Route 222 warehouse project clears one hurdle
Plans for a 930,000-square-foot warehouse in Maidencreek Township passed their first hurdle when the township planning commission voted 4-0, with one member abstaining, to recommend conditional use approval.
The plans — which call for a 60-foot-high fulfillment center with 212 truck loading bays on 81 acres northwest of the intersection of Route 222, which is Allentown Pike, and Schaeffer Road — faced rigorous questions from planning commission members during a discussion before the vote at the meeting Wednesday.
Several commission members appeared more skeptical than others about developers’ claims on how the project will impact the area.
Planners echoed concerns raised by some residents at a meeting Oct. 20, including the effect of adding more truck traffic to the nearby Schaeffer Road roundabout and the project’s impact on the quality of the neighborhood.
“I use the Schaeffer Road traffic circle, my wife uses it, a whole lot of residents use it,” planning commission member Jason Hauk said. “It’s a game of chicken, if drivers will yield at the very last moment, or blow through the circle … now we’re adding a bunch of semi-trailers.”
Steve Wolfson of real estate development firm Wolfson Group Inc. said Schaeffer Road already has 317 trucks traveling through it during peak afternoon traffic.
“We’re adding 200 per day,” Wolfson said, “As a percentage, it’s a very small percentage.”
Planning commission member David Brown questioned the numbers in a traffic study submitted by developers.
“In some respects, your truck numbers are a bit fuzzy because you don’t have a tenant, and your tenant would dictate vastly how much traffic would be coming out,” Brown said. “To me, it’s the equivalent of building a grocery store without a grocer to fill the building, but you’re going tell me how many loaves of bread you’re going to sell a day.”
He said no study could quantify the amount of poor or inexperienced drivers on the roads.
“Where (routes) 222 and 422 connect in front of the Berkshire Mall, I’m sure a study was done at least twice as thick,” Brown said. “And yet every day, there’s at least a mile backup in both directions. This is far from an accurate set of data.”
He noted that the study says “sort” facilities can vastly increase the amount of traffic, by up to 14 cars per minute.
“And yet with 14 cars per minute, the impact at the Schaeffer roundabout in this report is a five-second delay,” Brown said. “I don’t know of anybody with a driver’s license who will agree with that.”
Brown said the fault doesn’t lie with the project’s engineers but PennDOT’s flawed standards for measuring traffic.
Wolfson noted the project’s study estimated the warehouse’s traffic impact using data from a “sort” fulfillment center, which adds a higher level of traffic than the “non-sort” facility planned for the site.
Planning commission member Matt Davenport told Brown that the developers’ hands are tied as to the impact of traffic because PennDOT controls Schaeffer Road, and it will drive the design of the warehouse lanes’ connection.
Planning commission member Jason Bailey said the problems with Schaeffer Road and other roundabouts don’t stem from the roundabouts themselves but people not knowing how to use them.
Bailey also brought up a Reading Eagle article on the impact of the roundabouts at Route 222 and 622, where Fleetwood police said that while serious accidents at the intersections had decreased, they were called to the scene more frequently for minor accidents.
“With a roundabout, you may have an increase in fender benders, but you have a significant drop off in fatalities and injury accidents,” said project engineer Chris Williams of McMahon Associates, Chester County. “There’s a lot of data out there that shows they (roundabouts) are safer.”
Brown also claimed the project alters the quality of the area in a harmful way because the warehouse plot is next to several residential neighborhoods.
“222 is zoned for this type of development … it’s a big building, it’s a hard pill to swallow,” Davenport said. “Maidencreek has long been a farming community. This is the future.”
In addition, Brown questioned developers’ geology report and claimed that removing large amounts of rock could put Peters Spring and other nearby water systems at risk.
Wolfson said part of the permitting process would require developers to submit studies and conform to state and local standards for environmental impacts.
Planning commission Chairman Jim Schoellkopf Jr. said his biggest concern was that blasting large amounts of limestone during development could put the warehouse and nearby residential properties at risk of sinkholes.
Wolfson said developers don’t plan on doing any large-scale blasting and would measure the data from small, controlled blasts to determine where to blast, and prevent sinkholes onand off-site.
Township engineer Thomas Unger suggested developers conduct a blasting study and have the study reviewed by a township blasting expert before proceeding with any blasting.
Other concerns raised dealt with the architecture of the building, and whether berms and landscaping would adequately block the site of the warehouse from residences and a local cemetery.
Wolfson said developers are willing to work with the township on the building’s architecture and landscaping.
Following the discussion, planners voted 4-0 to recommend conditional use approval for the warehouse project, on the following conditions: that developers limit blasting and refrigerated truck idling on the site; that the township will be able to provide input on the warehouse’s color, architecture, berms and landscaping; that the development will be a “non-sort” facility that is consistent with the plans as presented; and that developers secure environmental permitting and follow state and local rules during the development.
Brown abstained from the vote.
Final conditional use approval will be decided by supervisors at a hearing Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. in the Fleetwood High School auditorium.
Supervisors are not bound to act in line with the planning commission’s recommendation.
If developers secure conditional use approval, they will still need to have land development plans approved by the township.
Developers said it was too early to estimate when construction on the warehouse could start.