Stop Mill Run

Okay, so here’s an update on the effort to halt the Mill Run subdivision. Up to this point we have been hearing the standard boilerplate from the developer, the Skippack Planning Commission, and the Skippack Board of Supervisors: “A property owner has a right to do with his or her property as he or she wishes. If you wanted to develop your property, you would have the right to do so.” This is only half true in that yes, a property owner does have the right to do with their property as they wish. What is left out is the implied caveat “Unless those activities infringe on another property owner’s right to enjoy their property.” This is exactly what is being proposed: Increased traffic Further increasing the overcrowding already present at Skippack Elementary (currently at a 16:1 student/teacher ratio, higher than the state average of 14:1). Environmental damage from increased storm runoff. Increased light pollution. Potential groundwater contamination. Two weeks ago I reached out to pret

 Okay, so maybe pitchforks and torches is a bit extreme, but we definitely need folks to show up for the Planning Commission meeting this Monday, March 21 (which, incidentally, is also the first full day of spring) at the Skippack Township building at 4089 Heckler Road, next to Skippack Elementary, at 7:30 PM. The airport project is on the agenda ... specifically, whether or not to approve the Conditional Use permit. For those who want to know the specifics of why we think the permit should be denied, read on. Regardless, we hope to see you there! We think the Conditional Use permit should not be approved for the following reasons: The amount of open space does not meet the CDO requirement of 50% of the gross acreage; it actually comes in at about 47%. Our position is that this is an unacceptable condition and the Conditional Use permit should not be approved until it is corrected. The total size of the tract is ambiguous. The site survey done by the developer has one value, the Montgo

 An update on the airport project. Brace yourself, it's a biggie. If you want to skip the tales of carnage from the meeting, you can skip to the action items at the end. Tuesday, February 22, there was a meeting of the planning commission at the Skippack Township building on Heckler Road. This meeting was very heavily attended ... as in, standing room only. The following people were in attendance: Chris Heleniak, Township Manager Tim Woodrow, Township Engineer Joe Zadlo, Township Planner Luke Dielsi, Planning Commission member Harry Greco, Planning Commission member Tim Landemesser, Planning Commission member Brad DeForest, Planning Commission member Gerald Rader, Planning Commission member Eric Fry, Attorney for the developer Traffic engineer contracted by the developer (Sandy someone, I don't remember her last name) Site engineer from Bursich Associates (I didn't catch his name) Two reps from Del Grippo Homes (I assume del Grippo Senior and del Grippo Junior) The purpose

  This Monday, February 21 st at 7:30 PM at the Skippack Township Building located at 4089 Heckler Road next to Skippack Elementary School, there will be a meeting of the Planning Commission to discuss the Conditional Use Permit for the development of the Perkiomen Valley Airport property. The Planning Commission is going to vote whether or not to recommend acceptance of the Conditional Use application to the Board of Supervisors. We need as many people as possible to show up and voice their disapproval, and to make it clear that this is a political career-ending issue for anyone who supports the development. There will be a period of public comment prior to this vote being taken. Since each resident will be given a limited time to speak, we would like to coordinate what people will say so that we can maximize our impact; however, coordination is not a requirement. All we are asking is that people show up to voice their opposition. Below is some background on the project. On F

 Things are starting to get interesting, folks. According to a letter from Dischell Bartle Dooley Law Offices posted on the Skippack Township website, there is going to be a meeting on February 1, 2022 at 6:30 PM at the Skippack Township building on Heckler Road in which the developer can "... meet with the current residents surrounding the Subject Property." In this letter, they state that "[t]he meeting is being offered by the Applicant so that neighbors may ask questions and express their concerns with, objections to and/or support for Application to development of the Subject Property ..." Let's not mince words. The fact that the developer is hosting this meeting means that we are making our voices heard . We cannot rest on our laurels, however. We are going up against Audubon Land Development Corporation and Del Grippo Homes, and these guys have the money to throw at lawyers to get what they want. The only way we can possibly put a stop to this is through s

Welcome back from the holidays! We hope everyone had a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season ... but now it's time to get back to work. Some quick updates on the Perkiomen Valley Airport development project. We spoke with the Montgomery County Conservation District today. As of around 1:00 PM there had been nothing filed for either a soil study or a water quality study. Between the holidays and COVID we haven't had much opportunity to get out and meet the neighbors and (hopefully!) gather more signatures for the petition. Given that temps are expected to be in the single digits and teens this weekend, that's not likely to change in the near future. However, we are still accepting signatures electronically (you can find the link in the top right corner). According to the Skippack Township website ( skippacktownship.org ) the airport project is not on the agenda for the Planning Commission meeting on January 17th. However, there is a public comment period carved out for eve

 At the last Planning Commission meeting, we and several other residents voiced our concern that the December meeting was scheduled such that it would be fairly easy for things to get railroaded through due its proximity to the holiday. While we have no way of knowing for sure whether or not we had an effect on this decision, the township announced today that the planning commission meeting for December 20th has been cancelled. Enjoy the holiday, everyone!

 As of this writing (Thursday, December 16 around 5:15 PM) we are seeing overwhelming support for halting development of the Perkiomen Valley airport property (brace yourself ... there is statistics geekery afoot!). However, we ain't out of the woods yet. Since we started this effort in the beginning of November, we have visited 453 homes (we are counting electronic petition submissions as a visit). When we eliminate non-responses (no answer when we knocked on the door, the people stated they needed more information, or they asked us to come back another time and we have not yet done that), we see the following results: Total number of yes or no responses: 346 Number of signatures: 325 (94%) Number of refusals: 21 (6%) Quite frankly, this is about as close to unanimous as we can get. This doesn't mean we can rest on our laurels, though. Basically, the township is required by law to approve any development plan that conforms with the law. However, there may be a slight possibili

 

This is gonna be a long one, folks. Since this website went live it has been a whirlwind of activity at this end. We have been filling the room at Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission meetings, we have been going door-to-door collecting signatures on our petition, we have been researching the application and other public documents to see if there's anything in there that would put a stop to this thing. It is at this time that a little back story might be in order. I started this effort a few weeks ago because of the potential for the quiet, semi-rural way of life we enjoy in Skippack to be cast aside in favor of lining a developer's pockets. I mean, let's face it ... the reason most people are here is for this quiet lifestyle. I have been a resident of Skippack Township for nearly fifteen years now. In that time I have seen the Board of Supervisors routinely ignoring the wishes of the residents in favor of developers, doing the bare minimum when it comes to informi

On Friday, November 9, 2021, Dave Naples filed a formal Open Records request with Chris Heleniak, Township Manager. Today at 4:46 PM, Mr. Heleniak provided the following materials: Skippack Township Checklist Skippack Township Application Skippack Township Request for Modification (waivers) Skippack Township Time Waiver Form Montgomery County Planning Commission Act 247 Form (submitted to county, report included) Aerial Photograph Conditional Use application The following items were not provided by Mr. Heleniak, but were part of the initial application (based on the township checklist): Copy of the check in amount of $10,000.00 for Skippack Township Escrow Traffic Impact Study (will be provided under separate cover by Traffic Consultant) Title Report Property Notice Posted (documentation will be provided under separate cover within 24 hours after submission) A copy of the Preliminary Land Development Plans*, 31 sheets, dated 9/30/21 and a copy of the E&S and PCSM Plans, 19 sheets,

The Skippack Board of Supervisors meeting took place this evening at 7:30 PM. There were about 20 to 25 residents in attendance. The entire meeting was recorded on YouTube, and can be accessed here . Dave Naples raised the issue of the airport development project; this generated quite a bit of back-and-forth between the Board and residents. We raised the following issues: Zoning The proposed development is zoned RA-Residential/Agricultural with a cluster development option (CDO). One of the requirements for a CDO is that the property being developed share a boundary with a property that is zoned R2-Residential. The developer is relying on about 100 feet of frontage along Mill Road that abuts the Iron Bridge Estates development to meet this requirement. Our contention is that, since Mill Road is state-owned property and therefore breaks the "shared boundary" requirement, the development is illegal. The Board did not respond to this directly. Open Space 47.96% of the proposed d

Okay, folks. Here are some stats for ya. The total number of homes being canvassed to oppose the subdivision: 535 Total number of homes visited since last Monday: 119 (a little over 22%) Because the Board of Supervisors meeting is Wednesday and the Planning Commission is a week from today, it is clear that there is no way we can cover all this turf in the time allotted. WE NEED VOLUNTEERS! This isn't a hard sell. Out of the 119 homes visited in the past week, 48 were non-answers (people weren't home). This leaves a total of 71 homes where people came to the door. Out of these, 60 homes had one or more people who elected to sign the petition, for a grand total of 74 signatures. We have a positive response of about 84.5% percent, and we have collected more signatures than homes. We need people to pound the pavement and collect enough signatures to make a real dent in this thing at both meetings. 74 signatures is not enough to really grab their attention. Our goal is to highlight

To date we have collected 72 signatures on a petition to halt this development. We have canvassed over 100 homes. While there were several who did not answer, out of everybody who came to the door we have only had five people refuse to sign. Three of those simply wanted more information, one refused because he felt it was a waste of time and nothing would be done, and one refused for reasons it is inappropriate to make public. Our goal is to demonstrate that, if this development is allowed to proceed, there will be severe electoral consequences for the members of the Board of Supervisors. Skippack Township has three voting precincts. The first precinct covers the eastern end of the township, including the village, and is a Democratic stronghold. And while the Board is purely Republican, and has been pretty much for the last several decades, very few Republican candidates have won the first precinct. That leaves the other two which, coincidentally, encompass the area affected by this su

The following information has been confirmed. The developer behind this effort is Del Grippo Custom Homes, located at 2965 West Germantown Pike, Fairview Village, PA, 19409. A water conservation study has, apparently, not yet been done. I spoke with the Montgomery County Conservation District (MCCD) and either a) there has not been an application filed for this study yet, or b) MCCD is, for some reason, withholding this information from the public. I suspect it's the former, since the person I spoke with did send me the requested link to the section of the PA code that they rely upon to conduct these studies. We are looking for volunteers to help with the petition. If you are interested, please reach out to daveforskippack@gmail.com and let us know. #StopMillRun

An update on the proposed housing development at the Perkiomen Valley airport. It's a long one, but there is a lot of useful information. There is a picture of the front page of the site plan above so folks can get an idea of what is being proposed. Below are the bullet points. 1. The proposed name of the subdivision is Mill Run . 2. In an earlier post we identified Tuesday, November 16 at 7:30 PM as the date and time of the planning commission meeting. This was obtained from Skippack Township web site. The day after this was posted, the township changed the meeting date and time to Monday, November 15th at 7:30 PM. 3. Dave Naples went to the township building this morning (Friday, November 5, 2021) and got a look at the site plan. We have pictures of almost all the pages (a couple of them are illegible due to poor camera work -- our apologies). 4. The site plan was prepared by Bursich Associates , located at 2129 E. High Street in Pottstown. 5. The developer is listed as 761 Colle

  We are residents of Skippack Township. This is to inform you (in case you are not already aware) that there is a subdivision of 58 homes being considered for the site of the Perkiomen Valley airport. There is a meeting of the Skippack Township Planning Commission scheduled for Tuesday, November 16 at 7:30 PM at the township building on Heckler Road, next to Skippack Elementary. Some reasons for opposing this development effort. Traffic considerations Putting a development on this site will contribute greatly to the amount of traffic on Collegeville Road, Hildebeitel Road, Mine Road, Landis Road, and Mt. Airy Road (Landis, Collegeville, and Mine Roads form three of the four borders of the airport property). The increased traffic on these roads will have fairly severe safety impacts for residents who live on or near these roads (there are several school bus stops along these roads). In addition, Hildebeitel Road, currently a residential street with a 30 MPH speed limit, will become a m