COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Colerain Township could call itself home to the second announced WaWa location in the Greater Cincinnati region, but the project isn't without its hurdles early on.
A hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday night to discuss rezoning parcels on Colerain Avenue to allow the convenience store to build.
Unicorp National Developments is seeking the ability to turn two adjoining parcels of land "into a fueling station," according to an application letter dated May 3 from the company to the Colerain Township Board of Trustees.
For the WaWa to come to fruition, those two parcels need to be combined into one and the land must be re-zoned from residential to a business-planned development district.
In the township's zoning commission agenda, several plans show demolition notes for the proposed site, topographical maps for the area and images of what the proposed WaWa location could look like.
The location the convenience store giant seems to be eyeing is at 10329-10345 Colerain Avenue, near Struble Road.
In a staff report prepared by the township's zoning administrator, several issues besides zoning will have to be resolved before a WaWa will ever grace Colerain Avenue, however.
"Colerain Township staff was introduced to the proposed development last November," reads the case summary written in the report. "During a pre-application meeting, it was noted that the site was not served by public sanitary sewers and it is staff's understanding that an arrangement has been made to extend public sewer service to the proposed site."
In Unicorp's application letter, it vowed to extend a sanitary main extension south, to connect the WaWa to the public sewer system — but that new extension will mean the Metropolitan Sewer District will need to require nearby homeowners on septic systems to connect to the new public main.
"Unicorp intends to provide sanitary sewer stub(s) for homeowner(s) on SR-27, adjacent the public main extension," the application letter says.
There's also an issue with adjacent parcels of land that causes problems with the request for a new zoning consideration, according to the zoning administrator's report.
"It is staff's opinion that the proposed major modification and rezoning of the property to PD-B for the proposed use should be considered with great caution," says the report.
That's because two sites near where the proposed WaWa could stand are already classified as "brownfield sites," or property that is abandoned or underutilized because of pollution from industrial use. Both sites were formerly gas stations, the report says.
The zoning administrator's report adds that "great caution must be employed in the consideration of rezoning the proposed site" because both sites have remained vacant as a result of expenses associated with remediation of the contamination at those sites.
Ultimately, the report recommends Colerain Township officials in the zoning committee table the decision to re-zone the parcels on Colerain Avenue that would contain the WaWa, until the new building's plan is amended to better align with township requirements.
In addition, simply re-zoning the land on which the WaWa would be built isn't enough, according to the zoning administrator's report.
The report says that, although that area sees heavy traffic that could make the WaWa a success, that traffic is also of concern to people who live in Colerain Township. To resolve that issue, Unicorp said it will conduct a traffic study.
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