Back in February, the motion to rezone agricultural land for commercial use for a Sheetz gas station was voted down by the Warren County Board of Supervisors after a well-attended public hearing where citizens shared concerns about the project including noise, light and air pollution, water quality and quantity, traffic congestion, and safety. The Alliance spoke to these concerns as well as how the proposed rezoning is not inline with the county’s comprehensive plan which has the land remaining in agriculture.
Since that public hearing and a justified ‘no’ vote, somehow the project made its way back to the supervisors’ desks last week at the May 25th meeting. And again, we joined citizens who showed up and stated the same concerns.
Apparently, the Sheetz proposal and the need for a new location for a bus stop for the Apple Mountain Lake community have become entwined in an unreasonable way. The Sheetz developers included in their plan a bus stop behind the proposed gas station to replace the existing informal stop. When their proposal was voted down, the existing bus stop was discontinued. To address the missing bus stop, the Sheetz proposal is now being reconsidered. Thankfully, the tone of last week’s meeting was such that it seems that most of the board, and definitely the community, are in agreement that the Sheetz proposal is still inappropriate for all the same reasons as before, and going forward, decisions for a new bus stop should be focused on a new solution.
So, the board decided to wait at least until their June 15 meeting to make a decision, giving school board officials and the Apple Mountain Lake community the opportunity to find a more reasonable solution for a new bus stop.
We will continue to monitor the situation and will be in touch if there is a need to show up to yet another meeting to explain why the Sheetz proposal is not a good fit for Linden!