United Dairy Farmers is looking to plant a second flag in Washington Township, with a zoning application seeking to rezone 18 acres at 1960 Austin Road for a new store and automotive fueling station. The site sits near the intersection of Austin Boulevard and Washington Church Road, and township officials are set to take up the case this month.
The application was detailed by WDTN.com, which reported that the Washington Township Zoning Commission will consider the UDF case and other matters at a public hearing on Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. in the Blair meeting room at 8200 McEwen Road. Cincinnati-based United Dairy Farmers already operates a Washington Township location at 5980 Far Hills Ave., and the Austin Road filing would mark a second store for the chain in the community.
According to the application, drivers would get full site access from Success Lane and Washington Church Road, with partial access off Austin Boulevard. Those access points are laid out in the filing itself, per the station's report, though the full scope of the proposed site plan has not been detailed.
What the Township's Zoning Rules Require
The township's zoning resolution includes standards for fueling stations. The Washington Township zoning resolution calls for an opaque, solid wall, fence or hedge at least six feet high along any fueling-station property line that abuts residential zoning, a screening standard meant to buffer neighbors from the commercial use.
Property owners near the Austin Road site are also entitled to formal notice ahead of the hearing. Under Ohio Revised Code Section 519.12, when a proposed rezoning affects ten or fewer parcels, written notice must go out by first-class mail at least 10 days before the hearing to owners within, contiguous to, and directly across the street from the area in question, using addresses pulled from the county auditor's current tax list.
A Recent Precedent Down Far Hills Avenue
This isn't the first time Washington Township has weighed a UDF rezoning request. Trustees previously approved rezoning for another United Dairy Farmers proposal at the northeast corner of Far Hills Avenue and East Whipp Road, near the Centerville border, as reported by the Dayton Daily News. That approval reclassified the site from general business to planned development business.
Plans for that Far Hills Avenue project called for a store built on 2 acres across three parcels of previously undeveloped land, including a fueling station, outdoor dining and other associated improvements, the Dayton Daily News reported. Those three parcels had once held a Sunoco gas station, a Pizza Hut and a Tim Hortons operating as standalone commercial lots before the UDF proposal came together.
Whether the Austin Road application follows a similar path remains to be seen heading into the Nov. 17 hearing. The zoning commission's session will cover multiple cases that evening at the Blair meeting room, giving residents a chance to weigh in before any decision moves forward.
