EVT Preserved Land Facts

There seems to be issue regarding a comment I made in my Wednesday, August 3 EVSOT blog posting about the amount of land in EVT currently protected from development, such protection due to a variety of reasons. Let’s examine the facts, and my apologies to the reader who might easily find this tedious.

East Vincent Township, according to the United States Census Bureau, is comprised of 13.7 square miles of land and water. 0.2 square miles is water leaving 13.5 square miles of land in any form. Converting to acreage, this equals 8,640 acres.

There are 38 parcels of land that are preserved via agricultural easements or agricultural preservation totaling 1,395 acres. Within this are 158 acres belonging to John and Penny Hunt (referred to as the Eden Valley property).

Another 247 acres of land are preserved through recreational open space, which includes the Spring Hollow Golf Course, correctly two parcels of 73.5 acres and 40.2 acres equaling 113.7 acres, the East Vincent parkland at Pennhurst, which is currently 79 acres and the 5-plus acres that is attached to the Parker Ford property.

In existing developments throughout the Township, 196 acres of land is controlled and preserved by Home Owner Associations (HOAs), removing that land from use. A currently uncalculated but significant amount of this space is located in the north side of town.

The Reiff Farm and the Todd farm have development restrictions that equal slightly less than 130 acres.

And finally, EVT has purchased approximately 346 acres of development rights.

Adding these numbers yields 2,314 acres of land forever excluded from development or, if you wish, the prohibitions of any new significant impervious cover. Mathematically, that’s 26.8% of East Vincent’s net land mass.

Of that percentage, the protected land in the north side comes to about 552 acres. In calculating that number, I have been generous and factored in all of the 196 acres of HOA land. Thus, the percentage of protected land in the north is 23.8% of all the preserved property or 6.3% of the total Township land mass.

Let me point out that the 20 acres some attribute to the Spring-Ford school system and youth league are not officially protected. That land is merely an athletic area with no deed restriction.

Be aware that all of the above-cited facts are within the public domain and may be obtained by anyone. Feel free to confirm, as you may need or desire.

Of passing interest is the inclusion of 113 acres that makes up the Spring Hollow Golf Course. A question that immediately comes to mind is what would happen to that land if the golf course went out of business? According to the National Golf Foundation, 2010 was the fifth consecutive year there were more course closings than openings. Sixty percent of those closures were public-fee facilities. Experts see this trend as continuing for years to come.

Now I certainly wish continued financial health to Spring Hollow and hope its future is sound and provides many rounds of golf for decades. But, what if?

What if disaster occurred? Is that land fronting 724 to be removed from any development? Would half-acre lot homes or commercial businesses be prevented from being developed there if the worst happened? Questions to ask.

It’s my hope that this data will satisfy those who perceive my earlier posting as being politically motivated. As Detective Joe Friday said many times, “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

I have shared in many private communications, and now openly state, I don’t drink Kool-Aid, I don’t have little birdies whispering in my ear, I don’t write about rumor and I eschew innuendo. Anything you read in this and future postings will, as anything I have written in the past, will be fact-based, regardless of source. I will try to triple check before putting fingers to keyboard, and will now and then err. When I do, you’ll read my apology and correction.

As to a possible error I made, I may not have been as specific as I should have been relative to the TDR-receiving zone. From East Vincent’s point of view, the boundary submitted to the Phoenixville Regional Planning group was the PECO high-tension lines that cross West Bridge Street. Through error or misadventure, the line was drawn on the PRP map as being Stony Run Road. Had EVT continued to belong to that group, EVT was bound to the erroneous line and it would have been very costly to entertain arbitration that may or may not have corrected the error. This was one of the principal reasons for the Board of Supervisors’ decision to leave that planning consortium.

Lastly, I agree with the notion that the concept of transferable development rights needs to be explained here in a straightforward and unbiased manner. Once my research is complete, I will do that.