Uwchlan said no to the crazy overnight construction hours requested by Portman who will be destroying Happy Days Farm, which originally was a Penn Land Grant. Portman which acquired this magnificent property wanted overnight construction from 7 PM to 3 AM.
And in unexpected news, Audubon Land Development WITHDREW their preliminary sketch plan for Lionville Station Farm.
This is far from over. This isn’t winning the war against mega warehouses, it’s just a battle won. Neighbors and concerned citizens MUST remain vigilant.
Now we are all being asked to write to Downingtown Area School District:
Email the DASD school board and superintendent.
Uwchlan Township has confirmed that Audubon has “diligently” withdrew their mega-warehouse sketch plan. Remember when DASD attorney Mr. Roger Huggins went on the record and said “so far Audubon’s been doing a pretty good job and they have been diligently pursuing their obligations.” Well, any fact finder can tell you that by withdrawing your sketch plan, you are not diligently pursuing anything.
My email is below. Feel free to use as you wish in drafting your message.
rodonnell@dasd.org
lwisdom@dasd.org
cghrayeb@dasd.org
jbertone@dasd.org
ablust@dasd.org
mgurthy@dasd.org
jhoughton@dasd.org
mmiller@dasd.org
lstrobridge@dasd.org
mross@dasd.org
Dear DASD school board and Superintendent,
The prospective purchaser of the Siemens Property (Audubon Land Development) has withdrawn their proposed sketch plan from Uwchlan Township.
Consequently, since the sales agreement took effect on July 13, 2022, over a year ago, there has been a complete lack of official progress in meeting their commitments to pursue the land’s development rights.
Any studies that may have been communicated with you have not been received by the Township, nor have they been formally submitted. This renders them essentially meaningless.
Maintaining this property under contract with a potential buyer who has shown no measurable progress in pursuing development endeavors represents a violation of your fiduciary obligations. You are now dealing with a buyer who is actively failing to adhere to the contractual terms. The buyer is already in default.
With no existing sketch plan and no possibility of obtaining conditional use approval by August 29th, it is now your responsibility to promptly terminate this agreement with Audubon.
Enough is enough!
It should now be very clear to you that the $96M has always been a fantasy. Yes, you got played. It’s time to do the right thing before you do any more harm to the reputation of our school district and our community.
~ Message this morning to from Save Lionville Station Farm
A round of applause goes to SAVE Lionville Station Farm which is doing a great job in spite of certain factions incorrectly asserting that they are supporting extremist school board candidates like Chris Bressi. They are not. Chris Bressi and his tribe keep trying to co-opt their issue and group. This group has one purpose and that is to stop the warehouses.
This group has asked politicians current and prospective to sign a pledge essentially asking for them to agree to SAVE Lionville Station Farm and the surrounding area from the insanity of mega warehouse development and that means if elected or on school board voting no.
This pledge is very similar to the ones we as the then Save Ardmore Coalition many many years ago asked politicians current and prospective to sign to stop eminent domain for private gain in Ardmore. Save Lionville Station Farm is NON PARTISAN just like we were.
The Save Lionville Station Farm Group has been challenged constantly since inception by factions and people trying to co-opt, infiltrate, take over, take advantage of what their goal is: TO STOP MEGA WAREHOUSES AND SAVE LIONVILLE STATION FARM.
The fact that these people in this group have put down politics for community and the greater good is amazing in this ridiculous political climate is nothing short of amazing.
So kindly see more cheap political tricks from people like “Professor” Chris Bressi as exactly what they are: cheap political tricks. This politician in particular will use any community group or cause around for personal gain. Even a Uwchlan Supervisor has commented on it in a community group.
I believe in honor and integrity, and I do not believe this politician has either. He will tell you he does and he likes to talk about those words, but I don’t think he actually knows what they mean in real life.
If someone farts and Bressi can use it, repost, and ask for a campaign donation, he does it. He’s only supporting himself and attempting to co-opt everyone and everything else. He’s like an empty suit. And although he shows up at events gladhanding the music thing about this political candidate is he never wants his photo taken.
Bressi’s kindred spirit running for County Commissioner, David Sommers, is more subtle but he’s hanging around to try to get votes not to actually help residents here. He doesn’t actually say he’s for saving anything other then his political aspirations, and he has a website that is glossy and full of unicorns farting rainbows but the devil is in the details and he hangs around with Margie Miller from DASD who is most definitely a snake. He will have his photo taken with anything or anyone that stands still long enough. As always, he’s running a campaign that is all fluff and little substance. And he hasn’t seemed to pledge to stop mega warehouses, or fill out a candidate questionnaire. So that answers your question right there about what he’s about.
Political candidates like these two aren’t going to know your name, if they get elected. They are going to remember that they signed any pledges to do anything other than further their own ambition.
But what I am seeing out here is people trying to conflate school board issues. For the people trying to save Lionville Station Farm that is their issue. It is not to be added to or conflated with other issues. People on both sides are trying to conflate their issue with other issues, as well as co-opt them for political gain.
And then you have the people on the DASD school board that people actually like and want to have them stay in the office, only they’re cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Their community is not saying don’t sell the land if you can’t afford to keep it, they’re asking to save the area from mega warehouses. They are asking that Chester county not be made to look like the Allentown, I-80 corridor.
I am a realist. And I also get frustrated by people who just say to save everything as open space yet then never even suggest how that is supposed to be afforded.
Unless a land angel appears from the sky, I don’t think this parcel will be completely protected in perpetuity. But I do think that there has to be another better plan out there and another buyer for the parcel that could at least preserve some of it and not load it up with apartments or mega warehouses.
I will close by saying that I think everyone needs to stop being used by the current crop of political candidates. And people fighting to keep the DASD school board from going crazy like it should be in Bucks County instead of Chester County need to remember that Saving Lionville station farm is a standalone issue. Do not conflate it with other issues. And it’s OK for it to be it’s own issue.
To the school board directors of the Downingtown Area School District I simply state the following: you have the unique opportunity here to unwind a disastrous plan. Take that opportunity and run with it. Don’t do an imitation of Lower Merion School District’s school board. Do the right thing for your community. Give people the best reason possible to still believe in you: believe in them and stop the warehouses which will detrimentally affect everyone even the district. And get a new solicitor for your school district.
Stop the bad plan, seek a new plan and compromise with your community.
I will also note that I have had people who want the warehouses stopped attack me for suggesting they not get used by politicians. Their largest retort is my trying to pass along the benefit of prior experience as being a distraction to their mission is kind of funny.
Ok whatever. I can walk away from lots of issues I’ve been helpful on. And I can stop responding to people that contacted me looking for help as well. And I might just do that. Which would be a bummer because the one thing you can always count on if I try to help and it’s not that I want something, it’s not that I want your vote for elected office, I just do things because I think it’s the right thing to do.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it as my one grandmother used to say
…. it will be ginormous. Over 300-some loading docks running 24 seven. Going to look like the New Jersey Turnpike in Uwchlan Township. Not to mention the truck-stop atmosphere that will accompany it.
Lionville Station Road is just fields and 2 empty farmhouses butting up against Milky Way Farm. I’m sure they aren’t happy about this with all the water and air pollution this will cause them and their animals. Can’t imagine my back road to home having 300+ tractor trailers coming and going on it.
~ LOCAL RESIDENT
I think I should state that I have NOT heard about this before today. AND Milky Way Farm is staying put and not going anywhere from what I am told, but they might turn into a farm island as a result of this right? Also Gardner’s Landscape is NOT going anywhere, so can’t imagine what they think of this, other than abject horror like residents, right?
Another BIG HUGE QUESTION is ARE THEY SURE AMAZON IS COMING? Read today’s article about Amazon slowing it’s roll in the Washington Post. Article is gifted so follow
The residents are up in arms. I would be. And when I zoomed in on the plan thing above? I saw my friend’s house! I mean can you even imagine waking up for years to loveliness and now be threatened with the ass end of a warehouse as your view???
The next Uwchlan Supervisors meeting is Monday March 6th and as of the time of this post NOT much of an agenda. That of course is sunshine UNfriendly…. .AND IT IS SHOWING AT 12 NOON…OR YOU KNOW WHEN PEOPLE WORK!!!
I don’t have anything more. But people need to be aware and get themselves to Uwchlan meetings and bug their supervisors.
Happy Friday, what isn’t being developed in Chester County?
Happy Days Farm was once home to the Supplee Family in modern times (I think from some point in the 1940s.) Mildred and Warren Supplee were well-loved by their community and were married for 75 years.
Happy Days Farm is STILL actively farmed by tenant farmers who are WONDERFUL people.
Just now I learned Happy Days Farms is under contract to a developer? And that means that if they don’t buy it for some reason there are undoubtedly other developers right behind them, correct?
The property near the Downingtown Interchange of the Pennsylvania Turnpike was put up for sale by Vanguard in March after the investment giant kept it for two decades as a possible expansion site.
Thanks to its excellent location that can attract traffic from a large demographic area, the property was expected to receive significant interest from developers.
For the love of all that’s holy, IT IS STILL A WORKING FARM!
Audubon Land Development Corporation is a family owned and operated business with over 50 years of development, building and management experience. Audubon Land affiliates have built over 3,000 homes in eastern Pennsylvania, as well as many commercial facilities including apartment complexes, the Audubon Square Shopping Center, The Hilton Homewood Suites in Audubon, the 422 Business Center, The Hilton Garden Inn at Oaks, the Marketplace at Oaks, including Target, Lowe’s and Regal Cinemas and the Greater Philadelphia Expo in Oaks. Audubon also has under development, the 2,500 unit Shannondell Retirement Community, with 1,000 units completed.
Oaks. That hideous complex that always seems dirty? The Philadelphia Expo Center? Have you been there? It’s part of the long stretch of 422 development hell, isn’t it?
I have no issue with Shannondell as their rehab center does a lot of good but don’t we already have a lot of warehouses for seniors out here? And let’s be honest, is a place like Shannondell affordable for your average senior citizen?
Maybe a lot of you aren’t familiar with the whole other side of Montgomery County that is Audubon and Oaks and up Egypt Road and 422? I actually am because our son went to a charter school that pulls from these areas and a lot of friends lived over in this direction.
If you think King of Prussia is bad you have not seen anything until you’ve experienced this area. When you travel along places like Egypt Road and other areas back here in Audubon and Oaks you see strip mall after strip mall and development after development and in between you have these tiny pockets of humanity trying to survive in the midst of it.
This area actually reminds me of King of Prussia as the mall grew. And I say that because I am just old enough to remember when you were along 202 near the King of Prussia Mall years ago, there were still these cute little houses along 202 that people lived in.…until they gave up.
Also a few months ago, it took some digging but I did indeed find a 1998 PA Historic Resouces Survey Form. You canclick HEREand I am uploading it here: H067961_67867_D. It’s fascinating and what did this survey lead me to? Oh yes, another Penn Land Grant and possibly part of Native American Hunting Grounds:
The origins of Happy Days Farm can be traced to two early land grants from William Penn, Proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania. One tract of 1,000 acres was granted to James Claypoole in 1682. James Claypoole was an English investor who purchased several land grants in Pennsylvania, but never lived there. The other tract of 1,666 2/3 acres was granted to David Lloyd in 1703. David Lloyd was a land investor who owned a considerable portion of what became Uwchlan Township in 1712. In 1713, the heirs of James Claypoole sold 800 acres in Uwchlan to David Lloyd. In 1714, Lloyd sold to Joseph Phipps an 800 acre plantation that included parts of the two Penn grants.
The description on the 1714 deed of a “messuage, tenement plantation tract” indicates that there was already an established farm and dwelling house. Joseph Phipps was among the early Quaker settlers who requested the formation of their own meeting in Uwchlan Township in 1712. At the time, most of these Quakers were living on land owned by David Lloyd, so Joseph Phipps was probably living on the land he later purchased. Between 1712 and 1715, most of David Lloyd’s holdings in Uwchlan Township were deeded to early residents such as Phipps. The first tax records for Uwchlan Township occurred in 1715. Joseph Phipps was one of eighteen names recorded on that list and one of the greatest landowners. 280 years later, descendants of Joseph continue to live in Uwchlan Township.….For much of the eighteenth century, the Phipps family prospered. As Joseph’s children grew and married several houses were built on the family lands. Some farmland was divided, but the “home farm” and approximately 400 acres remained intact through the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century witnessed the growth of a new agricultural industry – the dairy farm. Chester County became known for its dairy farms. By the 1880’s, 85 individually owned dairy farms prospered in Uwchlan Township. The Phipps families owned several.
Happy Days Farm is the only farm property that remained in the Phipps family for more than two centuries. Members of the Phipps family were active in several area churches including Uwchlan Society of Friends and Windsor Baptist Church. Phipps participated in the organizing and prosperity of the Uwchlan Grange. Residents of this early farm accomplished their goals. They may not have been famous, but they were excellent examples of nineteenth century Pennsylvania farmers.

This is Uwchlan Township for Happy Days Farm, I believe. But what happens here doesn’t just affect the tenant farmers and the residents of Uwchlan Township, it affects all of us in Chester County.
It’s like we don’t matter anymore. Existing residents don’t matter anymore. It’s just all about the crazy race for development.
Like Lloyd Farm in Caln, Happy Days is part of an original Penn Land Grant, correct?
Why doesn’t that mean something anymore?
Chester County wasn’t founded for fields of Tyvek boxes and strip malls and apartment buildings.
And look at the stresses on our infrastructure now. And someone else said to me recently that people talk about the stresses on the roads and the first responders and the school districts but they don’t talk about things like the stress on the hospitals. They said:
….the strain is here and growing. I work in an ER and this week we have gone on pre-divert and divert status 3x. The hospital is full and people are being admitted but have to stay in the ER since we have no beds upstairs….several patients ask …why the wait is so long and I discuss with them the issue of the exponential population growth due to poor planning of high density housing all around the area. When I start listing the neighborhoods then they suddenly understand why we are facing a crisis.
Again, also look at the school districts. Isn’t Great Valley looking to expand and build more schools? And what of Downingtown School District? Isn’t there a whisper of eminent domain floating around as they also need land to expand and build more schools? And hasn’t the West Chester Area School District got plans in place for yet another elementary school over near or in that Greystone development? And what about Tredyffrin? How long before they need more schools or need to expand?
Chester County, now more than ever, the agricultural and equine heritage and open space HAS to matter! Residents have to matter! The future has to matter!
We are literally in the midst of a development glut, right? So what happens when this developmental gold rush is over?
No one ever talks about that. I do not believe it is everyone will settle in and get along nicely. I think we are setting ourselves up as communities for decades of problems going forward because there is no balance or sane pace to development.
And this is why I don’t like development. And why I am not a fan of organizations like the Chester County Planning Commission and their Landscapes plans. In my humble opinion, which I am allowed, this “build it and they will come” attitude is problematic. What happens when all of “they” come? It looks pretty on schematics and diagrams and plans to be shown at municipal meetings, but what is the reality? My opinion is in reality we’re not going to be able to handle it because we can’t handle it now and how is that progress?
I don’t know what else to say other than if we can’t stop the madness, we need to stem the tide. This is getting crazy. And happy days farm just makes me sad. Especially because it is still a working farm and farmers matter.
I’m getting off my soapbox now. I really didn’t intend for this to be such a long post and there’s nothing I can do personally to stop this from happening but I can express how I feel about it. At least the First Amendment still gives me that right.
To Happy Days Farm and the generations and families who have farmed you, including the current family, I say my heart broke a little more over this news. I am so terribly sorry that as human beings we can’t do better to preserve what our founding fathers fought and bled for out here.
