[1:45] This is the August 17th, 2026 New Garden
Township Board of Supervisors
[1:51] meeting. Please stand for the pledge of
>> allegiance.
[1:56] to the flag
of America to the republic for it stands
[2:02] one nation under God indivisibley and
justice for all
[2:09] the board held an executive session at
6:30 prior to this meeting. Next we move
[2:14] into the public comment stage of the uh
meeting. So first we'll cover anything
[2:19] that's not on the agenda. Again the uh
there's a threem minute time limit. Does
[2:23] any anybody have any comments they want
to make regarding non-aggenda items or
[2:28] agenda items?
[2:32] » Great.
Moving into uh the minutes included in
[2:36] the meeting materials or the minutes. Is
there a motion to approve the minutes
[2:40] from the July 20th, 2026 meeting?
>> I'll make a motion to approve the
[2:44] minutes.
>> Is there a second?
[2:46] » Second.
>> All in favor?
[2:48] » I.
>> Any opposed? Great. Treasures report. Uh
[2:52] we have unpaid invoices in the amount of
$297,87146
[2:59] and paid invoices in the amount of
$498,69360.
[3:05] Is there a motion to approve such paid
and unpaid invoices?
[3:09] » So move. I'll second.
>> All in favor? I.
[3:13] » Any opposed?
Great. Um Chris, anything you want to
[3:18] say in the monthly department report?
[3:23] Uh, no. Nothing to brief in terms of um
month overmonth changes for the monthly
[3:28] director's report unless you have any
questions.
[3:33] » Okay, great. Moving into new business.
Uh, first we'll talk about the zoning
[3:38] hearing board application for 611 Hill
Andale Road. I'll turn it over to Winnie
[3:42] for that.
>> Thank you. I think Mr. Land is here.
[3:48] » Good evening everyone. My name is Neil
Land. I'm an attorney from Kennet Square
[3:51] and I'm here on behalf of your
applicants to the zoning hearing board,
[3:55] Lisa [clears throat] and Ken Pratt. Um,
[4:19] thank you.
[4:22] » Thank you.
[4:29] sir.
[4:54] I have a plan. It's small.
[5:04] » I have a small one.
[5:23] That's right.
[5:36] House right there in the second
[5:42] Where you been, Tom?
[5:47] » Whoops. This is upside down.
>> This is the existing.
[5:52] » This is existing. This is not here. The
two proposal here.
[6:02] That's actually the old house there.
want to create another
[6:07] purposed
[6:26] Um the reason for
this
[6:32] driveway
[6:44] bunch of codes
[6:55] need to be improved.
[7:00] Two variants both
request that this not be an obligation.
[7:07] They be allowed to create these two
additional
[7:11] addition
without improving the broad
[7:27] » but he notes that
>> make sure we're speaking from
[7:30] microphones.
Okay. Um the zoning officer notes that
[7:36] um that you're proposing to a lease to a
cell tower company.
[7:42] » Would that be using the same d the same
driveway?
[7:53] » Okay.
[8:11] if it's going to go in like
[8:17] somewhere in that area. Again, this is
this has not been agreed upon. What we
[8:23] did I put in the application just so you
all
[8:27] this property might be uh in a couple
years. Um maybe where the the Pratts
[8:32] hope it is in a couple years. Um so but
that is not part of our current
[8:36] application and we do understand as does
the the cell phone company that if they
[8:42] want to move forward that they're
probably going to be in front of you all
[8:45] getting whatever approvals they need at
that time.
[8:49] » The um the zoning officer recommended
that the board support this application.
[8:55] I saw note that planning it also
>> yeah has to support it.
[8:59] » Yeah,
>> it's a it's kind of unique because the
[9:02] standards it's in the zoning ordinance
but the standards are in the subdivision
[9:06] ordinance but my view of the law is that
the subdiv the zoning ordinance trumps.
[9:12] So if you receive a variance from the
zoning ordinance you do not have to
[9:16] comply with the subdivision ordinance on
this issue
[9:18] » on this issue. That's correct.
>> Your issue.
[9:20] » Yes. And we understand there are other
issues. We've spoken with Mr. where uh
[9:24] that will be addressed through uh
subdivision. Um and that is something
[9:29] that we're aware of and we will address
as it comes up.
[9:37] » So we should take a vote to approve the
application. Okay.
[9:41] » I'll support
>> take no position or not support since
[9:46] it's going in front of zoning hearing
board
[9:48] » for their final determination. So, is
there a motion to support the
[9:53] application for the property located at
611 Hillenddale Road?
[9:57] » Yeah, I'll make a motion to support the
application.
[9:59] » All in favor?
>> I.
[10:01] » Any opposed? Great.
>> Great. Thank you very much for your
[10:04] time. Thank you.
[10:09] » Next item is uh the data center curative
amendment procedures.
[10:14] » Yeah.
>> So, I think Oh, you want to tackle this
[10:16] one or you good?
>> I'll do this one. Um in July you adopt a
[10:20] resol adopted a resolution in invoking
the uh protection of the MPC curative
[10:27] amendment provisions which required that
within 30 days you say how you're going
[10:31] to do that. So, this resolution 2026
outlines that requirement and
[10:39] um concludes that um you you're going to
authorize the township manager and
[10:44] planning staff, the solicitor and the
engineer to prepare a curative amendment
[10:49] to zoning ordinance on the issue of data
centers and um energy
[10:56] centers. prepared
>> to cure the declared unavailability in
[11:00] your ordinance for data centers. So
that's what this resolution does. It
[11:05] says a lot of other things too, but
essentially it is that's what we did.
[11:08] This is what the law provides and now
this is how we're going to do it.
[11:13] » Add to that?
>> No, this is just step two in the
[11:17] process. So we had to adopt it saying
that we have to go through this process.
[11:21] This is saying these are the specific
sightings or findings within our
[11:24] ordinance that we're going to have to
curate here and then moving forward um
[11:29] we're going to have a collaborative
process over the course of the next few
[11:33] months and we'll unfurl those details as
they come closer. Uh but we plan to have
[11:38] uh some community kind of workshop
potential there for people to come in
[11:41] and weigh in on the ordinance and the
goal is to get kind of a draft document
[11:45] in front of the public by midfall.
>> We have late fall.
[11:49] » Yeah, we have to do it. We have to have
adopted it within 180 days of July 20th.
[11:54] So there is some time pressure.
>> Clock is ticking.
[11:57] » Yeah, it is.
>> Any questions or any uh discussion?
[12:06] » Okay. Is there a motion to adopt
resolution 202616
[12:10] citing specific findings of invalidity
of the zoning ordinance within 30 days
[12:15] of declarative curative amendment
procedures?
[12:19] Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve the
resolution.
[12:24] » Second.
>> All in favor?
[12:26] » I.
>> Any opposed?
[12:28] » Great.
>> Uh, moving on. Next item is the township
[12:32] code of ordinance amendment.
>> Um, so this one was found as we were uh
[12:39] in the beginning of the year and
currently going through um recruitment
[12:43] for a specific uh position within our
community development department. And
[12:48] it's one where by ordinance because of a
and or or non-hand provision um we have
[12:54] to go third party for anything relating
to doing building inspections instead of
[12:58] in-house. Uh so this provides us the
flexibility if you find the right
[13:02] candidate who has all of the kind of
UCCC certifications to do those
[13:07] inspections in house. Uh we can we can
do that but we would need to change our
[13:11] ordinance first. Um, so this is kind of
a think of it like an administrative
[13:16] check in the box in order to be able to
be better operationally should that
[13:20] arise as an opportunity. So if you have
any questions, let me know. But that's
[13:24] that's pretty much it. It's very minute
change.
[13:27] » So it's just a language change that we
need to advertise for. And
[13:31] » yeah.
>> Yeah. What it says now is you have to
[13:33] hire a third party.
>> Correct.
[13:35] » We would change it so that it could be
an employee. So you could employ someone
[13:39] with the proper credentials. And
[clears throat] so the way we're
[13:41] thinking this is if we're going through
a phase here where we might have an
[13:45] uptick in building kind of inspections
related to development types of
[13:49] activities still having a third party be
here maybe twice a week with limited
[13:53] hours during the week is going to be
insuffic that customer demand. So we are
[13:57] looking actively at candidates who might
be able to do that as a full-time
[14:00] service here five days a week. Um we
can't do that though if our coordinance
[14:04] says we can't.
>> That's what we do. I'll make a motion
[14:09] that we authorize a solicitor to
advertise uh the draft amendment.
[14:15] » I'll second.
>> All in favor?
[14:17] » I.
>> Any opposed? Great.
[14:20] Next, we've got the fiscal year 2026
line painting contract. Kenny's going to
[14:26] take that one.
Hillanddale Road is great, by the way,
[14:31] Kenny.
>> Yeah, that's what $436,925.32
[14:35] gets you.
That's it
[14:38] » for that just that section, not the
section we did last year.
[14:40] » Right.
>> Uh so what we have in front of you
[14:43] tonight is the uh line painting contract
as you mentioned. Uh we did send it out
[14:48] to bid through the co-op twice earlier
in the year. We did not get any biders
[14:52] either time. So per uh secondass
township code, we can go with any vendor
[14:56] we choose. Um our previous vendor has
they've been getting the low bid, but
[15:02] they've also slacked off quite a bit.
So, I'm going to try a different vendor
[15:06] this year and see how how it uh how they
do it versus the other one in the past.
[15:13] Um there was a pretty significant uh
increase in the cost. Uh I think it was
[15:21] 12,000 $15,000 compared to last year's
numbers. Um I'm sorry.
[15:29] » The budget? Yeah, I think it was nine
over the budget, but it was like 12 or
[15:34] 15 over what was the actual cost of last
year. Um, that is because the
[15:40] white edge line increased by 50 cents
per linear foot and the double yellow
[15:46] increased by 33% over last year's
numbers.
[15:50] And then we also added a little bit with
Hill Andale. Um, since we widened that
[15:55] second section, we're going to add white
edge lines the entire length now. So
[15:58] that was another 7,200 linear feet by
the time you go down both sides.
[16:07] » And just to clarify, we have in our
general fund line item, 39,000 budgeted
[16:11] for this project annually. Um, and it
usually comes in right at that amount,
[16:15] if not slightly lower. Uh, also driven
by the fact that that's just what our
[16:20] prior vendor charged us, although they
were doing not the best job. Um, and so
[16:25] with this one, we're going to blend the
use of funds with some contingency
[16:28] coming from everything not being
utilized for all of the paving budget
[16:32] that we had this year. If you remember,
we had about 200 some odd thousand kind
[16:36] of quote unquote contingency savings
because we didn't get fully kind of
[16:40] assessed for that contract price. Um,
and so that would go into this one. So
[16:44] if you want to roll it into that, it's
essentially the full conditioning of the
[16:47] roadway.
>> Yeah. And this is also a more or less
[16:51] thing. So we've had it in the past where
Delot or Pendot have gone down our roads
[16:56] and painted them right before we did. So
then we don't have to paint them. So So
[17:00] we get it for free. So they could be
less than this.
[17:06] » Great. Is there a motion to award the
bid for line painting services to
[17:09] Guidemark Inc. for an amount not to
exceed $48,000?
[17:13] » I'll make a motion for that.
>> All in favor? I. Any
[17:19] » opposed? Great. Next.
>> Oh, are you are you here for the next
[17:24] one, too?
>> I can stay if you'd like. Sure.
[17:26] » Fiscal year 2026 paving management
analysis.
[17:31] » Yeah. So, uh back in 22 24 and then
again for 26 we had slated a um kind of
[17:40] a AIdriven
uh inspection of our roadways. Uh the
[17:45] system that we used in 22 uh got bought
out by Michelin. They changed names for
[17:51] 24 and then earlier this year they just
did away with the service altogether. Um
[17:56] so we have to go with a different
vendor. It is through Penoni uh our
[18:00] regular engineer. So that's a good
thing. We don't know exactly how it's
[18:05] going to line up from previous
information to the new system, but we're
[18:11] hoping we can blend that in without too
much of a delay in uh or too much of a
[18:16] change in their numbering system and
stuff like that.
[18:21] » Uh the operating cost for the uh vendor,
it's a company called Civil C YVL. Um,
[18:28] it's essentially what look like a Whimo
kind of car with a photo kind of driven
[18:35] device sitting on top of it. It'll go
through the township's roadway systems.
[18:38] It has a much broader depth of a base of
comparables. So, if you remember from
[18:43] better roads or the better mobility were
the two software ones, all they did was
[18:47] essentially do a photo catalog of your
kind of reviewing the roadway from end
[18:51] to end and doing some sort of condition
analysis by taking those photos and
[18:56] lining those photos against all of your
other photos in a category. So,
[18:59] basically, your benchmark is based off
of just who you have. This is a bigger
[19:04] portfolio to go against and it does a
more penetrative type analysis down to
[19:09] in between the cracks kind of thing. So
we're going to actually have a better
[19:11] health assessment of what our roadway
conditions really are. The issue is is
[19:15] we have no idea how that's going to
align with the prior prior analysis. So
[19:18] this is almost like a rebenchmark of the
township. U but it's one where the
[19:23] software provider does seem to be more
stable. Um so it's one where we hope to
[19:27] have the service kind of by annually for
the foreseeable future.
[19:31] » How frequently do we do this?
>> Uh we have started doing in 22 every two
[19:35] years. Um, and that allows us to make
larger chunks um out of the uh kind of
[19:40] we'll call them the priority list of
roads that we've only been restricted to
[19:46] maybe two or three segments. It's
because they were the largest segments
[19:49] with the worst conditions going forward.
We'll be able to do more segments per
[19:54] year because the depth of the road
repairs isn't a full 12-in type repair
[19:58] on most roadways. Um, so we can go
through a lot more segments and the
[20:02] turnover the roadways should be higher.
And how did we arrive at two years? Why
[20:07] is two years the magic number?
>> It can be every year if you want. It's
[20:12] just however you
>> or every five. It's just one where you
[20:15] want to keep continuously showing
progress and doing it in increments over
[20:19] time. Want to be able to measure it.
>> What's changing so much that we would
[20:22] need to do it every two years that we
couldn't do it every three or every
[20:26] four.
>> And that's what I'm saying. So if the
[20:29] roadways are addressed, these intervals
could become less frequent.
[20:32] » Okay. Um it was because our baseline was
so poor because there was a lot of
[20:36] segments. So we wanted to measure it as
we're investing 4x nearly more money
[20:40] into our roadways over the last few
years. We were hoping to see or will see
[20:44] a kind of improvement in that investment
as well. This is telling you that you're
[20:47] you're seeing otherwise it's just your
eyeball seeing that the roadways been
[20:51] repaired.
>> Can we look at heavy trafficked roads
[20:54] every two years like that we know that
mushroom trucks are you know
[20:57] » for what specifically? If we can look at
roads like that we know are heavily
[21:01] trafficked with large trucks every
couple years and then like residential
[21:05] obviously like five or 10 even.
>> Yep.
[21:09] » Yeah. Like Chris said, we just went from
spending a very small amount of money to
[21:13] a ton of money on roads within the last
five years. I think in 202
[21:20] when we made a major jump, the money
that we received in 22
[21:26] was only $100,000 more than what we
received from 2013 all the way up to 21
[21:34] combined.
>> Yeah.
[21:38] So with that, we decided to just just
start doing it every two years so we can
[21:42] see a a hopefully see an improvement
which we did see an improvement on our
[21:46] average number from 22 to 24 with all
that money we spent in 22 or 23 and 24 I
[21:52] mean because we did it after we finished
the road program program in 22.
[21:56] » Was the leg of New Garden as bad as
Hillale?
[22:01] The base repairs that you just did?
>> I would say just as bad. Yes, it it was
[22:07] fair but just about the same. Um the
linear footage was longer obviously
[22:13] because it's a different section of
road, but we still did a six-foot path
[22:17] just because by the time you come into
the road, you're you're not picking up
[22:23] everything. So then you have to step out
a little bit further to get where it
[22:26] started rolling off. And I think a few
years ago when we changed it from that
[22:30] no from the eight ton weight limit to
the no trailers over 45 feet then it
[22:35] that's when we saw a huge decrease in
the quality of the road and an increase
[22:39] in potholes and stuff like that.
[22:47] » While you're here, I just had a
question. Uh what was going on at the
[22:50] wheelhouse on 41 right at the
intersection of um
[22:55] » Sunnyale?
>> Sunnydale.
[22:57] Delties.
>> When was that?
[22:58] » Morning.
>> This morning?
[22:59] » Yeah. I know it's not your road, but I
don't know.
[23:02] » I don't know.
>> Yeah.
[23:04] » Uh I'm trying I don't remember any
ambulance calls or fire calls or
[23:08] anything down there, but I might have
missed.
[23:10] » It was just road work. I was just
>> Oh, okay. Yeah, maybe they were filling
[23:13] that pothole there finally because
that's only been there
[23:16] » eight months. [laughter]
[23:20] » Okay. Okay. Is there a motion to to uh
approve the penoni scope of work for the
[23:24] pavement management analysis at a cost
not to exceed $15,500?
[23:30] » Make a motion to approve.
>> There second.
[23:34] » Second.
>> All in favor?
[23:36] » I.
>> Any opposed?
[23:39] Making me work for my job.
>> Thank you.
[23:42] » Thanks, Jenny.
>> Next, we've got the Smemedley Preserve
[23:45] Master Plan update. Mike
[24:16] testing. There we go.
All right. Good evening everyone. Um
[24:21] Mike with the parks department. Going to
be providing a smely preserve master
[24:25] plan update this evening. Um it's really
an update involving three projects. One
[24:31] being the preserved entrance and parking
lot, the second being the church road
[24:35] pedestrian crossing, the third being the
lawn to meadow conversion project.
[24:41] So back in 2024, the preserve master
plan identified an entrance and a
[24:47] parking lot as part of a phase 2
implementation at the preserve at a cost
[24:52] of just under $940,000.
um we went after about 1.2 million in
[24:59] grant funding and came back with 56,000
which isn't zero but it's not enough to
[25:05] implement a project on this scale. So,
we kind of looked at our options,
[25:11] reduced the scope, and as we kind of
previously mentioned in staff briefings,
[25:14] we were able to identify an opportunity,
kind of fasttrack the work in a
[25:19] cost-effective manner, uh, using both
grant dollars, open space dollars, and
[25:25] public works labor. So, that that meant
that we could build out the driveway and
[25:29] the parking lot kind of concurrently
with the township's 2026 paving program.
[25:34] So in reality, the way that's been
working is that Kenny and his team went
[25:38] to do the site prep and as uh the Hill
Andale road work was underway, they took
[25:44] millings from Hill Andale, brought them
over to Spentley Preserve and put them
[25:49] in place for the driveway and the
parking lot.
[25:53] the while the project is in progress. We
don't have total costs, but the current
[25:57] costs um are at 20 28,700 for
engineering, about 2500 for construction
[26:04] materials. Uh and then to be determined
for the asphalt installation, the sign
[26:10] fencing, and the paint. So, even though
it's to be determined, we have a pretty
[26:15] good idea of what those costs are going
to involve. So the the total estimated
[26:20] project cost uh should come in right
around $80,000.
[26:24] So that $56,000 DCED grants is expected
to cover all of the construction costs
[26:30] as well as 10% of the engineering costs,
leaving the township with $25,830
[26:36] to cover, uh which will be funded by
open space dollars. And then we do
[26:41] expect the the project to be completed
uh probably late late fall, like all in
[26:47] late fall.
Here we have on the left the 2024 master
[26:53] plan. You can see that uh this area down
here is the entrance or was was the
[26:59] proposed entrance to the park at the
intersections of Sherwood Drive and
[27:03] Church Road. Then had a driveway that
led to a parking lot. I think it's like
[27:08] a 40 car parking lot. And then the
driveway extended back to the park
[27:14] garage and material yard where there was
going to be another uh like repaved
[27:19] parking area. So what we did for 2026 in
the revised plan is that the driveway is
[27:24] still at the intersection of Sherwood
and Church. We've got uh a much reduced
[27:30] kind of 200 foot drive here with a 20
car parking lot. Now, this section here
[27:36] is an apron that needs to be um like the
the first 50 feet or so needs to be
[27:41] paved per pendot uh requirements. Uh
Church Road is a PennDOT road. So, after
[27:47] we get that paved, the milling's going
to start here and then uh go through and
[27:52] complete the parking lot.
[27:56] This is the entrance that uh public
works uh built out. There's currently
[28:02] stone in there for construction vehicles
to get in and out. This is the parking
[28:06] lot area that was prepped. And here you
can see they've started placing the
[28:10] millings on the site. So, I believe that
u most of the millings are in place, but
[28:15] they need to be kind of leveled off um
uh spots filled in and then uh compacted
[28:21] down
[28:25] after the parking lot is in place. So,
we'll go into setting up some fencing uh
[28:29] just to better define that area. People,
for some reason, even when there's an
[28:34] obvious parking lot there, always drive
off the parking lot into the grass where
[28:38] they're not supposed to go. Um there'll
be an area that's easily removed so that
[28:42] we'll have um kind of flexible space for
overflow parking as we start to host the
[28:47] fence at the park. We'll install kiosk
for general information. And then we we
[28:52] will uh there's an area you can see
right here uh there's a pedestrian path
[28:56] that crosses over the driveway. So on
that path where the road crosses we're
[29:01] going to put in paint markings and some
signage and to round everything out.
[29:05] Once all that's done we'll be installing
a marquee sign very similar to this one.
[29:09] I'm waiting to get back final designs
from I believe Casey signs are the same
[29:14] company that did the airport sign
recently. Um, and then we'll have that
[29:18] marquee sign at the main entrance as
well as two smaller signs that define
[29:22] the limits of the park. So that as
you're driving along the queue, you'll
[29:25] know that, hey, you've entered uh the
the bounds of the of the Smemetly
[29:29] Preserve. And then same thing on New Arc
Road, there'll be a Smellmetly Preserve
[29:33] sign on that side as well.
So moving on to the pedestrian crossing.
[29:39] So, the master plan did prioritize the
implementation of a pedestrian crossing
[29:44] uh at church and mute roads with an
estimated project cost of just under
[29:48] $346,000.
The planning for the pedestrian
[29:53] crosswalk uh was taking place in
parallel to the master plan development.
[29:57] It was identified as you a top priority
safety issue pretty early on. The
[30:03] project involved coordination between
New Garden, West Marboro, and uh
[30:07] PennDOT. And that coordination all three
groups continued through 2025. And then
[30:14] because it's PennDOT, that continued uh
until just recently with the concept
[30:18] plans uh being finalized, we're pretty
sure being finalized in early July with
[30:25] cost being updated at the end of July.
So the the current estimated total
[30:30] project cost, it's coming in at $315,60.
Now 100% of the construction cost and
[30:36] 10% of the engineering cost again will
be covered by a $300,000 multimmoal
[30:41] grants, bringing the total project cost
uh to the township to $57,150.
[30:47] Again, that remaining balance is going
to be covered by open space funds and
[30:51] construction will likely begin on that
in spring of 2027.
[30:55] Here [snorts]
we have an aerial view of all of the
[31:00] kind of trapping calling measures that
are be put into place. Um, this is a
[31:06] great point to kind of explain for those
who don't understand where the township
[31:10] boundaries are and what's a pendant road
and what isn't.
[31:13] This is uh this is Sherwood Drive. This
is Church Road here. This is McHugh. So,
[31:18] you take Mchugh Road. Everything to the
left of Mchu or to the south is township
[31:23] property with well Township the township
land and then um this section of church
[31:29] road is Pendot State Road owned and
maintained by them. Over here to the
[31:34] right of McHugh to the north is West
Marboro Township with this section of
[31:39] Church Road being uh West Marvel
Township Road.
[31:43] So that's that's kind of why we had to
work with all those different
[31:46] organizations to get get a plan
together.
[31:51] Now we zoom into the pedestrian crossing
that intersection of a queue and church.
[31:55] See on the West Marboro side uh we're
going to be installing uh speed hump
[32:00] road markings and signage. When you get
over to the New Garden Township side
[32:04] that's going to be road markings,
signage as well with the addition of
[32:07] flashing signals here and here. And then
because the pedestrian walkway also
[32:13] serves as a maintenance access for both
the east and west sides of the park, we
[32:17] do need to install uh we're going to
install trail swing gates. Um so to
[32:22] allow the vehicles to gain access when
needed, but then also allow safe passage
[32:26] for pedestrians to walk through there.
That was one of the trade-offs of
[32:30] reducing the scope of the parking lot is
that we don't have a dedicated, you
[32:34] know, um staff access point. We'll have
to continue to use the shared point
[32:39] here.
And then uh in addition to those traffic
[32:44] calming measures, we'll be installing uh
additional physical traffic calming
[32:49] measures here with two medians on either
side of the park entrance. That is again
[32:55] just to alert folks that hey there's uh
there's something ahead, there's a
[32:58] change uh there's a park. It should get
folks to slow down at least through the
[33:03] speed limit. So then you have, you know,
if you come back here to this aerial
[33:08] view, as folks travel towards the
pedestrian walkway from the south,
[33:13] they're going to hit these medians
first, slow down, hit the paint, see the
[33:17] flashers before they cross over the uh
the crosswalk. And then coming from the
[33:22] north side towards the pedestrian
acrossway, you they're going to see the
[33:26] paint, the signage, the speed bumps, all
in an effort to make that intersection
[33:30] safer.
[33:34] That's everything there.
And we have the lawn to meadow project.
[33:39] This is kind of a recap of the update I
gave uh maybe last month it was. But the
[33:45] um the master plan we identified
approximately 30 acres of meadow
[33:48] installation at a cost of $225,000.
the the meadow installations were
[33:54] originally scoped for kind of like a
final phase in the master plan, but like
[33:59] all these other opportunities that seem
to rain down on this Medley preserve,
[34:03] this was another one where we were
approached I think in late uh 2024 about
[34:09] a meadow planting project and in January
26, we found out that New Garden was
[34:15] selected to participate in uh Chester
County conservation districts like long
[34:20] lawns of meadow conservation program.
So the lawn to me program is DCR funded
[34:27] and will convert nine acres from lawn to
meadow at a total estimated value of
[34:31] $65,392
which completes a third of the master
[34:35] plan uh meadow areas at a 0% project
cost to the township. So the only thing
[34:40] the township has to do to participate in
this program is um provide the provide
[34:46] the labor to maintain the meadow after
the meadows are established. Here we've
[34:52] got an aerial view of where the meadows
are going to go. So we got nine acres
[34:55] here in the southwest corner of the
preserve split up into a 4 acre section
[35:00] here and a five acre section over to the
right. And it's going to kind of create
[35:04] this uh this this nice uh beautiful
buffer of natural or native grasses and
[35:11] wild flowers that should have a pretty
good showy presentation from like spring
[35:16] into late fall when established.
This is a timeline for that project. So
[35:21] we already went through the kickoff
meeting for that. Uh right now we are in
[35:26] this stage here where the conservation
district is working to identify um well
[35:33] they've put out bids for a contractor to
come in and the contractor is actually
[35:37] going to uh to prep the site is going to
you know kill off all the weeds and the
[35:43] seeds there do the planting and then
when everything grows in uh in spring of
[35:48] 2027 that's when the parks department
will will step in and pick up the
[35:53] maintenance process mowing the field two
to three times a year and then uh
[35:57] treating any uh you know weeds or
invasive plants that are in the meadows
[36:02] and we'll continue to do that. So we'll
check in frequently with there's also
[36:06] going to be some uh signage that goes
out around this time period that
[36:09] recognizes the um the folks who funded
the grants as well as u provides some ed
[36:16] educational opportunities for the people
walking through the preserve. And then
[36:20] the the grant kind of window ends in
2009 or at least the the active
[36:26] participation of the the conservation
district will end in 2029 and then I
[36:32] think uh we're in like a 25-y year
agreement or something like that to
[36:35] maintain the meadow as it is.
And that's everything. Uh does anyone
[36:41] have any questions about any of those
projects?
[36:44] » I have a couple questions. Yeah.
>> If you can go back to where the Yeah,
[36:48] that one right there.
>> Yes.
[36:50] » So,
is there a swell between Route One and
[36:56] where the meadow grass would be?
>> The concern, the concern is is salt
[37:01] coming off the bypass. And I've seen
this for years where that area, not only
[37:06] that area, but many areas that fall off
the bypass, they the grass is brown for
[37:11] the first two months of summer.
>> Right. There is uh I wouldn't call it a
[37:17] I wouldn't call it a swale, but there's
there's probably like a good 30 to 50
[37:23] feet in some sections where it it the
dips the shoulder one kind of dips off
[37:29] and then rolls into the preserve here.
>> Um when we were on site with the
[37:35] conservation district and uh their their
forester, they didn't identify that as
[37:39] an issue,
>> but it's one of those things, you know,
[37:41] we'll we'll have to keep an eye on.
Yeah, most definitely. There there's
[37:45] another area up around Jennersville
where the brown falls off that way and
[37:49] every year we get a heavy snow. It's
brown.
[37:53] » Yeah, the the good thing Well, I don't
know if this will help, but the existing
[37:57] carp path kind of creates a a barrier.
>> It does. Yeah,
[38:02] » between that section and where the
meadow is going to be. The path even
[38:05] comes around this way here. So hopefully
that'll slow down some. And then the
[38:09] other question I had was the map of the
traffic the church road. So the Yep.
[38:16] back to you where the medians are. Are
they painted or raised mediums?
[38:21] » They're going to be raised medians. Um
and I did reach out. That's supported by
[38:26] » Pendot.
>> I did reach out to like uh emergency
[38:29] responders and the kind of consolidated
school district just letting them know
[38:33] like hey this is coming. It's designed
to uh not limit the type of vehicle that
[38:39] travels along this road, but rather make
sure that people adhere to the speed
[38:43] limit. Um the school district did not
respond back to me. They did support
[38:48] this. There was a little bit of uh back
and forth the speed bumps with uh with
[38:52] PennDOT,
>> right?
[38:53] » The school district and first responders
originally supported the the speed
[38:57] bumps, the same style it's going to be
in West Marboro. Then we then we found
[39:02] we found out that Pendot actually does
not support speed bumps. So, we pivoted
[39:06] to the these meetings here. Um, but any
the first responders said that that that
[39:11] was fine. Haven't heard back from the
school district yet.
[39:14] » So, that I was going to say school
buses, if they're rolled raised mediums,
[39:19] if they're curbed mediums, it's going to
be a problem
[39:24] for the school district getting in and
out of that development offer with
[39:28] » Yeah.
>> with with a with a bus. the
[39:31] » it could be a problem with a 20 foot box
truck, let alone a 35 foot bus on six
[39:37] wheels,
>> right? The design isn't finalized. Um
[39:41] just kind of a footprint of where
>> that's why we're talking about it now.
[39:45] » Yeah, it's why we're talking about it
now. Um so I do plan to reach out.
[39:49] That's certainly something we'll discuss
with uh with Bowman, traffic engineer,
[39:53] and I'll be sure to loop back with the u
the traffic people at Kennedy. Ju just
[39:58] looking at the picture, they look like
they're
[40:01] set back far enough, but the buses don't
turn real real sharp.
[40:08] » Yeah, I I know. I can't speak for the
the engineering that went into this, but
[40:12] I know they did consider like large
delivery vehicles um and and buses.
[40:19] » No, but I like I like the parking lot. I
go I use Church Road and I've seen Kenny
[40:23] over there. Um I think that's great that
we're able to do that and and even
[40:29] repurpose the millings when he gets it
graded and tamp down. Um I think it's
[40:35] going to be a wonderful wonderful
resource for a good start for the park.
[40:40] So thank you. And just to clarify,
this detail was provided by Bowman with
[40:47] a scant delivery of invested time to get
it rendered out because they didn't want
[40:52] to overspend on putting these concept
plans routinely in front of Pendot who
[40:56] apparently internally had a very
difficult time kind of rendering a
[40:59] decision and sticking to what we were
proposing. Um, and so that's why when we
[41:03] were constantly going back to well and
kind of shuffling the design concepts
[41:06] around, we didn't want to spend an order
amount of engineering expense. So we did
[41:09] these very kind of high level surface
level plans. So the level of depth of
[41:13] detail on the 60 100% design plans will
be in full consideration of all the
[41:19] factors turn radi everything coming in
and out of developments and stuff for
[41:22] all types of uses. So I would expect
that to be folded into the final design.
[41:30] » Good. Anything else Mike? Any other
questions?
[41:34] » Thank you Mike.
[41:46] So the plan so uh bridges are expensive
>> and we we do plan to restore those in
[41:53] the future. So after all this work is
complete that's going to knock out
[41:57] probably a majority of what we do to um
to achieve the master plan. Uh but we're
[42:04] still going to work on
grant funding for the bridges uh for uh
[42:09] for a restroom on site for repaving the
trails, but it's going to be kind of
[42:14] like a you know, we're not going to move
forward with those projects until we we
[42:18] secure the grant funding for them. Yeah.
[42:24] » Right. The the the preserve is far from
um like ad accessible right now. bit bit
[42:31] more for the uh local adventure. Yeah.
But we we do have plans to address those
[42:37] bridges at some time in the future.
>> Hey Mike, question.
[42:41] » Yeah.
>> What defines a preserve?
[42:44] » A preserve it's usually like a it it's
uh when you conserve like a piece of
[42:50] land usually has like high like
ecological value. Um it's it's then you
[42:56] then make the commitment to have it be
more of like a passive recreation area
[43:01] that's open to the public than something
that would be um you know an active
[43:05] recreation site. Yeah. It's a very very
light touch pretty much what we're doing
[43:10] here. Just pathways, parking lots, um no
like playgrounds or anything like that.
[43:15] » Okay. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Mike.
[43:21] And the last item on the agenda is the
uh presentation on the fiscal year 2026
[43:25] state of the township.
[43:36] Hope everybody saw this in their agenda
packets. It's only 75 slides. I'll try
[43:41] to get through it as fast as I possibly
can.
[43:43] » It was like 87 last year. What happened?
>> Yeah.
[43:49] as a
former member of the military, I guess
[43:53] still active, but um yeah, death by
PowerPoint has not lost me. So, I'll try
[43:57] to make this as painless as possible.
[44:02] If I can get my screen to share.
[44:07] Okay.
[44:20] water out here.
This is for all the people at home, not
[44:25] me. Um, so good evening members of the
board, residents, staff. Chris, township
[44:30] manager, and tonight I'll be briefing
the updated state of the township. This
[44:35] is now marks was we started this in 23
uh 24, so fourth year. Um, and with
[44:41] that, uh, as a precursor to going into
your annual budget planning cycle, I
[44:46] found it, and it's kind of a best
practice across localities across the
[44:49] nation to render kind of an update on
how you've been honing in and achieving
[44:54] certain elements of your overall goals
and priorities that you set forth as we
[44:58] have done also, which is essentially a
um, uh, kind of a capture of goals and
[45:04] priorities as it has been filtered
through the comprehensive plan. And
[45:08] that's also one where you see these
goals and priorities like and you wonder
[45:11] what's going on in the township. This is
what's going on. This is what staff is
[45:15] working on outside of our operational
duties. This is the progress we're
[45:18] trying to make on behalf of the
community. So it's kind of like showing
[45:21] the full alignment but also within each
goal that we have and the priority also
[45:27] understanding the constraints, the
restrictions, the obstacles that we have
[45:30] in front of us because a lot of these
things have a lot of kind of we'll call
[45:33] them difficult paths to achievement. Uh
so we'll start at the very top. Uh we're
[45:38] doing this brief uh two weeks early and
that's two weeks that I was hoping to
[45:43] have to do this brief in the first
place. So the last week or so has been
[45:46] putting together a lot of information.
Uh but the reason we did that
[45:49] adjustment, if you remember this special
meeting on August 3rd, it was about
[45:52] review of the potential joiner of Oxford
Bureau uh with the Southern Chester
[45:57] County Regional Police Department. So
the web shop, excuse me, the um workshop
[46:01] that we have for later on this month is
going to tenatively be used for that
[46:05] one. So that's why we're doing this
tonight. Uh and of course the rest of
[46:09] the um the schedule for the budget
planning workshops are all there as
[46:12] well. And we've been advertising these
pretty routinely since the beginning of
[46:15] the summer.
Uh real quick on the agenda, not going
[46:19] to go down through it, but essentially
we're just going to walk through these
[46:21] categories. Just some updates. A lot of
the stuff you'll see is familiar
[46:24] information in terms of what we've done
in prior states of the township with
[46:27] some updates. And uh really it's kind of
showing that year over year we've
[46:31] actually remained consistent in kind of
areas of focus that we've been working
[46:34] on.
Uh so why do we have these priorities?
[46:38] And I stated earlier, it's because these
are the priorities that have been
[46:41] highlighted out of the comprehensive
plan on these are the things that we
[46:46] need to work on the most to get to where
we want to go as a community. Uh because
[46:50] if you've read the comprehensive plan,
it is a comprehensive plan by intent. It
[46:54] is a lot of stuff. It's a to-do list
that is a very very long to-do list. Uh
[46:58] so you need to kind of pick your
winners, if you will. uh these were the
[47:01] ones that were kind of identified both
through the finalized PR priorities and
[47:05] the residential inputs through some
surveys with that and we've gone through
[47:09] this a little bit in terms of how we've
chosen ours. Uh we've kind of pulled
[47:12] elements outside of here to create what
the board has said these are the
[47:16] priorities within those categories. So
economic development breaking it down to
[47:20] kind of certain projects and areas that
we want to do for that uh infrastructure
[47:24] investments and regionalizing our public
safety services. uh you can kind of, you
[47:28] know, walk down the rest of the
remaining part of the list, but
[47:30] year-over-year, this is our updated
focus areas, if you will. Um, and we did
[47:36] this as an exercise over the course of
the beginning of the summer, over a few
[47:39] months, kind of updating these and
prioritize wise, um, to kind of come up
[47:42] with what we're talking about as our our
scored tier one priorities, our tier
[47:46] two, and and of course our tier threes
as well. That's not to say this is a
[47:50] restrictive list. We do other things as
well, but in terms of kind of larger
[47:54] kind of movements on um priorities,
these are the ones that are still at the
[47:58] top. Any questions about this? That's
how we arrived to it. Uh so we'll go
[48:03] ahead and get started. So uh if you
remember last year, u we kind of had
[48:08] some updates about what it meant to
achieve economic development type
[48:12] outcomes in our community. What does
economic development mean in New Guard
[48:15] Township? Uh for most people, it's kind
of what is economic development? It's
[48:18] very broad spectrum of types of
outcomes. So generally uh obviously you
[48:22] want to be able to write out a comp plan
nurture diverse economic opportunities
[48:26] that create sustainable and stable tax
bases. Do all the things that you want
[48:29] to do. Promote the community that
complement the character that we have
[48:33] here. Optimize existing infrastructure.
All those kind of really you know I'll
[48:37] call them like highlevel uh uh
subjective types of outcomes. But really
[48:42] when you think about it and you apply
that to a secondass township in
[48:45] Pennsylvania, your authority and your
ability to enact quotequote your will
[48:49] upon your community is heavily limited.
So you got to kind of pick where you're
[48:52] good at and kind of leave the other
things to the market and because you you
[48:55] don't really have that full breadth of
capabilities to you uh like you might
[48:59] have in other states. Um you know coming
from a state like the Commonwealth of
[49:03] Virginia, you have very strong local
governmental economic development
[49:07] programs where here it's all state
driven for the most part. some at the
[49:10] county level even though the county
really partners with profit which is a
[49:14] Chester County Economic Development
Council. It's also why you don't have
[49:18] economic development departments in a
secondass township departmental
[49:21] organization. Uh so we identified these
as kind of uh catalysts catalysts if you
[49:26] will zoning our airport development zone
um coordination our own networks and our
[49:31] abilities to understand kind of local
owners and stuff because at the end of
[49:34] the day you have to own the land to
really be able to kind of steward that
[49:37] type of outcome. We've kind of looked at
the land in terms of what is our
[49:41] regulatory type of environment and then
what do we have that we can use and then
[49:45] from there on it's really just kind of
stewarding the plan through by helping
[49:50] people out kind of understand what they
can do that can align with what we're
[49:53] looking for as a township. Um in terms
of regional uh uh understandings of how
[49:59] to have that we'll call them natural
organic type of uh um I'll call it like
[50:08] pros that you as far as things are
working against you, those those things
[50:11] that help uh where we are as a township.
You know, even though we're um in
[50:17] Chester County, Chester County is
located in the Philadelphia MSA. The
[50:20] Philadelphia MSA has just a certain
amount of gravity to it. It's a
[50:23] different situation than if you were in
like the middle of Iowa. Uh so with that
[50:27] um our region location makes us strong
in terms of uh availability of workforce
[50:32] more towards those density centers kind
of in those kind of more urban areas
[50:35] that we're at least within somewhat of a
close proximity to um as well as just
[50:40] the transportation and movement of
goods. You know we have a lot of
[50:42] throughput through the town of Route 41
connects all the way down to the port of
[50:45] Wilmington kind of connects you all the
way up through Lancaster County into the
[50:49] turnpike kind of area as you get towards
um excuse me uh Harrisburg as well. So
[50:54] we're just kind of an area where you're
close to a major quarter 2 or 99 I95. Um
[50:59] and so with that we have a lot of
availability for those types of
[51:02] industries and naturally some of them
exist here in the township because of
[51:04] that. So the reason for why that's why
um local demographics, population and
[51:09] housing density, we know that our
current existing density within the
[51:12] township is not very dense. Uh we're
about a third of a unit per acre. That's
[51:17] a very non-dense metric. But as you kind
of expand out in our residential kind of
[51:22] footprint in southern Chester County and
northern Delaware, if that density
[51:25] construct goes up because within our
larger region, you know, we're not as
[51:30] sparse, if you will, as a residential
buildout. Um, so it goes beyond the
[51:34] township boundary. Um, income levels
close around here. I don't think anybody
[51:38] would be surprised that a lot of very
affluent people live in this region. Um,
[51:42] that kind of balances out as you go more
towards expanding your regional look. uh
[51:45] as you look into areas that have less
median strong median incomes. Um, and
[51:50] what that means is is okay, well, if I
have um high density and low income,
[51:56] what are the types of natural uh uh
market forces that are going to be
[52:00] incentivized to move into my community?
Or if I have no density and high income,
[52:04] what is that going to provide for? And
my no density, high incomes, but in an
[52:07] area that's close in proximity as a
regional kind of u location, you know,
[52:12] you so you start kind of putting the vin
diagram together and when you kind of
[52:15] put them all in, you find out what works
the best there. And usually that's what
[52:19] an economic development department would
focus on to say we can actually support
[52:22] that industry. We'd be competitive in
that industry. That's kind of what all
[52:26] this is saying in terms of strengths and
weaknesses.
[52:29] Uh a little bit from our community
survey that we had last year. Um it's
[52:34] not one where economic development is
taboo. Shocker. People like to have
[52:37] close proximity to amenities. When I say
amenities, it's not like everybody
[52:41] always has that kind of same anecdote.
Oh, you can shop in taxfree Delaware.
[52:44] Okay. that like if I have a good dining
option in Pennsylvania, I'm not going to
[52:47] go to a worse dining option because I
save a couple cents on my fries kind of
[52:51] stuff. But yeah, if you're going to go
buy bulk furniture and those types of
[52:53] items, those larger retail centers,
yeah, that would make sense, especially
[52:57] since we're right on the border. Um, so
that's kind of a a a common
[53:01] misunderstanding of why we don't have
commercial in the township. The reason
[53:05] we don't have commercial is we don't
have rooftops in the township. Um, and
[53:09] so we would look to see if we wanted to
have uh more mixtures of uses, kind of
[53:14] build the density with the commercial
simultaneously. That was the focus for
[53:18] the zoning, especially along the
corridors, Baltimore bike, uh, to a
[53:22] lesser extent, Newark Road and obviously
Route 41. Uh, so you can have that
[53:26] little bit of a commercial buildout with
the actual residential type buildouts
[53:30] included on the roadway. So the roadway
gets enhanced as well. Um, of course,
[53:33] some of these other ones, uh, you can
kind of go into how to make those
[53:37] happen. Uh those are much longer briefs
and stuff, but these are just areas of
[53:40] highlights for um what the township had
sorted out during the community survey
[53:44] responses.
Uh that's basically another hit on where
[53:47] we are as a I think everybody knows
where we're located. Um why that's a
[53:51] benefit to us in terms of just kind of
being a factor. Um one that's not in the
[53:57] slide deck that I actually just kind of
added, it's kind of giving you that kind
[54:00] of same understanding of the
regionality. You know, you have a red
[54:04] band here that basically is your
10-minute drive time. um and associating
[54:08] that with your more retailbased uh
market standards for we'll call them
[54:13] like commercial square market
supportable square footage. So if I'm
[54:17] going to have this amount of density
they can support this much market
[54:20] supportable square footage. So if I have
a thousand homes versus 100 homes and a
[54:25] thousand homes I could support maybe
50,000 square feet of commercial. With
[54:28] 100 homes I could support maybe aund
like a 500 if you will. It all depends
[54:33] upon how much density you have in that
bubble. And as you know, as you go from
[54:36] what traditional market retail looks at,
it looks at kind of concentrical circles
[54:41] from one, three, and five miles, um,
five miles is within this 10-minute
[54:46] drive. And so, it's one where you would
need a lot of density in here in this
[54:49] bubble area in order to have strong
commercial type outcomes. So, you need
[54:53] to look at your region and say, well,
what else is kind of supportive for
[54:56] large or better commercial outcomes? And
that's where you start looking at your
[54:59] net worth. you know, the dark purple
area. These are your higher net worth or
[55:03] higher median income households. Um, and
it's one where you don't start just
[55:08] looking at the one, three, and five,
maybe look at the drive times. And we
[55:11] say, okay, so for us from an economic
development standpoint, we're very
[55:16] strong when it comes to things
associated with drive time connectivity
[55:19] rather than immediate kind of density
within a smaller market area, if that
[55:23] makes sense. Uh, so this is just another
way to look at that. So with this, if
[55:27] we're looking I think we would be
looking commercial anchors that are
[55:31] looking for
a larger 30 minute region drivable
[55:36] distance that has high kind of affluent
households associated with that one if
[55:41] that makes sense.
Uh so why are we looking at economic
[55:45] development? Uh because at the end of
the day uh it helps drive revenues which
[55:50] pay for services. Uh so the goal since
we had that initial conversation back in
[55:54] uh 23
was the need for the township to to
[55:59] continue to diversify its revenue
streams because right at that point we
[56:03] were really heavily reliant on mainly
property tax and somewhat of the act 511
[56:08] specifically earned income tax. This
would add into that base on the earned
[56:13] income side as well as some of these
other ones we don't get a lot of uh that
[56:17] have larger readables with them. I keep
on uh forgetting hotel tax in there and
[56:21] that's one where they can scale as well.
Um, and of course using that to be able
[56:25] to kind of distance yourself of being
reliant on not necessarily tax base
[56:31] increase, but tax rate increases,
specifically the property tax. And
[56:34] that's where we want to avoid. Um, you
want that development to go into areas
[56:38] of of where the state corridors are to
improve upon capacity, safety, and
[56:43] character. Um, you want to make sure
that your transportation network is
[56:47] getting built out that works for you as
a community. Um, currently right now,
[56:51] it's not doing that great. So that's why
we're trying to incentivize some of
[56:54] these projects. Um and then obviously
the uh the missing middle housing
[56:59] opportunities we'll go into here in a
second here. But just in terms of like
[57:02] can anything done be done to steward
some more affordable type of outcomes in
[57:06] the township uh because it is one where
it's not necessarily just a new garden
[57:09] problem. It's a nationwide problem. But
it all depends upon your market. But
[57:12] we're not immune to what is considered
to be a pretty steep affordability price
[57:18] tag for living in New Garden Township
and elsewhere as well. And we're going
[57:21] to talk about that why in here in a
second. Um, understanding your
[57:25] demographic is very helpful um in terms
of like not necessarily what the AMIs
[57:30] associated households are in our
community, but um the ages of those
[57:33] people, what types of family constructs
lived here. Um, and so when you looked
[57:38] back in time and you saw New Garden
Township population really during the
[57:41] 90s and the 2000s, that's when you got
that like growth spurt, if you will. We
[57:46] really bumped up between those two
census measurements. It was kind of the
[57:48] late 80s going into the9s. if you want
to think about it that way. But we
[57:52] basically pretty much more than doubled
in size. Um, and with that, you had a
[57:57] lot of new builds and families that
moved in and families that then stayed.
[58:00] Uh, it's very beneficial to have a lot
of equity in your household and then be
[58:05] a retiree in Pennsylvania and not get
taxed on your retirement income in
[58:09] Pennsylvania. And we kind of assume
that. And then the 25 survey told us
[58:12] that 76% of our residents tend to kind
of stay put. Um, so you have a bit of a
[58:17] stagnant population base. And what that
leads is kind of an everinccreasing
[58:21] average age of person here. So then
you're looking at that going, okay,
[58:25] well, if I have high net worth outcome
out households here that at some point
[58:29] they're going to go into retirement, how
long can I rely on my earned income tax
[58:33] to continue producing like it's
producing or scaling as it's going to
[58:36] scale. At some point it might plateau or
even descend um with that level of
[58:40] stagnation and kind of locking in uh
kind of the same base that you that you
[58:45] have. Um and at the same time I got a
common question. Why did the township's
[58:49] population go down from 2010 to 2020,
not continue up? And a lot of reasons,
[58:54] but one of the biggest ones was all
those families that had kids, their kids
[58:58] graduated, and nobody was having kids
again. So with that, during the same
[59:01] time frame in the last 15 years, because
obviously that's 23 going into 26 now.
[59:07] Um, your children population went down
by 50. Your young adults from 25 to 44
[59:12] dropped by 25%. And yet your residents
over 60 increased by 135%. So that kind
[59:18] of correlates. All this kind of adds up.
And so when you say what do we are as a
[59:22] community? Well, we're generally older
in age. We're increasing in age. Um
[59:26] we're kind of stagnant as a community.
So there's not a lot of turnover of
[59:29] properties. And so what do you do to
build a long-term revenue strategy off
[59:33] of that given the fact that you have a
basically a a cap on earned income tax?
[59:40] And we'll go to some of the even further
restrictions on that one. and property
[59:43] tax. And that's kind of that's kind of
it. That's the bread and butter that you
[59:46] have to fund all of your local services.
Uh and it's also one to understand that
[59:52] uh the affordability thing kind of
happened overnight. We say not a lot of
[59:56] things happened overnight. This was a
very sudden exercise as a country.
[59:59] Really was obviously during
hyperinflation. It's really exacerbated.
[1:00:02] But um the the
construct of being able to live in the
[1:00:08] township fundamentally changed in the
last 10 years specifically within the
[1:00:12] last um uh was it 20 from 2019 to 2022
and things went up about 65% pretty much
[1:00:20] across the board. Some of them a little
bit higher than that. Uh and that's one
[1:00:23] where obviously if you were in a moment
in time where you were planning to come
[1:00:27] in the community the price tag to do
that drains dramatically. I need double
[1:00:31] what I used to have in order to live in
this township again. Uh so what does
[1:00:34] that mean? Well, who is abil excuse me
who is trying to live in your community?
[1:00:39] Well, um we have work centers here. You
know, we have workforce associated with
[1:00:44] the mushroom industry with the trucking
industry. We have large school system
[1:00:47] here. We have a lot of uh uh need for
those who are kind of like seeking their
[1:00:52] entry level home that would like to live
closer. And it's also one where as you
[1:00:57] associate your workforce of being
further and further away, the harder it
[1:01:01] is to retain and and maintain those
those um uh that that excuse me that
[1:01:06] specific workforce as well. So it's a
recruitment and attrition issue for your
[1:01:09] local industries as well. So I kind of
think of it as like it's a larger
[1:01:13] ecosystem of of you know what this
impact entails. U but yeah and that's uh
[1:01:19] every time I see that it's it's this
isn't a new garden issue. This is a
[1:01:23] national issue. the price kind of went
up across the board. This is just what
[1:01:26] it means for New Garden specifically.
Uh so with that, you know, what are we
[1:01:32] trying to do? Well, we're trying to and
what we targeted with the zoning
[1:01:35] ordinance was, you know, you know, as a
township, we are not conditioned to
[1:01:40] really wholly shoulder and support kind
of a true like a workforce housing type
[1:01:46] of construct. It's very difficult. um
you need kind of land banking
[1:01:49] capabilities, you need housing authority
capabilities, you need a lot of capacity
[1:01:53] to drive that ship and we have partners
that can support that. But for what we
[1:01:57] were trying to do, we were trying to
focus more on what are those kind of
[1:02:00] missing middle types of products through
a zoning lens that we could put forward
[1:02:04] for to be able to get market rate
development that can build at levels of
[1:02:08] all types, not necessarily because cost
of construction is so high, you get the
[1:02:12] quote unquote, you know, oneacre lot
kind of McMansion type outcome that you
[1:02:16] normally associate with the area. Uh so
that's what we did. Um, and we were
[1:02:22] looking specifically in these two areas
as kind of those are the bands to focus
[1:02:25] on because the building of those types
of products would meet the AMIs of those
[1:02:30] types of buyers essentially. So, we're
going to try to get some buildout to
[1:02:34] meet the buyer demand in these different
bands if that makes sense. And those are
[1:02:38] normally associated with younger buyers,
young families, you know, kind of young
[1:02:41] dual income type households that can
afford that starter home, if you will.
[1:02:46] And what that starter home means today
is a two over two condo, an attached
[1:02:50] house, like those types of products. The
days of two over or single family
[1:02:54] detached starter homes under 400 grand
are gone. Like that's a bygone era at
[1:02:59] least in this market.
Um so going into some of the projects
[1:03:04] that we have so economic development as
a function of what white clay offers and
[1:03:09] this is one where it went into the
discussions about what we were looking
[1:03:12] at as a community and and the board's
discussions on the settlement agreement
[1:03:16] is how many boxes can we check with this
project to help what we are looking at
[1:03:23] which is we need more diversity and
affordability. We need some significant
[1:03:27] transportation improvements along Route
41. Um, we have within all of our
[1:03:33] documents kind of an underlying
greenways, open space and trails
[1:03:35] connectivity type of uh, uh, value as a
community. Um, we like to preserve
[1:03:40] historic structures. Uh, and outside of
that, you know, we have some other
[1:03:43] infrastructure issues. And if you look
back at what White Clay offers, it
[1:03:48] offers essentially improvements to all
of those categories. We're checking a
[1:03:52] lot of boxes with this project.
Specifically, 27% of units. And 27% is
[1:03:57] normally like you know you can make a
percentage off a small number large
[1:03:59] number but it's nearly 200 homes 200
units are going to be less than that's
[1:04:03] what's been stated by Stonewall. So I'm
representing what they've been
[1:04:06] representing basically starting with the
number with the three. Now whether or
[1:04:09] not that's $399.99
or not um that's currently $184,000 less
[1:04:15] than the average and that's the average
because if you remember the average is
[1:04:19] based off of all four and the tough
canon zip code kind of bringing that
[1:04:24] down. So the average is actually much
higher that if you're talking about
[1:04:26] Landenburg, Aenddale and and Kennet
Square zip codes.
[1:04:30] Um so that's that's one where we're
helpful in targeting like a missing
[1:04:35] middle housing type product there. Um
you know the route 41 segment along uh
[1:04:40] White Clay project takes care of about a
third of the length of the road segment
[1:04:43] in the township. It's a big chunk of
that project which number was number one
[1:04:47] response by a community uh during the
comprehensive plan survey. fix route 41
[1:04:52] was essentially the summary statement.
This does a lot to do that. Um encourage
[1:04:57] development offers walking and biking.
You know, we always talk about
[1:04:59] previously the St. Anony's in the hill
master plan and you know not necessarily
[1:05:03] understanding how to where to start with
it, but it always made sense that since
[1:05:07] St. Anony's kind of caddyy quarter right
into White Clay, you know, maybe you can
[1:05:10] achieve some outcomes there by having
the kinetic energy of White Clay fold
[1:05:14] into improving your site plan or your
master plan for your park. And of
[1:05:18] course, the gateway entrance down into
the park improves access. you're going
[1:05:21] to have pedestrian shared use pass kind
of fold into the park as well and it
[1:05:26] provides public access walkability to an
open space property. That's an alignment
[1:05:29] of the goal there. Um and then obviously
the Taylor Barn and Rowan House, the
[1:05:33] back side of the barn there. Um their
ability to do adaptive reuse of renewing
[1:05:38] those structures, revitalizing those
structures for the purpose of actually
[1:05:41] having those active sites um falls in
line with what the goals and priorities
[1:05:46] are for historic outcomes, historic
property outcomes in our community. Um
[1:05:50] there's some other and these are still
kind of projections but enhancements to
[1:05:53] sewer, some significant enhancements to
storm water as the site is the
[1:05:57] headarters for the broad run going down
into Somerset Lake. And of course with
[1:06:00] that at the end of the day the buildout
expects about $1.5ish million dollars in
[1:06:04] terms of sustained revenues and that's
without local services tax, transfer
[1:06:08] tax, building fees and amusement tax if
you get some partners to be able to do
[1:06:11] some of the refurbishment of those
structures inside the park there. Uh so
[1:06:15] overall an economic kind of win uh for
the community here.
[1:06:20] Uh continuing on down the line in terms
of types of outcomes and we alluded to
[1:06:23] this in prior meetings as well uh but
should come as no surprise anybody. We
[1:06:28] own an airport. The airport has uh
property north of it that is owned by
[1:06:32] the township de dedicated for potential
buildout of furthering the master plan
[1:06:37] for the airport which is subject to a
potential renewal here soon. Um as well
[1:06:41] as uh just kind of open acreage. So how
do you leverage this property to seek an
[1:06:46] outcome? And that's kind of currently
what we're looking at right now is is
[1:06:49] what can be done to prepare this site to
incentivize more traditional economic
[1:06:54] development, somebody to come in and
have an incentive to uh uh locate site
[1:06:59] select to your property. Well, the
biggest issue for this site is going to
[1:07:02] be a lot of site prep type work. Um
because it's requires a significant
[1:07:06] amount of grading and improvements,
storm water redesigns, all of that. Uh
[1:07:10] the grading of itself, the the rock
material there um is going to be a
[1:07:14] significant lift there. But if you're
going to be serious about trying to get
[1:07:16] something actively done here, it's going
to take that type of commitment in terms
[1:07:21] of understanding what the township
should be responsible for in terms of
[1:07:24] investing versus what it's going to be
left to the open market. But it's one
[1:07:29] where that's that's a long path because
it's not necessarily one where if you're
[1:07:34] trying to recruit a recruiting pitch,
it's not kind of what we currently have
[1:07:39] there. We have to kind of do some more
um to to stand out. I that's the way to
[1:07:45] put it.
Um, and then just another alignment. So,
[1:07:50] we're talking about the zoning and the
zoning kind of alignment with the
[1:07:52] existing infrastructure specifically for
sewer. Um, it's just kind of another way
[1:07:57] to highlight the fact that obviously
where we're looking for in terms of more
[1:08:00] mixed use type outcomes along roadways
really kind of segus to where all of the
[1:08:04] existing sewer infrastructure is. And
that was by intent uh and aligning those
[1:08:09] zoning districts accordingly.
Um and then with that, you're talking
[1:08:14] about future growth initiatives that
comes with the um kind of refunctioning
[1:08:18] of the east end plant to convert it to a
drip infiltration to increase the
[1:08:23] capacity specifically around the one
property that's on the north central
[1:08:27] side of the township, the develop
property, which is an aquaowned property
[1:08:30] to continue to build out capacity there.
Um so there is uh existing albeit an
[1:08:36] nominally so capacity and then there is
potential for future capacity based off
[1:08:42] of the fact that we have larger spray
fields that can be converted into a more
[1:08:47] we'll call them optimal more effective
and efficient type of um sewer effluent
[1:08:53] disposal process if that makes sense.
Uh so moving right along into
[1:08:59] infrastructure. Um, the way I like to
start this conversation is is it really
[1:09:04] starts with how much money you're
putting away to actually fund
[1:09:06] infrastructure first. So, normally
you'll have your capital fund, but your
[1:09:10] capital fund has to be funded by
something. It's usually funded by
[1:09:12] revenues and that's a replenishable
revenue stream that right now for us is
[1:09:16] currently on a projected path of
nonsustainable.
[1:09:20] Uh, and we've been talking about this.
So at some point in our budget plan, the
[1:09:25] replenishment of our capital reserve
position and continue funding capital is
[1:09:29] one of the reason in FY29 we had that
need to kind of uptick revenues and
[1:09:33] that's where we decided as a board and
community in these public conversations
[1:09:37] was grow revenue through additive tax
base. So we did the zoning, we catalyze
[1:09:43] economic development through White Clay
Point. Like we're doing we're also doing
[1:09:46] other things and we'll talk about them
later. We're doing some uh kind of
[1:09:50] restructuring of our public safety
services. We're we're basically creating
[1:09:53] bandwidth. So that future uh uh windfall
moment for increasing capital
[1:09:58] investments as transfers from our
general fund, we have to be a we will be
[1:10:02] able to meet that demand with just
naturally occurring revenue growth from
[1:10:06] new uh new sources, excuse me. Uh
because right now we transfer about 243.
[1:10:13] We did a one-time transfer here, but
that was with surplus. Um, and so really
[1:10:17] per year, if you think about it, if it's
just coming from your property tax,
[1:10:19] current residents at 186,000 assessed
value property are basically giving $17
[1:10:24] a year to your road paving program. You
know, that's not necessarily adding up
[1:10:28] to a lot of dollars. Uh, and the reason
we have that cash plan we have is we're
[1:10:34] we're in a position where we would like
to avoid recommissioning like a debt
[1:10:38] service fund as well. We want to stay
away from long-term debt if it's just
[1:10:43] for the purpose of capital.
Uh but yes, you primarily your general
[1:10:48] fund supports your strong operational
services. I think of these as kind of
[1:10:51] our public safety services because
public work, community development do
[1:10:54] add into that. But we are heavily
operational towards public safety in
[1:10:58] this township. Uh so what we do for
infrastructure really comes from
[1:11:02] interest income. It's our number one
funer. So the sewer sale proceeds are
[1:11:06] still in a fund investment account. Um,
it's producing based off of what we have
[1:11:13] in terms of available rates right now.
It's averaging somewhere just south of
[1:11:17] 4% to right around 4% right now. Um, we
were forecasting it to be lower this
[1:11:22] year due to forecast rate cuts that were
on schedule at the beginning of the year
[1:11:25] and and the end of last year. So, it is
over um producing at the moment, but
[1:11:31] anything can happen. Macro geopolitical
types of outcomes. Uh, good luck. If you
[1:11:37] could predict that, I wouldn't be here.
Um, but with that, uh, that is the
[1:11:42] primary source of our revenue, but is a
non-sustainable revenue because it's
[1:11:44] based off of investments at rates. Same
thing with our capital fund balance.
[1:11:48] That's just the amount of money you put
in your savings account. Have use it on
[1:11:51] capital projects. The savings account
balance goes down. You have to put money
[1:11:54] back into it. So, that's And another one
is obviously it's a state commission
[1:11:57] resource, liquid fuels. it can really
only be used for paving and it obviously
[1:12:02] with the popularization of EVs uh and
also the potential siphoning of some
[1:12:08] funds over more towards like state
police. It's just one where the
[1:12:12] sustainability of the liquid fuels fund
I wouldn't you know bet my weight on it
[1:12:16] for being the same level into the future
as well. So just know that your capital
[1:12:20] fund is completely funded by
non-sustainable revenues.
[1:12:24] That's the good news. That's the fun
news. Um
[1:12:29] so with that uh you know kind of the
main the main source if you will of
[1:12:34] expenditures has been road paving and we
kind of talked about it a little bit in
[1:12:38] terms of what we're doing for our paving
management analysis. Uh but I won't go
[1:12:41] through this slide too much other than
to say that this is a continued priority
[1:12:45] for the township based off of feedback
from the community survey the condition
[1:12:48] of township roadways. We're trying to do
everything we can to kind of make up for
[1:12:52] lost time if you will. And the problem
is is we have a lot of deferred projects
[1:12:56] as it relates to pavement improvements
because it's not necessarily just a
[1:13:00] resurfacing. It's like a full depth and
repair and a rebuild. And we're working
[1:13:04] our way through that. And hopefully
people can see kind of the ones that
[1:13:06] we're still going through in the next
several years. We're going to stick to
[1:13:09] this strategy as long as it financially
can be executable based off of the level
[1:13:14] of resources we have.
Um that's the new civil platform. So
[1:13:19] that's kind of the new updates it'll
provide rather than the kind of more
[1:13:22] scan map. So, it's going to be a lot
more detailed and in depth. Um,
[1:13:28] uh, so you can see what Kenny was
alluding to in terms of just prior years
[1:13:32] to what we spiked it up to. Um, the only
dip this year was because we just did
[1:13:35] phase one only of Hillenddale Road. Um,
but with that, we tried to keep it
[1:13:39] consistently within like a 1.2 to 1.5
million annual investment in the paving
[1:13:43] and it pulls a lot of bandwidth from
your capital program. Um, but the, you
[1:13:48] know, put your money where your mouth
is. It's one where the township has
[1:13:51] invested considerable funds over the
course of the last several years towards
[1:13:54] paving.
Uh some other infrastructure projects of
[1:13:57] course everybody wants to know when the
pendot Baltimore Pike New York road
[1:14:00] intersections coming along. Uh so the
last update publicly was in December of
[1:14:05] last year. Uh project start date based
off of uh kind of the next year or so
[1:14:10] being dedicated towards permitting um
will be 28s. I think their freeze period
[1:14:16] uh going from the winter of 27 into 28
kind of creates that delay. They
[1:14:20] couldn't get all the permitting done uh
to do anything in the fall, I guess, if
[1:14:24] you want to think of it that way. So,
it's just naturally pushed to 28 as a
[1:14:28] start date. And of course, that's a
two-year project. If anybody has any
[1:14:31] questions about that, it's obviously
mostly a pendot one, but because Bowman
[1:14:35] Engineering, which is also our engineer,
is the dedicated contract engineer for
[1:14:40] the project, we do get a lot of
information about it. Um, and of course
[1:14:44] we can go through the history of how
that project came to be, but that's a
[1:14:46] separate briefing in and of itself. Uh,
the Newark Road interchange at Route
[1:14:50] One, if you've been following along,
kind of the daisy chain of project
[1:14:54] improvements along the Route One
corridor is continuing from basically
[1:14:57] Kennet Square all the way down to the
Maryland state line. This is the one
[1:15:01] they've deemed for our township.
Essentially proposes two commercial
[1:15:04] grade roundabouts on the north and south
side of the interchange there, but it's
[1:15:07] still TBD. We're gonna wait and see when
that one's going to come along, but it
[1:15:10] will be coming along sometime in the
near future. Uh, and then of course the
[1:15:14] project that wouldn't go away, the tough
penman sidewalk project. The good news
[1:15:17] is this is actually happening. They're
going to start construction here in a
[1:15:20] few weeks. That came from a DBRPC grant
that was awarded to the township. I
[1:15:24] believe it was like 21 or 22. Um, there
was a long rideway period in terms of
[1:15:29] acquiring the needed amount of take to
get the project kind of commissioned. Uh
[1:15:33] but moving forward uh we're basically
only on the hook for some remnant amount
[1:15:37] of engineering cost at like 30 some odd
thousand remaining. But the full grant
[1:15:41] fund is actually going to be for the
total updated cost of construction which
[1:15:45] is about the actual cost is going to be
$648,000 for the construction. It was
[1:15:50] approved for $965,000
total soon. So it came in under bid or
[1:15:55] it's going to be under the projected
estimate.
[1:15:58] Uh so with that um another thing about
infrastructure, everybody wants to talk
[1:16:03] about intersections. I hate that one.
That one doesn't work very well. You
[1:16:06] know, the queueing times here. Um so
what we did over the course of the last
[1:16:10] several years, and if you were involved
with that one, you probably have a lot
[1:16:12] of understanding, but we enacted an act
209 uh transportation impact fee. Uh
[1:16:17] that was per the 28 comprehensive plan
recommendation. And essentially the good
[1:16:21] part about that is is that's one process
that gives you a lot of depth of
[1:16:24] understanding of how to do some
significant transportation improvements.
[1:16:28] Brandon, one limitation is is your study
area for those improvements is limited
[1:16:31] to seven miles. So we created our
Jerrymander reviewed area because I
[1:16:36] think it's 6.99 miles total um to
basically do the where are we going to
[1:16:41] get the biggest bang for our buck. So we
looked on 41 Baltimore Pike and New York
[1:16:44] roads um because those are the most
heavily traffked areas in the community.
[1:16:48] So you wouldn't want to focus your
energy on the heavily traffked areas. Um
[1:16:51] so when we finally got all of these
documents, the big one now is is okay,
[1:16:55] now not only do we have the impact fee,
so when developer comes along, they pay
[1:16:59] the fee for their cost of uh impact for
generative new trips created by their
[1:17:05] development. So we get money into a
transportation fund um or work with them
[1:17:09] to do certain improvements uh for the
actual land development plan. But the
[1:17:13] other one was is a transportation
capital improvement plan because we
[1:17:17] never had a depth of understanding of
all the potential projects and all the
[1:17:20] prices associated with those projects
and what those types of improvements
[1:17:24] entailed until basically this last
summer. So the biggest question then was
[1:17:29] is well what's the priority? What
project should we start with? Uh so
[1:17:33] looking at the transportation capital
improvement plan you had 24 identified
[1:17:36] intersections just a small price tag at
about $60 million total. Uh so the good
[1:17:42] news is is well you already have some
projects that are taking a big chunk out
[1:17:45] of that particularly the Baltimore Pike
the I just looked at it the route one
[1:17:49] interchange and the New York road ramps
and white clay point. So out of that
[1:17:54] 59.6 million 37 is coming off the board
already. So it's that's good. That's why
[1:17:59] those projects are a significant lift
because they're taking a big chunk out
[1:18:02] of your transportation capital
improvement plan. So really the question
[1:18:06] remains what do we do with this last
remaining $22.5 million and all the
[1:18:09] projects associated with we did this
during a manager report time. We kind of
[1:18:12] looked at those intersections and the
guidance to the board back was to uh
[1:18:16] work with Bowman to come up with a
recommendation plan and kind of
[1:18:20] strategize that into a multi-year
capital plan with all of that being
[1:18:24] unfunded capital. So just prepare for
that exercise there because these are
[1:18:27] some big ticket projects. But at least
it gives us in the right uh kind of
[1:18:33] ability to understand how to to kind of
chunk out those projects over time. And
[1:18:39] uh I'll alert you now is going to
require a lot of a lot of grant money.
[1:18:45] Um another one infrastructure- wise,
storm water. Storm water is a big factor
[1:18:50] here in the township and that's mostly
because we live within the boundaries of
[1:18:54] two major watersheds that border our
eastern western boundaries. And so what
[1:18:58] that means is is
not only do you have a significance when
[1:19:03] it comes to your permit cycle for MS4
because you you're just, you know,
[1:19:08] you're too inundated with the issue. Uh
so there's that. Um you should have
[1:19:13] within your infrastructure a lot of
asset management uh kind of resources to
[1:19:17] funnel all this water. To come as no
surprise, we actually don't have as much
[1:19:21] as we probably should have based off of
legacy development. Um, and then of
[1:19:25] course the amount of labor that goes
into maintaining the things that we have
[1:19:29] to maintain currently over a 16 square
mile rate area. And this is only one
[1:19:33] facet of our labor from our roads and
streets division versus storm water. Uh,
[1:19:37] we're a very busy crew. Um, and so with
that, you know, why is this a big
[1:19:43] problem? Well, it's because storm water
can create big issues. Um, and I've
[1:19:48] lived in some of these communities and
seen it kind of firsthand. And these are
[1:19:51] just examples that I like to pull for.
Um it's one thing when you have
[1:19:54] flooding, it's another one when you have
insufficient capacity of your
[1:19:58] infrastructure. So it creates kind of a
very large funneling or sheeting effect
[1:20:03] as water is going from one point down to
a bottom equilibrium point and it takes
[1:20:08] everything with it if it's a significant
enough of a rain event. This rain event
[1:20:13] here was in Pensacola, Florida. I was
living there at the time. It took uh I
[1:20:17] think about 26 inches of rain in less
than 48 hours. And it was only in one
[1:20:23] specific section. It wasn't spread out
across the entire city. It was in within
[1:20:27] like a onem radius. So basically someone
just took a bucket of water and dumped
[1:20:31] it on this point in Pensacola and it
basically just lifted up the roadway and
[1:20:34] took it into the bayou. Um same thing
with Elicate City here. It's kind of
[1:20:39] that channel area. So this is at the if
you've ever been to Oldtown Elicate
[1:20:43] City, you have kind of the top of the
hill and it's basically just serve as
[1:20:46] like a waterl all the way down. Um and
basically take everything with it. And
[1:20:49] that's because when you look at it, you
know, we have high point in the middle
[1:20:52] of ridge and we have two watersheds. So
anytime we get a at some point, you
[1:20:56] know, Murphy's law, anything that can go
wrong will go wrong. A storm will come
[1:20:58] along. It will emphasize water on one
part and that water will have to go
[1:21:03] somewhere and likely it will take
everything with it. Um, and that comes
[1:21:06] at a pretty specific cost. So that's why
we're trying to figure out where to best
[1:21:11] invest our resources in terms of asset
management and build resiliency towards
[1:21:16] these types of events into the future.
But it comes at a price tag. And right
[1:21:19] now we're not nearly where we should be
at in terms of funding those types of
[1:21:23] improvements. So it's still I would
consider to be the township's biggest
[1:21:26] risk from an infrastructure perspective.
And I just hope it doesn't rain as much
[1:21:29] when it does rain.
Uh another one is uh we do have some
[1:21:35] projects. Uh so the Mercer Mill project
has not been kind of lost. It's still
[1:21:39] out there right now. It's in a joint D
review permit cycle right now. Um, for
[1:21:44] those unfamiliar with where Mercer Mill
Road is, it's a kind of unnamed
[1:21:48] tributary that eventually goes out to
the White Clay Creek because the White
[1:21:51] Clay Creek is federally protected. It
takes about 10 years to get a permit
[1:21:55] reviewed or no design set plan reviewed
uh because it has to go through the
[1:21:58] National Park Service and the US Army
Corps of Engineers. So, it just creates
[1:22:01] a lot of kind of administrative delays
with that one. So, it's finally through
[1:22:05] that. It got the kind of recommendations
to proceed forward and it was submitted
[1:22:09] for D approval for the review of the of
the permit. um that can take upwards of
[1:22:15] eight months and it was submitted in
July. The likelihood that it will take
[1:22:20] that long, that's like kind of at the
long end. It could come in before then,
[1:22:23] but even then, if you're doing that,
you're going to go right into the winter
[1:22:26] time frame, uh hidden bog turtle season.
So, you're going to have to kind of jump
[1:22:30] it into the next year. So, it is looking
like early 27 will do that. And the
[1:22:33] reason for that project is because it's
an undercapized culbert pipe that goes
[1:22:37] underneath the roadway. And so, when you
get a large flooding event like we just
[1:22:40] talked about, that water's got to go
somewhere. Historically, it's just been
[1:22:43] sheeting down the roadway going into
this gentleman's front porch and inside
[1:22:46] of his house. Goes around, blows out the
stream and at some point, if you get
[1:22:49] enough of event, and this was mostly
exacerbated by the hurricane events that
[1:22:53] we had back to back, um this has all
been kind of replaced with rip wrap, but
[1:22:57] you'll just get a blow out of the
roadway. So, the top of Mercer Mill will
[1:22:59] end up at the bottom of Mercer Mill
Road. Um and we don't want that to
[1:23:03] happen. Um unfunded wise, uh that's the
one where we've been talking about just
[1:23:07] kind of general flooding issues ongoing
and tough Canaman. Um the storm water
[1:23:12] infrastructure there is completely at
its kind of depleted state. Anytime we
[1:23:16] put a scope underneath the ground there,
we find some new surprises, not the good
[1:23:20] ones. Um and so this was one where the
township had partnered with the former
[1:23:25] storm water commissioned engineer, which
was Cedarville Engineering back in I
[1:23:29] think it was 22 time frame. They finally
gave us the report in 23. And so during
[1:23:34] that same time frame with the Baltimore
Pike intersection getting reviewed for
[1:23:38] going into contract design with Bowman
who is our engineer, we also said to
[1:23:42] Bowman, here is the storm water plan for
the Cedarville um review of Tough Kenan.
[1:23:47] Can this be folded into the Baltimore
Pike project? And that required PENDOT
[1:23:51] review. They did. They authorized it. It
got folded into the recommendations.
[1:23:55] They're going to be doing these storm
water improvements. And so this
[1:23:58] potential expense of roughly 800,000 to
four million dependent upon how much
[1:24:02] you're going to be doing comes at zero
dollars to the township. So that was
[1:24:06] just kind of a natural organic type of
outcome and very pragmatic way to say
[1:24:09] you know can we achieve someone else to
do because also it made sense for
[1:24:12] PennDOT to do these types of
improvements because the Baltimore Pike
[1:24:16] intersection um doesn't have a lot of
area up around the actual intersection
[1:24:21] to do retention there in that area. So
they actually needed to leverage this.
[1:24:25] So, it was actually helpful for them as
well. Uh, but that was um and you'll see
[1:24:29] it in some of their design plans as they
come forward where they're going to be
[1:24:32] routing the pipes underneath the the
roadways and stuff, but overall good
[1:24:35] outcome for us.
Uh, last but not least, Mike talked
[1:24:39] about the Medley Preserve, but that was
a big implementation that went through
[1:24:42] last year. We had yet at the time when I
was here in the early 23 to fully
[1:24:47] implement our MS4 uh best management
practice which for us was for anybody
[1:24:53] applied for the excuse me was eligible
for the permit around uh sediment
[1:24:57] reduction. Um we had to remove in a
project a lot of sediment 330,000
[1:25:03] pounds. Uh so at the same time frame we
had full acquisition of themedley
[1:25:08] preserve. Uh, and that's one where they
needed a site because we partnered with
[1:25:12] PennDOT on a kind of collaborative um,
investment into an MS4 joint project
[1:25:19] with them. Um, so we studied the uh, the
park site there, found enough linear
[1:25:24] stream segment to do it all in one kind
of fell swoop, if you will, which kind
[1:25:28] of achieved a little bit of efficiency
and they got to work uh, last year and
[1:25:33] finished it the very beginning of this
year. Uh, so you can see kind of turned
[1:25:37] into a very kind of like
you know, like a canal, if you will, for
[1:25:42] along a golf course into kind of what we
see today there, which is that kind of
[1:25:46] restored kind of vegetative uh channel.
Now, that's kind of helping remove
[1:25:51] everything out of the stream, but also
slowing the rate of volume of stuff
[1:25:55] going down through that area as well.
So, overall pretty good outcome for the
[1:25:59] township as well. And of course, this
one was funded for prior use of ARPA
[1:26:02] funds. So, another kind of if you think
about it as zero dollars from the
[1:26:05] township. So there alone two significant
storm water projects for no money coming
[1:26:09] from the township.
Uh another one uh this one seems
[1:26:13] relevant if you've been reading the news
or Facebook recently about what's
[1:26:16] happening with the Southern Chester
County Regional Police, but also with
[1:26:18] Southern Chester County Fire Rescue. Uh
but this slide's been put up in the
[1:26:23] past. I won't kind of say it other than
the fact that we have three primary
[1:26:26] public service agencies uh that we
contribute a significant amount of uh
[1:26:30] funding towards uh based off of those
different we'll call them percentage
[1:26:34] funding contribution formula models for
each agency and it was one where the one
[1:26:39] that was working the best shocker was
one that was the most regionalized with
[1:26:42] the most amount of people involved with
it and that was a southern county EMS
[1:26:46] and since the township within its own
comp plan had already talked about
[1:26:49] regionalization benefits of
regionalization benefits of
[1:26:51] regionalization Um the goal was to
continue these types of discussions from
[1:26:55] a policing perspective as well as a fire
company perspective and this one kind of
[1:26:58] being the biggest emphasis because it
was the most sudden cost increase to the
[1:27:02] township over the course of the last
several years and we're basically other
[1:27:06] than Aenddale Burrow which doesn't come
close to the township's investment like
[1:27:10] we're we're funding it ourselves
essentially from a municipal
[1:27:13] perspective. Um, so with that, just
looking at police and of course most
[1:27:17] people can understand kind of the length
of duration of the Southern Chester
[1:27:20] County Regional, the benefit to the
community has been slowing the eventual
[1:27:24] rate increases uh for the uh excuse me,
the cost increases through the kind of
[1:27:30] we'll call them the gradual cycle of
collective bargaining outcomes
[1:27:34] associated with policing unions. Um, and
so your policing service is really one
[1:27:40] where every three to four years you're
going to have these types of cycles and
[1:27:45] you can kind of get into a position
where if you ever were thinking we can't
[1:27:50] negotiate a common outcome, then you
move into arbitration. Arbitration is
[1:27:55] one where by law, I think it's
Pennsylvania Act 111, a rendering judge
[1:28:00] decision cannot
cannot use the township's financial
[1:28:05] situation in rendering a decision for
the arbitration outcome. So whether or
[1:28:08] not you're a very impoverished community
in terms of like your tax base or you
[1:28:11] can that factor doesn't go into what the
judge renders to. So you're kind of up
[1:28:15] against the wall with that one. So with
that, you want to avoid that because
[1:28:20] regardless of what's that awarded, it's
awarded. You know, that's that's a
[1:28:23] basically it's an unfunded mandate
coming towards you. Um, so luckily,
[1:28:27] we've been in a very strong relationship
with the Southern Chester County uh
[1:28:31] association. Um, and we continue to kind
of understand that, you know, we want to
[1:28:35] make sure that our policing organization
is strong. But with that, it comes with
[1:28:39] the reality that over time this cost
increase eventually goes up. So with us,
[1:28:43] we've been looking at, well, who can we
partner with to kind of shoulder that
[1:28:47] regional cost? Well, it's great if
you're in a place that every township
[1:28:50] has a police department, but that's not
the case in Southern Chester County. In
[1:28:53] fact, it's very much not the case. We
are islands of policing organizations
[1:28:57] surrounded by an ocean of nocost
policing services through the
[1:29:00] Pennsylvania State Police. So that makes
it very, very difficult to partner
[1:29:04] through regionalization when you're just
very limited with the amount of options
[1:29:07] that you have. Um, and so that's one
where as the cost continues to kind of
[1:29:11] go up and this number stays zero, the
decisions become very easy for these
[1:29:17] communities saying, "Okay, do I have to
or not pay $3 million next year or not?"
[1:29:21] And that's going to be a no. And of
course, that's what happened in Oxford
[1:29:24] as well in terms of policing studies.
And that was a pretty predictable
[1:29:27] outcome.
Uh so with that um having police and
[1:29:32] having uh uh earned income tax with a
population base correlates to your
[1:29:38] property tax uh rate. Um those that have
uh policing agencies um that have higher
[1:29:45] earned income taxes tend to have kind of
lower property taxes. The kind of the
[1:29:48] economic strength of a township is
obviously larger than the economic
[1:29:52] strength of a burrow. Uh but when you
look at kind of the counter to that, if
[1:29:55] you have economically kind of strong
townships with no policing, they're
[1:29:59] going to be orders of magnitude lower in
their property taxes. That's kind of a
[1:30:03] very easy thing to correlate here. Um
and then it's going when you look at
[1:30:06] terms of expenditure level, and I like
to use London Grove because they're our
[1:30:09] neighbor right next door, and they
pretty much do the exact same thing we
[1:30:12] do service-wise. If we were to remove
our policing cost from our budget, we
[1:30:16] would spend about $600,000 less than
London Grove in our general fund. Um,
[1:30:21] and so we're we're basically doing
everything a secondass township does
[1:30:24] plus police and of course that drives up
the cost. So always kind of uh something
[1:30:29] that people need to consider is this is
just the reality of the services that we
[1:30:32] provide as a community. So within that
framework seeking regionalization is the
[1:30:37] best consideration for us given all of
these factors. Uh so with that we I
[1:30:43] presented this at the August 3rd meeting
um for the special meeting. Uh I I
[1:30:48] accidentally looked at five years or
excuse me, six years, not five. So this
[1:30:51] is corrective for five years. Um and as
you go up in years, it continues to
[1:30:55] continue that savings because you're
always projected versus what you are
[1:30:58] spending versus what you would be
spending. There's always that gap. Um,
[1:31:02] but with that, uh, by having them join
the regional in this new balanced out
[1:31:06] formula because we're at 80 and we're
going down to 47, you know, we project
[1:31:10] to have about 1.72 million in savings
over the course of the next five years
[1:31:13] based off of what you are spending or
what you would what you will be spending
[1:31:17] versus what you would be spending, if
that makes sense. Um, and that helps
[1:31:21] because that creates bandwidth, that
creates capacity that doesn't have to
[1:31:24] shift that funding towards that
direction. You can slow that and maybe
[1:31:27] shift it towards something else. Um,
same thing for fire services. Uh, there
[1:31:32] was a lot of factors that went into why
costs went up. Uh, losing a regional
[1:31:36] partner initially in 21, London Grove
leaving and joining the Westgrove Fire
[1:31:40] Commission full circle. They're coming
back through the newly established fire
[1:31:44] rescue service. But that was a factor.
Um, at the same time frame,
[1:31:49] Pennsylvania, I guess, was one of the
last states that was heavily relying on
[1:31:52] volunteers until finally all kind of
volunteerism is basically is dying. It's
[1:31:55] decaying. So in order to keep the same
level of service, you have to hire
[1:32:00] full-time people. And mostly right now
it's medics because the most amount of
[1:32:03] your call volumes demand shifts on
apparatuses ambulance apparatus. That
[1:32:08] comes from having to have full-time
medics on staff there. And of course
[1:32:11] when you go from zero cost volunteers
basically to fully staffed people, your
[1:32:16] cost is going to ramp up pretty quickly
just so you can have an ambulance show
[1:32:19] up your house within a certain amount of
minutes. Um and on the other side of
[1:32:23] that too, apparently only one company
owns all fire apparatus in the world
[1:32:28] essentially. Um and that's one where
supply demand, you know, especially when
[1:32:33] you have a central provider too. So with
that the rising cost of apparatus from a
[1:32:37] capital standpoint has ballooned in the
same time. So all of these provide
[1:32:40] upward pressure on your cost for and of
course we were not immune to that. You
[1:32:44] want to continue to be able to provide
ambulance services. It comes at a it
[1:32:47] comes at a cost. So in 24 we sat down
with Aenddale Fire Company leadership
[1:32:52] and we kind of had kind of a a almost
exhaustive review of what was happening
[1:32:57] with the township and it was a great
conversation. It was one where they were
[1:33:01] continuing to sustain service levels
even though their funding levels weren't
[1:33:04] where they needed to be. Um they
understood that they were the largest
[1:33:08] representative increase in our general
fund over the course of the last several
[1:33:11] years and that was on an unsustainable
path. We couldn't keep up with that
[1:33:14] rate. Um there's other things happening.
Uh so the lack of our regional partner,
[1:33:21] the replacement rate, we couldn't keep
up with that one. The significant cost
[1:33:24] savings for apparatus we talked about.
And then another one that wasn't
[1:33:27] relevant in 24, but it was relevant when
it went into effect in 25. But you're
[1:33:31] going to have a potential impact on your
EMS building revenues future wise due to
[1:33:35] forecast cuts to Medicare, Medicaid,
nonreimbured ambulance runs essentially
[1:33:39] is what you're thinking about. It's a
loss of revenue. Um so with that you
[1:33:43] know they went forward with a uh
discussions with Westgrove after this
[1:33:47] meeting positive outcomes you know they
kind of said on the other side hey we're
[1:33:51] looking at the exact same thing you know
everyone can kind of see the writing on
[1:33:54] the wall you know what do we do about
this and so they sought support from all
[1:33:58] of the participating municipalities in
those two fire companies in October 2024
[1:34:02] we adopted resolution 24020 to support
their plan because they're both
[1:34:08] nonprofit entities they can do this uh
to go through an explorator
[1:34:12] kind of process to look at merging. And
of course, 18 months process goes by and
[1:34:17] they're now full into effect as a merged
entity, one single entity now, Southern
[1:34:21] Chester County Fire Rescue, effective
January 1st to 27th. And concurrently
[1:34:26] with that, the township is participating
with the new nine neighbors or I guess
[1:34:30] eight neighbors, seven I guess
considering West Marble is with us right
[1:34:34] now as well, but um to recondition how
this thing is going to be governed. So
[1:34:38] that is ongoing. It's more likely going
to be in the near term kind of like a
[1:34:43] intermunicipal type agreement for
whatever it's going to be in terms of
[1:34:47] expectations and outcomes. Long term,
who's to say? It just depends on the
[1:34:51] kind of uh the the political leadership
in terms of kind of what policies people
[1:34:56] want to enforce upon their fire
departments or not. And then also just,
[1:34:59] you know, what kind of governance
structure based off of maybe a few years
[1:35:03] worth of understanding operations and
stuff like that with the new entity. So,
[1:35:07] we put this up before, but this
basically becomes your new fire
[1:35:09] territory for Southern Chester County
Fire. It's now the largest in the county
[1:35:12] or one of them. Um, 100 square miles
plus. Uh, so it's just that's the
[1:35:17] construct of putting together a new
regional function is as you you kind of
[1:35:20] achieve economies of scale. So, what
does that mean for us? Well, similar to
[1:35:25] the policing thing, looked at it
similarly for a fire because fire does
[1:35:27] have a funding formula. It's the third
third and third is based off assess
[1:35:31] values, property values, and call
service. Uh so we just plugged in our
[1:35:36] numbers into this larger regional model.
Uh so we were at 83% we now dropped down
[1:35:41] to 27%
of the kind of quote unquote impact to
[1:35:45] that organization because we're not
partnering just with one other entity.
[1:35:48] We're partnering with eight new entities
at the same time now. And of course that
[1:35:53] was forecast. So with that of course we
get a significant reduction from the EMS
[1:35:58] side because that's where our numbers go
down the most. And fire kind of stays at
[1:36:01] a similar level which is understandable.
Um so with that because of that you know
[1:36:06] we achieve about $2.81 million in net
savings over the course of the next five
[1:36:10] years. Uh and that's forecast you know
this subject to the final agreements but
[1:36:13] we're applying the math to the
projections that they're providing to
[1:36:18] us. But that's what we see.
Um and so of course when you add that up
[1:36:23] you know 2.81 1 plus 1.72 you have
significant savings over the next five
[1:36:26] years of what you would not have what
you would have had to spend if things
[1:36:30] were continuing on the st on this the
the same path versus creating a more new
[1:36:35] stable path for both if that makes
sense. Um that's why it was such a high
[1:36:39] priority is like we need to figure this
out and that's what we've been working
[1:36:41] on pretty explicitly over the course of
the last few years and conversations
[1:36:45] with our safety providers.
Uh going through real quickly to some of
[1:36:50] the other priorities. these are a little
bit quicker. Um, but overall when you
[1:36:54] have a community that has a lot of
different things in it and a lot of
[1:36:57] different service needs, that creates a
lot of capacity needs in terms of what
[1:37:01] departmental structure we need, how many
people within those departments do we
[1:37:04] need in order to render sufficient
services to our community. Um, and
[1:37:09] that's one where when I first uh got
here in 23 and we finally did it in 25
[1:37:15] was what is the what is the residential
perception of the service levels we
[1:37:18] currently provide? And of course any
feedback we got, we kind of already knew
[1:37:22] what was going to be said because we
knew kind of where our our um our gaps
[1:37:27] were. Another one is is we weren't going
to wait on that when we're going to try
[1:37:30] to address it immediately. And then of
course from a community survey
[1:37:34] perspective, perceptions change slowly
over time. So the goal is is as we kind
[1:37:39] of fully build for purpose our
departmental organizational structure
[1:37:43] and staffing levels, we're going to keep
asking the community how we're doing.
[1:37:47] And then hopefully also the goal is to
see that we have more people out
[1:37:51] affecting outcomes, um policing, paving,
responding to emergencies,
[1:37:56] um you name it, across the board, doing
more uh zoning inspections and property
[1:38:01] code enforcement, things of that nature.
Basically, things that help improve the
[1:38:04] community. Um so this is what we look
like today. As you can see, it's it's a
[1:38:10] I'm excuse me, this is what we looked
like yesterday. And then I'll go through
[1:38:14] some of the additive things, but we knew
this organizational chart was not
[1:38:16] sufficient enough to meet the township
demand. And the community survey proved
[1:38:19] that because the community survey
results were pretty much reflective of
[1:38:22] this level of staffing level as a
township. And we looked at other
[1:38:25] townships and everything else like that,
but we were well under capacity. Um
[1:38:31] so in the community survey we looked at
some of the high and very high
[1:38:35] priorities from pertaining to um our uh
excuse me our um
[1:38:41] ways that we could affect changes. Uh so
we looked at the admin stuff and this
[1:38:46] should say public works excuse me on the
um the the very high and high priorities
[1:38:49] there but um we added more capacity for
improving communications and content. We
[1:38:56] added capacity from our technology
footprint to get better information out
[1:39:00] there in a more uh uh capable uh fashion
in terms of like pushing out
[1:39:06] communications, housing all of our
information, more intuitive to be able
[1:39:10] to navigate to information. Uh we made
more transparent kind of uh improvements
[1:39:15] towards our documentation that we put
online, aligning everything to our
[1:39:19] social media platforms uh to basically
allow for more community engagement or
[1:39:23] participation. So it was really heavy
focus on just process improvements
[1:39:27] around what can we do, what are the
lowhanging fruits to kind of build on
[1:39:30] the perception that we're not giving
enough timely, accurate and available
[1:39:34] information. So those are things that
just required a bit of like a refresh if
[1:39:37] you will in terms of high priority and
like I said this should be public works
[1:39:40] not admin. Um a few years ago we had a
completely understaffed public works
[1:39:44] department. So if the condition of the
is reflective on inment and labor we
[1:39:48] were negative on both accords. we were
not there for our labor force and we
[1:39:52] were not investing the fullest amount.
Um so we did a kind of a market study or
[1:39:58] market look on what a public works labor
rate was for Chester County, Southern
[1:40:03] Chester County region. We were I think
at the time listed as the worst in
[1:40:07] Chester County amongst the consortium of
surveys. So there's a reason you're not
[1:40:11] getting recruited for public works
workers because you're orders of
[1:40:13] magnitude lower in what you're offering.
So we corrected for that one and of
[1:40:17] course over that time frame we were able
to easily spool up a full labor
[1:40:21] department. So we went from five to now
nine which is where we should be.
[1:40:26] Um and of course we're investing in our
infrastructure as well. I think we hit
[1:40:29] the nail on the head on that one. Uh
additive patrol. People want to see more
[1:40:32] visibility police and neighborhoods and
that comes with capacity. So when we had
[1:40:36] some change in leadership we didn't
backfill some of the positions that were
[1:40:39] formed with patrols. Uh then we added
another one and then through this merger
[1:40:43] we're actually adding another one at
that regard as well. So we're building
[1:40:46] more capacity and we'll continue to do
so over time. Um and that's a priority.
[1:40:50] And then of course Mike just highlighted
a little bit too but we haven't lost
[1:40:53] sight on our parks and open space and
connectivities and trails. There's kind
[1:40:56] of a double-edged sword with that one.
You know we have current spaces where
[1:41:00] we're currently trying to albeit slowly
implement master plans but then also the
[1:41:05] open space preservation process is slow.
It requires two to negotiate. So, you
[1:41:10] have to have the right property owners
that want to value their property enough
[1:41:13] to preserve it and us having the funds
on hand and the availability of
[1:41:17] resources to be able to absorb that new
asset. So, it's a bit of a back and
[1:41:21] forth, if you will, but it's not like
those conversations aren't happening.
[1:41:24] Um, and in fact, they're actually moving
forward, I believe, with another
[1:41:27] property here soon.
Uh, so that's what we look like today.
[1:41:32] Uh, quickly on open space and trails, I
don't have to go too far into this one
[1:41:36] other than we have a lot of it. uh in
terms of other townships as a percentage
[1:41:39] of its overall uh percentage of land use
uh and we have that through not
[1:41:44] necessarily fee simple purchases but
also a and conservation easements. Um
[1:41:49] with that these are the types that we
can have in terms of acquisitions. This
[1:41:54] has been a slide in repetition here for
quite some time. Uh we're also
[1:41:57] leveraging our open space fund to help
and assist with maintenance and
[1:42:00] implementation. Um, and then with that,
a lot of that is being stewarded towards
[1:42:05] uh some of the projects that we have on
hand. Mike gave the update on the Meth
[1:42:09] Reserve, so I don't have to go into that
one. And then for White Clay Point, um
[1:42:13] the New Garden Hills master plan will be
looked at in terms of public access to
[1:42:18] to open space there in terms of some of
the park improvements that we can do to
[1:42:22] build out that site. Uh but with that
we're currently in a state right now
[1:42:26] where we're trying to stack capital
funds because the open space fund is not
[1:42:29] sufficient for doing like a what is it
nearly you know five two and a half to5
[1:42:34] million build out of that site area
specifically the 2.6 six million which
[1:42:38] is associated with you remember that
revised master plan that kind of where
[1:42:41] the castle is that kind of hub area if
you will. Um, so we sold two cell
[1:42:46] towers. That was part of that as not
necessarily earmarked for this one, but
[1:42:49] supportive if need be. And then of
course we worked with White Clay Point
[1:42:52] the settlement agreement to secure a
commitment of funds as well as kind of
[1:42:56] build a boulevard into the site itself.
So we're getting investment dollars from
[1:42:59] the developer as well. So we'll at least
have the resources ready for whenever
[1:43:04] the projects are ready to move forward,
if that makes sense. Um, it does also
[1:43:08] dovetail off of the um kind of the
development buildout. you know, we'll
[1:43:12] have to wait for those access roads to
be built first before we can put stuff
[1:43:16] in the park there. So, it'll be a phased
approach, if that makes sense.
[1:43:20] Uh, new garden flying field. I talked
about it quickly from an economic
[1:43:23] development standpoint, but just
building and continuing services. This
[1:43:27] includes the um the pathway for the
additive projects, but all it's to say
[1:43:31] in the last 15 years, uh, nearly $20
million in federal and state funding to
[1:43:36] $1.7 million in local matches. So, a
pretty good ratio and that's why the
[1:43:40] airport has been able to achieve kind of
a consistent uh ability to accept and
[1:43:47] absorb big projects to help build
capacity at the airport is because of
[1:43:51] that relationship through the Bureau of
Aviation and federal funding coming in
[1:43:55] through that as well. Uh very strong
economies of scale when the federal
[1:43:58] government subsidizing the build of your
airports. Um and then with that we
[1:44:03] talked about our economic development
growth goals. These are kind of like a,
[1:44:06] you know, a TBD if you will, but it's
been purchased as a site to anchor these
[1:44:10] types of functions into the future. It's
just what that is that correlates to our
[1:44:15] regional proximity, our site selection,
uh, kind of incentives, you name it,
[1:44:19] that we talked about before.
Uh, I don't think I need to go into this
[1:44:23] one. Kind of continues to be the same.
Energy efficiency. We're continuing to
[1:44:27] look at things that we can do to maybe
build some more capacity for those that
[1:44:30] might be interested specifically around
EV stations located in public facilities
[1:44:34] in the township um unless uh dictated
otherwise. But at the end of the day,
[1:44:39] these things don't come along free.
They're kind of cost for services there.
[1:44:43] So, it's just is the value ad
necessarily there for based off of the
[1:44:47] ultimate priority when we're talking
about all available capital funds. how
[1:44:51] much does it make sense for us to siphon
off to do these types of implementations
[1:44:54] around the township?
Uh, and then we'll kind of comb through
[1:44:59] the financial management. Remember, we
kind of took this off the top tier one.
[1:45:03] We kind of made it omnipresent. I would
be remiss to not at least mention kind
[1:45:06] of how we're managing all of these kind
of progress and the goals and outcomes.
[1:45:10] Um, so I'll start off first. We talked
about it about enhanced community
[1:45:13] services, but since the residents did
say they had a 40% satisfaction level
[1:45:17] with availability of information, all of
this information is readily available on
[1:45:22] our website. It has been for some time
now. So hopefully that perception
[1:45:25] changes over time. Every time we do
anything that talks about financials,
[1:45:29] budgets, agendas, everything, we link it
through our social media so eventually
[1:45:34] people will understand where this
information is and how to access it.
[1:45:39] Uh this is just the long range plan as
of the FY26 adopted budget and that's
[1:45:44] what we talked about. Uh the you know
$950,000
[1:45:47] kind of structural deficit that's built
in is basically because you have a
[1:45:51] $500,000 increase in capital transfers
to do two things which is sustain your
[1:45:56] funding levels for capital and rebuild
your capital reserve balance at the same
[1:46:00] time. Um and so that's kind of the
windfall moment in the in the future. If
[1:46:03] you don't do that you're kind of more on
a normalized path. And then if you think
[1:46:06] about it, if you're on a normalized path
with those reductions in public safety
[1:46:09] services, these turn into structural
surpluses, not deficits. And we'll
[1:46:13] actually show that here in a second. Um,
so this is our pie chart of revenues.
[1:46:18] Uh, so we are more inclined towards act
511 revenues than we are real estate
[1:46:22] taxes. So if anybody asks where my
property taxes are going, they're going
[1:46:25] to about a third of our overall funding
operations. We get more from earned
[1:46:29] income tax. And the growing one has been
through our permits because when we
[1:46:32] added capacity on our community
development department, permit fee
[1:46:35] revenues went up. Shocker. If you get
more people processing permits, you're
[1:46:38] going to get more money from it. Um, in
terms of our capacity from expenditures,
[1:46:44] we talked about it before. I kind of
referred to as the Pac-Man sea of
[1:46:47] safety. So, that pie chart is heavily
skewed towards public safety types of
[1:46:51] outcomes. And then really it's just you
have a lot of covering ground to uh to
[1:46:56] look at when you're talking about all
the different compliance things that the
[1:46:59] normal township has to do in terms of
just adjudication of general fund
[1:47:02] operations.
Uh so with that, this is the Pac-Man of
[1:47:07] property taxes here and it's skewed
significantly towards schools. Uh so it
[1:47:11] should come as no surprise if you're a
resident of this township and you don't
[1:47:14] know that your property taxes primarily
go towards your school tax. Um I got bad
[1:47:18] news for you. It does by 82%. Um, and
that's but what we've been talking about
[1:47:23] here in terms of just this is kind of
like a an artificial ceiling, if you
[1:47:29] will, on the township's property tax
because you don't want to go up in your
[1:47:32] tax rate because they're already
overburdened from the schools tax rate
[1:47:35] perspective. So, you try to use every
other lever before you have to touch
[1:47:38] this one. Um, and that's to kind of keep
things on a, you know, kind of a
[1:47:43] comfortable level for our township
residents.
[1:47:46] Um, it's good to know where your land
use is and what primarily it's used for.
[1:47:50] We've used this several times in the
past, so I won't go too much in detail
[1:47:53] other than to say we're primarily
residential with commercial related to
[1:47:56] mushroom agriculture. That's kind of
what the township is. And you can do one
[1:48:00] lap around the township and yes, that's
exactly what you'll see. Um, and so with
[1:48:04] that, it's also good to understand is it
based off of total usage of acreage and
[1:48:08] its accessible value. Is it a positive
thing or a negative thing? And that's
[1:48:12] another thing to associate when you're
talking about economic development types
[1:48:16] of outcomes. Hey, do I want to continue
supporting this kind of mushroom
[1:48:19] agricultural type industry when every
time it builds out more, we're not
[1:48:22] necessarily getting the biggest kind of
quoteunquote bang for a buck. Plus, you
[1:48:26] already have a lot of it. So, maybe
diversify against that because it's a
[1:48:29] single industry. So, those are kind of
things that you factor into when you're
[1:48:32] making those types of decisions. Um, and
also one where, and we've talked about
[1:48:36] this several times in the past, too, you
know, that that smell of money is not to
[1:48:39] the township. uh it's going somewhere
else because in terms of property base a
[1:48:44] tax base overall the amount of
percentage of land towards those types
[1:48:49] of uses doesn't return a ton back to the
township in terms of the service levels
[1:48:53] that we have to provide to support those
industries in the first place. Uh so
[1:48:57] with that it's it's kind of better
understanding where the bulk of your
[1:49:01] revenues are coming from and for us it's
from residential and that should be no
[1:49:05] surprise we have a lot of subdevelopment
in the pro in the excuse me in the
[1:49:09] township. Same thing for earned income
tax you know it's one where it has a lot
[1:49:13] of constraints. The biggest one is the
fact that that 1% for everybody who
[1:49:18] lives in the township half of that goes
to the schools. So all of your 80%
[1:49:23] residential base, half of that is
towards Kennet Consolidated School
[1:49:26] District. So anytime you have a new
resident come and they have a high net
[1:49:30] worth or affluent types of outcomes,
it's a great but we're not getting the
[1:49:33] full return on that one, 50% of that
funding level is going towards Kennet
[1:49:37] Consolidated School District, which may
I remind you their total amount of
[1:49:40] earned income tax between the sliver of
East Marorrow Township, Kennet Township,
[1:49:44] and Kennet Square and us equates for
like five or six million on like a $110
[1:49:49] million budget. So a little to them
would be a lot to us. But of course
[1:49:54] that's not the case because why would it
be? So with that um it's also good to
[1:49:58] understand when you're have the
non-residential these is your workforce
[1:50:01] earned income tax our levels are
relatively low and they're definitely at
[1:50:05] the highest levels not associated with
like a related industries and it makes
[1:50:09] sense those are non high wage types
industries. Um, and so with that, if you
[1:50:14] add that up in terms of our total real
estate and our total earned income tax
[1:50:19] revenues for all of our commercial and
mushroom agriculture, what's here
[1:50:22] equates to about 13% of our total
revenues. Um, so not a lot of money
[1:50:26] coming from those sources.
Uh, we kind of already beat the dead
[1:50:30] horse with this one, but yes, if we
continue on our capital funding plan and
[1:50:35] our capital require capital revenue
requirements to source from future
[1:50:39] revenue increases, um, that's the
biggest impact on our general fund over
[1:50:43] the next five years. Um, and of course,
this is kind of if we can't do that,
[1:50:48] then we're going to have to consider
other factors. So, if we can't grow, if
[1:50:51] we can't continue our interest income,
if we can't kind of figure out how to
[1:50:54] redo the plan, um you're going to likely
have to increase taxes or cut services
[1:50:58] over that time. And luckily, we're
likely forecast to not be in that
[1:51:02] position based off of actions we've
already been doing.
[1:51:05] Um so, with that, I talked about how 80%
of our capital expenditures are towards
[1:51:12] paving, liquid fuel, part of the paving,
public works equipment acquisitions, and
[1:51:16] storm water. We're investing it into the
highest priority infrastructure items
[1:51:20] over the the and in the past and in the
next five years. But also too is we need
[1:51:25] to build back our balance too because
we're using our cash plan which is this.
[1:51:29] It's one where every time you use a
little bit of cash, you replenish it as
[1:51:31] much you can. You put it back into the
starting balance position and you kind
[1:51:35] of just walk the dog down there. But at
some point we're going to need to
[1:51:38] increase that amount coming from the
transfers from general fund revenues
[1:51:42] because this is still forecast to
somewhat go down. As long as that's
[1:51:46] going down, something else is going to
need to go up. It's it's just kind of
[1:51:49] the the lever effect there. And that's
to continue a sustainable cash plan for
[1:51:53] your capital.
Uh so this is what if you if we put this
[1:52:00] into ah I went too far out. If we put
this into a line chart, you know, it
[1:52:06] would look like this. Um so right now
based off of we're showing in those
[1:52:10] projections, it makes sense. you know,
your revenues eventually at some point
[1:52:14] even come down because some of the
revenues right now are coming from
[1:52:17] permits associated with the build out of
the Bankro and Thompson properties. Um,
[1:52:21] so those are likely to decrease.
Transfer taxes from those properties
[1:52:24] will decrease if you don't do additive
builds there because sales aren't going
[1:52:27] to be you're not going to build and buy
a new house and then sell it the next
[1:52:31] year. Um, so with that, um, you're going
to have kind of flattening out revenues
[1:52:36] if you're not necessarily, uh, adding to
that are growing. And then with that,
[1:52:40] because of the bump up increase in the
capital future outlays as well as just
[1:52:44] cost increases for primarily public
safety because it's roughly over 50% of
[1:52:48] your budget for fire and police, you
know, that's where you get yourself into
[1:52:52] a projected $954,000
structural deficit. So the reason the
[1:52:56] priorities were in the first place to
attack public safety and um you know
[1:53:02] attack economic development was to
basically come up with a different
[1:53:05] outcome. So if we just applied the white
clay point projections and that sands
[1:53:10] only two years of that because it's
subject to come online around 29 and 30
[1:53:14] u if it's approved at a future meeting
um and not even including the 31 and 32
[1:53:19] because that's a fouryear buildout if
you will. So you're only using a portion
[1:53:22] of these not the full amount in those
first two years. um not even including
[1:53:26] local services tax, transfer tax,
building fees, and amusement tax. If you
[1:53:30] also factor in the uh savings, if you
will, from uh public safety services,
[1:53:36] you get kind of a a diverging chart
here. Your revenues kind of continue to
[1:53:41] outpace your your expenditures. And over
time, that adds up to turning a $954,000
[1:53:47] structural deficit into a $700,000
structural surplus in the next five
[1:53:51] years. That's the plan. That's the
benefit of that. And that gives us room
[1:53:56] and breathing room to do other things to
continue to look at that. Uh do we want
[1:54:01] to reassess our capital improvement
plan? Do we want to uh uh also
[1:54:06] monitoring it? Are we seeing the slower
rate of growth of public safety
[1:54:10] expenditures? Um you know, can we
sustain our tax rate, grow our earned
[1:54:13] income tax base revenues? Because that's
the one as a percentage goes up over
[1:54:16] time. You know, how are you able to fund
all your services and live off your
[1:54:20] earned income tax? Uh, so that's kind of
a good projection as well. Um, and this
[1:54:26] is just one I always kind of show our
overall fund balance positions right
[1:54:29] now. And I like to think of fund
balances is really your kind of liquid
[1:54:32] unrestricted fund balance. So overall
that's kind of between general fund and
[1:54:36] capital fund. But we're in a stable
position right now with this. Um, and so
[1:54:41] in summary, kind of breaking it down
here, I like to do a little SWAT
[1:54:43] analysis. This hasn't changed that much,
just a little bit. Uh, but strengths,
[1:54:48] you know, we're implementing stronger
plans. Um we're managing our cash uh to
[1:54:53] a down to the penny. Um and we have
strong core services. That's those are
[1:54:59] really good things to have for your
community. Um weaknesses, our own codes,
[1:55:03] secondass township code is is not very
conducive to uh doing outcomes. Um
[1:55:08] Chester County reassessments for kind of
rebasing. That's a political function.
[1:55:12] That's probably not going to happen
sometime soon. um our overall density,
[1:55:16] even with white clay being built out,
we're still going to have low overall
[1:55:19] density within the township because it's
600 homes in 16 square miles. That's not
[1:55:23] going to make a dent on that.3 units per
acre. It's going to be like 38 or
[1:55:29] something like that afterwards. Um we're
always going to need to replace
[1:55:32] infrastructure. We're basically fighting
an uphill battle in that one because we
[1:55:36] have 16 miles of infrastructure that
probably hasn't been touched in decades,
[1:55:40] if not even longer than that.
um opportunities. You know, we have
[1:55:44] strong growth quarters. We could be
somewhere that's not connected at all.
[1:55:47] Uh so, the good news is is we're we're
by where all the things are happening
[1:55:51] and things are driving through. Um we do
have a core village, so we do have areas
[1:55:55] to do some of those kind of uh housing
types of improvements in terms of not
[1:56:01] even just affordable or equitable homes,
but also workforce as well. Um we do
[1:56:06] have township owned property and uh we
have an open space fund that we're fully
[1:56:10] leveraging to kind meet that demand as
well. So that's helped. Threats are
[1:56:13] always going to be uh nimism that's a
that's a large one. Just that kind of
[1:56:17] sentiment towards we don't want this
make it go somewhere else. Um our high
[1:56:21] cost of construction and loss of planned
developments. That can always happen.
[1:56:24] That's a windfall type moment. Um a
threat is also you know township earned
[1:56:28] income tax and township property taxes.
the least of your worries if you're a
[1:56:32] rateayer or a taxpayer because we're at
the lowest spectrum of that impact. Um
[1:56:37] and so we have to think about
residential's other cost impacts. U
[1:56:40] macro and economic things that we can
control, you know, geopolitical types of
[1:56:44] environments and things that impact cost
for services, tariffs, you name it. It's
[1:56:48] just we are a consumer of whatever that
outcome is. Um and of course we talked
[1:56:54] about to extreme weather. Um, and it's
one where we are not immune and because
[1:56:58] of the county hazard mitigation plan,
which I'm sure everyone has read all 700
[1:57:02] some odd plus pages of it. Um, it's
going it's a trend that's going up. So,
[1:57:06] more extreme weather events over time.
Uh, so that's just another way of
[1:57:10] putting it, but that kind of ends
everything. If you have any questions,
[1:57:13] let me know. But what this will dovetail
into coming in the next few weeks is uh
[1:57:19] kind of the preliminary capital budget,
the preliminary general fund budget,
[1:57:23] some of the restricted fund budgets as
we walk through those in the month of
[1:57:27] September. Um but just making sure is
this on the right track and is this kind
[1:57:30] of continuing to kind of reflect the
guidance provided by the board.
[1:57:38] » Any questions from the board?
Any questions from residents? Any
[1:57:47] uh comments from the board? General
comments.
[1:57:50] » Excellent job, Chris.
>> Good job, Chris.
[1:57:52] » Thank you, Chris.
>> I like to talk about all like the the
[1:57:58] non fun stuff. It's like these are the
>> It's reality.
[1:58:03] » It's good.
>> Well, if there are any questions and
[1:58:06] I'll see if anybody put anything into
the chat. No. Um so, otherwise, no.
[1:58:12] That's it. That's the last briefing item
for tonight.
[1:58:16] » Is there a motion to adjourn?
>> I just wanted to thank um
[1:58:23] John Martin for doing a great job at the
air show uh weekend before last. So,
[1:58:29] always a great time speaking of airport
expansion and all those good things. So,
[1:58:35] uh but then other than that, I'll make a
motion to adjurnn.
[1:58:40] » All in favor? I any post
[1:59:13] What about
[1:59:31] me?