A Toll Brothers proposal to put 45 single-family homes at the corner of Durham Road (Route 413) and Twining Bridge Road is not a big hit with the Newtown Township supervisors or nearby residents.
At the end of a lengthy recent conditional use hearing during which several residents expressed concerns with the development, the matter failed to draw a motion from any of the five township supervisors.
Toll has an agreement to buy a 158-acre unused portion of the 328-acre All Saints Cemetery from the Philadelphia Archdiocese. It’s zoned conservation management.
Gregg Adelman, the local attorney representing Toll Brothers, said the proposed project is less dense than many nearby developments and much less dense than the 170 homes Toll had previously planned for the site.
He added only about 36 acres of the land would have houses and the rest would remain open space, with an 88-acre portion of open space being offered to the township if officials wanted it.
Only about 7% of the property would end up as impervious surface, much less than the 20% allowed under the applicable ordinance, Adelman said.
None of his points seemed to impress nearby residents.
“This development would take away all I bought into when I purchased my property and cause safety problems for everyone,” said Joe McAtee, who lives on Twining Bridge Road.
McAtee and other residents also objected to the proposed development having both its accesses on Twining Bridge Road and the added traffic they said it would mean for the road.
“Twining Bridge Road is already so dangerous,” one woman said. “You can’t walk on that street now without worrying whether you will be killed.”
Supervisor John Mack expressed reservations about the proposal.
“It seems like a contradiction to have a development like this in a conservation management district,” he said. “Newtown Township is very developed as it is.”
But Adelman responded the proposal “achieves the goals and purposes of the CM district as currently zoned.”
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Most of the February 26, 2020, Board of Supervisors session was devoted to the Toll Bros hearing. Just minutes before the hearing began, supervisors were handed a thick stack of "Exhibits" that included site plans, results of s flood plain study, stormwater management report, transportation impact assessment, review letters from our Township Engineer, etc. It should be no surprise, therefore, that I did not read every document from end to end in that pile of exhibits! It just is not humanly possible.
I have to question how Supervisors can ask intelligent questions and make the right decision under such circumstances. In fact, in the end, NO decision was made! Now we have 45 days to deliberate (in closed session, BTW) and make a decision.
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