[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?

Board of Supervisors Monthly Meeting - New Garden Township

Agenda

Transcript