700-square-foot shopping center on the 5.5-acre, zoned-commercial wooded lot at the southeast corner of West Bay Avenue and Sandpiper Road, a plan that has some residents concerned about traffic on their neighborhood’s access road as well as disturbance from late-night activity.

The plan to build shops on the site is nothing new, said Mignatti attorney John Doyle.

“It has been for decades zoned and planned to be used for the use the applicant wants to put it to,” he told the board. “The township itself has designed this as a town center area that is looking to produce ratables and jobs. We want to be a part of that.”

Doyle said Mignatti’s plans are in line with existing ordinances, and the company is seeking no variances. Still, he said, “we have neighbors, and I think Mignatti prides themselves on being good people, good builders and good neighbors,” and would listen to nearby residents’ concerns.

One such concern is potential traffic problems, said several members of the Heritage Bay community, an over-55 development also built by Mignatti.

In addition to a right-in, right-out entrance on West Bay Avenue, plans call for an entrance and exit from the shopping center onto Sandpiper Road, which would allow visitors to make left turns at the light at the intersection of West Bay and Sandpiper.

“We have a problem already getting out of Heritage Bay,” said Vincent Green. “Three cars can only get out, because the traffic light’s too short. These cars coming in and coming out of Sandpiper, it’s going to to cause accidents. It’s a safety problem.”

Potential danger to pedestrians is also a worry, he said.

“We have a lot of people walking on the sidewalk, and they have to go past this entrance and exit,” said Green.

Doyle and Mignatti’s engineer and planner Frank Baer said the company would conduct a traffic study and submit it to the county. But Heritage Bay resident Edward Gallagher said that information should already be in hand.

“There’s no thought that’s been given to the traffic that’s going to be caused by that little opening,” he said. “I don’t consider that good engineering at all.”

Others raised concerns about the proximity of the new center to their homes, and said they worried that the potential 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. activity of retail outlets there would infringe on their peaceful community, where many people go to bed early and rise late.

Mignatti would leave a 50-foot forested buffer between the Heritage property line and the new shopping center, said Baer, which itself is at least 30 feet from the edge individual residents’ properties.

But Joan Ailara said the constant traffic could spoil the peace and privacy residents were promised when they moved in.

“[Mignatti] marketed it as a senior community, and he said it would be always to our benefit,” she said. If people are coming and going through their neighborhood access road from early morning until late at night, “you’re already hurting half the people in Heritage Bay."

The public hearing on the application will continue at the next regular Planning Board meeting, which will be held at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27 in the courtroom.