November 21, 2019

Westtown Planning Commission members Wednesday night unanimously voted to recommend the Board of Supervisors deny conditional use approval of Toll Bros. plan to develop Crebilly Farm. However, the commission is also developing a list of conditions supervisors should follow should they decide to approve the plan.

Toll is looking to build 317 new homes on the 320-plus-acre farm at Route 926 and Route 202. There are already two homes on the property. Under the township’s flexible development provision, such a development is permitted but only with conditional use approval.

Supervisors denied the original application in 2017. Toll appealed the decision up to Commonwealth Court, which has yet to release its opinion. In the interim, Toll has made a new application with basically the same plan but with some modifications.

Commission Chairman Richard Pomerantz said the commission would reconvene on Dec. 4 for public comment and for members to vote on the conditions. After that vote, the conditions would be posted on the township’s website.

Several commission members said it was poor form for Toll not to have anyone attending the Nov. 20 session at the township building, with Steve Rodia referring to the absence as “hubris.” However, Planning Commission solicitor Kristin Camp reminded everyone that the applicant was not required to attend.

Pomerantz has said several times since Toll’s first application that he wished there was no need for the commission to meet for the proposal and that it would have been better had previous boards been more proactive in preserving the farm.

Prior to the vote recommending denial, the township’s traffic consultant Al Federico said of Toll’s traffic study, “The material submitted isn’t credible.”

He said the study was dated and didn’t result in conclusions he felt were credible. Specifically, he said the sight distances were substandard and that it wasn’t clear how they were derived.

In response to a question from Camp, Federico acknowledged that the plan could be brought up to standards if it’s updated by the next conditional use hearing. That process is before the Board of Supervisors and scheduled to begin Dec. 18.

After Federico, Camp referenced a review letter from John Snook who recently retired as a senior land planner with the Brandywine Conservancy and is now consulting for the township. He is also a supervisor in East Bradford Township.

During the original hearing in 2017, there was testimony regarding British troop movement on the farm during the 1777 Battle of Brandywine. Snook testified at the time, there could be a condition placed on the applicant to move the development farther to the eastern side of the property.

In his October 2019 review letter,  Snook said the applicant should indicate on the plan several points of historic significance.

He cited the “location of the Brandywine Battlefield National Historic Landmark (which abuts the subject property) and the Planning Area for the Landmark used by the National Park Service in efforts coordinated with the Chester County Planning Commission (the Planning Area includes much of the subject property).”

The letter also said to “indicate that the Westtown Inn (also known as Darlington Inn) and most of Crebilly Farm have been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). These resources are indicated on the Historic Resources Map included within the new Comprehensive Plan.”

Snook also said the plan should indicate scenic views and landscapes.

The commission’s decision to recommend denial but with dozens of conditions should supervisors vote to approve mirrors the decision they made in 2016. Most of the conditions dealt with previously and under consideration now concern preserving environmental and historically sensitive areas and on ways of mitigating the anticipated extra traffic.

Giving thanks — to God, to some higher power, to nature, to others in society for their beneficial actions — has been a practice of people around the world for centuries. Early French and Spanish settlers in the 16^th century in North America expressed gratitude for nature’s bounty, notably during the harvest season in early fall. By 1607, colonists in Jamestown, Virginia held services giving thanks for surviving in the harsh environment of the New World. President George Washington was the first American head of state to proclaim a day of thanks in 1789, but it was President Abraham Lincoln who made the day an official federal holiday for our country.

In the months following the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln announced in 1863 that the nation would celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 26 of that year. Despite the bloodshed and turmoil of the Civil War, Lincoln had much to be thankful for. Not only had the Union prevailed at Gettysburg — which could have turned the tide of war in favor of the Confederacy — they had also achieved victory under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant that July at the crucial Battle of Vicksburg, which began the steady disintegration of the Confederate Army as the Union controlled large portions of its lifeline, the Mississippi River. Lincoln said this day of celebration would give “…Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens…” to be commemorated on the last Thursday of November. In the early 1940s, President Franklin Roosevelt changed the date for Thanksgiving amid much controversy, but by 1942, the U.S. Congress proclaimed that Thanksgiving Day would be on the fourth Thursday of November. It has been celebrated on that day ever since.

Lincoln’s words resonated with a nation weary of years of horrific strife and fracturing which could easily have destroyed the government the Founding Fathers established. Although his proclamation might be considered by some to be flowery rhetoric, even overtly religious, it was a necessary tonic to millions afflicted by the wounds of war. In the film “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”, the main character Ben Gates is speaking to the president as they search for clues to a centuries-old mystery. Gates tells him that Lincoln is his favorite president and that Americans think their public officials are honorable men, pursuing worthy goals. The president says: “People don’t believe that stuff anymore.” Gates responds: “They want to believe it.” Although Lincoln had many reasons to be pessimistic, even fearful, of the nation crumbling around him, he took the time to proclaim a day when people could give thanks for what they do have.

Despite periods of turmoil, natural disasters, political unrest and even the Great Depression, Americans have taken time out to celebrate the many gifts we have been given. Artist Norman Rockwell, during the darkest days of World War II, created his “Four Freedoms” series, his painting “Freedom from Want” depicting a family gathered around the dinner table to celebrate Thanksgiving, a scene which brings comfort to many who view it. So this Thanksgiving, take time with family and friends to give thanks for the many gifts, the simple pleasures and blessings we all enjoy.