Proposed hotel and restaurant hits problems

Can the road handle the traffic?

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE, PA - The Wayne County Department of Planning (WCDP) says no to only one access road. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) says no to a second access road.

That’s not stopping the developer of a proposed 80-room, 38,000-square-foot hotel and a separate restaurant from moving forward with an application for a permitted conditional use to site the complex on the once sylvan, bucolic hill with woods and switch grass, high above Indian Orchard just outside of the borough of Honesdale, that has now become a mega-hub of commerce with Wal-Mart on one hill and Home Depot on another.

But can PA Route 6, which also handles the Route 6 Mall, safely take on more traffic?

Mike Wood of Woodland Design Associates, who represents the developer?the Route 6 Development Corporation?appeared before the Texas Township Planning Commission on February 19 to advocate that a conditional use permit ought to be granted as the township ordinances are not against the project in principal.

Commission members were concerned about the heavy traffic on the roadway leading up to Home Depot and Wal-Mart, which is serviced by the same road. When Wood insisted that the township’s ordinances allowed a hotel as a permitted use, the board decided that application must be addressed. He also argued that after a careful examination of the township’s ordinances, two access roads were not required.

“For the health and safety of citizens, we’re saying that there should be two access roads to the property,” said WCPD director Ed Coar, whose department will review the land-use application. The county has no objection if one of the access roads leads into the Home Depot Road.

“We aren’t telling them how to do it,” he said.

The 47-acre property, which is currently owned by BMG Fastener Company of Honesdale whose plant sits nearby, sits on a densely wooded hill on the northern side of the Home Depot property. The main access road would have to be cut a few hundred feet from two holding pools that stand near the bottom of Home Depot Road.

The developer originally proposed to build a second access road down the other side of the hill to Route 6 that would meet the highway in front of Baer Sport Center, but PennDOT didn’t like the idea.

“We said that it was not an ideal location for another access road because of the slope and the inability to have adequate site distance at that location,” said Joe Pilosa, PennDOT district permits manager.

A required emergency road will pass through the Quiet Acres Mobile Home Park that stands on the same hill at the west of the hotel. The county has no problem with this egress as long as it is used only for emergencies.

Reilly Associates of Pittston conducted a traffic study in late August of 2006 at the intersections that would be affected by the hotel project. Traffic counts were collected during peak traffic hours on a weekday morning and afternoon, and on a Saturday. The study found that the average delay or level of service was currently acceptable at all the intersections.

Members of the township planning commission have asked for time to study the land plan and agreed to table the matter to its next meeting on March 18.