Board OKs garage plan

County grant application submitted

LOWER SALFORD >> Plans to add a garage at a 5.9-acre Hoffman Road home received conditional use approval July 3 from the Lower Salford Township Board of Supervisors.

The garage will have room for three cars and lawn care equipment, applicant Gerald Peklak said.

Under township rules, conditional use approval is required if an accessory building is larger than 30 percent of the size of the primary building on the property.

The planned detached garage will be 1,460 square feet.

It is designed to match the house, Peklak said.

“It’s low profile and we’ve really worked hard to make it a quality-looking building that fits in there,” he said.

The primary reason for the rule requiring conditional use approval is to make sure the accessory building in a residential zoning district is not being built to be used by a business, board Chairman Doug Gifford said.

“If it’s for your personal use, I don’t have a problem with it,” he said.

In other matters at the meeting:

• The board authorized submission of a grant application to the county for this year’s transportation grant funding.

The township is asking for $200,000 to redo 32 sidewalk ramps that don’t meet current state requirements, Gifford said.

The application is for ramps on Gruber Road, Kulp Road, Maple Avenue and Yoder Road, according to information distributed by Public Works Director Doug Jones at the board’s July 2 morning work session meeting.

“Hopefully we get it and we can knock out a bunch of these,” Gifford said at the July 3 meeting. The grant could be used for 80 percent of the work with the township putting in the other 20 percent, he said.

The township has been trying to gradually work on the ramps as road work is done on the streets where the sidewalk ramps are located, he said.

“We still have a whole lot more, but if we can get those, it would be a good start,” Gifford said.

There are about 450 sidewalk ramps in Lower Salford, about 50 of which have already been redone, Township Manager Joe Czajkowski said.

• The winning bids of $900 for a 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe and $4,910 for a 2013 Ford Explorer were accepted. The sale was done through the Municibid online auction site. Both vehicles originally were police cars, with the Tahoe more recently having been the fire marshal’s vehicle, Czajkowski said.