Wedding and event site concerns continue in Tinicum

While a proposal for a new wedding and event venue on Creamery Road in Tinicum continues to move forward, concerns remain among its neighbors.
At the Aug. 17 public board of supervisors meeting, officials moved to table approval of a “draft settlement agreement” that limited months of operation; music and event ending hours; and number of attendees, but had not yet addressed neighbors’ concerns about attendees exiting the property late in the evening to unfamiliar country back roads, while presumably not infrequently under less than optimum condition for driving.
The matter was left for consideration of the township engineer’s comments about effectively directing exiting attendees, and also with the understanding he had not yet seen a final development plan that might generate further comments.
The proposal was originally presented to supervisors at their public meetings last September, when officials noted that the area was zoned commercial, and the township might have to approve it at some level, due to the 1971 state law mandating that municipalities offer a variety of zoning categories besides just residential.
Since then, the proposal was to have been the subject of a public zoning hearing board meeting, and the engineer and zoning officer were noted to have come to an agreement that the proposal constituted a permitted use of the property.

The original proposal included a request for14 variances from the township zoning ordinance. Neighborhood residents Michael McIntyre and Ted Fahey listed a variety of concerns last September, related to what they saw as a challenge to the “essential character” of their neighborhood, where residents are often walking, jogging, and cycling. and presented a petition with 30 signatures, objecting to what they characterized as “akin to a nightclub in our midst,” with attendees numbering as many as 180. The draft settlement agreement proposed a limit of 175.
Also at the Aug. 17 meeting, a neighboring resident, who said she was representing family in the township, asked if the supervisors were working on restoring their police force to four officers, which was the staff level until former Chief Matt Phelan left for another job. The staff level was five before Phelan’s predecessor left for another job.
Supervisor Rich Rosamilia responded that one of those five had also had a teaching job, and that supervisors had asked Chief Nicole Madden to report on staffing needs. He added they were now awaiting Madden’s response to further questions they asked after she presented her report.
At the outset of the Aug. 17 meeting, Supervisor Chair John Blanchard announced that the township had nominated Public Works Director Doug Skelton for Small Town America Civic Volunteer Awards, “over and above his position here.”
Blanchard noted that Skelton “has served on both volunteer fire companies in our township; was Tinicum Township’s original volunteer emergency management coordinator, including authoring our first plan, prior to it being required; and he is also largely responsible for facilitating the partnership with the township substation to minimize response times during the day in Tinicum, to mitigate the shortage of available volunteers.”

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