For the thousands of commuters that sit in traffic every day at the intersection of Baltimore Pike and Pennell Road in Middletown Township, you have a problem you are not even aware of. Mayor Bob McMahon and Media Borough Council are going to charge you a handsome sum if you want the much talked about service road designed to alleviate traffic on Baltimore Pike.As found by a freedom of information request to Media Borough this week, plans are being organized to construct the service road, but a permanent easement is needed by the developer of the Franklin Mint for a piece a property that Media Borough owns in Middletown. The property in question was part of the Media water company the borough still owns.
Typically, easements between municipalities of this nature may range anywhere from $40 - $60k, however, as Council Peter Williamson mentions in his email (below), Media Borough wants to see the money. Or as he writes, "Show me the money."
(click to enlarge documents)
Media Borough Council isn't the only group against that development. There was a rather large group in Middletown rallying against developing that open space.
ReplyDeleteAnd there really isn't much wrong with Media Borough leveraging their position to maximize the revenue to Media Borough when they're not going to cost the residents of the borough a penny to do so.
The NoCity campaign was actually focused on limiting the development to a more reasonable scale than was was initally proposed nearly 10;years ago. The owners were granted changes that amounted to about half of the square footage what they originally reqested. Now with Grante Run being up and running in 2018,and tthe Mint not even having a shovel in the ground, this delay from Media Borough means that the half mile eyesore that sits now will remain for a long time.
DeleteAs an organizer of the NO CITY - SAVE MIDDLETOWN campaign, we did in fact oppose the scale of the project. One of the drivers for opposition was the traffic (which all developers say will not be impacted). While the size of the project was scaled back, so was the town center concept. The site is now a mix of retail and residential in a traditional format. The Granite Run Mall project is now under way and there will certainly be additional traffic. Middletown Township council has been vocal about trying to resolve traffic issues at that intersection. I would be interested to see their reaction to this bit of information.
DeleteSo Peter Williamson with a natural lands trust email rather unprofessionally states
ReplyDelete"Show me the money" this is unprofessional
Whether or not this isn't costing media borough a penny it shouldn't be about money although it clearly is just like the easement granted to Sunoco Logistics
That interior service road wouldn't help traffic through that intersection anyway, and the current plan of adding an additional traffic light at a new loop road between Oriole and 452 isn't going to help either.
ReplyDeleteThis plan has nothing to do with increasing capacity at Baltimore Pk/452 and claiming that commuters would be benefited by Media's approval of this easement is disingenuous. A new Wawa is only going to increase demand at the over-capacity intersection, so they are likely doing commuters in this area a favor by delaying the development process.
ReplyDeleteMedia Borough is very good at delaying and doing nothing about
DeleteTaking care of its own residents
From proper zoning to simple matters the borough of media could care less about its residents
I don't understand why you say that "Mayor Bob McMahon and Media Borough Council are going to charge you [commuters] a handsome sum if you want the much talked about service road designed to alleviate traffic on Baltimore Pike." They want the money from the developer, not commuters. What is wrong with that?
ReplyDeletePossible extortion...... jmho
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