Upper Macungie clarifies definition of trucking terminals

Upper Macungie supervisors have clarified the legal definition of a trucking terminal — a move that residents hope will prevent companies from getting approval for such a facility by calling it a warehouse.

The amendment to the zoning ordinance, unanimously approved Tuesday, grew out of Old Dominion Freight Lines’ proposal to build a facility at 6975 Ambassador Drive.

Old Dominion said it was proposing a distribution warehouse. But residents and township supervisors contended it was a trucking terminal, which is not permitted in light industrial areas.

The problem was the zoning ordinance didn’t define tractor-trailer trucks or smaller trucks, definitions needed to interpret whether a facility was a permitted use.

The Zoning Hearing Board sided with Old Dominion. The supervisors disagreed and appealed to Lehigh County Court.

Old Dominion has since withdrawn its plan and has indicated it is looking at a site at 2545 Brodhead Road in Bethlehem Township.

In the amendment, the supervisors struck a sentence from the zoning code that differentiated a terminal from a warehouse based on the kinds of trucks loading and unloading goods.

Now terminal is simply defined as “a use involving a large variety of materials, including materials owned by numerous corporations, being transported to a site to be unloaded primarily from tractor-trailer trucks and reloaded onto tractor-trailer trucks.”

“In my opinion, it clarifies that use and takes away some of the ambiguity,” township solicitor Andrew Schantz said.

Lehigh County Judge Edward Reibman issued a June 3 ruling in the case that reversed the Zoning Hearing Board’s interpretation, but ordered another hearing to further untangle the issue.

Ronald Corkery, a Whitehall Township attorney who represented residents opposing the trucking facility, said he’s been in touch with the Ambassador Drive property owner Jim Gentile, who intends to send a letter to the court withdrawing his request for ordinance interpretation. Corkery said this move should effectively end the litigation.

Sunny Ghai, among the leaders of the community who opposed the Old Dominion facility, was happy to see the ordinance updated with cleaner language.

Ghai said trucks clog township roads and have caused serious crashes that have finally led residents to start pushing against their prevalence in Upper Macungie. A balance, he said, must be maintained.

“We’re sort of at a tipping point with all the truck traffic,” Ghai said.

The 14-acre site proposed by Old Dominion sat close to residential homes, Ghai said, and the plan “just wasn’t a good fit.”

From what he’s heard about the Bethlehem Township plan, Ghai said the new location seems far more suited for the use.

“It’s situated near other trucking centers … in an industrial setting,” Ghai said. “That’s the kind of place for it.”

swojcik@mcall.com

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