Board debates Walter property
Zoning talks continue on Cowpath Road project as residents raise concerns
HATFIELD TWP. » The end of 2017 brought a familiar topic back up for discussion in Hatfield Township, and the conversation will continue into 2018.
Township officials and residents voiced their thoughts about a request to rezone a property on Cowpath Road known as the Walter property, a conversation that looks likely to stretch into another year.
“It’s not just the comments here. It’s the comments you’ve made by reaching out by email, by phone, giving us that feedback. Because if you don’t give us that feedback, then we start making decisions in a vacuum, and that’s not our role, and not how these things are supposed to work,” commissioners President Tom Zipfel said.
At issue is a 34.9-acre parcel located on Cowpath Road, which the Walter family is seeking permission to develop by changing the zoning from light industrial to residential to allow for a complex of 64 single-family detached houses to be built.
Attorney Frank Bartle and a team of consultants outlined the project once again during the commissioners’ Dec. 20 meeting and addressed concerns that Zipfel and his fellow commissioners said they have heard from residents in several hearings and outside them since the topic
was first raised in late 2016.
“After the past several months, we wanted to come back and hear from you as to what we may do additionally, or what we can provide additionally, or what questions we can answer for you, before you make a decision,” Bartle said.
Zipfel outlined several concerns he’s heard raised by residents most frequently, and Bartle answered each in turn, after the commissioner said no decision would be made until further talks were held on the project later in 2018.
The main concern Zipfel said he had heard from residents was the impact 64 new homeowners would have on traffic in the area, and whether roads that already see backups during busy hours would be stressed even more.
“The concern is that there are too many homes, in a sense. It’s going to put too much traffic on Cowpath,” he said.
Bartle said any new development would add more traffic than a vacant property, but the applicants have made the case in prior hearings that residential zoning would allow houses with fewer trips daily than industrial facilities that could see deliveries made by trucks at all hours.
“You did have some sort of hybrid suggestion, years ago, with a commercial facility and 52 units, in addition to commercial. And the board declined to do that, in light of the fact that there would be more traffic, and that was substantially more traffic than what we would have here,” Bartle said.
Residents also raised the question of whether adding more houses would draw more children into the area who would be beyond the capacity of local schools to handle. Bartle said studies presented last year showed Hatfield contributed relatively few children to local schools compared with other municipalities, and any new development would never pay the full cost of adding more students.
Residential development “never pays for the education of the child,” Bartle said. “If it did, you wouldn’t have the necessity of commercial and industrial real estate taxes” to further cover educational costs, he said.
Zipfel said he has also heard residents ask whether the property could be preserved as farmland forever, but added he wanted residents to understand that the township has no plans, and no funds available, to buy the property.
“These projects are not something the township can afford. That’s not a viable alternative for us, to say we’re going to take our general fund dollars ... and say, ‘We’re going to just go buy that and turn it into Hatfield property,’” Zipfel said.
Neighbors who live on the southeast side of the property near a proposed emergency driveway have raised concerns about buffering there, which Bartle said would be discussed in detail during a land development process if the zoning change is granted. Less buffering would be needed for the houses than an industrial project, he added.
“The idea there is to create a reinforced area, so if somebody has to get through in an emergency, they can do so, but we’re not looking at putting a roadway between those two residential homes,” Bartle said.
Residents also gave positive feedback, which Zipfel summarized
“Many people said they would rather have homes than industry in their area. They’d rather have a house, as opposed to a commercial building that’s got a warehouse, or something similar,” he said.
Others said they may or may not have been fans of the current concept, but worried about other projects that would be allowable under the current industrial zoning, without any approvals needed from the board.
“I told them I’m working off of the assumption that, if we approve this, then obviously there would be homes. And if we do not approve this, the family is not going to sit on that piece of property and allow it to just sit there forever,” Zipfel said.
“Something is going to be done with that property, so the question becomes, what could happen there? If we are restricting it for residential, then what is light industrial?” he said.
Zipfel said he’s also had conversations with residents on the larger question of property rights, and whether the rights of one neighbor who currently lives next to a vacant field would be violated by the owner of that field developing it into houses or industrial property.
“What rights does the existing owner of a piece of property have? What are their property rights? And what authority does the township have to, the phrase I received was, ‘to interfere with’ those property rights?” Zipfel said.
That argument could be countered, Bartle said, by taking the property owners’ point of view: Are their rights harmed by maintaining the light industrial zoning on a property too small to attract a feasible project?
“I think we set forth to you what the law is. We do believe the township has a responsibility to zone the property in a rational way,” Bartle said. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and certainly you can have various opinions on that, but our position is that residential is more conforming with residential.”
After the two voiced their views, several residents had their say, including neighbor Bill Forst, who has opposed the latest version of the project since it was first proposed. Forst said he thought the township already had more residential construction underway than it could currently handle, and industrial uses would put less strain on local infrastructure.
“If we have more development, that means we’re going to have to have more police, and we’re going to have to maintain more roads. If we sell it as industrial, and people would like to buy it, they could put a couple garages up, and a warehouse,” he said.
Gail Walter of Township Line Road said she already worries about traffic and young drivers in the area, but would rather see a residential project than an industrial one.
“I’d rather have them than the industrial park that I have up on Souderton Pike. I will get used to homes behind me, but I’d much rather have them than an industrial park,” she said.
And Herbert Frederick of Bergey Road said he thought demand for houses might be lighter in the future if the long-discussed Route 309 connector linking Route 309 and the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike is ever completed and runs right past that property.
“I find it hard to believe that the developer would tell the people buying homes that they’re going to be living next to a major truck route in the future,” he said. “When that happens, there will be major truck traffic through there, and complaints about trucks starting and stopping at the traffic light on Cowpath, and elsewhere. I think that will be a problem for a future board.”