Oh Garrett Hill. Time to stand up and fight again. First of all check out the oddness from the recent planning commission meeting which occurred August 7th, 2023:
What you need to pay attention to is Wentworth Lane (again) and then scootchy forward to sidewalk dining in Garrett Hill on Conestoga Freaking Road which is fakakta level insane. Don’t let Farhy do your talking. He is dead wrong about sidewalk dining.
Wentworth Lane is also fakakta screwballs with a preliminary plan that wasn’t a preliminary plan but was it a sketch or a figment of our imaginations? And what is the planning commission or township attorney who was there talking about as far as litigation on that site? Who is suing whom and where? Something about clear title needing to be proved before plans get submitted?
But please for the love of all that is holy, listen to both the sidewalk dining and Wentworth Lane of it all and wonder if Garrett Hill needs to storm the Radnor Township proverbial Bastille again? I kind of think so.
And while we are talking Radnor Township, how many lawsuits is the Township of Radnor embroiled in at present?
I will start – I found this still active:
Case NumberCV-2022-002234TitleMNG 2005, INC. d/b/a CBD KRATOM et al v. Township of Radnor et al
Anyway, have fun Radnor residents in general. You are living in times more screwy than the Bashore years. Have fun. You elected them.
1701 Olive in Coatesville. This is a Caln commissioner’s house is it not? How can her municipal friends ignore the way she is living? How can they complain about other properties and ignore this? It’s horrible. As in really bad.
How can the condition of this property be safe? Residents locally say it’s been like this for years. These photos were taken today as in this morning.
There’s letting things go overgrown, and then there’s this. This looks like an abandoned property doesn’t it? Only it’s not. So when Caln Township commissioners ballyhoo on occasionally at meetings lamenting how they want to make the township a better place how are they not seeing this place?
I felt badly for this politician when her husband/partner went to jail this year for child porn. (I now say husband/partner because if you look on the Chester county court records I don’t see a marriage license so I don’t know what they are) and I felt badly for her with that situation because I honestly didn’t think she knew that was going on, and I still don’t. But she cannot continue to live in a house with a property this condition.
I think this politician is actually a very sad human being. But living like this, just can’t be a good idea can it? Because when you see an exterior like this, you wonder what the interior is like don’t you?
Lorraine Tindaro obviously needs help. And no one can even see her house from the street and it’s not like she has a grand estate with a half mile driveway.
The condition of this property just keeps getting worse. And you have to wonder if everything going on inside that house is OK if this is what the exterior looks like don’t you? If her political friends care for her, they will get her property cleaned up for her and help her.
This gallery of photos to follow are from July 20:
For once it seems like the right thing happened as you can see from the stop work order posted at the top of this post?
Neighbors got together. They contacted the PA DEP. And the Borough of West Chester seems to have responded in a timely manner?
Meanwhile the comments on Facebook came in at a rapid pace. Residents from other streets in the Borough wished these neighbors luck since they had been ignored like over on Franklin in the past when apparently a similar issue occurred and that’s terrible if true isn’t it?
I asked for an update the other day. A resident got back to me:
A stop work order has been placed on the property by the borough. The residents are monitoring the ordered remediation process which will be costly and add time to this project. They must dig up the yard and basement now. They clearly tried to cut corners and the vigilance of the neighbors held them accountable. Not over yet but going the right direction now.
…It is funny, some folks want to believe it was truly an ‘accident’ to empty old oil into a storm drain to get the little project done fast
So that is the update available. I found a listing for 531 Marshall online on Zillow:
So this was a little old school cape style house. I have always loved those. It looks like it was being rebuilt. It’s a shame that this happened because the rebuild design wasn’t unattractive. It looks like it was a foreclosure having to do with a reverse mortgage:
Looks like the new owner is a developer/builder? So this was a one off to be flipped or something? I ask because I don’t know, but if this was an acquisition by a builder shouldn’t they know better about heating oil or whatever in storm drains?
Here’s hoping that this gets remediated properly, right?
I have friends who live in Meadowbrook Manor in West Whiteland. It’s a wonderful little cluster neighborhood of adorable little houses. Many of the residents have lived there for decades.
These residents have seen a lot of change. They have literally seen development gobble up big parts of Exton, and West Whiteland in general. They are also pipeline victims and part of hell on earth ground zero of those blasted pipelines.
Some folks from Meadowbrook Manor in West Whiteland have asked me to share the photos you see in this post and the videos. And they sent me a little statement as well which I am sharing with my readers verbatim:
Meadowbrook Manor built in the 1950s before anyone ever thought about floodplains or storm water management. We are one of (if not the) lowest point in the Whiteland valley. There are two streams that wind through our development; Valley Creek and an unnamed stream. As big, new developments have popped up along Valley Creek, one has to wonder how all the building and impervious ground cover impacts those of us downstream.
Yes, every new development must submit stormwater management plans to the township, but do those plans only protect the new construction from flooding? It is my understanding that new developments are not required to make things better for those of us downstream, but they certainly are not supposed to make it worse. Who is measuring and how is that determined, because things have definitely gotten worse. I have lived here for 26 years. The house next door didn’t flood even with hurricane Floyd, but in the last three years, it has had up to 10” of water inside. The poor young couple who bought it, has been displaced three times in three years. The house next to that has suffered the same fate. Some may blame climate change, and the intensity of recent storms, and I’m sure that is part of it.
The township has expressed sympathy, but we need action.
We need township engineers to follow the path of these streams and find places where more retention basins can be added to slow the tsunami of water that is engulfing homes with each heavy storm.
So won’t you be their neighbor, West Whiteland? When you look at this you realize exactly why Chester County needs to do better. And yes Chester County Planning Department this is why you all need to do better and get an executive director who is from Chester County and lives here. And then there are our state representatives and state senators who need to step up and get the damn Municipalities Planning Code updated and to protect our communities better.
I see all of you in Meadowbrook Manor. I just wish I had a magic wand.
Oh, I know people are tired of my posts about development. I don’t really care because in my opinion, all of this infill development combined with other elements like climate change are a recipe for disaster in Chester County.
I was speaking to someone recently, who had served on a planning commission in the region about all of the development in Chester County recently. They interpreted what I was trying to articulate as I was against new residents in Chester County. And no that couldn’t be further from the case, it’s about the number of residences.
Our communities are on overload. Our infrastructure can’t handle the current pace of development, and neither can things like our hospitals and schools and that’s not fiction. That is a fact.
Infrastructure would be not just the roads. Infrastructure includes things like our first responders and other municipal personnel. A lot of municipalities don’t have rental inspection ordinances, and a lot of these developments are purely rental. The increasing number of rental properties is also creating a more transient community and it is also driving the real estate to the point where people can’t stay in their own communities.
The people getting priced out of their communities are various business service workers, for example. Individuals getting priced out are also like the people that serve on our police forces, in our fire companies, and who teach our kids. In addition there are the elderly who raise their families here and wanted to end their days in their community. Or the younger folks, who may be newly married, and are looking to start and raise their families and put down roots where they were raised.
We have seen what this has done to the Main Line. And frankly, these are just the same developers moving west. They don’t care about our communities and they will pay lip service to whatever, and a lot of municipalities are dumb enough to think that ratables will get them by. And possibly Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome, yes?
From township to township they march. Gobbling up acre after acre. And as acre after acre are gobbled up, in addition to the aforementioned issues I have pointed out about infrastructure stresses and overcrowding the school districts, look at today’s thunderstorms and flooding. Yes, climate change.
Flooding today
All of these townships, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania pay lip service to the environmental issues we are seeing increasing day by day. If they really cared they would not only do something about pipelines in Chester County and across the state, they would update the Municipalities Planning Code of The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to protect our communities environmentally. But they don’t.
Until then, people from municipality to municipality in Chester County need to go to their local meetings. You can go to the meetings via Zoom, or you can go in person, but you can’t just complain on social media or expect your friendly neighborhood blogger to carry all of your water.
Downingtown PA today
And even if you can’t go to every meeting, that’s fine, we all have lives. Just take a stand and be counted. It’s your right as a resident. Even more important, is to have a basic awareness of what is going on in your municipality and so many people do not.
Ship Road Development
Recently I was somewhat floored when someone asked in a social media forum what was going on around Ship Road and Route 30 in West Whiteland. It was almost incomprehensible that people and even residents of West Whiteland have no idea what has been going on there and what has been planned there for almost 10 years at this point! Even if you don’t go to meetings, that’s a really big development issue that’s been covered in local media.
Ship Road Development
Something else that is cropping up all over are “rain taxes.” Essentially, it’s a direct result of other development and municipalities. It’s been raised as an issue in West Goshen and West Chester Borough, and other places. Well this showed up as also as a current hot topic in Tredyffrin:
Development has consequences. And the fact that we pay for those consequences comes down to simple economics as well because the developers take the profits from their projects and they simply move on to the next municipality leaving all the residents and taxpayers holding the bag. Bag men one and all is ok with all of you?
Ship Road and Route 30: Ground Zero in West Whiteland including development all around this development
Adaptive reuse and preservation is possible. Even with the rampant overdevelopment occurring in West Whiteland Township for example, you have bright, shiny gems of preservation in places like the Benjamin Jacobs house and the Benjamin Pennypacker House as but two examples.
People do love our old structures. They love our open space we need to do more to preserve that. We need to do more to preserve our communities as well as foster a sense of real community.
This development is not sustainable anywhere long-term. You can’t just continue to say build it and they will come because what do we do with all of the people what happens as we are replacing our farm fields with plastic townhouses or apartment buildings?
People on planning commissions and elected officials have drunk the KoolAid to a degree in so many municipalities. And the officials who haven’t drunk the KoolAid are then often outnumbered by those who have. And then the good guys get blamed along with everyone else. It’s a vicious cycle and problems are precipitated by other factors including a lot of people simply do not understand how the planning and zoning processes works and don’t seem to wish to learn.
People love to talk about what they don’t like. But people don’t tell their elected officials and local leaders and they have never attended a meeting. And now there are ways to attend meetings virtually as well as in person. Even I Zoom meetings. If you don’t want to speak in public you can often submit a written comment.
The more land that is gobbled up and the less open space there is and the increase of impervious surface coverage also is important because whether you subscribe to climate change or not, our environment is changing and water, flood waters in particular, will seek their own level. And voila, flooding. All this development means the water simply has no place to go.
So pick your poison people. Take a stand. We live here. We should have greater rights to help decide how our communities are preserved and shaped for the future. Real rights. And until we can get the bozos in Harrisburg to update the Municipalities Planning Code we can and should ask for every other protection we can legally get.
Our elected officials CAN implement conditions of approval that help our communities.
Our elected officials CAN enact rental ordinances.
Our elected officials CAN badger Harrisburg and Washington DC for more meaningful historic and land preservation…including protection for our farmers.
Our elected officials CAN say no to rezoning a property from commercial to residential. (Hey East Whiteland Township are you listening? You CAN say no to rezoning Clews & Strawbridge on Route 30 so there are fewer rental apartments including on Route 30, can’t you? But will you? )
The entirety of Chester County needs protection from overdevelopment. People, find your voices. Hold elected officials and municipalities accountable, but learn how to do it properly.
And above all else don’t become political pawns of political parties. Why do I say that? Simple. These issues are actually non-partisan. Make the politicians endorse all of you and your positions/issues out there. Stop endorsing them because all that accomplishes is you get them elected and then they dump you once they have gotten what they wanted: your vote. Your vote should be earned by them.
Have a good evening.
Please wake up Chester County. Before it’s too late.
So I don’t know if this means anything, or if this is something that residents of West Chester are not going to have a problem with, but I found it interesting so I’m putting it out there because of the timing. I am always suspect of things to get shoved through in the dead of summer in municipalities.
So these are basically things like your garage apartment or that pool house that became a guest house, cottages, and so on and so forth, correct?
West Chester Borough always has a lot of the funky going on and there are a lot of these units around West Chester, as well as other places, right? So I think this is something to watch. And I think probably West Chester Borough’s zoning magic in the dead of summer has something to do with the Chester County Planning Commission which is still run by a guy who doesn’t even live in Chester County.
Accessory dwelling units enable municipalities to expand their housing stock and adapt housing options to meet the changing needs of homeowners and renters. ADUs can be attached or detached, but must be able to function independently from the primary unit. Municipalities can encourage development of ADUs through inclusion in their planning policies, zoning ordinances, subdivision and land development ordinances, and design guidelines as well as through education of the public regarding their benefits.
Benefits
Affordability
The cost to construct an ADU is typically lower than other housing options, as supporting infrastructure is often already in place. ADUs can create additional income for homeowners, and provide quality affordable housing options for renters.
Aging Population Support
ADUs can provide housing for a senior to live in proximity to family, for an in-home caretaker, or can provide a source of income for a senior homeowner after retirement. These same benefits can be realized for a disabled family member.
Open Space Protection
Development of ADUs can reduce demand for greenfield development, conserving and protecting valuable open space and natural resources.
Existing Infrastructure Efficiencies
As ADUs are constructed on existing properties, efficient use of existing infrastructure can be realized.
Neighborhood Character
ADUs can enable municipalities to expand their housing stock in a manner that fits into existing neighborhoods.
It sounds innocuous, and if done properly is probably value added to a community. But at this point given the massive amounts of development and over development in Chester County, I am suspect of everything let alone zoning changes that take place in the dead of summer.….
OK so they are going to allow 15 minutes to discuss a zoning change. I’m sorry I find that kind of amusing. It’s like speed governing. if you can do it in 15 minutes, then you get a date with your borough council person of choice. Ha!
Remember, I wrote a post recently about a developer buying the Clews and Strawbridge site and wanting to plunk down yet more god damn apartments on Route 30 and in East Whiteland?
So that screenshot you see above is the letter that the developer is dropping by the businesses on Route 30 in East Whiteland seeking support. Well, I shouldn’t say the developer personally because then you would see him and his vanity plate on his car… nope he’s sending minions.
I just love developer minions, don’t you?
This means that we need to keep writing East Whiteland Township and keep voicing our opinion, and going to meetings. Because if they thought getting their rezoning and everything was a done deal, they wouldn’t be sending minions would they?
Honestly I can’t even with this news. I can’t even. For years the tiny shiny Glocca Morra adjacent to the Magic Kingdom of Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County has told everyone how green they were , how into open space they are….and then the bomb drops: 201 Sabine Avenue…those asshats want to sell Sabine Park??? For real? Yup- see below ⬇️
Where to start? Didn’t they research what happened when ummm….Downingtown tried to sell Kardon Park for development? (Hint see Friends of Kardon Park on Facebook. )
So Sabine Park has been a park for what? 100 years give or take?
What do I say (if it matters)?
OH HELL NO.
So I got an email today which inspired this post:
SAVE SABINE! SAVE SABINE! Sabine Park/property was gifted to the community over 100 years ago.
Friends, organizations across our region have been formed to save and protect public land/land held in the public trust from local government attempts to seize and develop them. Narberth is no different. Please support this organization and help to preserve Narberth parks.
On June 15, 7pm, 80 Windsor Ave Narberth(attached to library building, next to ball fields). The Sabine Coalition will hold a meeting with their Attorney Phil Rosenzweig to address community concerns over Narberth Borough government attempts to harm this park. Rosenzweig has reiterated the state laws that protect this property to Narberth Borough leadership. Council has not responded to requests to meet with the public and have ignored Rosenzweig’s request to meet as well.
www.sabinecoalition.comThis site provides background and information on this property. There is a meeting registration request on front page.
“It’s NOT about POLITICS, it’s about our PARKS”
Phil Rosenzweig doesn’t mess around and he plays to win. And Narberth Borough seems to have been ignoring him? (Oh and Narberth Borough is working with people out of Paoli called Real Estate Strategies Inc.)
Help Sabine Park STAY a PARK
Tell Narberth to go to hell with this plan. When did Narberth get so bad government AGAIN?
These are the apartments in Frazer known as “The Yards.” And like everything else being built today they look pretty much like everything else being built today.
I don’t find them attractive. I don’t find them architecturally significant. It looks like Legos put together for grown-ups to live in.
And these are the buildings that are being erected in communities all around the area. And it doesn’t matter who the developer is THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.
Probably one of the only ones that I don’t find as offensive in Chester County are some in Paoli behind the train station. The Airdrie. But it’s still a similar design, only that has some actual setbacks, so it doesn’t smack you in the face along Lancaster Avenue and elsewhere.
But if you drive around, and you look at all of the apartment complexes being erected, they all are the same variations on a similar theme.
It’s NOT architecture.
I really started noticing these buildings when Eastside Flats in Malvern Borough were built. Most of these buildings have lousy setbacks, ignore human scale, ignore the architecture that exists around them, pretty much ignores everything that makes Chester County special.
The design in a word in my opinion, sucks. This is all about these developers, making money and moving onto the next project. It’s not about enhancing a community or enhancing a sense of community. These developers don’t care about our communities, we are just an area where they can make a profit.
From municipality to municipality it’s all the same. Literally Lego boxes for people to live in or plastic mushroom houses squished too close together.
Somebody gave me a hard time for saying I think these apartments are also ugly etc. and then they told me I was insulting people’s homes. Apartment dwellers don’t move into communities and stay forever. They are more transient it’s the nature of apartments.
If it’s a senior living community, it might be a little different, but the architecture is all the same and it’s all bad.
These developers are changing the nature of community quite literally. More and more. All of the rentals mean people stay for a while. They don’t stay like buying a home in a neighborhood. And even the nature of those neighborhoods with single-family homes are changing. Front end loaded cheek to jowl. No gardens. Just boxes with bad siding.
The developers are driving the real estate prices which is driving how long people stay if they stay. Sometimes just flip property and leave and so on.
There is quite simply put too much development. And there especially seems to be too many apartment complexes being built Chester County is looking more and more like King of Prussia. Does Chester County want to look like King of Prussia? Or Bensalem? Does Chester county want all these apartment buildings creating urban landscapes?
And when you post the pictures of these developments, people think someone’s palms are being greased. I don’t know anything about that what I do know is what allows these buildings, and these developments to march forward. The Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or MPC.
The MPC has not been comprehensively updated since circa 1969. The MPC guides all local zoning. No one holds state representatives and state senators accountable for this. It is their job to an act an act of the state constitution and get off their asses and update the MPC .
However, there is also the fact that people really don’t bother to learn what is going on within their communities until there’s a crisis. People do not keep up with what local government is doing and what plans are being presented for development and there’s no excuse now really because meetings are hybrid and in person and recorded so if you can’t make a meeting, you can watch a recording of a meeting or you can watch a meeting via zoom platform or even YouTube.
If people went to meetings, local government would have a better idea of what they didn’t want before it actually happened. It wouldn’t necessarily be within municipal power to deny a plan, but they might be able to mitigate certain circumstances or conditions of approval.
Or when municipalities are updating comprehensive plans for municipality to municipality it’s not necessarily super exciting but it’s also something that residents ignore the opportunities they have to comment on these plans so again it’s another avenue of being able to get your message out there as a community as to what you want to see vis-à-vis development or not see.
And basically the hands of local officials are truly tied from protecting communities from bad development without the proper support from not only county planning but primarily because the MPC is so out of date.
It’s all a drag. I’ve spent years going to meetings and listening to meetings and going to meetings now via Zoom for a few years, but if you don’t pay attention to what goes on in your own community, you never learn.
I’m really sick of people that either want to complain to me about development or criticize me for not liking development. if they use half the amount of energy participating in their community as they do coming after me for my opinion, think of everything that could be accomplished from municipality to municipality?
I’m sure I will receive criticism for this post. I’m being mean I’m being unfair. Whatever. I don’t like all of this development. It all looks the same. It’s ruining the landscape that once was Chester county. And that people is the bottom line.
Yesterday a friend of mine posted a brief video on social media of the ghost town that the Exton Square Mall has become. So I took a couple of screenshots for this post…..
It’s creepy empty at this point. It used to be a thriving mall. Sometimes I have wondered if this mall ghost town has been created by shifting retail trends or by mall owner design?
I ask if by design because there have been plans floating around West Whiteland for a while about developing a lot of the mall into apartments which makes perfect sense to developers because what else can you shove into communities around here besides crappy all look the same Lego looking apartments or cheek to jowl lemming like townhouse developments, right? Especially in West Whiteland, right? [CLICK HERE TO GO TO WEST WHITELAND’S WEBSITE]
Anyway some recent news will just make you wonder even more what is up. First there was the interesting blog article on More Than The Curve about Plymouth Township according to PREIT who owns that and Exton Square Mall, “ghosting” the mall owners. Apparently Plymouth Township isn’t interested in their mall dream of apartment Valhalla? (And yes kinda like the mall dream Valhalla proposed for Exton Square Mall.)
That definitely made me think. I mean if heavily developed Plymouth Township doesn’t seem so interested in this why should West Whiteland Township be a Guinea Pig here?
But Vista Today pointed out yesterday some even more troubling and interesting news concerning mall owners PREIT. (PREIT a stands for Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, incidentally.) Vista pointed out a potential board shake up worthy of Succession (HBO MAX series). 7 board members tendered resignations:
Among the resigners were Chairman and CEO Joseph Coradino, Temple University Interim President JoAnne Epps, George Alburger, Michael DeMarco, Mark Pasquerilla, Charles Pizzi, and John Roberts. Each received more withheld votes than votes for as they were up for reelection. PREIT’s proxy statement requires that board members who get more withheld votes than votes for must tender their resignations.
Sooooo….is this God opening a window to let some reality in (you know God closes a door, opens a window of it all?) Maybe West Whiteland can just pause the thought of any redevelopment there at Exton Square Mall until they get their sheit together at PREIT? Oh and did you know Vanguard Group has their paws in PREIT? Read that in an Inquirer article.
Now a ghost town mall sitting there is not so fabulous but West Whiteland and municipalities with PREIT properties that are floundering maybe shouldn’t have to entertain their grand plans for redevelopment while this corporate fallout is swirling around? I mean why approve yet more apartment and lemming friendly development if you don’t even know in what form at this point this company will shake out at?
Seems like the proverbial hot mess to me, doesn’t it?
If you ever wondered if giving municipalities in Pennsylvania the ability to have a temporary moratorium on development was a good idea, this is a great example where it would be a great idea. Hit the pause button already. I mean in 2022 it was announced that Exton Square Mall was being sold to a developer yet that didn’t seem to actually happen?
Pennsylvania largest mall operator faces severe headwinds and says it’s exploring all possibilities for the future.
by Jake Blumgart Updated on Jun 4, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET
Ummm Coradino says they’ve been “ghosted” by one township (Plymouth) where they have a failing mall yet magically they are the “best” group to redevelop another failing mall in another township (West Whiteland)? Ok yeah that’s some Kool Aid he’s drinking, huh?
West Whiteland get legally creative and put these people on a shelf until they figure their stuff out. I mean talk about the handwriting on the wall, right? From a practical standpoint you can’t really trust them to do anything right now can you? I mean what if they started something and you all were left with a giant hole in the ground or Tyvec waving in the breeze off of some unfinished something or other?
Pause pause pause! Warning warning danger ⚠️ Will Robinson! Proceed with caution ⛔️!
