CUMRU TWP., Pa. \u2013 The Cumru Township Planning Commission had its first look at a new housing development being proposed for two parcels totaling 170-acres between Morgantown Road (Route 10) and Valley Stream Road.<\/p>\n
The planners reviewed a sketch plan, which is submitted for initial review and comments from a municipal planning commission before a preliminary plan is prepared and submitted. No actions are taken on sketch plans.<\/p>\n
Beth M. Kohl, an attorney from Barley Snyder, representing the developer and owner Route 10 Realty, LLC., briefly commented that the tract is known as \u2018the warehouse development along Route 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won\u2019t get into the weeds of that tonight, other to say that the litigation matter remains pending,\u201d Kohl said. \u201cWe\u2019re not here to comment on that. We are here with this tonight as a sketch plan pursuant to the new traditional neighborhood development (TND) that the commissioners have put in place to allow for this type of mixed-use development on this property. The MPC (municipal planning code) allows us to have multiple plans submitted to the township at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not in any kind of formal submission, but this is here because our client is looking at other options for the property as a possibility,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The parcel was rezoned in 2018 to allow warehouses and other developments, but that action was challenged in 2022 by Penske, headquartered nearby on Route 10, and residents of the Flying Hills development, which borders the plot.<\/p>\n
Since that time, the case has proceeded through the county and state courts on appeals from Route 10 Realty, LLC.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the state Commonwealth Court reversed a previous decision by Berks County Courts and sent the case back to Berks for the merits of the challenge for the rezoning.<\/p>\n
The Township Commissioners earlier this year voted to adopt a TND, which is a modern type of medium density mixed-used development.<\/p>\n
The overlay is applicable to two zones which are primarily along Route 10.<\/p>\n
Michael Hartmen, a Schlouch Inc. engineer representing the project, said the proposal includes 106 single-family homes, 174 townhouses, 256 apartments as well as 9,270 square feet of commercial\/retail space and 30 acres of the open space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very early into this, so we haven’t done any studies as far as traffic or anything like that,\u201d Hartman said. \u201cI have the concept of how I want to handle stormwater and it’ll be a mix of surface basins and some underground facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the members of the planning commission called for the developer to delete the previous plans for warehousing because they are still hung up in the courts.<\/p>\n
Two residents of Freemansville Road gave different perspectives on the proposal during public comment.<\/p>\n
Ronald Schmehl raised a concern about the huge water demand resulting from a huge housing project and suggested there needs to be an impact study of the Governor Mifflin School District.<\/p>\n
Michael Nowotarski said as long as the plan isn\u2019t for a data center or warehouse, he would welcome the housing development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CUMRU TWP., Pa. \u2013 The Cumru Township Planning Commission had its first look at a new housing development…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[119372,119370,114397,119374,119375,128,130,129,119373,119369,119371],"class_list":["post-286755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-beth-m-kohl","tag-cumru-township-planning-commission","tag-interstate-176","tag-michael-hartmen","tag-michael-nowotarski","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-ronald-schmehl","tag-route-10-realty-llc","tag-schlouch-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}