RESIDENTS OF ELK TWP OPPOSE PLANS FOR FUEL STATION/TRUCK STOP
Published in The Sentinel of Gloucester County Printed/Digital Edition Week of 6/26/2025
By Cindy Merckx/Editor
Elk Township Planning Board members were met by a meeting room packed with residents last week (6/18). The board members returned to this months meeting to continue the public portion of an application made by Jai & Jas Real Estate LLC requesting to construct two (2) fueling stations, a convenience store and site improvements to a 57-acre property at the busy intersection of Elk Road (CR538) and Buck Road.
The Board had listened to plans by the professionals of the applicant at the May meeting. Several residents attended that meeting. The Board has an 11PM stop rule for all business, so the meeting had to be continued this month. The property currently contains an existing dwelling, four outbuildings, farmland and woodlands and is currently qualified farmland that is in the Commercial Zoning District. There are several residential properties that border this property to the west on Elk Road as well as Buck Road.
The applicant proposes to provide both regular and diesel fuel for motorists and stated in their plans they need 24 spaces for automobile parking and 28 spaces for truck parking. They also plan to demolish some of the buildings located on the property. The Gloucester County Planning Board had comments in the Engineers report stating that they reviewed their plans (1/18/25) and noted that the proposed ingress only access along Buck Road must be closed to turning movements from the County Road. They recommended the plans be revised to comply with the County Planning Board review.
Several residents shared their opposition publicly to the applicant’s proposal. ” I am against it,” said Elk Road resident Charles Dickinson. “There is no shoulder and we don’t need more traffic.” The applicant plans to clear a portion of the woodlands on the property. Residents stated their concerns with the wetlands buffer around the southern portion of the property near an existing pond. “You are taking away nature and we all have private wells.”
The applicants attorney agreed to comply with the Townships Tree Replacement plan. Their site plan proposes three underground fuel storage containers that raised residents concerns if a spill should happen. They questioned the safety of the gas tanks if they should leak and the impact it could have on their drinking water, including those residents located downstream at Garrison Lake.
Elk Township resident Joe Collins stated that he was the school business administrator for Aura school district and that the additional truck traffic would be a safety factor that the board should consider because several children in that area are transported by school bus.
Buck Road resident Jeff Huntsinger stated that his property is located next to the proposed fuel station/truck stop. “I want more buffering from the sound of the diesel noise from trucks. The woods needs to be protected and so does the wetlands.”
Railroad Avenue resident Frank Goss stated that he was a member of the Environmental Commission and they are opposed to the removal of trees. “We need to protect our forests and our water from pollution from diesel fuel,” he stated to the board. ” I think they should rearrange their plans to put it on higher ground.”
The meeting adjourned at 11PM and the application will be continued at the July 16th Planning/Zoning Board meeting at 7PM at the Elk Township Municipal Building.