Update November 30, 2022

Various neighbors report that a company has had representatives to take soil samples from the former Strawberry Acres property. We're keeping an eye on this and hopefully things are being done according to the correct procedures.

November 2022 Update

Cancellation of other scheduled agenda items at the September 27th Planning Commission Meeting allowed consideration of the Strawberry Acres AARC revised plans.  The good news is that following extensive discussion the Commission tabled review of the plans, and did not forward it to the Board of Supervisors (BOS) consideration at their October meeting. They directed the Developer to revise the plans and re-submit them for consideration at an upcoming meeting.

The Commissioners reviewed the comments by the Township Engineer and Zoning Officers indicating specific issues where the plans were not compliant with township ordinances. The Developer in turn indicated that they will revise the plans to be in compliance with the issues raised. However in order to revise the plans the Developer will require several weeks of work before the plans are ready for re-submittal. In accordance with the standard practices of the Planning Commission, plans must be submitted at least 1 month prior to the meeting in which they will be considered to allow sufficient time for review by the Township Engineer, Zoning Officers, and members of the general public. This means that the earliest meeting that the Planning Commission will be able to consider the changes is the November meeting, but only if the Developer succeeds in submitting the plans by October 22nd. If they don’t meet that date then it cannot be considered until December 28th meeting. This in turn means that it is likely that the Township Board of Supervisors will not be able to consider any recommendation by the Planning Commission until after the December 6th BOS meeting. Currently the Township has a deadline of December 6th to take action on the Development. Therefore the Developer indicated that they will offer the Township an additional 3 to 6 month extension of the consideration deadline. The BOS will need to accept this extension prior to or at their December 6th meeting or act to approve or reject the Development.

Various images also raised issues with the plans as presented. Heather discussed issues with the traffic study prepared by the developer.  Key issues she raised are that the study only considered one day of traffic during the summer, and used tables for urban and not rural traffic, therefore any result determined by the study is inaccurate. Ellyn addressed multiple environmental issues. The most important is that the Developer has not conducted a study to determine the level of contaminates in the soil, and although they stated that a testing contractor has been hired, they could not provide a testing plan or even describe a plan. Ellyn stressed that the proper plan would require a grid of testing locations, and testing would need to be conducted at several depths below the surface to a depth 2 feet below planned excavations. She stressed that the samples taken should be split and studied by two labs one representing the Developer, and one the Township. In addition the Township should witness the sampling to insure that it is performed in accordance to the plan reviewed by both the Township and interested parties, and approved by the Township.  The Planning Commissioners appeared to favorably accept this recommendation. Tom again pointed out several significant and insignificant issues with the plan as prepared.  One key point that he raised is that the prepared plans is how the Developer communicates what he intends to do, and the quality of the work he intends to perform - this is so significant that the Licensed Professional Engineer directing the work signs a statement indicating that the details in the plan are accurate and correct to the best of his knowledge.  Signing this statement with multiple obvious errors indicates a true lack of quality in the work. This point was made to the Commissioners during the meeting, and Tom presented written comments for review by the Township and the Developer.

The Commissioners also questioned the Developer about a standard provision in the SALDO (standard development plan requirements) that stub roads left from previous adjacent developments such as ours must be extended and connected to the roads of the new development.  The Developer indicated that they did not design this feature and intended to request a zoning Variance to not perform this requirement. This was discussed in depth by the Commissioners with no formal decision at this time.  Each Commissioner stated their current view with members on each side of the issue. Several residents living in the Laurel Wood development indicated that they are not in favor of interconnecting the internal road of the two developments due to safety concerns with young children in the existing development.

 Next: The Developer must redraw the plans and re-submit them to the Township. The Township will then schedule them for discussion at the next Planning Commission meeting that meets the existing rules for review time.  That submittal must also contain a plan for soil sampling, the testing of the samples, and how the soil must be handled based on the level contamination. If the plan package does not satisfy the Planning Commission then they may either again table action while changes are made or, make a recommendation to the BOS to not approve the plan. If the revised plans are acceptable then they can make a recommendation to the BOS to either approve the development with their comments, they can forward it to the BOS without a recommendation, or they can forward it to the BOS with a negative recommendation. In parallel with this, the Developer will need to formally offer to the BOS an extension of time, and the BOS will need to formally accept the extension or take a formal Approval or Rejection action. We will keep up with the developments as they occur.