By Eliza Mohler, Staff Writer, The Times
Members of the Kennett Township Board of Supervisors listen to resident John Wilkens during a discussion about the Environmental Impact Study Ordinance.
KENNETT – The discussion at Wednesday night’s brief meeting of the Kennett Township Board of Supervisors included a request for support from the supervisors for the preservation of Crebilly Farm in Westtown Township and an update on the township’s environmental impact study ordinance.
Chairman Scudder Stevens opened the meeting. Also present were Vice-Chair Whitney Hoffman, Township Manager Lisa Moore, Chief of Police Lydell Nolt, and Township Attorney David Sander. Supervisor Richard Leff attended the meeting via remote video connection.
Moore said that Hoffman had received a resolution on February 28 in support of historic Crebilly Farm.
“Westtown is asking that municipalities sign this resolution expressing support for the preservation of Crebilly Farm in Westtown Township,” Moore said.
She added that if the supervisors were in favor of it, she would draft a resolution for the March 15 meeting that would support the effort against the current proposed conditional use plan by Toll Brothers, which intends to develop part of Crebilly Farm into 319 residential lots and would affect 197 acres of land. Crebilly Farm is well-known for being part of the Battle of the Brandywine during the Revolutionary War, and many local residents do not want it developed into a residential area because of the cultural and historical impact, as well as the extra traffic that would result on local roads in the area.
“It’s too bad that the (Westtown) township wasn’t clever enough to figure out some way to address this problem before instead of after the fact,” Stevens said. After a brief discussion, the supervisors moved to have Moore draft the formal resolution for discussion at the March 15 meeting.
The next item was a general discussion of a proposed amendment to the environmental impact study ordinance by local resident John Wilkens to address environmental issues with development applications, namely the study of soil used in development projects to detect for levels of arsenic. Wilkens provided the supervisors with a summary of the planning commission meeting about the ordinance on February 28, and it was noted that the commission will present their formal findings to the supervisors at a later date.
In other news, Moore reported that the township sidewalk repair project, for which grant funding had been received in October 2014, will be going out for bids on Monday, March 6. Construction of the sidewalk is due to start in June and will take approximately 90 days to complete. Moore also said that the economic development study that the township conducted jointly with the Borough of Kennett Square will be presented at Penn State in October 2017.
The meeting ended with Stevens commending Nolt on a county-wide exercise he ran with other police units on Sunday, February 26.
“It was a very exciting and valuable experience,” Stevens said. “I was pleased to see that our police were involved. I congratulate the chief in that effort.”
