RELATED: West Chester residents worry restaurant will make traffic worse
Original plans for the site approved in 2009 called for approximately 21,500 square feet of space for a bank, restaurant and office buildings. A second plan approved in August included a 6,400-square-foot El Rancho Grande restaurant with outdoor seating.
The developer withdrew each of those plans for the still-vacant site prior to resubmitting new plans, said Barb Wilson, the township’s spokeswoman.
Tim Kling, director of real estate for UDF, told this media outlet the second plan was withdrawn by developer RLH Ventures after El Rancho Grande pulled out of the project without explanation late last year.
The new plan calls for a 5,749-square-foot UDF storefront with outdoor seating and eight fuel pumps. Parking spaces will number 25, although the township requires only 14.
“This use … is a less dense (use),” said Tom Tepe, an attorney for UDF. “Those were traffic generators and what we call UDF is a traffic capturer. It captures people coming, it doesn’t generate (traffic) on a destination basis.”
A preliminary landscaping plan shows a buffer of shrubs and trees between the project and subdivision to the north and east, as well as a six-foot-tall privacy fence.
Neighbors of the project told trustees that they did not want the restaurant approved, detailing traffic concerns attempting to exit or enter Winwood Drive at U.S. 42 north of Fields-Ertel Road.
MORE: West Chester OKs restaurant with added conditions to protect neighbors
Erin Jones, who said she moved to a nearby subdivision from out of state in 2015, said the traffic on Winwood is “way more excessive” than anticipated when her family first arrived in the area. She said she was concerned that additional cut-through traffic generated by the new development would exacerbate the situation.
Trustees George Lang and Mark Welch approved the change in plans at the most recent trustee meeting. Trustee Lee Wong was not present.
Welch said possible ways to ease any traffic woes included a right-in, right-out only entrance/exit along U.S. 42 or, more optimally, a roundabout at U.S. 42 and Winwood.
“Roundabouts are being used extensively in Butler County now, for the purposes of getting rid of traffic signals,” he said. “It seems to manage traffic better. It slows traffic down a little bit.”
Lang agreed but said any such decision was up to the Ohio Department of Transportation. He echoed Tepe’s sentiments of a restaurant being “a traffic generator.”
“People were going to go out of their way to go there,” Lang said. “I see a convenience store more as a traffic receptacle. ”
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