Abington Township Board of Commissioners Montgomery County, Pennsylvania - - - Ordinance #2095 - -
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ABINGTON TOWNSHIP BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - - - ORDINANCE #2095 - - - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 Commencing at 7:00 p.m. - - - Municipal Building 1176 Old York Road Abington, PA 19001 - - - BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: WAYNE C. LUKER, President STEVEN N. KLINE, Vice President MICHAEL MARKMAN LAWRENCE F. JONES, JR. STEPHEN J. KALINOSKI BENJAMIN V. SANCHEZ PEGGY MYERS DENNIS Z. ZAPPONE THOMAS HECKER JOHN L. SPIEGELMAN THOMAS J. FARREN, SR. CAROL E. GILLESPIE LORI A. SCHREIBER THOMAS BOWMAN - - - COUNSEL APPEARED AS FOLLOWS: MICHAEL CLARKE, ESQUIRE LAUREN A. GALLAGHER, ESQUIRE for Abington Township MARC D. JONAS, ESQUIRE for the Applicant - - - ALSO PRESENT: MARK A. PENECALE, Zoning Officer MICHAEL LEFEVRE, Manager 1 ORDINANCE #2095 3 2 MR. LUKER: Good evening. Welcome 3 to the Board of Commissioners public hearing on 4 Ordinance Number 2095. 5 May I please have a roll call. 6 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Zappone. 7 MR. ZAPPONE: Here. 8 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner 9 Spiegelman. 10 MR. SPIEGELMAN: Here. 11 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Sanchez. 12 MR. SANCHEZ: Here. 13 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Myers. 14 MS. MYERS: Here. 15 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Markman. 16 MR. MARKMAN: Here. 17 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner 18 Kalinoski. 19 MR. KALINOSKI: Here. 20 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner 21 Schreiber. 22 MS. SCHREIBER: Here. 23 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Bowman. 24 MR. BOWMAN: Here. 25 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner 1 ORDINANCE #2095 4 2 DiPlacido is not here. 3 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Farren. 4 MR. FARREN: Here. 5 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner 6 Gillespie. 7 MS. GILLESPIE: Here. 8 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Hecker. 9 MR. HECKER: Here. 10 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Jones. 11 MR. JONES: Here. 12 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Kline. 13 MR. KLINE: Here. 14 MR. LEFEVRE: Commissioner Luker. 15 MR. LUKER: Here. 16 Commissioner DiPlacido is excused 17 for the evening. 18 At this time, Commissioner 19 Schreiber. 20 MS. SCHREIBER: Thank you. As I'm 21 employed by Penn State, I will be abstaining from 22 tonight's vote. 23 MR. LUKER: Thank you. 24 May everyone please stand for our 25 Pledge of Allegiance. 1 ORDINANCE #2095 5 2 (Pledge of Allegiance) 3 MR. LUKER: At this time, I will 4 read a brief summary for AG1 or agenda one. "The Board 5 of Commissioners of the Township of Abington will hear 6 a presentation on proposed Ordinance Number 2095 filed 7 on behalf of Penn State University by the law firm of 8 Eastburn & Gray, P.C. The proposed ordinance will 9 create a new use category (Use H-1.A) Student Apartment 10 Housing. The text amendment proposes to allow Use 11 H-1.A as a permitted use within the PB or Planned 12 Business District of the Township of Abington. The 13 proposed zoning text amendment also amends the on-site 14 parking requirements of Section 901.8 of the Zoning 15 Ordinance." 16 At this time, I would like to call 17 on Marc D. Jonas, Esquire, attorney for the applicant. 18 MR. JONAS: Good evening. Marc 19 Jonas. I represent Penn State University and Turner 20 Construction. It's nice to be back in front of the 21 Board of Commissioners. 22 Tonight we're proposing a text 23 amendment. Some of you have attended some of the 24 previous meetings we've had over the summer. What we 25 are proposing is an ordinance text amendment. As I've 1 ORDINANCE #2095 6 2 noted in the past, this is not a map amendment. We are 3 proposing an amendment to the existing PB Zoning 4 District. 5 I want to get our presentation up. 6 Clearly, I'm not the tech guy. 7 You're going to be hearing from 8 several members of the project team there listed on the 9 second slide. This is PB Zoning District. This is an 10 important context, I think, as we talk about the 11 proposed ordinance amendment. We are only talking 12 about student apartments on properties that are zoned 13 PB. I will be discussing later shortly the addition of 14 eligibility requirements in order to do this, but we 15 start with the property that is zoned PB. We're not 16 starting with the property that is zoned Residential, 17 Single Family, Twins. We're talking about PB which, as 18 you can see from the screens to my left and right, 19 permits a substantial array of commercial and 20 residential uses. 21 Now, I know the Township is 22 undergoing a code rewrite. So one of the questions I'm 23 sure you and the planners are thinking about is whether 24 PB will continue in the future. But for the moment, 25 under the current zoning ordinance and zoning map, we 1 ORDINANCE #2095 7 2 are proposing student housing, subject to eligibility 3 requirements, only on properties that are zoned PB. 4 As many of you know, this is the 5 former Saturn dealership property. It's on the 611 6 spur road. You will see in the presentation, the 7 proposed student apartments will have no connectivity 8 to any of the abutting properties. We are preserving 9 the perimeter of vegetation. We're going to be 10 supplementing that. So the only access will be off of 11 the spur road of 611. It is between Temple-Beth Am to 12 the south and the PB H-1 office building to the north. 13 The result of this compared to the 14 Saturn dealership will be less impervious, and we will 15 be doubling the amount of green area from 16 nineteen percent to thirty-eight percent. You will be 17 hearing about other attributes of the presentation, 18 including the sustainability features which are beyond 19 my pay grade. And we will be preserving and 20 supplementing the perimeter of vegetation. 21 I will talk about the eligibility 22 requirements for student apartments, assuming the 23 property is zoned PB. The site must have a two-acre 24 minimum. It must be owned and operated by a college 25 university, a college university located within 1 ORDINANCE #2095 8 2 Abington Township. And, at the present time, that 3 would involve only or entitle only Penn State 4 University or Manor College to take advantage of this 5 proposed ordinance. 6 The site must be two miles from a 7 regional rail station. It must be two miles from the 8 main campus of the township, university or college. 9 The use, as you will here, is transoriented. 10 Now, I think it's important to note 11 that this is not the only opportunity to have 12 apartments or apartments that you would rent to 13 students in the PB District. As I noted earlier, the 14 PB, as you can see here, permits a number of uses, and 15 those include an H-1 apartment multiplex building or 16 C-15 mixed use building. So the property with PB could 17 today build apartments, depending on the site 18 requirements or requirements of H-1 and C-15, and then 19 rent to students if he or she or the entity wished to 20 do that. 21 Our presentation today will 22 identify tax parcels that are theoretically eligible 23 for the student apartments subject to the two-acre 24 minimum requirement and the two-mile radius from the 25 regional railroad station or the college university 1 ORDINANCE #2095 9 2 campus. 3 You will see from the presentation 4 and you will know, since these are in your wards, that 5 these properties are already developed. In a number of 6 the parcels you will hear number thirty-one tax 7 parcels. But that number is a little bit not exactly 8 descriptive because many of those tax parcels are 9 assemblances of existing properties. For example, a 10 number of those tax parcels are within the Willow Grove 11 Mall. So we're not looking at individual parcels. 12 Those are just a number. So when you look at the 13 number that are eligible, these are real world 14 improbability that any of those properties would ever 15 be eligible for student housing, assuming they were 16 owned and operated by Penn State. 17 We've done a lot of work on this, 18 as those of you have seen in earlier presentations from 19 the beginning of the design team from the folks at 20 State College. This is one application that has 21 engendered already a good amount of support. It has 22 the support of the Montgomery County Planning 23 Commission. It has the support of the Abington 24 Township Economic Development Committee, a unanimous 25 endorsement noting the economic viability of the 1 ORDINANCE #2095 10 2 project. Last night we received the endorsement papal 3 recommendations of the Abington Township Planning 4 Commission. The addendum to that was some request that 5 when the Township undergoes its code rewrite that they 6 look at perhaps some of the parameters as you examine 7 the code rewrite and the context of that code rewrite. 8 Keep in mind, if the PB isn't 9 continued, then this ordinance, as it's presently 10 enacted, will end up being privately developed by this 11 site if you were to approve the ordinance and the land 12 development was approved later on. 13 I believe you will hear support 14 from the representatives of the synagogue to the south. 15 We have a copy of a letter from our neighbors to the 16 east, Presby's Inspired Life, supporting the project.