Churchill Council approves application for controversial Amazon warehouse

Churchill Council on Tuesday voted in favor of a controversial Amazon warehouse in their residential community.

Council voted 5-2, with council members Adam McDowell and Norma Greco opposing the development.

The vote comes after a 14-day public hearing that included more than 55 hours of testimony — and about a year of debate before Churchill Council and the borough’s planning commission.

Texas-based Hillwood Development has proposed building a 2.6 million-square-foot distribution and logistics facility for Amazon at the former site of the George Westinghouse Research Park.

Council President Jay Dworin said many local officials “have gone back and forth several times” on the development. It’s not all good or all bad, he said, and there will be difficulties for the borough whether or not it’s accepted.

“We must find what is best for the future of Churchill,” he said.

Dworin said that, while he understood some concerns that have been voiced during the process, he felt Hillwood met the legal requirements for the development.

The tax millage has doubled since Westinghouse left the borough, Councilman Kevin Collins said, and not allowing this development to move ahead will only increase the tax burden on residents.

“Churchill Borough needs commercial tax revenue,” Collins said.

The council can’t make a decision based on personal opinions, Councilwoman Diane Law said. They can only make a decision “within the framework of the law.” If the developer meets the necessary legal criteria, she said, council cannot legally vote it down.

“At the end of the day, I’m going to have to make a decision based not on how I feel as an individual citizen,” she said. “What I would like to see in the borough cannot rule my decision today.”

The application has several conditions attached, Collins said.

Among them is a provision prohibiting Amazon trucks from traveling on borough roads or traveling south on Greensburg Pike and Beulah Road.

Other conditions will limit their trucks from idling on roads and guarantee a future minimum property tax revenue of at least $2.4 million for at least 10 years.

Council members McDowell and Greco said they did not feel Hillwood Development has made enough of an effort to ensure there won’t be a negative environmental impact.

Opponents vow to fight

Churchill Future, an organization comprised of Churchill residents opposing the development, said immediately after the vote that they would take the issue to court.

“We need to be able to fight this,” resident Kate Carrigan Hill said during a virtual press briefing hosted by Churchill Future.

They have launched a GoFundMe page, which had raised over $26,000 by Tuesday evening, to pay for legal fees associated with their fight against the development. The group has already retained a lawyer, who represented them during the public hearing. But, Hill said, they’ll need additional community support and funding to continue fighting the project.

“It’s not over,” resident Sandy Fox said.

Several Churchill residents threatened to move out of the borough if the measure passed .

“A distribution center, especially one of this magnitude, is unquestionably inappropriate,” resident Murray Bilby said. “A distribution center does not belong in a residential community.”

Churchill Future, which hosted protests against the proposed development, joined other residents in voicing concerns that the development could lead to increased air and light pollution, noise and traffic issues. They’ve also objected to potential safety issues relating to an influx of traffic on residential roads where children walk and play, as well as impacts on stormwater and home values for houses near the site.

These objections persisted despite repeated efforts by the developer to address common concerns. Hillwood Development produced studies regarding traffic, noise and air and light pollution that indicated the development would not have negative impact on the surrounding community.

Those common concerns were echoed by at least 20 residents Tuesday, several of whom also claimed Hillwood’s studies were incomplete or inaccurate.

“It defies logic that our residential infrastructure, roads and service systems could support this industrial use,” resident Steve Frank said, calling the proposed development an effort by Amazon to “hijack our community and alter its very essence.”

Residents repeatedly implored council members to reject the controversial development, arguing that their concerns outweighed potential benefits.

Advocates for the development point out that it could bring over 1,000 full-time jobs with benefits, plus tax revenue, which would include between $600,000 and $660,000 annually to Churchill and between $2.3 million and $2.5 million for Woodland Hills School District.

Eric Grotzinger, the only Churchill resident to speak in favor of the proposal during the meeting, noted that no other developers have offered to do anything with the site, which has sat empty for years. Revitalizing the space, he said, would benefit the community and bring taxes and jobs.

“It is economically powerful, timely and has wide support,” he said. “I believe it is Churchill’s future.”

More than 250 people watched the meeting virtually, Dworin said.

Churchill Future representatives said they felt council members ignored their concerns in their vote.

Council considered “hours and hours of testimony by the applicant, objectors, experts and residents,” Dworin said in a statement after the vote. He said he had heard from people on all sides of the argument who spoke with him both publicly and privately. Some residents, he said, voiced legitimate concerns, while others have offered “impassioned, but not necessarily accurate” information.

“This has been a difficult process,” Dworin said. “Our residents and their passion to protect what is best about Churchill played a significant role in creating the conditions set forth in this approval.”

Rich Fitzgerald praises decision

Allegheny County Execution Rich Fitzgerald release a statement after the vote, thanking Churchill Council for approving the development:

“This is going to be a substantial development, not just for Churchill, but also for the residents in all of our eastern suburbs. It’s particularly exciting for these communities that haven’t seen as much growth as other areas of our county.

“This site has sat vacant for two decades but is now being brought back with potentially thousands of jobs, particularly for Woodland Hills students, allowing residents throughout those communities the benefit of economic growth.”

The borough’s planning commission in July unanimously voted to recommend the Amazon distribution center. The recommendation is nonbinding, but was to be considered in borough council’s decision.

After the borough’s public hearing, Borough Manager Alex Graziani said council would have to grant the developer’s application if it “demonstrates compliance with the specific standards and criteria set forth in the zoning ordinance, unless an objector presents sufficient evidence that the use would be detrimental to public health, safety or general welfare.”

“The mere possibility of an adverse impact is not enough,” Graziani said. “The objector must show that there is a high probability that the proposed use will generate harm greater than normally generated by that type of use.”