Plans for Pierce Street residences revealed
Six units proposed for corner properties
LANSDALE » A project now on the drawing board could bring a new use to an industrial corner in Lansdale.
Borough officials saw details this week on a proposed six-unit residential project at the corner of Fifth Street and Pierce Street.
“This portion of the borough is a little bit different, in the sense that it’s zoned industrial. Everything above Pierce Street, to the railroad tracks, and on the other side of the railroad tracks is zoned industrial,” said engineer Jason Smeland.
“And the area where we are is pretty much a residential-type area. So when we were looking at this property, with the developer and property owner, it seemed that developing this as residential made a lot of sense,” he said.
At issue are two adjacent parcels at the intersection of Pierce and Fifth, where Smeland said one industrial building, a shed, and a recently demolished single-family home stand. The parcels are located in the town’s downtown business overlay district, which does allow residential construction, so the new proposal would be a four-unit quadstyle building that fronts on Fifth on one parcel, and a duplex fronting on Pierce on the other.
“Since this is in the industrial zoning district, and it’s kind of a small property, there’s a couple of things we had to go to the zoning hearing board for,” Smeland said.
Borough codes do not require parking spaces be provided for buildings of less than 20,000 feet, but due to limited parking in the area the development will provide a total of 12 parking spaces, six each in two perpendicular strips parallel to each of the two streets.
“We wanted to provide a plan with adequate parking spaces, two spaces per unit. Generally 1.5 (spaces per unit) is considered acceptable, but we had the space to do it, and make a nice layout,” Smeland said.
To do so, the project did require relief from the zoning board to allow the parking area to go within five feet of the right-of-way for nearby railroad tracks, and to go within 20 feet of the building. Smeland told the code committee that the project does feature a five-foot-wide sidewalk between the spaces and building, “so if you’re walking, you’re safe,” and did get permission from the zoning board to go within those setbacks.
The downtown overlay district also requires a distance of 50 feet from any residential zoning district, a provision Smeland said “doesn’t make sense in this place” for a residential project next to other residences, and the zoning board did grant that request. Because of the residential uses, the project must next secure conditional use approval from the borough, then formal land development approval of the plans, and Smeland said he’ll make the case to borough council for both at their Feb. 16 meeting.
Plans have been by borough staff and consultants, producing review letters Smeland said projected “no major issues,” then the town’s planning commission vetted the plans and made several requests. Those included that the developer “get as many street trees in as we can, so we agreed to provide some,” Smeland said, likely smaller canopy trees along Fifth due to an electric line running above. The planning commission also required buffering around the parking area, one handicapped parking space, and changes to the sidewalk height to level it, before the commission voted the plans ahead for full council.
As he spoke, Smeland showed an aerial photo of the properties, a site plan showing the locations of the two buildings, and a sketch of a possible building layout, before asking for any input from the code committee. All three members had no comments, then voted unanimously to recommend that the land development plans and conditional use approval be discussed by full council in two weeks.
Borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Feb. 16 and the code committee next meets at 7:30 p.m. on March 2, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine Street. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org.