Penn Forest Township is moving ahead to amend its zoning ordinance that would designate an area for warehouses and allow regulation of the industrial sites.

A public zoning hearing was held with a capacity crowd at the municipal building before the regular monthly meeting Monday.

The proposed amendment to the township zoning ordinance text and map would establish a new C-1A Zoning District and to locate the district south of Route 903 near the northeastern extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It would establish regulations for warehousing, storage, distribution center, and trucking company terminal uses.

According to township Solicitor Thomas Nanovic, there were no queries of businesses looking to build such facilities in Penn Forest Township. But the idea is to stay ahead of the game and be prepared in case any such requests are made.

“Our ordinance is from 2011, and it really doesn’t do a particularly good job of regulating warehouses or distribution centers,” Nanovic said.

Nanovic said that suggestions of limiting the warehouses and terminals to the existing industrial zones, or possibly increase the size of the industrial zones, were not good ideas.

The township hired Charles Schmehl, president of Urban Research & Development Corporation, to take a look at the zoning ordinance and recommend changes.

Nanovic said, “(Schmehl) said, why don’t we create a new zoning district and permit the warehouses and distributions there, but let’s regulate them. Let’s have a lot of regulations so that we can control them, which we don’t do right now.”

Schmehl told residents, “This process is not intended to make it easier to build warehouses or distribution centers or truck terminals in the township.”

“The goal of it is to make the provisions more defensible in consultation with a township solicitor, to make it easier to have the locations of distribution centers and warehouses be very carefully controlled and very carefully regulated.”

He said the regulations on these uses would be much more extensive under the amendment than the current regulations.

Eighteen members of the public spoke during the public comment section of the meeting and voiced their concerns.

Mary Morton, a resident from Ash Drive, questioned the township supervisors on the potential of ecological disaster.

“There is absolutely no mention of ecological devastation. There is a value to ecosystem services; our water, our air, our land, our animals, our plants, our insects, everything. Why aren’t these warehouse areas required to offset at least one-for-one, maybe three-for-one or five-for-one other devastated areas either in the township or the county? Why is a township willing to just give away the right to devastate and destroy priceless land and ecosystems?”

Commenting on the suggestion that such businesses would bring jobs to the area, Joanna McCauley, from Isabella Drive, said, “Even with the income, the tax base, that tax base doesn’t lower real estate taxes, it doesn’t lower our school tax, it doesn’t fix our roads, it doesn’t help our infrastructure, it doesn’t do any of that.”

The Supervisors to advertise to enact the change at a special meeting to be held on Nov. 17. Supervisors Roger L. Meckes, Christian Bartulovich, Scott Lignore, and James Denier voted “yes.” Supervisor Patrick Holland voted “no.”