Township of Moorestown, NJ Article XVI CRO Commercial-Retail Office Districts

[Amended 8-12-1985 by Ord. No. 1239]

§ 180-48 Use restrictions and regulations.

In all CRO Commercial-Retail Districts the following uses, and no others, of lands and buildings are permitted:

A. All uses permitted in the Commercial-Institutional Office Districts.[1]

[1] Editor's Note: See Art. XV of this chapter.

B. All types of stores for retail purposes.

C. Photographic, art, dancing, music or other similar-type studios.

D. Personal service shops with a total building floor area of not more than 1,500 square feet as follows: beauty, barber-, tailor or dressmaker shops, pickup agencies for dry cleaning, laundry, shoe repair or similar services or the repair and servicing of radios, televisions and appliances.

E. Bakeries, confectionery shops and grocery stores, but not including convenience food stores.

F. Restaurants, except for fast-food restaurants as defined in § 180-2.

G. The on-site consumption of food by 20 or fewer persons as an accessory use to the retail sale of food as a principal use is allowed. Applications for a zoning permit must be submitted with an accurate floor plan delineating the location of proposed eating areas in relation to other uses. For the purpose of computing the parking needed for this use, it will not be considered a restaurant.

H. Newspaper or job printing establishments.

I. Theaters.

J. Apartments in a building used for commercial purposes on any floor but the basement or first floor.

K. Telephone central office exchanges and business offices.

L. Banks or other financial institutions.

M. Signs, in accordance with the provision of Article XXIV hereof.

N. Activities outside the confines of buildings.

[Amended 8-14-2006 by Ord. No. 17-2006; 1-28-2008 by Ord. No. 1-2008]

(1) Not located within the public right-of-way:

(a) Outdoor seating as an accessory use to a restaurant shall be permitted and shall not be included in a restaurant's seating or floor area when calculating on-site parking requirements. Outdoor furnishings are limited to tables, chairs, umbrellas, a menu pedestal, a reservation podium and other such furnishings as required to conduct the operation as is conducted in the indoor establishment and shall be stored inside the restaurant after normal operating hours. Advertising or promotional features shall be limited to the name of the restaurant on the permitted outdoor furnishings.

(b) All other sales, solicitation of sales, display or storage of merchandise or goods, the performance of any commercial service or the installation or operation of vending machines, other than telephone or postal facilities, shall be conditional uses subject to approval by the Planning Board.

(2) Located within the public right-of-way:

(a) Activities as permitted by Township Council.

(b) Outdoor seating as an accessory use to a restaurant shall be permitted, provided that it does not impede pedestrian flow by maintaining a minimum pathway of at least five feet that is free of obstacles at all times. A zoning permit and site meeting with the Township Zoning Officer is required prior to location within the right-of-way to ensure that the required five-foot pedestrian path can be established. Once issued, the zoning permit may be retracted for up to one year by the Zoning Officer for failure to maintain the minimum five-foot pedestrian pathway or the limitations imposed by § 180-48N(1)(a).

O. Drive-through commercial establishments allowable in conjuction with Subsections B, D and L above or the addition of a drive-through facility to an existing use allowed in Subsections B, D and L above when authorized as a conditional use and after site plan submission and approval.

(1) For drive-through commercial establishments, the following standards shall be used in addition to the standards for site plan review listed in the Land Subdivision and Development Ordinance and the standards for review in § 180-107 of this chapter:

(a) No establishment involved in the dispensing of food of any kind shall be allowed to utilize a drive-through window.

(b) Each door, window or position used for servicing customers shall be provided with a customer waiting land sufficient to accommodate the particular use. The actual number of vehicles to be accommodated by the waiting lane must be substantiated by a report from a professional traffic engineer, based on observations of other similar facilities owned by the applicant or operated by other parties in a similar fashion. Any report regarding activity for similar types of drive-in uses shall specify the type of location observed, e.g. highway, downtown, etc. The stacking lanes are not to be less than 10 feet in width and must provide 23 feet of length per vehicle.

(c) Each waiting line shall be located entirely within the confines of the lot, shall be separated from parking spaces by bumpers or other raised barriers and shall not block or cross normal circulation patterns, entrances or exits for customers not using the drive-through facilities.

(d) The drive-in uses must be designed in a way to minimize the impact of the use on the pedestrian utilizing the sidewalk bordering the operation along existing public streets. No more than one lane crossing a public sidewalk and entering a public street can be provided.

(e) In its review of the conditional use application and site plan and in making its decision on a proposed drive-through commercial establishment or facility, the Board shall consider the impact on the internal circulation on the site, impact on the use of adjacent streets and parking lots, impact on the parking usage within the site, hours of operation in relation to nearby uses and overall impact on the neighboring residential and commercial uses.

(f) Designs shall attempt to allow the motorist the option of proceeding to a public street or to internal private drives or parking areas.

P. Breweries, distilleries and winery salesrooms when authorized as a conditional use by the Planning Board in accordance with the standards set forth in § 180-96E(3).

[Added 5-10-2021 by Ord. No. 15-2021[2]]

[2] Editor's Note: This ordinance also redesignated former Subsection P as Subsection Q.

Q. Accessory uses:

(1) Accessory uses on the same lot with and customarily incidental to any of the above permitted uses, including storage of inventory items and materials used in permitted operations and finished products.

(2) Accessory uses and/or buildings shall be limited to a maximum of 25% of the lot area and/or floor area devoted to the principal use and buildings.

(3) Restaurants, except fast food restaurants, as defined, are permitted to have outdoor dining in accordance with § 180-99.6

[Added 11-29-2021 by Ord. No. 37-2021]

§ 180-49 Height, bulk, area and buffer requirements.

A. No building shall exceed 35 feet in height.

B. Minimum lot area shall be 2,000 square feet.

C. Maximum site coverage for all impervious surfaces shall be 80%.

D. Side yards shall be five feet.

E. Rear yards shall be 15 feet unless the property abuts a lot used exclusively for residential purposes, including a home professional office, in which case a thirty-foot minimum rear yard shall be required.

F. Front yard setback requirements are as follows:

(1) Main Street, north side: All front yards shall be equal to the average building setbacks of existing main buildings within 100 feet of both sides of the lot or lots on which the proposed building is to be located. (Any vacant lots within that distance shall be assumed to have a front yard equal to the average of the lots abutting them or, if those are vacant, the first lots with an existing building.)

(2) Main Street, south side: All front yards shall be the same or greater than the depth of the distance from the front property line to the front wall of the structures existing as of the date of the adoption of this chapter amendment. Should a lot exist or be created in which no structure existed as of this date, the front yard shall equal the largest (deepest) front yard of those properties adjoining the property, unless adjoining properties are vacant, then § 180-55C shall apply.

(3) Other streets: the average front yard as provided by § 180-55C.

G. The floor area ratio shall not exceed 0.40.

[Added 6-23-1987 by Ord. No. 1344]

§ 180-50 Miscellaneous requirements.

A. All on-site parking requirements shall be provided for and occur behind or to the side of all buildings. No parking shall be allowed between any street bordering the lot and the building line or lines. Said ground-level parking lots are not permitted to be under or within existing or proposed structures.

[Amended 6-22-1987 by Ord. No. 1352]

B. All on site parking shall be separated from adjoining lots by at least a five-foot-wide landscaped area along all property lines which abut lots which are totally or partially located within the RTC-1, RTC-2, R-2 and R-3 Zones. This buffer area shall be provided with a permanent landscape screen of evergreen trees and shrubs, deciduous screening materials and deciduous trees. Fencing may also be used for this screen with a maximum height of six feet. Landscape plans shall include a minimum of 60% evergreen material. The minimum height of material at the time of planting shall be three feet for shrubs and five feet for evergreen trees, and deciduous trees shall have a caliper of at least 2 1/2 inches measured four feet above the ground.

C. Side yard parking must not be closer to the front property line than the front wall of the existing or proposed primary structure. Such parking must be screened from the street using walls, fences, earth mounds, permanent evergreen landscaping or a combination thereof.

D. Except when adjoining property owners cooperate by providing interconnected parking lots, all parking areas shall be three feet from property lines other than those referenced in Subsection B above. The three-foot area shall be landscaped to provide visual relief across adjoining parking areas but is not designed to provide total screening as is required against residential properties.

E. At least one four-inch- or greater-caliper shade tree measured four feet above the ground shall be provided for every eight parking spaces or part thereof and shall be so located as to provide shade for those parking spaces. Existing trees four inches or greater in caliper may be substituted for required trees.

F. A combination of gasoline pumps for retail sale of gasoline and a convenience food store is prohibited.

G. Existing first-floor retail uses or first-floor retail uses that result from the conversion of an existing nonretail use located in the CRO Zone will not be required to provide additional on-site parking to that which exists on site, provided that there is no increase to the size of the building square footage. No additional on-site parking to that which exists on the site will be required for the relocation of existing nonretail first-floor uses to another floor (any floor other than the first floor) for buildings that convert their first floor from nonretail to retail.

[Added 1-28-2008 by Ord. No. 1-2008]