Township Supervisors Approve Preliminary Review of Industrial Zone Boundaries

The Millhaven Township Board of Supervisors voted at its regular monthly meeting to initiate a preliminary review of the industrial zone boundaries in the township's eastern corridor, a decision that opens a formal process that could result in significant changes to the land use regulations governing an area that has seen growing interest from commercial and industrial developers over the past several years. The vote was three to two, with the dissenting supervisors expressing concern about the pace of the process and the adequacy of the public notice provided ahead of the meeting.

The eastern corridor in question encompasses several hundred acres of land currently zoned for light industrial uses, some of which has been in active industrial use for decades and some of which has sat vacant or underutilized as the manufacturing sector that once occupied it has contracted. Developer interest in the area has focused primarily on large-format commercial uses and, more recently, on logistics facilities that require substantial land area and generate significant truck traffic.

Township planning director Anne Corley said the preliminary review would take three to four months and would include a public comment period. The review's findings would be presented to the board before any formal zoning action was considered. Supervisor Gerald Marsh, who voted in favor of the review, said the township had an obligation to examine whether its current zoning reflected current and anticipated land use realities. "We wrote these rules a long time ago," he said. "The question is whether they still make sense."