{"id":22434,"date":"2014-06-25T15:50:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T19:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=22434"},"modified":"2014-06-25T15:50:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T19:50:43","slug":"two-difficult-issues-in-pocopson-require-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=22434","title":{"rendered":"Two difficult issues in Pocopson require patience"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Barn and Denton Hollow need cooler heads to prevail on all sides<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span>
\n\"UTMikeColLogo\"<\/a>POCOPSON \u2014 Let\u2019s face it, it\u2019s kind of a lousy week to be supervisor here in the township.<\/p>\n

Facing not one, but two issues, where pretty much no matter what the Board of Supervisors do, they\u2019re going to make people angry, it makes me kind of glad I have such a lousy record when it comes to elections (including two losses for supervisor. Whew.).<\/p>\n

First, we have a lot of people frustrated by the Barn at Spring Brook and its potential closing and the loss of a program that clearly helps a lot of handicapped kids in need. Unfortunately, the barn is located in the middle of a residential neighborhood, which means it is not a permitted use under township zoning and a neighbor complained about it.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Barn\u2019s organization sought and got a conditional use hearing last December, and approval with 33 conditions \u2014 with the conditions to be met by May 30. Unfortunately, no work even started by the end of April, prompting for a request of an extension until Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

You could ask both sides a lot of questions about this: why did nothing happen on the Barn for months when there was a clear deadline? Why so many \u2014 and some cases questionable \u2014 conditions for use, some of which seem to defeat the whole purpose of the facility?<\/p>\n

From here \u2014 and I know most of the folks involved being a 15-year resident of the township \u2014 it seems like neither side was thinking \u201chow can we make this work and meet the needs of the township and the neighbors without ruining the program and its obvious benefit for the kids?\u201d<\/p>\n

Although some were quick to vilify the Board of Supervisors, let\u2019s keep in mind that the Barn operated in variance with township rules for eight years and the supervisors would have been within their rights to just say no and shut down the Barn. But they didn\u2019t. Again, you can argue that some of the conditions seem a bit like head scratchers \u2014 but I will assume there was some reasoning behind them.<\/p>\n

The fact that no work was done until May with a May 30 deadline looming is equally puzzling \u2014 and yes, the winter was rough, but having just completed a building project in another municipality, I can tell you steady and constant progress continued throughout the winter and spring, so I don\u2019t entirely buy that as an excuse.<\/p>\n

In the end, I have a sense that both sides played a role in this mess.<\/p>\n

So how to go forward? Cooler heads need to prevail here. Is there wiggle room to negotiate a settlement that meets the needs of the township and the neighbors and keeps the program running? Yes, I think so. I would hope that both sides set aside the rhetoric and petition drives and actually work for a solution.<\/p>\n

Now on to Denton Hollow Road (figuratively, of course, as the road doesn\u2019t need more traffic).<\/p>\n

As someone who technically could use the shortcut through Denton Hollow \u2014 I live in Brandywine Hills and now it takes twice as long to get to Unionville \u2014 I\u2019ve made sure I stayed away from the road (and Riverside, too) because I know how unhappy I\u2019d be if there were large amounts of traffic redirected through my neighborhood.<\/p>\n

That having been said, the roadway is a public road and as such, there are rules for closure, converting it to a one-way and such, so there are limited good options for supervisors.<\/p>\n

Limited, but not none, of course.<\/p>\n

My suggestion is two-fold: first, purchase and install temporary, rubber traffic humps. They do two things: they discourage certain kinds of traffic because they\u2019re annoying and they slow down traffic, especially when more than one is deployed. Better yet, they can be removed when Rt. 52 is reopened and reused when the Rt. 926 bridge is closed \u2014 and they can be removed for snow plowing.<\/p>\n

If the neighbors can live with a little extra noise, it will slow and reduce traffic.<\/p>\n

The second part would be to ask township residents \u2014 my neighbors in Brandywine Hills and the other neighborhoods along Route 52 \u2014 to show courtesy to their neighbors and not use Denton Hollow. Obviously, folks have the legal right to use it, but again, if they were to think for a second how they\u2019d feel if traffic in front of their homes increased by a factor of 13, maybe they\u2019d realize that saving that extra 10 minutes might not be worth it.<\/p>\n

This won\u2019t eliminate all of the traffic \u2014 some of it is misrouted traffic along Route 52 trying to get to the prison or the Pocopson Home or points south \u2014 but it should help some.<\/p>\n

Between the roundabout \u2014 which is slightly less popular right now than poison ivy \u2014 and the bridge replacement, this is going to be an issue for the next couple of years. If we can find a solution that maybe not everyone is delighted with, but can live with, we can move onto more important issues.<\/p>\n

Like getting a traffic light at Pocopson Road and Route 52 before someone gets killed.<\/p>\n

Seriously.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s solve this, so we can start pressuring PennDOT (and various local state legislators and the governor) to get this moving, and moving right away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Barn and Denton Hollow need cooler heads to prevail on all sides By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times POCOPSON \u2014 Let\u2019s face it, it\u2019s kind of a lousy week to be supervisor here in the township. Facing not one, but two issues, where pretty much no matter what the Board of Supervisors do, they\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,7],"tags":[5752,10,5651,57],"class_list":["post-22434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-denton-hollow-road","tag-pocopson","tag-the-barn-at-spring-brook","tag-township-supervisors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}