After residents raised a stink, a local water and sewer agency has flushed plans to build a waste treatment plant near a college campus in Newtown Township.
Instead, it has optioned the land to a house builder for its original purchase price of $11.5 million.
The pending sale by the Newtown Bucks County Joint Municipal Authority
came after a unanimous vote by its board of directors on July 28 to sell the 17.5 acres to DeLuca Homes of Langhorne.
The move allows the agency to recover its initial investment and avoid saddling its customers with a 47% rate increase to carry the debt.
The land is along the Route 413 Bypass near the campus ofHoly Family Universityand
borders Middletown. It had been acquired by the agency under eminent domain from its previous owner, 42 University LLC and the KRE development group, whose principal owner is Jim Worthington of the Newtown Athletic Club. He had planned to build about 200 apartments on the site.
The agency had planned to construct a large, state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant for the growing Newtown area. But when plans leaked outcries hit the fan, not only from township residents, but from neighboring Middletown. The Newtown Township Board of Supervisors withdrew its support.
“We determined we could not and should not proceed without the backing of the elected officials from the township,” the agency said in a post to its website.
The agency returned to court seeking permission to offload the condemned land.
“The Authority was first required to offer the acreage back to its original owners. While one previous owner made an offer to reclaim the property, the bid came in several million dollars below the $11.5 million purchase price,” the agency’s statement said.
That offer was declined over inevitable rate hikes that would be mandatory to cover the loss.
“Following the rejection (of the deal) the court authorized the Authority to list the property on the open market, leading to the months of negotiations that culminated in the deal with DeLuca Newtown, LLC.”
Over 90 days DeLuca will evaluate “the feasibility of its plans,” the agency said. The builder wants township approval for its plans, including a zoning change to residential.
“We are optimistic that these local buyers (DeLuca Homes) know the community well and are prepared to complete this process with Newtown Township, and thereafter, complete this project that we anticipate will be a benefit to the entire community, the agency said.
JD Mullane can be reached at jmullane@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Homebuilder to buy scrapped Newtown sewage plant property
