So West Whiteland has realtors on their historic commission and I know they want the house saved. I wish they could find a preservation buyer that could budge the demolition by neglect owners off of the property before it is too late.
There was a rumor a few months ago that someone once again was interested in buying the house but guess like all the other attempts, the demolition by neglect owners didn’t go through with it?
There are also a couple of trees in really bad shape.
The place has zero security it seems like and does the place look safe and secured?
West Whiteland has that property maintenance code, right? Maybe they can sit on the owners to NOT just let this gem rot?
Gosh, I love developers they’re so lovely and community-centric around here, aren’t they? This is what is supposed to be “Berwyn Square.”
What it is, is Berwyn weed patch/ shantytown/ rundown/ shithole. Take your pick. all adjectives, even vulgar apply.
Residents are once again concerned because this affects their surrounding property values while this developer decides whatever it is that is magical that is supposed to happen here. I think this was the same developer that once had Knickerbocker and now Toll Brothers does?
All I know is he likes to tell everyone he’s a local guy and he cares, so if he is a local guy and he cares go deal with your goddamn weeds, right?
Yes, we all know he is waiting to develop his property into a mythical Shangri-La. Hopefully it will look better than the behemoth hanging over the Berwyn Tavern, right?
This is Easttown Township, they should be dealing with this because they would NEVER allow a resident to not maintain a property like this would they?
And hey, this is Berwyn and technically the Main Line, not Manayunk or Roxborough, right ?
I mean they’ve been talking about Berwyn Square for years. At this point it’s time to either you know what or get off the pot. And regardless, the property should not remain a blight in the area and isn’t it interesting it became that whole blighted, icky look it has today as soon as it was kind of announced for development, right?
Enough already. Developer created blight is as bad as ugly developments, if not worse.
First I will start with somewhere under ALL of this mess is supposedly a house built in 1890. It was bastardized in the 1960s. I wonder what it originally looked like? Someone had said it was possibly a stable or livery originally, so an adaptive reuse would be normal for modern living but LOOK at what neighbors have to literally look at today?
I went looking in ChesCo Views to see who owned the property and obviously it’s an investor or investment group. There are a few properties involved.
Here’s what I found in public records:
Dilapidated property
I don’t have all the details but I asked around and apparently 32 Waterloo was part of an original plan for an office building?
Local scuttlebutt has it that they weren’t actually able to do what they originally wanted to do. So houses that they owned were rehabbed and rented out I have been told.
So here’s an excerpt from a 2008 article in Main Line Media News (you know back when our local news was actually reported by our local papers and not disemboweled by hedge funds):
Anger was the word of the evening – or at least the most memorable word – at Tuesday night’s Easttown Planning Commission meeting when Michael McNulty, who is applying for land-development and conditional-use permits for the proposed Waterloo Complex on his property in Berwyn, became upset with the commissioners and stormed out of the room.
Because only two members of the Planning Commission attended Tuesday’s meeting, there was no quorum, and it was unclear why the absent members did not show.
However, chairman Mitch Shiles and commissioner Joe Tamney stayed to hear requests and presentations from community members.
OK so apparently this guy McNulty’s entity still owns these properties correct? I just pulled the records today off of ChesCo views, right? So it kind of makes me laugh because it’s almost like when people threaten to leave a Facebook page or a Facebook group, but they never do?
I remembered when all of this was happening at the time I just never knew what happened to it as an issue until someone posted a picture of 32 Waterloo Ave. over the weekend.
Back to local scuttlebutt. Somewhere along the line, thank heavens, plans for an office building in the middle of Berwyn‘s historic village fell apart. Now, if I recall correctly, when this first started, some of the people in Berwyn came to us at the then Save Ardmore Coalition (now defunct) to ask us how we organized. I also seem to remember now that I’ve started digging back into this that this was covered at the time on the Save Ardmore Coalition blog because we did cover other areas. And at that point the site had multiple bloggers.
So I found all the articles that exist on coverage of this issue of these properties being consolidated for an office building in Berwyn’s historic village. What I was told by locals is that at some point after all of this, the man that owned the properties fixed up all the others and rented them out.
However this one property at 32 Waterloo Avenue has something wrong. I don’t know what the deal is but sitting like this you know something happened right?
So Easttown what is the deal? Intentional blight? Demolition by neglect? It’s also concerning because this is an area of Berwyn that has a lot of investment properties. And if one gets to slide by on subpar standards of property upkeep, the others might follow? Or one would think a real estate holding company like Eadah, that takes reasonably decent care of their properties and has property in that neighborhood might also be bothered by this ?
I honestly don’t know what’s going on, but I will close with a little montage of Google Earth photos of this property at different times over the years.
Yes, sports fans, I’m back in Mount Pleasant again, which is in the panhandle of Tredyffrin. With this part of Chester County, there is the often opportunistic retelling of the story of Mazie Hall that Tredyffrin loves to trot out when convenient, but the rest of the time? Mount Pleasant might as well be in Uzbekistan, right?
But seriously, I have to ask if emergency vehicles in an actual real and true emergency get around quickly and safely given the way the streets are being used as per these photos from today?
So this latest this is more of what only can be described as predatory development. The old and historic Mount Pleasant is disappearing more every day and Tredyffrin does not care. A wee bit of Mount Pleasant is in Upper Merion and they don’t care either do they?
So this new development they’re parking stuff all over only not on their property, so does the construction company have permission from the township to block up the streets and stuff and if they did wouldn’t you think some supervisor or township official would give a courtesy notice to some of the residents of Mount Pleasant in Tredyffrin? I know for a fact, they know how to reach quite a few of them. And they can always post it on the township website couldn’t they?
I don’t know who’s at fault here but once again, Tredyffrin seems to be doing Mount Pleasant dirty and is everyone OK with that? Maybe it’s time for a new manager who doesn’t seem to do things the old Radnor way?
Dirty deed done dirt cheap much?
A special shout out to the spirits of our founding fathers, for allowing me my opinion courtesy of the First Amendment.
Postscript: I guess the fire chief reads my blog so a genuine THANK YOU a for him checking it out. Here’s hoping that he has the construction 🚧 people move their crap.
Soooo….remember recently when a developer named Pennrose came a calling to West Chester Borough about being given the Church Street Parking Lot for their housing development and the heck with the West Chester Growers Market? And how they had been to West Goshen like a day or so before? Now doesn’t West Chester Borough share the same solicitor with West Goshen Township? Not saying anything wrong with that, just can be cozy can’t it?
Now I wrote about this before the meeting but never followed up since local media did some pieces on the public outrage at doing this.
Published: 5:30 am EDT April 19, 2024Updated: 8:12 am EDT April 19, 2024
Residents gathered in force at the West Chester Borough Council meeting to oppose the development of affordable housing on the West Chester Growers Market lot, writes Bill Rettew for The Daily Local News.
Over 120 citizens filled the meeting room at borough hall, with over two dozen standing in the hallway outside while builder Pennrose Properties presented its plans to build over 100 affordable housing units on a 28,500-square-foot lot with 56 parking spaces at Church and Chestnut streets.
The developer specializes in building and managing affordable housing. It had pushed for the borough to decide if it would green-light the sale of the lot by the end of May, to ensure the deadline is met for applying for grant funding from Chester County. The majority of the people present at the session were against moving the successful and decades-old Grower’s Market from the site.
Councilman Bernie Flynn was among those who opposed the plans.
“The thought of building more housing on that lot does not sit well with me,” said Flynn. “Once the borough sells Lot 10 — it’s irreplaceable.”
Read more about residents opposing affordable housing development at the West Chester Growers Market in The Daily Local News.
Residents raise concerns at West Chester meeting regarding Grower’s Market lot conversion to housing
Opposition raised over possibility of affordable housing units on Lot 10
PUBLISHED: April 17, 2024 at 2:51 p.m. | UPDATED: April 17, 2024 at 4:42 p.m.
WEST CHESTER — Democracy prevailed and residents were heard, at Tuesday’s borough council work session.
More than 120 citizens packed the meeting room at borough hall. It was standing room only as every seat was filled and more than two dozen residents stood in the hallway outside the room to hear a builder’s plans to create affordable housing.
Builder Pennrose Properties had proposed building more than 100 affordable housing units on Lot 10, at Church and Chestnut streets, on a 28,500-square-foot lot with 56 parking spaces. Pennrose specializes in building and managing affordable housing and early on into the process had proposed that the borough give the lot to the for-profit builder at no cost.
Most of the very vocal audience was opposed to moving the wildly successful and decades-old Grower’s Market from the lot.
About half a dozen times the audience angrily yelped “No, No, No!,” when disagreeing with a speaker and more than ten times the crowd applauded statements that most in attendance agreed with.
Pennrose had pushed for the borough to make a decision by the end of May to meet a deadline to apply for grant funding from Chester County.
Guess what? It wasn’t West Goshen or West Chester last night, it was Narberth Borough and it was the Pennrose Dog and Pony Show starring the ever charming Ryan Bailey who probably did the he went to Henderson schtick at West Chester Borough, because last night in Narberth, he was all about he lived in Ardmore. Except he’s from the north side isn’t he and not many average Narbs can identify with those grand houses, eh?
Now I am sure the presentations don’t vary so much from town to town and the irony with Narberth is their Borough Manager a few managers ago is the current West Chester Borough Manager. Of course West Chester Borough’s old manager is riding the gravy train in Lower Merion Township, but I digress. It’s just a segue to municipal trivia. Kind of like who is the solicitor where, right? Politics is fascinating…
So the Narberth presentation I would guess is similar to all the others. We are doing this to help you little municipalities. Give us land and it’s all good, but is it? Is it really? Now it’s oh this is so good and you really don’t need as much parking as a regular development and we line the buildings with unicorns farting rainbows, yes?
And it’s always a hard push to do this right now, right this instant, peril otherwise and that phrase we all haste about money left on the table, right?
What was it in West Chester Borough? Something like they had to decide in 5 days? You don’t even meet advertising requirements in that time frame do you? In Narberth also decide speedy von quick, right? So what Narberth land is being contemplated? I can’t quite decide from the video but if I had to hazard a guess I would say Sabine Park? The park given and deeded like a century ago that Narberth wants to develop, right?
The funny thing about affordable housing is I don’t object to it. But I object to municipalities trying to give away parks and parking lots that actually belong to the communities. I also object to developers gitting to get and I am entitled to said opinion. I kind of feel the traveling dog and pony show is shady, and I am also allowed THAT opinion. Real affordable housing requires grace and planning not shove it through before anyone notices. These developers seem to have a municipal road show, don’t they?
Oh and at the Narberth meeting the developer’s man indicated they were still negotiating out here in Chester County? With whom precisely? West Chester Borough? West Goshen Township? Some other Mae West welcome suckers? And some of the units they described on the Narberth video seems like well, a closet that you are supposed top live in literally like a sardine or lemming? Nice. And people get to pay for that privilege? It’s like tenements are being reborn isn’t it?
Anyway, I found articles today from the Hamptons in New York. About a rather interesting affordable housing project in East Hampton. It involved lots of planning. The Green at Gardiner’s Point and it is not unattractive either.
The Green at Gardiner’s Point, the name given to 50 rental apartments at 286 and 290 Three Mile Harbor Road, jointly developed by Georgica Green Ventures and the East Hampton Housing Authority, has begun accepting applications for residency. Tenants will be selected in August. Katy Casey, the executive director of the housing authority, told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday that she hopes households are moved in by the beginning of the school year.
“I’m happy to announce that as of today, the applications are available,” she said at a town board meeting on Tuesday. A drawing will be held to determine the order in which the applicants will be considered for tenancy. “It’s often referred to as a ‘lottery,’ but I don’t love the word, because it seems people have won something. It’s really just to order the applications and to ensure fairness.”
Thirty of the units in the complex are two-bedroom apartments, while 10 have one bedroom and 10 have three. Two income levels will be represented within the complex, with 41 apartments for people earning up to 60 percent of the area median income and eight reserved for Section 8 subsidies. Another apartment is for the resident manager.
Ms. Casey gave examples of eligible income levels. A single person earning less than $65,640, a two-person household earning less than $75,000, or a three-person household earning less than $84,360 would all be eligible. A full eligibility chart is available on the East Hampton Housing Authority website.
A one-bedroom apartment at Gardiner’s Point will rent for $1,500, a two-bedroom for $1,784, and a three-bedroom for $2,045. Market-rate rents for apartments of the same general size in East Hampton have been assessed as $2,690, $3,150, and $4,080.
The Town of East Hampton pitched in $25,000 of seed money to get the project started and Suffolk County and New York State contributed about $1.7 million each.
Imagine the possibilities if affordable housing were done right? Attainable housing seems to be the new correct speak term being used. People are afraid of the term affordable and all of the pejorative terms come flying out. Affordable housing is not merely affordable as in Section 8, it means real people can afford to stay in communities, seniors don’t have to leave if they can’t manage their homes, and young people out of college starting their lives can afford to return to where they were raised.
As it stands now, developers are pricing us out of our communities. It’s not just inflation. It’s developers driving up housing costs, land costs, and the endless of the Emperor’s New Clothes wherever you live. They sell municipalities on the salivating glory of cram plan apartments and whatever crappy townhouses etc that create a transient community of rentals. Prices go up, developers do the money in the stripper’s costume on the pole known as ratables and a lot of the time they just move onto the next development opportunity, leaving municipalities left holding the bag of infrastructure costs and issues and more.
I am somewhat astounded that the municipalities have not caught onto these games. Pennrose is in my humble opinion sort of a combination of slick and sloppy. I am entitled to this opinion as I watch these various meetings unfold like a strange game of chess.
Our communities deserve better. We deserve actual affordable housing, we also deserve the right to say no to any form of predatory development, and yes the First Amendment in all it’s glory allows this opinion as well.
BUT.
Yes there is always a BUT.
The BUT here are lazy AF state representatives and state senators who know goddamn well the Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania needs an overhaul. I mean don’t rush it’s only been since 1969 and gosh some might break a nail or muss their hair having to enact an act of the state constitution to do it. Even Governor Josh Shapiro knows this needs to happen given his various positions along the way to becoming governor.
This needs to be an election issue in 2024. I do not care what political persuasion state candidates are. They need to get on board with this or step aside.
Ok rant over. I so dislike bad plans and duplicity.
When chirpy little posts get put up about housing developments in Coatesville, you have to look. Because with the City of Coatesville, nothing is ever as it seems because there is a history of corruption in the City of Coatesville, is there not?
When Coatesville says no comment you ALWAYS look again, so I am. I learned that many years ago when it ended up, they were trying to take a certain farm via eminent domain for private gain for a freaking golf course.
So here’s the post that caught my eye and the post creator is correct because if you have an interest you DO have to go to the meetings to be heard. I will preface the post that this is 88.3 acres and I pulled the property record and they have been sitting on this since 2019, which undoubtedly means that logically the City of Coatesville has had some awareness since then and why so quiet?
I will note that her verbiage comes from a publicly published whyy.org article:
📌Harrisburg-based developer Brandywine View Tri-Corner, LLC hopes to bring 266 market-rate apartments to the city of Coatesville. The development will be called the Brandywine View Apartments.
The Planning Commission of the City of Coatesville is expected to vote on the new project in June.
If the five-person commission greenlights the project, the Brandywine View Apartments will be the first rental development to break ground in Coatesville in more than a decade…..
Brandywine View Tri-Corner, which appears to operate under Statewide Partners, did not return multiple calls for comment. Jon Juffe, one of the three partners leading the real estate outfit, did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
City manager Jonathan Logan and assistant city manager Roberta Consentino declined to comment on the project until after it receives a vote.
I think that’s my favorite part of the article. That the city manager and the assistant city manager of the city of Coatesville declined to comment until after it receives a vote.
Simple question really but why won’t they comment about some thing that they appear to be supporting? I guess it’s always the same old Coatesville government at the end of the day isn’t it?
If a municipality is supportive of a project, all they do is talk about it because they’re salivating over the money they can make. Except in Coatesville if they’re not commenting, it means the other shoe has yet to drop probably doesn’t it?
I called up Coatesville because I don’t see anything on the calendar. The person I spoke to said that the agendas go up a few days before the meetings and that the planning commission meeting should be June 12 and it is a public meeting. I don’t hold out much hope for a comprehensive agenda because I pulled up the one for May and honestly it’s like a 4th grader wrote it. I mean, it is so bare-bones it’s laughable. No plans no documents no instructions as to whether the meeting is recorded you can watch it live or anything.
I asked when I called to find out the date of the meeting to make sure it really should be June 12 if plans would be filed on the website and they don’t file plans on the website. Now they have a fancy new website with an AI bot, yet Coatesville can’t load plans and documents?
Soooo what about all of the houses in Coatesville that need help? Also are there going to be affordable housing units in this development or just market rate which are insanely overpriced most places?
Rental apartments are also creating a more transient society because people don’t stay in apartments necessarily especially given the way most landlords jump the rents with market rates. Just look around Chester County. Look at all the social media forums where people who rent are looking for places to live because their landlords are hiking rents.
The developer mentioned in the article,Brandywine View Tricorner LLC, has owned the property since 2019. They filed business name with PA in 2018.
Statewide Partners and its partners oversee business entities and activities in five main categories, which include: Real Estate Development, Residential Construction, Multifamily Construction, Property Management, and Commercial/Investment Brokerage. The three current partners, Josh, Jon, and Zach Juffe are brothers of a second-generation investment management team. Their combined skill set coupled with their zeal to develop responsible communities and businesses make them a perfect fit for the ever-changing real estate markets they serve.
Statewide filed this entity with the state in 2021:
So when you Google the address, this comes up:
And when you look at the reviews for the companies listed at this address, they’re mostly really bad aren’t they?
So I don’t know what the affiliation is or if these are all pieces of the same puzzle but on the Pennsylvania Corporation database:
So honestly, I think it’s up to the residents to decide. And if they have an interest or questions, they need to go to a meeting June 12 because there’s not much out there on this plan and nobody’s talking about it which can be construed as suspect in my opinion because doesn’t any kind of municipal government always has the ability to say that they don’t have much information but here’s what they know? No comment all the way around it’s just kind of suspicious isn’t it?
This land parcel has been bounced around and bounced around overtime, and I think other plans that were considered for the site were single-family homes in the past maybe?
The property records only record sales dates from 1955 forward, although if you look on the property record, it shows people owning it prior to that. I don’t know what this land ever was used for or if it was just raw land that had no use.
Whatever it is it’s 88 acres, right? Is this the best plan for that site? Was this site ever farmed? Was it a factory? It’s just a puzzle isn’t it?
I will note in another lifetime, I spent too much time going up to Harrisburg, Mechanicsburg, etc. and that area has a lot of really unattractive development.
So if you live in Coatesville or abut Coatesville and this parcel you’re going to want to go to the planning commission June 12. And then you are going to want to go to the city Council meeting that follows and maybe even the one that precedes it to ask questions.
And one of the questions you should start with for the city of Coatesville is if you look at when the Chester county planning commission reviewed this it was 2021. So have they known about this since 2021?
And I don’t think this is a love match with the Chester County Planning Commission because it’s a pretty long reply. It is in this packet of information. Starting on page 27. I am going to give you screenshots of each of the pages but you should go read it in the PDF because there are other hyperlinks. You may wish to click on. And I’m also going to give you some of the Takeaway is that I am taking out of what Chester county said, as a little excerpts.
I hope residents and others interested in this project pay CLOSE attention to what the county is saying with regards to this project. They are not sold on this project the way I am reading this. I also wonder why Coatesville hasn’t seemed to talk about this before if Chester County Planning Commission issued this report late 2021 (December 27, 2021) and we are all learning about this now, almost halfway into 2024?
Here are some things that popped out to me in the Chester County Planning Commission report:
The parcel according to Chester County records is 88.3 acres. This plan calls for 7.8 acres according to Chester County Planning Commission so what happens to the OTHER acres?
is this to be a phased development?
What open space gets saved and preserved?
“The plan and aerial photography indicate that a portion of the site is wooded. Mature trees and shrubs reduce the volume and impacts of stormwater runoff by intercepting precipitation, increasing evapotranspiration, and stabilizing soil through root growth. If development or earth disturbance is going to encroach upon existing woodlands, the removal of trees should be limited to the minimum area needed for the buildings and support facilities. The limits of tree removal should be clearly shown on the plan and “limits of disturbance” should be delineated to protect all trees that are intended to remain”
“The area to the north consists of much lower-density residential developments, including single-family dwellings. We suggest that the applicant conduct a shadow analysis to predict how the proposed multi-story buildings will affect the neighborhood to the north”
“We suggest the applicant consider eliminating at least one of the proposed buildings or reconfigure the buildings to limit environmental impacts and provide more usable and centralized open space and recreational areas. Reconfiguring the buildings to allow parking underneath would decrease the footprint for the required parking, provide room for usable open space, and limit the environmental effects on the site, such as on the steep slopes and woodlands.”
“The applicant has requested a waiver from landscaping requirements at some parking areas. We suggest that the City carefully evaluate these waiver requests.’
“The applicant has requested a waiver from landscaping requirements at some parking areas. We suggest that the City carefully evaluate these waiver requests…..Subsurface infiltration stormwater management practices are not appropriate for areas that will receive runoff with high sediment loads. Particular care should be taken during construction to prevent compaction of the soil below the system and to minimize the delivery of sediment to this system from construction runoff.”
Public transit access?
ADA compliance including with sidewalks?
Traffic impact study? I am person ally adding one that is realistic and not done in dead of summer or a holiday which is a favorite dev eloper trick isn’t it?
“We suggest that the applicant and City consider providing a percentage of affordably-priced housing units within the proposed apartment building…”
City Fire Marshall needs to weigh in on “fire protection facilities” and I want to ask will all roads be WIDE enough to accommodate all fire trucks and apparatus AND will there be ROOM behind buildings and in between for all fire trucks and apparatus? We can all name developments of recent vintage throughout Chester County where we can’t say that about, correct?
So…lots of questions about this prospective project dating to late 2021 and the City of Coatesville seems like they have had laryngitis for a couple of years?
And I have to ask is this a site on the border of Valley Township? What have they been told? And do any other municipalities border this? What have they been told? Development does not happen in a vacuum does it?
It also shows up in a website called Construction Journal which has a notation of zoning variances being sought? So why is this going to planning June 12? Has it already been to zoning? If it has not been to zoning and they do need variances, what gives?
I mentioned earlier in this post that Coatesville’s website has an AI bot. I find that rather amusing considering what money could be better spent on, but I digress. But even the Coatesville Website Bot knows nothing about this project.
I swear it’s the most economically deprived or challenged areas that have the snazzy websites that say absolutely not much. They have a city council meeting tonight and an agenda that says practically nothing and again, no attachments or uploads? And meeting recordings do not appear to be readily available and a handful of City of Coatesville videos and meetings are on YouTube…but only from 2020 so explain how they are sunshine friendly?
I have an inherent distrust of this municipality dating back to around 1999 when the City of Coatesville declared eminent domain on a family named the Sahas who are dear to me. Coatesville wanted to exercise eminent domain for private gain so a developer could build a golf course. I met the Sahas when we were fighting eminent domain for private gain in Lower Merion in the historic Ardmore business district. The Sahas fought until 2006. They won. Coatesville lost because they were in the wrong.
I have nothing more to add. This project seems off or it could just be me because it’s Coatesville. People will undoubtedly say I should be supporting things in Coatesville, and yeah if it’s for good, I am all ears to listen. This is just development and I am sorry not sorry of the opinion if residents don’t pay attention and residents in neighboring municipalities don’t pay attention they won’t be happy in the end.
There are too many questions already on this plan don’t you think? If people love Coatesville, then they had better look sharp. That opinion and the rest are brought to you courtesy of the First Amendment. You can’t trust Coatesville government can you?
I will close with a couple of things from the Saha struggle so people are clear as to why I will always and forever be mistrustful of the City of Coatesville.
Yesterday we headed out in to Chester County to go visit a peony farm in what I knew growing up as Brandamore. Like Glenmoore it is actually a very old unincorporated community in Chester County. Brandamore is north of Coatesville. Sometimes when I see people referring to Brandamore today, that either call Coatesville or Glenmoore.
Anyway, we headed out Reeceville Road off of the 30 Bypass. The 30 Bypass is insane in the rain, and what was even more insane were the people not moving over for an ambulance with lights on.
I’m also going to say something that might lead to believe I have fallen and hit my head, but I haven’t. It’s just in this location it works because there’s enough space.
I’m talking about the traffic circle/roundabout at Route 82 (Manor Road) and Cedar Knoll Road/Reeceville Road intersection. I actually think it really works here because there’s enough land for the circle to function properly, as opposed to what they were trying to propose at 352 and King Road a few years ago in East Goshen/East Whiteland. And no houses were taken from what I understand.
This is a mostly pretty drive with rolling hill and farm fields except the farm fields are disappearing rapidly, and all you see are more developments coming.
All of these developments are going to bring how many more people to an area that doesn’t even have a hospital close by.
As we drove by bulldozers and other heavy earth moving equipment I wondered what PA State Senators and State Representatives and the PA Governor were doing to protect these areas?
The short answer, of course, is nothing much because then they would actually have to get off their asses and enact an act of the state constitution to update the woefully decades outdated Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
It’s so sad to watch what is happening to a county known for agriculture and equine culture. The school districts can’t handle this growth, first responders can’t handle it, the rest of the infrastructure is stressed, and there aren’t even hospitals to serve all these people.
Chester County is being destroyed. And state elected officials are allowing it.
The City of Filthadelphia is destroying a gem: the meadows at FDR Park in South Philadelphia are being destroyed for turf fields. The irony is, of course, the City of Philadelphia can’t even take care of the parks they have, but they’re going to add very expensive turf fields. Turf fields contain forever chemicals. Nature is being destroyed for that? Animals and birds are losing their refuge and what about the natural water sources?
This needs to be STOPPED.
You know, everybody thought Mayor Cherelle Parker was going to be like the second coming of Christ. Except I thought was she’s a Wiley Coyote of a politician who’s going to play everyone. How am I doing so far?
That screenshot was sent to me by a friend of mine with a barf emoji. I think a barf emoji was being kind.
And I’m laughing because they listed as Church Road but it’s not actually Church Road. It’s Church Street because it’s a loop around back around off of Highland Avenue in Wayne/Radnor Township. Near Odorisio Park.
So the irony here is this is $1 million skinny box that is around the corner from the affordable housing on Highland Avenue known as Highland Homes. The house looks like a box I would get 6 foot garden stakes in. 
Of course, when I was researching Highland Homes, I came up with an article from 2001. And why that interested me was the mention of a company called Pennrose Partners which over the last couple of weeks I think it was was told no by West Chester Borough Council on the Church Street lot in West Chester :
So I went digging and I found an old listing for a lot for sale on Church Street in Radnor Township. And I’m thinking this is the same land and the same location only they say Church Road because Church Road is a lot nicer than Church Street in the category of snob appeal because oh my gosh, they can’t market it as being $1 million plus property around the corner from affordable housing can they?
Here are screenshots real estate listings from Church Road in Radnor Township and a video, so you can see it’s not even the same neighborhood:
How ugly is this million dollar design blight on Radnor Township? It is definitely Church Street not Church Road. My guess it’s a Main Line version of like calling a town a Main Line town when it’s not, or calling a house in Downingtown Chester Springs. Marketing with a side of egg on Realtor face, right?
I just can’t with this listing. I mean I knew listings were crazy in Radnor Township when I found these:
Willow Avenue was the street below Poplar Ave on the other side of the Gulph Creek from North Aberdeen where Radnor Township barely blinked when they tore down the Jonathan Lengel house recently. And speaking of Lengel, read this about the family from the 1958 Radnor Historical Society Bulletin:
Now I’m off on a tangent a little bit, but I will circle back to the ugly house on Church Street shortly. But again here is the post I wrote recently about the Jonathan Lengel house:
So people not familiar with Radnor Township wouldn’t know that Willow Avenue is not a fancy street. It’s a nice street but it started out as a place for the working man to buy a twin home after they filled in what was the Wayne Natatorium pool in the early 20th century. I go by the corner of the street on Radnor Street Road once in a while coming back from Penn Medicine in Radnor to make sure that the historical marker I got for them is still standing. And yes, I worked to get that marker approved and erected.
I don’t trust the Radnor Township of today. They value nothing. And they certainly don’t value design standards in new construction if they’re approving Lego houses to go with Lego institutional feeling apartments, townhouses, and condos with all the personality and charm of a prison meets a mental ward.
And the fact that the weenie little former meteorologist, John Bolaris, who’s like the walking talking Philadelphia joke for decades is the realtor on this is icing on the cake.
Here is the recent write up of him from Philadelphia Magazine:
This is a town where local TV news personalities are very much Philly celebrities. John Bolaris was the talk of the town in the ’90s, when he was meteorologist for Channel 10. He became a regular fixture of gossip-column fodder. And he seemed to lead a charmed life — that is, until winter 2001. That’s when Bolaris blew his biggest forecast — or perhaps I should call it a fearcast. He predicted a “Storm of the Century” that amounted to less than an inch of snow. Folks laughed Bolaris out of town. He went to work in New York.
Bolaris turned up here again in 2009, this time at Fox 29. But things didn’t go so well. And Fox 29 soon parted ways with him. There was also the time when Bolaris claimed that $43,000 in charges on his American Express card were the result of two Latvian models drugging him. Oh, and there was that stun-gun attack in the Hamptons. I could go on!
Yeah there I left you a excerpt. You can click on it and read the rest of the article. The thing I remember most about this guy, other than how incredibly short he is is when we were all much younger and out on the town in the Main Line we would see him out. Of course we also used to see NBC10 Steve Levy and his zip up cowboy booties. And Sir Charles as in Barkley. Charles Barkley incidentally was always very nice. Bolaris and Levy? LOL 😂
But I digress.
This is pretty much hands-down, the ugliest new construction house I’ve seen in quite a while. And how does it fit into its surroundings and why do they say it’s on Church Road when it’s on Church Street which is off of Highland Avenue ? (Weird listing HERE.) this ugly house would look great next to those butt ugly townhouse things that the Ship Road couplet was built for in West Whiteland.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got other than the Philadelphia Business Journal is listing a property that was once part of Ardrossan is for sale and the property the Ardrossan farmer rents is apparently also for sale.
