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Bell & Evans officials requested and received unanimous approvals on numerous appeals to the Bethel Township Zoning Board for the poultry company’s proposed Ready to Eat Plant in Fredericksburg.
The company was granted all appeals under one motion by the township’s zoning board at its Feb. 27 meeting.
CEO Mike Bracrella asked the board to permit:
- Changes the proposed building height to exceed the permitted maximum of 35 feet up to a maximum of 50 feet.
- A variance for the manufacturing plant use in the C-2 highway commercial district.
- A variance for parking areas and access drives in greater than 50 percent of the required front yard.
- A variance for 50-foot front yard setback for the 50-foot building height.
- A variance for both proposed driveway widths to exceed the maximum requirements.
It was noted the property for these relief actions will be on a lot at the southeast corner of Fredericksburg Road and Route 22. The plant would sit along the state highway in proximity to the company’s Plant 3, which is above that site on Chestnut Hill Road.
During a Q&A session with Bell & Evans’ attorney Beth Kohl, Bracrella said that the plan is to have five trucks in and out of the plant daily to ship 100 percent ready-to-eat products. (Several months ago, Bell & Evans president Scott Sechler told township officials that customer demand, due to salmonella concerns, were driving the decision to construct the plant at this time. Customer demand came from grocery chains that want to sell pre-cooked products at their stores.)
“This will be a further processing facility. We will produce fully cooked chicken there,” Bracrella said. “Currently at Plant 2, we kind of precook it and it’s not fully cooked. Take it home and finish cooking it. At this facility, 100 percent of the products that will come out of there will be fully cooked.”
Bracrella was asked by Kohl if the new facility would be compatible with others owned by the company.
“It’ll be consistent with what we do at Plant 2 with the exception of fully cooking,” he said, adding the plant will mirror others it owns. “The appearance, the way we’ll handle the air systems, and everything in the facility, will be very consistent with our other facilities.”
He said no when asked if there would be unique impacts like odor, noise, dust, adding that all activity will be occurring fully within the building other than truck traffic.
Kohl asked and Bracrella affirmed that only manufacturing facilities are permitted in the township in the manufacturing zoning district and that it was Bell & Evans’ position that “this property is situated at a location in the middle of other lands that are zoned manufacturing, which is a unique condition of this property that’s not true for all properties within the C2 district.”
“It would also be our position that our Plant 2 is in the same district,” said Bracrella, who confirmed that the facility is in the C2 district under a use variance that also allows manufacturing at that location. Bracrella told the zoning board that the use variance for Plant 2 was granted in 2008.
Bracrella told the zoning board food safety is why their buildings are constructed to a height of 50 feet.
“Typically we have a 24-foot ceiling in our manufacturing space. That’s a space that allows us to – when we wash at night and we do the things we do – that’s a height that’s very consistent to not generate moisture that will accumulate on the ceiling,” he said. “Then when we’re done processing, when we switch our systems over to warm the facility up, that’s a height that really gives us that air buffer to not create condensation. Condensation is very bad with what we do and we do anything we can do to mitigate that. That’s really what’s ultimately driving the height.”
Concerning the proposed driveway, Kohl mentioned to the zoning board that their zoning ordinance has a restriction of 40 feet for the width of driveways, and that the zoning officer had flagged this as a township ordinance violation.
“We have both a team member, pedestrian vehicle access drive as well as a truck access drive both of which by their necessary configurations for safety off the road exceed that ordinance standard, which arguably is more consistent with a much smaller use type driveway and does not allow for truck use,” Kohl said. “The second item is to allow portions of parking areas and drive areas within the front yard setbacks. Our property does have front yards along both state Route 22 and I believe Fredericksburg Road because it’s a corner lot. There is a small portion of some parking spaces which exceed beyond the 50 percent line of those setbacks. It’s a minor encroachment. We believe it’s de minimis in nature but we do have the build support on that.”
Bracrella was asked if the proposed widths of the company’s engineering team were the necessary and reasonable width for safe ingress and egress at each of those driveways for their respective vehicles.
“These have been proposed by our civil engineer as well as these are consistent with the entrances that we’ve used at our other facilities for similar use,” he answered. “And just to be clear, especially the larger ones in the south, that is the type of exit that we believe will be necessary for any type of traffic trailer use.”
In building the case to permit the driveway variance, Kohl offered to the zoning board that truck terminals are a use that is permitted in the C2 zoning district, meaning that while they asked for a variance to allow manufacturing, there are other facilities in the C2 district with the same type of truck traffic that would also necessitate entrances in excess of the 40-foot requirement.
When questioned by Kohl, Bracrella answered that the driving force behind the parking lot variance is a shift in the floodplain line, which was moved approximately a year ago. He added that the floodplain line required more property than it did at the 18-acre site.
A number of natural features including both the stream channel called Elizabeth Run, a wetlands and wetlands buffer, as well as the flood zone, are all located “just around the outside edge of the proposed development,” according to Bracrella.
He added that the shifting of the floodplain changed the building’s configuration “to allow for the necessary circulation and vehicular patterns within that footprint and shape of the remaining developable property.”
It was not stated at the meeting when construction would begin for this project, but Sechler previously noted that it was being moved ahead of others the company has proposed to meet customer demands.
Read More: Bell & Evans officials lay out long-term goals to Bethel Twp. planning officials
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