Bitterly disputed building plan set for vote

A proposal for the first large apartment complex in West Vincent Township - the subject of dispute in the pastoral community in northern Chester County - faces a crucial vote today.

The bitter debate over Cornerstone Rise, a nine-building, 216-unit development set to loom three stories high on farmland east of Route 100 at Ludwigs Corner, has exposed nerves in a town that is trying to accommodate development and at the same time preserve its rural character.

Land planners say it illustrates a disconnect between planning to avoid sprawl and suburban dread of higher-density housing.

The township's three supervisors say terms of the apartment plan by developer David Della Porta will keep more than 100 acres of a 125-acre tract dedicated permanently as leased farmland that otherwise might end up paved for cul-de-sacs and strip-mall parking. The supervisors are expected to approve Cornerstone Rise at a meeting this evening.

"We saw how lightly those apartments would affect the region, affect the township, and we decided to say, 'Yeah, let's do that,' " said M. Clare Quinn, a supervisor and former member of the township Planning Commission.

But a residents' group that has battled the proposal for the last three years, contending the plan subverts zoning rules and compromises the environment, has vowed to continue its battle.

"We're going to fight it, no matter what," said Jason Phillips, president of the opposition group, Residents for Smart Development. Phillips said the 500-member group has already spent $60,000 in legal fees to derail the project.

Phillips, a business professor at West Chester University, also unsuccessfully ran against Quinn for election to the Board of Supervisors two years ago. His group's Web site contends that West Vincent supervisors have a "pro-developer agenda." The site features an animation showing a country road suddenly overrun with traffic as gas stations and fast-food joints springing up on its shoulders.

Della Porta, of Villanova, blames "a small group of small-minded neighbors" for delaying his plan. He said he hopes to break ground on the $25 million project in late spring.

But it is uncertain when all the legal roadblocks might be cleared. Phillips' group's challenge to the zoning ordinance that allows the apartments was quashed by a Chester County Court judge a year ago but remains on appeal before the state Supreme Court. And Phillips said he would likely file a new appeal if the supervisors approve the project tonight.

Land-planning experts, who generally praise the apartment plan as an example of "smart growth" that concentrates inevitable development near other amenities - in this case close to Route 100, a major north-south corridor - said they nevertheless are not surprised it offends many locals.

"To me, this makes some sense. It's not going to encroach that much on the rural territory. But I can see how people would be upset," said Bill Hudnut, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, a research group in Washington.

"People don't like change, and they resist it, and particularly they don't like higher densities," Hudnut said. But "people have to understand that America is growing. We'll have 60 million more in 2025 than in the year 2000."

Phillips insisted that his group was not opposed to growth, per se.

"We're not a bunch of tree-hugging environmentalists, but we're looking at it rationally and saying this just doesn't make sense out here," he said.

Della Porta first approached the West Vincent Planning Commission in 2001 with a plan for 88 single-family houses on the property. The houses were clustered and left about 65 percent of the tract as open space, Quinn said.

"I was on the Planning Commission at the time, and we said, 'Can't you do something better?' " she recalled.

Della Porta eventually proposed the apartments and suggested wording for a new zoning ordinance to allow them - a fact that particularly incensed Phillips.

"We look at that as a pretty big problem," Phillips said. "We're not opposed to development. What we do oppose is when a developer comes in and says, 'Here's the zoning.' "

Quinn defended the action. Supervisors, she said, asked for Della Porta's input. "He came up with sample language, and they worked with it. That's not unusual at all," said Quinn, who was not a supervisor at the time.

"Nothing happens in West Vincent that's served by somebody else on a silver platter, ever," she said.

"The attitude has been that the apartments are something to fear," Quinn said. "We feel very pressured by development, but you also have to accommodate it, by law."

Della Porta, who constructed a similar apartment complex, Cornerstone Villas, in Concord Township, Delaware County, said that when West Vincent officials asked him for an alternative to single-family houses, he responded, "Yes, I build luxury apartments, but your zoning in this area doesn't permit it," and so he suggested the ordinance change.

He noted that "we're not cutting down a single tree" to build his apartments, which will rent for about $1,500 a month. "When you talk about sprawl, this type of plan is exactly the antidote," he said.

Phillips continues to disagree. He said the township would get a minimal amount of additional open space with the apartment plan but would be burdened with almost twice the traffic, extra sewage, more schoolchildren, and the eyesore of three-story buildings.

"It's a very hard time," said Quinn, "because West Vincent appears to be extremely desirable to developers. They'll pay anything to build here. We are in a tough situation. We're doing everything we can to direct development to the places it should be and to preserve what we can."