Wallace supervisors approve new regulations. The Board of Supervisors approved tougher subdivision and storm water ordinances to manage development Wednesday to the applause of the audience.
"In general, the riparian buffers, timber harvesting and substantial woodland protection requirements were addressed," said Planning Commission Chairwoman Barbara D'Angelo.
The township has struggled for several years to come up with a plan to manage growth. "After 20 years, it's not perfect," said Supervisor Janet Grashof.
The township reordered old land development ordinances to make it easier to manage development, she said.
"Every person who subdivides needs to go through analysis of property," D'Angelo said. "We just provided more specific information."
The stormwater ordinance that passed at the meeting was based on the county's stormwater ordinance, according to D'Angelo. "Stormwater is no longer a waste, it's a resource," she said.
After supervisors discussed the proposals, residents of the township voiced their opinions at the meeting's public hearing.
Most residents supported the ordinance, but there was some opposition.
Albert M. Greenfield, a developer and landowner in Wallace, claimed the proposed language infringed on property owners' rights.
Supervisors' Chairman Robert Bock made a motion to revise the language.
There was some hesitation among the supervisors because there were differences in language in the advisory motions offered by the planning commission and the final language motioned by Bock.
"I have a problem with moving forward with these problems," Supervisor Bryan McDonaugh said.
But Bock and Grashof said the changes in language would be minor and the supervisors approved the ordinances.
After the meeting, Greenfield said, "I find it peculiar that there were problems with the ordinance and it was passed."
Building up Lionville
Anyone who didn't see this coming, please take off the blinders. A national restaurant chain, a national discount chain and a regional convenience store chain are readying to break ground on sites in Lionville, each digging in on the heels of the massive residential development along the Route 100 corridor from Chester Springs through Eagle.
Target Stores is taking aim at Chester County again with plans to build a new store on Eagleview Boulevard at Dowling Forge Road. On the same property will be a new Applebee's Grill & Bar. The site is situated between Lionville Village Shopping Center, anchored by a Giant supermarket, and the Shops on Eagleview Boulevard, anchored by a Genuardi's supermarket.
On Route 113 in front of Lionville Village, the shuttered Regal Cinema is being torn down to make way for a super Wawa.
"We hope to begin construction in the coming months and project it will be finished in the first half of 2008," said Lori Bruce, Wawa spokeswoman.
It will be built according to Wawa's new prototype; larger store, expanded parking (50 to 70 vehicles) and gas pumps, Bruce said.
"We're excited to be building a new store in Chester County, part of our core market," Bruce said. "There is a lot of growth in the area."
With the spike in residential building, Wawa apparently "gottahava" number of stores.
There is a super Wawa in Eagle at 1800 Ticonderoga Blvd., roughly three miles from the planned Wawa, and a super Wawa at Route 100 and Gorden Drive in Uwchlan, about a mile from the planned Wawa.
South on Route 113 at Peck Road, about a mile and a half from the planned Wawa, is an older Wawa with no gas pumps. Bruce said she did not know what the company's future plans are for that store.
Construction on the Target and Applebee's is scheduled to start next spring at the latest, said Eli Kahn, a principal at E.Kahn Development Co., which is developing the project in partnership with J.Loew & Associates, both of East Caln.
Kahn said he expects construction to be finished in late 2008. There is an additional pad site avail able that could be another restaurant, bank or used for similar retail use, Kahn added. Neither Target nor Applebee's are strangers to the region.
There is a Target store on Route 100 in West Whiteland, about three miles from where the developer will break ground for the new store.
When the latest Target was proposed, some Uwchlan residents expressed concerns to the township about two Targets so close together.
"Target is spending the money and feels there is demand for an additional store," Kahn said. "There are a lot of homes going up on
Route 100."
A spokeswoman for the Minneapolis-based discount chain said it was too soon to comment on the planned Target in Uwchlan.
However, Target knows what it is looking for when it shops for real estate.
According to the chain's Web site, Target shoppers have a median age of 41 with a median household income of approximately $63,000. Approximately 45 percent of Target shoppers have children at home and about 48 percent have completed college.
The Applebee's will be a franchise owned by the Rose Group of Newtown. Of the nearly 1,600 restaurants in the Overland Park, Kan., chain, only about one third are company owned.
Court to decide if township has say
The Chester County Court of Common Pleas will be deciding if the West Bradford Zoning Hearing Board has jurisdiction to hear a resident's complaint that the township's recent settlement agreement with a developer amounts to illegal re-zoning.
Richard and Kathryn Coster of West Chester Road filed a procedural challenge May 16 with the West Bradford Zoning Hearing Board, contending that the township illegally rezoned the Smith and Gray properties to allow a high-density development in an area zoned for low density housing.
At a July 11 hearing before the zoning hearing board, attorneys for the township and developer TI-McKee Bradford, L.P. claimed the zoning hearing board didn't have the authority to decide the matter.
The hearing board asked both sides to submit opinions on whether it had the authority to hear the challenge.
The board issued its decision Sept. 19 that it would "seek a judicial ruling" from the Chester County Court of Common Pleas "whether this board has jurisdiction over the subject matter of appellant's appeal."
Richard Coster said Monday that both sides will be preparing arguments to present to the Court of Common Pleas.
The Costers claim that a settlement agreement reached last winter between the township and developer TI-McKee Bradford, L.P. to make way for a 450-unit 55-plus retirement community allegedly rezoned the Smith and Gray properties.
In an opinion written by the attorney for the zoning hearing board, the board seems to be stumped over whether it has jurisdiction over a settlement agreement as opposed to a land-use ordinance.
The zoning hearing board has exclusive jurisdiction to hear and render final decisions in certain matters including challenges to the validity of any land-use ordinance and procedural challenges to the process of enacting a land-use ordinance, the opinion says.
It goes on to ask where in the Municipalities Planning Code, the state law that empowers municipalities to develop zoning and create planning commissions and zoning hearing boards, does the zoning hearing board have jurisdiction over a settlement agreement between the township and a developer?
Coster asserts that the settlement agreement is a "de facto" zoning ordinance in that it is allowing a much greater density than the underlying zoning for the two tracts. So while the township didn't call the action a zoning amendment, the action amounts to a zoning amendment, Coster alleges.
The zoning hearing board said it would agree that the board has jurisdiction to review the validity of the settlement agreement if they agreed that the settlement agreement was a "de facto" zoning ordinance amendment.
The two properties that are the subject of the zoning challenge are the 78-acre Gray property on West Chester Road and the 106-acre Gary Smith Farm on Broad Run Road. Bentley Communities was originally planning to develop the Gray property. A by-right plan would allow 45 homes on the Gray tract but with the purchase of another parcel that would not be developed, he could build 132 homes.