New plans proposed for Oakland Road

Posted by Rich Schwartzman on September 25, 2015

Mansfield Construction is preparing to present new residential plans for two sites on Oakland Road, but submit the plans as a single project. According to Jackie Grace-Hochman, the plans should be ready for the Chadds Ford Township Planning Commission by its November meeting, if not October.

Mansfield, a Grace family business entity, previously submitted separate plans for the two sites to the Planning Commission.

Grace-Hochman said proposed plans call for 14 townhouses to be built on the east side of Oakland Road from Brinton’s Bridge Road south, and for 24 new single homes to be built on the west side of the street, the site of the former Goodman property.

Between the two sites, more than 50 acres will remain green space. Grace-Hochman also said the townhouses planned for the east side of Oakland would be “historically accurate, similar in appearance to the theme of that corner.”

That corner is the five-way intersection separating Chadds Ford and Birmingham townships.

Last year, the Planning Commission voted to recommend that supervisors adopt a PRD-3 ordinance for the Goodman property, but no plan was ever formally submitted. That proposal would have involved the creation of the new type of Planned Residential Development because it called for 35 new homes, but the new proposal would not need that. The density proposed with 24 new homes is consistent with the already existing PRD-1.

The commission also approved lot-line changes for the property on the east side of Oakland Road. Mansfield owned three parcels of land between Route 202, Oakland Road and Brinton’s Bridge Road. All three were partly in a PBC, or Planned Business Campus, zoning district and partly residential. The lot-line changes restructured the parcels so that one parcel was only residential and the others were PBC.

Those two parcels in the PBC district were then joined into one parcel. Mansfield intends to sell that larger PBC property, likely to an auto 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.