There’s still no actual plan on the table, but Toll Bros. Inc. and Westtown Township officials continue talking about the possible 300-plus-home development of Crebilly Farms.
Toll Divisional President Andrew Semon told supervisors Monday evening during the board’s work session that his company is ready to submit a plan for 300 homes on the 330-acre property as a by-right development, but wants to know what the township would like to see in the way of improvements in exchange for “bonus density.”
The Aug. 15 conversation was general and conceptual in nature, with little specifics.
“We want direction from you guys,” Semon told Supervisors Thomas Haws and Mike Di Domenico. (Supervisors’ Chairman Carol DeWolf did not attend.)
Improvements could be in the way of a park, trails road improvements and sewer upgrades within the proposed community or extending out from it. The bonus density could bring the total number of homes to 340 or more.
Semon said Toll is planning to install more than 4,000 feet of roadway, which should be considered a public improvement.
He said earlier this month that the road would cost about $2.2 million.
He asked where supervisors would want a park and how residents living outside of the development should access it.
The general consensus for the park was that it should be on the east side of the property, the side adjacent to Route 202, which would have homes further away from that road. An historic home would also be kept as part of the park.
More than 190 acres would be used for active and passive open and recreational space, Semon said. Toll is also willing to build ballfields if that’s what the township wants.
He said Toll is also looking at paying for offsite sewer improvements.
While the builder is ready to submit the by-right plan for 300 homes, Semon said he wants an idea of how much in public improvements the board wants in order to calculate how many more homes to request.
At the same time, supervisors want to approach an answer from a different direction. What dollar amount is Semon placing on each proposed extra home?
At one point, a cost of $40,000 was mentioned, but Semon said that was simply a number that came to mind. He said he didn’t have an actual calculation.
During the Aug. 1 workshop, Semon said the price point per home in a similar development in Willistown ranged from $400,000 to $1 million.
However, Semon did say Monday night that the cost per home for infrastructure ranges from $95,000 to $120,000, and that $4 million in public improvements should bring the density up to a total of 385 homes.
There’s been no word on when an actual plan will be submitted.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
(5 votes, average: 3.20 out of 5)
Loading...
This development is just tragic. Crebilly Farm is the largest and most important piece of the Brandywine Battlefield. Plus, over 300 homes! Each one of those homes has at a minimum two cars, making at least one trip per day, round-trip. That translates to almost 4000 car trips coming and going on route 926 and feeding into Route 202 or other roads every day just because of this development. No amount of road widening at the entrance, or additional ball fields, can compensate for that burden on everyone else.
I would love to see the Toll Bros. business move to China or
Vietnam