It's All About Development for Limerick Board

Image from screenshot

A resident registers her concerns about a proposed senior housing project on Lewis Road during Tuesday night's Limerick Township supervisors meeting.

Three major development issues dominated the agenda for Tuesday's Limerick Supervisors meeting.

Senior Housing

Consuming much time and of particular interest to the residents of Aronomink Drive was a conditional use hearing for a proposal to build a two-story, 30,000 square foot assisted living senior facility on 8.5 acres at 545 Lewis Road behind the Wawa at the intersection with Linfield Road.

The project has already obtained four variances from the township's zoning hearing board, including an allowance to clear more vegetation that the the ordinance allows and less parking than the ordinance requires.

The zoning allows the senior housing use, but requires the developers obtain a conditional use approval from the supervisors, which allows the supervisors to impose conditions on the approval.

An artists' rendering of the proposed senior housing.

The hearing was continued until next month due to several unanswered questions for the supervisors regarding traffic and work now being done on the site.

Residents concerns focused largely on the impact the project would have on traffic and stormwater run-off.

Andrea Straka said during heavy rainfalls she can see the water running down toward her Cherokee Circle home and neighbors have had flooding problems in basements and yards.

John Alejnikov, and engineer for the developer, said the underground stromwater management system will mean when the site is complete, there will be less runoff from the site than there is now.

Jerrid Dinnen, with Atlantic Traffic and Design said traffic studies show the facility would add only 21 new trips to the morning peak traffic period and 29 to the evening peak.

A site plan for the proposed senior housing.

Ben Wells, president of business development for Kaplan Development, LLC, which owns Senior Housing Development LLC, said at the other similar facilities his company operates, there are three shifts -- 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.; 3 to 10 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

The facility would create 150 to 200 construction jobs and, once built, require 75 to 80 permanent staff "to run the operation," wells said.

Supervisors seemed to agree with the developers contention that other potential uses the zoning allows at the site, a bar, drive-through restaurant or kennel, would generate more noise, traffic and light pollution.

"A full service hotel could be built there, that's a 24-hour operation," said Vice Chairman Michael McCloskey Jr., who added, "you have to ask yourself which is the lesser of two evils."

But resident Matt Lewis told them that restrictive covenants put on the property when the Wawa was built preclude many of those uses.

Across from Costco

Supervisors also heard the third development proposal for property at Lightcap and Evergreen roads opposite the Coscto and Chik-fil-a.

The current proposal for Sanatoga Springs, Phase II

Called Sanatoga Springs Phase II, a 2011 plan called for 244,000 square feet of commercial space and 300 residential units.

The plan was revised again in 2014 calling for 260,000 square feet of commercial space, but has once again been revised.

The current proposal, which will go before the zoning hearing board toward the end of the month, calls for only 38,000 square-feet of commercial space and 273 units of one- and two-bed housing in 21 separate buildings.

Ed Campbell, speaking on behalf of the developers, said the primary advantage of this plan is the extreme reduction in impervious surface, which prevents stormwater from being absorbed into the ground.

For example, the number of parking spaces is down from more than 1,500 in 2011 to 612 under teh current plan.

Supervisor Tom Neafcy noted with less commercial square footage, the township would get "fewer ratables" under the current plan.

The plan also calls "moving" some wetlands and an intermittent stream on the site to another location and the creation of "higher quality wetlands," Campbell said.

The plan will be back before the supervisors at the April 6 meeting.

Linfield Village Master Plan

Limerick Township Manager Dan Kerr told the supervisors that the Linfield Village Master Plan study is moving forward and that much of what will happen revolves around the re-development of the former Publicker site along the Schuylkill River.

A public workshop was held March 3 and while residents outlined a varied wish list of what they'd like to see happen, unless the redevelopment of the 200-acre Publicker site makes money for the owners, none of its going to happen said Kerr.

There are numerous buildings in a dangerous state

of disrepair on the Publicker site.

The site has been abandoned since it closed in 1986, and was home to the 125-acre Linfield Industrial Park that served multiple purposes including the repackaging and distribution of antifreeze and ammonia-based cleaners. Kinsey Distillery used the facility as both a warehouse and whiskey distillery.

"Obviously, the Publicker site is the elephant in the room," Kerr said.

He said a survey of Linfield residents has garnered more than 500 responses that view redevelopment of the site favorably.

The survey indicated residents want non-residential, restaurants, office and retail. If housing is necessary, 50 percent said they would prefer "mixed use," 1st floor retail.

But both the supervisors and survey respondents do not want the potential 1,200 housing units a developer would need to build and sell to cover the cost of tearing down the dilapidated buildings there and construct the millions in road and infrastructure improvements needed.

The Publicker site, shown here in yellow, is zoned

for heavy industrial uses. To the right are state
game lands which will be affected by any redevelopment.

In October, it was estimated it could take more than $10 million in infrastructure and traffic improvements needed to handle the 2,500 vehicles it would add to the area's traffic flow.

"It seems like everybody sits there with their Christmas list," said board vice chair Michael McCloskey, "but if you want that, it means more residential to pay for improvements."

The property is currently zoned as heavy industrial and any number of unfavorable uses could be put on the site with the township having no say, including a rail-to-raod transfer site, which would generate more truck traffic, a junkyard, even an "animal rendering plant," Kerr warned.

Further complicating matters is the fact that adjacent to the Publicker site are state game lands that will be affected by any redevelopment at the site.

Kerr said the township recently clarified some confusion among residents about discussion around a "swap" of land which might expand the game lands and improve access to the Publicker site. 

"Something needs to happen there, the question is what?" said Kerr.

As the plan moves forward, a draft is expected to be before the supervisors in June, Kerr said he is worried the choices are boiling down to two options: "Do nothing," or allow something akin to the proposal made by developer Tim Hendricks last autumn.

McCloskey worried about the township "painting ourselves into a corner," and ending up with 1,500 housing units as a result of the wish list being fulfilled. "The developer has been sitting here a couple years looking for direction," he said. 

"Everybody has a wish list, and wish lists aren't free," McCloskey said.

Township Solicitor Mike McGrory opined that the "mixed use" idea of retail on the ground floor with homes above "never works. I've seen it happen in my other townships. the stores fail and become apartments. You have to have a walkable community for that to work," he said.

Kerr said it is working at a "town center" site in King of Prussia, but Chairwoman Kara Shuler pointed out there are big box stores there, and it is along two major highways.

Supervisor Patrick Morroney said the key may be to try to get some state funding to reduced the cost of tearing down the buildings to then reduce the need for so many homes. But to do that the project needs to be something other than just housing, said Kerr.

Morroney suggested something with "green energy," a solar farm or some other use the state wants to promote.

The impediment to moving forward, said Supervisor Tom Neafcy, is the property owners' asking price is unrealistically high. "If we begin with fair market value, then we can do something, but (the owner) is the impediment," he said.

Kerr said he would report back to the consultant working on the master plan with the supervisors' views.