A shared driveway sketch met resistance Monday night, and Interstate Collision Center takes the next step towards relocation.
Greenwich Township Board Engineer Dennis Smaglinski of Technicon Enterprises, Inc. II has been serving the township for nearly 25 years. In all of those years, Smaglinski stated that he has never seen a single, shared driveway approved by the board.
When presented with a sketch plan for a shared driveway for two lots on Dean Bruno’s property off Wessner Road, Smaglinski respectfully but swiftly made his stance clear.
“We have to look for another option for access to the second lot,” Smaglinski said.
Smaglinski’s major concern was that the shared driveway, which is off Long Lane Road, crosses Lot 2 in order to reach Lot 1. Presently that would not cause an issue because the two lots are remaining within the Bruno family. However, Smaglinksi’s reasoning was steeped not in the present, but on avoiding future issues with the property.
“Eventually one or both properties are going to transfer [owners], and that’s what opens doors to differences in opinion,” Smaglinski said. “It works up front, but with time the bottom falls out.”
After hearing Smaglinski’s comments, Bruce Rader of Berks Surveying & Engineering, Inc., shared a second option for the driveways on the property in which the two driveways were side-by-side with a small buffer zone between them. However, neither option prevented Lot 1’s proposed driveway from crossing through Lot 2.
According to Rader, the shared driveway was proposed in order to cut off the least amount of land. Creating a driveway to Lot 1 from Wessner Road, although closer to Lot 1’s property, cuts right through valuable land.
“We didn’t want to lose around an acre of farmland,” Rader told the board.
In order to receive future approval, the board made it clear that revisions to the sketch plan were necessary to address the issue with Lot 1’s driveway cutting through Lot 2.
In related news, Bruno had another one of his properties in Lenhartsville awaiting a decision for several waiver requests. According to Senior Designer Joe Civitella of McTish, Kunkel & Associates, the land on which Bruno’s Interstate Collision Center sits is being taken for PennDOT’s I-78 project. Bruno owns property in Lenhartsville, where he is looking to relocate his business.
That process took a big step forward when the board of supervisors unanimously approved five waivers. The board’s approval means that work can continue on the preliminary/final plan, allowing Civitella and McTish, Kunkel & Associates to focus on making minor modifications to meet the requirements set forth by the board.
According to Civitella, now that the waivers were approved the plan is to resubmit their development plan for the September meeting in the hopes of receiving conditional approval.
In other news, the Folino Estate Winery, a proposed vinery located across from Glendale Farms, also received approval for a time extension on its final land development plan. According to the board, there were several minor issues that have to be resolved before further action is taken. The deadline for completion has been extended to Dec. 1.
In other news, solicitor Kevin Musheno of Kozloff Stoudt, filling in for Dan Becker, announced that the County of Berks is currently looking into sources of funding for replacing Zettlemoyer’s Bridge.
“It’s just a matter of them going through their budget and seeing where the money is going to come from,” Musheno said.
According to Musheno, no other action has taken place regarding the bridge.
