July 7, 2016

Clark Hoffman and Bill Bunch expressed the right idea at last month’s Chadds Ford Planning Commission meeting. Hoffman said local people have to solve local problems. Bunch readily agreed.

Hoffman is president of the Painters Crossing Condominium Association. Bunch owns William Bunch Auction located in the Chadds Ford Business Campus on Hillman Drive, facing Route 202.

The problem in question is the loop road, the Hillman Drive extension, the final leg of the loop around the intersection of Routes 1 and 202.

Three other legs are already open. PennDOT and a local property owner have talked about Hillman Drive for decades.

Now, that property owner, The Henderson Group, is willing to pay for the road’s construction so no tax money would be spent. And it has agreed to hear all concerns and incorporate suggestions for a plan that residents can support. But if the township says no to Henderson, PennDOT comes back into play as a possible developer of the road.

In a recent interview, Vito Genoa, a consulting engineer for PennDOT, said the transportation department put its plan for the loop road on hold when Henderson offered to do the job. But if the township rejects Henderson’s plan, he said, PennDOT would step back in, talk to the township, the county and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, and do what’s needed to complete the loop.

Hoffman and Bunch don’t want the state doing the job.

“We don’t want this to be a PennDOT project,” Hoffman said. “Our problems can be solved if we work together.”

Bunch agreed, saying, “You don’t want PennDOT to come in to do this. If we don’t come to an agreement, we’ll get a road that nobody wants.”

So far, Henderson has done everything members of the Planning Commission have asked regarding the plan.

Commission members asked Henderson to revise the original plan to consider a roundabout or two. A roundabout is now included. They asked Henderson to look into some sort of sound-attenuating structure to keep traffic noise and stray headlights from inconveniencing residents of the condominiums. That’s being done.

Residents of the condominiums didn’t like the original plan because the extension came too close to the 1500 building. So Henderson revised the plan, moving the road farther away.

Condo residents also objected to the original driveway between their property and the proposed road. It would have poor sightlines for people exiting the condominiums, and incoming headlights would flash into that 1500 building.

Henderson accommodated them by designing a new driveway behind one of its own office buildings, to alleviate that concern.

Hoffman said that’s a much better plan, and even wrote a letter  to the supervisors saying so.

But the changes that make the plan more acceptable to Hoffman and other residents of the condominiums, are objectionable to a vocal number of residents from the Estates at Chadds Ford.

The roundabout, some have said, would cause traffic to back up on Evergreen Place, their only point of ingress and egress. And the planned driveway for the condo residents would just shunt more traffic onto Evergreen.

Evergreen Place is fairly steep and there’s a perceived problem when it’s snow- and ice-covered. As one Estate resident said, “My neighbors are really bad drivers” because of all the accidents.

Chadds Ford Live has only received one police report regarding an accident on Evergreen Place, but residents of the Estates do have a legitimate concern. If there’s an accident on Hillman at Evergreen that blocks traffic, people in those homes are stuck. Those coming home can’t get into the property, and those who need to leave can’t get out.

So we have a bit of a neighbor-against-neighbor situation here, but there’s a solution. Get them to work together — as Hoffman and Bunch suggested — to resolve both of their concerns.

The way to do that is to heed the suggestion of former township Supervisor Deb Love.

She told residents of the Estates during a meeting on the loop road last fall, that the reason they’re stuck with only one access point is because the supervisors who approved the development — including Love herself — listened to residents who “didn’t want your traffic on their streets.” The one concession was a chained-off dirt road used as an emergency access point between the development and Heyburn Road.

Love then suggested that residents of the development urge the current Board of Supervisors to consider turning that emergency route into a regular, everyday access point with a properly paved and well-maintained real road.

It would make sense for the Estates people to follow up on Love’s suggestion, while condo residents come out in strong support of those efforts. In return, the Estates people accept condo traffic getting to and from Hillman through Evergreen. Estates folks get a second access point, and the condo folks get their driveway. And every resident gets to use Hillman Drive to avoid the main intersection of Routes 1 and 202.

This is by no means a perfect solution. There would be costs involved in getting the Heyburn Road access paved. Heyburn itself would need some work, too, but it needs that, anyway. And people living on Heyburn would likely object since they were among the people who didn’t want Estates traffic on their street in the first place.

Again, it’s not a perfect solution. There would be unhappy people no matter what decision the supervisors would ultimately make, yea or nay. It’s a tough job for a supervisor, to decide which people to tick off and who to please. But that’s the job.

For what it’s worth, outside of public meetings where the anti-loop road folks are strongly vocal, there is another sentiment. On the streets and in the shops of Chadds Ford, more people want the loop road open than don’t want it.

* The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ownership or management of Chadds Ford Live. We welcome opposing viewpoints. Readers may comment in the comments section or they may submit a Letter to the Editor to: editor@chaddsfordlive.com