Developer Pulte Homes seeks 86 townhouses on Old Forty Foot Road

More townhouses are proposed as the latest housing plan to come to the township for approval. Developer Pulte Homes gave an update last week on plans that now call for 86 townhouses on a roughly 24-acre parcel, the latest in a series of plans for the site on Old Forty Foot Road.

“We were in front of the board many months ago, presenting a proposed rezoning of the old bird farm on Old Forty Foot,” said attorney Gregg Adelman on behalf of Pulte.

In August 2024 Adelman and a team from Pulte presented plans to the board for a complex of 96 townhouses, with no more than five attached together, dubbed “carriage homes” by the developer, on roughly 24 acres at the eastern end of the township, south of Mainland Road and across from a development at Camelot Way, near Towamencin’s border with Upper Salford Township.

At that time the developer asked the board to consider changing the zoning there from R-200 residential to MR-multifamily residential, and at the time the developer touted the open space that would be preserved with the plan, while supervisors voiced concerns about traffic and flooding, while saying they preferred that plan to an earlier proposal for that site that sought to build several high-rise apartments totaling roughly 400 units there instead.

    Towamencin’s board of supervisors, inset, see a conceptual site plan for a project proposing 96 townhouses on a roughly 24-acre parcel on Old Forty Foot Road during the Aug. 28, 2024 meeting. (Screenshot of meeting video)
  

During the July 9 supervisors meeting, Adelman showed the board the latest result of talks with the township’s planning commission, with a different site configuration and ten fewer units than the prior plan from the year before.

“When we initially presented before this board many months ago, we had a proposed development showing 96 townhomes: you can see the access is off of Old Forty Foot Road. The townhomes were mainly clustered, behind the stream corridors: the Skippack Creek is on one side and a tributary is on the other,” Adelman said.

“We sent out notices, a large number of them, we had a multiple hour neighborhood meeting, and then we also appeared before the planning commission. After we did all that, we further refined the plan, and we focused on two of the major issues: dealing with the floodplain that runs along the tributary at the front of the property, as well as traffic,” he said.

Changes based on those talks include relocating the driveways into the community to reduce the impact to the floodplains, adding detention basins to increase stormwater absorption and reduce runoff, and reducing the total developed area of the plan, Adelman and engineer Chris Puzinas told the board.

Traffic engineer Ben Guthrie added that since the last presentation, the new plan now shows road widening to add a turn lane at the driveway entrance at Camelot Way, PennDOT has indicated they plan road improvements on Old Forty Foot near Sumneytown Pike, and the developer did submit a traffic study to the state agency with their projections.

“We’re estimating this development will be an approximately a one percent increase in traffic at each of those intersections, so a minimal impact to the existing conditions,” he said.

Adelman added that similar projects are also underway across the region, and the unit architecture in Towamencin would be similar.

“This is Pulte’s model of townhomes, being constructed in Horsham Township, Warwick Township, and Upper Dublin. The sizes of the models range anywhere from about 2,400 to 2,600 square feet. They’ve been very marketable and selling quite well, so there is high demand for this type of product in the area,” Adelman said.

At what price?

Supervisor Kofi Osei said he’s heard similar concerns from residents surrounding several similar development proposals currently up for discussion in the township..

“This one makes me struggle the most. For other developments, some things get better, but this one feels strictly worse — at the same time, this is the edge of our (industrial) area, so it kind of makes sense from your perspective to develop,” he said.

Osei then suggested township staff could look into obtaining a price that would “allow the township to buy that out,” then make any further decision on approvals with that figure known to the board.

“It feels like I really would want to preserve this area more than most,” he said. “Other than that, the development you started with [was] 400 apartments, so we are coming down quite a bit. If we are not going to buy the property, I think the townhomes does make a lot of sense,” he said.

Supervisor Chuck Wilson said he agreed with moving ahead to seek a price, and board Chair Joyce Snyder said she thought doing so was “absolutely the way to go.”

Residents voice flooding, traffic concerns

Several residents then sounded off, including Victoria McNally, who said she’s lived nearby for nearly 40 years and liked parts of the plan, but not the added density and cover.

“People who zoned that, before you, have made that the zoning for a reason, ’cause they recognize the unique structure of that area. Your property funnels down into the Skippack Creek, and I get flooded there…you paint a nice picture, but it’s not logical for that area,” she said.

Don Litman said he lives on a property overlooking that site, and has similar concerns about the flooding and runoff there: “I remember Hurricane Sandy, and I remember seeing that property flooded during Hurricane Sandy. I remember the water flooding over Route 63 — that property would be very dangerous to build on. You’re proposing something that would be hazardous to those who are living there.”

Casey Hannings also questioned the engineer’s assessment: “There’s no such thing as a creek that doesn’t flood. I just think that’s ridiculous.”

Joe Silverman asked if the proposed density was needed. “I guess I don’t understand why we just don’t build under the existing zoning. Are the developers driving all this? If it’s 18 houses (allowed) in R-200, just do that. To what advantage is it for the township to go to this high density?” Silverman said.

Former supervisor Rich Marino said the road improvements in that area he’s heard of, are related to the regional Route 309 Connector highway project currently under construction, not any local project, and township officials have asked for years that PennDOT address traffic backups and safety concerns near Old Forty Foot and Sumneytown Pike.

“A couple of turn lanes going into their development, doesn’t solve that,” Marino said: “If it’s going to be developed, let it be developed with the current zoning.We have a much better chance of absorbing that traffic.”

Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7 p.m. on July 23 at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Road. For more information visit www.Towamencin.org.

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