North Penn School Officials Layout High School Development Plan for Towamencin Supervisors

Dan Sokil | The Reporter•

As North Penn’s school board and public debate renovations to the district’s high school, staff are laying the groundwork for a less visible change that’ll be needed soon.

District officials updated their case for a zoning change, while giving township officials a look at possible changes to the high school campus.

"I believe we have the opportunity here to change the course for the North Penn School District, and to make our high school the greatest high school in the county, the commonwealth, and one of the best in the nation,” said Superintendent Todd Bauer.

"Hopefully, if our referendum does pass in January, we would go further down the path, and be meeting with this board quite a few times over the next couple of years, until construction would begin,” he said.

Throughout the year, district officials have made public presentations on a series of aspects of renovations to the high school, parts of which date back to the early 1970s, and administrators are offering guided tours to the public ahead of a planned voter referendum in January 2024 to approve part of the borrowing needed for the project.

In 2021 district staff first told Towamencin’s board about another issue they’ll need to tackle: a zoning change needed for the two adjoining parcels where the school now stands, and recently, Bauer, attorney Michael Clarke, and civil engineer Barry Stingel brought the board up to speed on the latest plans, and why the zoning change is needed.

Bauer began by outlining the school’s construction in the early 1970s, the addition of the school’s K-pod in the 1990s instead of building a second high school elsewhere in the district, and the problems seen today that the new renovations could resolve.

"The addition added roughly 1,000 students to the campus itself, but it did not expand hallways and large general spaces. It was built for 2,400 kids; it now has 3,100 kids,” Bauer said.

As of today North Penn is the only high school in the county that does not have ninth grade on the same campus, and over 90 percent of districts nationwide have that same grade structure, Bauer told the board. With ninth grade at North Penn’s three middle schools now, students in that grade have to take extra buses or get rides to the high school campus for clubs, activities and sports teams, and the referendum will ask taxpayers whether to approve $97 million in borrowing for new classroom spaces that would expand the current high school to add capacity for ninth grade there.

When the district presented in 2021, the attorney said, plans at that time called for the district to use the former WNPV Radio property north of the high school to build and install a healthcare facility for district employees and their dependents. That facility has since been built next to Penndale Middle School in Lansdale and started operating in March, Clarke told the board, and the supervisors also voiced concerns in 2021 about new development on the so-called ‘4H Fields,’ athletic fields on the northwest corner of the property on land once owned by a local 4H club.

"This new plan addresses both of these issues: the radio station parcel will be sports fields, and the district is open to placing a deed restriction on the 4H fields, to ensure there will be no development,” Clarke said.

The latest plans have been vetted by both the township and Montgomery County planning commissions, both of whom have voiced support, and the district has been in talks with the North Montco Technical Career Center just west of the high school about including that parcel in the planning process. If the zoning change is approved, Clarke said, the district would then need to file a conditional use application for permission to exceed the township’s current 35-foot height restriction in that zone, since the three-story addition areas would match the current school buildings at a height of roughly 50 feet.

Under the latest plans, Stingel told the board, the bus garage would be moved offsite, that space north of Crawford would be converted into additional parking, and a new driveway would run between Crawford and the current fields, with a new driveway entrance and exit onto Sumneytown across from Bridle Path Drive, just east of the current North Montco driveway.

"We’re addressing bus and car circulation on campus, we’re improving pedestrian access throughout the campus and along Sumneytown Pike. We’re proposing a new access point onto Sumneytown Pike, that will improve distribution of traffic into and out of the campus,” Stingel said.

On the northwest corner of the site near Snyder Road, the current 4H land would be developed into several athletic fields, with extra buffering between those fields and the adjacent neighborhood, Stingel told the board. The new classroom additions for ninth grade would be intermixed with the current building, highlighted in orange alongside the existing school building outlined in white on the maps, and the school’s driveways would be reworked to separate bus drop-off areas from parents, and allow the current stormwater management basins on the site to be expanded.

"What this will do is allow us to create a second pickup and drop-off area for buses behind the school, in addition to providing access to new parking where the existing transportation facility exists now, and also will provide some additional parking — including some needed ADA-compliant parking spaces — in close proximity to the football stadium,” Stingel said.

On the former WNPV site, nearly all of the radio towers there will be removed, with a cell tower there remaining, and the athletic fields on that site would likely include baseball and softball fields, and a marching band practice area, with synthetic surfaces to allow for year-round use. In keeping with a township circulation study, the newest high school plans include new sidewalks along Sumneytown Pike, and running along the new driveway from Sumneytown next to Crawford, and added landscaping all around the borders of the site.

The current site offers a total of 1,291 parking spaces, with 400 staff working at the school leaving a total of 891 spaces for students, and roughly 3,000 students enrolled at the school yields a current condition of 3.37 students per space, well above the requirement of one space for every two students. Moving transportation employees offsite would subtract roughly 100 employees, but the new addition would add 125 more, plus roughly 1,000 new students, with 297 new student spaces added that would bring the ratio down to 3.09 students per parking space, an improvement on the current ratio, Stingel said.

"What the institutional zoning does do for us, is increase the impervious surface (requirement) up to 50 percent of the property. And here we did not split the property; this envisions the entire property being zoned institutional,” he said.

"There could be some question as to whether or not the synthetic turf fields are considered impervious surface or not, so out of an abundance of caution we took a look at them assuming they would be counted just like concrete or asphalt. And we are at under 50 percent (coverage) — we’re close, it’s 48 and change, but we are under the 50 percent impervious surface maximum,” he said.

Supervisors Chairman Chuck Wilson asked for specifics about the planned stormwater management upgrades for the site, and Stingel said those plans have yet to be finalized, but will likely include expanding a small basin within the school’s bus driveway loop, and could also see a new basin near the driveway’s entrance, plus underground stormwater storage capacity below the new parking lots near Crawford.

"There could be some existing runoff issues on some of the lots we’re showing on the north side of the campus, and we believe that it’s coming from the 4H fields,” Stingel said. Berms and swales in that area could need to be reconfigured or expanded to reduce that runoff, "and direct that water away from those residents, so we can alleviate those issues they’re experiencing.”

Supervisor Rich Marino asked if the team had looked at traffic flow off campus, and Stingel said that was addressed in a traffic study presented publicly to the school board in January, but that study didn’t include the new driveway access to Sumneytown. Marino asked if that new driveway would require a traffic signal on Sumneytown at the new driveway, and Stingel said that would be examined in an update to the traffic study. The intersection of Sumneytown and Valley Forge Road, and Valley Forge at the high school driveway opposite McAuliffe Lane, would likely need widening, he added, and supervisor Joyce Snyder said she lives nearby and sees the need.

"We have over 70 bus drivers, right now, who park on our campus. They would not be parking there. But if you think about it, you have a bus driver who drives their car onto the property, leave with their bus to get kids, they bring those kids back, then leave again to go to the middle school, then to the elementary school,” Bauer said.

"Then they bring their bus back, and take their car home. So it’s six trips, in and out of that campus” that could be reduced by moving the bus facility offsite, the superintendent said; "we’re projecting 12 more buses, and if you look at our buses for high school runs, they’re not entirely full, because a lot of high school kids ride with friends,” or parents drive them.

Supervisor Kristin Warner asked about where the transportation center would go, and Bauer answered, "We don’t know that yet — if you know anyone, please let us know. Something between 12 to 16 acres, zoned appropriately” would be ideal, and the district has contracted with a real estate broker to find such a site, he said.

And as for radio listeners, don’t worry: the radio antennas that had been used by WNPV as a private firm will likely come down, but "We will still have a radio tower of some sort, so we can maintain WNPV — the students DJ on there,” Bauer said, and the now-student-run radio station on those airwaves will remain on the air.

Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7 p.m. on Dec. 13 at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Road; for more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.Towamencin.org.

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