Two items on tonight’s agenda dealing with Hamilton Crossings. First, it’s been determined that the County will not be participating in TIF. Moving forward the township must now decide if we are. Tonight, the timeline for moving forward to a vote on this issue will be outlined. The specific decision will be whether or not to hold a public hearing. This consists of authorizing staff to advertise so we can conduct a hearing sometime in May. (I will post relevant dates when set) If approved at the May hearing we would consider two items:
1. The creation of the TIF district.
2. If Lower Macungie is to participate in the TIF district. |
Both items would be considered as proposed ordinances. These ordinances if supported would then be advertised for adoption sometime in June. At the same time the project will continue to move through land development process.
My thoughts: I am heading into the next 2 months with the mindset that the developer and those who support the TIF must make a case for it. The prior BOC which I did not sit on publicly supported TIF. They did this via a resolution asking Lehigh County to participate. (At the time the public narrative was all 3 district, county and township were needed for TIF to move forward. Apparently that is not the current interpretation.) If I were on the board last year I would have voted against the resolution of support.
From where I sit today I am not inclined to support Lower Macungie participating in TIF. The TIF involves the township forfeiting 50% of the new tax increment over a 20 year period. That being said, I think the process between now and June is critically. Please understand there should be no pre-determined outcome. It’s important to listen to all sides over the next 2 months. In the coming weeks I will continue to outline rationale for my opinions. This will be in addition to what I’ve written over the last 6 months about TIF. I will also continue to listen to arguments both for and against before making a final decision. I look forward to the conversation.
The second item tonight is a discussion about the proposed stormwater basin. (stylized by the developer as a “raingarden”). This has been proposed by the developer to be built on township property. Both the Environmental Advisory and Parks and Recreation boards have requested the township explore compensation for park property used by private developers. I agree with this notion.
Moving the discussion forward, a figure of 29,000 has been calculated as a starting point using our SALDO recreation fee formula. I question the figure since it was calculated by developer minus .3 acres an access easement onto Costco. I’m not sure if I agree if it should be deducted. Without it the figure is closer to 55,000 based on total land being taken.
Additional thoughts: 1st – The township did not request to have a stormwater basin on park property. The park was deeded to the township for recreational purposes. So the developer had to attempt to make the basin an “amenity”. Further, neither a naturalized stormwater basin or a proper rain garden are amenities shown for consideration at Wescosville park on the parks comp plan. (or anywhere in the township) The parks and rec comp plan should always be the “go to” document for park improvements. Next, in my opinion this is more of a constructed wetland basin at best or a simple naturalized basin at worse rather then what I consider to be a rain garden. Now that isn’t necessarily changing my opinion but words are important and what we call things set precedents. Either way this is a mechanism that is a part of required stormwater facilities for a private development. While true the treatment makes the basin aesthetically nicer while also functioning better by employing biology as a natural filter, I do not see them as park amenities. Not in the same way a ball-field, playground or walking trail is.
In conclusion, the developer needs this stormwater basin. They determined it can only be built using township park property due to minewash issues on site. This situation is due to a self created hardship and not the townships responsibility to fix. There is nothing that required the developer to increase the density of the project to shoe-horn every inch of minewash free space. (Minewash being the reason the facility can’t be built on site) The density is something the developer requested and the township granted in exchange for quality assurances. (we’ll talk about quality of the project in another post) This is an issue the developer should have caught or anticipated earlier in the process. I do not think a storm water basin is an amenity. I think the naturalized treatment makes it acceptable as opposed to a traditional basin but only in addition to financial compensation for lost township property. Also, aside from the stormwater basin the township is losing a corner of the park next to the historical societies log home. Under the plan the log home will now have a high traffic driveway mere feet from the cottage garden in addition to a large new traffic signal towering above it. No matter how the developer spins it the log home will be negatively affected because of the lost land. Once again, in the case of the log home I think the landscaping proposed makes it acceptable but only in addition to compensation for the loss of land.
Therefore barring additional arguments it’s my position that since public land is being used by a private land developer to deal with a problem they failed to anticipate then the township should be fairly compensated. We can then use this money for improvements either to Wescosville park or any of our township community parks. More Hamilton Crossings information here.
