Palmyra zoning board recesses hearing on controversial luxury apartment plans

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The Palmyra Zoning Hearing Board adjourned a nearly five-hour hearing on Jan. 12 without a decision on the controversial proposed luxury apartment plans on North Harrison Street and North Grant Street.

The board had initially approved a plan for 90 apartments in 2022, but this latest plan shows 160 apartments between two proposed four-story buildings.

It was standing room only, with borough residents lining the back walls to listen to the hearing.

The board heard from legal representative David Tshudy, Ventura Real Estate founder Jack DeCicco, landscape architect Alex Peel, and architect Peter Kerekgyarto. Attorney Megan Huff, representing several nearby landowners, was granted party status to cross-examine the applicant.

Ventura purchased the 3.694-acre property at a tax claim sale in 2021, sight unseen. DeCicco said the plan from very early on was to build luxury apartments, which would include quality construction, premium finishes, amenities, appliances, and things that are “not customarily available in traditional or subsidized housing projects.”

He said the original plan grew from the placeholder amount of 90 units after he worked with a consultant to explore scenarios, and he was told they needed additional apartments to make the economies of scale work.

The exceptions they were requesting included the following:

• Replace or substitute an existing nonconforming manufacturing or industrial use with a 160-unit multifamily residential use and accessory structure.
• Allow an alternate off-street parking standard — 224 off-street spaces for 160 units.
• Allow for off-street parking spaces to be located on separate premises.
• Permit building encroachments on the front, side, and rear yard setbacks, and to exceed the lot coverage and the maximum permitted building height.
• Permit encroachments into clear sight triangles.
• Variance from off-street loading requirements.
• Variance from screening and landscaping requirements.
• Variance from parking space design requirements.

The proposed building fronting Harrison Street, according to Tshudy, would have 108 units and would include 22 studios, 56 one-bedrooms, and 30 two-bedrooms. The proposed building fronting North Grant Street would have 52 units — eight studios, 24 one-bedrooms, and 20 two-bedrooms. With 224 parking spaces, this would mean each unit would have 1.4 spots.

It would be a ratio of 0.85 spaces per studio, 0.9 spaces per one-bedroom apartment, 1.65 spaces per two-bedroom unit, 0.15 spaces per unit for visitors, and nine spaces for the common area and leasing office. If the special exemption for this is not granted, the zoning order would be three spaces per dwelling unit.

DeCicco said a study they did showed demand for 213 parking spaces, so the 224 is greater than the expected need. He said they compared their plan to the Wilbur Chocolate Factory redevelopment in Lititz, which goes up to three-bedroom units.

“Their parking ratio was 1.2 parking spaces per [unit], which felt aggressive to me,” he said.

Through cross-examination, DeCicco agreed that multiple people could share a one-bedroom apartment and tenants could park on the nearby streets to make moving in and out of the building easier. He said it would be a mix of residents using their own vehicles and public transportation. The crowd laughed.

The most common concern for residents at the meeting surrounded the requested parking guidelines.

Zach Engle, resident of 314 E. High St., was sworn in to give testimony. His house would be bordered by building two on one side and its parking lot on another. He said the area is made up of one- or two-story homes and is reasonably quiet despite being in the borough. His road doesn’t have much traffic, he said, but the others nearby get a fair amount, especially during certain times of the day.

“The majority of us street park,” Engle said. “There are a couple individuals that have garages. I have a single-car garage, but I don’t have a shed, so that is where all my lawn equipment goes, and we street park. That seems to be a reasonable standard across the board.”

He said he’s worried about apartment residents parking on the street for convenience, especially when they’re unloading groceries. He also submitted photos of flooding on the existing land and a sinkhole that opened up next to the Ventura-owned property several years ago.

Residents had the opportunity to ask questions, though the developer’s legal representative said he didn’t believe they should be able to cross-examine DeCicco. He eventually agreed that residents could ask questions, but they weren’t required to answer them.

Kevin Fuhrman asked about the relative square footage of a two-bedroom unit and how much it would cost. DeCicco said they don’t have solid numbers at this point, but a two-bedroom would be between 1,000 and 1,150 square feet, and it could cost $1,900 to $2,300 per month.

Many of the questions started with residents voicing their concerns about things like parking and stormwater management. Tshudy and DeCicco said a lot of the worries would be addressed later in the planning process. With parking, DeCicco said they plan to have parking passes for the various lots, and there would be a complaint process for the community when residents use public parking.

Residents had further questions about how the apartments would stop people from parking on the public streets, but there wasn’t a clear answer.

Another Palmyrian asked what DeCicco thought would happen to the land if this project didn’t go through. DeCicco said it would likely be bought by the Lebanon County Housing Authority and used for affordable housing, which he didn’t want to happen.

“I hope it doesn’t go there because I believe that this is the best thing for this community, and this is what I promised the county and the borough I was going to try to do and not give up, and it’s the reason why I’ve waited and I’m still here five years later trying to figure out a way to do it,” he said.

After the community asked questions, about a half a dozen people were sworn in to give short testimonies about the neighborhood and their opinions on the project. All of them were negative and ranged from parking and traffic to stormwater to a four-story building blocking their windows.

The meeting ended without a final decision as it neared the five-hour mark. Solicitor Jeffrey Clark said the board will deliberate in executive session and hold a vote at the next zoning hearing board meeting on Feb. 9 at 5:30 p.m.