Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include the name and location of the tract.
Following a two-hour exchange with speakers from a residents’ group Wednesday night, the Buckingham Township Planning Commission sent a preliminary plan for a warehouse in a Planned Industrial zone to the supervisors, “with grave reservations.”
The proposal is for the DiGirolomo tract on Stoney Lane near the Doylestown Airport.
Limited to either recommending approval or rejection of the plan, or tabling it, as the planners had already done at their February meeting, the members opted for a qualified approval as the best course of action, noting the plan was only preliminary, not final; that opponents had raised issues that were beyond the commission’s jurisdiction; that the commission had performed its due diligence on the proposal as it had been presented so far, in its preliminary stage; and revisions had been made.
At the outset of the meeting, the chair noted that the township is mandated to have an industrial zone, and that members had been pleased the proposal was not for other permitted uses, such as fuel storage, junk yard, or solid waste facility.
The statement was met with shouts of derision from the overflow crowd. In addition to noting opportunities for residents to raise issues during the final plan phase, members noted further opportunities during the permitting process.
Regarding a key claim by opponents that the developer’s application had misrepresented the type of warehouse as storage warehousing rather than truck terminal distribution, with major impact on traffic nature and volume, the members deferred that zoning issue to the township solicitor, which could possibly result in the developer having to start the process all over again.
The members’ “grave reservations” featured deep concern about possible traffic impact, from both trucks and personal vehicles. Township Engineer Dan Grays noted that traffic studies so far had only been limited to those typically performed for a preliminary plan. Opponents stated a distribution use would require arterial road access, which is not available at the site.
Regarding environmental issues raised by opponents, Grays said air and water quality required deference to state authority, while stormwater management in the plan so far showed promise in acknowledging climate change, including exceeding standards for “100-year storms.”
He added that the township did have some limited authority through its noise ordinance, but that the state motor vehicle code did not protect pedestrian use of state or local roads around the site, such as for dog walking, except through crosswalks, or shoulders marked off by striping.
The proposal as a whole does not yet feature any proposed tenant, but to provide for the developer to attract tenants. Regarding the current stated number and nature of truck bays as key to representing a distribution use rather than a storage use, as emphasized by speakers, the developer’s representatives appeared to have willingness to modify that part of the proposal.
The overflow crowd organized by the residents’ group was held at bay at the entrance of the meeting room by a non-uniformed representative of the township police department, who explained the room was already filled to legal capacity, but individuals could still enter to participate in public comment.
Speakers complained vigorously about the township’s refusal to change the venue to a larger room. In a handout available at the meeting, the township noted it had responded to 40 emails on the venue question, from residents and non-residents alike, including changing for all meetings.
The statement noted that presently, “residents know if they want to attend a meeting, they must only look to the date and time and they know exactly where to go to participate.”
The statement added that “other residents don’t want to pay to move (meeting) venue(s)…whether it be the cost of the rental room itself, the costs of staff both at the township and the venue, and the costs of advertising the change in meeting room place, the vast majority of residents don’t want the township to use taxpayer funding to move a meeting each time it is requested.”
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