The development plan for the Jeffersonville, Pa., club includes a nine-hole golf course, five baseball fields, a football field and track, a skateboard park, eight tennis courts, five basketball courts, four regulation-size soccer fields, an under-10 youth soccer field, two picnic pavilions and two outdoor swimming pools. Some residents raised concerns about traffic, parking, and stormwater maintenance.
A revised all-sports plan for Westover Country Club in Jeffersonville, Pa., was presented on December 1 to the board of commissioners and about 20 residents, addressing traffic issues, parking, and sewage treatment, the Norristown, Pa.-based Times Herald reported.
Michael Gill, representing VRJ Associates, said the revised plan addressed deficiencies in the 2012 version of the plan. “We have been through two meetings with the planning commission and we’ve been through two rounds of complying with the professional consultants,” Gill said. “We are going to ask for preliminary approval of the plans in January. We granted a time extension into January. We are in a ‘will-comply’ position with the plan.”
Solicitor Christen Pionzio questioned how off-site road improvements would be implemented between a preliminary site plan approval and final site plan approval from the township. Traffic engineer Christopher Williams, representing VRJ Associates, said roadway safety improvements would be installed, the Times Herald reported.
The plan includes a nine-hole golf course, five baseball fields, a football field and track, a skateboard park, eight tennis courts, five basketball courts, four regulation-size soccer fields, an under-10 youth soccer field, two picnic pavilions and two outdoor swimming pools. One pool would be an Olympic-size pool measuring 82 by 164 feet and the recreational pool would by 41 by 82 feet, a separate report in the Times Herald indicated.
Gill said batting cages, two tennis courts and bleachers for a soccer field were removed from the plan. A 25-foot wide landscape buffer around the residential perimeter was added, the Times Herald reported.
The privately owned club, which is open to the public, currently features an 18-hole championship golf course, locker facilities, banquet and meeting space, a golf shop, and restaurant with a bar.
Attorney Mark Fischer, representing the residents’ group, West Norriton United, said the plan does not comply with the deed restriction that requires the land to remain as open space. Three years ago the township commissioners rejected the first version of the all-sports plan, called the “Westover Sporting Complex,” and VRJ Associates officials sued the township to overturn the rejection. That lawsuit in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court is still pending but VRJ brought back a revised plan in early 2015, the Times Herald reported.
The existing 30,000-sq. ft., two-level clubhouse building would remain and a new banquet, meeting and special events facility with 40,000 sq. ft. on one level would be added, the Times Herald reported.
Gill said two stormwater facilities would be added. “The net flow of stormwater from the site will be reduced,” Gill said, adding that “this property owner is entitled to develop his property as intensely as he is allowed by the rules.”
The commissioners will formally consider the planning commission’s recommendation to approve the all-sports plan at a January 12 meeting, the Times Herald reported.
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