MMM_101220_Arcadia.m4a
MMM_101220_Arcadia.m4a: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
MMM_101220_Arcadia.m4a: this m4a audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
John Mack:
Arcadia is obviously a big topic, I'm going to try to tell you what I know. You probably know as much as I do. The developer has brought Newtown to court, claiming that, in essence, we didn't file the proper notice of our unanimous vote on their application, the conditional use application, which was a "NO". At least I voted no because of the traffic situation...I forget all the different dates here, but ... At the hearing, a lot of residents were talking about the traffic problems. And as you know, in that piece of property, they cannot exit directly onto the bypass. So to get into Newtown, they would have to go up to Mill Town Road. There's only one access in and out and they would have to go up to Millpond Road and make a U-turn. So, ... There is a traffic issue there. And so we all voted no.
John Mack:
I don't know how long I was a supervisor [at the time], but... There's a lot of information being thrown at you as a supervisor. We hire professionals to take care of some of the details, like preparing the proper paperwork and submitting it to the developer on time. And in this case, our solicitor did not submit.. It on time in a timely fashion. [And]the developer is claiming that it wasn't properly signed. I don't know all the minutiae of how this is done, but our township [manager] certified that we voted no, and yet they claim that this should be deemed approved because of this technicality. And way back when we first discussed this with our solicitor...we were pretty upset that, first of all, [he didn't dot] all the I's and cross all the T's and get this done properly. But he was suggesting that this is just the technicality and "no means no." It was written up in the Patch [and Courier Times] (see http://sco.lt/5qmEfw) and all that, but they persisted ... There is going to be an executive meeting of the supervisors before the this Wednesday's meeting - at a previous meeting, our solicitor has said that we will need an executive session to discuss the Arcadia matter on the case, so I'm assuming that's what we're going to be doing this Wednesday. So this Wednesday seems to be a very important meeting. And I can't tell you exactly what's going to be on the agenda regarding Arcadia. It's not on the agenda right now. [But] I think it's a pretty important meeting for the people who are interested in Arcadia. So I like to hear opinions on that.
Frank M.:
Have you thought about talking to another lawyer and getting someone else's opinion as to whether or not your lawyer screwed up? Because obviously he's got some... Well, no, it's all OK. But, I mean, it really seems to me that you need ... Maybe a litigator type person to really weigh in.
John Mack:
That's what we hired [our solicitor] for. He did tell us that in the past we've done this same way he's done it. He claims that this has been the procedure in the past ... I don't know, like I said, you can't pay attention to all the minuteia, ... That's why you hire these people, but that's what he claimed anyway. And he didn't. I felt angry because he said, well, you know, it was a Saturday and [he] didn't think [could come in]... To sign this document ... Nobody called me - [I would have definitely come in].
Frank M.:
I think you need to talk to a different lawyer and get an opinion about what your chances are in litigation rather than rely on what this is what we did in the past.
John Mack:
Well, to tell you the truth, Frank, it's probably too late for that now. So, you know, know, you have to decide if you're going to settle or oppose it. I mean, well, that's what I want to hear your your opinions on. What do you think?
Alison K.:
I think that we're a united front here. I mean, I think we all don't want this. And you just need to tell me what we can do as citizens. If I have to chain myself to a tree, I'll do it. I mean, this is I'm not kidding. This is awful. This is awful. And I there's a small population here, but I can tell you the sentiment is rampant through the development. You do not want it. I mean, I understand I might have to put something there, but not the conglomeration they're talking about.
John Mack:
Yeah, I wish I had somebody here from Eagle Ridge. They hired their own attorney. I don't know how that attorney is advising Eagle Ridge because they're party to the case as well.
Sharon M.:
They decided to do that. I believe it's Dennis is his name who's involved with he's now the president of the ... Eagle Ridge complex. And I believe Dennis is the one who really is savvy about it. But we have not heard any news from him as to what is happening now. When you say that the it's going to be in litigation, is there a date when this is going to go into the courts? And who is it? Is this the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania now?
John Mack:
It's a common pleas court. It's already in litigation. And we made an appeal ... We argued our side of the case and it was up to the developer whether to continue to pursue it. And so that's what we're going to be discussing maybe. You know, I'm thinking on Wednesday what the situation is and whether there is a settlement or not.
Sharon M.:
What would a settlement meet partial building behind us or you know, I, I you know that the term settlement is is like a maybe it still leaves us hanging.
John Mack:
[As an example] We also were against Starbucks in the shopping center and we had the same reason: we felt there would be traffic issues and they took us to court and our lawyer advised us we will have to settle because we would never win the case. All right. That was his advice. So we settled. But what happened was we weren't able to get everything that we wanted ... So they got a slightly better deal. ... I think it's like four seventy six homes, some of them townhomes, some of them single family homes. I mean, if the court ruled against us, ... It would be deemed approved and they would get exactly what they asked for.
Sharon M.:
But the other thing that I remember being a factor and some of the details are starting out a few years later, but I thought that there was a big approval kind of pending whether it would even work out or not with PennDot and some of the traffic lights and the traffic patterns and that somewhat maybe still being a little bit in our court, like if they don't get approved on some of those traffic patterns stuff, I don't know if that's helpful.
John Mack:
PennDot wasn't very helpful. But basically, .. Like people said, they've bought this house or in I forget the name of the in the cul de sac. And they wanted to tear it down and make an exit out to Union [Street]. And the other option they were considering was to cut through directly to Millpond Road. But Eagle Ridge [opposed that]. And the third option was the U-turn option. Come out and you can make a U-turn. So PennDot had an opinion letter that said, you know, of the options we like the one that goes through to Millpond, but if it comes to it, we're OK with the U-turn.
Unidentified:
How does a school bus make a U-turn?
John Mack:
My thinking is I don't know if they can reroute it through Millpond Road or whatever. I don't know how they're going to do that.
Unidentified:
But it seems that the only valid reason for not developing is traffic. There's no other valid reason.
John Mack:
Well, basically, for most of these that's what it really comes down to, except in the case of Toll Brothers on the cemetery property, the church property. I had other problems with the way they were allocating, maintaining agricultural land. So there are other things that are considered. But for this case, I think the primary thing was about the traffic jams.
Unidentified:
Well, what about infrastructure? So we're talking about new piping, new electrical water drainage, everything, because we already have a swamp behind my house.
John Mack:
So all those things are considered. I mean, the sewers they got OK, from the sewer authority. What happens is you've got to have an OK that you can get all these utilities hooked up. And that was another issue with the Toll Brothers. They at first didn't have from the sewer authority enough EDUs, it's called or whatever to have sewer facilities. So their first proposal was to have an onsite sewage treatment plant, which is kind of ridiculous. But they finally got the approval from the sewer authority. So that wasn't an issue anymore. So that's what happens usually. So, yeah, I mean, I forget if there were any other issues, the traffic, the turning radius for like fire emergency vehicles and school buses [in] the development was an issue that I think we didn't defend strongly enough. I'm not sure what other issues there were. I mean, in terms of the habitat animals, I mean, there's only a limited number of ways you can fight that ...
Unidentified:
And I mean that unless unless you can find an eagle's nest on the land, you can it's there's really not much you can do because we don't have many exotic or endangered animals there.
Fred E.:
I'm curious if the executive session is to discuss whether or not to pursue litigation.
John Mack:
Well, that's not something I am privy to be able to talk about. ...
Fred E.:
All right. Well, let me just say that I assume the reason to not pursue litigation would be that it's expensive. But imagine all the money that we've all spent already over all these years over all three proposals fighting this thing. That means if we don't go this extra mile, we've just thrown all that away.
John Mack:
Well, I think you're right, you know, so. I don't know how much it would cost to fight this, but that would probably be something we might discuss if it came to that. Joan, you're on. ..you had your hand up?
Joan F.:
By accident, sorry. ...I'm listening while eating my dinner. Sorry.
Janice M.:
John, do you know when it comes to new development in the township, is this like a chicken and the egg kind of thing as far as - I think it was Nicole... Mentioned the population to the school. ...Let's just say there was an issue, a developer came and developed and now we have two, three hundred new children in our district that are in school age or so. Then do they figure things out or does the township have any say in the population control? Sounds like an awful statement to make, but you know what I mean. I don't know how that works.
John Mack:
Well, the issue does come up when residents come to the meetings. That's one of the things they're very concerned about, unfortunately. I mean, I don't know what the capacity of the schools are. I can't make a judgment on that. And usually that that doesn't persuade anybody. What persuades them the most is the traffic. And for safety and basically because of the safety issues involved, I mean, we're elected to make sure that we protect the safety and well-being of residents. And that's the top concern. Other things may take a second place to that,
Janice M.:
Unless you spin that in that you're going to now be bussing safely or unsafely in this high traffic area, more children.
John Mack:
It always comes down to safety - like turning the school bus, how is it going to be able to turn safely ... I don't know if we got any opinion from Council Rock but I may have gotten some opinion that says we have the capacity. But I don't quote me on that. I'm not sure. But sometimes that might happen. But ... If the school buses can't make a safe turn... Well, you know, that's a safety issue. And then the same thing with emergency equipment like fire trucks. So they did do some kind of a study that showed the turning radiuses for these vehicles. They were going to widen the road up at the turn and so on and so forth. But we still didn't feel it was as safe as it should be.
Greg G.:
John, did you say that through this lawsuit, the number of units is locked in at 76?
John Mack:
If it's deemed approved, that's what they're going to go ahead and do.
Unidentified:
It was formally over hundred.
John Mack:
Correct. So. It's just weird to me, ... I don't like that it goes to court and they make a decision. I don't know if I'm a conservative or not, but I don't think courts should ... Make decisions that the legislatures should be making. So. I'm really upset that a court can go ahead and just say that ... Because of this technicality, we don't care how the supervisors voted and we don't care what the [manager] said. It's legal. You know, they didn't dot all the I's and cross all the T's and therefore we are going to say, OK, to this project, basically. So the court gives the blessing and it's a done deal. Well, we would have to appeal it if that's the thing, we would have to go to a higher court, I guess, and try to get this overturned, get the judge's decision overturned. I don't even know how these decisions are made, if it's made like in an open court, you know, I was saying I'd like to go to one of these court ...court cases and see what's going on. But they advised me I shouldn't be doing that.
Greg G.:
But some courts have to be open legally to public.
John Mack:
I don't know, especially in this Covid-19 business they've been doing it remotely. I didn't follow up about attending any court proceedings, but, yeah, I guess they should be open. But it was very, very hard to find out where/when these cases are being held. I guess I could have asked the attorney, but he's going to tell me you should go. You know, I don't want to ... break the law or anything or jeopardize the case, let's say, by showing up at court.
John Mack:
But residents, I think, make the biggest impression. So that's why I really fought to have these meetings that are coming up that are important meetings to have them live so residents can actually show up. And it makes the biggest impression on supervisors, I can tell you that instead of by Zoom. That's ridiculous. But showing up in person really makes a difference.
Greg G.:
I thought this case is about a technicality in a contract by township. Also for them to put a road through private property. How they go about doing that without going back to court again, you just can't say they're not going to do that.
John Mack:
They will never do that. It's going to be the U-turn. If anything.
Unidentified:
They're not going to knock that house down that they have built or that they bought?
John Mack:
I doubt if they will do that. So, yeah, they want to go with the U-turn, I'm pretty sure about that. It probably will be a traffic nightmare, I guess. I don't know.
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