Concord rejects rezoning Hall property

A 17-acre property in Concord Township will not be developed as proposed. Supervisors, in a 3-2 vote on Tuesday, Feb. 3, removed a requested text amendment application from the table.

The land in question is the Hall property at Bethel Road and Featherbed Lane near Route 322. Developers wanted to build 44 homes on the site, but would need a zoning change for that number. Only 12 may be built under current one-acre zoning.

Three-dozen residents spoke out against the proposed change during a hearing last May. They argued the changes would affect all other R-2 and R-2D zoning districts.

Supervisors in June continued the hearing, but during the old business portion of the Feb. 3 meeting, Supervisor Kevin O’Donoghue moved to remove the application from consideration. He cited the high density as the reason.

In a follow up email he said, "The Hall property proposed development would have required a zoning change, and I have publicly stated that I would not vote for any zoning changes unless the public opinion supported that change…I am very active in my community and feel I have my finger on the pulse of what the majority of Concord Township citizens desire, especially no more unnecessary zoning changes and a slowdown of high-density development."

Voting with O’Donoghue were Supervisors Libby Salvucci and John Gillespie. Supervisors Dominic Pileggi and Dominic Cappelli dissented.

Pileggi, the chairman of the board, noted the loss of potential infrastructure improvements by not allowing the increased density. Those improvements include bringing public sewer to 150 homes in the area and extending Perkins Lane from the Cambridge Downs development through the Hall property to Bethel Road.

That road extension would give Cambridge residents a secondary route in and out of the development without being locked into using Route 322, the Conchester Highway.

Pileggi said losing those infrastructure changes “will come back and bite this township in the future. To kill this ordinance at this time because the groans of a few outweigh the needs of the many is a great mistake.”

Cappelli said a number of people who live in Cambridge Downs told him they think their position was misrepresented by others who don’t want the change. He said the ones he spoke with are eager for another ingress and egress point other than Route 322, and several want public sewer so they don’t have to spend $60,000 to upgrade their septic systems before selling their homes.

Project engineer Matt Houtmann testified in May that it wouldn’t be economically feasible to upgrade the infrastructure as planned if the development were limited to 12 homes.

Ken Hemphill, one of the residents opposing the rezoning, was grateful for the vote.

“I think what we saw on Tuesday night was an example of why this country is so great. Residents opposed something that threatened to degrade their quality of life by adding excessive housing density to a sleepy little corner of the township, and they spoke up. Under what must have been intense pressure from those who wanted to cash in on the Hall property, Kevin O'Donoghue, Libby Salvucci, and John Gillespie courageously stood their ground and said ‘no.’”

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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