Plans to build a 24 hour Wawa convenience store and gas station on the Newtown Bypass are headed to court.
The board of supervisors on Wednesday night voted to deny preliminary/final land development plans for the project, which has been the source of discussion and debate in the township for the past four years.
[See the Wawa Versus Newtown Timeline going back to 2017.]
Supervisor Kyle Davis, who has opposed the location of the store from the start, joined John Mack and Elen Snyder in voting to deny the plan while Chairman Dennis Fisher and supervisor Phil Calabro voted against denial.
The developer of the project, Provco Pinegood, will likely be appealing the decision to the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas where a judge will ultimately decide its fate.
At the meeting, Provco’s land use attorney, John VanLuvanee, presented what he called a “clean plan” to the supervisors, meaning that there were no outstanding issues that needed to be addressed under the township’s land development ordinances.
“This is not an application to determine whether or not a Wawa should be sited on the southeast corner of Silver Lake Road and the bypass. That’s already been determined and a special exception has been granted,” said VanLuvanee. “Tonight we’re looking objectively at a series of land development plans to determine whether they meet the ordinance. That’s the only issue before you tonight.”
“There are a lot people in the community who would like a Wawa and there are some who don’t,” said Chairman Fisher. “We worked to create the E30 ordinance and I believe Wawa has submitted a plan that has tried to follow that ordinance.”
Supervisor John Mack disagreed with Fisher that Provco has followed the ordinance, saying he believes that “Provco is not making a good faith effort to follow our ordinances. In fact every step of the way it has challenged the ordinance and even calls things in the ordinance silly. They have no respect for our laws and no respect for our residents.”
Earlier in the meeting, Mack also questioned Provco regarding the hours of operation of the store. He argued that because there’s a residential use well within 750 feet of the property hours of operation should be limited.
Supervisor Elen Snyder expressed disappointment that the proposed project is not more environmentally friendly. “I don’t think you made any effort to do so whatsoever. Yes, you do have native trees. I appreciate that. Other than that there’s not much to address climate change in the future. I’m not down with that. I’m sorry.”
Snyder also raised concerns over the impact the Wawa will have on the local mom and pop gas stations. “We have gas stations that have been here for decades. What I’m worried about is that you will undercut them as far as the price of gas and I don’t want to see our home-grown businesses lose business.”
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