Truck servicing project nearer to final approval
Only one final vote remains before the controversial truck and shipping container service facility at 181 Limerick Center Road gains final approval from the township.
Tuesday night, the supervisors voted 3-1 to authorize the township solicitor to prepare a resolution granting final site plan approval for the 10-acre project. Supervisor Elaine DeWan was absent.
The final vote, to adopt or reject that resolution, will likely come at the next meeting, according to Township Manager Dan Kerr.
The project first started making headlines more than a year ago when neighbors of the proposed project began turning up at public meetings in opposition.
The site’s history is complicated. For many years, the township’s zoning map indicated the parcel was split, with one part residential and the other office and light industrial.
But as it turns out, the map was wrong because township officials could find no record of a vote by an elected body that changed any part of the parcel over to residential.
Tom Perkins, owner of TP Trailers and Truck Equipment, owns the parcel with his sister and has variously tried to de
velop it with 50 townhomes, which was rejected by the township, as well as a business exactly like the one on Ridge Pike, which was also rejected, according to Supervisors Chairman Ken Sperring Jr.
The reason for the second rejection was that Limerick Center Road is not certified for enough traffic to accommodate sales of vehicles, explained Mark Kaplin, the lawyer representing Perkins.
This latest proposal is similar to the first, except that vehicle sales are no longer proposed.
Through the ensuring months, as resident opposition focused on Perkins ability to legally stack shipping containers three high, Kaplin tried to negotiate with the township and the residents that his
client would voluntarily limit the stacking height to two if no opposition was raised to a zoning variance request to allow sales at the site.
But neither the township, nor the residents would bite, so the project moved forward as it was initially proposed.
In Feburary, as a result of the controversy, the supervisors tweaked the zoning code to limit the height containers can be stacked. The existing zoning ordinances allow structures to be as high as 35 feet tall and three stacked shipping containers are below that height. But the new restrictions will not apply to TP Trailers.
Preliminary approval for the site plan, which calls for a 35,000 squarefoot office/warehouse/fivebay shop was granted by the supervisors in December, 2018. Since then, the plan has been before the township planning commission, which ultimately recommended final site plan approval.
The vote Tuesday did not come before the various factions offered up some parting shots.
Neighbors have expressed concern about increased traffic and inadequate visual buffers between their homes and the facility.
Dan Walker and his wife Amy, of Bella Rosa Court, continued the question what activities will occur at the site and ask the supervisors to delay a decision
until final PennDOT road permits and Montgomery County Conservation District approvals are given.
Kerr explained that township approvals are conditional upon the developers receiving those other approvals.
“We will comply with all the township’s ordinances,” Kaplin said.
“Not answering questions about what will happen there continues to frighten the neighbors,” Dan Walker said.
Kaplin pointed out that his clients held an open house for the community, attended by about 20 people, including the Walkers, showcased TP Trailers’ current operation on Ridge Pike, and explained what would happen at the new site.
“It’s obvious you don’t like what you hear, and yet you continue to defame the Perkins family,” Kaplin said.
“I resent that,” said Walker, to which Kaplin replied “I don’t care.”
There was even some friction among the supervisors themselves when Supervisor Patrick Morroney tried to abstain, citing “a personality dispute” with Kaplin. After being told he could not, Morroney replied “well then I vote no.”
“Take the easy way out Pat,” quipped Supervisors Chairman Ken Sperring Jr. “Learn the job you were elected to do, Pat,” he said, saying voting against projects that comply with all township ordinances would make Limerick vulnerable to lawsuits.
Morroney said he was “within my rights” to vote as he pleases.
The next scheduled meeting of the board of supervisors is Sept. 3.