Part of expansion by Land Rover-Jaguar on Haddonfield Road in Cherry Hill approved by zoning board.

After three meetings of testimony, the Cherry Hill Zoning Board of Adjustment early Friday morning approved part of a plan by a Land Rover-Jaguar dealership to move back to Haddonfield Road and expand its footprint.

M.B.J. Associates LLC, a unit of Cherry Hill Imports Auto Group, sought variances 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. Zoning variances are required because the two parking lots from the expansion are not attached to the main dealership property.

The zoning board approved the preliminary site plan, with conditions, 7-0 for the main dealership property on Haddonfield Road. The planned inventory parking lot on the site of the former South Jersey Women's Center was approved 5-2.

However, the proposal to turn two former residential properties on Wynnwood Avenue into an inventory and employee parking lot was voted down. That vote drew only two in favor and five against.

Several residents of the Locustwood neighborhood spoke against the Land Rover expansion and proposed parking lots. They testified about concerns over the size of buffers separating the proposed parking lots from residences, light pollution, speeding vehicles being test driven in the neighborhood and noise from dealerships, such as setting off car panic alarms to find vehicles in crowded lots. 

Many residents said dealers promise they won't test drive in neighborhoods, unload cars from carriers on neighborhood streets or make unnecessary noise, such as setting off car alarms. However, in practice, they contended, no one from the township enforces the rules. 

The Land Rover dealership operated for several years at the Haddonfield Road site before temporarily moving to Route 70 across from the Old Orchard neighborhood. In addition, several other dealerships on Route 70 back up to the Locustwood neighborhood.

"Land Rover is not a good neighbor. They do not have the best interests of this neighborhood at heart," Denise Tocco, who lives on Mercer Street near the dealership, told the board. She said she has lived there for 33 years.

Tocco presented several photos of properties owned by Cherry Hill Imports in the neighborhood. One photo showed an abandoned in-ground swimming pool in the backyard of one of the two vacant homes the dealership purchased in 2016  and intended to tear down for the parking lot.

"You can walk right up to this pool," Tocco said, citing laws she said require fences around pools. She testified the pool has been in poor condition for four years and is full of stagnant water and a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Tocco asked why the dealership didn't fill in the pool immediately after the purchase.

Tocco also submitted a photo of vehicles on the South Jersey Women's Center lot with flat tires and a torn tire and battery on the ground.

Amanda DiMattia, Cherry Hill Imports chief operating officer, said later in the meeting that those complaints will be addressed immediately.

DiMattia and the dealership's lawyer, Damien Del Duca, also agreed to several conditions of the zoning approval including prohibiting employees from parking on neighborhood streets and installing signs saying car carriers were not allowed to unload on streets. They also agreed to widen the Wynnwood lot's buffer and install an eight-foot, rather than six-foot, fence on the property line facing residences.

"We can only be judged by our own actions going forward," said Del Duca, who added it's not fair to lump Land Rover together with other car dealers near the neighborhood that may have caused incidents.

After hearing neighbors' complaints about the other car dealers, some on the board said departments in the township need to know about the problems. "This may be the tipping point," zoning board solicitor Sandy Zeller said of the residents' concerns, including unloading cars from carriers on public streets.

Jonathan Rardin, chairman of the zoning board, was concerned about the neighborhood complaints about alleged behavior by dealers. "Some of the things we heard about are troubling," Rardin said, adding the complaints appeared to involve the dealers now in the area rather than Land Rover.

"A lot of the frustrations come from a failure to enforce," Rardin said.

Maxim Kaminsky, who owns the Sunny Days Children's Academy daycare center at 1210 Chambers Ave., complained about high-speed driving on Chambers, particularly as parents leave the property with their children. He said he believed some were test-driving vehicles from other dealerships in the neighborhood and said the first thing a test driver does is hit the gas pedal to see how the vehicle runs.

He said he was against the Land Rover expansion, saying that even with promises of no test driving in the neighborhood nobody will enforce it.

Greg Bruno, who is a member of the Zoning Board of Adjustment, had recused himself from the decision and spoke as a member of the public, opposing the Land Rover proposal.

"I believe we can do better as a community," Bruno told the board, saying he believed the variances would produce more negative than positive results for the neighborhood.

He suggested other options for parking the dealership's car inventory. "This project, as currently presented, is not right for the neighborhood," Bruno said.

Deborah McClure, who lives on Wynnwood Avenue, said when she raised her children they could play out front. Now, when her grandchildren visit, they must play in the back.

She said service technicians from the dealerships near the neighborhood test the brakes of vehicles on neighborhood streets, accelerating and then slamming on the brakes. McClure said dealerships can make promises of not taking test drives in the neighborhood but "they end up doing whatever they want anyway."

Another local resident, Alexander Esposito of Warren Avenue, submitted into the record a video of what he said were  two Land Rover vehicles drag racing on a neighborhood street. He testified the video was shot when Land Rover was at the Haddonfield Road site before moving. The video shows two vehicles, with no license plates, sitting side-by-side gunning the accelerators and speeding in a race down the street.

Esposito asked DiMattia how the dealership would prevent employees from activating panic alarms to find cars in the parking lots. DiMattia said the plan is to number the spaces in the parking lots and have those space numbers on the key tags of the individual vehicles.

• MORE: Another car dealer plans expansion in Cherry Hill's Locustwood neighborhood.
• MORE: Cherry Hill zoning board needs a third meeting to make its Land Rover decision.
• MORE: Testimony on Land Rover expansion runs long, decision at a future meeting.
• MORE: Why some Cherry Hill neighbors are opposed to Land Rover dealer's expansion.