Weatherly Area School Board voted 5-3 to extend the Keystone Opportunity Zone designation for a wooded parcel of land located in Kidder Township.

The land is currently owned by Blue Ridge Realty, which is hoping to sell the parcel to the Exeter Property Group for a warehouse facility.

Board members Georgeann Herling, William Knepper, and Gerard Grega voted against extending the designation.

“These companies pay no taxes for 10 years and then they just pick up and leave,” Herling said. “I just don’t feel good about it.”

Knepper cited a lack of progress on the land, as well as the absence of a representative from the group asking for the KOEZ extension at the meeting.

“There’s no one here from the company. I would have liked to have asked them some questions,” Knepper said. “There are no plans, no designs, and that land has been sitting there tax-free since 2013.”

Grega says he would have supported the measure if it had been worded differently.

“It should read that the tax break starts when the land is purchased.”

As it stands, Blue Ridge Realty enjoys the tax-free status.

“These corporations are not paying these taxes and everyone else has to subsidize it,” Grega added.

At the prior week’s caucus meeting, board member Matthew vonFrisch, along with Weatherly Area Business Manager Pete Bard, argued that the taxes that would be generated by the jobs created by any development and business use of that land would exceed any property taxes that are being forgiven.