Still Sonic

The Hillsborough Township Planning Board will continue hearing the Thomas Mascia/SONIC application this evening.

The applicant is proposing the construction of a SONIC drive-in fast-food restaurant on Route 206 at the corner of Oxford Place on a 1.5-acre site currently housing a karate school. The proposal involves razing the existing building and constructing a 1,818-square-foot building with a drive-through lane, outdoor seating, and 46 parking spaces with 23 of them under a canopy where car-hop service would be provided.

Subsequent to their last presentation before the board, the applicant has made some revisions to the original design. They would plant 54 new trees and provide a conservation easement on the west side of the lot, where they would also construct a raised berm with a row of evergreens. They would reduce the height of their freestanding light fixtures from 20-feet to 15-feet, construct a sidewalk on the Route 206 side of the lot, and reduce the number of poster display boards on the side of the building from three to two.

The applicant has reduced the height of their freestanding sign from 24-feet to 20-feet and added their address, but the sign is still well outside the limits of Hillsborough's sign ordinance. The new height exceeds the township's permitted height by 5-feet while the sign area of 112.3-square-feet is almost three times the square footage allowed by ordinance.

The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. at the municipal building. The evening's agenda may be viewed here.
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Above photographs show the current lot at the corner of Route 206 and Oxford Place and a SONIC on Route 22.