A developer’s plan to put 14 apartments in the Edgewood Village section of Lower Makefield Township is closer to reality after the township supervisors decided at their July 6 meeting not to oppose zoning variances required for the project.
Board members voted 4-1 to participate in the variance process, meaning that a township attorney will attend and ask questions at a zoning hearing board meeting where the variances will be considered, but will not speak in opposition to them.
Supervisor Daniel Grenier cast the only no vote on the motion to participate. His previous motion to oppose the variances was voted down.
Developer C.T. Troilo’s latest amended plan proposes the apartments for a 1-acre slice of Edgewood Village at Edgewood and Langhorne-Yardley roads called the Point. He plans to renovate a rundown historic structure called the Ishmael House and put one apartment there.
Another old rundown historic building, the Quill House, would be torn down and a replica built that would have three apartments, according to Troilo’s plan. Three new buildings would house a total of 10 apartments.
His previous plan had 17 apartments, and Troilo has also dropped a provision to lease 12 overflow parking spaces at the adjacent township-owned Veterans Square Park and now plans to locate all parking on site at the Point. All construction will be in keeping with Edgewood Village’s historic character, he added.
Grenier said he felt the latest plan was a big improvement but that there were still too many apartments.
“I had said the previous plan was like trying to fit 10 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound sack,” he noted. “This one is like trying to fit 7.5 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound sack.”
But fellow board member Suzanne Blundi said she felt the developer had exerted “a yeoman’s effort” in trying to make the plan acceptable to everyone.
Troilo is asking for variances to permit more apartments than would normally be allowed, allow a shorter setback of the new buildings from Langhorne-Yardley Road and other relief from normal township requirements in that zoning district. If the variances are granted, Troilo would also need land development approval from the supervisors in order for the project to be built.
In other actions from the July 6 meeting, the supervisors voted to advertise a 5G ordinance that if approved would give the township at least some control over proposed 5G technology projects, according to Solicitor David Truelove.
Board members also approved an ordinance that will allow Portnoff Law Associates to start collecting on delinquent sewer accounts from the period when the township still owned the system, before the early March closing on the sale of the system to Aqua Pennsylvania.
Also approved was a replacement entrance sign for the township-owned Patterson Farm that in addition to information about the farm being township open space and its acreage, will also have the name of the farm’s current tenant, Artists of Yardley (AOY).
The estimated $1,800 to $1,900 cost of the new sign will be almost entirely covered by AOY with a grant it received from VisitBucksCounty. One resident called into the meeting questioning whether it was wise to put AOY on the main part of the sign since there could someday be other tenants on the farm.
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