BUFFALO TWP — The township supervisors Wednesday night paved the way for a large residential development to be built in the township.

The Allen family of Clinton Township tentatively plans to build 270 single-family homes on 160 acres during the next decade. The property is bordered by Routes 356 and 228, and Hepler and Parker roads.

By a vote of 4 to 1, with Albert Roenigk voting against, the supervisors approved the rezoning of 149 acres from agricultural and business use to residential.

They made the rezoning conditional upon the property owner rezoning about 7 acres, including about 2 acres out of the 149, from residential to business.

The supervisors want to maintain a consistent pattern of property zoned for commercial use along Route 356, township solicitor Larry Lutz said.

“The idea is to make the B1 as even as we can along the Route 356 corridor,” Lutz said.

Though that area is mostly undeveloped, officials want to allow for business development there, Supervisor John Haven said.

“That will make it all a nice big business area the whole way across there and eventually businesses are going to start moving in there,” he said.

However, the zoning change does not give the developer permission to build anything yet.

John Allen said Wednesday the next step will be to propose a planned residential development for the property, which will be reviewed by the planning commission and the supervisors.

What specifically is proposed and how quickly homes are built is still to be determined, he said.

“We are looking at this as a 10 or 12 year project. We have no thought that tomorrow morning you are going to wake up and there are going to be 150 houses,” he said.

The township is poised for growth and development for a number of reasons, Allen said.

“There are going to be changes in Buffalo Township because of your good schools and because of access to Pittsburgh and because of sewer and water,” he said.

Jim Jackson, a resident of Parker Road, raised concerns about the new residential development increasing enrollment in the Freeport School District and causing school property taxes to increase.

Commercial development would be preferred, he said.

“I don’t want us folks to get shafted here,” he said.

Ian Magness, Freeport School District superintendent, responded to Jackson’s comments at the meeting.

Though commercial development would be more beneficial to the district, any new development is “somewhat welcome,” Magness said.

“I don’t think it would be because of one development that taxes would go up. Taxes go up because of rising costs operationally,” he said, adding that large pension contributions are a more significant issue for the district.

Another resident asked if increased traffic would create the need for a traffic light at the intersection of Route 356 and Parker Road.

Lutz said that it would depend on a state Department of Transportation traffic study, but that the proposal would add traffic on Parker Road.

Supervisor Ron Zampogna said he had talked with residents and heard comments both for and against the development.

But more residents would hopefully mean more business development, he said.

“For the commercial growth you need the people. You need the people to support the township and to support the businesses,” he said.

Supervisor Gary Risch agreed, adding that commercial growth, especially near the interchange with Route 28, has been slow because companies want to see more residential growth.

“We have enough traffic for the Get Go and the Sheetz, but we don’t have enough rooftops,” he said.