Please proceed, counsel.
Mr. Cook, you were in attendance to the RCO meetings for this particular project. Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
Okay. And can you just generally describe your perception prior to your presentation as to the disposition of the crowd?
Sure. And I'll be brief. I know the board is busy.
At our first RCO meeting, it was well attended, about 50 people.
We went through the project. We were given homework. There was not support at that time, I want to be clear. I don't want to hide the ball, but there was discussion of a committee on aesthetics for architecture, things that we could do in terms of community benefits agreement to bring back the community, and we did that homework.
We engaged the traffic engineer, and we showed up at the second RCO meeting in October.
And it was clear from the beginning that, you know, dialogue was not going to be an option when we were there.
You know, East Oak Lane is a passionate, engaged community.
The councilman is a passionate, engaged councilman.
And at the onset of the meeting, he made it very clear that this project was dead on arrival.
and that our clients needed to figure out something else to do with the property.
That was before any presentation?
That was before any presentation in front of everyone, gave very impassioned speech about the democratic process.
I then responded that, you know, the legislative process is also the democratic process that allows this particular use under special exception.
I took a poll before we even presented. If there was anything I could say or do or my client could promise to change people's hearts and minds and by a show of hands, the answer was no.
So the entire second RCO was an exercise in futility to an extent where there were a lot of opinions shared about potential issues that most of which related to the buy right use of a convenience store with, you know, loitering, things like that.
And some did pertain to traffic and to specific gas fueling issues that were addressed today with technical specificity by the witnesses.
And that's it.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
Thank you.
You done, Vern?
Yes, sir.
All right.
One quick question before I open up to the board.
You had a lot of testimony about gas in your car.
Is there parking places for the store, too?
Because are there going to be cars driving in there to get coffee and things like that?
I think you even said you could get something there in the morning.
Is there parking for that?
Yes, there is.
And we could bring on...
Oh, you don't have to bring on anybody.
Just tell them if there's parking for that.
Yes, there is.
I'll show you right here.
As you can see, there are parking spots.
There's an ADA spot here.
Yes, there are, in fact, parking spots.
Right.
So the flow of the traffic in the morning would be people gassing and people coming in for food or whatever.
That's correct.
That's what the study that we've provided you will demonstrate.
All right.
Questions for the board.
Three different times during the day that that's brilliant.
Questions from the board.
So, yeah, I do have a quick question about the circulation of a traffic pattern.
I'd like to bring Kevin on for that if you'd like.
yeah well you on your other previous one of the maps you show the i guess the uh the tanker that
brings in the gas and you show the turning radius for that right this this one here right
um and then you show a vehicle turning into the gas station and a vehicle coming out of the gas
station but what happens when there's a stacked condition at the uh pumps right if if i'm looking
at this pump this has two two people can be there two cars can be there correct correct okay so um
and two cars can be there two cars all the way across right so if someone's coming in there's
a car in front of him how do they is there enough room to get around and go out because you can only
come in one way this way that's a question for mr savage if he could be promoted if he's not already
That's a question for Mr. Savage, if he could be promoted, if he's not already.
Mr. Savage.
Yeah, I'm still on.
The driveway along Godfrey does allow both right turn and left turn in movements.
My office did not prepare the site plan.
I understand that's been reviewed and approved by streets at the zoning level,
But it does appear that a vehicle could turn in, you know, turn right to the east side of that gas canopy and proceed north on the site as needed.
yeah i guess my concern is that if you're stacked two in a row and there's a car in front of you at
the very left uh state you know the very last of left tanks you'd have to back out of this
gas station or somehow back into traffic that's come potentially coming in to get out of the get
you understand what i'm saying out of the you're thinking i guess the southeast there's right if
If there's someone here and you pull up, you come in, I'm going to get gas.
You're right there.
This guy doesn't move.
Now you've got to back up somehow and go out that way because you can't get around, right?
Is that – am I right?
Correct.
Yeah, or you need to wait for that person to leave the other way.
To leave and which sometimes becomes an issue.
And then what's going to prevent – and if the gas – if this guy is here or if somebody pulls up there, there's no way to get around to get out.
If somebody doesn't follow the rule, right, and just parks, because people do, you know, I don't see how you get around getting out of the gas station.
yeah i think that that vehicle shown there is a potential trash uh vehicle so that any sort of
parking or maneuvers there would be pretty limited to when that trash is picked up so i think that
would kind of be up to the operator and the owner to coordinate when that when that occurs
and that's assuming mr johns that the filling would be going on during business hours which
you would not. Yeah, they
do. I see them all the time.
Well, Mr. Sandhu can testify that that's
not the plan.
And if Mr. Sandhu
is here, he can put that
on the record, that
fueling will happen before and after hours.
I think
my point is
there just doesn't seem like enough room
to get around
if you have to
in situations. I guess that's
Well, yeah, I think if the fueling took place during business hours, that might be the case.
Yeah, yeah, not even the fueling, even if that's just an example.
But the example that I gave it, there's a person parked there and a person parked there.
You can't get around. You have to back up.
It doesn't have a whole lot of room to maneuver when folks are stacked.
I would assert that it's a pretty standard condition of many gas stations having just gone to one this morning where I had to wait for the person in front of me to fuel and leave.
Otherwise, I would have to back out.
And that's Wawa.
That's much larger than Conoco.
And Mr. Anastasia, I just wanted to mention that Godfrey is a state road.
So PennDOT will ultimately need to review and approve a highway occupancy permit for this.
they won't allow vehicles to really back out onto their right-of-way.
So they'll, you know, full turning template showing circulation around the site
will be required to be provided to PennDOT for them to approve that permit.
Thank you, Mr. Satterman.
Thank you.
So, Kevin, one quick question.
I mean, the real issue with this is driving in and driving out
with pedestrians walking by.
Would you agree with that?
I agree.
And I think in existing conditions, as I mentioned, a majority of the frontage is really a depressed curb.
You can really pull in most spots along both frontages.
Other questions?
Question.
And I guess I'm following on part of what board member Johns had to say.
A lot of times when you go to these places, people park at the pump.
It's not.
So, yeah, you're waiting for somebody to refuel, but sometimes they set it up so that the car is, you know, is being fueled, but they're inside the store and you have no idea as to when they might decide to come out.
So I think that's where the real circulation problems come in.
We have a small 7-Eleven where I am, and it's always a problem.
where I am. And it's always a problem. It's only, it's what, four, no, six pumps. So
It's only...
if you, whichever way you come in, you have to wait for folks to get done doing whatever it is
they're doing, whether it's getting a coffee or getting the whatever. And you have the stacking
issues and you have the concern about people
deciding that they can't wait and backing into the street, which is
not a good idea. My other question is about
May I address that one, Ms. Gaston? You just admitted that it happens
at all gas stations and therefore if this were to happen here
It happens at lots, you mentioned that
Exactly. So it already happens
So any impact that this would have would be no different than one that would normally be expected.
In addition, what we're doing now, we're going down a road, not only Mr. John's questioning, but this one, we're dealing with suppositions now.
And again, there's no data set to disprove what we presented today.
And that's what needs to happen.
and we need real evidence, data to disprove what we've put for this relief to not be granted.
All right. Okay. And then I guess my other question is about these tanks. How many tanks
are there going to be? We can bring back, Mr. Sandhu can speak to the operations.
Okay. Is Mr. Sandhu still on? Yeah, I'm here. I'm here.
Thank you.
How many tanks, Supo?
It's two tanks.
And then one is going to be a split tank.
So it's like, it's two tanks, but yeah, two tanks, one will be a split tank.
Thank you.
When you say split tanks, what are you talking about?
It's going to hold two different products, like regular and super gas.
Gotcha.
And then you said that the DEP would have to approve this.
Is that what I heard you saying?
So you'd need like a licensed DEP like installer.
I think he fell off the call.
So someone like him would have to come in and do the installation.
And then within like before you open, you need another third party licensed inspector to come.
do an inspection make sure everything is compliant and like meeting the minimum requirements
that they have for like leak detection and all of that okay before you and this is you said these
are the double what is it the double these are double wall double wall so if it leaks it would
leak into the like the the second wall area and they're there so you know like the second it
happens you would know and you have time to remedy the situation pump out the tanks and the tanks are
fiberglass as well and fiberglass doesn't really like corrode underground whereas like steel does
okay so uh who gets the signal that there's a leak is that that meter root device that uh
casey was talking about so that will like sound an alarm inside and then it'll shut down everything
as well it won't even if it the sensor trip and it just shuts down everything okay so you there's
a sensor system and it and it shuts things down correct yeah our expert testified that it is state
of the art uh and it exceeds the standards of and exceeds what most many of the uh current fueling
stations have in the city okay and what about um fire what what systems are in place uh in case
god forbid yeah so every dispenser has like a like a built-in fire extinguisher inside of it
you can't see when you go to gas station but if you're opening up you would see it or a modern
one at least old ones i'm not sure if they're grandfathered or not and then if there's a fire
it increases temperature and then that fire thing has some like something in it and it breaks
something and then just like a extinguisher like a the fire extinguisher starts going off
Sort of like an ANSEL system, if you will, for tanks, if you will.
I'm not sure what an ANSEL system is, but...
Well, it's like a smoke and or fire suppression system for like stoves, like industrial type stoves, but okay.
Mr. Stander, just to be clear, you are in fact DEP certified, are you not?
I myself have a certificate as well, yes.
Okay, very good.
and by the way you you uh circulated uh the petition uh it for support is that correct
for support. Is that correct, personally? I personally didn't go. I had my father.
personally uh i personally didn't go
Okay. Can I? Okay. And then my last question is, what about the, what kind of vapor release
mechanisms are there on these tanks? Yeah. So same thing like Casey was saying,
all the vapors are like now stored uh in the underground storage tank so it's not really