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Jaindl again mis-uses the concept “smart growth”

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I’m tired of this. This is the 3rd time I’ve heard this. The 1st was by his attorney Joe Zator during the LMT zoning board hearings.

This being, Mr. Jaindl calling his “warehousevilles” smart growth. It’s mind numbing and insulting to hear this bastardization of smart growth principle.

Jaindl quoted as calling a warehouse project “smart growth” over at Bernie’s blog.

Here ARE the universally accepted 10 principles of Smart Growth.
1. Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities
2. Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
3. Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions
4. Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective
5. Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
6. Mix land uses
7. Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
8. Take advantage of compact building design
9. Create walkable neighborhoods
10. Provide a variety of transportation choices

You can CLEARLY see, what Jaindl does. He cherry picks item number 6 taking it out of context while ignoring 1, 2, 3 & 4 (in the case of LMT), 8, 9 and 10. He categorizes projects as mixed use because he frequently does put warehouses next to residential developments. Aside from ignoring most if not all of the other tenets, simply physically putting a warehouse next to a housing project is not the intent of the “mixed use” tenet.

Yes, SG encourages mixed use neighborhoods. Meaning that in today’s world you can live next to many commercial uses without affecting your quality of life. For ex. cafe’s, high end retail, services like hair salons, medical, ect. ect. ect.

SG encourages this because you can pack more into a compact area (tenets 1 & 8) therefore the taxpayer gets more return on our infrastructure investments and we grow in a more sustainable way.

Remember, we have Euclidean zoning (based on the town Euclid where it was first used) because it seperates INCOMPATIBLE uses. Back in the day we needed a mechanism to separate noisy industrial uses from our residential areas. Nowadays we just don’t have many noisy factories/industrial uses anymore and SG principle states you can now put COMPATIBLE uses together.

But what we have here with Jaindl’s warehouses is the EXACT reason we NEEDED Euclidean zoning for the last 5 decades and still do need it in some cases. These are noisy, unsightly ugly distribution centers. They are QOL killers. They are EXACTLY the reason for Euclidean zoning. They are completely incompatible with residential uses. (Trucks, Noise, aesthetics)

 

ACT 537 Sewage Plan

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This post comes from a fellow Friends board member from our Facebook Page. (Scott is a resident of Upper Milford, but grew up in the township and is active advocate for smart growth and land preservation.)

If you have a septic tank sewage system. mandatory pumping of the tank is going to be required under the township’s proposed new Act 537 Sewage Plan. The pumping requirement is one part of the revised sewage plan. The other part of the sewage plan calls for the expansion of the township’s public sewer area to include the proposed Jaindl development project on Spring Creek Road.

Expansion of the public sewer area is necessary for the Jaindl project to be built. Giant warehouses, 700 new houses and townhouses and commercial sprawl can’t use septic systems. They need public sewers.

DEP may require some minor changes to the sewage plan but is expected to eventually approve it.
The township claims the public sewer area has to be enlarged to serve the zoning change of the Jaindl land. Only problem is that the zoning change is currently not in effect since a Lehigh County judge voided the zoning change last year because of inadequate advance public notice of the zoning change.

Meanwhile, Jaindl’s commercial and industrial subdivision plan for his land cannot get final approval until he completes specific sewage planning for his subdivision plan. And he can’t start that process until the township’s sewage expansion plan is approved by DEP.

in other news, the appellants appeal (supported by Friends) of the Jaindl subdivision plan is scheduled for oral arguments in Lehigh County court in October.

We claim the township cannot approve a subdivision plan while the underlying zoning change is still under legal appeal.

Meanwhile, we are waiting for the ruling from the commonwealth court on the township’s and Jaindl’s appeal of the county judge’s ruling that voided the zoning change.

Are you confused now ?? At least the people who have septic systems know that mandatory pumping is coming for sure.

Here is what warehouse landscaping should look like in LMT

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The example on the right is a local warehouse near Quakertown. Notice the Earthen bank completely and effectively shields neighboring uses from the loading docks, trucks and the monstrous barren super box wall.

Contrast this vs. warehouses in our township where the street view remains dominated by loading docks, tractor trailers, vast parking lots and the wall. Here in LMT neighbors have to deal with truck idling, backup alarms and down shifting 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

If our elected leadership is continuing a policy of committing us  “all in” on warehouses then we need to beef up our landscaping and screening requirements accordingly if vast tracts of farmland are to be plowed over and paved, and our landscape is to be dominated by these superboxes.