NORTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — It's been almost 10 years since the Strawberry Acres residential development plan first came before North Whitehall officials.
Now, it’s facing yet another setback.
- North Whitehall Planning Commission tabled one waiver for the Strawberry Acres 55-plus residential development plan and recommended denial for another
- The 55-plus residential community has been controversial amongst residents since it first was proposed in 2013
- The plan may go before planners again March 28
North Whitehall Planning Commission at a special meeting Tuesday tabled one waiver for the plan and recommended denial of another to the township Board of Commissioners.
The 55-plus residential community first was proposed in 2013 and has since received conditional use approval.
It would be built on the former location of the Strawberry Acres orchard, which is now closed.
Peter Lehr, the lawyer representing development group 5077 Overlook Road LLC, asked the planning commission to recommend approval for two waivers for the development plan.
The first waiver
The first requested waiver was related to the infiltration basins in the plan. The developer proposed building seven infiltration basins with vertical slopes on the west side of Overlook Road.
“If someone does get into the basin and is in distress, you can usually find a way to crawl out and get out in some way. If you approach a straight wall, you can’t crawl out. You can’t save yourself."Judith Stern Goldstein, zoning consultant for the township
Zoning consultant for the township Judith Stern Goldstein expressed concern about the basin’s vertical walls.
“If someone does get into the basin and is in distress, you can usually find a way to crawl out and get out in some way," Goldstein said. "If you approach a straight wall, you can’t crawl out. You can’t save yourself."
Multiple residents also spoke against the waiver. Resident Joe Sterling expressed concern about how close the basins are to each other and what would happen if the township eventually had to maintain them.
“This is why we pose these questions,” Sterling said. “Thirty years from now, 40 years from now, when you guys have built upon this property development after development after development, and we overlooked this issue right here — I mean, it's a valid concern.”
Planners voted unanimously to table the waiver and asked the applicant to come back at another meeting with more information.
The second waiver
The second related waiver was related to a stub street located at 5029 Donna Drive. Township law requires developers to connect stub streets to their developments whenever possible.
But Lehr argued that the road was not a stub street because it had not been properly maintained by the township. He said even if it were classified as a stub street, it would be too difficult for the developer to connect to the road.
Goldstein said the road is a stub street because it has been cited as one on the tax map. She also said she thinks the developer had the ability to connect the road because the engineers have used “Herculean measures” when solving engineering problems in the rest of the development.
“To say that, at one point, all of that can be done for the proposed road through the land development that the applicant wants to have, but that an attempt to connect to a substrate would be not feasible seems, again, not quite be correct,” Goldstein said.
Chairman Brian Horwith agreed, saying the issue of maintenance of the road was not a matter for the planning commission to consider.
“The fact that that [maintenance] wasn’t done doesn’t preclude this from being a stub street and doesn’t preclude, I think, that the best planning is to have the connectivity to the other development,” Horwith said.
The commission voted unanimously to recommend rejecting the waiver.
Resident controversy
Many residents have spoken out against the development since it was first proposed in 2013.
Resident and farmer Heather Skorinko spoke against recommending the waivers at the meeting. She said in an interview that she has been against the development since the beginning because she thinks it would be an eyesore and would cause traffic congestion.
“It's not the place where it belongs, period,” Skorinko said.
The first waiver related to the infiltration basins will be discussed by the planners again March 28 or April 25. Township officials still have to make that determination.
