WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. – An appeal hearing contesting a zoning officer’s decision on a proposed logistics center scheduled before the Whitehall Township Zoning Hearing Board was cancelled Tuesday night.
Applicant Industrial VI Enterprises maintains that its development proposal for 4690 S. Church St. should be considered a warehouse, and not a distribution facility as Zoning and Code Enforcement Officer Christopher Gittinger ruled. The applicant’s appeal consolidates three different opinions rendered by the township on Dec. 17, 2024; Feb. 21, 2025; and June 19, 2025. The property is in the OS-2 Open Space/Limited Industrial zoning district.
The developer is asking zoners for variances to construct a 53-foot-high building — a total of 18 feet higher than the 35 feet allowed — and to construct a 200-foot-wide driveway where 40 feet is the maximum allowed. For those variances to be granted, the zoning hearing board wants the use defined applicable to its zoning code.
VI Enterprises’ argument is that the building’s primary function is for storage. They argued at a Sept. 17 hearing that any repackaging occurring on the site is incidental and ancillary. They used a school building to illustrate their point. A school building, they said, features various entities such as a nurse’s office, a cafeteria, and athletic facilities. However, those entities are not the primary purpose of the building, which is for education.
The same, VI Enterprises noted, would be applicable for the warehouse, which would feature offices and items associated with supporting the warehouse operations, but would not make it a distribution center.
At the Sept. 17 hearing, they offered four industry witnesses who all agreed with the applicant’s contention that the facility was a warehouse. Building size and depth were cited as two characteristics to support that argument.
Gittinger and the township’s stance is that an expected robust amount of tractor-trailer traffic entering and exiting the facility daily is consistent with a distribution center designation rather than a warehouse designation. The township also noted the level of repackaging anticipated at the facility would align it with a distribution center.
The proposed building would encompass about 1.2 million square feet, feature 653 parking stalls and 288 trailer storage spaces.
Whitehall Township said the hearing is scheduled to resume Nov. 18.