Washington Township residents push for answers about rumored dollar store

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com

Residents opposed to dollar store or other retail facility built on a wooded lot along Route 201 in Washington Township heard from a member of the planning commission at Wednesday’s board of supervisors meeting.
Members of the “Washington Township Concerned Citizens” group, asked the board if the township has received any official permit applications or requests from a developer who is purportedly interested in land on the 1100 block of Fayette Avenue (Route 201).
As members have done at several meetings, resident Mike Hamed told the board he’s heard rumors a retail chain development group from Tennessee is looking at the property.
The group contends that building a retail facility along Route 201 would bring increased traffic, which in turn would create safety concerns for residents who live nearby and have school-aged children who get on and off of school buses in the area. The group also views Washington Township as “a bedroom community,” and thinks constructing a corporate box store, which they assume will be larger than 5,000-square-feet in size, doesn’t fit in with the township’s landscape and image.
Anticipating questions about the rumors, Supervisor Jan Amoroso said she asked Planning Commission member Jamie Protin to attend the meeting.
Protin told Hamed, resident Don Gray and others, that while planning commission members have also heard rumors about a developer looking at the property, they have not received any official permit applications for the property.
“So you have no permits, no applications on that piece of property?” Hamed asked the board and Protin.
“There’s no permits applications yet,” Supervisor Chuck Yusko said.
“All that was put in, there was a (Pennsylvania) One Call (to 811) put in,” Supervisor Scott Hileman said. “That’s just for us to mark our lines, just like the gas company did, the sewage, the water company.”
“We have not received a single thing,” Protin said “I see all the signs and everything, but we haven’t heard anything about it. So, nothing official has been done. I can tell you that much.”
Gray and the group have installed yard signs along Route 201 to inform residents about the potential development of the retail facility. The signs say things like “Say NO to $ stores.”
Protin explained there is a process that must be followed.
“If and when we do receive the application, it’ll come to the planning commission first before it goes to the supervisors,” he said. “I mean we have to review everything on a case by case basis. Everyone is unique.”

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