The proposed overlay district for a swath of Chadds Ford Township from north of Route 1 to south of Hillman Drive is on hold with no timetable of being resurrected. However, proposals for a YMCA and a 120-townhouse development in that area remain in play.
Chadds Ford Township Planning Commission Chairman Craig Huffman made the announcement during a commission meeting on Aug. 19.
“Supervisors are now looking at a text amendment. The overlay district is not dead, but in a deep sleep,” he said.
Huffman added that the overlay concept would lead to increased traffic and residential density. Lengthy impact studies — both financial and traffic — need to be done and currently, “the overlay is not the best approach.”
As previously reported, the Neighborhood Commercial Overlay Ordinance, if approved, would rezone a 100-acre area — currently limited to various business and commercial uses — to allow for mixed use, including residential and recreational. K. Hovnanian Homes and the Brandywine YMCA are still looking to move into the area and the supervisors may find a way to accommodate those uses without enacting the overlay.
Hovnanian wants to build a residential development between Brandywine Drive and Painters Crossing shopping center and the YMCA wants to build a facility on Henderson property in the business campus in the area of Hillman and Dickinson drives. Neither use is permitted under current zoning.
Speaking after the commission meeting, township Supervisors’ Chairman Deborah Love said delaying the overlay was no reason to delay examining the two proposals.
“To keep, these two applicants at bay until the overlay happens, if it ever would, is wrong…It’s not fair to business,” Love said.
She added that the overlay concept came up as a way to allow business entities to use spaces that have been empty for a long time. However, there was a negative reaction because the change was linked to the creation of the southwest section of the loop road. Residents of the Painters Crossing Condominiums and the Estates of Chadds Ford have strong objections to that.
The loop road is not presently under current consideration, but Love said the township had given developers a sense of being accepting of the Hovnanian and YMCA plans going through the approval process in anticipation of the overlay. Through text amendment or other rezoning actions, the plans can move through the process.
“They were at the starting gate and we can’t afford to make them wait,” she said.
Love agrees that traffic and other impact studies are vitally important and must be done as part of the process before the board would consider approving the plans.
“All three supervisors want the traffic study to be done. We’re not backing off those things that we asked the developers to do,” she said.
Love thinks the sooner the board starts considering rezoning the two sites, the better.
“I don’t think we can delay them based on people not liking something. I think we have to give everybody their due process…But, I can say the board does not want to make a decision until the total traffic impact is completed,” Love said.
Other business
• Planning Commission members voted to recommend a conditional use hearing for a proposed 28-room hotel on Route 202. Developers want to convert the vacant Watkins building at 1516 Wilmington Pike. It’s a 4-acre site and no land development is planned.
• David Dodge is looking to expand and renovate its Route 202 building. The commission did a sketch plan review for the project. A 7,900 square foot expansion is proposed that would provide increased the sales and service areas.
• The commission also reviewed a sketch plan for a proposed Audi dealership farther north on Route 202. That site is the location of a former motel and the plan would involve the Zoning Hearing Board because the current zoning does not allow for a car dealership.
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.
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