Marion Township supervisors rescind contentious rezoning ordinance. What’s next?

Following months of debate, the Marion Township supervisors have put to bed a contentious rezoning dispute and will look to explore other options, a move that appeared to satisfy dozens of people in attendance at Friday’s public hearing.

During the hearing, which was held at the township’s municipal building, the supervisors rescinded a December 2025 ordinance that saw eight parcels of land north of Interstate 80’s Jacksonville Road/Howard exit rezoned from an agricultural district to a highway commercial district.

That ordinance would have cleared the way for Scranton-based travel plaza company Onvo to build a truck stop on the parcel. The business previously expressed interest in building there last fall, given that the land was rezoned, but to this point no development plans have been submitted.

In January, township residents Lisa and Matt Ford filed a lawsuit against the township for passing the ordinance, claiming that it was approved without holding a public hearing or providing proper notice.

About 70 residents crammed into a public hearing in September to discuss a potential rezone, where 26 spoke out against the idea. At Friday’s public hearing, about 60 residents filled the municipal building, and 15 spoke out against the truck stop and in favor of rescinding the previous ordinance.

“We don’t need a truck plaza — that’s the last thing we need,” resident Bonnie Everett said Friday. “There’s truck plazas all over the place, so go somewhere else. I’m saying it doesn’t make sense to do this, and I can’t believe from my heart that you [supervisors] are thinking about doing this.”

Other residents who spoke raised concerns about increased crime, environmental damage, safety for those who would live near the potential plaza and more.

Along with the rescinding of the ordinance, the supervisors also shot down three action items related to rezoning land from their existing zones to highway commercial zones, which were proposed as alternatives to the December ordinance.

The first item was to rezone 126 acres of a neighborhood commercial district north of Interstate 80’s Jacksonville Road/Howard exit, along with 24 acres of an agriculture zoning district north of the exit and south of state Route 26 to highway commercial. Supervisor Herb Chapman was the lone supervisor in favor of the item, which failed without a second to accompany his motion.

The second and third action items — to amend the township’s existing highway commercial ordinance for the proposed changes, and to approve a slate of related landscaping regulations — were shot down without a motion.

While many of the residents who attended the public hearings claimed that the potential rezoning was to make way for Onvo development plans, township solicitor Louis Glantz said in September that it was actually to create more highway commercial acreage in the township. The Interstate 99/Interstate 80 interchange project’s finished product will no longer link the interstates directly to Jacksonville Road, effectively eliminating the township’s pre-existing highway commercial zone, he said.

While the highway commercial zone still technically exists — and will until the project’s expected completion in 2030 — the township could see a business exploit an exclusionary zoning law, a loophole that would allow a business to develop a project anywhere, if adequate zoning isn’t provided.

But Supervisor Don Moore told the CDT after the meeting that he believes the township still has time to figure out its highway commercial situation before having to worry about an exclusionary zoning exploitation, since the interchange project has a few years before it wraps up.

“We want to look at adding in some protections for residents in our ordinance before getting into any rezonings,” Moore said, agreeing with several residents who spoke Friday about wanting to add stipulations relating to building height, light and noise exposure, groundwater testing and more into the ordinance before looking at rezoning.

He continued, “It’s what the people want, and we intend on honoring them. Those protections are important.”

Moore also shared that the supervisors would be looking to work with neighboring Spring Township to explore the possibility of accommodating Marion Township’s highway commercial zone.

That idea was brought up at a recent Nittany Valley Planning Commission meeting, where it was suggested that a joint comprehensive plan be formed between the two townships — an idea that many residents at Friday’s hearing were strongly in favor of.

Timelines for the potential collaboration with Spring Township and the creation of protections for residents have yet to be determined, although those matters will be discussed at future township supervisor and planning commission meetings.