Waivers OK’d for storage facility in Towamencin
Township supervisors continue debate on sidewalk connections
“The board granted conditional use for this project at our meeting on January 8, of this year, which seems like a long time ago.”
— supervisors Chairman Chuck Wilson.
TOWAMENCIN » A storage facility planned for just off Sumneytown Pike is one step away from a final approval.
The township supervisors saw the latest version Wednesday night of plans for the storage facility, and a long list of waivers the applicant needs before final approval.
“The board granted conditional use for this project at our meeting on January 8, of this year, which seems like a long time ago,” said supervisors’
Chairman Chuck Wilson.
Talks on the project began in July 2019, when
Manley Storage Ventures first proposed a roughly 102,000-square-foot storage facility be built while consolidating six parcels totaling roughly two acres on Franklin Street, just west of Bustard Road and south of Sumneytown
Pike. That August, the supervisors granted a code change to allow the storage use in the C-commercial zoning district, in November the board began a conditional use hearing, which continued in December, and in January the use request was granted.
Attorney Christen Pionzio and owner Jonathan Manley showed the board the latest revisions to the plans on Wednesday night, including the latest review letters from township and county consultants and the conditions and waivers both sides have vetted and reviewed.
“These are the parcels as they exist today. They are residential, they are dilapidated, they are boarded up, it’s an eyesore for the township
that we are hoping to rectify,” Pionzio said.
“We’ve worked long and hard with you on the architectural features of this building,” she said.
As she spoke, Pionzio showed the board renderings of the proposed building, featuring brick walls accented with glass windows and trim accents meant to match the decor of surrounding buildings. A total of 17 waivers have been identified by the applicant and vetted by the consultants, and Pionzio and Manley detailed each, with township engineer Tom Zarko giving his firm’s feedback on each.
Most drew no objections, but the main discussion centered on a waiver request from current township codes requiring that pedestrian paths be provided from the parking areas to the entrance of the building, and Pionzio detailed why the developer wanted to do without those sidewalks.
“One: we don’t have pedestrians. We don’t have people who come to their storage unit and walk even if it’s one bag, they drive their car,” she said.
“Two: we don’t want to encourage people to come to the door. We would not like to have what is really unnecessary and unwanted, a crosswalk from
an exterior sidewalk to the site, but we can do an internal one.”
Zarko said his firm objected to that waiver request, and recommended the sidewalks be added along the driveway to prevent any possibility of pedestrians walking through the driveway instead.
“We’ve seen a prior design, we’ve seen it laid out, it can work. We don’t recommend this waiver,” he said.
Pionzio countered that other nearby uses were better suited for sidewalks, but not the storage facility, where users would only visit occasionally and usually with large loads.
“It’s not Royal Farms, it’s not retail, it’s not a dry cleaner, it’s none of those things where you’re going to find pedestrians with a need for this aces,” she said.
Wilson asked if the sidewalks should be required in case the building is sold and converted into a different use in the future, and Manley answered that doing so was unlikely.
“The way this building is constructed, it really would require an entire demolition of the building to have a chance of a new use,” he said.
“It’s structurally not set up to be anything other than a storage unit. Pedestrian access for a new use would be part of a demolition and new construction permit,” Manley said.
At a similar facility in
Philadelphia, that city’s codes required the installation of bike racks, a regulation the owner said has turned out to be totally unnecessary.
“We have not had one bicycle in three years of operation at both of our Philadelphia stores. And nobody walks to the storage facility either,” Manley said.
Wilson asked if the sidewalks could help with any foot traffic from the nearby AVE apartments just across Sumneytown, and Manley said that was also unlikely.
“A vast majority of our tenants today are all online reservations, or from national call centers. So much of it is done outside a store,” he said. “The self-storage managers are the loneliest people in the world, because there’s just not that much business in the office.”
The board ultimately voted four to one to grant
that waiver request, with Wilson casting the only vote against. The rest of the waiver requests were approved unanimously, mostly having to do with the dimensions of the site and setback requirements that can’t be met due to utility lines running underground; Pionzio noted one additional waiver for decorative features around the site.
“Your code requires something like 18 benches and a lot of trash cans seven trash receptacles. We’re proposing three benches and two trash receptacles, and what we’re proposing is in keeping with your standards for the overlay,” she said.
After approving that waiver along with the others, Zarko said the applicant has agreed to comply with the rest of the terms and conditions spelled out in the review letters. The board then voted unanimously to authorize staff to prepare a preliminary and final land development resolution, incorporating those comments and waivers.
“Thank you, and good luck with your project. Thanks for working with us and trying to make this something that fits into what we’re trying to accomplish up there,” Wilson said.
Towamencin’s supervisors next meet online at 7:30 p.m. on July 22; for more information visit www.Towamencin.org.
“These are the parcels as they exist today. They are residential, they are dilapidated, they are boarded up, it’s an eyesore for the township that we are hoping to rectify.” — attorney Christen Pionzio