BETHLEHEM TWP., Pa. - The Wawa plan that Bethlehem Township rejected in December will be up for review again Feb. 7.
Wagner Enterprises proposes a Wawa convenience store with gas pumps, a bank, and two eight-unit garden apartment buildings for 4900 Freemansburg Ave. In December, the township Board of Commissioners opposed the plan, 4-1.
The Wawa would go at the intersection of Freemansburg and Wagner Drive, a spot known as Harvey's Corner.
Wagner's filing challenges how the township applies its zoning ordinance to the land, "without reasonable basis, given that subject parcels share all characteristic of those parcels included" in the "mixed-use village" zoning overlay.
Attorney Julie Wagner Burkart of Stevens & Lee, Allentown, filed the challenge. A note on the letter indicates it was delivered by hand.
The township rejected the proposal in December, citing failure to comply with multiple ordinances, requirements and provisions of the zoning code. Before that vote, Wagner Burkart said the reasons to deny were not valid and that the township "showed bad faith" with the application.
Township residents have objected to multiple developments within the past year. In addition to the Wawa, Kay Builder's plan for 166 housing units on Farmersville Road ran into opposition as residents see the last acres of farmland disappear. Neighbors of that land of course live on land that was also once agricultural, as much of the township was for centuries.
Europeans arrived in what is now Bethlehem Township around 1730, and the land became part of Bucks County in 1737. The Township of Bethlehem was created in 1746, and covered a lot more ground than it does today.
Things were cheap then, with land going for 27 cents per acre in 1776, according to the website. Over time, the township became part of Northampton County and shed areas that are now Upper and Lower Nazareth, Freemansburg and parts of Bethlehem.
The Bethlehem Township Zoning Hearing Board will meet at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at the township building, 4225 Easton Ave.
