Ridgewood City Zoning Code
§ 190-118.2
HC Highway Commercial District.
[Added 6-13-2012 by Ord. No. 3343]
A.
Purpose and intent. The HC Zone is intended to permit uses that are compatible with the frontage on and exposure to Route 17 in the zone, while at the same time being sensitive to the quality of life of nearby residential areas. Although the zone recognizes the suitability and compatibility of highway commercial use, the zone regulations are intended to avoid a "highway strip" appearance by limiting the permitted uses and the scale and intensity of development, requiring generous setbacks required for buildings from property lines, and by imposing architectural, sign and landscaping standards. The zone also intends to avoid undue impacts to residential properties in the area by limiting the permitted uses and the intensity of development, by limiting the height of buildings, by requiring that access be oriented away from local streets, and by requiring buffers between nonresidential development and residential zones.
B.
Permitted principal uses and structures. The following principal uses and structures shall be permitted, subject to the prohibitions and restrictions in § 190-118.2E and elsewhere in this chapter:
[Amended 2-8-2017 by Ord. No. 3579; 6-12-2024 by Ord. No. 4002]
(1)
Retail sales.
(2)
Retail and personal services.
(3)
Financial institutions.
(4)
Eating and drinking establishments.
(5)
Fitness and health clubs.
(6)
Flexible retail.
(7)
Instructional schools.
(8)
Medical offices.
(9)
Veterinary facilities.
(10)
Recreational facilities.
(11)
Flexible office/co-working/incubator space.
(12)
Professional offices.
(13)
Child-care centers.
(14)
Municipal buildings owned or leased by the Village of Ridgewood and used for public purposes.
(15)
Institutional uses.
(16)
Single-family detached residential dwellings.
C.
Permitted accessory uses and structures. The following accessory uses and structures shall be permitted, excluding any uses and structures that are specifically prohibited:
(3)
Uses and structures accessory to single-family detached residential dwellings as permitted and regulated in all single-family residence districts.
(4)
For all uses other than single-family detached residential dwellings, accessory uses customarily incident to permitted principal and conditional uses, subject to the prohibitions and restrictions in § 190-118.2E and elsewhere in this chapter.
D.
Conditional uses. Notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary, no conditional uses shall be permitted in the HC Zone District.
E.
Prohibited uses. Any uses other than those uses permitted by this section are prohibited. In addition, without in any way limiting the generality and prohibition of this section, the following uses are specifically prohibited:
(1)
Motor vehicle sales or rental.
(2)
Gasoline filling stations, gasoline service stations and motor vehicle maintenance or repair facilities.
(3)
Garden centers and plant nurseries.
(4)
Contractor yards and contractor storage buildings and facilities.
(5)
Industrial, assembly and manufacturing uses.
(6)
Storage warehouses and other storage buildings and uses, except as an accessory to a permitted use.
(7)
Drive-in restaurants and the sale, delivery and/or serving of prepared food and/or beverages in a ready-to-consume state from a location within a building through a door, through a window or over a counter to a location outside the same building on the same site or within the adjacent public right-of-way. Such prohibition shall include but not be limited to the delivery to or receipt of food and/or beverages to customers in motor vehicles. Excluded from this prohibition shall be "take-out" sales of prepared food, where the customer must enter the building to purchase and/or pick up food for consumption at an off-tract location, and the delivery of prepared foods to an off-tract location.
(8)
Any use that involves the display, sale, provision or storage of goods, services or materials, or the keeping of animals, outside the confines of a building, provided that drive-up windows for banks and pharmacies shall not be prohibited.
(9)
Hotels, motels and other commercial lodging establishments.
(10)
Any nonresidential uses that operate during the hours when the sale of alcoholic beverages for consumption upon the premises is prohibited by § 101-12A. The foregoing prohibition shall apply to all nonresidential uses in the district, regardless of whether or not such uses sell alcoholic beverages or are retail sales or service uses; provided, however, that institutional uses, as well as automated teller machines for banks and pharmacies that provide twenty-four-hour service, shall not be prohibited during such hours.
[Amended 2-8-2017 by Ord. No. 3579]
(11)
Notwithstanding the authorization of veterinary hospitals as a permitted principal use, no such use or any other use shall be permitted to use areas outside the confines of a building for the keeping, holding, care, treatment or exercising of animals, or any similar activity.
F.
Development standards. Development for single-family detached dwellings shall comply with the requirements applicable to such dwellings in the R-125 Zone District. Nonresidential development shall comply with the following requirements, unless specifically provided otherwise by this chapter:
(1)
Minimum lot area: 75,000 square feet.
(2)
Minimum lot frontage: 300 feet on the street from which access is provided.
(3)
Maximum floor area ratio: 25% of the lot area.
(4)
Maximum building coverage: 25% of the lot area.
(5)
Maximum improvement coverage: 70% of the lot area.
(6)
Maximum height of principal buildings: two stories, excluding basement stories, and 35 feet; provided, however, that only that portion of principal buildings comprised of roofs having a pitch of not less than 5:12 and gables for such roofs shall be permitted to exceed a height of 30 feet.
(8)
Driveway access to nonresidential uses shall be limited to access to/from Route 17, except for driveways used solely for emergency access. A traffic study may be required for major developments or significant changes of use, in order to ensure that site access will be safe and designed to minimize congestion on area streets.
(9)
Parking areas shall contain landscaped areas distributed within the parking area(s) so as to visually break up the area(s) of pavement, with the location and design of such landscaped areas to be determined through the site plan review and approval process. The total area of such landscaping areas shall be at least 10 square feet for each parking space in the parking area(s). Such landscaped areas shall be considered to be "within the parking area" if they: (a) are surrounded on at least three sides by the pavement for the parking area; and/or (b) are surrounded on at least two sides by the pavement for the parking area and are located between the parking area and the building. Notwithstanding the foregoing, no landscaped area located within the minimum required setback for parking areas shall be counted toward the foregoing requirement.
(10)
A buffer having a minimum depth of 30 feet shall be provided to separate nonresidential development in the district and adjacent residential zone districts. The buffer shall contain dense plantings and a screening fence or wall. If necessary to mitigate the effects of noise, lights and other impacts upon adjacent residential properties, the fence or wall shall be permitted and may be required to have a height greater than six feet. The visual impact of fences or walls higher than six feet upon adjacent residential properties shall be mitigated through the use of increased setbacks from the property line and by installing plantings between the fence/wall and property line, as determined through the site plan approval process. Buffers, screening and other features shall be installed and maintained to ensure that noise levels from site activities comply with the noise control regulations at § 190-120G(5) and N.J.A.C. 7:29-1.1 et seq.
(11)
When nonresidential development is located across from a residential zone district on the opposite side of Paramus Road and Linwood Avenue, plantings, fencing, walls and/or berms shall be required in the front yard to screen the parking and loading areas from the view of residential properties and to minimize the detrimental effects of glare from vehicle headlights, as determined through the site plan approval process.
(12)
Architectural design.
(a)
Large, unbroken building masses in walls that face the street shall be avoided through the use of projections, recesses, varying materials and other methods. The following requirements shall apply to any exterior building wall facing a street, including any ramps to or from Route 17. For purposes of complying with these requirements, a wall surface shall be considered within the same vertical plane as another wall surface unless their vertical planes, or projections thereof, are separated by a horizontal distance of at least eight inches.
[1]
At least 10% of the surface area of walls in the same vertical plane, including gables and parapets, shall be comprised of windows and doors. The area of such windows and doors shall be measured from the inside edge of any perimeter trim. The glass in such windows and doors shall not be covered, painted or surfaced so as to prevent a view into the building from the outdoors; however, interior curtains and blinds shall be permitted.
[2]
The maximum contiguous wall surface area containing the same or similar material within the same vertical plane shall not exceed 1,500 square feet. Larger wall surfaces shall be separated by horizontal and/or vertical features comprised of a substantially different material and/or shall be located within a different vertical plane than the adjacent surfaces. Such separations shall have a minimum dimension of 12 inches in any direction, except for the minimum vertical plane separation required above.
(b)
Roofs. Buildings may be designed with pitched roofs and/or with flat (horizontal) roofs that comply with the following:
[1]
Pitched roofs shall provide a minimum pitch of 5:12 (five inches vertical for each 12 inches horizontal).
[2]
Pitched roofs shall contain variations in pitch and/or plane and/or dormers not less than 50 feet apart.
[3]
Flat (horizontal) roofs shall be designed with a cornice and/or parapet(s). Cornices shall have a vertical dimension not less than 5% of the height of the building, and the cornice shall be of a substantially different material or texture than the exterior wall surface. Parapets shall provide variation in the roofline not less than 30 feet apart; such variations shall not be less than eight inches in vertical dimension.
[4]
Rooftop mechanical equipment shall be screened from the view of adjacent properties and streets by parapets in the same vertical plane as the exterior walls or by screens designed to appear the same as a sloped roof. For purposes of administering this requirement, screening shall be designed to screen the view from a point six feet above the ground measured at the property line of adjacent properties and from the center line of the adjacent street. In the case of Route 17, the center line shall be considered the center of the northbound lanes and the center line of any ramps.
G.
Requirements for drive-in uses. In addition to the other requirements for development within the HC Zone District, drive-in establishments shall be subject to the following requirements:
(1)
The drive-in window(s), canopies, drive-up and stacking lanes, and any above-grade equipment used for the drive-in operation shall be located at least 50 feet from any residential zone district.
(2)
At the time of site plan review, noise from motor vehicles and speakers, as wells as impacts from vehicular headlights and exhaust, shall be addressed through setbacks, screen walls, vegetation and other features, as determined by the Board.