PennTex Ventures received local zoning variances for building a new Dollar General store in Unity, but plans for motorists to access the proposed discount outlet at eastbound Route 30 and Smith’s Hill Road must pass muster with PennDOT.

The Unity Township Zoning Hearing Board this week voted 4-1 in favor of variances that will allow the store to have 30 parking spaces, instead of the 37 normally required by township ordinance, and to place business name signs on two of the store’s facades, doubling the normal limit of 100 square feet for such signage. An additional, pole-mounted sign proposed along Route 30 doesn’t require a variance.

Board member Jackie Nindel moved to allow the second facade sign — which will appear on the store’s east wall, facing Smith’s Hill Road — in place of a second free-standing sign PennTex could have requested in that part of the 1.5-acre lot.

William Owen, assistant vice president of engineering and permitting for PennTex, argued that the east-facing sign is needed to alert those driving west on divided Route 30 to turn left at Smith’s Hill Road in order to reach the store. He said the sign will help “patrons traveling at 55 mph, headed toward Greensburg from Latrobe,” to “make safe maneuvers over to the left-turn lane.”

Dorothy Zello cast the sole vote against the variances, objecting to the hazards of making the described left turn on Route 30 — about 200 feet in advance of and uphill from a traffic light at Beatty County and Sand Hill roads.

“You fly down that hill,” Zello said of westbound traffic. “And, if it’s yellow, you fly more to get through (the signal), but then you slam on the brakes for a turn at Smith’s Hill Road.” She noted she was caught in traffic at the spot following a vehicle crash shortly before Christmas.

Nindel agreed that it will be difficult to turn left into the store and even more difficult to turn left when leaving the store to head west on the highway. “But it’s not our job to control how PennDOT manages traffic,” Nindel said.

Project engineers have applied to PennDOT for a highway occupancy permit.

Questioned about deliveries of merchandise to the store, Owen said there is room for large trucks, which should arrive about once a week, to maneuver on the lot before pulling back onto Route 30. He said smaller vehicles, such as bread trucks, will make deliveries as needed.

Owen asked for the parking variance because, he said, a stream, a flood plain and a sanitary sewer on part of the property limit the space available for the 9,100-square-foot store, a storm water pond and areas devoted to loading and parking.

“We have a shallowness in the depth of the lot,” he said.

Owen said his Pittsburgh company develops about 30 Dollar General locations annually. He said each of the retail chain’s stores, on average, completes 15 to 20 sales transactions per hour and has two or three employees working per shift, which 30 parking spaces should accommodate.

The zoning board granted PennTex a waiver from the minimum 35-foot parking setback along Smith’s Hill Road and said a similar variance likely isn’t needed from the edge of Route 30.

PennTex has an agreement to purchase the proposed store site from the Ricarda H. Kuenzig Limited Family Partnership. Owen said development of the store will involve demolition of vacant structures that have become eyesores — including the small office of a former used car lot.

Dollar General indicated it may decide by fall whether to proceed with the store plans.

The discount chain has 36 stores in Westmoreland County, including one farther east along Route 30 in Unity and two in neighboring Latrobe.

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