Planners: ‘No’ to townhouses
Borough council to have its say next week regarding former McKeever’s Tavern site
NORTH WALES » Members of North Wales Borough’s planning commission have rejected plans to build 10 townhouses on the site of the former McKeever’s Tavern, and borough council will have their say next week.
“My concern is that, aesthetics and elevations aside, this is not the right project for that property. I’m sorry that it’s taken twoand-a-half, three years of the applicants’ time to come to that realization, but that’s my personal opinion,” said Planning Commission Chairman Peter Myers.
“This is a once-in-a-generation property, that’s going to impact the town for the next 100 years. So I don’t want this to be it,” he said.
Borough officials have discussed since 2014 the fate of the 1890sera building located at the corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets, which was built as the Colonial Inn, then was called the North Wales Hotel for much of the 20th century, and most recently housed the familyowned McKeever’s Tavern until that family closed it in early 2014, and sold the property to developer Greg Flynn.
Flynn and engineer Marty Eustace made their case to the borough’s planning commission Wednesday night for approval of the latest version of plans, which would see the hotel building demolished and a total of 10 townhouses built in two rows, five fronting each on Fifth and Sixth Streets. An earlier version of the plans called for a roughly 40-unit apartment building, then a series of stacked townhouses, but Flynn and Eustace said the two rows of five houses each are the version of plans they’d like decision on, from both the borough planning commission and from council next week.
“We studied (other designs), and as a matter of fact ran into some banking issues for stacked, versus townhouses, versus singles,” Flynn said.
“There’s all kinds of things that we’ve explored, looking at absorption rates, and all that kind of stuff. It’s not that we didn’t try” to look at other options, he said.
Eustace and Flynn outlined the numerous waivers their plan would need, as identified in review letters from the borough’s engineering consultant and the Montgomery County Planning Commission liaisons. Approvals would be needed for the driveway width, yard setbacks, a fee paid to the borough to plant trees elsewhere in lieu of those removed from the site, a decorative sidewalk and lights matching the rest of the neighborhood would be installed, and the county has recommended a crosswalk be painted at Fifth or Sixth crossing Walnut to increase pedestrian safety.
“If we decide, and agree to, the decorative lights, we’ll have to go get PennDOT approval. It would just be the result of the conversations we’ve had with council, then we’d go to PennDOT with those design plans,” Eustace said.
The Montgomery County Planning Commission published in late October a new set of guidelines for townhouse construction with criteria they’d like to see applied across the county, according to MCPC liaison Maggie Dobbs, who said making changes the design to better meet those criteria, like orienting the townhouses inward instead of toward the side streets, could help with their approvals. “Some of the recommendations we made here are not represented in the design shown, so there are some design changes that we would like to recommend for this proposal,” she said.
Changing the design now would mean the developer would need to create new plans, and seek approval from the borough’s zoning hearing board again, with no guarantee that the needed approvals would come from the borough, Eustace said — and Flynn added that he had already spent over $1 million on buying the property and consultant and legal fees.
“Although there’s no guarantee you would get the zoning relief, if you have a healthy recommendation from the planning commission, and Montgomery County’s planning commission, obviously the zoning board would take that into consideration,” Assistant Manager Alan Guzzardo replied.
“Would you bet $1 million on it right now? If it were your $1 million laying on that property, would you?” Flynn countered.
“It depends on how much money I have,” Guzzardo replied, to laughter from the crowd.
Several residents in the area said they were worried that the new townhouses would add to a parking crunch on their side streets, both by adding more drivers and by removing street spaces for the curb cuts needed for each of the 10 driveways.
“We’re all sensitive to that, but the proposed use is actually going to have less traffic than when the existing facility was in full operation,” Eustace said.
“How many employees did that facility employ in its time? How many patrons? How many guests were staying in the rooms upstairs? If we were to renovate it, and put it back to its full operation, which is what the request was, it would definitely generate more than 20 cars,” he said.
Several commission members and residents asked if Flynn had a rendering of the outside appearance of the townhouses from street level, to show the building materials and styles, and Flynn said he would try to develop one in time for the Dec. 12 council meeting. Dobbs also suggested that Flynn use elements from the county guidelines in developing that rendering, and Flynn said he would — then joked he would do so only if the design advice from the county was free.
“It’s free — but for you, it’s $1 million,” borough Manager Christine Hart joked.
After roughly an hour of discussion, the planning commission voted three to two against recommending the plans to full council, with Myers and members Greg D’Angelo and Linda McAdoo voting against. Commission members Lillian Higgins and Mark Tarlecki cast the two votes in favor, and both said they would regret seeing the old hotel building gone, but looked forward to other possibilities.
“We want to make sure we keep this borough growing, we keep this borough diverse. We want to attract newcomers to the borough. A development of this nature is going to go toward that direction,” Tarlecki said.
“It’s not going to solve all of our problems, but it’s going to be a step in the right direction. Just like anything else in North Wales, we always seem to take baby steps, and this might be one of them,” he said.
North Wales Borough Council next meets at 7 p.m. on Dec. 12 at the borough municipal building, 300 School St. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.NorthWalesBorough.org.