WE NEED YOU!

 

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 Feb 1st, residents met with the builder (Del Grippo Homes), an engineer from Bursich Associates, a traffic analyst, and the lawyer for the developer (Audubon Land Development Corp) at the Skippack Township building. The room was standing room only, full of concerned residents, who were there to discuss and voice their concerns about the proposed development on the site of the Perkiomen Valley Airport. This development is being planned under the Cluster Development Option (CDO) of Section 200-12.F of the Zoning Ordinance, which allows for higher density housing on land zoned RA (Residential/Agricultural) than would normally be allowed, under specific circumstances. This ordinance was pushed through by the Skippack Township Board of Supervisors with the bare minimum of public notice in 2018 -- presumable because, if people had known it was happening, it would have been roundly opposed.

According to the Township: “The Primary purpose of the RA Residential/Agricultural District is to maintain, within the (Skippack) township, a rural agricultural community that preserves our community’s connection with farming and agricultural uses and to provide areas within the (Skippack) Township that have a slower pace to them; also to preserve areas of the Township with productive agricultural soils for continued or future agricultural use, by preserving blocks of land large enough to allow for efficient farm operations.”

Without the CDO, zoning for this land would require a minimum lot size of 75,000 square feet (just under 1 ¾ acres). We see many homes throughout the township built under these guidelines. However, under the CDO, the minimum lot size is 12,500 square feet, provided 50% of the gross acreage is set aside for open space. As a result, the 60 acre plot currently used by the airport would have 58 homes with an average lot size of under 15,000 square feet. In addition, the developer is claiming that the detention basins – which, collectively, would occupy just under ten acres, or a shade under 16 ½% of the gross acreage – counts as open space.

I, for one, don’t know of anyone who enjoys strolling around stormwater retention basins, but that’s just me.

We are opposing this development based on the following:

1.       This plan does not meet the 50% open space threshold. Even if we stipulate that the stormwater retention basins qualify as open space, this still only leaves 28.07 acres – or roughly 46.8% --out of the 59.998 acres as open space.

2.       Under the proposed plan somewhere between one and two acres of old growth trees would be removed to make room for retention basins. These trees are now nesting sites for red-tailed hawks.

3.       The developer is requesting variances to avoid improving the roads servicing this new development. As a result, the nearly blind corner at the intersection of Hildebeitel and Mill Roads would be made even worse with the proposed eight foot berm surrounding the retention basin proposed for that location, and the proposed dog-leg intersection on Landis Road near Mount Airy Road would cause innumerable traffic headaches (the proposed intersection is similar to the intersection of 7^th Avenue and Ridge Pike in Trappe at the Lutheran Church; imagine what that intersection would be without a traffic light).

4.       The retention basins would provide protected breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other disease carrying insects.

5.       There are two creeks which feed into the Perkiomen Creek (which is a DEP protected waterway) that have headwaters on the airport property. Stormwater already causes these creeks to flood, often spectacularly; increasing the amount of impervious ground cover (the land currently has about 8% impervious ground cover; the site plan would increase that to between 13% and 14%) would only make that worse. And because the airport is located on the highest point of land in the western end of the township, this means that flooding issues would only be amplified.

6.       Speaking of impervious ground cover, there is nothing in the site plan or the proposed HOA rules that would prohibit a homeowner from increasing the amount of impervious ground on their lot (installing a swimming pool, for example, or building a patio/deck) and there is noting in the Skippack Township regulations to address this issue.

Please join us and make your voice heard!