Development plans revised

It’s been four years since Pulte Homes came to Franconia Township with plans for 56 acres at the intersection of Beck and Cowpath roads.

Initially, the plan included a zoning change to allow 162 homes, which township officials said wouldn’t fly.

There were other parts of the plan, though, that the township did like, including improvements to the intersection, Joe Kuhls, the attorney for Pulte, said during the work session portion of the Franconia Township Board of Supervisors April 19 meeting.

“You wanted something that resonated with the community and we tried to do that,” he said.

In November, a Zoom meeting was held with neighbors to discuss the plans, he said.

“There seemed to me to be a pretty acute understanding of the fact that it was an undeveloped parcel that was going to be developed,” Kuhls said. “Their concerns are traffic. Their concerns are stormwater.”

A hearing on a proposed ordinance to create an overlay to the existing zoning for the tract is scheduled for the board’s May 17 meeting.

Benefits to the plan include that it doesn’t have the 13 driveways onto Beck Road and homes spread out over all of the property, which would be allowed without the overlay, Kuhls said.

“What this does is it creates significant buffer, creates over 40 percent open space, it links all your trails, it protects that environmentally sensitive area to the rear. It includes significant roadway improvements,” he said.

The proposed road improvements include adding a left turn lane on Beck Road and a left turn lane on Leidy Road, which is across Cowpath Road from Beck.

The plans also include one entrance into the development from Beck Road and a connection to the neighboring Banbury Crossing development.

The number of homes that will be built will depend on what the rules under the proposed ordinance end up allowing, Bill Creeger, of Pulte Homes, said.

Plans provided to the township include 83 new homes, but, “It’s really 80 because they’re tearing three down. It nets to 80,” Franconia’s board Chairman Grey Godshall said.

The proposed overlay would not be the final step in getting township approval, Eric Wert, the township’s solicitor, said.

“It’s a rezone in that it applies a new overlay to a piece of property which means that the base zoning stays the same, but it gives a second set of rights,” he said.

The overlay would be allowed as a conditional use, he said.

“If the ordinance is ultimately adopted, which changes the zoning code, they would still have to come back before the board to get the conditional use itself approved,” Wert said. “Then they’ll still have to go through land development also.”