Northampton residents recommend against new supermarket

More than 100 locals filled Richboro Middle School auditorium to voice their concerns about the proposed Giant supermarket at the Northampton Township Planning Commission meeting last week. 

The meeting was the first of several conditional use hearings for the Dreher Group's new proposal, which includes only the shopping center,  as opposed to the group's original plan they brought to the board last year for a grocery store and additional stores on roughly 11 acres of property that were not all zoned commercially. 

The Dreher Group has an agreement to buy the site, formery Davis Pontiac, a car dealership owned by Glenn Davis. The dealership was part of the community for several decades and was considered by many a community landmark, Northampton Township Manager Bob Pellegrino said.

This proposal, unlike the last, does not require a zoning change but does require a conditional use application, Pellegrino said. It currently falls under C-2 zoning, a mixed used commerical zone. 

Examples of requirements the board could place on the store include ensuring the lights on the property are out by 11 p.m. or the store must be closed at midnight. These types of conditions are ones the board might see as beneficial to the nearby residents and the area, Pellegrino said.

The new plan includes a 57,000-square-foot Giant Food Store in addition to a few shops on the same 7-acre property that borders Second Street Pike at the intersection with Bustleton Pike. 

The group's presentation included traffic pattern studies and marketing research findings, both of which they said would foster positive outcomes for the community like reduced traffic speeds through the area and the longest continuous sidewalk in the town.

"Supermarkets are usually the anchor of a community," said Jim Constantine, the Dreher Group's planner from LRK Architects. "The Richboro market generated ample weekly grocery dollar potential that could support a Giant Food Market."

Residents, however, did not agree. During public comment, more than 10 people spoke about how building another grocery store would be detrimental to Richboro and its citizens.

"I don't want to see any more traffic in this town at all," local Gerard Fleury said. "I'm afriad if we get the Giant it's going to casue a failure of one of the other stores that exist in Richboro today."

Other residents also commented on the fact that the town already has three supermarkets that many residents work in and shop at regularly: Shop N Bag, Superfresh and Tanners Market. 

"The notion that you can fit in another box store ... and have no impact to me is absurd," local resident Winfield Tathem said. "We need to protect our own and we need to develop and improve the town not by jamming in more cars."

The commission will hold several more hearings before the first hearing before the Board of Supervisors, which must be held by the end of April. Pellegrino said the township plans to oppose the project because "nobody wants just the food store, at least along Second Street Pike." The next hearing is scheduled for March 1 but could be pushed back to March 8.