At their March 10 meeting, the Northampton Borough Planning Commission approved Willow Brook Farm Trust’s Phase II plan for a housing development. This meeting was a continuation of meetings from 2019 and 2020, and allowed the developer to describe changes made to the plan.
The proposed development will consist of 50 single family homes along Fourth Street and Howertown Road. The developer now has many necessary permits, including the sewer and NPDES permits.
Two major points brought up at the meeting were the sanitary hookup for the development, and an accessibility ramp to a proposed detention basin.
The sanitary hookup for the development will be placed on the east side of Howertown Road; the new hookup will be a gravity line running to an existing manhole, where the line will switch back. Work on the hookup will take place over a two-week span, weather permitting, and should have no effect on the sidewalks in the area and minimal disturbance to the street.
The plan also includes a ramp that would allow the borough public works crew to access the area for routine maintenance. As proposed, the 10-foot wide ramp would give the crew access off of Fuller Drive; there are also proposed guide rails along the road and ramp to ensure borough residents do not go down the ramp.
The developer proposed a second solution to this problem at the meeting, The ramp could be placed to give the crew access from Kingsbarn Road, which would have them drive right over the spillway. This solution was preferred by a majority of the planning commission because there would be no chance residents could drive around the guide rails; the only concern with this proposal was that crews would be driving right over the spillway.
A final concern was access to the development from Fuller Drive. The developer would need to be able to use this road as a secondary access point; if this is not possible, the development would only be able to accommodate 25 homes.
In other business, the planning commission had to reorganize since this was their first meeting of the new year. Nicholas Politi Jr., committee chair, and Cynthia Carman, committee vice chair, both kept their current positions. Kenneth Hall took over the position of secretary.
