Otto’s BMW of West Chester is looking to park some cars in Chadds Ford Township. The dealership wants to use the Watkins property at 1516 Wilmington Pike, the location of the Brinton Motel, for inventory parking but needs a text change in the zoning code to do that.
Michael Vadasz, who operates Otto’s, which is actually in Birmingham Township, said his current location site is too small to handle the inventory. The proposed Chadds Ford location would be used for parking only, with no maintenance work or sales. At most, he said, there would be some minor detailing getting the cars ready for auction in Lancaster County.
The current hotel on the 4-acre site would be demolished and a new building would be constructed. That new building will be one-story, no more than 40 feet high, according to attorney Brian Nagle, and roughly 18,685 square feet. It will handle 288 cars parked four-high on stackers. There will be another 82 parking spaces outside, used primarily by employees who would use a shuttle bus to and from the dealership further north on Route 202.
Chadds Ford Planning Commission Chairman Craig Huffman said there would be no public interaction on-site and referred to the idea as “a warehouse for cars.”
To make this happen in Chadds Ford, Otto’s needs a text change in the zoning code to allow for private parking for a dealership in the PBC Zoning District, and the applicant would need to go through the conditional use process.
Township and Planning Commission solicitor Michael Maddren said he would work on the wording. Otto’s will go back to the commission in April.
Other business
The commission also heard an application for a nine-lot subdivision of the 33-acre Danbro property at Ridge and Ring roads. Eight new homes are proposed on 2-acre lots while the existing home would be on 10 acres.
More planning is still required. Specifically, a landscape plan still needs to be proposed, and there is a question of whether or not deed-restricting the larger lot against further subdivision would offset the need to provide open space or for the developer to pay a fee in lieu of that open space.
That applicant, too, will need to go back to the Planning Commission before that body can give a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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