Wawa planned for Route 73 in Voorhees clears legal hurdle

TRENTON - The state Supreme Court won't consider a legal challenge to a planned Wawa store in Voorhees.

The Wawa’s opponents sued in February 2022 after Voorhees’ zoning board approved the proposed 5,500-square-foot store and fueling station at Route 73 and Kresson Road.

But a Superior Court judge and an appeals court both upheld the board’s decision..

The Supreme Court said Friday it would not take on the case.

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The dispute focused on the board’s approval of a variance needed for a secondary access driveway on Kresson Road.

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While commercial use is permitted in almost all of the four-acre site, the driveway would pass through about small area zoned residential/rural.

“The zoning board is pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision electing not to hear the appeal,” said Christopher Norman, a Stratford attorney representing the township.

He said professional engineers for both Wawa and the zoning board had concluded the driveway “represented a better traffic design plan than restricting access to/from the Wawa exclusively on Route 73, directly adjacent to a traffic-light intersection.”

"There was never any question that the Voorhees zoning board approval was carefully considered and well thought out in every instance," said Timothy Prime, a Mount Laurel lawyer who represented Wawa.

"The appeals were a waste of time and money for everyone including Voorhees Township taxpayers," he said.

Howard Sobel, lawyer for the plaintiffs, declined to comment.

The high court's decision comes after a six-year effort by Wawa to develop the Voorhees site.

The convenience store operator initially proposed sharing the property with Tractor Supply Co. in April 2018.

That sparked strong opposition from neighbors and the planning board rejected the project in August 2018.

Tractor Supply Co. moved to another site on Route 73 in Berlin Township, and Wawa submitted a revised plan in December 2019.

The lawsuit was filed by Sobel's Voorhees Law Center, a firm next to the proposed driveway, and Kresson Road residents Heather and Thomas Furey.

According to an appellate ruling in March, the opponents raised traffic concerns and said the removal of a large tree for the driveway would disrupt buffering and landscaping outside the Law Center’s building.

They also argued the project would “increase sunlight, to the detriment of the Law Center and its koi pond.”

Among other points, the appeals court rejected arguments that Wawa had not met the criteria for a zoning variance and that the opponents had been denied due process.

The three-judge panel determined the board’s approval was “supported by sufficient, credible evidence in the record,and is not arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable.”

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Wawa planned for Route 73 in Voorhees clears legal hurdle