Columbia council debates permitted uses for McGinnis Innovation Park, flags truck traffic and special exceptions

Summary

Councilmembers spent more than an hour reviewing a table of permitted uses for the McGinnis Innovation Park, debating whether to allow industrial and retail activities that could generate heavy truck traffic and agreeing to use special exceptions and further ordinance definitions to limit impacts while keeping the property marketable.

Councilmembers and staff on Feb. 11 reviewed and revised the borough's draft table of permitted uses for the McGinnis Innovation Park, the borough's light-business district parcel that officials hope to sell for development.

The session focused on which businesses to allow outright, which to require by special exception, and which to bar, with repeated concerns about daily heavy-truck traffic through neighborhood streets and under an underpass that limits vehicle routes.

Why it matters: McGinnis is a large borough-owned parcel intended to expand Columbia's tax base. Allowed uses will affect the site's marketability, the kinds of off-site improvements a buyer must pay for, traffic patterns through the borough, and the likely tax revenue from any development.

Council and staff ran page-by-page through residential, commercial, industrial and institutional uses. Councilmembers flagged uses they viewed as low-value or likely to create frequent large-truck trips'examples included large-scale distribution centers, building-supply wholesale yards, and some heavy manufacturing'and recommended either banning those uses or allowing them only by special exception with…

Columbia council debates permitted uses for McGinnis Innovation Park, flags truck traffic and special exceptions

Summary

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