WEST CHESTER TWP. — Although it would ultimately be up to residents to decide whether to turn West Chester Twp. into a city, officials from three of the largest players in the township’s business community are standing firmly against it.

Most agreed “cityhood” for West Chester would hurt rather than help existing business, and that it would do more to keep prospective employers at bay than draw them to one of the fastest growing communities in the state.

“I think economic development would slow at a time when it’s already extremely slow,” said Bob Hutsenpiller, of Hutsenpiller Contractors Inc., a 35-year-old company that’s developed more than 200 commercial sites in southwest Ohio. “I do not think it’s worth it.”

As of this week, members of the Committee for West Chester have begun collecting the nearly 4,500 signatures needed to place the issue of incorporation before voters in May 2010, said the group’s spokesman Bill Zerkle.

Zerkle has said the township looses millions of dollars a day when nearly 80 percent of West Chester’s workforce drives to their homes outside the township’s borders. That number has been debated.

Members of the committee say incorporation would lower property taxes and improve government efficiency, and that a 1 percent income tax could mean an additional $24 million annually for police and fire levies and basic services.

Business leaders — and trustees Catherine Stoker and George Lang — disagree.

“The economic development that it (incorporation) would kill would offset any gain,” Hutsenpiller said.

Jon Burger, senior vice president of Duke Realty Corp., which owns millions of square feet of commercial space in West Chester, said businesses focus more on location, amenities and financial incentives rather than the existence of an income tax.

But, Burger also said: “West Chester has been such a successful township, I don’t know why anyone would want to change it?”

Chris Wunnenberg, director of development for West Chester-based Schumacher Dugan Construction, said the company and the township have been successful at courting businesses since the last incorporation attempt in 1993.

“Our greatest efforts need to be focused on keeping government as cost efficient as possible and to continue to bring quality jobs into West Chester,” Wunnenberg said. “Both of those priorities will be adversely affected by incorporating West Chester into a city."