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DENIED! 130 Cricket Avenue Safe...for now

Submitted by SaveArdmoreCoalition on Fri, 2007-11-16 10:52.
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Well, we've been holding our breath, but apparently it is going to be a Happy Thanksgiving on Cricket Avenue. We hear that Lower Merion Township's Zoning Hearing Board just said "no" to the developer's requested exception for 130 Cricket and 24 1/2 School Lane! No exception, no project? Only time will tell. We'll see if Ally McBeal and ther former commissioner involved advise their clients to appeal the decision or not. We would hope the former commissioner we've seen at all of the 130 Cricket Meetings will advise his clients to let it all alone.

130 Cricket

Of course, there is the wondering about what they might do up the street at the Staurd Funeral Home Site - before we get to what the neighbors said about last night, here is what one neighbor said after a recent Civic Association meeting in Ardmore where Cricket Avenue was discussed:

..."I attended the...Civic Meeting last night and found that our friends at 130 have already put in plans for 106 Cricket, their building at Stuard Funeral. The plans? Not good, of course. They want to put 70 units in, 35 of which will be affordable housing. They are not going for an exception and the 1000 feet isn't applicable because it is not subsidized. More to follow later."

The question we all have to ask ourselves is this: do we want a developer who just keeps putting in plans on the same street until something gets approved? And remember SAC told you first that Stuard was going to be in play?

Here is an excerpt from the e-mail sent out by the neighbors last night:

Dear Neighbors and Friends,

WE WON!!!!

The zoning board exception for 130 Cricket was DENIED. Are they moving their focus to 106 Cricket? Probably, but that is for another day.

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Submitted by dmuth on Fri, 2007-11-16 10:59.
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What is their definition of "affordable housing"? $340,000?
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Submitted by SaveArdmoreCoalition on Mon, 2007-11-19 12:37.
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Laughing out loud
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Submitted by SaveArdmoreCoalition on Thu, 2007-11-29 13:35.
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we forgot to post cheryl allison's article from last week:

Ardmore condo project nixed
By Cheryl Allison

ARDMORE – A condominium project that raised new questions about the definition of affordable housing in Lower Merion – and how much of an incentive developers should be given to build it – has been rejected.The township's zoning hearing board voted 2-0 Nov. 15 to deny SW Land Associates' request for a special exception to build a subsidized apartment building at 130 Cricket Ave. in Ardmore.

Board Chairman Kenneth Aaron and member Robert Fox issued a lengthy decision in the case, which consumed no less than four nights of hearings over four months this summer. Board member Kenneth Brier did not participate in the hearings and did not vote.

Development partners Craig Snider and Mark Weiss of Wayne had submitted plans to replace the large Victorian house on the roughly one-acre parcel, including a smaller property on School Lane, with a 37-unit condominium building. In the community, the proposal raised larger issues of neighborhood preservation and policies to encourage diversity of housing.

The decision, however, came down to a number of technical matters and legal distinctions.

On some of these, the board ruled that the developers did not prove that the project would comply with the very specific zoning provisions under which they had applied.

On points for which Aaron and Fox had pressed for more definitive information, they said it was never supplied.....Board Vice President Maryam Phillips, whose ward includes the Cricket Avenue property, has worked over the last years to include affordable housing incentives in new zoning districts, such as Ardmore's MUST (Mixed-Use Special Transit) District.

The prices possible at Cricket Avenue were so high, however, that she sought successfully to have the state programs removed from the subsidized apartment housing provision.

And Phillips was concerned enough about them that she recently asked to have incentives for "workforce" housing dropped from similar zoning for the Rock Hill Road corridor, pending a more comprehensive review of the issue.

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