Still no decision on loop road

Chadds Ford Township supervisors are now scheduled to vote on preliminary approval of the proposed Hillman Drive extension during their Oct. 26 workshop. But they did vote Wednesday night to approve the conditional use application and the preliminary subdivision and land use application for an assisted-living facility.

After the vote, Supervisor Noelle Barbone said the assisted-living facility planned for Route 202 at Summit Drive is “a good fit for our community.”

Ed Morris, the principal in E3 Ventures, the company that wants to build the facility, said he would be back for final approval as soon as possible.

Among the conditions agreed to by Morris were restricting the number of residents to 90, limiting truck deliveries to two per day and no more than seven per week and widening Summit Drive.

One Summit Drive resident said she appreciated the board’s keeping residents informed throughout the proceedings.

While there hadn’t been any strong public opposition to the assisted-living facility proposal, such has not been the case with the proposed loop road, the Hillman Drive extension.

Some residents at Painters’ Crossing Condominiums and many residents of The Estates at Chadds Ford have expressed opposition and concern over the loop road as presented in preliminary plans.

Hillman currently runs through The Chadds Ford Business Campus — owned by the Henderson Group — from Route 202 to just beyond Evergreen Place. Henderson is the applicant for the project, and the plan is to extend the road up beside the condominium property to Route 1 where there’s a traffic light at Route 1 and Brandywine Drive. The extension would complete the fourth and final segment of the loop around the intersection of Routes 1 and 202.

Condominium residents have been concerned about the proximity of the road to one of their buildings, but Henderson offered to move the road farther east and has agreed to install sound and light barriers.

Henderson also gave the residents a safer route between the condos and the proposed new roadway. And that has caused more concern for residents at the Estates.

Evergreen Place is the lone ingress and egress point for residents at the Estates. Many of those residents fear a traffic backup in the area, especially since a roundabout is planned for the intersection of Evergreen and Hillman, and residents from Painters Crossing Condominiums would access the loop through a back driveway that leads from the condos, around one of the office buildings in the business campus, and then to Evergreen.

Residents have repeatedly expressed their concerns throughout the meeting process, from Planning Commission meetings to those with the supervisors.

Wednesday night, Supervisors’ Chairman Frank Murphy again raised the question of whether Henderson could move the access point for the condominium residents so that it would cut through the office building site, not put more traffic onto Evergreen.

That suggestion has come up before in previous meetings, and rejected because there is a stormwater basin on the property, and it would be unsafe to have a street cutting through a parking lot.

Murphy suggested another location, but engineer Chuck Olivo said that would necessitate building a wall to support a ramped roadway.

Murphy said that his concern is for the health, safety and welfare of the residents and that he doesn’t want to make matters worse for Estates’ residents by having more traffic clog the only access point they have to get to and from their homes. He laid the blame for that on the supervisors who approved the development a dozen years ago.

And, as has been brought up before, there were requests to move the roundabout. Some even suggested doing away with the roundabout altogether and replacing it with stop signs.

Township engineer Mike Schneider and traffic engineer Matt Hammond both said that stop signs would do more to cause traffic backups. Roundabouts would slow traffic, but keep it moving.

John Mastriana, president of the Estates at Chadds Ford Homeowners’ Association, said he recognizes the need for traffic-calming devices, but that some residents still want the roundabout moved to Dickinson, something Hammond previously said would not be as effective for calming traffic or keeping it flowing.

Barbone said another segment of the loop, State Farm Drive, gets confusing without a roundabout.

“A roundabout is a good thing,” she said.

Clark Hoffman, president of the Painters’ Crossing Condominium Association, said he wants the board to approve the preliminary plan or “be stuck in a morass of no decision,” which would risk PennDOT’s coming in to do the job.

“Anyone who thinks it won’t be built is living in a fantasy land,” Hoffman said.

Attorney Ross Weiss, representing Henderson, said his client needs the preliminary approval before it can get PennDOT to formally review the plan.

Other changes planned are the elimination of turning left onto southbound Route 1 from Dickinson Drive, and making four-lane intersections on Hillman with Routes 1 and 202. Those intersections will have one lane into Hillman and three dedicated lanes for left, right and straight through-traffic exiting onto the state routes.

Henderson Vice President Mark Eisenhardt has said his company would pay for the project itself, with no use of taxpayer money

In addition to rendering a decision on preliminary approval for the Hillman Dive extension during the Oct. 26 workshop, supervisors are scheduled to hold another hearing on the proposed special-events ordinance. The workshop starts at 7 p.m.

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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