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:
Coatesville could soon see its first rental housing development in more than a decade
WHYY Kenny Cooper May 28, 2024
📌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.
….According to a preliminary plan submitted to the Chester County Planning Commission, the property will consist of four buildings with multi-family units. An older posting in the Construction Journal described it as “new construction” with approximately 312 parking spaces.
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.
WHYY says this entity is run by Statewide Partners. Statewide according to their LinkedIn profile:
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?
And who are Josh, Jon, and Zach Juffe?
I found an article quoting Josh Juffe:
https://www.standard-journal.com/news/local/article_8937766d-6a16-588b-a5f2-9c0c1abab090.html
I found this:
https://www.alignable.com/harrisburg-pa/tricorner-homes
Thanks to a 2015 Harrisburg area article I found another entity and this very busy address in Harrisburg. Here’s the article:
https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/2015/07/harrisburg_john_elder_property.html
Here’s the entity:
These folks seem to be busy in Harrisburg and York?
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.
Excerpts from ChesCo Planning:
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?
https://www.constructionjournal.com/projects/details/b9de7bd1f5ff4050a47e905ebf32bb52.html
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?
https://www.constructionjournal.com/projects/details/b9de7bd1f5ff4050a47e905ebf32bb52.html
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.