Commonwealth Court reverses land development approval for Wawa in Conshohocken

As MoreThanTheCurve.com reported in August of this year, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court upheld a decision by Conshohocken’s Zoning Hearing Board that found that an amended ordinance passed by Conshohocken’s Borough Council in November of 2017 was invalid due to spot zoning. The ordinance was crafted to allow a Wawa with gas pumps along the 1100 block of Fayette Street.

In more of housekeeping decision, the Commonwealth Court has now found that the land development resolution passed during the same meeting in November 2017 is invalid due to the zoning amendment having been declared invalid.

From the court’s opinion:

In their supplemental briefs filed with this Court, the parties concede that, because the Resolution was based on the Zoning Amendment and the Zoning Amendment has since been declared invalid, the Resolution is similarly invalid. We agree. Borough Council’s conditional approval of Provco’s preliminary/final land development plans was premised on the Zoning Amendment’s inclusion of a retail convenience store with fuel pumps as a permitted use in the RO District. Without the Zoning Amendment, however, there is no basis on which Borough Council could
have granted Provco land development approval for the Project because, under Section 27-1202 of the Ordinance, a retail convenience store is not a permitted use.

For these reasons, we conclude that Borough Council erred in passing the
Resolution.

You can read the opinion here.