The city Planning Commission Tuesday approved a land development plan for a Dollar General on East 25th Avenue at Juniata Gap Road, where a Pizza Hut was formerly located.

The commission approved six waiver requests from developer PrimeCore Properties of State College, represented by in-house engineer Chad Stafford.

One waiver will allow the developer not to build a sidewalk on East 26th Avenue, behind the building. The developer plans to keep a row of mature arborvitae trees on that edge of the property, which would isolate such a sidewalk from the store. Moreover, there is a sidewalk on the other side of East 26th Avenue, where there is a row of houses.

The developer will build sidewalks along East 25th Avenue and Juniata Gap Road.

The second waiver will allow forgiveness on some landscaping requirements, including foundation landscaping, in recognition that other landscaping and aesthetic building elements compensate for those, and because some otherwise required plantings could compromise construction of a planned stormwater collection system.

Helping to compensate for the forgiveness will be the arborvitae in the rear, sizable arborvitae to be planted to screen the view from the McDonald’s next door and architectural finishes on the more publicly exposed sides of the building.

The third waiver will allow retention of a driveway slot on East 25th Avenue that is within 50 feet of a driveway for McDonald’s. The prohibition against such proximity for driveways may be dropped in a revised new subdivision and land development ordinance.

Delivery tractor-trailers will not be permitted to use that driveway.

The fourth waiver will allow the developer to continue to use seven full-size parking spaces that were used by Pizza Hut along the McDonald’s boundary, which encroaches on the normally required five-foot setback. If enforced, that setback would require the seven spaces to be limited to 18 feet, prohibiting some vehicles from using them.

The fifth waiver will allow the developer to forgo protective traffic islands in the parking lot in favor of a textured patch, due to confusion that would result otherwise for motorists entering from either East 25th Avenue or Juniata Gap Road, according to Stafford. The abundance of landscaping planned for the site will help compensate for the waiver, according to Stafford.

The sixth waiver will allow the developer to forgo installation of an underground power service to the building in favor of an overhead line from the existing pole that provided overhead service to the Pizza Hut.

Otherwise the developer would need to remove the arborvitae in the rear of the property.

The commission imposed a condition that would require the owner to replace that overhead line with an underground line if the arborvitae should ever be removed.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.