If you're looking at a house near Cambridge Heights or along Kingsland Street this fall, sooner or later you'll ask whether the town can stop what's proposed down the block. For Nutley's two most-discussed sites, much of the answer is already on the books. At 536-544 Washington Avenue, the zoning in effect when the application was filed made a warehouse a permitted use, and that application is still under review. At 275 Kingsland Street, a July 2025 settlement set the list of allowed uses, a data center among them, though nobody has filed an application to build one. What's still open is narrower and matters more to someone living next door: how big the trucks are, which way the loading docks face, how wide the planted buffer is, and which of several allowed uses ends up on the land.
The warehouse question was settled when Galaxy Invest filed
Galaxy Invest, Inc. wants to build a warehouse on the former Proponent Federal Credit Union property at 536-544 Washington Avenue, near the Cambridge Heights neighborhood. The site is in Nutley's M-O zone. According to TAPinto Nutley, Planning Board Attorney Barry Kozyra explained that a warehouse was a permitted use there when the application was filed. He said the board can weigh safety, health and how the operation would function, but it can't reject the plan just because members don't want a warehouse. "The one thing we can't do is change it from a warehouse to something else," Kozyra said. "This board does not have the authority to do that under the law."
The rule behind this is New Jersey's time-of-application statute, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-10.5. Under it, the development regulations in effect on the date an application is submitted govern the review. Ordinance changes adopted later don't apply to that application, except provisions dealing with health and public safety. For a Washington Avenue neighbor, that means the hearing was never going to decide whether a warehouse is allowed. It decides what kind of warehouse it will be.
So the hearing turned into a negotiation over trucks, docks and trees
Since the use can't be changed, every concession so far has been about physical design and operations. The plan has changed noticeably since the June 17, 2026 hearing.
| Original proposal | Revised proposal | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 24,740 sq ft | About 26,833 sq ft |
| Stories | Two, warehouse and office | One, about 29.4 ft tall |
| Parking | 28 spaces | 19 spaces |
| Truck bays | Four | Four |
| Tenant | Not identified | Not identified |
TAPinto Nutley reported that the revision dropped the second-story office, lowered the building, and moved the loading docks about 15 feet north. Four tractor-trailer bays stayed. The township's August 3 planning review used a 67-foot WB-67 truck turning template, flagged possible effects on the buffer, and called the operations speculative. It asked the applicant for details on hours, employees, deliveries and how vehicles and pedestrians would move around the site.
At the September 16 session, the applicant's attorney, Matthew Gilson, asked to carry the hearing to January 6, 2027, while the team considers more changes. The ideas on the table, as TAPinto Nutley described them:
- Smaller trucks instead of 67-foot tractor-trailers
- Turning the building so the loading docks face north, away from the homes to the south
- A contractor warehouse without heavy truck traffic
- A traffic review of whether the Kingsland Street intersection can handle trucks turning toward Route 3
"Everything's under consideration at this point," Gilson said. Planning Board Chairman Mark Arcuti said the applicant is "looking to make it a little bit more palatable" for the board and the neighbors. Revised plans and supporting documents are expected by December 15, 2026.
The board then took up the buffer itself. At its October 7, 2026 meeting, it confirmed that no new documents had come in for 536-544 Washington Avenue and that the matter is on the January 6 docket. Members then voted to recommend that the Board of Commissioners raise the minimum planted buffer between commercial and residential properties from 6 feet to 15 feet, measured inward from the commercial property line. The chair pointed to the old Proponent property as the best example of why. As of today it's a recommendation, not an ordinance. Whether a buffer change adopted later would reach an application that's already pending is a legal question for a New Jersey land use attorney to answer.
On Kingsland Street, the data center is what the town traded for
Before anyone talked about a data center at 275 Kingsland Street, the proposal there was a truck terminal. The Board of Commissioners' September 25, 2026 FAQ says that after Hoffmann-La Roche left, Nutley and Clifton named Prism as the redeveloper, and years of lawsuits followed. One court ruling let Prism move ahead with an application for a trucking terminal on Kingsland. The township says it didn't want the terminal and wanted the legal fees to end, so it negotiated a comprehensive settlement.
That settlement became the Roche Southside Kingsland Street Redevelopment Plan, adopted through Ordinance 3589 in July 2025. It covers about 11.5 acres of the former Roche campus and replaces the existing zoning on that land. When the ordinances were introduced in June 2025, the township's announcement quoted Prism's Eugene R. Diaz saying the new uses "won't have that kind of truck and traffic impact that so frightens everybody." Township redevelopment counsel Josh Zielinski said the plan "contemplates a data center being placed there."
A data center is one item on the plan's list. The FAQ names the others: assisted-living facilities, offices, science and clinical laboratories, storage facilities, research laboratories, active and passive recreation, and open space. As of that FAQ, the township had received no data-center application. The FAQ says the talk began with a Prism sign advertising the site for a data center. NJ.com reported that the sign advertised 65 megawatts and zoning approval, and noted that site plan review and Planning Board approval would still be needed before construction. On October 12, Patch reported that township officials still said no application had come in, and that Prism's latest ON3 update listed the 11-acre parcel for a data center or another permitted use.
The two sites work the same way. On Kingsland, the political decision happened in 2025 when the town picked this list of uses over a truck terminal. If Prism files, the FAQ says the application goes to the Planning Board under the Municipal Land Use Law and residents can take part in the hearings. Residents have already started a Change.org petition addressed to the Board of Commissioners, according to TAPinto Nutley.
Where state rules now affect a Kingsland application
A data center filed in Nutley today would face more state rules than it would have last spring. Governor Sherrill's May 27, 2026 plan has four pillars: data centers paying their share of energy and grid costs, public reporting of energy and water use, statewide standards for community benefit agreements, and good-paying jobs. Some of that is now law. P.L. 2026, c.32 created a separate rate structure for data centers, and the governor's August release says S3379/A4096 was signed to require energy and water reporting twice a year.
For local hearings, the key document is DCA Local Finance Notice 2026-13, dated August 25, 2026. It tells municipalities to look at plan conformity, utility and infrastructure impacts, emergency response, and resident input, and it strongly encourages public hearings. It also says towns have no statutory duty to pursue a community benefit agreement, though it strongly recommends exploring one. So the Kingsland outcome, like the Washington Avenue one, would come down to terms and conditions. The state's 2022 warehouse siting guidance works the same way for warehouses. It is technical advice for municipal planning and doesn't bind local zoning.
Laws and their exceptions are summarized here as general information, not legal advice. If a pending application affects a home you own or plan to buy, a New Jersey land use attorney can tell you how these rules apply to that property.
The dates to watch if you're buying near these blocks
On Washington Avenue, the warehouse's daily life is still unset because there's no tenant. That makes truck size, dock direction, buffer width and hours the facts worth following through the winter. On Kingsland, the open question is which use from the plan's list gets built, and nothing has been filed yet. Here's the order things are likely to happen in:
- By December 15, 2026: Galaxy Invest's revised Washington Avenue plans and supporting documents are due.
- January 6, 2027: The Planning Board hearing on 536-544 Washington Avenue resumes, with traffic testimony that was held back because of the site plan changes.
- No date yet: The Commissioners take up the 15-foot buffer recommendation.
- No date yet: A site plan application, if any, for 275 Kingsland Street, and the public meeting with state legislative leaders that the township's FAQ said it would try to schedule.
Agendas for each Planning Board meeting are posted on the township's Planning Board meeting calendar. Many individual meeting pages also include minutes and video.
Quick questions
Has a data center been approved at 275 Kingsland Street? No. The redevelopment plan lists a data center as an allowed use, but as of the township's September 25 FAQ and Patch's October 12 report, nobody had filed an application, and building one would still require Planning Board approval.
Who is the warehouse tenant? None has been named. The applicant's August 25 planning memo describes the building as a warehouse with no tenant identified.
Is the 15-foot buffer in effect? Not yet. On October 7 the Planning Board voted to send the recommendation to the Board of Commissioners, who would need to change the ordinance.
If you're weighing a home near Washington Avenue or Kingsland Street and want to know how these plans fit into its value and how you'd present it to buyers, Donna Keena follows Nutley's Planning Board calendar closely. She can walk you through what's on file before you make an offer or set a list price. Start with a free home valuation, and she'll include the status of what's proposed near you.
