Planning Board approves 50,000-sq.-ft. warehouse BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer The Edison Township Planning Board unanimously approved the construction of an approximately 50,000-square-foot warehouse, along with a temporary parking lot that would be used as a staging area for construction equipment as well as a place to park tractor-trailers. The applicant, 500 RCP Associates, explained that they would be returning in about one to two years' time to request another, 75,000-square-foot building where the temporary parking lot is slated to be made. The subdivision, located at 500 Raritan Center Parkway, is a little to the south of Woodbridge Avenue in Edison's southeast corner. There are currently no prospective clients for the building. There was some discussion by board members about the necessity of having the temporary parking lot. "It seems rather large an area that's being [laid out]. For a 50,000-square-foot building, you have 200,000 square feet," said board chairman Dennis Pipala. Robert Fritz, the applicant's vice president of construction, said that this is because of the second building that would be going up. A discussion that took up a large portion of the meeting's time, however, was devoted to concerns that had been lodged by the Edison Wetlands Association (EWA), a local environmental group. In a letter sent to the board, it was stated that the proposed site for the buildings is the subject of an ongoing action by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency involving the illegal filling of wetlands on that lot. The EPA had ordered the firm Garden State Buildings Associates to remove material illegally filling the wetlands there and to make further mitigation efforts to compensate. According to the EPA, this has yet to happen. Therefore, the EWA suggested that the board not approve the building application until that matter is cleared up. W. Lane Miller, attorney for the applicant, said the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the one that issues permits in these matters, not the EPA, and therefore the matter is with the state, not federal, government. However, he also went on to say that the DEP wouldn't give them permission without the EPA's go-ahead anyway, and so Planning Board approval wouldn't necessarily mean they would be able to interfere with the EPA's and DEP's wishes. Miller also said that the issue was more complicated than the EWA's letter made it out to be, though he did not elaborate. In the end, the board unanimously approved the application, contingent upon the firm getting approval from the DEP and EPA. The board also said the applicant needs to make a good-faith effort to find bigger trees to replace ones they would be removing to build.