New plan fuels quarry ban
Zoning change does not impact Gibraltar Rock project
NEW HANOVER >> Two years in the making, township supervisors have adopted a new township-wide comprehensive plan.
Titled New Hanover 2040, the unanimously approved plan serves as a guide for the township’s development goals and as the basis for any zon
ing changes the supervisors should choose to make.
They chose to do so immediately.
The easiest change to understand was the removal of “extractive” uses from the zoning ordinance.
In other words, things like quarries are no longer permitted in the township.
This does not affect the ongoing proposal by Gibraltar Rock to construct a rock quarry on several parcels in the township because those applications were made under the previous zoning ordinance.
Last month, the supervisors voted unanimously to reject the Gibraltar Rock final site plan, following the unanimous recommendation of the township planning commission to do so.
Township Solicitor Andrew Bellwoar said that action has now been appealed in court by Gibraltar Rock.
New Hanover is allowed to eliminate quarry operations as an allowed use because it is part of the Pottstown Metropolitan Regional Planning Commission, which is comprised of eight of municipalities — New Hanover, Douglass (Mont.), Upper Pottsgrove, West Pottsgrove, Lower Pottsgrove, Pottstown, North Coventry and East Coventry.
One of the legal advantages of being part of a regional planning compact like this is that it releases each member township from the legal obligation of allowing for every kind of zoning use so long as at least one of the municipalities allows it.
Because there is already a quarry among the eight municipalities — the Haines and Kibblehouse Quarry in Lower Pottsgrove — the other townships do not have to allow for it in their zoning.
The vote to remove the use followed a public hearing at which only longtime quarry opponent Celeste Bish spoke. It being April Fool’s Day, she joked that she opposed the vote to removing quarrying as a use in town, quickly followed by an exclamation of “April Fools!”
The comprehensive plan process began in April 2019 with the planning commission and included a community-wide survey in the fall of 2019 that elicited 277 responses. A community workshop meeting in November 2019 to delve deeper into the community’s goals was attended by 80 people.
“One thing is clear: the community has expressed a strong desire to retain the rural character of the township,” the plan’s authors wrote near the end of the plan.
Those concerns are driven, in part, by the wave of development that has swept over this previously rural township since the 1980s.
According to the township’s website, which has an entire section devoted to “active plans,” New Hanover currently has 10 developments of varying size, nearly all of them housing projects, with one notable exception.
The proposed New Hanover Town Center, which is currently in litigation with the township, calls for building more than 760 dwelling units and 186,200 square feet of commercial and office space on 196 acres bounded by Swamp Pike, North Charlotte Street and Township Line Road.
Among the goals cited in the plan is “preserve the township’s rural community character.”
That said, “given the trending pattern of development, rate of population growth over the last few decades, and the opportunity for new housing development in the township, it is estimated New Hanover will continue to see increased population growth through 2040,” according to the plan.
Of some comfort is the plan’s observation that “it is unlikely though that the township will see significant residential development outside of the parcels already identified for development.”
“While it is impossible to halt all forms of development, there are a number of strategies that can be implemented to protect the resources most valued by the community in order to achieve this vision for the future,” the plan notes.
Overall, the 173-page comprehensive plan is divided into seven areas of major impact — community services; demographics and housing; natural resources and stewardship; parks and open space; transportation; economic development and land use.
The “land use” category seeks to pursue residents’ desire to preserve rural character by suggesting a number of new “future land use categories” like mixeduse business and employment, suburban residential, preserved land and open space, and “conservation area overlay.”
The future land use categories are “intended to serve as a guide to articulate desired land use patterns and inform future municipal decisions regarding ordinance changes, zoning revisions, and other regulations that will impact land use characteristics and distribution throughout the township,” according to the plan.
And, as it relates to the zoning for quarries, which has involved a legal battle of more than 20 years in New Hanover, the future land use categories do not include allowing for it, a change on which the supervisors took action after the plan was adopted.