Warwick supervisors advance plan for Quarry Support Overlay Zone to accommodate Rohrer’s Quarry support operations

Warwick Township supervisors agreed May 6 to proceed with drafting a Quarry Support Overlay Zone aimed at permitting support operations for Rohrer’s Quarry while preserving limits on new pit development.

Township Manager Brian Harris told the Board members they had received packet materials summarizing the proposal and said staff had met with Rohrer’s Quarry representatives to develop the overlay language. Attorney Dwight Yoder, representing the applicants, described the quarry footprint and said most of the existing pit lies in Penn Township. Yoder said the proposal contemplates both a southern expansion and a northern expansion that would join pit areas on opposite sides of Lititz Road and add a modest westward expansion of the pit; the northern expansion would require relocating Lititz Road south to a new signalized intersection with Fruitville Pike. He said the company anticipates the road relocation will be constructed in 2027 in coordination with PennDOT.

Yoder said the Quarry Support Overlay Zone would allow operations that assist the quarry—such as material storage, finish-plant staging and truck weighing—on a portion of a parcel that is now zoned agricultural, but the overlay would not change the underlying zoning or permit a new quarry pit. The proposed text amendment, he said, would include requirements for screening, permits, lot-coverage limits and an option to purchase transferable development rights (TDRs) to raise lot coverage from 60% to 80% in the overlay area. He also said the amendment must be reviewed by the Lancaster County Planning Commission and the Warwick Township Planning Commission before the Board would take formal action.

Travis Rohrer, representing the quarry, described operational details for the proposed support area. He said trucks currently cross Lititz Road to load, and the overlay location would permit staging and weighing on the same side of the road. Rohrer described a telescoping conveyor that can be adjusted to reduce the height from which stone falls—he estimated the maximum vertical drop would be about 45 feet—and said that while the conveyor would reduce some noise, it would not eliminate it. Yoder added that the proposed finishing and storage areas would be adjacent to existing finishing work and he did not anticipate a material increase in noise from the change.

Yoder estimated the timeline from zoning petition submission to formal Board action at roughly 90 days, with permitting and land-development review taking an additional 12–18 months; he noted Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection permitting could take about 12 months. The Board indicated it was willing to proceed with the review process and to schedule required county and township planning commission reviews.

Next steps: staff will forward the draft text and required application materials to the Lancaster County Planning Commission and the Warwick Township Planning Commission for review before the Board considers any formal ordinance or text amendment.