“The cut-off would be at the east-end of Jackson Road, right at the Union property line,” said Mike Lang, president of the township trustees. “It would be open, theoretically, if it was a cul-de-sac, all the way from Frederick Pike and then to the east, just stopping short of the new building.”
Montgomery County Commissioners are scheduled to discuss the issue following a July 29 meeting, according to Paul Gruner, county engineer. The public will not be allowed to speak during this meeting, but they will be allowed to speak during the commission’s Aug. 5 public hearing on the issue.
Jackson Road is barely 1.5 lanes wide from Frederick Pike to Dog Leg Road, according to Kim Lapensee, township administrator. “The county widened Jackson Road from the new road - Union Airpark Boulevard - to just west of the ProLogis site,” Lapensee said.
P&G is leasing the 1 million square-foot distribution center from ProLogis, a national developer of industrial buildings.
“The new road - Union Airpark Boulevard - is five lanes wide from U.S. 40 (West National Road) to Old Springfield Road,” Lapensee said.
John Applegate, Union City manager, said the city is opposed to the township’s petition, but declined to elaborate.
The commission’s discussion of this issue will come two weeks after Union City Council voted to rezone approximately 300 acres of land, some located in the township, to light-industrial. The purpose of the rezoning, which a significant number of township residents opposed, was to make way for more economic development around the P&G facility.
“The improvement to Jackson Road in front of the P&G Building is done. Up-graded from barely a two lane road to a three lane road,” Applegate said.
Although the township considers the portion of Jackson Road that’s between Frederick Pike and Dog Leg Road to be less than two-lanes, the county describes the west-end of this road as a rural two-lane road.
Right now, the east end of Jackson Road is three lanes and the west end is a rural two-lane road, according to Steve Stanley, executive director of the Montgomery County Transportation Improvement District.
Township trustees held a meeting in late spring, early summer with the affected residents about Union’s plans for the area.
“From that very first meeting, most of the residents made it pretty obvious that in order for them to survive peacefully into the future, living next door to the facility, it made the most sense to vacate the road and turn it into a cul-de-sac to eliminate through traffic,” Lang said.
Lang added that a cul-de-sac is the best course of action because Jackson cannot support large vehicles. The cul-de-sac also prevents employees of the new facility from using the road.
The township’s petition comes a year after the county awarded $500,000 in ED/GE (Economic Development/Government Equity) grant funding to the city of Union.
The grants were included in the funding to be used to widen the roads associated with the P&G facility, according to Stanley.
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