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By the Numbers
9,100: Square footage of proposed retail store
21: Total acres of parcel that developer has asked to split off 2 acres from
10: Approximate number of employees at a standard General Dollar store
Bethel Twp. residents hope to put a stop to plans to build a possible Dollar General store along West National Road by opposing a zoning change request to the property.
GBT Realty Corp. has requested to split about 2 acres of land off from a more than 21-acre parcel. The hearing will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Springview Government Center. If approved by the Clark County Board of Zoning Appeals, the company plans to ask the county to rezone the 2 acres from agricultural to a neighborhood business to make way for the construction of a store.
Collin Gierke, a West National Road resident, said he and other residents don’t want a Dollar General in their neighborhood and worry the store would cause drainage issues, and increased traffic and crashes.
“I don’t want it there because it’s right next door to me. We’re out in the county and all of a sudden you’ve got a Dollar General right next to you,” said Gierke, who has lived along the road for nearly 16 years.
Jason Horowitz, of GBT Realty, confirmed tentative plans for a 9,100-square-foot retail store at the site, but said he couldn’t comment on additional details because the project is preliminary and the company is still trying to obtain the necessary permits.
Mary Kathryn Colbert, a spokeswoman for Dollar General, said the retailer is looking at the West National Road location as a possible site.
The company is currently in the planning stage, she said, which likely will continue until 2016.
“Basically in this stage we work to secure permits and licenses prior to actually moving forward … so that we don’t run into road blocks in the future,” Colbert said.
If the company decides to build along West National Road, the new Dollar General store would be the 10th in Clark County.
A standard Dollar General store has six to 10 employees, Colbert said. Three of the positions — a store manager, assistant store manager and a lead sales associate — would be full-time. The other jobs would be part-time sales associates.
Gierke said he would prefer the store be built downtown or in other areas where there are existing buildings for sale.
He learned about the proposal after receiving a letter about two weeks ago about a requested zoning change. Many of his neighbors also don’t want the store in their neighborhood, he said.
His wife, Beth Gierke, said she is worried about traffic, accidents and potential flooding.
“We’re in the country for a reason,” Beth Gierke said. “… There’s too many buildings that are empty and everything else that they can use rather than taking the farmland.”
She said she knows some Donnelsville residents who are also against the proposed project.
“We all moved out here because we’re not next to a grocery store or a convenience store. Once they move that in, then there will be a Subway,” Beth Gierke said.
Susan Roosen, who moved to the neighborhood in March from the Cincinnati area, said she and her husband aren’t happy about the project. They are concerned about traffic, light and noise that could come with a retail store.
“We just prefer the view being farmland. We like that view better than a business there,” Roosen said.
Donnelsville Police Chief Doug Frank said if the store is built, the developers should have to run sewer from the village to the location so it’s connected to a public sewer.
“Donnelsville’s got sewer. We’re trying to keep the groundwater safe here,” he said.
Frank said the plans he’s seen for the project call for a retention pond for the storm drainage, but none of the roadside ditches are low enough for the retention pond to drain into.
“This means that the retention pond is going to retain water,” Frank said, and that could attract mosquitoes and create other problems.
Frank said he understands the residents concern.
“The people don’t buy a house in the country to live next to a store. If they wanted to live next to a store, they would have moved elsewhere, next to a store. They like country life,” Frank said. “We already have Dollar Generals in New Carlisle, Enon, 10 to 15 minutes away.”
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