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The School District of Lancaster board agreed to begin negotiations with the township on a possible lease agreement that would enable the project to be built.
The township wants to build a center with a fire station, ambulance and police facilities in the northwest corner of the park abutting Atkins Avenue, behind Planet Fitness and other commercial properties that face Millersville Pike.
SDL owns the land and leases it to the township for recreational use. The terms of the 99-year lease would have to be changed for an emergency services center to be built there.
Tuesday's vote only authorizes the district to begin negotiations. Board members would have to vote again at a later date on whether to approve changes to the lease agreement. To make room for the center, Lancaster Township would have to relocate two soccer and baseball fields along Atkins Avenue to land near Hamilton Park Drive, across from Wheatland Middle School.
That would require clearing wooded areas in the park, to which several residents at Tuesday's meeting objected.
"Parkland is the scarcest resource in Lancaster Township," said Ben Stigelman of 341 S. President Ave.
The township has only about half the open space it should have, according to Lancaster County planning officials, he said, and the fire station project would gobble up more of what little land it has.
"As a Realtor, I think there are a lot of better alternatives," he said.
Other residents complained that providing an access road to the station from Atkins Avenue would create traffic hazards.
Vehicles already drive at high speeds the wrong way on the one-way street, they said. Adding fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and vehicles driven by emergency responders into the mix would make the road even more dangerous.
"Most residents of Lancaster Township neighborhoods near the site are not in favor of the fire station," said Diane Heberlein of Atkins Avenue.
The emergency center would likely replace the township's outdated Bausman fire station and could replace the township's Maple Avenue station. But residents said emergency calls have declined recently in the township, and the emergency center isn't needed.
Audience members presented the school board with a petition signed by 31 township residents who oppose the project.
School board member Marta Howell said she was dismayed that residents were complaining to the school board instead of the township.
Lancaster Township manager Bill Laudien said the project is only in the preliminary stages.
Before the township could move ahead with formal plans, it needed to know the school board was agreeable to altering the lease, he said.
Laudien assured board members and township residents that officials will seek more public input once plans for the project move ahead.
Like any other project in the township, the center will require zoning and planning approvals.
