Why Save Marple Greenspace will not give up

To the Times:

As a resident of Marple Township for 60 years, I know how important it is to save the Don Guanella forest. All of it, not 9 acres less, not 5 acres less. All of the forest needs to be protected.

I keep hearing that Carlino construction and Peter Miller want to save most of it. Not true. They want to sell it back to the township for a big profit.

Peter Miller sought out Save Marple Greenspace to ask us what we would “not oppose” being built there. Miller said he did not want to fight with the community. When he said he would only build on the footprint of the Don Guanella school, we said we would not be opposed, as long as the entire forest remained undeveloped.

After we gave support for his plan, Miller changed it to increase the amount of land taken from the forest and said, “I need to take more land, and there is nothing you can do about it.” Well, now we no longer support Peter Miller because of his development encroachment into the forest.

I have a strong emotional and physical connection to the forest, as I’ve been back on that land for most of my life. Most of the trails back there were cut by the caretaker of the Don Guanella Village so that we could ride our mini bikes back there. Those trails still exist today. As a young adult, I partied on that land, figuring an 18 year old who was able to be drafted and go fight for this country ought to be able to have a couple of beers back there on the weekends. I continued to use that land for most of my life, and I should have squatter rights by now.

When I first saw in the paper that the archdiocese had sold the land to be developed, I knew I had to do something. Save Marple Greenspace was started by a group of residents that oppose the destruction of this much-needed forest — the last forest in all of Delaware County.

I knew that I could not handle everything, so I surrounded myself with people that could, and we formed a great group that works well together. I was glad that I found Ken Hemphill, who volunteered to run the website and works extremely hard in helping us save this fantastic piece of property.

Again, as a Marple resident of 60 years, I’ve supported that piece of land financially, subsidising it year in and year out because of the tax exempt status the Archdiocese.

A lot of the people who want the land developed have no connection with it at all, because they’ve lived in the township for only few years. As a matter of fact, in one of the posts, a comment was made about turning the forest into something useful. Well I’ve got news for you — a forest is useful.

We as humans have got to realize that we are damaging our planet beyond repair. The Earth’s temperature is rising, storms are getting stronger, floods are happening way too often, all because we insist on paving over Green Space so we can make the almighty dollar.

I am opposed to the size of the development that Carlino construction wants to build because of the traffic it will inflict on an already overburdened road that was not designed to handle this amount of traffic. I’m opposed to a shopping center being 400 feet from one shopping center and a half mile from another shopping center. Can we all say overdevelopment?

When are we going to stop? When are humans, the ones with the brain, going to realize that we can’t build better than nature? When are we going to realize it? When it’s too late for everyone?

Save Marple Greenspace will continue its mission to save the entire forest before it’s too late.

Charles Protesto, President, Save Marple

Greenspace