Towamencin Board Approves North Penn High School Zoning Change

Dan Sokil | The Reporter•

Planned renovations to North Penn High School are still very much on the drawing board, but a key hurdle has been cleared.

Towamencin township supervisors have granted a zoning change that district officials say could make it easier to finalize the planned renovations.

"The last time I came before this board of supervisors, we spoke to a potential referendum, and what could happen in a yes or a no vote. We now know that the referendum did not pass, and we will not be moving ninth graders to the campus,” said Superintendent Todd Bauer.

"The plan of the site is more definitive than it was the last time we came before you,” he said.

District staff and the school board have discussed renovations to the high school for several years, with much of 2023 spent making public presentations on the two options, one which would have seen roughly 1,000 ninth grade students moved into a new addition and a major reconfiguration of the campus, and the other a modernization of the current school with minimal changes to the footprint itself.

In mid-January, voters turned down a referendum that would have authorized borrowing for the ninth grade addition,failing by roughly 3,000 votes, and district officials have since said they are working to refine designs for the smaller option.

Ahead of the referendum, Bauer and a district team presented to Towamencin’s board in November about a topic they first raised in 2021: a zoning change needed for the two adjoining parcels where the school now stands.

Changing the zoning of the high school parcels, and the adjacent former WNPV Radio site the district acquired in 2020, from residential to IN-institutional would allow for more flexibility in finalizing the plans, Bauer told the board on Wednesday night, while the district offers to agree in writing that they won’t develop the athletic fields surrounding the school.

"We are committed to having a deed restriction on the 4H fields. We are still committed to using the WNPV property, which is adjacent to the high school property, for athletic fields. And we are not looking at a substantive, or a substantial, addition to the high school property,” he said.

Staff have also said they’re currently in talks with a real estate broker about finding a new site for the district’s transportation center, which includes a maintenance garage, dispatch offices, propane fuel station and parking for roughly 100 district-owned buses, away from the high school to allow for construction staging and modular classrooms during the renovations.

Moving buses offsite should cut down on site traffic considerably, Bauer told the board, as bus drivers would no longer drive and park their personal vehicles on the high school site and drive buses back and forth on runs, but would instead only drop off and pick up the high school students once the transportation center is moved.

"That is not only all 70 bus drivers, and the associated buses, and vans, and smaller vehicles, and the maintenance garage as well. We are still looking to (move) that, despite the fact that the referendum did not pass,” Bauer said.

Civil engineer Barry Stingel told Towamencin’s board that the latest plans, post referendum, would also change the zoning for the North Montco Technical Career Center site just west of the high school, and changing from residential to institutional would help the planned renovations meet township codes.

"Currently the school, in addition to being out of compliance in the use for the zoning district, is also out of compliance with regard to impervious surface. It is over the maximum allowed impervious surface, in its existing condition,” Stingel said.

The township’s planning commission approved the zoning change in early February, and the latest post-referendum plans show only a minor addition to the current school, plus the modular classrooms needed during renovations, and a mix of expanded parking and new athletic fields between the high school and Crawford Stadium where the transportation center exists now.

"What the proposed institutional district will do for the school, is give it a higher allowed maximum impervious surface. It gives the school district an opportunity to plan up to that maximum, and gives them an opportunity to know what they can do without a trip to the zoning hearing board,” he said.

Attorney Alexander Glassman added that the school use is only allowed by-right in the institutional zoning, and the neighboring Calvary Baptist school between NPHS and Valley Forge Road already has that zoning. The attorney then asked Stingel if the current and proposed renovated school would be compliant with impervious requirements under the institutional zoning, and the engineer said it would.

"It would also allow the school to create certain additions to the school, to increase the impervious surface, but it would still be under the maximum permitted impervious surface in the institutional district. It gives them more flexibility,” Stingel said.

Worth noting, the engineer added: plans presented last fall before the referendum included a new driveway running from the transportation center area, between Crawford and the high school, to a new driveway entrance and exit on Sumneytown Pike across from Bridle Path Drive; that’s no longer part of the latest plans.

"There’s no new access proposed onto Sumneytown Pike, as we had proposed previously,” Stingel said.

After the district team made their case, supervisor Kofi Osei asked if the move of the transportation center office would result in a net increase or decrease of impervious coverage, and Stingel said the district team is "still working through” specifics.

"The impervious surface will increase, although not as much as we had previously thought it would,” he said.

Resident Bruce Bailey added his own feelings on the paving: "You shouldn’t allow any additional impervious surface on this lot. The total surface that’s paved now, should not be increased on that lot, based on the global situation, the changing climate, and other factors.”

"Increasing paved surfaces is a horrible thing to do. When you have students there, these students are supposed to take aggressive action in the next decades, to protect themselves and our planet,” he said.

After the close of a formal public hearing on the zoning change, Osei added another comment: based on talks with the township’s planning commission, the high school would still be out of compliance with parking requirements in the township’s codebook.

"I think we should be encouraging the school to rip up some of the parking spaces,” he said.

The board voted unanimously to approve the zoning change.

Towamencin’s board of supervisors next meet at 7 p.m. on March 20 at the township administrating building, 1090 Troxel Road. For more information visit www.Towamencin.org.

This article appears courtesy of a content share agreement between North Penn Now and The Reporter. To read more stories like this, visit www.thereporteronline.com.