Plans for a large distribution center on Hilltop Road in Maxatawny Township are effectively canceled after supervisors dismissed the developers’ request for land use approval.
At a meeting late in July, supervisors voted 2-1 to dismiss a request for conditional use by developer 23 Max LLC, Allentown, on the grounds of collateral estoppel, township officials confirmed.
Collateral estoppel prevents parties from relitigating issues that have received a valid ruling in a previous case.
Residents made that legal argument during a conditional use hearing for the Hilltop warehouse, according to Robert Grim, a retired attorney and representative of a citizens group opposing several warehouse projects in the township.
Developers had already gone through a conditional use hearing and were denied; therefore they could not legally resubmit their plans to build a 1 million-square-foot and a 270,000-square-foot warehouse on 128 acres near 310 Hilltop Road, residents argued.
Supervisors John Deplanque and Marcus Simonetti voted to dismiss, while Heath Wessner voted against the dismissal.
Developers have 30 days to appeal the July vote but had yet to do so, officials said early in August.
Supervisors voted in March to remove warehouses as a permitted use from the township’s light industrial district — effectively killing any future attempt to submit plans for the Hilltop site, which is in that district.
Pending plans
Two other plans for large warehouses in the light industrial district remain legally embattled.
Plans by developer 222 Capital Partners LLC for a 1-million-square-foot warehouse and a 660,000-square-foot warehouse north of Route 222, with Hottenstein Road running between them, are undergoing a conditional use hearing.
Those plans were originally proposed by developer Duke Realty, which was acquired by San Franscio-based real estate investment firm Prologis in 2022.
Prologis withdrew their application to use the property in January after an initial approval was challenged by residents and overturned in state Commonwealth court.
The plans were resurrected when the current developers applied anew for a conditional use hearing, with the fourth leg of that hearing scheduled for Aug. 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the township building.
The other plan would place a 709,000-square-foot warehouse on 66 acres along Kutztown Road, formerly the site of the Kutztown airport, which closed in 2008.
The project calls for the elimination of the Airport Diner, as well as the Airport Mobile Home Park, which residents have largely abandoned because of the plans, and a pad used by medical helicopters.
Developer C&B Development LLC of Wyomissing sought a variance from the township’s rule that no access driveway servicing a warehouse facility be located within 500 feet of a residential structure.
That request was unanimously denied by the township zoning hearing board in January.
C&B appealed that denial and the case is pending in Berks County Court, township officials confirmed.
Because both remaining plans are also located within the light industrial district, any failure by developers to secure approval could mark the end of large warehouse projects on those lots because the zoning amendment doesn’t permit the submission of any new warehouse plans.
All three plans have received no shortage of pushback from residents, who have argued that the increased truck traffic from warehouses along busy township roads would disrupt and threaten residents, including Kutztown University students and the local Mennonite community.
“Trucks going along (Route) 222 right through the middle of Kutztown University campus represent a real safety threat to students,” Grim said. “There have been several near fatal pedestrian accidents there throughout the years. It’s just not the right place to have massive warehouses.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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