Read the full article: phillyburbs.com
By Lacey Latch – Bucks County Courier Times
Aug. 4, 2025
Key Points (AI-assisted summary):
U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, is intervening with a proposed residential project in Lower Makefield Township, citing its potential to worsen stormwater problems and additional environmental impacts.
Fitzpatrick, whose district includes the township, sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, aka EPA, on July 29 requesting that staff examine any “environmental impacts, particularly regarding proximity to wetlands and stormwater runoff” near the site of the proposed 16-townhome development at 136 Old Oxford Valley Road. He also asked them to look at the potential traffic impact.
The 3.55-acre parcel is currently home to a single house that would be demolished and replaced by 16 age-qualified townhouses from Trinity Realty Cos. and D.R. Horton, according to plans submitted to township officials.
The four four-unit townhouse clusters would be built along a private road off of Old Oxford Valley Road that ends in a cul-de sac near Cypress Way, according to the zoning plan. A thick landscape buffer is to loop around the perimeter of the property to create a defined buffer between the new townhomes and existing neighbors.
“Constituents have observed stormwater issues evidenced by storm basins that show poor drainage, and the current proposal would introduce additional impervious surfaces that will exacerbate current issues,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
He also noted that the parcel borders a 5-acre township walking path that’s been listed as a priority acquisition target for open space by Lower Makefield Township officials for more than a decade. The parcel was one of 67 “high priority” properties that members of the township’s Environmental Advisory Council identified in their 2009 Open Space Plan update.
But Eugene Umansky, managing partner at Trinity Realty Cos., argued that the concerns from Fitzpatrick and nearby residents don’t hold much weight.
“I’m not quite sure that that is their main concern,” Umansky said of the environmental impacts mentioned in the letter. “Their concern is, it’s my belief, that they just don’t want projects behind them.
“Their backyards face this property.”
While the public pathway has existing drainage issues, Umansky said it should have already been addressed when the other neighboring communities were built.
Through the land development process for this project, he added, the site will be properly designed to better manage the stormwater.
“A community like ours — which will go through a stormwater approval process engineered and then reviewed by township engineers ― would only improve any runoff,” Umansky said.
“If residents really cared about runoff and water, they wouldn’t be opposing this project because a new project like this has to, by law, not cause any runoff off its site. So a project like this or any construction or development on this site would actually help the problem of stormwater runoff.”
If the township were to buy the land to maintain as open space, Umansky said officials would still need to do extensive work to limit the site’s runoff onto the trail, for which they would foot the bill.
“There’s residents that just don’t want development behind them,” Umansky said.
Members of the township council said that purchasing this property for its aesthetics and ecological value would be a benefit to community members.
“Southern LMT, where this parcel is located, is already a densely populated and traffic-congested area, and is significantly underserved in terms of public open space, as documented in the township’s Open Space Inventory,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
But Umansky said that the potential traffic impacts from a relatively small, age-restricted community will be minimal. The community is likely to have 15 to 20 cars total, all of which will enter and exit onto the lightly traveled Old Oxford Valley Road that they share with a commercial building.
“It’s not fair to imply that there will be traffic issues from a 15 to 16-home, over-55 community when Old Oxford Valley is the entrance,” Umansky said, comparing this to nearby Big Oak Road that sees “thousands and thousands of cars a day.”
Before the project can move forward through the land development process, the developers will need to be granted some zoning variances from township officials.
The site is currently zoned C-3, General Business Industrial, which currently permits 15 units total — only 60% of which can be attached — on a parcel this size. The developers are seeking zoning variances to permit 16 total units, all of which are attached to at least one other home.
This would change the overall density allowed on the property from 4.6 to 4.65 dwelling units per acre.
The parcel was indentified in the township’s updated master plan in 2019 as developable land for an age-restricted community.
This parcel’s dimensions, long and rectangular, “lend itself more to just a single row of townhomes … similar to what’s next door to us,” Umansky said.
The topic is scheduled to go before Lower Makefield Township’s Zoning Hearing Board members Aug. 5, according to the meeting agenda.
Fitzpatrick’s letter requests that the EPA look into his concerns before any zoning decisions are finalized. It’s unclear at this point if the congressman’s actions will delay the zoning hearing process.
“This property presents a valuable opportunity for land conservation in a region that would clearly benefit from it,” Fitzpatrick said.This congressman’s full letter may be found on his Facebook page.
