Oppose Township Commissioner Approval of UPS Petition to Amend Zoning

A UPS subsidiary has filed a petition for a zoning amendment that supports UPS plans for a 935,000-square-foot regional hub to be built in the 2100 block of North Union Street in Lower Swatara Township The facility would generate 600+ Tractor Trailers Daily, and equal number or greater number of local delivery vehicles and over 1000 employee vehicles traveling in the Township. This will impact the health and the quality of life for the residents of the Township.

Following are some of the major areas of concern that support our opposition to this development:

1. Increases in vehicle emission particulate pollution and related negative health impacts.
2. Increased sound and light pollution and the related negative impacts.
3. Potential for environmental pollution which is amplified by the site location being in an area that is prone to sinkholes.
4. Increased risk of issues related to flooding
5. Increased traffic congestion and the associated hot spots that concentrate vehicle emissions sound and impact resident’s quality of life.
6. Potential Impact on Property Values.
It is essential that appropriate impact studies be performed prior to the approval of the petition, as Pennsylvania law makes it extremely difficult to overturn a zoning amendment once it has been approved. We believe that there has been a grossly inadequate level of due diligence performed to assess the negative impacts that this development will have on the community. We attempted to support the Planning Commission in their review. Many of the Commissioners totally ignored our requests for information and the research we provided. This included a requests that UPS provide us their emission statistics which are voluntarily provided by many of their competitors to the EPA through the Safeway program. The planning commission did not even pass the request along. In addition it was recommended that a third party analysis should be completed to evaluate the site risk as it relates to sinkhole flood and other geological risks. The commissioners suggested that this could be done internally with the township engineer and once again no action was taken.

In our opinion the Planning Commission provided their approval without 90% of the required impact data they needed to make a prudent decision.
This decision should be made on an educated basis with the impact evaluated prior to the approval.  This information should be published and the position of the citizens confirmed.  Approving prior to the impact analysis will also impair the legal position of the citizens on this issue.   If you agree with the above please support the petition listed below.