Commissioners vote 3-2 to OK age-restricted housing project
UPPER POTTSGROVE » With a 3-2 vote, township commissioners gave preliminary/final site plan approval to a plan that has not even been fully engineered yet.
Commissioners’ Chairman Trace Slinkerd and Commissioner Renee Spaide cast the two nay votes at the Nov. 18 meeting.
The project won the support of Commissioners France Krazalkovich and Elwood Taylor, both of whom will leave the board at the end of the year, and Commissioner Martin Schreiber.
Township staff was wary of the board’s decision.
Township Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. wrote the lengthy resolution that passed Monday night and it contained a long list of conditions.
Township Engineer Pete Eisenbrown repeatedly told the commissioners that most plans of this size and complexity are much more fully engineered before coming up for approval.
“Usually the engineering is much more caught up than what we have now,” he said noting that he had not even received an updated plan to review.
The last one was submitted Sept. 18 and a more updated plan was submitted to the Montgomery County Conservation District, which rejected it, said Township Manager Michelle Reddick.
Saying things were moving “at lightning speed,” she was the most outspoken in her warnings.
“In my 25 years working here as the zoning administrator I have never had a plan of this magnitude get preliminary/final approval in four or five months
time,” said Reddick. “It would normally take a year to a year-and-a-half. You need to seriously consider what you are approving.”
But the project received a full-throated endorsement from Taylor, who is also the chairman of the planning commission that recommended the preliminary site plan approval against, Reddick noted, the recommendation of the solicitor.
He pointed out that when developer John Benson first submitted his plan, he expressed no interest in paying for off-site road improvements.
But now, Benson has committed to rebuilding and widening Pine Ford Road and Kummerer Road, “roads we had been budgeting to fix that we won’t have to do now,” said Taylor.
He pointed out that the zoning for the parcel allows the project to be built “as of right,” and that the road improvements “are gravy” for the township.
Taylor further pointed to the $2 million in tax revenues the Pottsgrove School District will receive each year in property taxes, as well as the $200,000 the township tax coffers, will receive each year.
“The school district will not have to build any classrooms for children living in these houses,” Taylor said, noting that is largely guaranteed by the 55-and-older age restriction that will be placed on the homes there, which will sell for about $325,000 each, according to Benson.
“It’s a game-changer for the district and the township,” Taylor said.
Under the terms of the lengthy resolution Garner wrote, which was being negotiated and changed right up until the vote, the final plans must still pass muster with Eisenbrown and Garner before construction can begin.
Benson said the push for approval is based on a desire to get the road improvements in place by next November.
“If we miss this window, we miss getting blacktop down by 2020,” he said.
The resolution also includes provisions for even more road improvements provided the township approves the second phase of the project along Evans Road within the next 18 months.