Read on kids...

Posted on Tue, May 6, 2008
LM plans take the next step in process
By Cheryl Allison

With some questions unanswered, Lower Merion's planning commission voted Monday to send forward to the board of commissioners three land development applications that will bring significant changes to neighborhoods in Merion, Penn Valley and Ardmore.The board's Building and Planning Committee was to review and possibly take action on two of the cases Wednesday night. They include tentative sketch plans for a first phase of St. Joseph's University's expansion onto the Episcopal Academy campus in Merion and for an apartment building that will take the place of the Stuard Funeral Directors Home on Cricket Avenue in Ardmore The third application - for approval of a preliminary land development plan for the Croyle Property in Penn Valley as a bus storage lot for Lower Merion School District - was tabled late Tuesday afternoon at the request of township planning staff, said district Director of Operations Pat Guinnane.

That proposed use, which has generated three court appeals by neighbors, is a long-running controversy. Guinnane said the township wanted to allow more time for the district to meet with neighbors to discuss a landscaping plan to screen the facility from homes. He said the plan would be brought back to the board next month.

When St. Joseph's University came to an agreement with Episcopal Academy to purchase the campus it will vacate this fall in a move to Newtown Square, it was viewed as perhaps the best possible outcome in the loss of a Lower Merion institution.

......Plans by SW Land Associates to redevelop the funeral home site at 106 Cricket Avenue were more problematic for planners. The second project put forward by partners Craig Snider and Mark Weiss for Cricket Avenue, this proposal, like the earlier one 130 Cricket, includes a mix of affordable and market rate apartments.

While the 130 Cricket application was denied zoning relief and is on appeal in court, the new project relies on different development incentives for affordable housing provided under Ardmore's MUST (Mixed-Use Special Transit District) ordinance.

Seventy one-and two-bedroom units, to be offered as rental apartments, are proposed in a five-story building. Thirty-four of those units, or 48 percent, are to be designated moderate-income. Under MUST, by providing those affordable units, the developers can use a reduction in required parking to obtain greater density. Market rate units 1.5 parking spaces per unit; affordable units carry a requirement of .5 spaces.

Neighboring property owners told planners the building is too tall and massive for the neighborhood at five stories. They said it's unreasonable to expect that many tenants of the apartments will not keep cars. Parking will overflow onto already crowded neighborhood streets.

While commission members shared those concerns, they said the plan meets MUST's guidelines, and furthers its goal of encouraging new residential development downtown to support the business district.

More problematic, for both planners and the developers, is agreement on the definition of "affordable" housing.

The ordinance sets the standard based on HUD regional figures. Where the development team differs with the township, Weiss said, is on just what is meant by "region." Is it Lower Merion Township, where incomes are higher? That's how he interprets the ordinance.

The township says it's Montgomery County overall, resulting in lower potential rents.

With those questions unresolved, planning commission Co-Chairman Teri Simon said she could not vote to recommend approval. "I don't think this [application] is in a spot right now to move forward, "she said.