Development projects set for approvals

UPPER GWYNEDD >> Several development projects are moving through the approval process in Upper Gwynedd, with some slated for public talks soon.

Township planning and zoning officer Van Rieker gave a series of updates Monday on projects working their way through the township’s approval process, with some up for votes as soon as next week.

“Some of these are holdovers, and some are new,” he said.

On Sumneytown Pike, a project to build 17 townhomes on what was formerly known as the ‘Jeppy Property’ is nearly ready for approval, Rieker told the board.

“They had requested a use variance, to use that approximately three-acre tract, which we thought was a troubled piece of property,” he said.

The ‘Jeppy Property’ is roughly three acres between 773 and 781 Sumneytown near Canterbury Drive, where plans were presented in 2003 to build a three-story hotel, which never materialized. In 2020, developer W.B. Homes showed plans for two 12-unit apartment buildings, which were tabled in September 2020 for talks on a modified plan with nearby neighbors, and in January and then February 2021 word came that an update was in progress, with the detail in March that the number of units had been reduced to 17.

“A number of plans were filed, an acceptable plan was submitted, and they are now in the land development and subdivision process, finalizing detailed engineering,” Rieker said.

Staff and the developer are still awaiting final reviews and comments from the Montgomery County Planning Commission and the township’s Environmental Advisory Council, and the latest version with that feedback should be before the commissioners “in two or three months,” Rieker said.

Farther east on Sumneytown Pike, a decision is still pending from the board on the “Shoppes at Upper Gwynedd” plan for two retail buildings, one of which would include a day care, to be built behind the new Royal Farms fuel station at Sumneytown and Church Road. Developer Hartford Properties presented at length in May on plans for a proposed daycare facility to be built just north of the Royal Farms, asking the board to grant conditional use approval.

“This is a result of the conditional use request, in the C-district, in order to have multiple uses on one tract,” Rieker said. “That is the pending decision that you will have to undertake at the next meeting, should you wish to make a decision.”

North of that project, just east of Broad Street, a development called “Roosevelt Court,” to add nine new houses in a new neighborhood off of State Street, is nearly ready for final approval from the commissioners after securing a similar OK from the township planning commission.

“It looks like that will be an action item for the next meeting,” on July 20, Rieker said.

Just outside the township’s borders, a project in Worcester Township where an applicant is seeking permission to operate a sobriety recovery home on the 2800 block of Morris Road has now been presented and discussed publicly there.

“Their zoning hearing board voted to recommend approval, subject to a number of conditions,” Rieker said, and staff are working with their counterparts in Worcester to determine whether those conditions have been met.

Staff have also fielded two requests in the past month, both having to do with a similar issue: requests to allow sheds on corner properties that technically have two front sides, Riker told the board. Residents on the 1600 block of Clearview Road and on the 600 block of Gage Lane have both made similar requests, or zoning hearing board relief from codes prohibiting sheds in a frontage.

“Both are in for the same relief, and that is because of conflicts on their properties, to position a shed — an accessory structure — forward of the principal structure. That’s not permitted in zoning,” Rieker said.

The Clearview owner is asking to have their shed between their house and Sumneytown Pike, in an area that is elevated above the roadway and is “hard to know it’s there,” Rieker said. The Gage Lane owner is currently moving from Doylestown Township to Upper Gwynedd, and wants to move an existing shed from that home to Upper Gwynedd to a lot where “he doesn’t have room for it behind the principal building,” Rieker told the board.

Both of those applicants will be heard by the township zoning hearing board when it meets on July 27. That zoning board also ruled on two other requests from residents when it met on June 22, one for a home on the 800 block of Ridgeview Drive to install a deck in their rear yard, and for a home on the 200 block of Croft Road to allow a garage addition with a second floor bedroom.

Rieker and township solicitor Lauren Gallagher also gave the board a rundown on Monday of a code update they’ve been developing, which would amend township zoning codes to allow certain uses on those nonconforming lots.

Upper Gwynedd’s commissioners next meet at 7 p.m. July 20 at the township administration building, 1 Parkside Place. For more information visit www.UpperGwynedd.org.