Cherry Hill zoning board needs a third meeting to make its Land Rover decision.

A decision on whether to approve plans for an expanded Land Rover dealership on Haddonfield Road in Cherry Hill will require a third Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting, members decided after a marathon session Wednesday night.

M.B.J. Associates LLC, a unit of Cherry Hill Imports Auto Group, seeks approval for variances that will permit it to tear down the former South Jersey Women's Center on Haddonfield Road and two homes on Wynnwood Avenue to make way for car inventory and employee parking.  Cherry Hill Imports is a family business founded in 1978 that owns six dealerships in the Cherry Hill area.

The board's June 18 meeting went too late, so it continued the Land Rover testimony to Wednesday night's meeting — and that lasted more than five hours to shortly before midnight. A third meeting on the Land Rover proposal is scheduled for July 9 at 7:30 p.m.

Some neighbors, particularly in the Locustwood neighborhood, opposed the development Wednesday night.

Dawn Higgins, president of the Erlton North Windsor Civic Association and facilitator for the Council of Cherry Hill Civic Associations — representing associations in 13 neighborhoods — told the board that the council is worried about commercial encroachment into neighborhoods, especially on the west side of Cherry Hill.

"We are concerned that the neighborhoods are not getting enough consideration" in the township decisions, she told the board Wednesday night.

Frank Maloney, who lives on nearby Chambers Avenue in the shadow of several Route 70 dealerships, said M.B.J. Associates had not shown how the benefits of the proposal would outweigh the detriments. He said he has made many complaints over the years about the existing dealerships. "You would not believe the volume of letters I've sent," Maloney told the board.

Several neighbors who spoke went deeply into the details of the proposal to share their objections and concerns.

Using exhibits the applicant submitted to the zoning board, Tom Quigley of Warren Avenue pointed to two errors: one saying Cherry Hill is in Mercer County and the other saying a Vineland food company owns the dealership site. "Errors like this don't give me any confidence" in the accuracy of the detail in the drawings, Quigley told the board.

Marie Connors, who said she has lived on Mercer Street for seven years, considered buying the home she lives in until the Land Rover application. "We need a balance between commercial and residential interests in Cherry Hill," she said.

With her Mercer Street home directly across from the dealership and next to the proposed parking lot, Earthen Johnson said she is probably the most affected among her neighbors. She said the buffer between homes and the existing dealer parking lot on Wynwood is far wider than the one proposed by M.B.J. Associates for its Wynwood parking lot.

"This is not new, this is not novel," Damien Del Duca, lawyer for the applicant, Wednesday night said of the proposed  parking lots. Del Duca showed photographs of Wynnwood Avenue, which now is a one-way feeder street from Route 70 to Haddonfield Road. Car dealership parking lots are on both sides of Wynnwood.

Variances are required for dealer parking at the former Women's Center lot and the two residential lots because they are considered off-site parking and not directly on the dealership site, Jacob Richman, township planner, told the board at the June 18 meeting.

The Land Rover dealer had operated from the Haddonfield Road site, across from the Market Place at Garden State Park, until the company took over the local Jaguar franchise and temporarily moved Land Rover to the Jaguar dealership on Route 70. Cherry Hill Imports rents the Route 70 facility.

"We want to stay in Cherry Hill," Amanda DiMattia, Cherry Hill Imports chief operating officer, said of the expansion in her testimony at the June 18 zoning meeting.

DiMattia said customers test driving vehicles would use Haddonfield Road and main roads. On Wednesday night, Del Duca said service employees also would not drive into the neighborhood to test repaired vehicles. DiMattia also said there are no plans to use an outdoor loudspeaker system or to purchase additional property for the dealership.

Several residents said they also were concerned about dealership employees hunting for a specific car using the car panic alarm. DiMattia said at the Wednesday meeting that the parking lots will be numbered so cars can be found without setting off the alarms. "Our objective is not to be a bad neighbor," she said.

"This application is about the evolution of this dealership," lawyer Del Duca said at the Wednesday meeting. "It’s attempting to adapt and evolve in order to survive." He said that before Land Rover's temporary move it had used the Haddonfield Road site for more than 20 years.

» MORE: Details on the expanded Land Rover dealership.

» MORE: Why some neighbors are opposed.

» MORE: Zoning testimony on the Land Rover-Jaguar proposal.