Public Comments Set to Begin in Addisville Commons Hearings

It’s official. The public comment portion of the hearing on the proposed Addisville Commons is now set to begin.

Testimony from witnesses and attorneys involved in the hearing, which have been ongoing since February, came to an end Tuesday night just before 10:30 p.m. at the .

With that, Board of Supervisors Chairman George Komelasky announced the hearing will resume on Oct. 11, beginning at 7 p.m. at . While certain parameters will be drafted by the township solicitor, residents will be able to voice their opinions beginning that night.

“We will have public comment as long as the public is there to speak,” Komelasky said.

That night was the first available at the school, which had been used to accommodate people who attended previous hearings waiting for the public comment portion.

Komelasky is hoping those who are concerned with the proposal will attend. A request by John Ryan, who is representing owner Murray Battleman and six other residents or business owners, to have a signed petition entered into evidence was denied at the conclusion of the hearing.

“This is one of the biggest things to ever happen in Northampton Township,” Ryan said.

“We’ll be looking for [the] opportunities for those people to speak,” said Komelasky in part of his response.

Tuesday night’s hearing centered on the testimony of both Township Zoning Officer Mike Sullivan and Judith Stern Goldstein, Director of Landscape Architecture/Planning Services for the engineering firm Boucher & James.

Sullivan, who was called second as a witness for the township by its legal representative, Thomas Smith, said that both existing supermarkets are located in C-3 zoning areas. Supermarket usage is permitted in C-3 zones, but not in C-2s, which the proposed Addisville Commons will partially lie within. However, supermarkets are permitted as part of Village Overlay District (VOD) areas, which is what the developers, The Dreher Group, proposed in a plan presented over the summer.

Dreher Group attorney Marc Kaplin cross-examined, stating that general merchandise stores are permitted in C-2 areas, and questioned why supermarkets would not be.

“Because supermarket is specifically defined in the C-3 district. It’s not defined in the C-2 district,” Sullivan replied.

At the beginning of the proceedings, Goldstein testified that, with the current Addisville Commons proposal, a maximum of 4.916 acres of impervious surface area is permitted. This is based on combining the C-2 regulation of up to 70 percent of the net area and the other zone which falls into the development, R-2, which is significantly less.

That figure would make the first proposal for the site, submitted in February, non-compliant, to which Kaplin questioned Goldstein’s way of using the R-2 impervious surface ratio instead of blending it with the C-2 requirements. The July VOD proposal would need to eliminate approximately 2,039 square feet of impervious surface to meet the strictest regulations of 12 percent, but would be acceptable at another possible ratio of 20 percent.

Goldstein also testified that the proposed plans did not have the building oriented toward the highest volume of car and pedestrian traffic, another stipulation that would violate zoning regulations.