Skip to main content

Support is growing!

 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 possibility for the county or the state to step in on our behalf provided we can show sufficient support for the cause. We are also speaking with the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Montgomery County Conservation District, and the Montgomery County Planning Commission.

It also begs the question: who is it that the Board of Supervisors is representing, anyway? At the BoS meeting of  November 10th we were told that a property owner has a right to do with their property as they wish regardless of how the residents around the property feel about it, as long as they aren't breaking any laws. While this may be a valid stance to take on a small scale (a homeowner wants to put a prefab aluminum shed on their property but the neighbors think it's ugly), on a larger scale such as this it becomes a clear case of putting the property interests of a single entity (the developer) ahead of the wishes of the community at large and of the residents as a whole.

Our position is that, if nearly 95% of residents -- the vast majority of whom are within a three mile radius of the proposed development -- are opposed to it, then this public sentiment needs to be taken into account. We urge everyone reading this to contact one or more of the following people and organizations to voice your support for halting this development.

Chris Heleniak, Township Manager 610-454-0909 cheleniak@skippacktownship.org
Montgomery County Planning Commission 610-738-3722  
Anne Leavitt-Gruberger 610-278-3727 aleavitt@montcopa.org
Bill Hartman, Montgomery County Open Space Board 610-278-3746 bhartman@montcopa.org
Joe Webster, State Representative for the 150th Legislative District 484-200-8258 RepWebster@pahouse.net
(717) 787-0419
Bob Mensch, State Senator (215) 541-2388 (Red Hill office)  
(215) 368-3117 (Landsale office)  
(717) 787-3110 (Harrisburg)  
Madeleine Dean, Congresswoman, 4th Congressional District 215-884-4300 (Glenside office)  
610-382-1250 (Norristown office)
202 225-4731 (Washington DC office)
Pat Toomey, United States Senator (610) 434-1444 (Allentown)  
(215) 241-1090 (Philadelphia)
(814) 453-3010 (Erie)
(412) 803-3501 (Pittsburgh)
(717) 782-3951 (Harrisburg)
570) 820-4088 (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre)
(814) 266-5970 (Johnstown)
(202) 224-4254 (Washington DC)
Bob Casey, United States Senator (610) 782-9470 (Allentown)  
(814) 357-0314 (Bellefonte)
(814) 874-5080 (Erie)
(866) 461-9159 (Harrisburg)
(215) 405-9660 (Philadelphia)
(412) 803-7370 (Pittsburgh)
(570) 941-0930 (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre)
(866) 802-2833 (Washington DC)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Rundown

Well, they did it. Tonight at the Skippack Township Planning Commission meeting, the Commission voted to recommend approval of the conditional use permit requested by Audubon Land Development Corporation and Del Grippo Homes. This gives them the green light to move forward with the Mill Run development on the site of the Perkiomen Valley Airport, despite repeated pleas over a period of six months from nearly 500 residents that this not happen. Now I'm annoyed. No, scratch that ... I'm pissed . On a stratospheric, biblical level. Pissed to the point of wishing for each of the Commission members genital boils, COVID, leprosy, and a full IRS audit. The thing is, I'm not so much ticked off at the result -- although it does infuriate me to no end -- but to the complete and utter lack of respect for the residents, the casual dismissal of their concerns, and the use of various procedural stunts to try to derail us: The Board of Supervisors claimed that BoS meetings were not fora f...
Post a Comment
Read more

So here's what happened ...

 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 ...
1 comment
Read more

Project update: November 5, 2021

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...
Post a Comment
Read more