Lower Nazareth Supervisors Approve Waivers for Trio Farms Plan

Ashley Development Corporation, the developer of the Trio Farms residential housing development, requested the approval for several waivers at Wednesday night's Board of Supervisors meeting in .

Trio Farms lies along the township’s border with off Newburg Road near Georgetown Road. The development plan allows for 320 houses -- 180 townhouses and 140 single-family houses.

The waivers included requests to:

• Increase the depth of the housing lots
• Increase the slope of a detention pond
• Allow trees to be planted near utility lines
• Reduce the amount of money that must be set aside for the project

All three waivers were approved, but not without discussion.

Albert Kortze, the township's engineer, did not see a significant problem with allowing the developer to increase the depth of the housing lots.

For :

• The developer asked to decrease the slope to 4 feet (horizontally) and 12 inches (vertically).
• Kortze explained that the township's ordinance requires that the sides be 5 feet (horizontally) to every 12 inches (vertically).

Robert Kucsan, the vice chairman for the supervisors, asked how steep the 4:1 ratio would make the slope.

Kortze said the 5:1 ratio is a 20 percent slope, while the 4:1 ratio is a 25 percent slope.

When Kucsan asked if there would be fencing around the pond, Wayne Doyle, a manager for Cowan Associates, Inc. in Quakertown, said that even with the amount of rain accumulated in a 100-year storm, the pond will drain in four hours. At its greatest depths in that storm, Doyle said, the pond will hold 5 feet of water.

“I have a pool and I have to have a fence,” Kucsan said. “You have something that could be five feet deep and you don’t?”

The pond will only have inches of water, Doyle added -- most of the time.

Doyle went on to say that there are two other detention ponds on the property that hold about nine feet of water on a permanent basis. These ponds have a 4:1 ratio, which was approved by the supervisors, he said.

Supervisor Martin Boucher asked Doyle, “Is there anything we can do about the permanent water [and] the mosquitoes?”

Doyle said that as more houses are built, additional water will drain into the ponds and churn the water. The developer intends to irrigate the water out of the pond to water green areas nearby. Fish may also be put into the ponds in hopes the mosquito larvae will be eaten, Doyle said.

Kucsan again asked if there will be fencing around the detention ponds.

"No," Doyle said.

The third waiver involved the planting of trees near utility lines. Kortze said the township's ordinance requires the trees to be planted 10 feet from the easement of utility lines. Ashley Development Corporation's plans have the trees 3 feet from the utility easement.

Doyle said he has spoken to the utility company, which plans to install the lines as close to the road -- within the easement -- as possible. This means the utility lines and trees will be separated by 10 feet, he said.

Regarding the credit reduction, Ashley Development Corporation had more than $837,000 in security at the beginning of construction. The developer of $52,300, which leaves more than $785,000 in security, Kortze said. The funds are slowly released back to the developer as work is completed.