UnionCAN - Protect Union Township: Stop Warehouses Now!
UnionCAN - Protect Union Township: Stop Warehouses Now!
Why this petition matters
As a concerned resident of Union Township, NJ, I am deeply troubled by the proposed development of warehouses in our beloved community. This petition aims to raise awareness and gather support to prevent these warehouses from being built, as they will have detrimental effects on our environment, traffic congestion, neighborhood safety, our health and overall quality of life.
Living in Union Township is a privilege. We are all here for our specific way of life. Our community is known for its tight-knit neighborhoods, rolling green hills and rural living. That is why we all live here. However, the potential construction of warehouses threatens to disrupt this harmony and compromise the very essence that makes our township so very special.
Firstly, the environmental impact cannot be ignored. Warehouses are notorious for their excessive energy consumption and carbon emissions. The scale of the warehouses proposed will have a drastic impact on our local climate and environment. According to studies conducted by The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), these facilities contribute significantly to air pollution due to increased truck traffic and industrial activities. We must protect our environment for future generations by preventing further degradation caused by warehouse development.
“As corporations taught consumers to expect just-in-time products and delivery, warehouses have moved closer to people’s homes in more communities than ever before, bringing harmful air pollution from trucks with them,” says Aileen Nowlan, EDF’s U.S. policy director, Global Clean Air Initiative. “It’s important to understand who is bearing the brunt of health burdens associated with living close to heavy truck traffic in order to develop and implement smart, targeted policies that protect public health and reduce emissions.”
Within approximately 500 yards trucks will travel past and idle daily, causing hazardous air pollution where our children go to school and play outside during recess. In the SGS Perryville/53 Frontage Road/Union Township warehouse development scenario, it is our children, teachers and residents who will be bearing the brunt of health burdens associated with these emissions and due to lack of political will to protect them and the greater public from this significantly additional hazardous pollution that will impact our community.
Moreover, the influx of trucks associated with warehouses will undoubtedly worsen the already hellish traffic congestion and daily accident rate on Rt 78 in Union Township, Clinton, Bethlehem and surrounding communities. The additional strain on our roads will lead to increased taxes to maintain and police, longer commute times for residents who already face daily challenges navigating through heavy traffic areas. This not only affects individuals' productivity but also poses safety risks as more vehicles, more trucks compete for already limited road space. More accident delays for our school busses, while our children now get subjected to longer rides to school through accident related traffic.
We already suffer from the impacts caused by the Pilot truck stop, that was recently allowed in our community. There has been a murder at the Pilot, increased traffic enforcement/policing needed is depleting our policing budgets, trash and bottles full of urine can be found all along where we drive to our homes and our children to school. More tax payer money now has to be deployed to deal with these impacts even before we add a 700,000 sq ft warehouse complex adding hundreds of additional trucks daily. More traffic enforcement will be needed to deal with the exponentially increased truck traffic that will be required for the hundreds of additional trucks planned for, and this will become the burden of the tax payer on a local and state level.
Bringing trucks into residential neighborhoods raises concerns about public safety. Increased truck traffic increases the likelihood of accidents occurring near schools and residential areas where children play. Additionally, noise pollution from constant truck movement can disrupt peaceful living conditions that we cherish in Union Township. For many of our residents the truck noise already coming off Rt 78 has stripped them from their quality of life. Adding the noise of hundreds of more trucks will destroy all peace in our neighborhoods. It is already hard to sleep at night in some of our neighborhoods due to the nightly truck noise racing through our community, now to explode with hundreds more trucks day and night.
The potential rise in crime rates is another alarming consequence we must consider seriously if these warehouses are allowed to be developed within our township boundaries. Studies have shown that areas surrounding large-scale commercial developments often experience an increase in criminal activities such as thefts and burglaries due to easy access points provided by extensive transportation networks associated with warehouses. In our case there has already been a murder at the Pilot Truck stop since that was recently approved to be developed. This murder happened in less than a mile from both our Middle and Elementary Schools. We cannot allow more transient folks to come into our community. It is making our community and schools unsafe.
Lastly, the overall increase in pollution caused by warehouse operations poses a direct threat to our health and well-being. The EPA has linked air pollution to various respiratory diseases, including asthma and lung cancer. We cannot allow our community's health to be compromised for the sake of profit-driven developers that do not care about the impacts on our community.
I urge all residents of Union Township to join me in signing this petition to stop warehouses from being developed within our township. Join our movement, volunteer, donate and show up for the public hearings( on October 12, 2023 at 7 pm at the Union Township Middle School at 165 Perryville Road) on this matter. Let us protect our environment, preserve the safety of our neighborhoods, reduce traffic congestion, prevent an increase in crime rates, and safeguard the health of ourselves and future generations.
UnionCAN is the Union Township Citizens Action Network to advance the interests of the residents of Union Township, in Hunterdon County, in regard to the planned development of a new approximately 640,450+ square feet warehouse complex at 53 Frontage Road, Union Township, NJ 08827 and adjacent to the Union Township Middle School. This complex will consist of two massive warehouses, 360 parking stalls, 54 trailer truck parking stalls and 68 loading bays which will make it over 3 times the size of the Foster Wheeler complex. That is almost 12 football fields of just warehouse operations alone.
Once one warehouse is approved, what will then stop developers from developing all the open land along that same track into more warehouses?
Our current action is to represent the interests and concerns of the residents and greater Union Township and neighboring communities in regard to the impacts the warehouse sprawl and planned warehouse complex would have on the environment, safety, quality of life, traffic, noise and pollution.
Please support our fundraisers. Funds raised will be used to fund operations, hire attorneys and other relevant experts to represent the interests of the community in this application to develop 53 Frontage Road as a Warehouse Complex. The other open spaces in Union Township and Hunterdon County are sure to be next, should this development open the doors to allow warehouses. Soon our beautiful County will be overrun with trucks and warehouses. This must be stopped now, while we still can make a difference.
It is critical to raise the funds as soon as possible as the public review meeting of the application is planned for October 12, 2023 and we need to retain representatives and experts before this date.
The Citizens Action Network will fight to stop 2 MASSIVE warehouses on a beautiful undeveloped property, as pictured above when it was covered by sunflowers last summer. These building plans indicate the monstrous warehouse complex to be erected right next to the Union Township Middle School and residents are living right across from the school. Furthermore, there is a residential community right at Exit 11, where trucks are planned to travel through to this warehouse complex. I live in this community.
We are against warehouses so close to our homes and that we are expected to sacrifice our quality of life, peace and quite and community for "commerce" that does not directly benefit our community. We ARE against them to be located NEXT DOOR to our schools. As citizens and taxpayers we have a fundamental right to a livable community and that the additional tax causing burdens run up in the name of "commerce" does not just simply get shifted to the tax payer, locally or on a state level.
The application and documents detailing the bulk & use variance application for this massive warehouse development can be found in the link below. Please pay attention to the scale of the actual warehouses, the traffic, noise and pollution impact and how many trucks will be coming into our community.
Reminder, this is just the start! Once approved, nothing will stop developers from getting many more massive warehouses approved in our community.
Together we can make a difference!
Sign this petition today and let your voice be heard!
Please share this petition widely!
U Can Make a Difference!
Thank you for your support.
Elizabeth Lotenberg
Community Organizer - UnionCAN: Union Township Citizens Action Network
www.unioncan.org ( Now live! )