Buckingham Township Municipal Building. Photo by James Short.
Some Buckingham Township residents have formed a steering committee whose mission is banding hundreds in the community together to speak out at Wednesday night’s regular business meeting against the supervisors’ preliminary approval of a proposed warehouse project on 58 acres, in a PI-2 zoning district, on Cold Spring Creamery Road, colloquially known as the Digirolamo Tract.
The coalition also plans to broadcast the meeting to those crowds who cannot fit into the 200-seat meeting room, and provide off-site overflow parking to attendees.
The developer is proposing a 150,000-square-foot warehouse with 30 loading docks, four ramps to garage doors, and 300 parking spaces on the property.
In a letter to the independent Bucks County Herald, “No Buckingham Warehouse: A Central Bucks Coalition” steering committee members Mike Bateman, Jeff Glauber, Victoria Bresnahan, and Jennifer Potthoff wrote they are against the proposed developer’s plan to bring 90 tractor trailer trips per day to Buckingham’s small roads, including Cold Spring Creamery and Landisville roads, and Stony Lane.
The coalition is upset about potential air, noise and water pollution for people along the trailer routes, per the letter.
“Unfortunately, residents are facing an uphill battle with our own elected officials in Buckingham when it comes to being part of the discovery and review process of this project as it moved from initial phases over a year ago through the current approval process. Instead of providing an open forum and clear communication for the citizens that they are elected to support, Buckingham Township Supervisors Paul Calderaio, Maggie Rash and Jon Forest and their associates, have repeatedly put up roadblocks, or completely denied residents the information we believe they deserve,” stated the letter.
Right to Know requests, claimed the group, have been denied by the township, or heavily redacted.
During May’s public comments, Terry Maloney, of Durham Road, told supervisors the property has always been zoned industrial since the 1950s. He said the field across from his home is going to be a housing development.
“People should know what the zoning is when they move in, yet they still complain when something happens that is allowed to be there by zoning,” Maloney said, per meeting minutes.
Also at the May session, resident Phyllis Rubin-Arnold, of Long View Lane, said she had been in warehouses – they have walls, people put things in them and store them until needed, and then they take them out.
“This one is not a warehouse, it is a truck terminal,” Rubin-Arnold said, per meeting minutes. “There is no storage. I want it to be called a truck terminal.”
Resident Stephen Cassidy, of Liz Circle, told supervisors in May that, as an experienced bus driver, he regularly drives the proposed warehouse exit route, and finds it risky in a 40-foot school bus.
“I cannot imagine people not from the area driving on our small local roads,” he said.
Cassidy said he has seen tractor trailers turning right from Landisville Road onto Stony Lane, and they move slowly because they have to wait for backed-up traffic on Stony Lane before they can make the turn.
“They must move the cab into oncoming traffic when making turns,” he said.
John Skoutelas, vice president of the Landisville Hunt Homeowners Association, said an attorneys’ letter on the project lays out succinctly why the warehouse is a truck terminal use not permitted by zoning.
Skoutelas requested, on behalf of his association, that the three supervisors deny the application based on it not being permitted by zoning, per the minutes.
June minutes are expected to be approved at the Wednesday session.
