Newtown Borough Planners Resign Over Steeple View Decision

NEWTOWN BOROUGH, PA — Four Newtown Borough Planning Commission members have resigned in protest over a vote by the borough council to grant conditional use approval for shared parking at the Steeple View redevelopment project.

The commission’s chairman Mark Craig and members Ted Schmidt, Rich Spadaccino, and Charles Machion resigned their positions a few days after the council’s vote on Sept. 20.

The commission had voted 6 to 0 to recommend that the council turn down the conditional use request after raising concerns over parking issues with the redevelopment plan.

The planners did approve, in a 5-2 vote, to keep 50 proposed parking spaces at the Steeple View site "in reserve," meaning that they would not be built until a future borough council decides they are needed.

The planners also voted unanimously to recommend approval of the request for shared parking
at the Steeple View site, but allowing a reduction of the required number of parking spaces for non-residential uses of only 15 percent instead of the 25 percent reduction the applicant had requested.

The project proposes to redevelop roughly nine acres of land stretching from Centre Avenue to the former Stockburger property on South State Street. The plan envisions the construction of four residential buildings, three mixed-use buildings, a creek walk, and a public piazza.

At council’s agenda meeting on Wednesday night, resident Jean Haeckel raised concern over the resignations and the loss of institutional knowledge on the commission just as developer Allan Smith prepares to go before the commission with revised and updated plans for the project.

Haeckel called the resignations “tragic” given the upcoming review.

“We are going to be limping along with only two members with any knowledge and having lost four people who “understood and were warning us of major concerns that we face with Steeple View,” said Haeckel.

“There is nothing we can do,” responded Councilwoman Maryellen Raymond of the resignations. “If people choose to resign because they are unhappy for whatever reason we cannot control what they do.”

Regarding continuity, Raymond said the planners would be advised by the borough’s professionals who would bring the institutional knowledge to the meetings.

Raymond reported that the council has received resumes from three residents who have volunteered to fill the openings. She said they are still accepting applicants for the fourth opening on the planning board.

Mayor John Burke said he was frustrated by the fact that he wasn’t allowed to legally share information ahead of time with the planning commission, which he felt could have changed their vote on the project.

“Unfortunately they felt they were not in the loop and they should have been,” said Burke.

Craig, who served as the planning commission chair, said he “can’t put his name to a plan" that he fears will create parking headaches once it is built.

“The town had been very enthusiastic about this development for 15 years. We had hoped that the proposed parking garage would solve our parking problem downtown and presented the possibility of one day moving our police station to the garage,” he said.

“When the new plan came in it took away the parking,” said Craig. That left the plan with just five nonresidential parking places to serve the site.

To make up for the parking shortfall, developer Allan Smith filed for a conditional use approval for shared parking at the Stocking Works on South State Street, which the council granted with 15 conditions during a special meeting on Sept. 20.

“This lack of nonresidential parking is such a bad thing because of the impact it’s going to have on the rest of the borough,” said Craig. “Nowhere was it ever envisioned having all of its nonresidential parking off site,” he said.

“A plan that comes to us with five non-residential parking spots and another 50 in reserve is crazy,” said Craig.

Craig said the council made allowances in its zoning ordinance for off-site parking for businesses moving into existing spaces that might not have enough on-site parking to meet their needs, primarily for people who worked there.

“Nowhere did we envision a development of this size hanging its viability hat on having all of its nonresidential parking off site,” said Craig. “Council had asked the planning commission to revise it because it wasn’t good for the community. Yet the council, in acceptance of the condition, acknowledged that it was good. It really irked me that they took something that wasn’t good and made it worse.”